by S. W. Perry
She remembers the time when a Paduan mariner had returned home, ransomed after three years as a slave of the Ottoman sultan in Constantinople. Half the city had turned out to see him arrive. But the rejoicing of his family had soon quietened when they’d seen what captivity and hard labour had done to him. Barely twenty-three, he looked like an old man broken by illness. Her only comfort now is that Nicholas is Robert Cecil’s man, and Connell wouldn’t dare harm him. She stares at the rafters in disbelief, wondering how on earth it is that she’s come to be grateful – yes, grateful – to the Lord Treasurer’s crook-backed son.
There must be something I can do, she repeats in a low murmur, thinking herself like one of those religious zealots who repetitively chant the same line from the holy scriptures. But what? How does a Bankside tavern-mistress and apothecary rescue her almost-lover from peril on the high seas?
She knows what at least half of Bankside would expect her to do: cast a spell, weave some magic. After all, at Ned and Rose’s wedding feast, hadn’t Connell himself said to her, ‘You’re the one witch nobody dares hang’?
The answer springs into her mind like a mischievous sprite: cast a charm over Robert Cecil. At daybreak put on your best brocade kirtle, the green one, and the carnelian bodice, have Rose pin up your hair the way that gets Nicholas’s eyes dancing in their sockets – don’t think I haven’t noticed – and go to Cecil House. Enchant the little Crab with all your Paduan wiles. Convince him to send the fastest vessel in the queen’s fleet to apprehend the Righteous, bring Nicholas safely home and clap Connell in chains for a murderer. So what if Aži Dahāka had three heads and could breathe fire? He’d never met Costanzia Merton’s daughter, Bianca, had he?
Contented, she closes her eyes and tries to sleep. But then another sprite jumps into her thoughts, this time with a warning wave of its little claws.
What to do about Farzad?
The lad is still the subject of an order requiring his taking up for questioning over the killing of Solomon Mandel. The thought of him languishing in some stinking, verminous hole like the Marshalsea or the Clink, while the law grinds its way to an eventual acceptance of his innocence – possibly months in the future – and then remembers to let him out, has her biting her lip in distress.
No, I will not let that happen, she resolves – not to a lad who has suffered so grievously.
Besides, an hour or two’s delay will change nothing for Nicholas. But it could be crucial for Farzad. The charming of Robert Cecil can wait a short while, she decides. First must come the charming of Constable Willders.
A few houses down St Olave’s Lane from the Walnut Tree tavern, Bianca passes through an old stone archway and into a passage leading to a churchyard. The brickwork is green with moss. An old brindled cat watches her idly from the cemetery wall, scratches itself and goes back to eating the remains of a pigeon.
An iron-studded door is opened by a small woman with a grey, vanquished face.
‘Good morrow, Mistress. Is Constable Willders at home?’ Bianca asks as nonchalantly as she can manage.
‘Do I take it, from your gentle knocking, that there’s no alarum?’ the woman asks. ‘No call for pursuit?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I seek only a word or two with the constable.’
As Goodwife Willders ushers Bianca inside, she says in a relieved voice, ‘Halleluiah for that, Mistress. I can tell you, if this were your door, you’d be dreading every blow upon it. Day an’ night, it’s “Come quick!” or “Villainy! Villainy!” Not a care whether I’m at my prayers or on my pot. It never stops.’ She looks Bianca up and down. ‘Take my advice: never marry a constable. Your time’s never your own.’
‘I can imagine. But all I need is—’
But Goodwife Willders seems to think she’s encountered a confidante. ‘I swear when we was wed, I was a foot taller. With every bash on this door I’ve shrunk a notch. I’ll be no higher than a little atomy by the time my husband stands down.’
‘Is he at home?’
‘No, Mistress, but he should be back presently. He’s just gone down to our daughter Ruth’s place on Pocket Lane with a pot of my broth. Ruth’s taken a little poorly, and I make good broth, you see. The night-watch swears by it.’ She adopts a stern civic frown. ‘A constable’s wife must play her part in the maintaining of the queen’s peace. Who can tell what riot and disorder my broth has helped quell?’
