A Murderous Affair Read online

  A MURDEROUS AFFAIR

  Body at Cuckold’s Point

  Jonathan Digby

  © Jonathan Digby 2013

  Jonathan Digby has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  December 16th, 1567 – Mouth of the Mitomba river, Guinea

  The deceitful English have engaged us in war.

  After an uneasy standoff lasting three days, during which time our fleets eyed each other warily across the wide bay, the tension finally snapped. I awoke to the sound of cannon- fire and was on deck just in time to see a large man- of- war bearing down on the Santo Francisco out of the dawn haze. The Chagras and the Mossem Gaspard were both struck in the early skirmishes, and the piercing cries of wounded men were soon intermingling with the sound of the guns. The catalyst for the English attack – a fleet of barracoons from upriver, laden with slaves, which arrived yesterday afternoon. It was too much to hope that the English pirates could resist such bounty.

  I take to my diary now to denounce this enemy with all my heart. I have come to observe that there is no man so villainous as an Englishman, no creature so treacherous. Only days after assurances, not to mention gifts, given to us by these perfidious devils, they blatantly go against their own word. The heathen behaves like a spoilt and flattered child, which, nevertheless, thinks only of its own imaginary neglects and wants.

  The attack was swift and calculated, and unleashed terror across the bay. We were ready for them, of course. Our sailors are as great in number and even more battle- hardened than our contemptible foe, but there is something desperate, jealous even, in the English character, which makes them a formidable enemy. Their aim is to take what we Portuguese have worked hard to forge, and they are determined to grab it by any means, however base. The battle has raged all day but we have held firm. As I write this, my parchment is lit by the bright glow of the fire from one of their ships, which blazes not a quarter of a league away. I feel certain that we shall repel them emphatically tomorrow and secure the trade that is so rightfully ours. May all their ships burn so, and their sailors, in an inferno of hell.

  December 17th, 1567

  Curse the fates that have forsaken us!

  A damned act of foolishness has undone us at the last. We had all but defeated the enemy when one of our ships broke rank to pursue them in retreat – and here I lay the charge of gross negligence against that ship’s captain, Blasius d’Aragon, whose vainglorious behaviour has handed the English a crucial advantage. Even now they are engaging the remainder of the Portuguese fleet with d’Aragon’s ship, the Christavaldes, lost when the imbecile disobeyed orders and was captured. The Christavaldes outguns anything that we, or indeed the English, have in their fleet. But all is not yet lost and I must return to the deck.

  I will now entrust this diary to my son. If anything should happen to me, I hope he will carry my poor record of events back to Lisbon, where the truth can be brought to light. Merciful God hear my prayers, and spare us defeat to this most hated enemy.

  Part 1

  Old London Bridge

  November 1588

  Chapter 1

  ‘In men of base degree may raign the very same vertues that are in Gentlemen.’

  (Castiglioni; The Book of the Courtier)

  Thud, thud …

  London. City of fortune. Where cajouxs and cants are kicked aside to starve in foul ditches, while those more fortunate in birth glide forth on their quest for riches and influence …

  Thud, thud, thud …

  London. City of barrators and broggers – the dark underbelly that each day breaks out of its iniquitous haunts – the gaming inn, the trugging-house, the conyman’s lair – and brazenly roams the streets, facing down the constables, who would rather pitch a guiltless man into the Clink than deal with these fiends …

  Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud …

  London. City of the dispossessed. Burgeoning each day with foreign refugees, landless countrymen and disbanded soldiers. Where a cuttle-bung can cut a throat as quick as a purse, innocence be blackened for the price of a few angels, and a fortune conjured from the Indes or sunk to the bottom of the jewelled sea ...

  Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, thud, THUD!

  London! Where, on a frosty and foreboding day, I found the interweaving threads of my troubled dreams harshly interrupted. Which one of the city’s dark hearts had wended its way to my door?

  Already assaulted by the twin hammerings of excessive liquor, and the churn of the waterwheels some thirty feet below my bed, it took a while for my addled brain to register the knocking as something quite distinct.

  My first conscious thought told me it was wrong side of lunchtime. Through the criss-cross pattern of the mottled glass, I could discern with, admittedly blurry vision, a low sun poised to start its cheerless descent towards evening. The only movements against the muted, marble sky were the effortless swoops of raptors, circling high above the rich pickings of the rancid city.

  Gradually, my fractured senses became aware of an unholy blend of smells hanging in a fug around my bed. Hungary Water, Dutch brandy, tobacco – the remnants of a night of excess – all conjuring vivid, but broken recollections of the previous evening. I tried to push these unwelcome memories aside. With each new bang, I felt fresh sweat pricking on my nauseous brow and a rising tension growing in my empty gut. Suddenly alert to the threat, I threw off the crumpled sheet and reached instinctively for my dagger. Just as my fingers grasped the hilt, the banging on the door ceased.

