The Fetter Lane Fleece (Red Ned Tudor Mysteries) Read online

Ned relaxed back into his chair with a dramatic sigh of relief as the thumping of his heart wound back from the frantic beat of alarum to its more measured pace. By the blessed saints and Lady Fortuna it was just some scruffy urchin bearing a message for one of their company. For a moment there he’d thought the Revels were going to be raided by Sir Thomas More’s pursuivants and wouldn’t that have been ironic. While there was probably an abundance of evangelical sympathisers in the room, with the Revels in full flood none would’ve shown the least interest in reading the latest serving of heretical literature—a fact which if she’d known would have set Mistress Meg Black a frowning and a cursing at the missed opportunity of ‘religious improvement’ amongst the fellows of the Inns of Court. Whether the Lord Chancellor’s men would have bothered with the niceties of inquiry was another question. Ned had crossed their path last year when Sir Thomas was just the relatively lowly Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster responsible for, amongst his other duties, the repair of Fleete Ditch bridge, and which to Ned’s personal testament was the shoddiest of jobs, almost costing this aspiring gentlemen and apprentice lawyer a fatal tumble into the icy turd–choked depths.

  Anyway, overtly heretic free or not, More’s men had a nasty habit of proclaiming any gathering they found infested with lovers of Luther. Unless of course they were convinced of the company’s undoubted respect for His Sovereign Majesty the Lord Chancellor and the Church via a discrete transfer of silver,—four shillings from the tattling Ned had heard last week.

  If not More’s men there had been another dreadful possibility. Yet one more supposedly urgent demand from Mistress Black. Damn her for an interfering shrew! The last ‘loving missives’ had summoned Ned to a cascading series of disasters that ended up with him hanging from the Fleete Ditch Bridge. That wasn’t an occasion a young lad was likely to forget any time soon. Even worse they’d been delivered by that haughtily sneering retainer of hers, Gruesome Roger Hawkins. Now there was a fellow who deserved a hanging or flogging—and twice over! During the most recent occasion the scarred retainer’s surly manner towards him had precipitated a challenge from Ned to ‘have it out’. And to heap degradation upon insult Gruesome Roger had turned away with his usual sneer and refused! Ned was still nonplussed at that gross behaviour. After all how could you refuse to defend your honour? His daemon had assured him that the fellow was no doubt afear’d of being on the wrong end of a thrashing delivered by his mistress’s ‘friend’. His better angel had dismissed this dissemblance, labelling it a fantasy worthy of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia. Rather it blithely suggested Gruesome Roger declined due to common sense. After all it wouldn’t look very good reporting back to Mistress Black covered in bloody splatter from beating her ‘friend’ into several reddish colours of snot.

  But this latest interruption didn’t concern him and this Christmas tide he was clear of duties, worthless charges and dubious enterprises. In celebration and to shake off the taste of ill musings and unpleasant reminders of those few days past, Ned poured himself a generous serving of the Rhenish slowly letting the reviving liquor slide down his throat. Ah that taste of red velvet with just a hint of orange! This Revel was proving a real success. His fortune and reputation for the next few months were made. No fellow clerk at the Inns would sneer at him for being the bastard nephew of Richard Rich, and on another front his status with Meg Black was bound to improve. There were a few lads who now owed Ned Bedwell a favour or two. All he had to do was arrange a little incident, of course somewhere free of Gruesome Roger’s baleful presence, where Ned could step in and, ‘ahem’, save the day thus putting Meg Black in a suitably grateful frame of mind. For all her forward nature she did possess the most beguiling grey blue eyes and when she moved, ah yes, the sway of her hips was wont to have the most constricting effect on his cod piece.

  “Ahh Ned, Ned! Could I have a private word with you?” The urgent whisper of John Reedman brought him back to earth from an exceedingly pleasant reverie.

  Bending close the law clerk and appointed ‘master’ of the Revels games placed a hand on his arm. The fellow looked deeply disturbed, a heavy frown settling over his dark eyes, his lips clenched tight in dismay. Curious as to the request Ned nodded his acquiescence and seizing one parting bite from the mutton pie followed the law clerk into the adjoining private room. On this occasion the large bed against the wall was vacant since all the Revellers as well as Walter were at the feast. All to the good. A private meeting didn’t need an attentive audience a puffing and moaning behind the drawn bed curtains.

