by S. W. Perry
Praying that the Moor gunners know their business, Nicholas listens out for the eight detonations, but the sound of the barrage reaches him as one ripple of distant thunder.
For a moment nothing happens. All Nicholas can hear is the creaking of the Marion’s cordage and the slapping of the calm sea against the hull.
And then they come.
They arrive with the sound of a gale that has sprung up from nowhere, a gale that lasts only as long as it takes for the ear to register its passing.
Three of the shots arrive wide – three pillars of green seawater rising from the surface of the ocean – one of them close enough to the Marion to send a spray of saltwater drifting across her stern.
A fourth lands short, perhaps twenty yards to landward of the galley. But Nicholas sees the blur of the ball as it skips off the water to land squarely amongst the rank of oars, splintering them like twigs, before ploughing on into the hull.
The rest land like rocks hurled against a pane of glass.
One moment the corsair galley is a sleek, almost sensuous animal of the sea, and the next she is torn in two, her entrails spilling out in a cloud of sea mist and debris, oars, planks, rigging – and people. Within two minutes the separate parts of her hull are barely visible above the surface, the single mast with its lateen sail still furled looking like a broken cross on an untended grave.
The oarsmen drown first, in neat ranks, chained to their benches. The janissaries, standing on the raised central deck, don’t live much longer. Weighed down by their mail coats, they too succumb, the stronger struggling only a little longer than the weaker.
Eventually there is only one survivor – a salt-scoured European swimming towards the Marion with long, determined strokes.
To Nicholas’s surprise, the crew shout encouragement, willing him on. A moment ago Connell was an enemy. Now he is simply another mariner in danger of drowning – a man to be pitied, to be rescued. Down on the main-deck they are throwing ropes over the side for him to cling to. Seeing their efforts, Connell strikes out even more vigorously.
From his vantage point, Nicholas can see him clearly, perhaps thirty feet out from where he stands on the sterncastle, moving through the water at an angle towards the Marion’s side.
There is no conscious thought behind what Nicholas does next – only an animal desire to make an accounting for Solomon Mandel, as he had sworn to, and for Hadir and the others. Noticing the rabinet gunner has left his place to assist with the rescue, Nicholas walks purposefully towards the swivel-gun mounted on the bulwark. It is still primed with powder and loaded with hail-shot, in anticipation of a boarding. Nicholas takes the smouldering match-cord from its stowage. He seizes the round iron button at the inward end of the barrel and aims it over the side of the Marion. Squinting down the length of the rabinet, he tracks Connell as he swims. The gun swings effortlessly on its greased swivel. At this distance, Nicholas knows he cannot miss. In an instant there will be nothing in the water except a few pieces of bloody meat for the gulls to feast upon, and tendrils of blood spreading on the current.
As he touches the burning match-cord to the powder vent, Nicholas feels not the slightest remorse.
42
Gault sends her word in the shape of a bright-eyed young lad named Owen, though he waits ten days before he does it.
Owen walks into the Jackdaw early in the morning of a sunny Friday in late June. He is alone, which is unusual in itself. Young men from across the river tend to visit Bankside in pairs at the very least, if only to bolster their bravado with the painted doxies who whistle at them from the doorways of the stews. But Owen – a handsome, well-made lad with fair hair and eyes the colour of lapis – makes it all the way to the taproom with his chastity and his purse intact.
‘My master bids me send word he has a tilt-boat moored at the Mutton Lane stairs, Mistress. He wishes to speak to you – privily,’ he says, in a gentle Irish lilt.
A boat on the river; Bianca has to stop herself smiling in triumph. Gault must have something remarkable to disclose – something he won’t even risk his servants on Giltspur Street overhearing. She wishes Nicholas was here to see how well she’s played Master oh-so-handsome Reynard Gault, member of the Grocers’ Guild, leading light of the Barbary Company and Rouge Croix Pursuivant of the College of Heralds. He’d be so proud of her!
Owen accompanies her to the water-stairs. Standing beside a comely maid more than a decade his senior, he’s taken on what appears to be a permanent case of sunburn about the cheeks. Bianca tries her best to put him at his ease.
