The Relic Murders

silver cone held on by straps tied at the back of his head. His black hair, receding on his scalp which was also pitted with blue, hung in coils to his shoulders. He carried no weapons, only a silver topstick which he tapped on the wooden floorboards as he walked. I abruptly realised that many of the strangers at the tables around me were part of his retinue. I had not seen any of them before. These weren't cranks and counterfeit-men but killers; mean-eyed, narrow-mouthed and armed to the teeth with swords and daggers, some even had large horse pistols in their belts. They fanned out around me. I realised this was not a social visit. A dagger pricked the nape of my neck. 'On your knees before the Lord Charon.' 'Who in hell's name is he?' I snarled. 'He is Lord of the Underworld.' I turned. 'And you?'
    'I,' a red-haired, dog-faced man replied, 'am his faithful Cerberus.' 'Oh yes,' I sneered. 'And I'm Lucrezia Borgia.'
    A kick to my legs sent me o'n my knees. My head was yanked back and I was forced to stare up into Charon's hideous face. Memories stirred, stories about a vagabond king, a Prince of Thieves who controlled the rogues and riffraff of London. He took his name from the Greek ferryman of the underworld who had a snarling dog called Cerberus. Charon had supposedly been a gunsmith, a master of the King's ordnance, until, at some siege on the Scottish March, powder had blown up in his face. Such a man now stared down at me. I couldn't decide which was the more horrible: the good eye glittering with malice or the ball of glass that gave him the look of a living corpse.
    'Welcome to my court.' Charon's lips hardly moved. 'Who gave you licence to trade in the city? To harvest the fields of my manor? To reap where you have not sown?' 'Piss off!' I shouted back. 'Boscombe allowed me!'
    (I am a born coward but one with a hot temper. I don't like being threatened. I wish I had just given my true nature full rein, grasped the ruffian's ankles, kissed his feet and slobbered for mercy. I might have been spared that knock on the head which sent me unconscious and the horrible nightmare which followed.)
    I returned to consciousness in a cavern lit by cresset torches and rushlights. The smell was strange, savoury roasting meat mixed with the more pungent, iron smell of dirty water. I picked myself up and saw that Charon was sitting on a throne-like chair, his feet resting on a gold-fringed, velvet footstool. On either side of the cavern his companions lounged at trestle tables covered with silver and pewter plates. Rugs of pure wool, at least three inches thick, covered parts of the floor. Tapestries of different colours and bearing various insignia, especially the letters 'I.M.', covered the walls. Behind Charon's chair I glimpsed chests, locked and padlocked, but one was open, a small moneybox filled to the brim with silver coins. Cerberus swaggered over. He pushed a cup of wine into my hands. 'Drink!' he growled. 'All of the Lord Charon's guests drink.' 'Where am I?' Cerberus pulled a bodkin from his belt and jabbed it in my arm. I screamed with pain. 'Drink!' he ordered.
    I did so: it was the best claret I had supped since I had left Ipswich.
    'Do you know where you are?' Charon leaned forward. 'Master Shallot, do you know where you are?' 'Judging by the company, somewhere in hell.'
    Charon snapped his fingers and the bodkin went in my arm again. I tried to grasp Cerberus but he danced away, then came back and stung me again. I crouched back on my heels, nursing my arm. 'Please,' I pleaded, 'I have done no wrong.'
    Immediately all the ruffians grasped their own arms, swaying backwards and forwards. 'Please,' they mimicked, ‘I have done no wrong.'
    I kept a still tongue. My belly was beginning to bubble and cold sweat made itself felt.
    'You are in the sewers of London,' Charon spoke up. He gestured airily at the vaulted roof. 'The Romans built these.' He got to his feet again, clapping his hands gently. 'I want to show you something, Shallot.' He tapped me on the nose. ‘I should really cut your throat or place you face down in some filthy sewer. Or, even better, show you what happens to those who cross me. But you are Shallot, aren't you? Friend of Benjamin Daunbey, nephew to the great cardinal. What are you doing in London?' 'Selling relics.' 'The Orb of Charlemagne?' I smiled ingratiatingly. 'Not that,' I replied. 'At least not yet.' 'Do you know about the Orb?' 'A little.'
    Charon's glass eye bored down at me. 'I