The Bartholomew Fair Murders Read online

  “Officers?”

  “Jack Talbot is dead,” he says.

  Rose stares back wide-eyed, then around the dim interior with its stock of cask and butt.

  He tells her as much of the truth as he thinks fit for the both of them. “It is certain the blame will be laid upon me. I was the last person to see him quick.”

  He tells her then (she being still too stunned by this dreadful news to answer) how Talbot came to the tent. To have a look at the bear, he says, and then began to complain because he had caught sight of them in the booth the night before. He tells her of the wine seller’s slanders. She flinches at the names, for she understands their meaning. She can hardly believe that this is all true, that Jack is dead. Like her mother, her father, never to come again. He must explain it all again, Talbot’s coming, his slanders. About the death he is deliberately vague.

  She stands in the shadowy space that keeps much of the day’s light from the enclosure but little of the street noise. She listens to his story intently.

  “I fear I’m the one they’ll blame, not understanding the man he was. A slanderer, vicious, a tool of the Evil One.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” she asks.

  “I’m sure.”

  “But we can’t stay here. I must go back. Ursula—”

  “You cannot go back. Not yet. I must tell you more.”

  He is tempted to tell her about the vision—the terrible countenance of the dead man. He explains that he must stay

  hidden, ar least for the time being, and that she can do him and God a great service.

  “A service. A service for God?” she asks, wide-eyed, trembling a little.

  “Nothing less than that,” he says.

  “Speak but the word,” she says.

  He bends down and kisses her on the cheeks, still warm and smoky from the roasting fires. He tastes her tears, feels her supple body molded against his own, feels her heart fluttering like a little bird trapped in a hollow tree.

  And Rose can feel against her breast the hardness of steel within Gabriel’s bosom.

  She looks at him in sudden confused alarm, drawing away, her body as taut as the blade physical closeness has revealed.

  Too late he remembers the poniard, strapped in its sheath next to his heart. “Oh, this,” he says casually. “It’s for my protection.” Slowly he removes the weapon and shows it to her. He does not remove the instrument from its long cylindrical case. He handles the weapon gingerly, unfamiliarly, as though he had no skill in its employment. He lays it down in the straw at her feet, a tribute. “Here,” he says softly. “I’ll put it aside if the thing alarms you.”

  He stares long and hard at her white face, gauging her response. She seems nervous and uncertain. He begins to explain that God never forbade the defense of oneself and that there is no evil in a weapon but only in its unlawful use.

  And what is unlawful?

  Why, that which the Lord of Heaven expressly forbids. False witness, adultery, covetousness, disrespect for parents, murder. That which the Lord commands is not unlawful, is not a sin. Hence if a killing were done by divine command, it would be no sin. The conclusion follows as the night the day. Doesn’t it?

  Rose thinks about this, then admits at length that it must be true. What God commands cannot be sin, since sin is disobedience. But she is more persuaded by Gabriel’s voice than his logic.

  He puts to her a case of conscience, using the simplest of terms and propositions, as one might explain a difficult circum-stance to a child. Suppose, Gabriel says, a man were ordered to kill—by God. The victim being no innocent soul but a damned villain or cruel tyrant or sorcerer or any other of Satan’s pro-gency, wicked to the core. Would it not be a righteous act to obey God and kill the evildoer in such a case?

  He must describe these particulars twice before Rose under-stands, but once she understands, the principle is fast in her mind. She agrees that to kill under such circumstances and with such sanction would be no fault. Indeed, to disobey in such a case would be the sin.

  “Even if the damned villain were a seeming friend—as was this wine seller?” he asks, continuing his catechism.

  “Nay, no sin surely.”

  “Or a person of note, a gentleman or a lord?”

  “Nay,” she says. “Even a great one.”

  “Or for that matter, a king or a queen?”

  She nods.

  The lesson continues. Rose listens enraptured, her dark, wide-set eyes large and bright. Only half she understands of what he tells her now, these mysteries of godliness, the privileged information of the Elect. But more than half is enough. She is in love with this young man and is no longer able to distinguish him from the God of whom he speaks with such eloquence and familiarity.

