Prophecy - Страница 65

At the eastern end of Cheapside, where the Stocks Market and the Great Conduit stand, I turn north along Three Needle Street, past the grand facade of the Royal Exchange, the Flemish-designed building that looks as if it has been lifted straight from the Low Countries and dropped in the middle of London. Immediately you see that this is the part of the City where wealth gathers; merchants in expensive furs and feathered caps hurry up and down the steps of the Royal Exchange and the large houses set back from the road behind their walls are either newly built with lavish windows or converted from grand monastic buildings refurbished after the queen’s father had them closed down. Even so, where money gathers so does desperation; beggars with only the merest covering of rags between them and the October damp hover near about the steps, plaintively calling for alms from well-fed, fur-swaddled traders. At least here, with more wealth visible, people also seem to be more vigilant; outside the Exchange are liveried guards with pikestaffs, and some of the well-dressed citizens go about flanked by menservants. If whoever is pursuing me has come this far — and some instinct tells me he is near at hand — he will need to move cautiously.

I find Crosby Hall at the southern end of Bishopsgate Street, a fine new house with a gabled front of red brick and pale stone trim. A narrow alley runs alongside the garden wall and I guess that the trade entrance is to be found here; as I turn the corner, a wave of cold fear washes over me and I draw my dagger, expecting that if the assault is to come, it will be now, away from passers-by. A door clicks; I brace myself ready to lunge, the knife held before me as a young woman with a covered basket emerges from a small gate in the wall and screams with as much vigour as if I had actually stabbed her.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I say, sheathing the knife as I scramble to help her pick up her fallen laundry, but she backs up against the wall and continues shrieking as if all the legions of hell were at her heels. I conclude that my accent is not helping. A large balding man in a smeared kitchen apron sticks his head out of the gate, his fists clenched.

‘What’s all this?’

‘Forgive me — misunderstanding — I am here to see Lady Seaton? My name is Giordano Bruno.’

‘I don’t give two shits for your foreign name, ain’t no Lady Seaton lives here. Now get away before I kick you out on your dirty Spanish arse.’

‘He’s got a knife,’ the girl says, pointing, as she tucks herself behind his meaty shoulder.

I hold my hands up.

‘Lady Seaton is a guest of your master today, I believe. I am told she has an urgent message for me. If you would be so kind as to enquire? I can wait here.’

‘You will wait here and all. You’re not coming in with a knife. Get back in there, Meg, till we sort this one out.’ He holds the gate for the girl and she scuttles back inside. The man gives me a last glare.

‘Say your name again. Slow, like.’

‘Bruno. Tell her, Bruno.’

He nods, and the gate shuts behind him. The alley remains silent. I lean against the wall, swivelling my head from one side to the other, convinced now that I have been tricked, that I am standing in this mud-churned lane quite probably awaiting my execution. Well, I think — I have looked death in the face more than once and I have learned a bit about putting up a fight from my years as a fugitive in Italy. If I have been summoned here to die, I will not make it easy for them.

Time drips past, so that I have given up trying to count the minutes. A gust of wind drives flurries of dead leaves up the length of the alley; some cling to my legs before whirling onward. When the gate opens again I leap against the far wall, hand to my belt. A grey-haired man in a smart black doublet and starched ruff appears in the entrance and looks me up and down.

‘You are Bruno? Lady Seaton’s messenger?’

‘Er — I am.’ I allow my breath to slide out slowly; he does not seem about to run me through. Was the letter genuine after all?

‘Step inside. I am steward to Sir John Spencer.’ He ushers me through the gate into a small courtyard at the rear of the house. Several chickens scratch around the yard, perhaps looking for grain spilled from the sacks waiting to be loaded into storehouses. ‘Wait here. But I’m afraid I must ask you to hand over your weapon while you are inside our walls.’ He reaches out apologetically.

Still I hesitate, but as I glance over his shoulder I see, with a flood of relief so great that my legs almost buckle, the prim figure of Lady Seaton appearing around the corner of the house.

