‘What in Jesu’s name have you been doing?’ Bianca asks when she is close enough to see the state of his clothes. ‘You look as though you’ve been for a swim, fully dressed. And you, too, Master Spenser.’
‘I slipped. Fell amongst some rocks,’ Nicholas says, telling himself it doesn’t really count as a lie. ‘Master Spenser fished me out. We both got a little wet.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘You can’t ride far in wet breeches. You’ll catch a chill. Worse, you’ll get sores in your privy places. And where am I to find liverwort around here to make into a balm?’
‘A fire will dry us off in no time. I’ve flint and tinder in my pack,’ Nicholas says. ‘What were you doing, all the way out there by the cliff?’
‘Something caught my eye. It turned out to be a big pile of rope washed up against the rocks. It must have come from the wreck. A length of it was flapping about in the breeze.’ She opens her hand to reveal a soggy, dark ball of fabric. ‘But I did find this caught up in it.’
Nicholas takes the material, shakes it out and holds it up for inspection. He can see now that it’s a length of black lace, large enough to cover a woman’s face. ‘It’s very fine. Expensive, I would have thought. Might be Flemish.’
‘It looks as though it’s a woman’s veil,’ Bianca says, ‘the sort of veil I was made to wear in Padua when we attended Mass – a mantilla. Or a bridal veil, perhaps.’
‘I saw no women amongst the dead,’ Nicholas says, nodding at the other cove.
‘Perhaps it was cargo.’ Bianca sighs at the picture that has just entered her mind, a picture of a doomed young maid calling to her distant lover as the waters close over her. ‘Perhaps the ship was carrying a girl to her wedding. Poor soul. She might be lying out there at the bottom of the sea. And somewhere is a young man waiting for a love that will never come to him. I’m going to keep it – as a memento mori.’ Bianca folds the material with great care, placing it in the pocket of her riding cloak. She looks out at the empty ocean. ‘After all,’ she says wistfully, ‘the poor souls who perished here will have nothing else to be remembered by.’
The bluffs prove a rich source of driftwood. Nicholas finds a hollow that gives shelter from the wind. Using the flint from his pack, he soon has a fire going. He and Spenser sit as close as they can to the flames, feeling the heat warm their legs and waiting for their breeches to dry. Rubbing the back of his head to ease the ache in his skull, Nicholas casts a glance at his companion. He doesn’t look like a man inclined towards opportunistic murder. For a moment Spenser holds his gaze, then looks away. A sign of guilt? Nicholas wonders.
When Bianca moves away to fetch more fuel, Spenser says bluntly, ‘You think it was me, don’t you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Nicholas replies, faintly embarrassed.
‘At the wreck – you think I climbed up after you. Struck you from behind. I could see it in your face just now.’
Nicholas shifts uncomfortably. ‘No, of course not.’
‘If you think I could easily climb up into that cabin without you noticing, you’re deluding yourself. You hit your head. You slipped. I warned you not to attempt it.’
‘I’ll ask you again, Master Spenser,’ Nicholas says as the two men don their still-damp clothes. ‘Why did you bring us here?’
‘Trust cannot be bought on a promise, Dr Shelby,’ Spenser says evasively, rubbing his hands along his thighs as if to speed up the drying. ‘Sometimes you need to see the coins placed on the table. And sometimes the transaction needs a witness.’
‘Your versifying is too clever for my ears, Master Spenser,’ Nicholas says with a shake of his head. ‘I’d rather we spoke plainly. Somehow I have the feeling you know what that ship was carrying. I think you’ve been here before.’
Spenser gives him a look as unbreachable as the walls of his Kilcolman bolthole. But a Suffolk yeoman’s son is nothing if not stubborn. Nicholas jabs a finger in the direction of the other beach. ‘Were you at the slaughter? Were you with Henshawe when he did that?’
‘Before God, I swear I was not,’ Spenser protests.
Bianca’s voice at his shoulder makes Nicholas turn his head. He hadn’t heard her return.
‘Oliver? Oliver Henshawe?’ she says.
‘According to Master Spenser, it was Henshawe and his men who were responsible for the deaths of those poor fellows across the way. It appears your old suitor is not a gentleman at all, but a merciless butcher.’
‘Is that true?’ Bianca asks Spenser.
Hurt, denial – even fear – sweep across the poet’s face like scudding clouds heralding rain. ‘I was not a witness to what happened on that beach,’ he says, casting a worried glance towards the wreck, as though he expects to see the dead propped up on their elbows, hands cupped to their ears, their corrupted bodies straining to catch his words. ‘But it would be best if Oliver Henshawe didn’t know you were here with me today.’
‘Why not?’ Nicholas asks.
‘You should know that whatever happens on this island, the Earl of Essex hears of it first from Henshawe before all others,’ Spenser says. ‘Be very cautious in what you say when that man is present.’
‘But the Earl of Essex didn’t send me here, Master Spenser,’ Nicholas says. ‘Mr Secretary Cecil did. Besides, what do you have to fear from the Earl of Essex? You told me he was your friend.’
‘We should be on our way,’ he says. ‘When we stand together before Mr Secretary Cecil, then you shall have your answers. In the meantime let what you have seen here be enough.’
And with that, Spenser again retreats behind that invisible wall of his, leaving Nicholas to wonder how many secrets one man can hold within his head.
They sleep that night in the home of yet another English settler and his family. An air of impending disaster pervades the house. The husband is outwardly calm, but the eyes of his wife and children are quick with fear. They have heard rumours that supporters of Tyrone are burning farms barely a day’s ride to the north. Their Irish estate workers no longer give them the deference they once did. They have taken it as a sign they could be next.
‘Why haven’t they fled to the safety of Dublin, or Cork?’ Bianca asks later, as they lie together in a guest chamber.
‘This is all they have. If they leave the land, there will be nothing for them but the relief of alms and charity. Then there’s the faith.’
‘Religion? Is that why they stay?’
‘They haven’t come here simply to farm. They’ve come to settle the land for Luther and Calvin. If they abandon it now, England will be set about on either side by enemies who owe their loyalty to the Pope. The Dons will land in force, unopposed – welcomed even. England could not possibly defend herself from Spanish armies in the Low Countries and Ireland.’
‘You told me at Kilcolman that Spenser’s pamphlet implies he believes the Earl of Essex is the perfect general to subdue the rebels,’ Bianca says.
‘Yes. But that’s hardly surprising. Devereux has been Spenser’s patron for years. Spenser couldn’t have achieved what he has without the earl’s help. They’re practically friends, in so far as an earl may befriend a mere poet. Essex, Southampton – those sorts of fellows keep poets like lapdogs.’
‘So why did Spenser tell us to be wary about what we say in Oliver Henshawe’s presence? What was it he said – something about Oliver being Devereux’s ears in Ireland? Surely he’d want Essex to hear what we said, if he thought it important? Yet I could see the fear in his eyes when you and he spoke of Oliver and the awful things done at the wreck.’