by Anna Castle
“I’m glad you can see that,” Ben said.
Trumpet made a rude noise. “He keeps it well hidden.”
After half an hour or so, Catalina arrived with a chest of clothing. She’d ridden over with one of the grooms from Chadwick House. She and Trumpet withdrew to the bathing chamber downstairs. When they returned, Trumpet was wearing a green worsted kirtle with a modest farthingale and a ruffled collar on her Holland smock. Her shining black hair was bound under a crisp white coif. The simple costume allowed her freedom of movement, thus displaying her agile grace as well as her womanly shape. Best of all, her heart-shaped face was clean, obscured by neither courtly paints nor fake moustaches.
She offered Tom a curtsy and he smiled, nodding, letting his admiration show.
The first course was removed and the second brought in. They didn’t get pheasant — Tom hadn’t really expected it on such short notice — but the board groaned with baked chickens, moorcock pie, roast lamb, rabbit pie, soused pig, and a variety of tarts. For drink, they had claret, malmsey, and a big pitcher of sweet white sack from the Canaries.
Francis Bacon came in with the second course, hesitating on the threshold the way he always did. Tom waved him to the seat at the head of the table between him and Ben, making sure he got a cup of malmsey and a plate with a taste of every dish. “Any word about my guardian?”
“It’s too soon, Tom. But my Lord Burghley condoles with your loss and wishes you to be assured that he will keep your best interests in mind as he reviews the candidates. None had arrived as yet, but I saw Sir Avery Fogg waiting in the lobby as I went in.”
Tom and his friends exchanged a round of shrugs. Sir Avery was the treasurer of Gray’s Inn, so he would probably allow Tom to continue to live in a style befitting a gentleman. But he had a volatile temper and hungered for a judgeship. Appointments to the higher courts could cost upwards of a thousand pounds.
The race had begun.
Bacon said, “My lord uncle remembers the service you performed for him last year. That will help, I hope.” He picked at the morsels on his plate and settled on a bite of rabbit pie. He swallowed and smiled as if surprised by its tastiness. “He also graciously relieved me of my work on the recusancy commission. I’m free. Apparently, my mother wrote to her sister, my lord’s wife, detailing the ill effect the work was having on my health. However, since I will now have more time at my disposal, he has charged me with putting a stop to the recusant murders by identifying the perpetrator, whomever I might suspect that person to be.” He leaned toward Ben with a significant look as he spoke those last words.
Tom followed the look with satisfaction. He tapped Trumpet’s ankle with his foot. Now, finally, they would get whatever it was Bacon had been keeping from them.
Tom said, “When you spoke to the Andromache Society, I got the feeling you were worried that the Lord Treasurer already knew about the murders.”
“I got the feeling you knew who it was,” Trumpet added, “but were afraid to pursue him.”
“Both impressions were correct,” Bacon said, “although I have no certain knowledge, only suspicions.” He ate another bite of pie and took a long draught of wine, plainly continuing some debate with himself. Then he sighed and put his cup down. “I feared to share my suspicions for both of the reasons you mention, but my lord uncle’s injunction — the particular words he used — suggest to me that my aunt, Lady Russell, may have communicated my suspicions to him in private. He either knows whom I suspect and wants me to expose him, or he does not know, but recognizes the probable source of my reluctance and has given me to understand that he does not approve and wants the matter resolved regardless of where my investigations might lead.”
Poor Dirimara hadn’t followed any of that, but the others were used to Mr. Bacon’s rhetorical style. Tom caught the Indian’s eye and translated. “His uncle is the most powerful man in the kingdom. Mr. Bacon thinks some high-up gentleman has done these murders we’re worried about, but he feared his uncle might have ordered them done, not straight out, but hint-like and hugger-mugger. Mr. Bacon’s no cackler, so he’s been biding his time, keeping a weather eye and giving the gentleman in question a wide berth. Now His Lordship has cleared the braces, so we can crack on.”
“You are constablularios?” Dirimara asked. “My captain say his son study law.”
“We are lawyers,” Bacon answered, “who sometimes, under extraordinary circumstances, are asked to inquire into suspicious deaths.”
