Crouch saw a group of men and women tumble into the smoky room, dressed in heavy velvets and brocades. They were all masked as though, he mused, every ripe son of a whore in the room wouldn’t know it was the Duke of Buckingham with his cronies and their mistresses. He saw one of the duke’s men pay out the wager, a sizable stack of coins, and Crouch grinned. Tonight’s wagers would make him a handsome profit. This, along with Blood’s pay and his bounty for passing English secrets on to Spain, would see him comfortably through the next few years.
The crowd’s sudden deafening cries signaled the release of the dogs, and he pushed his way forward to the circular pit wall. He could hear the frenzied snarling, and when he had elbowed away the last man blocking his view, he saw the dogs locked muzzle to muzzle, the vicious twisting of their heads spraying blood and saliva over the walls in oozing ribbons. A fine mist spattered the face of one finely dressed woman, her satin bodice stained red, and she screamed in outrage over her ruined dress.
The brute had latched onto Whistler’s ear, ripping it away from her pelt, and she locked her teeth into the back of his neck, worrying it like a rat. He staggered under the attack but managed to twist out from under her, clamping his jaws crushingly onto one of her forelegs. A sound like the breaking of ice was followed by a screaming howl as the bitch tore her leg away, pieces of her hide shredding like braided rope. She staggered, and the brute rammed her onto her back, leaving her belly exposed. He began to flay open the hollow beneath her ribs, her legs scrabbling at the air frantically, but he had left his neck exposed, and Whistler’s fangs found the killing spot at his throat, and until he bled out, she would never let go.
When the brute had finally collapsed, Whistler clinging fast to him like a monstrous tick at his neck, she staggered to her feet, holding her shattered foreleg aloft, her belly bleeding heavily onto the sand and sawdust of the ring. The riotous shouting and whistling swelled, filling the space like a tidal rush, and Crouch acknowledged the approbations and cheers from Buckingham’s corner.
Whistler’s handler cautiously slipped the lead around her head and quickly examined her wounds. Looking up, he shook his head, and Crouch exhaled resignedly.
He heard Brudloe’s voice at his ear. “You can buy a dozen prized bitches now with your winnings.”
Crouch gave the signal to the handler to dispatch her, thinking, were he to have a hundred more dogs, none would be as sporting as Whistler; and, truth be known, he had grown to love the dog and would have retired her soon to breed. To him, it did not bode well that she should die before his taking on a dangerous new venture.
He gathered his earnings into a pouch at his belt and left the ring with Brudloe, Cornwall lumbering after them like a baker’s kiln with legs. They walked out of the gaming house, behind the Royal Exchange, and the three of them stood taking in the damp, cold air, the street a well of silence after the din of the baiting pit. Crouch had a mind to go to a private room at an inn at Aldgate within a few minutes’ walking of Cornhill Road, but Brudloe beckoned him in another direction, saying, “We need quiet; too many eyes and ears. I know a house that will serve.”
He led Crouch south on St. Botolph’s towards the wharves next to London Bridge, his scarred and closely shaven head turning this way and that for signs of alley cutthroats, Cornwall close behind them with his hand on the hilt of a large dagger. At the head of Lyon’s Key, a form slipped out of the shadows, wrapped in a heavy cloak, and approached them on the pier. Crouch tensed, looking for Cornwall to move defensively, but Brudloe placed a hand on his arm, saying, “Be at ease, Samuel. This here is our new partner.”
The hooded figure nodded and Crouch took his hand away from the pistol hidden under his greatcoat. In a loud whisper Brudloe said to Crouch, “He’s titled, is young Master Thornton.” Brudloe snorted unpleasantly and Thornton responded with a tight exhalation of air that could have been laughter.
They followed Brudloe into a shoddily built house perched on the docks, newly built since the fire. The door was opened by an old bawd who signaled them in, and at a large table set with food and drink sat Baker, a placid, cadaver-faced man known widely as an artist in the application of torture. It was said he could make the pope give up the names of his own bastards. For a moment, Crouch paused at the door. He found Baker at all times abhorrent, but of late, it seemed, where there was Brudloe, there, too, was Baker.
