The Dagger in Southwark was Moll's place of business, before the magistrates or her creditors forced a change to another den. A significant portion of London's underworld was gathered there, nursing their sore heads. The assembled mass was one of the most unattractive sights he had ever seen, thought Gresham, a collection of rats and wolves in human form. He gave the merest nod to several with whom he had worked in the past. Gresham was ushered into the inner den of Moll, past three of the burliest men in London, all nursing vast cudgels.
'Hello, Mary Frith,' said Gresham, his face alight with mirth at the figure before him.
At first sight, it was not a woman at all who met their gaze. Dressed in doublet and hose, with hair cut short, Moll Cutpurse looked for all the world like a man, ensconced on a stool, legs set fairly apart and a brimming tankard of ale in her hand. The smoking pipe clenched firmly between her teeth added to the impression of a lad-about- town, determined to enjoy the day and the night as if it were his last. Only on closer examination did the smoothness of her skin and the twin bulges beneath her doublet become apparent.
'Mary Frith! You insolent vagabond, you spittle of Bedlam!' The figure wreathed in smoke put her stool forward on to three legs, where previously it had been resting back on two, and grinned in equal measure at Henry Gresham. 'Mary Frith died years ago, as any true bastard knows full well.'
Henry Gresham, a true bastard, accepted Moll's greeting with a low bow.
'Bastard as I am,' he replied, 'I salute an even greater bitch, be it Mary Frith or Moll Cutpurse!'
'You whoremonger!' she said joyfully, rising up from her stool and moving round the table to greet him. 'You come to me now for news, when you used to come within me! Am I so worn out as no longer to excite your fancy?'
'Madam,' said Gresham, bowing even lower, 'I'm old and weary, starved in my bones, a mere dried-out husk of the man I used to be. I can admire your beauty from afar…' he stepped back and looked with admiration at the trim figure hidden beneath the man's clothes,'… but, alas, it needs a young man to sire a beauty with so much youth still in her!'
Moll sat down on the table edge, stuck out her feet and took a huge draught of ale. Licking her red lips, she eyed Gresham up and down appreciatively.
'You always were a liar, Henry Gresham, and I like that in a man. You're none of your penny-pinching, arse- grabbing kind of liar. You,' she said as she poked him with the end of her clay pipe, 'you lie like the Devil himself, and take delight in it. For that, I'll even forgive you the bruises! And you always did have a body from Heaven, even if your mind was from Hell.'
Moll was fun enough to deal with and to lie with, but her evil temper was infamous, her mood swings greater than the tide on Dover beach, and she had had men, and women, murdered for a twopenny debt. She was one of the most dangerous people Gresham had ever known. She ran more brothels and stews than anyone except the Bishop of London, offered more watered-down wine and beer to tavern-goers and fenced for half the vagabonds in London. She defied authority, even to the extent of appearing on stage in front of a cheering full house at The Swan to recite bawdy ballads and sing songs that a sailor would blanch at. She had been arrested more times than she had eaten dinners, always bribing herself out of trouble with the seemingly endless money at her disposal.
'Enough of this babbling.' Moll bored very easily. 'You've no more need of poor Moll and her like in the old way, even if I hadn't become a respectable businessman, which I have. And I hear you have someone to keep your bed warm at night, so what is it you intend to rob a maid of instead?'
'I've never robbed you of anything you weren't hot to give, Moll Cutpurse,' said Gresham firmly, 'and for anything else I've taken you've received good coin in exchange. Enough of this babbling, indeed — yours and my own. The business is simple. What do you know that I should know?'
Moll slumped down behind the table, signalled Mannion to take a seat and took another vast gulp from her flagon, motioning irritably for it to be replenished by one of the villains standing guard over the door. He took it in his huge paw, filled it from a nearby barrel and gave it back to her. She looked moodily at Gresham.
