Twisted: The Collected Stories (24 page)

Stout took a clay pipe, small in his massive woodworker’s hands, and packed it with aromatic weed from the Americas, which was currently very much in style. He touched a burning straw to the bowl and inhaled deeply. Soon smoke wafted to the ceiling. He slowly said to Hal, “Thy mockery is not entirely misplaced, my friend, but my simple mind tells me that justice is not altogether alien to us, even among the denizens of London. What of the plays we see? Ofttimes they abound with justice. The tragedy of Faustus . . . and that which we saw at the Globe a fortnight ago, inked by our friend Will Shakespeare: the story of Richard the Third. The characters therein are awash with evil—but right prevails, as Henry Tudor doth prove by slaying the ‘bloody dog.’ ”

“Exactly,” Charles whispered.

“But they be make-believe, my friends,” Hal countered. “They are of no more substance than the ink with which Kit Marlowe and Will penned those entertainments.”

Charles would not, however, be diverted. “What know thou of this Murtaugh? Hath he any interests?”

Hal answered, “Other men’s wives and other men’s money.”

“What else know thou?”

“As I said, he is a swordsman or so fancies himself. And he rides with the hounds whenever he quits London for the country. He is intoxicated with pride. One cannot flatter him too much. He strives constantly to impress members of the Court.”

“Where lives he?”

Stout and Hal remained silent, clearly troubled by their friend’s deadly intent.

“Where?” Charles persisted.

Hal sighed and waved his hand to usher away a cloud of smoke from Stout’s pipe. “That weed is most foul.”

“Faith, sir, I find it calming.”

Finally Hal turned to Charles. “Murtaugh hath but an apartment fit for a man of no station higher than journeyman and far smaller than he boasts. But it is near the Strand and the locale puts him in the regular company of men more powerful and richer than he. Thou will find it in Whitefriars, near the embankment.”

“And where doth he spend his days?”

“I know not for certain but I would speculate that, being a dog beneath the table of Court, he goes daily to the palace at Whitehall to pick through whatever sundry scraps of gossip and schemes he might find and doth so even now, when the queen is in Greenwich.”

“And therefore what route would he take on the
way from his apartment to the palace?” Charles asked Stout, who through his trade knew most of the labyrinthine streets of London.

“Charles,” Stout began. “I like not what thou suggest.”

“What route?”

Reluctantly the man answered, “On horse he would follow the embankment west then south, when the river turns, to Whitehall.”

“Of the piers along that route, know thou the most deserted?” Charles inquired.

Stout said, “The one in most disuse would be Temple wharf. As the Inns of Court have grown in number and size, the area hath fewer wares houses than once it did.” He added pointedly, “It also be near to the place where prisoners are chained at water level and made to endure the tides. Perchance thou ought shackle thyself there following thy felony, Charles, and, in doing, save the Crown’s prosecutor a day’s work.”

“Dear friend,” Hal began, “I pray thee, put whatever foul plans are in thy heart aside. Thou cannot—”

But his words were stopped by the staunch gaze of their friend, who looked from one of his comrades to the other and said, “As when fire in one small house doth leap to the thatch of its neighbors and continue its rampaging journey till all the row be destroyed, so it did happen that many lives were burned to ash with the single death of my father.” Charles held his hand up, displaying the signet ring that Marr had given him yesterday. The gold caught the light from Hal’s lantern and seemed to burn with all the fury in Charles’s heart. “I cannot live
without avenging the vile alchemy that converted a fine man into nothing more than this paltry piece of still metal.”

A look passed between Hal and Stout, and the larger of the two said to Charles, “Thy mind is set, that much is clear. Faith, dear friend, whatever thy decision be, we shall stand by thee.”

Hal added, “And for my part I shall look out for Margaret and thy children—if the matter come to that. They shall want for nothing if it be in my means to so provide.”

Charles embraced them then said mirthfully, “Now, gentlemen, we have the night ahead of us.”

“Wherefore shall we go?” asked Stout uneasily. “Thou art not bent on murder this evening, I warrant?”

“Nay, good friend—it shall be a week or two before I am prepared to meet the villain.” Charles fished in his purse and found coins in sufficient number for that evening’s plans. He said, “I am in the mood to take in a play and visit our friend Will Shakespeare after.”

“I am all for that, Charles,” Hal said as they stepped into the street. Then he added in a whisper, “Though if I were as dearly set on saying heigh-ho to God in person as thou seem to be, then I myself would forego amusement and scurry to a church, that I might find a priest’s rump to humbly kiss with my exceedingly penitent lips.”

The constable, whose post was along the riverbank near the Inns of Court, was much pleased with his
life here. Yes, one could find apple-squires offering gaudy women to men upon the street and cutthroats and pick-purses and cheats and ruffians. But unlike bustling Cheapside, with its stores of shoddy merchandise, or the mad suburbs south of the river, his jurisdiction was populated largely with upstanding gentlemen and ladies and he would often go a day or two without hearing an alarum raised.

This morning, at nine of the clock, the squat man was sitting at a table in his office, arguing with his huge bailiff, Red James, regarding the number of heads currently resting on pikes upon London Bridge.

“It be thirty-two if it be one,” Red James muttered.

“Then ’tis one, for thou art wrong, you goose. The number be no more than twenty-five.”

“I did count them at dawn, I did, and the tally was thirty-two.” Red James lit a candle and produced a deck of cards.

