"What You say makes some," Luke conceded. "I'll not deny that. But how are we supposed to find out those answers? Hide under her bed? None of us can approach her, for we're all known on sight to Gilbert. So who could we send… Aldred? A lamb to the slaughter, for certes!"
Glancing toward Justing, Nell saw that he'd guessed where she was going with this conversation, and she said hastily, before he could object, "I doubt that any man alive would have much luck with Nora. She'll take men into her bed, not into her confidence. Most whores do not trust men, as plain and simple as that. To get the answers you need, it'll take a woman."
Luke leaned back in his seat, the hint of a smile hovering in the corners of his mouth. "Do you have any particular woman in mind, Nell?"
"Well… I thought Justin could ask the queen if she has a free afternoon. Who do you think I meant? Me, of course!"
15
LONDON
February 1193
No!" Justin slammed his cup down with such force that ale sloshed over onto the table. "Have you lost your senses, Nell? I'd not let you get within a mile of Gilbert the Fleming, not even if he were six months dead and six feet deep!"
Nell arched a brow. "Need I remind you that you are not my husband? For certes, you are not my father. So unless you are one of the Almighty's own angels in disguise, what right have you to forbid me to do anything?"
Justin frowned, but her argument was incontrovertible. "No right," he conceded. "But I am not meddling in your life, Nell, merely trying to save it! I do not think you realize how dangerous a man the Fleming is — "
'"No? And who patched you up after your own encounter with the Fleming?" Arms akimbo, Nell glowered at Justin. Almost at once, though, she relented. "I know you mean well, Justin. But you need not fret on my behalf. I'll not be matching wits with the Fleming, or even crossing paths with him. It is his whore I seek to cozen, and I fully expect all of you to be close at hand."
"You can rely upon that, lass," Luke said, so heartily that Justin realized he'd embraced Nell's idea as his own. As for Jonas, Justin never doubted that he'd be one for staking out a lamb to catch a wolf. Finding himself outnumbered and outvoted, Justin could only say grimly, "I like it not," while vowing silently not to let Nell out of his sight, come what may.
Gunter was no less dismayed than Justin, troubled enough to forsake his usual reticence. "I have no say in this. But I must voice my misgivings, nonetheless. Nell, I urge you to think again. This Fleming is an evil, godless man, who kills for the sport of it. Why ever would you take such a risk?"
"For the money, of course." Nell smiled patiently at Gunter. "They pay informants, after all. They even offer rewards for the capture of some felons. Is that not so?" she demanded of Jonas and Luke, her eyes narrowing until they both nodded. "So you see, Gunter, it will be a profitable partnership for us all. They get what they want — to see Gilbert the Fleming hanged — and I get the money I need for my Lucy. Can there be a more worthy aim than that?"
Gunter shook his head somberly. "Any good mother wants what is best for her child. But what if this plan goes awry? What if you find yourself facing down the Fleming? What would happen to Lucy then?"
Despite her iron-edged resolve, Nell was chilled by his words. What if evil did befall her? An orphan's lot was not an easy one. Could her cousin be relied upon to do right by Lucy? For a moment or so, Nell wavered, and then turned a deliberately deaf ear to these insidious eleventh-hour qualms.
"I'll not deny there is some risk. But risk is as much a part of life as the air we breathe. I could step on a rusty nail this very night, have it fester, and be dead ere the week was out. I trust these men to see to my safety. Is that trust misplaced?" she challenged, and got the response she expected, immediate assurances from Justin and Luke and even Jonas that her faith in them was utterly justified.
Luke then went on to promise recklessly that she'd be in no danger whatsoever. But neither Justin nor Jonas echoed his avowal, for the former could not shake off a sense of foreboding and the latter knew that even the most heartfelt of promises could be reduced to tatters by the slashings of a sharp knife.
~~
During those hours when Masses were not being said, St Paul's Cathedral was used for more secular activities. Known as Paul's Walk, the nave was a favorite gathering place for citizens in search of bargains, gossip, and respite from the bitter winter weather. Although it was frowned upon by Church officials, who made sporadic attempts to discourage people from displaying their wares for sale and trade, on this bleak Tuesday morn in late February, the cathedral was crowded with peddlers and their customers. By the "serving man's pillar," bored youths were loitering in hopes of finding employment. Nearby, lawyers conferred with prospective clients, while boisterous youngsters played tag in the aisles, trailed by the vexed curses of their irritated elders.
Justin's gaze kept straying toward the west end of the nave, where scribes sat at small wooden tables, hiring out their quill pens as soldiers did their swords. Had he not blundered into that killing on the Alresford Road, he could have been at one of those tables, too, laboring to earn his bread by writing letters and wills.
"I feel I've got blinders on," Luke complained, but he kept his hood prudently in place, shadowing his face. Glancing at Justin's equally shrouded profile, he gibed, "I hate to say this, de Quincy, but you look like you escaped from a lazar house."
Justin agreed with him, for the only hooded cloak he could find on such short notice was a drab, over-sized garment of rough burrell, coarse and scratchy. "You're one to talk," he retorted, "for you look like you ought to be prowling about cemeteries after midnight." Scanning the nave again, he shook his head in frustration. "Where the devil is Jonas? What if he does not get here in time?"
"If need be, we'll set it up for another day. But I do not think it'll go wrong. We were lucky that Aldred overheard Nora say she'd be at St Paul's this morn. I think we'll be lucky again. You ought to — "
Luke broke off in midsentence. "I see Jonas," he announced. "Over there… coming in the Si Quis door." But then he swore softly. "Damnation, he's alone!"
Swathed in a dark cloak of his own, Jonas elbowed his way toward them, responding to their anxious queries with composure. "I sent word that he was to meet me at St Paul's. He'll be here."
Justin did not share his confidence. "I ought to have locked Nell in the root cellar and have done with it," he muttered, glancing gloomily across the nave toward Nell, who was bargaining zestfully with a peddler over a bolt of linen. She was not ten feet from their target, but Justin had not caught her stealing so much as a glance at Nora. He had to admit that Nell was better at this than he'd dared hope.
His eyes kept coming back to Nora, for she was not at all what he had expected. He'd envisioned a woman whose appearance brazenly proclaimed her profession, overly lush and voluptuous and heavily rouged and powdered, like a fruit ripened past its prime. Instead, she was as Aldred had described: quite pretty, with fashionable fair coloring and dimples. Justin would never have taken her for a Southwark whore. Still less could he imagine her coupling with the brutal, ice-blooded Fleming. It would be like matching a snake and a summer songbird.