The Point of Death

by Peter Tonkin

  'Mistress Kate reserved it,' said Poley. 'She has a subtle mind.'

  'Ah,' said Diego. 'Now I see which way the game goes. Had I not already been awash with suspicions.' He glanced up at Master Gerard. 'I would hazard merely your mice to begin with, Master Gerard, for there is a great amount of death wrapped up in all of these little parcels, I would guess. Then, perhaps, your cats and dogs to test the strength.'

  The first mouse that tasted a crumb of the Spaniard's food lasted a few seconds. The Masters of Apothecary watched its spastic twitching into a frozen stasis of death with fearsome concentration. 'Hemlock,' said Gerard, and Diego nodded. They tested it on a cat and then a dog. The dose was massive; the diagnosis unvaried: hemlock. 'That's the closest those ignorant buffoons of guards ever came to understanding Socrates,' Diego observed dryly over the rigid body of the dog. 'But I expect Salgado meant it as a compliment to me.' He picked up the mouse and looked deep into its wide eyes.' They say the mind remains alive, locked in a dying body, unable to cry out,' he said. 'At least that's what Plato said of Socrates after he drank it.'

  'It's also what those who found him dying said of Sir Francis Walsingham,' whispered Kate into the hollow of Tom's ear. His blood ran cold, for he remembered all too clearly Morton's letter and the manner in which he had expounded it to Poley and the rest.

  They sorted the little piles according to the labels Poley had put upon them, being very careful to touch them only with Master Gerard's wooden spoons and sticks. The one Spanish needle rescued from Morton's letter had a very different effect when another unfortunate mouse was scratched with it. The poor little creature writhed in agony, spraying various liquids from various parts of its body before it froze into juddering stasis. 'Monk's Hood,' opined Gerard.

  Don Diego was nodding sagely. 'Aconite,' he said. 'The effect is the same if you eat it.'

  'And the end is the same as the Earl of Leicester suffered on his way to Buxton,' breathed Kate as Gerard, gauntleted, reached for a cat to scratch.

  Tom tore himself forward, as much to escape the terrible weight of her knowledge as to add to the dread weight of his own. 'And which,' he choked, 'which of these hell-born things could cause a whole family to run mad and fall screaming into swollen death? Which of these poisons could do that, my Masters?'

  And the two men looked at each other, frowning with shared knowledge. Then Don Diego turned to Tom and answered for them both. 'What you describe is poisoning from the most terrible poison of all, more dreadful even than the black hellebore or deadly nightshade. It is mandragora or mandrake you describe. Only mandrake takes the reason as well as the life. That is why they call it "the insane root".'

  And even as Tom turned away, brow folded in thought and horror, Poley silently pulled something out of another little package. Half rotten and blackened, it was, of all things, a strawberry.

  Tom and Kate walked silently up towards Blackfriars as the Bellman said goodnight.

  'Remember the clocks,

  Look well to your locks,

  Fire and your light,

  And give you goodnight

  For now the bell ringeth.'

  'The bell has rung for too many of late,' said Tom.

  'It has,' agreed Kate. 'So we should be glad we are none of their number.

  'You have the right of it, I suppose,' he answered. 'But Kate, how is it that you come by the terrible knowledge you possess? Who are you that you know such people and such things?'

  'I will tell you it all, in due course,' she said. 'But nothing more tonight. Tonight there is no more Lady Catherine Shelton. There is only Kate of Bridewell, the bawd who escaped a whipping because of your bravery and your gallantry. Who is hot to express her thanks.'

  Up they ran, into the rooms above Master Aske's haberdashery, and Tom was overjoyed to discover that Ugo had not managed to make it home after all. He had managed to do no more than to dash a handful of cool water in his face and set light to his bedside lamp when he turned to find Kate of Bridewell slipping lithely out of her skirts. 'Hold,' he said, and raising the light above his head he took her through into the fencing chamber and stood her like a female Narcissus in front of his great mirror. Then as he stripped, she stood, awed by the wonder of her reflection, caught between lamplight and moonlight and shadow, a thing of marble curves and russet tints and black velvet deeps. Never, not even at Court, had she seen a mirror to equal this. 'I burn,' she whispered. 'Oh, I burn to thank you.'