And Bianca can smell it – a warm, meaty scent pervading the scrubbed little house. She nods appreciatively. ‘If she’s sick, I could make something up for Ruth, if she wants,’ she says helpfully. ‘I’m an apothecary. I have a shop on Dice Lane.’
Goodwife Willders looks up at her, the recognition dawning in her weary eyes. ‘You’re Mistress Merton!’ It is not clear if the statement is an accolade or an accusation.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘I thought you looked a bit foreign. They say you’re half-Roman.’
‘I was born in Padua, to an English father and a mother from the Veneto. But I’m a loyal Banksider now.’
‘They say you’re a recusant. A papist.’
There is no detectable malice in what Goodwife Willders has just said. She could be suggesting that Bianca can cook well or run fast. Only the English, Bianca thinks, can insult you with words that sound like pleasantries.
‘And I suppose you’ve heard how I was taken by Robert Cecil to be accused of treason, and came back to Southwark in his own private barge? Over two years ago, that was, and the story still has currency,’ she says without thinking, cursing herself for rising to the bait.
‘I heard it was the queen’s. All painted gold, with crimson silk pillows.’
‘And you’ll also have heard I’m a witch, I suppose? Would you like me to cast a spell for Ruth’s recovery? I don’t charge much.’
Goodwife Willders’s tired little face puckers. ‘I’ll thank you not to make such japes in a Christian house, Mistress Merton. Witchcraft is a serious matter. I’ll not abide it being spoken of casually.’ Then, relenting, she adds, ‘Mind, if you could cast a charm to quieten all that hammering on the door…’
‘Have you considered removing the knocker?’
As if upon a playhouse cue, the door swings open and Constable Willders steps across the threshold. He looks flushed and troubled, his short body fidgeting with a nervousness Bianca would better ascribe to a Bankside gull appearing before a justice of the peace, rather than a law officer entering his own home. She wonders if he’s been dicing or whoring on his way back from his daughter’s. Or perhaps he’s had more broth than he can stand.
‘How now, Mistress Merton,’ he says. ‘Of all folks, I had not thought to see you here.’ Dropping his gaze, he spits into his right hand and smears his forelock into a more fetching angle.
‘I thought to have a word, Constable Willders, if you will permit me the liberty.’
He seems a little distracted. She’s used to men behaving like fools in her presence, wishing only that they would say what they have to say without either bluster or timidity. But she’d thought Constable Willders a more sensible fellow.
He unlaces his leather tabard and throws it over a chair. His shirt looks as though it’s been handed down from an ancestor, clean enough, but heavily patched with neatly stitched squares of different cloth. It also seems made for a less corpulent man. ‘Have you not brought Dr Shelby with you?’ he asks.
‘Dr Shelby has gone out of the realm.’
‘Has he? Where’s he gone – Ireland? He’s wasting his time. They’re all beyond curing there.’
‘He is gone to the Barbary shore, Constable Willders.’
The constable puffs up his cheeks in surprise. ‘Has he really? Don’t tell me he’s turned Turk – become a Mohammedan. I have heard he’s not past taking our Lord’s name in vain.’
‘No, Constable Willders, he has not. He has gone as an envoy for Sir Robert Cecil. He’s been sent to forge an understanding with the Moor sultan in the sphere of physic, I th
ink.’
Willders seems impressed. ‘I did not know he swam in such fine waters, Mistress Bianca. So how may I help the maid he’s left behind?’
‘He hasn’t “left me behind”, Constable Willders. I’m not something he’s forgotten to pack in his travelling chest. I’ve come about Solomon Mandel.’
‘Ah, the Jew,’ Willders says. ‘A matter of record, now. The coroner has delivered his verdict: hot medley – as we all suspected.’
‘I remember Nicholas saying as much. But I have new information. At least, I might have.’
Willders thrusts out his chest as if to remind her of his civic position. ‘Then I am bound in duty to hear it, Mistress Merton.’ He fixes his wife with a haughty stare. ‘Madam, please absent yourself. This is business affecting the queen’s peace.’