Trumpet pounded her small fist on the tabletop. “Are you ever going to tell us who this high-up gentleman is?”
Bacon nodded once. “Yes, I am. Perhaps you’ve heard me speak of one of my co-commissioners, Sir Richard Topcliffe?”
He told them about his growing doubts and the foreboding sense that the murders suited Sir Richard’s zealous and vengeful temperament all too well. He then told them about the manacles and rosaries he and Ben had found in the hidden room off Sir Richard’s library. Last, he told them in the briefest terms about his unwilling visit to the rack room under the White Tower.
After a short interval in which everyone took long drinks to wash the sourness from their throats, Trumpet said, “He sounds utterly vile and odious. I believe the man you describe could definitely have performed those murders.”
“I’m not so sure,” Tom said. “He sounds to me like a man who likes to use the power of the state to satisfy his cruel tastes. He wouldn’t work in secret.”
Bacon shook his spoon back and forth. “He can’t use the state to punish these particular victims. He would need my signature as well as those of the other commissioners. We wouldn’t supply them. The state has no reason to torture those men. I’ve reviewed my notes from those interviews and in truth, these victims seemed only mildly interested in religion. They cared far more about their ancestry and family traditions. We did, however, suspect all the wives of taking an active part in the smuggling of priests and banned texts. We can’t torture women — the idea is unthinkable. We can’t prosecute them since they have no standing in a court of law. We can’t even bring them in for questioning, not ladies of rank and wealth. They’re untouchable. The best we can do is impose sanctions on the husbands and wait for them to bring their wives under control.”
Tom and his friends laughed. Dirimara looked bemused. He had little to contribute to the discussion, but he listened to every word with rapt attention, as if storing up facts he might find useful later.
Bacon gestured for the soused pig and spooned some on to his dish while the others joked about the putative controllability of wives. Trumpet told a bawdy tale she’d stolen from Chaucer, and Ben topped it with a cautionary tale ripped from the broadsides. Tom rose to call for more wine and refilled everyone’s cups. His feast was a great success.
When the jocularity tapered off, Bacon said, “The problem is that I don’t know where to go from here. I had hoped you would turn up something useful in the pawnshops, pick up some thread we could follow, but that failed to transpire.”
“Ah,” Tom said. He cocked a brow at Trumpet. “Your choice, my lady.”
Trumpet waved her cup, sloshing wine on the tablecloth. “That’s all water under the bridge. We’re laying our cards on the table now. Lay mine out as well.” She fixed her eyes on Bacon with some difficulty. “My uncle is the upright man behind the chapel burglaries.”
“Nathaniel Welbeck!”
Tom laughed out loud at the tangle of expressions on Bacon’s face. Astonishment, disbelief, recognition, outrage: he used up a week’s worth of emotional responses in less than a minute.
“Welbeck,” Bacon said. “I never would have guessed, but now that you tell me, it makes perfect sense. How can he have been living in the Savoy with no one ever seeing him?”
“I’m sure someone saw him,” Tom said, understanding he meant barristers. “Just not anyone who would spread the news widely enough for you to hear it.”
Ben said, “The Savoy is the ideal location, both
for a barrister who wants to conceal his whereabouts and for the organizer of the chapel burglaries. His thieves could bring the goods right up to the protected wharf there and carry them straight up to his rooms.”
“He’s a very intelligent man, my Uncle Nat,” Trumpet said. “But he’s not a murderer. The thieves didn’t know about the murders and they clearly did not like them. They said Uncle Nat wanted to quit because of them.”
“What thieves?” Bacon asked. “Our thieves? How do you know this?”
“Ah.” Tom grinned at Bacon apologetically. “We haven’t gotten to that part yet. We’ve met the chapel burglars, or at least some of them. And we had a long chat with Mr. Welbeck.” He proceeded to tell Bacon about the pawnshop in Southwark, their visit to the Savoy, and their meeting with Coddington at the Dolphin. Trumpet threw in a detail from time to time.
Bacon listened in attentive silence, the way he did when he was analyzing your vocabulary, syntax, and meaning all at once, relating it to everything else he had ever heard or read. Many people found his fixed gaze disconcerting, but Tom was used to it.
