The Playmaker (5 page)

They went on to explain that almost all the Châlons burgundy went to a tavern at Middle Temple, the school of law, where attorneys, clerks, and professors paid well for it. My ears pricked up at this, for the fellow I still remembered as “my” clerk had told me that Attorney Martin Feather kept chambers there. Though mindful of the clerk's warning not to attach myself to the man, surely it would do no harm to have a look at him some day. Thus, as Motheby and Southern spoke of the glories of their wine, I bowed and flattered at fitting moments, and won the job for my pains.

The wine from Châlons was “select” indeed—only a dozen kegs were shipped every fortnight, and they all went to the Lion and Lamb Tavern on Fleet Street. Ralph Downing and I delivered six kegs apiece on our one-wheeled barrows. He led the way, but as he could not read or write, it fell to me to manage the papers. The finical tavern steward took his time in settling accounts, carefully noting the Châlons seal on each keg: a little crossbow burned into the head. While waiting for him to satisfy himself, my eyes roved about the tavern seeking a slight fellow in legal robes, with a face neither old nor young, whose round blue eyes peered out
from round glass spectacles. I wished to thank him for the shilling, but also to see his triangular smile as he recognized me, hear his warm voice saying, “Richard! So they have you delivering to Middle Temple already?” But my searching eyes did not discover him.

The tavern steward was at last signing a receipt for the twelve kegs when I asked him, “Sir, could you tell me where Master Martin Feather has his chambers?”

The quill pen in his hand skipped, leaving a dot of ink on the paper, which he blotted with a rag. ‘Who?’ he asked sharply.

“Why …” The intensity of his gaze made me stammer. “M-m-master Feather?”

“I know him not. Take your receipt and be off!”

On the street Ralph eyed me curiously. “And what was that, then?” I merely shrugged, though the steward's response puzzled me also. “I'm bound for the Rose Theater tomorrow,” he reminded me. “Will you come, or do you still fear the devil?”

“Another time. Come on, I'll race you to Ludgate.” That cut short his questions, as we set off with our empty barrows, weaving amongst the traffic as quickly as possible without knocking down some eminent jurist who could haul us into court.

Saturday dawned clear, for the first time in a week. After knocking off work an hour after noon, I donned my tight doublet, straightened my hose, dusted off my cap, and joined the happy throng of Londoners pouring over the Bridge into Southwark.

London Bridge springs across the Thames on twenty stone arches, stout enough to support an entire village on their backs. Shops, stalls, and fine houses line both sides of the Bridge, yet leave enough width in the center for two carts to pass each other. The river itself is broad and deep and alive, clear enough to take its color from the sky. Looking east, one can catch the briny breath of the ocean in his face and feel the thundering current underfoot. The grim stone fortress of the Tower dominates the scene: home to the royal menagerie, the royal treasury, and prisoners of high rank. Beyond the Tower, as far as the eye can see, bare-masted ships line the bank. An old seaman taking the sun on a stone bench shuffled over to point out a vessel from the darks of Africa and a tobacco ship from the Caribbean. Sailors from these ships thronged the streets of London, men of fabulous colors: copper, ash, brown, or black as tar, jabbering in outlandish tongues. It was all I could do not to stare after them—did they eat and sleep, as I did? Were they all the way human, or some variation of mankind?

West of the Bridge, where the exuberant current piles up against the piers on its way seaward, the watermen ply their trade—hundreds of boats, all sizes and sorts, busily ferrying people from London to Southwark and back again, their oars blurring like dragonfly wings. Little one-seater wherries dart here and there, cleaving a path among the covered barks and cargo vessels, while jeweled barges of the nobility glide on the rise and dip of long oars.

The sight was so lively, so merry, I almost laughed out loud—
until the swoop of a raven's wing drew my eye to the memorial tower nearby. Spiked to the wall, about fifteen feet up, the heads of three traitors stared a grim warning to boats and foot travelers alike. Traffic passed unheeding below their eyeless gaze. One was no more than a skull; the others soon would be, once the ravens had done their work. Quickly sobered, I cut short my gawking.

