The Roaring Boy

Chapter Eight

Anxious to make an early start to the day, Nicholas Bracewell foresook breakfast and headed for the stables. Emilia Brinklow had not yet risen so he left word with one of the manservants that he would soon return. He did not anticipate that his errand would take long. The ride to the cottage was a relatively short one and the sound of a coranto told him that Orlando Reeve was at home. The musician was already at his keyboard to put the finishing touches to his latest work. Nicholas was about to introduce a few discordant notes into the composition.

A deferential old man answered the door to him.

‘I wish to see Master Reeve,’ said Nicholas.

‘Is he expecting you, sir?’

‘He is not but my business will permit no delay.’

‘It must, I fear. My master is at his work and I am forbidden to interrupt him for any reason.’

‘You may be,’ said Nicholas. ‘I am not.’

He brushed past the man and went into the room from which the sound of the virginals came. Orlando Reeve was seated before the instrument like an acolyte before an altar. He looked up in shock at the sudden intrusion. It bordered on sacrilege.

‘Who are you, sir!’ he demanded. ‘Stand off!’

‘Not until we have exchanged a few words, Master Reeve.’

‘Show the fellow out, William!’

‘I will try,’ muttered the old servant, eyeing the visitor’s powerful physique with misgiving. ‘Follow me, if you please, sir.’

‘Leave us,’ ordered Nicholas. ‘I am acquainted with an old friend of your master-one Peter Digby.’

Orlando Reeve tensed at the sound of the name. After a moment’s consideration, he dismissed his servant with a peremptory wave and stood up to confront his visitor. The room occupied virtually the whole of the ground floor of the house. It was well-furnished and spotlessly clean but its main items of interest were the three keyboard instruments. They were superbly crafted and clearly of great value. The musician had built the room around himself to create the most propitious conditions in which to work and practise.

Reeve lifted his chin and adopted a patronising tone.

‘State your business, sir. I have not much time.’

‘You found enough to visit the Queen’s Head recently.’

‘I may spend my leisure as I wish.’

‘Peter Digby says you would never wish to see a play. Yet you sat through two in as many weeks. Why was that?’

‘I do not have to answer to you,’ retorted Reeve with a lordly sneer. ‘Who are you that you should force your way into my home to interrogate me?’

‘My name is Nicholas Bracewell and I am here on behalf of Westfield’s Men. Peter Digby is a close friend of mine.’

‘And of mine, sir.’

‘Throwing him out into the street is a strange way to repay his friendship,’ said Nicholas. ‘For that is what you have helped to do. Because of you, one of our number lies at this moment in prison and the rest of us are denied a stage on which to play. We are fellow-artistes, sir. Why do you rob us of our occupation?’

‘I did nothing of the kind,’ blustered Reeve.

‘Who sent you to the Queen’s Head?’

‘I went of my own accord.’

‘Even though you hate the theatre and avoid it like the plague? You came to urge an old acquaintance in order to draw intelligence from Peter Digby.’ He took a menacing step closer. ‘I will not leave until I hear the truth.’

‘You do not frighten me,’ said Reeve, wobbling with fear and purpling around the cheeks. ‘If you do not quit my house presently, I’ll summon the constable and bring on action for assault.’

‘He’ll come too late to save you from certain damage.’

‘Spare me!’ cried the other, backing away as Nicholas moved towards him again. ‘I have done you no harm. Do none to me!’ He held out his hands. ‘These are my fortune. If my hands are hurt, my livelihood dies. Do not touch my hands.’

‘I will not touch you, Master Reeve,’ said Nicholas as he raised a bunched fist high above the virginals. ‘Your instruments will bear the suffering instead.’

‘Stop!’

‘It is only a box of wood and strings.’

‘You destroy the most precious thing in my life!’

‘Then we pay you back in kind. You helped to take our theatre away from us. I’ll separate you from your music.’

He raised his fist even higher but Orlando Reeve flung himself in front of the instrument, his face now puce all over and his eyes bulging dangerously. He gabbled his plea for mercy but Nicholas brushed it aside. The book holder had come for information even if he had to smash everything in the cottage to get at it. Reeve finally capitulated.

‘I’ll tell you all,’ he said, panting and perspiring. ‘But you wrong me. I did not seek in any way the loss of your right to act at the Queen’s Head. Until this moment, I knew nothing of it. I simply obeyed a summons.’

‘From whom?’

Reeve took a deep breath. ‘Sir John Tarker. He saw the playbills for The Roaring Boy and sent me to enquire further into its substance. That’s all I did and all I would do, sir. I have no quarrel with Westfield’s Men.’

‘We have one with you.’

‘Sir John forced me to go.’

‘On both occasions?’

‘The second only. The play was Mirth and Madness.’

‘What of your first visit?’

‘That was prompted by…another source.’

‘I want his name.’

‘He will never forgive me if I part with it. The man has been my patron for many years. I would not betray him.’

‘Choose between them,’ said Nicholas, holding his fist over the instrument again. ‘His name or your virginals.’

