by S. W. Perry
On the seventh day Sumayl al-Seddik arrives to escort him to the Bimaristan’s library, where Nicholas is permitted to view the ancient texts by Ibn Sina, al-Zahrawi and Ibn al-Nafis. He looks on in awe as de Lisle translates the Moorish writing, lines of strangely sweeping curlicues that remind him of wave-crests blown on a summer wind. He learns about the importance of foods to aid recovery: foods that heat, and which the Moors call garmi – goose and duck and the flesh of a male goat, peaches and olives; and foods that cool, which are termed sardi – female goat meat, melons, figs and pomegranates. He learns the classifications of an irregular pulse by the animalistic names the Moors use: gazelle, ant and rat-tail; and the fifteen different varieties of pain.
By now he has begun to feel a measure of guilt. If he was back on Bankside, tending to the sick at St Tom’s as his professional self has told him more than once he should be, he’d have precious little to offer them in comparison. But most of all, he feels like a thief who’s been given the key to a vast treasure store.
‘Is there news of when I might present my letter to the sultan?’ he asks al-Seddik when his tour of the library is over.
The Moor rubs one hand over his silk-sheathed belly, as though in anticipation of another good meal. ‘Soon. Very soon. Inshā Allāh.’ He gives Nicholas a diplomat’s smile. ‘It is a little like heaven: one trusts one will get there one day, but there is no certain way of knowing quite when.’
When Nicholas returns to the Street of the Weavers a short while later, the mud-brick walls still shimmer from the heat of the sun, even though it is almost evening. The lane is deserted, its only occupant a scrawny grey cat playing idly with a half-dead lizard beneath a date palm.
Approaching the house, he sees that Hadir has left the door open in anticipation of his return. He steps through the low entrance and into the cool darkness of the interior passage. He stands still for a moment, breathing in the scent of orange blossom from the trees in the central courtyard. Then he calls out to let Hadir know he’s arrived.
Three times.
Each without an answer. The lad must be asleep somewhere.
But why has no one else come? Where is the Berber Methuselah woman who does the cooking? Where is the boy who fetches water, and the young girl who does the infidel’s washing and still hasn’t stopped staring at him with those immense brown eyes? All he can hear is the twittering of the sparrows as they dart around the upper gallery. He steps out into the courtyard.
They have planned the ambush to perfection: two figures, moving unnaturally fast from the blurred edges of his vision, so indistinct they could be apparitions. In a moment of startled comprehension, Nicholas realizes they have waited patiently for the moment when moving from darkness into dazzling sunlight makes the victim almost blind.
They strike so swiftly that Nicholas has little chance to defend himself. Before he can even think of resisting, one of them has his head in an armlock that forces him to close his eyes or stare directly into the sun. Inside a hot orange mist, the blood vessels in his eyelids become a dark spider’s web ensnaring him. The arm about his neck tightens. Nicholas begins to gasp for breath, clawing with frenzied fingers at the suffocating weight crushing his windpipe.
Before the blackness takes him there is a brief moment of dreaming. The merest flash of a fantasy. Bianca Merton is crouching over him, moving her lips towards his upturned throat. She is preparing to put Eleanor into her rightful place in the archive of his past. And this time there is no kissing knot, no audience in the Jackdaw’s taproom to make a mockery of it. His neck arches. Waiting. Waiting for the moment he has denied for so long.
But when her tongue touches his throat, it is not the hot kiss of long-delayed consummation that he feels. It is the icy thrust of Surgeon Wadoud’s scalpel.
30
‘Bastarda!’ Bianca barks under her breath as the pestle flies out of her hand and rolls across the tabletop. She steadies the mortar before it can follow, and retrieves the pestle in the very last moment before it crashes to the floor. Then she blames Reynard Gault for being the cause of her clumsiness.
She has spent the last hour preparing the pomanders of rose leaves, tragacanth gum and camphor for him to hang about the necks of his investments, should the pestilence ever have the temerity to stick its nose around the front door of his new-toy house in Smithfield.
