by S. W. Perry
The helmsman lets the current carry them past. Then he leans on the tiller and the boat swings around. Rainwater pours over the edge of the awning, cutting off Nicholas’s view as though he were standing behind a waterfall. The oars dip twice, rise in unison and then the hull is hard against the jetty. Nicholas barely feels the impact. The jolt comes from above: a flash of lightning. Thunder booms from somewhere very close. Pulling his gabardine about him, he climbs out and hurries towards the Strand entrance of Cecil House beneath writhing black clouds.
Nicholas is not comfortable at grand tables. At Cambridge the gentlemen scholars mocked him for it, imitating his Suffolk burr and asking him if he needed instruction on how to use his knife and spoon, or whether he could tell Gascon wine from country ale. As a consequence, he associates formal feasting more with bloody knuckles than a full belly. But this is not what he has been expecting at all.
The privy dining chamber is panelled from floor to ceiling and softly candlelit. One side is given over to high mullioned windows that stream with rain. Four places have been set on a table large enough for fourteen, a little colony of high-backed chairs, fine plate and silver goblets clinging to an otherwise empty glacier of Flanders tablecloth. It is quite unlike any formal table at the College of Physicians, with old Baronsdale – the president – placed magisterially at the high table and flanked by the senior Fellows, while everyone else sits below the salt in strict order of status. This is more like an intimate gathering of colleagues.
Two men stand talking with Robert Cecil before a fire that crackles in a deep brick hearth. One of them Nicholas recognizes as Roderigo Lopez, the old white-haired Marrano Jew who attends the queen. He wears a formal black physician’s gown and starched ruff. The other man is much younger – a mischievous-looking fellow of about Nicholas’s age, with long, curly fair hair and a nose that appears to have been broken in a brawl. His beard, worn as close as Nicholas’s, looks as though it’s been trimmed by a drunken barber. But he’s smartly dressed in a well-padded black velvet doublet with braided trim. Nicholas feels underdressed. For the first time in three years he regrets throwing his own doctor’s gown in the Thames.
‘Dr Lopez, I am sure, is no stranger to you,’ says Cecil after Nicholas has made a formal bend of the knee. ‘And this disreputable fellow is my cousin, Master Francis Bacon. If you were hoping for the company of another contrarian, you’ll meet no one better.’
Cecil directs Bacon to sit beside him, with Nicholas and Lopez on the other side of the table. A Cecil chaplain flutters in to say grace. Expensive wine is poured from even more expensive silverware, by servants who seem to have acquired the knack of being only semi-corporeal. Over his host’s shoulder, Nicholas can see Lord Burghley in garter robes peering out on the gathering from within his picture frame, a disapproving look frozen on his painted face. It’s a fine likeness, but it makes Nicholas feel even more under close observation.
The food arrives, borne by a procession of liveried lackeys: vinegar fig tarts; a pie stuffed with hind-flank of beef, prunes, raisins and carrots; and salted carp that Lopez – giving his physician’s opinion – says is unhealthy for an old man such as himself, but eats anyway, on the grounds it is also good for easing the hot ague.
Save for the discomfort of eating too much, the meal turns out not to be the ordeal Nicholas had expected. The conversation is informal and wide-ranging: how the Privy Council fears Spain might yet send another Armada against England; how King Philip is stalking the Escorial in Madrid in a black rage over the Madre de Deus; how a bill has been read in Parliament proposing a ten-pound-a-month fine for allowing a recusant to dwell in your house, and the confiscation of your children if you happen to be one yourself.
Nicholas listens with a sense of mounting intrigue. In the Jackdaw, gossip about affairs of state flows as fast as the mad-dog and knock-down. But it’s ignorant gossip. Wild speculation. Downright untruths. To hear from informed men so close to power is intoxicating. Men such as these are not bystanders, helplessly watching the world unfold. They change its very course.
But some things, Nicholas is dismayed to discover, do not change. When Cecil asks – over a cup of the sweetest sack Nicholas has ever tasted – what new advances might soon be made in the field of physic, Lopez, still with a faint hint of his Iberian heritage in his voice, announces proudly: ‘I have been told by Dr Dee, who as you know oftentimes advises Her Majesty on matters of the occult, that soon it may be possible to study the demi-demons that cause some illnesses.’
