ONE

There are times when life seems to drift along placidly, like a twig floating on the Thames, happy and carefree, just ambling downriver with nothing but an occasional area of turbulence to disturb the calm.

That morning, I knew, was not one of those times.

On those glorious days, a man wakes up and just knows the sun will continue shining all day, that the pie he eats will contain at least mostly beef, and that when he trips, a friendly hand will appear and keep him upright. But there are other days, days when the sky is leaden, when his first mouthful of pie demonstrates the cook’s imaginative use of sawdust, gristle and dogs’ tails, and when every unwary step is apparently placed on a sheet of ice. And no one is there to catch him.

This, I knew, was to be one of those days.

I have had my share of days of excitement, and I can assure you that I greatly prefer the days of tedium, when the most exciting thing is stepping in a dog’s turd on the way home. I can cope with boredom. Today, when I heard the knocking at the door, I knew immediately that this would be one of those days on which it was better not to remain in my bed. No, this was a day to be up and about – urgently!

‘Blackjack! You black-hearted, black-souled, black …’ At this point my visitor appeared to run out of relevant epithets and instead bawled his command: ‘Open this door!’

The banging was like the thunder of Satan’s hammers, great leaden mauls striking at sinners’ flesh to torment them, and I was awake in an instant.

‘Sweet merciful …’ I began.

Yes, this was not a day to lie abed. This was a day to make use of my carefully thought-through escape.

Why had I a well-thought-through escape plan?

Well, you see, I had experienced a swift rise in popularity in recent years. Since the appalling shock of the rebellion of Wyatt and his merry men of Kent, I had become a professional man, a fellow of some authority and importance. I served my master, John Blount, which meant that I had been elevated from the ranks of the poor and dispossessed into a position of wealth. All was based on the mistaken assumption that I was a cold-hearted assassin whose skills might assist Master Blount’s master, the sleek Welshman Thomas Parry. I would have disabused them of the notion, were it not for one fact that struck me: if they were looking for an assassin, and had told a man (me) that they wanted to hire him, for him (me) to refuse them might lead to his (my) becoming their first victim. If you take my meaning.

No. If I had learned one thing over the last years living in London, it was that life was cheapest at the bottom, and at that time, as a failed cut-purse who was already implicated in a murder or two, being adopted as an assassin might well be an advantage. After all, if I was put in a difficult situation, I reasoned, I could always run away. And in the meantime, I was being offered a fresh suit of clothes every year, a good income and a house in a fashionable part of London. There were significant advantages.

However, there was also one disadvantage. While the money and house were appealing, there was always the risk that others might get to hear of my new career. The profession of assassin has its detractors, after all – especially among those who choose to deplore my function. Those, say, who feel I might have made an attempt on their life, or believe I might at any moment be persuaded to do so, or those who believed I had been paid to remove a relative. Or others who believed I had been instructed to remove a relative and I had not complied – there were several wives who would have appreciated a new husband, for example. These ingrates could appear at any moment, and it now sounded, from the thunder at my front door – which would be seriously marking my new oaken timbers, I feared – that such a moment had arrived.

It was time to leave.

Leaping from the bedclothes, I pulled on my hosen, slipped a shirt over my head, grabbed at my jack, caught hold of my belt and rushed to the window, donning the jack and tugging on boots.

My chamber was in the top floor of my house. It was jettied, as were all the other properties there, and from my window I could see the upper chamber of the house opposite. At the noise below, and the shouting of ‘Open in the name of the Queen!’ from beneath me, I saw my neighbour and his wife suddenly jerk awake and sit upright, he looking comical with his nightshirt and hair all bristled beneath his sleeping coif, staring about him blearily like a stunned sheep. She was less amusing, but thoroughly interesting, for in the warmth of the summery evening she was wearing only a thin chemise that gaped at the front. Seeing my attentive leer, she grabbed at it instinctively, and then shot a look of pure venom at her husband and let it gape once more, looking at me in what I could only describe as a speculative manner.

But I had no time. I smiled and saluted them, tying up the points attaching my hosen to my jack before grabbing my wheel-lock pistol, a bag of balls and flask of powder, slipping their straps over my head, pulling on my baldric, thrusting the pistol’s long barrel into my belt, and then carefully pulling on my hat. I studied my appearance in the mirror. There was no denying, I looked rakish but superb.

My preparations complete, I clambered out on to my window’s ledge.

It is no secret that I have no head for heights. Not for me the excitement of the fool who disdains to grip a rope at thirty feet of loitering death. If death is waiting for me in a hard-packed roadway, I would prefer the security of a hempen rope. The distance to the ground from this vantage point was enough to make the sweat pour. I clung to the window’s frame and tried not to think about the ground and how very hard it was. Visions of my body, broken and bloody, flooded my mind, and it was a cautious and thoughtful Jack who reached up, over the roof of the jettied chamber, to the rope hanging overhead.

Rope? Well, yes. From the moment I had taken on my new position under the instruction of Master John Blount, I had determined that I would ensure that, no matter what, I would always have an escape route planned. Last year, a loose tile from my roof had slid down and almost struck a woman in the street. It was deeply irritating, since she had struck up such a fuss that I had felt bound to pay her to silence her howls, and at the same time I knew that losing such a tile must mean I had a leak in the roof, so I instructed a fellow to come and replace it. Apart from anything else, I didn’t want to have to open my door to another complaining harpy like her. I had thought she would scratch my eyes out, so demented did she appear. It had not even struck her.

Thus, I had a man come. He pitched his ladder against my wall at the rear, and clambered on to the roof, probably breaking more tiles than he replaced, in the natural manner of a London workman. However, while he was there, he gave me his considered opinion that many more tiles would have to be replaced soon.

Then it was that I had my moment of genius. ‘Good fellow,’ I called. ‘I cannot have this work done at present, but soon. Why don’t you leave a coil of rope fixed to the chimney, so that next time you come, it will be easier to ascend?’

In short order, a good hempen rope was attached and I had my escape route. All I had to do was grab the rope, use it to pull myself to the roof, and then run lightly across to the next building, or the one after that, and make good my escape.

It was simple, I reasoned. What could possibly go wrong?

I was about to discover.

The rope dangled just to one side of the window, and I carefully climbed from the window, grasping the hemp. It uncoiled easily enough, and with a little effort I swung out over the roadway, with many a clatter of gun and sword and dagger. A glance around, and I saw that my neighbour was glaring short-sightedly at the noise. It was well enough for him, I considered, with his buxom wife at his side. She was peering at me with a look that was much more interested, and I was loath to depart from that view so soon, but a renewed battering on my door beneath was enough to persuade me. I hauled on the rope and made my way to the roof. She would have to wait until later.

Below me, I could hear the bellows of the fool at my door, and I cast a glance down with amusement as I coiled the rope and left it beside the chimney breast. Then, gaily enough, being assured of my safety, I followed the ridge of the roof to the next building.

My useless manservant, Raphe, who knew more ways to avoid work than there were days in a twelvemonth, would not rise for such a row. The lazy fool was never an early riser, and would deprecate leaving his warm bed for any man, let alone one who bellowed so loudly. He would think, and rightly, that the first person to open a door to such as was making his temper so clear would be a fool. A man so choleric was surely either consumed by a rage so intense that a flashing glance from his eyes would likely blast a Queen’s navy ship to splinters and fragments of kindling, or in the grip of an excess of rum. Whichever was the case, the man opening the door would likely receive a buffet on his pate that would rattle his brains till the next Easter. Raphe would stay in his cot behind the chimney in the kitchen, warm and snug with his hound curled up beside him. Except …

A sudden sharp barking removed whatever shreds of peace might have endured the savage thundering on my door, and I heard voices from other houses raised in remonstration.

‘What in the name of the Saints …’

‘Keep the noise down, you whoresons …’

‘If you don’t stop this row, I’ll come and knock you so hard you’ll …’

Alas, I would have enjoyed remaining and listening to some of the more inventive comments made by my neighbours, but it occurred to me that I would be better employed putting as much distance between the owner of those fists and myself as quickly as possible. Still, I heard doors slam wide and men protesting strongly, their voices raised in angry demonstration of the true Londoners’ respect for their own rights. Such a dispute could have continued for many a long hour, but already I could hear blows exchanged.

Thus reassured that pursuit was unlikely, I strolled along the pitch of my roof to the next, which was a full foot lower, so no great challenge to a man with my skills, and made my way by degrees over the various angles of a number of roofs, until I came to a long, sloping pitch of tiles. Here I half slid, half trotted to the lowest point, and from there sprang down lightly. It was only a short drop, and I landed with the agility of a cat.

Although I am not one to boast, I must admit that it was a leap to make a tumbler jealous.

However, as I stood and began to saunter towards the gate which stood wide, there were two matters that struck me as odd.

The first was the fact that the gate was open this early in the morning. I had leapt from a low roof into a neighbour’s rear yard. This place, like any other, should have been kept enclosed. No one would want strangers wandering about their yard in the dead of night, so since curfew the gate should have been held shut and locked until the household was awake. It was peculiar, I thought.

This, I admit, was soon forced from my mind by the second consideration: the sudden feeling of cold, sharp steel against my neck.

I don’t know whether you have ever experienced such a sensation. There is something particularly unpleasant about being brought up short by a length of steel at the Adam’s apple. I was once, when young, shown how to skate on a frozen pool. It was a wonderful experience, and I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling, right up to the moment when a skate came loose and I was sent whirling into an area of weaker ice that suddenly broke up under my weight. That feeling – of joy swiftly turned to despair as the ice shattered and I was propelled beneath into the fiercely chill waters – was rather similar to my current experience. It was a bafflingly horrible situation, made all the worse by the fact that I did not know who wielded the steel.

Yes, there is something quite hideously repellent about a razor-sharp sword held at one’s throat. Somehow, no matter what the actual environment, a sharp edge will always feel truly cold, like a shard of ice. This blade felt sharp enough to cut the air in two. I had a conviction that it could cleave waters. If Moses had wished to part the Red Sea with ease, he could have flourished this sword and the waters would have retreated from that horrible blade with speed, giving soggy apologies for any delays. This was a highly unpleasant-feeling weapon.

There was a voice at my ear, and it was little improvement on the blade. ‘Master Blackjack. Now, this is a strange thing, ain’t it? What would you be doing running down the roof like that, eh? Not trying to test your tiles, was you? See if there was any broken ones, like?’

He put a hand on my shoulder and persuaded me to turn and face him, the weapon resting at the side of my neck. My artery seemed to shrivel like a salted slug as I felt the keen edge rest there.

The brute holding it was a repellent fellow with thick, lank, dark hair. His eyes gazed at me from below his cap, and his mouth was a wound in the beating heart of the English language. He was not as well made as me, with my upright carriage and honest face, but he made up for that in animal cunning and sheer cruelty. His was not a face to inspire confidence or a sense of fellow feeling.

‘You have injured my reputation,’ he added with a snarl.

Which was a hard accusation to accept.

After all, how does a man injure the reputation of an executioner?

Hal Westmecott was a man in his middle years, I would have guessed. It was said that he had been a butcher, and that he offered his services after his predecessor finally revolted at the task of tearing the hearts from living men, cutting off their limbs or private parts, or making them dance a hempen jig – but I doubted that. I have known several butchers, and even the worst of them would have made a better job of killing their victims than Hal Westmecott. To call him a butcher was to slander all those who hacked at dead animals for a living.

