The Gallows Murders srs-5 Read online

  Benjamin however, knew of my interest in physic and tried to advise me. 'Remember Vicar Doggerel!? You gave him a cow-pat to cure his baldness.'

  'Yes, but I didn't tell the silly bastard to smear it on his head on Sunday morning and stink the church out,' I retorted. Benjamin smiled and shook his head.

  My ambition to make a fortune in the world of medicine received further encouragement when I received a letter from my old friend Dr Quicksilver: a true charlatan who pretended to be the greatest physician on earth but who lived his life in the slums around Whitefriars. He wanted more elixirs, and who was I to refuse him? So I went back to my games. Oh no, nothing dangerous: the mixing of thyme, camomile and hyssop as an aid to rheumatism. (It actually worked!) Or the skull of a hare and the grease of a fox, crushed and warmed, to be rubbed in the ear to cure deafness. I loved distilling these concoctions. One day Benjamin called me into his private chamber. He sat behind his desk which was piled high with horn books. ‘Roger, my dear friend.' ‘Yes, Master?' I asked innocently.

  'If you must involve yourself in physic…' Benjamin hitched his furred gown further up his shoulders. The lattice window was open and the morning breeze rather chilling.'… If you must have your physic then, I beseech you, do not work in your chamber and make the house stink like a stableyard. I shall provide a special room for your experiments’

  Well, I took to it like a duck to water and, for the next few weeks, locked myself in a secret room high in the manor house, shrouding myself in a cloud of strange smells. I filled jars with the dried corpses of frogs and newts. I even managed to buy the skin of a donkey and concocted a sneezing powder to clear the head. I sent some to Quicksilver. Then, heigh nonny no, I packed all my medicines on a sumpter pony and trotted off to Ipswich market. I put the donkey in a stable and became a huckster. I bought a tray and created my own stall. Of course, I had to move, and did so briskly, when officials of the pie-and-powder court, those tyrants who man the tribunal which governs market affairs, came looking for me. Oh, but I enjoyed it: the shouting, the bargaining, the bartering, the recitation of the most incredible stories whilst keeping my face straight. No, I wasn't a trickster but a trader. None of my potions were dangerous, indeed many of them were quite helpful. No bailiff ever came looking for me with a warrant in his hand. However, as they teach in geometry, like is attracted to like, and I was soon on first-name terms with every rogue in Suffolk.

  Once the day's business was done, ‘I’d head straight for some boozing den, my bun full of money, rubbing shoulders with the priggers, the prancers, the dummerers, the riflers and rufflers, the foists, the naps, the morts, strumpets and whores. All lovely people! Most of them would have sold their mother's knuckle-bones for dice. They lived on a knife-edge, fearful of the chatts, their slang term for the gallows, yet ever ready for a free peck or meal, their fingers itching to cut a purse or rob a shop. I laughed, drank and gambled with the best of them. They conned me, I conned them. One little foist, who cheated me at cards, I treated free, giving him live spiders to eat, covered in butter to help his cough. Another who boasted about ill-treating a poor widow, was told to mix blood from a black cat's tail with cream from a slaughtered cow and drink it to cure the pox. (The stupid bugger did, but still scratched his private parts.) To honest folk I tried to be honest. The taverner who gave me a free drink was told that, to gather the fleas of a chamber into one place, he should put a staff on the floor covered with the grease of a fox or hedgehog, and all the fleas would gather on it. And, if that didn't work, to fill a dish with goat's blood, put it by the bed, and every flea in the tavern would drink and drown itself there. (By the way, this worked, you should try it!)

  When the day's work and enjoyment were done, I travelled back to the manor and supped with Benjamin in our dark oak-panelled hall, decorated with banners and tapestries, and with large wooden shields bearing the devices of Daunbey and Shallot which had been devised and painted by me. Of course, I’d always return a little fearful. After all, here we were enjoying the idylls of life, but London was not very far away and Wolsey never forgot us. When the Cardinal turned and snapped his fingers for us to come running, he'd always send that strange creature, black-garbed, sinister Dr Agrippa -to collect us.

