Mary Gentle (63 page)

“‘Sully’s black dog,’” she said, with only a glimmer of malice in it. “Oh, just
think,
messire, you had the lily-flower on you and I never knew! What I could have done to you…!”

The opening cell door interrupted her laughter.

I scrambled to my feet, straw dropping from me. Mlle Dariole only knelt up, a hand automatically and uselessly empty at her hip.

“Milord the Earl of Salisbury wishes your presence,” the gaoler announced. He dropped the halberd he held into guard position. “
Not
you. Him. Master Dariole.”

I
could not keep still: I walked the length of the cell and back, pacing impatiently. The last expression of her face stayed with me. A twist of the mouth, that spoke volumes of perplexity:

‘I’ll be back as soon as it’s safe.’

“Which would appear not to be soon….” I stopped pacing to listen to the clocks from the riverside and Southwark striking the hour.

Mid-day.

A silent warder thrust in meat and drink. I ate, barely noticing that I did so.

Medici? Fludd?
Who?

Is Sully dead?

A patch of sunlight at last began to creep down the eastern wall of my cell. Three hours by the clock, coming to late afternoon. I stood lost so deep in thought that the noise of the cell door opening made no impact on my attention.

A small, slight figure stood in the doorway. For a second I thought it Dariole returned.

I realised it too short and misshapen to be her.

“Messire Rochefort.” Robert Cecil signalled for the warder to close the door. I heard the lock not catch. If I had been even a quarter-hour the more impatient, I think I should have gone out of the cell in a rush, and if that meant bowling over the English Secretary of State in the process….

“What is happening, messire?” I demanded.

The small man squinted up at the barred window, and then of a sudden looked down at me. Something in his manner I found troubling.

“I have broken bad news to men,” I said steadily. “What is it you have to tell me?”

Cecil clasped his hands on the top of his ebony stick. The depth of shadow in this cell hid his expression in part; I guessed that to be why he had come here, instead of having me brought to him.
That, and that we are about to speak of secret matters
.

“One of my agents has been sick abed,” Cecil said quietly. “Quite by chance—and you will know how important we count chance, now—he saw Robert Fludd, free, and at St Katharine’s Stairs. Doctor Fludd was boarding a ship.”

“Free?”
That Fludd should be gone from the Southwark house stunned me. “A
ship?
How long ago? Where is the ship bound?”

Cecil glanced up, a hint of ruefulness on his long face. “It sailed on the morning tide, Master Rochefort. Chance has not favoured us in how soon it brought my man’s word to me. The ship, however, we know—it was the
Santa Juana,
upon which the Jesuit fathers entered England. I suspect their captain only too happy to be paid and hired to leave.”

“Sailing for Spain or Portugal.” I hazarded; hooking my thumbs into my belt to stop myself reaching for the rapier and dagger that had been taken from me. “Monsieur, we—”

“Portugal. Lisbon.” His dark eyes reflected the light from the western window. He shifted one hand to the small of his back, absently massaging those muscles which, when locked in tension, give a man pain.

There is more to this, and more to his awkwardness than physical distress, I thought.

“How do we know Portugal?” I said quietly. “What else is it that you know, milord?”

“Two men were seen boarding the
Santa Juana
.” Robert Cecil scratched in the straw with the ferrule of his stick, and shot a swift glance at me. “Do you know, monsieur, who was the other?”

I shook my head. “Some man of the Queen Regent’s? Milord, I don’t know.”

He believed me, so much was clear. He continued to fidget with the ebony cane at the straw of the cell. I clenched my fists, behind my back; put every effort I had into waiting.
He is deciding whether or not he will tell me
.

“It was Master Tanaka Saburo,” Cecil said.

I stared.

“With
Fludd?
” I truly thought I had misheard. “
Saburo,
on board a ship with
Robert Fludd?
”

“There is little chance of such a peculiar description being inaccurate, I think.”

“But—” I shook my head.

“A guard on the house was found dead, while I was about my business at Greenwich, and Madame de Medici was visiting her Majesty Queen Anne. No man else at the house noted anything, until they found the dead man, but Doctor Fludd appears to have walked from his prison.”

For a second, I could almost have believed in Fludd’s necromancy.

The samurai, I thought.

Shinobi-no-mono. Saburo called me that, once. “Assassin-in-secret.”

