CHAPTER 19

Leicester House

Nick brooded on Cecil’s none-too-subtle threat to his family all the way to Leicester House. Coupled with the fact that del Toro had confessed that he was talking to prominent recusant families, it meant that Robert and his entire family could be in grave danger. Nick had to own that one of the reasons he favored keeping the knowledge of del Toro’s presence from the Queen—at least for the time being—was so that this aspect of the Spaniard’s mission would not come out. He thanked God that Robert had not actually met with del Toro. In fact, Nick had Annie to thank for that, he realized, for she had whisked del Toro away before Robert had arrived at The Spotted Cow. And there were plenty of witnesses to attest to this, Alan the tavern owner for one.

Not for the first time, Nick found himself in a cleft stick: if he captured del Toro and Annie and brought them to justice, it would come out that the Spaniard was soliciting support from recusant families, Robert included, and that would place his own family in jeopardy. If he did not, then a murderer and traitor would go free.

“You did the right thing,” John assured him after Nick had told him about his quarrel with Cecil. “Better to be on the outs with the Spider than with the Queen.”

“I hope so,” Nick said. “But if Walsingham dies, I’m fucked.”

“Better pray that he doesn’t.”

*   *   *

Arriving at Leicester House, they went straight into the front entrance and up the stairs to the second floor. Nick wanted to search Annie’s bedchamber before the Queen sent the palace guards over, as she surely would once Cecil told her that Annie was conspiring with the Spanish. He expected to find Essex in the building, frothing at the mouth at the accusations leveled at his beloved, but there was no sign of him. A servant informed Nick that Essex had left for Whitehall early that morning to take advantage of the beautiful spring weather by going hunting with the Queen. With any luck, Cecil was even now kicking his heels in the corridors outside the royal chambers and would be waiting all day for the Queen and Essex to return.

Annie’s bedchamber was tidy, and only a few of her costumes hung from hooks on the wall—Meg the prostitute that frequented The Angel, and a man’s doublet and hose. A scabbard with a knife in it was lying on the bedside table. Nick removed the knife from the sheath and examined it, but as with the knives of Gavell and Stace that he had confiscated after his fight with them at Wood Wharf, the dark, threadlike stains between the blade and the hilt could have come from any animal, and the blood itself was not proof it had been used to cut Simon Winchelsea’s throat.

Once again, they found no evidence of collusion with del Toro, no papers or even letters in cipher. Aside from the two costumes, the bedchamber could have been the chamber of any young woman.

Nick and John turned the mattress, and Nick had just made a long slash in it with his dagger when there was a thundering on the stairs and Henry Gavell and Richard Stace burst into the room.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing in Annie’s room?” Gavell demanded.

“Annie is a traitor working for the Spanish,” Nick said. “She also murdered Winchelsea and tried to murder Sir Thomas Brighton and me.”

“You lie,” Gavell said, his hand going to his sword. Stace squared up beside him, his dagger drawn.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” Nick said. The accusation of being a liar was an automatic signal for a duel of honor. Nick had no intention of engaging in one. For one thing, his head still hurt and he knew he would be slow in a sword fight; for another, he considered such duels to be childish, having less to do with chivalric honor and more to do with wounded pride.

Even so, he glanced at John, and they both moved away from the bed so they would have room to maneuver if Gavell and Stace attacked. John had his hand on his dagger but did not draw it.

“I saw Annie meeting with a Spanish agent with my own eyes,” Nick said. “I’m afraid it’s incontrovertible.”

“You are a base liar,” Gavell said, advancing on Nick with his sword drawn. “Ever since you came here, you have been causing trouble. It’s not Annie who is a traitor but you.”

“You’re making a big mistake,” Nick said, drawing his own sword.

“Not so brave without your dog, are you?” Gavell sneered. Then he lunged. Nick parried the blow and, at the same time, snatched up the coverlet from the bed and threw it at Gavell. It draped itself over one of Gavell’s shoulders, and he shrugged it off.

“Nice try,” he said, circling Nick, the point of his sword held rock-steady in the direction of Nick’s heart.

Out of the corner of his eye, Nick saw John and Stace clash daggers, then break apart, circling each other warily. But he didn’t have time to worry about him, as Gavell stamped forward and thrust the point of his sword at Nick’s chest. Nick made as if he were going to parry the blow again, then at the last minute twisted sideways and watched as the point of the blade slid past him. He leapt behind Gavell and kicked him in the back, making him fall forward. Then he placed his sword point square in the middle of Gavell’s back.

“Drop your sword,” Nick said, “or I will run you through.”

Gavell slid his sword across the room.

“Now tell your friend to do the same.”

“Richard,” Gavell said. “Do as he says.”

Stace dropped his dagger and stepped back.

John kicked it under the bed.

“Now, gentlemen,” Nick said, taking his sword from Gavell’s back and motioning for him to stand. “I hope this is the end to this foolishness. The person you should be blaming is not me or John but Annie. She is the one who has betrayed you.”

“Never,” Gavell said. “She would never do that to His Lordship or to us.”

Nick was surprised to see a kind of furious hurt in Gavell’s eyes and realized that, for all his violence, he was a loyal man. He had defended his fellow agent in the only way he knew how—at sword point. For the first time, Nick felt a kind of respect for him.

“I’m sorry,” Nick said.

He glanced at Stace, but if the huge man harbored a similar loyalty, Nick could not tell. More likely he just blindly followed Gavell’s lead, much as Ralph dumbly followed Black Jack Sims’s grandson Johnnie. Even now he was looking to his friend for instructions.

