CHAPTER 28
"Now I'm sober again," Tom said. "All that lovely ale, wasted. Let's get a drink on the way home."
"Anywhere but the Antelope," Trumpet said. " Mrs. Sprye will banish me forever if she sees I've been brawling again."
"Worse," Tom said. "She'll banish us along with you."
They stopped at an alehouse off Chancery Lane for a quick draft. Ben and Tom availed themselves of the jakes in back, dabbling their hands in the water barrel after. Tom tucked in his shirt, restored one fallen stocking, and was more or less as good as new. Trumpet, too fastidious to use the stinking privy, was once again bedraggled from head to toe. He went on inside and ordered three large mugs of small ale.
"I'm not through with that clay-brained Fleming," Tom said, lifting his mug. "Why does he run from me? Why can't he answer one simple question?"
Ben and Trumpet exchanged weary looks. "I believe he did," Ben said. "Didn't I hear him say, 'My wife' when you asked him about Clara?"
"She's a married woman, Tom." Trumpet slapped him on the shoulder. "Accept it. But she doesn't live with the brute and I'd say she hates him."
"Who doesn't?" Tom grumbled. "Whether she lives with him or not, he's still popping up everywhere I go, getting up my nose. I'd like to have it out with him once and for all, but—" He rubbed his sore hand ruefully. "And it's uncourteous to draw a blade against an unarmed foe. So I'm stuck with the block-headed whoreson."
"Not for long," Ben said. He'd been reading one of the sheets of paper he'd taken from the Fleming's sack, tilting backward to catch the light from the one miniscule window the alehouse boasted. "He'll soon be lodging in the Tower with his movements well restricted." He waved the page at his friends, his dark eyes gleaming. "This is one of the pamphlets Smythson's letter was warning about. Drink up, camerades! We've got to get these to Mr. Bacon without delay."
Tom gulped the rest of his ale.
"Let me see that." Trumpet took the sheet from Ben, reading it as they walked outside.
Tom slid tuppence to the alewife. "A purse with legs," he muttered, hurrying after them. "What's it say?"
Trumpet handed him the page. He tugged at Ben's sleeve. "We can't go that way."
"It's the straightest path." Ben was facing up Chancery.
Trumpet shook his head. "We have to go around. Mrs. Sprye will see us anywhere on High Holborn. Or her servants will, which is the same thing."
Ben growled but gave in. Banishment from the Antelope was a dire fate for any student at the Inns of Court.
"Wait one moment." Tom held up a finger while he stopped to read the pamphlet. Titled Admonition to the Nobility and People of England and Ireland, it seemed to be about crusades and chivalry. Then he realized that was merely a thin veil over a call to support a Spanish invasion to murder Queen Elizabeth and place a Catholic on the throne of England.
Tom was shocked. He was outraged. He shook the page at his friends. "Who would read such villainous tripe!"
Ben shook his head. "Deluded people, people with romantic fantasies about the past."
"People who have been set down or prevented from rising," Trumpet said. "Not everyone is happy with the way things have changed here. My uncle says—"
"Our queen is the greatest monarch in all Christendom." Tom stabbed a finger at Trumpet for emphasis. "The. Greatest. If Mr. Welbeck says different, he's wrong. My father would have him flogged for even thinking otherwise. God's whiskers, I'll flog him myself!"
"Can we at least walk faster if we have to take the long way round?" Ben pleaded. "The Fleming must have been on his way to deliver those pamphlets. If we hurry, we might catch the receiver."
They took the back roads, angling up to pass the western edge of Holborn. The sun sat on the horizon, casting long shadows across the empty farmland. They left the path when it veered north toward the duck pond, cutting straight across the fields. As they passed into the shadow of a large holly, Tom tripped over something thick and soft.
"What the devil?" He stooped to peer beneath the shrub. "Oh, no! Not another one!"
A man lay sprawled full-length under the holly with his arms outstretched as if he had been dragged.
"I don't believe it," Trumpet said. "Why us?"
"It's the Fleming," Ben said. "Look at those shoulders." He bent, took hold of the man's torso, and tugged him over, rolling him out of the shadows so they could see his face. "It's him, all right."
"Oh, horrible!" Trumpet clapped his hands to his face. "Look at his belly. He's been stabbed."
The Fleming's midsection was dark and wet.
Ben smiled grimly. "Well, Tom, it looks as if your angel is a widow after all."