She thinks again of her visit to Giltspur Street, and how she’d left with the distinct impression that Gault was as interested in what Nicholas might have told her about his mission for Robert Cecil as he was in her physic. Now she is more convinced than ever that Nicholas has not told her the whole story. As a consequence, Bianca fears for him more than ever. And though she will not admit it, she knows that is the real cause of the pestle taking on a wilful life of its own.
And there is something else troubling her. It is the lie Gault told her about not knowing the name of Solomon Mandel.
Was he somehow involved in the Jew’s death? she asks herself, as the leaves she is pounding release their heady scents. Why else would he have lied to her?
She wonders how she might prove that Gault knew Mandel, or at least met him, as she suspects. Perhaps the Barbary Company has a record of the events surrounding the Moor envoy’s visit to London – the visit that was welcomed by its leading merchants. She shakes her head as she imagines the welcome she’d get if she turned up at the guildhall and asked to see it. Besides, Gault would be bound to hear of it.
She is about to resign herself to defeat when her eyes alight on a small earthenware pot, sitting all by itself on the window ledge by the street door, softly lit by the late-afternoon sun. It contains ointment for Parson Moody’s tired eyes. She is expecting him to call today and collect it, if he can find time away from the growing number of funerals that he must conduct.
Of course. Parson Moody!
Chiding herself for not having made the connection when she was preparing the ointment, she almost drops the pestle again. Her jaw stiffens with satisfaction. Parson Moody is the priest at St Saviour’s where the parish records are stored, the same records that include the subsidy roll that enabled Nicholas to learn that Solomon Mandel was the Turk’s man.
And Southwark was where the entourage of the Sultan of Morocco’s envoy entered London, after its landfall in Devon in 1589.
Grinning like a crazed woman, Bianca wields her pestle victoriously in the air, as if she has just battered an assailant into submission. Because it has dawned on her that if she’s learned only one thing about Englishmen like Reynard Gault since arriving from Padua, it is this: when it comes to matters of great civic occasion, they would rather walk naked through the Royal Exchange than have their names left out of the record.
She arrives at St Saviour’s to find Parson Moody preparing for Evensong. He is flustered. He’s only just returned from burying the entire Molestrop family: husband, wife, one full set of grandparents and an unmarried daughter of sixteen, all of whom were only permitted to leave their plague house behind the pike ponds when they had been dead long enough to satisfy the parish collectors.
‘I do not know why God punishes the innocent so,’ Moody says harshly, wiping his brow so that his brimmed hat tilts back over his temple. ‘We pray. We abjure from sinfulness as best we can. And then we pray some more. It makes no difference. What His plan for us is, I cannot imagine.’
‘I’ve brought the medicine for your eyes, Parson Moody,’ Bianca says, handing him the pot.
‘You are a good woman, Mistress Merton,’ he says with a priest’s unassailable smile. ‘Whatever some in this parish may say about you.’ He pats her arm. ‘I want you to know I never believed the wilder speculations.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘Is there news of when Dr Shelby might return? I had not imagined he would abandon us at such a time as this.’
‘I don’t believe he has abandoned us, Parson Moody. Had he known the pestilence would increase, he would have stayed.’ As a defence, she t
hinks, it’s not entirely watertight. ‘Besides, there is little a physician can do that we are not already doing ourselves. Nicholas said as much before he left.’
‘Then that simply reminds us that we sinners are all dependent upon God’s continuing grace.’
She nods sagely, if only to make him feel better. ‘I would ask a question of you, Parson Moody. Will you spare me a moment of your time?’
‘And what question is that, Mistress Merton?’ he replies as she follows him into the coolness of the church.
‘When Dr Shelby was called to the inquest into Master Mandel’s brutal murder, he came here to ask if he could inspect the parish records, to see if he might find out a little about Solomon’s past.’ She can hear her words echoing faintly off the ancient stones. ‘Before he left, Nicholas asked me if I would continue his investigation.’
