by S. J. Parris
‘Shin up there and see if you can see anyone,’ I say to Sam, pointing to an apple tree. ‘If there is a man there watching the girls, jump down straight away. If not, try to catch their eye. We are looking for the one called Eve.’
I hoist him on to my shoulders and he grabs the lowest branch and pulls himself up, agile as a cat. He feels his way along until he is sitting in a fork of the tree, well inside the garden, his little legs swinging. From below comes a girlish exclamation.
‘You’re early for scrumping apples, little master,’ says a voice.
‘I’m not stealing,’ Sam says. ‘I’m looking for a girl.’
Ribald giggles from within. ‘Come back in ten years, sweetheart, when you’ve money in your hand,’ one of them says.
‘My master has money.’ Sam kicks his legs, nonchalant. ‘He wants a girl called Eve. He needs to talk to her.’
My master, I think. There is something oddly touching about this.
‘Your master?’ another girl asks, her voice anxious. ‘Is he a sailor?’
‘He’s off Captain Drake’s ship,’ Sam says.
There follows some discussion between the women that I cannot catch; their words come in short, excited bursts. ‘I am called Eve,’ says the same voice. ‘When can I see him?’ She sounds breathless; I already know she is going to be disappointed.
‘Now,’ Sam says, pointing down. ‘He’s right here.’
‘Tell him I am locked in, we can’t leave. He’ll have to climb up where you are.’
I curse inwardly. Sam shins obligingly along the branch and perches on the wall, motioning for me to join him. I grip the wall with both hands and pull myself up, white-hot needles of pain spearing my right side. As I emerge on to the top, steadying myself with the branches, I hear the girl say, her voice bright with hope, ‘Robert?’
Below me is a neatly kept garden, the lower part given over to orchard, the end nearest the cottage planted with box hedges and herb beds. It is large enough that here, at the wilder end, we could not be overheard from the house. Frowning up at me is a young woman, barely more than a girl, with a round, pretty face, her hair tied back in a white coif. She wears a grey smock that hangs shapelessly from thin shoulders. Though there is no sun, she lifts a hand to shade her eyes and squints hard at me. Her expression, as I predicted, is crushed.
‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Giordano.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind. Are you Eve?’
She nods, then casts a nervous glance back at the cottage. Blank windows stare over the garden. Hanging not far behind Eve is another girl, a little older, dressed in the same clothes.
‘Is someone watching you?’
She jerks her thumb at the house. ‘He’s asleep inside the back door. But he might wake. There’s a maid in the kitchen too, but she’s on our side. Only if the goodwife finds out we’ve talked to you we’ll all be punished.’
‘How will she punish you?’ I ask. My mind conjures images of pregnant young girls savagely beaten, a punishment I have brought on them through my interference.
‘Lock us in our rooms,’ she says, with a little shrug. ‘That’s all they can do here. She can’t lay a hand on us in case it hurts the babby, see.’ Her fingers stray protectively to her belly. She is barely more than a child herself.
‘Will it fall out if she beats you?’ Sam asks with relish, kicking his heels against the brick wall as if he is the spectator at an interlude.
‘Sam – I need you to keep watch at the front for me. Tell us when the goodwife is coming back. Quick, now.’
He nods, eager to obey his orders, then jumps down and scurries down the path to the street. Eve turns and whispers something to her friend; the other girl skips away closer to the house, evidently to keep watch from her side.
‘Have you come from Robert?’ Eve asks, when they are out of earshot, with the same eager smile. ‘Can he not come himself? I’ve been waiting for days and heard nothing.’
I watch her carefully, wondering what answer will best serve my purpose.
‘You were waiting for Robert to come?’
She clicks her tongue, impatient. ‘Of course. As soon as he had made arrangements, he said.’ Her face clouds with suspicion. ‘Why, what is the matter?’
‘Did you know that he was planning to sail for Spain with Sir Francis Drake any day?’
Her brow knots in confusion. ‘But that was before. He said—’
‘Before what?’
