I sensed a smile which it was too dark in here to see.
‘And what, after all,’ Monger said, ‘would a mere clerk know about Agricola the dowser?’
In better circumstance, I might have even been laughing. It was all so clear, to me now, all the traps laid out in my path. The daring talk of Mistress Eleanor Borrow:
’Tis best to sow under a new moon and then to harvest under a full moon… It has a power… Oh, am I stepping close to heresy?
And Monger… would he have revealed Emmanuel Worthy’s magical library to someone who might have regarded the books as heretical? Would he have fingered to me every penny-a-poke street-seer in the Glastonbury market, if not sure of his ground?
‘While both Nel and I accept,’ he murmured, ‘that Dr John Dee is a man of science rather than a procurer of spirits, we still find it curious that someone renowned for the breadth of his learning should arrive in a little town much reduced in its fortunes… merely to make account of what miserable antiquities remain there.’
Now here was trouble. If I failed to quench the farrier’s curiosity, he could expose me to whoever he liked. Might, indeed, choose to enlighten Sir Edmund Fyche, for whom the distinction ’twixt science and sorcery would be a line not so much fine as imperceptible.
‘It’s not so far removed from the truth,’ I said.
And, in the hope that the fevered Dudley had not announced himself as the Royal Master of the Horse, was about to tell him more of the truth… when the door of poor planks creaked and opened to a slit of light.
A shadow fell across the crack, as if an eye was peering in, and then the door opened just wide enough for a woman to slip inside.
Shutting it rapidly behind her, pushing it tight with her arse, wild grey hair springing from a ragged coif.
‘Pour’s a big one, Sal! Us could be deep in the shitty yere, girl.’ Eyepatch.
Monger raised himself from his stool.
‘Joan. Over here.’
‘Zat you, Brother Joe? Be hard enough to zee in this hole with both fuckin’ eyes.’
‘Mug of strong cider for Mistress Tyrre!’ Monger called out, as she came bundling herself towards our board, bony white hands groping the air like it was muslin. ‘Something amiss, Joan?’
‘Constables. Zo-called. They’ze everywhere. Big bazzards on big ’osses. Weren’t good to trade n’ more today, Joe, we come outer there damn quick, look.’
I dragged over another stool for her and she peered around the room with her one eye and then lifted her skirts and sat down with her knees shamelessly apart.
‘Normal thing, they comes nozyin’ around, you offers ’em a readin’ for free or a feel o’ your tits, and they’s sweet as you likes. But not today, not today, boy.’
‘Man was murdered, Joan,’ Monger said. ‘That’s probably-’
‘Howzat tie up with the likes of us? I never kilt ’im.’ She stiffened at the sight of me in the recess. ‘Whozis?’
‘A friend. Dr John, over from London.’
‘Wozze do?’
‘Works for the Queen, Joan.’
‘ Do he? Well, that’s all well and fine, Joe, but I en’t gonner truss no bugger today. There’s a funny air, look. Dark as you likes.’ Wrapping her twig-thin arms around herself as if all warmth were fled from the room. ‘Black as pitch over the tor. Somethin’ a’ comin’. You zee it a’ comin’? You zee- Oh fuck and buggery…’
A flash of brightness as the door shuddered open. At once, a couple of the farmers were putting down their mugs, shambling quietly to their feet, placing themselves flat to the wall.
Two men black against the light.
‘Joan Tyrre?’
‘Shitty,’ Joan breathed. ‘Coulder sweared they fuckers en’t follered me.’
‘Over there.’
One of the men was pointing at our board. Now the other was coming over slowly and Joan Tyrre was rising, putting the legs of her stool out in front of her.
‘Now then, you boys, you juss keep away, yer knows I en’t done nothin’, look-’
‘Only led us a merry bloody chase, you old puttock.’
Throwing out his arms as a barrier, Joan skipping from side to side, laughing, jabbing the stool at him until he snatched it away from her.
‘Enough! Don’t you think to go nowhere, Joannie. You know what we wants.’
‘What? Front of all these folks?’
Joan cackling, dodging nimbly as he hurled the stool at her, and it splintered on the wall behind.
‘Where’s the woman calls herself a doctor?’
I went rigid.
‘ You was with her earlier, we knows that. Where is she?’
‘How’ze I gonner know that?’ Joan Tyrre said. ‘How’ze a poor ole bag like me gonner pay for a doctor?’
‘You’ll talk fuckin’ civil to us or I’ll-’
Making a lunge for her, and Joan was leaping back, but not quite quick enough.
‘Get yer gurt hands off of me, you- uh!’
Her head whipping to one side as the second man struck her with full fist on the side of the face.
Joan’s head hanging now like a broken doll’s, and I came to my feet, but Monger grabbed my arm, hissing into my ear.
‘Don’t make this worse…’
XXIII
Lowest Form of Doctoring
The only sound was the dribble of ale over the edge of our board from an overturned mug. Joan Tyrre was down on the flags, squirming away, an arm raised to protect her face. The two constables standing over her, silent now.
‘The doctor-woman, Mistress Tyrre. If you please.’
The one who spoke now, the one who’d struck her, he was just a boy, with a boy’s voice.
‘En’t seen her.’ Joan mumbling into the stone flags, her eyepatch all askew. ‘Swearder God.’
‘Where’d you see her last?’
‘Don’t recall.’
‘Think harder.’ Bringing back his boot. ‘This help?’
‘All right! Bazzard! Her was off to zeein’ to a man in the George.’
‘What man?’
‘Man who’s lyin’ there.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘All I knows, swearder God.’
‘Better be true.’
‘’ Tis true.’
He kicked her hard in the side. A sliver of light from the doorway opened up a cold grin like a gash in his face, and it seemed like a face I’d seen before.
Joan made small moans but didn’t move until they’d left, the alehouse door swinging and the farmers coming away from the walls and calmly taking their seats again as if this happened every day. Maybe it did.
‘Man with the fever!’ Joan screamed from the floor. ‘And I hopes by the Lord Gwyn as you both fuckin’ gets it off of he an’ dies afore the morrow!’
Monger helped her to her feet and she stood feeling at her jaw with the tips of her fingers.
‘En’t broke, anyways. Do it look broke?’
‘You need to see Nel.’
