by S. W. Perry
‘I’ve never had an audience with a sultan,’ Nicholas says, as the attendant fastens a wide tasselled belt with a gold clasp around his waist. ‘I was once called before the Censors of the College of Physicians, but they only think they’re royalty. What is the protocol?’
‘It is very simple,’ al-Seddik tells him. ‘We will approach His Majesty on our knees. When he calls me forward, I will rise and kiss him on the cheek.’
‘Do I kiss him?’
‘Of course not,’ the minister says in horror. ‘You are an infidel. Imagine if I, a Moor, had sought such a familiarity with your queen when I was in London.’
‘You should have taken the chance,’ Nicholas replies with a mischievous grin. ‘They say she’s a dreadful flirt. The Earl of Leicester died before he plucked up the courage. At the moment, in the Jackdaw, all the serious money is on the Earl of Essex.’
Al-Seddik looks at him blankly. ‘I will ask you for the letter. You will hand it to me. I shall then break the seal and translate its contents to His Majesty. In return, he may give you a gift. Or he may pay you no attention at all. Whatever his reaction, we shall retire on our knees. After that, I will have a couple of my fellows ensure that you return here safely. I wouldn’t want you wandering lost in the lanes, dressed in such tempting garb.’
‘I’ll get the letter,’ Nicholas says, beckoning Hadir to follow him. When they are out of al-Seddik’s hearing he says, ‘Go at once to where Connell and the apprentices are. Keep watch. Find out where he takes them.’
‘But I must accompany Sayidi Nich-less to the palace,’ Hadir protests, sounding like a small boy who’s been told he can’t stay in the same room as the adults. ‘I have to – I am your secretary.’
‘You will be doing me – and your sultan – a far better service by discovering where those apprentices go. They may lead us to the Falconer.’
Reluctantly Hadir accepts. ‘Be careful of Minister al-Seddik,’ he warns.
‘Why? If we can trust anyone, we can trust him. He is Lord Burghley’s friend. I’ll tell him about Sykes’s letter when de Lisle has gone.’
‘I mean, don’t trust him not to steal the sharif’s reward from me. He is already a rich man. Hadir needs the gold more than he does.’
Nicholas laughs. ‘I promise I won’t let him cheat you. Just remember to stay out of Connell’s sight.’
‘He will not see me,’ Hadir promises with a grave frown. ‘I shall be like the magic letter Sayidi Sy-kess writes to your friends in England. I shall become invisible.’
‘It is called, in English, the Palace of Wonders,’ says al-Seddik proudly as he leads Nicholas through the immense ornate archway.
The el-Badi Palace seems to Nicholas well named – a secret world with its own horizons of high red walls flanked with shady, pillared pavilions. He gazes out over a vast area of manicured gardens set with date palms, olive and citrus trees. Pathways reflect the dazzling sunlight from uncountable numbers of small glazed tiles, lapis blue, emerald green and blood red, all strung together in geometric patterns, as if the artisans who crafted them had somehow found a way to weave solid stone on a loom. Fountains fill the air with their melodic song. Down the centre runs a broad pool as wide as a river, where birds with long, curving bills wade.
‘They are ibis,’ al-Seddik tells him. ‘It is fitting that His Majesty should look out upon creatures who once graced the palaces of the pharaohs.’
Nicholas searches for a sign of the man on whom this magnificence is lavished, paid for – as Hadir has told him – by Portuguese gold and built by Portuguese slaves. But there is no sign of anyone remotely grand enough.
They are led to one of the tented pavilions, to sink down upon silken cushions and await His Majesty’s pleasure. De Lisle is still with them. Nicholas finds himself casting glances at the Frenchman, as if trying to penetrate that aloof exterior to see the conspiracy boiling within. After a while he stops, fearing the Frenchman will grow suspicious of his interest.
And so they wait.
And wait.
His Majesty’s hours are not necessarily the same as a common man’s…
It is mid-afternoon, shortly after the al-’asr prayers, before they are called.
Sultan Ahmad Abu al-Abbas al-Mansur is holding court on the broad top step of a flight of six leading to the arched doorway of a squat gatehouse at the far end of the palace gardens. Shaded by parasols held aloft by bodyguards, he sits on a small stool, staring down the length of the central pool like a Moorish King Canute. He is dressed simply in a linen robe, Nicholas notices with surprise, a plain white turban framing a tightly curled grey beard and prominent cheekbones. Were it not for the grandeur that surrounds him, he could be a village grandfather taking a break from his gardening.