His headsman’s axe may have been blunt, but this blade was not from the same mould. Perhaps it was because he needed to defend himself often that he kept his sword blade true; whatever the reason, this was a weapon in much better condition.

‘Oh, hello, Hal,’ I said.

‘Don’t squeak. I s’pose you thought I’d be at your door, waiting for you to open it, eh?’ he said, and grinned.

It was an appalling sight. Blackened stumps were displayed like ancient gravestones in a haunted cemetery. I almost thought I could see tiny ravens flying about them, but then a gust of his foul breath struck me, and I was forced to avert my head quickly before I retched. An unfortunate reaction, I realized, when I felt a line of fire burn my throat.

‘You’ve cut me!’ I exclaimed.

‘You cut yerself,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘Get used to it, because when I do it, you’ll feel it more.’

‘Why do you want to hurt me?’ I said, trying an offended tone of voice.

‘You know why, else you wouldn’t have tried to slide away over your roof, would ye?’ He shoved me back until I was against the wall, and now the blade was at my windpipe. I swallowed – carefully.

‘Hal, how do you expect a fellow to behave when you come and beat down his door? I have some people who are not friendly towards me.’

‘Aye, I can believe that,’ he said uncharitably. The blade was still at my throat, and I tried to keep my Adam’s apple from moving too much as I swallowed.

‘Have I upset you?’

His face lurched towards me, and I tried to avoid the spittle as he shouted, ‘Have you upset me? What do you think? You sold me that powder, and it was no good, was it?’

‘Well, I did say that it was a little …’

‘You said it was fine, and you charged me for it! And now it’s all over London that I can’t even kill a priest!’

And there you have it. A nasty case, certainly, and I could see that he might have grown annoyed with my little trade, but that was no reason to try to shave my head from my body.

I suppose I should explain.

Hal Westmecott was a renowned fellow in London. His rough, unkempt appearance was largely due to his business as an executioner, but when I say that, I don’t mean it was a career choice to look scruffy. It was not that he was a rough, tough fellow who prided himself on looking the part. No. Hal Westmecott looked unkempt and a mess because he was invariably drunk. When he took a slash at a victim, his blade often went awry, and his efforts tended to be met with ribald comments or horror-struck intakes of breath. Everyone had heard of him, although very few people knew what he looked like, of course. He had a face that was instantly recognizable to me now, but all that most people saw of him was his hood and mask, with two madly staring, bloodshot eyes.

As to his poor victims – well, they must have been prey to extreme dismay on hearing who would put them out of their woes. I once heard that a nobleman, sentenced to beheading, had walked to his headsman before his ending and felt the axe’s edge with a dubious expression. No doubt he was justified. Many told of Westmecott having to take a second or third swing before he managed to take the head from its body. One had roundly condemned him after the third blow had removed his ear but missed his neck.

It was hard on those about to die, but no easier on Westmecott, I felt. I could all too easily imagine the self-loathing and horror, every night waking screaming at the memory of the anguished souls he had forced to suffer. Even a brute like him must grow to despise himself and his office. No man can end lives daily without being affected. They must seek to escape it, and all too often the easiest escape and means of losing unwanted memories was in a bottle. A brutalized man sought oblivion so he didn’t have to look at himself in the mirror.

Yes, his competence was questionable. When he brought down his axe, his blade oft missed his target; when he performed a hanging, even when he tried to reduce the suffering of his victims, he often missed his cue and forgot to call the family forward to jump on the body and end things more swiftly. But he wanted to do a good job, I daresay.

The previous week he had knocked at my door, and while I tried to escape the deadly fumes emanating from his foul mouth, he told me that he had heard that I possessed a quantity of black powder, the explosive powder used to launch missiles from cannons or bullets from handguns. Someone had told this noddle-pate that I was the proud owner of a wheel-lock pistol and had a supply of powder. He wanted to buy some.

Well, I was not happy with the idea of the fatuous brute having access to powder. What, was he going to enter the sixteenth century at last and dispatch his next unfortunate with a more humane, modern device? No, I didn’t think so either. It was not that the fellow was so deep sunk in depravity that he wished to inflict as much pain and fear as possible; it was more that he was constantly drunk, and, besides, he had no understanding of modern firearms. He could have slaughtered the by-standers.

‘Why do you want powder?’ I asked.

Admittedly, many children enjoy playing with a little powder. They would use it in miniature cannons to create the setting for a battlefield when playing with toy soldiers; others played with it, setting alight long trails of the stuff. I had done that myself with my first small barrel. After drinking rather too much strong wine, I thought it would be amusing to ignite a line of powder. It lit and fizzed and sparked delightfully along my hearthstone. It was so enjoyable (and made my companion squeak and giggle so voluptuously) that I instantly created a line that swerved like a snake’s track in sand. I set one end on fire, and the trail was instantly a mass of flames and hissing as it ran along the snake-like track most satisfyingly. Indeed, it was so appealing that I made a circular spiral of powder and lit the end. There was a short sizzle, and then a loud report as the powder exploded, taking my eyebrows and moustache with it.

I didn’t try to make pretty patterns from powder again.

But Hal Westmecott was no child, and nor was he the sort to seek intellectual diversions with powder. If he wanted powder, it was no doubt for a specific requirement.

‘Do you have it or not?’ he grunted, his brows dropping alarmingly. When he did that, he reminded me of some of the apes I had seen in the bestiary, but they looked like cuddly poppets compared to this.

I was about to deny any knowledge of powders when he pulled coins from his purse. ‘I have money,’ he said simply.

‘Well, of course,’ I said. ‘I only wondered why you wanted it, but if you want it, I’d be happy to help.’

And that was that, or so I thought at the time. Because at that moment I didn’t realize what he wanted it for.

He wanted to burn a priest to death.

Well, each of us has our own pastimes, I suppose. Personally, there was a ginger-haired little minx who worked at the Cardinal’s Hat, down at Southwark in the Bishop of Winchester’s parish, with whom I would have enjoyed a few diversions. She would have been an enthusiastic entertainment according to all I had heard from Piers, the man who stood as apple-squire to the doxies inside. He said that she … but in any case, Hal Westmecott was not the sort of man who could afford her, let alone aspire to possess such a beauty. No, his tastes ran to an entirely different level.

I admit candidly that, had I known what he wanted my powder for at the time, I would have been more cautious. As it was, I supplied him with a pound or so and took his money. I could afford to give him that much, because it came from a barrel I had owned for some while, and the powder had grown a little damp in my cellar. Damp powder can produce misfires or cause the firing hole to rust over, so I didn’t want to use it in my gun. I sold it to him and thought nothing more of it.

The news came to me a little later when I was sitting in the Blue Bear with some companions.

‘There’s another priest to be executed,’ said one whose name was Matt, laying down a domino with the air of a man who would shortly be able to buy a barrel of ale with his winnings.

‘Who?’ demanded another, morosely surveying his tiles in the hope that a beneficial Creator had changed the numbers for him.

‘The vicar of some small church in the city. He refused to recant some sermon or other, and the authorities came down hard. He’s to be burned at the stake … Can you go?’

‘I’m just thinking! Give me a little time. What was he talking about?’

‘Who knows what these fools talk about? Something to do with idolatry, or the use of texts that no one can understand except priests, or some such or other.’

‘Hmm. He should have thought before he used inflammatory language,’ murmured a third. This was a tall, horse-faced man in his late twenties who affected a superior manner, although he was no better born than I was, I’d swear. He chuckled to himself, but none of us could see why.

‘Are you going to take your go?’ Matt said again. He was a shortish, plump fellow with a face like a fresh apple. At different times, he could look like an apple as autumn struck, rosy-cheeked as a young maid, and other times, usually in the morning, he could look as green as a young apple that was sour as a sloe.

His opponent, a scrawny wretch named Picksniff, grumbled and complained, but eventually threw down a piece and picked up his black leather mug and drank deeply. He had the look of a man who would as happily draw his knife and stab young Matt as continue with this game.

Matt glanced at me and then over to the aristocratic figure slumped elegantly on a bench. ‘We should go and watch. It should be entertaining, after all.’

I had no wish to watch another man’s final moments. It was common enough in those days for the better elements to go and view a burning or a hanging. After all, everyone needs a diversion, and from the look on Picksniff’s face, this game was not proving to be so appealing. He and Matt might enjoy the walk, but I had no wish to see it. In all truth, the mere thought had the gorge rising in my throat. ‘You fellows go,’ I said. ‘I’ll wait here.’

Thus it was that I heard about Hal’s disaster only later, when the men returned to the tavern and told me.

‘It was the most amusing thing you ever saw,’ Matt gurgled. ‘The expression on the executioner’s face was a picture!’

I have to rely on Matt and Picksniff for the following account. I don’t think many people could bear the thought of being burned to death at the stake without a shudder of horror. Not easily. And in some ways, of course, it would be worse to watch such an execution as a relative of the victim. Hearing their cries and screams, I mean. You know, a fellow could watch someone dangling from a hanging tree for a few minutes before running and jumping on the wriggling body to put them out of their misery. But a burning? There is little a fellow can do to stop the suffering. There is one way, and only one: bribe the executioner, so that he puts bags of powder at the groin, armpits or breast. As the heat grows, the powder ignites and pouf! End of suffering.

That day I had better things to do than witness two or three men being slowly roasted over a pyre of faggots. I’ve heard that it takes a couple of London carts full of wood to entirely destroy a human body. It goes to show, I suppose, that the folk of London are prepared to pay for their entertainment. Personally, I find a meal at a good inn, washed down with plenty of ale and followed by a short walk to the nearest brothel, suits my temperament far better. After all, I have seen my fair share of bodies.

But others are not so inclined. They go to Smithfield in their hordes whenever the burnings are announced, and stand at the barriers, peering excitedly as they wait for the arrival of the victims. The vendors of ancient pies and supposed sausages would wander among them, as would the hopeful harlots, offering something rather more comforting than the gristle-stuffed lumps of intestine, and the cut-purses who would invariably come away with the greatest profits of the day. There were times when I wished I was back there, watching the people and dipping into other men’s purses. I had been poor, but my troubles seemed minor compared with my more recent difficulties.

But more of my problems later.

That day the victims were not long in appearing. They had already been supplied with a large bowl of ale to send them on their way with a full belly that would hopefully soothe their fears as they approached their posts. Three large wagons brought the faggots, one per person. These arrived first, and the executioner’s assistants began throwing them about the two posts which were set waiting. Their job was only half done when the victims arrived.

They didn’t walk, these fellows, but were brought to the place of execution on a wagon. All were in clerical costume and were praying. Two were older, but the third was a younger man who was, so I am told, a good-looking example, not that I ever met him, poor devil. I doubt he looked good that day. He was tall, with thin dark hair, and a way of leaning his head forward as though stretching his neck in the urgent desire to hear another’s words. His brows were constantly creased as if anxiously desiring to help others, as a priest should be. Not that it helped him.

