‘I want him!’ he barked.
‘Leave him to me,’ said a heavy-set man with a guttural accent. ‘I’ll break his back for him.’
‘No, Karl. This man is my quarry.’
‘Will you run him through with a lance?’
‘It would be too kind a death for Nicholas Bracewell.’
‘How, then, will you kill him, Sir John?’
‘Slowly.’
The armourer grunted in approval. They were alone in one of the workshops at the palace and Tarker was venting his spleen. Nicholas Bracewell had helped to lose him his position, his pride, the finest suit of armour he had ever possessed and the invaluable friendship of the man who had bought it for him. Unless he could somehow cut himself a path back into the favour of Sir Godfrey Avenell, Tarker faced bankruptcy, forced retirement from tournaments and certain elimination from Court circles.
‘How soon will you do it?’ asked Karl.
‘Tonight.’
‘Is that not too dangerous?’
‘Why?’
‘We left Master Chaloner’s body there but yesterday. The crime has been reported and law officers are looking for us. Will they not be lurking near the house still?’
‘What matter if they were?’ said Tarker. ‘If some imbecile of a constable were guarding the house, he would point us the way to Nicholas Bracewell’s bedchamber without a qualm. You would have to murder a man in front of their noses before the Greenwich constables would take notice.’
‘Tonight, then.’
‘It may be the last time my prey is still here.’
‘The message said that he would stay until the whole matter was over,’ said the German with a smirk. ‘And my messages are usually correct.’
‘The whole matter will be over tonight,’ affirmed Tarker. ‘When this Bracewell is removed from the scene, the rest soon collapse. They are cut adrift without him.’ His eyes narrowed to pinpricks. ‘And she is cut adrift as well. No brother to protect her. No Master Chaloner. No Bracewell.’
Karl chuckled. ‘You will call there as often as I do.’
‘Tonight we will both pay a visit.’
‘What must I do?’
‘Ensure that he is indeed in the house.’
‘And?’
‘Find us the means to get to his bedchamber.’
‘Will a key to the front door be enough?’
‘Can you get such a thing, Karl?’
‘Of course,’ boasted the other. ‘I can get whatever I wish from her. She will deny me nothing.’
***
Nicholas Bracewell did not mince his words with Agnes. After taking her back into the kitchen, he sat her down and told her the consequences of what she had done. The maidservant blubbered all the way through and needed several minutes before she could even speak. She had been caught, trying to sneak away from the house with a message concealed up her sleeve. Nicholas had broken the seal, read the missive and seen its warning of the arrival in Greenwich of Lawrence Firethorn and Owen Elias. Agnes was an efficient spy.
‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ he demanded.
‘Nothing, sir.’
‘I, at least, will hear you out,’ he said. ‘If I hand you over to the law, they will lock you up for months until a trial can be arranged. They may even put you in a cell and forget that you are there, which would be no more than your wickedness deserves. Is that what you want?’
‘No, sir!’ she implored. ‘I could not bear it!’
‘Then tell me the truth.’
‘I was not involved in the murders, I swear it!’
‘Yet you supplied information to the murderers.’
‘They said they were only after his papers.’
She went off into another paroxysm of weeping. Nicholas could see that her remorse was genuine. The woman had enough guile to act as an informer but no capacity for defending herself now that she had at last been exposed.
Nicholas took her by the shoulders to calm her down.
‘Begin at the beginning,’ he said. ‘What is this about papers? Did they belong to Master Thomas Brinklow?’
‘Yes, sir. He always kept them locked up. His wife could not get near them and she was nosey enough. I was told to borrow some of them but I could never even get inside his laboratory. Clever thieves were needed for that task.’
‘Freshwell and Maggs?’
‘That’s what I thought they were. Thieves, not killers.’
‘They were paid to be both.’
‘Nobody told me,’ she protested it. ‘I was to leave the key for them to get into the house and steal the papers. That was all my part in the business. I went off to bed that night and slept soundly. The next thing I know, I am wakened by the master, yelling that he is being attacked by villains. I raised the alarm at once.’
‘Too late to save Master Brinklow.’
‘Would I have come running down the stairs if I had been a party to murder? I helped to put Freshwell and Maggs to flight. Because of me, they did not steal those papers. When they came back, the workshop was in flames.’
‘Who set it alight?’
‘Nobody knows.’
‘One of the other servants?’
‘They would have no cause.’
‘What did you feel when you saw your master dead?’
‘As if I had hacked him down myself,’ she said as she relived the horror of it. ‘Master Brinklow was kind to me. His sister has a sharper tongue at times but he was always very courteous with us. I was overcome when I saw what they had done to him. My conscience would not let me sleep for many weeks afterwards.’
‘Yet you went on helping those who killed him.’
‘No, sir!’
‘You let two innocent people go to their deaths.’
‘I could not stop them,’ she argued. ‘Who would have listened to me? When they caught the two of them together like that, their guilt seemed crystal clear. My testimony could not save them. What weight can you place on the word of a common maidservant?’ A coldness came into her tone. ‘That is what Mistress Brinklow always called me.’
‘Emilia Brinklow?’
‘Cecily, her sister-in-law. She had no time for me.’
‘So you got your revenge by letting them drag her off to the gallows with Walter Dunne. Is that how it was?’
‘No, sir, it was not. I was sorry to see them hanged but they had done wrong in the eyes of God.’
Nicholas exploded. ‘You dare to make a moral judgement on them when your own actions have been far more sinful? You betrayed your master. You betrayed his wife. And you have gone on betraying Mistress Emilia Brinklow ever since.’
‘It was not like that!’ she insisted.
‘Then tell me what it was like.’
‘It is too painful even to think of now.’
‘Do not expect sympathy from me,’ he said harshly. ‘Pull yourself together or I will call the constables forthwith and throw you to their mercy. Now, speak!’
His stern command frightened her into obedience. Agnes took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and launched into her tale. There was no attempt to excuse herself. She was presenting the facts as she knew them so that he could judge for himself if she was as guilty as he assumed.
‘I loved him,’ she said with a fond smile. ‘I loved him then and I love him now. His name is Karl. He is German, one of the armourers in the workshops at Greenwich Palace. He came to visit the master to discuss some business. I was collecting herbs in the garden when Karl arrived. We talked, he asked my name. I liked him from the start.’
‘What business did he have with Master Brinklow?’
‘He did not say. But later-when we had become close friends-he asked me to find out certain things for him. Karl said it would be proof of my love.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘That is how it all began.’
‘And it was Karl who asked you to procure the key?’
‘Yes.’
‘So that Freshwell and Maggs could commit murder?’
‘No!’ she denied. ‘Karl told me that it was all a mistake. They had come here to steal the papers from the workshop when the master came home unexpectedly. He set on them in his anger and a fight developed. Freshwell and Maggs killed him trying to defend themselves.’