Behind him, in the shadow of the arched doorway, stands Minister al-Annuri, a taciturn spectre in white, his hooded eyes watching Nicholas come forward like a falcon that’s just spotted a hare break cover. Yes, thinks Nicholas, I could see you carving flesh off a living body, and smiling while you do it.
The brief ceremony plays out just as al-Seddik foretold. He and Nicholas prostrate themselves at the foot of the steps. When the minister is called forward, Nicholas catches the words England and Elizabeth in the brief speech he makes.
The letter is duly read. Sultan al-Mansur makes a brief reply, though whether to thank the queen for her declaration of friendship or to comment on the weather, Nicholas cannot tell, because it’s delivered without the slightest hint of approval. It is only when, after a brief pause, al-Mansur removes a huge gold ring set with precious stones from his finger and hands it to Nicholas, via al-Seddik, that it becomes clear the queen’s greetings have been welcomed.
With the ring clutched tightly in his right hand, Nicholas shuffles backwards on his knees behind al-Seddik’s broad, silken rump. Once they have retreated a suitable distance, the minster stands up and start walking slowly backwards. Nicholas follows suit.
And then, from behind the sultan’s stool, a man emerges, a basket wedged under one arm. As Nicholas watches, he descends the far right edge of the steps and proceeds to cast sand over the path, moving forward as Nicholas retreats, as though he were sowing a field.
‘What’s he doing?’ Nicholas whispers to al-Seddik out of the corner of his mouth.
There is a slight hint of embarrassment in al-Seddik’s reply. ‘He’s cleansing the pathway between you and His Majesty. Remember, Dr Shelby, in this city you are the infidel.’
It is a poor way, Nicholas thinks, to reward a man who has the power to save your throne. But given the weight of the ring he’s clutching, he thinks he’ll be able to live with the insult.
Al-Seddik’s men escort Nicholas through the lanes towards the Street of the Weavers. Unable to contrive a moment alone with the Moor, Nicholas has consoled himself with an offer to join the minister for the iftar feast at sunset, followed the next morning by a ride out to al-Seddik’s kasbah in the mountains for a day’s hawking. As De Lisle is to remain in Marrakech, in case the sultan has need to call for him, it promises an opportunity for Nicholas to reveal what he has discovered.
Crossing the open ground where, on his arrival, Nicholas had seen the pitiful clusters of humanity corralled like beasts at market, he notes the space is empty now, save for a few Berbers encamped there with their sheep. He recalls a few words from Adolfo Sykes’s letter: Connell is paid for his treachery in gold and slaves… God help the poor souls who become his property…
Certain now that poor Hortop was alive when he went into the sea, Nicholas can find little mercy in his heart for a creature such as Cathal Connell. When the plot is foiled, he should count himself lucky to escape with a swift beheading.
Nicholas wonders how many young men have come here on Connell’s ships, believing they were embarking upon a lucrative mercantile life? Did any refuse to pay the blood-tax – to sell their souls and become janissaries in someone else’s war? He remembers what he told de Lisle in the hammam, when h
e’d seen the butchered slave Marcu: Few of us have no limit to the courage in our hearts.
Nicholas tries to gauge the extent of the conspiracy. He imagines an unbroken line connecting Cathal Connell to Muhammed al-Annuri and Arnoult de Lisle, via Reynard Gault and his fake pedigrees, all the way to the Escorial in Madrid and the throne of Philip of Spain. He sees a new nobility replacing the old in Marrakech – a Catholic Christian government made up of young men with purchased dignity.
By the time he dismisses al-Seddik’s two taciturn guides at the entrance to the Street of the Weavers, Nicholas is already imagining himself on the first night home. He has returned to Bankside from Cecil House, crowned with laurels, the garlanded victor of a desperate battle. He is breathing in the rosewater scent of Bianca’s hair as he unlaces the points of her carnelian bodice, burying his mouth in the warm arc of her shoulder. Seizing his second chance at life, the bliss he’d thought a capricious god had chosen to deny him.
He pushes on the ornately carved door and steps into the house of Adolfo Sykes.
