The queen's man : a medieval mystery (30 page)

"I need to talk to you, Jonas." Justin caught the flagon as the serjeant slid it over and poured himself a generous portion. "We cannot wait for Sampson to surface on his own. We have to flush him out of hiding ourselves, and we have to do it as soon as possible. Any ideas?"

Jonas shrugged. "The sheriff does not pay me enough to have ideas."

"Do not do that!" Justin leaned angrily across the table. "Do not act as if you do not care, for I know better. You do not want Sampson prowling the London streets any more than I do. So how are we going to find him?"

Jonas leaned back in his seat, regarding Justin with a gleam of amused approval. "Whoever put a burr under your saddle, I ought to thank. It's always useful to have such single-minded allies. We can start by putting out the word that we'll pay for information about Sampson. Next we can—"

"What are you doing here, de Quincy?" Lurching into the table, Luke dropped, laughing, into the closest seat. "Why are you not back at the cottage, stoking your fire?"

Justin gave the deputy a look of such hostility that Luke blinked and then pretended to flinch. "Oh, ho, so that's the way the wind blows, is it? Well, I've got the cure right here for what ails you. Drink up, lad. You may not be able to drown your troubles, but you can damned well get them drunk!"

"I do not remember asking you for advice, Luke," Justin said, so curtly that the deputy's smile vanished. Before he could decide whether he ought to take offense, Jonas made that decision for him.

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"If I wanted to watch a couple of young roosters go at it, I'd find a cockfight. We were talking about ways to track down Sampson, Luke. You have any suggestions?"

"Not offhand, no. You two are gluttons for punishment, so dedicated to duty it is truly disgusting. Would it kill you to spare one night for celebrating? Now the Fleming was a real challenge. But Sampson? He could not outwit that moon-mad dog of yours, de Quincy. Trust me, it is only a matter of time until he trips himself up. Have some patience. As for me, I'd rather have some ale."

"Take mine," Justin said, shoving the cup toward the deputy. "You might be onto something, Luke. Let's consider what we know about the man. He is on his own in a strange city, his money running out. He is not one to go looking for work, now is he?"

Luke hooted. "That lout has never done a day's honest labor in his life. All he knows how to do is steal."

"Exactly. But is a slow-thinking stranger going to thrive in a city like London? Or is he more likely to blunder and run afoul of the law? Mayhap we've been looking for him in the wrong places. Instead of searching the streets, what about the gaols?"

Luke stared at him, a slow grin spreading across his face. "Now why did I not think of that myself? Let's give the Devil his due, Jonas, for de Quincy's idea is downright brilliant!"

"I'd not go that far," the Serjeant said, laconic as always. "But it does sound promising." And coming from Jonas, Justin knew that was high praise, indeed.

His ale-drenched sleep had given Justin a brief respite. But he awoke in the morning to a hangover and an onslaught of memories, mercilessly vivid, of Claudine's treachery.

His other memories of the night were much hazier, though. He did remember becoming the unwelcome center of attention. Once his presence had become known, everyone had wanted to congratulate him. But they'd wanted to joke, too, about the woman he had hidden away at Gunter's cottage, and their good-natured raillery had lacerated a wound still raw and bleeding.

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It was Luke who'd come unexpectedly to his rescue, diverting the conversation away from bedmates to murder and mayhem. Justin's last clear memories were of the deputy holding court to the entire alehouse, all listening avidly to his riveting and gory recounting of the Fleming's bloody career. After that, Justin had set about drinking himself into oblivion, with some success.

Sitting up in bed, Justin discovered that he was still fully dressed, even to his boots. A groan from the pallet on the floor told him that Luke was stirring, and a hoarse "Christ Jesus!" that the deputy was too weak to fend off Shadow. Getting stiffly to his feet, Justin stumbled toward the table, only to find that his water pitcher had frozen solid in the night, for he and Luke had been too drunk to light a fire.

"My mouth," he said, "feels like five miles of bad road. And we have got nothing to drink in the entire cottage. We'll have to go across the street . . ."

"You go," Luke muttered, keeping his arm firmly crooked over his eyes to ward off daylight. "I'll just open a vein . . ."

