These that do counterfeit the Crank be young knaves and young harlots that deeply dissemble the falling sickness. For the Crank in their language is the “falling evil”. … and never go without a piece of white soap about them, which, if they see cause or present gain, they will privily convey the same into their mouth and so work the same there that they will foam as it were a Boar, and marvelously for a time torment themselves…
A Caveat for Common Cursitors, Vulgarly Called Vagabonds.
Thomas Harman
The sun was going down and it shone red and yellow through the murk like a rotten cracked egg above London. Farmers and drovers were leaving the city, their day’s business done.
He’d been riding a swayback nag for the last two days. Spine like a saw and he hadn’t felt his cock for the last day. He was afraid to look, in case something had been cut off.
Arnold Mulemaker the jeweler lived all the way over on the other side of the city. No way to get there before he closed up for the night. He found that he was again gnawing his lip in frustration and fear. Getting close and it seemed that the closer he got, the slower things moved. He might have shaken that bastard Helmsley in Vlissengen, but there were no guarantees. He had to assume that they were still on his trail. Hell, probably worse than that. They had to know where he was bound, there being so few boltholes open to him now. They were probably already waiting for him in there. So he had that in front of him. He spared a glance over his shoulder to check on what was behind him. Him that called himself Stephen Gardener.
He had to hand it to the little shit, he’d gotten Nick into England, smooth as butter. And now they’d been on the road for three days, heading towards London. Pleasant enough company, always ready with joke or conversation. Stingy with the coin, though, and Nick took him for being completely skint. But with all the jokes and stories, Nick was no closer to knowing who this cove was than when he first woke up and saw him in that room in Vlissengen. One thing he did know for certain. He didn’t trust him. At all.
During the trip across the Channel and the days coming to London, he kept returning to the thought of just cutting Gardener’s throat and being done with it. That course of action had a great deal to recommend it. One less thing to worry about. And each time he decided that there was more to be gained by letting it all play out. He wanted to see Gardener’s hand when he finally laid his cards on the table.
He gave a smile at Nick’s glance. “Here we are! Not before time. I judge that my ass fell off maybe a day ago.”
Nick slowed up his horse so that Gardener could pull up along side. “For myself, I think I left my prick back in Essex.” He leaned forward in his saddle, trying without success to find a less painful position. “So. There’s London. What now?”
“Well, I should think that depends entirely on you. I am only here to help you. How will you be seeking out Poley?”
Nick kept his gaze on London, framed between the ears of his horse. “There are some mutual acquaintances that I will find; they’ll pass the word that I am in London and seeking a meeting.” He dug in his heels and his horse began to move along the road.
“‘Tis a small enough city, so he should get your message quickly.”
“Been some years since I was last here. The word is, from those who have a more recent knowledge of London, that it has seen nothing but change. What can I expect when I enter in through yonder gate?”
Gardener laughed and spurred his horse past Nick’s. “Follow me and see for yourself.”
Now with London’s walls in sight, Nick finally admitted to himself what he had been avoiding. He was afraid. In the days since he had landed, he had distracted himself with observing the English countryside and marvelling what a country untouched by war looked like. But always at the back of his throat there had been the taste, and always in his reflexes there had been that extra jumpiness. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about it, but now the thoughts could be restrained no longer.
He was facing an enemy that he couldn’t bluff or brawl his way past. Somewhere ahead, in the teeming mass that was London, was the man who had betrayed him and all the rest who had worked for Poley in the Low Countries. Clearly a man of power, influence, and intelligence. Nick knew he had some of the intelligence, but none of the other two attributes. And worse, the traitor knew Nick, but Nick had no idea of his identity.
He had to make contact with Poley. As untrustworthy and cold blooded as Poley was, he was the only person that Nick knew for a fact wasn’t the traitor. There was no way that Poley would have betrayed his own networks. But he was the only one. Everyone else was a suspect.
These suspicions drove Nick’s fears and his fears drove his suspicions. His grip tightened on his reins so much that his horse tossed its head in protest and broke stride. He came to himself and loosened his grip, took deep breaths. He berated himself silently. He’d been in tight spots before, had gotten through them. He was no mewling babe.
He gathered the habits of hard won practice about himself. He broke his task, finding Poley, into smaller tasks. First, find a place to rest for the night. Second, shake himself free of Gardener. Then proceed on as opportunity presented. He refused to consider the possibility that Mulemaker had turned his coat. That was a worry for tomorrow.
Meanwhile, unregarded, Gardener had been in full spate, regaling Nick’s inattentive ears with tales of the wonders and sights that Nick could expect to see in a London so very changed. Nick broke in on Gardener’s description of all the new playhouses and entertainment that could be found therein. “All of that sounds most enticing; perhaps I’ll be able to take in such pleasantries once my business is concluded. But, for the nonce, I’d welcome the name of a hostelry where I can spend the night cheaply and waken tomorrow with only a small amount of flea bites. Might you know of such a place?”
“Indeed I do.”
The gate had no portcullis and the wall itself was in no good repair: yet another reminder to Nick of the difference between here and the Low Countries. Also, there were houses and other buildings built right up against the wall, another sign of a city that hadn’t stood a siege in some time. Their horses clattered through the gatehouse. Most of the traffic was still leaving the city as the day ended.
Even with the people leaving, London still shocked him with its crowds. Without knowing, he had become accustomed to the cities of the Spanish Netherlands, where invading armies and fleeing populations had left them with much smaller populations. Brussels; grey and legalistic, and Antwerp, a shell of what it used to be, had been the cities of his acquaintance in the last few years and he had never seen anything like this. And it was an average evening; no special occasion had brought these people together. Nick realized that his intelligence skills of spotting a shadower or a trap might be insufficient for this place. He would have to be at his utmost.
