Returning to Bankside, he had spent the next six days at Bianca’s bedside. If Parson Moody ever thought his presence in her chamber exceeded his duties as her physician, he never raised so much as an eyebrow in criticism, possibly because of his own propensity for visiting a certain house near the Falcon stairs.
Ned, Rose, Timothy, Farzad – even Buffle – had been closeted with Mistress Muzzle, who, should she ever grow tired of simpering over Ned, could console herself with a goodly handful of Robert Cecil’s ducats.
Nicholas had not returned to the Jackdaw until a week after the fire. What he beheld had broken his heart. A tavern that had stood for centuries was now nothing but a mound of blackened debris, bookended by the scorched remains of the gable-end walls. The buildings on either side had largely been spared, thanks to a human chain of Banksiders who had laboured for a whole day bringing water from the river.
Nicholas had wondered what effect the sight would have upon Bianca’s recovery. Almost all that she owned – everything she had striven for since arriving from Padua – was gone. The only light in the darkness of her loss was the discovery of the travelling chest containing her father’s books and his Petrine cross, which she’d left in her shop on Dice Lane.
But it was the pestilence that finally made him decide to leave London. Towards the end of July plague deaths were approaching a thousand a week. The queen had ordered her Privy Council to send a stiff note to the Lord Mayor, expressing her concern. Hearing of it from Parson Moody, who had himself heard it from an eminent Bankside alderman – though he was a little coy in saying precisely where – Nicholas had decided to take it as a sign that luck should only be pushed so far.
And so he had hired horses for himself and Ned, and a cart for Bianca, Rose, Timothy and Farzad to ride in. The two lads had taken turns on the reins, while Buffle barked at every new and exciting sight and smell on the journey to Nonsuch.
Three days after John Lumley took them in, Robert Cecil arrived.
He did not come alone. With him were a score of gentlemen in gorgeous plumage – all of whom, Nicholas assumed, could authenticate their noble lineages without the least help from the Rouge Croix Pursuivant – and a woman of about sixty, whose high, cerise-white brow sat below a crown of tight ginger curls that, in Nicholas’s humble opinion, were probably not her own.
‘Are you sure you are a physician, sirrah? You do not have an academic look to you.’
‘I studied at Cambridge, Highness, under Professor Lorkin,’ says Nicholas, rising from where he has knelt in the neatly cropped grass of Nonsuch’s fine Italian garden.
The knot of gentlemen surrounding the queen are regarding him with a mix of curiosity and whimsy. But they all share that head-back, looking-down-the-nose expression of superiority he can recall from his days as a pensionarius minor at Cambridge.
All, that is, except Robert Cecil.
‘Master Shelby has done the realm a goodly service, Your Grace,’ Lord Burghley’s son is saying. ‘He is newly returned from the Barbary shore, where he had an audience with His Majesty the King of the Moors.’
‘How interesting,’ Elizabeth observes with a slight twist of her narrow, determined jaw. ‘Tell me, Dr Shelby, was he very savage?’
‘Not in the slightest, Highness. I found him to be a very imposing gentleman. He desired me to assure you of the strength of the amity between our two realms.’
‘The lasting and secure amity,’ Cecil says, adding the part of the rehearsed reply that Nicholas has forgotten to include.
‘I shall send for you, sirrah, so that you may tell me more fully how the Moors practise their physic,’ the queen says, extending one gloved hand for him to kiss.
Nicholas puts his lips reverently to the pearl-encrusted doeskin, then steps aside as Elizabeth and her hive of gentlemen sweep majestically off between the topiary and the Roman columns, towards the banqueting hall set on a gentle hill to the west of the palace.
‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ says Robert Cecil, who has stayed behind. ‘She makes invitations like that to every young man whose appearance pleases her. She may never call for you.’
Is that a hint of resentment Nicholas thinks he hears in the crook-backed Cecil’s voice? ‘Have you found Gault yet?’ he asks.
‘He’s in Leinster. I’ve had words with my people in Bristol for letting him slip aboard a vessel undetected. But he’s of no concern now. The conspiracy ended the moment Minister al-Annuri took al-Seddik into irons.’ Cecil purses his lips in surprise. ‘My father, Lord Burghley, has been in an ill temper ever since I gave him your news. He is not accustomed to making a misjudgement. Still, I suppose these Moors do not hold constancy in the same regard as Englishmen.’
‘Speaking of which, Sir Robert, there are still Englishmen enslaved in Barbary. We should be attempting to arrange ransom.’
‘I shall ask the bishops to seek donations from their parishioners.’
‘Can the Exchequer not provide?’
Robert Cecil laughs. ‘Heavens, no! That would only encourage every Moor corsair to prey upon English ships. England is made out of God’s good earth, Nicholas – not out of silver.’
The little private chapel smells of the beeswax the Nonsuch servants use to polish the panelling and the pews. The sunlight streams through the mullioned windows, cutting bright swathes through the shadows and glinting on the dust motes. Unusually for a chapel compliant with the strictures of the new religion, there is also a hint of incense on the warm air. It was here, Nicholas remembers, that he stumbled upon John Lumley and his wife at their Romish prayers, giving him the evidence Cecil would need to destroy his old adversary. Nicholas had chosen not to reveal that evidence. It is a decision he has never once regretted in the intervening two years, least of all now – because Lumley has offered the chapel for tomorrow’s ceremony. It will be a Protestant service. Lumley’s generosity does not extend to endangering the life of his private Catholic priest – if he has one, which of course he vehemently denies.
Tomorrow, inshā Allāh, I will wed Bianca Merton, Nicholas reminds himself as he feels the sunlight on his cheek. Ned, Timothy and Farzad will be my groomsmen. Rose and Elise Cullen – sister of the once-nameless Ralph – will be Bianca’s bridesmaids. I did the right thing at last. I became the healer, not the disease.
He hears the door open softly at his back.
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ he hears Bianca say, her voice now tinged with a permanent huskiness. ‘There is no dowry I can bring. It’s all burned to the ground. All gone. Everything.’
He turns to face her. She is wearing one of Lady Lumley’s cream brocade gowns, a starched linen ruff obscuring her throat. Her beauty steals the breath from his lungs.
‘Let me see,’ he says, pointing to the ruff.
‘I don’t like to. It’s a blemish. I have enough of those already.’
‘I’m your physician. I need to see.’
Coyly, she reaches behind her neck and undoes the band-strings holding the ruff in place.
‘Perfect,’ he says, observing the red wheal about the length of a small fingernail at the dead-centre of her throat, exactly where Surgeon Wadoud would wish it to be. He blushes. ‘When I say “perfect”, I mean the incision, not… well, the throat is perfect too – that’s a given…’
‘I’m serious, Nicholas. I’ll understand if a physician on the brink of a royal appointment chooses not to wed the penniless former owner of a Bankside tavern. I really will.’