‘Master Munt,’ she says, ‘the Customs House searchers make unannounced inspections of the warehouses along the wharves, do they not?’
Munt nods.
‘Looking for contraband, I suppose?’
‘Aye.’
‘Of course you don’t have any contraband here, do you, Master Munt? You’re an honest man. You pay your taxes.’
Munt declines to answer the question. His silence tells her all she needs to know.
‘I saw some rogues coming out of the Customs House this evening. They looked very much like searchers to me,’ she says. ‘What if they were to find bloodstains here? Half of them work for Robert Cecil anyway. They’d soon put two and two together. Cecil will realize we’ve made his spy talk and start the arrests immediately.’ She looks at Tyrrell with an expression that says: how is it a clever man like you needs a mere woman to point this out?
‘What are you proposing, Mistress Merton?’ he asks.
‘Let the river have him.’
‘The river?’
She glances over her shoulder. ‘My gentlemen here can take him for a walk along the shore. It’s a pleasant night, as long as we watch where we step.’
Tyrrell commands Florin to lay aside the auger. Then he takes Bianca’s hand and bestows a kiss upon it. His lips are like ice against her skin. ‘What a remarkable young woman you are, Mistress Merton. I hope His Eminence knows how blessed he is to have your services. If only we had more of your mettle in the Brotherhood, England would never have fallen to the heretics in the first place.’
Bianca smiles graciously, though her heart is hammering against her ribs.
‘But let us not take foolish chances. They’re slippery creatures, heretics,’ says Tyrrell, releasing her hand. ‘Dunstan and Florin will go with you – to ensure it’s done properly.’
21
The night air is cool. The moon dusts the city with a frosty coating of grey light. Keeping close to the menacing wall of the Bulwark Gate, Bianca leads the little group south towards the river.
Nicholas has said nothing since they left Munt’s warehouse. He has surrendered his fate entirely to Bianca. He might not understand what’s happening. He might be too bruised and battered to care. He might be so damaged that he’s already dying.
Supported by Ned Monkton, he seems content to be borne down Petty Wales like a reveller who’s been a little injudicious with his ale. The only sound he makes is an occasional groan when he stumbles on the cobbles.
Ned glances at her as if to say: how long are you going to let this play-acting go on? But she dares not say or do anything that might make Dunstan and Florin suspicious. Because one thing is certain, and it troubles her deeply: Florin and Dunstan must die. There can be no other way. It became inevitable the moment she uttered the words Let the river have him. They cannot be allowed to tell Tyrrell that Nicholas has escaped, and that it was Bianca who made it happen. What troubles her most is the knowledge that she wants them to die – for what they have done.
Reaching the wharves, she calls to Cesare and Marcello in Italian, ‘What ugly dogs these two English are! God must have had his eyes closed when He made them.’
‘As ugly as sin,’ Cesare replies, laughing.
‘And they stink like dead fish,’ agrees Marcello. He nods at Nicholas and Ned. ‘But these two – they’re alright. It’s just a shame God didn’t make them Venetian.’
Bianca studies Florin and Dunstan. They give no indication they appreciate they’ve been so roundly insulted. Now she knows she can safely explain her plan to Cesare and Marcello without fear of them realizing what is to come.
She wonders whether it’s right to pre-empt God’s justice, and whether He will forgive her. Then she considers what Nicholas has told her about Tanner Bell, and about Angelo Arcampora. She thinks about the apocalypse Tyrrell and the Brothers of Antioch intend to unleash in the name of an innocent, sickly sixteen-year-old boy. A sin committed to prevent a much greater one – surely God can forgive her for that.
In a fast stream of Italian, punctuated with laughter to make it sound utterly innocent, she gives her instructions. Ned will know his cue when it comes.
They pass the Sirena and the Customs House. They pass the water-stairs at Billingsgate. They cross Botolph Lane and Fish Wharf, where the Dutch hoys are moored, and all the while the rumble of the waterwheel in the northern arch of London Bridge gets louder, a drumbeat ordering her on.
The bell at St Magnus tolls two o’clock, a slow, sonorous prelude for what is to come. And then the moon and its canopy of stars vanish, as Bianca steps into the arch of the gatehouse on the northern end of the bridge.
The tunnel echoes to their footsteps. The smoky haze from the scattered lanterns robs the shop fronts of their solid form, turning the way ahead into a shifting, mystical passage through a childhood dream. Bianca almost believes it is not a bridge she is on, but a ramp descending into the Underworld.
As she approaches the end of the first block of buildings, where the bridge is open to the night for a few short yards, she slows. Her heart races. She can hear the roar of the river as it tumbles between the stone starlings beneath her feet.
‘Sancta Maria, Mater Dei…’ she begins, ‘ora pro nobis peccatoribus… nunc et in hóra mórtis nóstrae…’ Though she does not read Latin, the words are as familiar to her as the rhymes her mother taught her as a child in Padua: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Cesare and Marcello make their reply. Amen.
Dunstan and Florin make their reply. Amen.
Two of them, however, are entirely mistaken about which sinners they’re praying for.
Bianca has brought them all to the centre of the open space. Looking east towards Wapping marsh, she can make out the masts of the ships in the Pool standing out against a wash of stars. She casts a brief glance over the balustrade and sees the foaming white water surging around the sides of the arch, some thirty feet below. She wants so much to turn away, to distance herself from what is about to happen. But then she thinks: if I cannot face the consequences of what I have done, I will reproach myself as a coward for the rest of my days.
She turns to Ned, taking Nicholas gently from him, feeling the weight of him against her, the way she did when the watch found them at the top of Black Bull Alley.
‘Let it be now,’ she says clearly, looking up into Ned Monkton’s eyes. And for Cesare and Marcello, ‘Adesso!’
Even though she’s prepared herself, the speed and the violence of it appal her.
Tyrrell’s men step forward eagerly to seize Nicholas. As they do so, Ned moves faster than she could ever believe possible for such a big man. Dunstan is on the cobbles in a spreading pool of blood before her ears register the sound of Ned’s giant fist striking home. Cesare and Marcello fall upon the startled Florin like a pair of starving wolves. Bianca hears, briefly, what sounds horribly like a man trying to breathe while someone stands on his throat. She stares into the night and tries to stop her legs buckling.
And then it’s over. Almost as if she’s imagined it. Only in her mind does she hear the impact as the two bodies hit the water in quick succession, plunging into the churning foam between the starlings.
On the bridge not a single window opens. Not a torchlight flares. Not a single cry of alarm disturbs the night. Just a dog howling mournfully somewhere in the darkened alleys of the northern bank.