West of the Bridge lay Bankside, where I had wandered the week earlier. This time I turned east, and began my search at the Anchor and Chain tavern, where a weather-beaten anchor swung rustily over the door. “My pardon, lady,” I addressed the serving maid, who blushed at the compliment, “know you anything of one Anne Billings?”

About an hour later I was asking the same question of the innkeeper at the Sir Francis, who scratched his dirty scalp and shook his puzzled head. Then a raspy voice in the corner rumbled, “Not so fast, Jamie. The lad may be asking after Holy Nan.” I turned to confront two little berry-black eyes in a face as wrinkled as a collapsed tent. “That who you mean, boy?”

“I know not, sir. All I know her by is Anne Billings.”

He nodded. “That be her name, I do believe. What you do is, go back to the broad way—Southwark Street—and take it south, near half a mile I'm thinking, and when you get to St. Alban's church, turn east and start asking after the foundling hospital. There you'll find her.”

My heart rose. “I'm right obliged to you, sir.”

He waved a hand. “Tell her we miss her in these parts.” The
innkeeper sniggered and the sailor grinned. Nodding to both of them, I hurried out of the inn, hearing Master Jamie's voice behind me: “A bit old to be a foundling, think you?” Overcome by his own wit, he wheezed out a laugh.

Southwark is built upon a marsh, crisscrossed by ditches that fill at high tide and make a small, muddy Venice of the town. I had to follow a tangle of these watery paths and bridges, losing my way and getting myself redirected a half-dozen times. The foundling hospital, when I finally came upon it, was a gray stone structure with the look of a convent or monastery, tucked between a fish market and a counting house and surrounded by a high wall with a wicket gate. A dull, whey-faced maid let me in and made me wait while she carried word of my arrival to her mistress. After no less than five minutes she returned and led me through the yard, where a small flock of goats grazed placidly. A smell of mildew, sour milk, and fish permeated the whole, and the whiff of anything close to it reminds me of my aunt to this day.

She was of medium height and age, with a thin nose and small, penetrating eyes and a wide, limber mouth. She dressed plainly in white and blue, her only ornament a string of beads tucked into her bodice. We met in a little room off the entrance hall, where soft footsteps sounded on the floor above and the plaintive bleating of goats drifted in through open windows. Those were the only noises I heard, though it did not occur to me until later that if this was a home for orphans, where were the children? My aunt seemed not the motherly sort, and when I addressed her as
Goodwife Billings, she corrected me sharply. “I am not married, young man. Now or ever.”

“Forgive me, I only thought—as you're my father's sister … yet you bear not the same name—”

“Half sister. Our mother only we shared.”

“I see.” That left me with no notion what to call her. Since her reception of me had been as chilly as the old stone walls, “Aunt” seemed too familiar. Though I did not expect her to throw her arms about me and weep over my long-lost head, this seemed to go to the other extreme.

“My time is dear—Richard, is it? What would you ask?”

I took a breath. “Ah … do you know anything of my father?”

“I could not say.”

“Why … Does that mean that you do not know?”

She fixed her eyes on a point above my head and her voice took on a curious, airy tone. “It means I could not say. We were never close, Robert Malory and I.”

“Could you say where he lived, then, the last you saw him?”

“That I could not. He moved about. His feet were … restless.”

I might have told her that. What disturbed me was that we were speaking in the past tense. “If—if you please, though, I would be most grateful for any knowledge of him.”

“Why?”

My mouth opened, but no sound came out. In truth, I knew not how to answer. Resentment of my father ran deep. But still … but
still, the sound of his laugh haunted my memory, as did the strong arms that once had lifted me to his shoulders. Perhaps there was more to him than his back, forever turned as he walked away.

“I wish to know him,” I said, simply.

“Does your mother wish it?”

“She is dead.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

Her voice did not sound especially sorrowful. With a peculiar tightness about my throat I asked, “Did you ever meet her?”

“I did. Once.”

Here, with almost anyone else, some compliment regarding the deceased would follow—whether sincerely meant or no. My aunt's silence grew so prickly I made the compliment myself. “She was very beautiful, didn't you think?”

“Beauty has its perils.”

“Why, what mean you by that, Mistress?”