Perspiration began to drip off the musician’s face as he writhed in his quandary. Nicholas was an immediate threat but an even greater one might await him if he complied with his visitor’s request. He was skewered on the horns of a dilemma and movement in either direction would cause him pain. Music eventually won the argument. The rescue of his beloved instruments was his paramount concern. They were quite irreplaceable. He lowered his head in defeat.

‘Go your way, sir.’

‘Only when I learn his name.’

‘Sir Godfrey Avenell.’

‘He sent you to the Queen’s Head?’

‘A rumour displeased his ears. I was sent to sound its depth. Peter Digby told me what I sought, that Westfield’s Men were going to play the murder of Thomas Brinklow.’

‘So you were Sir Godfrey Avenell’s creature?’

‘He loves my music, sir. I did him but a favour.’

Nicholas was scathing. ‘It did not advantage us, Master Reeve. When the piece was staged, Sir John Tarker hired bullies to cause an affray and disrupt it. How would you feel if we did likewise when you were playing before your audience?’ He stepped in close. ‘Do you hate Peter Digby so much that you would see him thrown out like a beggar? Will you set no price at all on friendship?’

Orlando Reeve was shaken to the core. There had been a certain pleasure in worming the required information out of the gullible Peter Digby and he had been handsomely rewarded for his pains. For him, the matter ended there. He did not realise that such dire consequences might follow and he was astute enough to realise that Sir John Tarker would not have wrecked the performance of a play unless he had cause to fear its content. Reeve quailed. What had he got himself drawn into and how could he possibly get out of it?

Nicholas Bracewell glowered down at him in disgust.

‘Where might I find Sir John Tarker now?’

‘Nearby, sir. He stays at the palace.’

‘And Sir Godfrey Avenell?’

‘He is there, too. Practise for a tournament is afoot.’

‘They’ll stay for a day or two?’

‘All week.’

Nicholas was content. He had found out what he needed to know and given Orlando Reeve a scare into the bargain. He left the cottage and mounted his horse. He was soon trotting back towards the Brinklow house. Nicholas felt that he was now able to enjoy his breakfast.

***

Noon found Sir Godfrey Avenell in one of the workshops at Greenwich Palace. Hammers pounded and fire raged all around him but he was not perturbed. Nor did the swirling smoke offend his eyes or nostrils. He enjoyed the clang of metal and the forging of new weapons. The workshop was his natural habitat.

The Master of the Armoury held an important post. His chief responsibility was to have a sufficient store of armour and weapons to fit out an army in the event of war. When the Spanish Armada sailed for England a few years earlier, Sir Godfrey Avenell had worked at full stretch to equip the force which had been hastily thrown together to guard strategic points on the mainland against the threat of invasion. When that crisis passed, he was able to concentrate on his other main duty, which was the organising and staging of Court tournaments.

Some Masters of the Armoury would have stood on the dignity of their position and delegated most of the mundane tasks to subordinates but Avenell liked to be involved at each stage. Instead of consorting only with the knights who used his weapons, he befriended those who made them as well.

‘Is all ready here?’ he said.

‘I have the inventory in my hand, Sir Godfrey.’

‘Read the items as they load them up.’

Under the supervision of a clerk, men were carrying piles of weapons across to a series of wooden boxes. A consignment was about to be stored in preparation for the forthcoming tournament. Avenell stood at the man’s shoulder as the clerk read the inventory.

‘One hundred pikes…two hundred tilt staves…eighty-five swords for barriers…sixty vamplates…one hundred coronels… one hundred and twenty puncheon staves…’

‘Where are the mornes?’ asked Avenell.

‘Already in store, Sir Godfrey. Two hundred of them.’

‘Good. We need them to blunt our lances. We must not fright the ladies with the sight of blood.’

‘Our armour prevents that.’

Avenell waited until the full consignment had been checked and stored. He then took the clerk aside and whispered something to him. The man produced a second inventory from inside his doublet. Taking it from him, the Master of the Armoury read it to himself.

‘Five hundred pikes, four hundred spear staves, one hundred two-handed swords, one hundred rapiers…’

The list was long and comprehensive. Avenell handed it back to the clerk with a nod of approval. The man secreted it inside the doublet once again.

‘Delivery is in hand?’

‘Yes, Sir Godfrey. They’ll be at Deptford by evening.’

‘When will they leave?’

‘Tomorrow on the morning tide.’

Sir Godfrey Avenell was pleased. Efficient and industrious himself, he set high standards for his many underlings. He demanded complete loyalty and commitment from them. Discretion was also imperative. Those who fell short in any way were soon discharged. The clerk had been with him long enough to be trusted. It was good to have such men around him as part of a smooth-running system which had evolved over the years. The workshops at Greenwich Palace were a source of continual joy to the Master of the Armoury.

