The Quality of Mercy

by Faye Kellerman

  Shakespeare was silent.

  Fottingham crossed and uncrossed his legs. He said, “Mayhap Whitman was tired of paying the weasel. Perhaps he announced his intentions to Chambers and an accidental but most disastrous exchange occurred.”

  “Chambers killed Whitman?” said Shakespeare dubiously.

  Fottingham nodded eagerly.

  A bit too eagerly. Shakespeare knew the assumption was absurd. Hours before he died, Harry himself had diced with Mackering in a desperate attempt for money. Harry would not have needed money to pay off Chambers if he were going to speak his mind once and for all. Besides, a confrontation might inspire Chambers to talk to the wrong people. That could have meant death for Harry’s kinsmen, certain death for the Jesuit. Harry would never have chanced it.

  Mackering. He’d caught a healthy group of coneys in Hemsdale. Lots here would have need of extra pence to pay off Chambers. Gambling would be seen as a viable and quick solution.

  In one respect Fottingham was correct. The question was not who killed Chambers. The correct query was who killed Whitman. Shakespeare had his suspicions, but he kept them to himself.

  The alderman stopped nodding and cast his eyes upon the floor. He had been drained of all his joviality. It was useless to keep badgering him. Shakespeare didn’t believe he’d been involved in Harry’s death, and that’s all that mattered to him at the moment.

  “I must be off,” he announced. “I cannot repay you for your kindness, Master Fottingham. You have been a gentleman beyond compare, have heaped upon me, without bound, too much graciousness.”

  Fottingham waved him off, saying that his house was open to the player any time. He hesitated, then added in a whisper, “I don’t know who did Chambers in. I swear to you, Shakespeare, I don’t know. But if I knew who he was, I’d kiss him. If it be Mackering, then the ruffian has a warm bed in my house.”

  Shakespeare didn’t reply.

  “Do you think that Chambers killed Whitman?” Fottingham asked.

  Shakespeare shrugged. Fottingham didn’t press him. He was very grateful to see the player off.

  The sky had reduced its downpour to simple rain. The country lanes had become rushing brooks and Shakespeare was soaked to the bone. No matter. His stomach was full and he was making good time. He had been riding south for two hours and would probably reach the next inn—the Portwater—by nightfall.

  He felt certain of one thing. Chambers’s murder was connected to Harry’s. Someone had waited until Shakespeare had revisited the North to do Chambers in. As for the stew, maybe she was part of it. Or maybe she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Only two people here knew that Shakespeare had meant to question the innkeeper—Fottingham and the Jesuit, Silvera. He had not mentioned Chambers to any of the Henleys, nor to anyone else in town.

  One possibility was that Chambers had been killed by Fottingham. The alderman, upon talking to Shakespeare in the alehouse, had felt his grave secret was about to be uncovered. By killing Chambers he rid himself of an extortionist and protected his confidences. But Shakespeare had his doubts about Fottingham cast as a murderer. The hospitable alderman seemed appalled as Shakespeare described the murder, genuinely horrified. Fottingham just didn’t seem like a heartless killer.

  A second possibility: Chambers had been killed by Silvera. After Shakespeare had questioned the Jesuit, Silvera assumed that Chambers was the murderer of his true and spiritual son. The priest, consumed with grief, sneaked into town in one of his many disguises and did Chambers in with his own hand. The whore was an unfortunate victim. Or was she? In his religious fanaticism the Jesuit wouldn’t mourn the death of a harlot. Perhaps he believed the town gossip and thought the stew a witch.

  Thou shalt not suffer a sorceress to live.

  There were diverse men who desired Chambers dead. But Shakespeare still had no idea who desired Harry murdered, or how the two—or three—slayings were connected.

  Mackering was the common thread. Harry was filling the coffers of both Mackering and Chambers. Chambers was dead. So it was back to Mackering and London once again.

  Another hour of riding put him in the burg of Cordick at dusk. The town was small and dreary and awash in mud—indistinguishable from Hemsdale. Dusk was an evil witch, as cold and still as death, hooded by shadows—malevolent, vaporous shapes lurking everywhere.