  The lesson ends. Now she understands that Jack Talbot’s death was God’s will. That Gabriel was the instrument of that will she also understands, though Gabriel has only implied it. All this she accepts; she feels no anxiety; she is at peace. And Gabriel too is at peace because he has found an ally in Smithfield, in this Babylon of wickedness, and perhaps too, a disciple.

  But suppertime is drawing on and Rose’s mind turns inevitably to the world outside their hiding place. Surely Ursula has now returned to her booth. And found Rose gone. Surely the

  pig'woman’s rage is now at the full and stirred into a hurricane by the unaccountable absence of her servant. Rose can already feel the blows, not to mention the words that slash like razors, a thousand abusive epithets from one with a genius for calunv nies.

  “The beastly creature will be mourning for her friend and seeing to his burial—too full of grief to worry about you,” Gabriel says to pacify her anxiety.

  But she continues to fret and Gabriel, eager now to know where he stands with the bearwards and the officers, shapes his plan. He will send Rose to the bear garden to pick up any odd scrap of news about the wine seller’s death. She will return to report, avoiding Ursula at all cost. If he is suspected, he will flee, taking Rose with him. If unsuspected, he will invent some plausible excuse to account for his absence, resume his menial duties, and await, as before, the appointed hour.

  All this he conveys to Rose in urgent whispers, repeating each instruction so that she understands perfectly what she is to do and why. Then he prays over her, long and solemnly, invok' ing God’s blessings on the speediness of her legs, the alertness of her ears, the sharpness of her sight—all essential in this dar~ ing enterprise. He kisses her chastely on the cheek after the amen is pronounced, the cheek still warm, still smoky from the cooking fires, and admonishes her one last time to remember whom she serves and in how great a cause, while darkness comes cranking down on Smithfield like an iron portcullis, massive and final.

  • 16 •

  The faces Matthew and Joan sought among so many faces had eluded them during their tedious patrol. Now the gathering darkness made matters worse. A riot of color in the sun, Bar-tholomew Fair took on a more fantastic and sinister aspect mv der the mantle of night. Torches and lanterns provided the sole illumination for the shadowy streets, yet the narrow passages were as jammed as ever and the rowdiness of the crowd in-creased as darkness conferred anonymity on them all. Roisterers and bullies became more threatening, shouting insults and chab lenges at strangers, all for the pleasure of a casual brawl. Whores became more insolent, the drunks drunker, pickpockets more daring.

  But despite these things, Matthew and Joan continued their search. Up and down the streets they went until their cobbles and signs, doorways and windows were as familiar to them as those of Chelmsford’s own High Street. It seemed to Joan that the pair of fugitives must surely have disappeared from the face of the earth.

  “This is useless, Matthew,” Joan said at length, footweary and with a growing sense of the futility of it all. “Surely Stubbs has fled the city—and taken Rose Dibble with him.”

  “Or he’s killed her, like the others,” answered Matthew gloomily.

  But this unpleasan
t thought had crossed Joan’s mind even as she spoke of their flight. She feared it was true, but her mind recoiled at the image of another brutalized body, especially the girl’s. For although Joan had never spoken to Rose Dibble, she had a feeling of protectiveness for her that sprang from Joan’s own motherhood and nurturing instincts. Even if Rose were

  still alive—and God keep the girl if she was—she was in great danger. Stubbs was clearly mad, and madness knew no re* straints. Anyone coming in contact with the seemingly pleasant young man might be deceived by his charm, then victimized after. Joan shuddered at the thought.

  They had stopped awhile in their search; now Matthew suggested they move on. He was not ready to give up yet. He said he thought Stubbs might still be at the fair since it was unlikely the young Puritan would leave behind him his few personal possessions, especially the visionary pamphlet with its incriminating annotations and drawings.

  This brought to Joan’s mind Esmera’s prophecy, and she took the opportunity to tell Matthew all that had transpired that morning and how the wise woman’s words had been verified by the wine seller’s death. Matthew listened attentively as they walked, but when she had concluded and a long silence had mediated between them, she was forced to ask him outright what he thought now, now that proof was before him like a fallen tree on the road of his cynicism.

