‘Graziano and the boys want to know when they can carry him back to the Sirena,’ Bianca says.
‘I’m sorry – it’s impossible. Bruno really must remain here if he’s to have any hope of recovery.’
‘What about St Thomas’s? Wouldn’t a hospital be best for him?’
‘I wouldn’t risk moving him even that far. Besides, why would you want to hand him over to sisters who are mostly ex-patients and drunk half the time? I’ve practised there, remember. I wouldn’t trust the warden to tell a head injury from the French gout.’
‘I should write to his father in Padua.’
‘Why alarm him unnecessarily? If Bruno lives, then by all means write. But at the moment he could be dead before the letter arrives.’
‘Are you so without hope for him?’ Bianca asks, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.
‘I’m trying not to encourage false expectations, Bianca. Even if he does recover, he might be a very different Bruno from the one you knew. He may be no better than those poor souls in Bedlam.’
‘You spoke of trepanning. Will that help him?’
‘Drilling a hole in his head? What do you think?’
‘If it might save his life–’
‘If. It’s a last resort. If I get it wrong, he’ll die anyway.’
She turns away from him, refusing to accept his bleak prognosis. ‘Then I’ll tend him here – until he recovers.’
‘Once I’ve sutured the wound, let the suppuration run its course and hope for the best. If his senses haven’t returned by the end of the week, shave about a hand’s width around the wound and apply a wax of mustard seed, castoreum and euphorbium. I can’t swear it will have an effect, but it’s recommended.’
‘And if he declines?’
‘If I was a different physician, I’d blame God.’
‘But you blame God anyway, Nicholas.’
‘Well, it’ll be either His fault or mine. There’s no one else to blame, is there?’ he says, self-consciously rubbing one eyebrow with his fist. ‘Do you know what our friend from Bankside told me, in his cell, before his execution? He told me he believed the heart was somehow responsible for propelling the blood through the body. The heart. That’s contrary to everything the ancients ever wrote, everything our physic believes. Yet when he suggested it, I honestly thought it sounded more plausible than anything Galen and the others have had to say on the subject in the last fifteen hundred years.’ He looks into her face, frightened that she’ll see the extent of his doubt. ‘And what if he was right, Bianca? Do you know what that means?’
She shakes her head, troubled by his intensity.
‘It means God reveals His truth not just to the virtuous in this world. He also reveals it to those who would do evil. Maybe your Kit Marlowe should consider that next time he has one of his players recite an incantation.’
Rose appears in the doorway, a black doublet tucked under one arm. Beside her is a tall, saturnine man with a face scoured by salt-wind, whom Bianca recognizes as Luzzi, the Sirena’s sailing master. He’s holding a canvas sack.
‘Master Luzzi has brought Master Bruno’s possessions from his ship,’ Rose announces. ‘And I’ve managed to get most of the mess out of his doublet.’ By ‘mess’ she means his blood.
Luzzi places the sack in the corner of the chamber, kneels by Bruno’s side, kisses him gently on the forehead and then makes the sign of the cross over him. Rose looks the other way.
‘Does the English doctor think there is hope, Mistress Bianca?’ Luzzi asks in Italian, looking from Bruno to Bianca and Nicholas. She hears in his accent the hot, arid anchorages of Messina and Syracuse.
‘Dr Shelby here is a fine physician, Master Luzzi. You may assure your shipmates he will do all that can be done.’
‘Is he any better, our little Venetian Achilles?’ Rose asks when Luzzi has taken his leave. She peers at Bruno with a look of deep compassion on her broad, cheery face. ‘Bless him. He looks almost peaceful, don’t he? Mind, I always imagined Achilles to be a bit taller. And Greek.’
‘We need to wash him,’ says Bianca, rolling her eyes. ‘Go to my chamber. I’ve some oil of burdock in a green glass bottle. Bring it to me. And some dampened linen.’
When Rose closes the door behind her, Nicholas says, ‘Perhaps I should go to Gloucestershire alone – without Ned. What if sideman Perrot and his Puritan friends come back?’
‘Stop worrying. I’ll be fine,’ Bianca answers, as the sound of Rose’s hurrying footsteps on the stairs fades into the murmur from the taproom. ‘At least with her man away, I might hope for some actual work in return for the money I pay our Mistress Moonbeam. Besides, I have a bodyguard, thank you – or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘Marlowe?’ Nicholas’s eyes widen in distaste.
‘No! Not Kit – Bruno’s boys.’ She favours him with a gently mocking smile. ‘It’s alright, Nicholas. You needn’t fear I’ll be Mistress Marlowe when you get back. Besides, haven’t you noticed the admiring way he looks at Timothy?’
‘I thought he was sizing up Timothy for an actor.’
‘Nicholas! Sometimes you really are no better than a country green-head.’
So why do I feel jealous whenever you mention Marlowe’s name, Nicholas wonders as he leaves the chamber. Especially after what you said to me in the Pike Garden.
You have no claim on me, Nicholas Shelby. You’re already married!
PART 2
The Beech Wood
1
Havington Manor lies beneath a steep slope of trees at the head of a small valley studded with ancient thatched barns. It’s a rambling, gently sagging stone pile with ivy-covered walls and little windows that peep anxiously out on a world it turned its back on sometime around the reign of the sixth Henry. In the yard, a plump speckled sow suckles her young in the lengthening shadows of early evening. A woman in a plain country kirtle kneels beside her, fussing to ensure every piglet gets its time on a teat. When Nicholas and Ned ride in, the woman rises and greets them with a bright smile.
‘Gentlemen, welcome, both. Pray tell me: what service can I do you?’
From the saddle, Nicholas is looking down at a handsome woman in her middle fifties. Her wide, mobile mouth suggests a mischievous impetuosity untamed by the passing years.
‘Madam, I seek Lady Mercy Havington. Could you tell me where I might find her?’
‘I am Mercy Havington,’ says the woman, appraising him with steady eyes the colour of freshly harvested wheat. ‘You look as though you have ridden far. What service may I do you?’
‘I come at the commission of Master Robert Cecil, madam.’
The woman brushes the yard-dust from her kirtle. ‘Would this commission perchance concern my grandson Samuel?’
‘It would, madam.’
‘Then you must be one of Robert’s clever intelligencers.’
‘Sadly not, madam. I am Dr Nicholas Shelby.’
‘Imagine that, sweet,’ says Mercy Havington, addressing the sow. ‘He’s sent me a real physician. How thoughtful of him. It is not often that Robert’s generosity exceeds my expectations.’