by Toni Mount
Philip Hartnell’s Cutler’s Workshop,
where Bucklersbury joins Poultry
Not far from St Mildred’s, Thaddeus took me to a small but well-maintained shop. It seemed that Hartnell purchased his blades ready-made from a blade smith forwhy there was no forge for working metal. Rather, it seemed his trade involved much leatherwork, bone-working or carpentry in making the handles into which the blades were set afore being polished, honed and finished for sale to customers. The place looked to have been well-ordered afore the killers came to do their worst. Stuff upon the higher shelves stood neatly arranged, tools hung each from its rightful peg.
But now dried blood splattered the walls and had congealed in pools upon the workbench and the floor beneath. A stool lay broken and a hammer and a collection of sundry items were strewn across the earthen floor, mayhap swept aside from the workbench. The victim had put up quite a fight, which furthered my surmise that there was likely more than one perpetrator – an idea supported when I identified at least three different sets of footprints having trodden the blood across the floor. I sketched their forms in case they should prove useful in some way in the future.
‘Er, Seb,’ Thaddeus said, hesitant as he watched me drawing, ‘I fear those footprints maybe mine and the constables’. And those smaller ones maybe Mistress Hartnell’s, since she discovered her goodman’s body. The son and stepson also came in here to aid Mistress Hartnell in her shock and grief.’
‘Oh. So not a useful clue, then. ’Tis a pity, Thaddeus, that you could not keep this place free of other folks’ boots. Can you recall if there were any marks, other than those made by the family, afore you all traipsed through the blood?’
‘Nay. I truly can’t remember whether there were or not. I suppose we could make comparisons with your sketches, see whose footwear fits and if there be any belonging to strangers.’
‘Aye, we could. Or rather you can, my friend. I shall give you my drawings when I be done, let your constables do the work.’ I took time also to examine the hammer. Like the nail which had pierced Hartnell’s hand, the hammer also showed smears of shell-tin upon its face, mixed now with dried blood. The victim must surely have cried out as he was tortured. Why had none of his neighbours come to his aid? I must enquire of them, when time allowed – or, more rightly, Thaddeus should.
I searched in the most obvious places first and quickly retrieved the piece of cloth, torn from Hartnell’s shirt sleeve and employed to daub the shell-tin all over his hand. As to the meaning of that, I yet remained mystified. But seek as I might into every corner of the workshop, there was one item I failed to discover.
‘They took the pot of pigment away with them after their gruesome business was done,’ I said to Thaddeus as I recorded the fact in my notes. ‘What is more, I believe they brought it with them for the specific purpose since I can find no trace of such a pigment – or anything similar – having been used by the victim in his work.’
‘Is that important?’ the bailiff asked.
‘It proves that the painting of the hand was planned afore they came.’
‘But why? What does it mean?’
‘I know not. See here though, Thaddeus, a set of five knives lying upon the counter-board, ready for sale.’ I picked up a finely worked eating knife, set in a bone handle carven with a vine-leaf design. ‘Five being an odd number for a set, do they, by chance, match the murder weapon you have?’
Thaddeus showed me the linen-wrapped knife he had in his scrip. Removing the cloth revealed an identical handle. It did indeed match the remainder of the set.
‘Where was it found?’ I asked.
‘In the midst of the floor, just flung aside after, by the look of it.’
‘Which sets us another conundrum: was it the case that they arrived here unarmed and grabbed whatever instrument came to hand when the situation became heated and violence ensued? That seems unlikely.’ I answered my own question. ‘Rather, the use of his own creation against him must be part of the message.’
‘What message?’
‘I have not the least idea, Thaddeus, but it may be of greater import to ask for whom the message was intended? His family? His fellow cutlers? Other thieves, mayhap? We must not forget that the victim attempted to steal those candlesticks from Bladder Street upon Sunday eve. If I were you, my friend, I believe it might be worthwhile to make enquiries of the fellow who raised the hue-and-cry. He had a motive of sorts to take against Hartnell, although this crime appears to far exceed any petty act of revenge.