  Reedman walked over to the small diamond–paned glass window and peered out westwards. The wintery sun was setting and its last gleam could be seen giving a brief and pallid wash of colour to the white humps of the city roofs. His clenched left hand smote the wall in a solid blow in what Ned knew was a display of suppressed anger. Then as if gaining strength from the Christmas scene Reedman drew a long breath, regaining his composure and turned to face his curious fellow clerk. “Ned, I’ve a damnable problem and…and I’ve none else in the city to turn to for this cursed difficulty.” It had come out in a frantic gasped rush as if escaping clenched teeth.

  Still unsure of the situation Ned spread his hands apart and gave an encouraging shrug.

  Reedman rubbed at the solid planes of his face with a free hand as if trying to massage away an unpleasant reminder. “Ned I’ve just received this cursed letter!”

  The previously hidden right hand now appeared and in its tight grasp were the remnants of a letter, thread and seal dandling like the neck of a dead capon at a butchers stall, the broken seal the very imitation of a cocks comb. In a clerk’s line of work letters were as life’s blood, ranging from demands, petitions and requests to bearers of grimmer tidings. That this scrap of paper impelled the normally steady and dependable Reedman to such a fit of choleric temper boded ill news.

  Suddenly alarmed Ned blurted the first thought that came to mind. “By the blessed saints John, it isn’t your family! Not…not the sweats or the plague?” This last word came out as a strangled gasp. These days urgent letters in the night often presaged one or more sudden deaths in the family. Summer usually brought with it the first signs of pestilence, but as Ned had seen, the Sweats could sweep through a community at anytime. Worst still you could be fine in the morning, come down with a headache around midday and dead at sunset.

  Reedman forced a wry smile but shook his head. “Hmm, what? No…no, it is to do with my family but not illness…unless one counts stupidity as a disrupter of good physick!”

  Ah now that made sense. Stupidity begot so many fruitful problems for clerks and lawyers. Ned attempted what he hoped came across as an commiserating shrug at the foolishness of relatives. This was a tempting opportunity—a problem the respected Reedman couldn’t solve and he’d asked an esteemed friend with a growing reputation for aid. Hmm, why not help a fellow clerk? He’d solved the most complex problems and conundrums for Councillor Cromwell and Meg Black and how likely was it that whatever ailed Reedman was anywhere near as labyrinthine—or dangerous.

  Ned’s silent display of understanding seemed to calm Reedman who after a few low muttered curses continued his explanation. “I’ve three brothers y’see. The oldest of us has a printing press over on Fleete Street with Pynson. That’s Robert. He’s a decent sort. Prints a lot of law manuals and texts plus the usual religious work like The Pylgrimage of Perfection by Bonde for Archbishop Fischer. I...I shouldn’t blame Robert. He does what he can and its hardly his fault, but by all the corrupted devils and monks, he should‘ve known!”

  “Known what? What’s the problem John?”

  “Tis that fool Richard!” Reedman snarled and again smote the wall, this time with fist clenched, clearly still angered by the recitation of family problems.

  Ned just nodded. He well understood the myriad difficulties of relatives particularly the cross he had to bear that was Uncle Richard. “Who’s he?”

  “My stupid measle–brained brother, the younge
st in our family. The lackwit’s been here less than a fortnight and he’s got himself grabbed by those foisters and rogues at the Wool’s Fleece in Fetter Lane!”

  “Ahh, I see.” And to be honest Ned did. At the mention of the Wool’s Fleece the whole situation was darkly illuminated. The tavern was as fine a haunt of rogues, foisters, nips and dicemen as you could find anywhere in the Liberties, excepting of course the lair of Earless Nick at the Black Goat.

  His daemon growled at the name while his better angel quailed. The Wool’s Fleece, now didn’t that bring back memories, and none, not a one of them pleasant. Ned leant against the wall, arms crossed and eyes alight with the potential of mischief…and revenge. “Why John, if you’ve a problem at the Fleece needing sorting why don’t you tell me all about it?”

