by Robyn Young
Along one side of the room were several desks, littered with the paraphernalia of administration: rolls of parchment, stacks of paper, inkwells, seals. Robed figures clustered around them talking quietly, while others sat, scratching away with quills. A few glanced at Rodrigo and Harry, then returned to their tasks. Ahead, on a raised dais, the steps of which were flanked by more armed guards, two thrones stood beneath a canopy of gold. The back of the canopy was embroidered with red lions and gold castles on a shield, capped with a crown and mantled by a black eagle: the royal arms of Castile and Aragon, united fifteen years ago by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand. One of the thrones was empty. On the other sat a woman.
Queen Isabella I of Castile was a surprise to Harry. The commanding female voice he’d heard through the door – and all Rodrigo had told him of the queen – had painted in his mind a picture of a tall, darkly formidable woman. The figure on the throne was short and rather plump, with rosy cheeks and a neat little bow of a mouth. From the encirclement of her simple gold crown her auburn hair – telling a tale of her Lancastrian ancestry – fell in tresses almost to her waist, covering her wine-red mantle and gown, both stiff with brocade. Around her neck she wore a gold cross, with a single red jewel at the centre.
As Rodrigo approached the dais, removing his cap and bowing low, Harry hastened to follow suit. Rodrigo spoke for a few moments. When his eyes flicked to him, Harry realised the introduction had been made. Now, it was his turn. Henry Tudor slipped into his mind as he stepped forward. He could almost feel the king’s hand on his shoulder, long fingers pinching his skin, one cold eye on him, the other roving as if seeking his thoughts.
‘My lady,’ he began, tremulous, and cleared his throat. ‘I bring greetings from His Grace, King Henry of England, to you and Lord Ferdinand.’ Harry paused as Rodrigo translated for him. ‘His Grace thanks you most sincerely for the gifts you sent upon his coronation. In return, he sends you these offerings in the spirit of friendship.’ Harry looked to Peter and his servant, Hervey, who were setting down the chests at the foot of the dais on Don Garcia’s instructions. As Peter bowed and opened the lids for the queen to inspect their glittering contents, Harry was relieved to see everything seemed intact after the jolting journey. The only things missing were a pretty, jewel-handled dagger he had slipped quietly in among his own possessions and the two royal hunting dogs. One had expired soon after their arrival in Seville and the other had become so morose at the death of its companion, pacing and howling around Rodrigo’s courtyard, Harry had decided to omit it from the presentation.
Isabella gave the chests a cursory glance, but her focus was back on him almost immediately. Harry found her unwavering stare unsettling. He wasn’t used to being looked at so intently by a woman. His mother had died when he was a boy and other than the nurses and governesses who’d raised him, his only real experiences of women were his weepy young sister, Ann, to whom he’d never been close, and the blank-eyed whores he’d pleasured himself upon in the stews of Bankside.
Isabella spoke after a pause, addressing Rodrigo but keeping her gaze on Harry. When she was done, Rodrigo translated.
‘King Henry has sent you to be his emissary in our court?’
‘If it pleases you, my lady,’ answered Harry, gesturing to Peter, who swiftly tugged the papers, decorated with Henry’s seal, from the bag he carried.
The official who had led them into the chamber took the documents from the secretary. After scanning the papers, the official nodded up at the queen, who spoke once again through the voice of Rodrigo.
‘We have more need, Sir Harry, for men of war than men of diplomacy, as we advance upon the last of the infidels’ territory.’
Harry’s chest constricted. Was the queen going to send him home? Deny him the role of ambassador? He had been told this was a risk, but hadn’t for one moment entertained the thought that it might actually happen. All these months and all he had to show for it were a thickened waistline and a peeling nose? And just when he’d come close enough to Columbus to touch the man? If he was sent home now, failing to accomplish yet another of Henry Tudor’s orders, he might as well throw himself into the ocean on the way.
At once, he was back in England, three years ago, standing, dazed and silent, as the lawyer read him the Act of Attainder.
By the charge of treason, Sir Thomas Vaughan has lost the right to pass on property and titles to you, his heir. Your father’s estates are hereby forfeit to the crown.
