Thus, Nick resolved to keep as much distance between himself and Annie as possible. He had no intention of getting embroiled in the “Irish balls-up,” as it was called by fellow agents unlucky enough to have been sent to that tumultuous and soggy island. To a man, everyone Nick had talked to about it had been of the opinion that the English, like the ancient Romans, should pack up and bugger off home.
“Annie is my best spy,” Essex said. Nick noted the use of the possessive pronoun and caught the brief look that passed between Annie and Essex. Immediately, Nick knew they were lovers. And from Edmund’s besotted expression, he was hopelessly smitten.
Then Essex turned to the room in general: “This is Nick Holt, an old friend of Edmund’s. I’ll leave you to make yourselves known to him. He joins us from Walsingham’s crew.” There was a mutinous rumble at this.
“No, no,” Essex said with mock severity, although his smile belied his words. “We’re all friends here.” And with that he slapped Nick on the back and strode out of the room calling for his secretary, Henry Savile.
Annie linked her arms through Nick’s and Edmund’s. “I’ll introduce you to the boys,” she said.
Despite what Essex had said about being among friends, the reaction of the room was standoffish, if not decidedly hostile. Francis Bacon was familiar to Nick, at least by sight. They shook hands.
Bacon, sandy-haired and plump, looked positively benign, although he was reputed to have the best legal mind in England and was said to be a veritable pit bull in the courts.
“How’s Walsingham treating you?” Bacon asked.
Remembering his brief to act the disgruntled agent, Nick said, “Same miserable bastard.”
That elicited a grin. “My brother says he is as stingy as ever.” Bacon’s brother, Anthony, was always grumbling about Walsingham’s notorious penny-pinching. As an agent of Walsingham’s stationed at the English embassy in France, he was forever moaning about how expensive it was to live in Paris and was always writing home for more money. This caused family problems, as both Bacon brothers were nephews of Baron Burghley, staunch ally of Walsingham, and cousins to Sir Robert Cecil.
Nick took Bacon’s comment to be an invitation to give him the scuttlebutt on his firing. He figured that, of all the men in the room, Francis Bacon would be the most sympathetic to Nick’s switching of loyalties from Walsingham to Essex, as his brother Anthony was always threatening to do. So Nick filled him in. While he was speaking, the others drifted over to listen.
“Who do you think is killing off Walsingham’s agents, then?” a short, wiry man with icy blue eyes asked Nick. “Us?” He grinned evilly. The others laughed.
“This is Henry Gavell,” Annie chimed in.
“Did you?” Nick asked. “Kill Winchelsea?”
The group of men laughed even louder.
All except Edmund, who said, “Of course not. We’re all on the same side, after all.”
“Edmund,” Annie said, reaching over and patting his cheek. “You really are too sweet.”
“Pah!” Gavell said, giving Edmund a withering look. “Same side, my arse!” His eyes slid back to Nick. “Maybe you’re still acting for Walsingham?” he said. “Maybe you’re spying on us? What do you think, Richie?”
A man who looked like a Wood Wharf stevedore nodded.
“Could be,” the man said, measuring Nick with his eyes as if sizing him for a coffin.
“This is Richard Stace,” Annie said.
Whereas Henry Gavell had the whippet build of concealed strength, Stace looked like a block of granite. He was the same height as his friend but wide, his head seeming to rest squarely on his shoulders without the benefit of a neck, his biceps and chest swelling like ship’s cables beneath a cambric shirt. Like Nick, he wore a leather vest; unlike Nick, his gut, which looked as solid and capacious as a brick oven, strained against his belt. Anyone foolish enough to punch it would end up with a broken hand. But Nick knew from experience that strong men were often slow, and that made them vulnerable; an elbow to the throat would probably put him down, one of several illegal wrestling moves Joseph had taught him. Nick looked forward to trying it out, but for now, his brief was to play nice, so he returned Stace’s stare and did not react to the implicit challenge in the man’s flat, opaque eyes. The last time Nick had been looked at like that was at the Billingsgate Fish Market when he had been buying his dinner. When he got no response, Stace looked about as impressed with Nick as the dead mackerel had been. These were the eyes of a killer, and Nick knew instantly that Stace was Essex’s resident assassin. Gavell, he thought, was the brains of the pair.
