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

green slime, their faces eyeless, mouths gaping.
    ‘And that’s not all,’ Nat Sawyer added after a perfectly judged pause. For all Thomas was a boy actor, he made a damned fine audience. Gullible was clearly his middle name. ‘If you stand at a certain point and whisper your name towards the castle, it’ll come back to you on the wind.’
    ‘Get away,’ Thomas mouthed.
    ‘But sometimes . . .’ Nat looked sideways at the lad. ‘Nah.’ He shook his head and smiled a crooked smile. ‘Best not,’ he said.
    ‘What? What?’ Thomas said, shaking him by the arm.
    ‘Halloah!’ Ned Sledd’s shout halted the little column. They saw him stand in his lead wagon and call back. ‘Flags, boys. Music. Stratford’s over the next rise and you know how important an entrance is.’

FIVE
    L ord Strange had ridden on ahead, taking Marlowe with him for company after the fright by the lakeside. They had gone to Clopton Hall but Sledd’s commission was to ride into the town and spread the good word. A play was toward in three nights’ time at the Hall and all were welcome, admission one groat, half for the lame and incurables. Children – if they behaved – were to be allowed in free.
    ‘William Clopton,’ grunted the old man at the bridge head. ‘
Papist
William Clopton?’
    ‘
Sir
William Clopton.’ Ned Sledd had a moment ago doffed his cap to the Warden of the Bridge, but now regretted his civility and put it back on with his most theatrical flourish. ‘My Lord is, as we speak, paying his devoirs to Sir William.’
    The old man only had one eye and it shot like a watery blue arrow into the actor-manager’s face. ‘Who did you say your lord was, again?’
    Sledd looked him up and down. The man would never see sixty again and he was squat with the urban guile of the country bumpkin who has been allowed to edge his gown with squirrel and put a tin chain around his shoulders. He’d seen his type in every town south of the Wall.
    ‘Lord Strange,’ Sledd repeated loudly, so that all the traffic on the bridge could hear him. ‘Son and heir to Lord Derby.’
    The old man spat so that his grey bristles were coated with it and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. ‘This is Stratford Upon Avon, sir,’ he growled, ‘and we have no truck with strange lords.’
    Sledd took in the situation. Beyond the grey stones of Clopton Bridge, with its green-dripping arches and the roaring brown of the river, stood a handsome town on a hill. Smoke rose from the tanneries and the distant sounds of commerce came and went on the breeze. Behind him, behind Lord Strange’s wagons, a hostile queue was forming, geese honking in their impatience, sheep bleating in their keenness to reach the place of slaughter. Market day. And market day meant street theatre, acrobats, tumblers, tabors and pipes. The rattle of coins in the cup. On the other hand, the bridge-keeper had four stout-looking constables with him, large and surly. Nat, Martin and Thomas and a few of the others could look after themselves, but he had the women to think of. And anyway, starting out a town tour still bleeding from a clash with the constabulary was hardly going to draw big crowds.
    Even so, honour was at stake here. ‘Who are you, sir?’ Sledd asked. It was the voice he always put on to play Nero; deep and patrician with just a slight underlay of incipient homicidal mania. It usually worked.
    ‘George Whateley,’ the old man said, standing as tall as he could and squaring his shoulders. ‘Wool draper and Warden of Clopton Bridge.’
    Sledd rubbed his nose – always a sign as the others knew that he was furious. He had run out of options already and his hand was straying to the dagger in the small of his back. Perhaps slicing off a little squirrel fur might do the trick.
    ‘Whateley?’ a voice called over his shoulder. ‘George Whateley the wool draper?’
    All eyes turned as Nat Sawyer slid down from his wagon and trotted on to the bridge. It wasn’t