  I have mentioned Agrippa before. He was Wolsey's familiar. A magus, a warlock, a man who never grew old or died. No, no, my wits aren't wandering. Agrippa, with his cherubic face and soulless eyes, lived and lurked in the shadow of Wolsey; yet I have met those who will swear on oath that Agrippa was with Richard III at Bosworth Field. According to these old men, Agrippa advised that cruel prince to make the dreadful charge which ensnared him in a marsh, and so Richard lost his life, his crown and the kingdom. And there are others, even as I am now past my ninetieth year, who have made their way to Burpham Manor to tell me how they met Agrippa in the dark green woods of Virginia outside Jamestown, in the sun-scorched streets of Constantinople, or even in the snowy, icy wastes outside Moscow. They always tell the same tale: dressed in black, Agrippa hadn't grown a day older than when I knew him in those blood-drenched days of Henry VIII.

  Agrippa would come, but on those evenings when I found the stables empty and my master waiting alone for me in the hall, ‘I’d heave a sigh of relief. Tonight, at least, ‘I’d sleep the sleep of the just. We would sup and I would listen to Benjamin chatter about his school, though keeping one eye on a young, buxom chambermaid who, when she served my meal, dipped her generous bosom to show both her glories.

  Oh, I confess, our life at our manor was a veritable Eden, but every paradise has its serpent. Eventually ours appeared in the shape of a plump, well-fed matron, Isabella Poppleton. Goodwoman Poppleton and her sneering sons lived on the other side of the valley and deeply resented my master's good fortune. The sons were bloated bags of wind, but Isabella was a veritable viper in petticoats. If she had bitten an adder it would have died of poisoning. She had a tongue which would clip a hedge and could shovel dirt faster than a gravedigger. Her tongue was a sharpened sword and she made sure it never went rusty. I called her, the 'Great Mouth'.

  Trouble first appeared one Sunday morning as Benjamin and I left Mass. We were out of the porch, walking towards the lychgate, when I saw Goodwoman Poppleton standing amongst the gravestones with a gaggle of gossips who hung on her every word. As we passed they fell silent, but Isabella's eyes, bleak and hateful, bored into my master. I quietly made an obscene gesture with my middle finger. However, the bitch hadn't been to Italy, so she didn't know what it meant, though she must have understood the spirit in which it was intended. Now such hate worried me. I tried to talk to my master. He just shook his head and refused to listen, so I wandered down to the White Hart tavern in the village where, after Mass, all the gossips gathered to tear their neighbours to pieces. When I entered the taproom, a group of young bloods sitting in the corner looked up, sniggering behind their hands. I recognised one of them as Edmund Poppleton, the elder of the Great Mouth's sons. 'What's the joke?' I asked.

  The landlord, a goodly man who served me a tankard of ale and a beef stew pie, glanced sadly at me and shook his head. The gigglers returned to their whispering, so I drank my ale, broke my fast and returned to the manor.

  The next morning, Benjamin came into my chamber where I was concocting a new remedy to cure catarrh: powdered goose bones mixed with garlic and salt. It was making me cough and sneeze so I judged it to be a good cure of the rheums. Benjamin sat down on a stool on the other side of the table. I babbled away about what I was doing. He remained silent but, when I looked up, his eyes were sad, pricked with tears. "What's the matter, Master?'

  This morning young Tom the miller's son told me about the rumours going around the village,' he replied. He swallowed hard. That I only started the school because I like young boys.' I dropped the knife I was holding.

  ‘You, Master, an apple-squire? A bum-boy? And did Tom believe it?'

  Benjamin shook his head. 'He was very angry. He claimed the Poppletons were behind such drea
dful rumours.' I cursed the Great Mouth with every filthy word I could muster. Benjamin shook his head and got up but, even as he left, I glimpsed the tears trickling down his face. The first time I had ever seen him cry! ‘I’d often accompanied him along the Thames to Syon where Johanna, his betrothed, who had lost her wits after being evilly seduced by a nobleman, was cared for by the good nuns. Never once did I see him weep. Now he sobbed; I felt like killing the Poppletons.

  Later the same day, I sought my master out to reassure him, but he smiled wanly and I went cold with rage. Now I am not an evil man, nor vindictive: my chaplain will tell you that. Even when he steals my claret I only tell him off and shake my cane. I've never really beaten him. At least, not yet! Ah well, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.' Yet, it's also written, The gods help them that help themselves.' And since revenge is a dish best served cold, so I bided my time and plotted, even as the rumours grew as thick and fast as weeds in a dunghill.