I did not know his brother Geoffrey at that stage, but later I heard that Geoffrey was in the crowd, as well as my friends from the inn. I imagine he was weeping and praying for some form of amnesty even at that late hour. Miracles could happen; miracles should happen, and he could not understand why his brother was there, about to die. What had he done, other than preach a sermon? He was a deeply religious man, who had never done harm to another. But in this topsy-turvy kingdom, the religion that had been imposed by the old King Henry some years before, was now to be evicted, and the Roman faith was to return by order of the Queen. No one argued with a Queen, or any other monarch. For to argue was a short path to the execution grounds. Queen Mary disliked dissent. She had been anointed Queen, and that meant she was God’s chosen ruler, in receipt of His authority. No one could argue with her, for to argue with her was to argue with God. That was heretical. Or something.

There was to be no miraculous intervention that day.

Matt laughed, he told me, as the wagon was brought forward, the hooded executioner walking behind with an assistant. The horses were halted, and the three priests slowly disembarked, standing in a huddle. The guards who had walked with them from the prison spread out inside the fenced ring, their polearms in their hands, some leaning on the fence, others standing in a moderately military manner. None appeared to pay much attention. They had all seen such sights before.

Geoffrey had, too – but not like this. Later, he told me, he had tears in his eyes and a tightness at his brow as the men went about their business. It felt as if his head was in a clamp and an executioner was tightening it. He watched as the three were chained to their posts, his brother James on his own, the other two back to back on the other, the little bags hung about their necks, other bags tied between their legs, more faggots arranged about them, and then the oil sprinkled liberally over the wood. A Catholic priest intoned the last rites, making the sign of the cross, and then a burning torch was brought and thrust into the faggots by the executioner, the flames rising, the noise of crackling, the sudden flare as clothing caught, the screams and anguish, and then the reports, loud and forgiving, as powder exploded, killing two of the priests before they could be forced to suffer too much or too long.

But one priest did not receive that same generous death. He remained in the flames, squirming, as the heat grew, coughing and calling for an end to his suffering. They say he was calling for a half hour.

No, I didn’t go. But I heard about it from Matt and Picksniff, and that was bad enough.

‘Why? What went wrong?’

The aristocrat, who was named George, took up his seat once more. ‘The fellow had hung a bag of gunpowder about the priest’s neck, so that, as the flames rose, his suffering would be put at an end. However, the powder was not good, or the fool had used the wrong powder. Perhaps he had mistaken ground pepper corns for explosive? In any event, the bag did not explode.’

‘It didn’t?’ I said.

‘No. There was a sad kind of fizzing, and then some did detonate, but he was long dead before that.’

‘The flames got to him?’

‘No!’ Matt laughed, interrupting to take up the story again. ‘He began berating the executioner for failing to serve him after he had paid for a speedy conclusion, and even as he said that, the platform he stood on collapsed, and a beam holding up the post he was bound to fell and broke his neck. It was delightfully ironic. He met a swift end as he wished, the hangman succeeded in his ambition to execute the priest, but neither achieved their aims in the manner they had anticipated.’

George chuckled again, but it struck me that there was little humour in his face.

And you may not believe this, but at the time it did not occur to me that this might come back to haunt me, or that there might be a child involved, or the rivalry between the Queen and her half-sister, or a runaway wife and her child. I did not think about the man lighting the fire to kill the priest. Why should I? There was more than one executioner in London. Queen Mary was determined to ensure that, no matter what, her reign would see to it that the apprenticeships for that single profession would rise, if no other did.

I had no idea that the hideous Hal Westmecott was the priest’s executioner. No, and my powder surely was not so damp as to be useless. It was just unreliable in my pistol. I had sold it in good faith – well, moderately good faith. In any case, Matt and I set to with a fresh game of dominoes, and put the dead priest from our minds.

It was only later, when Westmecott caught me, that I learned that the Queen’s executioner was looking for me because something had gone horribly wrong, and he blamed me.

So you will understand why, when Hal Westmecott had me cornered after I had fled across the roof of my house and the next two besides, I was not entirely comfortable. His mouth opened, and I was forced to stare into that gaping maw once more. I winced at the odours.

‘You made me look a fool in front o’ the crowd,’ he said.

‘Me? What have I done?’

‘You gave me the wrong powder, didn’t you? You thought I was too stupid to realize.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. You wanted gunpowder, and I sold you some.’

‘The powder you sold me didn’t work!’ he shouted, head jutting.

I am known for my courage, I think it is fair to say, but this man was alarming. I thought he might headbutt me in a moment, and tried to jerk away, but that only brought a stinging sensation at my throat. I winced. That blasted edge was keen. When I continued, I attempted a more soothing tone. ‘Perhaps you didn’t use it right?’

He growled at that. ‘You think me a fool?’

Suddenly, the blade at my throat pressed more heavily. You may find this hard to believe, but I had thought it could not press harder. Now it felt as if it must pass through and lodge in my spine. I gave a quiet moan of fear, trying to draw my neck away from danger. That sword really was astonishingly sharp. I tried to breathe more carefully. I wasn’t going to argue any further, but I confess the idea that the powder was all that sodden seemed unlikely.

He leaned closer until I could barely breathe with the reek from his mouth. It was suffocating. ‘You made me look foolish, and I don’t like that. You made an officer of the law look ridiculous in front of the crowds, and the city officials won’t be happy with that either. The family paid for the powder, too, and they won’t be pleased you made the priest suffer.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I managed in a rather high-pitched, strangulated voice.

‘Not enough.’

There was little I could say to that. I mumbled something about how truly sorry I was, and while that blade was at my throat, I was indeed, but there was a gleam in his eye. I didn’t like the look of it.

‘Not sorry enough, I’ll warrant,’ he said. ‘I want money!’

That was, at least, some relief. He didn’t intend merely to cut off various parts of me; he was hoping to make a profitable exchange.

‘Of course, if you’re sure, I’ll be happy to reimburse your money. I’m just very sorry that the powder didn’t work for you. I’ll go and fetch the money right a—’

‘Wait ’ere!’ he said, and pushed with his blade until my skull cracked against the wall behind me. ‘I’ll ’ave my money, but I wan’ more than that. I’ll need your ’elp with a little matter.’

‘What sort of little matter?’ I asked suspiciously. I had been caught before.

‘I’ve ’eard you have contacts in the city,’ he said, and there was a strange, new tone in his voice. It sounded plaintive. Yes, I know, it’s hard to think of a headsman trying to make an appeal, but as he spoke, I felt the blade withdraw slightly, and he almost seemed to smile ingratiatingly. I preferred his glower.

‘I may have some,’ I said warily. ‘What sort of contacts?’

‘Men who can make enquiries.’

‘About what?’ I said.

He took the sword away, and scuffed his boots in the dirt for a moment or two. ‘I ’ave a son. But his mother, the bitch, took ’im away from me, and I don’t know where they are.’

‘You want me to find them?’

‘Not ’er! No, I don’t want to see her again, unless she’s laid on top of my faggots for witchcraft! But I’d like to see my boy again. He must be close to eight years now. It’s time ’e knew his father.’

‘So he can be prenticed to you?’

The sword whipped up and rested on my throat again. I tried to apologize, but only a wheezing squeak came from my throat. It felt like my eyeballs must pop from their moorings, they opened so wide.

‘Don’t joke about my job! It’s not one just anyone could do, and I wouldn’t ’ave my boy set on my path, damn your soul, I wouldn’t! But I would’ – and the sword dropped again – ‘I would see him again. Try to set ’im on ’is own road. Maybe apprentice him to an innkeeper or …’

He rambled on a bit about coachmen and grooms, but all I could think of was that the old sot wanted a son who would be in a position to fill him with a gallon of ale of an evening.

I was not keen to remain long in his company, and it was a relief when, a short while later, the owner of the yard arrived in his doorway bearing a stout cudgel and made it clear that he had two hungry hounds who would look on us as prime breakfast material for trespassing.

It was a persuasive little speech, and Hal and I departed for the more accommodating environment of a hostelry which was keen to serve ale by the pint, and present us with a burned offering of blackened bacon and an egg that had suffered a worse immolation than Hal’s priest the day before. On the way, Hal waved to a man who walked towards us from my house. He was square-shouldered, with that stance that tells you he knows how to handle himself in a fight. Hal walked to him and spoke briefly – I guessed he was the man who knocked at my front door while Hal waited in the yard for me – and I gained the impression of a pair of glittering eyes. I didn’t like the look of him and was glad when Hal left him and returned to me.

Hal was still worrying at the shame he had suffered at the death of the priest like a toothless hound mumbling a marrowbone. ‘He insulted me, in front of all the people crowded round! Me! There were no need for that! And then ’e jerked, like ’e was tryin’ to shake his fist at me, or something, and the platform collapsed, and ’e fell down in among the faggots, and that made all those watchin’ start shoutin’ more an’ more, an’, I told ’em, they could kiss my arse, I couldn’t give a fart for any of them, and ’e was bawling about the fire and the powder, and then the blasted pole itself came loose, God’s hounds, and fell over ’is neck and broke it, and that was ’im done. He couldn’t complain then. But then the bag of powder fizzed up and some sparked, and made an ungodly smell, like the devil’s own had arrived to snatch his soul, as they must, for he was an unreligious ’eretic, so they say, but the people, I swear, I thought they would come and pull me limb from limb. I ’ad to get the soldiers to guard me.’

He stared morosely at the bacon on his plate. Looking at it, I was reminded of burned bodies I had seen during Wyatt’s rebellion, and pushed my own plate aside. I hadn’t touched my egg. It didn’t look as if it would appreciate being chewed. I suspected that it would return in my gullet to take its revenge.

‘Why do you need me to find your boy?’ I said.

‘You ’ave contacts. People you know, what can find ’er and ’im.’

‘Don’t you?’

He looked up at me. ‘My kind o’ job don’t lead to long-term friendship.’

That was probably true. A man would be unlikely to want to spend time with a fellow who had that morning put to death a trio of thieves, cut-purses or murderers. It tended to put a blight on a man’s appetite even for beer, when the hand that shook yours had earlier been inside another fellow’s breast to pull out his still-beating heart. I found I was wiping my hand on my jack and quickly stopped. ‘I don’t know whether I can find him,’ I said. ‘What can you tell me about him? If I’m to seek him, I will need to know what I am looking for.’

‘Aye. Well.’ He threw me a hunted look. ‘He was about so ’igh,’ he said, holding his palm some three feet from the ground. ‘And ’e ’ad dark ’air like mine, and brown eyes.’

‘So he’s only a yard tall? And with—’

‘I daresay ’e’s grown since. That were some years ago.’

‘How long?’

‘Well, ’e were four summers then.’

‘And now?’

He gave a rueful grimace. ‘That were three, four year ago – ’e’ll have grown.’

I stared at him open-mouthed. ‘You mean you haven’t seen him in three or four years? How will you recognize him if I find him?’

‘Find ’is mother, the poxed whore. She’ll bring ’im to you. Probably sell ’im to you for the cost of a pint of ale or old sack. She were never a good mother to him. She were a bawd. Always were.’

I tried to reason with him. ‘Look, even if I do find the boy, there is no saying he’ll want to know you. He is only young, and if he hasn’t seen you in five years, he probably won’t even remember you.’

‘No, ’e’ll know me – ’e were my boy then, and ’e still is now. Blood will out.’

