Face Down among the Winchester Geese (9 page)

As she left Celia, Petronella smiled to herself. She never said the words aloud, for ‘twould break her own rule about proper language, but the same motto held firm in this house as in all the others: “No money, no cunny."

The rest of the morning she spent going over plans for the week ahead with the servants, making sure all was in order for meals with the cook wench, checking that the laundry lass kept up with the masses of linen that came down to her, and supervising the girl scullion and the apple squires, the boys who served wine to Petronella's regular customers. The Sign of the Smock had a gaming room, and also provided singing and dancing for entertainment. Out back a walkway for promenading circled a garden and a small pond.

Later, Petronella had accounts to do. She had nearly finished when Vincent Cheyne, who was not only her doorman but also a friend, came into the room.

"Odd visitor this morning,” he remarked.

"Aye. A gentlewoman. Sir Robert Appleton's wife."

"Oh, aye? Which was he?"

"He last came here a long time ago. Some six years, I do think.” She stopped speaking, struck by the coincidence. Or perhaps it was not so coincidental. With exaggerated care, she closed the account book.

"Stayed a long time,” Vincent said.

"Lady Appleton? Yes, she did.” Petronella shifted in her chair to look at him directly. “Strange. I found myself liking Sir Robert's wife. How many other gentlewomen would have visited a bordello in broad daylight?"

"She wore a visor."

"But her very recognizable maidservant did not."

"Arrogant, she was,” Vincent commented.

Petronella agreed. The woman gave the impression of thinking herself above her station, and distinctly superior to any whorehouse madam. Possibly she was more companion than servant. Petronella knew little of the lives of ladies, for all she was familiar with ladies’ husbands.

"Robert Appleton was one of the courtiers who accompanied Diego Cordoba on his first visit to Bankside.” That had been well before the killing of Lora Tylney. Petronella remembered because Cordoba himself had been memorable. He'd been a steady customer all that spring of 1555, when she'd been a slip of a girl of fifteen and new to the game.

She smiled suddenly, pleased to realize Diego had known her before he bedded the Tylney lass. ‘Twas even possible he'd only been attracted to the other woman because Lora reminded him of his earlier passion for Petronella.

Vincent's expression gave away none of his feelings. “Appleton and his friends came here often in Long Nell's time."

"Aye. And Robert Appleton was no better and no worse than his fellows.” Petronella had known most of them intimately, become acquainted in a professional way with their differing tastes, their little foibles, if not from personal experience then by talking to the other whores. “Appleton continued to frequent the Sign of the Smock whenever he was in London during Queen Mary's reign.” She concentrated, calling up another memory. “The last visit was right before Shrove Tuesday six years ago."

Vincent's face darkened. They both had reason to remember that horrible night. Shrove Tuesday, the traditional last revel before Lent imposed its strictures, was the day when London apprentices ran wild, often taking out their high spirits in the brothel districts. That year the Sign of the Smock had been besieged and only the prompt intervention of one of Long Nell's powerful friends had prevented the place from being burned to the ground.

Petronella shivered. The annual riots were a known danger to one in her profession. She could take precautions. But the annual killing of a woman of a specific description was something else entirely. Was Lady Appleton right? Had there been more deaths than the three they'd uncovered? One a year?

Frowning, Petronella wondered why Lady Appleton was so interested. She had not specified her relationship to the woman whose body she had claimed. Diane, she'd called her. Why had this Diane chosen to walk the streets of Southwark alone in the early morning hours of St. Mark's Day?

Lady Appleton did not seem consumed by grief, or by rage, as might be expected after the death of a near relative or a good friend. There was something more to this matter than the gentlewoman had shared, Petronella decided. Something, she'd be willing to wager, to do with Sir Robert.

Did Lady Appleton think her own husband had murdered the woman? And the others, too? It was possible, she supposed. Lady Appleton must know that Sir Robert had access to both Whitehall Palace and Bankside.

Six years earlier, Diego had, too.

She wanted to dismiss that possibility, but in truth she knew very little about the man's everyday life. And he had confessed to taking Lora Tylney's innocence, if not her life.

"'Tis not your time yet,” Diego had told her, and then he'd said Lora's death had changed him.

