Perfect Shadows

chapter 7

Not many days after my first appearance before the council I received a letter from Tom asking me in the friendliest terms for a meeting. He had heard of my restriction and suggested a lodging house in Deptford as a convenient meeting place, so I had promised to meet him on the thirtieth of May at Eleanor Bull’s public house in Deptford.

I arrived just before ten that morning and was shown to a private room. It contained a table and chairs, a small cot against one wall and had a private entrance to the gardens. A jug of wine rested on the table, and I was left alone to await my host. Before long the door opened, but the man that stepped through was not Tom.

“Good morrow, Kit,” Robin Poley said. “I happened to be at Scadbury and Tom asked me to tell you that he will be a little delayed. I told him I would keep you glad company until he comes,” he added, pouring the wine. For a while we talked of “the old days”, as Poley called them, and he kept my cup filled. When the jug was empty he went to fetch another and so the time passed until about two, when I, feeling the wine, went to walk in the garden to try to clear my head. Since Tom could not be bothered to come by this time, I considered riding the few miles on to Blackavar, but the dazzling sunlight had induced another of the raging headaches I was lately subject to. I went back to the room and stretched out on the hard, narrow cot. It was so placed that if I lay with my head to its head, I trapped my left arm, my sword arm, against the wall. I unbuckled my sword and placed my head at the cot’s foot, leaving my blade within easy reach.

“Ah, Kit, you don’t trust me?” Poley asked.

“No, I don’t,” I replied shortly, and settled to sleep off the effects of the wine. After a time I became aware of low voices in the room, but could make but little sense of what I heard.

“—it took manicon and poppy in that last jug; the brandywine had scarce any effect at all—”

“—so I’ll serve him as he threatened to serve me. I’ll cut his throat!”

“—like an accident! Say he pulled your dagger from behind, like he did mine last winter and you was defendin’ yourself—”

I recognized the voice of Ingram Frizer, and knew that I was lost; it was my own murder I was hearing plotted. The other newcomer was Nicholas Skeres. I fumbled for my steel, but it was gone. I tried to throw myself from the bed but my drugged body would not respond and I thrashed wildly. Skeres, with an oath, leapt towards the cot, catching up the heavy wooden flagon from the table and striking me a vicious blow to the top of the head, knocking me stunned to the floor; I had heard rather than felt the bones of my skull crack. I was still conscious but unable to move, then Skeres was on me. He placed a knee on my chest, pinning me down and binding my weakly twitching arms to the floor in an iron grip. I turned my head and saw Poley, my sword clutched to his chest, gazing at me in disbelief. “You should have heeded my warning, Kit,” he whispered. I turned a little more and shuddered at the obscene glee on Frizer’s usually solemn face.

“Go and watch at the door,” Frizer snapped at Poley, then sauntered over tome, slipping his dagger from its sheath. “See this, Kit, my pretty lad? I bought this special, just for you. Cost me twelve pennies, it did, and worth every one of ’em. Oh yes indeed.” Frizer’s words, half-heard the day I was taken from Scadbury, echoed in my mind, suddenly clear: “Two may keep a secret if one of them is dead.” I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a muffled groan. True, I had not expected to live to grow old, but I had never thought that death could come for me so very soon, nor yet take me so very easily.

“Why?” The word was almost unrecognizable, but Frizer pounced on it.

“Why? Why, what did you think, sweet, kind Kit? That you could dance and drink and never have to pay? You’ll pay right enough now, my lad. You’ve been winking at your damnation for far too long! My master’s head may be softer than his heart, but even he could see that you’d gone too far this time!”

“I only regret that the last thing I’ll ever see is your ugly face, Ingram,” I slurred. His habitually pious expression twisted into a snarl.

“This will mend both your manners and your mouth!”

“Murderers!” I gasped as Frizer pulled a white silk handkerchief from his sleeve, placed his knees to hold my head immobile and stuffed my mouth with it. Then, with a look of unholy relish, he slowly plunged the dagger into my right eye. I felt the searing pain, saw the tearing light, heard the guttural laughter of my murderers and my own stifled outcry dying away. Then there was nothing.