‘Oh, there you are, Bruno — I need you to take a message to the palace for me urgently,’ she calls in that same peremptory tone as before. This is clearly some cover she has devised for having someone of low birth visit her at her friends’; her acting is deplorable, but it seems to have the desired effect. I produce a sweeping bow; the steward glances at me curiously, then does the same and retreats back into the house without demanding my knife. A servant pauses to stare in the course of hefting a wooden pallet across the yard, but returns to his work at one stony look from Lady Seaton.

She offers a vinegary little smile.

‘They have still not caught the brute who killed my girls,’ she begins, with an air of accusation. ‘Sir Edward Bellamy was released without charge after Abigail Morley was found, though you may imagine the whispering at court when he showed his face again, poor man. The stink of accusation takes a long time to clear. People wanted it to be him, you know, so they could sleep easy in their beds. But the court must hold its breath in fear once more, and some of my girls are near hysterical. And the queen grows impatient.’

‘They are hopeful of finding him soon, I believe.’

‘Pah.’ Her mouth shows what she thinks of this claim. ‘They do not know what I know.’

‘What?’

She beckons me over to a corner in the shelter of a low brick storehouse.

‘They released Cecily Ashe’s body to her father for burial last week. The rest of her family came down from Nottinghamshire. There was a service in the Chapel Royal. I took the opportunity to speak to her younger sister.’

I nod to her to continue, aware that I am holding my breath.

‘Of course, the father won’t allow that poor girl anywhere near the court after what happened to Cecily and you can’t blame him, although I dare say it won’t make much odds to her marriage chances — it was Cecily had all the looks in that family, more’s the pity.’ She sniffs. ‘But you know how sisters are with confidences.’

I did not, but I nod in any case, anxious not to interrupt.

‘I got the girl away from her parents and pressed her on what Cecily had written of this beau of hers.’

‘The one you assured me did not exist?’

She purses her lips.

‘Never mind that. Apparently Cecily had been writing to her sister every week — the maids’ letters are supposed to go through me, of course, but they find ways and means to smuggle them out. She was not keen to tell me, but I can be extremely persuasive.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

She nods, as if appeased.

‘Well — this beau. Cecily had written to her sister that she was soon to become a countess.’

‘So he was an earl?’ My blood quickens again; in my excitement I clutch at her sleeve.

‘Unhand me please, Bruno.’ She smooths the silk down, but when she deigns to glance at me I see her eyes are bright with the relish of her tale. ‘So he said. I had to prise it out of the girl with threats in the end. Told her if she didn’t give me the name and any more girls died, I would tell the queen in person that she was responsible for hiding the murderer. That put the fear of God in her, I can tell you. They’re stubborn creatures at fifteen.’

‘I can well imagine.’ I picture the terrified sister cowering before Lady Seaton’s waspish tongue. ‘She gave you a name?’

‘Not a name, but a title. She claims Cecily never told her his name. She confided only that he called himself the Earl of Ormond.’ She leaves a dramatic pause for me to digest this. I shrug to indicate my ignorance.

‘So — do you know this man?’

She turns to look at me directly and her expression is gleeful.

‘That is the whole point, Bruno — there is no one of that title at court!’

‘But then — he could be anybody claiming a false title,’ I say. ‘How will it help us?’

‘I didn’t say it was a false title, just that to my knowledge there is no one known as the Earl of Ormond at court. And I know everyone,’ she adds, as if I had tried to suggest otherwise. ‘I thought it might be something you could look into. I dare say it might be some old family name that has become assimilated into another house or become defunct — the annals of the English nobility are full of half-forgotten subsidiary titles like that.’

‘So — he was English, then?’

She frowns, as if unsure of my point.

‘Well, I assumed so. How else could he have persuaded Cecily that he held an earldom?’

I push my hair back from my face, impatiently revising my theory; Courcelles speaks good English, but his French accent is so pronounced as to make him sound comical to native speakers. Lady Seaton is right; he could never have convincingly posed as an English noble, and Cecily would surely have mentioned either to her sister or to Abigail if this impressive suitor had been a Frenchman. No; much as it frustrates me to have to let go of the idea, though Courcelles’ face may fit, I don’t believe he was posing as the Earl of Ormond.