‘Let us say it was – noticeable. Now it is less so.’ He leaned down, turned back the edges of her cloak and shook his head. ‘Stand still,’ he said, and briskly began to tidy her appearance. He commanded her to lift her left arm, tightened the laces of her gown, rehooked her stomacher so that it lay neatly folded beneath her breasts down to her waist, and flicked her skirts straight. He shook his head again at the creased fichu of starched chiffon over her breasts. Frightened he might put his fingers into her cleavage, Tyballis closed her eyes, but instead he began to rearrange her headdress, reapplying the pins and tucking in the curls of hair above her ears. ‘My dear child,’ he said eventually, ‘short of undressing you and starting again, this will suffice. No one will have particular cause to notice you today and we’re unlikely to meet anyone who would know your true identity on this occasion.’
Tyballis looked at her toes. ‘There’s no one in the world who’d remember me anyhow.’
‘You are presumably unaware of how memorable you are, my dear,’ Andrew Cobham said. ‘But dressed like this, you are somewhat disguised.’ He shrugged into his great coat, and looked down at her, smiling suddenly. ‘Frightened, little one?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You are a poor liar, like most women,’ he said. ‘But you are quite safe with me as long as you follow instructions.’
The kestrel sighted prey and dropped. Between the mossy flagstones of an open courtyard, the mouse sensed danger but froze too late. With the struggling rodent in its claws, the kestrel flew up and was gone instantly behind the clouds.
Sitting beside the adjacent window, Margery Blessop saw nothing but the sudden flurry of feathers. She was concentrating on the man who sat opposite and was listening carefully. When he stopped talking, she took a deep breath and began again. ‘I have no wish,’ she said, clasping her fingers a little tighter in her lap, ‘to repeat myself to the sheriff, Mister Webb. But if you won’t take my word for it, I shall have to go to a higher authority.’
‘I’m the highest authority you’re likely to get within bowshot of today, mistress,’ the assistant constable informed her with a sniff. ‘And I’ve not got all day, neither. We all know you want your son out of gaol. Tell the truth, you being his mother and him the only child, I might sympathise. Not that what the streets aren’t a good deal safer with him locked away. But trying to tell me as how that poor little wife of his has been and gone and slaughtered his Lordship of Throckmorton in the middle of the night with a bloody great sword in his guts, well, it don’t make sense. I’ve known young Tyballis for years and I won’t believe it. Go tell it to them wriggly tadpole things in the water barrel outside. They might listen. I won’t.’
‘I shall go directly to the sheriff,’ warned Mistress Blessop.
‘Try it,’ grinned Assistant Constable Webb. ‘Sheriff Wharton is busier as me and more. He’ll throw you out, like as not. In fact, since it’s been more than a week since your great lump of a son got put away, I reckon you’ve already tried all the bailiffs and the sheriff’s chambers too and been promptly escorted from the premises. Which is why you’ve come crawling back to me. Well, I’m not interested.’
‘I shall find someone who is,’ insisted Margery. ‘There are those in this city with more brains and power than you, Mister Webb.’
The assistant constable sniggered. ‘Have a word with our good king, will you, mistress? No doubt he’ll be mighty sympathetic. His grace King Edward will open his great doors, I’m sure, and call you in for a nice cosy chat beside the throne.’
Margery Blessop stood with dignity. ‘You speak like a fool, Rob Webb, just like your father before you,’ she said. ‘Just because you’ve made a little money and got a trade and some property, don’t make you as important as you like to think. Constable indeed. Assistant Constables don’t impress me none. Now, that miserable trollop was out on the streets all that night when his lordship was knifed. Useless she might be at anything worth the while, and can’t even clean a hearth without direction. But has a violent streak against men, she has, and if poor Throckmorton saw her and gave her insult – as who wouldn’t – then she’d as soon stick a sword in his belly as wish him a warm goodnight.’
‘Beats up her husband regular, does she, your daughter-in-law?’ smiled Webb. ‘Strange it’s her little face I see covered in bruises day after day.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Mistress Blessop, ‘the wench has run off and it’s a whole week she’s been gone. Hooked up with some man, I guess, whore that she is. But it’s proof of guilt to run away soon as her crime is under question.’
Assistant Constable Webb sniggered again. ‘Run away from you, no doubt, mistress. And I’m thinking you’d best be careful what words you choose. Remembering my father knew you well when I was a little lad, you should be wary as to who you go calling whore.’ He stood too, and came to stand before her. ‘Now off with you, mistress, and go visit your wretched son afore we drag him off to Tyburn.’
‘You can’t do that,’ squeaked Margery. ‘His trial’s not been held yet.’
‘Will be, soon as the courts get to his name on the list. And since the result’s an easy one, there’ll be no time for dinner nor the washing of his hands afore he swings on the rope. And good riddance it will be. He’ll be lucky to get a free mug of ale from the tavern on his last ride, for no one likes a murdering bugger.’
‘I know where to go,’ Margery Blessop said, marching from the room. ‘I shall go where my information will be taken a sight more seriously. And then you’ll be sorry, Rob Webb. And so will that wicked Tyballis, slut and murderess that she is.’
The kestrel was roosting high above the city. She had finished her meal and was satisfied, settling high on The Tower’s white keep overlooking the Thames, the great stone sheltering her back. The sun had gained strength. The kestrel felt the warmth and ruffled her feathers.
Beyond The Tower’s far eastern wall within the kestrel’s sight but entirely outside her interest, Andrew Cobham tucked his small companion’s hand through the crook of his arm, clasping it firmly against the soft velvet sleeve at his elbow. He felt her shiver. ‘Cold, little one?’
Tyballis shook her head. ‘I’ve never worn such a well-lined cloak.’ Her voice trembled.
‘Still frightened then?’ Her fingers clutched a little at his coat. Andrew Cobham patted them gently. ‘If you forget my instructions, or are not sure what to say,’ he told her, ‘it would be better to say nothing. I can explain away a timid child who dares not speak openly to her elders.’
‘Then I’ll seem like some silly country bumpkin of a maidservant.’
He chuckled. ‘Not dressed like that, you won’t. But if you wish to play the lady, then remember what I’ve told you.’ He smiled down at her upturned face. ‘I would not have planned this meeting, nor arranged to take you with me, had I not trusted you to act the part. You are young but you are not stupid, Mistress Blessop.’
‘And the bruises?’
‘It is better if you keep the tippet over your headdress,’ he told her, ‘and your cloak tightly around you. But I have an excuse for the bruises, if they are noted. Now, are you brave enough to start, child?’
She frowned. ‘Of course I am. And I’m not a child. I’m not so little either, only that you’re so very large. I’m nearly nineteen and I’ve been married for five years.’
‘Impressive,’ smiled the man. ‘Now, we shall go down to the wharf and hire a boat upriver.’