The Tainted Relic (54 page)

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved for an instant. I’m not sure that everyone understood what had just happened. Gog and Magog and the other constables stared as if the appearance of a guilty raven was an everyday occurrence in Pie-Powder Court. Poor old Ben Nightingale was still recovering from being struck by a constable’s staff. The aged clerk resumed his throat-clearing. But the quicker-witted among us–Perkin, Justice Farnaby, us players and even Wapping Doll–realized that we’d witnessed something very peculiar.

‘Well, go after it,’ said Walter Farnaby to no one in particular.

And, as if that was our cue, we rushed out of St Bartholomew’s Priory in the forlorn hope of laying hands on Hold-fast. Outside, the sun had slipped down a notch or two. The sounds of the fair–the cries and the songs and the raucous laughter–filled the heavy air.

Instinctively I looked up at the flank of the building, where we’d seen the raven make his exit. It was as if he’d been waiting for us to emerge, I swear, because at that moment Hold-fast lifted off from the window ledge. He must have been wanting one last glimpse of his pursuers, to taunt them finally. As he extended his wings, I observed a certain raggedness to one of them. Perhaps it was just his age (
he’s an old boy
, Hatch had said) or perhaps it was the result of standing too close to an exploding pistol. And as Hold-fast flapped away, the sun glinted off what he held in his beak. Hold-fast was a good name for him. He’d not let go of that object before he had good cause.

‘And you followed him?’ said WS.

‘Not so much followed him,’ I said, ‘but we saw the general direction he was going in. He was heading for the river, flying south. Perhaps he was going to deliver it to Henslowe.’

‘A raven won’t deliver anything to anyone,’ said WS. ‘He is his own man.’

I was sitting in Shakespeare’s lodgings in Mugwell Street. They were good lodgings. We were drinking wine. It was good wine, fitting for one of the Globe shareholders. WS was all concern and solicitousness. He’d been appalled to hear of the trouble and to-do which Jack and Abel and I had tumbled into the previous day on his behalf and in pursuit of his
Domitian
foul papers. Although some of his concern was purely rhetorical, I knew WS well enough to recognize that he was being sincere, mostly.

The rescued foul papers now lay on a table beside their creator, an untidy little pile. He’d hardly glanced at them. The paper was old and yellow. The sheets were streaked red with Hatch’s blood, and they were creased from where they’d been nestling under my shirt the previous day. Nevertheless, all’s well that ends well…as it says somewhere.

‘According to Ulysses Hatch, there was a legend attached to the cross fragment,’ I said. ‘It was cursed. Whoever touched it would die. It seemed to work in his case.’

‘I’ve heard such stories before,’ said WS. ‘Also that the last person to possess such an item will perish when he parts from it. I wonder if the raven will let it drop from his beak now…?’

I visualized Hold-fast letting go of the glass vial, perhaps because (bright and shiny though it was) he could see no ultimate purpose for it. I visualized him dropping it somewhere on the remote wastes of the Thames foreshore, the vial landing in the soft mud or in the water.

‘So you think that Tom Gally was out to purchase the relic on Henslowe’s behalf?’ said WS.

‘That’s what it looked like. The story was that Hatch intended to sell it to some “players”. Gally made himself pretty scarce. There was no sign of him at the fair later on.’

‘He probably got wind of what happened to Hatch. And as for those other two, Nightingale and—’

‘Peter Perkin. I think they just blundered into the situation by chance. In fact, I don’t believe the ballad singer had much to do with it. He was the singing attraction, he just stood there and warbled while Perkin picked out the marks. Perkin was the cutpurse. He’d probably gone to Hatch’s tent to purchase some of his spicy wares. While he was there Hatch saw a selling opportunity. He told me he’d sell anything if the price was right. It wouldn’t matter if he’d already promised the item to Henslowe. And when Perkin glimpsed the relic, he must have thought he was going to make some easy money. His story was true enough. He was negotiating with Hatch for a second time when the bird hopped down and dislodged the gun, setting it off.’

‘Can that happen?’ said WS.

‘Abel Glaze has some knowledge of these things,’ I said. ‘Once when he was in the Low Countries he saw a fellow whose pistol dropped from his belt by accident. It hit the ground and went off, killing him stone dead.’

‘And so Ulysses Hatch died by his own weapon.’

‘Perkin claimed he was deafened and terrified. He fled from the tent, clutching the empty box. Later on he met up with Nightingale and they divided the day’s takings. He was showing him the empty box and telling him the story of what happened, flapping his arms like a bird. I don’t think Nightgingale believed him. Who would?’

‘Until the bird himself appeared to give evidence,’ said WS. ‘Naturally the raven picked up the glass vial. Bright and shiny and valuable.’