“Let’s go, Richie,” Gavell said. Then, to Nick, “You haven’t seen the last of us, that I promise. We’re going to make you pay for your damnable lies.”

Once Gavell and Stace had left the room, Nick and John sat down on opposite sides of the bed.

“Phew,” Nick said. “He almost had me. He’s not a bad swordsman.”

“That lout Stace knows how to use his knife, I’ll give him that,” John replied. “If you hadn’t got Gavell to call him off, I’d have been in trouble.”

Nick saw him wiping a smear of blood off his neck. “Are you hurt?”

“Nah,” John said. “Just a scratch.”

“Better not let Maggie see that.”

“I’ll tell her I cut myself shaving.”

At that moment, Edmund ran into the room. “I just saw Gavell and Stace downstairs,” he said. “What’s this about Annie being a traitor?”

Nick explained what had happened the previous day.

Edmund joined them on the bed, sitting down heavily and putting his head in his hands. “I just can’t believe it,” he said.

Nick remembered that Edmund was a little in love with Annie. He put his hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he said for the second time. “But believe it.”

“And she is conspiring with this Spaniard, del Toro?”

Nick nodded.

“Oh, my God. His Lordship will be devastated.”

“He’ll be more than that,” Nick said. “I’m afraid his spy network is utterly discredited. My guess is the Queen will pack him back to the Netherlands in a hurry.”

Edmund looked up. “That means I’ll be out of a job.”

Nick hadn’t considered this, but he realized Edmund was correct. He only hoped Edmund did not ask him to recommend him to Walsingham, for in all truth, he could not. Edmund was too trusting, too easily taken in. He was lucky to be alive after approaching the assassin on the London Road.

Edmund was still leaning forward, and Nick saw a chain around his neck with a ring threaded through it.

“A love token?” he joked, touching it with one finger.

Edmund dropped the ring back inside his shirt and sat up. “My father’s seal ring,” he said. “It was all he left me.”

“Surely the farm …?” Nick began, but then could have bitten off his tongue.

Edmund smiled bitterly. “The farm was sold to pay off his debts,” he said.

Nick and John exchanged glances behind Edmund’s back. The debts had been the fine that Nick’s father, the old earl, had imposed on Edmund’s father for enclosing common land. But it was not the fine that had impoverished Edmund’s family—with good husbandry, the family would have recovered their former wealth in time—but that Edmund’s father had been a drunkard and gambled the rest of his fortune away. After bankrupting himself, he had then hanged himself. Shortly after that, Edmund had come up to Oxford. Nick had heard rumors that a distant cousin of the family had paid for Edmund’s education so that he could make his own way in the world after losing his inheritance. Now Edmund was going to lose his job with Essex.

Nick clapped Edmund on the back and stood up. “Let’s go and have something to eat at The Angel,” he said. “I’m buying.”

But their plan was forestalled by the sight of Essex riding into the forecourt of Leicester House, his horse in a lather as if he had ridden it at a gallop from St. James’s Park down the Strand, which afterward Nick heard was exactly what he’d done. He drew the horse up by wrenching cruelly on its bit and almost sitting it down on its haunches, its eyes rolling white with alarm. Essex flung himself out of the saddle.

“What the hell is this I hear, Holt?” he raged. He grabbed Nick’s shirt and pulled him toward him. “What lies have you been spreading about Annie?”

“Unhand me, my Lord,” Nick said.

Essex looked at his hand grasping Nick’s shirt as if it were not his own. Nick thought he was about to see a famous display of Essex’s choleric nature and braced himself for a scuffle; then he saw something click in Essex’s eyes as if he had woken up and realized where he was. Essex let go of Nick’s collar and stepped back, visibly trying to get his temper under control, but the veins in his forehead were bulging and he was breathing hard, spots of color staining his cheeks and neck.

“That low-born cripple Cecil has just informed the Queen that Annie is a traitor working for the Spanish,” he said. “He said that this is information you brought him this morning. Is this true?”

“I’m afraid it is,” Nick replied.

John had moved to stand closely on Nick’s right side. Edmund had taken a tentative step toward Essex, then stopped midway. Perhaps it was loyalty to Essex, or perhaps it was a desire to remove himself out of striking range should Essex assault Nick. But it put him in an oddly ambivalent place, a kind of moral no-man’s-land. Nick couldn’t help thinking that if Gavell had been present, he would have done as John had and arranged himself shoulder to shoulder with his master, his loyalties clear.

Essex turned away and ran his fingers through his hair distractedly. Then, seeing his horse still unattended, he bawled for a stable lad. When a youngster arrived, Essex turned his full fury on the poor lad, berating him for not appearing sooner, blaming him for the horse’s lathered state. Nick thought it badly done for Essex to take his spleen out on an innocent boy.

“Come inside and explain it to me,” Essex said.

“We were on our way to The Angel to have a bite to eat,” Nick said. “Join us.”

Essex looked at him. “Are you refusing an order?” he asked.

Nick looked calmly back. “I take orders from the Queen.”

“I speak for Her Majesty.”

“I think not,” Nick said, remembering the quarrel between Essex and Elizabeth. “Come on, John.” He and John walked away. Edmund did not follow. “Are you coming, Edmund?” Nick called back over his shoulder.

“I … er … I think I’ll pass,” Edmund said.

“Nobody walks away from me, you piece of shit,” Essex yelled after them.

“I smell burning,” John muttered.

“What’s that?” Nick asked, puzzled.

“The bridge you just torched between yourself and His Lordship. Not to mention the one with Cecil.”

“Fuck them,” Nick said. “I’m hungry. And we have a traitor to catch.”