The Nine Giants by Edward Marston

or what they had been, the dead deserved the utmost respect. He came up into the fresh air and inhaled it gratefully. Light was fading and so he hurried in the direction of the river before it went completely. From the wharf where he had been picked up by Abel Strudwick, he looked out across the water and tried to estimate the point at which they had encountered the body. It was somewhere in mid-stream and he wondered how far it had drifted in order to reach them. He decided that the dead man had been put into the Thames under the cover of darkness but the swift current could still have brought him some distance.
    The book holder was no stranger to the wharves andharbours along the Thames. The son of a West Country merchant, he had fallen in love with the sea at an early age and been on numerous voyages with his father. The bold venture of Francis Drake caught his imagination and he sailed around the world with him for three long years. That experience had brought endless disillusion but it had not entirely stilled the call of the sea. When he first came to London, he would often come down to the river to watch the ships putting in and to talk with the sailors about their voyages and their cargoes. This visit was a far less pleasant one.
    His eye inevitably fell on the Bridge. It was an extraordinary sight that never palled and Nicholas felt a surge of admiration for those who conceived and built it. Twenty solid piers supported nineteen arches of varying widths. Islands were created around the piers to protect them from the tide race. These starlings, as they were called, were shaped like great flat boats and narrowed the water channels under the arches so much that the tide race was dramatically increased. Nicholas had not been surprised to learn that the Bridge had taken over thirty years to complete and had claimed the lives of some one hundred and fifty workmen. It had stood for some four centuries and more as a tribute to their craftsmanship. Because it was the only structure to span the broad Thames, it became the most important thoroughfare in London and properties along its length were much coveted. The Bridge was also the healthiest part of the city. When the Black Death was decimating the population in every other ward, it couldonly boast two recorded deaths among those who lived above the swirling waters of the river.
    Respect soon changed to foreboding. It was that same Bridge which had put such deep fear into the heart of Hans Kippel that he could not even stand there and behold it. Two of the most appealing parts of London had taken on a different character for Nicholas. The Bridge held the clue to what had happened to a Dutch apprentice and the River Thames knew the secret of the maimed body that it had washed up into the hands of the book holder. He stood there in deep contemplation until evening had washed the last rays of light from the sky.
    A boat took him across to Bankside and he walked briskly along the winding lanes on his way home. Another problem now concentrated his mind. Alexander Marwood had lit a raging bonfire of uncertainty. An impending change of ownership at the Queen’s Head was a serious threat to the well-being of Westfield’s Men. The landlord was a difficult enough man with whom to bargain but Alderman Rowland Ashway would not even talk terms. Nicholas had thought to confide in Edmund Hoode but his friend was too infected with lovesickness to hear any sense. Lawrence Firethorn would need to be told soon and the book holder resolved to call on him the next day. Trying times lay ahead and they could only be made worse by the fact that a fond poet and a lustful actor had chosen as the object of their passion the same unsuspecting young woman. If tragedy was to be averted, Nicholas would have to provide some highly skilful stage-management.
    He walked along between rows of tenements then turned into the street where he lived. The house was still some thirty yards away when he sensed danger