“Leave the tallow be,” the constable snapped. “It cost money and must needs come out of our allowance. We shall play by the light of day.”

“Faith, sir,” Red James grumbled, “if I be a goose, as you claim, then I cannot be a cat and hence have not the skill to see in the dark.” He lit another wick.

“What good art thou, sir?” The constable bit his thumb at the bailiff and was about to rise and blow the tapers out when a young man dressed in workman’s clothing ran to the window.

“Sirs, I seek the constable at once!” he gasped.

“And thou have found him.”

“Sir, I am Henry Rawlings and I am come to raise
a hue and cry! A most grievous attack is under way.”

“What be thy complaint?” The constable looked over the man and found him to be apparently intact. “Thou seem untouched by bodkin or cudgel.”

“Nay, it is not I who am hurt but another who is
about
to be. And most grievously, I fear. I was walking to a warehouse on the embankment not far from here. And—”

“Get on, man, important business awaits.”

“—and a gentleman pulled me aside and pointed below to Temple wharf, where we did see two men circling with swords. Then I did hear the younger of the two state his intent to kill the other, who cried out for help. Then the dueling did commence.”

“An apple-squire fighting with a customer over the price of a woman,” Red James said in a tired voice. “Of no interest to us.” He began to shuffle the cards.

“Nay, sir, that is not so. One of them—the older, and the man most disadvantaged—was a peer of the realm. Robert Murtaugh.”

“Sir Murtaugh, friend to the lord mayor and in the duke’s favor!” Alarmed, the constable rose to his feet.

“The very same, sir,” the lackey said breathlessly. “I come to thee in haste to raise hue and cry.”

“Bailiffs!” the constable cried and girded himself with his sword and dagger. “Bailiffs, come forth at once!”

Two men stumbled into the room from quarters next to the den, their senses muddled by the difficult marriage of this morning’s sleep and last night’s wine.

“Violence is afoot upon Temple wharf. We go forthwith.”

Red James picked up a long pike, his weapon of choice.

The men hurried out into the cool morning and turned south toward the Thames, over which smoke and mist hung thick as fleece on a lamb. In five minutes they were at the porch overlooking Temple wharf, where, as the lackey had assured, a dreadful contest was under way.

A young man was fighting vigorously with Sir Murtaugh. The peer fought well but he was dressed in the pompous and cumbersome clothing then fashionable at Court—a Turkish theme, replete with gilt robe and feathered turban—and, because of the restrictive garments, was losing ground to the young cutthroat. Just as the ruffian drew back to strike a blow at the knight, the constable shouted, “Cease all combat at once! Put down thy weapons!”

But what might have ended in peace turned to unexpected sorrow as Sir Murtaugh, startled by the constable’s shout, lowered his parrying arm and looked up toward the voice.

The attacker continued his lunge and the blade struck the poor knight in the chest. The blow did not pierce his doublet but Sir Murtaugh was knocked back against the rail. The wood gave way and the man fell to the rocks forty feet below. A multitude of swans fled from the disturbance as his body rolled down the embankment and into the water, where it sank beneath the grim surface.

“Arrest him!” cried the constable, and the three bailiffs proceeded to the startled ruffian, whom Red
James struck with a cudgel before he could flee. The murderer fell senseless at their feet.

The bailiffs then climbed down a ladder and proceeded to the water’s edge. But of Sir Murtaugh, no trace was visible.

“Murder committed this day! And in my jurisdiction,” said the constable with a grim face, though in truth he was already reveling in the promise of the reward and celebrity that his expeditious capture of this villain would bring.

The Crown’s head prosecutor, Jonathan Bolt, an arthritic, bald man of forty, was given the duty of bringing Charles Cooper to justice for the murder of Robert Murtaugh.

Sitting in his drafty office near Whitehall palace, ten of the clock the day after Murtaugh’s body was fished from the Thames, Bolt reflected that the crime of murdering an ass like Murtaugh was hardly worth the trouble to pursue. But the nobility desperately needed villains like Murtaugh to save them from their own foolishness and profligacy, so Bolt had been advised to make an example of the vintner Charles Cooper.

However, the prosecutor had also been warned to make certain that he proceed with the case in such a way that Murtaugh’s incriminating business affairs not be aired in public. So it was decided that Cooper be tried not in Sessions Court but in the Star Chamber, the private court of justice dating back to His Highness Henry VIII.

The Star Chamber did not have the authority to
sentence a man to die. Still, Bolt reflected, an appropriate punishment would be meted out. Upon rendering a verdict of guilt against the cutthroat, the members of the Star Chamber bench would surely order that Cooper’s ears be hacked off, that he be branded with a hot iron and then transported—banished—probably to the Americas, where he would live as a ruined beggar all his life. His family would forfeit whatever estate he had and be turned out into the street.

The unstated lesson would be clear: Do not trouble those who are the de facto protectors of the nobility.

Having interviewed the constable and the witness in the cases—a lackey named Henry Rawlings—Bolt now left his office and proceeded to Westminster, the halls of government.

In an anteroom hidden away in the gizzard of the building, a half dozen lawyers and their clients awaited their turn to go before the bench, but Cooper’s case had been placed top on the docket and Jonathan Bolt walked past the others and entered the Star Chamber itself.

The dim room, near the Privy Council, was much smaller and less decorous than its notorious reputation imputed. Quite plain, it boasted only candles for light, a likeness of Her Majesty and, upon the ceiling, the painted celestial objects that bestowed upon the room its unjudicial name.