A Stage for Murder by Peter Tonkin

Author:Peter Tonkin [Tonkin, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2018-04-18T04:00:00+00:00

iii

‘Of course she had to die,’ repeated Poley in his most matter-of-fact voice. An edge of boredom making plain that he was tired of the subject now and this was the last time it should be raised. ‘Without Jem the swordsman, she would simply have found another padder or highlawyer and started all over again. I assume she was the brains of the organisation for he had hardly any. As my first shot proved, I think. Without her, however, there is no bait for the trap. And therefore no trap. I have done the Constable of Epping a decided favour. Though I have no intention of stopping to discuss the matter with him. And indeed, I have made the road through Epping Forest safer for those gentlemen who came thundering past us all afternoon heading north and south as fast as their horses would carry them.’

‘Messengers going to and from such men as those you serve, Master Poley. In London, Scotland or Cambridge,’ Tom observed. ‘Like whoever rode in that black coach that came near to pushing us into the ditch this morning.’

‘Undoubtedly. I told you this was a busy road. Well. Now it is also safer.’ Poley patted the pistols that he had brought in from his saddlebags to clean and oil.

They were fine weapons, Tom observed. He had expected wheellocks but these were more modern than that. Dutch or German snaphaunce mechanisms by the look of things, familiar from Ugo Stell’s most recent imports. They were chased in silver with long dark octagonal barrels. ‘Fine weapons,’ he observed thoughtfully. Like the black coach this morning, they triggered some association in his mind that he could not quite pin down.

‘The best. Like your swords with their Solingen blades. German,’ said Poley. ‘From the Merkel foundry in Suhl. You can see their mark here – like the running wolf on your blades. Rifled barrels for extra range and accuracy. But they can be as temperamental as Shakespeare’s fellow actors and require extra-careful maintenance.’

Poley was willing to be so unrestrained because they were sitting safe and warm in the Crown Inn on the outskirts of Saffron Walden, having completed the rest of their journey north so far without further incident, except, as Poley observed, for the number of cloak-wrapped and faceless men spurring north and south along it. And they were even a little ahead of the intelligencer’s schedule, in spite of having occasionally to pull aside to let a messenger gallop past. And, once or twice, a coach and four, running almost as swiftly as the individual horses. All of them making good use, Tom reckoned, of the break in the wintery weather that had arrived with the new year.

The parlour of the inn was busy, he thought looking round. Locals and travellers alike seemed to find the place, the welcome and the serving wenches very much to their taste. So much so that Tom was beginning to wonder whether Poley’s desire to be here was innocent after all. Innocent in terms of espionage if not in terms of the seventh commandment.

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