The day of the funeral turned out to be one of those first sweet days of spring when the shoots that had lain sleeping in the ground all winter seemed to rise up at once and burst through the earth. In the cemetery, daffodils and hyacinths, snowdrops, early-blooming irises, clover, buttercups, and daisies rioted in the grass around the graves. The cherry trees showered white and pink snow on the shoulders of the pallbearers as they carried the coffin to the graveside. Although Nick had been taught that spring was Nature’s allegory for Christ’s resurrection, somehow this burgeoning of new life made the graveside obsequies all the more depressing, the thunk of the soil spaded onto the coffin all the more ominous. It was as if the brilliance of the flowers, the living smell of new grass, the joyous trilling of the birds, were props in a morality play to remind the onlookers that the beauty of life was a cruel illusion; that, in reality, all flesh was grass.
After they had watched the small box lowered into the ground, the grave filled in and covered over with sod, Nick and Gavell went to a nearby tavern. Nick would rather have gone straight home, but it was Gavell who had suggested the drink, and as it was traditional after a funeral, Nick had agreed.
In contrast to the loud jollity of the other patrons rejoicing in the balmy spring day, they were subdued. Still convinced that Gavell and Stace had somehow been involved in the attempt on his life on the ship, Nick was on his guard.
Gavell finally broke the silence. “I’m leaving the earl’s employ.”
“Why?” Perhaps Gavell had a guilty conscience and felt responsible for his friend’s death.
Gavell looked down at the table and touched a wet spot there with his finger, a pretext for not looking at Nick. “Essex is returning to the Netherlands.” Then he raised his eyes to Nick’s. They were as blue as a pitiless winter sky. “His Lordship was more concerned with the loss of his precious ship. He couldn’t have cared less about Richie and Annie.” His voice had grown hoarse. “I was taken in. Thought he were a gentleman.”
This, coming from a hard man such as Gavell, was a devastating critique. Infallibly, Nick had found, the opinion of servants about their masters was correct. They always saw the person beneath the facade, beneath the actor and sycophant at court. Before servants, one did not need to put on an act, for there was nothing to gain from their good opinion. Nick had witnessed such a moment with Essex and the stable lad the day he had broken with him.
The other explanation was, of course, that Essex had been furious when he learned that not only had he lost one of his own men, but Nick had survived. Perhaps Gavell was disaffected not only because of the loss of his friend but because Essex had refused to pay him for a bungled job.
Perhaps Gavell and Stace had never intended to help Nick catch Annie but had lured him to where she was hidden in order to do away with him and ensure her escape to the Continent, not dreaming that it would have turned out the way it did. In that case, Gavell would feel responsible for Annie’s death as well as his friend’s.
The one thing that niggled at Nick was the means of his death: why run the risk of placing a burning candle in a room full of gunpowder? Why not a knife in the back or a garrote around the neck? Either would have been a far more effective means and would have ensured that no one else would have died by accident, let alone the killer himself. Or herself? Had it been Annie who had persuaded her friends Gavell and Stace to bring Nick to her on the ship so she could get rid of him once and for all? She knew he would never stop looking for her, which effectively meant she could not show her face in England again. But then how was she to advance her family’s fortune at court if she could not return to London unless the only witness to her link to del Toro was dead?
“Edmund is going to the Netherlands with Essex,” Gavell said.
Nick was surprised. He could not imagine the squeamish, timid man he knew faring well on a battlefield. But perhaps Edmund had no choice, seeing as he had a living to make. Choice was a luxury only the very wealthy could afford, including him, Nick thought guiltily. If it hadn’t been for the hold Cecil had over him because of his recusant status, Nick would have been free to do anything he pleased.
“They belong together, those two,” Gavell said savagely. “As I said at Wood Wharf, Edmund’s an arse-licker. Only says what he thinks Essex wants to hear. And Essex is only too pleased to listen. Pah!” He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “You knew him when he were a lad, didn’t you? Edmund, I mean.”
