The Roaring Boy nb-7 Read online

  ‘Slowly.’

  The armourer grunted in approval. They were alone in one of the workshops at the palace and Tarker was venting his spleen. Nicholas Bracewell had helped to lose him his position, his pride, the finest suit of armour he had ever possessed and the invaluable friendship of the man who had bought it for him. Unless he could somehow cut himself a path back into the favour of Sir Godfrey Avenell, Tarker faced bankruptcy, forced retirement from tournaments and certain elimination from Court circles.

  ‘How soon will you do it?’ asked Karl.

  ‘Tonight.’

  ‘Is that not too dangerous?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We left Master Chaloner’s body there but yesterday. The crime has been reported and law officers are looking for us. Will they not be lurking near the house still?’

  ‘What matter if they were?’ said Tarker. ‘If some imbecile of a constable were guarding the house, he would point us the way to Nicholas Bracewell’s bedchamber without a qualm. You would have to murder a man in front of their noses before the Greenwich constables would take notice.’

  ‘Tonight, then.’

  ‘It may be the last time my prey is still here.’

  ‘The message said that he would stay until the whole matter was over,’ said the German with a smirk. ‘And my messages are usually correct.’

  ‘The whole matter will be over tonight,’ affirmed Tarker. ‘When this Bracewell is removed from the scene, the rest soon collapse. They are cut adrift without him.’ His eyes narrowed to pinpricks. ‘And she is cut adrift as well. No brother to protect her. No Master Chaloner. No Bracewell.’

  Karl chuckled. ‘You will call there as often as I do.’

  ‘Tonight we will both pay a visit.’

  ‘What must I do?’

  ‘Ensure that he is indeed in the house.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Find us the means to get to his bedchamber.’

  ‘Will a key to the front door be enough?’

  ‘Can you get such a thing, Karl?’

  ‘Of course,’ boasted the other. ‘I can get whatever I wish from her. She will deny me nothing.’

  ***

  Nicholas Bracewell did not mince his words with Agnes. After taking her back into the kitchen, he sat her down and told her the consequences of what she had done. The maidservant blubbered all the way through and needed several minutes before she could even speak. She had been caught, trying to sneak away from the house with a message concealed up her sleeve. Nicholas had broken the seal, read the missive and seen its warning of the arrival in Greenwich of Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias. Agnes was an efficient spy.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nothing, sir.’

  ‘I, at least, will hear you out,’ he said. ‘If I hand you over to the law, they will lock you up for months until a trial can be arranged. They may even put you in a cell and forget that you are there, which would be no more than your wickedness deserves. Is that what you want?’

  ‘No, sir!’ she implored. ‘I could not bear it!’

  ‘Then tell me the truth.’

  ‘I was not involved in the murders, I swear it!’

  ‘Yet you supplied information to the murderers.’

  ‘They said they were only after his papers.’

  She went off into another paroxysm of weeping. Nicholas could see that her remorse was genuine. The woman had enough guile to act as an informer but no capacity for defending herself now that she had at last been exposed.

  Nicholas took her by the shoulders to calm her down.

  ‘Begin at the beginning,’ he said. ‘What is this about papers? Did they belong to Master Thomas Brinklow?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He always kept them locked up. His wife could not get near them and she was nosey enough. I was told to borrow some of them but I could never even get inside his laboratory. Clever thieves were needed for that task.’

  ‘Freshwell and Maggs?’

  ‘That’s what I thought they were. Thieves, not killers.’

  ‘They were paid to be both.’

  ‘Nobody told me,’ she protested it. ‘I was to leave the key for them to get into the house and steal the papers. That was all my part in the business. I went off to bed that night and slept soundly. The next thing I know, I am wakened by the master, yelling that he is being attacked by villains. I raised the alarm at once.’

  ‘Too late to save Master Brinklow.’

  ‘Would I have come running down the stairs if I had been a party to murder? I helped to put Freshwell and Maggs to flight. Because of me, they did not steal those papers. When they came back, the workshop was in flames.’