'You're the fine one, Henry Gresham, aren't you? The others, they come to me with threats or with flattery, and they come to ask me a question. Where's the purse with seven angels in it stolen from my friend in St Paul's gone to, Moll?' With each question she adopted a different, whining tone. 'Find me a girl, Moll, a nice clean girl. Find me a boy, Moll, a nice clean boy. Oh Moll, my cousin's inherited a pretty penny in plate and keeps it in his house, and it should be mine, Moll, it should be mine… 1 need to throw the dice for high stakes, Moll, or play the cards, and where are the best games to be had, Moll… I need a woman who'll do it this way, I need a woman who'll do it that way, I need a woman who'll do it in ways I haven't imagined… so many questions, so many crimes, so many deceivers. Yet you… you Devil incarnate… you ask the one question to which I've to give all the answers.'
Moll got up suddenly, stuck her thumbs in her belt and walked over to the window.
'I know you might as well stick your fine head up a cow's arse as gain any joy from the man Bacon. Neither you, nor the Privy Council nor God in his Heaven will ever prove anything against him that matters a fart.'
It was pointless to ask Moll where her information came from, or which of the many men Gresham had tasked with news of Bacon had reported back to her. There was hardly a major household in London where one or more of the servants was not in her employ, information being as valuable a commodity as gold or women. Gresham knew that on occasions in the past Cecil had used her as an informant — it had been the cause of their first meeting.
'So what else do you know that I should know?'
'Had you come before tonight, I would've had little more to answer. I don't know why you've been set on a goose chase. Maybe there are those who want you set on a far road. But there's something brewing nearer to home, I reckon. Something more in your line of business… how much will you pay, for other news, Henry Gresham?'
'A fair price’
'Then you'd better meet a girl.' Moll gestured to one of the human tree trunks on guard. 'Wake up Nell from her groanings and bring her here — fast!'
A red-cheeked young girl with the look of being fresh up from the country was brought into the room. She had been crying, and there was a livid bruise down most of one side of her face and stains on the extravagant red dress she wore, all crumpled now. She limped, clutching her left hip with every faltering step she took.
'Yes, mistress, what is it, mistress?' the girl said, with fear in her eyes.
'See this man?' said Moll, gesturing to Gresham. 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Well, forget you ever saw him. Before you do, tell him the story of last night. Go on, girl. Do it.'
'It were… I was… I was downstairs when this man cum in. I know'd him from before, two, mebbe three times. He were quiet, but a swaggerer at the same time, if ye takes my meanin'. We went upstairs, and we did it, and after, as he was coming out of the room and before I was proper dressed or anything, this other man comes out of the other room and knocks into my man, sort of… it were an accident, I know for sure, there's no light up there hardly at all and…'
'Get on with it, you stupid slut!' growled Moll.
'Well, before you can say a word my man, the one I been with, he has his sword out and he's fightin' this other man.'This other man, he run back into my room and I start screamin' an' my man he turns an' clouts me one on the side of the head with the handy bit of his sword an' I goes down screamin' an' he kicks at me to shut me up an' then this other man he trips on his sword…' The girl started to blubber and to wail again, dabbing at her eyes.'… an' the point of his bloody sword goes in the side o' my arse, it does, real hard and deep, an' it hurts and hurts an' there's a mark there now for life, it be, for life…'
'It'll be a short life, that's for sure, girl, if you carry on like that,' said Moll. 'Tell the gentleman here what your man said while he was riding you.'
'Well, sir,' said the tearful Nell, 'he were rough with me, very rough indeed, an' I says, 'Now, sir, can you not get as much pleasure by being a little more gentle with a poor girl?' and he says, goin' at it even 'arder, 'If I bain't be gentle with that damn'd King and his rotten crew I bain't be gentle with you, girl!''
Gresham tossed a coin to the girl, which she caught with practised ease, even though he knew it would be taken from her as soon as she left the room. She gave a faint smile to Gresham, and a pleading look towards Moll. She ignored it, motioning the girl to leave.
'That's all?' said Gresham.
'No, not all,' said Moll. 'The man's name is Tom Wintour.'
The name triggered the memory of the miserable-looking man in the tavern. Robert Wintour, Tom Wintour's brother.
