Ned has always thought himself as being a little dull in the wits. He cannot read or write. His younger years gave him little learning in anything beyond brawling and drinking. But then Rose, and Master Nicholas and Mistress Bianca, showed him a better road. And today – this day – he thinks himself almost as clever as any of them. Because today Ned is almost certain that he’s fathomed the deceit being practised by Barnabas Vyves and Gideon Strollot.
‘I don’t want to cause you more ’urt than you’ve already suffered, Master Aaron,’ he tells the shepherd when he tracks him down to a shelter made of interwoven willow branches, set in a lush meadow beside a stream, ‘but I’ve ’ad my suspicions for a while now that your son wasn’t the victim of cut-purses.’
Aaron Godwinson has his hand on the top of his shepherd’s crook, the tip on the ground by his right foot. He tilts the crook forward in a little jab of command and fixes Ned with his rheumy eyes. ‘Then I’d ask you to speak plainly to me and not dissemble.’
Ned so promises. ‘It concerns what I believe to be a gullin’. A cheatin’ of Her Majesty in fact,’ he says.
‘You’d best explain what you mean, Master Ned.’
Ned adopts a contemplative tone. ‘Let us say, just as a proposition, that your master who owns those sheep out there is a kindly soul who cares for the comfort of ’is shepherd.’
‘Fat chance of that, Master Ned,’ Godwinson says with a loud snort.
‘Maybe so. But let us say that ’e is. Let us say also ’e’s so kindly that ’e commands me to give every shepherd in Surrey a jug of ale.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Bear with me, Master Aaron.’ Ned opens one palm and spreads his huge fingers. He proceeds to count them off with the index finger of his other hand as he makes his case. ‘This master of yours comes to me an’ says, “Master Ned, I need one ’undred pots of knockdown for my fine fellows. ’Ow much will that cost me?” An’ I tell ’im that a jug of my ale will cost him ’a’pence.’
‘And fine ale it was, too, Master Ned. I thank you for it. You were generous.’
Ned dismisses the shepherd’s appreciation with a brief shake of his auburn-bearded chin. ‘Now your master says, “That will do me nicely. Order me one ’undred, so that my ’undred shepherds may slake their thirst.”’
‘I can’t imagine him doing that,’ says Aaron Godwinson sadly. ‘Not this side of the Last Judgement.’
‘That’s not the point, Master Aaron,’ Ned says. He taps another finger. ‘Now, I gives ’im the pots, an’ in return ’e gives me…’ Ned does the calculation in his head, ‘over four shillings.’
‘That’s a lot of money to spend on making a shepherd happy,’ Aaron observes. ‘I’d have to work a fortnight to earn that much.’
‘We even line up a few jugs on the counter, so ’e can see what ’e’s gettin’ for ’is money.’
‘We do?’ queries Aaron Godwinson.
Ned’s right index finger lands firmly in the centre of his left palm. ‘Then we goes down to Camberwell and we buys us one ’undred jugs of cheap ale from another tavern what sells sheep-piss for only a farthin’ a jug.’
‘Why do we do that, Master Ned?’
Ned’s fiery face lights up like a victory beacon, a blaze of triumph. ‘Because they’re the ones we give to ’is ’undred shepherds. An’ they costs us only two shillings!’
‘And we keep the difference?’ says Godwinson, catching on.
‘You ’ave it,’ Ned announces. ‘Your master don’t know ’e’s being gulled. Your shepherds don’t know they’s being gulled – they’s just glad for the ale. And we make two shillings! How much did your Lemuel sign up for?’
‘Sixpence a day, that’s what Vyves was offering.’
Ned frowns while he does the calculation in his head. In the little willow shelter, the air is heavy with the sound of the meadow, the gentle persistent humming of summer.
‘If we was to muster a company of one ’undred men and take sixpence a day per man from the Exchequer to pay them, over an ’ole campaign season – say, six months – that’s four ’undred and fifty pounds. ’Course we’d lose a bit of that in paying off the recruits we did muster, with ’alf a month’s pay, but I ain’t included what the Exchequer would pay us for food, transport, armour… You could probably make a thousand pounds. You could live like a lord.’
‘But what happens to the recruits?’
‘They go ’ome, just as your Lemuel did,’ Ned says. ‘I reckon if we spent the summer walking through Surrey, we’d come across any number of young lads who’ve signed up with Sir Oliver ’Enshawe, taken the money an’ gone back to their farms and their smithies.’
A shadow of disbelief flickers over Aaron Godwinson’s artless face. ‘But won’t the Earl of Essex notice that he’s getting no soldiers, Master Ned?’
‘But ’e is getting soldiers. That’s the beauty of it. ’Ow much do you think it might cost to raise a levy of Irishmen?’
‘I don’t know. I only knows the price of sheep.’
‘Well, I’d guess it’s a lot less than sixpence a day per man.’ Ned shakes his head in disbelief at the cunning ways some men find to cheat their fellows. ‘I’ve lived on Bankside all my life, Master Aaron. I reckoned I’ve seen just about every gull goin’. But this one is a peach. That little arseworm Vyves is musterin’ fellows ’ere in England, but ’e don’t actually send them to Ireland. He pays them off an’ keeps the queen’s coin, making up the muster with cheap fellows across the water. That means ’is captain – that ’Enshawe fellow – is in on the gullin’ too. An’ that Strollot. They’d need ’im to cover for them with the aldermen an’ the magistrates.’
There is anguish in Aaron Godwinson’s eyes as he says, ‘Is that why my Lemuel was slain, do you think? They murdered him to keep their grubby secret?’
‘P’raps your son’s conscience troubled ’im,’ Ned replies. ‘They must ’ave got wind that ’e was thinkin’ of tellin’.’
‘I would like to think it so,’ the shepherd says, gazing sadly out at the meadow and his flock. ‘He was a good lad, at heart. Honest.’ He falls to silence while he thinks of his son. Then he says, ‘What are we to do, Master Ned? How can we do what Lemuel intended – bring these rogues to justice?’
‘There’s a problem,’ Ned says, wincing. He raises his right thumb to show the scar of the branding. ‘You may ’ave noticed this, Master Aaron,’ he says uncomfortably. ‘I killed a man. I ain’t proud of it. It were in self-defence, but they sentenced me to ’ang. My Rose saved me from the gibbet. But they branded me anyhow.’
‘One offence shouldn’t damn a man’s character for ever, Master Ned. I’ll stand for you, if anyone should doubt your testimony.’
‘It’s not that easy,’ Ned tells him regretfully. ‘You see, I ’ad words with Vyves a while back, being as ’ow I ’ad my s’picions of ’im.’
The colour drains out of Godwinson’s face. He grips his shepherd’s crook as though he means to strangle it. ‘You’ve broached this with him?’
‘I ’adn’t fathomed what he was up to then. But I knew somethin’ wasn’t right.’
‘What did he say?’