The Silent Woman (11 page)

‘You
want
this poison, madame?’ he said cautiously.

‘I want to know if you have sold such ingredients.’

‘But, yes. Everything here is in my shop.’

‘And has anyone bought from you recently?’

‘Why do you wish to know?’

‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘it is of great importance.’

‘I do not discuss my business with strangers.’

‘Help the lady,’ grunted Leonard in an absurd attempt to sound menacing. ‘She is with me.’

Philip Lovel threw him a scornful glance and ignored him for the rest of the conversation. Loathe to part easily with information about his customers, he yet sensed a hope of material reward. The man was plainly an oaf. Even in the aromatic atmosphere of his shop, Lovel could smell the beer on his visitor. Evidently, he was a drayman or tapster. The woman, on the other hand, was attractive, smartly dressed and well spoken. Money would not be the problem it was for the majority of his customers. Only a strong motive would bring her on such a strange errand, and he was intrigued to know what it was. He returned her list and gave an elaborate shrug.

‘I may have sold these items, I may have not.’

‘If you had, how much would they have cost?’ she said.

‘You wish to buy them yourself?’

‘I am ready to give you twice as much money if you can describe the customer.’

He was tempted. ‘Well …’

‘
Three
times as much,’ she decided, producing a purse to back up her offer. ‘That poison killed a young girl.’

‘He told me it was to get rid of some rats.’

‘Then you
did
sell these ingredients?’

‘Four days ago.’

‘On the eve of her arrival in London.’

‘It was an expensive purchase.’

‘How expensive?’

Lovel stated his price and Anne put the money onto the counter. Before the apothecary could scoop up the coins, they were covered by the giant hand of Leonard. The reward had to be earned before it was paid over.

‘I sold him the three powders on your list,’ he said, ‘and some white mercury. Then there was a quantity of opium in a double bladder. When I added a secret potion of my own invention – it is not known outside this shop – he had the means to kill fifty rats. That was his declared purpose and I took him for the gentleman he seemed.’

‘Gentleman!’ sneered Leonard. ‘He was a murderer.’

‘Tell us all you can remember,’ said Anne.

Philip Lovel could remember a great deal because the customer had been as unlikely a visitor to his shop as Anne Hendrik herself and he drew his portrait with care. They were shown his height, his bearing, his features, his apparel. The apothecary even made a stab at the timbre of his voice. Convinced that she was seeing the poisoner come to life before her eyes, Anne committed every detail to her retentive mind. When Lovel had finished, she lifted Leonard’s hand up to release the money then added the same amount again. The information she had just bought was invaluable.

Leonard was slower to react. It was only when they stepped out into Paternoster Row and began the long walk back that his brain assembled all the facts into one coherent picture. He stopped dead and slapped his thigh.

‘I know him!’

‘Who?’

‘I’ve met the man. Even as he was described.’

‘Where?’

‘At the Queen’s Head,’ he recalled. ‘He was there when the ballad was sung about the fire. It turned Nicholas into the hero. I know it by heart, mistress. I’ll sing you a verse or two, if you wish.’

‘The man, Leonard. You say you know him?’

‘Not by name but it must have been him.’

‘Why?’

‘He asked about Nicholas going off to Barnstaple.’ He took off his cap to scratch his head. ‘And I do believe the fellow was there at the Bel Savage Inn to watch the company leave. Yes, I saw him there, I swear it.’

It took Anne a long time to extract the full details from him and she grew increasingly fearful as she listened. The man had secured his poison at the shop in Paternoster Row and prepared it in a form that could easily be slipped into a drink. In killing the girl, he was trying to stop her reaching Nicholas Bracewell, but that part of his plan had miscarried. Since the book holder was now making for the town from which the girl was sent, he himself could become a potential target for the murderer. Why else did the man take such an interest in his departure from London?

Nicholas Bracewell was in danger. Anne had to warn him.

‘I must ask a favour of you, Leonard.’

‘It is granted.’

‘Take me to Shoreditch.’