‘For certain, this was not an act of hedge-breaking gone awry,’ I continued. ‘In plain sight upon the counter there be a bag of coin.’ I fetched it but frowned, feeling the weight of it. So many pennies should weigh heavier, I thought. I tipped a few coins into my hand. They shone brightly and must be new-minted. By chance, I dropped one upon the countertop. My frown deepened.
‘What’s amiss, Seb? You look perplexed.’
‘So I am, Thaddeus.’ I unfastened my purse and took out a penny, much used and rubbed. I dropped it on the counter. It tinkled like a tiny bell. Once more, I did likewise with the bright new coin. It did not ring with the same note. I dropped the other coins from the bag, one after another. All made the same dull, lower note as they struck the hard wooden surface. Being a sometime chorister, I could discern the different tones, as others might not. ‘Another task for you, my friend, I said. ‘I suggest you take these to the Goldsmiths’ Hall and have them assayed.’
‘Are they underweight?’ the bailiff asked as he watched me replace the pennies in the bag. ‘I believe that to be the case but, worse yet, I do not think they be of silver. These be counterfeit coins; they do not ring true. Try the test for yourself, if you will. It may be that Philip Hartnell’s murder had naught to do with a pair of dented candlesticks; that he was in far deeper trouble.’
Having left my sketches of the footprints for Thaddeus and his constables to make use of as best they might, Gawain and I had continued on to Gracechurch Street, taking the completed portrait to Guy Linton. I received scant thanks indeed for my hours of toil last eve, not so much as an offer of cooling ale or water for my companion. I made a mental note not to spend time and effort obliging the ungrateful wretch in the future. In truth, I regretted having made a decent piece of work of it, knowing Guy would be given credit. If it was not for the respect I bore Master Collop, I might have chopped the portrait to kindling with an axe and burned it in my hearth.
The morn was well advanced now, the streets bustling and the day becoming increasingly warm. Gawain’s tongue lolled and dribbled. No doubt, if he could, he would have shed his thick coat of fur. I sweated ’neath my jerkin but only a common labourer would be seen in his shirt upon the city streets. Like Gawain, I would have to bear the heat clad as I was, for the sake of propriety.
The Foxley House
It seemed no work had been done ’neath our shop sign of the Fox’s Head during my absence forwhy, as I turned into Paternoster Row, I espied Adam leaving the Sun in Splendour Tavern. I heard him call out to someone as he departed, waving his hand. To judge by his broad grin, he had spent a right pleasant hour or two, supping ale and joshing with friends and now it was drawing nigh unto the hour for dinner, I doubted a pen-stroke of work would be achieved until after the meal.
Adam must have read my displeasure writ plain upon my face as he made excuses afore I said a word.
‘I was much in need of a cup of strong ale, Seb, after what we saw in the church. I couldn’t stomach it; had to settle my humours, else I was in no fit state to work. I’m not so used to such sights as you are.’
‘Did you visit the goldsmith, as I asked?’
‘Of course. I’m not shirking my work, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ he said hastily, having read my thoughts. ‘Master Shaa said he’s short of gold leaf at present. He needs to acquire some Venetian ducats from the Italian Baldesi banker
s in Lombard Street and hammer the coins down. He’ll send word to us when the leaf is ready. I asked him to set some aside.’
‘’Tis as well then that we have sufficient to make a start upon the royal commission.’ I almost enquired whether the business of asking for gold leaf had taken all morn but held my peace. Adam was an industrious fellow – for the most part.
‘Oh, and that rascally fellow was in the Sun again.’
‘Who?’
‘You recall him, the good-looking devil who robbed me of my sojourn with the tavern wench.’
‘You were not tempted to commence to brawl with him again, I trust?’
‘Nay. We fell to talking, John and me. That’s his name: John. I told him what we’d been about this morn, why I was so in need of a good pot of ale. And upon hearing that the dead man was Philip Hartnell, John said he knew of him and wasn’t surprised… that Hartnell was not so respectable nor blameless as folks believe.’
‘He may well be correct at that,’ I said as we entered the house through the side gate. Adam had had his reviving ale but I had not and I intended to remedy that afore I set to work – both matters being too long delayed.
