The Nine Giants Read online

  ‘Lawrence!’ he said. ‘I demand to speak to you!’

  ‘Speak to me instead, sir.’

  The man turned around with an arrogant smile that stunned Hoode completely. It was not Firethorn at all. The extempore performance had been given by Owen Elias.

  Walter Stanford and his son were grief-stricken when they returned home. Michael’s death was a shattering blow in itself but the nature of his exit made it unbearably worse. Someone so young and full of promise had been cut down savagely in his prime. Stanford resolved that he would not rest until the murderer had been found and made to pay the full penalty of the law. Vengeful as he was, he did not let his feelings warp his behaviour. In an effort to protect his wife from the full horror, he gave her only an attenuated account of what they had seen. Matilda was devastated by the news. Even though she had never met Michael Delahaye, she had heard enough about him to form some very favourable impressions. Sharing the loss with her husband and stepson, she reserved most sympathy for her sister-in-law.

  ‘What of dear Winifred?’ she asked.

  ‘She must be told at once,’ said Stanford. ‘William and I will ride to Windsor today to break the sad tidings to her. It will be the ruination of poor Win.’

  ‘Let me come with you,’ she offered. ‘I may be of help at this trying time.’

  ‘Your kindness is appreciated, my love, but this is a task for me alone. I need to frame Win’s mind to accept what has happened. It will be a long and arduous business and too distressing for you to witness.’

  ‘Have funeral arrangements been made?’

  ‘They are set in motion,’ he said. ‘When Michael’s body is released, it will be brought to Windsor for burial in the family vault. It is then that I will call upon you for your comfort and company.’

  ‘Take both for granted, Walter.’

  ‘You are a solace to me.’

  He gave her a perfunctory embrace then held back tears as he thought about the body on the slab. It had been hauled out of the Thames without a shred of clothing to give it decency in its last moments. A thought struck him with sudden force.

  ‘I see the meaning of it now,’ he said.

  ‘Of what, sir.’

  ‘That present I received, Matilda.’

  ‘Present?’

  ‘The salmon.’

  ‘What did it signify?’

  ‘That Michael slept with the fishes.’

  Sir Lucas Pugsley chewed happily on a crisp mouthful of whitebait. Being the Lord Mayor of London obliged him to entertain on a regular basis but only a small number of guests were dining at his house that evening. One of them was the massive figure of Rowland Ashway who was tucking into his meal with voracious appetite. Placed at the right hand of his friend, he was able to have private conference with a lowered voice.

  ‘Has that contract been allocated, Sir Lucas?’

  ‘What contract?’

  ‘We spoke of it even yesterday.’

  ‘Ah, that,’ said the Lord Mayor airily. ‘Have no fears on that score, Rowland. You will get your just deserts. I have instructed Aubrey Kenyon to handle the matter.’

  ‘That contents me. Master Kenyon is most reliable.’

  ‘He is the chiefest part of my regalia. I wear him about my neck like the mayoral collar. My year in office would not have been the same without Aubrey.’

  ‘Haply, he will notice the change as well.’

  ‘Change?’

  ‘When you hand over to Walter Stanford.’

  ‘Perish the thought!’ snarled Pugsley.

  ‘Master Kenyon must feel the same. You and he have worked hand in glove. He will not have the same kind indulgence from that damnable mercer.’

  General laughter interrupted their chat and they were forced to join in the hilarity. It was over half an hour before a lull allowed them another murmured debate. Rowland Ashway was remarkably well informed.

  ‘Have you heard of Stanford’s latest plot?’

  ‘What idiocy has he invented now?’

  ‘The Nine Giants.’

  ‘Nine, sir? We have but two giants in London.’

  ‘That I know. Gogmagog and Corinaeus.’

  ‘From where do the other seven hail?’

  ‘The Mercers’ Company,’ said Ashway. ‘They are to perform a play at the Lord Mayor’s banquet to celebrate the triumph of their master. It is called The Nine Giants and shows us nine worthies from the ranks of that Guild.’

  Pugsley grunted. ‘They do not have nine worthies.’

  ‘Dick Whittington is first in number.’

  ‘And the last, Rowland. They have none to follow him. If the mercers would stage a play, let them be honest and call it The Nine Dwarves. They have plenty of those in their company. Walter Stanford is bold indeed.’

  ‘You have not heard the deepest cut.’

  ‘Tell me, sir.’

  ‘He himself will be the ninth giant.’

  Sir Lucas Pugsley choked on his meat and had to swill down the obstruction with some Rhenish wine. All his hatred and jealousy swelled up to enlarge his eyes and turn his face purple.

  ‘I should remain as Lord Mayor,’ he growled.

  ‘No question but that you should. But the law stands in your way. It is decreed that no retiring mayor can serve another term of office until seven years has passed.’

  ‘That law might yet be revoked.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By force of circumstance.’

  ‘Speak more openly, Sir Lucas.’

  ‘This is not the time or place,’ muttered Pugsley. ‘All I will tell you is this. If Walter Stanford were to fall at the very last hurdle – if something serious were to disable his mayoralty – might not your fellow aldermen turn to me to help them in their plight?’

