The Twelfth Night Murder (2 page)

“Then I suggest it would be the Thames.”

“And I’m to stay away?”

“Aye.”

“For how long?”

The old woman looked off to the side for a moment, thinking, calculating, then replied, “I think three weeks. Four at the most.”

To stay away from the Goat and Boar for an entire month would be torture. Impossible for her. “I don’t think I can do that. Are you saying that if I walk down Bank Side, no matter how sure-footed, I’ll fall off the bank and drown?”

“Someone will drown. It may be you, it may not. Or it may not be drowning at all. But you will be affected by it one way or another, and severely.”

Others in the room laughed, a tense, uncomfortable chuckle. Suzanne sat back in her chair and clasped her hands. Her knuckles went white, though she struggled to appear as if she didn’t believe any of this. “How do you know this?”

“The stars never lie. They are as God made them, and they show us the entirety of existence, for all creation is interlinked and purposeful. God knows every sparrow that falls, because He created not only the sparrow, but that which destroys it.”

“You think the stars cause things to happen?”

A slightly amused look crossed the woman’s face. She sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Of course not. The positions of the planets relative to each other and the stars in the sky do not influence. Only God can do that. The stars merely speak to us, and tell us of what will be.”

“So you believe in God?”

“I could hardly advise the king, did I not. His majesty could never be known to consult a heretic, could he?”

Suzanne allowed as that was true. She said, “I’ve consulted with astrologers before, but I must tell you I’ve never done well by it. I find that when I follow the recommendations of someone who has read my horoscope, the results are never what I expect.”

“Then it is your expectations that are faulty. Those who aim to make themselves richer or more powerful by reading the heavens are doomed to failure. One can never bend creation to one’s own wishes. One can only take heed of what must be and act accordingly.”

“So I should keep away from the Goat and Boar for a few weeks?”

“You should beware of the water, whatever water there might be, and if water flows near the public house then you would do well to avoid the place.”

“Why me? Of all the people in London who might need this warning, what has brought you to me?”

“Mistress Thornton, God has sent me to you.” She said it with a note of exasperation that she must repeat herself.

“God? You’ve spoken to Him, then?” Suzanne hoped this wasn’t going to disintegrate into the rant of a madwoman. She’d been willing to consider keeping away from the river for a while, but if this woman revealed herself to be insane then Suzanne would have to go to Bank Side only for the sake of demonstrating to the rest of the troupe that she hadn’t been taken in by madness.

“Not to hear His voice, at all, mistress. I mean, I’ve had some dreams. I’ve awakened in the night with a strong, ugly feeling regarding you. I was moved to come speak to you. Warn you.”

“Ugly feelings regarding me are not all that uncommon, I vow. How do you even know who I am?”

“Oh, all of London knows who you are, Mistress Thornton. You’ve quite a name this past year or so.”

Suzanne’s head tilted a bit, and she crossed her arms. “Indeed? And God has been telling tales about me?”

“Aye. He’s sent me a strong message, that you will be influenced by water, and soon.”

“I’ll drown.”

“I never said ‘drown.’ I said your life will be changed.”

“So I’ll still be alive?”

“Possibly. Possibly not. And whether you die or not, it may not be the water will be the direct cause.”

“So . . . let me sort through this. In the next few weeks I may or may not die, and if I do it may or may not be of drowning.”

“The only thing certain is that your life will change, and ’twill be caused by water.”

“But we don’t know what water it will be. Probably the Thames, but not necessarily.”

The old woman nodded and smiled. “Now you see.”

Suzanne saw nothing, and only her belief in the basic principles of astrology kept her curious about what this all meant. She stood, indicating that her guest should ready herself to leave, and said, “Well, I thank you for your advice, Mistress La Tournelle. I shall take your premonition under advisement.”

The old woman hesitated, and a sour look crossed her face in realization that she was being dismissed without consideration. She stood, gave a quick nod, and said, “Then I hope you’ll beware, for I am a Christian woman and I never like to see anyone suffer.”

“I appreciate that. Our boy will show you out, and I thank you for coming.”

