Murder by Misrule: A Francis Bacon Mystery (The Francis Bacon Mystery Series Book 1) (16 page)

Ben shook his head, bemused. "It seems too simple."

Bacon answered crisply, "Simplicity is often the sign of truth."

CHAPTER 23

"Now, we find Clara." Tom and the lads stood in the courtyard the next morning, debating how to spend the day. Their first really free day, with full permission from their tutor. Fitful gusts of wind kicked leaves across the gravel and the sky was flat and gray. Tom didn't care if the father of all tempests was rising in the east. He was determined to find his angel at last.

"We don't need her anymore," Stephen said. He wanted to go shopping for princely accoutrements. "The Smythson matter is finished." His chin jutted forward, but with less conviction than formerly. He was beginning to notice that Tom was no longer catering to his moods, but he wasn't nimble enough to change course in a matter of days.

"All the better," Tom said. "Now we don't have to upset her with questions. I just want to tell her that I love her and lay my heart at her feet. Then we'll go get your cursed crown."

Ben and Trumpet stood to one side, chatting about which of the ancients would replace Shiveley as Reader. They'd grown visibly weary of the friction between Tom and Stephen. Tom couldn't blame them; he was tired of it himself. It wouldn't go on for much longer. Law studies were hard and dry as old bones. Stephen would get bored by mid-January and move on.

They strode down High Holborn, passing through the Newgate arch. As they passed an apothecary shop, they inhaled the invigorating aromas of pepper and cloves, breathing deeply to fill their noses and ward off the general stink of the streets.

Ben said, "I should pop in while we're here to buy a physic for Mr. Bacon. He likes poppy juice steeped in wine as a remedy for strain. He's been dreadfully overworked lately, what with the masque and the Smythson matter."

"Later," Tom said, not slowing his pace for a second. When had Ben become Bacon's personal physician?

They passed a coppersmith's with a display of brass jewelry on the shutter. "That's perfect!" Stephen cried, nearly tripping over a pig. "Tom, it will only take—"

"No!" Tom stopped and rounded on his friends. "No delays. No distractions. I've waited weeks, letting you put me off and pull me this way and that. Today we find Clara. Everything else can wait."

He turned on his heel, slipping on a slew of cabbage leaves but retaining his inner dignity. The lads followed him with a minimum of insulting retorts.

They passed the Draper's Guildhall. The Dutch Church could not be far. But here they picked up a tail of small apprentices with time on their hands and no minders. They followed Tom and the lads, lagging a few yards behind, kicking bits of garbage from the kennels in their general direction.

Tom was not best pleased to have an entourage of gleeking tots in blue livery. He turned and growled at them. They giggled and scattered but soon returned. Then Tom saw that Trumpet was trading scowls with them and showing them his fists.

He laid a hand on the boy's slender shoulder. "Cease and desist, Mr. Trumpington. No brawling today. We're going to find Clara and we're going to look tidy when we do."

They reached the old Austin Friars church. Tom felt his heart quicken in his breast and somewhere in the back of his mind an angelic choir sang
Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara
. He heard Ben say, as if from a great distance, "I believe this was once an Augustinian priory."

The church was small but beautiful, built of yellow brick, with a tall, narrow, stained-glass window. A potbellied man with a square blond beard leaned against a bulwark near the entrance, watching a boy polish the railings. As the lads came into view, his gaze shifted to them, taking in their students' robes. He flicked a sharp glare at the apprentices behind them, who disappeared down an alley.

He sighed in relief. One source of trouble dispersed. He truly needed to have a word with Trumpet about his belligerence. Fighting had its place; when necessary, a man did what he must. But the boy ought not to become one of those irksome short men who try to prove their manhood by an excess of aggression.

The churchman's expression brightened as the lads approached. "
Guten morgen
, young gentlemen. Vat may I do for you? Vud you care for a tour of our church?"

"Not today, Sexton," Tom said. The churchman's expression melted so dramatically that he hastened to add, "But it is a beautiful church and we would gladly see it on another day."