Gardener had made his way ahead a bit, more experienced, it seemed, in threading his horse through the clots of people and vehicles that clogged the streets. Nick’s horse was more flighty and kept jerking its head and shying at different sounds. He swore at it and thumped it with his heels but in the next instance had to rein in the horse as two men hurried across his path. His eyes followed them as they joined a circle of onlookers clustered about something that was occurring over by the gatehouse. His seat on his horse afforded Nick a perspective to see what bit of London street theater was drawing the people. The cynosure of the eyes of everyone gathered in a semi-circle was a man writhing on the ground. His back arched, he flailed about, white drool was flung from his clenched teeth. The man was dressed in filthy rags, torn to show bloody and bruised flesh. A boy, dressed in similar squalor held a misshapen hat and begged the crowd for alms for his poor father who was stricken with the falling sickness.
And, like a hammer stroke between the eyes, the idea came to Nick. There was another person in London besides Bob Poley who he could be sure wasn’t a traitor. A desperate strategem, after all, since when they had parted last, she had sworn to kill him if she ever saw him again. And that was a promise she was fully capable of honoring. But what other choice had he?
It had to be done now and quickly, before Gardener noticed. Nick threw himself off his horse, gathered the reins in one hand, and barged forward. Using his weight and the bulk of horse, he wedged his way through the crowd. The man’s fit had subsided and most of the crowd had turned to leave, as the entertainment was over. The boy’s entreaties became louder and more pitiful.
Nick waited until the boy was in front of him with his begging hat. He dropped a penny in the hat and leaned in close. “Your da, there, one of the best counterfeit cranks I’ve ever seen. But a word to the wise, he might want to get a better style of soap. That froth looked a bit thin to me.”
The boy jingled the penny in his hat, avoided looking at Nick. “Bless you, sir, bless you. My father’s got the falling sickness something fierce. I don’t know what that is you’re talking about. I look after him when he gets the fits.”
“Oh, I’ll wager you do.” Nick reached out and gripped the boy’s chickenbone thin arm. “I’ll put a lot more coin in that hat if you pass a message to the Queen.”
Now the boy looked directly at Nick. “You’re more fucking cracked than my da. Do I fucking look like I’m some fucking noble what goes to Westminster?”
“Not the Queen of Westminster, you little shit. The Queen of London.” The lad’s sudden stillness betrayed him. “Aye, I thought so. No one pulls the falling dodge inside these walls without her permission. You tell her that Fat Boy Nick is back in the smoke and begs a word. And you best use that word. Begs. For that’s what I’m doing.”
“And what if I do? What’s in it for me?”
Nick released the boy, wagering that greed had him hooked. He dug into his purse and pulled out an angel. He kept it hidden in his palm and just flashed it to the lad, before dropping it in the fetid depth of the raggedy hat. “You pass the message to her and I have no doubt that she’ll double that.”
The boy licked his lips, gaze darting between Nick and his hat. “Maybe I will and maybe I won’t.”
“You’re too smart not too. Now go look after your da.” Nick nodded in the direction of the man who was picking himself up and spitting a mouthful of white froth onto the dirt. He then turned and moved back onto the street. And not a moment too soon, he saw. Gardener had realized that Nick was no longer with and was heading back in his direction.
“If it’s boy whores you’re interested in, I know a molly house. No need to accost filthy beggars in the street to soothe your unnatural lusts.”
Nick clambered back onto his horse and genially bit his thumb at Gardener. Once seated, he got the horse moving and took on a patently false religious mien, parodying a Puritan. “Evil to him who evil thinks. O woe unto ye hypocrites and Pharisees!”
Gardener spat out a laugh and bent over his horse’s neck, ribs shaking with mirth.
Nick dropped the mummery and shrugged his shoulders. “Nay, but in all seriousness, I threw the little shit a few pennies because it’s good that I stay reminded that there are those who are even more fucked than I.” A pause. “As hard as that is to believe.”
Gardener recovered and brought his horse alongside Nick’s. “But be of good cheer. If all goes according to plan, in a few days you’ll be fucked no longer.” And now a pause on his part. “Wait. That was perhaps not what I meant to say.”
Nick grinned at him, relieved at having diverted Gardener’s attention from the beggars. “Have no fear. I will take the encouragement in the spirit in which it is offered. Now, this hostelry you mentioned, it’s nearby?”
A brief while later, the two men were inspecting a small, shabby room on the second floor of what looked like it used to be a prosperous merchant’s house. The innkeeper had mentioned in passing that the original owner had been a Catholic and had been forced to give it up. On the ground floor the interior walls had been taken out to make a large space for tables and snuggeries along the edge of the room. The second floor had rooms to rent. It was one such room that Nick and Gardener had been shown to.
Nick shrugged. “It’ll suffice. After all, not planning on staying here long.”
“I agree. And speaking of staying here, I must be off. There is business that I need to take care of. I would recommend that you stay up here.”
“Not precisely a babe in the woods, Stephen. I am fully skilled at laying low in a city where I am being hunted. I can wait it out until tomorrow when I’ll go seeking those who might help me.”
“Stay safe. I’ll have the pot boy bring up some ale and food.” With that, Gardener was out the door.
Nick had been laying on the bed, the food and drink a distant memory, the light coming through the small window going to full dark, when something caught his ear. The sounds of the public room below had been a constant accompaniment through his waiting, but now it was silence.
Here it comes.
Nick got to his feet, rolled his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, took a deep breath.
There was a knock at the door. The skin tight along his back and the taste of metal in his mouth, Nick opened the door.
“Hello, Nick.”
“Hello, Meg.”