‘Is that so?’
‘As you know, Solomon’s murderer has not yet been brought to justice.’
‘I thought that young Moor of yours was a suspect.’
‘Farzad? No. I can vouch for Farzad. It couldn’t have been him. Even Constable Willders knew him to be wholly innocent.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. We have so many foreigners in the city these days, I sometimes marvel that more of us are not murdered in our beds.’
‘I would remind you that I am also a foreigner in this land,’ Bianca says emphatically. As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she regrets them. This is no time to alienate Parson Moody.
‘Are you really?’ he asks, as though she’d told him she was a mermaid. ‘Oh yes – Italy. I remember Mistress Solver telling me you had an Italian mother and an English father.’ He looks at her with unshakeable conviction. ‘So, really, you are one of us. Barely foreign at all.’
She wonders what that smile might look like if she told him she was also a Catholic. But perhaps he already knows. Perhaps Jenny Solver told him that, too.
‘How long have you been here at St Saviour’s?’
‘Fifteen years.’ From his voice, it could be a gaol sentence.
‘A long while.’
‘I could consider it a failure. Bankside is no godlier today than when first I arrived. The playhouse and the bear-pit are still dens of vice. There’s barely one man in three practising an honest profession. And as for the lasciviousness of the women – not including yourself, of course…’
‘Of course,’ she echoes, stifling a grin as she thinks of the bawdy-house near the Falcon stairs she knows he likes to visit.
‘Fifteen years battling Satan from the depths of such a moral cess-pit might have broken a man with less faith in his heart.’ He glances reproachfully towards heaven. ‘Now, Mistress, what was it you wished to ask of me?’
‘Can you recall the occasion of the visit to London by the envoy of the Sultan of Morocco? It was in ’89 – January, I think.’
‘I would be a poor fellow if I could not. A most impressive sight. All those faces burned by the desert sun. How those Moors must have marvelled to see civilization up close.’
‘Do you recall who was here to greet them?’
‘The Lord Mayor… most of the Corporation of the City… Lord Burghley… I cannot be exact, but certainly many notable men, for sure.’
‘Do you happen to know if the parish records contain any report of the event?’
‘Oh yes, I drew it up myself – for the aldermen,’ Parson Moody says proudly.
‘Might I see it?’
A look of unbearable sadness clouds his face. ‘I am so sorry, Mistress Merton, but that will not be possible.’
‘Why not?’
‘They are confidential records. And you are a woman. I am sure you understand.’
‘But you let Dr Shelby see them.’
‘That’s different. His request was on behalf of Coroner Danby.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘I wish I could be more helpful. I really do.’
‘No, you’ve been most generous with your time, Parson Moody. I’m sorry to have troubled you.’
‘Is there aught else I may do for you, Mistress Merton?’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Then thank you again – for the ointment.’
Bianca raises her voice just enough to get a good echo back off the church walls.
‘Twice a day,’ she says sweetly.
Parson Moody seems puzzled. ‘Forgive me – you have me disadvantaged…’
Bianca dabs at the corners of her eyes. ‘I recommend you apply it twice a day. A small amount should do the trick.’
‘Ah, of course.’
‘Then you’ll be able to see your way to the Falcon stairs without difficulty. After Evensong, isn’t it? Every Wednesday. Or is it Thursday? I forget which. I’ll have to ask the bawd – Mistress Jennings. I’m sure I’ve seen her in your congregation.’
Five minutes later Bianca is alone in the vestry, a pile of parchment rolls and leather-bound books on the table before her. Through the open door she can see Parson Moody prostrate before the altar, deep in prayer.
It takes her some time to find it, but when she does, her heart begins to race. It is a description of the event recorded for posterity and the aggrandisement of the parish – how the sultan’s envoy was met on Long Southwark by the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London.
