Startled, Nicholas turns to look back into the house – and finds himself staring into the malmsey-veined face of Walter Burridge.
13
Aboard the Sirena di Venezia the lanterns are being lit. Standing at the stern rail, Bianca watches them glint in the twilight, casting little pools of gold on the holy-stoned deck planks. She imagines Rose setting the tapers to the rushlights in the Jackdaw, the raucous chattering of the watermen as they drink to the day’s labours, the cries of the card players at their games of primero and one-and-thirty, the rattling and the roaring as the pieces roll across the hazard board. She hopes Ned Monkton is keeping his eyes open. The Jackdaw has a reputation for honest gaming – as rare in Southwark, she thinks with a wry smile, as Catholic cardinals. She doesn’t want to lose it.
‘It will be tonight, Passerotto,’ Santo Fiorzi says softly, appearing beside her. ‘We sail on the next tide.’
‘Is she coming with you?’
Fiorzi nods, doing his best to stifle a grin.
‘I’m glad. I could use some good news.’
‘You are still concerned for your friend, Signor Shelby?’
She turns to face him, unable to match his self-control. ‘Some ill has befallen him; I’m sure of it.’
‘He left Havington Manor on Monday last. That’s all I know.’
‘Then he should be here by now.’
‘Put your trust in God, my child,’ he says, handing her a small square of folded paper, sealed. She doesn’t need lantern light to tell her the wax bears the impression of St Margaret and the serpent – she can feel the design beneath her fingertips. ‘This is the note you are to deliver to Munt. It is signed by Bruno. It summons Samuel here, for his examination.’
‘When will they come?’
‘In a matter of hours.’
She wonders how he can be so sure. Perhaps at this very moment one of Bruno’s crew is trying to explain to the watch in broken English that he got lost coming out of a tavern in a strange city, which is why he’s unaccountably found himself on Petty Wales, or even on Holborn Bridge. Then she remembers what Bruno had told her: A cardinal of the Holy Office can call upon any number of eyes and ears, even in far-off countries full of heretics like this one…
‘Will you reveal to them who you are?’ she asks.
‘I think not. Let them assume I am still sitting in my quarters at the Holy Office of the Faith, resplendent in scarlet, drinking the finest wine and eating the best food, as befits a prince of the Church.’ He casts a glance around the spartan deck. ‘Ah, the sacrifices one is forced to make for love!’
‘Are you not troubled by the risks you’re taking?’
‘What risks, Passerotto?’
‘Taking Mercy Havington back to Italy.’
‘Mercy Havington no longer exists. But I shall offer up a prayer for Sir William’s immortal soul, for caring for her these long years past. No, the woman who has chosen to accompany me is named Mercy Brooke.’
‘Even so, having a woman live openly in your household – do you not risk the opprobrium of Mother Church? Even excommunication?’
He laughs like a Paduan gravedigger. ‘Pope Alexander VI had at least four acknowledged illegitimate sons. One of them, Cesare Borgia, became a cardinal. Sixtus IV swelled St Peter’s treasury by charging his priests for the privilege of keeping their mistresses. I know several members of the Sacred College who are at this moment likewise occupied. They know it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Besides, my lack of zeal for overthrowing heretic nations by force means that nowadays they mostly leave me to my gardens and my art collection.’
‘And Samuel? How will he fare in this new world you’re taking him to?’
‘He will have love – unpaid-for, unjudging love – and the finest physicians in Italy.’
She allows him his moment of victory. Then she says, ‘I must have the other letter – the second one Nicholas wrote. He insisted that I deliver it to Munt, so that it could reach Arcampora without delay.’ A flash of raw fear disfigures her amber eyes for an instant. ‘I must have it – for when he comes back.’
Santo Fiorzi looks troubled. He seems reluctant to answer her. For a moment he just stares towards the far bank. Out in the river, the sail of a tilt-boat returning from depositing its passengers at the Marigold stairs flaps noisily. Then, his voice sounding uncertain, Fiorzi says, ‘I think before you deliver it, you should read it. You may find it will change your opinion of him.’
‘What do you mean, Eminence?’
Santo Fiorzi reaches into his doublet and extracts a folded sheet of paper. He hands it to her. The sadness in his eyes sends a shiver of fear coursing through Bianca’s heart.
‘I fear, Passerotto, that your Dr Nicholas has betrayed us all.’
Opening the letter, Bianca begins to read the words the cardinal has deciphered:
To my well-regarded and worthy friend in physic, Angelo Arcampora, greetings. If you value your life, read this and heed its warning. By means of a traitor to your cause, the queen’s ministers have learned of your past deeds in the service of the Duke of Alba…
Her eyes fly over the words. She shakes her head in disbelief.
Plans are already afoot to take under arrest you and the emissary to His Eminence, Cardinal Santo Fiorzi, along with all others involved in the matter of her late majesty’s grandson. Unless you desire to meet a cruel fate upon the scaffold, you must with all haste flee out of this realm…
‘It would appear, Mistress Bianca, that your Dr Shelby is a deceiver,’ says Fiorzi from somewhere very far away. ‘The English plan to arrest us all. He’s giving his fellow physician time to escape.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ Bianca says, breaking off from the letter. ‘Nicholas despises men like Arcampora. He’d never help him. I know he wouldn’t.’
‘Perhaps there is a bond between men of medicine, just as there is between men of faith.’
‘It can’t be true! Perhaps you’ve deciphered it wrongly.’
‘Come, Passerotto, you know that is implausible.’ Fiorzi glances at the letter that Bianca is in danger of crushing in her palm. ‘He says the arrests will commence upon St George’s Day. When is that? I am not so familiar with English feast days.’
‘On the twenty-third day of this month.’
‘A mere four days’ hence! They’re preparing a trap for us.’
Bianca feels a hot bloom of sweat on her cheeks, even though a cool wind is rising from the river. ‘I cannot believe Nicholas would sell us all to Robert Cecil!’ she says, the tears starting to well in her eyes. ‘The money was for his services as a physician.’
‘Money?’ echoes Fiorzi in his end-of-days voice, the one she remembers from her childhood; the one she’s always thought he’d borrowed from God. ‘Are you telling me Nicholas Shelby is in the pay of a minister of the English queen?’
‘It was only to recompense him for his visit to Samuel,’ she protests weakly, battling the worm of doubt that has suddenly entered her stomach. ‘He talked of using the money to fund a practice on Bankside.’
Again, as when she watched him disappear into the Blind Archer, she gets a glimpse of Fiorzi the man, rather than Fiorzi the cardinal.
‘I am so sorry, child. At your tavern I could see clearly how you were beginning to care for him.’
Bianca turns away from Fiorzi, shaking her head vigorously. ‘He wouldn’t do this! I know him too well. Eleanor would never forgive him!’