  “She was lucky,” he said simply, not taking his eyes off of the booths, the strange faces, the night sky barren of stars and, as yet, moon.

  “Lucky! A most marvelous luck indeed to have guessed with such accuracy. Why, see, husband, she described the dead man.”

  “Only in general terms,” he reminded her. “She never saw his face.”

  “But the knife! The knife! She described it. And she warned us against prolonging our stay here, which means the death she perceived in her vision was somehow connected to us, and so Jack Talbot’s death was, for Stubbs had also murdered the puppet master near our very town.”

  “I admit that touching upon that matter, the woman spoke truly,” he said.

  “Fiddlesticks! Spoke truly!” She sighed with disgust.

  Her husband moved on; Joan hurried to keep up. How obsti-

  nate he was! How impervious to reason! How he rankled her with his masculine hardheadedness! Why was he being so difficult when the evidence was so plain? Esmera was no fraud, but a genuine seer, endowed with marvelous capacity. “She warned us of danger to ourselves, Matthew!”

  “And that’s another thing,” he said, stopping and turning to face her at last. “She was most insistent on that point, the danger to us rather than to the others.”

  “She was indeed,” Joan admitted, failing to catch his drift.

  “Suspiciously so.”

  Then she wanted to know what he meant by so prolonging that word suspiciously, as though the word had twice its syllables and each must be savored in discourse. Or did he simply mean to tantalize her by suggesting he knew something that she did not? With her husband in this cranky humor that too was possi-ble.

  “We’ve not been harmed, you and I—that’s a fact. Now tell me, then, if this woman came to you with such a warning for your safety and mine, why did she not tell the wine seller about his danger, for since he’s dead he was obviously more in need of her wisdom than we? The poor fellow died with nary a word from her, a word that might have saved his life.”

  But Joan was ready for this argument too. “As far as we know she might have warned him and he failed to heed her and so he died when he might have saved himself.” She said this pointedly and waited for her husband’s response.

  “The greengrocer Pullyver was at her tent, wasn’t he? You said you saw him in his new doublet, coming out of the tent where he had had conference with the woman. Esmera should have warned him, since he was as near to the dead man as you or I. But only you were warned. Why, I’d like to know? It’s as though you were culled out like a ripe plum from a limb full of many fruit. I swear it, Joan, this Esmera of yours is up to something. Mark my words.”

  Now it was Joan’s turn to walk ahead. She was weary of quarreling with her husband. She pretended to be wholly preoccupied with the passing scene, the faces that—shadowy and distorted in the weak, uncertain torchlight—were like mum' mers’ masks. Matthew followed, but neither talked of Esmera again. The unresolved dispute hung heavy on them both.

  Then she heard herself and Matthevv hailed from somewhere ahead and presently she could distinguish the rest of the search party, who, earlier having been sent abroad in pairs, had now reassembled and bore the look of weariness and defeat on their faces.

  Grotwell motioned the Stocks to join the group, which then turned into a quiet alley.

  “Well, what luck, Mr. Stock?” asked Grotwell, somewhat perfunctorily, for it was obvious that the Stocks had also failed to find Stubbs.

  “None,” answered Matthew.

  “I once saw a fellow that might have been he,” Chapman offered. The tall, gangling scrivener was clearly excited by his noctural adventure and seemed anxious to have the approval of the others.

  “A thousand or more could have been he, but weren’t,” re-marked Francis Crisp dryly.

  “Nay, ten thousand,” Pullyver added.

  After this response, Chapman looked abashed and said nothing. Then there was some talk about what was to be done next and whether the pursuit of the bearward’s helper was worth the while since all of Smithfield had been searched thrice over and the hour of curfew was at hand. It was agreed by all present that the little band of hardy searchers had done its best, under the circumstances, and Grotwell suggested they should all make for home since his own watch was done and his relief soon to appear. They were in the midst of leave-taking when they heard Ursula’s voice. She was coming down the lane toward them, dragging Rose Dibble behind her. The girl’s swollen eyes and bleeding lip gave evidence that the pig-woman had already commenced to exact her promised vengeance, contrary to the Justice’s command.

