To her joy, Gault blushes almost as badly as the lad Owen, at her directness.
‘In all other regards, I could not disprove your story, Mistress Merton. There is no doubt in my mind that you would be of great benefit to our enterprise.’
Bianca leans a little closer towards him, as if inviting further intimacy. Inside the awning the air is thick and sultry, ripe for revelation.
‘Is this enterprise anything to do with the Barbary shore, and your title of Rouge Croix Pursuivant, by any chance?’
If she’d thrown the wine in his face he couldn’t be more taken aback.
‘How do you know that?’
‘Enquiry is not solely a masculine preserve, Master Gault. If it were, we should all be ignorant.’
‘And what exactly is it you think you’ve discovered?’
‘That the name Solomon Mandel is known to you, even though you told me it was not.’ She takes a sip of wine. ‘That he died in possession of a document upon which was written your title, the one you hold from the College of Heralds.’ Another sip of wine, like the tap of a foot keeping a slow, funereal rhythm. ‘That the reason you were so eager to find out from me why Dr Shelby went to Morocco for Robert Cecil is because you fear Cecil has wind of this enterprise of yours.’ Another sip. Another foot-fall. ‘That you have knowingly engaged a monster in your service, in the form of Cathal Connell.’ She fixes him with her amber eyes. ‘Given that we have both made confession to each other, let me invite one more. Did you order Connell to murder poor Solomon Mandel?’
Gault regards her impassively for a while, as though he still can’t quite believe she could be his match. Then he says, ‘No, I did not order him to do such a thing.’ He refills her glass, as though he wishes to make her complicit in what he has to tell her. ‘But I do know who killed the Jew.’
‘Then tell me: who was it?’
Looking into his eyes, Bianca has the chilling feeling Reynard Gault might have brought her to the middle of the river not for privacy, but for a very different reason.
In an unnervingly languid voice, he answers, ‘It was me.’
‘Mistress Merton… Mistress Merton… Is the river discomforting you?’
Gault’s voice breaks through the stuffy air within the awning of the tilt-boat.
‘It is nothing,’ she says, fearing he’s seen the distress in her eyes. ‘I found the undulation of the water a little unpleasant. I’m not a sailor, like your brave Captain Connell. I’m fine.’
A sceptical lift of one carefully plucked brow. ‘Are you shocked?’
‘Of course I’m shocked.’
‘That is not quite the response I would have expected from a woman who claims to have brought about the slaying of Christopher Marlowe. Do you wish to amend your story in any particular?’
Bianca fights to compose herself. If he sees weakness in her now, her carefully constructed fiction might well collapse like the froth on a jug of knock-down.
‘I’m shocked because I’m not a butcher, Master Gault. I did not know Solomon Mandel was an enemy to this enterprise of yours. To me, he was simply a sweet old man who liked to take his breakfast at my tavern. Why did he have to die?’
‘He was a danger to our plans.’
‘You couldn’t have done it on your own. I saw the aftermath.’
‘My boys helped me.’
‘You’ve made killers out of your apprentices? What manner of new world is that for them to inhabit?’
‘They are soldiers, Mistress; soldiers in the war against the heretics. Sometimes it is necessary for soldiers to harden their hearts.’
‘How could you have done that to him – the flaying? He was a helpless old man.’
‘He sought to keep from me something I wished to know. Cathal Connell learned the technique from the Moors. It’s very effective in loosening tongues.’
‘And did it loosen his?’
‘No. To speak the truth, that surprised me. I had not anticipated his courage. Or his frailty. Or perhaps it wasn’t courage. Perhaps he was just a stubborn old man.’
Yes, he was stubborn, thinks Bianca. And kind. And probably lonely. But most of all, he did not deserve such a dreadful end at your hands.
Gault makes a play of sucking the taste out of his mouthful of Rhenish, betraying a rougher self behind the gallant’s façade.
‘Let me be direct with you, Mistress Merton,’ he says. ‘I have considered what you told me about your work for the cardinaclass="underline" becoming one of Robert Cecil’s informers so that you could better serve the one true faith. I confess I had not thought to find such mettle in a woman. And yes, I believe my enterprise could have no better ally than someone like you. But…’
He turns the silver wine cup slowly before his eyes, inspecting its finely engraved surface, enjoying the pleasure of owning such an expensive piece of silverware.
‘But what? Please do not tell me you doubt a woman is up to the task.’
‘Oh no. I have no doubt on that score. It’s just that I have always found it wise in merchant venturing to demand proof of trust. Words are all well and good, but nothing can better monies that are put down on account.’
‘What is it you want of me, Master Gault?’ Bianca asks, feeling an uncomfortable sensation in her stomach that has nothing to do with the river. ‘What proof will satisfy you?’
He places his hand on her knee, slowly moving it up her thigh so that her kirtle lifts over her shins. His fingers halt just short of her groin, pressing against her flesh.
Oh Jesu, she thinks; for all the display and bravado, you’re nothing better than a fumbler in a Southwark stew, the type who thinks he’s made the doxy’s day simply by turning up. She rotates her heel against the hull of the tilt-boat, the better to position the tip of her shoe for a deft strike between his splayed legs.
‘I think I know what you’re going to say to me, Master Gault.’
‘I heard that, too – that you have the second sight.’
‘I can also swim.’
Silence for a moment, save for the slap of the river against the hull.
‘But can you poison?’
Of course she can poison. In Padua, Bianca learned the skill from her mother, who often claimed that before she’d turned from mixing draughts of hemlock to making curatives, it had been a family trade – all the way back to the woman who mixed the draught that Agrippina used to poison Claudius. Bianca can hear her mother now, telling her that if you want to poison your employer because he beats you, or your lover because they’ve tired of you – for the inheritance, the revenge or just the pure bloody joy of getting the last word – go to the Caporettis of Padua. But don’t ever lick your fingers on the way home.
‘Of course I can mix poisons,’ she says. ‘I’m an apothecary. Your guild licensed me, remember?’
‘In that case, Mistress Merton, welcome to our enterprise – just as soon as I learn that Robert Cecil is dead.’
43
For eight days the Marion has ridden the waves like a greyhound in pursuit of a coney. Assessing the log, Captain Yaxley expresses a cautious confidence that she can make the voyage from Safi to London faster than any Barbary Company vessel yet.
Forced into close companionship, Nicholas has begun to admire the little sea-terrier from Devon. He commands his ship with a quiet assurance and a care for his crew that makes Nicholas suspect there is no storm they would not follow him through. It is a world apart from Connell’s dour tyranny.