‘Don’t be a fool, girl. You’ll freeze otherwise. I can get another. Go home and light a fire if your miserable wretch of a husband hasn’t one waiting for you.’ The man’s shadow was receding. ‘Kick the bastard in the balls if he tries to hit you. If he does it again, leave him. But don’t expect happiness, child. That’s not an option in this life. Nor, I doubt, in the next. Forget hope. Just fight to live, as long as living’s what you prize. And if you don’t want to risk being seen in a man’s cloak, then sell it or leave it in a gutter for some other pauper to find. But it’ll help keep you alive till you choose to throw it off.’ He bent, his shadow flaring suddenly as he hauled up the great parcel he had dropped. He swung it across his shoulder and balanced it carelessly with both hands. The thing bent at its middle, quivered, then settled, hanging large over both sides. The man nodded, gruff-voiced again. ‘Goodnight to you, child.’ He was gone at once.
Tyballis trudged the long cold streets back home. It was well past curfew and the streets were almost empty but she kept to the back lanes, avoiding the Watch. The front door of her house was locked against her but from the doorstep she could hear Borin’s snores. She hurried around to the back, where the latch was broken and the door wedged only with old threshing. She pushed her way in. As cold inside as out, the ashes scattered across the hearth were drifting black whispers. Tyballis cuddled the stranger’s cape tightly around her and lay down on the floor to sleep.
Chapter Two
Margery Blessop kicked her daughter-in-law awake.
The bells of St Martin’s had rung for the opening of the gates, the calls to prayers at Prime pealing their echoes through the frost, and London was stirring. It was the year of our Lord 1482 during the reign of his grace the blessed King Edward, the fourth of that name. Under his rule peace and prosperity had spread across the land. The cold autumn morning now promised improvements as the sky lightened with a hint of lilac. A scurry of sheep brought in from their open grazing was shepherded into the Shambles and the usual queue pushed through the Bishopsgate, marketers with laden barrows trundling over the cobbles and on towards the foreigners’ market past Crosby’s Place; fresh orchard perfumes and smells of fennel, leeks and parsnips to wake the king’s brother, the Duke of Gloucester, from his peaceful slumber and send him off to Mass with a good appetite.
The first chamber pots were emptied from the upper storeys, the first dip of the oars rippled the Thames, the first clatter as a thousand wooden shutters were lowered from a thousand windows, and the first spread of raven wings flung black shadows as glimpses of the rising sun curled over the coal-striped rooftops.
Mother Blessop kicked again and Tyballis groaned. Although her feet were still damp and she was muscle weary, the stranger’s cloak had kept her warm. Scrambling upright, she readied, straight-backed for the challenge of another day. She lifted her apron and hung the cloak on the same peg, shrugged it on and tied the ribbons, then knelt, laying twigs for the fire. Borin continued to snore. His mother topped up the cauldron from the rain keg outside and Tyballis hung the pot on the hook over the fire, pulled up the stool and sat, scrubbing and cutting turnips to add to yesterday’s remaining pottage.
The slap came unexpectedly and Tyballis dropped the knife. She looked up in surprise and her mother-in-law slapped her again.
‘What’s that? Come sneaking back in the small hours, clutching some filthy bugger’s cape about you? Announcing yourself to all the world as the trollop you are? I’ll have Borin flay the flesh from your back.’
Tyballis lowered her head. She tipped her lap load of vegetables into the simmering broth and said, ‘It’s not what you’re thinking. I found it.’
Margery slapped her again. ‘Liar. It’s only whoring buys a man’s cape in the rain, not the luck of the saints.’
Outside, the night’s puddles sparkled with the sun’s rise and the wet streets gleamed gold. The sparrows were bathing in a splutter and flurry as the waking householders let their pigs and chickens out for an early drink.
Three lanes down between Bread Street and the Corn Hill, Thomas, Baron Throckmorton, lay motionless in the central gutter. Half-naked and no sword left in its scabbard, his fine coat and doublet stolen, his bootless feet pointing cloudwards in their muddy stockings, Sir Thomas displayed a bloodstained rip across his fine Holland shirt. He reclined face-up but his hat had at least been left to him and it now obscured his open-eyed gape with its two partridge feathers.
The corpse was discovered first by the ravens and wandering dogs, but soon after by the shopkeepers ready for business. The constable was informed immediately. He sent his assistant, who bent and lifted the limp and bedraggled hat, dripping rain and gutter sludge. Assistant Constable Webb recognised the man’s thick red hair and beard at once. He drew in his breath with a whistle and set off to report the murder of one of the peers of the realm. Just over an hour later, he stood between two armed guards on the Blessop doorstep and knocked loudly. He yelled, ‘Open up, in the name of the law,’ which could be heard in every adjacent household and right along the alley.
Borin Blessop had been about to piss through the broken upstairs window, but stopped abruptly. Downstairs his mother and Tyballis stared at each other. The pause lengthened as every one of the neighbours stopped work to listen. Then Tyballis cautiously approached the door and peered outside. The two-armed guards stepped forwards and Assistant Constable Webb said, ‘It’s official, girl. Get your husband,’ and pushed past her into the smoke-filled room. The guards followed, slamming the door shut behind them. The neighbours, tumbling over each other to listen from their doorways, now shook their heads, bustling further out onto the muddy lane to discover some part of what was happening.
Upstairs Borin cursed and tugged on his boots, thumped down the little rickety staircase and stood facing the three men filling his downstairs chamber. The fire was smoking as usual, distorting faces. Borin coughed and spat. The guards grabbed hold of both his arms. ‘You’ll come with us, Borin Blessop,’ said the assistant constable, ‘and come quietly, if you don’t mind. It’ll be questioning first and arrest right after.’
‘You’ve lost your senses, man, and not for the first time, neither.’ Borin stood solid. He was twice the size of both guards put together and they couldn’t budge him. ‘I’m a placid man, I am, and done nothing more than sleep through the night like any good Christian should. So, what nonsense is it you claim against me now?’
‘Leave my boy alone,’ squealed his mother. ‘You can’t drag a God-fearing man out in this weather in nothing but his shirt.’
‘It’s a God-fearing man lying in little else but his shirt not far from here,’ said Webb. ‘Dead as pie crust with a hole in his belly the size of my fist. And it’s you what did it, Borin Blessop, so don’t you pretend to fear the good Lord, as turned His righteous back on you many a long year past.’
‘Bloody murder?’ roared Borin. ‘I’ve never killed no one, no not even on the battlefield. What’s this to do with me, then?’
‘Because,’ announced the assistant constable, ‘the body now messing up the sheriff’s nice scrubbed floorboards is a body well known to you, try and deny it if you will. It’s his lordship Baron Throckmorton lying dead and we all know it’s your hand as did it. Own up, Blessop, and it’ll go easier for you.’
‘Oh Lord have mercy,’ wailed Margery.
Borin swallowed hard. ‘His lordship being deceased is bad news for me as it happens, Mister Webb, as you should rightly guess. And me knowing the man surely don’t mean I done him in. Half of London were acquainted with the baron. You knew him yourself.’