An unfortunate phrase for an executioner, I thought, but I downed my ale and considered as he kept talking. The boy could possibly be found. His mother’s name was, apparently, Molly, but she had been known to go by a series of different names. When he called her a whore, it was little more than the truth, as far as he was concerned. He was convinced that she was hawking her body about the stews. If so, I wondered how well the boy would have fared for himself.

‘Oh, ’e’ll be fine. Strong, good lad, my boy.’

‘Why did she leave you?’

He looked at me, but his eyes slid away in shame. ‘I’m a good man, me. I work hard for my money. But she grew to think there was somethin’ shameful in me … doin’ my work. She di’n’t like it. I said to her, “What else can I do?” But she di’n’t want to listen. And then one day, it was after I had three men on the tree in one dance, I came home that night and she was gone. Just taken everything and my boy, the bitch!’

‘You think I can find him, but I am unlikely to have any more luck than you. I don’t think …’

He fixed a glower on me. ‘The family o’ that priest, they were right angry their man di’n’t die right. They wanted to know why the powder didn’t go off as it should.’

He need say no more. I could quite understand his hint. If I were to help him, he would keep my name secret. Fail, and the priest’s family would learn who had supplied the defective powder. It was not an ideal arrangement, but better to do a little work hunting down the boy in the hope that I could present him to the executioner.

I had no choice. I persuaded him to describe his wife and their boy in more detail, downed my ale, and left him glumly staring deep into the depths of his own. He gave the distinct impression of a man who was determined to remain in his seat until they swept him out with the rest of the trash into the gutter.

His wife was a woman of some four-and-twenty, with a large bust, red-gold hair, and a thin, pinched, shrewish face. But that could have been the ale and his hurt feelings speaking. A woman who went by the name of Moll or Molly Cripplegate. Hal was fairly sure that she would not be using his name. His boy was a lad named Ben, but he would not say whether Ben had any distinguishing marks.

He was just a boy, apparently.

I rubbed my throat as I walked home. There was a fine thread of blood about my neck where his blasted sword had parted my skin, and I felt like a man who had been all but hanged, reprieved at the last moment by a kindly pardon. But as far as I was concerned, this injury was unnecessary and unjustified.

‘Raphe, where are you, you bull’s pizzle!’ I shouted as I entered my house. After all, the fellow should have risen and barred the door, or stood there to hold any miscreant from entering. All my bellow received by way of acknowledgement was a sudden barking from his benighted hound.

‘Raphe? What are you doing? Are you still abed?’

I stalked out to the kitchen and peered up the steps that led to the little bedchamber snug behind the warm chimney, but he was not there. His brute was, sitting, expectantly staring at me, while his tail swept a clear fan in the dust and reeds of the floor.

Feeling irritable, I took a plate and sliced some ham and cheese and bread, before filling a pot with ale and taking them through to my parlour. I spent some time lighting the fire and soon had a flame from my tinder. I placed fresh twigs and kindling over it and waited until they too had caught, before I set some split logs about them, and some light pieces resting on them, and thicker limbs on top where they would catch all the heat.

I was about to sit and eat when I frowned to myself. That powder should not have been so uncooperative. I have never known black powder to be reluctant to misbehave at the drop of a hat. Thoughtfully, I took up my flask and tipped a little into the palm of my hand. I threw it on to the fire, and it sizzled and sparked as I had expected. Yet the executioner was utterly convincing. And I had heard from Matt and Picksniff that the powder had done nothing until the poor priest was already removed from this world, so his words must have been true.

For a moment or two I wondered what he had preached about to so enrage the Church’s officials, but in this present confused time, with two religious groups vying for authority, and the Queen having set her heart on the most stringent demands of the old Catholic Church, rather than her father’s newer English Church, it could have been any one of a number of points. There were regular demands for cartloads of faggots to remove argumentative religious clerks and others. Even men like Latimer and Ridley, who had burned the previous year, who had been well-respected men of the cloth. If they were not safe, nobody was.

I looked at my hand, then at the flask. It was from the same barrel as the one from which I had taken the powder to give to Hal Westmecott. On a whim, I went down to my cellar and lifted the lid on my powder store. It felt dry enough. I took a handful, replaced the lid and went back up. Throwing it on the fire, there was a sudden flash and gout of smoke that roiled about the mantel before slowly slipping back inside the chimney breast and up into the flue. There was nothing wrong with my powder. It may not be safe in my pistol, but in a large bag it should have gone off without problem. The fool must have stored it in a damp place, and that was what prevented the ecclesiastical termination.

Satisfied, I sat back in my chair and brought the plate to my lap. And that was when I realized that there was no ham and no cheese, and Raphe’s monster was looking at me all slantindicular with an occasional lick of his lips.

After aiming a satisfying kick at the dog, who scampered away full of remorse for his theft, I cut another slice of ham and chewed on that as I left the house. Where was Raphe? If he went shopping, he usually took the ruffian, whom he had named Hector, supposedly for his courage, with him. It was rare that he would leave the rascal in the house alone, for the obvious reason that, as a street dog, he would steal any spare food left lying about. The damned monster would have to start to earn his keep. He was no good as a guard, letting all in who wished to enter, and only barking at those who knocked at the door. Which was rather pointless.

I put him out of my mind. Just now I wanted to make sure that I was seen to be helping Westmecott. I had my usual garb on and walked out into the lane, glancing up at my neighbour’s window, remembering the sight of her in her bed. It was a happy thought, and I held on to it as I made my way to Rose Street. I stopped at a small-fronted building that stood a little back from the lane. There was a deep gutter which ran with noisome water, and a slab of rock served as a bridge.

Two years before I had made the acquaintance of a fellow, the intellectual friend of Piers, a man called Mark Thomasson.

Some men can impress by sheer force of personality. They enter a room, and all others immediately submit, not that the great men condescend to notice. Others can impress by their volubility. They overwhelm lesser spirits by the words they spew like arrows flying from a bow. A man who knows that number of words, someone might assume, must have a brain the size of an ocean. And yet there are others, men to whom a passer-by would not give a second glance, men who might stand in the middle of a street and stare at the sky as if puzzled by the rain, men who would examine with close attention the mark made by a walking stick on a painted post, or who would watch avidly while a dog sniffed about a courtyard in search of a treat; such men would be watched with amusement, or a man might tap his temple meaningfully while jerking his head at the poor fool.

They would be wrong, because the poor dolt may actually be considering an abstruse mathematical concept in his head, or persuading himself that a man with a stick of a certain dimension had caused the paint’s dent, and that same stick had been used in a murder, or watching the dog to see whether there was a piece of a corpse lying beneath the mud.

A man like that, a man with a brain like a steel trap, was a hard man to get to know, and harder to keep as a friend, because, on personal experience, the damned genius had the common sense of a sparrow, and less engaging manners. That was Mark Thomasson.

Mark Thomasson was a man with a permanently baffled expression. He found everything confusing because, unlike other men, he never accepted what was presented to him without questioning it. When I had met him, he was a slim man, with aquiline features and a nose that could have split logs. His mouth was a mere gash, his hair a mass of tawny locks. While he was moderately tall (taller than I), he always carried his head at a slight stoop, as if he hoped always to see something before anyone else. He had a habit of mumbling to himself with a frown, and then, every so often, a beam of brilliance would enliven his features, and he would speak with clarity and precision. But then he would return to his mumbling and frowning.

His house was an utter mess. The first time I had visited him, the presence of tables was a matter of faith. The sheer volume of books, coats, scrolls and papers had to be resting on something, and I assumed there must be tables. But I had no proof of this, because the legs were themselves concealed behind towering ledgers, piles of paper or assorted mechanical devices and sections of armour. Since my last visit, his house had become used more by a scavenger who patrolled the streets at night gathering every piece of metalwork and deposited them in Mark’s parlour – or so it seemed. At my last visit, I had remarked upon a helm with a great dint in it, next to a breastplate with two large holes. Now there were three other cuirasses and a second helmet, which sat upon a wooden bust. A crossbow bolt projected from it, and there was a second hole beneath the bolt that spoke of a sudden death for any man occupying that metal hat.

There was one thing that always unnerved me about the house. It was Peterkin, Mark’s ‘little’ hound.

Peterkin was the sort of brute that would make an elephant think twice about charging. He was the size of a donkey, a vast hound with amber eyes and deep grey coat. As I walked in, Peterkin rose, stretched like a cat and padded towards me. I am not scared of hounds, and did not want to be, so I made a fuss of him for a while, all the time speaking to Mark about my conundrum.

‘You say that this affair could affect a lady and her reputation?’ I was not going to tell him who exactly the lady in question was. After all, Mark was also a servant of Elizabeth. I didn’t want him to go blabbing the story to anyone. ‘Well, in that case something must be done. We cannot have a lady of good birth suffering the slings and arrows of mean-spirited gossip.’

‘What should I do?’

‘Tell me again.’

So I did. I told him of the executioner’s story and emphasized that I must somehow find the man’s wife and child. As I spoke, Mark’s servant, a grim-faced, weaselly fellow, appeared every so often, refilling my wine goblet whenever it looked in danger of becoming empty. The wine warmed me to my toes, and I began to lose my reticence and spoke more openly.

‘My difficulty is that I cannot hope to find a woman like that in all the brothels of London,’ I said. ‘How many women would fit his description?’

Mark nodded. I had first met him because he had gone to the Cardinal’s Hat, the brothel where my friend Piers worked, with a view to an energetic bout with a pair of the doxies. Mark occasionally needed rest from his mental labours, and he had a fine eye for a buxom wench with a welcoming gleam in her eye.

He looked up now. ‘Why don’t you tell John Blount?’

I shivered. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

‘Why?’

‘I doubt he would like to hear that I was consorting with a mere executioner.’

‘Then don’t tell him. However, Blount must know dozens of men about the town who could help. His agents are everywhere. One of them must know where this lad has been hidden away.’

He suddenly stopped and peered closer at me. ‘Wait! You can’t tell him, can you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Your reluctance. It is all of a part. And when I ask about your master, you look away every time, as though that thought cannot be countenanced. See? You do it again.’

‘You are mistaken.’

He leaned back in his seat and studied me complacently. ‘With a matter such as this, you would usually have hurried to John Blount, and the fact you have not indicates clearly to me that you do not think he would help you. Worse, he might hinder you, or so you fear. I am right, am I not?’

I couldn’t answer directly. As I opened my mouth, I realized that his monster was standing at my side. His drooping jowls oozed drool, and his amber eyes stared at me intently, as though wondering what flavour my marrow might have.

Mark had spoken again, and I shook my head. ‘Sorry?’

‘You think that John Blount might feel unhappy to be involved in such a matter and, most likely, very unimpressed with you being involved. He has higher aspirations for you, after all.’

‘Yes. That’s why I can’t tell him.’

‘Ah. In that case, I can suggest an easy solution for you. I shall ask him on behalf of a fellow I know. I can tell him it’s a matter of interest to me and no one else.’

I gaped. It was the perfect solution. Blount need never know I had any part to play in the matter, I need not explain anything about Ben, and his evacuation to a safer place could be effected with nobody any the wiser.

‘Would you do that?’

Mark beamed. ‘Of course. And in the meanwhile, we could do worse than looking at some of the brothels near here, just to see if she might be there.’

