The Playmaker (19 page)

“What is it?” she asked.

I stood for a moment beside the herb garden, deep in thought. “What—” she repeated, but I held up a hand. The heavy, golden afternoon hung so still and sullen I could almost feel tempers kindling, fevers breeding throughout the city. A clang of bells sounded in the distance: not remarkable in itself, for bells were often tolling the hours or the news, or a birth or a death somewhere in London. The more I listened, the louder they grew, clamoring from the direction of the river. “I am going down to the quay,” I said then. “Will you?”

For answer, she took off her apron and hung it upon the drying bush nearby. I fetched my cap and we set off swiftly down Cattle Street. As we went, I explained what the crossbow meant. “Not many would recognize it. 'Tis only sold at the Lion and Lamb, near Middle Temple.”

“What sort of people go there?”

“Professional men, mostly. Solicitors.” I paused briefly in mid-stride. “Lawyers.”

“Ah. And you have been warned away from lawyers—lately by a man who imports wine from France. …”

“But what was on that paper? It may amount to nothing.”

“Aye, but you know it does not.”

I did know it, and that was precisely why we were on the street headed toward the wharf. The bells grew louder at our approach, and as their noise increased, so did my suspicion that I understood their meaning. Turning the corner at Cross Keys Inn, we could see a bloom of gray smoke pouring out upon the sky over the river, sparked near the roofline by busy points of flame. I knew without being told that what fueled this fire was the warehouse of Motheby and Southern.

“Come on!” I shouted, and Starling nimbly tucked up her skirts and ran beside me. Our haste attracted no undue attention, for everyone was running in the same direction.

Fires are common in the city, especially in the dry days of summer, but this one burned with a ferocious heat, throwing flames twenty feet into the sky. When we reached the scene, the confusion had just begun to sort itself, and sooty, shouting men had formed in two lines to draw up water in buckets from the river. The warehouse was beyond saving; all they could hope to accomplish was to keep the fire within bounds. They had already tied ropes around the counting house hard by; as we watched, the entire building was pulled down with a roar and men swarmed over the timbers, desperately dragging them out of the fire's path and beating out the flames. A molten breeze streamed past my face as the blaze
leapt higher; the heat so intense it threatened to suck the air out of our lungs. Old Roger Coverdale, dealer in salt fish, was organizing a third brigade to save his nearby warehouse. But I saw no trace of Motheby or Southern, and only after intense searching did I spot Ralph Downing's moon face in the water line. I pushed through the crowd, leaving Star to follow as she might, and broke into line beside him just in time to take the empty bucket passing toward the river. “How goes it, Ralph?”

He squinted at me, holding up progress for a precious second. Then his soot-smudged face lit with recognition. “Richard! 'Tis you, then?” (“Keep it going!” roared a voice down the line.)

“The same. How did the fire start?”

“No one knows. Day of wonders, this.” He took the full bucket on his right and passed it to me. “Agents from the court arrived before the tide and arrested my masters.”

“Arrested! Both of them?” He nodded decisively. I felt the excitement about him; he relished his part in this affair, small as it was. “For what cause?”

“Can't tell you that. But mark me”—he paused to take an empty bucket from my hand—“mark me, it has somewhat to do with the upset this noon.”

“What upset?”

“That keg spilled by Jemmy Burchett on Fleet Street. Had a message from the French king, promising to send an army to overthrow our Queen!”

“Impossible!”

“They've taken my masters to the Tower over it.”

“And Jemmy Burchett—what of him?”

“Taken him, too, though he knows about as much as a cod. Lucky for me I wasn't with him. They sent only one load today. And that steward, at the Lion and Lamb—remember? I hear they had him on the rack within an hour.”

I felt my stomach turn over. I did recall the steward, and how sharply he denied knowing any man by the name of Martin Feather. If he was on the rack, he would not be denying anything for long. Starling popped up beside me and spoke in my ear. “You must come. I've something to show you.”

It was not difficult to find someone to take my place in the line, for a scene of public drama never wants for actors. I made a quick farewell to Ralph and caught his grin through the smoke. “See you at the Theater, Richard!”