  Shadows. They set his nerves tingling. What had he seen in that tavern a week ago? Just a shadow? Or the black beast? Who was he or it? At least Shakespeare knew that shadow wasn’t Fottingham—Shakespeare had seen it leave the alehouse as he spoke with the alderman. It had been watching him constantly. Even as he rode, Shakespeare sensed he was being followed, yet he turned around and saw nothing.

  Thick mist was behind him, as amorphic and mutable as the Devil. Shakespeare saw in it the frothy tips of an endless tide, the windblown sails of a stranded ship, the billowing velvet gown of a duchess, a silent, evil specter of night.

  A chill swept across his body.

  Chapter 51

  The banging on the front door woke up the entire Lopez household. Rebecca sat up in her bed and reached for her candlestick but knocked it over with the back of her hand. Cursing silently, she dropped to the floor and fumbled around on hands and knees.

  The pounding grew even louder, muffled voices inside—her parents, the servants. Scampering feet.

  “Open up!” demanded a voice. This one from outside the house. “Open up!”

  So loud. Rebecca felt herself shaking. The devil with the candlestick!

  She stood up, threw her shawl around her nightdress, and stumbled through the darkened gallery, trying to reach the staircase without tripping. She met her mother on the second-floor landing. Sarah was holding a candlestick, the light quivering from the tremble of her hand.

  “Go back to sleep,” Sarah ordered her daughter.

  “Where’s Father?” Rebecca asked. “Is he dressing?”

  “OPEN THE DOOR!” ordered the voice once again.

  “Where’s Martino?” cried Rebecca. “Why isn’t anyone opening the door?”

  “Go back to sleep!” Sarah screamed.

  A loud thud shook the house.

  “They’re breaking the door down, for God’s sake!” said Rebecca. “This is absurd! I’ll open the—”

  Sarah grabbed Rebecca’s arm and yanked her away. “You desire to make it easy for that red-haired bastard!”

  Rebecca lurched backward as if pushed. It was the first time in her life she had ever heard her mother swear.

  Essex, Rebecca thought. What did that self-serving, evil cur want with Father now! “Where’s Ben?” she screamed above the pounding.

  “He heard them coming and dashed out the back way,” Sarah said. “He’s off to your uncle. May God show him strength! May the Almighty have mercy on our wretched souls—”

  “Oh Mother!” Rebecca started to cry.

  “Stop!” Sarah ordered. “Oh, I pray you, daughter, do not do that.” Her face contorted; scrunched-up eyes that tried to dam the flood of tears. “Stop!”

  The two women hugged as they heard the door crack, splinter into planks of wood. They remained motionless, holding each other tightly as the Queen’s men charged through the open embrasure of the door arch. There were a dozen of them, carrying torches and ropes. Swords and daggers swung from belts fastened around their waists.

  Rebecca felt her mother go slack. She gripped her soundly, dragged her to a chair resting on the landing and fanned air in her face with her shawl.

  “Where is that treasonous dog!” screamed the same voice Rebecca had heard on the outside. She could barely make out his face. Big with a black beard. Or did it only look black in the night?

  They were bounding up the steps.

  “Where is your father?” demanded the black-bearded man. He said father as if it were an obscenity. He was close to her now. She could feel his hot breath, taste his spit. “Where’s your father hiding out, girl! I advise you to spe
ak, else you’ll be arrested along with the traitor—”

  “He’s dressing,” Sarah answered weakly. “I pray you, let him finish—”

  “He’s here!” shouted one of the men from the top of the stairs.

  “Drag him hence, the filthy dog,” ordered Black Beard.

  “What are the charges?” Rebecca asked.

  “Out of my way, girl!”

  Rebecca felt the clip of his strong forearm against her mouth. It caused her teeth to cut through her lip. She held her mouth, then fell to her knees and grabbed Black Beard’s robe.

  “I pray you, what are—”

  Black Beard backhanded her across the face. Rebecca was stunned, her face burning with pain. She crumpled to the floor.

  “Not my daughter, I beg you!” her father’s voice cried plaintively. “Anything but—”

  “Silence!” Black Beard ordered.