She pulls the material of her dress tight to reveal a tiny swollen stomach. She smooths a hand across it reverently. ‘Before this.’
‘Eve,’ I say, and my tone causes the colour to drain from her face. ‘Robert will not come to you again.’
She shakes her head, takes a step back as if to distance herself from the news. I see her eyes are brimming with tears. ‘You’re lying,’ she hisses, but there is fear in her face.
‘Listen, Eve . . .’ I edge my way along the branch to the fork in the tree where Sam had sat. I am closer to her now; I do not quite dare to jump down into the garden in case this guard appears, but I hardly like to shout the news I have to break from on high, like a messenger from the gods in an inn-yard play. She steps further away.
‘If you come down here I’ll scream and that brute will come out with his crossbow,’ she says. I glance at the cottage in alarm, unsure whether she is bluffing. ‘Why should I believe you? What do you know of it?’ Without waiting for an answer, she wraps her skinny arms around her chest and pouts. ‘Robert will come for me. I know he will.’
‘Eve, I need you to trust me. I have to speak with you, with no threats of screaming or crossbows, and it must be done quickly, before the goodwife returns.’ At the mention of her keeper, Eve makes a face. ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ I add, ‘Sara sends you her good wishes.’
‘Sara? Where is she?’ She scans the wall as if I might have brought her with me. ‘Do you know her?’
‘I saw her just this morning. It was she who told me where to find you.’
‘Oh. And how does she?’ She looks down as she asks this, twisting the fabric of her dress between her fingers, fearful of the answer.
‘As you would expect,’ I say. I may as well give her the truth in everything.
She nods. ‘She will die, won’t she?’
‘Eventually. But it is an unpredictable disease, it can run fast or slow.’
‘I should like to see her again.’ She heaves a sigh that shakes her whole frame. Her hand returns absently to her belly. After a long silence, she moves closer to the tree. ‘Will you tell her so, if you see her? She was always kind. Poor Sara.’
‘I will.’ I wait. She rubs at her eye with the heel of her hand. Eventually she looks up.
‘Tell me, then. Where is Robert?’
I try to banish the image of Robert Dunne lying cold in his shroud, the stench of his flesh rotting unburied in the crypt.
‘Robert Dunne is dead, mistress. I’m sorry.’
‘No!’ She cries out, clasps a hand to her mouth and sinks to the ground, her skirts puddling around her. The other girl, stationed near the box hedges, snaps her head up and makes as if to come over; I hold up a hand in warning and swing down into the soft grass. It is a drop of little more than six feet, but it jars all my bruises and I have to keep myself from crying out. I kneel beside Eve and offer her a handkerchief. She balls it in her fist and presses it to her mouth. ‘Who killed him?’ she croaks, barely audible.
‘Why do you say he was killed?’
She blinks at me.
‘Because he was afraid.’
‘Of whom? Did someone want him dead?’
A huge sob seems to well up from the core of her being and explode noiselessly as she covers her face with her hands and her whole body shakes. I lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder and wait for the waves of grief to subside, though not without a degree of impatience.
‘Mistress Grace,’ she says, peeling her hands away to reve
al red, brimming eyes. ‘Or his wife, I suppose, though she would not have known we planned to run away. He hasn’t seen her for months, not since he came to Plymouth in the spring. In any case, she is sick and like to die very soon, he says, so I doubt it was her.’
Not the last time I saw her, I think. Robert Dunne evidently knew how to please his young mistress. ‘Tell me about your plan,’ I say, gently. ‘It might help.’
‘He never meant to go with Captain Drake,’ she whispers, between ragged gulps. ‘He said he had some business to finish here with the fleet and then he would come into money and take me away, and we would raise the child as a family. Somewhere far from Plymouth,’ she adds, with vehemence. ‘And once his wife was in her grave, we would be properly married.’
I watch her: the clenched fists, the flushed cheeks, the determination. Did she really believe this would happen?
‘Did Mistress Grace know of this plan?’
‘No, but . . .’ She scrubs at her wet cheek with her knuckles. ‘I told someone there. The House of Vesta, I mean. She might have forced it out of them. She can do that.’