  ‘Who set it alight?’

  ‘Nobody knows.’

  ‘One of the other servants?’

  ‘They would have no cause.’

  ‘What did you feel when you saw your master dead?’

  ‘As if I had hacked him down myself,’ she said as she relived the horror of it. ‘Master Brinklow was kind to me. His sister has a sharper tongue at times but he was always very courteous with us. I was overcome when I saw what they had done to him. My conscience would not let me sleep for many weeks afterwards.’

  ‘Yet you went on helping those who killed him.’

  ‘No, sir!’

  ‘You let two innocent people go to their deaths.’

  ‘I could not stop them,’ she argued. ‘Who would have listened to me? When they caught the two of them together like that, their guilt seemed crystal clear. My testimony could not save them. What weight can you place on the word of a common maidservant?’ A coldness came into her tone. ‘That is what Mistress Brinklow always called me.’

  ‘Emilia Brinklow?’

  ‘Cecily, her sister-in-law. She had no time for me.’

  ‘So you got your revenge by letting them drag her off to the gallows with Walter Dunne. Is that how it was?’

  ‘No, sir, it was not. I was sorry to see them hanged but they had done wrong in the eyes of God.’

  Nicholas exploded. ‘You dare to make a moral judgement on them when your own actions have been far more sinful? You betrayed your master. You betrayed his wife. And you have gone on betraying Mistress Emilia Brinklow ever since.’

  ‘It was not like that!’ she insisted.

  ‘Then tell me what it was like.’

  ‘It is too painful even to think of now.’

  ‘Do not expect sympathy from me,’ he said harshly. ‘Pull yourself together or I will call the constables forthwith and throw you to their mercy. Now, speak!’

  His stern command frightened her into obedience. Agnes took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and launched into her tale. There was no attempt to excuse herself. She was presenting the facts as she knew them so that he could judge for himself if she was as guilty as he assumed.

  ‘I loved him,’ she said with a fond smile. ‘I loved him then and I love him now. His name is Karl. He is German, one of the armourers in the workshops at Greenwich Palace. He came to visit the master to discuss some business. I was collecting herbs in the garden when Karl arrived. We talked, he asked my name. I liked him from the start.’

  ‘What business did he have with Master Brinklow?’

  ‘He did not say. But later-when we had become close friends-he asked me to find out certain things for him. Karl said it would be proof of my love.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘That is how it all began.’

  ‘And it was Karl who asked you to procure the key?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So that Freshwell and Maggs could commit murder?’

  ‘No!’ she denied. ‘Karl told me that it was all a mistake. They had come here to steal the papers from the workshop when the master came home unexpectedly. He set on them in his anger and a fight developed. Freshwell and Maggs killed him trying to defend themselves.’

  ‘That is what Karl expected you to believe?’

  ‘He made it sound true.’

  ‘And
gave you some reward no doubt.’

  ‘He did not offer me a penny,’ she said indignantly. ‘Nor would I take it. What I did was out of love for him. That is the height of my offence.’

  Nicholas understood the significance of Fridays. It was the night when she stole away for a regular tryst with her lover. The woman was no practised informer who worked for gain. She put up with the disagreeable things she was forced to do in order to spend one night a week in the arms of her man. The plain, homely face and the plump body suggested that she might have had very few men in her life, perhaps none who took her as seriously as Karl appeared to do. She had given herself completely to him. It never occurred to her that he might be manipulating her cynically for his own ends.

  Her admitted dislike of Cecily Brinklow raised an issue that had rather faded into the background. In the light of what Agnes had said, however, it took on a new importance.

  ‘Walter Dunne was arrested with your master’s wife.’

  ‘They were taken in the very act, sir.’

  ‘Who told the constables where to find them?’

  She coloured and grew evasive. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Someone must have known the place and sent them to it. Do you not think it strange that they called at precisely the right time to catch two people in a moment of such intimacy?’ He leaned in close. ‘Why did you do it, Agnes?’

  ‘It was sheer chance that they were found like that.’