  Rebecca’s head was still ringing. She heard the word treason as the charges were read. Through blurry eyes she saw her father. He was flanked by two of the Queen’s guards, each one gripping his arm. Two others were binding his hands behind his back. Roderigo had on his hose and shirt, but no sleeves and shoes. Without thinking, Rebecca stood up and went to fetch his remaining garments and boots, but was quickly stopped by another blow to her face. Again she dropped to her knees, her head an explosion of pinpoint lights.

  She heard the faint cries of her father’s protests, the sharp sound of flesh against flesh, the sickening crunch of broken bone.

  Roderigo howled in pain. He looked at his wife, held out his hand to her, but was pulled away before they could touch. He gave a single glance over his shoulder as they dragged him away. Rebecca was holding her head, crying, the blood of her mouth mixed with tears.

  “I love thee, Becca,” he shouted to her.

  He thought he heard her shout it back. But he wasn’t certain.

  It was known in the Tower as the Dungeon amongst the Rats. It lay adjacent to the water somewhere beneath the Cradle Tower, a cave twenty feet deep with no light. At high tide the clammy hole became infested with rats seeking shelter.

  High tide was approaching. Esteban Ferreira de Gama could feel the icy rocks turn even colder. He could hear occasional squeaks, and whispers of scampering across boulders, make out the glow of red eyes. He could feel sharp paws tickling his ankles, scratching the soles of his feet, and knew it was only the beginning.

  He reached upward—dear God, what a supreme effort that was—and tried to pull himself onto a ledge two feet above the floor of the cave. But he was too weak and the rocks were slimy and wet. He fell into a nest of squirming rats, his face burrowing in their dank, wet fur, their mouths licking his nose. De Gama held back a dry heave and stood up, brushing cold, wet noses off his legs.

  He tried again, raw fingertips gripping the slippery rocks. One big hoist and he was up, resting uncomfortably on a small algae-covered table. His hands were tucked into the crevices of wet rock and helped support his weight. His still-swollen shoulders were in excruciating pain. His feet dangled a foot away from the floor. Yet for the time being he was safe.

  What had he done to deserve this?

  What did they want from him?

  He had told them the truth almost immediately. Not all of it, but most of it. He had told them he was aiding the escape of hundreds of Spanish and Portuguese Jews doomed by the Inquisition. He admitted falsifying citizen’s papers, giving them to the smuggled so they might live legally in the Low Countries. But that was the extent of his clandestine involvement with Lopez.

  He had expected deportation—to be sent back to Spain, or to the New World perhaps. A term of forced servitude in the Queen’s army. Or even prison. But never did he expect the rack, this dungeon…or worse, what lay ahead….

  The rocks became colder, the cave echoed with piercing whistles. De Gama felt as if he were dangling from a gangplank, about to drop into a sea dappled with red dots of light. He dug his hands farther into the cracks between the rocks, scraping his knuckles in the process. A cool, slithery-soft glob of something sucked his fingertips. Startled, he withdrew his fingers.

  Lopez! Ye Gods, only an hour on the rack and he had given them Lopez! What a coward he was! But it wasn’t enough. Essex had wanted more. Much more than de Gama had to give. The lord had wanted to know how Lopez had intended to murder his mistress. De Gama hadn’t known to what he was referring.

  So they took him to the torture chamber. It was a ten-foot-square stone cell, lit only by a torch hanging in a wall sconce. It smelled of rot and garbage, of human excrement and blood. It was dank and cold, the ceiling covered with cobwebs. They put him on the rack. The frame was six feet long with three rollers of wood within it. His back lay on a middle roller studded with iron teeth. His ankles and wrists were stuffed into tight iron cuffs, his stretched limbs fastened by ropes to rollers at opposite ends. Essex repeated the question: How had Lopez planned to murder his mistress, the Queen?

  “I know not what you mean!” de Gama protested.

  The beefeaters turned the end rollers a quarter of a revolution. Sharp points of iron dug into de Gama’s back. He felt his arms and legs reach their limit; every muscle in his body grew taut.

  “Tell me how Lopez plotted to poison the Queen,” Essex said calmly.

  De Gama frantically explained: “Lopez paid King Philip to look aside on conversos that he smuggled out. He said nothing about a scheme to murder his mistress!”

