Thank God we cannot judge a book by its cover. I was strutting along, thinking about what I had learnt, when two shadows came out of an alleyway, cloaked and hooded. My hand was seized before I could grab my dagger and I was dragged into the doorway of a tumbled-down house. I was getting ready to plead for mercy, to offer my assailants anything I carried, when one of the figures pulled back his hood. Cornelius's heavy-lidded eyes studied me.
'Going for an evening stroll, Master Shallot?'
'Yes, yes,' I snarled. 'Taking the night air.'
'A busy, busy man,' Cornelius retorted. 'Writing letters for poor old William Doddshall; asking for a slaughterer to kill some beast; then down to the late lamented Sir Hubert Berkeley's house. To find out what?'
Oh, I could have kicked myself. However, you must remember those were my green days. I had not yet learnt to crawl about the streets and so give the slip to any pursuer. Cornelius, his companion standing behind me, grasped my jerkin and pulled me closer.
'Every step you take, Master Shallot, I am there. When you meet the Slaughterer, you will thank God. In Germany we have a proverb: "He who plans to sell the bearskin, even before he goes hunting, often ends up as the bear's dinner".'
'And we have a proverb in England,' I retorted. '"A stitch in time saves nine.'"
He looked at me curiously. 'And what does that mean?'
To be quite honest I didn't know either, but it sounded clever! I pulled myself away and strolled off down the alleyway. (Always remember that: if you are ever in doubt, say something enigmatic and walk away. People will think you are wise and cunning. It's a device used by the playwrights. I have never understood certain lines in Marlowe's Edward II. I was going to invite him to supper to ask him what they meant but then poor Kit was killed in a lodging house on the Isle of Dogs, stabbed in the eye by that bastard Poley!)
I reached the Flickering Lamp and found Benjamin in his chamber, lying on his bed looking up at the ceiling. I told him all I had done, including my visit to Berkeley.
'Why did you come here in the first place?' he asked abruptly. 'I mean, to the Flickering Lamp?'
I told him about the relic-seller I had met whilst he was on his travels in Italy. Benjamin just nodded.
'Why?' I asked.
'And Boscombe gave you licence to sell relics?' 'Yes,' I replied. 'But the Lord Charon had other ideas. I was too successful.'
We heard laughter from the taproom below so we went down for our supper: Iamb cutlets in rosemary sauce, followed by quince tarts. It was a merry evening: Boscombe was dressed up as a bawdy man and he had brought others in for some entertainment. These were the most fantastical-looking creatures: men and women who were known as 'Bawdy Folk'. They were dressed in the skins of animals, mostly otter and fox, whilst some of them wore masks of bears and wolves on their heads. They didn't wear hose but instead had leather aprons across the groin. The men were otherwise naked, crotch to neck. The women had soft woollen bands to cover their generous breasts. They all wore bangles on their ankles and wrists. Large earrings hung from their ear lobes whilst they had painted their faces grotesque colours.
They began with a shuffling dance and followed this with acrobatics, somersaults, and an act of swallowing knives and spoons. They then performed a most scurrilous play about a vicar, a bishop, an inn-keeper and two whores. I will not offend your susceptibilities. It was absolutely disgusting but very, very funny. Boscombe joined in, ever the actor, and the jokes and jests became sharper and more pointed. Benjamin murmured that he had seen enough and went off to bed. I, however, joined in with glee, drinking and dancing until I lost all memory of what followed. I woke up in an outhouse dressed in a bearskin with one of the bawdy women lying by my side. I went out and washed, pouring buckets of water from the small well in the courtyard. I dried myself off, collected my belongings and went upstairs for a few hours' proper sleep: it was good preparation for a day of horrors and bloody murder.
It started well enough. Benjamin kicked me awake. We broke our fast and then made our way along Cripplegate to Oswald's and Imelda's cookshop. It was a bright, clear autumn morning as we passed the traders and merchants preparing for a day's haggling. When we reached the cookshop I rapped on the door but there was no answer.
'Strange,' Benjamin murmured. 'They should be up, baking fresh pies.'
We went down the narrow runnel which ran alongside the house, through a small wicket gate into a narrow garden. The door to the scullery was open and we went in. The first corpse was lying there. In life she had been an old, plump, cherry-faced woman. In death, ashen-cheeked, she lay face down in the pool of blood that had gushed from her slashed neck. In the kitchen a young apprentice lay, flung like a rag doll in the corner, the wound to his neck looking like a gaping mouth. Oswald was in the shop, lying slumped in a chair; his wife was in her chamber on the second floor. Both had been killed silently, quickly, with a jagged cut running from ear to ear. A ghastly sight! Nothing else had been disturbed. The sweet smell of baking mixed with that of blood and gore.