Revenger (22 page)

“Men like McGunn? Where would you have seen such men?”

He thought he saw the wisp of a smile in the silvery light.

“Mr. Shakespeare, I have seen things you have never dreamed of. Done things that would shame you to hear. But now I wish to be left in peace, which is why I have come to you tonight, to plead with you. I had wondered about killing you while you slept, but that would not have stopped McGunn. He would have sent another and another, until the deed was done.”

“Lady Le Neve, I am no hired killer.”

“What does a killer look like? Does gentleman’s attire mean you are a gentle man?” She seemed to smile. “No, you are
not
a
hired killer. That is what saved your life when my blade touched your throat and I withdrew it. Yet I worry still, for you know McGunn.”

“Many people know McGunn.”

“He is death.”

“Lady Le Neve, the thing that will keep you safe from McGunn is finding the real murderer.”

She stepped to the bed and sat down at the end, her face half-turned toward him. He saw how astonishingly beautiful she was. Her hair was wild and her complexion no longer had its youthful sheen, yet she had a raw sensuality that would make any man want to take her.

“Tell me now,” he said. “How do
you
know McGunn?”

She sighed, but as she answered him, her voice was not desperate, nor weak. “I might as well be plain, for I am sure Dodsley has given you some idea of our straits. We borrowed money from McGunn. A great deal of money, at usurer’s terms. I believe my husband signed a note for two thousand and received fifteen hundred, to be repaid at interest of two shillings in the pound per annum. It is a common trick. Yet he had been recommended to us as a man who could help people. Of course, it became difficult to pay him, which is when the threats and demands began and when the boy came into our lives, with his razor knives and his killing smile. When he met Amy, his tone changed. I saw him climb to her chamber, night after night, and I could do nothing. It was then that I knew how deep we were in McGunn’s clutches. My husband would not heed what was happening. He was either away in France fighting or he was engaged here on his other interests. I called in our lawyers and secretaries. By collecting all that was owed us in rent and leases, and by selling our lands in Suffolk, I was able to bring together enough gold to pay off McGunn in full, which I did. It left us only ruin. I cannot even afford to pay the servants. But I hoped to buy our freedom, to get McGunn and Jaggard out of our lives.”

“But you didn’t.”

Cordelia Le Neve laughed. “McGunn was not happy to have his money back. He prefers to keep control than to retrieve his money. Nor did the repayment of the debt stop that boy coming to Amy. Even on her wedding day.”

“Did you see them leave the bridale together?”

Her eyes held steady in the gloom. “Yes,” she said at last. “I prayed that no one else had seen them and that they would return soon, before Mr. Winterberry discovered her absence. It was later, when he asked whether I had seen her—for it was time for their nuptial retiring—that I raised the hue and cry.”

“Her wedding to Mr. Winterberry meant a lot to you?”

Cordelia laughed again, this time with bitterness. “It meant the restoration of our fortunes, Mr. Shakespeare. Mr. Winterberry is a merchant of immense wealth. He has a wharf close by the Tower. He has riches beyond imagining. He would have given Amy the life any woman would wish for, and he pledged to help us, too. Now I have lost everything. I will probably return whence I came.”

In the semi-darkness, Shakespeare tried to look at the woman closely. There was as much unsaid as said here in this room. He needed to know more. “Amy was your stepdaughter. Sometimes such relationships are not easy.”

“We had differences.”

“You wanted her to make this match. She did not want it. That alone must have caused a rift.”

“Mr. Shakespeare, I wanted the best for her.”

“And for yourself? You said it yourself—you had much to lose if the marriage did not proceed. If you saw her leave the bridale, you would have been enraged, would you not?”

“What are you suggesting? Her interest was paramount in this. I knew what was good for her. I would not have harmed her.”

Shakespeare tried to imagine her creeping out into the fields
and woods after the young couple, taking them by surprise and killing them.

“Your maid, Miranda. Could she have harmed your daughter?”

Lady Le Neve shook her head dismissively. “She is a plain girl. I would not be surprised if she was jealous, but I do not believe her capable of murder.”

Through the window, Shakespeare saw the first light of morning. Lady Le Neve noted it, too.

“People will be about soon. I must go home. I cannot be seen here.”

“Who do
you
think killed them, and why?” Without thinking, he put his hand out and stroked her hair, smoothing down its unruly knots.

She looked up at him, unsurprised by his touch, as if she were used to such uninvited attentions. “It occurs to me that you are that rare thing, a good man, Mr. Shakespeare.” She rose from the bed, then kissed him on his lips. “We should have met at another time and place.”

The kiss was a kind of nectar to his dry lips. His very life was dry these days. Shakespeare brought his errant thoughts back into line. “Who killed them?”

“I wish I knew.” She picked up the knife and went to the chamber door. She opened it and turned quickly to him. “Mr. Shakespeare, I know you mean well, but please, it would be better for everyone—for me, for you, for Miranda—if you were to go now and forget us. I promise you nothing good can come of your delving.”

Chapter 21

S
TARLING DAY WELCOMED JOHN SHAKESPEARE AT
her house on London Bridge with her usual warm smile. She offered him unsweetened wine, salt herrings, and bread, which he gladly accepted, having declined breakfast at the Ox and Harrow in his haste to depart. She also offered him a turn with her in her large bed, saying she felt the need of a man, Mr. Watts being away. He thanked her, but said no.