A small shadow suddenly fell across that joy. As he left the workshop and came out into the fresh air, Avenell was met by a servant bearing a message. It was delivered at the main gate of the palace with a request for urgent attention. Avenell dismissed the servant and tore off the crude seal on the letter. Two lines of spidery script made him hiss with rage.

Marching back into the workshop, he tossed the missive into the burning coals of a brazier and continued on down the room. A door at the far end gave access to an antechamber used for the fitting of armour. Sir John Tarker was preening himself in a mirror while his squire was polishing the new suit of armour. Avenell stormed in with murder in his eyes. The squire did not need to be told to leave at once. He bolted from the chamber to leave the two men alone together. Tarker was bewildered by the dramatic intrusion and the blistering anger.

‘What ails you?’ he said.

‘Maggs.’

‘He cannot harm us. Who will listen to the word of a hunted outlaw? His spite can never touch us.’

‘Maggs is dead,’ said Avenell.

Tarker grinned. ‘Then we have reason to celebrate, not to quarrel. If the rogue lies in his grave, all fear is gone. What benefactor took the life of that little rat for us?’

‘I did.’

‘You?’

‘By indirect means,’ said Avenell. ‘I could not rely on you. When you hired those men, they failed us badly.’

‘That is why I threw them to the law.’

‘You could not even do that properly. Freshwell was put in chains but Maggs broke free and ran.’

‘To the Isle of Dogs. What harm could he do us there?’

‘None until today. As long as Maggs stayed there and kept his mouth shut, I was content to let him live. But I took the precaution that you should have taken.’

‘Precaution?’

‘I had him watched.’

Tarker grew uneasy. ‘What happened?’

‘Someone tracked him down. They came to question him this morning about the murder. They may have wrung something out of him before my man could shut the villain’s mouth forever.’ He drew his rapier. ‘In other words, they are still sniffing after our scent.’

‘Maggs knew only part of the truth.’

‘He knew enough to keep them coming after us.’

‘Who are they?’

‘People you swore would never bother us again,’ snarled Avenell. ‘People who stand between me and my peace of mind.’ He advanced on Tarker with his sword raised. ‘People I would have put down once and for all.’

He slashed away with his weapon and Tarker jumped back involuntarily but he was not the target of the attack. Sir Godfrey Avenell was taking out his anger on the glistening armour, hacking away at the decorated breastplate until he knocked the whole suit over with a clatter, kicking the helmet free, then jabbing madly at the leg armour. Only when he had scored the metal in a hundred places did he pause to glare across at his alarmed companion.

‘Next time,’ he warned, ‘it will be you. Kill them!’

***

Emilia Brinklow was waiting for him when he returned to the house and they shared breakfast together. Nicholas Bracewell told of the visit to Orlando Reeve but divulged nothing of what passed between them and she did not press him on the matter. They simply ate and talked together quietly as if they had been doing it every day of their lives. Emilia was transformed. The pale and dispirited creature of the night before was now poised and alert. Her cheeks had colour, her eyes hope and her whole being had acquired a new definition. Sadness still rested on her but its weight was no longer quite so suffocating.

She made no reference, either by word or glance, to their brief time together in bed and Nicholas started to wonder if it had really occurred. Was it no more than a pleasant dream sent to ease his troubled mind? Or was it some waking fantasy conjured up by the intense pressures of recent days? Had she indeed come to him and now regretted her action so much that she had blotted it out of her mind? Did their moment beside each other perhaps contribute to her apparent recovery? At all events, it was not a barrier between them and he was grateful for that.

They remained happily at the table until midday when the constable and his two assistants arrived to resume their wayward investigation. After hours of questioning those who lived in the neighbouring houses, they had divined nothing of any significance. Nicholas again steered them through their halting routine. He also ensured that their interrogation of Emilia was neither too distressing nor robust.

The manservant who discovered the body then adjourned with Nicholas to make sworn statements at the nearby home of a magistrate. Valentine was sheltered from the need to give any testimony even though he had been first aware of the arrival of tragedy on the doorstep. Nicholas saw no point in dragging the gardener into the investigation and thereby exposing his eccentric sleeping arrangements to public gaze while only further complicating the situation for the law officers. The book holder had already taken long strides forward and he did not want three well-intentioned buffoons around his feet to trip him up.

When he got back to the house once more, he was amazed to see two familiar figures dismounting from their horses.

‘Nick, dear heart!’

‘We knew that we would find you at the house.’

Nicholas was thrilled. ‘By all, it’s good to see you!’

They exchanged embraces of welcome, then compared news. Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias had not tarried in the Isle of Dogs. The killing of Maggs made their own presence at once unnecessary and dangerous. Survival was the only law that existed in that human jungle. They left while they still could and were ferried across the Thames on a barge with their horses. Who despatched the naked Maggs with such brutal finality they could not tell but they felt that Freshwell’s partner in crime had somehow met his just deserts.