That had been a black day indeed, the world tumbling away from under him with a lurch and a drop as all he’d ever dreamed he would be was snatched from him with his father’s last breath.
Henry, who rewarded him at his coronation with the restoration of his inheritance, hadn’t openly threatened him, but Harry knew the man well enough to sense the king’s warning, implicit, the day he’d set sail from the Port of London. I made you, Harry. His tone and eyes had said. Just as I can unmake you.
And this time, if he lost estates and title, there wouldn’t be some ragged band of rebels for Harry to join; some bold uprising on which he might scrabble his way to fortune on the blood and bodies piling up around him. There would be nothing but poverty and ignominy. He’d be disgraced; worse than a scoundrel, a beggar or a bastard. Worse than – Wynter.
He went to speak, but his mouth was dust dry.
Isabella cut into his silence. ‘Others of your countrymen have harkened to our cause these past months and we have welcomed their bows and swords for the fight. Indeed, one such company has recently joined Lord Ferdinand at Loja.’
After translating, Rodrigo paused then said something to the queen. He looked meaningfully at Harry. ‘I told Her Highness that you, too, have distinguished yourself in battle.’
Harry nodded quickly. ‘Yes. I – well – I fought alongside Henry Tudor when he took England from King Richard, my lady.’
This wasn’t true. While Henry faced down Richard’s forces on Redemore Plain, Harry had been delivering young Edward, struggling and pleading, back into the Tower to join his brother, where they would meet their fate. He thought of Sir Edward Woodville, their war-scarred uncle, cornering him in the revelry of the king’s coronation, torch-fire in the man’s eyes, the drunken roars of jubilant men grazing Harry’s ears as he stammered like an idiot through Woodville’s questions about what had happened to his nephews and why he hadn’t been at Redemore Plain.
But he had spent months in Tudor’s company in Brittany and France while the war was being planned, and before that had fought in Buckingham’s rebellion; albeit a rebellion that had failed and seen them scattered into the depths of a Cornish winter, half starved and hiding in caves. ‘It would be a great honour for me to serve you,’ he added, thinking of Rodrigo telling him how he’d risen from a squire to become one of the queen’s favoured vassals. Perhaps, in a similar position here in her court, he might come to earn her trust? Enough to fulfil his mission here? She certainly hadn’t sounded pleased in her conversation with the sailor. It might not take much to sway her opinion against him? He felt suddenly buoyed up by the thought. ‘My sword is yours, my lady,’ he added, bowing deeply.
At Rodrigo’s translation, the hint of a smile flickered at Isabella’s red lips.
‘I was going to say, Sir Harry, that despite our need for warriors our friendship with England is also important to us and you are most welcome in our court. But if you wish to join me and my husband in our holy conquest, then your sword will be gratefully accepted.’
Isabella added something to Rodrigo that the man did not translate. Instead, he bowed low and, when he raised his head, Harry saw the hidalgo’s coal-dark eyes were shining.
Isabella addressed Don Garcia, who gestured them towards the doors. ‘Please, my lady wishes you to rest, take food and drink. She asks that you join her tomorrow at her prayers; that God may bless your alliance and this new season of her righteous campaign.’
Harry found himself being escorted through the doors. Glanci
ng back, he saw Isabella talking with her official. He wished he’d been able to ask about Christopher Columbus, but this, clearly, was not the time. At least he’d been accepted, although for what, exactly, he wasn’t quite sure.
‘Now, you shall enjoy true Castilian hospitality,’ Rodrigo said as they followed Garcia down the passage.
Harry noticed that the light in Rodrigo’s eyes had not dimmed. ‘What did she say to you, at the end?’
‘She told me a company will be leaving in the next fortnight, carrying supplies to the royal camp at Loja. And that very soon I shall have the opportunity to avenge my father’s death.’ Rodrigo gripped his shoulder. ‘We will both have the chance to honour ourselves. Welcome, Sir Harry, to God’s war.’
