felt a pair of arms grab me from behind. A hand clapped over my mouth and a hot taste of pewter flooded my tongue as a heavy ring jarred my teeth.
With a strength born of panic I twisted loose, but not free. The grip that held me, unyielding as iron, pushed me into the rough plaster wall. Then a blow to the ribs and an exploding pain that forced all the air from my lungs. The riot entered and took possession of me, a steady roar in which no detail stood out separate and alone. Except for the knife at my throat.
Thin and cold, the edge of the blade bit lightly into my neck. A dead-quiet voice without inflection spoke in my ear, seemed to bore directly into my brain: “If you want to stay well, you'll fly away straight.” The knife then glided across my throat, and after it trailed a thread of sensation that was not yet pain. Fear, rather, as pure and cold as spring water. It emptied me, so that when I was released I slumped against the wall, with no more strength to stand.
The city watch had arrived: constables with clubs and flails, dragging the warriors apart. None bothered with me, a mere piece of turf flung aside in the conflict. From the wall I gulped air like a cod, calling home my scattered wits. I felt a warm wetness on my neck and reached up to touch it; my fingers came away bloody. The words were burnt into my mind: “If you want to stay well …” Who could wish me ill? What danger or threat was I to any soul alive? I remembered hands clutching my chest—too many hands for one person only. There must have been two. My watchers? I leaned forward, felt the pain in my ribs, and caught my breath sharply.
My wallet was gone. I searched my clothes and the ground all about, but knew it had been taken—that, and nothing else. Thecoins and receipts were still in the leather pouch at my side, the barrow lacked not one keg of valuable wine. What they had wanted was the one possession I would have fought to the death for.
I felt my loss, cold as a gust of air through a bad tooth. They went right for it, as though knowing where it was, and what it contained. I blinked, taking in the scene before me: young men limping away or still prostrate on the rough paving stones; cracked heads, broken bones. Had it all come about because someone was after me?
At that, rational thought deserted me entire. I abandoned my barrow and ran like a rabbit, darting down the nearest by-lane, scattering a knot of children who were playing some game in the street. They shouted abuse at me, but I ran on until I came to an alley, then dove into it to catch my breath.
Though the stench almost gagged me, I waited there until I was satisfied no one had followed. Then I picked my way between the dark and fetid walls to the next lane, and stole down that one to the next, and on through the narrow crooked streets until I emerged on Cheapside, with St. Paul's directly ahead.
Booksellers dominate the south common of the cathedral; here in a forest of fluttering ballads and broadsides I took refuge. A right unsavory-looking character by then, sweaty and begrimed, with blood staining my shirt, I sought to fend off notice by burying my nose in a small book of poetry. The quarto was poorly printed and cheaply bound, and the poems in it may have deserved no better. Still, they served as a painful reminder of what I had lost.
On the day after my mother died, I had broken the lock on the small lead casket that held her dearest possessions. Susanna and I divided the contents: a ring, two silver spoons, a pendant passed down from our grandmother, the medallion rubbing, and a sonnet, which read in part
But soft within the layered petals keep they curled,
These poor sighs of mine by the rose concealed
While in thy sweet possession rise to fly unfurled;
My secret wound enbalmed, my hidden hurts healed.
R.M., 1581
“It should be buried with her,” Susanna had decided.
My reply came after a long pause. “I want to keep it.”
“Whatever for?” Her
With a strength born of panic I twisted loose, but not free. The grip that held me, unyielding as iron, pushed me into the rough plaster wall. Then a blow to the ribs and an exploding pain that forced all the air from my lungs. The riot entered and took possession of me, a steady roar in which no detail stood out separate and alone. Except for the knife at my throat.
Thin and cold, the edge of the blade bit lightly into my neck. A dead-quiet voice without inflection spoke in my ear, seemed to bore directly into my brain: “If you want to stay well, you'll fly away straight.” The knife then glided across my throat, and after it trailed a thread of sensation that was not yet pain. Fear, rather, as pure and cold as spring water. It emptied me, so that when I was released I slumped against the wall, with no more strength to stand.
The city watch had arrived: constables with clubs and flails, dragging the warriors apart. None bothered with me, a mere piece of turf flung aside in the conflict. From the wall I gulped air like a cod, calling home my scattered wits. I felt a warm wetness on my neck and reached up to touch it; my fingers came away bloody. The words were burnt into my mind: “If you want to stay well …” Who could wish me ill? What danger or threat was I to any soul alive? I remembered hands clutching my chest—too many hands for one person only. There must have been two. My watchers? I leaned forward, felt the pain in my ribs, and caught my breath sharply.
My wallet was gone. I searched my clothes and the ground all about, but knew it had been taken—that, and nothing else. Thecoins and receipts were still in the leather pouch at my side, the barrow lacked not one keg of valuable wine. What they had wanted was the one possession I would have fought to the death for.
I felt my loss, cold as a gust of air through a bad tooth. They went right for it, as though knowing where it was, and what it contained. I blinked, taking in the scene before me: young men limping away or still prostrate on the rough paving stones; cracked heads, broken bones. Had it all come about because someone was after me?
At that, rational thought deserted me entire. I abandoned my barrow and ran like a rabbit, darting down the nearest by-lane, scattering a knot of children who were playing some game in the street. They shouted abuse at me, but I ran on until I came to an alley, then dove into it to catch my breath.
Though the stench almost gagged me, I waited there until I was satisfied no one had followed. Then I picked my way between the dark and fetid walls to the next lane, and stole down that one to the next, and on through the narrow crooked streets until I emerged on Cheapside, with St. Paul's directly ahead.
Booksellers dominate the south common of the cathedral; here in a forest of fluttering ballads and broadsides I took refuge. A right unsavory-looking character by then, sweaty and begrimed, with blood staining my shirt, I sought to fend off notice by burying my nose in a small book of poetry. The quarto was poorly printed and cheaply bound, and the poems in it may have deserved no better. Still, they served as a painful reminder of what I had lost.
On the day after my mother died, I had broken the lock on the small lead casket that held her dearest possessions. Susanna and I divided the contents: a ring, two silver spoons, a pendant passed down from our grandmother, the medallion rubbing, and a sonnet, which read in part
But soft within the layered petals keep they curled,
These poor sighs of mine by the rose concealed
While in thy sweet possession rise to fly unfurled;
My secret wound enbalmed, my hidden hurts healed.
R.M., 1581
“It should be buried with her,” Susanna had decided.
My reply came after a long pause. “I want to keep it.”
“Whatever for?” Her
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