‘Then he must have waddled out of the tent,’ I said.

‘Did Justice Farnaby bring the humans to account for their thieving?’

‘He did not, William. I think that he was so…surprised by the turn of events that he had no appetite for relatively trivial offences. Besides, there wasn’t any evidence against Perkin or Nightingale. No one saw them stealing anything. The money they had
could
have been their own, honestly earned. No, they got off scot-free. And Hatch’s death is accounted a strange misadventure.’

WS turned to one side and picked up the sheaf of paper from the table. He crossed to the fireplace and deposited the sheets there. He struck a flint and set the flame to the paper.

‘There,’ he said as he watched the fire catch hold and the sheets curl and blacken. ‘Sometimes flame is the author’s best friend. No one will ever see or hear of my
Domitian
again. You have done me no small favour, Nick.’

‘In return, I shall ask for some information.’

‘If I can give it.’

‘You were once familiar with someone called Doll. Wapping Doll?’

WS had been crouching on his hams supervising the destruction of his script. Now he levered himself to his feet once more, groaning slightly and making some time-filling comment about old bones.

‘Wapping Doll? No, I don’t think so.’

‘Ulysses Hatch said differently.’

‘Did he now?’

‘Said that you and he had once had a falling-out over her.’

‘Never contradict a dead man,’ said WS.

‘Was he right?’

‘Why so insistent, Nick?’

Now it was my turn to feel uncomfortable.

‘Do you mean to ask,’ said WS, ‘whether I was once young and energetic and far from home in this great city, as you were yourself not so long ago? And glad of company?’

‘I suppose so,’ I said.

‘Young ravens must have food, you know. However, your question is a fair one, considering what you’ve done for me. I’ve never told you of my early years in London, have I?’

‘Not much,’ I said.

‘Then I shall tell you now.’

And he did.

EPILOGUE

Greenwich, London, 2005

The turbid waters of the Thames swirled around the bend in the river, like dirty cocoa in some gigantic drainpipe. Half a dozen workmen in their yellow hard hats fussed over the unloading of steel girders from a barge that was moored to a landing stage on the south shore. A telescopic crane mounted on the back of a huge truck was swinging the two-ton girders around in a wide arc to deposit them on the ground behind the wharf. The Millennium Dome was undergoing yet another facelift to try to establish some enterprise that might at last allow the place to start making a profit.

The foreman looked back at the unlovely hemisphere as he took out a narrow tin to roll himself a skinny cigarette. ‘Waste of time, this job. The bloody place is cursed!’ he muttered pessimistically.

Yelling ‘Take five!’ to the other men, he gestured to the crane driver. Stefan Kozlowski locked his controls and left a girder swaying gently twenty feet above the ground. Clambering down, he gratefully arched his aching back and, lighting a cigarette, ambled along the debris-strewn foreshore beyond the landing stage to stretch his legs. After he had walked a few yards, a glint of yellow caught his eye, and he bent to pick up what he hoped was a gold coin.

It was embedded in the old mud well above the high-tide mark, and when he pulled it, a small glass tube slid reluctantly from the filth with a sucking sound. When he wiped the top, it glistened, but when he scratched it with a fingernail, Stefan saw that what shone in the sunlight was just the peeling remains of gold leaf.

Idly, he pulled out the tight-fitting bung from the mud-smeared tube and shook out what was inside. To his disgust, it was just a piece of rotted wood, sodden and crumbling. He poked it around his palm with a finger, then shrugged and put it back in the vial. Just above him on the bank was one of the large rubbish skips that dotted the construction site around the Dome, and with an overarm toss that would have done credit to a Test cricketer, he sent the disappointing object sailing up into the skip.

Soon there was another yell from the foreman, ordering everyone back to work, and with a sigh Stefan trudged back towards his crane. He didn’t much like his job, but it was better than being unemployed in Cracow. As he passed under the load he had left suspended, disdaining all those stupid British Health and Safety Regulations, there was another frantic scream from his foreman.

Later, when the ambulances, the police cars and the duty undertaker’s van had left, a battered truck came to remove the skip, taking its load of hard core to add to the foundations of a new Church of the Holy Cross which was being built in Bromley.

The End

¹
Often retired monks or members of the King’s or a wealthy magnate’s entourage, the corrodiary was the recipient of a ‘corrody’ or pension. The monastery would take a lump sum and then give food, lodging and sometimes spending money to the pensioner.

¹
A fair-sized horse of reasonable price, rounseys were used for almost any work apart from pulling carts. They were used as pack animals, but also as general riding horses by travellers or as warhorses by men-at-arms.

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

EPILOGUE

Prologue –

Act One –

Act Two –

Act Three –

Act Four –

Act Five –

Epilogue –

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