‘Did Guy Linton approve the portrait?’ Adam asked as I helped myself to ale from the jug in the kitchen.
‘After a fashion. He said it would “serve”. Offered me no thanks whatever for my time and labours. Remind me ne’er to oblige the wretch again in future. I know he believed it my duty to aid him for the sake of Master Collop’s reputation but his discourtesy concerning it was insupportable, as though I be a slave with no choice in the matter.’
‘Perhaps you should charge him a fee anyway? It will dissuade him from asking ever again.’
‘Aye, mayhap I should.’
At that moment, Rose returned, her basket filled with market fare on one arm and my son in the other. I hastened to assist, taking little Dickon from her and setting him upon his feet – an action for which he showed his great disapproval by commencing to wail.
‘The poor lambkin dislikes this hot weather,’ Rose explained, ‘What with those new teeth to trouble him too. I’ll give him a soothing drink and put him down for a nap. I want him to be in a merry humour for his special dinner.’
I poured ale for Rose – she looked in need. A strand of fair hair had escaped her cap and clung damply to her flushed cheek.
‘Special dinner?’ I queried.
‘Oh, Seb, you can’t have forgotten. We discussed it last eve at some length over supper: Dickon’s birthday dinner. Mercy is bringing Nicholas and Edmund and little Julia, of course. Dame Ellen and Grandfather Appleyard are coming too. And Jack, no doubt. None of us could be there, in Norfolk a year since, to celebrate his birth, so I thought – and you agreed – we should have an anniversary feast instead.’
‘I agreed?’
Rose, Adam and Nessie all nodded.
‘I had not forgotten the date but I do not recall any such discussion.’
‘No doubt, your mind was set upon that damned portrait,’ Adam said. ‘But you certainly said “Aye” when Rose suggested it.’
So it was that we celebrated my son Dickon’s first birthday with a fine dinner. We had aloes of beef sprinkled with vinegar, ginger, cinnamon, and pepper with crumbled egg yolks. Rose had made a colourful salat of tiny onions, parsley, chives, sage, borage, mint, fennel, rosemary, garlic, watercress and purslane. The platter was decorated with flowers: blue borage, purple chive-heads and rosemary and wild rose petals. Although it was not a fast day, battered whitebait was served – they being Dickon’s favourite. The second remove – no expense spared – was a cream tart flavoured with sweet cicely and an apple curd, marchpane sweetmeats and best white wheaten bread in honour of the day, dressed with parsley butter. Rose had done us proud. I doubt King Edward at Westminster had a dinner any better than ours and, if he did, I wager he did not enjoy it half so much.
Fortunately, Julia and Edmund, the babes, slept throughout and Dickon and even Nicholas, mercifully, were in good humour and well behaved. When the platters were cleared, we retired to the parlour. Jack, Kate and Nessie had to be content to sit upon the floor with too few stools and insufficient room for the kitchen benches with us all there together but ’twas a right merry company. Stephen Appleyard had brought his flute, Adam had his gittern and I sang whilst others joined in, clapping hands. Rose and Kate found space enough to dance in the passageway, through the shop and out into Paternoster Row.
There, Mercy Hutchinson took up the dance with Jonathan Caldicott, our near neighbour, much to Mistress Caldicott’s disgust. Jack clod-hopped with Nessie, treading on her toes more often than not. For a one-time would-be acrobat, he could be right clumsy in the dance. Folk spilled out of the Sun in Splendour Tavern across the way to join in the merriment. That ribald fellow with the handsome face was among them – John. He linked hands with Rose and Kate and others joined them in a circle dance, which soon filled the street. I kept a close watch upon him with pretty Kate. I would not trust him one inch.
Ale jugs and cups appeared as if by magick to be shared by all. I know not who paid for it. Mayhap, I did.
As I began to sing ‘Summer is a-coming in’, young Nicholas Hutchinson instigated a game of chase with Dickon and some other toddlings, racing or lurching precariously, depending how steady they were upon their feet, weaving around the adults’ legs. When Gawain added his great furry self to the game, tripping up the dancers, good-natured chaos ensued.
