The Nine Giants (8 page)

‘This comes first. I want a play.’

‘You have had two already this week.’

‘A play of my own,’ she said, dancing on her toes. ‘When you become Lord Mayor, we must have a drama written especially for our entertainment. It will set the seal on a truly memorable day. Say you will oblige me, sir.’

‘I will honour my promise.’

‘And since it is a happy occasion, I would have a sprightly comedy performed. It will crown the whole event for me. I will be in heaven.’

‘With me beside you, my love.’

He gave her a fatherly kiss on the forehead and assured her that he had the matter in hand. Her curiosity bubbled but he would say no more on the subject. Walter Stanford wanted to keep an element of mystery about his plans and this threw her into a paroxysm of pleasure. When her second bout of giggles was over, she remembered another person who would enjoy the projected play.

‘William has told me all about his cousin.’

‘Has he?’

‘I like the sound of this Michael.’

‘He has his good points, certainly.’

‘William says that he is so blithe and sunny.’

‘Indeed, he is,’ conceded Stanford, ‘and they are good
qualities in a man. But only when they are matched by responsibility and conscientiousness.’

‘I hear a note of disapproval in your voice.’

‘It is not intended. Michael is very dear to me. He is my sister’s pride and joy but he has brought much heartache to his mother.’

‘In what way?’

‘This merriment of his,’ said Stanford. ‘It has blighted his young life – except that he is not so young any more. Michael put idle pleasures before honest work and has spent the best part of his inheritance already. Were his father alive, it would never have happened but my sister is a soft, forgiving mother who has no power over her wayward son. Things came to such a pass that she asked me to take Michael to task.’

‘What did you say to him?’

‘All that was necessary – and in round terms, too, I do assure you. He laughed uproariously but I got my way with him in the end.’

‘William told me that he joined the army.’

‘That was his final fling,’ said her husband. ‘He felt that service in the Netherlands would satisfy his spirit of adventure and send him back a more sober man. That is why I have made a place for him.’

‘Here?’

‘He must learn the rudiments of a real profession.’

‘There is not much jollity in business affairs.’

‘Michael is resigned to that.’

‘Oh!’ Her enthusiasm was punctured. ‘I knew nothing of
this. William spoke so well of his cousin. I was hoping for another cheerful companion to escort me to the playhouse.’ She looked up. ‘When is he due home?’

‘His ship should have docked by now.’

‘Has he left the army?’

‘So his letters proclaim.’

‘Do not take all the merriment out of him, sir.’

Stanford chuckled. ‘No man could do that. Michael is a law unto himself. We may check or control him but we can never subdue his spirit entirely. Nor should we wish to do so because it is the essence of the fellow.’ He slipped a fond arm around her shoulders. ‘Have no fears on his account. Michael will prance gaily through life until the day he dies.’

The corpse lay on its slab beneath a tattered shroud. It kept grisly company. Other naked bodies were stretched out all around it in varying stages of decomposition. The charnel house was a repository of human decay and not even the herbs that were scattered around could sweeten the prevailing stink. A flight of stone steps led down to the vault. As soon as Nicholas Bracewell entered the dank atmosphere, he felt the hand of death brush across his face. It was not a place he would have chosen to visit but he had been drawn there by curiosity. A few coins put into the hands of the keeper gained him entrance.

‘Who did you come to see, sir?’ asked the man.

‘The poor wretch brought in two nights ago.’

‘We had four or five delivered to their slabs.’

‘This creature was hauled out of the river,’ said Nicholas,
coughing as the stench really hit him. ‘His face was battered, his leg smashed most cruelly and there was a dagger in his throat.’

‘I remember him well. Follow me.’

He was a thin, hollow-eyed wraith of a man whose grim occupation had given him a deathly pallor and an easy indifference to the cadavers with whom he spent his day. Moving between his prostrate charges like the curator of a museum, he led Nicholas to the slab in the corner and held up his torch to shed flickering light. With a deft flick of the wrist, he pulled the shroud off the corpse. The book holder blenched. Though the body had been washed and laid out, he recognised it immediately as the one that he had dragged out of the Thames. The facial injuries had been hidden beneath bandaging and the dagger had been extracted from the throat but the right leg was still a tortured mass of flesh and bone. For the first time, he noticed something else. There was a long, livid scar on the man’s chest, a fairly recent wound that was just starting to heal. Nicholas examined the hands.