Shoving aside a large trencher of meat, Crouch pulled from his coat pockets maps and documents that he spread on the table. The others moved to the opposite side of the table to be seated, and Crouch regarded them silently. Like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, he thought, each with his own talent for destruction. His eyes returned to the youngest man’s face, studying the refined features, certain he had seen him before. He was dressed expensively, much too richly to be a deserter from the army or a common street bravo.
Crouch pulled off his wig, scratching at the thinning halo of rust-colored hair, and pointed to the pile of papers. “Here are the Letters of Transport, signed by the office of Sir Williamson himself. The voyage to New England will take at least three weeks, maybe four. The ship is The Swallow. Captain’s name is Koogin. Our passage is already paid, supplies on board. Do not,” Crouch said, holding up a finger for emphasis, “do not underestimate the discomfort of the passing. March storms are fierce.”
Brudloe sniggered. “The only discomfort for us will be the lack of women. Except for Baker, here, who may make time with the cabin boy.”
Baker smiled benignly, scratching casually at his brow.
Crouch picked up a map out of the pile and turned it around for the four men to better see. He jabbed at the point of entry. “This is Boston Harbor. The captain will see us to a reliable boardinghouse. We will gather food and water and, as soon as we are able, leave Boston for Salem.” His finger traced inland on the map. “We can walk it in a day. In Salem we’ll contact a man named Rogers. Goodman Rogers.”
“Oh, Christ. A Puritan,” Brudloe muttered.
“They’re all Puritans,” Baker said under his breath, fingering through the documents.
Thornton sighed impatiently, saying, “Tell us about this man Morgan.”
Crouch reached for a tankard and filled it with ale from a pitcher. He had it now; he had seen Thornton not once, but several times in the inn at Aldgate. The young rake had watched him more closely than was usual for a fellow reveler. On those occasions Crouch had thought Thornton, with his mincing gestures and embroidered coat, merely a wastrel with unnatural appetites. But now he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t been scrutinized for other reasons. His eyes met Thornton’s, and the man’s lips curled in a knowing way. Crouch’s flesh at the hairline glazed with sweat.
“He was a soldier,” Crouch began.
“Twenty years ago.” Thornton sneered. “He’s an old man now.”
Brudloe poured himself more ale, adding, “And bleeds through the navel like any other man.”
Baker smiled and offered, “One can only hope.”
“He’s a giant.” Cornwall’s voice suddenly erupted into the room. It made a cavernous, almost mournful rumbling, and there was silence afterwards as the four men looked at him in surprise, but nothing more was said. He only hoisted from the platter the largest joint of meat and began to eat.
Crouch placed his hands flat against the table and leaned closer to Brudloe. “Our job is to bring Morgan back alive. That’s what the king wants. Not dead. Alive. He wants the pleasure of killing him himself, and to do it legal, which means publicly sanctioned, he needs a statement given in front of a bonded witness.” He nodded to Baker, who inclined his head graciously in turn, as though at a compliment.
“We’ll do our best,” Brudloe said and held out his hand. “And now, about the pay.”
Crouch reached into another pocket and pulled out a leather sack heavy with coins. “There’s fifty pounds here. Another fifty upon completion…if Morgan is transported alive. That’s twenty pounds total each for the five of us
when he is brought back to London.”
Brudloe exhaled through his teeth and reached for the coins, but another, larger hand was quicker. Cornwall had pushed up from the table, his fist closing over the sack. He tucked it away inside the tentlike folds of his greatcoat and moved slowly to the other side of the table, coming to stand behind Crouch.
“Any last words, Sam?” Brudloe asked, all emotion evaporated from his face. He raised his chin and stared at Crouch in stony silence.
Crouch stiffened, suddenly wary, and looked at each man in turn. He could feel Cornwall behind him, his breath at the back of his head. It came to him then that he was the only one in the room whose first name had been freely used. He knew the others solely by their surnames: Brudloe, Baker, Cornwall, and now Thornton.
