The wheel-lock pistol Yaxley gave him as a means of escape from Cathal Connell’s vengeance is lying with the dusty-blue djellaba, where he’d discarded them before bathing away the aches and dirt of the ride from Dover. Its powder horn lies nearby, beside the pouch al-Annuri had given him at Safi. Nicholas scoops them up and fights his way back through the furnace of the passageway.
In the taproom the air is close to unbreathable. Ned is all for making a charge against the figures waiting in the lane, though he has nothing to set against steel but his bare fists and a courage the equal of his size.
‘I’ll not make Rose a widow,’ Nicholas tells him brusquely. ‘It’s me they want. And it’s me who has to bring an end to all this.’
The wheel-lock is already loaded with powder and ball; he made sure of that before leaving Dover Castle, lest he encountered cut-purses on the road. Thankful now for the skills he learned in the Low Countries, it takes him no more than a moment to make a half-turn on the pistol’s wheel with the little iron winding tool, engaging the spring. He checks that the wedge of pyrite is firmly clamped in the dog-head, slides back the priming pan cover and pours in a measure of black powder. He closes the pan lid and swings the dog-mechanism down onto the wheel, praying to God that Yaxley kept the weapon clean of dirt and sea-salt. A misfire now will leave him standing impotently before Gault like the greatest fool on earth.
‘Open the door, Timothy,’ he commands. ‘Ned, stand behind me. Timothy, Farzad – the moment I give the word, help Rose carry Mistress Bianca outside.’
Nicholas knows the night air will rush in and fan the flames. But there is no alternative. Death is waiting – inside or out.
‘Now!’ he cries.
As Timothy swings open the door, Nicholas steps out into the alley. He raises his arm like a man denouncing a traitor, aiming the pistol at Gault’s chest. One squeeze on the trigger and the wheel will spin against the pyrite in the dog-head, igniting the powder in the priming pan. At this range he cannot miss.
‘Throw aside the swords! Throw them, or I swear by Jesu I will shoot you for the deceiver you are.’
Lit by the flames inside the Jackdaw, Gault’s striking face has turned into that of a gargoyle, his eyes fixed on the unerring muzzle of the wheel-lock barely four yards from his breast.
‘You won’t give fire, Shelby,’ he says smoothly. ‘You’re a physician, not a killer. You haven’t got the courage.’
‘That’s probably what Cathal Connell thought. But a charge of hail-shot disabused him of that notion. I fired it myself. There was nothing left of him afterwards – nothing the fishes couldn’t swallow whole.’
Gault’s eyes snap from the pistol to Nicholas’s face. ‘You’re lying.’
‘Ask Yaxley of the Marion. He can’t be more than a day or so away. It was his rabinet I fired.’
Still Gault hesitates. ‘I’ll let the others live. You have my word upon it.’
‘A blood-tax? Is that what you want? Well, Gault, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t feel like paying it.’
Nicholas raises the pistol a little, aiming at Gault’s face.
‘I’ve forgotten how many wounds made by a pistol ball I treated in the Low Countries,’ he says. ‘I’m a good surgeon, but not one in ten lived. It’s a vile way to die. You’d best hope it’s a clean shot through the heart. Oh, and you’re going to have to do without the Viaticum, which for a man of your faith is an even crueller injury, and a lot longer in the healing. But that’s no concern to me, of course. We heretics don’t believe in Purgatory.’
A glance to either side at his apprentices and Gault capitulates.
‘Lay down your blades,’ he orders.
Needing no prompting, Ned moves forward and picks up the weapons.
‘Get everyone out of the Jackdaw, Timothy!’ Nicholas shouts, without taking his eyes off Gault. He can hear windows opening, voices calling out from the other buildings in the lane. Someone is yelling for the watch, another calling out for water to be fetched from the river.
‘You won’t dare shoot me now, Shelby,’ Gault says, with an easy smile on his face. ‘Witnesses. You’ll hang.’
‘You don’t know Banksiders that well, do you? They suffer terribly from poor eyes. It’s a well-known condition. I’m forever prescribing balms.’
The edges of Gault’s mouth lift in a cold smile. ‘It’s a temporary reprieve, Shelby. Face it – the road to Windsor can be a dangerous one: cut-purses… accidents… You’ll never reach Robert Cecil. I’ll make sure of that.’
Nicholas glances at the apprentices. ‘What has your master promised you: that you’ll be princes when you get to the Barbary shore? That you’ll have your own slaves, gold and jewels? That all you have to do is lie about who your parents were, pretend to be noble gentlemen? Well, it’s a fraud. I’ve seen what happens. They sell you into a slavery you can’t begin to imagine. It’s called the blood-tax. And Gault and Connell took a very profitable cut of it. But it’s over. There’s nothing there for you now but death.’
The boy Owen turns his face towards Gault. ‘Does he speak true, Master?’
‘Of course not,’ snaps Gault.
Nicholas moves the barrel of the wheel-lock in a small circle, as though marking out the size of the hole he intends to blast in Gault’s face. To Owen, he says, ‘Has he handed you all a nice, smart family lineage yet – proved by the Rouge Croix Pursuivant?’ Then, to Gault, ‘How much did Sumayl al-Seddik pay you for each of your boys? How much gold? How many slaves? What price can you get on the Exchange these days for a human life, Master Grocer?’
The heat is now almost unbearable. Nicholas feels as though his back is on fire. Clouds of sparks drift in the darkness like fireflies. The apprentices exchange glances. A change has come over them, dispelling their earlier bravado, fatally damaging their trust in Gault.
‘The watch… the watch is here…’
The voice is harsh – a woman’s voice calling from nearby.
And then one of the Jackdaw’s windows explodes, showering glass and lead-beading out into the lane. As Nicholas turns his head, distracted, Gault bolts. He flees down the alley in the direction of the Mutton Lane stairs.
Deprived of his authority, his apprentices seem unable to act. They stand there like sheep without a drover, four young men robbed of a future they now realize was nothing but a fantasy.
Nicholas swings the pistol, sighting down the barrel in the direction of Gault’s fleeing back. His finger tightens on the trigger. Gault is still easily within range. One more squeeze and his bargain with al-Annuri is done. You will bring pestilence and death upon them, even unto the seventh generation. You will erase their names so that Allāh will forget he ever made them…
For a while he just stands there, breathing in the night air, air that is hotter now than any night in Marrakech, though it has no right to be – given that the moon is yellowed not by a desert mist, but by the drifting smoke from the death of the Jackdaw. He remembers how Eleanor made gentle jokes about his determination to heal, how she’d been horrified when he told her he was going to the Low Countries to treat those who’d been hurt in the fight against the forces of Catholic Spain. And he remembers what Bianca said to him in her physic garden, before he left for the Barbary shore: let us face the truth… we are both murderers now.