The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,50

back into play. Yet by that time, Quare had retrieved his own blade from where it had fallen.

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Mrs Puddinge shrilly, her face flushed with anger beneath her white cap, ‘put up your swords this instant! I’ll have no bloodshed here! Why, the very idea!’

‘He’s a French spy,’ Quare snarled out.

‘A spy? Lord help us!’ The landlady raised the hem of her apron to her face and peered wide-eyed over the edge of it as though looking on from behind the safety of a brick wall.

‘Get help, Mrs P – I’ll hold him here!’

‘It will take a better man than you to do that,’ Aylesford answered and rushed past the now-shrieking Mrs Puddinge. Quare started after him, but before he had taken two steps, Aylesford had thrown the hysterical woman into his path. She clung to him as fiercely as a drowning cat to a tree limb. In the moments it took him to calm her sufficiently to, as it were, retract her claws, Aylesford made his escape. As Quare moved to follow, she latched on to him again.

‘Don’t leave me, Mr Quare,’ she begged, shaking like a leaf in a storm.

‘I must make certain Aylesford has fled,’ he answered, disengaging himself from her grasp. ‘Stay here, Mrs P. You’ll be perfectly safe, I assure you.’

She nodded, seemingly incapable of further speech.

Quare edged out through the doorway, alert for an ambush. The landing was empty. At this hour, all the lodgers would be about their business in the guild hall and city. He continued down the stairs and then out of the house, still meeting no one. The street outside, and the broad expanse of Cheapside beyond, were more crowded and bustling than they had been when he had entered the house just moments ago. There was no trace of Aylesford. London had swallowed him up, not caring a whit that the man was no friend to it or to England.

Quare sheathed his blade and made his way back to his room, where he found Mrs Puddinge seated on the bed, wringing her hands together. Her tear-stained face rose fearfully as he entered, and she sprang to her feet. ‘What of Mr Aylesford? Is he …’

‘No sign of him, I’m afraid,’ Quare said. ‘But I doubt he’ll be back.’

‘To think that one of my young men should turn out to be a spy,’ she said.

‘What, do you mean that Aylesford was lodging here?’

She nodded, drying her face with the edge of the apron. ‘Since yesterday evening – Mr Mansfield brought him to me. Poor Mr Mansfield!’ And the tears began flowing again. ‘Oh, Mr Quare,’ she said between sobs, ‘do you suppose it was Mr Aylesford who killed him and the others?’

‘I’m afraid it rather looks that way.’ Quare moved to comfort her, patting her heaving shoulders as she wept into her apron. ‘There, there, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘There, there. You must try to get hold of yourself.’

She nodded, drying her red-rimmed eyes. ‘Such sweet young men,’ she said. ‘Not an ounce of harm in any of them.’ She gave him a bashful, half-embarrassed smile that became a look of concern. ‘Why, you’re wounded, Mr Quare! Your shoulder … You must let me see to it at once!’

‘I’m perfectly well,’ he told her.

‘Nonsense,’ she said, already moving to divest him of his coat.

‘There’s no time for that, Mrs P,’ he said, attempting no more successfully than with Aylesford to keep her at bay. ‘I feel sure the watch will learn of my presence at the Pig and Rooster and come looking for me here. I will speak to them, but not until I have spoken to my masters at the guild and warned them of the spy in our midst. And before I do that, I must have a quick look through Mr Aylesford’s things. Will you take me to his room?’

‘Oh, aye. Just as soon as I’ve seen to that shoulder. Do not struggle so, Mr Quare! I know you are pressed for time, but bleeding to death won’t make things go any quicker. Now, sit down on the bed, sir. Sit, I say!’

Quare sighed grimly and gave himself up to her ministrations. In a flash, she had helped him out of his coat and waistcoat, both of which looked to be quite ruined with blood. The shirt beneath was in even worse shape. After her initial assertiveness, Mrs Puddinge appeared uncertain how to proceed, as if it had been a long time indeed since she had