Edward Marston - The Nine Giants

‘It is also his prerogative.’

‘I do not give a fig for that!’ barked Firethorn. ‘If he will betray our eminence, then I will gladly betray his. His wife has told me of this pageant that he has arranged. Do you know its subject? Nine worthies of his Guild. What drama lies in that? Was ever such a stale subject foisted upon an audience? And that is what has put us in the shade here.’

‘You take it as a personal affront.’

‘I do, sir. Matilda alone can recompense me.’

‘Yet you spoke just now of love.’

‘Love of her and love of my profession.’

‘You would take revenge on Walter Stanford?’

‘Indeed, I will,’ said Firethorn heartily. ‘Let him have his nine giants. In Richmond, I will have mine .’

The Bull and Butcher was a small tavern in Shoreditch that offered them an excellent meal in a private room. Rowland Ashway sat on one side of the table and ate with noisy gusto. Seated opposite him, James Renfrew was more interested in the Canary wine than the food. The table was loaded. They started with a dish of boiled carp then had been served with a boiled pudding. Chines of veal and of mutton came next with a calf’s-head pie to follow. A leg of beef roasted whole then made its appearance. Capons were then set before them. A dish of tarts helped to sweeten the taste of all the meat and the rich sauces.

Ashway raised a cup to announce a toast.

‘To our success, my friend!’

‘It is not achieved as yet.’

‘We have not far to go,’ said the other. ‘The boy has been killed and with him goes the fear of discovery. Now we may turn back to the main business of our little partnership. Walter Stanford must be stopped.’

‘I thought to have done that already.’

‘We have maimed him but not yet cut him down.’

‘Do we proceed against him now?’

‘With all haste, sir. He cannot and must not be Lord Mayor or all our hopes will founder.’ Ashway reached for another tart. ‘Luke Pugsley has served my purposes so well that I would keep him there in perpetuity, but the law will not allow it. That is why I chose a successor of like temperament and soft intelligence.’

‘Who was that?’

‘Henry Drewry, the salter.’

‘But you could not secure his election.’

‘Stanford won the contest by a single vote. The case was altered cruelly. Instead of a pliant salter, I have to contend with a shrewd mercer and that’s not good.’

‘What of yourself?’ said Renfrew. ‘Does your own ambition rise as high as the office?’

Ashway grunted. ‘As high and much higher. But the Brewers come fourteenth in the order of precedence. That puts me two places away from the Great Twelve and it is from them that the mayor is chosen.’

‘You could translate to another Guild.’

‘That is in hand, sir. Why do you think I have been at such pains to woo this fool of a fishmonger? Luke Pugsley has sworn to take me into his Guild and promote me to the mayoralty.’ He scowled darkly. ‘All that will vanish if this mercer takes the chain.’

‘I hate the man,’ said Renfrew flatly.

‘ Enough ?’

‘More than enough.’

The younger man picked up a capon and tore at it with his teeth. There was a violence in him which had not been appeased by the murder of a Dutch apprentice. He was ready to add more deaths to the list in pursuit of his ends. As he emptied another cup of wine, he looked across at the gross figure on whom his future depended.

‘What of Master Bracewell?’

‘His turn will surely come.’

‘Let it be soon. Firk is promised.’

‘We may bide our time a little.’

‘But this book holder pursues us hotly.’

‘He will find nothing,’ said Ashway smugly. ‘What he may know, he cannot prove. The boy was the witness and his voice has been silenced. Do not concern yourself about this Nicholas Bracewell. He is no threat to us now.’

There was much to do in the aftermath of Hans Kippel’s death. The body had to be cleaned and laid out. A report on the circumstances of his death had to be given to the relevant authorities. In the wake of the riot, the city magistrates would be busy the next day but a murder was a more serious matter than assault or damage to property. Nicholas Bracewell was realistic. The chances of the killers being tracked down by official means was very slim indeed since the crime had been committed behind a shield. An outbreak of holiday anarchy had been provoked by guileful men. Nicholas recognised stage-management.

It took him a long time to calm Anne Hendrik down and to convince her that it was not her fault. Even if she had kept the boy locked up at home, he would still have been taken. Men who could set fire to a house could just as easily smash down its front door. He left her with Preben van Loew and set out on what was to be a long journey around the taverns of London. The riot was his starting place and it was not difficult to trace it back to the White Hart. Frightened witnesses from Eastcheap all the way down to Southwark had marked its searing trajectory. The inn was still very busy and the drink was still flowing freely. Nicholas was not surprised to learn how the apprentices were first aroused and he knew at once who had supplied the strong beer.

But he was not in search of unruly youths who had been turned into a marauding pack. His quarry was a man who might be anywhere in the teeming city on that raucous night. With strong legs and a full purse, Nicholas was determined to find him. The first soldiers were in the Antelope, carousing with whores and far too inebriated to give him anything more than the names of other taverns which they frequented. The book holder trailed around them all and bought his information bit by bit with drinks for already drunken men. It was like trying to piece together a jigsaw out of wisps of smoke. Discharged soldiers did not wish to talk about their soldiery. On a public holiday such as this, they simply wanted to submit themselves wholly to the pleasures of the city. Nicholas was therefore sent on what seemed like one long and circuitous tour of every inn, ale-house, stew, ordinary and gambling den within the city walls.

One man half-remembered Michael Delahaye, another had gone whoring with him, a third knew him better but was too sodden to recall any useful details. It was painstaking but each new fact took Nicholas one step closer to the person who could really help him. He got the name at the Royal Oak, the address of his lodgings from the Smithfield Arms then found the man himself after midnight in the taproom of the Falcon Inn. Though he was fatigued by a whole day of celebration, the reveller responded warmly to the offer of a pint of sack and a plate of anchovies and made room for Nicholas on his settle.

Geoffrey Mallard was a small, stooping and rather dishevelled individual with a habit of scratching at his ginger beard. He had been an army surgeon with the English expeditionary force to the Netherlands and his memory was not entirely addled by overindulgence.

‘Michael Delahaye? I knew him well.’

‘Tell me all you can, sir.’

‘Do you ask as a friend?

‘I pulled his dead body from the Thames.’

When Nicholas told his tale, the surgeon was sobered enough by the news to supply all manner of new details. Lieutenant Michael Delahaye had not taken to soldiering at all. The glamour which had attracted him proved to be illusory and the muddy reality of service abroad was a trial to his free spirit. He writhed under the discipline and cursed the privations. There was worse friction.

‘He made an enemy of his captain,’ said Mallard.

‘Why?’

‘They loathed each other on sight, sir. Two worthy fellows in their own right who could never lie straight in the same bed together. They were warned and they were threatened but their enmity continued to the point where a gentleman must defend his honour.’