Shakespeare nodded. He was wondering where the grinning faces of the dead women were coming from. Keep her talking, he thought, she's a woman, she likes to talk. Keep her talking.
"It was clumsy, I had to throttle her as Eliza had stolen my hebenon when you and your lawyer friend found us. Then I thought I'd look inside but I didn't have time to find the womb before I was interrupted by that stupid woman's shrieking, Mrs Bailey. I'll have to kill her too now, which is a nuisance."
"And Isabel?" Shakespeare croaked.
"I had to kill her to get my hebenon back. I left it on the bench and Eliza picked it up. The stupid bitch was using it as hair oil. I'm sure she had some interesting dreams."
She looked fondly at the girl lying on her cloak and then her eyes narrowed. "I wonder what men have inside them?" she said and reached for Shakespeare's doublet.
Out of pure fear that had been rising in him all the while, despite the poison, he wrenched back and kicked out and caught her on the knee. That tipped the stool back, it skittered on the flagstones and then tipped. He landed with a thud on his back, hurting his hands and with his legs in the air.
"Convenient," said Mrs Ashley, rubbing her knee with the hand that had no knife in it. "Let me see..."
She loomed over him, pulled up his doublet and at that moment some kind of little demonic imp jumped from the window ledge and cannoned into Mrs Ashley from behind, screaming something incomprehensible. He clung to her neck like a monkey and stabbed over and over again with a little knife at the woman's neck with its ruff.
She screamed as well, grabbed the imp's hand and wrenched the knife out of it – it didn't seem to have hit anything vital, though blood was spilling down her woollen bodice.
The imp dragged off her linen cap, tore at her hair, she whirled around with Peter the Hedgehog still clinging to her while Shakespeare tried desperately to wriggle out of the way. Now there was blood spilling from her ear where Peter had sunk his snaggled teeth into her. Phyllida Craddock still slept, hardly breathing and Shakespeare lay on his side, wrenching at the ropes that tied him, kicking out with his legs to push himself to the side of the room where he thought Mrs Ashley's knife might have landed. He rubbed his face over and over on the floor, bruising his nose, panting and gagging with the foul fatty stuff on his face and lips.
An axe thudded into the door, the light made a tinging noise as it sparkled off the bit of blade showing between the very clearly delineated woodgrain, it was pulled out, disappeared, thudded again and again, the boards shattered and a large hand appeared, lifted the bar.
James Enys burst through just as Mrs Ashley managed to pluck Peter off her back and throw him against the range and then advance on him with her hands out to throttle while he kicked and squawked desperately. Through it all the woman's face was grim but unmoving, as if still frozen.
Enys crossed the room in two strides, caught up the open jar of henbane ointment and brought it down on the back of Ashley's neck, hit again before the jar shattered in a shower of rainbows. The witch dropped to the floor with a grunt.
Phyllida didn't move. Shakespeare thought the whirling ghosts in the room were fading now. They must have come from the vapours of hebenon, said the poet at the back of his head, but how odd that all eight of the ghosts were now laughing.
Mr Enys bent down to him and Shakespeare flinched at the knife in his fist, but then he cut the ropes on his bruised wrists. He struggled to sit up through the fleeing coloured chaos of the world.
"How did she take you, Will, are you..."
Shakespeare shook his head, trying to clear it of vapour. What had he been talking about with the witch? It was going, it was running out of his memory like sand from a sieve. "She had a dag..." He croaked.
"What?"
Enys spun to see Peter scrambling to his feet with tears and snot smearing his bloody face and the wheel-lock dag in his hand, overwhelming it. The other hand was hanging uselessly. His whole arm trembled as he pointed it at Mrs Ashley who was trying to climb to her feet, Shakespeare thought the witch was probably perfectly safe and in no more danger than anyone else in the room, given the way a bullet could bounce around walls made of stone. A strange figure that had followed Enys turned out to be the Recorder of London in morion and buffcoat. Mrs Ashley was on her hands and knees, shaking her head slowly which was covered in fat and blood, and trying to get to her feet as if none of her muscles were working right. Good, thought Shakespeare, incoherently, see how it feels.
