When the devil had gone, I bandaged the fellow’s wounds, borrowed the cart of my friend Ibn Daoud and took him to the Bimaristan al-Mansur to have his grievous injuries treated. It shames me that the Moors will treat him better than the supposed Christian who owned him.
Once I had handed the poor fellow to the physicians, I tarried a while. I hoped I might discover the secret place where they hide the oranges, for I am sure now this is the location. The crates are marked with the symbol 
, two sickles. When you receive this letter, go to Lyon Quay and watch for cargo marked in the same manner being taken aboard a Company ship. We will know then that the source of the oranges is as I suspected.
I do not yet know when they will strike. In the autumn there is to be a great gathering of Moor chieftains at the sultan’s new palace. It seems likely that this will be when they intend their perfidy. Urge the Pigmy to alert his watchers in Lisbon and Cadiz for signs the Spanish are preparing galleys and mustering soldiers. God willing, we will draw this sting before its venom can flow.
That is all for the present, my old friend. Tonight is `Ushar. The moon will be bright. I intend to go once more to the Bimaristan. God willing, I will discover where they are hiding the oranges.
Say your heathen prayers for me, Hebrew. They will comfort me if the night is cold. I am, in all faith and honour, your loving friend: AS
Twice Nicholas reads the letter aloud, so that Hadir can grasp the finer points. In the meagre light, the Moor’s face takes on a harshness Nicholas has not seen before.
‘Why did my friend die for oranges, Sayidi Nich-less? If he wanted them, he could pick them from the trees.’
‘They’re not oranges, Hadir. They’re new English matchlock muskets. Our queen sends them to your sultan for the defence of his realm. In return, Sultan al-Mansur sends her his best saltpetre to make black powder to charge our fleet’s cannon against the Spanish. They may not share the same faith, but they share the same enemy.’
Nicholas has the heart of it now, this conspiracy that has two heads: one in Morocco and one in England. The weapons the Privy Council is sending to Sultan al-Mansur are not reaching him – at least not more than enough to convince him all is well. The bulk gets diverted to his enemy, the ‘Falconer’.
‘The crates come aboard at Lyon Quay in London,’ Nicholas continues. ‘They bear a double-sickle wool-mark. If there are papist spies watching, they’ll believe the crates contain nothing more dangerous than bolts of English cloth. When the cargo comes ashore at Safi, Connell marks the loading bill in front of Muly Hassan, the customs clerk. He told me it was to identify the sultan’s tithe. It wasn’t – it was to show which crates contained the matchlocks. Muly Hassan must be part of the conspiracy.’
‘Who is this Pigmy my friend Sy-kess speaks of?’
‘It’s the nickname the queen has given to the man who sent me, Sir Robert Cecil. Master Sykes is telling Cecil to keep his watchers in Lisbon and Cadiz alert for signs that an invasion fleet is being prepared.’
‘Are the Portugals and the Spanish infidels coming to make war against us again?’ Hadir asks, a splinter of fear in his voice.
‘That is what they plan,’ Nicholas says. ‘This “Falconer”, whoever he may be, intends to overthrow Sultan al-Mansur and open your city gates to a Spanish army. And to do it, he’s arming his own janissaries with stolen English matchlock muskets.’
‘My friend Sy-kess speaks of the Falconer wanting his hawks well bred. What does this mean?’
‘I think he wants his janissaries to be men of better quality than poor village boys from the Balkans. He wants men of good blood about him. When he overthrows your sultan and returns Morocco as a gift to Spain, he wants it wrapped in a cloak of nobility. A squalid coup doesn’t fit his sense of importance.’
‘But you said this family line was false,’ Hadir says, picking up the pedigree.
‘It is. The College of Heralds in London is responsible for compiling and authenticating the pedigrees of English gentlemen and nobles. One of their heralds – the Rouge Croix Pursuivant – is constructing false identities to make these lads appear to be of noble descent. I wonder how much the Falconer is paying for them: in coin and slaves?’
‘If they kill my friend Sy-kess for this, then you also are in very great danger, Sayidi Nich-less,’ Hadir whispers.
Nicholas gets up and leans out over the windowsill. He lets the night air cool the sweat on his brow. He thinks of how easily Cathal Connell could have contrived his death aboard the Righteous, and how al-Annuri’s men could have killed him in the storeroom, but chose not to.
‘I think they want me alive,’ he says to the night, as much as to Hadir. ‘If I fail to return, Robert Cecil’s suspicions will only strengthen. No, they’d rather I found nothing here, believed the story about Sykes’s accident and went home to tell Cecil all is well between Morocco and England. I’m safe for as long as they believe I’ve not seen Sykes’s letter.’ He turns back into the chamber. In the light from the lamp, Hadir has only half a face. ‘Tell me, do you know of anyone in Marrakech who styles himself “The Falconer”?’
‘He will be a rich man, Sayidi Nich-less. Rich men have their hawks as surely as poor men have their cares.’
‘Or a clever one – a very clever French Catholic, perhaps.’
‘Professor Day-Lyal?’
‘The French and Spanish are my queen’s enemies, Hadir. They could be making common cause. And there are Jesuits here, too. De Lisle told me they come to arrange ransoms for Catholic slaves. But I know they also send agents into England to plot against us. When we catch them, we execute them. Robert Cecil considers them more dangerous than the pestilence.’
With a bravado that makes Nicholas smile, Hadir announces, ‘We shall go to the sultan together and tell him. I shall translate for you. His Majesty will give Sayidi Nich-less more gold than he can count, and Hadir shall be appointed his vizier. We shall be rich men! Very rich – inshā Allāh.’
I’ll settle for alive, thinks Nicholas. He hears again the soft voice of the kufiya telling him to go home before it’s too late; sees in his mind the butchered flesh of the slave Marcu; the severed heads in the city square. And he hears Reynard Gault as he hands Cathal Connell the package that contained Hortop’s false pedigree. These are the young gentlemen’s… Keep them safe. A goodly profit depends upon them…
‘I believe the apprentice boys aboard the Righteous were new recruits for the Falconer’s janissaries,’ Nicholas tells the wash of moonlight on the table, as though by not addressing Hadir directly he may somehow protect him. ‘Whether they know it yet is another matter. Follow them, and they’ll lead us to the Falconer.’
35
It has taken Bianca most of the day to contrive her escape from the advancing pestilence. Moving the contents of her shop on Dice Lane back to the Jackdaw has not been easy, not with the endless stream of customers demanding her preventatives. Sometimes she has wanted to scream at them: I can’t save you! Don’t place this weight of guilt upon my shoulders.
She wonders why they still come. If what she was giving them had the efficacy they believed, the plague would not be spreading. Parson Moody would be relaxing in the bawdy-house at the Falcon stairs, not conducting funerals. But they have such trust in their eyes. She cannot turn her back.