As for Nicholas, he’s only just noticed that the bellmen’s mastiff has left a banner of dried snot over one thigh of his hose. But he can still feel the warm pressure of Bianca’s body against him, even though many hours have passed since they ran into the watch at the top of Black Bull Alley. It’s seared into his mind like a brand. And there’s no doubt about it: the responsive flesh he can still feel against his hands is not Eleanor’s. It’s definitely Bianca Merton’s.
‘There’s no way out of this,’ she says with a quick shake of her head. ‘No way at all. I’m ruined.’
‘Really? It wasn’t me who pinned someone to a wall in the dead of night.’
‘I was trying to protect us!’
‘I could have told them we were out for a breath of air.’
‘After the curfew bell?’
‘I could have said I’d been attending a patient. I could have said you’d come along to help.’
‘You do know what’s going to result, don’t you? Tonight, or very soon, Dingle or Boley is going to let slip that they just happened to come across you and me playing gallant-and-his-mistress up against a wall. And knowing my luck, it will be just as Rose serves them their ale. At which point the Spanish fleet could arrive in the Thames, the Pope could appear on East Cheap, and the Privy Council could announce Elizabeth is to marry the King of Ethiopia – and I’d still know for certain what the topic of conversation was going to be!’
He waits for the tempest to calm.
‘That’s the least of our worries, I’d have thought.’
‘Then you’ve had a very untroubled life, Nicholas Shelby.’
As soon as she says it, she wishes she’d held her tongue. No man who’s tried to block out the memory of his dead wife by walking into the Thames could be called untroubled.
‘I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant.’
If she’s hurt him, he doesn’t show it. ‘The fact remains: we’ve found ourselves involved in a conspiracy,’ he says. ‘And you know what that can lead to in this city.’
‘But is any of it true? Is Samuel Wylde really Mary’s grandson?’
‘As I said before, it only matters that enough powerful people believe it to be true. Of course there is one person who might be able to tell us.’
‘Not Robert Cecil, surely. You said it would be too dangerous to confess to him.’
‘I’m thinking of Lord Lumley. He was a young courtier during Mary’s reign.’
‘John Lumley – the man Robert Cecil tried to get you to destroy? Why would he help you?’
‘Because I saved him from the scaffold, that’s why. So far the only favour I’ve asked of him in return is your apothecary’s licence.’
They walk on a little way, passing a public well with a pillory beside it. A miscreant is being unshackled by the constable, his sentence served. He slinks away into the crowd, massaging his wrists, his left ear already carved close to his head, a punishment from some previous offence. Nicholas thinks, if we’re caught out in this, either by Tyrrell or the authorities, an ear-trimming is the very least we can expect. The queen’s Privy Council doesn’t take kindly to her subjects hiding, let alone deciphering, letters conspiring to replace her.
‘I don’t know how much time we have on our side,’ he says. ‘Tyrrell must be expecting a reply of some sort. He won’t wait for ever.’
‘If only Bruno would wake up.’
‘Even if he does, he may not be the Bruno you knew before. Let’s just pray he strengthens quickly enough to get him back aboard the Sirena and out of the realm before he can cause any more mayhem. Or before the Privy Council comes banging on the door.’
‘And in the meanwhile?’
‘In the meanwhile I need to come up with a stratagem to prise Samuel Wylde out of the clutches of the Brothers of Antioch.’
To the north of Tower Hill, in a neighbourhood of handsome town houses with neat gardens and orchards, lies Woodroffe Lane. One of the finer homes belongs to John Lumley, Baron Lumley of the County of Durham, a man who has spent most of his adult life living under a faith he rejects and a monarch who still favours him, despite it. It is John Lumley whom Robert Cecil had sent Nicholas to destroy less than a year past. Now both men share a trust and a friendship born of their bruising collision with the Lord Treasurer’s crook-backed son.
A servant ushers Nicholas through the great hall and out into a pretty apple orchard, where a well-dressed gathering, around fifty strong, is taking its collective ease amongst the trees. It’s a mixed crowd, notes Nicholas: gallants and grey-beards in subdued but expensive silks and brocades, young women dressed in French gowns spread over wide farthingales, soberly dressed matrons, and well-fed children playing hide-and-seek amongst the trees. Discreet servants bear plates of candies and comfits, jugs of sack and hippocras. Musicians stroll through the orchard, entertaining with pipe and tambour. Nicholas feels utterly out of place. But he can’t help imagining himself amongst the crowd, his wife on his arm, their children piping excitedly as they frolic with the others.
This is what the lies that our physic tells have stolen from me, he thinks.
And then a thought rocks him like an unexpected blow. What if this vision is not beyond his grasp?
For a moment the idea confuses rather than comforts. Eleanor and her child are dead. So the notion is impossible. It cannot be.
But what if it were possible to love two women, he asks himself – one a memory, one very much alive. Then the vision might not be so fantastical. There is even the possibility it might become a reality. As much of a reality, say, as the sensation of Bianca’s body pressed against him on Black Bull Alley – a sensation so real that it has not yet faded from his senses.
To his surprise, the idea that the future course of his life might not be set in stone by Eleanor’s death is not followed by the customary pang of guilt. In fact it brings the first surge of hope that he’s felt for as long as he dares recall.
‘Nicholas, it does my heart good to see you again. I trust you are enjoying God’s good grace. Is all well with you?’
The soft Northumbrian burr breaks into his thoughts. A tall, mournful-looking man in an ankle-length gown of dark broadcloth is grasping him firmly by the hand. He wears a green velvet cap on his head and a greying spade-cut beard on his jaw.
‘It is, my lord,’ replies Nicholas with a smile.
‘I want you to know that I brought to bear what little influence I possess with the College of Physicians on your behalf,’ John Lumley says. ‘Apparently the fact that I endow them with forty pounds per annum for a chair of anatomy doesn’t entitle me to demand they stop persecuting you. When is your hearing before the Censors?’
‘At the end of the week, my lord.’
Lumley lets out a bark of derision. ‘Pah! If they knew the truth about what your actions prevented, they’d make you a senior Fellow overnight. There’s not a man amongst them brave enough to confront evil such as you and Mistress Merton uncovered.’ Lumley waves to a servant. ‘Will you take a glass of sack – or are you still a Puritan in that regard?’