‘How so?’ asks Nicholas, struggling to keep the scorn in his voice from showing. This is the sort of nonsense he associates with the midwife who assured him – with equal confidence – that certain holy stones, supposedly anointed with the blood of St Margaret, would help him save Eleanor and the child she was carrying.
‘Dr Dee believes these demons may be trapped in certain crystals and thus observed without danger,’ says Lopez. ‘He also showed me a mirror glass of polished obsidian, by which he claims to see the reflection of those malign spirits that cause pain in a patient’s body.’
‘And do you believe him?’ asks Francis Bacon, sniggering as he chews on a spoonful of bream.
‘I have no reason not to, Master Bacon,’ says Lopez. ‘Dr Dee is a very learned man.’
Robert Cecil stabs his knife in Nicholas’s direction as though to skewer an opinion out of him. ‘And you, Dr Shelby? Do you also believe that one day we shall carry the cure to all our ills in a crystal brooch, or see the cause of them reflected in a mirror glass?’
I’m not going to call the queen’s physician a fool to his face, if that’s what you’re inviting me to do, Nicholas thinks. Besides, Lopez is not alone in his foolishness; there are more than a few in the College of Physicians who would happily believe what Lopez has just said.
Cecil takes his silence for indecision. ‘Come now – I’m sure Dr Lopez would be interested to hear your views. If you were given the power, how would you shake physic by its ears?’
‘I’d make the physician get his hands bloody,’ Nicholas says cautiously. ‘Bring him and the surgeon together in one endeavour.’
‘You mean one man performing both roles?’ asks Lopez doubtfully. ‘But surgeons are not educated in the writings of the ancients. They are artisans – barbers.’
‘Master Paré did it in France,’ Nicholas reminds him. ‘I myself have practised surgery – in the Low Countries.’
‘But that was the necessity of the battlefield, Dr Shelby,’ Lopez objects.
‘I’m a yeoman’s son, Dr Lopez. My father drives the oxen, guides the plough and casts the seeds with his bare hands. He reaps the harvest, too. I never noticed anyone in a gown instructing him how to do it from a copy of Cato’s De Agri Cultura.’
‘God’s nails, a man of my own mind!’ cries Bacon, slapping the table and making the silver plate rattle. ‘That’s the only way for mankind to progress. The ancients may reason and deduce all they like. But a man of these times must discover things for himself. He must take nature in his hand and dissect it with his eyes and his mind. I think of this world as I think of a forest: you cannot know its true extent unless you part the branches, climb the trees, explore it. I say enough of dead men’s superstition! Are you with me, Dr Shelby?’
‘Most certainly, Master Bacon.’
Robert Cecil places a hand over his little breast in a gesture of mock capitulation. ‘There is the future, Dr Lopez – in the hands of heretics!’
Bacon grins and takes a draught of sack. ‘You see what we are up against, Nicholas? Prophets in our own land, and therefore not to be honoured.’
It is the first time in his life that Nicholas has heard his own thoughts spoken by another. Even his friend Lord Lumley, patron of the Lumleian chair of anatomy at the College of Physicians, possessor of one of the most scholarly libraries in England, has never echoed his convictions so clearly. He feels like a man who’s just convinced a hanging judge of his innocence.
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��There you have it, Nicholas, in a nutshell. It could not be clearer – to a clever fellow like you.’ As he speaks, Cecil rolls his shoulders to ease the discomfort in his twisted back.
They are in his study. Bacon and Dr Lopez are still in the dining hall, engaging in a good-natured argument over whether crystals and obsidian mirrors make a man a prognosticator or a charlatan. The rain has eased. Through the windows Nicholas can see the bushes on the terrace looking like mourners around a grave.
‘I fear the excellent food has dulled my wits, Sir Robert. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘A signpost, Nicholas. A lodestone to show you which course to steer.’
‘I didn’t know I was lost.’
‘God’s blood, Nicholas! Spare me the humility. I’ve digested enough sweetness today already. I’m speaking of your future as a physician. If you put your mind to it, you could bring some of Francis’s vision – some of your vision – to the College; shake the greybeards out of their complacency; help put men like old Lopez out to pasture. Put an end to superstition.’
