Read The Silent Woman Online

Authors: Edward Marston

Tags: #_rt_yes, #_MARKED, #tpl, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical, #Great Britain - History - Elizabeth; 1558-1603, #Mystery, #Theater, #Theatrical Companies, #Fiction

The Silent Woman (22 page)

BOOK: The Silent Woman
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Lucy Whetcombe rose from her knees and looked around. Her plan had worked. She and Susan had often played games of hide-and-seek in the labyrinthine interior of the house in Crock Street, and the girls knew every inch of it. That knowledge had helped her to escape. The two men outside the street could only watch who entered or left the building by the front or side doors. They could not see the entrance at the rear of the warehouse, still less the door to the granary, which stood above it. Lucy had waited until the sky began to darken then made her move. Dressed in hat and coat, she made her way stealthily across the Great Court, into the warehouse and up the ladder into the granary. Grain was lifted up in sacks by means of a rope and pulley. Lucy used the device for her own purpose, shinning swiftly down the rope before racing off towards the church. Those who caught a glimpse of the darting child did not recognise her and the two men on duty did not even know she was gone.

Now, however, it was time to go back. Lucy offered up a prayer that her means of escape had not been detected. She needed the rope to regain entry to the house. It was now dark outside and the curfew would soon be sounded. She crept towards the church door and lifted the iron latch before swinging the massive timber back on its hinges. After a final glance up at the main altar, she slipped out and closed the door behind her.

She was about to sprint off back home when she saw
two figures a short distance away. They were engaged in an animated conversation. Lucy could only see them in stark profile but she recognised them immediately. Arthur Calmady seemed to be having a heated argument with Barnard Sweete. The vicar and the lawyer were both men of extraordinary self-possession, yet here they were in open dispute, waving their arms about like two customers haggling over the same purchase in the market. Lucy Whetcombe could not hear what they said but it involved the church in some way. At the height of the argument, Sweete pointed towards the building to emphasise a point and Calmady finally backed down. It was a subdued vicar who finally slunk away.

Lucy Whetcombe ran back to the house and climbed in through the door of the granary. Nobody saw her and she had not been missed from the house. When she got back to Susan’s chamber, she let herself in and took the dolls out of their hiding place. Arthur Calmady was in one hand and Barnard Sweete in the other. She held them up to examine them then banged them together in a fierce fight. The vicar’s head eventually snapped off. The lawyer was the man to fear.

 

The flapping sound brought Nicholas Bracewell instantly awake. He sat up in his bed with a knife at the ready in his hand, but no attack came and the door remained locked. When the noise continued, he wondered if a bird had somehow got into the chamber and was flying around. Nicholas had chosen to sleep alone in one of the attic rooms. After the injury to Owen Elias, he did not wish to put the life of another friend at risk by sharing a bedchamber with him. It was dawn and a tiny filter of light was probing the shutters. Nicholas peered into the gloom and listened intently. What
he could hear was no bird but it might be the softer beat of a bat’s wings. The creature might somehow have gained entry through the cracks in the roof. Nicholas got out of bed and opened the shutters to throw more light into the room.

It was then that he saw it. The piece of parchment was trapped under his door. A stiff breeze was blowing in off the river and causing a draught in the attic of the Jolly Sailor. The parchment was vibrating like a wing. Nicholas picked it up and opened the door but there was no sign of any messenger. Unfolding the paper, he took it to the window and held it up to the light. He could just make out the words and they jerked him completely awake. The message was from his appointed assassin. It was written in a fine hand and its doggerel was a derisive sneer at the company.

Fair exchange is all I seek

Bracewell Nick for Master Gill

Merchants wise are never meek

Strike a bargain or I kill

Come at once or Westfield’s Men

Will ne’er see Barnaby again.

Nicholas blenched. He was being offered the hardest bargain of all. If Barnaby Gill really were in the man’s hands, then he would be murdered without scruple. The only way to release him was to confront the man. Care had been taken with the message. In case it went astray, it was in a code that only Nicholas could understand. The key line jumped out at him to give him the meeting place.

Merchants wise are never meek.

