A brief, brotherly clasp of hands – nonchalance hiding the pain – and the cart moves away down the lane towards the river. Nicholas watches it go for a moment, then he hoists the bags over his shoulder, wraps the fingers of his free hand over Bianca’s and leads her down to the little quayside in search of their means of escape.
Moored below the old Tide Mill are a couple of English wool hoys and the Dutch fishing boat that Nicholas’s father told him about. The air is heavy with the putrescent stink of tidal mud. The estuary echoes to the scream of gulls.
The skipper is easy to spot: tall and thin, with a nose like a heron’s bill. When he walks, he looks like one, too – as though he’s about to take wing. He wears a grubby leather tunic stained with fish oil. He is supervising the unloading of casks off the tubby little herring buss.
‘We’re trying to reach Antwerp, Meneer,’ Nicholas explains in his imperfect Dutch. ‘But we need discretion. There’s a father who doesn’t approve of a marriage. And a jealous brother.’
The man looks them up and down. Beneath the sharp features he seems a friendly fellow, perhaps a decade older than Nicholas. He nods in sympathy. ‘Can you pay?’
Nicholas says, ‘We can pay. Can you give us passage?’
‘If you don’t object to the smell of herring.’
‘We’ll live with it.’
‘I am Jan van der Molen,’ the skipper says, extending a hand for Nicholas to shake. It is slippery to the touch. ‘You are English, not Dutch, yes?’
Nicholas confesses that he is.
‘A Lutheran or a Catholic?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not to me. It might in Antwerp.’
Nicholas is about to tell him that he and Bianca are prepared to take the risk, when the sound of horses’ hooves and the jangling of harness echoes over the river. Turning his head, he sees a troop of ten mounted men-at-arms come clattering down the quayside. A sudden reappraisal of his prospective passengers is clear in van der Molen’s face. His eyes narrow as he steps back to put distance between them.
The troop dismounts a few yards away. A sergeant in breastplate and pikeman’s pot-helmet orders two of his men to guard the horses while the rest fan out along the quayside. Nicholas glances towards the Tide Mill, gauging his chances of slipping away unobserved. Even as he does so, one of the men calls out, ‘Stay where you are, Master. Seek not to thwart the queen’s business.’
Bianca glances at her husband, alarm written clearly on her face.
‘Surely they can’t have found us already,’ she whispers. ‘Have we been betrayed?’
Nicholas weighs the possibilities. If the attorney general or the chief justice has moved with uncharacteristic speed, then it is quite possible that he and Bianca are the quarry these men seek. But, equally, simple ill fortune may have brought this group of searchers to the harbour at the worst possible moment.
‘I’ll speak Dutch, you speak Italian,’ he says between clenched teeth. ‘We’ll bluff our way out of trouble.’
While his companions board the vessels moored against the quay, calling with imperious voices for the crews to stand aside and let them search, the soldier who challenged Nicholas is approaching. ‘I am commanded to search this vessel and all here for evidence of papistry,’ he shouts in a thin voice.
Nicholas lets out the breath he’s been holding. ‘It’s alright,’ he whispers to Bianca. ‘It’s not us they’re after.’
She gives him a frightened glance. ‘No, it isn’t. It’s very far from alright.’
He stares at her, confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘If they search my bags, they’ll find my father’s Petrine cross. They’ll know I’m a Catholic.’
The perplexity in Nicholas’s eyes turns to horror. ‘You packed it?’
‘You said they’d be searching for Jesuits trying to enter the realm, not leaving it.’
The soldier is now only a few paces away. There is no time left for Nicholas to think of a plan that won’t unravel the moment it’s attempted.
‘State your business here, Master,’ the soldier commands.
Up close, Nicholas can see he is a slight lad of no more than eighteen. His head is almost enveloped by the steel pot he wears. It makes Nicholas think of a cockle peeping out of its shell. But he is armed, and his companions more than make up for what he lacks in stature.
Nicholas can think of only one way of forestalling the imminent discovery of Bianca’s Petrine cross. But it means he cannot pretend to be Dutch, and it will place him irrefutably at Woodbridge. All the subterfuge, from the argument at the Tabard to the perilous crossing of the Thames at Gravesend, will have been in vain. It would have been less trouble, he thinks, to send Lord Popham or Sir Edward Coke – even Essex himself – a map of their journey.
‘I am on Privy Council business, Sergeant,’ he says, favouring the boy with a rank he clearly does not hold. ‘As such, I am entitled to pass without hindrance.’
‘You have proof of this, Master?’ the lad asks, showing an unwelcome but commendable refusal to be cowed.
‘I do,’ says Nicholas. He reaches into one of his bags and takes out a small square of parchment with a heavy wax seal attached and offers it to the searcher. It is Robert Cecil’s letter of safe-passage.
Whether he can read the pass or not, the lad stares at the heavy wax seal, clearly in awe.
‘It is the seal of Sir Robert Cecil,’ Nicholas says helpfully. ‘And when I next see the queen’s secretary, I shall commend you to his favour, Sergeant…?’
‘Lambarde, Master – if it please you,’ the lad says, wide-eyed. ‘Henry Lambarde, of Ipswich. But I’m not a sergeant.’
‘Then I shall recommend to Sir Robert that you ought to be,’ Nicholas tells him, trying to sound as lordly as he can, and hoping the lad won’t wonder why someone on official duties is wearing an old canvas doublet. But young Henry Lambarde of Ipswich just grins with delight. ‘Then pass, on the queen’s business’ – a glance again at the letter of safe-passage – ‘Dr Shelby.’
‘And you can tell your officer there’s no call to search Master van der Molen’s vessel. I can vouch for him,’ Nicholas says, thanking whatever lucky star is at this moment hanging precariously above his head.
When the soldier has gone, the master of the herring buss says, ‘So, you’re planning to elope with the daughter of the English queen’s minister! That takes some courage, I must say.’
The Dutch word weglopen is close enough to the English meaning for Nicholas to comprehend its meaning. ‘No,’ he says with a contrite smile. ‘We’re already married. And Sir Robert has but one child, a son. He’s about three.’
‘He’s a famous man in Holland, Sir Robert Cecil,’ van der Molen says in admiration. ‘We count him up there with the late Earl of Leicester. They have given us goodly assistance against the Spanish. You could have told me the truth; I’d still have taken you.’
‘Thank you, Master van der Molen. I would have been more open with you, but as you can see, I am on Sir Robert’s business.’
‘I won’t enquire further,’ the Dutchman says. ‘You’d not be the first Englishman who wanted to be put ashore in the Spanish provinces in secret.’ He gives a sad smile. ‘My father was one of the Sea Beggars. He took almost as many Spanish ships as he did herring – till they caught and hanged him. Bring your fine lady and your bags and come aboard.’
The stink of fish is even more prevalent once Nicholas and Bianca are on deck. The herring buss is a plump old lady of the sea, almost as broad as she is long. Her prow and stern are as well rounded as any Amsterdam matron. She has two masts and a little wooden cabin on the afterdeck. She offers the troubling prospect of a rolling, pitching journey across the Narrow Sea, but she looks sturdy enough to take it.