‘The boy Toby?’
She looks at me, surprised. ‘You know him?’ Her eyes narrow. ‘I never saw you there. Does she let you have Toby as well? I thought it was just—’ She bites her tongue.
‘No,’ I say, quickly. ‘I only spoke to him once. So you think Mistress Grace may have uncovered your plan and tried to prevent it?’
‘She’d have done anything to stop us if she knew,’ the girl says, lowering her voice further. ‘She wants to take the baby, see. All our babies. She thinks we don’t know, but the girls talk.’ She gestures towards the house. ‘Robert said he wouldn’t let that happen.’ She stops, swallows hard, and a fresh wave of sobbing breaks over her. ‘What am I to do now?’
‘Eve, listen to me.’ The seriousness of my tone causes her to break off her crying and sit up. ‘Something may be done for you, but you have to help me find out what happened to Robert. Do you understand?’
She gives a mute nod, her face puffy with misery.
‘Good girl. Robert died in his cabin on Captain Drake’s ship the Elizabeth Bonaventure. So even if Mistress Grace or his wife had reason to want him dead, they must have had help from someone on board. Did he ever mention any of his fellow crewmen who wished him ill?’
She blinks back tears and considers. ‘He didn’t like Captain Drake’s brother. Said he was too keen to throw his weight around, you’d think him the Captain-General. Robert said he had respect for Captain Drake but not for the brother – thinking he could speak to gentlemen as if he was their better, and him only the son of a farmer.’
I suppress a smile; I have heard this sentiment before. ‘But you don’t know of any particular quarrel?’
She shakes her head. ‘There was another man, Sorrell, Sewell, something like that? Robert owed him money. He said he was afraid this man would send someone to collect it before he’d had a chance to finish his business here in Plymouth.’
‘Savile, perhaps?’
‘Might have been. He was always complaining about someone. Robert felt life had not given him his dues. That’s what he said to me. He said he had no one else to talk to. His wife never listened.’
They never do, these wives.
‘Did he ever mention a man called John Doughty?’
She gives me a quizzical look. ‘No. But there’s a Master Doughty who’s been coming to the House of Vesta the last few months. I heard Mistress Grace address him so as she was showing him into her private rooms. He even came to me on occasion,’ she adds, with a hint of regret.
There is a silence, filled by the screeching of gulls. ‘Eve,’ I say eventually, ‘given that you were . . . ‘I pause, considering how to put this delicately. ‘Given that you entertained a number of men at the House of Vesta, how can you be so sure the child is Robert Dunne’s?’
She looks at me as if I am stupid. ‘Because Robert was the only one I loved,’ she says firmly. ‘And there must be love, to conceive a child.’ Clearly she believes this brooks no argument. I wonder who has put such fantasies in her head, and how she has sustained them against all the evidence that living in a whorehouse must have provided. I decide to change tack.
‘Did Robert ever explain this business that he had to finish in Plymouth?’
‘No. Only . . .’ she hesitates and falls silent, twisting the handkerchief between her fingers.
‘Please, Eve. Anything Robert told you might help to find out who killed him.’ I lower my voice. ‘If we can’t find out, he will be buried as a suicide, and all his goods will be taken. If that happens, we will never know if he left provision for your child in his last testament.’
Hope flickers in her eyes. ‘Do you think he did?’
‘I suppose it is possible. If he meant to take care of you.’ I feel low for deceiving her, though it is no more than Dunne himself had done. ‘But it will do him no good for you to protect his secrets now, if he shared any.’ I nod encouragement; she opens out the handkerchief, smooths it on her lap, weighing up the idea.
‘He had grown troubled in the last few weeks,’ she says, eventually. ‘I was only brought here a fortnight ago, when Mistress Grace discovered about the child. I’d been faking my courses the past two times with pig’s blood from the kitchen, but she caught me.’
‘Resourceful of you.’
