‘So much for his unbreachable valley hideaway,’ Bianca observes. ‘It looks as though he expects an attack at any moment.’
Spenser’s steward hurries past, clutching a sheaf of parchment bound with legal ribbon.
‘May we be of assistance?’ Nicholas asks pleasantly.
The man twists on the first step and looks back over his shoulder. His cheeks are puffed, his brow damp with sweat. He is a man who believes that exertion is a visible measure of a task’s importance. ‘All is well, Dr Shelby,’ he says confidently. ‘Master Spenser is a demon when he has a purpose.’ He wipes a bead of perspiration from the tip of his nose. ‘I almost forgot: he bade me tell you we leave for Dublin immediately after breakfast. I shall ensure there are horses saddled for you.’
As they squeeze past the hurrying servants on the stairs to their chamber, Bianca begins to laugh.
‘What amuses you, sweet?’ Nicholas asks, his hand sliding against her backside as they climb.
‘I was just reflecting – at Greenwich I almost fell asleep during The Faerie Queene. You’d think a poet who can set such a commotion as this in play would at least write verse that kept you awake. You were right, Husband. Edmund Spenser is a puzzle.’
Nicholas wakes to a twinge of pain in his back. He rubs at what he supposes is a bruised muscle, sustained during his fall in the wreck. Or perhaps his body has begun to complain at these long days spent in the saddle. He remembers how fit and strong he had been as a boy, working on his father’s farm. Despite the trials he has endured during his service to Robert Cecil, a physician’s life is not nearly so demanding. I’m getting flabby, he thinks. Exertion is required when I return to Bankside. A series of lessons at the Guild of Fencing Masters might be in order, a punishing schedule under someone who knows what they’re teaching: Joseph Swetnam or George Silver. Bianca will tease him unmercifully, of course. But a queen’s physician is a gentleman, and gentlemen wear swords. If he has aspirations to join their number, it might pay him to know how to use one.
He eases himself onto one elbow. The candle flame has died. He can see almost nothing in the chamber. Yet there is a definite line of light edging the side of the narrow window. He peers at it for a while. It can’t be dawn already; he hasn’t slept long enough.
Then the light goes away.
Nicholas lowers himself back onto the pillow. Beside him, Bianca mutters something incoherent in her sleep.
He is about to close his eyes once more when the entire window lights up, flares briefly, then dies to a dull glow. Nicholas throws back the coverlet and goes to the window slit. Outside, in a night that his senses tell him should be as dark as Purgatory’s cellar, he can see flames dancing along the top of Kilcolman’s outer wall.
12
Spenser leads them up a twisting flight of steps and out onto the flat roof of Kilcolman Castle. A servant bearing a burning brand follows behind. After the warmth of the chamber, the night air is cold. Bianca pulls her riding cloak tight about her shoulders. Nicholas puts an arm around her. She cannot see where the land and the sky meet. The valley is lost in the darkness. But below her there is light aplenty. A fire is raging on the far side of the main gate, and a swarm of what appear to be fireflies mills in the blackness beyond. At first she thinks they are sparks from the fire. But they move with a definite purpose. She realizes they are lighted torches.
Down in the courtyard the servants have set up a human chain to bring water from the Kilcolman well. Nicholas can hear the sound of it being dashed against the inside of the wooden gates. Rising tendrils of steam tell him the fire that the rebels have set outside has gained a foothold.
‘Thank Jesu my tenants have stayed loyal,’ Spenser says, his voice sharp and pettish. ‘Otherwise these rogues would have come in through the tunnel from the quarry and caught us all in our beds.’
‘We’re not saved yet, Master Spenser,’ Nicholas says brutally. ‘That fire has taken hold. If those gates burn faster than your people can douse them with water, you’ll have more need of that tunnel than for the storage of manuscripts.’
‘Then we’ll stay here. The entrance to the tower itself has a stout enough bar.’
‘And give the rebels another door to burn?’
Spenser’s son, Sylvanus, joins them on the roof. ‘Do you think we should flee, Dr Shelby?’ he asks.
‘We’ll hold out, boy,’ Spenser says harshly, cutting him off. ‘The Earl of Ormonde’s forces are on their way.’
‘You could be waiting for days,’ Nicholas says.
‘We have food and water. We can hold. I know we can.’
Nicholas looks down over the parapet again. The fire at the gate is spreading. ‘You have no choice, Master Spenser,’ he says. ‘You cannot long defend Kilcolman against armed rebels, not with only a handful of servants, however stout these walls are. You don’t even have a proper armoury. We must go now, before it’s too late.’
Still Spenser hesitates. ‘But all my documents, my manuscripts–’
‘What about your family?’ Nicholas says, trying to stop himself from shouting. ‘What about your servants? Do you care less for their lives than you do for your verse?’
Spenser stares at him. In the light from the servant’s torch, Nicholas thinks he can see tears in the poet’s eyes.
A cheer goes up from beyond the wall. A tongue of flame, larger than the others, shoots up into the night. The rebels have added fuel to their fire. Nicholas takes Bianca by the hand and turns back towards the stairwell. To Spenser he says, ‘We don’t have much time. If we remain here, and they break through that gate, this tower will not save us. We’ll be trapped here. And if there’s only one amongst those rebels who can read, and he finds your pamphlet, I wouldn’t be expecting any inclination towards mercy, if I were you.’
As the torchlight flickers on Spenser’s face, Nicholas watches the fight go out of him.
‘You said the tunnel leads to a quarry,’ he says.
Spenser nods. ‘It’s about three hundred paces beyond the outer wall.’
‘Will it hide us from sight?’
‘In this darkness, yes.’
‘We’ll need horses if we’re to stand a chance of getting clear. Stumbling about on foot in this blackness, we could end up anywhere.’
Spenser turns away from the parapet. He points across the tower roof. ‘There’s a small, gated sally-port in the outer wall, over there. The tower and the flames should hide it from those traitors at the gate. We can lead the horses through that.’
He orders Sylvanus to take some of the male servants to the stables to saddle as many mounts as they can. Then he calls to his steward to fetch the key to the sally-port and a dagger. When they arrive, he hands them to Sylvanus. He has one last instruction for his son.
‘If any of the servants attempt to steal this key, or prevent you relocking the gate once the horses are through, use the dagger on him. Meet us in the quarry. And for Jesu’s sake, make no noise.’
Sylvanus stares at the dagger in disbelief, but takes it anyway. Then he turns and heads for the stairs.
Back inside the tower house, order is breaking down. Some of the female servants are close to panic. Spenser’s wife, Elizabeth, has forgotten her earlier jealousy. Now she all but clings to Bianca, like a child woken from a nightmare. Little Peregrine wails in a maid’s arms. Servants rush here and there like chickens surprised by a fox. In Spenser’s study, Nicholas watches as the poet stuffs pages of his View into a leather bag. Nicholas would prefer to see the pamphlet burned and the hateful propositions in it buried in the rubble of Kilcolman’s inevitable sacking. But now is not the time to antagonize. He confines himself to a terse, ‘If you’re determined to save something, I’d suggest you choose something more practical than that.’