Secret World Read online

  ‘Are there rewards for keeping to her rhythms?’ Marlowe asked, with a poker straight face.

  ‘I am an old man, Kit,’ Dee said with a smile, ‘which is not to say there are no rewards, but more in the way of telling you to mind your own business. However, I have a little time still so I will research more. Can you just tell me again the gems the worlds encompass and I will do more work on the morrow. Now, diamond and opal, I know.’ He went to a chest of small drawers and, opening two, took out the gems in question. ‘What else was there?’

  ‘Lapis,’ the poet said, working from memory. ‘Amethyst. Ruby. Emerald. Umm …’ He rummaged for his list.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the magus said and indeed they had to hurry as tiny, brisk footfalls could be heard approaching along the corridor. ‘This has given me food for thought. I will let you know if anything pertinent turns up. Are you still alongside the Grey Mare? Norton Folgate?’

  Marlowe nodded. He stepped away from the table and readied himself for Minima’s entrance.

  The door crashed back and she stood in the gap, bristling from head to toe and looking not unlike an angry bumble bee. ‘Still here?’ she snarled at Marlowe.

  ‘Master Marlowe was just leaving,’ Dee said mildly.

  ‘Time for bed,’ she crooned to Dee, taking his hand and leading him to the door.

  ‘I think I will just see Kit to the front door, shall I?’ Dee offered, hopefully.

  ‘Master,’ she said, softly, reaching up to stroke his arm, ‘allow me. You can go and … start.’ The emphasis on the word made Marlowe blush and he didn’t even know what she meant by it. There was simply something in the tone that conveyed a wealth of meaning best left undetermined.

  ‘I can see my own way out,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I will …’ But before he could promise to be in touch with the old magus, the pocket-tornado had swept him up and through the door, to the land of pure delight.

  THIRTEEN

  Charles Angleton smiled down at the little ones in their cot. His darlings, the apples of his eye, lay side by side, their golden curls on their pillows, their fingers like starfish against the white of the linen. He bent lower and kissed each one on the forehead, smelling their soft skin as though for the first time and he blew out the candle. He licked his fingers and pinched the wick. You couldn’t be too careful.

  In the darkness, he heard the familiar call, whispered, half-asleep. ‘Papa.’

  Angleton chuckled. ‘Hello, sweet stuff,’ he said and lifted his eldest girl from her bed. He smoothed the long hair from her face and kissed her cheek. ‘Can’t sleep?’

  ‘It’s hot, Papa,’ she said petulantly. ‘I’m hot and grumpy.’

  ‘I know, little one,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ll open the casement a little more. But you won’t go near it, now will you?’

  ‘No, Papa.’ She shook her head with the exaggerated emphasis of a tired four-year-old.

  ‘Because you know what’s out there, don’t you, if you pop your head out?’

  She nodded. ‘Demons,’ she mouthed, afraid they would hear her.

  ‘Astaroth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus,’ he whispered their names. ‘They’re all out there, waiting to catch little girls like you.’

  She stared at the window through which the city along the Thames looked black and evil. ‘That’s why,’ he whispered as he kissed her again and snuggled her down in her bed, ‘you must never go near the window.’

  ‘Papa?’ She was still whispering. You couldn’t be too careful.

  ‘Yes, precious?’

  She was sitting up again, the coverlet thrown back as far as she dared. ‘They won’t get in, will they? Beelbub? They can’t get in?’

  ‘No, baby girl,’ he assured her, his voice soft and gentle. ‘Look. Look here.’ He crossed the room and opened the window a notch. ‘See this?’

  ‘What?’ She was peering hard.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘You can’t see it. I can’t see it, not properly. But they can, the demons of the night. It’s a net, made of invisible thread, thread we can’t see. And no demon in this or any other world can get through that. Keep away from the window, and you’ll be safe. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, Papa.’ And she sank to her pillows again, grateful for the infinite wisdom of her papa and the infinite safety of the net. He kissed her on the forehead and closed the door softly on his way out.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he passed a large manservant, wiping the sweat from his face with an old rag.

  ‘Well, Bolo?’ Angleton asked.