“And maybe you murdered Winchelsea?” Nick replied mildly.
Stace glanced at his friend, Gavell. “Did we, Henry? I can’t remember.”
“Probably.” Gavell stifled a yawn. “There’ve been so many. It’s hard to keep track.”
“Simon Winchelsea was tortured,” Nick said. It was all he could do to keep his voice even. “His eyes were put out.”
Annie put her hand to her mouth. Francis Bacon looked at the floor.
“Better watch out for yourself, Lordship,” Gavell said. “You might be next.”
“Is that a threat?”
Gavell shrugged. “Just friendly advice.”
“For your information, someone already tried,” Nick said. “And failed, thanks to Edmund here.”
Edmund mumbled something about it being nothing.
“Why, Edmund,” Gavell said, giving him a slap on the shoulder that made him stagger. “I didn’t know you had it in you. Hey, boys,” he said, “we’ve got a proper Achilles here.”
Everyone laughed.
Nick could see that Edmund played the part of the court jester in their midst. His naïvety and comparative innocence could not compete with their hard-edged cynicism. And like all schoolboy bullies everywhere, it hadn’t taken long for Henry Gavell and his mates to figure out Edmund’s weakness and exploit it for their merriment.
Annie came to his rescue. “Pack it in, you lot,” she said. Then, to Edmund, “Ignore them. They’re only jealous.”
During this exchange, Bacon had been regarding Nick with clever, assessing eyes. Besides Annie, Nick recognized him as by far the most intelligent person in Essex’s household. A lawyer as well as a Member of Parliament, Bacon was known to be a philosopher and a scientist, even though he was only twenty-five. Like his older brother, Anthony, he too had worked for Walsingham as an envoy carrying official state documents between France and England. His ties to Essex were not yet formalized, but the rumor was that he was growing more and more disenchanted with Walsingham’s painstaking way of conducting statecraft and craved more immediate results. He was said to be in favor of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, even if it meant outright war with Spain.
“Shall we sit?” Bacon said. Indicating a group of chairs placed in front of the fire. He was polite and urbane, as befitted a diplomat and barrister. The men sat down while Annie again chose to perch, this time on the arm of Nick’s chair as if she had appointed herself his guardian angel.
Or bird of paradise, Nick thought, with her red hair, sea-colored eyes, and scarlet-and-blue dress. He could smell her perfume—sandalwood—and even, he fancied, hear the soft creak of her corset when she moved. So much for keeping his distance. Apparently enraptured by Hector, she was rubbing the dog behind his ears, a thing Hector adored, judging by the big silly grin and eyes half closed in ecstasy. Annie was murmuring Irish endearments in his ear, calling him “macushla,” which meant, as Nick had learned from a sailor describing his doxy, my darling. And “a stór.” My treasure.
“I grew up with Irish Wolfhounds,” she said when she caught Nick looking. “They are the dogs of the world.”
With difficulty, Nick focused his attention back on Bacon. He knew he must tread carefully; Bacon was an expert at cross-examining witnesses at trial and was known to be tricky. His calm, soft voice asking seemingly innocuous questions had led more than one perjur
er to the Clink or the Tower.
And Nick felt as if he were in the dock with Bacon’s calm gaze upon him.
Bacon began by asking Nick what had happened on the London Road. Edmund shifted uncomfortably when Nick came to the part where the assassin had asked specifically for him by name.
Bacon turned to Edmund. “I thought you said he attacked both of you?”
Edmund indicated his shoulder. “I was the one who was wounded,” he said.
“Quite,” Bacon said.
Nick could tell Bacon had already dismissed Edmund as an unreliable witness. He turned his attention back to Nick.
“And you have no idea who this man was?” Bacon asked him.
“None.”
“English?”
Good question. Only Cecil and Bacon had thought to ask this.
