by S. W. Perry
His fears are not eased when he and Bianca are pushed unceremoniously down a narrow, winding set of stone steps into a dank cellar space below ground level. It has the same, forlorn smell of despair and desolation he’d encountered at the Lazar House. It’s the smell of a freshly opened grave. Behind them an iron grille slams noisily into its frame. The lock turns. At last, they are alone.
For a while neither speaks.
Nicholas can barely see Bianca in the little light that spills down the stairs and through the grille door, but he senses her standing with her back to him, looking back the way they have come as if searching for someone lost in a crowd. He sits down wearily on a pile of hemp sacks filled with something hard and unyielding. He leans forward, head in hand, resting his elbows on his knees. He’s in too much discomfort, too cold, too weary to say very much. Whatever lies ahead, Nicholas knows his ability to resist it is already beginning to drain away.
‘Why has Robert Cecil issued a warrant for our arrest?’ he asks at last, trying hard not to sound petulant, though it’s a question he’s been asking himself for six long days. ‘I presume it’s not because you refused to mix a balm for his crooked back.’
‘What does it matter now?’ Bianca replies, only the merest falter in her voice telling him she is struggling to hold back the tears.
‘What does it matter? I’ve spent six days in the Marshalsea! And, by the look of you, you haven’t been sleeping on silk and eating stuffed capon, either.’ He tries to read her face in the semidarkness – and fails.
‘I’m so sorry, Nicholas. I never meant for any of this to happen, I swear it.’
He’d try anger, but he knows he wouldn’t be able to sustain it beyond a moment or two. ‘Did they harm you? Where did they take you?’
‘The Queen’s Bench. Asked me a lot of silly questions. But no, they didn’t harm me. Timothy brought me food and extra clothing.’ She runs her hands over her forearms, indicating the brown linsey cloak she’s wearing over the green brocade kirtle.
‘Timothy? How did he find you?’
‘Bless him, he followed us – when we were taken up. When they separated us, he had to decide who to stay close to. He chose me. I suppose that’s because I pay his wages. Don’t be angry with him.’
The clang of the iron grille as it opens reverberates around the cellar. A cold knot of fear forms in Nicholas’s stomach as a harsh male voice calls out, ‘The woman is to stay. The physician is to come with me. Now!’ He recognizes it as the voice of the sergeant-at-arms from the barge that brought them here.
‘Jesu, what’s going to happen to us, Nicholas?’ whispers Bianca, grabbing his arm.
‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends on what they think we’re guilty of,’ Nicholas tells her, his throat dry, his fists clenched. And before he can stop himself, he adds, ‘Are we guilty, Bianca? Is there something you haven’t thought to tell me – something in that travelling chest of yours they took from the Jackdaw?’
Outside, the night has grown even colder. Nicholas hurries along one side of a wide courtyard, flanked by the sergeant-at-arms. The man has one hand cupped over the guard of his sword, just to let his prisoner know how easy it would be to run him through, should the thought of escape ever enter his mind.
Through leaded windows he catches glimpses of gowned clerks hard at work by candlelight. A chapel bell strikes ten. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast and now hunger has attached itself to the litany of his miseries. If Eleanor were alive, he thinks, at least there’d be the hope of a return to cling to, the promise of comfort and solace. That at least would give me the strength to face whatever lies ahead.
An imposing façade of brickwork and mullioned glass. Tall chimneys that disappear before they ever reach the sky. Everything robbed of form by the night and the dark, suffocating clouds… These are the impressions reeling in his head as the sergeant shoves Nicholas through a side-door. Though he’s relieved to be out of the night, he has no time to get his bearings. A steward in livery stands at the foot of a narrow spiral stairway. ‘Follow me,’ he commands, as if he were an executioner and the steps the way to the scaffold.
It is a fine oak-panelled room hung with expensive Flanders tapestries. At one end is a tall window glittering with the reflected light of the fire blazing in the hearth. In front of the window is a desk piled high with documents. It is a government desk. A Privy Councillor’s desk. Beyond the window: nothing but the night.