Bianca doesn’t fully hear the parting grizzle as Goodwife Willders retires to the kitchen – save for the words peace and bloody knocker.
‘Now then, Mistress Merton, give your statement in all its aspects. And give it truthfully, as an honest subject of Her Majesty,’ Willders says pompously when they’re alone. ‘You are honest, I trust.’
‘As honest as any here, Constable Willders.’
He seems unconvinced. ‘Here being Southwark, Mistress? Or here being… here?’
She gives him her best smile. ‘Only you can answer that, Constable Willders.’
He wets his hand again and makes another adjustment to his forelock. ‘No dissembling, please, Mistress Merton. There is no place for dissembling where the law is concerned.’
‘I wish to speak of my kitchen lad, Farzad the Moor.’
‘Ah, him. The absconder.’
‘Indeed, him.’
‘And what have you to say of him, Mistress?’
‘That he is innocent, Constable Willders.’
‘Of the Jew’s slaying?’
‘As innocent as the holy lamb.’
She waits for a response. Willders inspects the patches on his shirt. ‘That is what Dr Shelby told the inquest. And if a man cannot put his trust in a physician—’
‘If I were to say that I know where Farzad was on the night Solomon Mandel was murdered, and that he is wholly guiltless in the matter,’ she continues, ‘could it perhaps result in the parish sparing him incarceration? After all, they only want to question him. And I can answer for him.’
‘He is your servant, I take it?’
‘Oh yes, without question,’ she says, though in her own mind Farzad – once she’d got used to his parroted slanders against the Pope – has become, like Timothy, more the younger brother she never had than a servant, just as Rose has become not her maid, but her infuriating little sister.
‘Then you are his mistress and you may speak for him. That is the law.’
‘And I say he is innocent.’
Willders studies her awhile. She tries not to notice the spittle gleaming around his forelock.
‘You have him, don’t you?’ he says, as though he’s just fathomed out a troubling mystery.
Bianca says nothing. She feigns childish innocence.
‘Do you know who slew Master Mandel? Or should I not tax your honesty further?’
‘I have an idea, Constable Willders. But I cannot be sure. The man in question can make an account of himself throughout that night.’
‘Then perhaps it is him we should be examining.’
‘I’m afraid he, too, is out of the realm.’
Willders rasps his chin with one palm while he considers what Bianca has told him – or hasn’t. It takes him a while to reach a conclusion.
‘I will tell the parish that the young Moor may be discounted from the felony, Mistress Merton,’ he says at length.
‘That is good of you, Constable Willders.’ She smiles. ‘I hope your daughter Ruth is soon restored to health. Please let me know if I can be of help. Anything at all, just send word to Dice Lane.’
Willders says very quietly, ‘To avoid any unwanted tumult, may I suggest you keep the young Moor out of sight.’
‘I didn’t tell you I’d found him,’ she says innocently.
‘And you, Mistress Merton, didn’t quite get around to telling me you were honest.’
15
The lines etched into the surface of Robert Cecil’s Molyneux globe had looked so constant when Nicholas studied them at Cecil House: thin but unbreakable chains of gold carved into the lacquer, connecting the continents as though anchoring them in place. Follow them, and so long as God calmed the waters and gave you favourable winds, you would arrive in the Newfound Lands, or Bothnia, or Panama. Each line represented a voyage of discovery made by one of England’s sea dogs: Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Raleigh…
The chain connecting England to the Barbary Coast had seemed to Nicholas barely long enough to require more than a few days at sea. But he has been aboard the Righteous now longer than the voyage that took him to the Low Countries, a newly minted physician who had volunteered to serve as a surgeon in the struggle against the Spanish occupation there And out here, in the empty wastes of the ocean, there is no comforting gilded line to follow. There is only the slow concussion of wave after wave, slamming against the ship with a noise that sounds to him like the slow, muffled tolling of a great cathedral bell heard through a wall of sackcloth. Now the tales he’s heard the water-men tell when they drink at the Jackdaw have a new and worrying pertinence: the Squirrel, lost with all hands in a violent storm off the Azores; the crew of the John Goodwill, wrecked on the shores of Bambouk and left there to rot, the poisoned arrowheads still in their bodies; the men of the Firebrand, who exchanged a quick death by drowning, when she was wrecked off Hispaniola, for a lingering one, drifting day after day on the open sea aboard a raft only large enough for ten men, until murder became the only way to delay the inevitable starvation of the remaining nine.
