"Seize the day," he echoed, and drew her down into his arms. But within moments, they were startled by hammering at the door. Wrapping himself in a blanket, Justin unsheathed his sword before sliding the bolt back and opening the door a crack.
The man outside was a stranger. "Master de Quincy? My serjeant sent me."
Justin opened the door a little wider. "Jonas?"
"Aye. He said I was to fetch you."
"Why?"
"Master Jonas is not one for explaining. He says 'Do it,' and we do, or Christ pity us. He wants you to meet him out at Moorfields straightaway."
Justin was still learning London's byways and contours and boundaries. "Where is Moorfields?"
The man looked at him with the utter amazement of a native Londoner. "Why, everybody knows Moorfields, the meadows north of the city walls. You want me to wait?" When Justin shook his head, he started off on his own, then glanced back over his shoulder. "I think," he said, "that he wants to see you about a body."
~~
Moorfields was a playing ground for London's young and adventuresome. As soon as the waters froze each winter, crowds flocked to the marshlands, sliding and swooping across the ice, the more daring propelling themselves along with the shinbones of horses strapped to their feet, using iron-tipped staffs to gain speed and leverage. It was usually a lively and cheerful site, echoing with shouts and laughter. Now it was somber and hushed, youths clustered in small knots along the shore, watching solemnly as Jonas and his men circled cautiously around a large, gaping hole in the ice, probing the frigid, murky water
with long, wooden poles.
Although he seemed to be directing all of his attention to the search, Jonas was still aware of peripheral sounds and sights. When Justin reined Copper in at the water's edge, the serjeant ordered his men to continue the hunt, and then strode over, as surefooted on the ice as he was on solid ground. "How did you come, by way of Dover?"
Justin was not about to explain that he'd had to see Claudine safely back to the Tower first. Quickly dismounting, he ignored Jonas's irritation. "What is going on?"
"Some young fools were sporting out on the ice when it cracked under their weight. Their friends managed to save one, but the other lad drowned. We've been trying to recover the
body."
"May God assoil him." Justin sketched a quick cross on the icy afternoon air, all the while wondering why Jonas would want him to see this poor drowned youth. "Do you ever get used to this? It cannot be easy, having to deal with death day after day."
"Nothing about this work is easy," Jonas said, then spat into the snow. "Come over here where we cannot be overheard, for I've news for you."
Hitching his stallion to a nearby bush, Justin followed Jonas across the snow. The serjeant shouted further instructions to the men on the ice, and then turned back to face Justin. "We snagged the body almost at once. But as we started to maneuver it within
grabbing range, it slipped off the hook and went under again."
Justin still did not understand why this sad death warranted such an urgent summons. "Bad luck."
Jonas nodded. "It was that. It was also the wrong body."
"What do you mean?"
"It was not the lad. I think it was Pepper Clem."
Justin drew a sharp breath. "Can you be sure?"
"Not until we fish him out. But I got a look at the face ere the body sank and it looked like him to me."
Justin was still dubious. "I saw a body pulled from the River Severn once. He'd only been in the water two days, but not even God could have recognized him, Jonas."
The serjeant pointed impatiently toward the lake. "I'd hate to think all that ice escaped your notice." He remembered then, though, that Justin could not be expected to have his specialized knowledge of dead bodies. "Cold water keeps a corpse from decaying," he explained brusquely, and was about to go into grisly detail when his men began to shout. "They've got one," he said. "Let's go see who it is."
Following Jonas out onto the ice, Justin saw that the men had been using poles with crooks on the end, like shepherds' staffs. One of these hooks had snared the victim's mantle, enabling them to drag him to the surface. By the time he and Jonas reached them, the men had pulled the body up onto the ice. When they turned him over, Justin felt a sickened pity, for he was very young, sixteen at most.
Jonas showed no emotion, gazing down at the drowned youth so impassively that Justin felt a chill; did the man never grieve for the dead? With a few terse commands, Jonas set two of his men to dragging the corpse across the ice toward the shore, where his stunned companions still waited. "Ask those cubs if they know where the lad lived. Someone will have to break the news to his kin, and like as not, it'll be me. And keep looking. We've got another body to bring up."
Justin moved aside, watching as the men continued the search. When Jonas rejoined him, he said quietly, "I get the feeling it did not surprise you to find Clem floating under that ice."
"He was not floating, not when the water's that cold. But you're right. I was expecting Clem to turn up dead. The fool tried to — " As they talked, Jonas had continued to scan the activities of his men, and reacted even before the first outcry. "They've hooked him. This better be Clem. We find a third body out here and I'm heading for the nearest alehouse.
The men soon had the corpse out of the water. He was sprawled on his stomach, his face hidden from view, but Justin thought the limp ginger hair did resemble the thief's. At first glance, his hands seemed to have been dipped in whitewash, and were queerly wrinkled; one of his feet had lost its shoe and it, too, showed that same chalky puckering. Justin braced himself as they shoved the body over onto his back. The face was so bloodless it seemed more like wax than flesh; the eyes were wide and staring, sand trickling from his open mouth, his skin scraped and abraded. But Jonas had been right; Pepper Clem's features were still easily recognizable.
The other men had gathered around and they stared down in silence at the body. There was no need to ask if he'd drowned. The cause of death was painfully obvious, and Justin was not the only one to avert his eyes from that gashed, mutilated throat. Jonas showed no such aversion and knelt by the body, studying Clem's wrists and then his ankles.
"Best to do this quick," he said, "for he'll start to bloat up now that he's out of the water, and in no time at all the stink will put a polecat to shame. I'm looking for rope burns, but it does not seem that he was weighted down. I suppose Gilbert did not think it was worth the trouble." No one else spoke, and he continued his examination of the corpse. "He's been in the water awhile; see all this sand in the seams of his tunic? My guess is he died last Saturday eve and took his final swim that same night, for the lake had not frozen over completely yet."
Justin swallowed with difficulty. "Was he… was he hit on the head first?"
"Possibly. Oh… you mean this?" Jonas asked, pointing toward the raw-looking wound that spread from Clem's right eyebrow up into his hairline. "That is not the Fleming's doing. You do not think the fish and crabs would pass up a meal like this, do you?" Glancing over his shoulder at Justin, he bit back a smile. "You're looking a little greensick, lad. I hope you're not going to feed the fish, too?"
Justin shook his head mutely. Those sightless eyes seemed to be staring up accusingly at him. First Kenrick and now Clem. How many more? The other men had retreated, for Jonas had been right in this, too; a foul, fishy odor was becoming discernable. Justin swallowed again. "I got him killed, didn't I?"
Jonas washed his hands in the snow, drying them on his mantle. "You have that backward. He almost got you killed."
"What are you saying?"
"I told you that I'd put the word out on the streets. What I learned was that I'd misjudged the little cheat. As craven as he was, Clem was even more greedy. You probably offered him too much, for he concluded that if you'd pay to find Gilbert the Fleming, mayhap he'd pay more to know you were on his trail. I found two witnesses who saw him meet Gilbert at a tavern in Cripplegate on Saturday eve a week ago. They talked briefly and