The Gallows Murders (3 page)

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 contagious?' 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.

The gulls will bite,' he said softly. ‘I’ll be well paid. You'll have your revenge and its heigh ho back to London.' He pointed to the skeleton which swung in its iron gibbet from the scaffold. ‘Do you think we'll end up like that, Roger? A pile of musty bones? The plaything of some evening breeze at a lonely crossroads?'

I stared at the scaffold, bathed in the light of a summer moon, and a shiver ran down my spine. It wasn't usual for Quicksilver to be so melancholic. I jumped down from the fence and clapped my companion on the shoulder.

'He wasn't a rogue,' I declared. 'Don't you know your anatomy, Dr Mirabilis? That poor fellow suffered from Rotterus Arsicus and, in a fit of rage, went out and killed someone.'

Quicksilver burst out laughing. I shook his hand and told him that, if all went well, ‘I’d deliver the rest of the coins, and set off back to the manor.

In the end, all did go well. Every night I went back to the White Hart, where Quicksilver loudly reported how the Poppletons were progressing. The steward sat beside him, nodding solemnly, opening his mouth in one glorious hymn of praise for old Quicksilver's skills. So the trap was closed. On Saturday night I could tell from the charlatan's face that all was going as planned: he designed to notice me in the inglenook corner, brought me a cup of claret and raised his own in a toast, his eyes full of devilment.

The next morning, my master and I went down to church for morning Mass. Benjamin was still subdued. Indeed, I had hardly seen him or talked to him. I could tell the insults had rankled deep.

Accordingly, you can imagine my glow of triumph when Vicar Doggerell stood on the altar steps, hands extended, his fat, foolish face wreathed in smiles. He beamed at the Poppletons, now returned to rude health, sitting in one pew, and then at my master.

This week,' the old fool declared, 'the parish has seen a great victory. One of our noblest families snatched from the jaws of death.'

He turned and, clasping his hands, bowed towards where Quicksilver sat beside a pillar. Good Lord, the rogue looked; so saintly, for a few seconds he even deceived me. ;

Vicar Doggerell continued. 'Now this miracle is not only the result of a physician's skill, but also of a deep-thinking woman realising she may have offended, albeit unknowingly, against a fellow Christian. Mistress Poppleton now wishes to make amends.'

Well, up gets the Great Mouth in her dark brown dress and a ridiculous flurry of veils framing her fat, sullen face. She stood at the mouth of the roodscreen looking as if butter wouldn't melt in that horrible mouth.

'Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,' she intoned. There is a dreadful rumour running like a sore through this parish that this good man-' she pointed at Benjamin — 'this county's most excellent teacher, is the subject of unnatural lusts.' Her voice rose. ‘I, Goodwoman Poppleton, declare such rumours to be an arrant lie. Master Daunbey is the jewel of our parish! A benefactor of the poor! His school's one of the great glories of the shire, to which purpose,' she plucked from the sleeve of her voluminous gown a heavy purse, 'I now donate this silver for the education of poor scholars.'

Well, everyone began to clap. Benjamin smiled: his body, taut as a spring, relaxed. He rose from the bench, strode towards Goodwoman Poppleton and there, in full view of all, exchanged the kiss of peace with her. (I jumped up and grabbed the silver.) Mass was then celebrated in a joyous fashion.

Afterwards, everyone gathered round Benjamin, slapping his back and saying what a fine fellow he was. I then made a terrible mistake. Old Quicksilver was for the off. He had carried out his task and, grinning and winking, sidled up to me, hand half-extended. In any other circumstances I would have cursed the idiot roundly, but Benjamin looked so happy that I slipped Quicksilver the purse of coins and turned away. As I did so, I saw the Great Mouth's elder son was glaring daggers at me. Ah well, in for a penny in for a pound is old Shallot. I smiled beatifically back as Quicksilver ran like a hare towards the lych-gate and the safety of London Town. Nonetheless, on reflection, the incident not only saved my life but that of Benjamin. It also helped us thread our way through a bloody maze of murder to unlock one of England's darkest secrets.