I should not have been surprised. I knew him well enough. Still, I was relieved to hear he would help me and gave a short gasp of joy, and perhaps it sounded menacing, because suddenly I was pinned to the seat when an over-enthusiastic Peterkin jumped on to my breast, causing not a little pain. Not that I cared at the time, because I was much more concerned about the massive jaws that held my throat in a gentle but very wet embrace.

‘Peterkin, get down, boy! Down! There are many brothels,’ he said with a beaming smile. ‘We could go about the nearer ones and try to find her.’

It was a thought. ‘How many brothels are there in London? There must be many thousands of them.’

‘Then we should set off,’ he said. He stood, staring about him with an air of sudden dejection.

‘What is it?’

‘Where is my hat?’ he said, mournfully gazing about him like a child who has lost his favourite toy.

We started at a small brothel Mark knew near Ludgate. From there, we walked westwards towards Westminster, stopping off at a place near the Mews opposite Whitehall. Here Mark seemed well known. Having gone to three different houses of variable virtue, he took me to another place nearer to Westminster. There, he told me, were more expensive whorehouses, where knights and nobles were keen to relax after a hard day’s hunting, drinking and gluttony.

At each, as soon as we entered, Mark would stand and stare openly at the wenches. It was all he could do not to dribble. After the first, when we were still near Whitehall, he took me into a cheaper residence suitable for the servants of nobles. There, while Mark stared adoringly at a couple of smiling hussies who showed a little leg to get his attention, I spoke to the dark-haired woman of the house, who gave me to understand that men with questions like mine could get out of her parlour, since time was the shape of a silver penny, and she had little enough of both.

‘I only want to know if you have a woman called Moll here, with a son called Ben.’

‘I have plenty of women. What do you want her to look like?’

‘A good figure, with weight to her top, and a thin face,’ I said, trying to remember Westmecott’s precise description.

‘I could have. Fair-haired?’

‘No, red.’

‘What did you want her name to be?’

‘No, no, I am looking for a lady with the name of Moll, who has a son called Ben. I don’t want you to make one up.’

We were soon out of that one. She hustled us out like two vagrants found in her doorway.

Outside, we continued on our search, but although two madams reckoned they had just the girl for me, it was clear that they were merely seeking to sell me one of their stable. We stood outside the fifth, and I looked up and down the roadway. There was a tall, thin, haggard woman in the roadway. She walked like a duchess on hard times. I could see her face was ravaged by harsh living. It always astonished me that women like her would keep on travelling to London to try to make a living. Even peasants must surely know that life in the city was not easy. It was cruel and hard even to those with youth and vigour on their side. But even those must sink at some point.

This woman had neither looks nor health, as far as I could see. But then, when a man looked at the women about the houses of ill repute, there were often women like this. Poor souls who, perhaps, had once made a reasonable living inside the houses, but who were so over-used that they were evicted from their rooms and now plied their trade as best they might in the roads outside the brothels. The next stage was to be moved away from these haunts to try to sell themselves to the drunks in a tavern or inn, or to fall to the worst stage, at the alehouses where the sailors congregated. It was a short walk from there to death in the river or a stab for her purse.

I grunted. ‘This is a waste of time.’

‘Then go and tell him you can’t find her.’

‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ I said, and rubbed my throat thoughtfully. ‘He may not wish to hear it.’

‘Well, there are several more houses I can think of,’ he said.

‘What is the point? There are so many of them, the chance of finding her in any of them is remote!’

‘Well, if you feel like that, I might as well go back inside,’ he said hopefully.

‘What else can we do?’

‘Perhaps go to the Cardinal’s Hat? At least there Piers won’t push you from the door.’

He had a point. It was a tempting thought. Piers would also provide me with an ale or two, if I was in luck.

I left him as he entered the nearest brothel, and directed my steps to an alley leading to the river. Before I entered it, I was struck by the sight of the haggard woman again. She was at the side of the brothel, watching Mark. I thought I could detect wistfulness in her stance, as if she was thinking that once he would have gone to see her. I felt a surge of sympathy for her.

It must be hard – I mean, to be a gormless peasant left without support in a city like London. So long as she didn’t expect me to slip her a coin for a knee-trembler in an alley. I wouldn’t waste my pennies on a raddled tart like her when there were fresh strumpets waiting on the other side of the river.

I waited at the river bank, but the wherries were all downriver. Rather than wait and waste the day, I chose to stroll over the bridge to the Southwark bank, and made my way to the bear pits and thence the area known for its Winchester Geese, the whores that thronged the banks and helped keep the Bishop of Winchester’s coffers so well filled. There, with a splendid view of the pits, stood the Cardinal’s Hat, where my friend Piers resided.

It was a kindness to call him ‘friend’, really, because he was more of an acquaintance. Once he had been a barber, and had been a good one – but then he got to enjoy his drink too much. It was expensive: it cost him his wife, his children and, finally, his business, but because he was a large man, with fists the size of a child’s head, he was welcomed at the Cardinal’s Hat as an apple-squire, a man to guard the doors, to be there to throw out unwanted guests, and to take on such other duties as the madam saw fit to pass to him. In his more sober moments, he would cut the hair of the bawds, and he was still very capable of doing so – as long as he had not already taken a quart or two of strong ale.

‘Do you know how many wenches there are in this city?’ Piers demanded, incredulous, as he poured a fresh pot of sack from a leather flask. We were sitting in the brothel’s entrance hall, and a fresh barrel had been set up ready. I was drinking a smooth ale that was strong enough to guarantee that most visitors would soon lose all their inhibitions – and financial sense. ‘There are more whores in London than you have lice! There are more than the fleas on a mastiff! This city has … thousands! How do you expect to find one with a boy in a city this size?’

‘That was why I came here,’ I said. ‘I have little doubt that you are right, but I have to try.’

‘Why?’

I pulled my shirt aside and pointed to the thin line left by Hal’s sword on my neck.

He peered. ‘A scratch like that? He wasn’t serious.’

‘He will be next time, and if he isn’t, other people will be!’ I said hotly. It was my throat, after all. I felt I had a right to be protective.

‘What would you think we can do? Ask every street-walker whether she was married to Westmecott? Wander round all the brothels and ask the tarts? Go into them and try to see how many boys they have working there with their mothers, clearing up and cooking, holding horses, taking torches to lead men home … Do you have any idea how many whores have bastards with them?’

I nodded, feeling as glum as Westmecott when I’d left him earlier. As he suggested, it was remarkably unlikely that I would find the mother, let alone the boy.

Sipping my ale, I sighed. ‘There must be some way of finding the woman, this Moll.’

‘A woman of four-and-twenty, big breasts, red hair? All I can think of is looking for a place that caters for men who like women of that type,’ Piers said. His eyes widened with the effort of alcohol-infused concentration. ‘If she has a pleasing manner, she could be installed in a place that is well positioned for the wealthy, I suppose, especially if her boy is willing and helpful. Some better houses might agree to take her on.’

‘Where should I start?’ I asked.

‘There is a brothel I have heard of, which is up near the Bishop’s Gate. They talk about their whores being there to tempt the travellers from the north, but it’s just a sales gimmick, I think. They’re just ordinary wenches, same as we get here.’

‘Oi, we ain’t all ordinary,’ a voice called.

‘You certainly aren’t,’ he said without a glance.

‘That’s a nice way to talk to a lady,’ she said.

She was a slim little thing, with fair hair and pale skin. Very appealing in a sort of waif-like manner, but not to my taste. She looked more the kind of woman who would tire a fellow out, whereas I preferred a more peaceable sort.

‘Why’re you lookin’ for this wench, anyway?’ She had approached us and now stood before me with her arms akimbo, her eye wandering over me with interest.

I have been told that my face is very pleasing, marred only by a slight scar. Women tend to see trustworthiness in me, and they want to mother me. This one looked more like a feral cat eyeing up a shrew.

‘I have been asked to find her by her husband. He is sore distressed at the thought of his son and not having seen him in three years or more.’

‘Means he probably beat the boy and her until she decided to go.’

‘Quite possibly,’ I agreed, thinking of the grim visage Westmecott showed the world.

‘Who is this husband?’

‘He’s not the sort of man she’d want to live with,’ I guessed. ‘It’s Hal Westmecott, the executioner.’

She paled. ‘Why’d she want to go back to him, then?’

‘I don’t think she will. I doubt he wants her.’

‘So it’s only that he wants his son? Waited until his boy had been fed and watered and protected, and now he’s of an age to become a useful worker, the man wants him back, eh? And at the same time, he’ll deprive his wife of the only companion she’s been able to rely on? That don’t sound friendly to me!’ the harpy announced.

‘I am no child-stealer! If either of them don’t agree, I’ll just leave them in peace.’

‘Oh, really. Why? How much is he paying you?’

‘Nothing.’

Piers looked at me pityingly. My inquisitor laughed aloud.

‘Ho, yes. You’re prepared to spend months just wandering the streets and speaking to the wenches, and all you’ll get is the man’s thanks at the end of it, eh? I should just think so,’ she finished with withering scorn.

‘Well, thank you for your help,’ I said to Piers, rising from my stool.

‘Where are you going?’ the woman said.

‘To see whether she might be at the house Piers mentioned,’ I said loftily.

‘Her name’s Moll, you reckon?’ she said with a sharp little look at me, her eyes full of a strange suspicion.

‘Yes. Moll or Molly.’

She gave me that odd glance again. ‘I know Moll. You’ll be goin’ to the wrong place. I can take you where you’ll find her.’

It is rare indeed that I find someone quite so accommodating, but as I have said before, I do have the good fortune to possess an honest, open face which has led to many women wanting to trust me and mother me. It is good to know that a fellow can make his way based on his charm and intellect.

I know that it may surprise some to see me placing my trust in a common trull, but the fact was I knew perfectly well that such women were often looking for a clean-living fellow who could protect them. This was no different. True, she was a little sharp of tone, and she was capable of trying to fondle my significant parts – by which I mean my purse – but she was clearly more enthusiastic about helping a fellow in need than in trying to fleece me blind at that moment. It was all to the good.

We took the bridge. The weather was growing less than clement for May time. I was more used to balmy, sunny days, but today it was definitely cool, and a fine drizzle was blowing in our faces. It was one of those days when the river looked grey as old steel, and there was a spray being thrown up from the ships and wherries that plied their trade. Not many were going out. A man trying to shoot the bridge in this weather would be brave indeed.

‘How do you know of this woman?’ I asked as we walked.

‘There are some girls I know. She’s one.’

‘What, you mean you have a circle of companions?’

She cast me a glance of frowning suspicion. ‘We shouldn’t have friends?’

‘No, no, I just meant …’

‘We get to know others of our age and profession, same as you do, I suppose. I’ve known Moll for a while.’

‘And she’s running from her husband?’

‘Many women do. And they need support of their friends.’

I mulled over that. ‘You mean you know of others, no matter where they are in the city?’ That was an interesting idea: that any of the wenches could send a message to their peers had never occurred to me. It was sensible, certainly, for it meant that many of them could warn others of the more dangerous clients. But only the higher level of bawd would have access to such a network, surely. The lowest street-walker no doubt had to make her own judgement.