  Then Tom came up and wrapped his arms around her, looking over her shoulder at her form in the tall cold mirror while, with trembling fingers, she showed him where she burned. And how.

  Chapter Twenty - Highmeet

  They greeted the morning with Kate still full of gratitude. She straddled Tom's loins and held him within her as she told him of her family and background. This was a ploy to prolong their passion, and so far it had lasted well. He, ever the scholar, had suggested quoting from the classical masters to distract his mind at first, but she had hardly suggested 'Nam concordia pavae res cruscunt' ('Harmony makes small things huge') than he misquoted loudly, 'Praeparetur corpus contra omnia' ('Prepare your body for the unexpected') and even arid, Stoical Seneca undid them both.

  Now, however, as she eased herself ever so slightly forward and back, her husky voice held him entranced, even as her glorious body held him enraptured. 'The Sheltons have been the wardens of Hunsdon House since the days of Harry the King. We're related to the Careys and the Boleyns and the Howards of Norfolk. When Queen Anne fell out of favour with the old man, soon after Elizabeth was born, the child was sent to Hunsdon House, and my family looked after her while Queen Anne went through the trial and execution while the old man prepared the way for Jane Seymour to become his next queen in her turn. And incidentally mounting Queen Anne's sister Mary Boleyn as his mistress while he was at it, the old goat. But Elizabeth came to us at Hunsdon and we raised her. And so in due course, the Sheltons fell into something like friendship with her. The eldest, Mary, was her maid in waiting until she married in secret, and the Queen boxed her ears for her. My elder sister, Audrey, is down at Scadbury at the moment, with her lover, Sir Thomas Walsingham, soon to be her husband. And I whirl around the edges of our family and round the edges of the Court, trying not to get my body mounted or my ears boxed.'

  Tom eased his hips, using sensation to maintain his ardent physical interest while his enquiring mind was tempted away from the carnal. 'I promise not to box your ears at least,' he promised.

  'It's not you I'm worried about,' she parried.

  'But you whirl around the edges of this dark world as well,' he continued, more seriously. 'How is that?'

  'Did you not hear? Audrey has been Tom Walsingham's lover since he worked as a spy for Sir Francis, the Queen's Mister Secretary. She has worked for them both. Like any family where such things happen, the game has been played by one sister and then another.'

  'Tom Walsingham was Kit Marlowe's patron, was he not?'

  'Patron and lover, if I dare mention such things without risking another crisis.' She moved playfully, in just such a way as would precipitate one.

  But Tom held hard. 'As Wriothsley was with Will,' he said.

  'The Earl of Southampton? Some say he still is. Both patron and lover. You'll have to ask Will if you want to know more.'

  'I was just thinking, though, about how much there is in the play of Romeo not only about swordplay, but about poisons and drugs. Morton mentioned that to Poley in his letter, which I think was no coincidence. And Will wrote most of it, he says, when he was with Southampton and his circle last summer. Poley said that also, but it's only just begun to made me think ...'

  Kate began to move more urgently. 'Well in that case it is time to stop thinking, Tom Musgrave. Wasn't it Seneca who said, "Cogitatum maximae dilabuntur"?'

  'Jade,' he gasped. 'You misquote. It was discordia, not cogitatum. Discord, not thought, makes huge things small ...' But Seneca, once again, had undone him.

  Later, as
they rinsed themselves off and began to pull on some clothing, he pushed his line of questioning into deeper, darker areas. Areas that she herself had referred to at the apothecary's late last night before Poley had dragged Diego de Villalar off to his hovel in Hog Lane and the pair of them had come back here. 'Had you known,' he asked delicately, 'that Lord Strange was poisoned not two months since? There seems to have been much work done to keep the fact a secret.'

  'I knew nothing until the mouse ate the strawberry,' she said with a frown. 'And the cat ate the mouse - and the dog ate the cat. But looking back now, I am sure Julius Morton suspected. I think he wrote to Lord Strange only a week or so before his lord ship's death. Or rather, I think he and Will wrote to Lord Strange.'

  'Telling him what?'

