by Anna Castle
Tom racked his brains for a gift that was in season, not too horribly expensive, and suitable for one of the kingdom's premier ladies. He came up empty.
"What about Mr. Bacon?" Stephen said. "His connections at court are the main reason we chose him as our tutor."
Ben frowned. "One of the reasons. But yes, certainly we should ask him. We should make a full report."
Dance practice went well, considering how preoccupied they were by the Lady Rich problem. Soon they'd be ready to start rehearsing in their performance costumes. La volta was challenging enough in everyday clothes. Stiffly padded formal doublets and upper stocks added another whole level of difficulty.
After their lesson, at Tom's insistence, they went back to the house near the murder scene to look for the limner. The woman who opened the door claimed to have no knowledge of any such person. She'd seen no portrait painting or signs of such. She and her husband had recently arrived from Warwickshire to seek permission to travel to the Low Countries to visit her husband's relations. She pointed out that the house wasn't terribly comfortable and suggested that a lady of Penelope Rich's standing might have moved to better chambers inside the palace proper. Tom felt thoroughly deflated. His angel could be anywhere by this time.
They barely made it back to Gray's in time for dinner at noon. The meal was followed by the usual two hours of case-putting, in which the students learned to think on their feet. Nathaniel Welbeck put Ben on the spot in front of the whole assembly, skewering him with precedents concerning a hypothetical case that pitted the claims of a bastard son against a legitimate minor daughter.
Ben, stammering and blushing, blurted out a completely irrelevant maxim. Welbeck turned to sneer at Francis Bacon, who had lately begun dining in commons. "It appears that Mr. Whitt's knowledge of the law is waning rather than waxing under his new tutelage."
CHAPTER 9
Francis Bacon watched Benjamin Whitt stalk stiff-backed and red-faced out of the hall. He sympathized with the man. It wasn't fair for the ancients to play out their conflicts through the students. Whitt had borne himself well in the face of Welbeck's unjust attack. He may not have proved his case, but he'd shown himself to be a man of character.
Later, when Francis went up to his chambers, he found Thomas Clarady and Allen Trumpington struggling up the stairs, their arms heaped with pillows, blankets, a sack of sweet buns, and a basket of quills and commonplace books. Clarady had a lute slung over one shoulder and a large jug hanging from the other.
Francis greeted them with a raised eyebrow.
Clarady said, "Ben refuses to leave the library until he constructs an argument to answer Mr. Welbeck. We're going to help him."
Francis surveyed their supplies. "Why the lute?"
"He'll have to sleep sometime. I thought music would help."
Francis applauded their devotion to their friend and admired Whitt's dedication to study. He felt a surge of pride in his pupils and hoped they would succeed. He would enjoy watching Whitt put Welbeck's nose out of joint.
It wasn't until after he had settled at his desk to peruse his list of investigatory tasks that he realized his whole team of under-investigators was now firmly encamped in the library.
***
The first puzzle Francis had to solve was how to request an interview with Lady Rich for his pupils without writing her a letter. She wouldn't speak directly to his servant and he had little faith in the fidelity of a message passed through a chain of underlings.
He drummed his fingers on the desk. It was just his luck that the only two threads he had to follow ran through prominent courtiers! Why couldn't the witnesses be oyster-sellers or wherrymen? Asking lords for favors was ticklish enough in the best of circumstances. Asking them without being seen to ask was nigh impossible.
Was it an accident that his threads led to this particular brother and sister? Francis fervently hoped so. If he turned up evidence that either the Earl of Essex or Lady Rich were involved in Smythson's murder, he resolved to drop his partial results in his uncle's lap without further ado and retire to his mother's house in Gorhambury. He was in no position to prosecute the nobility.
That thought raised his temperature in spite of the cool of his fireless chamber. He fanned himself with a sheet of paper. Their involvement was unlikely after all. The Devereux were society's darlings. Odds were high that they would make an appearance in any matter of importance, sooner or later.