  ‘Nothing yet, Master,’ the man grunted. ‘He’s a tough one and no mistake.’

  ‘What have you tried?’

  ‘The knuckles. The straps. The boys and I have took out three fingernails.’

  Angleton was surprised. He’d heard of Papists who refused to crack under torture. Puritans too. Both extremes were buoyed up by their God. But a business rival? This was a first. ‘All right. Who’s with him now?’

  ‘Midge. And Alan.’

  ‘Right. You wait here. And clean yourself up, man. Little Ellie’s a bit fractious tonight and if she calls out, go to her. I don’t want you dripping blood all over her.’

  He swept on down the stairs to the ground level, pausing in the hall to wet his whistle from the ale flagon standing on the press. He wiped his mouth and opened the side door that led to the cellar, the little room next to his warehouse, the room he called his chapel of ease. The steps were stone here and he could smell the wafts from the river. It was particularly bad tonight, the stench of Old Father Thames. The tide was low and the mud lay slick and silver under the moon. Angleton hurried on down and turned left in the near-darkness at the bottom. He hauled open the door there and surveyed the scene.

  Hugh Woodshaw was sitting upright in a chair, his hair clinging to his forehead with sweat. Tears had dried on his cheeks and his face was a mass of blood and bruises. His wrists were bound in iron to the arms of the chair and his legs shackled to the floor. His shirt was ripped, hanging off his bare shoulders that were scarred with the teeth of the cat, still swinging idly in Midge’s hand.

  ‘Good evening, Hugh, my boy,’ Angleton said. ‘How are you doing?’

  Woodshaw tried to say something but he had lost too many teeth and his lips were swollen.

  ‘Well, there we are.’ Angleton nodded. ‘Midge, put that thing away, will you? I think Hugh appreciates the ethos of the meeting by now and after all, we are not barbarians.’

  Midge slid the whip with its nine thongs into his wide sleeve.

  ‘Alan, get Master Woodshaw a drinky, would you? What would you like, Hugh? I have a cheeky little canary upstairs I think you’d appreciate. Ah, but you’re an ale man, aren’t you? Come to think of it, water’s probably best for a man in your condition. Alan, fetch Master Woodshaw a flagon of well water. Not that river stuff; that can’t be good for him.’

  Alan clicked his knuckles back into position and went off to do his master’s bidding.

  Angleton pulled up a chair and placed it directly in front of Woodshaw. ‘Do you like this?’ He reached across the table to his left and unrolled a scroll. ‘My new letterhead. I got the College of Heralds to design it. They’ll do anything for a bung. See, here – my coat of arms. How did the cokes put it? “Gules, a plantain argent en soleil”. Yes, I know, plantain is a little wide of the mark, isn’t it? But I don’t think the cokes had ever seen a tobacco plant, so that was the best he could do. Well,’ Angleton continued as he rolled his eyes upwards, tutting, ‘Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, he ain’t. Still, I like it.’

  Woodshaw tried to speak, but again, the pain and his wounds conspired against him.

  ‘Why am I drawing this to your attention, I hear you croak.’ Angleton smiled. ‘Well, as you know, I am a fully paid up member of the Fishmongers’ Company, hence the hall next door. But, as you know too, I’ve branched out recently into tobacco, the Heavenly weed. Trust me, fish are so yesterday. The real money’s in pipes. Oh, but wait; th
at’s your racket too, isn’t it? Import/export? And –’ he leaned back, frowning and cradling one raised knee in clasped hands – ‘don’t I remember something about that recently? Didn’t you and I have an agreement, something about you keeping east of the Bridge and I’d keep to the west?’

  He took up the clay pipe that lay on the table and lit his tobacco with the candle, blowing grey smoke into his rival’s face. ‘Now, I’m not one of those explorer cokes who understands compass points and maps and charts and so on. But I do know my east from my west. And you, Hughie boy, have been trespassing somewhat of late, haven’t you? Creeping west like the bloody plague. And I seem to remember, there’s something about a couple of missing consignments. A pair of cogs … er … that’s it, The Nimrod and The Elephant. Oh, we found the ships all right – didn’t we, Alan?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie.’