“Yes.”
Nick looked thoughtfully at Stace and Gavell, who had settled into a game of dice at one end of the table with the others gathered round. The cheers and groans as well as loud advice provided a strange accompaniment to the calm reasonableness of Bacon’s questioning. The clerks were ignoring the hubbub, continuing to write furiously. It was an oddly disjointed scene, with the gentrified Bacon rubbing shoulders with riffraff like Gavell and Stace.
Not for the first time, Nick was struck by how contradictory Essex appeared—the loud, obnoxious Essex given to worldly pleasure, and the calm, ordinary man he had met earlier in his study. Having witnessed the way Essex had treated Edmund, Nick had been surprised at the contented look on Essex’s face when he had introduced Nick to his spy network, as if he were revealing a prized piece of machinery like a printing press. Nick wondered if lowlifes such as Gavell and Stace suspected that Essex regarded them as nothing but tools to be used to his own advantage.
“I assume, however, that Essex has sanctioned an investigation into the killer of Winchelsea and the attempted murder of yourself?”
“He has.”
Bacon smiled as if he had scored a point against opposing counsel. “Then I think that answers your question. It couldn’t have been one of us. Or the earl himself.”
Nick nodded as if he agreed. But he was fully aware, as undoubtedly Bacon was too, that there were wheels within wheels and that in a world of double and even triple agents, nothing was ever logical or straightforward.
“When you find your man,” Bacon said, getting up. “I will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.” He looked at Nick thoughtfully. “Whoever he is.”
CHAPTER 8
The Angel
“Right,” Nick said. “Who wants to go to the boozer?”
Edmund looked at him askance. “It’s a bit early, isn’t it? I thought you’d like a tour of the house?”
“I’m game,” Annie said, leaping up. “Just give me a minute. I’ll meet you at the front.” She hurried from the room.
Nick looked after her. “She looks fine to me.” Then, shrugging, he turned to Edmund. “What was the name of the tavern Winchelsea was last seen in?” he asked.
“The Angel.”
As Nick suspected, this was the closest tavern to Leicester House and Wood Wharf, where, Nick was certain, Winchelsea’s body was dumped in the river. “Let’s go there.”
On the way out, Edmund couldn’t resist showing Nick various rooms on the ground floor. Most of them turned out to be offices with more clerks beavering away in them. Nick was impressed by how many people Essex employed. No wonder he was a thorn in Walsingham’s side. His base of operations was ten times the size of the one in Seething Lane and must have been an enormous drain on his purse.
When they reached the main entrance and stepped out under the portico, Nick saw a woman leaning on one of the pillars. She was dressed in the scanty and gaudy dress of a whore, brown hair falling in rat tails on her shoulders rather than decently covered by a hood or cap, her bodice so loosely laced Nick was amazed her breasts didn’t fall out.
“Wotcha, handsome,” she greeted Nick in a Bankside accent so thick he could have curried his horse with it.
“Mistress,” Nick said, bowing. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A shilling if you want the full treatment.”
Her screeching cackle made Nick’s molars ache, but Hector didn’t seem to mind. Surprisingly, he was wagging his tail.
Nick studied her face carefully. Now he thought about it, there was something familiar about her. Perhaps she had worked at Kat’s?
Then the woman scratched Hector behind the ears and murmured to him.
“Annie?” Nick exclaimed.
“Took you long enough,” Annie said in her own voice. She did a pirouette. “Like the getup?”
“You look … ravishing,” Nick said gallantly. In truth, she looked like a proper drab—more ravaged than ravishing—but, then again, that was the point. He was filled with admiration. “You should be on the stage.”
“That’s what Will says,” Annie replied, slinging a shawl over her head against the rain, which was still bucketing down. “But women aren’t allowed. Only pretty boys.” She bared her teeth at the injustice of it. Nick saw she had blackened one or two of them. It changed her expression, not to mention her age, amazingly.
“Where did you learn to shapeshift like that?” he asked in wonder. “You are a veritable chameleon.”