‘What are you doing?’ said the keeper suspiciously.

‘Looking at his palms, sir. They are quite smooth and the fingernails are well pared. These are the hands of a gentleman.’

‘Not any more. Death treats all as one.’

‘This body was strong and upright while it lived.’

‘The grave is wide enough for anyone.’

‘He would have been able to defend himself.’

‘Not any more, sir.’

Nicholas took a last, sad look at the corpse then indicated that it should be covered over again in the name of decency. He headed for the exit with the man shuffling along behind him.

‘Will you see anyone else?’ said the keeper.

‘I have gazed my fill.’

‘But we have more interesting sights here.’ He plucked at his visitor’s sleeve to stop him. ‘A young woman was brought in but yesternight. Some punk that was strangled in her bed. She is no more than sixteen with a body as soft and lovely as you could wish. One more coin and I would gladly show you.’ He nudged the other. ‘If you have money enough, I will let you touch her.’

Nicholas turned away in disgust and stormed out before he gave in to the impulse to hit the man. He vowed to report the incident when he appeared at the Coroner’s Court on the following Monday. No matter who they were or what they had been, the dead deserved the utmost respect. He came up into the fresh air and inhaled it gratefully. Light was fading and so he hurried in the direction of the river before it went completely. From the wharf where he had been picked up by Abel Strudwick, he looked out across the water and tried to estimate the point at which they had encountered the body. It was somewhere in mid-stream and he wondered how far it had drifted in order to reach them. He decided that the dead man had been put into the Thames under the cover of darkness but the swift current could still have brought him some distance.

The book holder was no stranger to the wharves and
harbours along the Thames. The son of a West Country merchant, he had fallen in love with the sea at an early age and been on numerous voyages with his father. The bold venture of Francis Drake caught his imagination and he sailed around the world with him for three long years. That experience had brought endless disillusion but it had not entirely stilled the call of the sea. When he first came to London, he would often come down to the river to watch the ships putting in and to talk with the sailors about their voyages and their cargoes. This visit was a far less pleasant one.

His eye inevitably fell on the Bridge. It was an extraordinary sight that never palled and Nicholas felt a surge of admiration for those who conceived and built it. Twenty solid piers supported nineteen arches of varying widths. Islands were created around the piers to protect them from the tide race. These starlings, as they were called, were shaped like great flat boats and narrowed the water channels under the arches so much that the tide race was dramatically increased. Nicholas had not been surprised to learn that the Bridge had taken over thirty years to complete and had claimed the lives of some one hundred and fifty workmen. It had stood for some four centuries and more as a tribute to their craftsmanship. Because it was the only structure to span the broad Thames, it became the most important thoroughfare in London and properties along its length were much coveted. The Bridge was also the healthiest part of the city. When the Black Death was decimating the population in every other ward, it could
only boast two recorded deaths among those who lived above the swirling waters of the river.

Respect soon changed to foreboding. It was that same Bridge which had put such deep fear into the heart of Hans Kippel that he could not even stand there and behold it. Two of the most appealing parts of London had taken on a different character for Nicholas. The Bridge held the clue to what had happened to a Dutch apprentice and the River Thames knew the secret of the maimed body that it had washed up into the hands of the book holder. He stood there in deep contemplation until evening had washed the last rays of light from the sky.

A boat took him across to Bankside and he walked briskly along the winding lanes on his way home. Another problem now concentrated his mind. Alexander Marwood had lit a raging bonfire of uncertainty. An impending change of ownership at the Queen’s Head was a serious threat to the well-being of Westfield’s Men. The landlord was a difficult enough man with whom to bargain but Alderman Rowland Ashway would not even talk terms. Nicholas had thought to confide in Edmund Hoode but his friend was too infected with lovesickness to hear any sense. Lawrence Firethorn would need to be told soon and the book holder resolved to call on him the next day. Trying times lay ahead and they could only be made worse by the fact that a fond poet and a lustful actor had chosen as the object of their passion the same unsuspecting young woman. If tragedy was to be averted, Nicholas would have to provide some highly skilful stage-management.