  Stock still, head swimming, I noticed the cloudy interaction between my breath and the cold draft that was seeping through the gaps in the window’s lead casing. With any luck, whoever it was had decided I’d got lucky and stayed out the previous night. I listened intently for the sound of footsteps carefully negotiating the narrow flight of rickety stairs, of the brief bustle of the street outside and the door banging shut – but there was only a stillness to match my own. It must be someone who knew of my reputation, or lack of it, with the ladies.

  ‘Master Lovat? Rouse yourself, Master Lovat?’ A nasal voice squeaked through the keyhole. ‘It is I, Nesbitt.’

  Nesbitt – chief steward to my aristocratic brother, the perennial ghost at the feast. My shock at the abrupt awakening morphed quickly into a gnawing sense of unease. There was no likelihood that the persistent and dogged Nesbitt would desist, but his visit could only mean some onerous chore for my brother. I tried thinking of an alternative, but my head hurt too much. There was nothing els
e for it – I opened negotiations.

  ‘I’m here Nesbitt, what the hell do you want you great clucking Margery-prater? Keep the noise down, can’t you, for pizzle’s sake.’ This time the silence spoke of reproach at my insult. I sighed, dragged my disconnected body to its feet and began inching my way across cold, creaking floorboards.

  After fumbling with bolts and lock, I opened the door to reveal a skeletal, serious man, with a closely cropped head of thinning, grey hair. He was a good foot taller than me and had a natural stoop, doubly accentuated by the low-slung ceiling of the attic corridor. This and the black cloak he was wrapped up in reminded me of the popular image of La Mort. All he lacked was a scythe.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said, glaring at him with as much hostility as a half-naked, unwashed inebriate could manage. The doleful figure in black appeared unmoved.

  I took a couple of unsteady paces and flung open the window, acutely aware of the lack of fresh air in the cramped space. Another wave of dizziness washed over me, as I looked down at the wooden roof tiles of the house jake, which jutted out over the river. Below that, the swirling waters of the Thames were fighting their way through the narrow arches that supported the bridge. I momentarily contemplated pitching myself in – the dangerous waters looking far more inviting that anything Nesbitt might have in store for me.

  ‘Get dressed, Master Lovat.’ Nesbitt’s tone was terse, insistent.

  I glanced wearily over my shoulder, the resistance draining out of me. Nesbitt was standing in the doorway as if loath to set foot in the room. ‘You realise with all that noise you’ve been making, you’ll have woken Father Thames himself.’

  ‘Father Thames is unlikely to be asleep, nor are most Christian souls at this hour.’

  ‘What hour would that be?’ I said, just about mustering a scornful laugh, knowing that it was hardly likely to be an hour to make me proud.

  ‘The time, de facto, is half past the hour of one.’ There was no disguising the contempt in Nesbitt’s voice. A chime from the nearby bell of St Magnus-the-Martyr neatly emphasised his point. ‘Sir Robert sent me. He requests that you accompany me. Immediately.’

  ‘Requests? Ha!’ I staggered back onto the bed and sat with my sore head propped in my hands, the room swirling around me. ‘But where, Sir Apple-Squire? Can’t you see I’m …’

  ‘There’s a body in the river.’

  A momentary pause, while I searched his inscrutable face for more clues.

  ‘There are always bodies in the river, what does this particular one have to do me?’

  ‘His Lordship is concerned he might know the man.’

  ‘I see.’ I said, though I didn’t. ‘And fishing him out is deemed a suitable task for the bastard brother?’

  Nesbitt ignored this remark, letting my words hang in the frigid air. Instead, he fetched a bowl of water from the corner of the room and dumped it roughly in front of me, water splashing onto my naked feet. ‘You’d better hurry. We’ve the best part of a league’s journey ahead of us. Tempus neminem manet.’

  Defeated, I glared bitterly at a black knot in the floorboards, before reluctantly splashing water onto my face.

  The next ten minutes were farcical. Whilst I stumbled around my lodgings collecting various items of strewn clothing, Nesbitt stooped in the frame of the doorway, studying me contemptuously. Occasionally, he would cast his eyes disdainfully around the room. The man’s puritan views were well known in my brother’s household and, judging by the curdled expression on his cadaverous face, the state of my lodgings suggested that it was dissolute young men like myself who were putting his immortal soul in peril.

  I found myself blearily following his gaze, as though Nesbitt’s disapproving eye was helping me to see the cramped, angular space for the first time. Clothes strewn about the place, half empty glasses and half cleaned plates scattered with no discernible pattern. I had to admit that it was hardly an advertisement for clean living. The lodging, four floors up on London Bridge did, though, merit a couple of strong points. One was the tremendous panoramic view of the wide river and the teeming city along its banks, which always caused maids to gasp with appreciation, but was wasted on Nesbitt. The second was that, due to its claustrophobic nature, I belonged to that tiny minority of Londoners lucky in the privilege of not having to share their bed. Unless I wanted to, of course.

  This latter advantage also meant that, with no one to borrow them, it was a complete mystery as to why I should be missing any of my possessions – chiefly amongst them a pair of new boots. After searching in vain, they failed to materialise. Nesbitt’s impatience reached its limit and he said we should go, regardless. Reluctantly, I pulled on an old pair found under the bed, which had grown stiff with age and sported a number of gaping holes. As an afterthought, I began buckling on my short sword and dagger.