‘I recognize you, Owen,’ she says pleasantly. ‘I saw you at your swordplay. I thought you looked the perfect gallant. Very fierce.’
Owen grins sheepishly. ‘The master says that only men of courage and skill can expect reward in this world, Mistress. He says that where we’re going, a sword and a strong heart are all that’s needed to make you a prince. I shall enjoy being a prince. I know I shall.’
Bianca looks at him out of the corner of her eye. ‘And where exactly is it that you’re going, Master Owen?’
‘Wherever Captain Connell takes us, Mistress. Like Drake, Hawkins and Raleigh, we’s all going to shake the heathen world by its ears. We’re going to bring back more than they ever did from the Madre de Deus.’
‘How very enterprising. You’re fortunate to have a master who desires so much good for his apprentices that he wishes to make them princes of foreign lands.’
‘More than princes, Mistress – we’ll be kings!’
‘How well do you know Captain Connell?’ Bianca asks doubtfully, remembering Farzad’s dreadful story.
‘Captain Connell is a great man. A fine venturer. He and Master Gault grew up together, in Leinster…’
For a moment he falters. He seems to be wondering how much he dares reveal. Bianca suspects he hasn’t been in female company for a while. ‘Pray continue, Owen,’ she says encouragingly.
‘The master says you’re of the true faith, so I suppose he won’t mind me saying.’
‘I’m sure he would not.’ She touches his arm to reassure him, causing Owen to all but jump out of his skin.
‘It was like this, you see,’ he begins, turning an even fierier red. ‘When they were but boys, they were on a ship together with their parents and their moveables, coming from Wexford to Rome. They were steadfast in the true religion – marked out to be priests when they grew up. The barque was wrecked near Rathmoylan Cove. Everyone got ashore, though they were half-drowned. They thought God had delivered them, but they fell into the hands of Protestant heretics who damned them as papists and put everyone to the sword – save for the two lads.’
The story has the ring of truth, Bianca thinks. She has heard tales of how survivors of the great Armada were butchered on the shores of Ireland, even as they offered up prayers for having escaped the deep.
‘They were sold to an English plantation man and his wife – rich but barren – who’d been handed a stolen estate in Leinster by that heretic whore, Elizabeth,’ Owen continues. ‘They made the boys their own; brought them up in the heretic faith, so they did. But imposed heresy won’t stick to men with honest souls. When they died, as the oldest, Master Reynard inherited the property. Captain Connell went sailing to Araby.’
‘That is a sad tale indeed, Owen,’ Bianca says, remembering the Irish landscape in the painting in Gault’s house. She does not like him any the more for hearing it, but she understands him a little better. Connell, too – though she can barely bring herself to admit it.
Gault is waiting for her aboard the small tilt-boat at the Mutton Lane stairs. It has a canvas awning stretched over a wooden frame, like a little tent, to provide privacy. She prays that today will be the one day when Bankside’s prurient eyes are looking elsewhere – a young woman taking a trip on the river in an enclosed tilt-boat usually means only one thing.
At the oars are Owen’s companions from the house on Giltspur Street. Whatever secret Gault intends to re
veal to her, he’s guarding it carefully.
‘You cannot imagine how much the owner of this thing charged me for just a morning,’ Gault says as she climbs in under the awning. ‘When I said I wanted my own oarsmen, the price tripled. I think he feared I might not return it.’
‘I really cannot see you as a waterman, Master Gault. You’re dressed far too smartly.’
‘Occasions of great import should not be treated casually,’ he says as he helps her to a spread of cushions in the stern, making the boat roll alarmingly.
She notices he’s brought a bottle of fine Rhenish and two silver cups. ‘Mercy, but this is very privy,’ she says as they move away from the jetty. ‘Are you afraid the walls of your nice new house on Giltspur Street have been built with their own set of ears?’