Nicholas took them into the house and introduced them to Emilia Brinklow. She had expected to meet the whole company after the performance of The Roaring Boy but she had been hustled away from the fiasco by Simon Chaloner and had forgone that pleasure. She was clearly honoured to meet Lawrence Firethorn, an actor whose work she revered, and she delighted Owen Elias as well by complimenting him on a number of performances. Emilia had obviously been a keen follower of the fortunes of Westfield’s Men for some time. For their part, they were charmed by her grace and composure. Firethorn was so taken with her that he even started to make flirtatious remarks. Nicholas cut short this standard reaction to female admiration by telling him about the second murder. The newcomers were duly outraged.

‘Here on the doorstep?’ exclaimed Firethorn.

‘Slaughtered by the same hand,’ decided Elias.

‘Yes,’ said Nicholas. ‘Solve one murder, solve both.’

He saw that Emilia was sinking back into her grief once more and he quickly moved on to another topic. She rallied within minutes and remembered the duties of a hostess. Sensing that the men wished to be alone, she went off to the kitchen to order refreshment for the guests and to give them the chance to talk more freely.

‘Where did you spend the night, Nick?’ said Firethorn.

‘Here at the house.’

Elias chuckled. ‘We can see why you did not rush to get back to London. A warm bed here is better than a cold lodging in Shoreditch.’

‘Mistress Brinklow invited me to stay.’

‘Say no more, Nick,’ advised Firethorn. ‘We are green with envy already. On to our discoveries in the Isle of Dogs.’

‘You found Maggs?’ said Nicholas.

‘Found him and lost him.’

Firethorn recounted the tale and the book holder was spellbound. Everything he heard tallied with what he himself had found out or suspected. Between the three of them, they had made substantial progress and they at last knew the name of the man who was the true author of all the evils that had beset the Brinklow household.

‘Sir Godfrey Avenell!’ said Elias. ‘He’s worse than Freshwell and Maggs together. At least, they were honest rogues. He hides behind his rank.’

‘I’d like to meet up with the knave!’ said Firethorn.

‘You will get your chance,’ promised Nicholas. ‘Both he and Sir John Tarker are close by in Greenwich Palace. We three must find some way to smoke the two of them out. And we may not do that until we have first uncovered the deepest mystery of them all.’

‘The deepest?’ asked Elias.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why was Thomas Brinklow killed?’

‘The play explains that,’ said Firethorn. ‘He was the victim of a malignant enemy. Sir John Tarker hated him.’

‘It is not enough,’ argued Nicholas. ‘Sir John would do nothing without the approval of Sir Godfrey Avenell. He is the key to all this. Why did he want Thomas Brinklow dead?’

‘Were Sir Godfrey and Master Brinklow also at each other’s throats?’ suggested Elias.

‘Far from it. They were good friends. They even dined in each other’s company at the palace. Indeed, it was there that Master Brinklow was introduced to the lady who was to become his wife. And who brought the two of them together?’

Even as he asked the question, Nicholas caught a glimpse of an answer he had never even considered before. It made him revalue the whole situation. Before he could share his thoughts with his friends, Emilia returned with the promise of food and drink. They rose courteously from their seats and insisted that she rejoin them. When all four were once again seated, Nicholas explored an area which had been brought to light by the visit to the Isle of Dogs.

‘When you showed me your brother’s laboratory,’ he said, ‘you spoke of his papers having been destroyed.’

‘Why, yes. In the fire.’

‘What sort of papers were they?’

‘Drawings, calculations, inventions.’

‘None survived?’

‘None at all, Nicholas,’ she said. ‘Thomas was a careful man, as I told you. His papers were like gold to him. He kept them locked away at all times out of fear.’

‘Of what?’

‘Theft by his rivals, jealous of his success.’

‘Only rivals?’ She looked perplexed. ‘Was your brother ever commissioned to work for Sir Godfrey Avenell, the Master of the Armoury?’

‘He was. On more than one occasion.’

‘What was the nature of those commissions?’

‘I cannot say. Thomas did not discuss his work with me. I explained that to you. All I know is that he paid regular visits to the workshops at the palace to consult with Sir Godfrey. And then those visits stopped.’

‘Why?’ asked Firethorn.

‘Thomas would not tell me.’

‘Did you have no inkling of your own?’

‘None, Master Firethorn. It was not my place.’

Nicholas was curious. ‘How soon after these regular visits broke off did your brother meet his death?’

‘Less than a month.’

The three men were exercised by the same thought. Thomas Brinklow was not killed at the behest of a spiteful enemy who lusted after the former’s sister. He was removed out of the way so that his papers could fall into the hands of Sir Godfrey Avenell. Something in among those drawings and calculations was a sufficient motive for murder.

Nicholas Bracewell spoke for all three of them.

‘Have you nothing of your brother’s work to show us?’

‘Go to Deptford and you may see many examples of it,’ she said. ‘The royal dockyards worship the name of Thomas Brinklow. They will show you his navigational instruments.’

‘I hoped for something here in the house.’

‘It was all consumed in the fire.’

‘Some tiny item must surely survive,’ he continued. ‘He lent his skills to the design of this beautiful house. Did he not also create something to use or display in it?’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Except one trifling gift for me.’