"Peter," said Enys steadily, looking straight at the gun which was frankly more likely to kill him than the witch, given the way it wobbled in the boy's grip. "The kick will break your wrist."
"She already done the other one," sobbed Peter, "Don't care anyway, so what?"
"You'll be saving her from burning for petty treason and poisoning," rumbled Fleetwood behind them, "Is that what you want, Peter?"
The boy's nostrils flared. "Burning?" he repeated.
"Justice," said Fleetwood.
"Witches hang, don't they?"
Fleetwood nodded once, heavily. "Witches hang, but she poisoned and killed the head of her household, Mr Craddock. That is petty treason and for that she burns."
Peter's face twisted. "Good." He gave Fleetwood the dag with a surprising little bob of a bow, then suddenly went white, his eyes turned up in his head and he crumpled.
Fleetwood's men came past and manacled Mrs Ashley who was mumbling to herself. They held her up between them.
"Mrs Ashley," said Fleetwood gravely, "I am arresting you in the name of Her Majesty the Queen for the crimes of murder, poisoning, petty treason and witchcraft."
She shrugged. "I only killed the whores to know what was in them," she slurred, "The rioters killed Mr Craddock. All I wanted was to help my daughter." She was breathing hard through her nose, blood on her shoulder from the cuts to her neck and the toothmarks in her ear. She looked down at her daughter was was either still in her drugged sleep or dead, there was no visible breath.
"Look after Phyllida," she said, "poor child, she never understood..."
Then she looked blearily up at Fleetwood's granite face and pressed her lips together.
In the narrow alley outside, the crowding whores of London cheered as she was brought out stumbling between the two men, her head hanging. Enys helped Shakespeare to his feet, shaking and queasy with the vapours from the poison. He leaned on the man's shoulder and felt the strength of him holding up his weight and then his body remembered that this was a woman and started to gather itself together a little.
"Brandy?" enquired Enys.
The whores were out in force in their striped petticoats and low bodices, though most wore some kind of shawl or veil over their dyed hair, out of a certain sense of respect.
Maliverny Catlin stood upon the bankside scaffold with his back to the new theatre that was rising next to the Bearbaiting ring. Work had stopped on it months ago for lack of money, but the scaffolding was still there and there were urchins and prentices hanging off every one to see the notable witch burn. There hadn't been such a thing for decades, the cost of a square foot of ground in the area around the scaffolding was rumoured to have gone above two shillings and a man called Henslowe was going around with two large helpers to collect it.
Catlin was very fine, wearing a new white falling band, his black satin doublet gleamed. He had newly been named an elder of his chapel and had paid a great deal to preach this sermon and avoid doing penance for fornication. His new secretary, Goodfriend, had helped him draft it. He felt he needed to make a point. "Brethren," he said, "I am come to speak to you on the terrible and horrible tale of a woman that put herself above God's creation, a woman that dared to trouble her brain with trying to understand the workings of God's creation, a woman that broke all the righteous commandments that she should be subordinate to man as Eve was to Adam and..."
Three women by the scaffold stairs, stood quietly, ignoring Catlin's well-wrought words. Portia Morgan was wearing a vei
l to hide her face and the slender and now widowed Mrs Craddock stood bare-faced beside her. On the girl's other side was little Ellie Briscoe, a very determined look on her face. Mrs Craddock was leaning on Portia's arm and Portia could feel her trembling.
"We can still leave, nothing has happened..." she offered.
Phyllida Craddock shook her head. She was in black widow's weeds and they made her pale blue eyes look almost white. There were dark circles under her eyes.
"I have to be here for her so she knows I lived."
"How...."
"She always intended I should and she was always very clever with drugs and poisons."