T
he mayor of Oxford gave Nicholas Bracewell the expected response. Local government was effectively suspended and plague ruled the town. There was no possibility of Westfield’s Men acting there, and since they were a body of strangers above a certain number, no inn would be able to give them hospitality for the night. Both as thespians and as travellers, they were being ejected. The mayor was full of apologies but – he used the phrase repeatedly – his hands were tied. Nevertheless, he was able to use them both to gesticulate helplessly and to offer some measure of compensation to the disappointed troupe. He bestowed two pounds on the book holder and assured him that the company would be accorded a very different welcome on their next visit. Nicholas thanked him for his generosity and promised him that they would depart as soon as they had had time to rest the horses and take some refreshment.

When he left the Town Hall, he slipped the money into
his purse and decided to leave it there until they had put Oxford many miles behind them. Lawrence Firethorn might be disdainful, but his company needed all the money that it could get and from whatever source. Nicholas decided to give his employer more time to cool down before he returned with the bad tidings and he took a stroll in the direction of the castle. It gave him an opportunity to reflect on the vagaries of life with a dramatic company. Robbed at High Wycombe, they had now been ousted from Oxford. The actors would begin to believe that their tour was damned. Inasmuch as it cut a day off his journey home, Nicholas was an incidental beneficiary of the plague, but that gave him no pleasure. Westfield’s Men needed a performance at Oxford to steady their nerves. After riding into the town as one of the leading troupes in London, they would be slinking away like unlicensed strolling players. The loss of their venue at the Queen’s Head had cast them out into the wilderness.

Nicholas paused to gaze up at the five great towers of Oxford Castle, one of the first stone-built fortresses to be constructed in England by the Normans. Steeped in history and surrounded by a moat, it was a formidable garrison in a town whose geographical position gave it immense strategic importance. Oxford Castle had a proud solidity but it was not enough to withstand an assault by a deadly enemy. As Nicholas watched, a horse and cart came out through the arched gateway with an all too familiar cargo. At the sight and smell of the shrouded figures, he turned quickly away and headed back towards the inn. The plague was insidious.

There were plenty of people in the streets, going about their business, but they did so without any real purpose or alacrity. An air of listlessness hung over the town as
neighbours conversed with one another to find out who the latest victims were and to speculate on who would be struck down next. Like inhabitants of a flooded valley, they were waiting helplessly for the plague to wash over them and hoping that they would not be among the drowned. Their fatalism was saddening but it aroused Nicholas’s pity. Westfield’s Men had only lost a performance. Some of the people lurching along the streets had lost family members and friends.

That thought brought Nicholas to an abrupt halt. The crisis that they found at Oxford had obscured the memory of what happened before they reached the town. Without quite knowing how, he had spoken to Edmund Hoode about his own family in Devon and talked at length about his father. It was a conversation that would have been inconceivable only a few days ago when he was still suppressing all mention of his life before his voyage with Drake. His accent placed him firmly in the West Country but he acknowledged no family ties there, until the recent summons from Barnstaple. Yet he discussed his childhood for the best part of an hour with Hoode and trespassed freely on forbidden territory. Nicholas could not believe that he had confided so much personal detail to his friend, and he was amazed that he had been able to confront the spectre of his father without the customary pain and revulsion.

Robert Bracewell was a name he kept locked away in the darkest corner of his mind. He had not even spoken it to Anne Hendrik. On the ride to Oxford, his father had been set free at last. What was more remarkable was that, in talking about someone he despised and disowned, Nicholas actually came to feel vague pangs of sympathy for him and even tried to
excuse his faults. Robert Bracewell was a hostage to fortune. Ill luck had dogged him. Shortly after he became a Merchant of the Staple, the last English foothold in France was lost and British merchants were promptly expelled. Queen Mary died saying that the name ‘Calais’ was engraved on her heart, but it was tattooed on the soul of Robert Bracewell. More setbacks stemmed from that first dreadful shock, and Nicholas recalled the locust years when his father trembled on the verge of bankruptcy. It took enormous strength of will to rebuild his reputation and his company. Any man should surely be admired for that.