Justin was searching for his mantle, finally finding it crumpled up on the floor, Shadow's bed for the night. "When I come back from the privy," he said, "I'll go get us some more ale. That is supposed to help ..." But the bed was beckoning again and since it was much closer than the latrine or the alehouse, it won out.

When he awoke again, his head seemed to be pounding like a drum. It took him a befuddled moment to realize it was the door. Groping his way across the room, he shoved the bolt back and let in such a blaze of bright sunlight that he was half blinded.

"Still abed?" Sauntering past Justin, Jonas looked down at Luke's prostrate body and shook his head. "Mayhap you lads ought to stick to milk from now on."

"Most people do not come calling until past dawn, Jonas." Justin leaned against the wall, wondering how the serjeant could have drunk so much ale himself and show so few aftereffects. It hardly seemed fair.

"Dawn? It is nigh on noon." Jonas nudged Luke with the tip of his boot. "You have any water to throw on him?"

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"Do that and you're a dead man/' Luke warned, although his threat might have carried more weight if he were not so entangled in the blankets, looking as if he were cocooned in his own burial shroud. "Go away, Jonas . . ."

"So . . . you do not want to hear about Sampson, then?"

Jonas got the reaction he was aiming for. Luke sat up so abruptly that he cracked his head on a table leg and Justin lunged forward, grabbing for the Serjeant's arm as if it were a lifeline. "What did you find out?"

Jonas smiled triumphantly. "Your hunt is done. Sampson is being held in Newgate Gaol, waiting to hang."

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water, with a few other herbs mixed in. I've had a lot of practice at this, for my husband liked his ale more than he ought.''

Setting a platter in the middle of the table, she said, "Try to eat some bread. I'll be back after I see what I can brew up for Aldred's headache." Aldred moaned his thanks, then slumped down in his seat, as boneless as one of Lucy's rag dolls. Nell rolled her eyes, muttered something about men that did not sound complimentary, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Jonas poured himself a brimming cup of ale and began to smear honey on a large chunk of bread. "If you have any salted herring left/' he called after Nell, "I could eat one or two/' At that, Aldred moaned again and bolted for the privy, much to Jonas's amusement. "I hope you two do not have such delicate stomachs."

"Sorry to disappoint you, but no." Justin broke off a piece of bread and forced himself to take a few bites. "Tell us what you found out about Sampson."

"He seems to have squandered his money right fast, for his first robbery was committed on Shrove Tuesday. He was a busy lad, for he struck at least three times. His method was simple. He'd prowl the alehouses and taverns after dark, pick his victim—a lone drunkard—and then follow the man out, pouncing as soon as they were alone. Unfortunately for him, he was not a man to pass unnoticed: as huge and hulking as a bear, with a gap where his front tooth ought to have been and a scar over one eye."

Luke nodded. "Yes, that is Sampson. But you said back at the cottage that he is in Newgate Gaol. How was he caught?"

"He blundered, like Justin here guessed he would. The third robbery went wrong at the outset, for his intended target was not as drunk as he'd thought. When Sampson jumped him, he fought back. That misjudgment was Sampson's first mistake. His second was that he'd been too eager, for curfew had not rung yet. A Requiem Mass was ending at St Andrew's Cornhill and parishioners were soon spilling out into Aldgate to see what all the commotion was about."

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Jonas drank deeply, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "By then, Sampson had overpowered his quarry and was straddling him whilst he groped for the man's money pouch. But ere he could get away, he was confronted by one of the parishioners. They struggled, and when Sampson could not break free, he stabbed the Good Samaritan in the throat."

Justin swallowed with difficulty, washing the crust down with barley water. But it was not the bread which left such a bitter taste in his mouth. They killed so casually, the Sampsons and Gilberts of this world. And they left so much grieving in their wake. Hanging such men only kept them from killing again. It did nothing to ease the pain they'd brought to so many on their descent into Hell. Glancing around the table, he saw his own frustration and fury mirrored on Luke's face. Jonas, as ever, was inscrutable. He paused to drink again before picking up the bloody threads of his story.