  At last, I, Roger Shallot, made my power felt. I won't bore you with the details. First I disguised myself and secured entry to the Poppleton household as a labourer. Now people like the Poppletons never even deign to look at a servant. I was employed to clean the cesspits and latrines, which gave me every right to wander down the galleries and passageways of the house. In their large dining room, or hall as the Great Mouth liked to call it, the Poppletons had a tun of wine: a small cask with a bung in it which the steward would remove whenever the Great Mouth and her family dined. Now, that's one thing servants will not steal. Everything else they can lay their hands on, but never the master's wine, at least not from a barrel which has been broached. So, one fine morning when everyone was elsewhere, I tipped the cask on its side and removed the bung. I then poured a specially prepared powder containing the most powerful of purgatives and a few secret ingredients of my own. I replaced the bung, dropped the bucket of shit I was carrying, and fled like the wind.

  The next day I travelled to Castle Acre and called at the Willow, a dingy tavern where my good friend Dr Quicksilver, whom I had summoned from London, had taken chambers. Now Quicksilver was villainy incarnate. A consummate actor, a born liar, a cunning man who knew every trick of the fair. Thin as a beanpole, with long, straggling grey hair, Quicksilver had the face of an ascetic and a skill even the great physicians of Salerno would have envied. His eyes were innocent, the soft skin of his face freshly shaven, and his lips always twisted into a most benevolent smile. You know the sort, often seen on the faces of vicars and chaplains, especially when they're giving unctuous advice to one of their underlings. Quicksilver also dressed the part. He wore a jacket with a round neck, edged with precious fur, the sleeves gathered at the shoulders into thick pads which made him look broader. Underneath was a waist-length doublet, tight and padded; on his spindly legs were hose of the same colour. On his head he wore a broad-brimmed hat which further increased his air of respectability and grandeur. One thing I noticed: his hands and wrists were always hidden under ornate cuffs. He met me in the Willow taproom. "Roger, my dearest, dearest, dearest boy.'

  Quicksilver grasped my hand and shook it warmly. I smiled and told the bastard to give me the ring he had just taken off my finger. The charlatan smiled and passed it back.

  'And keep your hands well away from my purse,' I growled. And none of your games, Quicksilver. Don't start running up bills to send for me to pay.' I placed two gold coins before him. These are for now, and three more when you've finished.'

  The coins disappeared in a blink of an eye: hence the fellow's name.

  He sat down, hailing the landlord, and grandly ordered the best the house could offer. Although thin and scrawny, and at least sixty years of age, Quicksilver ate like a horse and all the time asked me questions. Why had I summoned him? Did I have new medicines? What was he to do?

  I told him all about the Great Mouth and the Poppletons. Quicksilver listened intently, then sat back, rocking with laughter. 'Lord above, Shallot, they'll spend all their time on the jakes. And you put aniseed powder in as well? Their skins will be peppered with pustules.' 'How do you know that?' I retorted. 'You are a quack.'

  Quicksilver's face suddenly went stern. For a brief moment I saw another man behind those eyes. Do you know, I suddenly realised I knew nothing about Quicksilver: who he really was or where he came from.

  'Roger, Roger.' He waggled a finger at me. ‘I have never insulted you. I am not what I appear to be.'

  'Most men aren't,' I quipped. I glimpsed the anger in his eyes. 'I am sorry,' I apologised, and gave him my most winning smile. 'I truly am and, when you have finished, most learned of physicians, there will be four, not three coins.'

  I must have stirred memories in Quicksilver's soul: he leaned forward and hissed, ‘I have heard of you, Shallot, and your doings at court for the great Wolsey' He gave an icy smile. 'I, too, once worked in the shadows of the great ones: summoned at the dead of night to the Tower; taken to secret rooms to sit by the beds of princes to hear their confessions.' He drew back, as if he had said too much. 'But,' he shrugged, 'that's in the past.'

  I never questioned him further. If you live in the shadowy world, as I do, you never ask questions. Take poor Kit Marlowe, killed over a meal. Kit, with his angelic face, mocking mouth and merry eyes. He'd never tell you who he really was. He's twenty years in his grave and already the debate has begun. Was Marlowe a spy? An assassin? Was he an atheist, a Lutheran or a Papist? God knows. The same is true of Will Shakespeare: he's dabbled in enough secrets to provide matter for a thousand plays.

  Old Quicksilver's manner had now changed. Eager for mischief, he waited for my orders. After I whispered to him the plot, he crowed with laughter, clapped his hands and solemnly promised that, by tomorrow, he'd be taking chambers at the White Hart.

