S. PERRY - The Heretic’s Mark

The other face is darker. Like its equivalent, Cecil House, home of that other great faction of England, it is a centre of intrigue and politics, of foreign entanglements and alliances that shift forever like quicksand. Hidden away in places where a guest is unlikely to stray are the expert cryptographers, forgers, intelligencers. A few of these men are also practised in the application of a skill that would turn the stomachs of the more rarefied visitors who come in via the front gate. Their domain lies below ground – so the screams won’t disturb the neighbours.

Nicholas arrives by the water-stairs that serves this other face. As the wherry rocks against the piles, Winter gives him a helping shove that will leave bruises on his back for days. He almost falls at the feet of two other men waiting for him on the planks. They are middle-aged, of middle height and from the Middle Temple, judging by their dark legal gowns. Ominous, thinks Nicholas with mounting alarm. If they are Essex House lawyers, they may have been sent simply to intimidate. But if the noble earl has brought them in from the Temple, then the accusation may already be public knowledge. It could have gathered a momentum that will be hard to stop. It could be that the letters of his arraignment have already been prepared.

They lead him up the gently sloping gardens towards the great house. He sees gardeners in linen smocks trimming the topiary; clerks and messengers moving purposefully along gravelled pathways; a gaggle of expensively dressed young gentlemen practising archery, their arrows speeding deep into a straw target set against a shady elm tree, honing their skills in the hope the earl will take them on his next expedition to the Low Countries. Or Lisbon. Or wherever else glory and riches may be had, by those with an appetite for risk.

Looking back, he sees Winter and Lank-hair trailing him like a pair of wolves trying to anticipate which way their prey will break. In the distance, out on the river, two tilt-boats glide past incongruously, their passengers enjoying a pleasant picnic beneath the awnings.

The lawyers seem to be the only two of their profession in all London disinclined to speak. In silence they lead him towards an area of stables and storerooms. It is shady here. Nicholas feels a chill in his blood, though whether real or imagined he’s not sure.

They stop before a low lintel that caps a door studded with iron. One of the lawyers produces a heavy key from the folds of his gown. He inserts it into the lock-plate and tries to turn it. The lock does not yield. He tries again. And when that too is unsuccessful, a third time.

‘Are you sure this is the place?’ he asks his companion.

‘The old carpenter’s store – that is what His Grace’s secretary told me, Master Rathlin,’ the other replies.

Rathlin tries the key a fourth time. Withdrawing it, he stares at the intricate metal maze of the bit, until Winter steps forward, takes it from him, puts it in the lock and calmly turns it in the opposite direction. Nicholas stifles a grin. They can’t believe me to be that much of a threat, he decides. They clearly didn’t think it worth sending their best legal minds.

Inside, the chamber smells of wood-shavings and old animal pelts. It is bare, save for a furrowed carpenter’s trestle. Here and there little curls of paper-thin shavings poke through the dust like wavelets on a frozen pond. It looks as though it was last used when the Earl of Leicester owned the place, and he’s been dead almost six years.

‘They said there would be chairs,’ says Rathlin, as Lank-hair wipes the dust off the trestle with his forearm. ‘Why are there no chairs?’

Lank-hair is dispatched and returns a few moments later carrying a bench just big enough to seat two. He places it before the trestle with elaborate care, as though this were the Star Chamber and not an outhouse. The lawyer without the key gives a petulant little tut, motioning to the other side of the trestle. ‘We’re questioning the accused, not the wall,’ he mutters under his breath, a small triumph of petty revenge.

‘I beg pardon, Master Athy,’ mutters Winter, as though Lank-hair is not to be trusted to make his own apology.

This inept confusion gives Nicholas no comfort. It is not Rathlin and Athy who will pass sentence upon him. That will be left to Chief Justice Popham and Attorney General Coke. Not that it matters much. No matter how sound the accused’s protestations of innocence, treason trials tend to have only one outcome.

With Winter and his friend stationed behind him, blocking the exit, Nicholas stands before this mockery of the Queen’s Bench, trying to look as though he’s being kept from more important business. Rathlin, apparently the more senior man, looks around the mean little chamber, gives a sigh of resignation and begins.

‘You are Dr Nicholas Shelby, of Barnthorpe in the country of Sussex, accredited to practise physic by the Bishop of London, and a member of the College of Physicians. Is that correct?’

‘No,’ Nicholas says, sucking in his cheeks. ‘I’m Richard Tarlton.’

This causes Rathlin to look at Winter with a severe furrowing of the brow. ‘What’s this, Master Winter? Have you brought us the wrong fellow?’

Athy put his hand over his mouth and gives a lawyer’s sonorous cough.

‘Richard Tarlton was a comedic actor , Master Rathlin – at the playhouses. He’s dead.’

Rathlin looks surprised. ‘Oh, a jest.’ Then, disapprovingly, to Athy, ‘The playhouses, you say?’

‘I do, Master Rathlin.’

Rathlin studies Nicholas through narrowed eyes. ‘Sinful places, playhouses. Given over to those who rejoice in lust, and impertinence towards their betters.’

Nicholas sighs inwardly. That’s all I need: a lawyer and a Puritan .

‘It is alleged, Master Shelby,’ Rathlin continues, ‘that you were an accomplice in the recent vile conspiracy made by the Jew Lopez, a native of Portugal given shelter in this realm, to administer to our sovereign lady, Elizabeth, a concoction fatal to Her Highness. This plan was thwarted only by the diligence of her Privy Council and the intercession of the Almighty. What say you – guilty?’

‘I say the Trinity term must be a barren one for you lawyers, if you have time to waste on such a wild fabrication.’

‘The allegation came from a reliable source,’ says Rathlin.

‘Did it really? Would you care to name it?’

‘You think perhaps we have fabricated this charge on a whim?’

The evasion gives Nicholas a glimmer of comfort. An anonymous denunciation, he thinks. ‘I’d put my money on it coming from someone I refused to purge for a bellyache brought on by overindulgence,’ he says. ‘Prove me wrong.’

Athy looks down his nose at the accused. ‘This is not a trivial matter, Mr Shelby. We are speaking here of treason.’

Nicholas shrugs, a gesture that carries more indifference than he feels. ‘I get more than a few of such charges, now that I am in the service of’ – a pause to make sure they are paying attention, then a slowing of the voice as he plays the only card he holds – ‘Sir Robert Cecil, Her Grace’s secretary.’

But Temple lawyers are not so easily distracted. Rathlin says, ‘But you have oftentimes been in close proximity to Her Highness’s person, have you not?’

‘ Oftentimes ? No; I’m not her personal physician. Not yet.’

Nicholas remembers Robert Cecil’s warning last year when he returned from Morocco. The queen had expressed an interest in having him speak to her of the Barbary shore and how the Moors practised their physic. ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Cecil had warned him. ‘She makes invitations like that to every young man whose appearance pleases her.’ But Cecil had been wrong. Elizabeth had summoned him: once to Windsor, once to Whitehall and twice more to Nonsuch. The memory of their first conversation springs into his mind now. ‘Are you sure you are a physician, sirrah? You do not have an academic look to you.’