An Ensuing Evil and Others (5 page)

“Are they the jewels that you gave to the Lady Gruoch?” demanded the brehon.

“They are, indeed,” replied MacBeth with satisfaction. “Garban, fetch the servant Segan back here, but do not mention this discovery to him.”

“I understand, noble lord,” Garban said with a grim smile.

Cothromanach the brehon looked thoughtfully at MacBeth. “Did you expect to find the jewels here?”

“As soon as I heard my wife’s explanation—yes. I began to understand how and why this foul deed was done.”

“Explain your deduction, my lord.”

“Not hard. This is what I believe happened: Maybe the prince Malcolm told his servant that he would be receiving the jewels from his sister. Maybe Segan saw the Lady Gruoch come to his master’s chamber and observed her entering with the sack. It was not politics that motivated Segan but greed. He waited until the castle was quiet and then he went to rouse his master by tapping at the door. Malcolm let him into the chamber, half-asleep. Seeing only Segan, a servant he trusted, he turned his back on him. That was when Segan struck. Two swift but fatal stabs in the back. He found the sack of jewels and took them back to his own bedchamber and hid them where we have now discovered them.”

“How then did Segan receive his own injuries?”

“Easy to tell. He had his story ready, that the murderer had stood behind the door and had given him a blow on the head which rendered him unconscious so that he could not recognize who it was. But this was the difficult part. Have you ever tried to give yourself a blow on the back of the head? Nevertheless, he needed some visual sign to show that he had been attacked. In fact, I might not have spotted the flaw in his story had not you realized it.”

“That the injury was in the front?”

“Exactly. He went to the wall and banged his head against it, causing the abrasion. Then he pretended that he had just come round and went to rouse Garban with the news of his attack.”

MacBeth suddenly smiled and pointed to a small bloodstain on the wall. It was shoulder high, where a man might have banged his head to make the abrasion. “I presume we do not have to explain that mark away?”

The brehon sighed. “It is a stupid man who leaves such a trail of clues.”

Just then Segan entered the chamber with Garban close behind him.

He stared from MacBeth to the brehon with a slight flicker of puzzlement in his eyes. Then his glance fell on the bed and the pile of jewelry.

“My lord, this…,” he began, taking a step forward.

Then he froze, his eyes round in surprise. He half twisted and attempted to reach for something at his side. Garban withdrew the six-inch blade from the young man.

He watched dispassionately as the servant fell to the floor.There was no need to examine the body. Segan was dead long before he hit the floor.

“He was reaching for his knife,” Garban explained. “He meant to harm you, noble lord.”

“A pity,” muttered Cothromanach. “Better to have him live awhile and receive his punishment as a warning to all thieves and murderers.”

“Indeed,” MacBeth acknowledged grimly. “Have the body removed, Garban, and have those jewels gathered up and returned to the Lady Gruoch. I will walk a way with you, Cothromanach.”

The brehon glanced at him. “You are still anxious, noble lord?”

“There are still willing tongues to spread rumors. Many will be quick to lay the blame for this at my door.”

“Have no fear. I shall write my account to my fellow brehons throughout the land. They shall know what has transpired here.”

MacBeth smiled in thanks and, hauling his cloak more tightly around his shoulders, turned and made his way back to his bedchamber. Dawn now filled the castle with a gray, cold light.

After the morning meal, while the light was still gray and cold, MacBeth found old Garban on the ramparts of the castle.

He was standing in a quiet corner away from the scrutiny of the guards, leaning with his back to the ramparts. “A close call, noble lord,” observed the old man as he turned and peered over the ramparts, looking down into the rocky ravine below. “I had to kill him.”

“Indeed you did,” agreed MacBeth, pleasantly enough. “Yet the plan was nearly ruined by not clearing away the extra candle stub.”