‘Gift?’

‘It is hardly worth mention, Nicholas. I would certainly not offer it as an example of Thomas’s genius. He was a man who could invent telescopes to read the heavens and devices to plumb the depth of the sea. A simple knife is but a poor epitaph for him.’

‘Knife?’

‘He gave it to me to unseal letters.’

‘May we see it, please?’

‘If you wish, but what interest can it hold for you?’

Nicholas was adamant. ‘Send for it, I pray.’

‘I’ll fetch it myself directly,’ she volunteered.

In the short time it took her to get the knife, the three friends had agreed on the likely motive for the first murder. It was grounded in the scientific and engineering experiments of Thomas Brinklow. He had been killed for his papers. Failure to steal them had led Freshwell to the gallows with his tongue cut out and Maggs to the Isle of Dogs. What was so important about the mathematician’s work that justified such a wholesale waste of human life?

Nicholas Bracewell was made aware of another anomaly.

‘Maggs told you that they found the place on fire?’

‘Yes, Nick,’ said Elias. ‘It was not their work.’

‘Whose then was it? Someone started that blaze.’

Emilia came back into the room bearing a long, thin knife with a pearl handle. At first glance, it looked no more than an attractive implement for domestic use but Nicholas had second thoughts when he handled it. The knife was unusually light in his grasp and gave off a peculiar sheen. He passed it to Firethorn who was quite intrigued.

‘Your brother made this for you?’ he asked.

‘In his workshop.’

‘From what metal?’

‘He did not say.’

‘It is lighter by far than any knife I have seen,’ said Nicholas, taking it back into his own hands. ‘Yet its balance is perfect and its edge well-honed. May I test it against my dagger? I am loathe to damage it if it is the only keepsake you have of your brother.’

‘This house is keepsake enough,’ she said, realising that the knife might after all hold significance. ‘Do as you think fit with it, Nicholas.’

He slipped his dagger from its sheath and used it to clip the blade of the knife sharply. The latter withstood the blow without a blemish. Nicholas hit the blade much harder next time but it was still equal to the test. He passed the dagger to Owen Elias, then held the knife in front of him by its handle and its tip so that it lay horizontal. The Welshman lifted the dagger and smashed its blade down against the target.

‘Aouw!’ he yelled, shaking his hand. ‘I have jarred my wrist. It was like striking against solid stone.’

Nicholas examined the two weapons. There was a deep nick in the blade of his dagger but the knife was unscathed.

‘Germans,’ he murmured.

‘Speak up, Nick,’ ordered Firethorn.

‘Germans. The two men who brought Master Chaloner here last night spoke to each other in German.’

‘This is Greenwich,’ said Elias, ‘and full of musicians from the palace. They come from all nationalities and you may hear a dozen languages in the streets. French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese. Even German, I daresay.’

‘They were no musicians, Owen. But armourers.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because the best craftsmen in Europe were brought to the palace to make armour in its workshops. Most of them were German. They are experts at their work. They know how to bend the finest metals to their will. The finest-and the strongest.’

He held the knife out on the palm of his hand.

***

When Topcliffe lifted the poniard from the table, Edmund Hoode went weak at the knees. Wrists manacled, he had been hauled out of the Marshalsea and taken by prison cart to the house of the interrogator. Richard Topcliffe was seated behind a long table when the prisoner was brought in by the two gaolers. He made Hoode stand directly in front of him so that he could appraise him in minute detail, searching-or so the playwright feared-for the points of greatest weakness and vulnerability about his anatomy. As Topcliffe picked up the little dagger, Hoode feared that it would be used to cut a first morsel of flesh but his host reached instead for one of the large red apples in a bowl. Slicing it in two, he looked up quizzically at his guest.

‘Remove the manacles,’ he said.

‘We have orders to keep him restrained,’ said one of the gaolers. ‘He may be desperate.’

Topcliffe was curt. ‘I will not have the fellow trussed up in irons before me. Remove them without delay and then remove yourselves.’ The two men hesitated. ‘Master Hoode will not try to run away. I can vouch for him.’

The playwright had neither the strength nor the will-power to take to his heels. He was grateful to have the manacles unlocked and pulled off the wrists that they were chafing so badly but he would have preferred his two companions to remain. As the gaolers left the room, he hoped that they would linger nearby. Richard Topcliffe was the last man in the world with whom he cared to be left alone.

His host bit into the apple and chewed it slowly. He was much older than Hoode had anticipated, perhaps sixty, and his grey hair had an almost saintly glow. The doublet and hose of black satin came in stark contrast to the whiteness of his face. His body was lean, his shoulders rounded, his hands covered in knotted veins. Hoode found it difficult to believe that a man who looked like a retired bishop could possess such an insatiable appetite for cruelty.

Then he looked into Topcliffe’s eyes. They were dark whirlpools of malice that seemed to contain the frothing blood of his countless victims. Hoode felt as if he were staring at an evil force of nature. No further torture was needed to make him submit. Those eyes caused pain enough.

