‘More heads on the backs of donkey-carts then,’ Bianca mutters under her breath.
‘What’s that you say, Mistress?’ Spenser asks, leaning forward to catch her words.
‘Nothing of consequence, Master Spenser. It merely strikes me that this isle is too beauteous a place to abide bloodshed. Perhaps it would be better for all if there were no men in it.’
‘You should tell that to the rebels, Mistress,’ Spenser says, giving her a scornful look. ‘Buttevant’s losses alone will likely run into thousands: enough to keep an earl in luxury for a year. And those rebels – who appear to have your sympathies – they kill while they pillage. They’re not above dashing out the brains of infants. And I may tell you plainly, they were the ones who taught us about lopping the heads off prisoners.’
Katherine Spenser emits a tight little gasp of revulsion.
‘I didn’t say I sympathized with them,’ Bianca says, trying to sound civil. ‘I wouldn’t wish anyone to lose their heads, or their brains.’
Spenser takes a spoonful of pottage. He draws the juices in with a sucking noise. ‘The rebels must be brought to common civility and obedience,’ he says, running the tip of his tongue around his lips. ‘And soon. Otherwise this realm will know nothing but strife until it sinks beneath the waves at the Last Judgement. Blood spilt now will prevent more blood spilt later.’
‘And Oliver Henshawe and the Earl of Essex are the men you would have spill it?’ Bianca says.
Nicholas tries not to smile at the startled look on Spenser’s face. Clearly he is unaccustomed to womenfolk voicing opinions at his table.
‘The hero of Cádiz? Of course,’ Spenser says, dismissing the servants with a wave of his hand. ‘We need a competent general here to restore the island to peace.’
‘And what if the Earl of Tyrone has no need of Robert Devereux’s peace? What if he just wants the English settlers to go away?’
‘What in the name of Jesu are you suggesting, Mistress – that we should abandon this land? There are English families here who can trace their line back to the Conqueror.’
‘But who invited them?’ Bianca asks, holding Spenser’s gaze.
Under the board, Nicholas lays a cautionary hand on Bianca’s thigh. There will be time enough, he thinks, to make an enemy of Edmund Spenser.
But Spenser seems not to have heard. Or if he has, he’s not inclined to address the question. ‘Ireland is England’s western rampart against foreign enemies,’ he says in a schoolmaster’s tone.
‘You mean the Spanish?’ says Bianca.
‘Of course. If they were free to assemble a great host here, they could almost step across into England. Would you see our monarch overthrown and our people forced into the papist heresy again, as they were in the reign of the bloody Mary?’
‘Are you inciting me to treason, Master Spenser?’ Bianca asks sweetly, wondering what Spenser would say if he knew she was a Catholic. ‘A most ungallant manoeuvre at the supper board, if I may say so.’
Nicholas notices Elizabeth and Katherine Spenser staring at Bianca with a mixture of horror and admiration.
Spenser says, ‘Your wife is very – forthright, Dr Shelby. Is that the new fashion in London?’
‘Don’t ask me. I hail from Suffolk,’ Nicholas says, making a play of savouring his venison. ‘We have small concern for fashion there.’
‘Apparently, I’m a shrew,’ Bianca says.
‘According to Mr Secretary Cecil,’ Nicholas adds hastily. ‘I’ve said nothing of the sort.’
Bianca gives a dismissive toss of her head. ‘I have it on the Master Shakespeare’s own authority that I inspired him to write his Taming of the Shrew. He drinks in the Jackdaw more than occasionally. The saucy rogue didn’t dare name the shrew after me, of course. He called her Kate. He made Bianca the more biddable daughter. Lost his nerve, I suspect.’
Nicholas clears his throat. ‘Thank you for a very fine supper, Master Spenser,’ he says, trying to sound as conciliatory as he can. ‘With your indulgence, we shall take our ease outside, in the fresh air. When do you propose we return to Dublin?’
‘Tomorrow, after I’ve ensured my manuscripts are safely hidden away. There’s a tunnel below the house that runs out into an old quarry. I’ll have the servants store them there, along with my valuables.’
‘This tunnel – do you trust your servants not to betray its existence?’
‘If you mean my steward and the immediate household, then without question. I picked them myself. They are good Englishmen. As for my estate workers and tenants – well, the tunnel is strongly gated and locked. It will be secure enough until order is restored.’
‘But you said Kilcolman could hold out against an army, and now you’re leaving,’ Bianca pipes up.
For the first time Nicholas can see real uncertainty in the poet’s eyes. He toys with the handle of his spoon. ‘Only because I must see Sir Robert Cecil. I would not leave Kilcolman otherwise.’
For a moment, Nicholas thinks Spenser is about to make free with his thoughts, to open the gates of his inner fortress and reveal the truth behind his appeal to Mr Secretary Cecil to send him a trustworthy man. The poet opens his mouth to speak. But then the eyes lower. Spenser lays aside the spoon as though it has become loathsome to him. The cold stone walls close in again.
Outside, the air is crisp and cold. The windows in the grim tower are shuttered. A torch burns in a sconce set into the courtyard wall. The dancing pool of light it casts could be the only sign of life in the entire valley. Kilcolman is surrounded by an immense and oppressive silence.
‘There’s little profit to be had in antagonizing him,’ Nicholas says.
‘Has Robert Cecil demanded that I should like him?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I find him abhorrent. How can a man who writes verses about damsels and knights, about love and chivalry, believe what he does?’
‘I wasn’t sent here to ask,’ says Nicholas.
‘Do you not care?’
‘Of course I do. I would no more see that old Seanchaí and her husband made skeletal by famine than you would. But that is not why we are here. My task now, given that Spenser won’t speak freely to me, is to see him safely to Cecil House. That will be easier if you don’t bait him.’
Bianca puts her hands together demurely, like a maid at prayer. ‘Yes, Husband. I shall be obedient to you in all things.’
Nicholas laughs, his voice oddly loud in the darkness. ‘That will be a novelty.’ He takes her arm in his. ‘But I do have to confess there’s a lot about Edmund Spenser that troubles me.’
‘Apart from him wanting to subdue the population of Ireland by famine?’
Nicholas dodges her thrust. ‘He’s publicly insulted the Cecils in print, yet he’s determined that he has a message only Sir Robert must hear. He wouldn’t leave Ireland to speak with him face-to-face, but now he wants to go into England as quickly as may be arranged – even though he believes Kilcolman can hold out against a rebel attack. He takes us to a shipwreck, but he won’t tell us why. He favours Essex as the hammer to beat the rebels into submission, but holds a secret he’s frightened Essex might discover – at least that’s the impression I got, after his comments about Oliver Henshawe. He’s a puzzle, I’ll say that for him.’
When they re-enter the tower house, Spenser is already issuing orders. Nicholas and Bianca stand at the foot of the winding stone staircase that leads to the poet’s study. Servants hurry past with sheets of bed linen to wrap the manuscripts in, and a selection of baskets and wooden boxes to transport the product of the great man’s genius to a place of safety where uneducated peasants can’t use it for lighting fires.