‘The rogue told me that if I didn’t mind my own business, ’e and Strollot would sign an affidavit before a magistrate sayin’ that it was me what killed Lemuel. If they were to do such a thing, Master Aaron, this time I’d ’ang for sure.’
Godwinson lets out his breath in a slow, desperate sigh. ‘Then I’ll stand before a magistrate myself,’ he says resolutely. ‘I may be only a shepherd, but I’m an honest subject of Her Majesty.’
‘I can’t let you do that, Master Aaron. If I’m right, they killed your son to stop ’im talkin’. They wouldn’t think twice about killin’ the father.’
‘Are we to let this stand then? Do we turn our eyes away from such deceit, while other brave fellows are riskin’ their lives in Ireland?’
‘For the present, I think we ’ave no choice,’ Ned says gravely. ‘The friends I ’ave who might give me their wise counsel are far away. To keep us both safe, I think we must ’old our tongues until they return. The war in Ireland ain’t goin’ to last for ever. They’ll be ’ome just as soon as the Earl of Essex ’as triumphed. They’ll know what to do.’
Godwinson’s eyes brim with impotent fury. ‘I shall seek out this Vyves and smite him to death with this here staff,’ he announces, wielding his shepherd’s crook so alarmingly that Ned has to fold one hand around it to calm him.
‘Swear to me, Master Aaron, that you will do nothin’ so foolish.’
But instead of so swearing, Aaron Godwinson begins to sob. He lets his crook fall to the dry earth floor of the shelter. His weathered country stoicism dissolves before Ned’s eyes.
For a moment Ned doesn’t know what to do. But then he remembers his earlier days – days when his own frustrated rage and loneliness had turned him into a thing that other folks feared. And so he wraps his huge arms around the shepherd and lets him sob out his despair over the leather jerkin that Rose washed only the day before, murmuring soothing endearments in his gravelly voice, as though this old shepherd was the child that he and Rose have, so far, been denied.
31
Nicholas has never truly laid to rest the memory of his unravelling following the death of Eleanor, his first wife, and the child she was carrying. He has often wondered how he would respond if he were to lose Bianca. The fact that he can function at all, he thinks, is a testament to the strength she has given him. Even so, he goes about his work in a daze. His fingers seem to function without the need for any commanding thought. His mind is elsewhere. Where is she? Is she alive? Is she hurt? More than once he has feared that the worst of his black imaginings will take physical shape and drag him back to that time when self-destruction seemed to be the only way to end the pain. He has interrogated the survivors of the raid on the baggage train until they have become almost fearful of his relentless questioning. For all their sympathy, they cannot help him. It was foggy… there was utter confusion… I was too busy trying to save myself to see what befell Mistress Bianca…
Despite Nicholas’s best efforts, Sir Henry Norris dies of his wounds without regaining consciousness. In another of Robert Devereux’s wild swings of mood, Nicholas makes the instant transformation from a necessity for the army’s continued effectiveness to being responsible for the death of its general of infantry.
‘Ormonde told me you were a competent physician. Why do my officers lie to me?’ Essex demands to know when Nicholas is brought before him in his tent. ‘If you’re so good, how is that one of my finest generals is now lying dead?’
In the corner Sir Oliver Henshawe stands casually picking the dirt from his fingers and twisting the expensive rings he wears, like a disreputable family retainer. He drops his gaze to the floor, as though to avoid the blast.
‘Your Grace, Sir Henry came to me grievously hurt,’ Nicholas protests. ‘The chances of him recovering were always slim. At least I was giving him a prospect of life. I’m truly sorry that he did not survive.’
‘Sorry?’ echoes Essex contemptuously. ‘You’ve done the rebels’ work for them, sirrah. You’re a traitor!’
The attack is not what Nicholas was expecting.
‘Your Grace, this is most unjust. I did everything in my power to save him. Sir Oliver, here, will confirm it.’
But Henshawe merely gives him a sly, knowing smile. Nicholas’s jaw tightens. He hadn’t expected comradeship from Henshawe, but he would have settled for honesty. Instead the man seems to be enjoying Nicholas’s humiliation.
‘You’re a charlatan – like every damn physician it’s been my misfortune to meet,’ Essex tells him with a contemptuous wave of his hand. ‘What’s more, you’re a spy for Robert Cecil. I’d lay odds that all that time you spent in Padua turned you into an apologist for heretics.’
A spy for Cecil and an apologist for heretics? The contradiction seems not to trouble Essex in the slightest. Nicholas lets the accusation fall without comment. He has other worries on his mind.
‘Your Grace, I beg to be allowed to search for my wife. She was taken during the raid on the baggage train. She could be lying hurt somewhere in the forest. I must look for her.’
‘Are you a Catholic? Is that why you let Norris die?’ Essex sneers, as though he hasn’t heard what Nicholas has just told him. ‘Henshawe tells me that wife of yours was one. I’d stake coin on her going with the rebels of her own free will. You’ve probably become infected with the same papist disease.’
The words land with such force that Nicholas wonders if Henshawe, at the earl’s secret bidding, has crept over and punched him in the head while he wasn’t looking. But there he is, still in the corner, still studying the gorgeous rings on his fingers.
‘Your Grace, I will say it again. My wife, Bianca, has been taken by the rebels. I beg you: allow me to search for her.’
But Essex waves him away. ‘I should have hanged you along with Harington’s rogues,’ he snarls. ‘If another of my officers dies through your incompetence, I swear to Almighty God that I’ll put an end to you myself.’ He turns to Oliver Henshawe. ‘Take this mountebank back to his tent. If he shows even the slightest inclination to leave camp, you have my permission to string him up from the nearest bough.’
Later that afternoon Nicholas searches out Henshawe’s tent. His hands are shaking with rage, his jaw set so tight it aches. He finds Sir Oliver sitting on the grass, chewing on a joint of chicken.
‘When you brought Sir Henry to me, apparently I was the best surgeon in the army,’ he says without preamble or courtesy. ‘Back there in the earl’s tent, I was infected by papistry and a traitor. What happened in between?’
Henshawe looks him up and down with lazy disregard. ‘Always best to keep on His Grace’s good side, don’t you think?’
‘But you know it’s not true.’
‘Do I?’ He takes a bite of meat. ‘More to the point, do you?’
Standing over him, Nicholas resists the urge to kick Henshawe in the face. ‘I need permission to take a party of men in search of Bianca at first light.’
Henshawe gives him a sickly smile. ‘That’s a pity. You heard His Grace. “From the nearest bough”.’ He jabs the chicken joint at the darkening trees beyond the camp. ‘Pick one you fancy. There’s plenty to choose from.’
‘What do you think I intend to do? Desert to the rebels? My wife is missing. I want to find her.’
‘And His Grace has decreed that you are more important to him here – just as I decreed you were important to poor Henry Norris. Temporarily.’