Twisted

given him yesterday. The gold caught the light from Hal’s lantern and seemed to burn with all the fury in Charles’s heart. “I cannot livewithout avenging the vile alchemy that converted a fine man into nothing more than this paltry piece of still metal.”
    A look passed between Hal and Stout, and the larger of the two said to Charles, “Thy mind is set, that much is clear. Faith, dear friend, whatever thy decision be, we shall stand by thee.”
    Hal added, “And for my part I shall look out for Margaret and thy children—if the matter come to that. They shall want for nothing if it be in my means to so provide.”
    Charles embraced them then said mirthfully, “Now, gentlemen, we have the night ahead of us.”
    “Wherefore shall we go?” asked Stout uneasily. “Thou art not bent on murder this evening, I warrant?”
    “Nay, good friend—it shall be a week or two before I am prepared to meet the villain.” Charles fished in his purse and found coins in sufficient number for that evening’s plans. He said, “I am in the mood to take in a play and visit our friend Will Shakespeare after.”
    “I am all for that, Charles,” Hal said as they stepped into the street. Then he added in a whisper, “Though if I were as dearly set on saying heigh-ho to God in person as thou seem to be, then I myself would forego amusement and scurry to a church, that I might find a priest’s rump to humbly kiss with my exceedingly penitent lips.”

    The constable, whose post was along the riverbank near the Inns of Court, was much pleased with hislife here. Yes, one could find apple-squires offering gaudy women to men upon the street and cutthroats and pick-purses and cheats and ruffians. But unlike bustling Cheapside, with its stores of shoddy merchandise, or the mad suburbs south of the river, his jurisdiction was populated largely with upstanding gentlemen and ladies and he would often go a day or two without hearing an alarum raised.
    This morning, at nine of the clock, the squat man was sitting at a table in his office, arguing with his huge bailiff, Red James, regarding the number of heads currently resting on pikes upon London Bridge.
    “It be thirty-two if it be one,” Red James muttered.
    “Then ’tis one, for thou art wrong, you goose. The number be no more than twenty-five.”
    “I did count them at dawn, I did, and the tally was thirty-two.” Red James lit a candle and produced a deck of cards.
    “Leave the tallow be,” the constable snapped. “It cost money and must needs come out of our allowance. We shall play by the light of day.”
    “Faith, sir,” Red James grumbled, “if I be a goose, as you claim, then I cannot be a cat and hence have not the skill to see in the dark.” He lit another wick.
    “What good art thou, sir?” The constable bit his thumb at the bailiff and was about to rise and blow the tapers out when a young man dressed in workman’s clothing ran to the window.
    “Sirs, I seek the constable at once!” he gasped.
    “And thou have found him.”
    “Sir, I am Henry Rawlings and I am come to raisea hue and cry! A most grievous attack is under way.”
    “What be thy complaint?” The constable looked over the man and found him to be apparently intact. “Thou seem untouched by bodkin or cudgel.”
    “Nay, it is not I who am hurt but another who is about to be. And most grievously, I fear. I was walking to a warehouse on the embankment not far from here. And—”
    “Get on, man, important business awaits.”
    “—and a gentleman pulled me aside and pointed below to Temple wharf, where we did see two men circling with swords. Then I did hear the younger of the two state his intent to kill the other, who cried out for help. Then the dueling did commence.”
    “An apple-squire fighting with a customer over the price of a woman,” Red James said in a tired voice. “Of no interest to us.” He began to shuffle the cards.
    “Nay, sir, that is not so. One of them—the older, and the man most disadvantaged—was a peer of the realm. Robert Murtaugh.”
    “Sir Murtaugh, friend to the lord mayor and in the duke’s favor!” Alarmed, the constable rose to his feet.
    “The very same, sir,” the lackey said breathlessly. “I come to thee in haste to raise hue and cry.”
    “Bailiffs!” the constable cried and girded himself with his sword and dagger. “Bailiffs, come forth at once!”
    Two men stumbled into the room from quarters next to the den, their senses muddled by