“Oh, I was already in the theatre, mistress. I came to see the play this afternoon. Excellent play, I’ll add. You all should be pleased.” She nodded and waved to the other players in the room, who acknowledged the praise with smiles, nods, and murmurs of thanks. Then the old woman followed Christian from the room and they watched her go.

They waited while she removed from earshot, her footsteps fading down the stage left stairwell and out the rear to the house.

When they were all certain she’d gone, Matthew stared after her and said, “Well, there’s a woman with a belfry chock full of bats.”

A nervous laugh riffled about the room, and Suzanne had to chuckle as well. “Water, she says. And with the Thames only a stone’s throw away from this theatre.”

“Perhaps she means rainfall?”

Louis added, “Maybe you’ll have a rain barrel fall on you?” Everyone laughed at that, and he added, “Don’t you be climbing atop any cisterns, then, eh?” That brought more laughter, and Suzanne joined in. She resumed the removal of her makeup, and stared into her mirror, thinking hard.

H
aving cleaned up and retreated to her quarters downstairs, Suzanne considered her options for the evening. Most nights she would head to the Goat and Boar for some supper, some ale, and some good company. For more than twenty years Southwark, and particularly Bank Side, had been her home, and she knew nearly everyone within a half mile of the Globe. Even more, during her years as a whore in Maddie’s brothel on Bank Side she’d serviced a great many of her neighbors. Though wealthy and adventurous clientele from across the river had been a significant part of her trade, her bread and butter had always been the neighborhood itself, where her regular customers had lived, worked, and taken their recreation in the brothels and animal-fighting arenas.

She’d accepted her lot without shame, for prostitution had been all that was open to her, and the money had kept herself and her son alive. She felt that if God had wanted her to do something else, He would have presented her with an opportunity to do something else. Pregnancy had kept her from marrying, and she couldn’t imagine life without Piers. He would be twenty this year, and he’d grown to be a good, honest man. Whatever she’d done to that end was worth whatever cost to her reputation or her soul.

In any case, she still enjoyed the platonic company of many of the men she’d known then, and some of them worked with her in the theatre. Were she to heed the recommendation of Mistress La Tournelle, it would be a long, lonely several weeks away from her dearest friends. She didn’t relish hiding in her room.

She opened the armoire in the small bedroom she occupied, in her apartments tucked in a corner of the Globe’s basement floor. Whitewashed stone walls brightened the odd corners and nooks of it. The floor was mostly even, though it had a slight slant at one end, where it took a step up to a tiny alcove where stood her writing desk and a wooden chair with a tall back and heavy arms. The armoire wobbled somewhat on the uneven stone, but was steady enough when she jammed a bit of wood beneath one of its feet. The thing was a rather old piece of furniture, and smelled musty, but she’d had it since the year she’d started up with her former patron nearly eleven years ago and it was holding up nicely. It looked somewhat German, painted with vines and flowers along its frame and sides. Having had little of worth in her life, she was now rather attached to it. It represented a significant improvement in her life recently.

The same was true about many things she’d acquired, and also about some of the people in her life, some old friends and some newly met. As she gazed at the clothing in her armoire, most of it bought very recently, she considered who she would miss, were she to stay away from the Goat and Boar as recommended. Big Willie Waterman, of course. He was a musician who worked often with her Players and sometimes played small roles, but he was most fun when holding forth in conversation or fiddling freely on his instrument at the public house. Then there was Warren, Willie’s flautist friend, whom Suzanne knew less well. The two played often together, and if Willie was hired for a play, Warren usually was as well. Willie, Warren, the Goat and Boar proprietor Young Dent, and the performers in The New Globe Players filled her evenings with good company. She was closest to Matthew, Louis, and Liza, and of course Horatio, who directed the Players and whose love of Shakespeare was ever-present. He was like an uncle to her and represented the only family she had ever trusted. Even Daniel had never been the rock Horatio was to her.