She walked with a deliberate swiftness, barely glancing from one side to the other, which was a surprise. She was evidently keen to get on with this introduction, and I had to admire that in the woman. Most whores would be spending their time shooting coquettish little looks at the men about, eyeing up the next gull. I’ve never known one to ignore all the men about her like this one. I had to hurry a little to keep up with her. Especially when we came to a cart on the bridge, with a man swearing and gesticulating at a fellow with a barrow who had allowed a load of cabbages to roll free, and who was hurtling about the road gathering them up before they could be trampled. He, for his part, was responding in a low monotone of vile language.

The way between the two vehicles was narrow, and she slipped through like a tumbler on a stage. I tried to follow, but my sword’s scabbard got caught in the spokes of the cart, and I was forced to dicker about, trying to retrieve it. By the time I had, the woman had passed on through the crowds.

I cried out, ‘Hoi!’ and hurried after her, but only caught a glimpse of her hat and coif as she passed up Bridge Street. Really, she should have realized that I was falling behind. I had to hurry, one hand on my sword’s hilt, the other on my pistol, to catch up with her.

She was turning off to the left as I came close.

‘Woman, hold hard,’ I said. ‘Wait! I don’t even know your name to call to you!’

She threw me a look over her shoulder, in which disdain and annoyance were close bedfellows. ‘You can call me Peg, if you must.’

I was almost at her side now as we walked up Crooked Lane, a narrower street where only the ubiquitous London cars could travel. The longer carts were fourteen feet by four, and could only be manoeuvred along the broader ways, while cars, being only twelve by three, could cope with narrower ways. Even so, when one came past, Peg and I were forced to take refuge in a doorway while the driver snarled and swore at us for slowing him. Peg shouted out, ‘You polled knave!’ The man turned and tried to cut at her with his whip, but he missed, and instead caught me on the shoulder. I roared with pain, and the man took one look at my sword, pistol and face, which surely was as red as a choleric publican’s, and urged his knackered beast on with more urgency as he saw my hand on my pistol. I wasn’t attempting to pull it and fire at him – I was merely holding it so it did not slip from its moorings – but I suppose he caught sight of a man with his hand on a steel handgun, and drew a sensible conclusion.

Peg swore under her breath and flicked a finger at the man, and I snapped at her with exasperation. ‘You have already caused me enough pain, woman! What, do you want him to whip me again? Calling him a castrated peasant and then flicking your finger at him – are you mad?’

‘He could have hurt us,’ she said, ‘driving his car like that in this narrow way.’

‘He did hurt me – when you insulted him,’ I said. My earlier view of her as an appealing mount for a bedtime gallop had dissipated somewhat with the sting of the lash. ‘By all means slander men, but do so when I am not in the area to be hurt!’

‘It was hardly a powerful blow,’ she said, glancing at me, and then her eyes widened a little. When I glanced down, I saw a sight to make my stomach roil. There was a slash in my jack as if a knife had drawn across it, and where it had hit, there was a stain of blood forming. I felt queasy.

‘Come along, if you’re coming,’ she said.

The house was new, with bright, fresh timbers newly limewashed and the daub clean and unmarked, as yet, from men and dogs pissing against it. A jetty that can only just have passed the city rules on how high it must be, and how far it could jut out over the lane, was close to braining any man of moderate height, I thought. The rules are explicit about the height of each building’s jetty, but so often the rules are twisted by corruption. A purse of coins can persuade the hardest-hearted city official to mismeasure a house’s dimensions, after all. At least the place looked well built. Its fresh limewash made the lane brighter. It almost hurt the eyes, even on a gloomy day like this.

‘Wait here,’ Peg said as she knocked on the door.

‘Why?’

She gave me a look that clearly as words stated, ‘Do you ever use your brain?’ before saying, ‘Because, lummox, she is not expecting you. Look at you! A man with a gun and sword? What do you expect her to think? I heard you talking to Piers. When she hears you are come from her husband, a man who kills others for a living, a man who snips off ears or noses, who beheads, hangs and burns to death, who quarters his victims and castrates them in public, do you think she will welcome you with open arms?’

Well, putting it like that, it was a cause for thought, I realized.

‘I’m going in there to ask her to give you a fair hearing. She will listen to you, and tell you whether she is prepared to give up her boy or not. Does that not sound fair?’

I could hardly argue with her logic. Nodding, I leaned against the wall, rubbing my sore shoulder as she slipped inside. My shoulder was painful, I have to say. There was a throbbing, and while I didn’t believe the injury to be too severe, I was most loath to open my jack and look. I had a strong reluctance to witness the depth of the injury. As matters stood, I was in a position to believe that it was only a scratch. After all, it is the smallest of splinters in the palm of the hand that hurt the most, is it not?

The door opened, and Peg appeared. ‘Come in,’ she said, standing aside.

I entered with gladness. After the lightness outside, it was very dim and gloomy inside. I could barely see my hands before my face.

Stepping forward, I smiled at Peg as I passed her, and as I did so, I became aware of shadows; little more than shadows, but there were three of them, and then all at once there was a hand on my arm, pulling it away from sword and pistol, while two men stood before me. I squeaked in alarm. Then a man kicked at my knees, and I was on the floor, one man on my chest, while I was divested of all my weapons.

‘What is this?’ I demanded.

‘We know you, Jack Blackjack. We know who you are, and whom you serve. Did you think us so stupid as to let you kill him?’

Now, I have been in worse scrapes. Waking on the piss-laden ground of a privy beside a dead body was unpleasant; then there was the time when I was dangling over a cesspit, and a great bear of a man was trying to force me in to drown in … well, in that; and I will not forget waking from a sore head in the chamber of one of the kingdom’s most senior, devious, untrustworthy, dishonest politicians – that was even more terrifying than the others.

Having said that, there was something about lying on the floor with at least three men about me in the dimness of that chamber that caused me to forget the insult to my person and the pain of my shoulder. Instead, I had to concentrate on containing my bladder. These men sounded determined; they were determined to hurt me. That seemed most obvious. And they appeared to know of my employment. Oh, and one large fellow was holding a sword’s point at my bowels. That concentrated my mind most effectively. Especially when he grinned at me. It was as reassuring as seeing a wolf bare its teeth at me.

‘I don’t think we have quite the right understanding,’ I said, keeping my voice calm and reasonable.

‘Who ordered you to come here?’

‘Hal Westmecott, the executioner. He asked me to find his wife because he wants his boy back. I suppose you know that—’

‘A reasonable invention,’ the voice said again. Gradually, as my eyesight began to discern the figures in the chamber, I could make out faces. The speaker was a tall man, with a most pointed face, his chin a sharp angle, as though his features were a triangle. If he were to give up knocking innocent fellows to the ground, he could have gained employment as an awl in a leatherworker’s workplace. He had a thin beard and moustache, and the jack about his shoulders looked to be of good quality, perhaps satin or silk. His voice was smooth and careless, which was worrying. It made him sound like a nobleman, and noblemen tend to be unconcerned about injuries suffered by fellows such as me.

He continued, ‘Who really sent you? We are not persuaded that you could have been sent by some oafish knave like him. He’s too sotten with ale to care about his wife or son.’

‘You may think so, but he was most persuasive.’

The man smiled. It was not a reassuring look. ‘You think he is the sort of man to care about his wife and son?’

‘Ask her! She will tell the truth, I am sure,’ I said, but my belly was cringing at the nearness of that sword’s blade, and suddenly I was assailed by the thought that if they asked this benighted woman, and she didn’t agree with what I said, that sword might plunge down in an instant.

‘Don’t whine,’ the man said. He peered at me closely. ‘What sort of man is this executioner? Is he the sort to treat a wife like a chattel? Beat her, whip her, use her abominably?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Oh, really? And I suppose you aren’t being paid to find her?’

‘No.’

He looked at me as though I was a cockroach, but a cockroach that could whistle a shanty. ‘In that case, why did you agree to look for her and his son?’

‘Ask Peg there – she told me she knew his wife, and was taking me to her,’ I said, looking at her sorrowfully. ‘Why don’t you let me speak to her, and I’ll be on my way if she wants nothing to do with her husband?’

‘Are you so dull-witted that you need to ask?’

This was from the heavyset man with the sword. He seemed irritable, as though he thought I was making fun of them all.

The last man was over by the wall with Peg. He was even broader than the man with the sword, with square shoulders and the look of a man who would be handy with his fists. Or a knife. Or a sword. Or … You get the idea. He was vaguely familiar, as heathen, murderous, brutes often are. ‘I’ve heard enough. He was here to kill the child. Just run him through now and let us be on our way, in God’s name.’

‘No! Wait!’ I protested, and made a brief move to rise. The sword’s point was instantly more noticeable, and I sank back again. ‘I don’t understand! I was sent to find the boy, nothing more, not to hurt him, and now …’

‘We know who you are, Blackjack,’ the nobleman said. ‘We know you serve that black-hearted son of a fox, John Blount, so don’t try to persuade us you’re just an innocent abroad. What did he tell you?’

‘It has nothing to do with him!’ I said with surprise, and my voice and face must have been convincing, because even Peg said, ‘I believe him.’

‘All the more reason to kill him,’ said my friend who was standing beside her. ‘If he is lying, he’s too believable. If he’s telling the truth, he’s heard too much from us. I say kill him now and be done.’

There was a shivering in my bowels on hearing that flat tone. ‘You would kill a man because he knows nothing? You would murder me just for trying to do a good deed for a man who asked it of me? You would kill a man—’

‘For not being silent and continuing to whine like a kicked whelp? Yes,’ the nobleman said.

I suddenly had a feeling of remorse for kicking Hector after his theft of my breakfast. ‘But I only wanted to bring back—’

‘The boy, yes. The deeply caring executioner wants his son back. Why would that be, do you think?’

‘He feels the loss of the lad? How would I know? He told me that he wanted the boy back, and that was all.’

‘Why does he want the fellow now?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘Perhaps because he thinks there is something to his advantage?’

‘From the son of a bawd? He thought to make money from her or their son?’

Sadly, there was an answer which he supplied himself. ‘If he wants the woman, perhaps he has heard she had an arrangement with a man far superior to her class and her husband’s? Perhaps he thinks he can use this child? He might seek to capture the boy and demand ransom for his safety?’

That was not something that had occurred to me in my wildest moments. ‘He … she … you mean …’

‘Exactly.’

‘No, surely not. Westmecott wouldn’t be happy to raise the child of another man.’

‘If he knew.’

‘Of course, he must have known,’ I said, and then I was silent. Westmecott, who was drunk every night so he could forget his work; Westmecott, who would barely have recognized his own face in a mirror, and would never have recognized the face of another man in his son; Westmecott, who probably routinely beat his wife … It was all too believable that he wouldn’t realize he was raising another’s boy. But by the same token, ‘How could you know that the boy was not his? If his wife was so incontinent as to be flying about the city and offering herself to your nobleman, how would he know it was not Westmecott’s?’

‘Perhaps because Westmecott didn’t know his woman had given birth? Perhaps because she left him when the beatings grew too violent, and she had not yet had a child? Perhaps because she was placed in a safe home, and became concubine to her lover? Perhaps because ten months later, she gave birth to a boy?’

‘Hah, but that would mean she left Westmecott before she had her son!’

‘Yes. At last I believe you begin to understand.’

‘But if the lad wasn’t born, how could he have told me about his boy?’

