‘As sure as Hippocrates was when he wrote the book. I don’t imagine a Greek skull is very different from a Venetian one.’
‘So you’ll know in a couple of days?’
‘If he lives that long. In the meantime, let’s get him somewhere more comfortable. You’ve a lodging chamber free, haven’t you?’
Bianca tells the Sirena’s crew what Nicholas has said. From men ready to kill at the slightest provocation, they have now become like small boys robbed of a favourite uncle’s company.
‘And after a couple of days, what then?’ asks Bianca.
Nicholas reaches out and gives Bruno’s little beard a single, gentle caress. ‘That depends. If he lives but shows no sign of recovery, then he may require trepanning.’
Bianca scowls. ‘Trepanning? Whatever is that?’
‘It’s physic for severe injuries to the head,’ Nicholas says. ‘Also taught for relieving the falling sickness – epilepsy. I simply bore a large round hole into the other side of his skull, to allow the airs corrupted by the blow to escape. Something like a screw-auger will suffice. Do you know a good carpenter?’
Bianca tries hard to keep her face impassive. Even if I knew the right word in Italian, she thinks, some things are better left un-translated.
How could there be so many things about yourself you did not know? How could one body hold so many wondrous secrets? Why am I no longer who I thought I was?
Samuel Wylde sits before Dr Arcampora in his chamber at Cleevely, a book of Ovid’s poetry open but unread on his lap, and ponders these troubling questions.
For example, how could he have imagined that his beloved Grandma Mercy and Grandpa William weren’t his real grandparents? That his own mother had been stolen away at birth and dropped into Havington Manor like a cuckoo’s egg?
‘But who stole away my mother, sir?’ Samuel asks, trying his best to withstand these thunderclaps. ‘Who took her from the birthing bed?’
‘Deceivers. Liars and blasphemers,’ Arcampora tells him. And just in case Samuel hasn’t fully understood, he adds portentously, ‘Heretics.’
Samuel struggles to comprehend what Arcampora has told him. But he must be telling the truth. Dr Arcampora has been tutored in a mysterious place called Basle. He can speak in ancient languages and discourse on the stars and the planets, on physic and natural phenomena. He knows more than any man yet born. How then can he be mistaken?
Another of Arcampora’s thunderclaps weakens his faltering grip on what – until now – Samuel has assumed were the unshakeable facts of his life: ‘You have been schooled all your life not in scripture, Samuel, but in heresy,’ Arcampora tells him. ‘This is not your fault. You, too, have been deceived. But you must cast away all that has gone before – including your grandam.’
‘But why was my mother stolen away?’ Samuel asks plaintively.
‘Because the deceivers, liars and blasphemers feared that when she grew to womanhood, she would bring back the one true faith to England. They wanted to keep the majesty of our Holy Mother Church from her. They wanted to keep her soul in darkness!’
‘Then they should be punished, shouldn’t they?’ asks Samuel, needing to please the Professor – something he finds himself doing more often these days.
‘And they will be: those who are still alive. As for the rest, they are surely already suffering everlasting torment in the fires of hell.’
‘What will happen to Grandma Mercy?’
‘If she was complicit, she will burn – either in this life or the next. She should pray for the former. The torment will be over much quicker. If not, if she was unwitting, then she will be encouraged to recant.’
By ‘encouraged’, Arcampora seems to be implying a considerable amount of scourging will be involved.
‘How do you know all this, sir?’
‘Because I have seen written proof, Samuel. And because Arcampora is skilled at deducing what heretics attempt to hide. Do as I instruct. Believe what I tell you. Obey me always. Only then – when you are stronger – will God be revenged on the deceivers, the liars and the blasphemers. And you will be the instrument of his wrath.’
Keeping a discreet eye on Bruno, Nicholas spends the next two days preparing for his journey to Gloucestershire. His sudden industry is the result of a letter from Robert Cecil – barely half a page of neat script, listing everything Cecil’s intelligencers have managed to unearth about Dr Angelo Arcampora. A theology degree at Fribourg, which means Arcampora has had a papist education. Medical studies at Basle, a Protestant university. Then barely a sniff of the man until he’s presented to Sir Joshua Wylde by his new wife, Isabel. Altogether inconclusive. Contradictory. A scribbled footnote in Cecil’s hand warned that it might be months before his agents across the Narrow Sea could provide more detail. Nicholas had been required to return the letter after reading it.
But the document had not been the only thing Cecil’s man had delivered. He’d brought the purse of golden half-angels, which he required Nicholas to sign for in five separate places on another sheet of paper, this one with a legal seal attached.
With more money to his name than he’d ever had when practising at Grass Street before Eleanor died, Nicholas had bought a pair of thick felt slops from a hosier on Cordwainers’ Street, and riding boots to go with them, and a good gaberdine in case of rain. He had not replaced his old white canvas doublet – unexpected wealth can only stretch the ingrained prudence of a Suffolk yeoman’s son so far.
At Bianca’s insistence, Ned Monkton is to accompany him. Cut-purses are known to frequent the road to Gloucester. For his part, Ned is as eager as a child about to visit his first frost-fair. He’s never been out of the city before. Gloucestershire might as well be in the Indies. He asks Nicholas if they’ll be able to understand what the natives say, and what wild beasts they might encounter on the journey.
‘They speak nothing but Latin in Oxford,’ Nicholas teases him, ‘and the men all keep their brains inside books. Beyond Oxford – who knows?’
‘Don’t you be getting yourself into trouble, Ned Monkton,’ Rose says sternly as Ned and Nicholas assemble their packs in the Jackdaw’s yard, ready for the walk to the livery stables beside the Tabard. ‘Don’t take a quarrel. And stay away from them village women.’ She wags a warning finger at him. ‘They mix potions to snare travellers into love. And they have cats with names like Grimalkin and Paddick what scratch like tigers – which is what I will do, if you come back with another maid’s favour flying from your coat!’
Ned opens his mouth to protest his fidelity, and then wisely shuts it. He is not the only man on Bankside who’s learned that the Jackdaw’s women are best left uncontradicted.
Nicholas’s last act this morning, before climbing the stairs with Bianca to Bruno’s chamber for a final inspection of the patient, had been to purchase a razor-sharp poniard with a blade almost a foot long, and a scabbard to go with it. His experience of working for Robert Cecil has not been without risk, and although he’ll have Ned for company, he rather enjoys the notion of looking like a man you wouldn’t want to tussle with.
‘Your cousin is a game little cockerel,’ he says as he leans over the mattress to feel the strength of Bruno’s pulse.
‘Paduan stock,’ replies Bianca. ‘We’re a hardy breed. What are you going to do now?’
‘Current practice is to leave the wound open, so the bad humours may escape.’
‘I thought you didn’t hold with current practice.’
‘I don’t.’ He searches the exposed bone for the hair-thin soot traces that will betray a fracture. He finds none. ‘It’s better than I’d expected. Before I leave, I’ll get a sail-maker’s needle from the chandlery by Bridge House and stitch the scalp.’