He walked along between rows of tenements then turned into the street where he lived. The house was still some thirty yards away when he sensed danger and it caused him to slow his pace. Someone was lurking beside the front door, seated on the ground and curled up in an attitude of sleep that he did not trust for a second. Those who walked through the darkness of Southwark were used to the skulking presence of thieves and they used all kinds of tricks to lull the unwary off guard. As Nicholas closed in on the house, one hand fondled the dagger at his waist. The figure on the ground was rough and sturdy with a hat pulled down over his face. There was a sense of crude power about him. Ready for any attack, Nicholas extended a foot to push the man over.

‘God’s blood! I’ll cut your rotten liver out!’

A gushing waterfall of vile abuse came from the man’s mouth until he recognised who had roused him from his slumbers. He leapt up at once to issue a stream of apologies and to ingratiate himself with bows and shrugs. Abel Strudwick had waited a long time for his hope of a new future. A broad grin split his hideous face in two and gave it an even more alarming quality.

‘You may change my whole life, Master Bracewell.’

‘May I?’

‘Put me upon the stage, sir!’

Sir Lucas Pugsley never tired of admiring himself in his full regalia as Lord Mayor of London. He paraded up and down in front of the long mirror and watched his black
and gold gown trail along the floor. Power had turned an ambitious man into a dangerous one who sought means both to retain and enlarge that power. As Alderman Luke Pugsley of the Fishmongers’ Company, he was rich, secure and very influential. When he was elevated to the highest civic office, he became like a demi-god and was consumed with his own self-esteem. Over thirty officers belonged to the Lord Mayor’s House. They included the Sword-bearer, the Common Crier, the City Marshall and the Coroner for London as well as the Common Hunt, the Water Bailiff and other assorted bailiffs, sergeants and yeomen. There were always three meal-weighers at his beck and call.

The man on whom he relied most was the Chamberlain.

‘Will you put on your chain of office, Lord Mayor?’

‘Bring it to me, sir.’

‘It becomes you so well.’

‘I carry it with dignity and good breeding.’

Aubrey Kenyon was tall, well built and quite stately with greying temples lending an air of distinction to the clear, clean-shaven face. The Chamberlain was responsible for the financial affairs of the city but Kenyon’s role had enlarged well beyond that. Like his predecessors, the present Lord Mayor found him a source of comprehensive information about civic life and duty, and befriended him early on. Aubrey Kenyon had no airs and graces. Despite the importance of his position, he was happy to perform more menial tasks for the man whom he served. He stood back to appraise the chain.

‘It looks exceeding fine,’ he said.

‘Its weight reminds me of my civic burdens.’

‘You have borne them with lightness.’

‘Thank you, Aubrey.’ He stroked the gold collar. ‘This chain was bequeathed to the mayoralty in 1545 by John Allen who held the office twice. I venture to suggest that nobody has worn it with such pride and with such distinction. Am I not the most conscientious Lord Mayor you have ever encountered? Be honest with me, Aubrey, for I trust your opinion above all others. Have I not been a credit to my office?’

‘Indeed, indeed.’

Kenyon bowed his agreement then adjusted the chain slightly to make it completely straight. It consisted of twenty-six gold knots, interspersed with roses and the Tudor portcullis and it set off the gold thread which weighted the gown of stiff silk. Beneath his gown, Pugsley wore the traditional court dress of knee breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes. Aubrey Kenyon held out the mayoral hat with its flurry of ostrich feathers. When it was placed carefully in position, the Lord Mayor of London was ready to attend yet another civic banquet.

‘Is everything in order, Aubrey?’

‘We await but your august self, Lord Mayor.’

‘My wife?’

‘She has been standing by this half-hour.’