No matter that it was taken in self-defence, while trying to clear Nicholas of the false accusation of attempting to poison the queen, Ned carries that mark with no little shame. And no one – not Rose, Bianca or indeed Nicholas himself – can convince him that he should not.
Bianca tightens her arms a little, to draw these two very different men closer. A precious gift indeed, she thinks, to have such a husband, to have such a friend.
At the bottom of Long Southwark, on a patch of grass made sodden and muddy by the recent rain, a ceremonial muster is under way. The Lord Mayor is inspecting a score of young country lads who could almost pass for soldiers. Not one of them can boast a full suit of equipment. One has a steel tasset around his hips and thighs, the next is wearing a pauldron to protect his shoulders, a third has only greaves covering his shin. As for the rest: nothing but leather surcoats and breeches. Thank heaven, Nicholas thinks, that the rebels have no artillery to speak of.
With a sudden tattoo, a drummer brings the aspiring warriors to some semblance of attention. The muster ensign and his corporal, the only ones wearing breastplates, march up to greet the Lord Mayor and a brace of magistrates assembled for the purpose. The ensign signs the offered muster roll to confirm he has recruited the correct number of levies, as required by the Privy Council and the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey. In return, he receives a large purse for the future feeding, equipping, transporting and – if they’re lucky – the paying of his men. The Lord Mayor makes a brief but stirring speech about God’s fist smiting the papist rebels, doffs his hat to the recruits and rides off on the next leg of his progress through Southwark.
‘Where are you bound?’ Nicholas asks the nearest recruit, a gangly lad who looks as though he should be attending petty school rather than pike-drill classes.
‘To Ireland, if it please Your Honour,’ the boy says, ‘to kill the papist rebels.’
Nicholas smiles and wishes him God’s protection, relieved that at least these fellows are not destined for the Low Countries and a professional, well-drilled Spanish enemy.
Close by, an enterprising vendor of coney pies has chosen the muster as a likely spot to make a sale or two from his wicker basket. Ned, who has a fondness for coney, makes straight for him. Nicholas and Bianca follow. Ned has no sooner taken his first bite of pie when the muster ensign swaggers over. To Nicholas, he looks as unlikely a soldier as the others, a cadaverous fellow in his late forties with the gaunt, sallow face of a fallen priest. Beneath a shiny dome of forehead dressed with lank grey locks, a single functioning eye looks out on a world that it seems to be assessing for potential profit.
‘May I enquire, who is this bold fellow?’ the man says, making an exaggerated bend of the knee to Ned. When he straightens up again, he pauses in the moment before his knee locks, so that he looks like a dog flinching in expectation of a kick.
‘Ned Monkton’ – a glance at Bianca for approval – ‘steward of the Jackdaw tavern, owned by Mistress Merton ’ere,’ Ned replies proudly. ‘And who are you?’
‘Barnabas Vyves, gentles all,’ the ensign says elaborately, his gaze dancing from Ned to Bianca and Nicholas like a thrown stone skipping on water. It comes to rest on Nicholas, who is making a professional assessment of the missing eyeball.
‘An honest wound,’ the ensign says, raising a grubby finger to the empty socket, ‘earned in the storming of the breach at Cádiz in ’96 – shoulder-to-shoulder with the Earl of Essex.’
A likely story, thinks Nicholas. There’s no scarring. The missing eye is a deformity of birth, or lost in infancy through disease. He doubts that Barnabas Vyves has been anywhere near a contested breach, least of all with Robert Devereux standing at his shoulder.
Returning his attention to Ned, Vyves announces, ‘We could use a doughty fellow like you in the ranks of Sir Oliver Henshawe’s company. Sixpence a day, all found. Glory by the cartload. Will you step forward and help Her Majesty wrest back Ireland from the heathen rebel? Will you be the man to pitch the Earl of Tyrone on his traitorous pate and earn Sir Oliver’s enduring gratitude, payable in a lump sum on the day of victory?’
Oliver Henshawe.
The name jolts Bianca out of a passing daydream – Nicholas in full jousting armour, sweaty and victorious as he rides out of the lists to claim her favour.
‘Would that be the Oliver Henshawe whose family owns land out at Walworth?’ she asks, the image of a persistent young gallant with dark eyes and a fragile swagger prising its way free from the recesses of her memory.
‘Aye, that’s Sir Oliver.’
‘Is he here?’ Bianca asks, looking about.
‘Mercy, no, Mistress,’ Vyves assures her. ‘He’s out in Ireland, at the head of his fine fellows, smiting the queen’s enemies. I’m here to muster more of them to his banner.’ He looks at Ned again. ‘Stalwart fellows like this one.’
‘No, thanks,’ growls Ned. ‘I’ve got a tobacco pipe to get clean of soap.’
‘I’ve not heard that excuse before,’ says Vyves. ‘What if I say sixpence ha’penny?’
‘You can say the King of Spain wears a farthingale in ’is spare time, Ensign Vyves,’ Ned says. ‘The answer is still no.’
‘Pity,’ says Vyves. ‘We might have come to an agreement. You’d have found it worth your while.’
Nicholas decides to have a little sport with the man who stormed the breach at Cádiz.
‘Is it sixpence ha’penny before or after deductions for butter and cheese, blanket, bread and transport?’ he asks. ‘I think Ned here would be lucky to see fourpence. What do you say, Ensign Vyves?’
Vyves gives him a startled glance. ‘How do you know about pay an’ victuals? Have you been a-soldiering?’
‘A summer in the Low Countries, with Sir Joshua Wylde’s company. I was his surgeon.’
‘Oh,’ says Vyves.
‘Pity I wasn’t at Cádiz. I would have valued a word or two with the physician who tended to your eye, Ensign Vyves. I might have learned something. It’s been stitched neater than a maid-of-honour’s kerchief.’
Vyves gives a huff of discomfort. ‘Well, I can’t stand here passing pleasantries while Ireland hangs in the balance,’ he says hurriedly. He makes another knee, though only to Bianca, and marches off to the head of his file.
‘Well, they’re going to put the fear of God into the Earl of Tyrone, and no mistake,’ she says, watching him lope up and down the file of recruits as he berates them for their unsoldierly appearance. ‘We can surely expect his capitulation by this Michaelmas at the latest.’
‘You know of this Sir Oliver Henshawe?’ Nicholas enquires, with a narrowing of the eyes that Bianca could swear might be the first stirring of jealousy.
‘It was a long time ago, Husband – before I met you.’
‘Is that so? You’ve never mentioned him.’
‘I never saw the need.’
‘Was it serious?’
‘He seemed to think so. He paid court to me with much boasting and poetry. The boasting was ludicrous: he was going to fight his way to Madrid and bring back Philip of Spain’s wedding ring to place on my finger. And the poetry wasn’t much better: mostly embarrassing doggerel.’
‘Was this wooing a drawn-out affair?’ Nicholas asks, implying by his voice that whatever the answer might be, he could scarcely care less.
‘He began his suit in the July, I recall. By August he’d lost interest. I suspect he rather took offence at finding a mere tavern-mistress so resistant to his significant charms.’