10
The Ponte Vecchio seethed with people. They inched between the shops that lined its length in a sluggish stream, disturbed by eddies of movement as, here and there, someone struggled against the tide. Between the statue of Mars, rising behind him, and the bridge’s far end, all Jack could see were shuffling bodies. They clammed around him, an oppressive mass of nudging elbows, spit-flecked coughs and sour sweat. Calls of traders sounded, butchers leaning from their doors to announce the price of pigs, freshly slaughtered; copper sting of blood on the air, a slop of guts swirling in the river below.
It was still early, but already it was hot. Not the scorched heat Jack had known in Seville, or the blushing warmth of England and France, but muggy, the air thick, clouded with insects. As a line of perspiration threaded down his cheek, he swiped it away, not taking his eyes from the blue silk cap, banded with gold, that bobbed several bodies ahead.
That morning, poised in the shade of a shuttered shop, gaze fixed on the arched doors of Santa Croce, he had alighted on the gaudy hat only briefly, almost dismissing it, eyes scanning the men and women pouring out through the doors, the church bells hammering in his ears, before the man wearing it emerged from the crowd and, beneath its bright brow, Jack had recognised the face of Marco Valori, his angular jaw framed by a neat dark beard.
The relief he’d felt on seeing the man had escaped him in a sharp breath and Ned had turned expectantly.
‘What? Do you see him?’
Ned had straightened as Jack motioned to the young man making his way across the piazza, then turned and whistled down the alley the shop bordered, attracting Adam’s attention. ‘It’s him! Get her set.’
‘Don’t lose him,’ Ned had murmured, as Jack had stepped out into the molten gold of the early morning.
Jack had no intention of doing any such thing.
It was a month since he’d been introduced to Marco Valori at the party and failed to make any inroad into the Court of Wolves; a month of restless lingering and fruitless planning, listening to the grumbling of his companions in the stale dusk of the Fig tavern, unable to sleep at nights in the hot little room at the top of the palazzo, airless even with the door open on to the terrace, trailing the streets with Amelot, hoping the girl would spot the man she’d recognised in the bustle of the city’s twisting streets. But with no sightings of Amaury’s abductor and no sign of Marco at either his family’s wool-washing factories or the church Lorenzo had told him the young man attended for Mass, Jack had started to panic.
These past weeks, he had only been granted fleeting glimpses of Lorenzo: sweeping through the inner courtyard followed by a flock of clerks and notaries, at the end of a corridor talking intently with Poliziano, disappearing through the doors of his private chambers with Marsilio Ficino. It seemed there were many things to occupy Florence’s ruler: elections in the Signoria, the recent marriage of his eldest daughter, Lucrezia, and the city’s greatest celebration of the year – the Feast of St John the Baptist – which had surpassed even the riotous merriment of Carnival, with tournaments, banquets and a wild horse race through the streets. But, after their last meeting, Jack had been left in no doubt that if he didn’t make progress soon, Lorenzo would tire of allowing him and his men to live at his expense and find another way into the secretive company to hunt down whoever had taken Amaury and had – perhaps – infiltrated his household.
His host wasn’t the only one growing frustrated with the wait. Just last night Valentine had mentioned Spain again, offhand in another conversation, but, still, it had made Jack’s nerves tighten. All this time, learning the language, embedding himself in the city and the fiction of his new life? If turning from what he had come here in search of had been unpalatable back in February, it now seemed impossible. He’d walked too far down this road to be dragged back to take a different, unwanted, route that would lead to another life entirely, away from what he’d been promised if he succeeded here. Even now, his dreams would throw him, sweating, from fire-bruised hells, and every unbidden memory or thought of his mother or father was tangled with the questions that kept him trapped in a past grown murky and confusing; everything that made him – him – thrown into doubt.
Heart hammering with weeks of pent-up anticipation, ignoring the anonymous crowds that pushed against him, Jack kept his focus fixed on Marco Valori crossing the bridge just ahead of him, eyes drifting only briefly to the slight figure in grey, who’d been trailing Marco closely since he’d passed out of the shadow of Mars, and was now only one pace behind.