  Sir Lucas Pugsley began to laugh. Rowland Ashway enlarged the sound with his throaty chuckle. Others found the hilarity infectious and joined in at will. The whole table was soon rocking with mirth even though most of those around it had no idea at what they were laughing. Such was the power of the Lord Mayor of London.

  They moved with great stealth through the dark streets of Bankside. One of them was tall, muscular and well groomed with a patch over his right eye. The other was shorter and more thickset, a bull of a man with rough hands and rough ways. They each carried a bundle of rags that had been soaked in oil to advance their purpose. When they came to the house, they checked all the adjoining lanes to make sure that they were not seen. Revellers delayed their work by blundering out of a nearby tavern and rolling past them in full voice. Only when the sound died away did the two men set about their nefarious business.

  The rags were stuffed tight up against the front door of the dwelling then set alight. The accomplices waited until the flames began to get a hold on the timber then they took to their heels and fled into the night. Disaster crackled merrily behind them.

  Anne Hendrik’s house was on fire.

  Chapter Seven

  Nicholas Bracewell was the first to become aware of the danger. He had developed a sixth sense where fire was concerned because it was such a constant threat to his livelihood. Sparks from careless pipe-smokers had more than once ignited thatch at the Queen’s Head and the other venues used by Westfield’s Men, and though most of their performances took place in the afternoon, some continued on beyond the fall of darkness and had to be lit by torches or by baskets of burning tarred rope. Extreme care was needed at all times and Nicholas was particularly vigilant. Even in his sleep, his nostrils maintained a watch and so it was that night. As soon as the first whiff of smoke was encountered, he came awake in a flash and leapt up naked.

  His bedchamber was at the front of the house and he saw the fierce glow through the window. Instinct took over. After shaking Hans Kippel out of his slumbers, he pulled on his breeches and raised the alarm in the rest of the house. With no means of escape through the front door, he quickly hustled Anne Hendrik, the two servants and the boy into the little garden at the rear then da
shed back to tackle the blaze itself. It had now got a firm hold and long tongues of flame were licking their way into the room. Acrid smoke was starting to billow. The triumphant crackle grew louder.

  Nicholas moved with great speed. Having once been caught in a blaze in the hold of a ship, he knew that fumes could be as deadly as fire itself. He therefore dipped a shirt in one of the leather buckets of water that stood in the kitchen, then wound it around his neck and mouth. With a bucket in each hand, he hurried back into the drawing room and looked anxiously around. On the wall was one of Anne’s most cherished possessions. It was a beautiful tapestry, depicting the town of Ghent, and given to her as a wedding present by Jacob Hendrik who had commissioned it especially for her in Flanders. She would not willingly have parted with it for anything but sentiment had to give way to survival. Nicholas hurled the water over the tapestry then hastily brought two more buckets from the kitchen to repeat the drenching process.

  Tearing down the tapestry, he threw it over the floor to douse the smouldering boards then used it to beat out the flames that were coming in through the door. He was soon given support. Anne Hendrik left her servants to look after the quaking apprentice and came back in to help to save her house. She dipped a broom in the last bucket of water then used it to attack the flames as strenuously as she could manage. Smoke invaded her throat and made her cough. Nicholas rent his sodden shirt in two and gave her a piece to cover her mouth and nostrils. The two of them continued the struggle to save the property.

  Noise had now reached deafening proportions. The whole street, then the whole neighbourhood, was roused. Panic was readily abroad. Fire was feared almost as much as the plague and its effects were just as devastating. Like the rest of the city, Bankside was predominantly an area of thatched, timber-built dwellings held together with flimsy lath and plaster. Efforts had been made for well over a century to force people to tile their roofs instead of using reed or straw but the ordinances had scant effect. The only precautions that most householders took were to keep buckets of water on hand or, in far fewer cases, to have firehooks hanging at the ready so that they could be used in an emergency to pull down burning wood or thatch. Organised fire-fighting was virtually unknown and pumps were very rudimentary. In any conflagration, people reacted with unashamed self-interest and looked to their own premises. So it was here.

  Nicholas and Anne fought the fire from within while their yelling neighbours did their best to stop it from spreading to their tenements. Because the street was so narrow, the houses opposite were as much at risk as those adjoining and their occupants, too, were contributing freely to the communal hysteria. Water was thrown over thatch and timber to keep the fire at bay. Implements of all kinds were used to beat at the flames. As a ferocious glare lit up the night sky, pandemonium ruled. Children screamed, women howled in fear, men bawled unheard orders at each other. Dogs barked, cats shrieked and wild-eyed horses were led neighing from their stables to clatter on the cobbles and add to the gathering confusion. Everyone was soon involved. One old lady in a house directly opposite even opened the upstairs window to hurl the contents of her chamberpot over the small inferno.

  Prompt action slowly won the battle. Having subdued the worst of the flames inside the house, Nicholas was able to kick down the charred remains of the door and get into the street. With a clearer view of the danger, he was able to swish the now steaming tapestry against the front of the building. When a few altruists threw buckets and barrels of water at the house, he was grateful for the soaking that he himself got. It enabled him to withstand the fierce heat and get ever closer to its centre. The tapestry eventually secured victory. Torn beyond belief and blackened beyond recognition, it put out the seat of the fire. Nicholas dropped it wearily to the ground and stamped on it with bare feet to stop it smouldering.

