Bethany lent over, giving his shoulder an affectionate hug and him a good eye full of her plump, white breasts peeping over the corset. Maybe she wasn’t as heartless as he’d thought. Perhaps his anger had lead him astray-again. “There, there Ned. It can’t be so bad. Anyways, for two groats I can give you something that may save y’ troubles.”
He considered the diminishing condition of his purse. Well he needed some sort of pick me up, but could he afford a room and bed? Damn it all, he was only young once and probably soon not even that! He fished in the purse and pulled out three coins. As soon as they landed on the table Bethany’s hand shot out and grabbed them.
“Go to Greyfriars an’ ask for Williams the Apothecary. I knows one o’ the gentlemen a’ the table. ‘e comes in all the time, he does the rent from Mistress Anne. Y’ll know him fo’ he wears a dark blue brocade doublet an’ speaks like a northerner.”
This triggered the image of an angry bearded face and a blade, but it wasn’t worth the burst dreams of a pleasurable hour and the odds had just lengthened. If Pleasant Anne was bound to one of the gentlemen he’d brawled with, then it was likely that at any inquest she would be called against him. Great, his only saving grace was that, as a proprietor of a known disreputable house, her word could be discounted.
Bethany grabbed hold and pulled him into her bosom. Well that was a surprise and quite invigorating, just what any young lad needed after such a shock. Her warm breath tickled his cheek and normally it would have raised his spirits until her next words. “That man o’ by the well, he’s one of Canting’s Ned, an ‘he asked about you yesterday.”
An icy chill ran down his spine and the warm prospect of a few hours with Bethany evaporated. Not to be daunted, he had a quick nuzzle. Hmm, she knew how to kiss, and the odour of onions wasn’t so bad, after all. He bid her a good day as if he were her gallant, and walked back towards the river. As he left Bethany called out in an eager voice, “When y’ find blue eyes, gets ‘im to call on me!”
Ned waved his assent and walked off. So Greyfriars in the City was his next target. There may be hope yet!
However, ill news was piling up just as fast. Ned had to cross the river before the hue and cry. The urge to run was almost overpowering though regard for his ribs along with his other myriad aches as well as caution dictated a slower pace. Now he had to ask, had Canting Michael put out the word because of the slaying, or was it something else? The eighty angels weighted large in his memory. If he was in Southwark and at the baiting the other day, then the gold had to be from Canting? His mind and thoughts weren’t a complete mush. He did easily recall that for six months or more he’d risked all and won and fairly at that, against one of Canting’s savage plays in the pit. Despite his clear victory, the Pit master was known to hold a grudge where the loss of money was concerned.
Oh well, mayhap that’d be solved once he reached Greyfriars. First he had to escape from Southwark. If he cut across to High Street and along to the pillory square at Bermondsey, he might be able to lose this watcher, then slip down to the river and hail a wherry.
At a hundred paces to the square, he was still being trailed, not on his heels, but close enough. Ned didn’t think they’d let him leave the Liberties and so he considered possible distractions. It would have to be near St Thomas’s Hospital. This was a popular place, always crowded with an interesting cross section of the Southwark populace-beggars, the afflicted and a collection of mountebanks selling miraculous cures or sacred relics guaranteed to preserve one from any illness. Combine this with the usual traffic of carters, water sellers and the common throng and the congestion was almost impossible.
Another twenty paces and he was in the midst of the maelstrom, pushing off the clawing beggars and battling for a way through. A quick glance back showed that his companion was gaining. Ned dug into the purse and flung several coins back over his shoulder. The silver ones arced in the wan morning sunlight, a glittering rain that caught everyone’s eye as well as their rapt attention. A few of the coins might actually have reached the muck of the street, where they would have lain with the ordure, mud and offal, but he didn’t think so. Fortuna was with him. A glance over his shoulder gave a last glimpse of his pursuer as he was knocked down in the stampede.
Thanks to this trick Ned was now free of the press. Most of the crowd had rushed past him to argue or dispute possession of the scattered treasure. Lengthening his stride he made it onto one of the many small wharfs that jutted out into the river. Finally his luck was in and one of the infamous Thames wherries was discharging a passenger, from the look, a yeoman from the country, wide eyed and amazed at the mass of buildings and multitudes of people. Ned knew how that felt. He’d been struck the same way when he arrived in London from the university a few years ago. It was said that London held within its boundaries over a hundred thousand souls. Walk through it at midday and you’d think they’d seriously underestimated that figure.
A few more of his diminishing pence saw him rowed over to Galley Key on the London shore. Normally wherry men were a garrulous lot, renowned for their use of profanity, and lack of respect. This one however was silent, with hardly a word spoken for the entire passage. Even stranger the boatman kept muttering under his breath. Ned thought they might have been prayers, but the cadence didn’t sound right for Latin. Then the fellow even helped him off the boat when they reached the London side wharf and Ned could have sworn he’d heard the old man say, “The lord wills it lad,” and briefly twitch his rag wrapped hand in the sign of a cross. In a surprised reaction, Ned slipped the wherry man another penny coin and walked off towards the Tower shaking his head. The common folk always said the city was full of wonders-now a ferryman had blessed him!
Past Petty Wales Ned considered his path. It would be quicker to skirt the midst of the city, and head for Greyfriars over Tower Hill then via Aldgate. Not even the announcement of the Second Coming could clear the main streets by now, since the midday bells had just sent their bronze peels ringing out over the city just as he’d landed. If Londoners needed any other sign that the day was half done, these dominant tones bid them hasten in their work and duty before the evening chimes brought the day’s labour to a halt. Ned always remembered his first journey to the city-the low rumble of the bells and the accumulated hubbub of the city could be heard several miles out. The wave of sound, rather than the forest of spires, had spoken to a young boy of the rolling might and flow of the city.
It was a brisk walk northwards, and a few times he had to cut into the side alleys that flanked the thoroughfare to bypass carts that blocked the road. One had sunk axle deep in a pothole that had opened up in the cobblestones. As expected, it was surrounded by a crowd, not necessarily to help, but to watch the performance as its crew stood there arguing over the best way to remedy their problem, with the occasional diversion of haranguing of the locals over the state of the city roads and curses aimed at the parish beadles. Due to these diversions the journey to Greyfriars took a few hours. He was also more wary than he’d been in Southwark, always watching for anyone tagging along after him. At one time he slipped into the maze of Beer Lane past Petty Wales, and hid after he noticed a pair of lounging swillers had left their tankards and sauntered in his wake for a hundred yards. Whether they were from the Liberties or just local rogues looking for an easy mark he didn’t care. He’d taken enough risks already without having to worry about being done over by the brawlers, foisters and nips of London.
Chapter Six-Discovery at Greyfriars