The man with Peg sighed. ‘As I say, run him through. We don’t have time for this.’

‘He has heard that Moll has a child with her, since he has asked you to find them, I suppose?’ the nobleman said. ‘And now he seeks to capture the boy and demand money – or he has another plan. Something even less to my taste. Whichever it may be, it is not acceptable. The question is, were you sent to kill the boy or to kidnap him?’

‘Me?’ I squeaked, and at that moment several things happened.

First, the nobleman looked across to the man with the sword, and I saw a wordless communication pass between them; second, reading in that message a significant threat to my health, I gave a shrill squeal, slapped the sword away before it could puncture my belly, and rolled away; third, a loud hammering came at the door, and a cry of ‘Open in the name of the Queen!’

There was instant pandemonium. I continued rolling, then scampered to the far wall, where I cowered with my arms over my head. The nobleman gave a sharp command and strode through a door at the rear of the chamber, closely followed by his companions, and Peg ran to the door, drawing the bolts, and then threw herself at my side, her arms about me. I cringed at the feel of them and tried to pull away, but she was like one of those things that clasps to the timbers of ships – a barnacle – and I could not shake her off.

The door was flung wide, and a heavyset trio marched in, the leader a city tipstaff. He held his staff towards me and snarled. ‘Is that him?’

‘Aye!’

It was the carter, and he spat in my direction. ‘Threatened me with a gun, he did.’

‘All right, that’s enough.’

‘What is this?’ Peg demanded. I was still shivering from the thought of the sword held at my belly.

‘This man says you two had foul words with him, and your man tried to shoot him.’

‘That’s a lie! The carter almost ran us down in the lane outside here, and when we protested, he lashed us!’

‘Your man fired his gun.’

‘No, I didn’t!’ I said hotly. ‘There’s my gun, on the floor over there. Smell it and see. If it had been discharged, you would be able to smell it. I have not fired it.’

‘It is easy enough to clean a pistol.’

‘With what? Tell me if you can find a piece of rag or anything else that I have used to clean it,’ I said. I was growing angry now. The threat to my life of the last few minutes, the pain (which I was once more aware of) in my shoulder, the sight of the man who had caused the injury standing there and accusing me of threatening him, all built until I was filled with a righteous exasperation. ‘What is the meaning of this? That fellow tried to run us down, and when we remonstrated, he cut me with his whip – here, look!’ I said, and pulled my jack open.

Peg gave a small ‘Ooh’ and looked away. I glanced at her and then down. And as I did so, I was aware of a sudden hissing and boiling noise. It sounded as though the Thames was rising to flood the entire city. It truly sounded to me as if we were about to be inundated. But then the noise abated.

My shirt was a mass of blood. The sight made me go from boiling hot to freezing cold in an instant.

I heard no more. I fainted.

I have had worse awakenings. To be brought to my senses with my head resting on the soft, warm thighs of a woman while she stroked my cheeks and brow with a clean cloth, that was all perfectly acceptable. She was drinking strong wine from a goblet, and she tipped the rim to my lips. I sipped. It was a good Sherris sack, one of those fortified wines from Spain. When she spoke, I could smell the warm odour on her breath. It made her still more lovely to my eye. Women with a cargo of strong wine on board are always more likely to fall for the Blackjack charm.

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

Of course, I should have guessed. This was a day of surprises for me, but the red-gold hair, the eyes that held a reserved gaiety, while not concealing the pain that lay behind them, and the positively bouncing bosom that moved so wondrously as she inhaled – these surely would have told me in an instant who owned such bounties, were my brains not addled from questionings and beatings.

‘You were looking for me, Peggy says.’

I sat up and winced. My shirt was gone, and instead I now wore a curious tracery of bandages about my chest and shoulder. ‘Where am I?’ I said, looking around. It was a large chamber, with a large, good-quality bed on the right, windows that gave a splendid view of an ancient building opposite, and a door before me. I was lying on Moll’s lap, on a truckle bed that was too short for a man of my height. Clearly, then, a bed for a child.

‘Where are the tipstaff and the carter?’

‘When the tipstaff saw your injury, he took the carter away. I think he has some explaining to do.’

‘Good,’ I said, trying to rotate my shoulder. It was very sore. ‘Who did this?’

‘I was taught how to bind a wound when I was a child. How are you feeling? You fainted quite away.’

‘You cannot be Moll. You wouldn’t be Westmecott’s woman,’ I said, and I meant it. She was lovely. Small-boned, she was a pretty, lithe little thing, with the kind of vivacity that comes from owning a certain position in the world; I could not see her being the wife of a drunken oaf like him.

‘Why?’

I tried to give her the old Blackjack charm. ‘You are far too beautiful, my lovely.’

Shutters dropped behind her eyes. I had overplayed my hand. She hadn’t consumed enough wine yet. ‘Yes, you are better.’

She pushed me from her lap and stood, wiping her hands down her skirts to smooth the material. ‘Peggy told me about you.’

‘Then you know I am not here to hurt you. Please, more wine?’

‘No, you only came to steal the boy from me.’

‘No! I was asked to find you and see whether you would let your boy go to him. He wants to see his son.’

‘It’s not his, and he knows it.’

‘How could he tell?’ I scoffed.

She gave me a very direct stare which included a certain degree of puzzlement. ‘Because I am not his wife. I don’t know him.’

Of course many women can lie most effectively, especially the ladies of her profession, but I was struck by the conviction in her tone. I am graced with a good ear for dissembling. This sounded like the truth.

‘The boy is nothing to do with the man you speak of,’ she said. ‘I will not give him up.’

‘You aren’t married to Hal Westmecott?’ I tried again.

‘I don’t know him. I was married to Hugh Tanner, but he died. Then I met a pleasant nobleman. And … well.’

‘Of course, some ladies might decide to forget marriage with a man like Westmecott,’ I said with an attempt at an understanding smile.

‘You think I’ve forgotten getting married?’

‘Some people can forget,’ I said. ‘Some may choose to forget an unhappy marriage.’

‘Some might. I haven’t.’

That was a hard one to counter, but it was not my place to wonder. ‘So, you will not allow your boy to be taken back to his father.’

‘He is with his father often enough,’ she said tartly. ‘I told you: Westmecott is not his father.’

‘I will tell him.’

‘And what else will you tell him?’

‘Me?’ I shrugged. ‘Nothing. I have no wish to be involved in anything further to do with you or him. This is all the result of a misunderstanding between him and me, and now I learn he misunderstood the situation between himself and you. And the boy. I have no desire to be caught between you all.’

And I did not. I pulled on my shirt – stained and befouled with my blood, and with a new slash in the shoulder where the lash had cut – with some difficulty, tucking the tails under my buttocks, and pulling the jack on, binding the points to my hosen. The lady was kind enough to tie those at the rear for me, and soon I was dressed once more. I searched about the room for my sword and baldric, the pistol and my pouch of powder and balls, but I was told that they were not here. I could see that.

‘Where are they? I cannot walk the streets without protection!’

‘My friends did not want you to wake here in my house with weapons.’

‘This is intolerable! I want my pistol,’ I said. Without the damned thing, I felt quite naked.

She clapped her hands, and a man walked in. It was the same brute who had stood at the wall with Peggy. ‘Walter, please fetch this fellow’s weapons. When he leaves the house, you may give them back to him. I don’t want him inside with them.’

‘Yes, Mistress.’

‘And, Walter, make sure that he leaves.’

I bowed to the woman, because while she might have been a prostitute, she had more class than a number of well-born women I could think of. While the man called Walter waited, I took my leave and strode from the room with a haughtily uplifted chin that, I think, demonstrated my status compared with his own. I heard, I think, a snigger as I passed him, but I treated that with the contempt it deserved, and continued out through the door and down a steep flight of steps. There, I stood and waited while Walter followed after me.

A door opened a little way ahead of me, and I saw a tousled head appear. A boy with a distinctive face peered out at me, a face that was perfectly symmetrical and triangular in shape, with dark eyes that took in my appearance without any great demonstration of pleasure or of being overly impressed by my appearance. He merely took in the sight of me and then withdrew, closing the door quietly behind him.

Well, that answered one question. If the woman had given birth to her lover’s child, the father was the nobleman who had interrogated me. His face was remarkably similar to that of the boy.

‘Outside,’ Walter said brusquely.

I would have cavilled, but the man was young and healthy, and I was injured and unarmed. When he pointed to the door to the front parlour, I walked on, but with a reserved calmness, ignoring him as arrogantly as any duke. At the door to the street, he reintroduced me to my weaponry, and I pulled my baldric over my head with an effort, then hefted my bag of balls and powder to my good shoulder, and last of all thrust my pistol into my belt.

‘Don’t come back,’ he said.

The comment was unnecessary as far as I was concerned. I had been knocked down, whipped and insulted.

It was between Westmecott and this woman, and I wanted nothing more to do with the affair or with them.

The rooms where Westmecott had his lodgings were in a poorer part of Ludgate, south of the cathedral, in the maze of alleys. On all sides were thriving businesses of every kind, with the constant shouts of people selling pamphlets, printers hawking their wares, tradesmen trundling handcarts with flapping sheets of paper to the printers. It was between a low alehouse and a printer’s that I found the dark, noisome passage that led to his house.

I may be from the underworld of London’s rougher parts, but that doesn’t make me immune to the dangers of a place like this. The darker the alleyway, the more my hackles rise, and I could not remember such a dim, unpleasant corridor as this. Usually, some vestige of light would tentatively creep down from the sky overhead to give a glimmer to the cobbles underfoot, but here there was nothing, only a twenty-foot black maw into which I must step. I can say now that I didn’t like to enter.

It was like slipping into treacle. The light was sucked from the place, and without a candle or spark of light to show the way, I had to rely on the vague patches of paleness which showed where a clean cobble stood. Those that didn’t show themselves were hidden beneath other things which I preferred not to speculate on. The concealing articles were unlikely to be pleasant.

His lodging, as I was told, was the last door in this grim passageway. I moved on down to the last door, which was more a rough accumulation of planks of wood haphazardly nailed together, and knocked. There was a hollow ring to the place, and no answer. I knocked again, and this time I noticed that the door moved.

It struck me that it was likely that the man was in a stupor, or still in a tavern somewhere, but in case he was inside, I pushed the door wide and called for him.

Inside, it was as dark as the passageway, and my eyes could make out little. I stumbled over something, and then barged into a stool and struck the corner of a table with my thigh, which made my leg go dead, and I all but fell. There was a faint lightness in a wall, and I made my way to it. Over a grimy window was a scrap of cloth serving as a curtain. I drew it aside and rubbed at a pane or two of glass with the material. It felt greasy and rank in my hand, but gradually it began to clear a path through the grime of the window, and when I turned around, I could make out the furniture in the room.

And the body on the floor.

Many people, I suppose, on finding themselves in the presence of death, would perform one of two or three functions.

They might instantly search for money or valuables – but that was hardly worthwhile in a chamber so bereft of decoration. Anything this executioner managed to filch from his victims he sent to a pawn shop instantly, and drank the proceeds the same night. A man might also search about for someone to blame for the death – but in the case of an executioner, what would be the point? The man had slain so many people, trying to find one specific person with the desire to murder him would be pointless. And finally, of course, many people would hurry from the chamber to find a bailiff or other officer, to begin the process of the law, fetching a coroner to record the death and establish the fines for deodand and all the other little details that could cost the parish dear.

