‘I want to know if you have sold such ingredients.’
‘But, yes. Everything here is in my shop.’
‘And has anyone bought from you recently?’
‘Why do you wish to know?’
‘Please, sir,’ she said, ‘it is of great importance.’
‘I do not discuss my business with strangers.’
‘Help the lady,’ grunted Leonard in an absurd attempt to sound menacing. ‘She is with me.’
Philip Lovel threw him a scornful glance and ignored him for the rest of the conversation. Loathe to part easily with information about his customers, he yet sensed a hope of material reward. The man was plainly an oaf. Even in the aromatic atmosphere of his shop, Lovel could smell the beer on his visitor. Evidently, he was a drayman or tapster. The woman, on the other hand, was attractive, smartly dressed and well spoken. Money would not be the problem it was for the majority of his customers. Only a strong motive would bring her on such a strange errand, and he was intrigued to know what it was. He returned her list and gave an elaborate shrug.
‘I may have sold these items, I may have not.’
‘If you had, how much would they have cost?’ she said.
‘You wish to buy them yourself?’
‘I am ready to give you twice as much money if you can describe the customer.’
He was tempted. ‘Well …’
‘Three times as much,’ she decided, producing a purse to back up her offer. ‘That poison killed a young girl.’
‘He told me it was to get rid of some rats.’
‘Then you did sell these ingredients?’
‘Four days ago.’
‘On the eve of her arrival in London.’
‘It was an expensive purchase.’
‘How expensive?’
Lovel stated his price and Anne put the money onto the counter. Before the apothecary could scoop up the coins, they were covered by the giant hand of Leonard. The reward had to be earned before it was paid over.
‘I sold him the three powders on your list,’ he said, ‘and some white mercury. Then there was a quantity of opium in a double bladder. When I added a secret potion of my own invention — it is not known outside this shop — he had the means to kill fifty rats. That was his declared purpose and I took him for the gentleman he seemed.’
‘Gentleman!’ sneered Leonard. ‘He was a murderer.’
‘Tell us all you can remember,’ said Anne.
Philip Lovel could remember a great deal because the customer had been as unlikely a visitor to his shop as Anne Hendrik herself and he drew his portrait with care. They were shown his height, his bearing, his features, his apparel. The apothecary even made a stab at the timbre of his voice. Convinced that she was seeing the poisoner come to life before her eyes, Anne committed every detail to her retentive mind. When Lovel had finished, she lifted Leonard’s hand up to release the money then added the same amount again. The information she had just bought was invaluable.
Leonard was slower to react. It was only when they stepped out into Paternoster Row and began the long walk back that his brain assembled all the facts into one coherent picture. He stopped dead and slapped his thigh.
‘I know him!’
‘Who?’
‘I’ve met the man. Even as he was described.’
‘Where?’
‘At the Queen’s Head,’ he recalled. ‘He was there when the ballad was sung about the fire. It turned Nicholas into the hero. I know it by heart, mistress. I’ll sing you a verse or two, if you wish.’
‘The man, Leonard. You say you know him?’
‘Not by name but it must have been him.’
‘Why?’
‘He asked about Nicholas going off to Barnstaple.’ He took off his cap to scratch his head. ‘And I do believe the fellow was there at the Bel Savage Inn to watch the company leave. Yes, I saw him there, I swear it.’
It took Anne a long time to extract the full details from him and she grew increasingly fearful as she listened. The man had secured his poison at the shop in Paternoster Row and prepared it in a form that could easily be slipped into a drink. In killing the girl, he was trying to stop her reaching Nicholas Bracewell, but that part of his plan had miscarried. Since the book holder was now making for the town from which the girl was sent, he himself could become a potential target for the murderer. Why else did the man take such an interest in his departure from London?
Nicholas Bracewell was in danger. Anne had to warn him.
‘I must ask a favour of you, Leonard.’
‘It is granted.’
‘Take me to Shoreditch.’
Chapter Six
The mayor of Oxford gave Nicholas Bracewell the expected response. Local government was effectively suspended and plague ruled the town. There was no possibility of Westfield’s Men acting there, and since they were a body of strangers above a certain number, no inn would be able to give them hospitality for the night. Both as thespians and as travellers, they were being ejected. The mayor was full of apologies but — he used the phrase repeatedly — his hands were tied. Nevertheless, he was able to use them both to gesticulate helplessly and to offer some measure of compensation to the disappointed troupe. He bestowed two pounds on the book holder and assured him that the company would be accorded a very different welcome on their next visit. Nicholas thanked him for his generosity and promised him that they would depart as soon as they had had time to rest the horses and take some refreshment.
When he left the Town Hall, he slipped the money into his purse and decided to leave it there until they had put Oxford many miles behind them. Lawrence Firethorn might be disdainful, but his company needed all the money that it could get and from whatever source. Nicholas decided to give his employer more time to cool down before he returned with the bad tidings and he took a stroll in the direction of the castle. It gave him an opportunity to reflect on the vagaries of life with a dramatic company. Robbed at High Wycombe, they had now been ousted from Oxford. The actors would begin to believe that their tour was damned. Inasmuch as it cut a day off his journey home, Nicholas was an incidental beneficiary of the plague, but that gave him no pleasure. Westfield’s Men needed a performance at Oxford to steady their nerves. After riding into the town as one of the leading troupes in London, they would be slinking away like unlicensed strolling players. The loss of their venue at the Queen’s Head had cast them out into the wilderness.
Nicholas paused to gaze up at the five great towers of Oxford Castle, one of the first stone-built fortresses to be constructed in England by the Normans. Steeped in history and surrounded by a moat, it was a formidable garrison in a town whose geographical position gave it immense strategic importance. Oxford Castle had a proud solidity but it was not enough to withstand an assault by a deadly enemy. As Nicholas watched, a horse and cart came out through the arched gateway with an all too familiar cargo. At the sight and smell of the shrouded figures, he turned quickly away and headed back towards the inn. The plague was insidious.
There were plenty of people in the streets, going about their business, but they did so without any real purpose or alacrity. An air of listlessness hung over the town as neighbours conversed with one another to find out who the latest victims were and to speculate on who would be struck down next. Like inhabitants of a flooded valley, they were waiting helplessly for the plague to wash over them and hoping that they would not be among the drowned. Their fatalism was saddening but it aroused Nicholas’s pity. Westfield’s Men had only lost a performance. Some of the people lurching along the streets had lost family members and friends.
That thought brought Nicholas to an abrupt halt. The crisis that they found at Oxford had obscured the memory of what happened before they reached the town. Without quite knowing how, he had spoken to Edmund Hoode about his own family in Devon and talked at length about his father. It was a conversation that would have been inconceivable only a few days ago when he was still suppressing all mention of his life before his voyage with Drake. His accent placed him firmly in the West Country but he acknowledged no family ties there, until the recent summons from Barnstaple. Yet he discussed his childhood for the best part of an hour with Hoode and trespassed freely on forbidden territory. Nicholas could not believe that he had confided so much personal detail to his friend, and he was amazed that he had been able to confront the spectre of his father without the customary pain and revulsion.