“It is easy to make a mistake. But all ended well. After Lady Gruoch left her brother, I knocked on the door, and the prince opened it, knowing it was I. The problem was that his falling body was heard by Segan, who came and knocked on the door. Had I not opened, he would have roused the entire castle. So I let him in and gave him a blow on the back of the head. While he lay unconscious, I struck him on the temple, for I knew that this might arouse suspicion.Then I hid the jewels in his bedchamber, in case we needed evidence, and also spread his wall with his blood to make it look as though he had faked his wound by dashing his forehead there. Then, to confuse him over the time the deed was committed, I exchanged the burning candle with a new one, which would put his timing out by an hour or two.”

“That was the mistake you made, in dropping the stub of the first candle on the floor and not taking it with you,” observed MacBeth. “It could have made the brehon suspicious.”

“None of us are perfect, noble lord,” sniffed the old servant.

“True enough.”

“And now you stand one step closer to the throne at Sgain, noble lord. Prince Malcolm is no longer your rival, and the Lady Gruoch is there to support you.”

“True again.”

“You have much to thank me for, noble lord.” Garban smiled. “I trust I will be properly rewarded.”

“That I have and that you shall,” agreed MacBeth, and turning swiftly, he gave the old man a violent push, sending him flying over the rampart. There was scarcely time for Garban to scream as he plummeted downward into the rocky chasm below.

MacBeth turned and, seeing that he was unobserved, allowed a smile of satisfaction to spread over his features.

AN ENSUING EVIL

Yet I can give you inkling

Of an ensuing evil…

—
Henry VIII
, Act II, Scene i

I
t’s a body, Master Constable.”

Master Hardy Drew, Constable of the Bankside Watch, stared in distaste at the wherryman. “I have eyes to see with,” he replied sourly. “Just tell me how you came by it.”

The stocky boatman put a hand to the back of his head and scratched as if this action were necessary to the process of summoning up his memories. “It were just as we turned midriver to the quay here,” the wherryman began. “We’d brought coal up from Greenwich. I was guiding the barge in when we spotted the body in the river, and so we fished it out.”

Master Drew glanced down to the body sprawled in a sodden mess on the dirty deck of the coal barge.

The finding of bodies floating in the Thames was not an unusual occurrence. London was a cesspool of suffering humanity, especially along these banks between London Bridge and Bankside. Master Drew had not been Constable of the Watch for three years without becoming accustomed to bodies being trawled out of this stretch of water whose southern bank came under his policing jurisdiction. Cutthroats, footpads, and all manner of the criminal scum of the city found the river a convenient place to rid themselves of their victims. And it was not just those who had died violent deaths who were disposed of in the river, but also corpses of the poor, sick and diseased, whose relatives couldn’t afford a church burial. The pollution of the water had become so bad that this very year a water reservoir, claimed to be the first of its kind in all Europe, had been opened at Clerkenwell to supply fresh water for the city.

However, what marked this body out for the attention of the constable, among the half-dozen or so that had been fished from the river this particular Saturday morning, was the fact that it was the body of a well-dressed young man. Despite the effects of his immersion, he bore the stamp of a gentleman. In addition, he had not died of drowning, for his throat had been expertly cut—and no more than twelve hours previously, by the condition of the body.

The constable bent down and examined the features dispassionately. In life, the young man had been handsome, was well kempt. He had ginger hair, a splattering of freckles across the nose, and a scar, which might have been the result of a knife or sword, across the forehead over the right eye. His age was no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years. Master Drew considered that he might be the son of a squire or someone in the professions—a parsons son, perhaps. The constable’s expert scrutiny had ruled out his being of higher quality, for the clothes, while fashionable, were only of moderately good tailoring. Therefore, the young man had not been someone of flamboyant wealth.

The wherryman was peering over the constable’s shoulders and sniffed. “Victim of a footpad, most like?”

Master Drew did not answer, but keeping his leather gloves on, he took the hand of the young man and examined a large and ostentatious ring that was on it. “Since when did a footpad leave jewelry on his victim?” he asked. He removed the ring carefully and held it up. “Ah!” he commented.

“What, Master Constable?” demanded the wherryman.

Drew had noticed that the ring, ostentatious though it was, was not really as valuable as first glance might suggest. It boasted no, precious metals or stones, thus fitting the constable’s image of someone who wanted to convey a sense of style without the wealth to back it. He put it into his pocket.