“Yes.” Nick pictured Edmund standing in their college quad looking wistfully after them as he and John made off for a tavern. “You shouldn’t judge him too harshly. He’s had a hard life.”
“Ain’t we all?”
No, not all. Nick had had a happy childhood with plenty to eat and a family who loved him. He thought of Matty, and of the beggar girl, Allie, whom he had found starving on the steps of St. Paul’s last winter. Both girls had been rescued from their miserable lives: Matty had gone to live at The Black Sheep; Allie had been adopted by a kindhearted former cook called Mistress Plunkett, whom Nick had met during his investigation the previous winter. But there were thousands of others who were not so fortunate. And looking at Gavell’s face, its hard planes of bone, the sinewy toughness in his arms, the wizened look that no doubt came from childhood privation, Nick could imagine him as a survivor growing up on the streets of London, fiercely defending his right to exist with his fists and a dagger.
“Someone tried to kill me on the ship,” Nick said, watching Gavell closely.
Gavell looked surprised, then offended. “Weren’t us, if that’s what you’re getting at,” he said.
Nick held his gaze.
Gavell stared defiantly back. “Think what you like,” he said eventually. “I admit, I didn’t like you.”
Nick noted the use of the past tense.
“Thought you was a turncoat,” Gavell went on. “Someone who decides to change his allegiance when the wind starts blowing from the north.”
When Nick looked none the wiser, Gavell sighed. “I knew you worked for Walsingham and that his agents were being targeted by a killer. We figured you joined Essex to save your skin. Kind sticks to kind.”
“Because Essex is an earl and I’m an earl’s son?”
“Something like that.” Gavell shrugged, a characteristic gesture that told Nick that Gavell had long ago given up trying to understand his betters. “But then you saw to Annie’s burial, proper like, even though she were your enemy.”
Nick regarded him thoughtfully. He had assumed Gavell was nothing but a hard case, a bully-boy, with little on his mind except a primitive loyalty to the man who provided his pay. He was ashamed to admit he had thought this because, unlike Francis Bacon, with his blood ties to the greatest in the land, Gavell was from the poorer classes. Mistakenly, and unforgivably, Nick had assumed this meant he had no honor. That did not mean, of course, that Gavell and Stace had not tried to kill him on The Dalliance. Following the orders of one’s master was also proof of fealty.
Gavell held up his tankard. “To loyalty,” he said.
“To loyalty,” Nick replied.
But loyalty to what, and to whom?
Walking back to Bankside alone, Nick meditated on the irony of his toast after the funeral of a traitor. But Annie had been loyal to her family, her clan. She must have thought working for the Spanish was the best way to restore her family’s fortunes. It didn’t make her treason right, but it was something Nick understood. Blood was, after all, thicker than water. He wondered to what lengths he would go to protect his family, those he loved, and prayed he would never be put to the test.
CHAPTER 26
The Palace of Whitehall
Annie’s death meant that Nick’s letter to Walsingham over a week before was now moot, although he was still puzzled as to why he had not had a reply.
But he did receive another letter. It was from his brother, Robert, who said he was coming to London to see how John was—his own steward was John’s brother—and also to purc
hase a house in the city; that he would be staying at The Mermaid Tavern so as not to put a burden on Maggie at this terrible time; that he would send Alan, his page, with a message when he arrived; that Elise, his sister-in-law, and their mother, Agnes, sent their love.
Nick was glad Robert was coming. For one thing, it would bring solace to Maggie and the entire Stockton family back at Binsey House. John’s parents were both dead, and his brother could not get away from the estate, nor could his married sisters come to visit. So Robert would carry their love and take news back with him. As head of the family, this would be deemed not only appropriate but also a great kindness and a public sign of Robert’s deep regard for the Stocktons, who had served the earls of Blackwell for generations, something to be talked about with approval in the villages and crofts on the Blackwell estate. It was a country custom but one that had been followed time out of mind.