“I see,” Bacon said when they finished. “Good work, though you should have told me. But then I was keeping secrets myself, and Welbeck, though a scoundrel, is Trumpet’s uncle.”
Ben said, “It seems clear that Welbeck and his gang are responsible for the burglaries. I also agree that Sir Richard may have committed the murders. But I can’t see any connection between the two.”
“Maybe there isn’t one,” Trumpet said.
“I refuse to believe that,” Bacon said. “It’s as implausible as two explorers leaving from different countries on different days and arriving at the same time on the same island in the Spanish Main.”
“That is not possible,” Dirimara said. “The sea is most caprichoso.”
Bacon gestured at him with an open palm. “My point, supported.”
The servers came in to clear away the second course and bring in the third — plates of gingered bread, honeyed almonds, sugared violets, and tiny cheese tarts. Mrs. Sprye had sent up no fewer than four small cakes of marzipan, decorated with rose petals and tiny sprigs of thyme.
Tom slid one of them in front of Trumpet. “They must be connected through the clerk,” he said, picking up the thread of the discussion. “Coddington confirmed my guess. He said the clerk got paid after the goods were sold. Maybe the clerk in question is Sir Richard’s secretary.”
“He’s every bit as vile as his master,” Bacon said. “I believe he’s been with Sir Richard for many years. What is his name?”
“Walter Kemp,” Ben said. “But remember, the recusancy commission has never been a secret. Welbeck might have learned about it from one of his friends at Gray’s.”
“Or one of his friends in gaol,” Tom said. “You send most of the ones you interview back to Bridewell or wherever you found them.”
“That’s true,” Bacon said. “And stories of that nature travel like wildfire inside a prison. I’m satisfied that we can connect the crimes. However, Kemp seems devoted to Sir Richard. I doubt he would sell that list without his master’s knowledge. Then again, Sir Richard is a devious man. If Welbeck approached his secretary, and the secretary informed him of the attempt, he might see an opportunity to wreak a bit of private vengeance. He hates to let anyone he deems guilty slip through his grasp.”
“I still don’t like the private vengeance part,” Tom said. “Why private? Sir Richard has prisons full of Catholics he can torture with impunity and the wives suffer all the same.”
“Never with impunity,” Bacon said, looking exasperated. “England is a civilized nation. We have procedures. We have laws. Torture is abhorrent, true, but in times of great peril, it is necessary.”
“We understand, Francis.” Ben patted his hand. “We don’t need to debate the whys and wherefores here. But I must say I tend to agree with Tom. These murders seem both too covert and too gentle for Sir Richard. From what we’ve managed to learn, none of the victims struggled much. Doesn’t that suggest they experienced little pain? Topcliffe enjoys inflicting pain. Furthermore, if the victims were paralyzed, they wouldn’t be able to speak.”
The others shook their heads at him, not comprehending. “What would they speak about?” Trumpet asked.
“About other Catholics,” Ben said. “Remember those strings of files in his closet? Sir Richard loves amassing information about Catholics as much as he enjoys hurting them. Our victims couldn’t have told him anything.”
Bacon frowned. “I wish we knew more about that poison. All I managed to do was rule out the drugs I’m familiar with.”
“You did better than that,” Ben said. “You tracked down references to arrow poisons used in the New . . .” His voice trailed off as everyone turned to face the stranger from the New World.
The stranger regarded them warily.
“I wonder, Dirimara,” Bacon said, “if you might happen to know anything about a poison called, if I’m pronouncing it correctly, curare?”
“Wourari, in my language,” Dirimara said. “Yes, I know it. Do you want some?” He took out his pocket and withdrew a small chunk of some blackish-brown stuff, like a lump of clay.
“God’s death!” Bacon cried. Everyone gasped and flinched away, pushing their chairs back from the table.
Dirimara grinned, his gold tooth glinting in the candlelight. He tossed the lump in the air and caught it. “It is no danger in this form. I could swallow this and suffer no harm. It must enter the blood. You must pierce the skin with an arrow, a knife, a spear.” He grinned again. “Or for lawyers, perhaps, a quill.”
