Short of coin and sick of everything, I’d made my way to Amsterdam, falling into thief taking. It was fist work, mostly. People with grievances took them to Olfert, an old soldier with one leg, one arm and one eye, who kept a desk outside the half-finished Begijnhof church, claiming that a man with his ill luck needed to keep as close to God as possible. Plaintiffs would shout their complaints above the hammering, and Olfert would put on a kindly manner and promise prompt restitution. Often, this required me to drag a drunk fool off his stool and punch him until he settled his dues.
In return, Olfert paid enough coins to fill a calf’s mouth.
That morning Olfert had given me a handwritten note from somebody called Samuel Pipps, asking that I meet him at a dubious tavern in the narrows at midday. That part of the city was a rat’s nest of crooked lanes and thieving hands, impossible to navigate, let alone emerge from safely.
It was a peculiar request. Nobody in the narrows could read, let alone write. And they certainly couldn’t afford vellum. I thought it likely Pipps was just a bored noble, living dangerously for an afternoon so he’d have a story to tell his friends that evening. No doubt, he needed somebody to escort him safely home.
Truth be told, I nearly tossed his note to the wind. I was past tired of serving nobility. I’d seen too many good souls die wailing because a king wanted his flag planting on somebody else’s hill. I was so sick of the butcher’s yard, I’d already vowed not to go back to war. For most, that would have seemed like sense, but fighting was my only talent.
In some quarters, I was famed for it.
Casting battle aside was liking throwing away the only suit of clothing I owned, for I had no wife, no children. No friends, or close family. I had built nothing and could be proud of nothing. I truly didn’t know what else there was for me.
Much as working for a noble might taste sour in the mouth, I reasoned they’d likely put a few extra coins in my pouch, buying me week or more of comfort to set myself on a new path.
Black snow was falling – the white flakes stained by the soot rising out of chimneys – when I came upon the tavern in question.
A shingle hung over the door, squeaking in the wind.
I sighed, blowing out a breath. There was a dead man lying a few paces from the door, a shovel jammed into his back, and a light dusting of snow shrouding him. Steam rose from his body, and his blood oozed into the mud, but of his assailant there was no sign. The alley was empty, aside from a rickety cart further up the alley, tools spilled from the back.
I burst inside the tavern, sounding the alarm, only to be met with indifference and annoyance. Evidently, murder was common enough round here that it didn’t warrant shouting about.
‘Did he at least die in an interesting way?’
I had to squint to find the voice.The tavern was low-ceilinged and cheerless, smelling of mead and the sawdust covering the floor. Five guttering candles lit as many tables, the patrons rolling dice, or staring mournfully into their cups.
I realised the voice belonged to a short fellow in beautiful clothes who was scraping mould off the wall into a clay pot. He hadn’t bothered to turn around, but this could only be the author of the note in my pocket, for his fine dress spoke to education and abundance. Not to mention foolishness. I reckoned more than a few men in that tavern were biding their time, waiting for him to leave, so they could follow him into the dark.
‘You Pipps?’ I asked, suspiciously.
‘Yes, and you’re Arent Hayes.’ He hadn’t even looked at me, he was still intent upon his scraping. ‘Tell me about this murder.’
I’ll confess, I didn’t enjoy his abrupt manner, or the way he immediately assumed I was a servant to be ordered around.
‘Come outside and look for yourself.’
‘Oh, I’m much too busy for that,’ he said, absently. ‘Just tell me how he died. Slit throat? Knife in his chest? Was it bloody and boring?’
‘There’s a shovel in his back,’ I said, annoyed by his cavalier attitude to such a terrible crime.
For the first time, he halted his work. ‘Well that’s a little more interesting than mould.’
He stoppered his clay pot with a cork, then sauntered into the candlelight. If you’d asked me then what I thought of him I’d have said he was handsome, arrogant, foolish and absent minded. If you asked me now, I’d say much the same – though I’d perhaps venture that every vice clung tight to a virtue he’d cleverly concealed.
‘Come, Hayes, let’s take a look at your dead man,’ he said, striding past me.
That’s when I knew he was a different sort of noble. It was in the way he spoke. The way he carried himself. He was rich, aye. Noble, aye, but there was a sense of inevitability to him. The way he said ‘let’s take a look’ came across as ‘let’s go put this right.’
And we did.