The first bloodstain lies on the mud-brick wall, beside the doorway that opens onto the courtyard. A handprint – the fingers splayed in agony. Nicholas has to fight every fibre of his body to force himself on into the garden.
It is bathed in warm evening sunlight. But the heavenly scent of citrus has gone. And he cannot hear the beating wings of the swifts darting around the upper gallery. All he can smell is the stench of spilt blood and bowels emptied after death. All he can hear is the contented murmuring of the feasting flies. All he can see is Hadir’s flayed corpse strung beneath the branches of the old pomegranate tree, like a newly washed coat drying. And huddled around Hadir’s bare feet – like petitioners before His Majesty al-Mansur – are the bodies of grandmother Tiziri the Methuselah-woman, Gwata the boy who fetches the water and his sister Lalla who does the washing.
And then the Devil speaks to him from behind his shoulder. Not with a sulphurous pungency, but with a soft Irish lilt.
‘I know what these audiences with the daft old heathen are like,’ Connell tells him cheerily as Nicholas stares at the carnage. ‘They drag on so long you could swear you’re going to die before it’s over. Well, today you were right.’
36
Ned Monkton glowers at the tabletop in concentration.
‘Think hard,’ Bianca urges. ‘A casual comment. An aside. Something that might have sounded inconsequential at the time. Anything.’
It is the evening of the day after the move from Dice Lane. Ned is sitting with Bianca and Rose in a booth in a quiet corner of the Jackdaw, while Timothy plays ‘Lady, Weep No More’ on his lute to a party of sentimental Kentish drovers. Farzad is tending his cooking pot.
‘There is nothing else to remember,’ Ned says plaintively. ‘Master Nick said the journey was diplomatic, that’s all. He told me Robert Cecil would shut you down if he didn’t go. He gave me the letter for Lord Lumley, and then he made me swear to keep my gullet shut. He’ll be livid when he learns I broke my oath.’
‘It will be our secret, Ned.’
Rose asks, ‘So why is this Gault fellow so eager to know if Master Nick told you a different story?’
Perplexed, Bianca puts her head in her hands. ‘Because, I suppose – like me – he doesn’t believe Cecil sent Nicholas to the Barbary shore to learn how the Moors make medicine. Whatever the real reason, I think it has something to do with Solomon Mandel’s murder. Mandel was in the service of the Moroccan envoy who came to London some few years ago. He was a translator. To my face, Gault denied knowing him. But he was there in his official capacity as Rouge Croix Pursuivant herald. So he must have met Mandel. He’s hiding something, I know it.’
‘Perhaps he just plain forgot,’ says Rose.
‘No, Gault’s too sharp a knife to be that easily blunted. Besides, it was the event of the season.’
Ned rises from his bench, his huge form filling the space between the table and the wall of the booth. ‘I’ll go to Giltspur Street and wring the truth out of the overdressed Jack-a-dandy.’
‘Don’t be so silly,’ Bianca tells him. ‘The young men he keeps about him go armed. Besides, it was hard enough keeping Farzad out of the Clink. I don’t want to have to worry about you ending up there, too.’
‘This is Bankside,’ Rose points out. ‘Why not lure him into a cross-biting? I’ll play the bait and lead him on. Then Ned can burst into our chamber just as Gault’s about to drop his hose. If he doesn’t spill what you want, we can threaten to haul him before the judge for attempting to seduce a married woman.’
‘That’s very sweet of you to offer, Rose, dear, but he’s not a green-pate fresh in from the countryside. And have you thought how Ned might feel about that?’
‘I could tolerate it, if it were done to help Mistress Bianca,’ Ned says nobly. ‘As long as no clothing other than his own was taken off. An’ no pawing. I couldn’t ’ave you pawed, Wife.’
Bianca slaps a hand on the table. ‘No, I’m not having any of it. It won’t work. I don’t want Rose’s reputation impugned. And I don’t want the Jackdaw known for cross-biting. This is about the only tavern in Southwark where new customers can feel safe.’
‘Just trying to help,’ says Rose with a shrug. ‘It goes on all the time in the Good Husband.’
Bianca calls an end to the conversation. ‘If I can’t come up with something soon, I’ll just have to wait until Nicholas returns. Then perhaps he’ll tell me what Gault was really up to, and he can have Cecil take a closer look at Master Reynard-peacock-feather-Gault.’