‘It’s an old trick.’ She sounds scornful. ‘But before that Robert still came to the House of Vesta as often as he could. He talked about God and Hell a lot. Asked me if I thought it could ever be right to take a life.’
‘Did he? And what did you answer?’ I make my voice as gentle as I can. I sense I am nearing something important and I must tread carefully, as one would approaching a deer on a hunt; softly, softly, lest she take fright and bolt.
‘I said in a war, if someone was going to kill you otherwise, I was sure God would not punish a man who killed to protect himself or his kin.’
‘And what did Robert say to that?’
‘He seemed pleased. I think it’s what he wanted to hear.’
I nod slowly, and wait. There must be more.
‘Another time,’ she says, in a reflective tone, ‘he asked if I thought a man could be forgiven for betraying a friend, if it was to save a life. I said I could not see how such a situation could come about and he said I was probably right.’
‘He didn’t elaborate?’
‘No.’ She rubs her nose with the handkerchief. ‘But he often used to ask me what I thought it was like in Hell. Would it be burning flames or cold like a sea of ice? For some say one and some the other. I would tell him not to think of such things, and he would answer that he was afraid his soul was already damned.’ She shudders. ‘I hated it when he talked like that. I tried to change the subject, to make him talk about the home we would have with the baby when we were married, and he said it would have to be far away from England.’
There is more I would ask her, but we are interrupted by a scrabbling on the other side of the wall as Sam’s mop of hair appears over the top. ‘The old woman’s coming,’ he yells, with as much urgency as if he were announcing the sighting of a Spanish fleet off the coast. ‘She’s at the top of the street.’
I push myself to my feet, wincing, and brush the grass off my breeches. ‘One more thing, Eve. Robert had lodgings in town – do you know where they were?’
She purses her lips. ‘Rag Street, he said. By the sign of the Bear. I never went there.’ She holds the handkerchief out to me.
‘Keep it.’
She shakes her head. ‘I cannot, sir. She’ll know it’s not mine.’
‘Take this instead, then.’ I find a penny from the purse inside my doublet. Whatever I lay out now will be Drake’s to reimburse. I move to the tree.
‘One more thing, sir – I’ve just recalled.’
‘Yes?’ I wait, my hand resting against the trunk.
‘The last week or so that I saw him, before I came h
ere, he was very pleased about something. It was to do with the ship, the Elizabeth.’ She stands up, shaking out her skirts. ‘He said he’d found out something about one of the people on board, someone he was to sail with.’
‘And . . .?’ I try not to show my impatience.
‘He said he’d learned that someone on that ship had a wicked secret, one that was going to cost them dear. And he rubbed his hands together like this.’ She demonstrates, looking like the figure of Avarice in a morality play.
I think of the purse hidden inside the prayer book, fat with five gold angels. Was Dunne blackmailing one of his fellow sailors?
‘Did he tell you a name?’ I ask. The hairs on the back of my hands and arms are prickling with anticipation. ‘Or any details?’
She frowns. ‘I am trying to remember.’
Suddenly there is a cry from the girl keeping watch by the cottage; I jerk my head up to see the back door opening and a bulky figure filling the doorway.
‘Quick!’ I hiss, grabbing the lowest branch of the tree and hauling myself up.
A shout comes from the far side of the garden; some crude English oath. Eve cries out; I hear a sharp whistling and a thud as the bolt of a crossbow buries itself in the tree trunk where my leg had been a moment earlier. I scramble along the branch as far as the wall; one quick glance shows me the man is striding across the grass towards us, reloading as he goes. I yell to Sam to get down. Just as I swing myself down to the other side, I hear the scrape of iron on brick as a second bolt narrowly misses, striking the wall and showering us with fragments of mortar.
Sam has already started running towards the street; I call him back and instead drag him up the bank behind the houses, into a scrubby clump of trees. ‘He will chase us out into the street if we go that way, it is too exposed,’ I explain. Without argument, he slips his hand into mine and allows me to lead him through untended gardens and along unfamiliar streets, glancing over our shoulders at every turn, until I am sure the man with the crossbow must have given up.