  ‘It was deliberate. Karl ordered it.’

  ‘He…may have suggested it.’

  ‘No, Agnes. He made you implicate two people who had nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of your master. And you went willingly along with such a pack of lies. I can see that you hated your mistress.’

  ‘She was harsh with me. And unfaithful to her husband.’

  ‘Did you never think of warning him about it?’

  ‘He already knew.’

  ‘Master Brinklow was aware of his wife’s adultery?’

  ‘He all but encouraged it.’

  Nicholas was startled. Here was an entirely new slant on a murder which he thought he was finally sorting out in his mind. Thomas Brinklow had been portrayed to him as a brilliant inventor and an honest, generous, well-loved man, yet here was a maidservant claiming that he was also a complaisant husband. It compelled him to adjust his whole view of the domestic situation at the house. Agnes reached forward to clutch anxiously at him.

  ‘What will happen to me, sir?’ she whimpered.

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Will they chain me up? Will they beat me?’

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘Is there no way that I can make amends?’ she asked. ‘I know I have done wrong but Karl made it seem so right. He has a way of explaining things to me.’

  ‘How did he explain the death of Master Chaloner?’

  ‘Karl had nothing to do with that!’

  ‘He may well have dragged the body here himself.’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘He would never do such a thing. Karl is kind and loving. You do not know him as well as I do. He would not dream of committing murder. It was not Karl.’

  ‘Then who did kill Master Chaloner?’

  Agnes was stunned. It was a question which she had blocked out of her mind. A look of total incomprehension spread over her features. Nicholas almost felt sorry for her. She had been pulled unwittingly into a complex plot over which she had no control and which she could not even begin to understand. Like Orlando Reeve, she was as much a victim as an accomplice but that did not exonerate her from blame or lessen the horror of the events in which she had been caught up.

  She was now shocked, contrite and fearful.

  ‘I cannot bring Master Brinklow back from his grave, nor Master Chaloner. But surely there is some way I can atone? Some means by which I can help you?’

  Nicholas looked down at the scribbled message that he had found when he intercepted her. He held it up.

  ‘Where were you taking this?’

  ‘To the Black Bull Inn,’ she said. ‘There is a man, who is paid to carry my letters to the palace with all haste.’

  ‘Give him another message,’ said Nicholas.

  ‘Another?’

  ‘I will dictate it to you.’

  ***

  Lawrence Firethorn was in his element. As he mingled with the small crowd at the end of the pier, he was playing a part that had been assigned to him. He might not win the applause of a packed audience at the Queen’s Head but his performance was no less important for that. The tide was receding so the boat was moored well down the jetty in order to sit in deep water. Horse-drawn carts had brought its cargo from the palace and the heavy boxes were being winched aboard and lowered into a hold in the middle of the vessel.

  The clerk from the armoury was checking his inventory as the cases were roped up in readiness for the huge hook on the winch. Firethorn sidled up to him in the most casual manner.

  ‘Good day, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Good day to you,’ said the clerk, sparing him no more than a glance. ‘Stand aside, if you will. I am busy.’

  ‘I see it well. What are your men loading here?’

  ‘That is our business.’

  Firethorn shrugged. ‘I ask but out of interest, sir.’

  ‘Then satisfy it and go your way. Those boxes are full of implements for the garden. Spades, hoes, rakes and the like.’

  ‘Made here in the palace workshops?’ said Firethorn with irony. ‘What are your armourers doing with garden tools? If the Spanish invade us, are we supposed to beat them off with rakes? Here’s strange weaponry indeed.’

  ‘Away, sir, or I’ll call the guard!’ snapped the clerk.

  Firethorn mollified him with a gesture of conciliation. He drifted across to the boat itself and spoke to one of the sailors helping to bring the cargo aboard.

  ‘Where do you sail?’ he asked.

  ‘Deptford,’ said the man, spitting into the Thames.

  ‘These boxes are for the royal dockyards?’

  ‘Our journey ends there but they will travel on.’