Francis closed his eyes and calmed himself by willing his mind to think about nothing. He heard birds twittering nearby and the crunch of gravel as men strode across the yard below. He smelled the bitter tang of his ink and a soft undersmell of ashes from the hearth. He inhaled deeply then exhaled and opened his eyes.
He had his solution. The muddling of messages as they passed through many mouths would serve him well in this instance. It was best that Lady Rich know as little as possible about the true errand of his emissaries, lest she refuse to see them. She would know, of course, about his exile from court. He hoped that she would find an oblique request arriving by way of her stable boy intriguing enough to grant.
***
When Francis next emerged from his chambers, he learned that Whitt's heroic study session had become the main topic of the Society. Bets were being placed on the outcome. Every day, one of the senior barristers dropped by the library to see how the lads were coming along. Some, like Treasurer Fogg, leaned in the doorway recounting rambling anecdotes about past victories in court. Others, like James Shiveley, brought apples and cheese and explanations so elementary even the privateer's son rolled his eyes.
It occurred to Francis that he might be able to use these visits to pursue one of his leads. Someone at Gray's had presumably arranged for the delivery of seditious pamphlets at the next half moon. Perhaps he could elicit some telling reaction — shock, guilt, dismay — by posing an unexpected question.
One day he heard Nathaniel Welbeck's voice across the hall. The man had the audacity to stand within his hearing and give his pupils a false definition of the assize of mort d'ancestor. Intolerable! However, his meddling did give Francis the right to drop in his own pennyworth of advice. He had scrupulously stayed out of it hitherto.
He strolled casually across the landing. Humphries, to his lack of surprise, was there as well. He greeted the lads and corrected Welbeck's misleading information. Then, to demonstrate his recognition that the rules had changed, he delivered a brief but cogent explanation of the principles underlying the restoration of dispossessed property. Whitt nodded rapidly, his eyes burning as if a prior argument were being vindicated. Trumpington scribbled down every word. Even Clarady's face shone as if the light of understanding had finally dawned. Their reactions were gratifying, but he enjoyed Welbeck's disgruntlement and Humphries's dumbstruck expression even more.
Pretending to depart, Francis turned toward the door. He asked over his shoulder, as if he'd just remembered it, "Does anyone by any chance know when the moon will next be at the half? I don't seem to have an almanac handy."
Welbeck blinked at him for a long moment, silent for once. Then he said, "I thought you collected the things. You must have dozens."
"In a dozen languages," Humphries sneered. He seemed to think he had delivered a crushing insult.
Neither of them seemed much interested in the date or alarmed by his question. Undaunted, he tried the same trick two or three more times until he realized that his pupils were studying him with concern for his sanity furrowing their brows.
***
On Friday, Francis sought out the laundress in her domain. The question of the blood on the murderer's doublet nagged at him. There must have been a lot of it, especially on the sleeves and cuffs. The killer might have given the clothes away, but a costume suitable for Queen's Day would have cost a pretty penny. Worth salvaging. If the murderer was resident at Gray's, he might have sent the clothes to the Inn's laundress.
The laundry was a stone outbuilding beyond the kitchens. An e
normous kettle bubbled over a huge bed of coals. Two roughly-dressed but very clean boys stood on blocks of wood, taking turns stirring a mass of linens in the kettle. The laundress was a woman of middle years who had the hatchet face of an angry Turk and arms as brawny as a blacksmith.
She regarded him with a deep frown as he approached. He knew she was remembering his foray into alchemical studies last summer, which had resulted in an unspeakable mess.
He asked her if she had seen any clothing with unexpected quantities of blood on it shortly after Queen's Day.
"How much blood d'ye expect?" she asked. He couldn't fault her astuteness.
His efforts to describe the probable extent of splattering transformed her frown into a suspicious scowl. "What have you been up to now, Mr. Bacon?"