Topcliffe’s voice was like a poniard between his ribs.

‘Welcome to my home, Master Hoode.’

‘Thank you,’ gulped the other.

‘I have been asked to speak with you in private.’ He swallowed a piece of apple and sat back. ‘How do you like the Marshalsea, sir?’

‘I do not.’

‘Are the food and company not to your liking?’

‘Indeed, they are not.’

‘Then let us see if we can improve your accommodation. If you help me, I will see what I may do to assist you. I do not like to see you suffer so.’ He wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘And carry such an abominable stink.’ He glanced down at a sheaf of papers in front of him and read something that made him click his tongue in admonition. ‘You have been reckless, Master Hoode. Seditious libel is no light matter.’

‘But I am innocent of the crime!’ cried Hoode.

‘That is for me to determine.’

‘No libel was intended or employed, Master Topcliffe.’

‘Then why are you here?’

Topcliffe raised a mocking eyebrow to silence Hoode. The playwright saw the sheer hopelessness of his position. If someone in authority had brought a charge against him, it was lunacy to imagine that the interrogator would take the playwright’s part. Richard Topcliffe did not make impartial judgements. Those who were sent to him were already presumed guilty and thus fit for extreme punishment.

The old man bit off another piece of apple.

‘What is your opinion of pain, Master Hoode?’

‘Pain?’

‘Have you ever considered its nature or purpose?’

‘No, sir.’

‘A poet like you? A man whose profession must make him contemplate all the mysteries of existence? Yet you have never studied the philosophy of pain?’ He swallowed his food and gave a faint smile. ‘It has been my one true passion in life. Suffering is a most rewarding subject of study. If you can control and inflict pain, you have unlimited power. That is the great difference between us, Master Hoode. You have devoted your life to giving pleasure while I have dedicated mine to administering pain.’

Hoode was given a few minutes to weigh the import of the words he had just heard. The playwright was already in agony. He and the interrogator had indeed operated in two opposing worlds. What terrified him was the thought that they might now be united in one with Hoode providing pleasure to a fiend who revelled in pain. He shuddered as he felt the old man’s gaze raking his body again. There was no escape.

‘I always find it in the end,’ said Topcliffe.

‘Find what, sir?’

‘The truth. No matter where a man may hide it, I will root it out. Sometimes I have to look in their heart and sometimes I have to prise open their brains. I will even lay bare a man’s soul in order to get at it.’ He stood up and came around the table. ‘Where do you keep the truth?’

‘About what, Master Topcliffe?’

‘This play of yours, The Roaring Boy.’

‘It is not my play,’ insisted Hoode. ‘I was merely the carpenter who made the necessary repairs. Another hand wrote the piece. Look for him.’

‘I do, sir. That is why you are here.’

‘But I do not know his name!’

‘You will remember it in time.’

‘The author preferred to remain anonymous. I have no idea who he was or why he wrote what he did. I will swear that on the Bible, sir.’

‘They all say that.’ Topcliffe grinned. ‘Follow me.’

He walked to the end of the room and opened a door. Hoode went after him with reluctant footsteps and found himself in a passageway that led to a flight of steps. Topcliffe went down them with his victim in tow. They came into a long, low, stone-floored chamber that was lit by altar candles. One glance at the contents of the room was enough to make Hoode’s stomach heave.

In the middle of the room stood a large, solid, wooden contraption with all manner of straps, spikes and ropes attached to it. Stout handles on all four sides of the rack allowed it to be tightened inexorably in all directions. Other devices were ranged around the walls. These further refinements of torture included iron bridles to fit over the head and deep into the mouth, an array of thumbscrews and a wooden coffin lined with razor-sharp teeth that could bite ever deeper into the flesh of its occupant when its sides were beaten with hammers. Red-hot tongs and pokers nestled in the brazier that stood in a corner.

It was not just the sight of these objects that made Hoode retch. The atmosphere in the room was unbearable. The smell of suffering was almost tangible. Richard Topcliffe thrived on it but his guest was inhaling the reek of a charnel-house.

The interrogator indicated the rack with immense pride.

‘Have you ever seen such a wonderful machine?’ he said. ‘It is my own invention. Compared to this, the one at the Tower is child’s play. Do you see what I have done here? Every part of a man’s body can feel a separate agony. Look at this device for the hands, Master Hoode. You will be able to appreciate its cunning.’

‘Will I?’ Hoode murmured.

‘You spoke of your carpentry on a play. Well, here is carpentry of a much higher order. Each finger slots into its own individual hole, as you may see. I simply turn this one handle and the subtlety of my design becomes apparent.’ He was almost drooling now. ‘All ten fingers are simultaneously crushed and a tongue is invariably loosened.’

Edmund Hoode was in such distress that he clutched at a wall for support. The fact that he did not know the name of the play’s author was irrelevant. Richard Topcliffe would search for it with a cruelty and relentlessness that were their own justification.