“Have I become too fat for your taste, Mr. Shakespeare?”

“You were never to my taste, fat or thin, Mistress Day. Not in that way.”

“Do you not know it is considered ill manners in society to refuse a lady?”

He laughed. “And when did you become a lady, mistress?”

“Mr. Shakespeare, you will be pleased to know that I like you very well in spite of your rudeness.”

“What I was really hoping to win from you was not swiving but information.”

“I have information, but what will you do for me in return?”

“Well, you certainly do not need my money.”

“Then you must owe me a favor.”

“And for this favor, have you
found
Eleanor Dare?”

“No, Mr. Shakespeare, but I have discovered the son of her
husband Ananias. The boy’s name is John Dare, and he is in the care of his uncle, Foxley Dare—Ananias’s brother. The boy did not go to the New World with his widowed father and his father’s new young wife. Now, is
that
not good intelligence?”

“Possibly. It all depends whether Eleanor has made contact with them. Tell me what you know.”

Starling grinned broadly, delighted with her information. “You can talk to Mr. Foxley Dare yourself—he stands in the pillory less than two furlongs from here, on the corner between the Clock and St. Magnus Cross.”

“His crime?”

“Wanton use of a goose. He was to have been placed in the pillory for seven hours, beginning at eight of the clock, and will be in a poor state in this heat. Take a blackjack of ale to wet his parched throat and he will surely tell you all you wish to know, including the goose’s name. It seems Foxley Dare is well known among the whores of Southwark as an habitual frequenter of their services, which is how he was brought to my attention. He tries to gain credit by saying he will soon have his brother Ananias declared dead and inherit property as his nephew’s legal custodian.”

The maid arrived with Shakespeare’s food. He tucked into the herrings with vigor, licking the succulent juices of the fish from his fingers and tearing at the fresh white bread with his teeth.

“You seem not to have eaten in days, Mr. Shakespeare.”

“Not this well, that is certain. One more thing, Mistress Day …”

“Yes?”

“Have you heard of a woman named Lady Le Neve—Cordelia Le Neve? I believe she has a past, and I would like to know what it is.”

“The name means nothing, Mr. Shakespeare, but I shall find out what I can for you from the stews of Southwark. And then you shall owe me another favor!”

F
OXLEY DARE WAS
a man of large appetites. His belly was of such prodigious girth that it made the pillory a great deal more uncomfortable and painful than it would be for a man of leaner build. He had been standing there on the plinth, his hands and neck clamped into the holes of the wooden frame, for almost four hours and still had more than three to go. His belly was pressed hard against the pillar and his feet were splayed fully six inches further back than they should have been, increasing the pressure on his neck and spine. It was his lower back and the bones in his cruelly restricted neck that caused him the greatest agony. Yet it was the fierce heat of the midday sun, blistering his face and arms, that threatened to kill him. Pinned to the pillory in front of him was a sign that read simply
Did occupy a goose—and not even married
.

A crowd of a hundred or more people had gathered around him, enjoying his agony and humiliation, laughing at him, yelling insults and jests, pelting him with horse-shit, bad eggs, and the occasional stone.

By the time Shakespeare arrived, the sun was full on Foxley’s face and there was a very real danger he would not survive.

A tipstaff stood at the convicted man’s side, protecting him from the worst of the crowd’s displeasure. “No large rocks, please, ladies and gentlemen,” he declaimed now and then, holding up his thumb. “If a stone is bigger than this, the thumb on my left hand, then I don’t want you throwing it, for this is not a sentence of death.”

The crowd jeered all the more and pelted Foxley with a new barrage of dung.

One woman strode up carrying a live duck that she had just bought at market and held it out so that its beak was just in front of Foxley Dare’s nose. “Give us a kiss, give us a kiss,” the woman said in a voice that was meant to sound like a duck’s
quack. In a flurry of feathers, the duck struggled to flap its wings and defecated on its owner’s kirtle, and the crowd roared with laughter.

Dismayed by the scene, Shakespeare went up to the tipstaff. “I would speak with the prisoner. I am here as an officer of the Earl of Essex.”

The tipstaff was impressed, especially when handed a sixpenny coin, and allowed Shakespeare closer to the pillory. He stood face-to-face with Foxley Dare, though it occurred to him that he might find the back of his own head to be an interesting alternative target for the jeering mob.

“Mr. Dare, my name is John Shakespeare. I need to talk with you.”

The prisoner’s eyes were closed in his red-burned and splattered face. His mouth was open, drawing in rasping, shallow breaths, almost panting like a dog. Shakespeare had a blackjack of ale with him. He poured a little into his left hand and held it to Foxley’s mouth. “Here, sup this.”

Foxley’s tongue lolled out, all dry and crusted, and touched the liquid. Slowly at first, then more greedily, he lapped at it like a cat. Shakespeare kept pouring more into his hand until he felt the man had had enough. “Can you speak yet?”

“I need a hat. Please, give me your hat, or a scarf to cover me.”

Shakespeare took the felt hat from his head and perched it as well as he could on Foxley’s head, covering his forehead and ears and shading his nose.

“What is the time? Has the noon bell rung?”

“Soon.”

“Three hours more. I will die here. I need dung. Coat my face and hands with dung, if you would, sir, to protect me from the sun. I shall not survive else.”