"Nothing, nothing, I assure you. The clothes in question are not mine." He cast frantically about for an excuse. "Em, er, it was a colleague. An experiment, you might call it, involving poultry—"
She held up a beefy hand to stop him. "T'ain't my job to know, sir." She scratched her chin, which was adorned with three coarse hairs. "Blood, now. I don't recall it, and ye'd think I would. Nasty business, blood. The devil to get out. It'll never come white again, howsoever long ye boil it. But I don't do all the washing, mind. There's many who think they'll get better in Holborn."
"As I feared." How many women took in laundry between here and Westminster? A dozen at least as regular work. And what hard-pressed goodwife would turn down a shilling in exchange for her silence?
Francis smiled and prepared to take his leave, but she wasn't finished. "Queen's Day, though. T'weren't blood, sir, but there was a mess of sopping clothes left for me that night. Seems a boatload of yon gentlemen went into the Thames after the pageant. Drunk as porpoises, sir, is what I heard."
"Porpoises," Francis echoed, wondering where she had learned the word. Some ballad, probably. He hadn't heard about a wherry accident, but then he'd avoided all mention of the Queen's Day festivities, having been barred from enjoying them. Could the murderer have engineered that tumble as an excuse to wash away the signs of his crime in the murky waters of the Thames? He'd have to be a crafty opportunist. And worse, a gentleman of Gray's.
He pressed a halfpenny into her palm and started to walk away. Then he turned back and gave her another one. She really had done a Herculean job of getting all the mustard out of his velvet curtains.
***
By Sunday he had explored every path that he could follow without his assistants. Except for one.
He skipped chapel for the first time in seven years, praying that his mother would never come to hear of it. He spent a hair-raising half hour sneaking into every staircase and running up and down on tiptoe, straining his ears to catch the murmur of chanting and sniffing at gaps under doors for the scent of incense.
He was in constant dread lest someone see him. For several horrible minutes, he'd been forced to crouch in a dark corner on a second-floor landing, trembling, heart in mouth, while Sir Christopher Yelverton lumbered up to his rooms on the first floor.
What in the name of a merciful God would he say if he were caught? The last thing he needed was for irrational prying and spying to be added to the list of charges against him. And for all the risk to his reputation, he'd learned nothing. It had been a foolish idea. The conspirator, if such existed, was more likely to consort with his co-religionists after supper, when men strolled freely about the Inn visiting one another.
He needed to discover who could have known about Smythson's intelligence work. He could try some delicate probing among his colleagues during meals, braving the harm to his digestion. At this point, alas, his best hope was that his under-investigators, once Whitt's honor had been restored, would be able to turn something up.
CHAPTER 10
On the topmost floor of a narrow house in the parish of Saint Martin's Le Grand in the City of London, Clara Goossens sat before her window burning ivory to make black paint. A chill breeze lifted the acrid smoke harmlessly above the rooftops. A small brazier supplied enough heat to keep her hands from growing stiff.
The room was small, just large enough for her sparse possessions. A bed with a straw mattress, two plain chests, the table under the window where she sat. The stool she sat upon. The brazier. Two woolen blankets, a set of linens, and a few household items were all she'd salvaged from her mother's meager estate. She had earned her fine court clothes with her brush. The tools of her trade were her father's legacy: an easel that folded so she could carry it through the streets and the many-drawered writing desk that held her pigments, oils, and brushes.
That was all she owned and all she needed. She was free: that was the main thing.
Except for the nightmares.
She lifted the piece of burnt ivory with a pair of tongs and set it in the mortar to cool. While she waited, she turned again to study the sketch she had made on Queen's Day. Her critical eye approved the vitality of its fluid lines even as she flinched from the horrible event depicted: a murderer in an open robe with velvet welts on the sleeves knelt over his victim, grinning with exultation. The sketch was charcoal, but she could see the colors in her mind's eye: black robe against sandy earth, blood made redder by the pinkish wall behind.