Gault gives her a tight little smile. ‘These lads are bound to me by a sworn oath. I know where each one came from – my estates in Leinster. However, London servants are not always so trustworthy.’ He pours the wine and raises his cup. ‘A formal toast: to the destruction of heretics and the return of the one true faith.’
It is not a desire uppermost in Bianca’s heart, but she goes along with it to encourage him. ‘Destruction in any particular manner, Master Gault? Or just generally?’
A brief, indulgent laugh. ‘I’ve been pondering on what you said to me – regarding the demise of that dog Marlowe.’
‘You’ve been pondering, it seems, for ten days. I thought what I had said was clear enough.’
‘Oh, unequivocally. But a wise man does not enter into a contract unless he has first made himself fully acquainted with the merchandise on offer.’
‘I thought you and Captain Connell had already done that.’
‘After what you told me, I thought it best to make a more thorough investigation.’
‘And are you satisfied?’
He considers his answer as he sips his wine. ‘A number of persons my boys spoke to did indeed swear they’d heard the rumours about you and Marlowe. But they were from the lower sort of woman.’
For the first time since arriving on Bankside, Bianca gives a silent prayer of thanks for the existence of Jenny Solver’s loose tongue. She adopts an expression of outraged propriety. ‘Perhaps that is because I am not in the habit of inviting a notary into my bedchamber in order to have a signed affidavit when I take a man there.’
To her joy, Gault blushes almost as badly as the lad Owen, at her directness.
‘In all other regards, I could not disprove your story, Mistress Merton. There is no doubt in my mind that you would be of great benefit to our enterprise.’
Bianca leans a little closer towards him, as if inviting further intimacy. Inside the awning the air is thick and sultry, ripe for revelation.
‘Is this enterprise anything to do with the Barbary shore, and your title of Rouge Croix Pursuivant, by any chance?’
If she’d thrown the wine in his face he couldn’t be more taken aback.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Enquiry is not solely a masculine preserve, Master Gault. If it were, we should all be ignorant.’
‘And what exactly is it you think you’ve discovered?’
‘That the name Solomon Mandel is known to you, even though you told me it was not.’ She takes a sip of wine. ‘That he died in possession of a document upon which was written your title, the one you hold from the College of Heralds.’ Another sip of wine, like the tap of a foot keeping a slow, funereal rhythm. ‘That the reason you were so eager to find out from me why Dr Shelby went to Morocco for Robert Cecil is because you fear Cecil has wind of this enterprise of yours.’ Another sip. Another foot-fall. ‘That you have knowingly engaged a monster in your service, in the form of Cathal Connell.’ She fixes him with her amber eyes. ‘Given that we have both made confession to each other, let me invite one more. Did you order Connell to murder poor Solomon Mandel?’
Gault regards her impassively for a while, as though he still can’t quite believe she could be his match. Then he says, ‘No, I did not order him to do such a thing.’ He refills her glass, as though he wishes to make her complicit in what he has to tell her. ‘But I do know who killed the Jew.’
‘Then tell me: who was it?’
Looking into his eyes, Bianca has the chilling feeling Reynard Gault might have brought her to the middle of the river not for privacy, but for a very different reason.
In an unnervingly languid voice, he answers, ‘It was me.’
‘Mistress Merton… Mistress Merton… Is the river discomforting you?’
Gault’s voice breaks through the stuffy air within the awning of the tilt-boat.
‘It is nothing,’ she says, fearing he’s seen the distress in her eyes. ‘I found the undulation of the water a little unpleasant. I’m not a sailor, like your brave Captain Connell. I’m fine.’
A sceptical lift of one carefully plucked brow. ‘Are you shocked?’
‘Of course I’m shocked.’
‘That is not quite the response I would have expected from a woman who claims to have brought about the slaying of Christopher Marlowe. Do you wish to amend your story in any particular?’
Bianca fights to compose herself. If he sees weakness in her now, her carefully constructed fiction might well collapse like the froth on a jug of knock-down.
‘I’m shocked because I’m not a butcher, Master Gault. I did not know Solomon Mandel was an enemy to this enterprise of yours. To me, he was simply a sweet old man who liked to take his breakfast at my tavern. Why did he have to die?’
