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something. The word ‘jug’ could just be made out, but nothing more. The door opened enough for them both to squeeze through and they found themselves in a hall, shadowy and cavernous in the light of a small taper burning in a chamber stick, held in the hand of a woman in bedgown and a shawl. Her face was shaded by the frill of her nightcap, but not for subterfuge, just the vagaries of fashion.
    ‘You have something to sell, Sir Avery?’ she asked. ‘I am a collector of …’ She glanced at the other man. ‘Jugs? Yes, jugs. May I see the piece?’
    The moneylender extracted it from beneath his cloak and handed it to her.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Just the thing. But, sadly, I was offered one just this afternoon for only fifteen pounds. I have committed to buy it, I am afraid, Sir Avery. Thank you for troubling to bring it to me, but …’
    The landowner had gone white. He glanced at his companion and licked his lips, which were suddenly dry. ‘But … I was assured that … Can you not …?’
    She looked up into his face and her face fell into an expression of compassion. ‘You poor man,’ she said. ‘I had no idea that the situation was so desperate.’ She patted his arm. ‘I am a fool to myself, but I will offer you twenty pounds. It is all I have in the house. I am sure the other seller will understand. It is a very desirable piece and he will find another buyer easily enough.’ She looked at him again, shaking his arm in sympathy. ‘Come now? Will you take twenty?’
    Sir Avery hung his head, then nodded, slowly.
    ‘There, now,’ she said, bustling off with her taper and leaving them in the dark while she ferreted for something in another room, just off the hall. Both men heard the chink of coins in a bag. Then she was back, with her light and, best of all, a chamois leather purse, heavy with gold. ‘I’m sure you’ll want to count it.’ He shook his head. ‘What a gentleman,’ she said happily. Then, to the moneylender, ‘Will you put it on the shelf?’ He reached up and put the jug on a corner cabinet near the door. ‘I would love to talk more to you both,’ she said, ‘but the hour is
very
late, and I can’t wake my maidservant at this hour.’ She already had the door open and ushered them out. ‘Goodnight.’ She pushed on the heavy oak, but stopped before it was quite closed. A hand came through and dropped four angels into her outstretched palm. With a wave of the fingers, it withdrew and she shut the door behind it. She leaned against the planks for a moment, catching her breath. It wasn’t something she enjoyed, but ten per cent was ten per cent, no matter how you looked at it. The twenty pounds would come with the messenger sent for the jug in a day or so. And then it would just be a matter of waiting until the next time. Because there was always a next time.

THREE
    T he man Robert Greene was looking for had reinvented himself since leaving Cambridge. Gabriel Harvey, Fellow of Pembroke Hall, had been all set to take over the running of Corpus Christi. He even had plans to re-christen it Harvey College, but it was not to be. Now he was telling everybody that he had come to London to take his rightful place in society as the patron of the poet Edmund Spenser, the most dazzling wordsmith of this or any other age. Harvey had made the man what he was, since Spenser himself could hardly carry a rhyme in a bucket and he wanted to make sure everyone knew that. Not bad for a lad from Saffron Walden whose dad made ropes for a living.
    Even so, knowing all this, Robert Greene was not prepared for the apparition sitting alone in Mrs Robertson’s Ordinary along Lombard Street that night. His ruff was so huge he could barely reach his mouth with his fork and his Venetians spread wide along the bench he sat on. Greene caught the man’s eye and doffed his cap, squeezing past the tables in the smoke-filled supper room.
    ‘The last time I saw you, Greene,’ Harvey said, leaning back to sip