She had barely known the man when she first woke in his bed. She knew him little better now. His chamber introduced him further. Rising from its own shadows like an exhausted peacock, the bed filled half the space, its curtains dust-thick and heavy in unravelling embroidery over velvets of imperial purple. Tyballis sat. The covers had not been straightened since Andrew Cobham’s last night and she could almost smell him, seeing the shape of his body beneath the coverlet, the indention of his head still clear on the bolster.
Finding clean linen inside the window seat, Tyballis remade the bed, smoothed her hands across the fine sheets, remembering, wondering, imagining as she tucked in their frayed edges. She did not have the strength to turn the mattress or fluff up its filling, though she thought it had not been turned for years and would benefit greatly from some care. Instead she lifted her broom and began to beat the curtains. The dust hurtled out in clouds and made her sneeze as threads of embroidery snagged on the broom’s rushes.
The smaller room taking up the other half of the enclosed minstrel’s gallery interested her. Shelves festooned with spiders’ webs held books and parchments. She did not know her letters well enough to read what was in them, but she recognised the recent printing of Arthur’s Tales. A great cushioned chair, as comfortable as a bed, stood beside the little empty hearth. This was a place, she supposed, for a serious man to enjoy his studies. There were also three small carved coffers, each latched and locked. It was true that Andrew Cobham did not trust his fellow man.
Everywhere downstairs the style was heavy and gilded with gothic archways, high inlet windows and carved beams. Beyond this private domain, the outhouses and pantries clustering around the tiled kitchens were also clearly old, for they were poorly thatched and tumbledown. Yet the main staircase and the rooms upstairs were plastered and lime-washed, wide-windowed and plain-beamed, as if they had been added later in accordance with necessity and modern fashions. At the same time perhaps, the minstrel’s gallery had been divided with thin-planked boards. It was a house, she decided, first built long ago in the grand style, but in accordance with a growing family’s needs it had been extended to include more bedchambers upstairs and within the attic. It was, above all else, a house that did not in the least suit its current owner, a man holding neither wealth nor family, nor any need for such a mansion. So, he opened his many rooms to those who could not easily pay for their own. Yet the house would, Tyballis decided, be worth a fair sum. She had no idea how Mister Cobham had originally got to know his motley lodgers, or why a man who trusted no one would choose to live amongst thieves. Possible answers, to a hundred possible questions, rose like dust from the corners of her mind.
Over several days she cleaned without prying. On the fourth day she pried. Taking a deep breath, she explored under the bed and within the window seats, climbing the shelves and looking behind the books. She searched the stuffy pegs of hanging clothes in the garderobe, discovering there such diversity she thought a whole troop of play actors might find costumes sufficient for a dozen mystery plays. She crawled beneath stacked trestles and old chairs, she peeped under cushions. She tried the lids of trunks and coffers and she swung back the bed curtains. Everywhere she found secrets, and could decipher none of them. A wooden chest as small as a child’s toy sat right on top of the bed’s canopied tester, nearly as high as the ceiling beams and completely hidden. But it was locked. There was no key. Behind the books on the shelves she saw only dead spiders, but beneath the bed and right at the back was a rolled parchment tied in string and sealed in rich red wax. Many boxes in oak and mahogany were casually strewn, others concealed. All were impossible to open. Tucked beneath the folded linen in the window seat were two books bound in plain leather, the parchment pages either thick with listed numbers, or blank, awaiting the scribe. The huge chair in the study held its own special secret, for the cushion lifted and inside a shallow space lay other scrolls. One carried a grand coat of arms and all were crammed with writing she did not understand. In the toe of a pair of bright new shoes casually set amongst others in the garderobe, a small iron key was hidden. She then discovered others, yet since a hundred trunks, boxes and coffers were locked and locked again, she did not know which one any key fitted.
Tyballis left Andrew Cobham’s quarters, carefully closing each door behind her. She continued to cook for the other occupants of the house, but she did not inquire into anyone’s personal relationship to their landlord. Questions were avoided in a house where each man’s habits were better undisclosed.
However, it was not at home that she received the first small answers, but at St Katherine’s docks. Snow had smothered the city again that night, and the port was quiet. Few of the great trading ships braved the winter oceans and few merchants would chance losing their entire cargo in a January storm. But Tyballis was shopping for eels and the little eel boats often rowed down from Marlowe’s Quay to sell off the last of their fish cheaply to the impoverished and less fussy buyers of the Portsoken Ward. One small crier had braved the gales and now rode at anchor, waiting mid port for the custom’s men to board her. Someone else was waiting on land. Striding the quay, Harold, fifth Baron Throckmorton, kicked at the fresh snow banking the idle cranes. He was impatient and not expecting to be seen, for there were few sailors, few customers and few officials working during the stultifying freeze.
He saw Tyballis at the same moment she saw him. Their reaction was similar. Both started, glared and took two quick steps, Throckmorton forwards, Tyballis back. The baron was quicker. His grip fastened on her shoulder. ‘You, you slut. Dared to face the world without your protector, have you? So, where’s Feayton?’
Tyballis tried to twist loose. ‘I’ve no idea. And you’ve no right to touch me. Let me go.’
‘Not dressed so fine now, are you, slut?’ Throckmorton held her tighter. ‘So, you’re not Feayton’s mistress anymore, perhaps. But you’ve not returned to your husband either, as I know full well, so a whore now maybe, or if Feayton’s thrown you out, a slattern working the tanneries.’
Neat in green worsted, Tyballis was well aware she fitted none of Throckmorton’s accusations. She scowled into the baron’s pale eyes. He was not much taller than she was, and his red curls, damp and snow-speckled beneath his felt cap, tickled her nose as he pulled her closer. She wrenched back. ‘How dare you? You laid false witness against me before. There’s not a sheriff nor a constable will believe you again.’
‘It’s not the law will deal with you this time,’ Throckmorton spat. ‘I’m taking you into custody myself. I’ve a nice little wine cellar beneath my kitchens, damp and dark and just the perfect dungeon for trollops who won’t talk. Feayton’s threatened me for the very last time. Let’s see if he still demands his damned money once he learns his doxy’s locked up in my cellars.’
Throckmorton’s two companions stepped forwards and gripped Tyballis between them. ‘You can’t drag me all through London,’ she said, struggling. ‘And don’t think I’ll come quietly, for I’ll be shouting all the way, and shouting everything I know. That will alert the law, I promise.’
‘Dirty whore,’ snarled the baron. ‘You’ve just made my choice a damned sight easier.’ He turned to one of his companions. ‘Hire a horse and cart from the tavern stables, and get it back here quickly.’