A slight man of about Nicholas’s age stands behind the desk. His shoulders stoop like a falcon mantling over its prey. He has a pale, intense face that narrows from a broad forehead to a sharp, dagger-point of a beard. He appraises Nicholas through coldly intelligent eyes.
‘Welcome to Cecil House, Dr Shelby. I am Robert Cecil.’
Nicholas is almost speechless. From the moment in the street when the sergeant-at-arms had called out ‘Robert Cecil’s men!’, he’s known that the Lord Treasurer’s son is the instigator of tonight’s events. But he has not once imagined he would stand before the courtier in the flesh. Stunned, he remains motionless for a few seconds, until the weight of the sergeant’s hand on his shoulder and a savage jab to the back of his right leg forces him to bend his knee in an ungainly stagger.
‘What have you done to him, Harris?’ Cecil asks of the sergeant, who steps back a pace as Nicholas regains his balance. ‘He looks as though he’s already spent a week at the mercies of the Lieutenant of the Tower. I told you not to harm him.’
‘I swear upon the holy cross, sir, we have handled him with restraint, as you commanded. He was in this condition when we took him from the Marshalsea.’
It dawns on Nicholas that, after six days in a cell, he must look again like the derelict he once was.
Robert Cecil regards him with amused interest. He seems to be sizing him up, measuring what he sees against an image he already has in his head. Then he turns his unsettling gaze towards the fire, where a second man sits in silence, his face hidden by the shadows.
‘I trust he’s not in his cups,’ Cecil says, addressing the dark figure in the chair. ‘You assured me he hasn’t been seen cut with ale since before Christmas. He’ll be no use to me otherwise.’
‘I have it on good authority from the warden of St Thomas’s hospital that he has been sober throughout his employment,’ comes the reply in a loud, familiar boom. The man in the chair leans forward, his bearded, heavyset face emerging into the firelight. ‘“Wine is a lecherous thing, and drunkenness is full of noise; whoever delighteth in these shall not be wise”,’ quotes Sir Fulke Vaesy portentously. ‘Is that not what the Bible tells us, Dr Shelby?’
30
Robert Cecil toys with the embossed face of a huge gold ring that he wears on his left middle finger. He raises one cloaked arm, giving Nicholas the impression he’s preparing to flap those crooked shoulders and take flight. He snaps his fingers at the steward and says, ‘Bring Dr Shelby some ease. He looks as though he’s about to fall over.’
The steward fetches a chair from the far side of the study and Nicholas sinks into it without being aware of having moved.
‘I take it this truly is Dr Shelby, Sir Fulke?’ Robert Cecil says amiably. ‘Harris hasn’t snatched some cut-purse off the streets of Southwark by mischance?’
Vaesy leaves his chair and comes close to Nicholas, wrinkling his nose as though Nicholas was a cadaver at one of his dissections. ‘It’s him,’ he says at length. ‘Reduced somewhat from the last time I saw him. Lost a little around the face. But, without question, the same man.’
‘Good. Then tonight we may hope for some satisfactory answers.’
‘Answers? I have nothing to answer for,’ Nicholas protests. ‘And while we’re speaking of answers, perhaps you could provide me with some of my own: like why I have been brought here? Why has Bianca Merton been brought here?’
Burghley’s crook-backed son does not answer. He makes a show of spreading out the books on his desk, opening each one in turn and briefly studying the
frontispiece. He looks like a lawyer assembling evidence. Then, without warning, he picks up one of the books and throws it towards Nicholas. Caught off-guard, Nicholas almost fumbles the catch. The pages of the book flutter like the wings of a startled bird.
‘How is your Latin, Dr Shelby?’ Cecil asks.
‘There’s not much call for it in Southwark,’ Nicholas answers warily.
‘I should imagine not. But you surely can’t have forgotten it in only a matter of months. Please translate the title of that book for me. I want to hear it from your own mouth.’
‘What is this about?’
‘Just read, please, Dr Shelby.’
The book is about six inches by three, a little over two inches thick. The paper is crisp, the dense black type slightly tilted on the page, through either the carelessness or the hurry of the printer. On the frontispiece is a small illustration of Hippocrates treating his patients on the steps of a Greek temple. Nicholas translates: ‘A miraculous insight into diverse and wondrous systems of physic.’
