‘Putting a man to the hard press is not for a woman’s eyes. It would be better if Signor Barrani were a witness.’
‘Signor Barrani cannot be a witness. Look, he can barely stand, let alone walk to Petty Wales. Let me hear the heretic’s confession!’
‘I fear you will find it an affront to your sensibilities, Mistress Merton,’ says Tyrrell. ‘Women should not see what men are sometimes forced to do.’
Bianca does her best to sound contemptuous. ‘I was born in the Veneto, Lord Tyrrell. I have witnessed heretics burning. Now I live on Bankside, a stone’s throw from the bear garden, where Englishmen come to watch chained beasts being tormented by dogs,’ she says with a defiant lift of her chin. ‘Do you really think I’m going to wilt at the sight of flesh being torn asunder? And if you seriously believe you can put a man to the press more efficiently than the Holy Office of the Faith, then I, for one, will be fascinated to observe it. I will pass on your techniques to His Eminence, for his better instruction.’
Out of the corner of her eye she sees Fiorzi shift uncomfortably. But Tyrrell smiles at her in admiration.
‘Our enterprise could make use of your mettle, Mistress Merton. But we must hurry. We do not know how much Shelby has revealed.’
‘I will be with you anon. But first allow me to ensure Samuel is content and comfortable,’ Bianca says, as though Tyrrell is her favourite customer at the Jackdaw. ‘And do nothing to Nicholas Shelby until I am there to witness it.’
Tyrrell nods curtly and starts to climb the ladder to the upper deck. Arcampora turns to follow.
Samuel watches him anxiously. Bianca whispers into the boy’s ear, ‘Fear not, Samuel. Someone you know and trust will be here very soon.’ She hugs him, wondering how he will react when Lady Mercy Havington arrives and he discovers who the grizzled man in the sailor’s slops standing silently beside Bruno really is.
Then, her heart racing, she takes a few brisk strides to the foot of the ladder, where Arcampora is about to follow Tyrrell out into the moonlight. Grasping the physician by the arm, she says softly into his ear, ‘It is worse than my cousin admitted, Dr Arcampora. Much worse. Take this.’
And with that, she presses Nicholas’s second letter into Arcampora’s hand.
19
They have left him alone in the darkness of the warehouse. Florin and Dunstan have tied the free end of the rope to a nearby pillar, putting just enough tension in it to pull his arms away from his back a little, so that whether he stands still or moves, there is always a fiery ache in his shoulders. There is no escaping it. If his legs sag, the pain becomes excruciating. And they haven’t even begun the strappado.
He presumes they’re waiting for Tyrrell to arrive before they begin, because sometimes he can hear movement in the chamber above. The fear in him is starting to suppurate like a diseased wound. As if designed expressly to stretch his nerves even tighter, Nicholas can hear the occasional dry rasping of rats’ claws amongst the barrels and sacks.
His fear, too, has a sound of its own – part laboured breathing, part pounding heart, part coursing blood. It’s roaring in his ears. He imagines he’s caught in a hurricane, clinging desperately to the weakest of branches, while all around him the world is being ripped apart by the howling wind.
To steady himself, he thinks of the beautiful moon he’d seen when they dragged him from the cart on Petty Wales – the sight he’d wished he could gaze on until the darkness comes to take him. He tries to conjure up the vision now. But it does not come.
In his despair, Nicholas calls out a woman’s name. A plea for help. Or absolution. He’s not sure which.
And to his surprise – though it does calm the tempest in his mind – the name he calls is Bianca’s.
‘He saved your life, Cousin. And now they’re going to kill him! You have to help me,’ says Bianca, close to tears. She knows any hope of saving Nicholas is seeping away with every moment she remains aboard the Sirena.
‘Bianca, that is impossible. We must be ready to sail at dawn, when the tide is in our favour.’
‘I’m afraid your cousin is correct, my child,’ says Santo Fiorzi. ‘We have a long journey ahead of us if we are to avoid the English ambush. We cannot linger here.’
‘But there isn’t going to be an ambush!’ cries Bianca in exasperation. She wonders if laying violent hands on a cardinal counts as a sin, in the eyes of God. ‘Can you not see? That second letter: Nicholas made it all up. It’s a fiction. He’s trying to flush Arcampora from cover – to make him think he needs to flee!’
‘If that is true, then we’ve already accomplished what he desires,’ says Fiorzi. ‘But on the evidence of his letter, I cannot take the risk.’
Suddenly Samuel Wylde makes a break for the ladder. As he reaches out to climb, one of the sailors appears over the edge of the hatch to block his way. Santo Fiorzi takes Samuel gently by the arm and draws him back. ‘Peace, ragazzo prezioso. Do not be afraid. We are your friends here.’
The boy’s eyes are wide with fear. ‘I don’t want to go across the Narrow Sea,’ he pleads. ‘I don’t want people to call me “prince” any more. I’m not a prince. I’m Samuel, and I want to go home – to Grandam Mercy.’
Bianca takes the boy’s hands in hers. She can feel them trembling. She cannot begin to imagine how confused and frightened he must be. ‘Your grandmother will be here very soon.’ She glances at Fiorzi. ‘Isn’t that so?’
‘She is already on her way, Samuel,’ the cardinal says, with a smile that lights up his grizzled face. ‘When she arrives, she will explain everything to you.’
Bianca gently touches Samuel’s cheek. ‘I would stay with you if I could, Samuel. But Dr Arcampora is not the man you believe him to be, and if I don’t hurry, he will hurt someone I care for.’ She crosses to where her cousin is sitting on his throne of sacks. ‘Two men, Bruno. That’s all I ask. Ned Monkton will count for three more. It’s the very least you owe Nicholas. If it were not for him, the Sirena would not be carrying Samuel to safety – it would be carrying your body home to Padua!’
Bruno closes his eyes and raises one hand in defeat. ‘Perhaps I could spare one man.’
‘Two! And handy with it.’
‘Enough, Cousin! God help your poor husband, when you find one,’ Bruno says, waving a cautionary finger in her direction. ‘Two it is. But if the work is not done by sunrise, they will have orders to leave you to whatever madness it is you’re planning now.’
20
From somewhere in the lanes nearby, the watch cries the midnight hour: Twelve of the clock, look well to your locks…
‘Where are we going, Mistress?’ asks Ned Monkton as they duck beneath the curfew chain strung across the gatehouse on the Southwark side of London Bridge.
‘Petty Wales, by the Tower. And hurry, we don’t have much time.’
She has wasted precious moments sprinting between Ned’s father’s house on Scrope Alley and the Jackdaw, where she’d caught Ned and Rose about to retire for the night to one of the lodging rooms. (She’d be having words with them both in the morning about that.) Since then he has remained unusually reticent. And she knows it’s not through embarrassment.
She has tried to explain why she and Nicholas have stayed silent about Samuel Wylde – how they had not wanted to risk embroiling people they cared for in such a lethal conspiracy. But she fears he’s taken it as a sign of mistrust. Somehow she will have to make it up to him.