She tightened her mouth and squinted her eyes to raisins; beauty would be no peril for
her,
I thought. “A pretty face can combine with a wandering eye to make a tempest in the household.”

Her words made no sense to me at first, then blazed to sudden comprehension. “Do you mean—are you saying that she was unfaithful to my father?”

“I say only that jealousy of her drove him out—with good cause, he claimed.”

“Th-that is a—That is—a lie!” I jumped to my feet, so angry I could barely see her pale, pinched-up face with its sharp accusing
nose. My fist ached with a longing to flatten that nose. I had never felt anything like it, and to feel it toward a woman shocked me. I was not a quick-tempered lad—“Slow to flame, long to burn” was the way my mother put it—but here I stood with doubled fist, blazing. “She was—she was the m-most virtuous lady in England!”

My aunt showed no alarm, nor remorse. “I only know what my brother told me.”

“Then—” I stopped for breath, and grip. “Then he was lying!”

“Sit down and collect yourself, boy. Or leave my house, else.” I would have followed her second suggestion but for knowing that it was exactly what she wanted. I would not give her the satisfaction, and besides, my business was not yet done. After cooling down a bit, I sat and fixed her with as steady a look as I could manage. If nothing else, I would show her good manners, taught by the same person she so ignorantly slandered.

“Begging your pardon, Mistress Billings. But I will hear no words against the lady I knew and loved better than anyone. You may believe what you will, but I pray you say no more against her.” She only looked at me, her face impassive. I took another deep breath to calm myself. “But there is a thing I will ask yet; answer me this, and I'll trouble you no more.”

I undid the middle buttons of my doublet and took out my leather wallet, unfolded it, and removed a slip of paper—all done quickly, to stop my hands from trembling. I showed the image of the medal to my aunt, and for the first time provoked a response in her.

She blinked, and pulled in a sharp breath through her nose. It was scarcely seen and heard, and she recovered herself in an instant. “How came you by this?” she asked, in a voice calm but quickened, I thought, by apprehension or outright fear.

“My father wore it, and my mother made the copy.”

“Without his knowing?” When I nodded, wondering at the question, she sniffed. “Is that the act of an honest woman?”

I replaced the paper in my wallet while struggling to keep my anger in check. “She was his wife, lady. She feared it was of the devil.”

“How could that be? With the very words of our Lord on it?”

“You read quickly—unless you already knew the writing?” She waved a hand. “I have some Latin, and it's a common saying.”

“But you
have
seen it before.” My voice was rising again. “What does it signify?”

“You presume too much, boy. I can tell you nothing about it. And I have no more time to spare for young vagabonds who intrude upon their relations. Whatever you want from me, you may see for yourself I am a poor woman—”

I leapt to my feet again. “I am not a beggar, Mistress. I have work—on the docks—” I meant to tell her what I thought of her insinuations, but the only words that came to mind were insults.

“Do you?” she said, to that undefined spot beyond my head. “That is where you belong, then. I shall call Lydia to see you out.”

Lydia saw me out, though I didn't need seeing. By then it was
nearly dark, and Londoners were pouring back into the city after a merry afternoon of plays and bear fights. I made a gloomy contrast to them, feeling the need of an extra leg to kick myself. Of course she knew more than she said, and may have betrayed some hint if I had been more clever. I could have made more of the fact that she seemed to know already what the writing was, but instead I let myself be goaded into sputtering incoherence.

Her insinuations touching my mother had done it, of course. “Holy Nan” Billings herself must have made up such rubbish—I could not believe Robert Malory put the notion in her head. Only a madman could have doubted my mother's virtue, and from all I knew of him, my father was not mad.

Some years before I was born, he had come to Alford to be the schoolmaster, and remained one after he married. Though not native to Lincolnshire, he fit himself to its ways and was well liked by the children he taught. His disappearance was still whispered about in Alford, where everyone had guessed its cause: he was abducted by pirates; he had lost his heart to some London lady; he was robbed and murdered on the highway and his body thrown in a cave. None of these were any comfort to me. As a child, I imagined that he had embarked on some noble calling, greater than wife or family, and would someday return when his work was done. I may have outgrown such fancies, but still it was hard to give him up for lost without knowing why.