Portia said nothing. Phyllida had come back to life a day and a half after the arrest of her mother, in a bedroom in Fleetwood's house. Several hours of careful questioning by him and by Portia Morgan herself had found plentiful tears, but no sign she had known anything of her mother's activities. Fleetwood had decided not to arraign her.
Her mother's trial for petty treason had been swift and easily decided. She had pleaded not guilty, as it happened. But there were plenty of witnesses to the fact that Craddock's hands had been tied when he supposedly hanged himself and there had been grease on his face. Her other murders were taken into account but in fact were not relevant to the men of the jury. The petty treason by itself was enough for her to burn.
And so the whores were gathered together in a group, their striped petticoats rustling. There were even some false nuns from the Clerkenwell convent. Normally they would have been competing for trade but today they had come to see their enemy burn.
"...in such defiance of God's law, such a hideous crime..."
The cart had appeared at the end of the street, with a boy trotting ahead of it, by the two Shire horses' heads. There was a drummer as well, playing a slow hard beat and on either side of the cart were Mr Pickering the King of London's men, beggars and upright men, roaring boys and bravos, forming a loose guard. A Fool in patches and tatters danced slowly among them, his face painted white and red, waving a pig's bladder on a stick. Mr Pickering had asked Fleetwood for permission to form the guard and Fleetwood had given it, reckoning order would be better kept that way. Behind the cart came Mr Fleetwood and his men, relieved not to have to hold back the whores.
Mrs Ashley stood in the cart, bolt upright, her hands chained, in her shift which had the marks of the turds and bones that had been thrown at her. Her head had been shorn, her face was stony, frozen in contempt. Her eyes passed over Portia and fixed on her daughter, Phyllida Craddock. There was a tiny nod.
Catlin flung out a hand. "See, see, the wicked Jezebel!" he shouted, "Yea behold upon her face the wickedness of her impenitence..."
"Oh be quiet, you foul little man," said Mrs Ashley loudly and clearly, "You're only here because I killed Isabel, the whore you should have married, you whited sepulchre."
Maliverny Catlin stared and gobbled at her, and Portia was glad of her veil to hide a grin. After all, what had the woman to lose?
Some of the whores elbowed each other, while the others, led by Eliza, screamed and shouted at her and drowned out what she said. Then the Fool climbed onto the cart and danced around the woman, then shoved a gag in the woman's mouth, strapped it on tight. The crowd laughed and yelled approval. But Portia saw Mrs Ashley's jaw work as she chewed on the leather, swallowed. Something in her face relaxed. The cart lurched on to stand by the scaffold and Mrs Ashley, suddenly fainting, was half helped, half dragged onto the scaffold where they chained her tightly to the pole and piled it up with faggots of wood.
Portia felt her gut tighten. She didn't know how much of this she would be able to watch. In fact she had gone to see Mr Hughes the hangman with every penny she could find in her chambers and the result of pawning her new sword. He had shaken his head at her regretfully when she asked him to strangle Mrs Ashley first. "The whores have paid me," he said, "They want to hear her scream."
So she had gone back and got her sword out of pawn and come as herself to see the end. In some obscure way, she felt she owed it to the woman. Shakespeare, it seemed, was not so steadfast as he was nowhere to be seen. Mrs Briscoe stood perkily, staring up at the scaffold. Young Peter was there as well, she saw, as he crawled through the legs of the crowd on one arm, the other being in a sling. He had a large piece of left over cake from Mrs Briscoe's churching in his teeth. He came up to them, grinning and pulling bits off it to eat. "I love cake," he said to her, "This is good, innit, Mrs Morgan."
She didn't answer. She was staring narrowly at Mrs Ashley. The woman's head was down, her face was reddening, she was still chewing at the gag in her mouth and...
Portia looked around for the Fool who had climbed up to put the gag there and couldn't see him, wondered who it could possibly have been. Then she looked at Phyllida who was watching carefully as her mother sagged against the pole she was chained to. There was something quite smug in the expression around the eyes.