Petronella's involuntary shiver focused Vincent's attention on her. “What troubles you, Molly?” he asked.

She managed a weak smile. Vincent was the only one left who called her by that name. He had been employed in Southwark's stews longer than she had.

"Lady Appleton came to me for information,” she confided. Then she told him everything, even confessing her uneasiness about Diego Cordoba.

"There was a woman five years back,” Vincent said after a considerable pause for thought. “Little Alice.” Petronella's heart skipped a beat. “Strangled, or so I was told. Near Eastertide."

Close, Petronella thought. Too close. “Any others?"

He shook his shaggy head. “May be records in the parish registers."

"I could ask to inspect them.” Petronella knew that every parish was required to keep records of burials, including the cause of death in the entry, but the law was haphazardly enforced. Many parish priests could barely read, let alone write. Their clerks were no better educated.

"You do not want to call the church's attention to yourself."

"No,” she agreed. “I will ask at the other houses, then."

"I will ask,” Vincent said.

"Do you care so much for my reputation?” She meant to tease him, but his expression remained as somber as a Puritan's.

"Heloise, at the Castle-on-the-Hoop, will remember Little Alice."

"I'll leave Heloise to you, and glad of it.” The brothelkeeper was a grotesque creature, nearly as wide as she was tall, and that all covered in rolls of fat. The Castle-on-the-Hoop was located at the other end of Bankside, in both geography and prosperity. Near London Bridge, it bounded on Deadman's Place, Maiden Lane, and Bankside, just beyond the Antelope and the Bullhead. All three of those properties shared a wharf, and all three had seen better days. The average girl working in any one of them serviced thirty to forty men a night.

Several hours later, Vincent returned to report that Heloise did remember Little Alice, and had confirmed she'd been small and dark haired. There might also have been another murder, perhaps three years back, but no one could remember the woman's name or the exact date of her death.

Vincent once more shook his shaggy head. “Hard to imagine now, but I've heard tell that Heloise herself was once a lissome little lass. Not so small as you are, Molly, but none seeing her then could have guessed she'd grow to such great, gross proportions."

Petronella did not care for the implication she might end up another Heloise. Her words came out more sharp than she'd intended. “Someone must check the entries in the parish register. There is no help for it now."

"I will see to it,” Vincent promised.

"Good.” She patted his cheek. “Send hot water up from the kitchen,” she instructed, dismissing him. “I would bathe before the evening's work begins."

As she soaked in her leather tub a short time later, Petronella considered what she had learned. There were still years unaccounted for if there had been a small, dark woman murdered each St. Mark's Day since Queen Mary's time. She would have to search further afield to find those remaining victims.

Whores congregated in other districts besides Bankside. Duke Humphrey's Rents near Puddle Dock were in the Liberty of St. Andrews-at-the-Wardrobe. Then there were the houses in Cock's Lane and along Duke Street, both near Smithfield, where brothels had long operated by paying hefty bribes to officials to look the other way.

She would visit those places, she resolved, and ask a few more questions here in Southwark, as well. Then she would send word to Lady Appleton and they would compare what they had each discovered.

With a sense of amused wonderment, Petronella realized she was looking forward to her next encounter with the gentlewoman.

It had been a long time since Lady Mary Grey had last seen Susanna Appleton. Nearly ten years, by her reckoning. Whitsunday, the twenty-fifth day of May in the year of our Lord 1553. At a triple wedding. The most important nuptials performed that day had united Lady Mary's sister, Lady Jane Grey, and Lord Guildford Dudley in the bonds of matrimony.

Susanna had been newly married herself then, wed less than a year to Robert Appleton. She could not yet have been twenty, but she'd seemed old to Lady Mary, a girl half that age.

For a moment, as Lady Appleton made her way through the gardens of Whitehall Palace from the river steps at the bottom of the orchard, Lady Mary let memories of that long-ago day flood into her mind. The weddings had been held at Durham House on the Strand. If she squinted toward the northeast from her chamber window, Lady Mary could just make out the twin turrets flanking its water gate. At the time of the weddings, the mansion had belonged to the duke of Northumberland, Lord Guildford's powerful, frightening father.

