Paul Doherty: The poisoned chalice

I awoke in the Little Ease, a smelly, rat-filled dungeon, watered by the sewers of the Fleet river and the slops of the prison bearing the same name.

I must have been half-mad. I whimpered like a child, crouching in the cold, slimy darkness, until the grille above was pulled back and a bailiff with a face like a gargoyle's lashed me with a whip, before lowering a stoup of brackish water and a fly-infested dish of rancid meat. At last I calmed in the face of the sheer horror of the tragedy. Agnes was gone. The Ralembergs were dead and, judging from the dark blood stains on the front of my doublet, I was cast as the murderer. Those men in the Golden Turk had made me drunk deliberately. They had drugged my wine before moving me to that horror-filled garden.

I was frightened. I crouched, shivering with cold, until I was dragged up and thrown into a huge cage on a gaudily painted cart and driven down through the Shambles and Westchepe to the magistrates at the Guildhall. There the bailiffs pushed and shoved me through a porticoed entrance, down a long, dark, musty passageway into the main well of the court, fastening me to the bar; beyond it sat the three magistrates before a square table ringed by clerks. I wanted to vomit or faint. Only the terror of what had happened, and what might yet occur, kept me conscious.

A clerk read the charges out.

'That he did foully murder and commit the most dreadful homicides

…' Etc, etc.

Shallot's wits resurfaced. I felt the shadow of the noose and the true danger of my situation emerged. All my goods at the Golden Turk would be gone by now. That villain of a landlord was not the one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I had no money, I had no surety. De Macon was at sea, it would take weeks to send a petition to Wolsey, and my master was immersed in his good works at Ipswich. So who would speak for old Shallot? No one but dear Shallot himself so I pleaded not guilty and made my defence: I was Ralemberg's colleague, I had no grievance against him. I admired his family and loved his daughter. There were others, I pointed out, who might wish Ralemberg's death and I was their pathetic dupe. The chief magistrate, with the face of an old fox and the hard eyes of a weasel, heard me out. His two companions, however, sniggered as I referred to the great cardinal, affairs of state, and finally to the Luciferi.

Oh, yes, even then I dully understood that the Luciferi were the bastards who had perpetrated such a dreadful crime. They had decided to move just in case Ralemberg told me anything. They had executed him and his family, and made sure Shallot paid the price. Where, I wondered, were my bloody protectors?

Nevertheless, I had a glimmer of hope. The chief magistrate watched me intently as the prosecutor, a blundering serjeant-at-law, failed to prove I had any grievance against the Ralembergs and could not proffer any motive for the crime. Under questioning, the prosecutor did confess that a search of the house had revealed Ralemberg's and de Macon's indentures with me, as well as my own pathetic love letters to Mistress Agnes. His case came to hinge on one point. Had I left the Golden Turk to commit murder, or was I telling the truth about being drugged and placed in Ralemberg's garden after the dreadful crimes had been committed? The chief magistrate kept referring to this point and my opponent could not answer it. Yet I, too, had no proof of my innocence.

I was removed to the dungeon beneath the Guildhall whilst pursuivants were sent to the Golden Turk to investigate. Searches were also ordered throughout the port of London about de Macon's ship.

I was hustled away to a cold, stone-flagged cell beneath the Guildhall which I shared with two of the biggest rats I have ever clapped eyes on. Long, black, fat-bellied and red-eyed, the bastards watched me hungrily as if I was their next meal. I screamed and rattled my chains; they turned sluggishly away as if to say that one way or another they would eventually dine on my flesh. Later in the afternoon the sheriff's men came back and dragged me up before the justices. Weasel Eyes looked as if he hadn't moved but the other two hypocrites must have dined well for they were slouched, half-asleep, in their high-backed chairs. The court was quiet except for the scratching of the clerks' quills as they sat around their green baize-topped table.

'Master Shallot.' The chief justice's eyes seemed to smile. 'We have made enquiries at the Golden Turk.' The smile on his long face faded. 'The landlord cannot remember seeing you the night you were carousing there.'

'The lying bastard!' I screamed.

One of the escorts slapped me across the mouth.

'Master Shallot,' the justice intoned, 'moderate your language!'

'Or else what?' I yelled. 'You'll hang me? You are going to bloody well hang me anyway, for murders I never committed!'

I received a savage jab between the ribs. 'What about de Macon's ship?' I moaned.

'More bad news I am afraid, Master Shallot. De Macon will never confirm your story. His ship was seized and sunk by French privateers.'

Well, that was it. Shallot was going to hang. The magistrate put on a black cap, a three-cornered piece of silk. The clerk of the court, his sanctimonious face relishing the sonorous words of condemnation, stood behind him.

'Roger Shallot,' the magistrate thundered, 'we find you guilty of these terrible murders and so you must pay the full penalty of the law. You are to be taken whence you came and, at a time appointed by this court, hanged by the neck till dead!'

I thought of everything; praying, begging, laughing, entreating, trying to escape, all the things old Shallot tries to do when he's in a tight corner.

'Wait!' a girl's voice shouted from the back of the court. I turned and saw my saviour, the wench with black curly hair from the tavern. Beside her, the half-witted ostler she was dragging by the hand struggled with the guards.

'What is the matter?' the magistrate roared.

'Proof!' I yelled. 'Sir, you must hear her!'

I give the old bastard his due, he was a fair man. I think he knew there was something wrong. Anyway, he ordered the girl forward. She took the oath and swore she had seen me drunk. The ostler, whose accent was almost unintelligible, muttered that on the night the murders had been committed, I had been hustled dead drunk out of the tavern and into the hands of strangers waiting in the yard. The magistrate, staring at the ceiling, asked why the landlord had not remembered this. The girl shrugged and mumbled about him being too busy. Who cared? I was free! Penniless, beaten, starving, wretched, but I was free! The guards threw me out. The wench was waiting for me in the street. She pressed up against me.

'I came back, Master Shallot. You are a rogue but you'd never kill anyone!'

'Did you see anybody?' I asked.

She smiled and shook her head. 'I was busy upstairs with one of my customers.'

'You committed perjury on my behalf?'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'You make me laugh.'

'My possessions?' I asked.

'They are all gone. The landlord took them.'

‘I’ll kill the bastard!'

'No, you won't,' she whispered. 'He's dead already. He was found with his throat cut in one of the outhouses.'

'Do you know anything about it?'

'Men who spoke French have been seen near the tavern. You'd best not come back,' she added. 'Here, take this.' She slipped me a cloth containing strips of dried meat. Then she stood on tiptoe, kissed me and was gone.

I never saw her again. Months later I searched London but never found her. She was one of the kindest persons I ever met. She had the gentlest soul, and the finest pair of buttocks I have ever held. Let old Shallot tell you this: when you're in real trouble the women will help; most men are cowards. Oh, they like to show off in their peacock plumery, but it's all shadow and no substance with them.