Everyone seemed to inhale the same long breath and exhale it with an audible rush. Then they settled back at the table, returning to their ordinary postures. Tom took a long draught of wine. “How do you apply it?”
“It must be warm, soft and thin, so you may spread it upon the blade.”
“Does it take a lot?” Tom asked. “I mean, how thick do you spread it?”
“Not thick. Very thin. Very powerful.”
Bacon asked, “How many minutes, or fractions of an hour, if you prefer, are required to effect a complete paralysis?”
Dirimara blinked at him, so Tom translated. “How long does it take to work?”
“Ah.” Dirimara nodded. “I did not know minutes until I came to the English ship, but it does not take long.” He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then said, “One day, I went to hunt monkeys with two men of my tribe. One was young, not so skillful. He missed the monkey and shot the other man. This man looked down at the dart in his chest and said, ‘Now I must die.’ He lay on the ground and folded his arms upon his breast. We start our prayer for him. After one round, he cannot move even his eyes. We carry him back to our village. Soon after, his heart no longer beats.”
Bacon asked, “Is it a long prayer?”
Dirimara shrugged, then began a soft chant. When he finished, Bacon said, “Thank you. I estimate about two minutes for incapacitation. From what we know, death apparently takes the better part of an hour after that. Curious.” He smiled at Trumpet. “The murderer may have left only a few minutes before your maidservant entered Lord Surdeval’s bedchamber.”
Trumpet grimaced. “That’s a frightening thought. I don’t believe I’ll share it with her. She has enough superstitions as it is.”
Tom patted her hand, letting his cover hers for perhaps a moment longer than necessary. She didn’t object.
Ben’s gaze flicked to their hands, hesitated, then moved on to the Indian. “Can you eat an animal that has been killed with this poison? I should think it would be tainted.”
“Oh, no,” Dirimara said. “It is delicious. The poison must enter the blood, not the belly.”
Bacon asked, “Could you make a paste from the veins of the poisoned animal and use it in the same fashion?”
Dirimara tucked his chin in surprise. “I do not know.”
Tom and Ben traded looks of fond amusement. Tom asked,
“Where could one buy this wourari? Only from a man like you?”
“A man like me would not sell it,” Dirimara said. “This is for me to use.” He displayed the lump one last time and tucked it back into his pocket.
Tom remembered that the Indian had his own quest and suspected that poison would be used at the end of it. He had only just met the man, but the captain had trusted him, so Tom did too. He knew that whoever that poison was meant for had earned it. Dirimara must have his own Jacques Le Bon to serve with wild justice — Bacon’s apt term for revenge
“We believe someone in England possesses this substance,” Ben said. “Where could they have gotten it?”
“From the men who trade in New Spain,” Dirimara said. “One man comes to a village and buys what he finds. He sells to another man and that one to another. Someday, these things — bark from trees, skins from snakes, many things — travel all the way to England.”
“Merchants,” Ben said.
“St. Jean de Luz,” Tom said.
“Yes,” Dirimara said. “Everything from everywhere is there.”
“Is that where you’re going next?” Tom asked.
The Indian smiled but didn’t answer. Tom hoped he would be all right, so far from his native land, and that his quest would succeed.
Bacon had been consuming a raspberry tartlet in small bites, his face thoughtful, plainly digesting the new facts about the poison and relating it to everything else they’d learned about the method of murder employed. “It sounds like a very quiet way to kill,” he said at last. “I can believe that the thieves heard nothing. It does seem too quiet for Sir Richard, however. I had the sense the other day that he rather enjoyed the screaming.”
Dirimara shook his head. “With wourari, there is no scream.”
“I have another extremely interesting idea!” Trumpet cried. Her words were only slightly slurred. She had been sipping cream sauce as if it was soup. Now she waved her spoon to get their attention. “I know why your nasty old Sir Richard does what he does the way he does it. The husbands aren’t the guilty ones, the wives are. And so he murders the husbands because the wives are untouchable. That’ll punish ’em right enough!” She drained her cup and plunked it on the table as if her argument was complete.