Nicholas’s sympathy dried up instantly. Strength of will could destroy as well as create. The driving energy that enabled Robert Bracewell to win back his status in the mercantile community had another side to it, and his elder son had been one of its prime victims. Though he divulged much to his friend, Nicholas had concealed far more and he knew why. The deep shame of being a member of that family was still there, and it made the name he bore feel like a species of plague. Nicholas was frankly appalled at the prospect of going back to the town that held so many bleak associations for him but it was a sacred commitment that had to be honoured. He concentrated his mind on more immediate difficulties and lengthened his stride.

Westfield’s Men had taken themselves into the inn for a restorative meal, but Lawrence Firethorn was waiting to accost his book holder in the courtyard. The actor-manager’s belligerence masked his niggling despair.

‘Where the devil have you been, Nick!’ he demanded. ‘I sent you an hour ago at least.’

‘The mayor was engaged when I arrived.’

‘Engaged!’

‘I was forced to wait.’

‘Engaged!’ howled Firethorn. ‘If the wretch had kept
me
waiting, I’d have engaged him with sword and dagger, then hanged him from the church steeple with his chain of office. What did the arrant knave tell you?’

‘The plague has closed this town to us.’

‘God’s mercy! We are the
cure
for this contagion. Does he not see that? We bring joy into a cavern of misery. We bring life to a dying people. We bring hope.’

‘The mayor appreciates that,’ said Nicholas, ‘but the ordnance holds. No plays, no games, no public gatherings of any sort. He sends his abject apologies but we must be out of Oxford before the sun goes down.’

‘Out of Oxford!’

‘We are strangers in the town and carry a threat.’

‘I’ll carry a threat to the viperous villain!’ said the other. ‘He’ll have a plague of naked steel about his ears. Does he tell Lawrence Firethorn not to act? Will he order my company to leave his town?’ He strutted around in a display of defiance then adopted his most regal pose. ‘I am a king of the stage and he will not force me to abdicate.’

‘It is no personal rebuff for you,’ reasoned Nicholas. ‘Plague deaths rise every day. If they continue at this rate then the churches will have to be closed. The market has already been shut down. These are the sensible precautions that any town must take when disease takes a hold.’

Firethorn accepted the truth of this. He still ranted away for a few minutes but the venom had been drained out of his bluster. Oxford was a lost cause. They had to move on. When Firethorn’s bluster subsided, he raised an eyebrow.

‘Were you offered any compensation?’ he said.

‘You told me not to accept it, master.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ reaffirmed Firethorn. ‘Fling it back at him, I said, and I hope that is what you did.’

‘I declined the money.’

‘Good.’ The other eyebrow lifted. ‘How much was it?’

‘Two pounds.’

Firethorn’s sigh of remorse was like a protracted hiss of steam. Thanks to his pride, they were creeping away from the town without a penny. Anger relieved him but it was an expensive item. Firethorn knew that the rest of the company would suffer as a result. He gave Nicholas a task that he had no heart to perform himself.

‘Tell the others,’ he said. ‘We leave within the hour.’

‘I’ll about it straight.’

‘Oh, and Nick …’

‘Yes?’

‘Say nothing of that two pounds.’

The house in Shoreditch was of middling size with a neat garden at its rear and a tiny orchard. A half-timbered structure like its neighbours, its second storey was fronted with plastered wattle work that was showing signs of age. Both storeys projected at least a foot above the floor below and they had settled into a comfortable position like two fishwives leaning their arms contentedly on a wall for a lifelong exchange of gossip. The roof was fairly sound, but it would soon need the attention of a thatcher. Whatever the defects of its exterior, the house was kept in an excellent state of repair on the inside. Margery Firethorn saw to that. She was a meticulous housewife who made sure that every floor
was swept, every window was cleaned and every cobweb brushed away on a daily basis. She shared the abode with her husband, their children and servants, the four apprentices and the occasional hired man with nowhere else to lay his head. Margery loved her role as mother of an extended family and she offered all those who stayed beneath her roof the rather caustic brand of affection that she had developed through marriage to Lawrence Firethorn. The house seemed empty now and the rooms silent. She missed the happy turbulence of life with Westfield’s Men and she was therefore delighted when she had two unexpected visitors to brighten up her day.

