‘Is there any reason you can think of why Tanner might come to London?’
‘Not while Havington Manor still stands. Sir William’s the best master a fellow could have. And Lady Mercy, well, she’s an angel, that woman.’ He gives them a look of utter defeat. ‘Still, maybe my boy will happen by one day, dressed in a fine silk doublet and possessed of a full purse. Perhaps he’ll doff his cap and say, “Good morrow, sir – how are things with my old father?” I’d like that. I’d take him out on the river in the wherry Sir William’s money bought me. Show him how beautiful it can be, when it’s in a kind mood.’
Nicholas wants to press him further. But he dares not.
Besides, Porter Bell seems already to be drifting away into a world where, with a little luck, what he has just imagined might even be possible.
‘Yes,’ he says dreamily. ‘I’d like that. I’d like that very much.’
16
The Mitre has no lodgings, and the Long Ferry won’t return to London until the morning tide. The night is too cold to wait upon the exposed Hythe. Nicholas and Bianca wander the lanes of Gravesend, huddled together, their breath keeping ghostly company, searching fruitlessly for an inn with vacant rooms. Skeins of frost glisten on the walls of the houses and crackle underfoot. And it’s not just the night that chills: Porter Bell’s story has sucked away whatever warmth was left in their bones.
‘Robert Cecil knows Arcampora is in England, doesn’t he?’ Bianca asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Then why has he not already been arrested – after what we’ve heard from that poor man?’
‘Because Cecil doesn’t know Arcampora’s history. His intelligencers were unable to find out much in the short time before I went to Cleevely.’
‘I thought he knew everything.’
‘We’re speaking of events that happened long ago. Robert Cecil was just a child then. Naarden is simply one more horror in the war between the faiths that’s been going on for over twenty years. Anyway, the queen’s ministers had other things on their mind that year: in Paris alone, the papists were killing Protestants by the thousand.’
Even in the darkness he can detect the flash of anger in her eyes. ‘You mean papists like me?’
‘Of course not!’
‘But that is my faith you’re speaking of, Nicholas. And I’ve never wanted to murder anyone.’
‘I’m speaking of the zealots. The men in power. The men in the dark robes and beards. The men who think they have the right to tell God who He should love and who He should despise.’
She relents a little. ‘When Cardinal Fiorzi was telling us the English were heretics who must be burned in order to be saved, I asked him why God couldn’t simply open their eyes.’
He smiles at the thought of a ten-year-old Bianca wagging her finger at a cardinal. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said to me, “Passerotto” – that was his nickname for me; it means “little sparrow” – he said, “England is so very distant from heaven that even God cannot reach that far. That’s why He needs a Pope.”’
‘Your cardinal was right about one thing,’ Nicholas says. ‘England is certainly distant enough for Arcampora to have painted himself afresh in the passing of twenty years. Now he’s an eminent man of physic. The great healer.’
‘But he’s not healing Samuel Wylde, is he? From what you’ve told me, it sounds more as though he’s preparing him, strengthening him. He’s trying to give him the fortitude to make his claim upon the throne of England.’
A chalky incline rises into the darkness and the Dover Road. They are almost at the edge of the town. Ahead is an inn that looks as though it might still be open. The painted sign shows a swan about to take flight. Firelight flickers in the windows. Nicholas lifts the latch and opens the door, hoping against hope that the inn will have lodgings.
Inside, the warm fug makes his frozen cheeks sting. He smells wood-smoke and unwashed wool that’s lain too long against human flesh. But to his joy, the Swan has lodgings. Or, rather, a lodging.
One chamber unoccupied. One bed. One shilling.
Or if you prefer, says the landlord, you can sleep on the floor by the hearth.
‘I thought you said there were plenty of lodgings in Gravesend?’ Bianca hisses, when the landlord is out of hearing.
‘I thought there would be.’
‘Have you ever actually been to Gravesend before?’
He gives her a sheepish look. ‘No.’
She does her best to look ill-tempered, but inside she’s trying not to laugh at the look of embarrassment on his face.
When they’ve warmed themselves with a cup or two of hippocras and picked at a meal of cold meat and bread, the landlord leads them upstairs to their room. Nicholas can see by the man’s face what he’s thinking. He suspects Bianca may be a cross-biter. He thinks that as soon as she’s got her victim – Nicholas – half-undressed, her pretend husband will arrive, demanding money from the poor sap not to have him arraigned before the church courts, for attempting to seduce an honest man’s wife. It’s one of the staple ways Southwark has of relieving innocents of their money.
Nicholas decides it’s best not to tell her. The response is likely to be unpredictable. After all, this is the only room left in Gravesend. And he doesn’t much fancy the hard flagstones downstairs.
It is a surprisingly well-appointed chamber. The tester bed is furnished with a feather mattress. There’s a clean sheet of Flanders linen, and a bolster. Nicholas and Bianca remove their boots and lay themselves out side-by-side – like effigies of a crusader knight and his lady on a tomb.
Apart from their embrace on Black Bull Alley, Nicholas hasn’t been this intimate with a woman since Eleanor went into her fateful confinement. And unless the landlord really did think him the imminent victim of a cross-biter and decides to do something about it – which in this town is highly unlikely – they are in no danger this time of being interrupted by the local Dingle and Boley. It feels at once comforting and yet utterly alarming.
The memory deep in the muscles of his arms urges him to reach out for her. But something, some tangle in his mind he cannot yet unravel, prevents him. He considers trying to make light conversation. But what if – through long-suppressed habit – he utters some endearment or other? She’ll think him a moon-calf. I’m made of glass, he thinks. If she turns her head, she’ll be able to see all the conflicted emotions swirling inside me, like smoke in a draughty hearth.
And yet the comfort, the balm of her proximity, is undeniable.
‘Does it give you ease?’ he asks uncertainly.
She thinks he means their closeness. Her eyes open wide with interest.
‘The bed,’ he says hurriedly, lest she thinks him forward. ‘Is it comfortable?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Bianca rolls her neck on the bolster. ‘Not as comfortable as the Jackdaw. But better than expected, thank you.’
‘Do you mind if I unlace the points of my doublet, only they’re a little tight for sleep?’
‘Not at all.’
A moment’s silence.
‘Nicholas?’
‘Yes?’
‘Would you object if I loosened my kirtle a little? Only I’m getting warmer now.’
‘Please…’
They roll away from each other. They tug modestly at points and lacings. When they roll back again, they are – unaccountably – closer. He turns his head towards her.