The Midwife and the Assassin (32 page)

“Ah, but with the bishops out, neither Katherine nor Martha
can
take a license,” I said triumphantly.

“So there are hundreds of unlicensed midwives in London, and thousands more in the country, yet women are giving birth just as they always have. That is a wonder indeed.” Elizabeth took a satisfied bite of her bread.

*   *   *

Despite Elizabeth's arrival and the readiness with which she took to life in the Cheap, I could not forget Daniel Chidley's death and the ensuing violence. Abraham Walker no longer haunted my dreams, but in unguarded moments my thoughts went to him, to Enoch Harrison, and to the assassin that Mr. Marlowe had tortured and hanged. Could these deaths truly be the last? I did not believe it, but weeks passed, and England remained free from both rebellion and invasion. I wondered if somehow we truly had foiled a Royalist rising. I did not believe that Marlowe's prisoner had told the truth about the powder, but it seemed possible—even likely—that he and Walker had been at the heart of the scheme. If that was the case, their deaths would have caused the plot to collapse or inspired their comrades to rethink their plan. And with each day, this hope grew stronger.

And so I contented myself with a more ordinary life, or at least one free of plots and murders. Tom and I made the final plans for our marriage, which we intended to solemnize that summer. We'd hoped to marry earlier, but Tom's sister in Lancashire begged him to wait until the roads became passable so she could attend, and he would not deny her. To my great pleasure, Martha and Will announced that they would marry on the same day.

Curiously enough, even as Martha, Elizabeth, and I settled into a routine free of chaos and discord, Katherine Chidley's life became more tumultuous. The spark for the change came when Parliament ordered the arrest of the chief Levellers in England for sedition and treason. In March, Cromwell sent hundreds of soldiers throughout the city, scooping up men like John Lilburne, William Walwyn, and Richard Overton. According to Tom, Cromwell had said that the only way to deal with the Levellers was, in his words,
to break them into pieces
.

Mr. Marlowe, of course, sent notes demanding any news I might hear of a Leveller rising, and in every case I told him the truth. The Levellers responded to the arrests of their leaders as they always had: not with violence, but with books and petitions. I also told him—since it was no secret—that Katherine led this charge against Cromwell's tyranny. (I did not call it that, of course, but neither did I see the benefit in arresting men for mere words.) Katherine attended more meetings than ever, carried petitions throughout the city collecting thousands of signatures, and even wrote petitions of her own, each one demanding their leaders' release and an end to Parliament's arbitrary rule.

With London's waters so troubled, I was not surprised when I came home one afternoon to find Tom and Martha waiting for me in the parlor. They both wore their coats, ready for a hurried departure.

“Mr. Marlowe has summoned me?” I asked. “This is a happy day indeed.”

When neither Tom nor Martha smiled, I began to worry.

“It is about Mr. Marlowe,” Tom said. “But he did not summon you.”

“What do you mean?”

“He's been murdered,” Tom replied. “And it seems to be the same man who killed Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison.”

I stood in silence and tried to make sense of Tom's words. “Mr. Marlowe is murdered?” I said at last.

Tom nodded. “A stiletto to the heart, with no other wounds.”

I spent a moment trying to imagine what this murder could mean, but was entirely overwhelmed by the possibilities and the dangers.

“Take me to the body,” I said.

 

Chapter 25

“When he did not come to the Tower this morning I sent a guard to rouse him,” Tom said. We were walking south and east, in the general direction of the Tower. “He was back within minutes, pale and shaking. Mr. Marlowe's door was unlocked, and his body was inside.”

“What did you do then?” I asked.

“Locked the guard in my office so nobody else would find out about Mr. Marlowe's death,” Tom said, “and sent Will to guard Mr. Marlowe's apartment until I found you and Martha.”

We came to a modest building northwest of the Tower, and Tom led us up a set of stairs where Will waited.

“Have you been inside?” Tom asked.

“Aye,” Will said. “It is as we were told. His body is in the parlor.” Will opened the door and the four of us stepped into Marlowe's rooms.

