No reply comes. But the hammering goes on.
Bianca is first out of bed. She throws back the coverlet that smells as though it’s been kept in a leaky chest since Elizabeth’s coronation. When she lifts the door latch, she comes eye-toforehead with little Robert Cecil, the queen’s principal Secretary of State.
‘So this is where they put you,’ he says, taking note of the spartan interior. ‘If you’re called again, I shall have a word with the Lord Chamberlain. You deserve better.’
‘Why the alarm, Sir Robert?’ Nicholas asks, now standing at Bianca’s shoulder. ‘Does Her Grace require a doctor?’
Cecil gives a tight smile that dies half-formed. ‘Not the queen, Nicholas. Someone at Cecil House. My barge is being made ready as we speak. Mistress Bianca may travel with us as far as Bankside if she chooses. Either way, be at the water-stairs in ten minutes.’
Still sleepy, Nicholas is about to ask if Cecil’s father, Lord Burghley, has taken a turn for the worse. Then he remembers: old Burghley died in August.
‘May I ask who is sick? And the nature of the malady?’ he enquires as Bianca hurries to fetch his shirt and hose. ‘Not one of your children, I hope.’
‘No,’ says Robert Cecil curtly, turning on his heels. ‘Ten minutes. No longer.’
The gilded Cecil barge is already approaching the royal dockyard at Woolwich before either Nicholas or Bianca gets round to wondering why a man of Robert Cecil’s standing felt the need to deliver his summons in person.
3
‘And another thing– Nicholas! Are you listening to me?’
The slapping of the water against the hull of the Cecil barge brings Nicholas out of a semi-slumber. To his right the gardens of the Inner Temple run down to the riverbank, with black-gowned students studying their law books in the shade of the trees. To his left lie the open fields between Southwark and Lambeth. Ahead, the Thames swings sharply south towards Westminster. He wonders if he’s been dozing ever since they stopped at Blackfriars to let Bianca go ashore.
‘Yes, Sir Robert. Of course I am,’ he says brightly, trying to imply he’s been wide awake all the while.
‘That wife of yours–’
Nicholas feels a jab of disquiet in his stomach. Mr Secretary Cecil has tolerated Bianca’s perceived heresy – her Catholic faith – for as long as Nicholas has been in his service, first as an intelligencer, latterly as his children’s physician. More than once he has used it to coerce Nicholas into accepting a difficult commission. Nicholas wonders if, now that he’s frequently in the queen’s presence, Robert Cecil has decided it’s time to reconsider his forbearance.
‘What of her, Sir Robert?’
‘Her name,’ Cecil says, the irritation evident in his tone. ‘Her name.’
‘Bianca?’
‘You’re being obtuse, sirrah. Not Bianca – Merton.’
‘What’s amiss with it? It’s an English name. It’s her father’s. Would you rather she called herself Caporetti, after her Paduan mother?’
Cecil gives him the sort of look a weary schoolmaster might give a pupil who simply will not grasp simple Latin declension. ‘I’d rather she called herself Shelby. Goodwife Shelby.’
‘Oh, now I understand,’ says Nicholas, resisting a smile.
Cecil raises a cautionary finger. ‘It is an abomination to go around refusing to acknowledge her own married name. It implies her husband has no governance over his household.’
Now there’s no holding back a grin. ‘Sir Robert, I regret to inform you that a husband could have no more governance over Bianca’ – a glance up at the dark clouds gathering in the western sky – ‘than you have over that approaching storm.’
A look of resigned bewilderment sweeps across Cecil’s face. ‘For a yeoman’s son, you have a very odd understanding of tradition and propriety,’ he says, shaking his head. Then, apparently defeated, he adds, ‘You dwell now in Southwark, I think, yes?’
‘At the Paris Garden, yes.’
‘Then I recommend your attendance when next Master Shakespeare has his Shrew playing at the Rose. You might learn something.’
It is as close to humour as Nicholas has seen Cecil get. He says tentatively, not wanting to disappoint, ‘Master Shakespeare is often at the Jackdaw. I suspect he used Bianca as a muse for his Kate.’
A sudden gust of wind ruffles the dense black frizado weave of Cecil’s gown. ‘You may jest at my expense, Nicholas. But be warned: Her Majesty has a habit of taking it badly when young men she favours have the temerity to wed without her approval. She never forgave the Earl of Leicester for marrying that Knollys woman in secret. I suggest that you refer to your wife – within her hearing at least – as Goodwife Shelby. It would be best for all of us.’
‘I shall tell her, Sir Robert,’ Nicholas says, bringing his smile under control. ‘In all civil company, Goodwife Shelby it shall be. But I cannot promise I will be able to persuade Bankside to think of her as anything other than Bianca Merton.’
‘That I could abide to suffer,’ Cecil says with a sigh of resignation, ‘given that Her Majesty is unlikely to express a sudden desire to visit a tavern or a bawdy-house.’ He turns his head to watch a pair of swans glide past. ‘While we’re on the subject of names, I have one other for you to keep in the back of your mind: Robert Devereux.’
‘Why should I have a care for the Earl of Essex?’
‘Because he has a long memory.’
‘He’s shown no sign that he even recalls who I am.’
When Cecil turns his face towards him again, Nicholas can see a parental concern in his eyes, even though the two men are of similar ages.
‘Nevertheless, you would do well not to rouse him,’ Cecil tells him. ‘Even though you were exonerated of that false charge of seeking to harm the queen, he will not have forgotten the matter. You may well find yourself in his company at court. So I would advise against expressing any ludicrous and unworthy ideas about religious toleration that Goodwife Shelby – or her husband, for that matter – may have picked up while they were away in Padua.’
‘You have my word on it, Sir Robert.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it.’
The two men fall into a contrived silence. Up ahead, a grand house with sloping gardens is coming into sight, a jetty thrusting out into the river. As the bargemen port their oars, Cecil glances up at the darkening sky. ‘Another storm on its way – out of Ireland, by the look of it. It will not be the first the Devil has sent us out of that place.’ As he stands, gathering his gown about his crooked body as if to hide it, he adds, ‘What you see here, let it remain in your memory – never on your tongue. Understand?’
Now, thinks Nicholas, I am to discover why the queen’s principal Secretary of State has called me away from Greenwich in such a hurry. Because up until now, he has steadfastly refused to utter a single word on the matter.
For all he can tell, the warren of passages below Cecil House have been dug out of the ground by a race of ancient creatures, half-man, half-mole. The walls are only partly bricked. The floor is cold and moist. Nicholas is not overly tall, but even he feels the compulsion to duck. Ahead of him three servants form a human wall in front of a small door. They are big fellows, too well built for serving at table. Like him, they have adopted an uncomfortable stoop. Robert Cecil is the only one walking with his head up.