‘Come and see them for yourself. Having a comely young woman observing their efforts should put an edge to their riversas, their imbroccatas and their stoccatas.’
He leads her to out into the courtyard, where the same lads she had seen on her last visit are practising their swordplay. They are stripped down to hose and garters, their young limbs gleaming with exertion.
‘They look very fierce,’ she says admiringly. ‘But I thought they were destined to become merchants. Are they expecting their customers to put up a fight?’
‘Commerce is a martial game, Mistress. Why else would we speak of contracts being won?’ He smiles at his own wit. ‘Now, tell me the true reason you’ve returned.’
A little foolish fluttering, to make him think he already has the better of you…
She clasps her hands to her cheeks. ‘You’ve seen through my silly womanly wiles, Master Gault. I should have expected nothing less.’
And he should be yours for the taking…
‘When last I saw you, you were uncommonly free with your confidences,’ she continues. ‘You confessed to me you were a Catholic. You suggested we should be allies.’
‘I thought it wise to be open with each other.’
‘And I thought you were trying to lure me into giving away things I would prefer to keep to myself.’
‘Clearly, I failed.’
‘Not necessarily.’ It is said with just enough flirtation to entice.
‘I’m intrigued, Mistress Merton. Please, continue.’
‘I believe you wanted to know what confidences might have passed between me, Nicholas Shelby and Sir Robert Cecil.’ A bright smile of fake mystification. ‘I cannot possibly imagine why a Catholic would want to know what was in the mind of a minister of the Protestant queen of England. Perhaps you could enlighten me.’
She can see by the almost imperceptible way his jaw tilts that she has him.
‘I’m listening, Mistress Merton. You may speak freely here. You’re amongst friends.’
Now that he’s hooked, all you have to do is pull him in…
‘You know that I have a somewhat colourful reputation on Bankside.’
‘It has not escaped my attention, Mistress. “The one witch nobody dares hang” was how Connell described you.’
‘And you know I was taken to Cecil House to be questioned by Sir Robert on charges of recusancy, and that I returned to Bankside in his very own gilded barge.’
‘I seem to recall you told me the story in this very house, only a few days ago.’
‘Have you perhaps asked yourself why Sir Robert Cecil was stricken by an outbreak of such uncharacteristic mercy, when he could have had me hanged on both charges?’
‘The question had crossed my mind. What exactly does Robert Cecil get, in return for not indicting you for heresy?’
‘Oh, that’s easy to answer,’ Bianca says, contriving her most enticing smile. ‘He gets information – on my fellow Catholics. You see, I am Robert Cecil’s spy.’
For a moment Gault says nothing. The only sound Bianca can hear is the rasping of steel as the swordsmen lunge and parry. But there’s now a hardness in his eyes that wasn’t there before. It hints at a well of violence hidden beneath the gallant’s polish. She wonders if he’s mulling over the practicality of a tragic accident: a spectator run through whilst watching swordplay.
Then he turns sharply towards the fencers. ‘Away with you!’ he shouts. ‘I can’t hear myself think.’
The boys obediently move further down the garden. Gault moves closer to her. Uncomfortably closer.
‘I’ve told you before: if you’re planning to denounce me to Robert Cecil unless I pay through the nose, you’ve picked the wrong victim for a Southwark gulling, Mistress. I shall say you came here seeking to blackmail me. My lads here will confirm it. Who do you think the magistrate is going to believe: a distinguished city merchant or a mere tavern-wench from Bankside?’ A triumphant sneer to put Bianca in her place. ‘Then we’ll see how clever you are at avoiding the hangman’s rope.’
Bianca lets the echo of his bluster fade. Then she says, as softly as a lover’s whisper, ‘Have you quite finished, Master Gault?’
‘Finished? There’s one of us who’s finished, Mistress Merton. And it’s not me.’
In a voice that contains just a hint of disappointment, she says, ‘Well, in that case I’ll be on my way. God give you good morrow. You may keep the preventatives.’ She makes a feint of leaving – then appears to remember something she’d almost forgotten. ‘Purely as a matter of interest, Master Gault, in the world of commerce what would you pay to know what was in the mind of a competitor?’
Gault scowls. ‘Why? What new dissembling is this?’
‘I merely wondered – being no more than a mere tavern-wench from Bankside. What would such knowledge be worth?’
‘It would be invaluable.’
She purses her lips. ‘And if that competitor was – shall we say – Sir Robert Cecil?’
‘What are you implying?’
Bianca tosses her head, as though it’s such an irritation to have to explain simple things to a clod-pate.
‘I would have thought that was obvious – to a clever merchant venturer like you. Have you never put one of your own people into a competitor’s enterprise to learn his secrets? Maybe you’re not quite as clever as your portrait suggests.’
‘Are you telling me you’re spying on Robert Cecil, not for him?’
‘At last,’ she says with a theatrical exhalation. ‘I thought we were never going to get there.’
‘And who exactly is the recipient of this intelligence?’ he asks, a sliver of doubt still lodged in his resolve.
‘Cardinal Santo Fiorzi, in Rome,’ she says effortlessly, remembering the grizzled face of the man she and her cousin Bruno had served in Padua; the man who bears the ultimate responsibility for the images that still trouble her when she wakes – the image of two bodies falling through the night into the racing waters below London Bridge. ‘It was he who sent me into England, to worm my way into the Pigmy’s confidence. Surely you don’t think I run a Southwark tavern because I enjoy the company of heretic drunks?’
Gault seems like a man caught in a hurricane. His mouth opens, but no sound comes out.
And having pulled in your fish, all that remains is to dispatch him with a blow to the back of his gleaming scaly head…
‘You’ve heard about Christopher Marlowe, I take it?’
He stares at her. ‘Of course. I can’t say I’m surprised. Stabbed, wasn’t he?’
‘And you know what they’re saying about him: that the Privy Council paid him to spy on Catholics, to worm his way into their trust and then betray them.’
He nods.
Bianca thinks, if I were skilled in swordplay, this is how it would feel to deliver the killing thrust.
‘Well, it was I who lured Kit Marlowe to his death.’
His jaw sags, spoiling the pleasing symmetry of his face. ‘You?’
‘He was once a frequent visitor to my tavern. If you were thorough when you asked about me on Bankside, you might have heard the rumour we were lovers.’
Is that a look of intrigue, or envy, she sees in his eyes?
‘Well, it’s true,’ she continues. ‘When we lay together, I could not draw a confession from him. He would not admit he was Robert Cecil’s informer. And I really did try.’ She makes a languorous tilt of her head. ‘In the end I had to wait until Cecil let it slip that the Privy Council had paid the cheating rogue for his treachery. All I had to do then was pass the information on to some people I know, who believe our faith must be defended by all means possible, and its enemies punished. I would have waited – until we both had grey hair, if it had proved necessary. I’m a very patient woman, you see.’