  'Again, I am not certain. Something he had overheard somewhere. Not enough to pass on to Poley, perhaps, but enough to send to his lordship because they were his men - Morton, Will and the rest. The company were Lord Strange's Men.'

  There was a tiny silence as Tom began to digest this information. Then Kate added, her fine brow furrowed in thought, 'Or, if Will wrote the letter, perhaps it was some thing that Will overheard.'

  'But I was one of the company myself,' said Tom thoughtfully. 'Yet I suspected nothing.'

  She shrugged. 'They are actors. They act. Is that so strange?'

  'But Will has his feet in two camps here.

  He has his own patron, the Earl of Southampton. Why could he not take it to Southampton?'

  'If it concerned the events in Wormwood in Jewry and Essex's poisoner Salgado, then of course it could not go to Southampton - he is bosom friend to both Essex and Cotehel.' Kate fitted her reasoning to Tom's as though they had worked together for years.

  'And yet Morton was hesitant even to take it to Poley, for whom he worked,' said Tom. 'Like Kit Marlowe,' she observed.

  'Like Marlowe? Why do you say that?'

  'Because Marlowe was the last of their number that worked for Poley. His fate might give a man pause if he was carrying dangerous information. There is still a deal of speculation as to what in all creation could have brought together a man who works in secret for the Council, another that works for Essex and a third who works for Tom Walsingham, to do a man to death in Deptford.'

  'It happened while I was on my way back from Italy,' said Tom, feeling the response to be somehow inadequate. There was a slight pause. Then Tom pushed on, changing to a slightly different tack. 'I suppose,' he said, calculatedly, 'that it was your sister and her contacts who told you the detail of the Earl of Leicester's death?'

  ' 'Tis common knowledge. He felt unwell after the great festivity at Tilbury that he had organised after the crushing of the Armada. He went off up to Buckstones to take the waters. The Queen, ever mindful of his welfare, sent some medicines after him. He took them. He died. He died as the creature died last night, screaming of agony in his belly. The surgeons said it was disorder of the stomach and the bowel. But some call it poison.'

  Tom sat. He was utterly stunned. He felt in full the shock that Poley warned of. That simple association that had Topcliffe, the rack, the fire and Tyburn at its heels. The Queen sent him medicine. He took it and he died, his stomach cramping in agony, his belly and bowels in revolt, bellowing his agony. Not gripped by terminal illness. Poisoned.

  The Queen sent him poison. Monkshood. Aconite.

  But no. Such a thing was impossible. The world would need to be flat and sitting still at the centre of the universe and the Pope descended straight from God for such things to be true. Go to work, Tom, go to work on this, he thought; for there is something you are missing.

  But then Kate turned and he saw no earth-shattering revelation in her eyes. Her gaze was open, quizzical perhaps, caught between amusement and wonder at his expression.

  'What ails you?' she asked.

  'The Queen sent medicine. He took it. He died. Poisoned.'

  'No.' She smiled. 'You ask the wrong question. Ask not who sent the medicine. Ask who delivered it. For who's to say that he delivered exactly what Her Majesty had sent.'

  'The Queen sent the medicine. Who took it to the Earl of Leicester, then?'

  'Why a servant to the Master of Horse, of course. The Master of Horse arranges everything to do with the movement of the Queen, her Court, her missives and her messages.'

  'But Leicester was the Master of Horse.'

  'Leicester was sick. He asked his ward and godson, whom he had trained up so well, to take over the responsibility for him. Responsibility he holds to this day.'

  'The Earl of Essex,' he breathed.

  'The Earl of Essex.' She nodded.

  'But who was the messenger? Who did Essex send? Does anybody know?'

  'Morton knew. And he told me. But he told someone else as well, and now Morton is dead.'

  'Not Poley.'

  'Probably not Poley. But with Poley, who can tell? Perhaps someone else - even someone innocent who mentioned it at the wrong time, who knows?'

  'But the knowledge was deadly.'

  'To Morton, yes. To Lord Strange if that is what they wrote about. To me if they can

  catch me. To you if you care to share it.'

  'Of course. Tell me his name.'