I made but a weak smile in return and dashed after Starling, who was giving the flames a wide berth. In the confusion I felt her take hold of my hand as we climbed up from the river a short distance and turned at the head of a long pier. Here we joined the audience, who surveyed the frantic scene with an ill-concealed relish. Their talk was instructive: “Passing strange, eh? A wine keg breaking at noon and a wine warehouse aflame within hours?” “Aye, and they say it blazed up so fast, there was no time to get out the alarm.” “No happenstance, this—”

“Look carefully to the right,” Starling told me. “But don't stare. Those bales of wool, stacked along the wall—see them?”

“I see them.”

“Now look to the topmost bale—that man on top? D'you recognize him? Don't catch his eye, whatever you do.”

I found the indicated figure easily; he had cadged himself the best place on the waterfront to survey the action. Alone of that crowd, he seemed perfectly calm, though he studied the flames intently, rubbing a finger along his lower lip. This gave me an opportunity to study him, amid the gusts of smoke, and something in that beaky profile did seem familiar. “I cannot think where—”

“He's one of the men who were tracking you. Do you remember, I saw Roger Coverdale chase a fellow away from this wharf the day after you came to us? It's the same man.”

I looked more closely. Starling was as sharp-eyed as anyone I knew, yet I could not place the man here; surely it was from some other quarter that I knew him, if at all. The high-bridged nose, the arch of eyebrow aroused in me a sense of discomfort. Such a face did not belong among riverside idlers—it was too refined, if not downright imperious, the sort of face to make you shuffle your feet and wonder if there was a smudge on your nose.

“Mark how calm he sits,” Starling murmured. “Like God in heaven, surveying his handiwork. I would wager anything he set this fire.”

There was a ring on his left hand, of some dull metal. As the hot wind fanned my face, I suddenly recalled the heavy taste of pewter in my mouth, a dead-quiet voice in my ear: “If you want to stay well, you'll fly away straight.” Then I knew him—the clerk in
Martin Feather's chambers, who went by the name of Merry. I felt my head reel in the heat, as though turning a slow somersault.

“Let's be off,” I said. “Back to the street. I know him.”

Just inside a Thames Street tavern, now almost empty of patrons, I sat with my head in my hands while Starling tried to sort our findings. “So—he works for Martin Feather. Your aunt must be in some sort of league with the attorney, or at least in communication with him … unless she sends all her intelligence to this Merry fellow only. But John Beecham figures in it, too; surely it's more than coincidence that the very place he sent you to find work is now going up in flames, because … because …”

I rubbed my temples, which had begun to throb. “Because it's at the center of a huge devilish conspiracy that's about to crash down on my head.”

“Well, that's more than we know—”

“Are they all against me?” I asked, in a muffled voice. “Perhaps not.” Star sounded overly brisk. “Your aunt, and this Merry, and Masters Beecham and Kenton all seem to be in communication, but they may not be in league. The link that binds them is Master Feather: one is his present clerk, another his former clerk; your aunt … how would she know the attorney, do you think?”

“Stop it!” I clutched my head. “It's enough for one night.” By now all these names had the worn and grubby feel of disjointed parts that had been picked up and rearranged too many times in our attempts to fit them together. And one more factor had occurred to me: that my father also associated with Martin Feather
at one time. This was another line of speculation but I was too spent to follow it. A hot, slow twilight had fallen, thick with smoke, and the tavern was filling with men and boys who had done their part to put out the fire. The talk around us was of Catholics and plots, all in terms not fit to write. A threatening mood pressed down under the rafters. I glanced at Starling, who stared reproachfully back at me, hurt by my sharp tone. “Come along,” I said, gruff but I hope not unkind. “This is getting to be no place for us.”

She stood readily enough, and we threaded a path through the crowd, toward Gracechurch Street. Getting away from the smoke and catching a fresh breeze off the river helped my head. When we were halfway to Cheapside, Star spoke again, probably because the pressure of her thoughts would not allow her to keep silent. “You say the authorities have laid their hands on that steward at the Lion and Lamb. If they rack him, he'll spill all he knows, including names. So they may soon be looking for some of these people, like Martin Feather and Peter Kenton. …”

“They'll have a task finding him,” I said. “He conjures himself at will.”

“Meaning?”