Ah, thought Portia, and wondered who the girl had found to do the job of putting a hebenon-smeared gag into Mrs Ashley's mouth. It was a good idea and somehow very fitting.
Catlin was still preaching but had lost a great deal of vigour and whores were answering him back now, twitting him about Isabel and Eliza herself pulled her bodice down and offered to take Isabel's place. One of the other whores shouted at her for being unseemly. Catlin ended somehow and stepped down from the scaffold, his face flaming with embarrassment. Whyever did the man do it to himself?
Fleetwood was standing on the scaffold now as the upright men circled it to keep the people back. He read out the indictment and sentence in a loud steady voice, but there was no mention of witchcraft. Her Majesty the Queen disapproved of such things, although she had her own soothsayer at court. Then Fleetwood stepped away as Mr Hughes approached with his assistant, each holding two torches to light the pitch-covered brushwood in several places.
As the smoke rose and then the flames, Portia could see Mrs Ashley sagging against the pole she was chained to. The whores were disappointed for there was no screaming. She might as well have been dead if she wasn't in fact. There were angry complaints at the anticlimax and somebody shrewdly shouted for the Fool.
Portia watched Phyllida watching her mother burn and saw no tears, no sympathy. Yet she was there. It had to count for something. After all, by her account the woman had only wanted to help her daughter have a child although if Peter the Hedgehog was right about Mr Craddock, she could have gone a very much simpler way about it.
Portia sighed. She hated Mrs Ashley for what she had done and she hated what was being done to her. The flames crackled and consumed the figure, while the smell that came from the fire was a disgustingly pleasant one of roast pork.
"Phew," said Shakespeare, standing beside her, "It worked."
"What did?" Then she saw that there were traces of white paint on the sides of his face although he had changed out of his patches and tatters and there was no sign of the bladder on a stick. "The gag greased with hebenon?"
Shakespeare nodded. "I felt sorry for her," he admitted. "I don't know why, considering she was going to have my guts out in the light of day. I wish I could remember more of what she said but... She'll burn anyway in Hell." He smiled crookedly. "At least this way my ears are not offended by her screams although no doubt the whores' ears will be offended by their lack."
Portia watched him narrowly through the mesh of her veil. On the whole she thought she preferred the velvet mask. The player courteously offered her his arm. "Mrs Morgan," he said, with a very serious expression, "Do you think your brother would be offended if I asked you and your gossips to bear me company at the Cock tavern for some brandy and the daily ordinary?"
For a moment she was honestly confused and then embarrassed. And what about her pocky face? But then he knew what it looked like, he'd seen it often enough when she was James Enys.
Ellie Briscoe shoved her in the back. "I'll come with you, Mistress," she said, "My mother in law is looki
ng after the baby."
Phyllida was turning her pure pale face aside. "I'll stay here," she said in a distant voice. "Until she's all gone. I'm sure Mr Fleetwood will escort me back."
"Well... er... no, I don't think my brother would be offended," Portia stammered, "He always speaks well of you, Mr Shakespeare." Bald Will grinned in pure mischief so she added, "Although he warned me that you have a terrible reputation as a skirt-chaser."
Shakespeare looked suitably offended but she took his arm anyway.
They left Mrs Ashley there, left the heat of the flames and the cheering whores and headed for London Bridge with its hat shops and drapers. As respectable women they couldn't possibly go into any of the notorious stews and alehouses south of the river but the Cock was just about respectable enough.
Behind them the fire danced and the whores of London cheered in triumph as their killer burned for killing her son-in-law.
James Enys and his sister, doubtless accompanied by Mrs Morgan and her brother, will return soon. In the meantime, readers who have acquired a taste for Elizabethan intrigue may care to visit Sir Robert Carey at www.poisonedpenpress.com. Sir Robert is the creation of the novelist P F Chisholm. Readers with a taste for more modern intrigue may notice a certain resemblance between P F Chisholm’s biography at Poisoned Pen Press and that of Patricia Finney at www.patriciafinney.com.
Do We Not Bleed Page 31