‘Me?’ Nicholas hopes his brittle laugh doesn’t sound too insulting.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the College of Physicians thinks I’m a dangerous heretic.’
‘Yes, but you’re my dangerous heretic now, Nicholas. A physician who lists the Lord Treasurer’s son amongst his patients – perhaps even the Lord Treasurer himself, were I to persuade my father on the subject – would have no trouble getting his voice heard amongst the Fellows of the College. Perhaps even our sovereign lady Elizabeth might desire his counsel and his healing hand. Would you not agree?’
‘The queen already has more physicians than she needs, every one of them eminent and well trusted.’
‘Trusted, yes. All except one.’
It’s said with just enough latent provocation to have Nicholas answering before he can stop himself.
‘And who might that be, Sir Robert?’
‘Why, Dr Lopez of course.’
The study seems suddenly robbed of warmth. In Robert Cecil’s world, it seems betrayal comes served on silver plate and Flemish linen.
‘Lopez is getting old. He doesn’t walk far these days. But when he does, it’s usually on very thin ice. He intrigues with the pretender to the Portuguese throne, Don Antonio, currently a guest of Her Majesty. Yet he also communicates in secret with those who stole his kingdom from him: the Spanish. He has friends in Madrid. The Earl of Essex is convinced he’s a traitor. Whatever the truth, he dabbles in places he should stay out of. At his age, you’d think he’d be more cautious. In my humble opinion, he’s as likely to die on the scaffold as he is in his bed. Either way, I suspect it won’t be long in coming. Then there will be a vacancy.’
‘Are you saying that you and Lord Burghley would push for my appointment as his replacement?’ Nicholas asks, astonished and more than a little sickened. Suddenly the good food feels like lead in his stomach.
‘We Cecils don’t push, Nicholas. We advise. We recommend. We persuade. In the end, the outcome tends to be the same.’ Cecil walks over to the Molyneux globe, still standing exactly where it was the last time Nicholas was here. ‘Think of the good you could do for physic. Think of the charitable institutions you could leave behind you, the hospitals and almshouses. Imagine your father’s pride when his son wins the family a coat of arms from the College of Heralds – no longer humble farmers, but gentlemen.’
From out of nowhere, Nicholas hears Bianca’s voice in his head. Nicholas, sweet, Robert Cecil offers nothing without a reason. There is always a price to be paid…
‘And what exactly do you expect of me in return?’ he asks.
Cecil doesn’t answer. He simply lays one hand nonchalantly on the lacquered surface of the globe – beside the etched outline of the Barbary Coast.
‘Marrakech?’ A garrotte of hot anger tightens around Nicholas’s neck.
‘A few months away, that’s all, Nicholas. Maybe less, with favourable winds. Return with knowledge gained, reputation enhanced. Ready to begin the climb to your rightful place as a physician to our sovereign majesty. There are men who would kill for that honour, Nicholas.’
‘I told you before, I’m not interested in your commission, Sir Robert.’
‘Oh, but you are interested in the reward, Nicholas. I can see it in your eyes.’
And to his shame, Nicholas knows it’s true.
‘There is one other factor you might wish to consider.’
Robert Cecil’s voice has suddenly turned from a courtier’s into that of a blackmailer.
‘And that is?’
‘Given the present contagion in the city, I have suggested to the Grocers’ Company that they root out all persons selling false remedies to the public. That includes apothecaries – especially those of the female sex presently residing in the liberty of Southwark.’ Cecil pauses to allow his words to sink in. ‘And if the Privy Council were to order the taverns to close – well, I would imagine someone thus turned out of two livelihoods would find it very hard to put food in her belly. Think upon it for a while.’
And with that, he leaves Nicholas to the fading rumble of the departing storm and the blank stares of the grey mourners on the terrace.
A private coach rolls into view, drawn by two grey palfreys. It looks to Nicholas like a tester bed on wheels, with four corner posts holding up a wooden roof, and curtains to keep out the weather – or any view the traveller might find distressing. He watches it through the open doorway, the horses’ hooves splashing through the puddles, the wheel rims casting a misty wake behind them.
