Traitor

Chapter 25

THE LAST OF the livestock was being removed from the pens, spring lambs to the slaughter, laying-hens to new owners. It was the end of market day.

In the main square of the small town, well-to-do yeoman farmers talked prices with wool factors, chapmen drank with common herders, all crowding the taprooms around the market place. Much strong liquor had been taken during the day and some of the men wouldn’t get home tonight.

Andrew and Ursula stood on the north edge of the square. She put her small, callused hand to his lips.

‘Just keep your mouth shut. Watch and learn.’

Three men emerged from a tavern on the east side of the market. The early evening sun lit them. They stopped and gulped in the fresh air. They were well dressed in the staid garb of merchants or town burgesses, but that was the only sober thing about them. They were drunken and loud.

They shook hands with each other. Two tottered off southwards, the third ambled north. Ursula squeezed Andrew’s hand.

‘Sharking time. Stay here. Don’t run. Do nothing but watch.’

She stepped forward and began walking down the street. Andrew was amazed by the way she moved, decorous and elegant, as though she had been born into the gentry. She walked past the drunken yeoman, then stopped, turned back and tapped him on the shoulder. He stumbled back a little and tried to focus on her. She threw her arms around his neck.

‘Uncle Jack!’ she exclaimed, then kissed him on both cheeks and pressed herself to him.

The man looked bemused but happy to be embraced so. Ursula stood back from him and smiled, pushing out her small breasts provocatively. Then her eyes widened in seeming horror and she put a hand to her mouth.

‘Oh, in the Lord’s name, I am sorry, sir,’ she said, aghast. ‘A thousand apologies. I thought you were my uncle. Can you forgive me?’

‘There is no injury, young lady. No injury at all, so nothing to forgive.’ He grinned inanely and proffered his bearded face. ‘You may kiss me again if you so wish.’

He tried to take her back into his arms, but she stepped away, like a demure young woman, mortified by her error. She lowered her head in shame and walked on. The drunk watched her go, shrugged his shoulders, then resumed his stumbling walk until he disappeared into one of the side streets.

A minute after he had gone Ursula was back at Andrew’s side.

‘That’s lesson one. Now, let’s leave town directly but slowly. If you run or walk fast you will arouse men’s notice, and their suspicions. That’s lesson two. A fair day’s work. A pigging fair day, I do say.’

Bewildered, Andrew went where she went, walking at her side at a steady pace back out of town into the countryside. Only when they were deep in woods, on a well-trodden path, did she stop. She fished a goatskin purse from inside her skirts and held it up.

‘How much do you reckon?’ she said, weighing it with her hand.

‘Where did that come from?’

‘That came from Uncle Jack – he gave it to me. And all for a kiss.’

‘You cut it from him!’

Ursula lifted her eyes to the heavens and shook her head in exasperation. She loosened the ties of the purse and poured the contents into the palm of her left hand.

‘Now what have we here?’ She counted the coins. Eight of them. Then she held up the prize. ‘A gold sovereign. Look at that, Andrew Woode! We’ll eat for two months on that alone. And a noble, an angel, three crowns and two groats. Did you ever see such pigging bounty!’

‘But you’ve stolen it. You can’t just take money from people.’

‘Why not? What’s the world ever done for me? We’ve all got to live.’

‘Well, I want none of it.’

‘Suit yourself. Go hungry. Starve if you want.’ She counted the money again.

Andrew stared at her and wondered how something so beautiful could be so rotten. Still clutching the purse, she put her hands on her hips and glared back at him. Without a word, he turned and set off back the way they had come, towards the town. He had no idea what he was going to do, but there was no future with this girl or her villainous friends. She ran after him and stopped him.

‘Pig’s arse, Andrew, you’re stubborn and stupid,’ she said. ‘What do they teach you at that pigging school you go to?’

‘That theft is a mortal sin.’

‘And if you got no money and no food, what then? Are you supposed to starve?’

‘No. You work.’

‘And if there’s no pigging work to be had because the crops have failed, if your parents are dead, if you’ve got no trade, if the commons are enclosed and the headboroughs drive you away, what then? You supposed to lie under a hedge and die, is that it?’

He didn’t know what to say.

‘Well? Why should I die? I’m seventeen years of age. Why should I lay down and pigging die? And you, what have you done that’s so bad you deserve to have your neck stretched? Haven’t killed anyone, have you?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘Anyway, you’re a fine one to go all holy book on me. You’re already a receiver of stolen property. You ate that pork at the Dogghole, didn’t you? You drank that ale? Where do you think that pigging stuff came from? Do them rogues and beggars look like pig farmers or brewers to you? Think they got that food and drink legal?’ Suddenly her voice softened a shade. ‘The Upright Man has told me to look after you, so you better come with me, otherwise he’ll take it out on me.’

He reached out and grabbed the hand that held the stolen purse. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘Eat and drink.’

‘Why don’t you at least do something good with it? Buy yourself a stall at market – earn an honest living.’

‘Because the whole world’s spoken for, that’s why. And I’m not part of it. They’ll never let a girl like me in my tatters set up stall. If I went to the burgesses and asked for a stall, they’d have a good laugh, then whip me at the cart’s arse for impertinence.’

‘Well, at least buy that dress you’re wearing. You look something in it – like a lady.’

‘I can’t go round every day dressed like this! This is work clothes, for sharking and getting of bungs. You’ve a lot more to learn, Andrew pigging Woode.’

‘Well, you do.’

‘What?’

‘Look like a lady.’

She was about to say something sharp, but she paused, pulled back her shoulders and held her head at an angle. ‘Do I?’

‘Yes. You look like a London gentlewoman … or a duchess.’

She hesitated a moment longer, then shook her head and pushed him in the chest. ‘You’re daft as a pig. Come on. It’s getting late and I’ve got to feed you and tell you what’s what. No pigging horsebread for us this night!’

With strong, gentle hands, Joshua Peace turned the frail body of the fifth Earl of Derby over on to its front. He began to examine every inch of the bony back, starting at the nape of the neck and working down. The skin was a pallid, mottled blue. He did not expect to find any clues to the noble earl’s death, but Peace was painstaking in his work.

He looked up as the door to the chamber opened. A stranger stood there. He wore a sober doublet of black and silver and his hair was cut close to his head.

‘Mr Peace?’

‘Yes.’

‘You are to come away from this chamber. Immediately.’

‘I have been instructed to examine this corpse.’

‘The instruction is rescinded. Please come with me.’

‘And who, might I ask, are you?’

‘I am the Earl of Derby’s steward. The sixth earl’s. He wishes you to be out of Lathom House within the hour.’

Peace frowned. ‘But I had thought Mr Cole was steward here.’

‘He has been dismissed. Now, if you please. Make haste or I shall have you removed.’

‘But the commissioners, Egerton and Carey, they will require my report.’

‘Indeed they will not. The matter is decided. The late earl was beguiled to his death and they will have him prodded no more. He will be allowed to rest in peace before he is taken away for burial. Good day, Mr Peace.’

The stranger turned on his heel and was gone.