How her own father had cursed, Lady Mary remembered, when Jane balked at marrying Lord Guildford. Then their mother, ever more straightforward, had beaten the bride into submission. The Lady Frances had been a great one for such heats until the day she died. Lady Mary had learned early to avoid being noticed. She'd almost been left behind on the day of the wedding.

A short service had been followed by feasting, masques, and jousting. That had all been very exciting to the girl she'd once been, but afterward she and many of the other guests, along with Lord Guildford, had been passing ill of food poisoning. Someone, she thought with the clarity of hindsight, should have taken that as an omen.

Lady Appleton reached the little knoll where Lady Mary waited. “It was good of you to agree to meet with me so soon, my lady,” she said.

Lady Mary looked up at her. Way up at her. In the last ten years, Lady Mary had not grown at all. She was a bit over four feet tall, a fact made more noticeable by a malformed back.

She knew perfectly well that people called her Crouchback Mary out of her hearing. She was able to ignore that fact because, with her sister Jane dead, executed for trying to take the throne from Queen Mary, and her sister Catherine imprisoned and in disgrace for a runaway marriage, she, the Lady Mary Grey, was heiress presumptive to Queen Elizabeth. If aught happened to her royal cousin, Lady Mary would succeed to the throne of England.

With that in mind, Lady Mary drew herself up as much as she was able and accepted as her due the obeisance Susanna Appleton made her.

"Sit down,” Lady Mary said, indicating a bench in the shade of a fantastically shaped hedge. “You are much too tall."

Lady Appleton sat, but plainly her attention was caught by the beauty around them in the royal gardens.

"No herbs, I fear,” Lady Mary said. She knew of Lady Appleton's reputation as an herbalist. In fact, she had read the woman's work on poisons. A most useful book, she'd thought at the time, both for avoiding accidental poisoning and ridding oneself of enemies.

"Can we see the sundial from here? My husband tells me it is one of the wonders of England, having in it no fewer than thirty different devices for telling the time."

"All paths lead to it,” Lady Mary said. Broad and gravel strewn, they ran between the flower beds. The sundial, as Lady Mary and the other young women at court had reason to know, also contained a fountain. More than once, an unsuspecting visitor had found himself doused with cold water.

"You have not come here to talk of gardens,” Lady Mary said in a preemptory manner. “Your letter mentioned a desire to know of certain events which took place six years ago.

"I need your help, my lady. You are the only person I could think of who was at court under both the previous queen and the current one.

"That is no great accomplishment on my part, but rather an accident of birth,” Lady Mary pointed out. “If you seek my influence, you will be disappointed. I am for the most part ignored."

"I do think that means you are like to see and hear all the more, which is exactly to my purpose."

Not easily flattered, Lady Mary regarded her with suspicion, but there was nothing but sincerity in Lady Appleton's face. “What is it you would know?"

"An acquaintance of mine was murdered two days ago,” she said bluntly. “I believe there may be a connection to another death, here at Whitehall, some six years ago. Is it possible you remember anything of that event? The victim was one of Queen Mary's chamberers, a woman named Lora Tylney.

"Ah,” Lady Mary said. Her interest piqued, she decided to be helpful. “As it happens, the death of the chamberer attracted my attention at the time. Several noteworthy courtiers were involved."

She might herself be short, hunchbacked, red haired, and homely, but Lady Mary appreciated tall, handsome men.

The Lady Mary's avid expression boded well for Susanna's mission. When the noblewoman described what she remembered of the incident, Susanna listened carefully, asking occasional questions. By the time she returned to the Privy Stairs, where she'd left Jennet waiting, she'd learned considerably more than she'd expected to. More, perhaps, than she'd wanted to know.

"Well?” Jennet demanded. She hadn't liked being left out, but the Lady Mary had agreed to meet Susanna in Whitehall Gardens, on the day following the interview with Petronella, only if Susanna came alone.

"Well, it becomes more imperative than ever that I talk to Sir Robert.” Susanna had hoped to speak with him the previous night, but he had not come home. Again. He would have to show up later today, she thought. Diane's funeral was set for four that afternoon.