But at least he knows he’s in competent hands. His distaste for Cathal Connell hasn’t weakened a jot. But he cannot fault the man’s skill. He handles the Righteous with calm proficiency. And he has drilled his men well. Even in the roughest sea they move about the rolling deck as though they’ve known no other life but this.
Nicholas has even come to like many of them. At first they had been wary of him, being – like all sailors – practical one moment and deeply superstitious the next. Now they seem content enough with the presence aboard of a competent man of physic, a rarity they seem to think will guarantee their safe return to England. He hasn’t the heart to tell them to trust to their own knowledge rather than his.
And as an envoy carrying letters from the queen, he is regarded by the crew almost as a courtier, shown exaggerated deference one moment, teased unmercifully the next. Nicholas takes it with a smile. It reminds him of his time with Sir Joshua Wylde’s company in Holland.
And he has learned a little of their strange language. He knows the difference now between his windward and his leeward. When someone tells him to get out of the way yarely, he knows they mean quickly. When Connell shouts in his rasping voice to the helmsman, ‘Lay her ahold’, Nicholas now knows he wants the Righteous held on a course close to the wind.
When the sea runs high and the wind howls over the deck, reading his edition of William Clever’s The Flower of Physic becomes impossible, so then he goes below to muse on what he might do when he reaches Safi, the old Portuguese trading harbour on the coast of Morocco.
At sunset, the Righteous goes to sleep. Save for the helmsman and the hands required to man sail and cordage, everyone else takes to their hammocks. There is little dice or card-playing. Connell will not permit any naked flame below the main-deck, for the hold is packed with bales of good English cloth. More than sea serpents and hurricanes, every man aboard has a dread of fire.
Like many English merchant venturers, the Righteous is armed. Set on the fore- and sterncastles are an array of culverins, demi-culverins and falconets. These are fired off for practice whenever Connell feels in a belligerent mood. They produce huge clouds o
f vile-smelling smoke, which even in a strong wind seem to infuse the ship with the stench of sulphur.
‘If you encounter a Spanish ship, do you intend to give battle?’ Nicholas asks Connell after one such display. The smoke has cleared and the two men are standing on the high, raked stern, watching the five young apprentices studying the documents with the grand wax seals that Reynard Gault brought with him on their departure from Lyon Quay. To Nicholas, they look like schoolboys cramming for a Latin test.
‘If she’s a galleon, we’ll run from her,’ Connell says. ‘The Dons build them big, but not fast.’ He glances aloft, making one of his periodic assessments of the sky. ‘If she’s a merchant, we’ll seize her. We can’t expect another Madre de Deus, but it will still make us rich men.’ He gives Nicholas a sly, conspiratorial look. ‘Do you fancy being a rich man, Master Physician?’
Nicholas doesn’t answer. ‘What about the crew?’ he asks. ‘There’s no room on board the Righteous for prisoners.’
‘I shall relieve them of their riches, wish them a sweet Buena fortuna, and send them on their way,’ Connell replies, staring out over the vast expanse of water. He looks to Nicholas as though he’s revisiting memories. ‘What else would you have a God-fearing man do?’
The hourglass is fixed beside the ship’s bell. In calm waters, it behaves itself. But today the sea has spewed up one of its sudden spring gales and the Righteous is rolling in a manner that Nicholas finds frankly terrifying. With every sideways plunge, the leeward rail breaches the wave crests, dashing icy water onto the deck. Keeping his eyes on the flowing grains of sand in the glass bulb merely adds to the nausea he feels. But at last it is empty. The mate – a gnarled creature who looks as though he’s been hewn from the same forest that the ship’s timbers came from – nods. Nicholas rings the bell vigorously eight times. It is noon, as best as anyone can fathom.