‘I wonder where he is now,’ says Rose distractedly.
‘On his way back to Giltspur Street, I expect.’
‘No, I meant Master Nicholas. I wonder if he’ll come back to us dressed like a Moor prince? He’d look ever so bonny.’
‘Rose, dear, he’s a Suffolk yeoman’s son. It’s all we can do to get him to wear a bright ribbon in the points of that old canvas doublet of his. I don’t think you’ll be seeing Nicholas dressed up like Master Kit’s Tamburlaine this side of Judgement Day.’
‘Kit Marlow.’ Rose gives a wistful little laugh. ‘Mercy, how I remember the look in Master Nicholas’s eyes when first you called that saucy fellow Kit. I thought to myself: Hello, that’s green jealousy, that is. Our Master Nicholas is afeared Mistress Bianca is smitten with Christopher Marlowe, or my name’s not Rose Fludd. ’Course, it’s not Fludd now, it’s Monkton. But it’s a shame he’s dead – Marlowe, I mean, not Ned, or Master Nicholas…’
But Bianca isn’t listening to Rose’s prattle. She’s too busy trying to quell the competing voices that have suddenly begun to shout in her head.
Because Rose had just made her realize there is a way to lure Reynard Gault into giving up his secrets. Forget an alliance, she thinks. It’s time for Christopher Marlowe to pay for all the tribulations he put her and Nicholas through, by coming to her aid.
Even if he has to make his restitution from beyond the grave.
For Nicholas, the storeroom of Adolfo Sykes’s house has become a death-cell. All that is missing is a priest to give him holy absolution.
He has waited all night and much of the following day for the moment when the door is unlocked and they come for him. There has been not a moment’s ease. The chamber is as hot and stifling as the hammam, but without the comforts. If he sits against the wall, the rough masonry presses into his sweating back; if he lies on the floor, it’s like trying to sleep on a bed of nails. To distract his mind, he’s spent much of the time attempting to recite the Hippocratic Aphorisms in Latin and then in English. Even so, the expectation has become almost unbearable, an ever-present current of panic. Whenever he catches the sound of movement, every time he hears voices raised, his stomach turns to icy melt-water and he has to fight against a breaking wave of terror.
Not that he’s a coward. He hadn’t flinched from stepping off the Mutton Lane water-stairs, to finally drown for ever Eleanor’s reproachful voice whispering in his
head, Why could you not save me? During the fighting in the Low Countries there had been times when he’d thought death’s eyes were fixed on him, and him alone. And when Dr Arcampora’s two murderous rogues had been about to kill him in that warehouse in Petty Wales – before Bianca has saved him – he’d resigned himself to destruction, though admittedly he’d been too roughly used to have much comprehension of what was happening.
No, it’s not a lack of courage that threatens to unman him, it’s the helplessness. It’s his inability to seize Cathal Connell by his sparse hair and smash that salt-scoured face against Adolfo Sykes’s stone talisman until the memory of Hortop, of Hadir, of grandmother Tiziri, little Gwata and his sister Lalla is expunged from his mind.
By counting the calls to prayer, he reckons it is early afternoon on the day following the ambush. His captors have given him no food and only a little water since yesterday. Perhaps they mean to starve him to death.
Before they brought him to the storeroom, he had spent several hours in the courtyard hunched beneath Adolfo Sykes’s stone talisman, fettered by an ankle-chain. Connell had greedily weighed in his palm the ring Sultan al-Mansur had given Nicholas, then left him with the bodies for company.
Even with his eyes shut, Nicholas had been unable to block out the image of Hadir hanging from the old pomegranate tree, or grandmother Tiziri and the two children lying at his feet. In the heat, it hadn’t taken long before the first faint stink of putrefaction began to replace the scent of citrus. And he couldn’t shut his ears to the monotone mourning of the gathering flies.
After the al-’isha prayers, when the moon bathed the garden in a pale corpse-light, they had unchained him and moved him here, to the storeroom. Thankful to be turning his back on the garden, he’d wondered if they were going to dispose of the bodies before a new sun spread the stench of what they had done from one end of the Street of the Weavers to the other. He prays now that they have done so, because if they take him back there, he’s not sure his sanity will bear it.