Wise Street lay in the network of lanes and alleys around the harbour. Meek Row joined it at the far end. It was an area full of warehouses and cellars. The cargo waiting there for collection was Barnaby Gill, but there was no proof that he was even still alive. Nicholas dressed quickly and wore sword and dagger. When he put on his buff jerkin, he concealed the poniard up his sleeve. Even with three weapons, he felt he was at a disadvantage. The man was several steps ahead of him all the time.

Nicholas first went down to check Barnaby Gill’s chamber, but it was empty and the bed was unused. He really was being held hostage. It was a way of luring Nicholas out of the safety of the company. There was no point in taking anyone with him. Nicholas was quite sure he would be watched all the way to the harbour. If he left the Jolly Sailor with Owen Elias or Edmund Hoode, they would arrive to find Gill beyond rescue. The choice of target showed the man’s keen intelligence. Having watched the performance of
The Happy Malcontent
at Marlborough, he had seen Barnaby Gill’s crucial importance in the work of Westfield’s Men. He had also picked out the loner in the company, the man who wandered off to enjoy his pleasures in private and who therefore made himself more vulnerable.

Leaving the inn, Nicholas made his way briskly towards the harbour. It was a dry day with a searching breeze. A number of people were already moving about the streets. Traders were streaming in from the country to sell their wares at market. Eager housewives waited with baskets to get the earliest bargains. The whole city would soon be buzzing with the sound of trade. He hoped that his own transaction would somehow end in success.

Nicholas did not need to look again at Anne Hendrik’s sketch of the man. It was fixed clearly in his mind. He had learnt something else about his adversary now. He was a Devonian. Only a local man would have known that Nicholas Bracewell’s apprenticeship as a merchant entailed a three-month stay in Bristol. Wise Street and Meek Row would be meaningless names to most of the inhabitants of the city. Someone who had worked in and around the port would know them, however, and the man had banked on that knowledge. The killer might even be from Barnstaple. It would explain why he had been selected to intercept the messenger to London.

He was close to the harbour now and his steps slowed involuntarily. From this point on, the utmost vigilance was needed. Having drawn him out of the inn, the man might well have laid an ambush. Nicholas jerked the poniard down inside his sleeve so that its handle could be flicked into his palm in a split second. He kept to the middle of each thoroughfare so that he could not be jumped on from any doorway or recess.

Wise Street eventually stood before him. Some of the warehouses were already opening and several people were arriving for work. Meek Row was at the far end. There was a building at the junction of the two, and Nicholas saw at once why it had been chosen. It was a small warehouse, but part of it had been gutted by fire and it had no roof. Doors and windows were boarded up but there were gaps between the timbers where a man could easily squeeze through. It was the ideal place to hold a hostage. Nobody would search for him amid the debris of a burnt-out property, and the location gave the man holding him three possible exits. He
could come out into Wise Street, into Meek Row or into the courtyard at the rear of the building then vanish into a veritable maze.

Nicholas walked around the warehouse twice before he ventured in. One of the timbers had been torn away from the door at the rear and this was his entrance. He came into the main body of the warehouse and scrunched his way over the charred remains of its stock. When he was in open space in the middle of the area, a voice rang out.

‘Stay there!’

Nicholas halted. He had been right. The voice had a distant echo of Barnstaple. He was up against a fellow Devonian. He tried to work out where the man was hiding.

‘Throw down your weapons!’ ordered Lamparde.

‘When I see Master Gill.’

‘Throw down your weapons or I’ll kill him now.’

‘Prove to me that he is still alive.’

There was a long pause and Nicholas began to fear that the man had carried out his threat. A dragging sound then fixed his gaze on the door to the other part of the warehouse. Still bound and gagged, Barnaby Gill was being hauled unceremoniously through the debris. He looked across at Nicholas Bracewell with eyes that were bulging with fear and panic. Gill was alive but harrowed by his ordeal.

‘Throw down your weapons!’ repeated the man.

‘How do I know you won’t kill both of us?’

‘This idiot is of no interest to me,’ said Lamparde as he kicked the prone figure. ‘And I keep a bargain.’

Nicholas Bracewell took the full measure of the man who had stalked him so relentlessly. After two murders and two attempts on his own life, he was finally face-to-face with him.
Anne Hendrik’s drawing had a flimsy accuracy but it caught nothing of the man’s menace. The missing earring was now back in place and the beard was positively glistening.

The man drew a sword and held it to Gill’s chest.