I told her Ned's fancy of gentlemen changing themselves to bears. It was meant for a distraction, but to my surprise she latched on it. “Ned's eyes are sharp, in that flighty head. He must have seen something.”

“Did he? You mean, something like you saw in the Smithfield market, chained to a post, that you thought was your kin?”

Her patience finally broke. “What has come over you? You're as sour as Master Merry. Do you wish to set a fire, too?”

We were now at the corner of Lothbury Street, and suddenly, the thought of going home seemed unbearable. My head was clearer now, and I clearly saw a chance that should not be missed. Master Merry had followed me, at least once; why should I not follow him? “You go along,” I told Starling. “I must return to the quay.”

“I'll go with you.”

“That you won't. I can manage better on my own for this.” She flared up, I stood fast, and in the short but violent quarrel that followed I remember wondering why she seemed so passionate about staying with me. Eventually, she saw reason, for when tracking a prey there is no advantage in numbers. “But I won't sleep a wink until your return,” she snapped, “so it had better be soon.” I watched her partway down the street, then turned and raced back toward the river, where a pall of smoke now lay, sullen as a garden slug.

But of course, Merry was gone. I cursed my slow wits while scanning the scene for him, but it was no use. The fire was nearly out, only smoldering embers remained; it would be an imprudent criminal who lingers overlong at the scene of a crime. Thus thwarted, and the pain in my head stamping back with a vengeance, I rounded the corner of a tavern and ran headlong into a party of torch bearers coming up from the quay. My shoulder struck the chest of the foremost figure, a lad a little older and much bigger than me.

“Well!” said he, his voice raspy with smoke. “‘Tis none other than the Psalm singer, bless his pissy name!”

It was one of the boys who beat me up during my quayside days—who had never bothered to learn my name, as a matter of fact. I reeled back at a flat-handed push from him, into the chest of another lad who had circled behind to wall me in. The sting of resin smoke from a torch burned my eyes and soured my tongue. “You've done well for yourself, Psalm singer,” their leader continued, grabbing me by the undone buttonholes of my doublet. “Pranked up like a very schoolboy.”

My voice was threatening to dry up, though I managed to choke out a protest: “L-let me by.” He topped me by a hand's breadth.

“Let you by? Will you blast us all with scripture if I don't?”

“Let him go, Jack,” complained one of his followers. “He's small fry. It's bigger game we're after.” The company, none of them older than sixteen, cheered lustily at this, chanting warlike cries of blood and slaughter and vengeance on Catholic traitors. Like drum-beats, their shouts pounded in my head and matched the beat of my heart, and I saw a way to redeem my thwarted aims. From very far away I heard myself saying clearly, “Is it Catholic blood you're after?”

The shouting abated; Jack's grip loosened, allowing me to settle back on my heels. “Aye,” he said, sounding puzzled. “Know you any?”

“I do. And I know where she abides.”

He drew me close, up to his very mouth as though to take a bite out of me, and I received his rank breath in my nostrils. “Then take us there.”

“Not as your prisoner. Loose your grip.”

He grunted and did so, allowing me a moment to straighten my clothes and consider what I had done. In my present state of mind, it seemed only just: The woman had created a riot to steal from me and frighten me away. Why should I not bring a riot to her? If you prick me, shall I not bleed? If you wrong me, shall I not
revenge
? Jack struck my shoulder with his palm. “No more primping, you girl! Lead on!”

And I did.

Up from the wharf, down Thames Street, over the Bridge; past houses silent as stones, doors locked, windows shuttered. The air around us huddled close with a furtive whisper, disturbed now and then by a shout or a shiver of breaking glass. The boys fell mostly silent, their short, muttered queries goading me like knife points. I walked faster, my breath coming in sharp pants. With every turn I led them deeper into Southwark, into a maze of dark houses shut up against the storm. My heart beat louder with every step, pounding out a rhythm that nearly spoke: slow to flame, long to burn. Long to burn …

I found I was almost running, and they were running with me, until at last we reached the stone monastery wall. I put a hand to the gate and pushed, my heart thudding so hard it threatened to jump out of my chest. All was dark; in the hot silence a goat
bleated from the corner of the garden. We ran up the flagstone walk and crashed against the house. I pounded the door until my fist ached, but already guessed the truth.