‘Probably,’ is all Nicholas says, keeping his own counsel. He knows the lad didn’t die from crush injuries sustained by falling into a waterwheel. But he can also guess why the constable has already made up his mind that he did. The alderman will want a report; the justice of the Queen’s Peace will want a report; the coroner will want a report. Everyone will want a report – hours of work, and all for less than a shilling, to a man barely able to write his own name. Add to that the fact that the lad was of humble background and is known to have suffered from a malady of the wits, and an accident is by far the best verdict.
Besides, now is probably not the time to start shouting about murder. It’s not uncommon for a witness to end up in the Counter while the judiciary takes its time deciding if they know more than they’re saying. Some can languish there for months before a magistrate decides they’re innocent. And despite the best efforts of Bianca and Rose, Nicholas still doesn’t look entirely reputable.
Nevertheless, he offers to accompany the body to the mortuary at St Thomas’s, speak to the coroner to confirm the constable’s conclusion, if needs be. At least that will buy him time. The constable looks him up and down, declines his offer and tells him to be on his way.
Nicholas has seen enough anyway. Enough to tell him the wound on the lad’s leg is just like the one on the dead infant at Vaesy’s lecture, only larger. As for the evisceration, it looks as though someone has torn away the poor soul’s innards in a hurried search for swallowed treasure.
He’s also noted – with a professional interest he can’t shake off – the raw wheals on wrist and ankle. The killer must have strapped the poor lad down before he went to work. A dark image enters his mind unbidden: a struggling, arching young body writhing in terror as the knife begins to cut – slowly, deliberately, as carefully as an obvious lack of skill allows.
Nicholas turns and walks back up Mutton Lane. There’s almost a spring in his step – the joy that comes from knowing at last that while the rest of the world thought you a raving madman, you were in fact right.
He can hear Fulke Vaesy’s very words in his head – only now there’s a sweetness to them that brings a grim smile to his lips:
So you’ve decided the alternative is murder, have you? Are all your diagnoses made so swiftly?
And now he has a name to work with: Jacob Monkton, the poulterer’s son from Scrope Alley.
A boy with addled wits.
An infant with withered legs.
And a killer with a hungry knife.
12
Astiff wind tears at the crests of the jagged little waves, sending icy spume into the faces of the oarsmen. As the barge approaches the Whitehall stairs, Sir Fulke Vaesy readies himself for the jump onto the jetty. He is a large man, not given to agility. When he hesitates, alarmed by the pitching deck beneath his feet, someone gives him an insulting shove in the rear and he almost tumbles onto the slippery timbers.
Vaesy has no idea why he’d been summoned to Cecil House. The barge-master – who wears Lord Burghley’s ermine lionemblem on his jerkin – has spoken not a word to him throughout the journey. He has a nagging fear that Lady Katherine has found some way to cause trouble for him; she’s loosely connected to the Cecils on her mother’s side and he wouldn’t put it past either of them.
Burghley’s London home is a showy offshoot of Whitehall Palace, set between the Strand and Covent Garden. The weak sunlight gleams in the high windows of the great hall, the yard busy with hurrying secretaries and clerks. This is as much a place of government as a family residence.
‘How gracious of you to come, Sir Fulke,’ the crook-backed young Robert says as Vaesy is ushered into his audience chamber. ‘And on such an inclement tide.’
For a moment Vaesy finds the protocol confusing. Robert Cecil – who has yet to wear the ermine – should by rights make courtesy to a knight. But he merely observes Sir Fulke from behind his desk; doesn’t even attempt to stand. And he is the Lord Treasurer’s son. So Vaesy make the smallest bend of the knee that he can stomach and hopes it will do. It seems to suffice.
Cecil motions the great anatomist to a fine, high-backed oak chair. The arras cushions bear the Cecil crest picked out in golden thread.
Silence – ominous and lingering.
Vaesy wonders if he is expected to say something: engage in some ritual none of the liveried servants have thought to mention to him. He consoles himself with the knowledge that if Katherine had wanted to cause him real trouble, he’d be facing Burghley himself and not the son. When the question comes, it’s as unexpected as a pistol shot.
‘You were physician to John Lumley once, were you not?’
It takes Vaesy a moment to compose his answer.
‘Indeed I was, Master Robert – fresh from Oxford. Eager as a lamb in springtime.’
‘You were lucky. With his entrée at court, Lumley could have had his pick of medical men.’
‘Lord Lumley is ever generous,’ says Vaesy, stung by the thinly veiled insult.
‘And you have remained close ever since?’
‘I count myself fortunate in holding Lord Lumley’s trust, yes.’
‘You were his physician when his children died – is that not so?’
‘I was.’
‘All three of them?’
Vaesy tries hard not to bristle at the charge implicit in Robert Cecil’s words. ‘The daughters were lost to the sweating sickness, the boy to the small-pox,’ he says. ‘We men of medicine treat the symptoms of a malady as diligently as we can. It is up to God to determine whether the body recovers or fails. I did my utmost.’
‘I don’t doubt it, Sir Fulke. Not for a moment.’ Robert Cecil turns his attention back to the parchment in front of him. He dips the nib of his pen into a fine horn inkwell and puts his signature to the document. He adds, softly, ‘Speaking for myself, had I been your client, I should have hoped for better odds.’
Vaesy swallows the insult. He can do little else.
After what seems like an age, Robert Cecil says casually, ‘Forty pounds – a useful sum for a physician, I expect.’
‘Sir–?’
‘Lord Lumley’s endowment to the College of Physicians – forty pounds per annum for a reader in anatomy.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. Very useful, Master Robert.’
‘For which he sometimes requires you to travel across the Narrow Sea, I understand – into Europe.’
‘There is much new work being undertaken there. England should not fall behind. I’m sure Lord Burghley would agree.’
Robert Cecil gives Vaesy a cold smile. ‘I rather think my father considers physicians in much the same way he considers cutpurses: he thinks both should hang. The last such visit was to Italy, was it not?’
‘Yes, to Padua, Master Robert,’ replies Vaesy, determined not to let Robert Cecil stick yet another pin in him. ‘To the university there.’
‘And for what purpose?’
‘To learn of the latest advances made by the Italian masters of physic in the subject of human defor–’ Vaesy break off as Robert Cecil looks up from his desk, hunching his crooked shoulders as though challenging the anatomist to continue. But what he actually says takes Vaesy by surprise.
‘Surely, Sir Fulke, as a physician you comprehend the danger of contagion?’
‘Contagion? There was no plague in Padua, Master Robert. I should not have gone otherwise.’
‘I refer to contagion of the soul, Sir Fulke.’
‘The soul?’
‘I assume the Pope’s writ still runs in Padua, does it not?’