  ‘What we didn’t find was the cargo. Several tons of tobacco all the way from the colonies. Which is why we’re all here, having this little chat. But I’m sure Midge and Alan have explained this already. Ah, Midge, the water. You’re too kind.’

  He was glad to leave the river behind and to duck up the fish alleys. It was as black as pitch here but at least the stink was less. The Swan stood locked and abandoned, its last topers having staggered home an hour ago. Charles Angleton’s house, shop and warehouse stood by the Oystergate, larger and more impressive than its fellows crowded along the wharf. He padded past the steelyard, its gates locked and waited in the deep shadows as the Night Watch clattered past, their halberds gleaming under the moon. He followed the broad curve of the Ropery where sailors slept on the smooth stone, the flotsam of the sea who had been unable to find a bed for the night, washed up like gutted fish, drunk, broke and robbed blind. There would be Hell to pay by sun-up.

  He crept past the black tower of All Hallows the Little and dodged back into the darkness. He heard drunken fumbling in the church’s doorway and the laughter of a girl. He crossed the street silently and made for the spire of St Magnus Bridge that gave him his compass point. He had done some work on Charles Angleton. By day, the man was a pillar of London society, a member of the Fishmongers’ Company. He had his own pew at St Magnus, one under the window that let the sun stream in to keep his young family warm. He gave generously to orphans and to widows and was on nodding terms with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it was the man by night that was of interest now. There were dark rumours about Charlie Angleton. He was a ruthless man of business and brooked no competition. Rivals had a knack of taking early retirement. A couple of them had left the country. One of them had fallen into the river. And wherever Angleton went, at least two heavies were always in attendance, armed to the teeth. Well, then, that was tonight’s challenge.

  He turned sharp left, then right and the house was in front of him. There was a shop window to the right of the front door, the room beyond it dark and empty. But it wasn’t the front door that interested him. That would be solid, bolted, impenetrable without a battering ram. The window was easy, but shattering glass would wake the house and half the street. He had experience of places like this and he knew the pattern they followed. From Warwickshire to Kent, they were all the same. The strongroom, the most likely home of Charles Angleton’s silver globe, would be in an upstairs room, towards the back. He squeezed himself between the walls and climbed. Friendly bricks and fancy buttresses aided his progress and he scampered up the side like a determined monkey, pressing himself to the stone as the Watch patrolled below him. He smiled to himself. Thank God the Lord Mayor appointed men who were deaf and blind to scour the streets.

  He reached a window ledge on the first floor and peered in. The casement was open and he could make out three children sleeping peacefully in their beds. The next window along was ten or twelve feet away and slightly higher. That room could be empty, because the window was closed. There again, it could contain Mistress Angleton or any of the unknown army of servants who worked for her. On balance, he was safer with these children. It was the work of a moment to open the window wider and haul himself inside. He landed lightly and replaced the pane in its original position. The babies lay in a cot, fast asleep and he couldn’t help but spend a moment looking down at them; he had always had a soft spot for twins. A little girl tossed fretfully in the bed nearest the door and he waited for her to settle again. When she had, he eased open the latch and crept out.

  Now he had his dagger in his hand. Anybody he met now was likely to be an adult, like the old girl in Canterbury or that interfering busybody at Ness End Hall. He may have to use his blade again.

  The voice came from below. ‘Bolo –’ he heard the scrape of a chair around the corner from where he stood – ‘get your arse down here. Charlie wants a word.’

  He heard someone rumble his clumsy way down the stairs and then the distant thud of a door.

  The passageway stretched to right and left, but to the right lay the stairs and he could see the glimmer of light down there. Several people were still up, stirring. Was that voices he heard, coming from the bowels of the house? He turned left. There were two doors here, opposite each other, but only one had a padlock. This was his prize. Even so, he would take no chances. He eased the other door open with the point of his blade and peered round it. There was a tester in the far corner with the curtains pulled back and a naked woman lay on the coverlets, on her side with her thumb in her mouth. She looked as sweet as her children and he hoped he wouldn’t have to slit that pretty throat. He closed the door again with a whisper of woodwork and turned to the other door.

