hadn’t seen before: Starling and Alice were both wearing jewelry-necklaces and bracelets-which looked very much like gold, not the gaudy base metal that whores usually wore. Parsimony knew then that she had to get to Cogg straightway. He would want to know about this. There was something bad here, a stink as bad as a basket of six- day-dead mackerel. Slipping out of the tavern, she gathered up her skirts and, though not dressed for the cold weather, ran to Cogg’s place in Cow Lane.
He wasn’t there and he hadn’t locked up. Parsimony was puzzled. Cogg never went out; with his great girth, he couldn’t move. She went up to his bedchamber. There was a platter of almost-finished food, chicken bones or something, and the bedclothes were awry. She sat down on the bed and tried to gather her thoughts. He should be here. She couldn’t remember the last time he went out anywhere. He couldn’t even make it to the whorehouse by the Bel Savage these days, which was why the girls came to him. He had slowed down a lot this past year. Something must have happened to him.
Parsimony twiddled the ends of her pretty hair in her fingers. She had been with Cogg since her bricklayer husband ran off to be a player and writer of plays when she was sixteen. That was seven years ago. She had liked the life of a whore from the start; swiving for a living seemed like easy money and, at times, enjoyable, too. She liked the mariners best, the ones just returned from long voyages; they were free with their pay, liked a laugh, and had strong, weather-hardened bodies. More to the point, she and Cogg had a good understanding. In return for managing the stew, he let her keep twice as much as the other girls. She reckoned by working for him she could have enough set by to start her own trugging house before she was twenty-five.
She stood up and began looking around in earnest and soon found his body downstairs, packed into a large barrel that had contained hides and furs from the Baltic lands. The skins had been pulled out and shoved into a pile that looked at first sight like a great sleeping bear. The barrel had been tipped on its side so that Cogg’s three- hundredweight corpse could be pushed inside. It didn’t fit; it was only because the opening was turned toward the wall that she had not spotted his blubbery naked feet immediately. It was clearly not a method of concealment that was intended to last long.
So they had killed him. The dirty, cross-biting, light-heeled trugs. They had probably robbed him, too. Well, she’d do for them. And she knew how.
The question was: where was Cogg’s fortune? Had they found it all and stolen it, or was some of it still here? She spent a few minutes searching, but found nothing, then hurried back to the Bel Savage for fear that they would have skipped away.
She threw open the door to the taproom. It was thick with wood smoke and the fumes of ale. Starling Day and Alice were insensible from drink, snoring on the taproom floor, their dresses awry and their limbs splayed. The other girls stood around drinking with their money and making merry with some traders.
For a moment, Parsimony stood there unnoticed. Then one of the girls spotted her and nudged her neighbor. There was a sudden silence as they ceased their carousing and looked at Parsimony fearfully, sensing the anger in her eyes. She strode over and slapped one of the girls hard on the face, then told them all to deal with Starling and Alice sharpish. “Get them back to the vaulting house and stand over them,” she said in a cold voice that she knew would be instantly obeyed. “Don’t let them out of your sight. I want a word with them two foul cozeners when they’re awake. Break the ice on the cask in the yard and chuck a pail of water over them. It’ll be nicely chilled.”
Chapter 14
Have you seen that play yet?” Denis Picket asked over a gage of booze in the Falcon post inn at Fotheringhay.
“No,” Simon Bull replied. “What was it called again?”
“ Tamburlaine. A good lark, Bully. Lots of fighting. Lots of laughs.”
“Where’s it on, then?”
“The Curtain, Bully.”
“Oh, right. And it’s Mr. Bull to you, Denis.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bull.”
“So what’s it about?”
“Turks, I think. Lots of battles and killing.”
“Not for me then, Denis. I don’t like all that bloodshed they put in their plays these days.” Bull glanced around the room and noticed the eyes of the regulars turning away quickly, as if they had been caught staring at him. He was used to that and didn’t give it a second thought, but he was worried about his assistant. Denis Picket was young, good at his job at the shambles by all accounts and he’d done his share of rope tricks, but he’d never had a job as big as this one. He didn’t want to make him any more jumpy than he already was.
“Where’s Digby staying, Mr. Bull?”
“Up at Apthorpe, with the gentry. Mr. Secretary wanted us to go there, but old Mildmay wasn’t having it. Thinks we’re too common. But I can tell you, Denis,” and here he reduced his voice to a whisper, “I’ve lopped types every bit as noble as him. We’re all one when our heads are on the block.”
“So what you done with the axe, then, Bully?” Picket asked at last.
Bull put the index finger of his very large right hand to his lips. “It’s in my trunk, Denis, but keep it down. Don’t want to worry the locals. And it’s Mr. Bull. I won’t remind you again.”
“Sorry, Mr. Bull.”
Less than a day earlier, Simon Bull had been at his house outside Bishopsgate when Walsingham’s man Anthony Hall arrived with news of the commission. There had been a bit of haggling over the price, but in the end they had agreed on ten pounds in gold, plus travel costs and good board and lodging for Bull and his assistant. There had been some dispute over the usual access to clothes and jewelry removed from the body of the intended, but Bull had stood firm and Hall had finally agreed they could decide about such things when the time came. No point in upsetting the headsman before he had done his hideous work, was there?
“Now, Denis, how about one more quart while I gets some food inside me? Then it’s bed and a good night’s sleep. We got to be up early, son.”
“All right, Mr. Bull.”
“Good lad. I fancy a couple of pigeons and a good bit of beef Would you mind seeing if they can do something like that for us?”
“Certainly, Mr. Bull.”
“And some good fresh bread and butter to mop up the sauce would go down well, too.”
“Yes, Mr. Bull. I’ll see to it.”
Starling Day was awakened by the sting of Parsimony Field’s hand across her face. Slap, slap, back and forth from side to side, hard.
She recoiled from the blows. “Please, Parsey, lay off,” she begged, her voice weak but desperate.
“I’ll lay off when you tell me where the gold is, Starling Day.” Parsimony hit her again. “You’re in trouble up to your scrawny chicken neck.”
Starling was bound to the four corners of a bare straw pallet on a wooden bedstead. Her head was spinning from the drink. Her backbone against the unforgiving wood was causing her agony. She felt the bile rising, turned her head to one side, away from Parsimony, and vomited.
“If that’d gone over me, I’d have killed you.”
Starling closed her eyes. In her boozy delusion, she was back in Strelley, tied to the bedpost, being beaten by Edward. She had thought that was all behind her. Gradually the events of the night before came back into focus. They had hidden the gold and jewels (except for a few necklaces and bracelets to pretty themselves up) and then gone back to the bawdy house to collect Alice’s few pitiful things. Something in them, some rash boldness, had made them give Parsimony Field a piece of their mind and then go to the Bel Savage for one last drink before disappearing forever. After all, why not? Arsey-Parsey had no idea what had been going on at Cow Lane, and she couldn’t restrain the both of them. But the drink had taken hold and now they were paying the price.
Starling wanted to clutch her beating head, but she couldn’t because her wrists were tied to the bedposts. Why had they stayed for that one last drink that turned into fucking twenty? Half a day ago the world was looking
