‘If the Privy Council searchers had come, I would have told them it’s just my way of listing the pages. The last time Robert Cecil sent them here, they behaved like rampaging vandals. I don’t think they’d be sharp enough to spot this.’ She gives him a proud smile. ‘You see – I’ve thought of everything.’
‘Have you got any paper? I’ll need it for the translations.’
‘Oh.’ She bites her lip.
‘And nib and ink.’
As she climbs the stairs, he finds himself noticing the serpentine weaving of her slender back, sees the way the thick fold of her dark hair sways across the olive skin of her neck, just above the laces of her bodice. And for one guilty moment he remembers a time before he knew Eleanor.
Bianca returns with paper, ink and nib. Then she sits quietly while Nicholas sets to work.
He’d first studied Latin at petty school. By the time he was a fresh-faced lad attending Woodbridge Grammar, he was translating Ovid and Livy from Latin to English and back to Latin again. But even by his own admission, he’d never been amongst the better students. At Cambridge, while the sons of the aristocracy flaunted their expensively tutored ability, the professors had looked down their noses at him, damning him for a country clod-pate. And despite often having to use Latin in his medical career, he’s still not as fluent as the College of Physicians would like. But as he works, the task becomes easier.
After half a page, he can match each one of the transposed letters to its original, without referring to Bianca’s book. But the mental labour is taxing. Increasingly he finds he must guard against errors. St Olave’s bell rings the passing of another hour before he approaches the completion of his task.
‘They seem to be a collection of letters and reports,’ he tells her. ‘Evidence of some sort.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘The true identity of someone.’
‘Who?’
He pauses before answering, trying to dull the sharp edge that’s entered his voice.
‘Samuel Wylde.’
‘Your boy from Gloucestershire?’ She stares at him, astonished.
‘It seems you and I have come across the same conspiracy, but from opposite ends. You with Tyrrell, me with Samuel.’
‘What do the letters say?’
‘Tyrrell appears to be writing on behalf of some religious order or fraternity.’
‘The Brothers of Antioch.’
‘You know of them?’ They are standing so close, he can smell the scent of Bianca’s skin.
‘It was something Munt let slip, at Petty Wales. He and Bruno each have a medallion that bears the image of St Margaret of Antioch. They’re a sort of proof of identity.’
‘The new faith has little truck with saints,’ Nicholas says. ‘I’ve never heard of her. You’ll have to tell me who she was, this Margaret of Antioch.’
‘A Christian martyr. Before the Romans killed her, she underwent a miraculous transformation: she was swallowed by the Devil in the guise of a serpent. But she was so pious he couldn’t digest her. She emerged from his gut bathed in holy light.’
Even in the candle glow she can see his eyes widen.
‘There was a tapestry at Cleevely,’ he says. ‘It was of a woman standing in front of a serpent!’
Bianca points to the papers on the table. ‘Who are these addressed to – Bruno?’
‘Not named. But he’s someone of considerable position in the Catholic Church. They begin: Your Most Reverend Eminence.’
‘It could be Cardinal Santo Fiorzi. Bruno told me he’s come here on a privy commission for him.’
‘He told you?’
‘Bruno and I ran privy errands for the cardinal when we were younger,’ she tells him, watching the expression of mounting horror spread across Nicholas’s face. ‘Bruno is still his man. The day we were together on the Sirena, he tried to enlist me again.’
‘You’re party to this?’
‘Of course not! I refused him.’ She squirms like a guilty child. ‘It’s just that my refusal doesn’t seem to have worked, does it?’
Nicholas leans forward, retrieves his written translations from the table and hands it to her. ‘It’s probably best if you read these for yourself.’
In the candlelight it’s not easy for Bianca to follow Nicholas’s handwriting. It’s certainly not secretary-style. She wonders if all physicians have such poor control of a nib. But once accustomed to his lopsided script, her eyes fly over the words.
The first document is clearly a letter from Tyrrelclass="underline"
Your Most Reverend Eminence, be so gracious as to receive by the hand of your chosen and faithful emissary these diverse proofs regarding the matter of the Revenger. I have sent secret word to JL and PK, who were with me at the drawing-up of Her Majesty’s Will and testament, so that they may also confirm the statements herein provided and send news of them to Md. The physician A has told me he is in full measure satisfied with the method of his physic and its progress. The boy strengthens in both health and resolve. He will, with God’s grace, be soon full disposed unto the matter’s ultimate resolution: the saving of this Realm. The Brothers await Your Eminence’s commands and willingly submit ourselves to the direction of your ambassador, Signor B.
The other pages appear to contain digests and reports taken from other documents. With growing unease, Bianca reads on:
The following was intercepted by agents of the Holy Office of the Faith in the rebellious province of Zeeland and passed to His Excellency the Duke of Alba without alteration:
Rejoice in the knowledge that a girl child was safely delivered to M at St James’s, this third day of March, in the sixth year of our Sovereign Majesty’s reign. The mother sends her heart’s felicity unto you and assures you of her devotion. The child is safely delivered unto a place of protection against the malevolent designs of the ungodly.
Another appears to be a physician’s report, written in a broken, rangy scrawl, the ink faded to a pale brown:
I, Charles Pelham, physician in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, so attest that the infant born unto M on the third of March last is afflicted by the sacred disease. I have witnessed the several and diverse paroxysms and have advised accordingly. The child should be purged regularly with a weak tincture of white hellebore. Foods tending to loose stools should be her diet. Bleeding the child must not be countenanced until she is of eight years, no younger. Other than this affliction, the infant is in sound health and prospering.
The last is written in a newer, more recent hand:
Our man has been given sight of the queen’s will. He has repeated under oath that the codicil dated the twenty-eighth of October was written in a hand contrary to the original, expressly to deceive. He states under fear of extreme duress that he was informed of this by one present in the privy chamber at the time of its making. This deceit was purposed solely to deny the original of the thirtieth of March, namely her attested statement that the Queen’s Majesty believed herself to be with child.
Bianca stares at Nicholas, her amber eyes dancing with reflected candlelight. ‘The queen? With child? Even I know there has been no issue from that womb. What does all this mean?’
‘Well, the first letter is presumably from Lord Tyrrell and the Brothers of Antioch, to – I assume – Cardinal Fiorzi. “Signor B” is clearly Bruno. It mentions Arcampora and Samuel by inference. The second letter can’t be about Samuel, because it mentions the mother as “M”. Samuel’s mother was Alice.’ He scratches his hairline. ‘The last document appears to refer to a statement in the queen’s will.’ He finds the place. ‘Look: “namely her attested statement that the Queen’s Majesty believed herself to be with child…” Apparently there was a codicil added to the will later, in which the queen states that she was mistaken. But according to someone Tyrrell trusts, this codicil was a fake, designed expressly to deceive.’