Part 14 (1/2)

'Was there not a murder on Russell Street last night?' Howard asked. 'Some old bore was talking of it at White's . . .'

'Joseph Burden. Carpenter. He lived next door.'

Howard gave a jolt of surprise, then began to laugh, clapping a hand to his knee. 'Joseph Burden . . .' he chuckled. 'Haven't heard that name for a while. Now there was a vicious, G.o.dless rogue. He'll be roasting in h.e.l.l tonight, on my word.'

Kitty stared at him. 'G.o.dless?'

'He was a brothel bully when I knew him,' Howard said. 'Bawdy house off Seven Dials. Twenty years back, now . . . Blackest, meanest place in the city. Not for simpering boys, you understand. Rooms for every vice.' His eyes glinted. 'Whipping. p.i.s.sing. Dogs if you fancied.' He laughed and the rest of the company laughed with him. 'Burden was paid to stop the worst of it. If a man took a knife to a girl, or beat her too hard. But he had debts. One could always pay him to look the other way.' He laughed again. 'My G.o.d. The things Joseph Burden didn't see . . .'

Fresh cheering brought our attention back to the ring. Someone had entered the pit in a state of near undress. 'Neala!' Kitty gasped. I leaned forward. My G.o.d, so it was the Irish girl we'd met outside. She had removed her long riding cloak to reveal a tightly laced bodice and a short petticoat of white linen, her solid legs bare. She was holding a two-handed sword, the blade a good three inches broad. She raised it high, drawing another roar from the crowd. A second girl joined her in the ring dressed in the same uniform, though she wore red ribbons on her sleeve where Neala wore blue. Her blonde hair was tightly plaited close to her head, to keep it from her eyes.

'A guinea on the blue,' Howard ordered, pus.h.i.+ng me towards the pit. 'First to draw blood.'

'And a pie!' Kitty called after me.

I found a man near the front of the tumult willing to take my bet the same waterman who had traded insults with Kitty. Neala was striding about the ring, calling out the many fights she had won. She spoke of her eight brothers back in Ennistymon, who'd taught her how to use a sword like a warrior. I was near enough to catch her eye as she pa.s.sed. She gave a curt nod before turning to shake her opponent's hand.

I had never seen a female gladiatorial battle before. I'd heard of them being used to entertain the crowds before the men came out to fight a little sport with no real danger. This was different. The point of Neala's sword was blunt, but the edge was sharp as a razor. I tapped the waterman's shoulder. 'How many rounds?'

He shrugged. 'They're fighting for coin. Depends how desperate they are.'

Neala was down on one knee, praying with her head bowed. As she rose she crossed herself, then bounced on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet.

'Papish b.i.t.c.h,' someone muttered beside me.

I suppressed a frown. My mother had been raised in the Catholic faith. I bet him a crown the b.i.t.c.h would win. Touched the gold crucifix hidden beneath my s.h.i.+rt for luck.

The fighters circled one another slowly as the men shouted encouragement. They both held daggers in their left hand to ward off blows, keeping the swords away from their bodies. The English girl was taller than Neala and moved fast. She was the first to attack, her sword cras.h.i.+ng down hard enough to ring out through the tavern. Neala bowed her legs beneath the blow and sprang back.

It was a hard, brutal fight, and the packed room was hot as the centre of h.e.l.l. The girls were soon drenched in sweat, their skin glistening and their white petticoats clinging to their thighs. As I glanced over the seething crowd of men, I understood why Kitty had been so unwelcome tonight. It was not just a l.u.s.t for blood that had them baying at the girls. Several spectators had shoved a furtive hand in their breeches.

I leaned over to the waterman, pointed to a gang of apprentices across the ring rubbing themselves with vigour. 'Side bet on who spends first?'

The waterman snorted. 'Young puppies. They'll be spent before I'm done speak-' He stopped. Pulled a face. 'Told you.'

Howard squeezed in next to me and put an arm around my shoulder. 'Some sport, eh?'

I had to admit it was a great spectacle. The other girl was a pretty creature and knew how to play to her audience, flas.h.i.+ng them smiles as she hacked hard and fast with her blade. With a quick dart she sliced open Neala's arm, blood spurting from the wound. First blood to England. The crowd cheered. Howard had lost his bet.

'Bad luck,' I said, but he didn't seem to care. But then, it wasn't his guinea.

He leaned closer and pointed at Neala's blood, spattered on to the sawdust. 'Nothing better, eh, Hawkins?'

A hundred thousand things.

'I'd like to see your scarlet wh.o.r.e in the ring. She's a wild s.l.u.t, no doubt. How d'you keep her to heel?' I shook my head, not able to trust my tongue. He laughed. 'You're not sick for her, are you? d.a.m.ned fool.' He pushed back into the crowds to talk with the landlord.

There was a pause as Neala's wound was st.i.tched and a bandage applied. She took a large gla.s.s of spirits to steady her nerves and returned to the ring, blade high.

'Game girl,' the waterman said at my side.

The fight continued. After half an hour Neala had suffered another cut across her chest and was bleeding heavily, but her opponent was staggering with exhaustion now, barely able to raise her sword to protect herself. Neala could have moved in ten minutes before and chanced an attack, but she took her time, prodding and thrusting and falling back until the crowd grew restless.

'Finish her off for f.u.c.k's sake!'

'Use your blade, d.a.m.n it!'

She ignored them, parrying a final, weak attack. Her opponent crashed to the floor and dropped her sword, hands raised in defeat as Neala approached. Neala threw her fist in the air and grinned as the few of us who had bet on her to win shouted our approval. Hah! I was up one crown! And down a guinea, but there was no need to think of that.

