Nicholas recalls something Cecil had told him before his departure: You could thatch Essex House with all the poets the noble earl likes to keep there. Essex promotes them, encourages them, indulges them… He could be planning to entrap me into some enterprise he can use to my disadvantage with Her Majesty, using Spenser as bait…
Watching Spenser walk away, Nicholas struggles to fathom his sudden change of heart. But he can find no answer. Whether he is bait or not, one thing is clear. Whatever secret he is carrying, Edmund Spenser is scared stiff of his supposed benefactor, the Earl of Essex, catching even a scent of it.
His thoughts are interrupted by Bianca throwing her arms around him.
‘We’re almost home, sweet,’ she says happily.
Nicholas wonders how he’s going to break the news to her that the only suitably privy place for a meeting between Spenser and Cecil that he can think of is their lodgings at the Paris Garden.
‘Yes, home,’ he says distractedly. ‘And let us stay here until our feet grow roots.’
A light dusting of snow whitens the downstairs windowsills of the neat little timbered house that lies on the north side of Southwark’s Paris Garden, close by the river Thames. Beyond the glass, flakes the size of moths flutter gently to earth against an alabaster sky. Looking out on the cold, ghostly world through the windows of the modest chamber that passes for the great hall, Nicholas can imagine an army of Norsemen encamped along the riverbank, warming itself around its fires and cooking cauldrons.
It is five days now since he, Bianca and Edmund Spenser arrived in London. Five days during which Bianca has barely allowed little Bruno out of her sight. Retrieving him from the Jackdaw, she had feared he might have no recollection of her whatsoever. But her concerns have proved groundless. He is a precocious lad, quick to learn, eager to hear her tales – mostly invented – of the strange and distant land from which she has returned. At this moment Bruno is in the parlour, disjointedly recounting them to three surprisingly indulgent Cecil bodyguards, while their master – the queen’s principal Secretary of State – warms himself in front of the fire in the main hall.
Cecil is wearing the scholar’s plain black knee-length gown he brought back from his studies at the Sorbonne fifteen years ago, Nicholas notes. It still fits. The Parisian tailor who made it cut the cloth to flatter the wearer’s crooked back. He looks like a well-to-do lawyer who’s dropped by for a chat and a glass of sack. He casts his gaze around as though marvelling at how a couple with an infant son could tolerate living in a space that, at Cecil House, might serve as a storeroom for the pewter.
‘You should find yourself somewhere more fitting for a queen’s physician,’ he says. ‘Build yourself a decent place at St Giles. I can arrange a good mortgage for you with a banker, if you wish.’
‘And can you also arrange for the sick on Bankside to cure themselves?’ Bianca asks waspishly. ‘Let St Giles find its own physicians.’
As if he hadn’t heard her, Cecil asks, ‘Where is Master Spenser, by the way?’
‘I’m sure he will be here shortly, Sir Robert,’ Nicholas says. ‘With Christmas approaching, the traffic on London Bridge can often be impassable. And, with respect, you didn’t give us much of a warning.’
‘You can do that if you arrive by private barge,’ Bianca says. She does not find it easy to make polite small-talk with the man who once threatened her husband that he would hang her for a witch if he didn’t agree to spy for him, and who thinks turning her son into the model of an English courtier is somehow appealing to her. Nevertheless she fetches a bottle of good malmsey and marchpane comfits from the kitchen and does her best to make the Secretary of State feel welcome. She still hasn’t fully forgiven Nicholas for offering their home as the place for Cecil and Spenser’s privy meeting.
The rapping of a fist against the street door puts an end to her embarrassment.
‘God give you good morrow, Mr Secretary,’ Spenser says, making a laborious bend of the knee to Robert Cecil. The light dusting of snow on the shoulders of his gaberdine cape drips onto the floor. He takes it off and hands it to Nicholas, as if to a servant. Nicholas drops the cloak onto a chair, not really caring if the melting snow dribbles down the insides.
Cecil gives Spenser a lingering look of reproach. ‘Good of you to join us, sirrah,’ he says. Then, bluntly, ‘Tell me, Master Spenser, in Ireland do they consider me a saint?’
Spenser stares at Cecil, not knowing what to say. ‘Why, no, Sir Robert,’ he manages. ‘That would be blasphemy.’
Cecil gives a slow exhalation that could signify weariness. Or the savouring of long-delayed revenge. ‘Yet a saint’s forbearance appears to be exactly what you expect of me.’
‘I do not follow you, Sir Robert.’
‘I seem to recall a pamphlet that was widely circulated some years ago…’
‘A pamphlet, Sir Robert?’
‘A vile satire on the probity of Her Majesty’s courtiers. It was entitled “Mother Hubberd’s Tale”. Do you recall it, by any chance?’
Spenser swallows hard. ‘I believe I might, sir.’ He studies the buckles on his shoes, muddy from the walk from King’s Street.
‘I can’t quite hear you, sirrah,’ says Cecil, twisting the knife a little. ‘Would you kindly repeat that?’
‘Sir Robert. I confess it – I was the author of the said pamphlet.’
Cecil’s little body seems almost unable to constrain his indignation. ‘You were clever, I’ll give you that – a fable about an ape that usurps the throne of the animal kingdom, aided by a cunning fox,’ – a stern wag of Mr Secretary’s right index finger – ‘but the fox was meant to be my late father, Lord Burghley, Her Majesty’s most faithful and devoted servant. And you traduced him as a manipulative schemer.’
‘The character was an amalgam, Sir Robert,’ Spenser says wretchedly. ‘Lord Burghley was never named.’
‘Funny, then, how all London came to the conclusion it was him. I have no doubt that in Mistress Merton’s tavern the most common sort of fellow was all but prostrate with mirth.’
Bianca glances at Cecil with a look that says, Leave me out of this.
‘If you desire an apology, Sir Robert, I offer it freely,’ Spenser says. ‘I was a much younger man then. Young men tend to be intemperate.’
‘Well, you have a bold face, sirrah, and no mistake. What I find hard to understand is why you sent me a privy letter about some matter of great import that you believe should be brought to my attention. Why should I care to hear a single word you have to say about anything?’
Spenser weighs his words before speaking. ‘Because, Sir Robert, like your lord father, you care for Her Majesty’s continued preservation.’
But Cecil is that rare man, a courtier who scorns flattery. His face hardens and the dagger point of beard pricks forward in Spenser’s direction as he looks up at the taller man.
‘If you’ve made all this fuss simply to have me read your writings on the present state of Ireland, you’ve wasted your time. I read it when you presented it to the Stationers’ Register. I have no intention of advising Her Majesty that we starve the population of Ireland in order to make them biddable to her rule.’
‘This has naught to do with my View, Sir Robert. It concerns another matter entirely.’
‘Then you had best explain yourself, Master Spenser, before my limited tolerance for your scurrilous versifying is spent.’
‘It has to do with the Spanish, Sir Robert. And it is of such importance to the safety of this realm that I had to be sure news of it reached no other member of the Privy Council.’