  Chapter Three. Memory Lane—Fetter Lane

  It was dark out here, and bitterly cold. Leading the way ahead of Ned by three paces was his friend Rob holding out the small flaring link light, its flame sputtering with the occasional snowflake. For once their evening passage through the city had been reasonably well lit. Perhaps it was all the festivities. Most of the doorways they’d passed had been festooned with arches of holly and ivy. In the midst of winter the vivid green was a cheering sight, especially in the warm golden spill of householders’ small lanterns. Now however they’d crossed the Fleete Ditch bridge, and apart from a wintery chill–induced shiver, Ned felt all the hairs at the back of his head rise in remembered terror of his almost turd–choked doom. A dozen paces later they were past striding along Fleete Street, though his spirit didn’t lift that much as he left the ill omened bridge behind.

  So here they were, fully in the Liberties, the debatable lands of fair London City—a crowded patch, packed to the rafters with thousands in rough tenements, cobbled together from crumbling buildings such as decayed monasteries or the tumbled ruins of fallen lords who’d lost all in the bloody strivings of York and Lancaster. The sad remnants of glories past, broken stonework and carving that spoke eloquent if mutely of battle, death and execution. Though southwards in the open spaces closer to the river, away from the jostling road, stood the proud towers and gleaming plastered walls of present splendour. Fronting the river were the rows of great houses and palaces such as His Sovereign Majesty’s Bridewell Palace—a beautiful building some four stories high, its corners flanked by turreted domed towers with its central squares of gardens. Further along still lay the riverside Inns of Court such as Inner Temple and Middle Temple, each well appointed with secluded courtyards and orchards for the contemplation of weighty matters of law, or an opportune tumble in the grass with a willing punk. The latter also housed the chambers of that most formidable Autumn Reader, the distinguished Richard Rich, his uncle, wherein he practiced a successful if rather ‘unique’ and probably twisty style of law.

  However Ned wasn’t in those blessed isles of law and tranquillity. No, he was trudging along perhaps the worst stretch of Fleete Street and it was dark. The residents of the Liberties possessed a frankly dismissive attitude to city statues. In theory by law, of an evening between the feasts of Hallowtide and Candlemass, the citizens of London were required to have a small lantern outside their dwelling to be lit after dusk. Ha! This was the Liberties—as if! Any lantern left unattended was pinched and offered for sale in a tumble down alehouse before the rush light had the chance to grow cold. It was Ned’s well founded suspicion that the tallow was more likely to be used as a sop for coarse ravel bread than for lighting. The Liberties had that kind of desperate reputation. That was probably the reason Westminster was shielded from its pernicious influence by the steady and prosperous row of the Inns of Court. After all it wouldn’t do for mere royal clerks and servants to pick up the bad habits of forgers, nips, foisters and punks. No, not when they could be put to better use by a better class of rogue arrayed in dark gowns and with a more thorough knowledge of the ins and outs of the Law.

  At this particular moment of more urgent concern to Ned than the habits of petty thievery and lawyers was that the Liberties was also the haunt of Earless Nick, the self proclaimed Lord of the Masterless men of the Liberties—a somewhat genteel and grossly erroneous description for this collection of scabby rogues, nips, foisters and beggars that plagued the honest citizens of London. As of a few days ago Red Ned Bedwell had come to the negative attention of Earless Nick due to circumstances surrounding that damned evangelical ‘lamb’, Walter Dellingham. So there no small need for circumspection in this matter. As a precaution and to hopefully prevent recognition the normally strutting Red Ned, aspiring lawyer and potential gentleman had drawn upon the classical tale of Ulysses and opted for disguise. He’d felt himself rather inventive. The beaver’s pelt of a beard and the padded hunchback were dismissed out of hand back as worse than useless. Instead he had reasoned that the simplest of disguises usually proved to be the best, and thus he had put this problem to the assembled Revellers. In the main their suggestions had been sound, that was all except Radford who’d sniggered that Ned needed a kirtle, a dress and a french hood to truly be hidden from view. That drunkard’s delusion had been ignored. Instead they’d pooled a collection from several of the lads at the Revels who were newly come to the Inns this last law term. For a couple of flagons of Rhenish and the sly whisper of a play at cozenage in the Liberties they’d been more than keen to lend their older garb.