‘Go back to the Marshalsea now,’ said Topcliffe.

‘Back?’ gasped Hoode in relief. ‘I am released?’

‘For the time being. Reflect on what I have said and you will soon remember the name that evades you. This visit has simply acquainted you with my methods, Master Hoode.’ He gave his faint smile. ‘You have seen my instruments.’

***

The three men continued to question Emilia Brinklow about the nature of her brother’s work but the help she could give them was limited. She was sometimes allowed to view the results of his toil but he never discussed the means by which he made them. Privacy had been the major preoccupation of Thomas Brinklow.

‘What about his wife?’ asked Nicholas Bracewell.

‘Cecily?’

‘Was she taken into his confidence?

‘Even less so than me,’ said Emilia, ‘and that upset her deeply. She was always curious about the time he spent in his workshop but he never let her past that iron door. Cecily was locked out just as much as the rest of us. She protested bitterly but in vain.’

Nicholas thanked her for her help and asked if he could show his friends around the ruined laboratory. Emilia gave them the freedom of the house. She herself felt the need to pay an important call elsewhere.

‘I will to the church,’ she said. ‘Simon lies there. I want to offer up a prayer for the salvation of his soul.’

‘That is only proper,’ said Nicholas.

‘I feel ready to look upon him now.’

‘Prepare yourself first. It is not a happy sight.’

‘Duty bids me endure it.’

She gave him the key from her pocket and took her leave. They could easily have entered the ruin from the garden by stepping over one of its walls but it seemed sensible to approach it as its designer must have done. Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias both commented on the thickness of the door. When it was thrust open, they stepped into the wilderness beyond and marvelled. Nicholas indicated some of the apparatus at the far end of the workshop.

‘Here is his forge where he fashioned that knife-blade,’ said Nicholas. ‘Close by are two more furnaces.’

‘Was not one enough?’ asked Elias.

‘Not for a craftsman,’ explained Firethorn. ‘I grew up in a world of sparks and steel. My father was a blacksmith and taught me that iron is not simply a dull metal. If it is handled aright, it can come alive. My father knew how to make it hiss in the coals and sing on his anvil.’

‘How many furnaces did he have?’

‘Two, Owen. One firing will drive out some impurities from the metal. A second may refine it more and render it easier to handle. All depends on how much heat you apply.’ Firethorn enjoyed a rare lapse into nostalgia. ‘I watched my father for hours on end in his forge. Most of his time was spent in shoeing horses and fitting iron rims on cartwheels but he was a skilled metalworker as well. His wrought-iron screen still stands in the village church.’

‘Thomas Brinklow was no blacksmith,’ reminded Nicholas. ‘He had three furnaces to conduct his experiments, each one different in size and shape to the others. What does that suggest to you, Lawrence?’

‘It goes well beyond my father’s art. I’d say he found a way to alter the properties of the metal by the separate firings. Something may have been added in its molten state.’ He knelt beside one furnace and picked up a handful of small cinders. ‘Here is one clue, sirs. I would expect to find a forge like this burning charcoal. These cinders are the last remains of coal, a fuel that causes untold problems.’

‘Unless he found a way to cure them,’ said Nicholas.

Firethorn felt the cinders. ‘Or a new type of coal.’

‘From Wales, perhaps,’ said Elias. ‘We have mines.’

‘Or from even further afield,” added Nicholas. ‘Ships carry timber and other fuels into London every day.’

They continued to speculate for some time before Nicholas drew his friends down the garden to the middle of the largest lawn. He lowered his voice.

‘Here we may certainly talk in complete safety.’

‘Are we then overheard?’ said Elias.

‘There is a spy in the house. I believe I know who it is. She will not be able to listen to us out here.’

‘She?’ repeated Firethorn.

‘If I am correct.’

Valentine suddenly came out of the bushes some twenty yards away with his wheelbarrow. He gave Nicholas the most obsequious grin and ambled off in the direction of the house. The book holder’s companions were taken aback.

‘Who, in God’s name, is that?’ said Elias.

‘Valentine the gardener.’

‘A hideous face like that does not belong in a lovely garden,’ opined Firethorn. ‘It should be set on the side of a cathedral with the other gargoyles.’

‘Do not be misled by appearances,’ said Nicholas. ‘He is our friend. To business. I cannot tell you how it cheers me to have you both here. Three of us may contrive things that no one person could ever attempt alone.’

Elias grinned. ‘Tell us what to do and it is done.’

‘Then first, we must split up. I am known to be here in Greenwich, you are not. That gives us an advantage. One of you must go to the palace to see what may be learned there.’

‘That will I,’ volunteered Firethorn.

‘They may not even admit you,’ said Nicholas, ‘but much may be gleaned if you hang about the quay. Ask what comes in and out by boat. Find out about the workings of the palace. Pick up even the tiniest scrap of news about Sir Godfrey Avenell. His face must be well-known to all. Ask why the Master of the Armoury spends so much time down here in Greenwich when his office is in the Tower.’