  “Here, my masters, is the slender baggage you seek, she that is so great with the murderer of Jack Talbot,” Ursula declared. “Here is the lice-ridden blackbird, this deal of lies and infamies, this pinch-boned, addlepated whorelet.”

  Grotwell interrupted Ursula’s litany of abuse to demand when and where the girl had been discovered and whether Stubbs had been with her. He did not seem to care that Rose had been beaten or that Ursula had defied the Justice’s orders.

  “I found her in the street, like a common drab,” Ursula said. “No, Stubbs weren’t with her. If he was, I would have dragged the miserable wretch by his privy member, yes, and wrapped it around his neck and hanged him with it. ‘Where’s the scum?’ I shouted at her ear. ‘Tell me or it’s your present death!’ But she wouldn’t talk, though I threatened, yes, and beat upon her too, as you can plainly see. With my pig pan I threatened her. ‘You’ll talk now, young strumpet,’ says I, and dragged her around until I found you here everyone.”

  “Won’t talk, will she?” said Grotwell. “I’ll make her talk.” “All she’ll say is that he’s innocent, this Stubbs fellow. Fancy that, sirs. Innocent!” Ursula spat the word as though it fouled her mouth. “All she babbles is nonsense.”

  “What sort of nonsense?” Matthew asked, looking at the silent, quaking girl.

  “Why, such nonsense as the boy was not to blame for what was done, that it was God’s will that the wine seller die, and that he, meaning this wretch Stubbs, was no more guilty of the death than she, but is as innocent as a lamb. Innocent as a lamb, my royal arse!” Ursula exclaimed with a dry, throaty laugh and a rapture of sarcasm. “Which is to say no less than the both of them are as guilty as hell. Oh, I tell you, sirs, she knows where the young puke lurks.”

  “This young man of yours has killed Jack Talbot,” Grotwell said accusingly. “Stabbed him dead as a doornail. And before that he murdered Simon Plover, late of the parish and former helper to Mr. Babcock here, and before that another poor fellow named Fitzhenry.”

  �
��Fitzhugh,” corrected Matthew.

  “Fitzhugh, then,” said Grotwell. “He’s dead, whatever his name may be. All in cold blood, the three of them. Now, what do you say about that, mistress fishface? Will you tell us where Stubbs is? By God, if you don’t—”

  Here Joan intervened, to Grotwell’s great displeasure, to pro-test his abuse of a girl whose complicity in the murders as far as she was concerned was far from being proved. “If you speak less threateningly to her,” Joan suggested calmly but firmly, “we may find out something and get home to bed this night after all.”

  “Very well, Mrs. Stock,” Grotwell conceded. “Maybe I should allow you to question her.”

  “May I ask her a question or two?” asked Matthew, inserting himself between the sergeant and Joan. Grotwell said that he might, but complained that it was shameful how the law must be hamstrung by the meddling of those who were not even citizens of the town, no matter what friends these same persons might have in high places.

  Matthew ignored the sergeant’s scurrilous tone and asked Rose how she was so sure Gabriel Stubbs was innocent. He said he agreed with the sergeant that the evidence was plain, and Grotwell showed the frightened girl the very warrant for Stubbs’s arrest that Justice Baynard had signed within the hour.

  But the sight of the document had no effect on Rose, who could not read a word. She did endeavor to answer Matthew’s questions, but with great difficulty, for she was obviously terrified by the men around her. “He told me he was innocent} ” she said. Whereupon the men laughed outright and Ursula fell into another tirade of abuse.

  But Joan did not laugh and neither did Matthew. Joan’s heart ached for pity—pity for the swollen, bloody lip and bruised eye that marred the otherwise lovely face.

  “He told you?” asked Grotwell with a sneer. “Well, now, gentles, doesn’t that prove she knows where Stubbs is hiding? Damn the villain’s innocence or guilt. We want to know where