‘He’s not usually this generous, Dr Shelby,’ says Lopez beside him. ‘I wonder if he’s worried what the queen might say to him, if he lets her old physician catch the ague on a walk home in the drizzle.’
His accent is more pronounced now, Nicholas notices. Perhaps when he’s in Privy Council company, Lopez feels the need to downplay his Portuguese origins.
‘I’m going to Mountjoy, Dr Shelby. But if you want a lift to the public water-stairs, I’m sure the coachman won’t object.’
‘That is kind of you, Dr Lopez,’ Nicholas replies. ‘I’ve been awaiting the opportunity for a private word with you since I arrived.’ He pulls his gabardine cloak tight around his neck and follows the old man into the coach.
As they lurch forward, Nicholas tries to make himself comfortable on the plump, velvet-covered bench seat. The interior smells of ambergris and horse-leather. The roof, barely a foot above his head, is studded with golden stars. How many intrigues have been launched in this confined, damask-lined world?
Should I warn him about Cecil’s comments in the study? Nicholas wonders. But what to say? Where to begin? Besides, Lopez was physician to Francis Walsingham and the Earl of Leicester before he got anywhere near the queen. He can’t have lasted this long without developing a nose for intrigue. ‘May I be blunt, Dr Lopez?’ he asks.
Lopez’s rheumy eyes widen in surprise. ‘If it’s about Master Bacon’s new ideas, save your breath, young man. I am not the fellow to champion such wild nonsense.’
‘That’s not what I wanted to talk about. Have you heard of a man named Solomon Mandel?’
Lopez leans back against the cushions. He studies Nicholas as he might study a patient whose symptoms he’s never encountered before. The grey flesh of his furrowed brow is flecked with liver spots. ‘Solomon?’ he says, speaking the name slowly, as though it belongs in his distant past and requires a little effort to drag it into the present. ‘Of course I’ve heard of Solomon. Do you think there are so many Jews in this city that we’re strangers to each other?’
‘Did you know he’s been murdered?’
Lopez’s shock seems genuine. His hollow cheeks give a single quiver of emotion. ‘I had not heard of it,’ he confesses. ‘In Southwark?’
‘Yes, by assailants as yet unknown.’
‘Poor Solomon. What an end.’
‘Was he a friend?’
‘I kn
ew him. But we haven’t spoken for a long while.’
‘You knew he was living in Southwark?’
‘I knew he had taken himself south of the river, yes. Beyond that, nothing more.’
‘Do you happen to know why he left the city to live on Bankside?’
‘Why does anyone go there, Dr Shelby? For the whores and the playhouses, I assume.’
‘Not Solomon Mandel. Not from what I can gather.’
‘Then perhaps he went there to escape.’
‘Escape? From what?’
Lopez scratches at his white beard. ‘Dr Shelby, I am the queen’s physician. That brings certain privileges. I have money. I have some position in this city. I have a nice house at Mountjoy. I am tolerated – even by the queen – with a modicum of civility. Solomon did not have such comforts to shield him from enmity.’
‘Coroner Danby believes Master Mandel was murdered because he was a Jew.’
‘Danby?’ A dismissive snort. ‘Danby is a fool. You could die in a desert and Danby would claim you had drowned.’
‘But on this specific matter could he not be correct?’
Lopez waves one bony hand dismissively across his face. ‘He could, Dr Shelby. He could. But let us hope he is not. With plague in the city once more, it will be all too easy for the ignorant to blame their ills on my people.’
Nicholas wonders if he should tell Lopez about Solomon Mandel’s menorah, perhaps even entrust it to him for safekeeping. But if Lopez has truly converted, he might well find the offer objectionable. And even if he doesn’t, being presented with an artefact that could be viewed as heretical would hardly endear him to the giver. So Nicholas decides against it.
The coach stops. Beyond the drawn curtain, Nicholas can hear the coachman’s raised voice as he argues with a wherryman. The man seems reluctant to take a fare to the far shore. Nicholas hears Robert Cecil’s name mentioned. It secures the wherry, but it will probably double the fare.