S. Parris - Execution

The boy made a noise like a strangled fox as he finished and was snoring within minutes. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if any of the possible rewards of this business would be worth the price.

The next day I woke early, blinking into a chilly light, aches deep in my shoulders and thighs from two days in the saddle. Gifford lay sprawled on his pallet, twitching in dreams like a dog, but I could hear low voices from the adjoining room, so I splashed water over my face and quietly pulled on my clothes, thinking Walsingham must have come for my answer. Instead I approached the half-open door to hear Phelippes in hushed conversation with a tall man who had his back to me. I could see only that he was dark-haired and wore a rust-brown leather jerkin patched on the shoulders.

‘Master Secretary mentioned nothing about this last night,’ Phelippes was saying, his voice impatient.

‘I have just now come from Seething Lane,’ the stranger said, in an accent that sounded to my ears like that of the London boatmen. ‘The Italian is to come with me to Southwark.’

‘This makes no sense. Why would Master Secretary send him poking about the scene of the death in broad daylight, when the killers may be watching the place to see precisely who comes asking questions? And you, Master Poole – I would have thought you were the last person—’

‘Perhaps you don’t know his every thought, Thomas.’ The newcomer’s voice was tight. ‘Master Secretary wants the Italian’s view on the business. Don’t ask me why – I didn’t question it. But he did say for him to cover his head with a hat and his face with a kerchief. And tell him not to shave.’

‘Does he decide the length of my beard now?’ I said, pushing the door open. Phelippes glanced up without surprise; he was still sitting behind his desk making notes on his papers as I had left him, and it was impossible to tell from his face whether he had been there all night. The tall man turned and I saw that he was in his early thirties, good-looking in a dishevelled way, with a strong jaw and thick eyebrows that met in a V above his nose. It seemed from a soreness around his eyes that he had cried recently, or perhaps it was only the dust of the streets.

Phelippes waved a hand at him. ‘Doctor Bruno, this is Master Robin Poole, supposedly come from Seething Lane to conduct you to Southwark, though I am not persuaded this is a good use of your time.’

Robin Poole met my look and rolled his eyes in what I took as a complicit comment on Phelippes and his blunt ways. So this was the brother of the dead girl, the one who wanted to run her alleged killers through without waiting for evidence. Though his face appeared open, I could not help but concede that Phelippes might be right; it seemed unlikely that Walsingham would send this man to investigate the murder of his own sister. Master Secretary distrusted anyone who could not keep a tight rein on their emotions, especially when engaged on his business, and a man in the throes of grief was not the best judge of his own actions. I inclined my head and waited. He thrust his hand out and I shook it in the English fashion.

‘Giordano Bruno.’

‘I know. You are to come with me, but cover your face. I have a horse outside.’

I glanced at Phelippes. ‘On what business?’

Impatience flashed across Poole’s eyes, but he kept his countenance. ‘I will brief you on the way. Master Secretary wants your view of things.’

‘What things?’ If Walsingham had given these orders, he must have a purpose. Perhaps he had considered it wise to let Poole feel he was playing some active part in the investigation, but wanted me there to ensure he didn’t blunder.

‘You ask a lot of questions. This murder.’ Muscles tensed along his jaw, but his voice remained steady. ‘He says you have a trained eye.’

I thought I caught a note of scepticism, but perhaps that was my imagination. I gave a brisk nod.

‘Is there anything to eat?’

Phelippes sniffed. ‘This is not an inn, Doctor Bruno. Ask Master Poole if you wish to break your fast on the way, he claims to have your needs in hand. I hope you are not being dragged on a fool’s errand. We have little time to lose as it is – the girl’s death has disrupted everything.’

Poole held the door for me, raising his eyebrows again to make clear his feelings about Phelippes. When I joined him on the stairs with a hat pulled down over my ears and a kerchief tied around the lower half of my face, he gave me a cursory glance of approval and signalled for me to follow him. I noticed that he walked with a slight limp in his right leg. He didn’t speak until we were outside, where a boy with scabs on his lip held an old but solid-looking grey mare by a rope halter.

‘You’ll have to ride behind me.’ Poole pulled himself into the saddle with an easy, practised movement that almost disguised the way he nudged his right leg over subtly with his hand. I climbed up behind him, wincing at my aching muscles. He slipped the boy a coin and we turned out of Leadenhall down Gracechurch Street towards London Bridge.

‘There is something wrong with that man,’ he said, after a while, as if challenging me to disagree.

‘Phelippes? He is unusual, I grant. But I have studied the art of memory for nearly twenty years and only ever met one other with natural faculties like his.’

Poole grunted. ‘I still say he is touched. The man behaves as if he has never known a human feeling. Mark how he spoke of my sister, as if her death is no more than an inconvenience. And he believes Master Secretary can’t scratch his arse without he, Thomas, weighs up the cost and stamps five papers to approve it.’

I laughed, though I was not sure if it was intended as a joke, but I felt him relax. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I said, as we passed down New Fish Street with the great gatehouse arch of the bridge in sight. The streets were already busy with traders’ carts, and goodwives on their way to market, baskets jutting from their hips. Gulls wheeled overhead, loosing lonely cries. The air was cold, carrying the dirt smell of the river on a sharp breeze.

‘She should never have been caught up in this,’ he replied, after a long pause. ‘Clara was an innocent, Doctor Bruno. She was not cut out for living a double life, the way we learn to in Walsingham’s service. Women are too much led by their feelings to dissemble in that way.’ He fell silent again and a shudder rippled across his back as he exhaled. I could have told him then that I had met plenty of women as skilled in the arts of duplicity as any man, and every bit as determined – I thought again of Sophia Underhill – but it was not the moment.

‘You blame Walsingham, then?’

‘It would be meaningless to blame him,’ he said, after a moment’s pause. ‘Clara volunteered for this work. She was tired of a life indoors, a poor widow marking time to become a governess. She sought adventure. Now see where that has led her – pushing her way into a man’s world.’ He seemed about to say more, but fell silent abruptly. I wondered how much detail Walsingham had told him about the manner of her death. Poole made it sound as though he partly blamed his sister for her own end.

‘Then it was her idea, to become close with the conspirators?’

His shoulders tightened. ‘She only thought of carrying letters or something in that line. She badgered Walsingham to give her a task – he said he had enough couriers. I think he had misgivings, rightly, about trusting a woman with sensitive correspondence. But if the fault for her death lies with anyone, I must own it.’

‘How so?’

He glanced to the side, wrinkling his nose as we approached Fish Wharf and the Fishmongers’ Hall on the north bank of the river and the smell assaulted us from all sides. He dropped his voice, so that I had to lean forward to hear.