Oh yes, Daniel as ever. Daniel Stockton, third Earl of Throckmorton. He was Piers’s father and the man Suzanne had once loved so much she threw her life away on him at seventeen. With him the question was never whether she would miss him, but would he miss her? Would he even notice her absence? And could she afford to care anymore whether he did? Because now there was also Diarmid Ramsay, the wild Highland Scot who was even less trustworthy, and one was never sure how he made his living. Sometimes he played roles at the Globe, but not often enough to account for his lack of other employment or property. He was known to do some buying and selling, but without patent to speak of, and one was never clear about where the goods had originated. The only certainty about Ramsay was that he was by far the best source for Scottish whisky in all of London. Oh, but he was ever so much more fun!

What would happen, then, were she to hide herself in the theatre and away from the river? She had to smile at the thought. Daniel and Ramsay would be very unhappy fellows.

She looked over at her desk, where sat the volume of Aristotle Daniel had given her. It had taken her weeks to plow through it once, and now she was working her way through again to understand it better. Tutelage had been scarce in her youth, and her reading skills were not strong, but her desire to read and understand great works burned nearly as hotly as her instincts in raising her son. She could stay at home tonight and let her maid serve her something to eat, and spend the evening absorbed in ancient Greek philosophy.

There was wine here; she didn’t need to go to the public house for it. There was always wine now, and of higher quality than she’d known even while under the wing of her patron, William. He had been a Puritan riddled with shame for his sin of fornication, and pretended to make up for it by keeping her home free of anything he considered luxury. Her clothing had been black, her food plain, and her wine cheap. There would have been none at all, had she not insisted he allow it. Now, since his death and since Daniel had provided her with the financial means to create The New Globe Players, she wore brightly colored silks and soft linens. Even a little jewelry, though she still could only afford plain silver without stones.

She turned back to the armoire and considered dressing to go out. Then she turned to her desk where Aristotle awaited. Then back to the armoire.

Should she avoid the Thames? What might she miss if she stayed in? Should she resume her reading tonight and possibly be a better person for having studied? Daniel had said she would enjoy Aristotle, and he’d been right. Nearly every page contained something she’d heard said but had never before known who’d first said it. Now her reading was a bit like putting together a puzzle, where the pieces became a whole that made sense. She liked puzzles. Solving them made her feel intelligent, as her father had always given her to believe she was not.

The actor, Ramsay, wanted to marry her, where Daniel did not. Could not, for he was married to someone else. Daniel’s commitment to his son and herself had never been strong enough for him to even acknowledge Piers. His wife didn’t know about him, and Daniel liked it that way.

Ramsay, however, had made his desire for commitment clear. Had he been a steadier sort, she might have married him by now. But he was not, and his comings and goings were irregular in the extreme. Since he was not in any of the plays currently being staged or rehearsed, she’d not seen him all week, and that didn’t reflect well on his dependability.

However, she missed them both and wanted to spend the evening among friends. Again she looked to the armoire, and this time her hand of its own volition reached for a delicately and expensively embroidered shirt and silk breeches. A man’s costume that pleased her for its comfort and practicality, with just enough of the feminine about it to avoid confusion.

Sometimes she wore dresses when in public, for a different sort of practicality. Though Londoners took pride in being surprised by nothing since the return of the king from the eternally blasé Continent, dressing in unquestionably feminine attire cut down on social friction when she was among strangers. Wearing a dress while out among people who didn’t know her saved on having to explain herself. However, during evenings at the Goat and Boar, and at the Globe while not onstage, she enjoyed the comfort and the attention she received dressed in doublet, breeches, tights, and flowing linen shirt.

And Daniel’s Cavalier’s hat. Recently, in a playful moment on New Year’s Day, she’d appropriated a hat belonging to Daniel. As the Earl of Throckmorton and one of the King’s Cavaliers, he’d returned from exile with the king nearly two years ago and had worn this hat in the triumphal parade through London. Wide of brim and flat topped, it bore a feather so long it now tickled the backs of her legs when it swayed with her movements. One of the many things she liked about this costume was that in men’s clothing she was able to dress herself and not have to call for Sheila’s help.

Ready for the Goat and Boar, she called for Sheila to have her fur-collared cloak and matching leather gloves for her, and then was on her way to the public house and maybe some fun among her favorite people. Never mind the old woman’s premonition. There was no telling what that was about in any case, and she tried to forget it.