  Relief spread as rapidly as the fire itself and a ragged cheer went up. People who had been plucked from their beds by the threat of death now saw some cause for celebration. Those terrified neighbours further along the street who had evacuated their homes completely now began to take their furniture and belongings back inside. New friendships grew out of common adversity. Ear-splitting fear was now replaced by gregarious murmur. The crowd began to disperse until the next emergency.

  Anne Hendrik stood panting beside her lodger and tried to regain her breath. She was suffering from the effects of inhaling the smoke, but Nicholas Bracewell was in a far worse state. His breeches were scorched, his feet burnt and his chest a mass of black streaks. Sparks had even had the temerity to singe his beard. His umbered face was running with sweat and crumpled by fatigue but he found the strength to slip an arm around her waist. She leant against him for support and looked up at the ravaged frontage of her house.

  ‘Thank you!’ she gasped.

  ‘I could not let my lodging go up in smoke.’

  ‘You saved our lives, Nick.’

  ‘God was at our side.’

  ‘How could the fire have started?’ she said between bouts of coughing. ‘Some careless passer-by?’

  ‘This was no accident, Anne. I see design at work.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘Someone here was meant to sleep for ever.’

  Anne blanched. ‘An attempt on our lives? Why, sir? Who would want to kill us?’

  ‘We may not have been the targets,’ said Nicholas as he thought it through. ‘It is possible that the fire was lit for someone else – Hans Kippel.’

  It was the first night since her marriage that Matilda Stanford had spent entirely alone. With her husband away in Windsor, she had the bed and bedchamber exclusively to herself and she revelled in the new freedom. At the same time, however, she felt even more isolated. The news about Michael Delahaye had been horrific and she was genuinely distressed but it did not touch her heart directly. She had never known the dashing soldier and could not share the desperate loss felt by others. Suffused with real sympathy, she was also distanced from her husband and her stepson as they mourned the death of a loved one and became embroiled in sorrowful duties. Michael had been very much inside the charmed circle of the family. For all her readiness to join in, Matilda remained firmly on the outside.

  What kept her awake was not the thought of a dead body pulled from the clutches of the Thames. It was something quite remote from that and it brought its due measure of guilt and recrimination. Indeed, so troubled did she feel that she got up in the middle of the night and went down to the little chapel to pray for guidance and to see if divine intercession could direct her mind to more seemly matters. Even on her knees, she remained unable to sustain more than a passing sigh for the fate of Michael Delahaye. It was another man who occupied her thoughts, not a rotting corpse in a charnel house but a person of almost superhuman vitality, a master of his art, a romantic figure, an imp of magic, a symbol of hope.

  Lawrence Firethorn even infiltrated her prayers. Instead of asking for a blessing on a departed soul, she begged for the opportunity to meet her self-appointed lover. Happiness no longer lay beside a wheezing mercer in a four-poster bed. True joy resided at the Queen’s Head in the formidable person of an actor-manager. In thinking about him at all, she was repudiating the vows taken during holy matrimony. In speculating about the way that their love might be consummated, she was committing a heinous sin. Doing both of these things while kneeling on a hassock before her Maker was nothing short of vile blasphemy but her Christian conscience did no more than bring a blush of shame to her cheeks. Matilda Stanford made a decision that could have dire consequences for her and for her whole marriage.

  She would accept the invitation to the play.

  First light found Nicholas Bracewell out in the street to assess the damage to the house and to begin running repairs. Word was sent to Nathan Curtis, master carpenter with Westfield’s Men, who lived not far away in St Olave’s Street, and he hastened across with tools and materials. The front of the house would need to be partially rebuilt and completely replastered but the two me
n patched it up between them and gave its occupants a much-needed feeling of security and reassurance. Curtis was rewarded with a hearty breakfast and a surge of gratitude but he would accept none of the money that Anne Hendrik offered. As a friend and colleague of the book holder, he was only too glad to be able to repay some of the kindness and consideration that Nicholas Bracewell had always shown him. He shambled off home with the warm feeling that he had done his good deed for the day.

  Hans Kippel had been kept ignorant of his role as the intended victim of the arson. Shocked by the grisly experience on the Bridge, he had withdrawn into himself again and could not explain the rashness of his conduct. In the wake of the fire, he was even more alarmed and they did not add to his afflictions by subjecting him to any interrogation. Instead, Nicholas Bracewell set out for the Bridge and walked to the little house which had provoked such an intense reaction from the boy.

  There was no answer when he knocked on the door but he felt that someone was at home and he persisted with his banging. In the shop next door, an apprentice was letting down the board as a counter and laying out a display of haberdashery for the early customers. Nicholas turned to the lad for information.

  ‘Who lives in this house?’

  ‘I do not know, sir.’

  ‘But they are near neighbours of yours.’

  ‘They moved in but recently.’

  ‘Tenants, then? A family?’