The kingdoms of England and Scotland echoed and reechoed with treasonable conspiracies. Indeed, a few months previously, another attempt to install James’s cousin Arabella Stuart on the throne had resulted in the unfortunate lady being confined to the Tower. Times were dangerous; Master Hardy Drew had been reflecting on this while quelling the outburst of anger of Puritan divines. Even his position of constable was fraught with political danger. There were many who might falsely inform on him for his religious affiliations or, indeed, for his lack of them, in order to secure the position of constable for themselves together with the small patronage that went with it.
The knocking increased in volume, and Master Drew rolled out of his bed with a groan. “Ods bodikms!” he swore. “Must you torture a poor soul so? Enter and have a good reason for this clamor!”
The door opened a fraction, and a dirty young face peered round.
Master Drew glared menacingly at the child. “You had better have a good reason for disturbing my sleep, little britches,” he growled.
“God save you, good master,” cried the young boy, not entering the room. “I’ve been sent to tell you that a gen’lemen be lying near done to death.”
Master Drew blinked and shook his head in a vain attempt to clear it. “A gentleman is-? Who sent you, child?” he groaned.
“The master what owns the inn in Clink Street. The Red Boar, Master… Master Pen… Pen… some foreign name. I can’t remember.”
“And precisely what did this Master Pen ask you to tell me?” Master Drew inquired patiently.
“To come quick, as the gen’lemen be stabbed and near death.”
Master Drew sighed and waved the child away. “Tell him that I’ll be there shortly,” he said.
Had the news been other than that of a gentleman stabbed in an inn, he would have immediately returned to his interrupted slumber. London was full of people being stabbed in taverns, alleys, or along its grubby waterfront. They were usually members of the lower orders of society, whom few people of quality would miss, much less shed a tear over. But a gentleman… now that was a matter serious enough to bring a Constable of the Watch from his warm bed.
Master Drew splashed his face with cold water from a china basin and hurriedly drew on his clothes. Below, in the tavern, he spent a half-pence on a pot of beer to cut the slack from his dry throat and, outside, chose an apple from a passing seller to munch for the balance of his breakfast.
Clink Street was not far away, a small road down by the banks of the Thames, along the very Bankside that was Master Drews main area of responsibility. He knew of the Red Boar Inn but had little occasion to frequent it. Perhaps inn was too grand a title, for it was hardly more than a waterfront tavern full of the usual riffraff of the Thames waterfront.
There was a small crowd loitering outside when he reached there. A small boy was holding forth to the group, waving his arms and pointing up to a window. Doubtless, this was the same urchin who had brought the message to him. The boy pointed to the constable as he approached and cried, “This is ‘im naw!” The small crowd moved back respectfully as Master Drew halted before the dark door of the inn and pushed it open.
Although the morning was bright outside, inside candles were alight, but even so, the taproom was still gloomy, filled with a mixture of candle and pipe smoke, mingling with odors of stale alcohol and body sweat.
A thin, middle-aged man came hurrying forward, wiping his hands on a leather apron. He had raven-black hair but his features were pale, which caused his shaven cheeks to have a bluish hue to them.
“We do be closed, good sir,” he began, but Master Drew stopped him with a cutting motion of his hand.
“I am Constable of the Bankside Watch. Are you the host of this tavern?”
The man nodded rapidly. “That I do be, master.”
“And your name?”
“Pentecost Penhallow.”
Master Drew sniffed in disapproval. “A Cornishman by your name and accent?”
“A Cornishman I do be, if please you, good sir.”
Master Drew groaned inwardly. This day was not starting well. He did not like the Cornish. His grandfather had been killed in the last Cornish uprising against England. Not that he was even born then, but there were many Cornish who had come to London during the reign of the Tudors and stayed. He regarded them as a people not to be trusted.
The last uprising had been caused by the introduction of the English language into church services in Cornwall. The Cornish rebels had marched into Devon, even captured the suburbs of Exeter after a siege before defeating the Earl of Bedford’s army at nearby Honiton. That was where Master Drew’s grandfather had been killed. The eventual defeat of the Cornish rebels by Lord Grey, and the systematic suppression of the people by fire and sword, the execution of their leaders, had not brought peace to Cornwall. If anything, the people had become more restless.
Master Drew knew that the English Court feared a Catholic-inspired insurrection in Cornwall, as well as other of the subject nations on the isles. Cornwall was continuing to send her priests to Spain to be trained at St. Alban’s College of Valladolid.
Master Drew took an interest in such things and had read John Norden’s recent work surveying Cornwall, in which it was reported that, in the western part of the country, the Cornish tongue was most in use among its inhabitants. Master Drew felt it best to keep himself informed about potential enemies of the kingdom, for these days they all seemed to congregate in the human cesspool that London had become.
He realized that the innkeeper was waiting impatiently.
“Well, Master Pentecost Penhallow,” he asked gruffly, “why am I summoned hither?”
“If you would be so good as to go above the stair, good master, you may find the cause. One of my guests who do rent the room above do be mortally afflicted.”
Master Drew raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Mortally afflicted? The boy said he was stabbed? What was the cause? A fight?”
“No, no, good Master Constable. He be a gentleman and quite respectable. A temperate, indeed he be. This morning, as is my usual practice, I took him a noggin of mead. He do never be bestirring of a morn without his noggin. That ‘twas when I discovered he be still abed with blood all over the sheets. Stabbed he be.”
“He was still alive?” demanded Master Drew, surprised.
“And still be but barely, sir. Oh, barely!”
“Godamercy!” exclaimed Master Drew in annoyance. “Still alive and yet you sent for me and not a physician?”
Pentecost Penhallow shook his head rapidly. “Oh, sir, sir, a physician was sent for, truly so. He do be above the stair now. It be he who do be sending for thee, Master Constable.”
The constable exhaled angrily. “What name does your gentleman guest go by, and which is his room?”
The innkeeper pointed to the head of the stair. “Master Keeling, do be his name. Master Will Keeling. The second door on the right above the stair.”
Master Drew went hurrying up the stairs. On the landing he almost collided with a young girl carrying a pile of linen. He caught himself, but the collision knocked some sheets from her hand onto the floor. The constable swiftly bent down and retrieved them. The young girl was an exceptionally pretty dark-haired lass of perhaps no more than seventeen years. She bobbed a curtsy.
“Murasta, mester,” she muttered, and then added in a gently accented English, “Thank’ee, master.”
The constable gave a quick nod of acknowledgment and entered the door that the tavern owner had indicated.
A thin-faced man with a shock of white hair, clad in a suit of black broadcloth, making him appear like some Puritan divine, was sitting on the edge of a bed. On it a pale-faced young man lay against the pillows. Blood stained the sheets and pillows. Some bloodstained clothes were pressed against the man’s chest.