The local squires and the more prosperous yeomen line up to be acknowledged by the master of Nonsuch, according to their standing. Then their women. Then their children. The conversation is confined to the banaclass="underline" the current price of wool; how it’s such a shame the Earl of Leicester isn’t around any more to see off Spanish impertinence; why it’s not worth going to see a comedy in London, now that Dick Tarleton is dead. It’s a scene, he thinks, that must be playing out in just about every parish church across England. Robert Cecil should be happy.
Inside, the air smells as old as the stones themselves. The walls have been hastily whitewashed to hide the painted images of the saints venerated by the old religion. The little window behind the altar screen has been stripped of its coloured glass and now admits nothing more majestic than the insipid light of a February afternoon. The Reverend Watson, it appears, is a stout defender of the new faith.
Lumley stops before a stone monument about the size of a large sideboard set against the chancel wall. On the top is a handsome plaque on which a woman kneels at prayer. Around the base stand three small children, hands clasped in eternal piety. Nicholas understands at once what he’s looking at: it’s the memorial to Lumley’s first wife and their long-dead children.
He fears for a moment that Lumley is going to kneel and offer prayers for the immortal souls of his dead children. Prayers to speed the departed out of Purgatory are forbidden. Purgatory as a real place no longer exists – the bishops have decreed it so. And if he does, it means everyone in the little church is complicit in the heresy. Robert Cecil will want to know. And if he learns of it from another source, he’ll know Nicholas has kept it from him.
Don’t ruin it now, he pleads silently.
To his immense relief, John Lumley merely reaches out and lays one hand briefly on the cold stone, before quoting to Watson, ‘“And God shall wipe away each tear. Death shall no more be, neither mourning, neither crying, neither sorrow”.’
‘The Book of Revelations,’ says Reverend Watson, nodding approvingly. ‘Shall we begin?’
The sun has almost sunk below the treetops. Watery beams of light spill between the branches. Nicholas waits by the church porch while John Lumley and Elizabeth finish taking their leave of the Reverend Watson and the congregation.
He smiles now to think he’d once been afraid of cemeteries. At ten, his brother Jack had bet him he couldn’t stay longer than an hour in the Barnthorpe churchyard at night. Jack had fled at the first owl’s hoot. Nicholas had lasted about ten minutes longer. But since his icy vigil on Christmas Eve he’s found they can be strangely comforting places. While he waits for Lumley he fills the time idly inspecting the nearer headstones.
Most of the inscriptions are illegible, the graves ancient. But one, close to the path, is newer. It’s a very ordinary headstone, flecked with a patchy dusting of moss. The words carved into the stone catch his eye:
Mathew Quigley
Laid in earth 13th May 1572
No gentler man ever spilt his blood for Christ
The grave of Gabriel Quigley’s father? Or perhaps an uncle. Maybe a distant relative. But Quigley does not strike him as a Surrey name, and indeed there are no other Quigleys buried nearby. And something about the last line of the eulogy troubles him: No gentler man ever spilt his blood for Christ.
It’s the sort of memorial he’d expect to find on the tomb of a Christian warrior, or perhaps even a martyr.
But Lumley’s secretary doesn’t seem like a man born of warrior stock.
A martyr then? Was this particular Quigley one of the three hundred or so Protestants burned by Bloody Mary Tudor when she temporarily returned the realm to the Pope’s authority? A moment’s thought tells Nicholas that cannot be. The date places Mathew Quigley’s death firmly in the present reign. He’s still puzzling when a voice hails him impatiently.
‘Physician, are you with us or no? His lordship is leaving!’
Nicholas looks up to see Gabriel Quigley beckoning – John and Elizabeth Lumley are almost out of the lych-gate. He puts the eulogy out of his mind and hurries after them, but not before he notices the look on Quigley’s damaged face. He’s caught Nicholas looking at the grave. And for some reason he seems to consider it an intolerable offence.
The following day Nicholas continues his deception. He labours in the Nonsuch library, ostensibly studying the medical books. And though it’s a pretence, it’s a productive one. It’s rare for a young physician to have such a trove of learning at his fingertips.
He studies voraciously, even though a part of him questions what he’s reading. After all, what use was this wonderful knowledge when he was trying to save Eleanor?
How long must he stay at Nonsuch? he wonders. If he leaves now, Robert Cecil will say he hasn’t done his job. It will make Bianca’s safety even more precarious. And he still has to find the right moment to enlist John Lumley’s help in bringing the killer of little Ralph Cullen and the others to justice.
By late afternoon a gentle breeze from the west has made the air mild enough to entice him to take a break from his reading. He decides upon a stroll through the ornate Italian gardens, hoping it will clear his mind. Perhaps then he can compose his long-overdue letter to Bianca. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been dreading even picking up nib and quill. He fears that if he begins to write, unbidden thoughts will come – like the moment he stood watching her board the Cecil barge that day, when raw desire stole into his grief like an act of betrayal.
Nevertheless, as he walks he marvels. To a Suffolk yeoman’s son, the earth is made for ploughing and seeding, for pigs to grub and fatten upon. At Nonsuch the ground gives up a very different harvest: fine classical statues, leafy arbours, trellised walks and tight-clipped hedges. He passes Venus standing atop a pillar. He sees birds with their stone wings frozen at the moment of flight. There’s even a prancing marble horse like the one in the inner courtyard. He knows his father would scratch his head and wonder what possible use this inedible bounty could be. But looking back towards the palace, Nicholas notices they have all been set carefully. They provide a pleasing vista from the windows of the royal apartments. Monarchs, he realizes, have the power to remake the very world itself – merely to get a better view.
In a mood that comes remarkably close to contentment, Nicholas wanders down a gravel path along the side of the palace. Glancing through a mullioned window twice his own height, he sees Christ staring back at him from the Cross. He walks over, stands on his toes and peers in.
He’s looking into the shadowy interior of a private chapel, past stone pillars that seem to support an upper gallery. But there’s nothing much to see: a half-panelled wall, a few rows of simple wooden pews, a pulpit and an altar no more elaborate than the one at Cheam church. Everything properly modest, properly Protestant. Not a trace of Rome anywhere.
A soft, happy chattering causes him to jump back onto the path.
Elizabeth Lumley emerges from an arch of close-cut privet. She has two women of her household in train. She wears a gown of sober winter Kendal, her face bright and flushed with laughter. It’s like Bianca’s when she’s teasing me, he thinks.
‘I give you good day, Dr Shelby,’ says Lizzy. ‘What a pity it is not yet spring. The privy gardens look so much more beautiful then. The queen herself says so. Doesn’t she, ladies?’
Nicholas replies with a smile, a formal bend of the knee and a ladleful of poetic flattery. ‘Madam, here is beauty enough for any man.’