She had dreamt that scene over and over again in the past two weeks. The nightmare churned up old fears she had thought long laid to rest. Even her new patron had commented on the dark circles beneath her eyes. That was bad; the merest breath of scandal could damage her reputation and destroy her livelihood. Ladies at court wanted nothing unlovely to sully their lives.
Clara feared the nightmare would continue until she did something to banish it. She should do something to relieve her conscience.
But what could she do?
She'd returned to work in that same chamber the next morning, hoping and fearing for news about the murder. She'd had no need for subterfuge; the court was abuzz with speculation. No one had any idea who the killer was. They didn't even know he was another barrister.
Clara said nothing that day since Lady Rich had been impatient for her portrait and she feared to lose her fee. Those three pounds would keep her for months. The next day, again she said nothing, fearing they would wonder why she hadn't spoken earlier. She finished the portrait that day and had no excuse to go back on Monday.
Now it was far too late to come forward, but the guilt of her silence consumed her. If she kept silent, the man with the evil grin might escape without punishment. He could kill again and again, having discovered that he liked it and there was no penalty. Each of those lives would weigh upon her soul.
She shuddered and tossed the sketch aside. She took her pestle and began to grind the ivory, carefully, so as not to spill any of the expensive powder. Black was in fashion; she would need lots of black paint and she daren't raise her fees. Not yet, anyway. With a good report from Lady Rich, perhaps one day soon.
Her mind was still caught on the brambles of her predicament. What was a sketch? Not proof of anything. She was an artist; she might have imagined the whole scene. Or so a judge would say. Perhaps she hated lawyers, they would say, perhaps she held a grudge. She didn't, but many people did. She was a foreigner; they would never believe her. And then they might wonder what sort of game she was playing and poke their long English noses into her past.
Here in England, strangers were tolerated only to the extent that they kept themselves out of trouble. Murder was trouble of the very worst kind. People would say she should have screamed at the man, she should have stopped him. She should have run fast for the watchman or anyone who could help instead of sketching merrily away while a man was stabbed to death before her eyes.
She had thought to bear witness by sketching. She was skilled at her trade. She could draw faster than she could run. But they would accuse her of complicity. They would question her about herself. Who was she? Why had she come to London?
She'd be exposed. And worse, she'd be expelled from England and sent back
to Antwerp, where Caspar would find her.
She couldn't show her sketch to a judge or the Captain of the Guard or to anyone in authority. But if she never told anyone she would go mad with the pounding of that horrible image in her mind. She might never sleep another night through. And she would be damned for all eternity if the murderer killed again.
She had to tell.
She couldn't tell.
She was trapped.
She heaved a sigh laden with fear and worry. Then she rose and found a clean bottle with a sound cork and a funnel. She returned to her stool and began to transfer the fine black powder carefully from the mortar to the bottle.
Concentrating on the task calmed her. Perhaps she could tell someone not exactly in authority but close to it. A sympathetic person who might help her climb out of this thorny thicket. Another image arose in her mind: the face of the young man who had gazed up at her and spoken the words, "O angela luminosa!"
She laughed softly and felt the tension slip from her shoulders. Tom, his friend had called him. He reminded her of her father. Although their features were not at all alike, Tom's face held the same open expression, bespeaking a generosity of spirit and frankness of feeling that she admired but could never allow herself to share.
She corked the bottle firmly and placed it in a drawer of her writing desk.
Tom. A plain name. A friendly name. She wondered what his surname was, who his family were. He'd worn the sleeveless black robe of a law student over his elegant holiday clothes. He and his friends had been helping the lords to examine the body. Perhaps they had known the murdered man.
Clara shuddered and forced her mind back to the fair youth who had stood beneath her window. He had fallen in love with her right before her eyes. He had been ready to fall in love, he saw a woman he liked, and whoop, hey! In he fell.