Marlowe lay on the floor, arms and legs splayed wide. The handle of a knife protruded from his chest. Martha and I crossed to the body and bent over for a closer examination. I looked first at Marlowe's face. His eyebrows were raised as if he'd just heard some interesting news, and his mouth was slightly open in an
O
of surprise. Martha lifted his chin, and we saw that his neck had none of the bruises we'd found on Daniel Chidley.

I had never even imagined how Mr. Marlowe lived, but I was nevertheless struck by how utterly ordinary his apartment was. The furniture was better than the pieces Martha and I had purchased for our tenement, but not so fine as what I'd owned when I was a gentlewoman. For a man who had held remarkable power, he lived in an unremarkable fashion.

Martha looked to the knife handle. It was made of wood, and unadorned except for a small rose carved on each side. Martha took the handle between her thumb and forefinger and wriggled it back and forth. “It could be the same knife that killed Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison,” she said. “It has the same narrow blade.”

“And just the one wound,” I added. “It must be the same killer.”

“If so, why did he leave the weapon behind?” Will asked.

“Pull it out,” Martha said.

“What do you mean?”

“Come over here and pull it out of his chest.”

Will grasped the knife and gave it a tug. Marlowe's body jerked, but the knife remained in place. “It's stuck,” he said.

“Aye,” Martha replied. “It's caught between his ribs. The murderer would have had a devil of a time getting it out. If he were in a hurry it might not have been worth the trouble. There are other knives in London.”

“How could this be?” Tom asked. “Abraham Walker is dead and buried. Could there be
two
assassins in London who kill in such a fashion?”

We stared at Marlowe's body for a time, hoping to make sense of this strange turn of events. And then I knew what had happened.

“It never was Walker,” I said.

“What do you mean?” Martha asked. “He killed the Harrisons' servants, nearly killed the two of us, and cracked Katherine Chidley's skull. You heard him admit to Margaret that he had killed her father. You can't think he was innocent.”

“I have no doubt that he was a black-hearted killer, and would have murdered the lot of us without a moment's hesitation,” I said. “But he did not kill Daniel Chidley, and while he might have been there when Enoch Harrison died, he did not wield the knife.”

The blood had run from Tom's face. “How can you know that?”

“Walker's choice of weapons,” I said.

All three looked at me in confusion.

“Tell me, Martha,” I said. “When Abraham Walker came to kill Margaret Harrison, what was the first weapon he used?”

“Pistols,” Martha replied, and in an instant her face lit up. “If he were skilled enough with a stiletto to kill Daniel Chidley and Enoch Harrison, why did he bring pistols and a cudgel to kill Margaret Harrison?”

“Exactly,” I said. “A knife would have been far quieter, but it takes skill that Abraham Walker did not have.”

Tom's eyes darted between Martha and me. “You are saying that the assassin is still out there.”

“Aye,” I said. “But it's worse than that. Why would he kill Marlowe now? We were sure of Walker's guilt and called off the hunt. If the murderer had kept his knife sheathed, we'd never have known we were wrong.”

Tom thought for a moment and then cursed. “The plot is not yet foiled. Walker's death stopped nothing. The rebellion could begin at any moment. Blood of Christ.”

I nodded and surveyed the room. “Did Mr. Marlowe keep any papers here? Anything that could tell us what plots he suspected?”

“It would be unusual,” Tom replied. “He rarely left the Tower except to sleep, and I never saw him bring papers with him.”

A quick search of the apartment confirmed this—Marlowe had neither papers nor letters. “They might have been burned,” Martha said, pointing at the hearth. “The ashes are cold, but so is Marlowe's body.”

Tom growled in frustration. “I will return to the Tower and search Mr. Marlowe's papers. Will, you stay here for now. I'll send some men for the body.”

“And us?” I asked.

“I don't know.” Tom sighed. “Figure out what we missed. There has to be something. We must find the killer before his plot is launched.”

Tom left, closing the door behind him. When the latch clicked shut, Martha crossed and examined it.

