‘Something like that, at least for a while.’
She helps him back to his chair. They talk of old times, though Bianca is pretty sure that, for Tiziano, time was only young in her great-grandmother’s day. When they have reminisced enough, and he has recounted all those from the neighbourhood whose bones have been interred in her absence, she says, ‘If I was in need of cantarella, Signor Tiziano, could you provide a vial for me?’
He peers at her, almost as though she is beginning to dissolve slowly before his watery old eyes, as if she has been nothing but an apparition from the moment she walked into his shop. ‘Cantarella,’ he says at length. ‘The Borgia poison.’
‘I’m only asking – for the present. But if other remedies for my… malady… don’t work, I might have to think again.’
He gives a wise, slow nod. She hears the cartilage in his thin neck grind.
‘Is it for a man or a woman? The weight will matter.’
‘It is for a maid.’
‘You wish the consequences to be speedy? Or lingering?’
‘Oh, speedy,’ she says. ‘I am not a vindictive woman.’
He smiles again. ‘They always said that crossing the Caporettis in love was never a wise idea.’ He raises Bianca’s hands to his mouth and bestows a dry kiss upon them with his ancient lips. ‘I always knew I was right to call you Caporetti. It is good to see you taking up your mother’s trade again.’
38
St Paul’s, London, 6th October 1594
If Ned Monkton is awed by his surroundings, he shows no sign when the guards lead him into the Long Chapel of the old Norman cathedral of St Paul’s. He looks around at the unadorned stone and the simple furnishings with little more than mild interest. Watching from her place on the shadowed side-benches, Rose wonders if it is courage he is showing or a failure to understand the consequences of error. She can cry no more tears for him; her eyes are raw from two days with little sleep, schooling him in the one thing that stands between her husband and the gallows.
Before bidding him farewell at the Marshalsea – harder even than she had expected – she handed him the clean shirt she had brought and checked him over for loose straw. Looking at him now, chained at the ankles and the wrists, she is pleased to see that his great auburn beard and his hair are as neat as they have ever been. First impressions are important, and never more so than when making a plea to escape the noose.
Lumley’s tame chaplain is a stooped, sad little fellow. He looks to Rose like a country parson who’s attended too many funerals. Dressed in a formal clerical gown, with a broad flat cap across his head, he sits behind a table covered in ecclesiastical linen, flanked by his clerks. One of them reads the temporal charge, the verdict and the sentence. The other restates the plea of Benefit of Clergy made on Ned’s behalf by Lord Lumley, who observes silently from his place next to Rose. She wonders how she could bear this for a single minute if Lumley’s calming presence were not beside her.
‘Does the accused claim to be a member of the clergy?’ the chaplain asks Ned doubtfully.
Ned looks to Lumley for guidance.
‘No, most reverend sir, Master Monkton is not of the clergy. But he is literate, and can therefore plead benefit of the same. That is the law, as amended by Her Grace the queen. I can confirm it with her, if you wish.’
The chaplain smiles graciously. ‘That will be unnecessary, my lord. You are correct in your interpretation of the law. Let us proceed. Step forward, Accused.’
Ned shuffles closer to the table. One of the clerks look up. Rose notices the sudden nervous jump of his Adam’s apple.
‘Here is the word of God,’ says the chaplain ominously, lifting a large heavy leather-bound Bible from the table. ‘Open it to Psalm fifty-one and prove your Benefit of Clergy.’ He offers the Bible slowly and with great dignity, as though offering a sacrifice at an altar.
‘Excuse me, most reverend sir,’ Lumley interjects with a discreet cough. ‘A word–’
‘My lord?’ the chaplain says, turning his head in Lumley’s direction.
‘That is a very large Bible, and the accused’s manacles will prevent him from opening it fully. I would like to offer the court my own, personal one.’ He holds it up, a neat little volume bound in calfskin, with worked brass cornerpieces. ‘I have taken the liberty of opening it to the appropriate place – for the court’s convenience.’
‘That is very generous of you, my lord,’ says the chaplain. With a wave of his hand, he dispatches a clerk to retrieve it. Rose can feel her heart thumping as the man carries Lumley’s open Bible towards Ned.
And then the clerk stops.
Rose knows by the hunching of his shoulders that something is troubling him. He turns to face the chaplain. He shows him the open pages.
‘As you may see, sir, it is a true Bible.’
The chaplain leans forward to study the offering. Satisfied, he nods gravely.
‘But it should be presented shut,’ says the clerk.
‘Is that strictly necessary?’ Lumley enquires.
The clerk’s eyes remain fixed upon the chaplain. ‘It has been known for an appellant who is illiterate to memorize the psalm, in order to deceive the court,’ he says.
‘Oh merciful Jesus,’ Rose whispers into her hand.
‘It is the law, my lord,’ the chaplain says to Lumley, with the faintest trace of an arched eyebrow. Then to the clerk, ‘Please be so kind as to continue, Master Broxton.’
Her mouth as dry as dust, Rose stares helplessly as the clerk closes the Bible. The slap as the pages come together has a dreadful finality that makes her shudder. She can barely bring herself to watch as he hands the book to Ned, a smile of officious triumph dancing on his weak lips. She offers up a silent, desperate prayer. If God can’t hear me in this place, she thinks, there is no hope to be had anywhere.
His great fiery face impassive, Ned Monkton takes the little book in his huge hands. He flips through the pages one way, then the other. Then he starts again at the beginning.
‘Is the accused having… difficulty… finding the correct psalm?’ the chaplain asks Ned.
Ned does not answer. He carries on shuffling the pages. To Rose, the noise of the parchment turning sounds like the flapping wings of a vulture descending upon its prey.
And then Ned stops. He opens the Bible to its full extent. To Rose’s mind, he seems to grow another couple of inches, dwarfing the trio behind the desk even more. He begins to speak, his voice clear and resolute:
‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy great mercy… And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity… Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.’
He never once stumbles. He doesn’t even appear to draw breath. His deep basso-profundo voice rolls around the chapel as though he were delivering a sermon to God Himself. After a few more lines, the chaplain says, ‘I think we have heard enough. The plea of Benefit of Clergy is accepted. The sentence of the ecclesiastical court is that the guilty man be removed to the Marshalsea prison to suffer a branding upon the thumb. After that, he is free to go.’
Rose has never embraced a baron before, and it is likely Lord Lumley has never had a plump, curly-headed maid of the lower orders hurl herself upon him like a demented spaniel. But both put aside their social constraints for just long enough to celebrate the joy of the moment.