Ahead, a man halted abruptly, catching someone passing with a call. As they paused to talk, they became rocks around which the tide parted grudgingly. Jack cursed, losing sight of Marco in the shift of bodies. He pressed forward, ignoring the muttered gripes. Suddenly, someone stepped into his path; a glitter of tawny eyes, the stretch of a hand and the wink of a blade disappearing beneath grey folds of cloak. He grasped hold of the purse Amelot stuffed into his palm as she slipped past. At the same time Jack caught sight of the blue hat again, slightly to his right now, but still close.
‘Hey!’
A few people glanced round at his shout, but the girl was gone, leaving no sign of who or what Jack was yelling at.
‘Thief!’
More people turned at this, including Marco Valori, just as Jack lifted the purse.
The young man’s eyes alighted on it and widened. ‘You!’ he shouted angrily, starting forward. He pulled up short as he reached Jack, brow pinching in confused recognition. ‘Sir . . .?’
‘James,’ Jack added for him, discouraged by what little impression he’d clearly made on the man at the party. He held out the purse: soft blue leather, its cut strings dangling. ‘Is this yours? I saw someone snatch it. I had no idea it was you.’
‘Who?’ urged Marco, eyes flicking over the people now squeezing around them.
‘I tried to catch him, but he dropped it and ran.’
Marco, an angry flush colouring his cheeks, was still staring past him as if thinking to go after the thief, but the purse extended in Jack’s hand and the press of people dissuaded him. Amelot had chosen her moment well. ‘A pox on the son of a bitch,’ Marco murmured, before turning his attention to Jack. ‘Sir James, of course. From London.’ He took the purse with a tight-lipped smile. ‘Thank fortune you were here.’ He tied the strings to the front of the decorated belt that pulled in his brocaded doublet, close to a gold-handled stiletto. ‘How are you faring in the House of Medici?’
The question was exactly what Jack had been hoping for. The bait, thanks to Amelot’s light fingers, had been taken. Now to reel him in. ‘To be honest, Signor Marco, since fortune has brought us together, I would appreciate some advice.’
‘Oh?’ said Marco, eyes flitting in the direction he’d been walking. ‘Well, I’m—’
‘It’s about my host,’ pressed Jack. ‘It’s about Signor Lorenzo.’
Marco’s gaze sharpened on him. ‘Yes?’
Jack tensed in expectation, but kept his expression neutral, glancing at the stream of bodies shuffling around them. ‘Is there somewhere we might talk?’
After a moment, Marco nodded. ‘I haven’t broken my fast yet. There’s a place in Oltrarno I frequent. Will you join me?’
> As Marco led the way through the crowds, Jack felt his anticipation pull tighter, knotting in his chest. That sharpness in Marco’s eyes had roused him.
Lorenzo had hoped the lies they had spun around him – a young nobleman on a sojourn in Florence, with a father in the wool trade and royal connections – would be a tempting enough prospect for the Court of Wolves, many of whose older members had made their fortunes in wool, before rising export rates in England had begun to curtail such opportunities. But although other men, like Amerigo Vespucci, had sniffed keenly around him at the party, drawn by the story, Marco had seemed only politely interested. In deciding how to approach the man again, Jack had opted to take a different tack.
Ahead, across the river, the red dome of Santo Spirito rose above the haze that shrouded the cramped and dirty district of Oltrarno. Earlier, when the bells had rung to end curfew, the eleven gates in the city’s vast ring of walls – five miles around and set with forty-five watchtowers – had rumbled open and men and women of the outer districts had filed in, heading for the cloth factories, drying barns, tanneries and workshops of their masters. The narrow thoroughfare that ran alongside the Arno was filled with the rattle of cartwheels and the clop of clogs. Marco strode along it to a row of tall, narrow buildings, their façades dappled by the sunlight dancing off the river.
One door was open into a shadowy, vaulted interior. Outside it, a round, red-faced little man in an apron stood talking to someone by a bench. At the sight of Marco he smiled broadly. Nodding his comrade farewell, the man gestured them enthusiastically towards the bench. ‘Signor Marco! Good day to you. Come, come! I will bring wine. And food, yes?’
