CHAPTER 18

The Palace of Whitehall

After they left the house in Moorfields, Nick had no choice but to continue on to Whitehall in order to inform the Spider of Annie’s treason and her collaboration with a Spanish agent, as well as his conviction that she was responsible for the death of Simon Winchelsea and the attempted poisoning of Thomas. He was also convinced that Annie had arranged the assassination attempt on him, for he now knew for certain that the whore he had seen in The Spotted Cow had been none other than Annie.

Nick’s snaillike progress through the London streets was due to the fact that each step he took sent a shock of pain through his head—it was like having the worst hangover of his life without the benefits of getting rip-roaringly drunk the night before. But he was also in the unenviable position of having to confess to Cecil that he had let del Toro slip through his fingers a second time. In short, Nick was in a foul mood, exacerbated by the fact that they had found no evidence at either the tavern or the house.

“I should have realized that the reason she was drinking so much was to make the flagon lighter so she could throw it at me,” he said for the umpteenth time. “Stupid, stupid.”

“I think that’s pretty clever,” John said.

Nick gave him an irritated look. “I mean, I’m the one who’s stupid.”

“No arguments there.” But John slapped his friend on the shoulder to take the sting out of his words.

“Tell me again what happened when you followed Gavell and Stace,” Nick said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t too alert last night.”

“You nodded off in the middle of my account.”

After Rivkah had patched him up, Eli had walked with Nick back to The Black Sheep. The taproom had been full and the noise was agony on Nick’s head, so Eli had helped him up the stairs to his bedchamber. John and Hector had followed them up.

“What the hell happened?” John exclaimed, seeing Nick’s bandaged head.

“Softly, John,” Nick moaned.

Hector had jumped onto the bed and rested his huge head on Nick’s knee, his eyes looking mournfully into his as if to say, Look what happens when I’m not around to protect you.

“He was hit over the head with a poker by an irate woman in drag,” Eli told John. “Lucky he’s got a hard head.” Then, grinning at the stupefied expression on John’s face, Eli had taken his leave.

*   *   *

“I followed Gavell and Stace to a tavern and watched them drink all afternoon,” John said as they made their way through Cheapside. “At some point, they were joined by Edmund.”

“I thought they hated him?” Nick said, remembering how the hired thugs had attempted to beat Edmund up at Wood Wharf.

John shrugged. “They were pretty drunk, and Edmund was buying.”

Nick could never remember Edmund being flush enough to stand drinks for everyone before. He hadn’t appeared to have two groats to rub together. Perhaps Essex was a generous paymaster to his spies? Nick remembered Francis Bacon complaining about Walsingham’s parsimoniousness; his presence at Leicester House must mean that he sensed profit to be made paying court to Essex.

They slogged on through the mud of the London streets. Early spring had been the wettest and coldest in memory. Nick remembered sleet falling on his journey to Oxford. But the gray clouds that had hung over the city for months had now miraculously cleared and blue sky could be seen above the buildings, although the sunshine did not penetrate where the upper stories of the buildings hung tipsily over the streets. It was only the more open spaces like St. Paul’s Cross, Finsbury Fields, Convent Garden, Moorfields—where they had just come from—or the Royal Parks that received full sun, and there the trees would be beginning to show their buds. Here in the warren of streets in the heart of the city, it was perpetual dusk.

Still, the air was milder, and sensing the coming of spring, London’s collective voice had miraculously grown less quarrelsome.

“Morning, gents,” a grocer’s lad called out cheerily. “Apples only five a penny.”

“You can stick your apples …” Nick began. His head was throbbing, and the joyous sounds of London awakening to spring were more than he could bear. Even the birds cheeping raucously from the eaves was a torture. He longed for a cold, pelting rain that kept everyone huddled miserably indoors.

Quickly, John pulled Nick on.

“Misery guts,” the lad yelled after them.

