Witch Hammer by M. J. Trow Read Free Book Online Page A

Faunt said. ‘Turnkey!’ He straightened up and banged once on the door. ‘Ho!’
    The door screeched open again and the oaf stood there, blocking the space.
    ‘This is Master Edward Alleyn,’ Faunt told him. ‘He claims to be a travelling player which, as you know, Master Gaoler, is in itself a felony.’
    The man nodded and smirked as Alleyn scrabbled to his feet in indignation. The chain held him fast and all he could manage was a humiliating crouch.
    ‘He was also in possession of stolen goods.’
    ‘Holy Mother of God . . .’ Alleyn mumbled, but his usually stentorian voice trailed away. He didn’t want to add blasphemy to the charges against him.
    ‘For enacting lewd and libidinous entertainment in the street, Master Player, you’ll get six months, quite possibly right here. For impersonating a Cambridge scholar, another six.’ He paused, apparently deep in thought, keeping count on his gloved fingers. ‘For the theft of the play, we’re looking at two years, the lash and possibly, depending on the magistrate, the loss of your right hand.’
    Alleyn slumped to the ground, a broken man.
    ‘As for the unfortunate outburst a moment ago, taking the Holy Virgin’s name in vain . . . If the magistrate is of the Puritan persuasion, you’ll have an iron spike driven through your tongue. Good day to you, Master Alleyn.’
    And he was gone, leaving the Keeper of the King’s Bears in a blackness of despair.
    In the dark passage outside, well away from the cell door, Faunt pressed a couple of coins into the turnkey’s hand. ‘I have seen Master Alleyn on the stage,’ he said, ‘and he turns in a good performance, when he remembers to act and not just display himself for the ladies. Keep the arrogant bastard on bread and water for three days,’ he said, ‘then give him his traps and let him go. And, Master Gaoler . . .’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Don’t tell him a God damned thing.’
    ‘Where are we, Nat?’ Thomas wasn’t a born navigator. When you spend all your time applying lead make-up and lacing yourself into farthingales, points of the compass aren’t the first things on your mind.
    ‘Warwickshire.’ Nat was munching on another apple. ‘Haunted Warwickshire. Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston, Haunted Hillbrough, Hungry Grafton, Dodging Exhall, Papist Wixford, Beggarly Broom and Drunken Bideford.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Tom asked.
    ‘Villages hereabouts. I knew ’em as a lad. My old dad was a forester in Arden – before he took his foot off with an axe. Trust me, this shire’s haunted.’
    ‘Why do you say that?’ Thomas looked at him. The horses snorted and tossed their heads.
    ‘They sense it,’ the comic grunted. ‘I was last here . . . what . . . nine years ago, when the Queen came to Kenilworth. Stood in Echo Fields.’
    ‘Echo Fields?’ Thomas repeated.
    ‘You’ve got it,’ Nat said and tossed his apple core away to the side of the road.
    Thomas looked confused and ran the conversation back in his head. Ah, that must be a joke. Not one of Nat’s best, but no one could be hilarious all the time. He gave a short laugh and said, ‘Where is Echo Fields?’
    ‘Outside the walls at Kenilworth,’ Nat told him, wrestling a piece of apple skin from between his teeth. ‘The Earl of Leicester, God rot him, flooded the land for his barges and his pretty fireworks, all to impress Her Majesty of course. I was in Sir Christopher Hatton’s household then.’
    ‘But why is it called Echo Fields?’ Thomas persisted.
    ‘They say –’ Nat huddled nearer to the driver – ‘that houses were drowned, a whole village beneath the waters of the lake. There was a church and if you stand in Echo Fields you can sometimes hear its bell, tolling, as if for a funeral. The funeral of the Kenilworth drowned.’
    Thomas nodded, his eyes wide. He was trying to focus on the road ahead, but all he saw were bobbing heads and dead men rolling in the weeds, their arms and legs trailing in the wet