The churchman smiled broadly. He had large yellow teeth with large black holes between them.

"We're looking for someone who might be a member of your congregation."

"I am sexton here now fifteen years. I know everyone who lives in this parish. Their wives and their children and their aunts and uncles too."

Tom gave him his friendliest smile. "We knew the instant we saw you that you were the one man who could help us." His friends stood beside him and nodded.

The sexton puffed out his chest. "How may I serve you young gentlemen?"

Tom said, "We're looking for a Fleming named Clara Goossens. She's a limner."

The sexton nodded. "Limner Clara Goossens, yah. Very pretty, but och, that accent!" He made a sour face. "Still, Flemings are clean enough. She is regular in her Sunday attendance also. Quiet. She does not come around so much on any other day, but then she has her trade,
nicht vahr
? No sitting in church all week around doing nothing. Not like some." He shot a dark scowl at the door as if the church was crowded with noisy loiterers at that very moment.

Tom frowned at the church door too. "Clara
Goh-zenz
," he said, trying to imitate the sexton's pronunciation precisely. The name felt round and rich in his mouth, like honeyed cream.

"Ja, that's good," the sexton said. "The Widow Goossens, I call her. But now it seems she might be or she might not be."

Tom cocked his head. "How is that, Sexton?"

The sexton cast a quick glance at his boy, who had stopped polishing to listen. He wagged his finger at him and the boy moved on to another stretch of railings with his rag. The sexton licked his lips, as if ready for a juicy snack, and leaned toward Tom.

"Only this morning! Here I am, same as always, after the morning service. Well, the porch needs sweeping,
nicht wahr
? The boy does nothing without me to watch him. And so here I am, same as always, and along comes a big square
kerl
, like a block of limestone on two legs. Well, up he comes to me and he says, 'This is the Dutch Church, is that not so?' Of course I knew at once he was a Fleming by the way he talked. And I say, 'Yes, it is, but you are late; the service is over.' I would tell him when to come back, but he cuts me off, so rude, and says, 'I do not come for preaching. I search a limner named Clara. I know not what surname she might be using.'" The sexton poked Tom in the chest and said, "Haw! What do you think of that?"

Tom was not amused. "Who was he?"

"Och, that is the most funny part!" The sexton threw his head back and laughed in loud caws: "Haw! Haw! Haw!"

Tom wanted to grab the gabbling old goat by the shoulders and shake him.

The sexton went on with his tale. "I say, 'What are you wanting with our Clara?' So then this great block of a man, he says to me, 'I am her husband, me.' Well, a man ought to know his own wife's name,
nicht vahr
? Haw! Haw! Haw!"

A husband! That meant that Clara was a wife, not a widow. Tom's heart sank. Widows were the best: experienced, mature, wise in the arts of love. They didn't require cajolery and flattery and tickles under the ear just to show a bit of ankle. Wives, on the other hand, were bad news. He'd never heard any good endings to amorous adventures involving wives. Then his thoughts caught up with the sexton's words. Why
wouldn't
the man know his wife's surname?

The sexton was watching him with a glint in his eye. He knew full well what effect his news was having.

"What did you say to him?" Tom asked, resigned to playing the old man's game. He'd come to find Clara. He'd take whatever he learned and bear it like a man.

"I said, 'Her late husband, you mean.' Haw! Haw! Because she told us she was a widow."

"Well, is she a widow or isn't she?" Tom stretched a smile across his lips in an effort to keep his temper.

The sexton grinned and nodded as if Tom had finally gotten the joke. Then something caught his eye behind the lads. "Maybe you should ask him!" He pointed across the street.

Tom turned and saw a big man coming out of a shop carrying a small cask on one shoulder and a large, square-bottomed sack slung over the other. He strode down the center of the street, forcing people to jump out of his way.

"No, she will never like so much wine," the sexton said, shaking his head. "The Widow Goossens never takes more than a thimbleful of the very smallest ale. A nice piece of mutton or a fat fish, that is a better present for her."