His hand crept towards the pistol at his waist and he said, “Only that you’ll not get far without me. I’m telling you, so help me God, the wilderness there will make these alleys look like a maiden’s romp.”
“Traidor,” Thornton said, the Spanish word for “traitor.”
A crushing blow at the back of his head knocked Crouch off the chair, blinding him momentarily. He could feel Cornwall grabbing at the top of his breeches, pulling away the pistol.
Crouch lay on the floor, a searing pain at his temple, understanding fully the unyielding conditions of the new England; the unbearable harshness of the seasons, the strange, brutal obstinacy and unnatural pride of its inhabitants, the daily overarching fear of being ambushed by natives. He looked at Thornton’s fine clothes and snorted bitterly through his nose.
Brudloe’s voice came to him in blanketed waves. “You may well laugh now, Sam, but it’s never wise to be buggered by Spaniards.”
Crouch could see the wavering shapes of Baker’s shoes coming to stand at eye level, and a large leather bag being dropped next to his head.
“But worse,” Brudloe concluded, “is taking Blood’s money while you’re doin’ it. I wonder what all you’ve passed along?”
Baker knelt down next to Crouch and began removing from the bag the instruments of his trade: gleaming prongs, probes, and small boxes studded with nails. He cocked his head at him and asked, almost sympathetically, “Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER 7
MARTHA SAT AND stared at the scarlet leather-bound book in her hands. The last words she had written with an unsteady quill blurred and dissolved into meaningless swirls that threatened to slide off the page. Patience had given her the book days ago to keep the house accounts, thinking to distract her from the terrible palsy that had fallen on her after the wolf attack.
Upon presenting the book, Patience had said in an overly cheerful manner, “Daniel traded an entire load of cod for this book. See how it’s red, red as a cardinal’s cap. It’s rare fine, don’t you think? And look how fast the color holds. It never bleeds, even into a sweated palm.” When Martha had not reached for it, or even acknowledged her cousin’s words, sitting listlessly and staring into the fire, Patience had placed it gently on her lap and tiptoed away.
Martha looked again at the pages and was able to read:
Received today, a letter from Daniel, written by a parson in Malden. He does profitable carting along the coast roads from Boston to Cape Ann. He returns for a visit in May bringing: 3 parcels of English broadcloth, cotton wicks, 1 new ax, leather hides for harnesses, and a young rooster, as the cock now in the barn is getting too old to bother the hens…
Suddenly the effort to pen even a simple account of the house was overwhelming. The last few words she had written, “bother the hens,” rolled repeatedly through her mind like the last of an echo. A remembrance from childhood of swirling feathers discharged by frantic chickens in a small laying shed brought with it another, darker memory of the man whose lurching, desperate actions had created the panic. The man with whom she had once lived, and with whom she had come to believe that God, in his infinite scope, could never be found in a space as small as that inhabited by a terrified child. She watched as splatters of ink dropped from the quill poised over the page. Shaking away the old thoughts, she dipped the quill into the pot again and continued to write: “The talk with the meetinghouse men in Billerica makes much to do with Thomas and his wolves. The gossip with the women is much to do with my town dress.”
The brittle sounds of coins being counted and recounted on the common room table, still strewn with the leavings of supper, cast an edge to the otherwise silent room. Martha could sense them—her cousin, Thomas, John, and even the children—eyeing her in a doubtful, speculative way. It was out of concern for her, she knew, for she’d lain in her bed senseless and feverish for a day following the butchering of the wolves. She had woken at night, thrashing the air with her arms and legs, moaning and shrieking defensively, until Patience took up sleeping in the room with her, bathing her head and neck with cold cloths.
But the scrutiny of the Taylor household was also of a fearful sort, as though her screaming at night signaled some sort of separation from reason or, more darkly, the beginnings of ravings brought on by the infection from the wolf’s fang. She fingered the cut on her lip, which had already begun to heal cleanly without redness or swelling, but she knew it would leave a scar.
