In early February, with London swathed in icy fog, Nicholas is summoned to Essex House. He wonders what sort of reception he will receive.
He is shown into a smart, panelled audience chamber with high windows giving onto the opaque void that hides the world outside. Essex lounges on an elaborately carved oak settle, his feet on a stool, a leather-bound volume of Virgil’s Aeneid beside him. He is dressed in a doublet of cream satin set with pearls the size of buboes. Ranged on the floor around him is a cluster of young gallants, would-be stars in orbit around a would-be sun. To Nicholas, the scene smacks uncomfortably of a court-in-waiting. Perhaps the queen is right, he thinks, not to trust this ambitious man too far.
With disdainful faces, like scent-hounds lying at their master’s feet, the gallants regard Nicholas – dressed in a simple broadcloth coat – as if he were a servant who’s had the temerity not to use the back stairs. Amongst them, he notes, is Sir Oliver Henshawe.
‘Dr Shelby, I see you’ve arrived safely,’ Essex says, looking up. ‘How these watermen find their way on a day like today, only the Almighty knows.’
‘I came across London Bridge, my lord,’ Nicholas says.
‘You walked? I should have thought to send a carriage. How uncivil of me.’ Essex gestures him to the empty settle on the other side of the hearth. ‘How’s that comely wife of yours – the Italian one. We danced, at Whitehall, I recall.’
‘She’s well, my lord. But sadly, only half Italian.’
‘I’ll warrant that will be the lower half,’ Essex says, holding Nicholas’s gaze provocatively.
For a moment Nicholas is lost for a reply. Hearing Henshawe’s guffaw, he begins to colour. Is Devereux trying to provoke him with a coarse joke?
‘Her feet, Dr Shelby. Her feet,’ Essex says with a smirk. ‘She must have learned her measures in Italy. She dances better than any English maid I’ve met – excepting Her Majesty, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Nicholas says, as though he was in on the joke from the start. But the old memories of his first year at Cambridge – and the frequent brawls with gentlemen students who thought baiting a Suffolk yeoman’s son such good sport – still smoulder and are easily rekindled. He looks Essex square in the face and says, ‘She remembers it well, my lord.’
‘I trust so,’ says Essex.
‘She described it as being like dancing with a locked wardrobe: it doesn’t seem to feel anything, and you come away wondering what’s hidden inside.’
The scent-hounds stir, but no command to bite follows. Their heads turn towards their master, looking to him for guidance. For a while Devereux’s face shows no emotion. It is a picture of studied languor, the eyebrows neatly plucked, the curls caressing the brow, the hazel eyes observant but expressionless.
And then Essex begins to smile. ‘Well, my friends, let us hope our new physician’s skill is as sharp as his wit.’ He looks directly into Nicholas’s eyes. ‘Tell me, what do you think was it that convinced Her Majesty to choose you, of all physicians, to send to Ireland with me?’
The implication could not be clearer, thinks Nicholas. Essex knows. Whatever he may be, he’s no fool. It must be blindingly obvious that my attachment to the Irish enterprise is down solely to Robert Cecil’s persuasive tongue.
‘Her Majesty, I am told, has some small regard for me,’ he replies, understanding now that, in Devereux’s eyes, he is a marked man. ‘I have served as physician to Sir Joshua Wylde’s company in the Low Countries. I have studied anatomy under Professor Fabricius in Padua. And I’m young enough, and in good enough health, to bear the climate of Ireland. Would you rather she had commanded old Baronsdale from the College of Physicians to attend you, my lord? I hear the greatest battle he has faced recently is the walk from his lodgings to the College guildhall on Knightrider Street.’
Essex considers this awhile. Then he gives a little laugh, as if to himself. ‘I am sure you will acquit yourself admirably, Dr Shelby. Sir Oliver, here, was most impressed with your work in Cork, weren’t you, Oliver?’
Henshawe, sprawling on one elbow, purses his lips in grudging approval. ‘Better than any quack I’ve ever encountered.’
‘And old Ormonde thinks you could raise Lazarus from the dead if you put your mind to it,’ Essex adds. ‘So we must be thankful for your company, Nicholas Shelby.’ A glance at his coterie, and a grin. ‘Well, my brave fellows, with our new physician to watch over us, I dare say we shall all return from Ireland in better health than when we left.’
The gallants find this hugely amusing. Nicholas does his best to take their laughter in good spirit. There can be no future, he thinks, in deliberately making himself an outcast amongst Essex’s companions. He offers up a silent prayer of thanks that Bianca is coming with him. Serving these men alone, without her at his side to confide in, would be worse, he thinks, than a year’s confinement in the Tower.
‘So, Dr Shelby. Let us get down to practical matters,’ he hears Essex say. ‘Marsh fever will be a major ill we shall have to contend with. My father learned that when he campaigned in Ireland. I fear fever more than I fear Tyrone. What are your recommendations?’
Practical matters. That’s the answer, thinks Nicholas, as he outlines a regime for keeping the men’s feet and clothes dry and their tents warm but well ventilated. Concentrate on the practical matters. Forget that Essex knows he has a Cecil spy in his headquarters. Forget the impossibility of ever finding Constanza Calva de Sagrada. Do what you did in the Low Countries: spend as much time amongst the soldiers as you can; avoid the nobles, the would-be glory-seekers, the pretend philosophers who write their verses even as the blood dries on their swords; eschew the butchers with pretty faces like Henshawe, and hope for a swift victory.
But Nicholas cannot help thinking of Ormonde’s assessment of the rebels he secretly admired. Unsoldierly as a band of Morris men… But they are fierce fighters… They do not give battle like honest fellows… They will not stand against pike, musket and horse like Christian soldiers… they fall upon our tail like hungry rats.
Looking at these primped gallants who have flattered their way into Devereux’s regard, Nicholas wonders if any of them – regardless of what knowledge they may have had of making war against the Spanish – understand quite what it is they’re letting themselves in for. He has a suspicion that fever is going to be the least of Robert Devereux’s worries.
On Bankside there is work to be done. Bianca’s apothecary shop on Dice Lane could furnish scarcely a fraction of what is needed. So contracts must be concluded with the spice merchants and grocers on Petty Wales on the north bank of the river, close by the Tower: anise, pepper and parsley for making decoctions to treat lungs troubled by the damp air rising from Irish bogs; hyssop and pine nuts to boil into an aqua mulsa to treat peri-pneumonia; wormwood and mint to make syrups for treating the flux brought on by rations left too long in the casks. All these ingredients, and more, must be sourced and barrelled, space for their transport aboard the fleet negotiated with the navy’s victualling clerks. Gratefully, Nicholas leaves the bulk of this work to Bianca. The merchants already know her well. Thus the deals Bianca strikes must surely be the only ones in all England where the final customer – the Royal Exchequer – is not robbed blind.