‘You have one more chance to throw down your weapons.’

Gill writhed around on the ground but the sword was still aimed at his heart. He stared up at the man with whom he had entrusted his most intimate secret. Betrayal at such a moment and in such a place was totally unbearable.

Nicholas tossed his rapier and dagger to the ground.

‘Step towards us!’ ordered the man then stopped him again when he was well clear of his weapons. ‘Take off your jerkin!’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Take it off so that I may see you have no concealed weapons.’ His sword touched Gill’s chest again. ‘Now!’

Nicholas obeyed. He was now only ten yards away from them but twice that distance from his sword and dagger. There was no hope of reaching his rapier in time to tackle the man on equal terms. He took off the jerkin with great care, first removing his left arm then letting the garment drop down his back before peeling it down his other arm. Nicholas now held it over the wrist of his right hand to cover the poniard. Spreading his arms wide, he exposed his shirt and belt.

‘Turn round!’ said Lamparde. ‘Turn slowly!’

Keeping his arms out, Nicholas rotated his body and took a firmer grip on the handle of the poniard. It was soon needed. With his prey now apparently at his mercy, Lamparde lunged forward to cut him down with his rapier, but Nicholas was ready for him. Swinging on his heel, he
flung the jerkin around the end of the blade and deflected its viciousness. At the same time, he brought the poniard flashing up to slash at his assailant’s doublet and open up the sleeve. Blood gushed out and Lamparde let out a cry of indignation. He pulled his sword free and lunged again but the swinging jerkin was this time thrown into his face. His own dagger once again drew blood, cutting across his sword hand and forcing him to drop the weapon.

Nicholas flung himself upon the man and knocked him to the ground, but Lamparde was a powerful man in any brawl. He grabbed the wrist which held the poniard and applied such brute strength that he turned the point of the weapon towards Nicholas’s face. As they rolled and grappled on the ground, the book holder saw the poniard moving inexorably closer and aimed at his eye. To release the dagger from his grasp would be to yield his weapon but it had been turned against him with such force that he was finding it hard to resist. Pretending to fight against the downward pressure, he suddenly gave in to it and twisted his head sharply to the left, allowing the poniard to sink harmlessly into the ground and throwing his assailant off balance.

A well-placed knee and a roll of the shoulder sent Lamparde off him and Nicholas leapt to his feet with the dagger turned on him. Lamparde dived for his rapier but a heavy foot got first to the blade. The man was not finished yet. Scooping up a handful of blackened debris, he threw it in his adversary’s face and gained a precious moment to get up and flee towards the doorway. Nicholas wiped the dust from his eyes then gathered up the rapier. When he got to Barnaby Gill, he used the latter to slice through the cord that held his hands then left him the weapon to cut through the
rest of his bonds. He himself went through the door into the other part of the warehouse.

Fire damage had been less extensive here and many of the old beams still stood. Down one wall was a series of bays where the goods had been stacked. Boxes and huge piles of old sacks offered further hiding places. Nicholas was back on equal terms again. The man would certainly have a dagger and his prowess with the weapon had already been shown. As Nicholas crept along the wall of the warehouse, he knew that the first thrust would be decisive. One mistake would be fatal.

Lamparde was motionless. Incensed by his wounds, he was determined to kill Nicholas for sheer pleasure now. He tried hard to control his laboured breathing. All he had to do was to wait behind the thick wooden beam and his target would present itself. Through a chink in the timber, he could see Nicholas approaching. The advantage had swung his way again. To poison a girl had given him no real satisfaction and to stab a pickpocket during a play was a reflex act of revenge. This would be different. He would slowly cut the life out of Nicholas Bracewell.

Moving carefully in a crouched position, Nicholas looked down and saw the spots of blood on the ground. The man was somewhere in front of him. He got closer and closer to the beam that concealed his enemy but did not sense the danger at first. It was only when he was almost level with the hiding place that something made him pause. He sniffed the air. Leonard had spoken about a smell and the serving wench in Marlborough has noticed it as well. Nicholas identified it again. Oil of bergamot. A sickly sweet fragrance for a man who set such great store by his appearance that
he courted the looking glass every day. The aroma was quite unmistakable and it saved Nicholas’s life.

BOOK: The Silent Woman
11.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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