Nick also had another reason for being happy to see Robert. He wanted to warn him of what del Toro had revealed, that he had intended to seek Robert out as the head of a prominent recusant family, perhaps to persuade him to join cause with Mary, Queen of Scots, and a treason plot to assassinate Elizabeth. Nick’s blood ran cold when he thought that Robert and del Toro had so very nearly crossed paths in The Spotted Cow.
Del Toro was back in Paris, but that did not mean another approach might not be made. With Annie gone, there was now no witness besides Nick himself to testify that del Toro had had his sights on Robert at all. Nick wanted it to stay that way.
* * *
Nick was in a wherry being rowed across from Bankside to the Palace of Whitehall. It was May Day, and he could hear the bells of London proclaiming the holiday with joyous abandon. Even in Bankside, a maypole had been set up in Paris Garden, and people were flocking to the fields with picnic baskets. A May Queen had been chosen—ironically, one of Kat’s girls—a sylphlike, fair-haired creature whose profession had not yet marked her face with cynicism and suspicion. In Bankside, it was not considered odd to have chosen a whore to be Queen of the May when, traditionally, it was a virgin who was chosen; in fact, the community would have been hard-pressed to find any female who was not beyond the pale of the law. There were a few such living in Bankside, of course, Mistress Baker for one; but as she weighed fifteen stone, was homely of countenance, and possessed biceps that any wrestler would envy thanks to a lifetime of lifting heavy batches of bread from the oven, she was automatically disqualified in favor of the willowy, and enthusiastically willing, Ursula.
The joke already circulating was that she was going to be the Virgin Queen for the day. The fact that this jest depended on an almost treasonous reference to the Queen’s vaunted virginity made it all the more hilarious.
Nick would have much preferred to see in the May with his neighbors and friends, especially Eli and Rivkah, but he had decided to accept the Queen’s invitation to the May Day festivities in the tilting yard. The play Essex was putting on in her honor—The Ghost, written by Will Shakespeare—would be in the evening. Even though Will was only on the outer margins of the acting troupe—being a lowly horse stabler and scene shifter—he longed to write plays and had secretly submitted his play to Essex for his approval.
Before deciding to attend on the Queen, Nick had volunteered to stay and watch over John so that Maggie could go to the May Day celebrations. But Maggie had refused.
“It wouldn’t be the same without John,” she said. “Matty, Jane, and Henry are going with Rivkah and Eli. You go and enjoy yourself.”
Nick wasn’t planning on enjoying himself. But once he was in the boat, such was the beauty of the day, the sound of the bells, the caress of the breeze on his face that the gloom that had descended on him since John’s wounding and Annie’s death began to lift just a little.
Compared to the last time Nick had been rowed across the river to Leicester House, this ride was a delight and not a misery of cold wind and rain, even though he and Edmund had sheltered beneath an awning on that previous voyage. Then, Essex had sent his own barge, hoping to entice Nick into his employ. Now Nick and Essex were on the outs, but Essex could not prevent Nick from attending—he was coming at the Queen’s behest.
“Terrible thing that ship going up in flames,” the boatman observed. He said it evenly, hardly out of breath despite the vigor with which he was plying the oars and the way he constantly scanned the water for other boats, maneuvering out of their way with consummate skill.
Nick should have been prepared to discuss the sinking of The Dalliance with a boatman. All those who plied their trade on water feared fire above all things, as they lived and worked in a world of frail wooden vessels with only a thin plank between themselves and eternity. Astonishingly, most of the sailors Nick had known had not been able to swim, although the boatmen who plied the Thames were usually good swimmers, having grown up on the river. But Nick did not want to relive the experience of the ship exploding, nor the sight of Annie’s and Stace’s burned corpses. He grunted a response and hoped the boatman would drop the subject. No such luck.