  'Essex sent a creature of his own. A man dressed all in black, apparently. A man I am told called Baines. Richard Baines.' Tom laughed aloud.

  'It is well that you quote Seneca. You are of the Stoic disposition indeed if you can hear the announcement of your own death with a laugh.'

  'No. You do not understand. I laugh because your dreadful doom is no added fate to me. Master Baines has been trying to kill me these past two days at the least.'

  'Then he hasn't been trying very hard,' she said, a little tartly.

  And his laughter died a little. What had Nick o' Darkmans said? To break his hands and arms and head. That's what Baines had ordered. Hands and arms, but leave him alive. Of a sudden his blood ran cold.

  'But still,' he said, 'what good could the Earl of Essex hope to gain? All he had to do was to wait and it all would come to him.'

  'Perhaps he did not want to wait,' she said, fiddling with the torn straps of her shift as though she had two minds whether to put the thing on or take it off again. 'Have you met Robert Devereux?'

  'No.'

  'He is not a man in whom patience is predominant.'

  'Even so, there must have been something more to motivate him, other than impatience.'

  'Perhaps,' she said, her fingers suddenly busy with the knot that would secure her shift.

  'And Walsingham? Master Secretary? It was the hemlock for him, you said.'

  She shrugged. 'I have talked with one who talked with one that saw him die. It was as the Spaniard Don Diego said. His body ceased to function of a sudden. But not his mind. His mind remained alive for days, they said. Trapped silent and helpless behind his eyes. A judicious draught of hemlock might do that. His doctors said a seizure, of course. But again ...'

  'And who would dare to send Mister Secretary hemlock? Who in all the world, let alone in the Court?'

  'Someone desperate, impatient, mad for power. But again, you ask the wrong question. Not who might want it done - but who might have carried the tincture.'

  'Only someone trusted by Walsingham and all those around him. Someone at the very heart even of Poley's circle. Someone apparently beyond the shadow of a question.'

  'There you have it.'

  'But do you have a name?'

  'Perhaps,' she said and reached over for her dress.

  Just as the door opened. In the doorway stood Ugo Stell, his fair eyebrows raised in an expression of shocked amusement that went far beyond anything required by their dress or compromising position. But then a long, dark hand thrust him aside and the reason for his concern made her presence plain.

  'I have come,' spat Constanza, 'to bring you this letter. It was left at the Elephant for you last evening. A man dressed in black said he had tried to deliver it to you here but coul
d not get in.'

  That is what her words said. But their tone said I hate you you inconstant pig and I hope you rot in hell. Which may have been closer to the Italian woman's thoughts, for all their arrangement had become a little ad hoc. But then, Constanza's sweat was hardly dry on his skin before Kate had added hers.

  'Dressed all in black?' asked Tom, his eyes steady on hers.

  'I have said.'

  'Not your Spaniard, not Señor Domenico Salgado with the two swords?'

  'Not Señor Salgado, no,' she said, his name just a little too familiar in her mouth. 'One of your common Englishmen. But a hard-faced man for all that. He is your enemy?'

  'He is. Therefore if you see him again, Constanza, stay clear of him.'

  'If I see him again, Tomas - 'she spat it with the Italian inflection which had been part of their most intimate love play - 'I shall do just as I please.'

  Constanza threw the letter she had brought on to the bed and Tom flinched, thinking of Spanish pins dipped in monks hood. Then, quick as a flash, he had snatched it up before Kate could touch it. When he looked back at the doorway, Constanza had gone.

  In a comic dumbshow of embarrassment worthy of Kempe himself, Ugo also left the room. The intelligencers sat in shift and shirt, and looked at the letter left by Baines, the man who wanted them crippled or dead.

  Five minutes later, the letter was on Ugo's workbench and, at arm's length, using his Solingen blades, Tom was easing the bloodred seal off the back of it. He was certain there were no pins concealed within it ready to spray out in a hail of aconite-tipped death. But his time and studies in Italy had made him privy to such murderous mysteries as powdered arsenic and strychnine, dusts made of white henbane and black hellebore.

  But no. The letter contained only an ornate script in a florid if unfamiliar hand. He read it aloud from a distance, however; breathing shallowly.