“Look here,” she said. Will and I joined her at the door. “That's a good lock, and he's got a second one that can't be opened from the outside.”

“Marlowe let the killer in,” Will said.

“He must have known him,” Martha said.

“Known him and trusted him,” I said. “He would not have let a stranger or an enemy take him unawares. But who could it be?”

I returned to the men we'd suspected from the start—the Leveller Jeremiah Goodkey, the Royalist Charles Owen, even Lorenzo Bacca. Would Marlowe have been foolish enough to let
any
of these men into his apartment? I could not imagine him doing so, but that left only one possibility: The killer was someone we'd not yet considered.

With nothing more to do at Marlowe's apartment, Martha and I bid Will farewell and started back to the Cheap.

“Will we tell Katherine Chidley?” Martha asked.

I am ashamed to admit that the question hadn't even occurred to me. “Tell her that the man who murdered her husband is still alive and well?”

“And that he has killed yet again,” Martha added.

In truth this was no easy question. We both knew that Abraham Walker's death had offered Katherine a measure of peace. While she still missed Daniel, the aching was less each day, and her constant work with the Levellers had helped her to embrace her widowhood. What would happen to the new life that she had built for herself if she learned that Walker had not killed Daniel, and that his murderer was still walking free?

“Not yet,” I replied. “We should not trouble her until we discover who really killed Daniel.” While I believed this was the right decision, I did not like the prospect of lying to our gossip yet again. Martha nodded, but she was no more pleased than I at our decision. With that settled we returned to the question of who could have killed Marlowe. To our mutual frustration, we made no progress. It simply seemed incredible that Marlowe would let anyone he suspected of murder get so close to him.

“If he would not let an enemy or a stranger into his rooms, it must have been a friend,” Martha said.

“Charles Owen suggested that one of Marlowe's men killed Daniel,” I said. “Perhaps he was right. Perhaps the killer was one of Marlowe's own spies. I will ask Tom; he knew Mr. Marlowe's business better than anyone.”

As soon as I said the words, a most disquieting thought reared up in my head. Could Tom be behind the murders? As a soldier, he was certainly skilled in the art of killing, and he knew that Mr. Marlowe's death would cancel my debt to him, freeing us both. And, most damningly, he certainly could have convinced Mr. Marlowe to open his door.

Martha had kept her eyes on the street before us or else I am quite sure she would have seen the fear in my face. I told myself that Tom was no murderer and pushed the thought as far from my mind as I could.

“Let us go to the Nag's Head for supper,” I said. I hoped that the commotion there would drown my suspicions.

When we arrived, we found the tavern busier than any beehive, as people—mostly women, I noticed—flowed in and out by the dozens. We shouldered our way through the crowd and found Katherine at the center of all the activity. She strode among the tables overseeing a group of women, including Elizabeth, who were busily copying some kind of letter. As soon as one of the scribblers finished, someone in the crowd would take the paper and dash out the door. With each finished letter, Katherine would shout encouragement to the rest of the writers.

“There you are!” Katherine cried when she saw us. Her eyes shone with excitement, and I knew that I could not tell her that Daniel's murderer might still be alive. “I am glad you are here.”

“What is happening?” I asked.

“It is not what is happening, it is what is
going
to happen.” She thrust one of the letters into my hands. “Tomorrow we Leveller women will march on Parliament by the thousands. We will climb the stairs of St. Stephen's Chapel and present our petition to the Speaker of the House of Commons. We will show these tyrants that they that they cannot arrest good men without cause. We will show them that we will be heard whether they like it or not, and that their tyranny will not stand. Read it—you will see.”

I looked down at Katherine's petition. I can only imagine the look of surprise that spread over my face, not least because it was in Elizabeth's hand. While it began ordinarily enough—it claimed to be a “humble petition from many well-affected women of London”—it quickly ventured into fantastical realms.

We women are assured of our creation in God's image and also of a share in the freedoms of the Commonwealth of England. Thus we cannot but grieve that we appear so despicable in your eyes, as to be thought unworthy to represent our grievances to this honorable House.