"Sampson then fled, with the parishioners in pursuit. But his size and that bloody dagger would have kept most of them at a safe distance. I daresay he'd have gotten away if he'd not had the bad luck to turn onto Lime Street. By chance, he ran right into the Watch. It took fully four men to subdue him, and then they had to protect him from the crowd, who were all for hanging him from the nearest tree. But the priest from St Andrew's was able to shame them into backing down, and Sampson was dragged off to gaol. His reprieve will be a brief one, though. I'd wager the court will convict him ere the trial even begins!"

"I wish I could be so certain of that," Luke said morosely, for he had learned the hard way that it was not easy to get a man sentenced to the gallows. He'd often pondered why juries were so loath to see a man hang, and had finally concluded that the notorious leniency of juries was paradoxically linked to the harshness of their laws. Whether a man killed by accident or in self-defense or with calculated and cold-blooded intent, he was charged with murder. He could argue "mischance" or "justification," but he had to prove that in court, and many men fled rather than risk submitting themselves to the king's justice. A

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man could be hanged, too, for theft, could pay with his life for a crime of hunger or desperation. The result was that juries often refused to indict, even when the evidence seemed to demand it.

Justin looked puzzled by Luke's skepticism, but Jonas understood all too well. "We've both seen men walk away from the gallows when we knew they were as guilty as Cain," he explained to Justin. "But not this time. That fool Sampson murdered a man in full sight of more than a dozen witnesses, including the victim's own wife and a parish priest. No, this is one knave who'll get exactly what is coming to him—a short dance at the end of a long rope."

"When can we question him?" Justin asked. A pity they could not wait until after the trial. Sampson might be more inclined to talk once he knew there was no hope. But if he was tried and found guilty, it would be too late then, for executions were almost always carried out immediately. Only pregnant women could count upon a delay. If convicted, Sampson would be taken at once to the gallows.

"We can go to the gaol this afternoon." Jonas then gave voice to Justin's own unease, saying, "But he may not be willing to talk with you. Why should he? He can always hope for a miracle—a jury so blind, deaf, and dumb that they might not indict him. Or he could balk out of sheer spite. So it may well be that you'll have no better luck with him than we did with the Fleming."

Justin felt a chill of foreboding, for this was his last chance to learn the truth about the goldsmith's murder. But Luke was shaking his head. "Leave that to me," he said, "for I know Sampson. I'll get him to talk." And when Justin asked how, he would say only, "You'll see," with an enigmatic smile.

Newgate was one of London's most strategic gatehouses, guarding the approach from the west. It was an impressive stone structure, several stories high, tracing its origin back to a time when London was known as Londinium and under the rule of ancient Rome. Newgate had been rebuilt five years ago, and was now used as a city gaol. It did not have a sordid history like the

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prison by the River Fleet, did not hold as many ghosts or echoes oi past pain. But it, too, was a bleak, sad place, at once formidable and forlorn. And the stench was the same. It hit Justin in the face as soon as they were escorted inside. Familiar odors of confinement and crowding, and that most pervasive stink of all— fear.

The more fortunate prisoners were kept in the upper chambers; the lower a man's status, the lower down he was lodged. The worst and most dangerous of the lot were held in the underground dungeon called "the pit," and when Sampson was shoved into the guards' chamber, it was obvious that he'd come from there, for he was blinking and squinting even in the subdued lamplight.

Sampson was as broad as he was tall, heavy in the torso, but not sloppy fat. He would be a nasty foe in any alehouse brawl, and an even deadlier one on a dark, deserted street. This was Justin's first close encounter with Sampson, and he found himself marveling at the reckless courage of the slain Good Samaritan. Sampson was younger than he had expected, not more than five and twenty. But the pale blue eyes were ageless. They darted around the chamber, drawn irresistibly to the shuttered and barred windows. Only after Sampson had satisfied himself that the room offered no opportunities for escape did he turn his attention to the men. His gaze moved from Justin to Jonas with indifference. But hostile recognition blazed across his face at sight of Luke.

"What are you doing here?" His voice was low pitched, so hoarse and guttural that the words emerged almost as a growl.

Luke smiled blandly. "I decided to treat myself, Sampson. I'm here to watch you hang."