  Thus here he was clumsily strutting down Fleete Street in an ill fitting gown, doublet, cap and to Ned’s present irritation, a ‘borrowed’ codpiece that required constant scratching thanks to fleas and other bedfellows. Hence the clumsy walk as he constantly sought to apprehend or smite the minuscule foe. So to the casual observer or not so casual beggar, Ned presented the very image of an ill tutored and gawky country lad on his first visit to the city.

  The risk of identification having been dealt with, this only left one other potential difficulty, and as his daemon and angel whispered in unison, it was perhaps the most fraught with peril. The Wool’s Fleece in Fetter Lane had an unsavoury reputation. It was indeed a sink hole of depravity and vice, full of the boldest rogues and dice men well skilled in fleecing innocent lads such as the youngest of the Reedman brothers. Yes damn them—the patrons of the Fleece were very well practiced. They’d even caught out the renowned Red Ned Bedwell, though as his better angel consoled at that time he was but a callow youth, barely a week in the city. The humiliation still rankled, a shameful mark on his reputation, he all too easy cozenage of young Ned. By all the rutting devils of Satan’s merry hell, didn’t that remembered shame stoke a fierce anger fuelling his present lust for retribution! Ned presented an unpleasant smile to the dark of the night. Maybe young Reedman was an excuse, but damn him, the opportunity to ‘fleece’ The Fleece was too good an opportunity to refuse. And as his daemon counselled, always give in to Temptation for in these perilous times one never knew when it would come one’s way again.

  Chapter Four. The Wool’s Fleece

  Standing in the lee of a projecting upper storey, Ned pretended to lean against the wall and clean frozen street muck off his shoe, while his servant still holding the sputtering link light stood out in the lane. Pretty standard behaviour for most gentlemen—they’d shelter in comfort awaiting while the minions suffered the cold and the rain. As a piece of scene setting Ned thought it perfect even though Rob had voiced a pointed reminder of the perishing cold. He needed to watch the tavern for a few minutes before putting his cozenage into play. There was the usual beggar huddled under a half collapsed lean–to across the lane. That was to be expected in the Liberties, no doubt another pair of hired ‘eyes’ for Earless Nick. Most establishments under his ‘patronage’ had at least one nearby to report the comings and goings so as to speedily informing their lord and master on the departure of any likely targets for ‘tithing’.

  Apart from the defacto gateman The Wool’s Fleece looked pretty much the same as it had two years ago. Now wasn’t that a warning in itself considering this tavern sa
t almost equidistance from the prestigious Clifford Inn, Rolls House and Ned’s usual place of supervision at Gray’s Inn. But no it was still a shabby wattle and daub timber frame building some three storey’s high, pocked with crumbling gaps which the patches of whitewash and the large piles of mounded snow didn’t hide. The roof was the common thick straw thatch popular outside the city boundaries and cheaper than tiles or split shingles. Several shuttered windows, neither evenly spaced nor level, punctured the walls at each level. From memory they’d be simple timber shutters. No chance of lead framed glass at The Fleece. Over the front door swung the worn painted sign of a suspended sheep. It was fastened to a pair of rusty iron chains pinned by rough staples to a projecting beam off the second storey.

  As dilapidated as it was in his eyes, Ned couldn’t understand what had been its allure. His daemon happily supplied the ‘reason’. Ahh the innocent flaws of youthful memories. Deception, shame and humiliation all proved a useful spur for his play this night. Looking back on it Ned couldn’t believe he’d ever been that naive, a real country dolt, and by Satan’s singed arsehole, it was even after a year of university. But no, chided his daemon, the first day at Gray’s Inn and he’d fallen for the cosenage play of that sanctimonious swine, Gylberte Fowlke, senior apprentice lawyer. The best tavern with the fairest dice game from Westminster to London Wall, Fowlke had claimed, and embraced by the arm of friendship young Ned, wide eyed and keen to impress, had been led to a damned thorough fleecing. And that wasn’t all. After his trouncing at dice, flushed with shame and raged he’d challenged the dice master. By all the saints that act of insanity and bravado had almost earned him a shroudless grave tumbled in a ditch. Only the intercession of Lady Fortuna in the form of Mistress Adeline had saved him from his first almost terminal lesson in the ways of the Liberties. Master Fowlke the treacherous measley weasel would get his comeuppance later. This day though was the turn of that pack of roguish fleecers laired at The Wool’s Fleece.