  There was little light here so he worked by feel, letting his expert fingers slide over the lock. When pushed for time, he would simply smash a lock like this, but noise like that would wake the entire house and he wasn’t about to take on Angleton’s private army. There was a click. Two. He held his breath. Then, he was inside.

  In the bowels of the building, in his chapel of ease, Charles Angleton was taking delicate sips of the water that Midge had brought, wiping his lips each time with a napkin.

  ‘Hughie, Hughie, where are my manners? Drink?’ And he threw the ewer’s contents all over the man. Woodshaw cried out, shocked and in pain as he already was, when the cold of the water hit him. He sat there, trembling and shuddering. Angleton leaned forward and moved the candle across so that the flame burned bright in front of Woodshaw’s eyes. ‘Did you read about that Francis Kett the other day? He’s a madman who denies the Trinity or some such nonsense. Or should I say, he did. They burnt him at Norwich. Broad daylight, hot day, so he went fast. Well, fairly fast. In an hour or two.’

  He moved the guttering flame nearer and Woodshaw flinched, sweat trickling with the blood from his hairline.

  ‘Yes, everything around him was tinder-dry, apparently, as you’d expect in a hot summer like this one. But a man wringing wet … well, he’d take a lot longer to die, wouldn’t he? Should someone apply a naked flame, say, to his bollocks? Yes, a lot longer.’

  In the upstairs room, he was vaguely aware of a scream, but it seemed a long way off and he paused only briefly before clicking open the lock of the strong box. He smiled. A double lock, just like Mildmay’s. Would they never learn, these people? His eyes focused on the chest’s contents. Silver. Gold. Papers with seals and scrolls. But there. There it was. The silver globe of Francis Drake, with its hieroglyphics and its single stone of lapis lazuli. He grabbed it and turned back to the door. Just as he did so, a flame flashed before his eyes. Beyond the candle, the naked woman he had seen in bed stood there, blinking at him.

  ‘Who are you?’ she shrieked, too furious with the intruder to remember her own nakedness.

  He pushed past her, throwing her aside. Woman and candle hit the floor simultaneously and the flame roared on to the rushes on the floorboards, flaring and spluttering as it reached the curtains trailing the floor by the window. Fed by years’ worth of dropped wax and the tinder pith of the rushes, it sucked the air from the room and let go a mighty bellow as
it took the wooden rafters that crossed the ceiling. He dashed across the landing and into the children’s room, stashing the jewel in his doublet and sheathing his dagger.

  The little girl was kneeling up in bed, pointing at him and screaming, ‘Beelbub! Beelbub!’ Somehow the demon of her nightmares had got through the net. The noise from mother and children raised the whole house.

  Down in the cellar, Angleton looked up. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Hugh,’ he said politely to his guest. ‘Domestic crisis by the sound of it.’

  At worst, Charles Angleton suspected rats. They had bitten the babies before and there was always Hell to pay when they did. It was the price of living on the river and over the shop. As he reached the hall, however, he realized that it was not that simple. A fierce flaming light met his gaze as he looked up. The house was alight.

  ‘Midge!’ he roared. ‘Alan! Water!’

  ‘From the well, Master?’ Midge called.

  ‘Bugger the well, man. The bloody house is on fire. Shift yourself, you shit. What do I pay you for? Bolo, where the bloody Hell are you?’

  Angleton reached the landing. He saw both doors open, his wife’s and the strongroom’s. Naturally, he turned right, but the chest was standing open and a dazed woman sat near it, nursing her head as the flames crackled around her.

  ‘For God’s sake, Isobel, get up!’ He hauled her upright, looked into her blank face and realized that she had a concussion of the brain. He threw her over his shoulder and spun back to the landing. Midge was there already, a bucket of water in his hand. Angleton threw the woman to him and grabbed the bucket, hurling its contents at the flames. That had no effect at all, except to spit and hiss back at him and he threw the bucket down the stairs, narrowly missing the retreating Midge with Isobel dangling down his back like an undressed deer.

  ‘And watch where you’re putting your hands!’ Angleton called after him.