  ‘You won’t need those where we’re going.’

  ‘I’ll take them all the same,’ I said, meeting Nesbitt’s gaze evenly, ‘if it’s alright with you?’

  As soon as we alighted on the narrow street that ran along the bridge, my face was slapped with a width of cold air. Nesbitt didn’t waste time, striding purposefully towards the southern entrance, I following in his wake, fighting with my cloak which was wrapped too tightly and catching the hilts of my weaponry. We hustled and bustled along the narrow, covered street and under the finery of the newly erected Nonesuch House. Here, a boisterous crowd, following the entertainment afforded by a constable whipping an obstinate beggar across the bridge, and, presumably, back to the charity of his Kentish origins, halted us momentarily. We shuffled with the crowd out into the daylight across the Old Drawbridge, as they cheered and jeered the spectacle, their cries mingling with the shouts of ‘Eastward-Ho’ and ‘Westward-Ho’ floating up from the watermen on the river below.

  At Traitor’s Gate, with its silhouettes of beheaded skulls against the bruised sky, my eyes were briefly drawn to a colourful flag hanging directly above the portcullis. It had been taken from one of the Spanish galleons captured during the Armada and placed there so that revellers crossing to the Southwark Fair could either marvel, or simply hurl things, at it. The flag was torn and stained with gunpowder but partly showed the shield and emblem of some proud Spanish captain, who was now most probably residing at the bottom of the English Channel.

  Finally free of the revellers, Nesbitt’s mark became clear as a set of treacherous wooden steps, which dropped to the river. A rowing boat was moored alongside the bank, in which sat two oarsmen, whom I instantly recognised from their blue-and-black livery as belonging to my brother’s household. Also in the boat was a scruffy young boy, who Nesbitt introduced dismissively as Pinchkin, explaining cursorily that the boy’s father had discovered the body.

  Pinchkin was no older than ten, but already had a worldly-weariness about him. A shock of his fair hair stood up, in what I assumed was a permanent state of perplexity at the injustices and iniquities his pimply young face had already witnessed. He was dressed in what amounted to little more than rags, making me wince at the sight of him, and was awkwardly perched at the front of the boat shaking involuntarily with cold. As we stepped aboard, he looked relieved that we had finally returned. I offered him my cloak, which, after a moment’s hesitation, he gratefully accepted, and berated the oarsmen for not doing likewise. Once the men had grudgingly pushed off, Pinchkin turned away from us and stared earnestly into the distance as if willing our destination to arrive as quickly as possible.

  Now that I was committed it seemed a good time to ascertain more details of our journey.

  ‘Where is this body, Nesbitt?’

  ‘Washed up by Rotherhithe marsh.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Some time in the early hours.’

  ‘And this boy’s father found it? What business did he have on the river?’

  ‘The boy claims his father is both a fisherman and a member of the Watch. Which particular activity he was engaged in this morning has not been made explici
t.’ Nesbitt’s tone made it clear that whatever the father was doing, it was unlikely to help the nation achieve a state of Godliness.

  ‘No doubt he was fishing for Papist eels?’ I said flippantly. Nesbitt merely grunted but offered nothing further, so I gave up trying to provoke him into conversation and slumped into a morose silence. The cold seeped through the exposed shoulders of my doublet, and into the holes of my boots. I was already regretting my generosity with the cloak.

  Once we had cleared a long line of merchantmen, chained in the middle of the river, we drifted towards the left bank, passing the silhouetted Tower, and the sprawling tenements of St Katherine’s hospital. The afternoon light was starting to give way to a brooding dusk, which loomed ahead over the distant hills. As the city began to recede from view, we were left with only the company of other boats, plying their trades up and down the banks. Soon we were clear of most of those too and the only sound was the rhythmic clinking and splashing of the oars. The tide was rushing out and we were making good progress – I said as much to Nesbitt

  ‘You can be grateful for that,’ he replied matter of factly. ‘Otherwise I’d have awoken you a good deal earlier.’

  We had been hugging the Middlesex bank as it curved gently northwards, but now the oarsmen began to strike out into the middle of the flux towards the opposite, low-lying shore. The boy suddenly stiffened and, pointing, cried ‘Over there, sirs’.

  I squinted into the distance. There was the shape of what looked like a huddle of men, but what was more arresting was a tall, thin object situated on a spit of land where the river turned southwards. As we pulled nearer, it gradually became clear as a multi-coloured wooden pole, roughly twelve feet high, with a sizeable pair of deer’s antlers fixed at its apex. Other animal bones and skulls were attached up and down its length with ribbons, whose brightly-coloured tails fluttering in the wind were the only things moving in that desolate spot. I glanced at Nesbitt, who had pushed his hood back and was eyeing the spectacle distastefully. The backdrop of the low marshes certainly provided an incongruous setting for this strange feature in the landscape, which had an eerie air of paganism about it.