Before Nicholas can introduce himself, Gardener says, ‘I have brought you visitors, Master Spenser. This gentleman is Dr Nicholas Shelby, a physician – from London.’
Nicholas is speechless. In Gardener’s presence he has been careful to portray himself only as a messenger from the Worshipful Company of Stationers. As far as he can remember, he hasn’t mentioned medicine once. So how does Gardener know? Then he recalls a snatch of his conversation with the clerk at the Tholsel in Dublin. Would that be a doctor of medicine or a doctor of theology? The scrivener must have overheard. And he’s just made Nicholas’s task even harder.
‘You are welcome, Dr Shelby,’ says Spenser, as though random visitors turning up in his valley is a regular occurrence. ‘But I have no need of physic. As you can see, I am in good health.’
‘I don’t doubt it. But I’m not here in any medical capacity,’ Nicholas says. ‘I’ve been sent on behalf of the Worshipful Company of Stationers.’
‘Is it about my pamphlet, A View of the Present State of Ireland?’ Spenser asks, a gleam of anticipation in his soft, brown eyes. ‘Is it going to allow me a printer at last?’
‘That is something I am sure we can discuss, sir,’ Nicholas says evasively.
It seems to satisfy. ‘Then you had best come in and take your ease,’ Spenser says. ‘You, too, Master Gardener.’ He looks at Bianca. ‘And you also, Mistress–’
‘Bianca. I’m Nicholas’s wife.’
Is that a fleeting, suspicious lift of a delicate Spenser eyebrow that Nicholas notices? If it is, then he knows what his host is thinking: since when did the august gentlemen of the Stationers’ Company indulge its representatives by financing the accompaniment of their spouses?
‘Bianca was accompanying me to Dublin on another matter,’ Nicholas says, seizing the first vague explanation that enters his head. ‘I suggested she stay in the city, but she told me she would rather spend time in the company of England’s greatest poet than amongst a garrison of soldiery.’
His self-regard burnished just enough to overcome suspicion, Spenser protests. ‘Oh, I would hardly place myself in such a pantheon, Dr Shelby. You see before you naught but a humble poetaster.’ And with a sweeping gesture, he invites them in.
As Nicholas enters the poet’s gloomy fastness, he wonders how easy it is going to be to gain Spenser’s trust, now that Gardener has spoken loosely. Evidently a core of distrust lies beneath the poet’s outer pleasantry. And not only distrust about his new visitors. Because why else, Nicholas is thinking, would a man who chooses to settle in this pleasing valley hide himself away behind the walls of a fortress? Perhaps, like the Merrow in the tale the old woman told them last night, Spenser can see into the future. Perhaps he sensed on the wind that one day rebellion would come to this peaceful place. Maybe that is why he will deliver his secret only to a messenger who has Robert Cecil’s complete trust.
Supper is a stilted affair, like a family reunion where no one dares raise the matter of the skeleton in the cupboard. For the most part the pressing issue – the rebellion – is studiously avoided. The Spenser family prefers to learn the latest London gossip. Has the Earl of Essex convinced the queen to make him her Lord Lieutenant in Ireland? Does anyone yet dare speak of the succession? How grand was old Burghley’s funeral? Did anyone shout, ‘Thank God the corrupt old puppeteer is dead’? While Nicholas and Bianca scatter what pearls they think might entertain, Spenser listens with the studied concentration of the scholar – a man weighing the fashions and frivolities of London life against its affairs of state, as if to judge the nation’s true humour. His wife Elizabeth – half his age – follows each nod, each purse of the lips and ‘no – really?’ with dutiful attention. Sylvanus and Katherine, a son and daughter from a previous marriage, listen with the sort of fascination to be expected of children approaching adulthood in a remote rural home far from the excitement of the city. An infant son, Peregrine, can be heard wailing somewhere deep within the house, like a prisoner incarcerated in a dungeon. Bianca feels a stab of guilt and calls herself a callous, uncaring Medea for abandoning little Bruno. And all the while, a small supporting cast of servants hovers around the table board like grey spectres at a burial.
Nicholas dances as nimbly as he can around Spenser’s enquiries about the Stationers’ Company and its deliberations over the poet’s pamphlet. Whenever pressed, he falls back on the vague excuses that are all Cecil’s people have provided him with.
‘You know how it is these days – no one wants to be the fellow to lose his right hand to the axe because he’s inadvertently published something Her Majesty disapproves of… The price of paper these days is making everyone very cautious…’
‘But they’ve had the View for over a year, Dr Shelby.’
‘And then there’s the fact that the Company is run off its feet, rooting out all those barrels of proscribed papist books being smuggled in from the Spanish Netherlands…’
But every now and then the cupboard door is opened. The skeleton is revealed. Then Piers Gardener is the one who must provide the answers.
‘What was the mood in Cork when last you were there?… Is it still quiet along the Blackwater?… When does the Lieutenant-General, the Earl of Ormonde, think Tyrone will venture into Munster in force?’
‘Why do you not seek shelter within the Pale, at Dublin, Master Spenser?’ Nicholas asks over a chunk of rosy salmon taken from the nearby Awbeg stream.
‘I have faith in the power of the Crown, Dr Shelby. The Lord Justices are considering appointing me Sheriff of Cork. How would it look if I were to run away from my duties? Besides, I have some three thousand acres here at Kilcolman, and more elsewhere. My absence from the estate might embolden those in Munster who harbour rebellion in their hearts. I would not see such profitable land defiled. Then there’s my library, and all my manuscripts.’
Now Nicholas understands why Spenser was so reluctant to leave Ireland. ‘Do you not fear the isolation?’ he asks. ‘You are very vulnerable here.’
Spenser’s confidence is unshakeable. ‘Kilcolman has stood for centuries. It was built when the Munster chieftains were warring amongst themselves. We have our own water supply, and enough provisions to hold out until Dublin sends us relief. What do we have to fear from a band of rebellious peasants?’
Nicholas thinks of the wooden gates in Kilcolman’s outer wall, which they had passed through on their arrival. Stout enough – but light a few fardels of brushwood against them and it wouldn’t matter how thick or how high the stone walls were.
With a rattle, Gardener lays his knife and spoon on his plate. ‘Master Spenser, Mistress Spenser, your board has been as welcoming as ever. But I must beg to be excused. The hour is late, and I must be on the road early.’
‘To Cork?’ says Spenser.
‘Aye, the sooner I am there, the less time the garrison will have to cover their tracks if they’ve been over-ordering their provisions and selling the surplus.’
‘Thank you for bringing us here safely, Master Piers,’ Nicholas says. ‘Will you pass this way again on your return?’