There was a small leather purse on the man’s belt. Its mouth was not well tied. He opened it without expecting to find anything, so was surprised when a few coins and a key fell out. They were as dry as the interior of the purse.

“A sixpenny piece and three strange copper coins,” observed Master Drew. He held up one of the copper coins. “Marry! The new copper farthings. I have not seen any before this day.”

“What’s that?” replied the wherryman.

“These coins have just been issued to replace the silver farthings. Well, whatever the reason for his killing, robbery it was not.”

Master Drew was about to stand up when he noticed a piece of paper tucked into the man’s doublet. He drew it forth and tried to unfold it, sodden as it was.

“A theater bill. For the Blackfriars Theatre. A performance of
The Maid’s Tragedy,”
he remarked.

He rose and waved to two men of the watch, who were waiting on the quay with a cart. They came down onto the barge and, in answer to Master Drew’s gesture, manhandled the corpse up the stone steps to their cart.

“What now then, Constable?” demanded the old wherryman.

“Back to your work, man,” replied Master Drew. “And I to mine. I have to discover who this young coxcomb is…
was
, and the reason for his being in the river with his throat slit.”

“Will there be a reward for finding him?” the wherryman asked slyly. “I have lost time in landing my cargo of coal.”

Master Drew regarded the man without humor. “When you examined the purse of the corpse, Master Wherryman, you neglected to retie it properly. If he had gone into the river with the purse open as it was, then the interior would not have been dry, and neither would the coins.”

The wherryman winced at the constable’s cold tone.

“I do not begrudge you a reward, which you have taken already, but out of interest, how much was left in the purse when you found it?”

“By the faith, Master Constable…,” the wherryman protested.

“The truth now!” snapped Master Drew, his gray eyes glinting like wet slate.

“I took only a silver shilling, that is all. On my mothers honor.”

“I will take charge of that money,” replied the constable, holding out his hand. “And I will forget what I have heard, for theft is theft and the reward for a thief is a hemp rope. Remember that, and I’ll leave you to your honest toil.”

One of the watchmen was waiting eagerly for the constable as he climbed up onto the quay. “Master Drew, I do reckon I’ve seen this ‘ere cove somewhere afore,” he said, raising his knuckles to his forehead in salute.

Master Drew regarded the man dourly. “Well, then? Where do you think you have seen him before?”

“I do be trying ‘ard to think on’t.” His companion was staring at the face of the corpse with a frown. “ ‘E be right. I do say ‘e be one o’ them actor fellows. Can’t think where I see’d ‘im.”

Master Drew glanced sharply at him. “An actor?”

He stared down at the theater bill he still held in his gloved hand and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Take him up to the mortuary. I have business at the Blackfriars Theatre.”

The constable turned along the quay and found a solitary boatman soliciting for custom. The man looked awkward as the constable approached.

“I need your services,” Master Drew said shortly, putting the man a little at ease, for it was rare that the appearance of the constable on the waterfront meant anything other than trouble. “Blackfriars Steps.”

“Sculls then, Master Constable?” queried the man.

“Sculls it is,” Master Drew agreed, climbing into the small dinghy. The boatman sat at his oars and sent the dinghy dancing across the river to the north bank, across the choppy waters, which were raised by an easterly wind.

As they crossed, Drew was not interested in the spectacle up to London Bridge, with its narrow arches where the tide ran fast because of the constriction of the crossing. Beyond it, he knew, was the great port, where ships from all parts of the world tied up, unloading cargoes under the shadow of the grim, gray Tower. The north bank, where the city proper was sited, was not Constable Drew’s jurisdiction. He was constable on the south bank of the river but he was not perturbed about crossing out of his territory. He knew the City Watch well enough.

The boat rasped against the bottom of Blackfriars Steps. He flipped the man a halfpenny and walked with a measured tread up the street toward the tower of St. Paul’s rising above the city, which was shrouded with the acrid stench of coal fires rising from a hundred thousand chimneys. It was not far to the Blackfriars Theatre.