The Goat and Boar lay in an alley off Bank Side, from which there was no access or egress but from that street. There was no entrance to the public house except by walking along the embankment just west of the bridge. Tonight Suzanne, in spite of herself, walked as close to the buildings away from the bank wall as she could. Braving the Bank Side was tempting fate, but not too much. Probably. She stared over at the water’s edge, and slowed.

It was just a river. Even were she to fall in, she wouldn’t necessarily drown. She knew how to swim, having learned as a child in a pond on her uncle’s farm. Tonight she wasn’t even wearing skirts that might pull her under. If she fell in, it would be a simple matter to swim to a quay, or even float downstream to one, and climb out. The river was filthy, not deadly.

She stopped walking, and stared some more. Why should she fear something told to her by someone she didn’t know and hadn’t asked? The woman knew the king, but she shouldn’t be taken as a prophet of any kind. After all, Daniel also knew the king and she certainly never took his word as gospel. Not anymore, in any case. It was silly to avoid the river when it couldn’t hurt her. She took some steps toward it.

As she crossed the street, evening traffic passed around her, this way and that. Street vendors cried their wares to her, but she ignored them. A carriage approached and its driver shouted at her to clear the way, so she hurried a few steps closer to the brink. Clopping horses and rattling wheels passed harmlessly behind her, and she gazed some more at the river.

Braziers here and there flickered up and down along the stone riverbank. There weren’t many boats on the water this time of day and this time of year, but a few showed torchlight and bobbed like water candles in the current. The dank smell didn’t seem so bad to her; she was used to it. Here in Southwark, all her life the water of the Thames had helped weave the fabric of her days and nights. Her early childhood had been spent in this very street, living and working in the brothel. Maddie was dead now, and her house had been made tenements still occupied by whores and thieves who now paid rent instead of working for it. Her days there had been nearly half a lifetime ago, but since then she’d never strayed far, and the smell of the river still spoke to her of home.

“Whatever has got you so enraptured?”

Suzanne jumped. Daniel’s voice spoke so close to her ear it seemed to come from inside her head. He laughed and she turned to slap his arm. Up the street she saw his carriage standing near a brazier, and realized it was the one that had nearly run her down.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. You were staring so intently at the river, I thought you might have seen something particularly interesting you could share with me.” His smile was wide and handsome, with teeth only slightly discolored by age. He was nearly forty, slightly older than herself, and few men his age could boast a full complement. She saw him as the youth who had once been her lover, who still touched a small, dim place in her heart.

Those days when she’d been a young, stupid girl had been the time of magic, when anything she wanted had seemed possible and nothing mattered more than their love. Even then he’d been married, for a man of his station must marry for political and financial advantage and she’d offered neither. But that had never been large in her thoughts. She’d given him everything, and he’d squandered it. This bank had been their meeting place.

“I was only taking in the beauty of the river.”

That brought a short bark of a laugh. “If you say so, though I can’t imagine anyone thinking that stinking runnel a thing of beauty.”

Suzanne only shrugged and declined to argue. She thought the river at night was a lovely sight, so deep in the darkness, and torchlit barges moving silently along it. She didn’t care what he thought. “Come,” she said, and took his arm though it hadn’t been offered. “Let us go to the Goat and Boar. I’m thirsty for a glass of wine.”

“An expensive one, I’ll wager.”

“Of course. Anything less would not be worth the swallowing, much like most men I’ve known.”

Daniel let out a long guffaw.

The Goat and Boar was lively that night. When Suzanne and Daniel arrived they were hard-pressed to find a seat in the throng. An extra table had been brought to seat patrons, and even so, every chair in the room was occupied. Several men stood by the hearth where a mutton joint that dropped fragrant grease into the fire was nearing edibility. They were holding cups and tankards as they argued amiably about bears and bulls that fought dogs in the arenas near the bridge. Some tarts loitered here and there, young girls Suzanne didn’t know. The faces of the whores changed far more often than those of the men in this place, and keeping up with the comings and goings of the girls on Bank Side was near impossible.