‘Now we know what he’s capable of, being afraid of Oliver Henshawe seems reasonable enough to me,’ Nicholas says. ‘Did he let slip his killing side when he was wooing you with verse?’
‘If you mean did he kick stray dogs or pull the wings off butterflies, then the answer is no.’
Nicholas wonders how much to tell her about the deep feeling of distrust he had for Spenser during their time alone at the wreck. He decides against it. What would be the point in alarming her? In the end, all he says is, ‘I formed the impression that Spenser had been to that bay before. After all, how did he lead us there so easily?’
‘Do you think he took part in the slaughter, with Oliver?’
‘I don’t know. For all the hard words in that pamphlet of his, he’s a poet, not a butcher.’
‘But he could have been a witness to the massacre.’
‘He swore before God that he wasn’t.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘I don’t know what to believe.’
Bianca thinks for a moment. ‘Even if Spenser wasn’t actually present, he must have visited the site before today. That would answer your suspicion that he found it too easily.’
‘That’s reasonable enough.’ Nicholas yawns and lays his head back on the bolster, wincing as his scalp touches the straw-stuffed linen. He rubs the spot to ease the dull ache. ‘Spenser isn’t just a private citizen,’ he continues reflectively. ‘He’s held civic office. Perhaps he went there to compile a report for the Earl of Ormonde in Dublin.’
‘There could be another reason,’ Bianca says slyly.
‘And what might that be?’
‘What was a Spanish ship doing in Irish waters in the first place, Nicholas? Passing by? Or landing?’
Nicholas’s jaw drops. Then he rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, my devious wife! That must be the Caporetti coming out in you.’
Bianca slaps his arm. ‘Don’t laugh at me,’ she says primly. ‘If Spenser had been there before, what if it wasn’t a wreck he had expected to find? What if he’d thought to find an intact ship, at anchor. Live people instead of dead ones.’
‘What would England’s foremost poet – the man who writes endless verse in praise of Gloriana – be doing making a rendezvous with a Spanish ship? Do you think he’s a spy, for the Spanish?’
‘No, but perhaps he knows who is.’
‘But why go to the length of taking us there?’
‘To cover himself?’ Bianca suggests. ‘To gain Robert Cecil’s protection, before Essex can put him to the rack to find out what he knows? Just because they’re friends, that wouldn’t stop Essex putting Spenser to the hard press if he thought he might be a traitor.’
‘So instead he turns himself over to Robert Cecil? Why would he do that?’
Bianca waves her hands, clutching for invisible straws. ‘Nicholas, I don’t know.’
‘Take heart, sweet,’ Nicholas advises. ‘If Edmund Spenser is set upon speaking only to Robert Cecil, that means you and I can return to England on the first available ship.’
Bianca’s eyes gleam with joy at the prospect of seeing Bruno again. Then her wide grin turns into an elfish smile. ‘It means I can return,’ she says.
‘Am I not to come with you?’ Nicholas asks, sensing her playfulness.
‘You’ll be too busy staring out to sea with a mooncalf look on your face.’
‘And why will I be doing that?’
Bianca slides out of the bed. She goes to her travelling cape, hanging from a peg on the door. Coming back, she slips in beside Nicholas and holds up the rectangle of black lace that she found in the bay.
‘A mantilla is a form of headwear, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, it’s really a sort of hat, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it could be said so.’
‘A hat that I found lying on the shore.’
‘Ah, now I see,’ he says with a grin, remembering the tale told by the Seanchaí. ‘A Merrow’s magic hat.’
‘My clever husband has it at last! They cannot live out of the water without it. Perhaps, somewhere not so very far away, a woman of the sea is calling to a mortal man so that she can steal his soul. I should be on my guard, if I were you, Husband.’ She holds the scrap of veil before her face, only partially hiding her coquettish smile.
‘Never fear, Wife,’ he says. ‘I shall be aboard that postal pinnace with you and Master Edmund. Your Merrow will be wasting her time. No matter how sweet she may sing, she can never outcharm a Caporetti.’
Barnabas Vyves has made the Jackdaw his regular haunt, or so it seems. Ned Monkton has watched the muster ensign with the missing eye play his trick four nights in a row. It’s a simple form of gulling, he’s noticed: tell a stirring tale about the hard fighting at Cádiz, fix the victim with a brave glare of your one remaining eye and wait for the sympathy to flow. A jug of ale for this brave hero, and on my coin…
Ned knows the story is nonsense. Master Nicholas had proved it so at the Southwark Fair. But if Ned were to ban every teller of a tall story from the Jackdaw, Mistress Bianca would see no return on her investment. And anyway Vyves is canny enough not to try it on the regulars.
For the first three nights Vyves performed alone, picking his spot and waiting for a likely target to pass. But tonight the man called Strollot has joined him. Ned cannot help thinking they look like the worst kind of Southwark purse-divers, huddled together as though conspiring against the entire world. He tries hard to put the notion aside. Master Nicholas and Mistress Bianca, and most of all Rose, have taught him to think better of his fellow man – however disreputable they might look – than once he did.
Tonight, as Ned turns his attention elsewhere, he remembers the lanky recruit with the agitated manner who had taken coin from Strollot some days ago, and how it had occurred to him then to question why the alderman’s clerk had paid him off, and not the man who had called him to the muster. But tonight the Jackdaw is busier than usual. The players are back and twice as voluble. Ned has other things on his mind than Barnabas Vyves and his trickery. His consideration of what passed between the ensign, Strollot and the gangly recruit must wait for a quieter moment.
11
They reach the outer gate of Kilcolman with barely an hour of daylight to spare. The stone tower gleams like a stubby beacon in the setting sun. It looks as welcoming as a fortified house can appear. But to Nicholas it is like a shout heard in an empty landscape: impossible to ignore, an invitation to any marauding rebel force.
The stout wooden gates open only when they approach close enough to be identified. In the courtyard Nicholas dismounts and helps Bianca down from the saddle. Since his first arrival, he has had his doubts about Spenser’s Irish bolthole. It is nowhere near as impregnable as its owner thinks. What he hears as they sit down to eat in the main hall doesn’t allay his concerns.
‘I am informed by my steward that the rebels have sacked Mallow,’ says Spenser. His voice sounds brittle. ‘That’s barely three leagues away. They’ve descended on the Buttevant estate like pharaoh’s locusts – stripped it bare of sheep, cattle and horses. All the corn has been burned and more hamlets fired than can be counted.’
‘Are we next, Father?’ Spenser’s teenage son Sylvanus asks.
Nicholas feels his appetite for the venison pottage wilting, despite its aroma.
‘I am informed that the Earl of Ormonde has led a force out of Dublin,’ Spenser says. ‘He’s on his way with pike and horse to chase them off.’