‘Printed where?’
‘Padua,’ Nicholas says, reading the line at the foot of the page, ‘in the year of Our Lord 1586.’
‘Indeed – Padua.’
‘It’s in Italy.’
‘I know where Padua is, Dr Shelby. I’m more interested in the author.’
Nicholas looks for the name and finds it written across the base of the temple. ‘Simon—’ He falls silent as his eyes focus upon the second word.
‘You were about to say?’
‘Merton. The author is Simon Merton.’
Robert Cecil smiles and stretches his ‘thank you’ almost to breaking point. He throws Nicholas a second volume, a little larger than the first. This time Nicholas catches it easily. He opens the cover and reads: ‘A treatise on the efficacy of several ancient decoctions of flora, as practised in ancient times upon the Veneto.’
‘Not a title that reads trippingly, I’ll grant you,’ says Robert Cecil. ‘But it will suffice. The author again, Dr Shelby, if you please…’
Nicholas inspects the title page.
‘Simon Merton,’ he says, struggling to keep his voice empty.
‘Again?’
‘It’s written by Simon Merton.’
‘And are you familiar with this Simon Merton?’
‘Not personally. I assume you’re going to tell me he’s related to Bianca Merton.’
‘You’re ahead of me already, Dr Shelby,’ says Cecil, clapping his small, be-ringed hands. ‘Well done. So, Mistress Merton has told you about this father of hers.’
‘Her father? Yes, a little.’
‘What do know of him?’
‘He was an English merchant, an apothecary. He lived in Padua. He died on their voyage to England. That’s all I know.’
‘In fact, Dr Shelby, he died in a cell, accused of heresy and witchcraft. His heretical theories – which were apparently even too much for the papists to stomach – are contained in these books. We found them in the possession of his daughter.’
Nicholas flicks through the pages of the two volumes Robert Cecil threw at him. It doesn’t take him long. ‘You’ve read them, have you – these books? You understand them?’
‘Sir Fulke has made a preliminary investigation. He will confirm everything I have just said.’
‘Master Robert is indeed correct,’ says Vaesy, nodding eagerly. ‘Simon Merton was a charlatan, and in no small measure a medical heretic. So much so that the Romish authorities saw fit to arrest and imprison him.’
Robert Cecil makes a play of bewilderment. ‘Mercy, to what level of sinfulness must a man sink before even the papist legionaries of the Antichrist find him too hot to the touch?’
Though he has no idea what Simon Merton looked like, Nicholas can imagine him brimming with Bianca’s spirit, as he damns everyone from the Chancellor of Padua University to the Pope in Rome for not allowing him the chance to practise his physic openly.
‘Do these titles suggest anything to you, Dr Shelby?’ Robert Cecil asks.
‘Of course they do. They’re medical textbooks.’
‘I was thinking more of the environment in which they were written and printed.’
‘Italy?’
‘The land wherein dwells the Bishop of Rome, in his foul pit of ungodliness. These are papist tracts, are they not?’
Nicholas tries desperately not to laugh at the preposterous notion that healing can have a religious dimension, let alone a political one. ‘Medicine is not religious faith,’ he protests, ‘it’s just medicine.’
‘Just medicine?’
‘Have you read Galen, sir?’
‘I have attended dissertations at Cambridge and the Sorbonne. Of course I’ve read Galen.’
‘Then you’ll know he was a Roman – a pagan. Hippocrates was a Greek. Also a pagan. But we still believe everything they wrote. If I cross the Narrow Sea to France, fall over and break my leg, does that make the fracture Catholic?’
Cecil regards him with icy suspicion. ‘Thought, Dr Shelby. That’s what’s in these books. Foreign thought. And even if what you say is true, might not a papist physician – or even an apothecary – carry the message of the Antichrist hidden amongst words of learning?’
‘That’s preposterous.’
‘Is it? You have no idea how cleverly these people disseminate their vile philosophy. Only last month we hanged and quartered a Jesuit priest who’d disguised himself as a peddler. He had the abominable devices of his ministry hidden in his box of ribbons!’
