'Had you come before tonight, I would've had little more to answer. I don't know why you've been set on a goose chase. Maybe there are those who want you set on a far road. But there's something brewing nearer to home, I reckon. Something more in your line of business… how much will you pay, for other news, Henry Gresham?'
'A fair price’
'Then you'd better meet a girl.' Moll gestured to one of the human tree trunks on guard. 'Wake up Nell from her groanings and bring her here — fast!'
A red-cheeked young girl with the look of being fresh up from the country was brought into the room. She had been crying, and there was a livid bruise down most of one side of her face and stains on the extravagant red dress she wore, all crumpled now. She limped, clutching her left hip with every faltering step she took.
'Yes, mistress, what is it, mistress?' the girl said, with fear in her eyes.
'See this man?' said Moll, gesturing to Gresham. 'Yes, ma'am.'
'Well, forget you ever saw him. Before you do, tell him the story of last night. Go on, girl. Do it.'
'It were… I was… I was downstairs when this man cum in. I know'd him from before, two, mebbe three times. He were quiet, but a swaggerer at the same time, if ye takes my meanin'. We went upstairs, and we did it, and after, as he was coming out of the room and before I was proper dressed or anything, this other man comes out of the other room and knocks into my man, sort of… it were an accident, I know for sure, there's no light up there hardly at all and…'
'Get on with it, you stupid slut!' growled Moll.
'Well, before you can say a word my man, the one I been with, he has his sword out and he's fightin' this other man.'This other man, he run back into my room and I start screamin' an' my man he turns an' clouts me one on the side of the head with the handy bit of his sword an' I goes down screamin' an' he kicks at me to shut me up an' then this other man he trips on his sword…' The girl started to blubber and to wail again, dabbing at her eyes.'… an' the point of his bloody sword goes in the side o' my arse, it does, real hard and deep, an' it hurts and hurts an' there's a mark there now for life, it be, for life…'
'It'll be a short life, that's for sure, girl, if you carry on like that,' said Moll. 'Tell the gentleman here what your man said while he was riding you.'
'Well, sir,' said the tearful Nell, 'he were rough with me, very rough indeed, an' I says, "Now, sir, can you not get as much pleasure by being a little more gentle with a poor girl?" and he says, goin' at it even 'arder, "If I bain't be gentle with that damn'd King and his rotten crew I bain't be gentle with you, girl!'"
Gresham tossed a coin to the girl, which she caught with practised ease, even though he knew it would be taken from her as soon as she left the room. She gave a faint smile to Gresham, and a pleading look towards Moll. She ignored it, motioning the girl to leave.
'That's all?' said Gresham.
'No, not all,' said Moll. 'The man's name is Tom Wintour.'
The name triggered the memory of the miserable-looking man in the tavern. Robert Wintour, Tom Wintour's brother.
'He nearly killed the other man and lost me a good girl for a while, so I was less than well pleased. I had him cornered by three of the lads and taken out round the back, to teach him a lesson, as you do. He caught one of the lads with a dagger he'd hidden on him, and it got serious. He was screaming at my lads something about this not happening to him, he'd God's business to do. It was so bad I came running myself. Before I could get there this Wintour catches one of my men in the neck, dives between the other two and gets clean away. It's bad for business, all round. One of my men might die. There should be no man who beats my ruffians. It's not good for my honour, you understand. The other man he went for on the night has a bad wound and won't walk straight again. And that's bad for custom. Keep it clean, keep it quiet.'
Robert Wintour. Tom Wintour. Wintour of Huddington Court. Gresham remembered now, as it all fell into place. The western Marches were a terrible area for the old religion, defying London to take its Catholicism away from it. He had been sent to enquire into one particularly crusty old Catholic, a Sir John Talbot, heir to the Earldom of Shrewsbury. It was feared he was plotting a rebellion. He was harmless, as it had happened, a fact which had not stopped the Government from locking him up on and off for over twenty years. Gresham had become fascinated by the network of blood relations, marriages and alliances which criss-crossed the great Catholic families of the area, binding them tight together like the finest cloth. Talbot's daughter had married Robert Wintour, Gresham now remembered. Tom Wintour was the younger brother, but the brains of the family. Their house of Huddington Court was rumoured to be riddled with more priest-holes than the Vatican.
'So a swaggerer beats a whore and wounds some men, and damns the King and talks about God's business… it's not much, Moll.'
'Not much for you, Henry Gresham, who has his inheritance, and no need to earn a daily crust by the sweat of his brow. Moll here has to work for his living.'
Gresham noted Moll's use of the word 'his' to describe herself. It was a trick she only fell into when she was at her most serious, or her most dangerous.
'Yet there is more,' she carried on. 'Does the name Catesby mean anything to you? Jack Wright? Kit Wright?'
The names echoed somewhere in the channels of Gresham's brain. Catesby… a handsome young man on the ill-fated march through London of Essex's supporters, fighting with useless courage as the supporters of the Crown closed in on him…
'Minnows that once swam in the great pond of the Earl of Essex?'
'Fools enough to march through the streets of London trying to rouse support for the Prince of Fools, when every girl in town could've told them it would fail!' replied Moll.
'What have these small fry to do with Tom Wintour?'
'A lot to do with Tom Wintour, judging by the number of times "they all of them hire a private room a stone's throw away from you in the Strand.'
'And what is to stop a group of friends meeting for a good supper to reminisce over old times and how they nearly overthrew good Queen Bess?' said Gresham, playing Devil's advocate.
'With a priest in the next room to say Mass, and locked doors, and much swearing of oaths? And with young Thomas Percy as thick as a thief with the whole sorry crew?'
The Earl of Northumberland, leader of a significant portion of English Catholics, had recommended himself to Gresham by setting himself up as a firm opponent of Cecil and vilifying the stunted creature, decorously, at every opportunity. As ever, Northumberland's action revealed the capacity of the English Catholics to always back a loser. Thomas Percy Gresham remembered as a runt of a man who claimed more blood links with Northumberland than most thought he was heir to, and who for some inconsiderable reason Northumberland had apparently made steward of Alnwick Castle, the dripping pile of masonry hung on the bleak Northumbrian coast.
'Does Cecil know of this?'
Moll turned to her tankard, discomfited. 'I doubt it. And certainly not from me, if he does. Cecil and I are… not dealing with each other, as things stand.'
'Why, Moll,' said Gresham, the half-smile lighting his face, 'what did we do to his Lordship?'
Moll scowled, and then let a half-grin cross her face. 'Why, it was a good song. They loved it at The Swan. Here, it was so good I bought this in the street three hours after I had first sung it.'
Gresham looked at the crudely printed ballad sheet Moll thrust into his hands. He read the words with increasing astonishment and good humour.
‘I would believe almost anything of Cecil,' he said, struggling to keep even half a straight face, 'but surely not with a three-legg'd goat and a candlestick?'
'Aye, well, we poets must give free rein to our imagination, mustn't we? Careful — that cost all of a penny!' she exclaimed as Gresham pocketed the paper.