  The next day, just before sunset, I walked into our village tavern. I looked around but there was no sign of Quicksilver. I cursed and hoped the thieving bugger hadn't taken my gold and hopped back to London as fast as he could. I sat by the inglenook with my pot of ale, then in comes the Great Mouth's steward, eyes round as saucers, hands all a-tremble. He grasped his tankard, digs his face into it, and then declares for all to here:

  'Good sirs, pray for Mistress Poppleton and her family.' His voice sank to one of those dramatic whispers so beloved of playwrights like Jonson. 'All the farting,' he exclaimed. 'Running like greyhounds for the jakes, their skins covered in pustules and blisters.'

  The plague?' one yokel asked. They say there's a terrible sickness in London!'

  The steward, an inveterate gossip who deeply relished his moment of glory, just shook his head.

  (Oh, my little chaplain's asked a question: why wasn't I recognised? The noddle-pate! When I worked for the Poppletons, ‘I’d been disguised.)

  ‘No one else has caught it,' the steward trumpeted, 'Lord save us. The house stinks like a kennel.'

  ‘You say pimples and pustules?' A voice rang out from the doorway leading to the stairs. Quicksilver stood there in his best fur-trimmed robe, a pair of spectacles upon his nose. His hand tapped the seal (counterfeit, of course), which proclaimed him to be a member of the Guild of Physicians in London. 'Pimples and pustules?' he repeated, sweeping into the taproom. 'And bowels just like water?'

  ‘Yes, sir,' the steward replied, tugging at his forelock and glancing at the landlord.

  This is Dr Mirabilis,' the landlord declared in a hushed voice. 'A physician of London, patronised by the great Cardinal himself. On his way to see relatives in Norwich.'

  Oh Lord. I fought to keep my face straight and stuck my face into my tankard. Quicksilver, of course, acted the part, and old Marlowe would have given his left hand to have seen it. The tavern's best chair was pushed up, and he sat down on it like a king on his throne, looking severely over his spectacles at the steward. 'Pimples and loose bowels,' he repeated. ‘Yes, my lord.'

  Quicksilver pulled a face and clicked his fingers. 'An undoubted case of Rotterus Arsicus,' he declared grandly. ‘Is it c
ontagious?' the steward asked.

  'Don't be stupid!' Quicksilver replied. 'But it's a savage ailment. I have treated it before in Montpellier and Salerno.' 'Is it fatal?' the landlord asked hopefully.

  'How long have the victims been suffering?' Quicksilver demanded gravely. 'About three days. Yes, my lord, this is the third day.'

  'It takes a week,' Quicksilver declared pompously, ‘before the real rottenness sets in and death ensues.'

  The steward nearly dropped his tankard, and had to be helped to a stool. I don't think he was really bothered about the Poppletons, but the prospect of losing his sinecure made him weak at the knees.

  'Oh, good sir,' he gasped, mopping his brow, 'can you help?' 'Of course!'

  'And how much will it cost?' The steward screwed his face up into what he thought was a shrewd look.

  'Cost! Cost! You dare to talk to me about cost? Me, Dr Mirabilis!'

  Quicksilver half rose out of his chair, but the steward threw himself on his knees. 'My lord, come with me, please!' he begged.

  The good physician finally agreed and, without even a glance at me, stepped out of the tavern, the steward trotting ahead of him. I waited till they had gone, then fled the place to laugh myself witless in a ditch. Well, the bait was down, the lure was out. Later that night I stole back and met Quicksilver under the moonlight by the gibbet near the crossroads. The rogue was laughing fit to burst.

  There's no wine left in that cask,' he declared. ‘Even when they were sick they insisted on drinking it. To fortify,' he gravely mimicked the Great Mouth's tone, 'our poor bodies.' 'And you recommended?'

  Quicksilver shrugged. 'I followed your instructions. I gave them no medicine, but told them not to eat or drink anything except sugared water, and that I would return tomorrow evening.' 'And?' I asked hopefully.

  Then I’ll strike. I’ll continue the medication but develop the seeds I sowed today. How Rotterus Arsicus is really a mysterious disease, more the product of the humours of the mind than anything else. They must have done great ill, maligned someone: this has infected the soul, turned the humours morbid, which expresses itself in horrid pustules and looseness of the bowels.' Quicksilver smiled and arranged his cloak, easing the cramp from his limbs as he sat on a stile.