‘These are just medical books!’
Robert Cecil leans back in his chair. He watches Nicholas with practised detachment. Then he reaches down and lifts an object from amongst the papers. Flashes of reflected firelight dart into the shadows from its gleaming silver limbs.
‘Has Mistress Merton ever shown you this before?’ he asks, holding up a silver crucifix barely the length of his hand.
Nicholas stares at the little figure pinioned to the cross, its arms outstretched, its head tilted towards one shoulder. The way the letters PP have been stamped into the metal show clearly the way the crucifix is meant to be displayed: inverted.
Everything holy turned on its head.
31
You appear a little lost for words, Dr Shelby. Here – take it,’ Robert Cecil says, holding out the crucifix. ‘If your soul is pure, it should not trouble your eternal sleep – much.’
‘What is this?’ whispers Nicholas as he turns the cold silver in his fingers.
‘It’s a Petrine cross, or so I am informed by those who understand the meaning of papist symbols. The letters PP are the Latin cipher for Peter the Fisherman.’ Robert Cecil thrusts a finger in the direction of the crucifix. ‘That’s him, hanging upside-down like a common street acrobat. He desired to be martyred in that manner because he thought himself unworthy to die in the same way as Our Lord. We found it amongst your Mistress Merton’s possessions. Did you know she was a papist, a disciple of the Antichrist, Dr Shelby?’
Nicholas hesitates, not because he thinks the silver crucifix will endanger his soul, but because it’s Bianca’s secret and he feels like an intruder. ‘Oh, Bianca, why didn’t you tell me? It wouldn’t have mattered,’ he whispers. Then, to Robert Cecil: ‘I will swear on the Bible that I never witnessed Bianca Merton engage in any rite or practice contrary to the new faith.’
‘That will not help her in the slightest,’ says Robert Cecil, taking back the crucifix and laying it down like a winning card in a game of primero.
‘I’ll pay the recusancy fine. Whatever it is.’ Beneath the bluster, Nicholas loathes his own inadequacy.
‘With what? I understand you’re barely more prosperous than the patients who come to see you at St Thomas’s. I’d guess you’ll have to swim back to Bankside, for lack of the wherry fare.’
‘There’s a bridge. I’ll walk.’
Robert Cecil shakes his head in faux-admiration. ‘What exactly is this woman to you? Are you in love w
ith her?’
Nicholas colours. ‘It’s not like that.’
‘Then tell me, what is it like? I’m eager to know.’
‘She gave me a second chance – when I’d lost everything.’
‘And consequently you feel you owe her a debt? Is that it?’
‘Yes, I do. A debt – that’s exactly what I owe her.’
Burghley’s crook-backed son draws his gown around his shoulders, settles in his chair and smiles. ‘You were right, Sir Fulke. Over-sentimentality. It’s a grievous fault in the young. If ever Spain comes against us again, our young gallants will be too busy writing tearful sonnets to stop them.’
Nicholas has the urgent need to lean across Robert Cecil’s desk and ram his fist into that manipulative face, to strike the entire head off those crooked shoulders.
‘We also found this in your own chamber at the Jackdaw, Dr Shelby. Do you recognize it?’
Nicholas takes the expensive sheet of parchment Robert Cecil has lifted from his desk. As he reads the lines of neat script, his eyes moisten with tears of anger and frustration:
To Master Nicholas Shelby, right worthy gentleman of physic, greetings… Send to me a more detailed account of your spheres of interest… and should you seek the aid of far greater minds than mine own poor one, you are most heartily welcome at Nonsuch to avail yourself of the wisdom to be found in my humble library there…
‘Revelation upon revelation,’ says Robert Cecil in disbelief. ‘Imagine it: the noble Lord Lumley in correspondence with a lapsed physician who’s spent the last few months drunk under a hedge in the Pike Garden! Has God rearranged the social order while I was asleep?’
‘John Lumley is a patron of the College of Physicians,’ says Nicholas, ramming his fingernails into his palms to keep himself under control. ‘He likes discussing new ideas.’