Nick was also sick of people staring at the bandage around his head as if he were Lazarus emerged from the tomb, so he took it off and stuffed it inside his jerkin. The last straw would be the palace guards making jests at his expense. He also did not want to advertise to the Spider how thoroughly Annie had bested him. If he was truthful, it was the fact that she had managed to outwit him a second time that was the real reason for his bad temper. His pride had been far more sorely injured than his head.

“Rivkah will have your guts for garters,” John remarked.

“Only if you tell her,” Nick said, smiling for the first time that day. The thought of Rivkah’s professional pique filled him with gladness and brought back the feel of her fingers as she held his hand, the steadiness of her voice as she recounted an experience of such horror that it would have broken the spirit of someone with less courage. She had also told him that Thomas was out of danger and would live.

Suddenly, Nick felt churlish to be so out of sorts with the day. The advent of spring now appeared like a good omen: not only would his head mend, but he would track down Annie and bring her to justice. Even the knowledge that she was a traitor and a murderer could not destroy his everlasting thankfulness that now there were no more secrets between him and Rivkah, secrets that had kept him sleepless for many a night and had haunted his days.

*   *   *

Leaving John to drink a pint of ale with the off-duty lads at the Guard House, Nick made his way to Cecil’s rooms. He walked straight in without knocking and, before Cecil could open his mouth to protest, told him that he had incontrovertible proof that Annie was a double agent working for Spain. As he spoke, Nick saw Cecil’s irritation at being interrupted evaporate. By the end of his account, Cecil was positively beaming, a sight that Nick found a little unnerving, so seldom did the Spider show happiness.

“Why, that’s absolutely splendid,” Cecil said. “Well done.” Then, as an afterthought, “How’s your head?” Without waiting for an answer, he stood up and began pacing the floor, rubbing his hands together. With his small size and the hump on his back, which had caused the Queen to nickname him Pygmy, he looked to Nick more like a troll prowling in his cave. “We’ve got him now,” Cecil said. “By God, we’ve got him.”

“Sorry?”

“Essex. He’s done for. The Queen won’t tolerate this. A traitor and a murderess in his vaunted spy network. Oh, this is splendid.” Cecil was virtually chuckling with glee. It was as bizarre a sight as Nick had ever seen. And as infuriating. Cecil seemed to have forgotten the death of Winchelsea and Thomas’s near death. All he seemed to care about was showing up Essex for an incompetent fool and discrediting him with the Queen. It was as if he had been transformed into a malicious boy. He couldn’t wait to run and tell tales on his hated adoptive brother.

“Remember that Walsingham did not want the Queen to know about del Toro,” Nick cautioned. He still didn’t understand why that was, but he was prepared to trust Walsingham’s judgment, at lease for the present. Whether the Queen knew or not did not affect Nick’s ability to search for del Toro and Annie.

“Are you mad?” Cecil said, stopping his pacing and staring at Nick. “She will have to know that Essex is employing a traitor. Walsingham is ill. He wasn’t thinking straight.”

It’s you who isn’t thinking straight, Nick thought.

“I sent a courier with a message informing him,” he said.

“You did what?” Cecil almost shouted. “Damn. I shall have to act fast. Come on,” he said to Nick.

“Where are we going?”

“Why, to inform the Queen about Essex, of course.” Cecil looked at him as if Nick were a particularly stupid pupil.

Nick shook his head. “Not me.”

“Might I remind you that you work for me,” Cecil said.

“And you work for Walsingham. For whatever reason, he did not tell the Queen of del Toro’s presence in London. I don’t know why, but he must have his reasons. If you inform Her Majesty that Annie is a spy, then you will have to tell her that Annie is working with del Toro.”

“Are you questioning my loyalty?” Cecil demanded.

“No. Just your judgment. I think you’re letting your rivalry with Essex get the better of you. All you can think about is discrediting his spy network, a network that he set up in competition to yours. There may be more things at stake here than your personal hatred for Essex. At least wait until the courier returns with a reply from Walsingham.”

“Get out,” Cecil said.

Nick turned and left.

“I shan’t forget your insubordination, Holt,” Cecil shouted after him. “It will go ill with you and your family.”