‘He was a danger to our plans.’
‘You couldn’t have done it on your own. I saw the aftermath.’
‘My boys helped me.’
‘You’ve made killers out of your apprentices? What manner of new world is that for them to inhabit?’
‘They are soldiers, Mistress; soldiers in the war against the heretics. Sometimes it is necessary for soldiers to harden their hearts.’
‘How could you have done that to him – the flaying? He was a helpless old man.’
‘He sought to keep from me something I wished to know. Cathal Connell learned the technique from the Moors. It’s very effective in loosening tongues.’
‘And did it loosen his?’
‘No. To speak the truth, that surprised me. I had not anticipated his courage. Or his frailty. Or perhaps it wasn’t courage. Perhaps he was just a stubborn old man.’
Yes, he was stubborn, thinks Bianca. And kind. And probably lonely. But most of all, he did not deserve such a dreadful end at your hands.
Gault makes a play of sucking the taste out of his mouthful of Rhenish, betraying a rougher self behind the gallant’s façade.
‘Let me be direct with you, Mistress Merton,’ he says. ‘I have considered what you told me about your work for the cardinal: becoming one of Robert Cecil’s informers so that you could better serve the one true faith. I confess I had not thought to find such mettle in a woman. And yes, I believe my enterprise could have no better ally than someone like you. But…’
He turns the silver wine cup slowly before his eyes, inspecting its finely engraved surface, enjoying the pleasure of owning such an expensive piece of silverware.
‘But what? Please do not tell me you doubt a woman is up to the task.’
‘Oh no. I have no doubt on that score. It’s just that I have always found it wise in merchant venturing to demand proof of trust. Words are all well and good, but nothing can better monies that are put down on account.’
‘What is it you want of me, Master Gault?’ Bianca asks, feeling an uncomfortable sensation in her stomach that has nothing to do with the river. ‘What proof will satisfy you?’
He places his hand on her knee, slowly moving it up her thigh so that her kirtle lifts over her shins. His fingers halt just short of her groin, pressing against her flesh.
Oh Jesu, she thinks; for all the display and bravado, you’re nothing better than a fumbler in a Southwark stew, the type w
ho thinks he’s made the doxy’s day simply by turning up. She rotates her heel against the hull of the tilt-boat, the better to position the tip of her shoe for a deft strike between his splayed legs.
‘I think I know what you’re going to say to me, Master Gault.’
‘I heard that, too – that you have the second sight.’
‘I can also swim.’
Silence for a moment, save for the slap of the river against the hull.
‘But can you poison?’
Of course she can poison. In Padua, Bianca learned the skill from her mother, who often claimed that before she’d turned from mixing draughts of hemlock to making curatives, it had been a family trade – all the way back to the woman who mixed the draught that Agrippina used to poison Claudius. Bianca can hear her mother now, telling her that if you want to poison your employer because he beats you, or your lover because they’ve tired of you – for the inheritance, the revenge or just the pure bloody joy of getting the last word – go to the Caporettis of Padua. But don’t ever lick your fingers on the way home.
‘Of course I can mix poisons,’ she says. ‘I’m an apothecary. Your guild licensed me, remember?’
‘In that case, Mistress Merton, welcome to our enterprise – just as soon as I learn that Robert Cecil is dead.’
43
For eight days the Marion has ridden the waves like a greyhound in pursuit of a coney. Assessing the log, Captain Yaxley expresses a cautious confidence that she can make the voyage from Safi to London faster than any Barbary Company vessel yet.
Forced into close companionship, Nicholas has begun to admire the little sea-terrier from Devon. He commands his ship with a quiet assurance and a care for his crew that makes Nicholas suspect there is no storm they would not follow him through. It is a world apart from Connell’s dour tyranny.
On the morning of the ninth day Yaxley calls Nicholas to the larboard rail of the sterncastle and points to a faint smudge on the horizon.
‘Falmouth, Dr Shelby. Not long now until we sight good Christian land.’