Tyballis murmured, ‘Usually I stay with a friend near the tanneries.’
Throckmorton began to pace. Hands behind his back, he strode the boards. His legs, curved like those of a child still in nether-cloths, were thin and his hose wrinkled in crimson folds around knees and ankles. ‘Very well,’ he said, looking up at last. ‘Perhaps it’s the truth. I’ll accept your word for now.’ He beckoned to his henchman. ‘Take her back below, John. When Feayton turns up, he’ll get a damn sight more than the money he thinks to steal from me. He’ll find six armed men ready to pounce, and his slut of a mistress dragged up naked from the cellar. Then, instead of listening to his demands for coin, I’ll have him on his knees begging for both your lives.’
Tyballis kicked out at the man holding her. John Hammon, heavily muscled and permanently bad-tempered, smashed the back of his hand across her face. She bit her lip on a whimper. ‘Bastards,’ she yelled. ‘You said you’d let me go if I answered your questions.’
‘You’ve answered little enough,’ sneered the baron. ‘And I never said as much, since I had no intention of letting you go. What, let you free to run straight off to your friend the constable? You’re going nowhere, Mistress Blessop. First I think I’ll send for your fool of a husband and give him the satisfaction of thrashing you. Will that seem fair enough to your justice-loving master, I wonder, before I finish him off as well?’
‘Borin won’t – he doesn’t –’ Tyballis felt herself go white. ‘Besides, Lord Feayton won’t care! He doesn’t even know Borin and he’ll never fall into your horrid trap. He’s much too careful.’
‘Feayton not know your charming husband?’ Throckmorton grinned. ‘There’s not much you understand about either of your bedfellows, is there, stupid slut! Borin’s been working for Feayton as long as he did for my dear brother. Perhaps the one of us can beat you while the other watches, though who, I wonder, will enjoy it most? Myself, or Blessop?’ The baron turned again to his henchman. Tyballis was now trembling. John Hammon had her hands forced so high up behind her back that the strain on her shoulders and elbows was becoming unbearable. She no longer had the strength to kick. ‘In the meantime,’ Throckmorton continued, ‘I want her alive so give the slut ale and gruel, but make sure none of the servants see what’s going on.’
Hauled once again down the little steps, Tyballis was thrown to the damp dark ground and heard the door lock. This time she cried.
She thought it was probably the next morning when she awoke, finding herself curled and stiff, wretchedly sore and utterly miserable. She rubbed her jaw carefully and decided it was neither broken nor dislocated, although the bruising would be ugly. Edging her way around the perimeter of her dungeon, she discovered a scattering of stones that had dislodged from the base of the old wall. She scrabbled in the dirt and found two pebbles of a reasonable size. One was sharp-cornered, the other smaller but pointed. She stuffed both into her purse. The purse given her by Andrew Cobham had been taken by the sheriff, but this was her own, coarse unbleached hessian. It held only pennies but together with the weight of the pebbles it would, she thought, make a weapon of sorts, as would the heels of her boots which had come from the Duke of Gloucester’s annexe garderobe and were well soled.
Time dragged, but Tyballis sat, nursing her determination. She honed her plans as she honed the stones she had found, chipping away to sharpen the edges. When finally someone came to bring her food, she was ready. She held her breath, hearing the clank and then the squeak of iron against iron as the door was unlocked.
John Hammon, holding a candle in one hand, a mug of ale and a wedge of black bread balancing on a wooden trencher in the other, found himself gazing into an empty chamber. He gulped, wondering what in pity’s name he had done to allow her escape, and how he would certainly be punished for it. He set the trencher down to one side, pulled the door almost closed behind him and, candle held high, began to poke around the corners of the room. He was passing the two large wine butts when he was hit extremely hard over the head. Then from nowhere something very sharp dug deep into his face.
John staggered back, his hand to his forehead as warm sticky blood began to drip into his eyes. Trying to wipe his face, he dropped the candle and the flame went out at once. He heard a bang as one of the wine barrels toppled, then something hit him again. At almost the same time a small well-shod foot kicked him hard between his legs. John Hammon groaned. The pain struck him from groin to belly and he doubled over, nursing his middle. The foot came once more between his legs, this time from the back. John squealed. He was still gasping for breath when the heavy wooden trencher he had been carrying struck between his shoulder blades, and as he turned, struck his nose full on. Blood poured from nostrils to mouth, and made him wail. He had not yet managed to rise, was still on his knees and groping blindly, when he heard the patter of small feet running fast up the stone steps outside.
Tyballis raced through the empty and shadowed hall, quickly found the great double doors through which she had sometimes entered, and flung them open. The discreet cough behind her, sounding almost apologetic, made her jump. The steward’s large hand slapped down on her shoulder and she whirled round. ‘Explain yourself at once, my girl,’ Bodge said. ‘And then you’ll wait here while I summon his lordship.’
Tyballis shrugged off the startled hand. ‘Your vile master is a criminal and a – a poisoner.’ She ran past him, out through the doors and down into the street. It was snowing. The world had been muffled by freeze. Shrinking into the long shadows as she crept through the back streets towards London’s eastern wall and the gate into the Portsoken Ward, she stopped three times, leaning over into the whitened gutters to vomit. Before she was home again, something occurred to her and she wondered if the beer she’d been given had been poisoned, since keeping a healthy and furious prisoner secret from a household of servants would be remarkably difficult.
Through the Aldgate, avoiding the scrutiny of the gatekeeper and just a few minutes from home, she stopped, crouched down and stuck her fingers as far as she could down her throat. Her throat was already sore. She vomited until sure there was nothing left of whatever she had drunk in Throckmorton’s cellar.
The Cobham Hall garden was white. Snow dripped from branches, banked against bushes, and hid both weed and path. The hush was soft and gentle and etched with tiny paw and claw prints and the little spots of melt where icicles had snapped and fallen. Tyballis barely recognised her way to the house.
Davey Lyttle found her on the doorstep.
He knelt, the glories of his turquoise silk hose spoiling in the snow, clasped her tightly and began to lift her.
She shut her eyes, smiled weakly and said, ‘Hello Davey. There’s someone I want you to help me murder.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
They put her to bed, crowding around and watching her earnestly, trying to make out some meaning in her small croaks and whispers. They were too concerned about both her disappearance and her reappearance to remark on the fact that she smelled remarkably strongly of very sour wine. Indeed, her skirt hems seemed to be stained with it.
Sometime later it was Andrew’s wine – leftover from Christmas, now newly heated, spiced and sweetened with honey – which they gave her. Casper, increasingly interested in the state of his new host’s secret supplies, had recently mastered the addition of spices. ‘A nice cup o’ clarry, mistress,’ cooed Casper. ‘Will do you good, and bring back the colour to your little cheeks.’