‘I’ll find out all that and more, Nick,’ said Firethorn.

‘What of me?’ said Elias.

‘Haunt the taverns here, Owen. You met with good fortune in the stews of Bankside. Try your luck in Greenwich.’

‘What must I seek?’

‘Any rumour, tale or idle gossip about Thomas Brinklow. Secretive about his work he may have been, but someone must have supplied him with materials. Who delivered the coal, for instance? Who built his equipment and machines? Who kept them in a state of repair? Someone must have got in here.’

‘Drink and listen,’ said Elias. ‘Fitting work for me.’

‘About it now.’

They arranged a time and place to meet up later. As they strolled back down the garden together, Firethorn remembered what Nicholas had said a little earlier.

‘You are known, but we are not?’ said the actor.

‘Yes, Lawrence. Word of my presence here will already have been sent to the palace. I am hoping that it will flush out some of the game.’

‘We have been in the house awhile now. Has not the same person reported as much to her spymaster?’

‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘I set my own informer to watch her. Valentine may seem to be about his work out here but he is also keeping his eyes peeled. If a certain maidservant tries to leave the premises, I will be told.’

‘You are a stage manager to your fingertips!’

‘He is too comfortable here in Greenwich,’ said Elias with a wink. ‘How will we ever drag him back to London when he has a beautiful woman to care for him and an ugly gardener to act as his eyes and his ears?’

He and Firethorn went off laughing happily together but Nicholas did not share their mirth. The teasing remark had contained a grain of truth that almost embarrassed him. The book holder was becoming slowly drawn to Greenwich and the kind of life that it might offer him. More particularly, he was drawn to Emilia Brinklow. She was much more than a grieving young woman who needed his help at a difficult time. She had qualities that he found quite entrancing and his admiration for her had soared since her authorship of The Roaring Boy had been revealed. What impressed him was not just the extraordinary skill she had shown for a novice playwright but the way in which her writing had so carefully disguised her gender.

The moment alone together in the middle of the night had a profound effect on him. It was some time since he had shared a bed with a woman and, although they did not sleep in each other’s arms as lovers, there had yet been a bond forged between them. Trust, affection and need had brought Emilia to his bedchamber. It was an open question whether or not they could mature into something more permanent.

As soon as he caught himself even considering such a possibility, he expelled it from his mind. Emilia Brinklow could never be his. She was a rich young woman with a large house and a recognised place in Greenwich society, while he was a humble book holder with a theatre company which did not even have a venue in which to perform. Emilia could offer him so much but he could never bring an equal portion of money or property to the match. On the other hand, there were deficiencies in her life that he could repair. Nicholas could provide the strength which her brother had obviously supplied and the love which hitherto had come from Simon Chaloner. Would he, however, simply be taking the place of others? To be at all worthwhile, he knew, a friendship had to be a merging of true minds.

With a conscious effort, he shook himself free of her for the second time. Emilia Brinklow did not intrude upon his concentration again because someone distracted him. It was Valentine, giving a pre-arranged signal to him that Agnes was about to leave the house for some reason. Nicholas could guess what her errand might be. With her mistress out of the house at church, she had the opportunity to slip out and send some sort of message to the palace. There was no chance of her going there and back on foot so he surmised that she must have an intercessory in the village.

Nicholas moved swiftly. Screened by a line of trees, he worked his way towards the house and was in time to see the maidservant letting herself out by the rear door. She looked furtively around before darting behind the bushes. Nicholas cut around the other side of the house so that he would be at the front when she got there. Agnes knew how to conceal her movements. Only the faintest disturbance in the bushes showed her progress. She emerged near the front gate and tried to scurry through it.

The solid frame of Nicholas Bracewell blocked her way. ‘Where do you go on Fridays?’ he asked.

She let out a gasp of fear, then burst into tears.

***

Sir John Tarker was an arrogant man who had been utterly humiliated. Somebody now had to pay for that humiliation. Sir Godfrey Avenell had administered it but the real cause of it was Nicholas Bracewell. The book holder’s name had cropped up time and again to irritate and confound him. After being soundly beaten at the Eagle and Serpent, he somehow had the resilience to bounce back. Tarker had gone to great lengths to effect the destruction of The Roaring Boy and the damage that had occasioned Westfield’s Men was an incidental bonus to him. An affray, an arrest and an injunction had virtually killed the theatre company.

Yet its members still kept up their pursuit of him. He was certain that two of them had run Maggs to earth in the Isle of Dogs but the organising force behind them was Nicholas Bracewell. And the latter was back in Greenwich.

‘I want him!’ he barked.

‘Leave him to me,’ said a heavy-set man with a guttural accent. ‘I’ll break his back for him.’

‘No, Karl. This man is my quarry.’

‘Will you run him through with a lance?’

‘It would be too kind a death for Nicholas Bracewell.’

‘How, then, will you kill him, Sir John?’

‘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.

‘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?’