Ned would’ve had to have been deaf not to hear the sneering start to her reply. Well his dignity could ignore that. The bills of lading were another matter. He took the few paces to the scattering of documents and stooped to pick some up, giving each a brief review as he sorted through them. Not that he could decipher much. Without an intricate knowledge of the merchant’s code, it might say ‘one gross barrels of stock fish and twenty ells of Flemish cloth’, but considering the true cargo it could, and probably did mean anything.
Without even turning his head he knew that Meg Black would be watching him with that every so satisfied smirk. Secretly he gave an inward stoic sigh. Such slights must be endured for the greater good. As camouflage Ned picked up a single sheet and perused its cramped script.
This situation was sliding from disaster into catastrophe. It seemed to Ned that Master Albrecht Hagan had once more chosen not to inform Meg as to the fullest nature of the cargo. Whereas some trade secrets are best kept close, the dire progress of this affair should have prompted a prudent merchant to confide a lot more than this obscure pile of scratchings. So why not? Where lay the honour of merchants and smuggling?
Now as in any business transaction it all came down to a matter of trust, who did you trust and with what? Meg trusted Albrecht and Joachim with the consignment of heretical works so that was fine. The shipmaster knew and trusted, to a degree, his crew for their petty customs evasions. However the real question in all this was who had Joachim trusted for the weapons and powder? For it certainly wasn’t Mistress Black. Reality dictated that such a large quantity of contraband couldn’t have been gathered by the shipmaster and his nephew alone. That activity required a detailed knowledge of the city and it’s customs, as well as the time, space and resources to cultivate the ‘arrangement’.
Of course it always came back to gold and silver in the end. Rob’s rough estimate was that the value of his discovered contraband was around five hundred pounds, and if the consignment was to go to the Irish then the profit would be three times that.
It seemed most perverse that the word of God was only worth a fifth of the value of the weapons of war. Truly they lived in evil times. So to Ned’s suspicious purview there must have been a partner, and it was either that person or the supplier who broke the trust of the deal. The result of that dereliction was of course-murder.
Ned stood there lost in a fog of suspicion as Meg Black tickled off the items of cargo and contraband. Through the swirling mist one figure kept on popping into dim view. For once Ned was circumspect enough not to blurt it out. He’d want a lot more information before he challenged the favoured agent and friend of the Black clan. To his thinking, it was definitely past time for a long conversation with the Hanse merchant and that thought led to another question. “Meg, do you have a new shipmaster yet?”
“No. Albrecht is trying to engage one off another Hanse vessel in port, but if that falls through he has offered to do it himself.”
Ned held very still, apparently reviewing a list of cutler’s goods. The Hanse merchant just shot up to the top of the list of suspects. So much for friendship. He’d put a hundred angels on Albrecht being unable to find a replacement shipmaster. After all someone had to finish the deal with the contraband and Master Hagan was the one man left who could possibly have sufficient knowledge.
Ned suddenly felt very jittery. How long before the Hanse merchant found out about the results of Rob’s search? Due to the repair work a look in the hold was impossible, and from what he remembered, Albrecht had been back at the Steelyard all today. Damn, he couldn’t sort this complication out with her here. Meg Black was suspicious enough already. Then his daemon conveniently reminded him of his latest problem. Oh yes, the perfect distraction. “Ahh Meg, to add to our burdens, we’ve just been given another.”
All that received was the briefest flicker of an inquisitive eyebrow. It appeared the discussion over leadership was still held against him. Ned frowned and cleared his throat in the accusative silence. “Umm. I ran into an old acquaintance of ours, Skelton.”
Meg gasped and dropped her pile of papers and ledgers. It was secretly satisfying to see her response.
Ned felt a brief measure of satisfaction. “Master Skelton requests that we find another friend from last year, Don Juan Sebastian de Alva.”
Now that revelation really got her interest. Mistress Black paled at the news and stammered out a question. “How…why?”
Ahh, a much better reaction.Though he did note that the blanched look of her cheeks nicely set off the colour of her eyes.Hmm, very attractively. “If we find Don Juan Sebastian before Sunday then Skelton’s good lord will shield us from the Lord Chancellor.”
Margaret Black recovered sufficient composure to look extremely sceptical regarding the offer. “Ned, you accepted?”
Her question held more than a hint of incredulity in the tone, much more than Ned thought appropriate. “Do I look like that much of a village idiot?”
From her considering glower, that was exactly what she thought. Another implied insult like that and he’d almost be tempted to leave the dratted Margaret Black to her well deserved fate. “I didn’t have much choice. Skelton had dozen men at his back and at least for this week Norfolk rules the Privy Council, so it may please him to frustrate More.”
“And how do you think the Spaniard will be magicked forth when for the last six months Gryne hasn’t found him?”
Ned bridled at the overlay of sneer and casually threw out his answer as if it were a coin to beggar. “Ahh yes, but I have.”
“What! I don’t believe you, Red Ned Bedwell. If that had happened, you’d be crowing from the tower of St Paul’s and plotting your revenge.”
That slur was completely undeserved. Ned was no one’s fool. He’d have had the haughty foreign weasel beaten to a pulp first before celebrating. “Well Mistress, better than thou, Black, if you hadn’t been so keen on your venison pies and chat at Richmond Palace, then I might have told you I’d seen him there!”
Ned’s angel of conscience made a quivering complaint at this gross distortion of the facts, to no avail, for then the discussion of differences evolved into a full throated argument as both stood toe to toe, loud in their conviction.
It would have been a brave man who interrupted and as it happened it was. Gruesome Roger simply slammed the door open, startling the storm within to a sudden and precipitous halt. Ned probably wouldn’t admit it, but he for one was glad of the interruption. The situation in the shipmaster’s cabin was becoming a touch dangerous. Meg Black had already smashed a few items, believing that the use of missiles added weight to her views. The only piece left was a hooked pole wedged in the corner and he preferred not having to dodge any wielded implements, as a retreat from the room could be too easily be read as signifying his defeat and disgrace.
***
Chapter 20. Powder, Problems and Southwark, Evening to Night, 8th June
Ned spent the next half an hour trying to maintain a dignified calm as Gruesome Roger presented his report. The Black retainer had succeeded in his mission to track down and contact the illicit powder merchant of Southwark. The fellow had a building on the river by the stream next to Morgan’s Lane on the eastern edge of the Liberties. The edgy tension from the argument in the cabin lingered and had frequently led Roger to look questioningly towards his mistress at every pause, an action that inched Ned’s temper towards the breaking point. He held it by the merest fingernail as he gave a curt reminder that the missing Ben Robinson was his responsibility, while Mistress Black was only assisting her brother and him as duty commanded. Roger’s lip curled in that familiar Bedwell-directed sneer, while his mistress gave forth one of her disdainful snorts. Which for the sake of cooperation Ned pretended not to hear.