  ‘To what port?’

  ‘Who knows?’ said the man, guiding another load of boxes into the hold as it swung towards him. ‘We put them into a larger vessel and our work is done.’

  ‘Larger vessel?’

  Firethorn had heard enough to arouse his suspicions. If a larger vessel were involved, the cargo must be destined for a port across the Channel. It was inconceivable that garden implements were being exported from Greenwich Palace to the Continent. An actor who dominated every stage on which he walked now made himself as inconspicuous as he could by walking to the very tip of the pier and sitting on its edge to stare out into the river. Across its murky water was the Isle of Dogs and Firethorn was grateful that he would not have to visit that reeking swamp again. On the other hand, it did not have a monopoly of evil. The opulent and respectable Greenwich housed villains as loathsome as any across the Thames.

  When the cargo was loaded and the clerk departed with his men, Firethorn sauntered back towards the boat. The crew were making ready to set sail. He hailed the captain and requested to come aboard. The latter was a big, bearded man with a weather-tanned face and a distrustful eye. He allowed Firethorn to step over the bulwark but no further.

  ‘What do you want?’ he said.

  ‘Safe passage to Deptford.’

  ‘This is a cargo boat. We carry no passengers.’

  ‘Make an exception and you will be well paid.’ He opened his hand to show the silver coins on his palm. ‘Well, sir? It is a good return on a short voyage.’

  ‘Short, indeed,’ said the man, clearly tempted by the money. ‘But you could get to Deptford much quicker by horse. Why choose the slowest means?’

  ‘Because I am in no hurry.’

  Firethorn beamed at him and disguised the nudging pain he still felt from his bad tooth. The man looked him up and down for a moment before snatching at the coins.
r />   ‘Stay aboard,’ he said, ‘but keep out of our way.’

  ‘I will be invisible.’

  The boat set sail and Firethorn leaned against the bulwark in its stern. Sea-gulls followed them away from the pier and wheeled around the vessel as the wind filled its canvas. The short journey to Deptford was not wasted by the lone passenger. He drifted across to the hold, which was so shallow that part of its cargo protruded up on to the deck. Firethorn rested against one of the boxes and pretended to survey the teeming life around them on the river. When he was certain he was not being watched, he searched the box for splits or knotholes but its wood was sound.

  He needed a surreptitious dagger to gain entry. Inserting it below the lid of the box, he worked it up and down until he felt the timber loosen. A tiny gap had been opened up but it was sufficient. He peered quickly into the box and saw the rapiers lying side by side.

  ‘Garden implements!’ muttered Firethorn. ‘What will they do with them? Challenge the weeds to a duel?’

  Chapter Nine

  Edmund Hoode was so reduced by hunger and anxiety that he barely had the strength to move. As the finger of light slowly withdrew from his cell in the Marshalsea, he lay on the floor in a disconsolate heap and mused on his sorry plight. “Disasters come triple-tongued” he wrote in one of his plays and that line now returned to haunt him. The Corrupt Bargain was his first disaster, a mediocre play made far worse by the death of its central character. Ben Skeat, however, was fortunate. The old actor had died while exercising his art. It was more than Hoode would be allowed to do.

  Infatuation with Emilia Brinklow presaged his second disaster. Meeting her had swept aside all reservations about The Roaring Boy. It seemed like an exciting challenge and revived his creative urge. Pleased with the result of his reworking of the play, he had seen it felled on the stage at the Queen’s Head before his own eyes. One play stricken by the demise of its main character and another stopped in its tracks by a brawl. These were not unrelated phenomena. Some malign curse had clearly been put upon his work. Whatever his pen touched soon crumbled to dust.

  He could have borne the two disasters if a third had not arisen to join them. His name was Richard Topcliffe and he had left the playwright in a state of cold hysteria. The memory of those instruments in the cellar had burned itself into Hoode’s brain. Simply to look at them had been torture enough. To be subjected to their venom would be unendurable. He knew that his heart would burst asunder long before his body was rent apart on the rack.