Annie shrugged. “Came naturally. And then, in the troubles, it helped me stay alive.” The light in her eyes dimmed. “My mother and sisters were butchered,” she said in a low voice. “I escaped the castle by posing as a beggar at the gate. Tyrone’s men didn’t even notice me when they sacked the place. Raped my mother and sisters.” She shot Nick a fierce look, behind which lay an ocean of pain. “There was nothing I could do.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, aware of how inadequate his words were. She shrugged, then gave a bright smile. Too bright. It glittered like steel.
“I’m an O’Neill,” Annie said, as if the name alone was sufficient. And it was. The O’Neills were a formidable clan where even the women, it was rumored, rode to war. “What’s past is past,” she said. “Let’s go to The Angel.”
“How did you know we were going there?” Edmund asked.
She gave him a scornful look. “That was the last place Winchelsea was seen alive.”
* * *
The Angel was situated opposite Leicester House but two streets over. They crossed the Strand, the smartest road in London, made especially wide to allow royal carriages with their numerous retinues to pass in style, then cut through St. Clement’s churchyard and crossed Wiche Street. The inn was down a short alley on Wiche, the joke being that any woman patronizing the tavern was transformed from a witch to an angel by a few short steps. As few respectable women frequented taverns, Nick thought this witticism back to front, as it was commonly believed that a woman entering a public house changed from an angel to a witch. Nonsense, of course. His friendship with Kat had taught him that a person’s occupation did not necessarily tally with their character. Many people he knew in Bankside, especially women, had been forced into a life of prostitution or crime due to crushing poverty. And he knew plenty of aristocrats who would sell their own mothers for a court appointment. In his opinion, poverty was a better excuse for wrongdoing than naked ambition.
Glancing with fascination at Annie, he saw that with every step she took she transformed herself into a Bankside trollop. No longer striding purposefully beside them, she began to swing her hips and toss her head. She laughed raucously and linked her arms through Nick’s and Edmund’s. A merchant’s wife looked askance at her, but her husband lustfully followed Annie with his eyes until his disapproving wife brought him back to his marital duty by thrusting her overladen basket at him and dragging him down the street.
“I’m known here as Meg,” Annie whispered in Nick’s ear as they entered the tavern.
The place was heaving with the noonday crowd, and they had to push their way to the bar accompanied by lewd but friendly shouts to Meg and Edmund, who we
re clearly regulars.
“Fishing for trout in a peculiar river, are you, Nick?” This from a voice Nick recognized.
“Will,” he exclaimed, slapping his friend on the back. “I thought The Black Sheep was your regular? I’m hurt.”
“It is. I had to run a script by the earl,” Will replied. Then he winked at Annie. “Meg!” he cried, puckering up his lips and squeezing his eyes shut. “Give us a kiss, darling.”
“A pox on you, Will Shakespeare,” Annie replied in her Meg voice, pushing him away with a grin.
“That’s what you gave me last time,” Will replied, feigning dismay. “The pox.”
This was greeted by ribald whistles and mock groans from the patrons propping up the bar and watching this little scene with relish.
“Get stuffed,” Annie told him with great good humor.
“That’s the general idea,” Will retorted. The patrons cheered.
Nick could see that both Annie and Will were enjoying their little drama. He often forgot that Will was an actor too, and he sometimes thought his friend pretended to be drunker than he was in order to better observe his fellow imbibers. Nick had long been aware that Will was a watcher. Not a spy, exactly, more a student of human nature. Perhaps that was why he burned to write plays that dealt with all the vicissitudes of human life, from comedy to tragedy, king to commoner, and everything and everyone in between.
And looking around, Nick could see that the inn was indeed filled with people from all walks of life, from courtiers and bureaucrats fagging up and down the Strand to and from Whitehall, to wherrymen who had tied up their boats at Wood Wharf, to lawyers from the Middle Temple and a host of prosperous merchants and weedy, undernourished apprentices from the more upscale shops on the Strand, to the more homely ones catering to the middle classes on Wiche Street.
The Course of All Treasons Page 8