The timbers of the Sirena seem to part beneath Bianca’s feet, plunging her into the deepest of whirlpools. She has to bite her tongue to stifle a cry.
‘He claimed to be in the service of His Eminence, Cardinal Fiorzi,’ she hears Tyrrell say, as if from behind a mask. ‘So we put him to the test. It swiftly transpired that he’s a heretic. Who he’s working for, or how much he knows, we’ll find out when we’ve completed our business here. Then we’ll dispose of him.’
Bianca’s whole world seems to have toppled off its axis. The darkness of the hold pours over her in a crashing wave of hopelessness.
‘Does this spy have a name, my lord?’ Bruno asks.
‘Nicholas Shelby. Apparently he’s a physician.’ Tyrrell fixes Bianca with a hard stare. ‘I’m told he was in your service, Mistress Merton. Were you not instantly suspicious of a man who is so obviously an apostate?’
Bianca opens her mouth, but cannot speak. She knows that one wrong word from her, and the masque Bruno and Fiorzi have created will be revealed for the fiction it is.
It is Bruno who comes to her aid.
‘We know all about Dr Shelby, my lord,’ he says casually. ‘In truth, it was Mistress Bianca who alerted us to him. That is precisely why I summoned Dr Arcampora and the boy to London. We do not intend to examine him here – but he cannot possibly remain in England. It is too dangerous now.’
‘Where then?’ asks Tyrrell.
‘Samuel is to be delivered to the care of Masters Lowell and Kirkbie at the English seminary at Douai in the Spanish Netherlands,’ Bruno says. ‘He will be safe there.’
Bianca stifles the urge to smother her cousin with gratitude, but she wonders how long they can play this impromptu game with Tyrrell and Arcampora before one of them makes an obvious error.
Samuel Wylde turns to Arcampora. Bianca can clearly see the alarm etched into his young features. ‘I don’t understand what is happening,’ he says. ‘I do not wish to go to Douai. I wish to go back to Cleevely.’
‘I fear that will not be possible, Samuel,’ Bruno says in a gentle voice. Then, to Tyrrell, ‘It is essential we sail on the next tide. If the boy falls into the hands of the heretic queen and her council, all will be lost. I need hardly remind you of the fate that awaits you, were you to be arrested.’
Bianca watches helplessly as the fear begins to flood into Samuel’s eyes.
‘Spies… heretics… arrests… I don’t understand what you are talking about. Why would anyone wish to arrest me?’
‘You are in grave danger, Samuel,’ says Bruno. ‘We must get you away from England with all possible speed.’
‘But why am I in danger? I haven’t done anything.’
Bianca glances at Santo Fiorzi. She can see in his face that he’s struggling to remain silent.
‘You have enemies, Samuel,’ she says. ‘Men with hard hearts. Men who do not know the meaning of mercy.’ Even as she speaks, she’s thinking: And they’re not who Tyrrell or Arcampora might tell you they are.
‘This is too precipitous!’ says Tyrrell angrily. ‘Putting Shelby to hard questioning will tell us who employs him and what he has revealed. We may have caught him early enough.’
‘I know exactly who employs him, my lord,’ says Bruno, half-rising from his seat of flour sacks. ‘It is the heretic queen’s Privy Council.’
For the first time there is uncertainty in Tyrrell’s voice, Bianca notices. ‘Jesu! Are we then already discovered?’
‘I fear we are. But we must hold our nerve.’
‘Then what is it His Eminence would have us do?’
‘You must leave the prince with us,’ Bruno continues. ‘If he is not out of England on this next tide, all could be lost. Everything. Your friends in Douai will hold you responsible for that, my lord. Cardinal Fiorzi will hold you responsible – and you know to whom he reports.’
Still Tyrrell hesitates. ‘I cannot permit you to take His Grace without the authority of Master Lowell and Master Kirkbie!’
‘It is Holy Mother Church who is the authority in this matter, not the Brothers of Antioch,’ says Bruno decisively. ‘And as Cardinal Fiorzi’s emissary, it is I who speak for her here.’ Bruno jabs one arm in the vague direction of London Bridge. In as strong a voice as he can muster, he almost shouts, ‘And unless you want your head rotting on a spike, my lord Tyrrell – act now!’
Bianca fears that if she so much as breathes, the spell Bruno has cast will be broken. Moonlight spills over the hatchway like a ghostly waterfall. Looking up, she sees the full moon hanging directly over the Sirena di Venezia, the masts and rigging frozen against the sky. She wills a weight into Bruno’s words that will make Tyrrell unable to deny them. Believe them. Act on them. Give us the boy and be gone!
And then she hears Arcampora say, ‘You must go with Signor Barrani, Samael. He will take care of you. We will meet again very soon, in Douai. You have Arcampora’s word on it. This enterprise is too great to risk it with indecision.’
Noticed only by Bianca, Fiorzi shuts his eyes in what she knows must be a prayer of thanksgiving.
Then Tyrrell is pushing Samuel forwards, towards Bruno, as though he’s a neophyte at some mysterious pagan ceremony.
Running to the boy, Bianca folds an arm around his thin shoulders. ‘You’re safe with us, Samuel,’ she whispers, thinking her sudden release of breath must sound like a roaring gale in his ear. ‘Safer than you can imagine.’ To her relief, she feels him lean into her, as if all he really wants is to sleep against a mother’s breast.
‘Masters, we will be in Douai within six days, God willing,’ Bruno says. ‘I suggest you make all speed to join us there.’
And then Arcampora turns everything on its head.
‘Arcampora is his doctor!’ he announces. ‘Arcampora shall accompany him. The prince must have his physician.’
For a dreadful instant Bianca fears Bruno is going to agree. She knows he’ll probably have the crew hurl Arcampora over the side the moment the Sirena is out of sight of land, but that is not the justice Nicholas intends for him. And whether Nicholas lives or dies, she knows it’s up to her now to see his plan through.
Remembering how Bruno had described the process of the vessel’s departure to her, she says confidently, ‘I fear that is impossible, Dr Arcampora. Signor Barrani has declared the number of crew to the English, accounting for Samuel’s presence. If we were to be boarded, the searchers would find one man more than admitted to, in the letters of dispatch. They would at once think we had put into some creek or estuary to take aboard a Jesuit fugitive. I’m sorry, Dr Arcampora. You and Lord Tyrrell must make your own arrangements.’
Bruno is watching her, puzzlement in his eyes. But before he can speak, Tyrrell regains his resolve. ‘We are wasting time. We can resume our enterprise when we are all safely across the Narrow Sea. In the meantime, I intend to make this heretic spy tell me how much he knows and how much he has revealed to his masters.’
Bianca sinks her nails into her palms to stop herself crying out in protest. Samuel in return for Nicholas’s life – it’s not the exchange they’d planned.
Time, she thinks. I need to purchase time.
‘I want to be there, Lord Tyrrell,’ she says, without a single thought as to what her presence might accomplish, other than to be a comfort to him as he dies in agony. ‘Nicholas Shelby has betrayed my trust just as much as he has betrayed our cause. I want to hear what he has to say. Besides, His Eminence must know the interrogation was forceful enough.’