  Essex sighed and nodded to the yeoman warders. Another quarter revolution. Pain! Ripping muscles! Hot joints! Agony! He began to breathe rapidly.

  “Tell me about the pearls, musk, and amber letter.”

  De Gama lay there, his body coming apart.

  “Tell me about the letter,” Essex repeated.

  “I know nothing about a letter,” de Gama had choked out.

  Another eighth turn; his arms were tearing from their sockets. He screamed.

  “Wh-What do you want to know?” he cried. “I’ll say anything.”

  “Lopez wrote a cryptic letter under the name Francisco de Torres to your agent in Amsterdam, David, did he not?” said Essex.

  De Gama nodded. “Yes, yes! Anything you say!”

  “In this letter he mentioned pearls, musk, and amber,” Essex continued.

  “Yes! Oh God, the pain—”

  “Lopez asked David to find out the price of pearls, aye?”

  “Yes, yes!” howled de Gama. “God in heaven, help me!”

  “Loosen the wheel, my good warders,” said Essex.

  The jailers did as told.

  “Better?” Essex asked de Gama.

  De Gama nodded.

  “What meant Lopez by ‘the price of pearls’?” Essex said. De Gama was breathing more calmly. But agony still pierced his shoulders and inner thighs. He answered, “Pearls were the price of the Spanish Jews. How much Lopez was willing to pay to redeem Spanish Jews…Spanish conversos.”

  Essex looked displeased. “Pearls meant the price charged by Lopez to murder his mistress, Her Majesty!”

  “No—”

  “Warders! Another turn!”

  De Gama screamed.

  “Lopez was paid by Philip to murder Her Majesty, the Queen of England!”

  “No!”

  “Lopez was planning to poison her as he had planned to poison Don Antonio, his former master.”

  “No!”

  “Warders!”

  “NOOOOO!”

  “Then tell me the truth!” Essex shouted. “Lopez was planning to poison his mistress! Pearls was a code word for the Queen!”

  “No—”

  “Warders, another—”

  “NOOO. Aaaahhhh!”

  “Lopez was trying to poison the Queen!” Essex screamed. “Admit it!”

  De Gama felt his head going numb, drool ooze from his mouth. His vision turned black.

  “Admit it!” Essex ordered.

  Before he fainted, de Gama heard one of Essex’s men storm int
o the chambers and talk excitedly about a ring.

  When he woke up, he found himself in the infamous rat dungeon. Last night had been horrible. He hadn’t known what to expect. But now he was prepared.

  He hoped.

  The rocks turned still colder. The red sea of eyes thickened. A wave of seawater was encroaching upon his feet. The rodents were climbing atop one another, feverishly trying to escape the water that had covered the floor of the cave. Wriggling little crimson pinpoints, smelling of disease and scum. The stink of muck from the Thames saturated the cave. The stench was overwhelming, yet de Gama could not even hold his nose. He needed his hands to support him upon the ledge. The rats were entering the dungeon in droves now. Eyes upon eyes, building their own quivering tower of rodent bodies, their tower of evil in a cave underneath a tower of evil.

  They were a finger span away from the soles of his feet.

  The grating whisper of tiny paws clawing fuzzy bodies. His nostrils became congested with rat fur, his eyes watered, his ears reverberated with high-pitched squeals. The rocks reached their final level of chill. De Gama felt a wet nose brush against his little toe, a paw tickle his heel.

  He shook them off, kicked them away, but it was only temporary. Soon came another wave, another wet nose, and another, and another.

  He kicked his legs furiously, but there were too many of them. They were climbing too fast. He closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and waited for the tide to recede.

  De Gama was screaming with delirium when the jail warders brought him into the torture chamber the second time. Most of his clothes had been eaten away, leaving the converso dressed in tatters that barely covered his chest and groin. His once-thick frame had turned pitifully limp. His cheeks were gaunt, covered with a sickly pallor. The skin of his body was raw and red and covered with rat and flea bites.

  He eyed the rack and went berserk—screaming, sobbing, his arms and legs flailing about.

  But this time the jailers passed up the frame of torture and let him stand in the corner unmolested.