‘And what happened then?’ she said, all agog.

‘We visited an apothecary in Paternoster Row,’ said Anne Hendrik. ‘It was there that we found guidance at last.’

‘I know the man,’ chimed in Leonard.

‘What man?’ said Margery.

‘Him. The poisoner. That beard, that earring, that smell.’

‘What is the fellow blabbering about, Anne?’

‘Let me explain.’

Anne took over the narrative and Margery listened with a burgeoning apprehension. When she heard all the facts, she agreed that Nicholas Bracewell could well be in serious danger, and even if his own life were not threatened, he would value all the information that had been gleaned about the girl’s killer. Leonard’s contribution was the monotonous repetition of the story of his meeting with the man at the Queen’s Head. Each time he mentioned this, he beamed vacuously, as if expecting a round of applause. Margery’s tolerance soon frayed at the edges and she took the well-meaning giant into the kitchen, assigning one of the
servants to look after him until he was needed again. She then went back into the parlour and sat in an upright chair beside Anne. Margery could now probe without hindrance.

‘What will you do, Anne?’ she asked.

‘Send a message to Nicholas.’

‘Why send it when you can take it yourself?’

Anne blinked. ‘Me?’

‘When a man’s life is at risk, you do not count the personal cost or inconvenience. Look at me. I once rode all the way to York to reach Lawrence.’

‘Was he in danger?’

‘Yes!’ said Margery with a laugh. ‘From two madwomen he picked up on his way. One was a pilgrim and the other as near to a punk as decency would allow. If I had not mounted a horse and ridden north, Lawrence would have had the pair of them in the same bed, saying prayers with the one while he and the other recited a more sinful creed together. I had a sore rump from the journey but I saved my marriage.’

‘My case is not the same,’ said Anne defensively. ‘You had reason to go. Lawrence was your husband.’

‘He is my man. Is not Nicholas yours?’

Anne snatched back the words that almost sprang from her mouth and gestured with fluttering hands. Margery’s shrewd gaze caught every nuance of her reaction. During her farewell to Nicholas at the Bel Savage Inn, she was alerted to the possibility of a rift between the two of them, and Anne’s bruised silence now confirmed it. Anne lowered her head and played with the sleeve of her dress. Margery leant forward with an understanding smile.

‘You fell out over this poor girl,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘Did Nicholas not explain everything to you?’

‘No, Margery.’ Anne bit her lip then looked up at the other woman again. ‘That is what vexed me so. Something calls him back to Devon yet I am kept ignorant of it.’

‘Nick may have good reason for that.’

‘He has never lied to me before.’

Margery cackled. ‘Is that all the problem here? A few lies and deceptions? Forget them. Honesty is a virtue but it needs to be spiced with at least a hint of vice. I could never bear to live with a man who was so open that I knew everything about him. By my troth, I would die of boredom within a fortnight! Lawrence always garnishes the truth with a rich sauce of lies and I would have it no other way.’ She became wistful. ‘Secrecy makes a man interesting. That is why we all love dear Nicholas Bracewell – for his mystery.’

Anne’s eyes filmed over and she struggled to keep the tears from flowing. In another mood, she would have taken Margery’s jocular advice in her stride but her estrangement from Nicholas made the words cut deep. His refusal to talk about his earlier life had indeed enhanced his appeal for her. Anne solved the problem of the hidden years in his life by inventing her own fantasy existence for him at that time. She knew him so well, she felt, that she could translate him back into the past and fill in the missing details of his childhood and adolescence by instinct. Her version was now shown to be highly romanticised and plainly inaccurate. She shared her life with one Nicholas Bracewell but there had been another quite different man living under the same name in Devon all those years ago.

Margery could see her visitor’s ambivalent feelings.

‘Go to him,’ she urged.

‘He may not wish to see me, Margery.’

‘Pish! That’s of no account. Do
you
wish to see him?’