The loser was now walking through the crowds selling herself for the night to the highest bidder. No one seemed interested in buying Neala and she did not seem interested in selling, either. She took her winnings from the fight and crossed the ring to greet me. I congratulated her and invited her to join us for supper. Her eyes flickered up to Howard's bench where he was seated again, talking with Kitty. A guarded look crossed Neala's face. 'That's your woman up there? I would take better care of her, if I were you.'

I watched with a sinking heart as Howard laughed and smiled, the mask back in place. Neala was right to scold me but I could not send Kitty home on her own. The dark streets were just as dangerous as Howard and at least I could keep my eye upon him. I sighed to myself. So much for my pretty dream of my first full night with Kitty. So much for a blazing fire, a warm bed, and the finest wine I could afford. I bought her a wretched-looking pie and returned to the bench. The first pair of c.o.c.ks were out in the ring now, parading in their silver spurs once more as the landlord called out their pedigrees. Kitty broke off her conversation with Howard to take the pie.

'We should bet on that one, on the left,' she said, taking a huge bite. 'Saw his grandfather fight like a f.u.c.king demon in Clerkenwell.' She nudged her shoulder against mine. 'Is this not fun, Tom? We should come here every week.'

I knocked back some claret, grimacing as the fight began and the c.o.c.ks tore at each other. The truth was, I hated c.o.c.kfighting. I know I am alone with the Quakers, but I can't bear to watch two innocent animals ripping each other apart for sport. It's a shame, as there is good money to be made if one knows the birds' pedigrees and fighting history but I cannot help my squeamish nature. I tried to explain this to Kitty as her favourite gouged a wide hole in its rival's neck then stood on its lifeless body, crowing in triumph.

She wiped the grease from her fingers. 'You wish me to feel pity for a chicken?' She kissed my cheek. 'Dear Tom.'

The night drew on and Howard grew restless. He had won a few bets in the first matches, but was now down almost three pounds all of it borrowed from the pockets of the young sot under the bench, who had barely stirred all evening. I asked the most sober companion left standing who the boy was a n.o.bleman, I thought, judging from his clothes.

'That he is, Hawkins,' Howard interrupted. He dragged the boy to a seated position, leaning him against the bench. The boy's head rolled back. 'He's my son. Henry wake up, d.a.m.n you.'

Henry Howard. Henrietta's son her only child. I stared at the young rake sprawled in a drunken heap, a sloppy string of drool sliding down his chin. Then thought of his mother, gracious and composed, her face cool and still as a portrait. And yet the resemblance was there, beneath the debauchery. He shared Henrietta's high forehead and clear complexion, and the contours of his face were remarkably similar. I saw little of Howard in him, save for the drunkenness, of course.

Henry hiccoughed, then spewed a thin stream of vomit at our feet.

'Gah . . .' Howard cursed. At his signal, one of the chairmen threw the boy over his shoulder, pus.h.i.+ng his way through the crowds. Hopefully the fresh air would revive him. 'Can't take his liquor,' Howard scowled after them both. 'It's his mother's fault, d.a.m.n her.'

I smiled, playing my part. I couldn't risk the night ending here, although I wanted it to with all my heart. Howard could tell a good story at the start of an evening, before the liquor scoured away the thin veneer of charm. There were old war stories, and wicked court scandals from his years attending the old king. He had lived a free, rakish life, and there must have been a time, long ago, when he had been entertaining company. But now he was an old, ruined man, on the turn like spoiled milk, sour and sickening.

Worst of all was his hatred of his wife, a poison running through his veins. He had spent much of the night regaling me with sordid tales of his marriage, before Henrietta had found sanctuary at court. I sensed that he told these stories often, to anyone who might listen. He took the part of the villain with a strange sort of glee, as if his life's great purpose had been to torture and degrade his wife in every conceivable fas.h.i.+on. He'd squandered her inheritance, roaming the town while she starved in filthy lodgings. And when he did come home, he brought back wh.o.r.es to torment her, f.u.c.king them in front of her.

'One son, that's all she gave me,' he sneered, as Henry was carried lifeless through the tavern. 'What use is a wife if she can't keep a baby in her belly?'

Somehow, I kept my composure. How would it serve Henrietta if I punched Howard, or stormed away in disgust? I must find something useful to bring back to the queen. 'You are separated now, I believe?'

'Not in law,' he snapped. 'She is still mine and always will be. She can hide in her rooms, but I'm still here, in her head.' He tapped his temple with his fingers. 'For ever.' And then he started upon another loathsome story, of some small rebellion punished with a savage beating. How it had left her deaf in one ear and why that was not his fault. How she should thank him now, as it spared her from listening to the king's tedious conversation.

It was not the first time I'd heard a man speak of beating his wife of course, nor would it be the last. Take a walk through the Garden and there are plenty of women with black eyes and split lips. But Howard spoke of it with a boastful pride I had never heard before, as if it were his duty and his pleasure.

It made me all the more determined to find something to stop him, for Henrietta's sake as well as my own. But what could I tell the queen that she did not already know? The gambling, the drinking, the whoring, the debts, the violence, the cruelty. What news could ever be enough, given Howard's position? Ned Weaver resented me because I was the son of a gentleman, and so favoured by the law. Charles Howard was a n.o.bleman. If his brother died without an heir, he would become Earl of Suffolk . . .

. . .Unless someone ran him through with a blade first. I confess, the thought did cross my mind. One quick stab in the back, in some dark alleyway. If I were a different man, how easily I could resolve the matter. If I were Samuel Fleet, in fact the man the queen expected me to replace.

'You hold your drink well,' Howard said, slapping my back.