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“Twas the first thing that struck me.”
“Which means…there has been another.” The air in the room was suddenly colder. The candle spluttered and dimmed. “It is strange,” Lucinda said, wrapping her arms around her body, “I am not sure what to feel. I expected the hair to be Lizzie’s, or Maud’s or Rosalind’s, or even Mary’s the ropemaker’s daughter. When it was not, I was both relieved and shocked. We know of four girls and now this makes five. How many have there been? Five? Ten? Twenty? I dare not think. And if he has so many souvenirs to choose from, why keep that particular hair?”
“I think he might only keep the most recent in his purse to remind him of his latest conquest.”
“There is a warped logic in that,” Lucinda agreed. The long dark hair gleamed in the candlelight. It was so long it would reach to its owner’s waist. How and when had Corvacho acquired it? “He will come back looking for the purse,” Lucinda said. There was absolutely no doubt of that.
“When he does, do we return it? Or say it has disappeared?” Moll asked.
“Mmm. I think not returning it would make him suspicious. It would be better if we can convince him it was all an innocent mix up.”
“Do you honestly think he will believe that?” Moll said, ever the skeptic. “He will know we have looked inside.”
“Does it matter if we did? We would assume, as anybody would, that he carries a lock of his wife or sweetheart’s hair.” Lucinda covered her eyes with her hands, rubbing at the tiredness. She could rub all night long, but she would never succeed in erasing the weariness that welled up from her marrow. “So what now,” she said softly, half thinking the words aloud.
“A man likes to hang onto his trophies,” Moll said staring at the rows of Grandma’s potions and salves. “I am sure he will have a stash of hair in his room. We must find a way to search Corvacho’s lodgings. As long as he does not suspect that we suspect him, we should be safe as houses.”
Lucinda pushed herself upright, spreading her hands palms-down on the bench top. “What if we are wrong? He might throw the hair away when he takes a new replacement.”
“He might, but I do not think so.” Moll coiled the long length of hair and placed both locks back into the purse before gathering up the coins and dropping them in one-by-one. “I should do it on my own and keep you out of it,” Moll said.
“No offense, Moll, but if you break in and find what we seek, who will believe the word of a cutpurse? Cutpurses, thieves, rapists…people view them as one and the same.”
“Sadly that is true, though by ‘people’, you mean men. If a cutpurse is caught stealing, they are thrown straight into prison. Yet no one seems to care about catching a rapist. And why is that? Because men do all the raping.”
“We do not even know where Corvacho lives,” Lucinda said.
“That should not be hard to find out. So you agree with my plan?”
Lucinda stood up and stretched. “I am too tired to agree to anything. Let us discuss this when we are both fresh and less prone to do anything rash.” In truth there was nothing they could do until the morning.
“What shall I do with this?” Moll said picking up the purse.
“Keep it for now until we work out how to catch him.”
“When we do, I shall stuff his hair collection down his slimy throat until he chokes.”
Which was more than enough reason to keep Moll and Corvacho apart. The one solid truth she had learned from all her years of fencing was to only ever fight with a cool head and a calculating heart. A hot head and a reckless passion were the pathway to disaster. They must be careful, or far too easily, they would have a calamity on their hands.
Corvacho did not waste any time. The next morning he came banging on the door of the fencing academy when the sun was a mere pink streak in the sky. It was not so much the early hour of his arrival, but the timing that was unfortunate, for he descended in a flurry of Spanish fury at the same time that Grandma Jones arrived home after a long and difficult birth.
“This place is a nest of thieves,” he accused after barging his way in through the door, followed by a long string of Spanish invectives. “The puta stole my purse.” Lucinda hearing the commotion from inside their living quarters, snuck into a storeroom to eavesdrop. She must stay calm and not let what she knew of Corvacho affect her judgment.
Cool head. Calculating heart.
“Master Corvacho,” Grandma Jones began, drawing herself up to her full, if unimpressive height. She refused to address anyone by the term Signor. It was not the English way. “I do not appreciate your tone or your vile accusations. Thievery is not tolerated here, nor is slander. So kindly state your case in a polite and civil manner, or I shall have to ask you to leave.”
“So you will evict me for no good reason like that puta granddaughter of yours. She took to me with a whip, threw me out, then she stole my purse.”
She could not see Grandma Jones face but it did not take much imagination to picture Grandma’s reaction.
“I find that hard to believe, Master Corvacho. No one is ever evicted from Whitefriars unless there is a very good cause. As for your purse, I can only imagine you lost it somewhere.”
“I tell you my purse is gone. I left it here at the side of the piste when I was fighting with the rapier. I am attacked with a whip and pushed out of here only to find someone has taken my purse and replaced it with this piece of mierda.” Corvacho waved a leather purse in front of Grandma’s face in a threatening way.
“Did it occur to you that you must have picked up the wrong purse in your haste and someone else has yours?”
“Of course not, you stupid woman. I did not gather my things; the ugly man who works here did that. Did it occur to you that he has stolen my purse?” The Spaniard was waving the purse in front of Grandma’s face as if he was about to hit her with it. Lucinda would have none of that. She stepped out from the storage area and strode purposefully toward the door where Corvacho had bailed up Grandma.