‘What are we celebrating?’ Jonathan asked as I paused in my singing to take a sip of ale and assuage my thirst. Rousing ballads of ‘Robin Hood and the Tanner’ and ‘The Outlandish Knight’ had quite parched my throat.
‘’Tis the first anniversary of my son’s birth.’
‘What! One year old already?’ his wife exclaimed. ‘Why, it seems but yesterday that I first saw him when your Emily – God rest her soul – showed me a bundle of swaddling no longer than my forearm. How time has flown.’
Both Jonathan and I made the sign of the Cross and whispered ‘Amen’.
Aye. Emily should be here, sharing in her son’s day of celebration. Of a sudden, I had no more voice for singing. I crept within and hid in the workshop, shedding my tears, privily. I would not cast a sorrowful shadow upon such a joyous day.
Chapter 7
Wednesday, the sixteenth day of June
The Foxley House
No matter what befell, this day, I would make a proper start upon King Edward’s copy of Vegetius’ De Re Militari. It could be delayed not a moment longer, else the book would ne’er be completed in time, afore the twenty-fourth day of July. Five weeks be hardly time enough for so splendid a work as this royal commission. Every day, every hour, must be expended upon it without my attention being diverted elsewhere.
I set to work that Wednesday morn an hour afore Prime, determined to have the first part of the book well in hand ere I broke my fast. Adam and Kate joined me later, at the time appointed to commence the day’s work. Adam set a platter of honeyed oatcakes beside me and a cup of ale.
‘You missed breakfast,’ he said.
‘Aye. I needs must get on with this. I have copied out the first gathering and begun the second. My thanks for the cakes.’ I took a bite, elbowing Gawain’s nose aside when he thought to share it. ‘Kate, if you would please to prepare some shell-gold, enough for the eight-line opening vignette and the five initials following, in the way I showed you last week.’
‘Aye, Master Seb. And what other pigments will you be needing?’
‘Lapis lazuli and vermilion. Together with the gold, that will be the three colours of the Royal Arms. I shall keep the initials simple but bright – and luxurious. Elaboration will take time we do not have. Oh, and I shall need, er, malachite also, if you would, Kate.
‘Adam, if you could begin the third gathering, I shall sketch out the under-drawing for the
first of the full-page miniatures. ’Tis those that will take most time.’
With Adam requiring the exemplar copy to be open at the third gathering and myself requiring the fourth folio of the second, we could not work together without turning from one page to another and back again, in danger of losing our place and making mistakes. So, since Adam be a fine copyist, I left him to work unhindered whilst I began to paint the first of a dozen full-page miniatures. A score of half-page miniatures was also required. I had a deal of work to do. To produce a detailed full-page image could take me a day. It was as well that the hours of daylight were at their greatest length but I dare not produce anything less than my best. The trouble be that a man’s hand, eyes and mind can only labour for so long afore his standard of craftsmanship deteriorates through weariness.
Thus, with the under-drawing for the miniature sketched out and ready for the application of gesso, I marked each area with the letter indicating the colour I intended to use – L for lapis lazuli, M for malachite, etc. as is the artists’ tradition – I went out into the garden plot to stretch my legs, straighten my back and rest my fingers.
It was a fine June day with a cooling breeze chasing lambs-wool clouds across an azure sky. Rose was hoeing weeds from among the pot-herbs, her skirts kilted up, out of the way. Little Dickon, sitting in the dirt at her feet, was examining a snail as if it were a precious emerald. Such be a child’s fascination with the world.
I crouched down beside him.
‘See here, little one. You recall your sore finger of yesterday?’ I took his hand and found the tiny mark upon his thumb where he had caught a splinter. ‘If you take the snail, thus, and wipe his slime upon your hurt, it will heal right readily. Do you see?’
Dickon gazed up at me, large-eyed, as if inwardly wondering whether Papa was the fount of all knowledge or simply somewhat insane. Whatever his final decision, he returned to the serious study of the snail, poking a finger into the shell, trying to pull the creature from its sanctuary.
