I edged to the window and peered onto the street. Withypoll and the soldiers marched by, the soldiers with shoulders slumped, Withypoll strident and furious.
‘You’re right,’ I replied. ‘I’ll go home now.’ I watched Withypoll’s party reach Watling Street where they turned right. We would have to follow. ‘Thank you, Mrs Clinton,’ I said, opening the door to the street.
Half the neighbourhood was out, watching the soldiers, exchanging glorious suppositions. No sooner did my feet touch the cobbles than I was surrounded by inquisitive do-gooders, offering kind words with macabre expression, all wanting to know why King’s soldiers broke down my door. I behaved as if innocent, moving slow, holding my face in my hands, watching for Clinton. He returned fast, trotting down the road, eager. I grabbed his collar and pulled him close.
‘What did they say?’ I whispered.
‘They said they were looking for you,’ he replied, excited. ‘Why would they be looking for you?’
I gripped his jacket harder. ‘What did you tell them?’
He opened his mouth wide, revealing blackened gums and green-furred tongue. ‘I told them you eloped with Jane!’ He laughed loud until he’d had enough, then tried to catch his breath, choking.
I watched, stony-faced.
‘I told them you were gone to Colchester,’ he gasped, catching my eye. ‘Like you said.’
I attempted a smile. ‘Thanks, Bill.’
Dowling elbowed me in the chest. ‘We must go.’ The two men that watched us on Cheapside watched us again, standing beneath the shadow of St Mildred’s. They caught our eye and slipped away, in the same direction as Withypoll.
‘God’s hooks!’ I exclaimed. ‘What do we do now?’
‘Not much point in following,’ Dowling replied, ‘since he will soon be following us. We would go round in circles. We must make haste. He doesn’t know where Josselin is, else he would not be looking for us, and we must be careful not to lead him in that direction.’
So we headed south, down to Thames Street, where the candlemakers clustered together in their cramped yards melting tallow, the great stink carried high into the sky and towards the Fleet by the wind blowing off the river.
‘We should hide a while,’ said Dowling, looking this way and that, as if conscious of his bulk. ‘Until Withypoll gives up on us.’
‘Not by the water,’ I replied. ‘If they have soldiers at the gate they must have soldiers at the docks. In a tavern, perhaps.’
Dowling cast me a sideways glance. ‘Or a church.’
‘What if Josselin goes to meet us,’ I exclaimed. ‘I say we go to Red Rose Lane while Withypoll sniffs round here.’
Dowling grimaced.
‘We have been unlucky,’ I insisted. ‘Most spies will be searching for Josselin, not us.’ I considered my clothes again. ‘I am barely recognisable. Withypoll must have posted just a few spies around our houses to look out for us. Elsewhere we will be safer.’
Dowling stopped and stared, like he saw me for the first time. ‘The
spies are not looking out for me or you, but both of us together. A big, tall man with white hair, next to a short fellow with dark hair and stubble on his face.’
‘Should we split up?’ I said, feeling lonely already.
‘We must,’ said Dowling. ‘You, as you say, are already dishevelled. No longer a strange fop, but more discreet. No man could pick you out less he knew you intimately.’
‘A fop?’ I exclaimed. To a bloodied ogre like Dowling, any man who washed might be called a fop. I decided to consider it a compliment. ‘I will go find Josselin,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Same,’ Dowling replied, ‘but not with you. I will follow and try to keep you in sight. If we lose each other I’ll meet you again at St Katharine Cree, at three.’
‘Very well.’ I felt better.
I set off, wondering how it was I led. Though I avoided the main thoroughfares, we kept coming across pockets of soldiers, especially close to the bridge. The crowd spilt back from the mouth of the bridge west and east, along Thames Street and up Fish Street Hill.
‘What’s news?’ I asked a ruddy-faced man standing on tiptoe.
‘They’ve closed the bridge,’ he snapped, hopping up and down, neck craned. ‘I have to get back to Bankside, my wife is ill.’ He clasped his hand upon his forehead in dismay. ‘They say there are three Dutch spies in the City.’ He breathed deep. ‘I pray they find them soon and string them up by the neck. I have to get home.’
His words knifed me in the belly, though they came as no surprise. So now I was a Dutch spy. How quickly that happened, I reflected, bile rising in my throat, feeling the same anger and indignation I imagined Josselin experienced. I rubbed my sweaty palms upon the
seat of my trousers as we passed Fish Street Hill and came to the mouth of Red Rose Lane.
This was a narrow thoroughfare where the butchers scalded hogs and made their puddings, throwing their waste out into the street to be taken down to the dung boats. This was the last place to come in the middle of summer, for the blood and offal sat on the street all day afore it was collected, attracting all manner of vermin, cats, dogs and flies. I choked on the stink of rotting blood and trod cautiously. Josselin chose well, for spies and soldiers would avoid this street like the plague.
Despite our agreement I waited for Dowling.
‘We cannot hang around,’ I said. ‘We attracted too much attention last time.’
Dowling stopped halfway up the hill, hands on his hips. ‘If Josselin is there, he’ll be watching for us, surveying every movement with gimlet eye.’
I scanned the surrounding windows. The light was so poor and the windows so dirty, all I saw were a couple of fleeting shadows, impossible to tell if it was Josselin or not. The rats re-emerged from the shadows to renew their scavenging; fat beasts waddling through the slime like they owned the place.
‘I still don’t think he’s here,’ I said at last.
‘We have to find him,’ Dowling growled.
‘Aldgate,’ I suggested. ‘His mother’s house at Duke’s Place.’
Dowling scratched his ear. ‘You think Arlington will not have had the same idea?’
‘We’ll make our own ways there,’ I said. ‘As you suggested before.’
It wasn’t often Dowling needed my encouragement. I strode up the hill towards Eastcheap with more determination than I felt. A dozen
soldiers lingered about the Boar’s Head, tousled and round-shouldered, drunk already, laughing uproariously at poor jokes like they felt the eyes of strangers upon them. I hurried east across Gracechurch Street, a busy thoroughfare, then north up Rood Lane past the churchyard of St Margaret Pattens. I turned every few steps to see who followed, looking not only for spies, but also for Dowling’s big, white head bobbing up and down above the crowd like a beacon. If spies followed us, they would follow him, not me.
Turning onto Fenchurch Street I walked headlong into a row of soldiers barring the road on either side of St Gabriel, a small church built in the middle of the road. Too late to turn away, for I had already attracted the attention of one older man, tight-lipped and sullen. Over his shoulder I saw a long line of soldiers, leading all the way up the street to Aldgate. Dowling had been right. This was not the place to come. It swarmed with military.
‘Come here,’ the old soldier growled.
I stood my ground and prayed Dowling was not close behind.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded.
‘John Fisher,’ I replied, thinking of the nearby market. ‘I live at Sugar Loaf Alley. Why do you stop me passing?’
‘I haven’t stopped you passing,’ he replied, reaching out to touch my coat, rubbing the stained silk thoughtfully between his fingers. ‘You on your own?’
I frowned like I didn’t understand the significance of the question. ‘Let me pass.’
‘Fisher,’ he repeated, and eyed me up and down. ‘Proceed, John Fisher.’