"Is he going to her house now?" Tom asked.

"Why not, if he is her husband?"

"So you told him where she lives," Tom persisted.

The sexton shrugged. "Why not? Is it a secret?"

Tom clenched his fists and then forced himself to unclench them.

"Won't you please tell us also, Uncle?" Ben asked.

"Why not?" The sexton eyed Tom's twitchy hands and cackled. "She lodges with the surgeon, Elizabeth Moulthorne. All women in that house. All Flemings!" He pointed down the street with his chin. "On Oat Lane. Down Austin Friars, on around past the Guildhall. Then on a bit more, turn right before St. Anne's. You'll see the surgeon's sign."

"Let's just follow that knave," Trumpet said.

The lads set off at a brisk pace. Or as brisk as they could manage in the crowded district. At this time of day, the city was clogged with traffic. People on horses, donkeys with wagons, men wheeling carts. All manner of folk carrying all manner of baskets and sacks, on their hips and shoulders and backs and heads. Dogs and pigs and small children ran through the crowds at knee level.

"A widow," Trumpet said, ducking under a sheaf of poles being carried by two men in stained tunics. He bounded up to Tom's side.             

"A wife," Stephen said. "You're wasting your time.
And
ours."

Tom shot him a quelling glance. Stephen shrugged, not caring.

"Maybe the blocky man was lying about being her husband," Trumpet said.

"Seems an odd thing to lie about," Ben said. He twisted to walk sideways for a few steps, slipping between a pair of unbudgeable gossips.

"I'd like a better look at him, at least," Tom said. He jumped up to see over the tops of people's heads. "He's just ahead of us! Look there!"

He pointed, picking up his pace. He dodged around a donkey whose panniers were being unloaded through the front window of a grocer's. He closed the gap between him and the blocky man, who was easy enough to follow: slightly shorter than Ben and nearly twice as wide. One arm supported the cask of wine on his broad shoulder, displaying a beefy bicep.

Tom longed to challenge him, but this was no squirrely apprentice. This was a grown man, hardened by labor. He wished he'd worn his rapier, but it was liable to attract a constable. Students at the Inns of Court were forbidden to wear swords with their robes and all the authorities knew it. Still, he had his friends. Trumpet could thrash the man about the knees while he and Ben took turns avoiding his fists. Stephen, presumably, would not trouble himself to help.

The thought made him angry and that gave him courage. He jogged closer, shouting, "Hoi! You there! Goossens!"

The name made the man stop and turn around. He met Tom's smile with a hostile glare. Tom held up a hand. "A word, and it please you."

The man's gaze flicked up and down, taking in Tom's rich clothing and sleeveless black robes. He hesitated for a moment and then snarled, baring his teeth and thrusting his square head forward. Tom quailed, stepping backward onto Ben's foot. The man's eyes zipped to Ben then back to Tom. He grunted, turned, and dashed down a side street.

Tom ran after him. A cart trundled out of an archway and spanned the whole street. By the time it had passed, the man had disappeared.

Tom trotted back to his friends. "I lost him."

"Never mind," Ben said. "He didn't look like the talkative sort."

Trumpet nodded. "He looked like the pounding-you-into-dust sort."

"It's Clara we want," Ben said. "She's the only one who can answer your questions."

Tom couldn't argue with that. Although, the joyous anticipation of the day's beginning had evaporated like wine spilt on a hot stone, leaving only a wish and a pungent scent.

***

Oat Lane was so short it barely qualified as a street. The hall of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers occupied most of one side. The other was lined with a row of houses. A sign with a bowl full of blood painted on it hung over one door. The bowl was bright copper; the blood vivid red. Tom wondered if Clara had painted it. The house it marked was tall and narrow: four stories high and one room wide. Its unsteady shape was supported on either side by squatter buildings. Each floor had windows in diminishing sizes, all the way up to the top.