And amongst all the dignitaries, one humble translator, Master Solomon Mandel, a trader in spices between England and Morocco, with skills in the language of the Moor.
And forty leading lights of the Worshipful Barbary Company of London. Including one Reynard Gault, merchant venturer.
At which point the strength in her legs seems abruptly to desert her. She has to reach out a hand to the table in order to steady herself. She stares at the neatly inked script, unable to believe what she has seen.
She reads the line again, just to be sure:
Reynard Gault. Merchant venturer.
Who is attending not merely in his commercial capacity, but in a more formal role – as representative of the English College of Heralds, in which august body he is proud to hold the purely honorary position of Rouge Croix Pursuivant.
PART 3
Blood-Tax
31
‘Why have you come here?’
The heavily accented voice has asked the same question since Nicholas’s consciousness first began to emerge from the dark cave to which near-suffocation had dispatched it.
He is sitting against a rough wall of pitted grey masonry, in a plain narrow storeroom in the house on the Street of the Weavers. The early-evening light spills through a small grille set into the ceiling, casting an irregular shape at the foot of the far wall. He cannot move his arms. In his befuddled state he thinks he’s still aboard the Righteous, and the figure standing over him is Cathal Connell, come to pitch him into the ocean before he regains the use of his limbs. Then he realizes his hands are bound behind his back.
‘Why have you come here?’
The voice is clearer now, though still slightly muffled. Nicholas realizes it is not the man standing guard over him who is speaking, but a figure sitting cross-legged just out of striking distance. His face is covered by a cloth kufiya, save for the eyes, which fix Nicholas like a hawk’s. At his back Nicholas can make out three other men, standing in silent watchfulness. The kufiya speaks again.
‘Dr Shelby, if you wish this place not to be a charnel house for your bones, tell us why you have come to our city – the true reason.’
A young voice. Someone in their early twenties. The English is not that of a native speaker, nor does it have the accent of a Hadir or an al-Seddik. Somewhere to the east of Italy is all Nicholas can manage. He remembers something de Lisle told him earlier at the hammam: The blood-tax… a simple choice: serve the Moors as warriors – or die…
Is that who these people are, Nicholas wonders: janissaries?
‘I am an envoy from the queen of England,’ he says, in his best imitation of an outraged diplomat. ‘I carry a lett
er from the queen to the sultan. It is your duty to let me go. And if you’ve harmed anyone in my house, you will pay for it dearly.’
The reply has a note of disappointed familiarity to it. ‘How many times has my master heard those words let me go? In the slave markets, in the galleys, in the prisons, always it is: please let me go. But a man who begs in such a manner is not a true man at all. He is no more of a man than one who is ruled by a woman. Wouldn’t you agree – infidel?’
‘Who are you? Why have you abused the envoy of a friendly nation in such a manner?’
‘I am at the service of His Excellency Muhammed al-Annuri,’ says the kufiya, clasping his hands together as though about to pray. Young fingers to go with a young voice, Nicholas observes. ‘It is a name you should learn to fear.’
Nicholas is under no illusions. If these are the men who tortured and murdered Adolfo Sykes, then his bluster will last only until they draw the knife.
‘What does he want from me? If I have transgressed some custom or other, I apologize. It was through ignorance. Nothing more.’
A short silence – graciously given to allow him time to consider the inadequacy of his statement.
‘I will ask you again, Dr Shelby. Why have you come to Marrakech? My master wishes to know.’
‘I told you. I am an envoy. Also, I have come to study physic in your land. In all civilized lands that would entitle me to safe passage. So now let me go.’
The man sitting before him seems unconcerned by royal letters expressing friendship, or even the diplomatic conventions of civilized lands. ‘I do not believe you,’ he says. ‘I think you are a spy. It is His Excellency al-Annuri’s task to root out spies. To crush them between his fingers like lice.’ He snaps the tip of his middle finger across his thumb to show how it is done. ‘Why did you visit the place where the infidel Sykes met his death? Why did you then visit his grave?’