She had no fever left, but her hearing, diminished from the blast of the gun, had not fully recovered; and, all through the day, a high ringing inside her head set her nerves to fire and made her restless and curt. She bent her head closer to the page, hiding the next passage with her free hand, and penned quickly, “My dreams are all of dying, shredded joint from socket, and of the One who comes for me in the dark. I thought this remembrance to be tamed.”
She read the words again and frowned. She had not meant to give form to her most intimate thoughts and, for a moment, was poised to scratch the words over with concealing lines. Instead, she quietly placed the book on the table, thinking to later blot out the last passage; or, better still, tear out the page entirely. She looked about to see if her cousin had been watching, but the rattling on the table continued as Patience restacked her piles of ragged shillings. Martha, suddenly irritated by her cousin’s deliberate show of coin, muttered impatiently, “You’ll burnish those coppers to gold before you’re finished.”
Even John, as he sat idly staring into the fire, fingered the coins inside his money pouch possessively, as though he’d wear through the seams to touch the metal. His share of the one hundred and sixty shillings could buy a goat and, if he was shrewd in his bargaining, a new doublet, breeches, and worsted stockings still smelling of salt from the crossing.
Thinking of her own ragged skirt that could not yet be replaced, she picked up a piece of linen she had been mending and gave the cloth an exasperated shake. With a sharp exhalation of breath, she leaned closer to the hearth to capture more of the failing light from the embers. When all eyes turned to her, she realized she had startled every one of them. She put her head down and put her mind to the needle.
Thomas had taken the prime spot on the long bench, nearest the fire, and was rubbing an oil rag over a trap. Through her lashes she studied his sharp profile as he bent over his task, his brows furrowing with concentration, and felt a sudden flare of resentment at his quiet, solemn pridefulness. He never once boasted or swaggered with any of the other men about besting the wolves, turning over to John the pleasure of describing the capture and the kill. But there was a look of satisfaction in his bearing and she envied him his bounty.
He had given no special notice of her presence after carrying her to the house, and yet that morning she had found a new broom propped against her chair, a solid, tightly woven broom to replace the broom she had broken. She had no doubt that Thomas had made it, but he had said not a word to her.
Keeping her eyes on her piecework, she said quietly, “I thank you for the broom.”
She could sense his eyes on her for a moment and then he answered only, “Aye.”
John had begun a teasing play with Will, making growling and snapping noises with his m
outh, pawing the air like a beast, until Will squealed loudly in terrified delight. Martha felt panic, like a taut, vibrating rope, in her chest, and at every shrill, piercing scream from Will, she felt her hold on any moderate reserve slipping away.
“For pity’s sake,” she snapped. “Can’t you leave us in peace?” Boy and man, startled from their play, looked at her in reproachful silence, so equally matched in hurt that had she not felt so weary, she would have laughed.
Following the sudden silence, images of the hens began to plague her again and, to dull her own thoughts, she asked tersely, “And what is it you plan with your share of the bounty?”
Thomas, finally realizing the question was to him, answered solemnly, “It goes, missus, to my house that is to be.”
Martha had asked the question lightly and had expected his answer to be more homely: acquiring a brace of pigs or a breed cow and a gallon of hard cider to be drunk in spartan sips through the long winter’s night. A new, deeper sense of jealousy pricked at her as she remembered his plot of land to be granted by Daniel after one more year of work.
Patience, relieved to see her cousin out of bed and anxious to make peace of the night, offered eagerly, “Martha, now that Daniel is bringing us cloth, I’ll make you a new skirt myself. Then, if there be enough piglets, you can trade them for the making of a cloak as well.” She continued chatting in an idle way about Daniel’s return and the goods he would bring them, all the while petting and rocking Joanna, who had fallen asleep on her diminished lap.
Will, restless and weary of uninteresting talk, began to pull at John’s shirtsleeve and begged, “Tell us a story now. Tell us about when Thomas was t’ soldiering.”