My concern was, if anything, heightened by what happened on Monday morning. After breakfasting simply and early, I assembled my little group of riders in the yard, ready for our departure. We were about to mount when a ragged, bootless boy ran in from the street. He came up and touched his cap. ‘You Master Treviot, the goldsmith?’
‘I am.’
He thrust a small package at me. ‘The man said you’d give me a penny.’
‘What man?’
‘Man what gave it me.’ He smirked at his own cleverness.
I took the flat parcel and fished a coin out of my purse. ‘Stay here while I see if there’s a reply,’ I said.
But the boy shook his head. ‘He said I wasn’t to wait.’ Pausing only to scrutinise the penny, he turned and darted out of the yard.
The offering seemed to be wrapped in several layers of thick paper. Scrawled across the front was my name and the legend, ‘Haste. Haste.’ I took it into the kitchen and unfastened it on the table. With a gasp I instantly recognised Master Johannes’ impeccable draughtsmanship. On five crisp sheets were the cup and cover designs I had been waiting for. The artist had supplied two complete drawings and some detailed studies of the more intricate elements. The two designs were almost identical but the variations offered the client a choice. I was sure that either would delight the Lord Mayor. The cup was magnificent. A stern of two female figures supported a bowl chased with twined foliage and above it the motto FIDES ET INTEGRITAS (‘Loyalty and Trustworthiness’). The fifth sheet had obviously been included by mistake. Although it was also a design for a cup and cover, it was simply carved with a coat of arms and was nothing like the object ordered by Sir John Cotes. I stuffed it into my purse, folded the others carefully and placed them into Golding’s saddle bag. He was all ready for our departure but that departure would now have to be delayed. I sprang into the saddle, told, the others to await my return and set off briskly for the Lord Mayor’s house on Walbrook.
Fortunately, Sir John was at home. He was not altogether pleased to see me but he was relieved to discover that his gift to the king would, after all, be the creation of the royal painter. This and his approval of Holbein’s drawings was sufficient for him to forgive the inconvenience he had been caused. We spent some time discussing the finer points of the design and it was mid-morning before I was able to return to Goldsmith’s Row and set out for Hemmings.
At last there was nothing to keep me in London. I had been able to satisfy my customer. I also knew that Master Johannes was safe – or, at least, alive. What was disturbing was that he was still in hiding. If I could not find him I would have no means of helping Bart in his quest for the murderers and his innocence. There was one other source of information I could try. One other person whose contacts among the lower levels of society were extensive and who just might have heard something. As my little group made its way along Cheapside, Lombard Street and so, down Fish Street Hill, to the bridge, I decided to risk another delay. I would stop in Southwark and seek out my old friend, Ned Longbourne.
Chapter 4
Calling on Ned did not take us much out of our way. He lived in the shadow of the great abbey church of St Mary Overie where he plied the trade of an apothecary. Ned’s grizzled pate covered a storehouse of wisdom – wisdom born of varied experience and much suffering. He had spent most of his life as a monk. Then, King Henry closed the monasteries and, like his brethren, he had been forced to earn a living in the world of ordinary mortals. He had fetched up in another, rather unlikely, ‘convent’, the bawdy house at the old St Swithun’s inn in Southwark. Here he had ministered to the medical needs of the whores, pimps, lorrels and ribalds who congregated within its walls. But two years previously he had been rendered homeless again. In one of the government’s occasional purges St Swithun’s had been closed down. Of course, this did not stop harlotry; it simply dispersed the brothel’s inmates. Ned had had to find his own lodgings. But that was not his only misfortune. He had a ‘companion’; a well-favoured, athletic young man called Jed. Just at the time that Ned needed his support, Jed had formed another attachment and left. It was quite shocking to see how much this desertion aged my friend. Fortunately, his skills and his amiable disposition had won him the affection of many Southwark dwellers and he had little difficulty in finding new accommodation. Now he occupied his time ministering to the needs of the local community among whom he enjoyed a considerable reputation. I was in no doubt that he could have amassed a considerable fortune – or, at least, managed to live very comfortably – through the sale of potions and simples and the performance of minor surgical operations. Heaven knows there are mountebanks a-plenty who gull huge fees out of people with evil-smelling hell broths, incantations and pretended knowledge of astral motions. By contrast, I suspected that Ned all too often provided his services free of charge to those who were too poor to pay (or who feigned poverty).
He welcomed me with his usual effusiveness and I stooped to enter the room that served as living space, shop and work area. He led the way through to the small garden which was his particular delight. Here, sheltered on one side by the wall of the old abbey and on the other by neighbouring houses, Ned cultivated the herbs, flowers and plants from which he concocted his nostrums. He settled me on a bench and brought out two horn beakers containing an amber liquid.
‘’Tis a tincture of honey, rose buds and aqua vitae,’ he explained. ‘Most of my customers prefer it to hippocras and it is excellent good for expelling the damp humours.’
I sipped it appreciatively. ‘Ned,’ I said, ‘I must not tarry long. I’m on my way to Hemmings. I wanted to have a word with you about-’
‘About our unfortunate friend Bart Miller?’
I could not suppress a chuckle. ‘They say, “bad news rides a fast horse”, but I had not thought you would have heard so soon.’
‘An evil business. Poor young man.’ Ned stroked his long grey beard.
‘You know that he’s gone into hiding; become an outlaw; a suspected murderer on the run?’
Ned nodded.
‘He seems to think he can only clear his name by discovering the real criminals.’
‘That could prove more arduous than the Grail quest. The kingdom is over full of desperate men. Without taxing my old brain too hard, I could name you half a dozen boot-baler gangs who have sold their immortal souls for a handful of transient silver.’
‘You think we are looking for hired hacksters, rather than the regular retainers of some great man?’
Ned looked up sharply. ‘You said “we”, Thomas. I hope that does not mean you intend to plunge yourself into the cesspit of villainy again. Did you not see enough of that world back in thirty-six?’
‘A just rebuke, old friend. No, I was young and headstrong then – as you told me often enough. Now, even if I had the time, there would be little I could do to extricate Bart from his predicament, but …’
‘I feared there would be a “but”.’
‘Well …’ I hesitated, watching the bees hovering round the hive at the end of the garden. ‘You know Lizzie … Who’d have thought seven years ago that she and Bart could have made a good life for themselves.’
Ned nodded. ‘Indeed. I still thank God for them in my prayers.’
‘And now they have the two bearns … To see all that thrown away just because Bart found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time …’
‘But you must not blame yourself for that, Thomas.’ Ned fixed me with that earnest gaze I always found disconcerting.
‘Oh, I don’t. Of course not.’