“I was talking to one of the sailors who escaped,” the man said. He broke off to yell a curse at another boat that was crossing perilously close to his bow.
It contained a party of two ladies in summer dresses and parasols to keep the sun off their white skin and their beaux at the oars, their fine cambric shirts open at the necks to catch the breeze, their faces red and sweating in the warm sun. “Sorry,” one of the ladies called, waving her parasol. The material of the parasol caught the breeze, and the boat rocked alarmingly, scraping the hull against the side of the wherry. The women shrieked and stood up; the men cursed and told them to damn well sit down and shut up. Both women complied, pouting, oblivious to how close they had come to overturning in the middle of the river.
“Fucking idiots,” the boatman muttered with the contempt of a professional forced to watch amateurs give his livelihood a bad name. “They’ll be in the drink soon enough, mark my words. Them ladies will sink like stones in them dresses.” He said this with a little too much relish, Nick thought.
“Anyway,” Nick’s boatman continued, pulling smoothly away from the disaster waiting to happen in the other boat, “this sailor told me a mad man came running from the cargo hold shouting that the boat was on fire and to get out. If it weren’t for him, the sailor said, they’d all be cinders. Said that he hoped the man escaped. Must have, seeing as the rumor was he saw a trollop asleep before the fire broke out. Said he tried to wake her but she was too drunk, most like.”
Annie, Nick thought. But why was she asleep if she had just tried to kill him? Perhaps this was the proof he was looking for: that it had been Stace, not Annie, who had shoved him into the gunpowder room. Now that he was dead and Gavell was leaving Essex’s employ, Nick would never be able to prove it. And perhaps there was no need; being blown up was punishment enough for Stace. After all, that was the death he had intended for Nick.
Gavell was another matter: he might try to exact revenge for the death of his friend, even though it was Nick who had been the intended victim. It would be just as well if Nick did not let down his guard, even if Gavell had appeared friendly at Annie’s funeral.
But even if Annie was not responsible for the attempt on his life, Nick was certain she had killed Winchelsea and had attempted to kill Thomas and John. Justice had been done.
Let it go, he told himself.
The boatman lapsed into silence as he concentrated on steering through the crowded part of the river that ran alongside Whitehall Palace. Boats were three deep at Whitehall Palace Stairs, with revelers being dropped off for the May Day celebrations. As many of them were already drunk despite it being only morning, getting these passengers safely from the rocking boat to the dock took time. One severely inebriated man fell in, much to the amusement of not only his companions but himself. He was hauled out by his friends, his starched linen ruff sadly drooping, the dye in his vermilion hose running into his slippers like blood.
“Just call me Neptune,” he hiccupped, “risen from the deep.”
“A tosser, more like,” the boatman remarked, rolling his eyes.
At last, it was his boat’s turn to dock at the stairs. Nick paid the boatman and climbed out.
“Want me to come back for you later on?” the boatman said. “It’ll be bedlam trying to get a boat then.”
Nick was tempted, but he did not know when the play would be over. He told the boatman as much.
“Good luck to ye, then,” the boatman said cheerfully, and shoved off to go seek out another fare. The first day of spring was one of the busiest days in a boatman’s year; he would be up and down the river perhaps fifty times or more that day, but despite his exhaustion at the end of the day, he would be very much the richer.
Nick joined the stream of revelers flowing through the palace toward King Street and thence to the tiltyard west of the palace grounds, through the Great Court and main palace gates. On his way he passed by the chapel where the body of the Queen’s youngest lady-in-waiting had been found last winter. She had been placed on the altar and had looked as if she were sleeping. This reminded Nick of what the boatman had told him about the sailor on The Dalliance who had seen a woman sleeping in the ship and been unable to wake her. He remembered how the sailors had tried to go up the ladders first until Nick had thrown them back so the whores could escape first. Most probably, the sailor the boatman told him about had been too concerned with saving his own skin to try to rescue a sleeping Annie.
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