Not I. No, I walked to the stool, picked it up from where I had knocked it over, set it straight and sat upon it.

I suppose, in the months since Wyatt’s rebellion, I have seen death in so many forms that to see an executioner lying in a pool of blood was less of a shock, and more of an irritant that must be dealt with. If there was one thing I had learned in the last twelvemonth, it was that hurrying from a place of murder would be unlikely to do anything other than cause people to comment. Better by far to walk away from here quietly, without rushing, with a cheery whistle. No one would notice me in such a manner.

Someone had entered here and slain the man while he was at his table, perhaps, or waited until he opened the door, then struck him down as he turned away. It was plain that the man had bled a great deal. Blood was all over the floor, and now I could smell it, too. I swallowed as my gorge rose, keeping it at bay. As my eyes grew more used to the light, I could see that the man’s head had been struck with a weapon and was crushed. There was a great dint in the back of his skull, which was facing me now. His left shoulder lay on the floor, his back to me, and his legs were at the wall. One hand was reaching forward towards his bed, as if to grab a post and pull himself up – but it was too late for him to do that.

I could imagine the scene. Westmecott, hearing a knock, went to open his door. He would invite his guest inside, standing aside and waving the fellow in … but no. This figure was lying so close. Perhaps he was less courteous and merely turned around, expecting the guest to close the door, and as soon as he showed his back, his killer struck him on the head with a stout cudgel, or a hammer. Something heavy would be needed to make that kind of injury.

There was nothing for me here. The only thing I was aware of was that at least I didn’t have to worry about explaining that his son didn’t want to return to him because, well, it wasn’t his son. And, of course, I wouldn’t have to worry about reimbursing him for the cost of the powder.

All in all, I considered as I stood, settling my sword and pistol and wincing at the pain still in my shoulder, although it was sad that the fellow had died, his death did remove several difficulties for me. I could not mourn him. Any responsibility for finding his ‘wife’ and ‘son’ died along with him. Yes, it was a relieved Jack who prepared to leave that unpleasant environment.

I was about to cross to the door when I heard paces in the passageway outside. They were slow, burdened paces, the paces of a heavy man who was stumbling. Suddenly, it occurred to me that the man before me could, possibly, have struck out at a man, turned to fetch a fresh weapon and then himself been struck. Perhaps the killer was on his way back now, even as I stood there. Perhaps he had seen me enter the alley and was ready to assassinate me to keep his bloody murder secret?

It was intolerable. I listened to the slow scrap and shuffle on the cobbles, and then a shape appeared in the doorway, as gross as a bear, enormous in the darkness, with a great lump on his shoulder. With a squeak of terror, I pulled out my pistol and held it up. ‘Don’t come in!’ I said in a falsetto that would have done service to a eunuch.

‘Go and piss yourself!’ came the response. ‘What are you doing here?’

And I gaped and lowered my pistol, for all my problems had just returned, renewed and invigorated, to haunt me. Because in the doorway stood Westmecott.

Which rather begged the urgent question of who lay on the ground before me?

‘Christ’s cods! Damme eyes! What ’ave you done?’

His words were not those I wished to hear. He was carrying a rug over his shoulder, and he slung this on the floor at my feet.

‘What have I done? What have you done?’ I spluttered. ‘I came here to find you to tell you about the boy, and found this fellow here, as you see him. Who is he? Why did you kill him?’

‘Me? Kill ’im?’ he demanded with vigour.

That was the beginning of one of those ‘I didn’t do it, you must have’ and ‘No, I didn’t do it, you must have’ conversations which are always essentially fruitless, and tedious to repeat. Suffice it to say that when we had run out of mutual accusations, we both set to staring at the corpse with confusion in our hearts.

‘Is he someone you know?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He went to the body and rolled him over. It made me catch my breath, because the man had wide, staring eyes and an expression of hideous pain.

He was – well, had been – a man of about five feet eight inches, and broad in the shoulder. He’d been a labouring fellow, or a street rough, from the look of him. His knuckles were all calloused and thickened, like a man who was used to using his fists. His face was simian, with a scar that ran under his left eye and away towards his ear, and I could imagine that someone had taken a knife to him and had the weapon knocked away. I pitied the man who had dared to draw a blade against him. Apart from that, he had a shock of thinning, sandy hair, and was missing the last joint of his left forefinger. He was not a man I would have liked as an acquaintance.

‘You know him?’ Westmecott said, hearing my intake of breath.

‘No. Never seen him before,’ I said.

He was gazing at me in what I could only think was a suspicious manner, but on hearing the evident sincerity in my voice, he nodded, and his manner appeared to grow more emollient. ‘What are you doing ’ere, anyway?’

‘Me?’ For a moment I was at a loss. ‘Oh, I came to tell you, I have spoken to Moll,’ I said without thinking.

‘You found ’im, then? You found my boy? Good. When will you bring ’im to me?’

‘Eh?’ I hesitated. Moll’s denial of his claim upon her was ringing in my ears still, but I reckoned that informing the executioner that his wife denied their marriage could lead to a buffet about my ears that would set them ringing like the bells at St Paul’s. ‘No, I spoke to his mother, and she … well, she said no. But what about this fellow?’

Westmecott shrugged unconcernedly. ‘I dispose of bodies every day. One more or less won’t make a lot of difference. I can remove him. But my boy – what do you mean, she won’t let ’im come?’

This was tricky. I could see that his suspicions were aroused, but then again so were my own. Moll had been quite definite that she was not this man’s wife, and that the boy was not his. Perhaps she had been lying to persuade me to leave her alone? But why, then, would Westmecott want the boy? Purely for a ransom, as the nobleman had suggested? It was possible, I supposed. All I was sure of right now was that Westmecott was a large, strong fellow who could unscrew my head with ease to peer inside, and the nobleman with Mistress Moll was more than capable of ordering my death as well. I wanted no further part to play in this nasty little dispute. Leave it to the parties involved, was my view.

‘I have spoken to her, as you asked,’ I said with some hauteur, and then a spark of resentment flared. Why should I worry about him and his reaction, when he had asked me to perform a task, I had done so and she refused to comply? It was all one to me.

I stiffened my back. This may hurt, but it was better that he came to terms with things sooner rather than later. ‘I am sorry, but she said she would not return. Nor would she send your boy to you. She …’ I swallowed. ‘She said he was not your son anyway. She said she was not your wife, and she didn’t know you.’

‘Did she?’ he said, and a terrible calmness came over him. ‘She said that?’

‘Yes. She said that she left you and conceived the boy after leaving you. She said you never had the boy living here with you.’

Looking about the place, there was scarce space for a man, woman and child.

‘Did she?’ he said again, and I was suddenly aware of just how large the man truly was. He loomed over me, even though our heights must have been roughly similar. Still, from where I was standing, he loomed. He definitely loomed. And I felt myself shrinking.

‘She weren’t lying,’ he said, and sighed.

I confess, for an assumed assassin, a mercenary who was happy to kill those who stood in his path, or who stood in the way of his master’s enemies, I always disliked the smell and sight of a dead body. It took little effort to persuade my companion that we should perhaps remove ourselves to a more comfortable house where a fire was already alight, and where there was a possibility of warmth and ale. Yes, it was May, but that chamber felt cold with the soul of the corpse sucking the life and vitality from the room.

We walked up the foul little alley to the top of the road, and there Hal Westmecott led me to the back room of the alehouse I had seen before.

It was a cheery enough little place. There was a good fire in the hearth, and the smoke rose to the middle of the bay – this was a house built before the advent of chimneys – and the place felt cheery and warm.

We walked with our ales to a rear table, where we seated ourselves on a bench. I accosted him with all the seriousness I could muster. ‘Come, Hal. No more prevarication and dissembling. What is happening?’

‘I told you.’

‘No. You told me your wife was a runaway with your son. Now she tells me she was not your wife, and you admit she isn’t lying!’

‘Perhaps our marriage weren’t formal,’ he said, abashed.

‘So you weren’t married to her. You beat her, she ran away, and, while away, she conceived and gave birth. So this is not your son, is it? It is the son of another man. So what do you want with the boy, and what do you intend with her?’

He glowered and seemed to inflate to twice his normal size, leaning towards me and glaring like a bear who has seen his favourite berries stolen, but then he subsided. He sank back in his seat and leaned against the wall behind the bench. ‘Very well. Yes, I admit it. She weren’t my legal wife, but her and me, we lived like husband and wife. That man took her from me. I don’t know ’ow.’

‘When was this?’

‘She left me for him in 1548 or so, I suppose.’

‘That is eight years ago!’

‘You think I don’t realize?’ he snapped.

‘Yes, yes, I’m sorry.’

‘She was got with child, so I hear. When she came back to London—’

‘She had left?’

‘Do you want me to finish?’

‘Yes, yes, I am sorry. Continue.’

‘She came back, yes. I don’t know ’ow long she were away, nor where she were gone to, but she weren’t here. She came back with her pimp, and lived with him, I think.’

‘You mean the nobleman who lived with her?’

‘No, I mean the man who’d tooken her from me. He was selling her body all over London.’

‘You have proof of this?’

He looked at me from beetling brows and sank a good half pint of ale in a draught. ‘I’m her husband. Do I need proof?’

He was not her husband, and he had no proof, I noted. ‘So she returned with a baby?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know it was not your boy?’

‘It might not have been,’ he said, his eyes sidling away from mine.

No. The boy wasn’t his, and he knew it. ‘And then she set herself up in a new home, and you didn’t see her.’

‘Not until a week ago. I was ’angin’ two thieves – ’ad them up on the dancing tree for their last jig – and as the younger was kicking his heels up, I saw her between his legs. She was walking as bold as a knight on his mount through the crowds. I saw her, though; oh, yes, I saw her. She was looking over at me as though she wanted to run and hide, but I saw her, and I knew then that I would never have a moment’s peace until I had her back.’

‘But you said you wanted her boy?’

‘I didn’t think she would come to me. I thought, well, if I ’ad her son, she’d surely follow the bastard.’

He had said he had seen her, not the boy. How did he know there was a boy with her? I asked him.

He reddened. ‘I ran after her, saw the boy with her.’

‘In the crowd?’

‘Yes. But she lost me in ’mong the people. I lost her.’

‘So you decided to try to take her son, knowing that she could not leave him behind?’

‘Yes.’

He sank another half pint, and I sat back in contemplation. There was a lot that I didn’t understand, that didn’t make sense. If he had wanted his wife back, threatening her with the theft of her son, a son that was nothing to do with him, was surely only going to lead to disputes and quarrels. But this was a man who saw to the end of arguments by use of a long rope and a sharp axe. Perhaps the finer aspects of married life had passed him by. Then again, he must know that whoever the man was who had fathered the boy would be wealthy, and could hire men to steal his boy and wife back. As the brute on the floor of Westmecott’s hovel seemed to indicate.

I mentioned this aspect tentatively.

‘I know, I know. That had occurred to me.’

‘And even now there is proof of it on your floor,’ I said.

‘Yes. Who would ’ave tried to do that?’

‘What, tried to kill you? Or killed the man who attempted it?’

And that, we agreed, was the real question.