And I was fool enough to let my pride at being called a foul name get in the way of asking him what manner of men, among his people, might have such skills. Samurai themselves, perhaps.

“Is it known
why
Saburo has done this?”

“No man knows. No.” Cecil held up his elegant, long white fingers. “Tanaka Saburo left no message. He spoke to no man. I…am inclined to suspect that Master Saburo in fact spoke to Doctor Fludd on his first ambassadorial visit to Prince Henry, at Whitehall.”

Into the silence, I managed to say, “
This
is why Lisbon. Vessels sail from Portugal to the Japans. Fludd is going—Saburo is
taking
—”

“Taking him, yes, monsieur. Home. I had hoped you had knowledge.” Cecil’s black eyes glinted. “I am willing to put you to the question.”

Absently, I nodded. I suppose that, if anything, convinced him. Such a depth of ignorance is not impossible to counterfeit, but it is difficult. I continued to stare down at the small Englishman.

“M. Saburo spoke to Fludd….” I turned the idea about in my mind, still stunned. “While Saburo was bringing King James back to the throne—
why?
If Fludd had chosen to murder M. Saburo, I could understand it. But speaking to him, negotiating with him…
what,
dear God!”

“To find that out, I would question you, and any other man Master Saburo has been acquainted with.”

Something was in his voice despite the obvious warning. I took a step towards him. In the dim late afternoon light, I must have loomed. The small man did not flinch. It came to me in the quality of his look. A man’s mind flies to a conclusion, when he is closely involved.

I said, “Mademoiselle Dariole. This is why you demanded her attendance on you—to put her to the question—why?”

Cecil lifted his chin, looking me in the face. “No, monsieur. The young woman has not been put to the question. I talked with her, this morning, and judged her then innocent of all knowledge of this.”

The undertones in his voice warned me.

And it is of this you will speak, I thought. “Tell me.”

He paused, as if he waited for the respect that is due a Secretary of State, and then quietly spoke. “She could not help but learn through our speech, as you have, that Doctor Fludd had sailed on the
Santa Juana
. That was this morning. I sent my men to call her again, a short time ago, and…she is gone, Master Rochefort.”

I stared.

“I had a last hope that she might have come here, to you. No man can find her.”

“She’s followed him!”

I spun around, slammed my hand flat against the stonework of the cell, and let the pain searing through me take away the words I would have said.

“She’s followed Fludd. What ship? She
will
be on a ship, milord!”

“If so, she’s behind the
Santa Juana
by one tide. More than one ship will have left, even with trade so reduced. The young ‘man’ is not easily distinguishable; I have no agents who saw her leave. It may take more time to discover the name of her vessel.”

Cecil heaved a sigh that moved his crooked shoulder, and cast a longing glance at the straw, as if he would have sat down to ease his body, were that not incongruent with the dignity of an English lord.

“I fear Doctor Fludd has gone to begin his mathematical calculations over again,” Cecil said softly. “Leave aside that there are state secrets he now might tell. I think Doctor Fludd will hide, these ten or fifteen years, and then all this must be faced again—what time Prince Henry is older, stronger, and more keen of intelligence. And he will have built up a much stronger faction.”

If Fludd makes his recalculations, England may have nothing to do with the matter
. I kept my mouth shut on the thought.
I will say nothing to discourage this man from assisting me.

“Monsieur, I will find and take them,” I said quietly. “I know, from travelling with Tanaka Saburo—
and
Mademoiselle Dariole—what manner of attention it is that they have a way of drawing to them. I’ll re-take Fludd.”

Cecil’s long face warmed, very slightly. “If I consent to this—”

“Give me money, a man or two stout with a sword, information.” I turned about on the straw, a pace or two, and faced him again. “If I catch her at Dover, or the Channel ports, I will not be gone long. If she, and the samurai and Fludd, escape further—it might be a matter of weeks or months. Master Secretary, there is something else I need.”

I had no way to disguise my urgency. He shifted his hands on his ebony stick.

“This would be a great service you do for us, Monsieur de Rochefort. I think I take your meaning.”

Hard on the heels of his thought, I nodded. “Make her sign a preliminary consent. Make her, monsieur! I need you to force Marie de Medici to agree the clause that makes the treaty dependent on Sully’s welfare, and sign it. If she says Fludd is not yet recaptured—tell her, if she has not signed before I leave on the next tide, then I go to put a sword clean through Robert Fludd’s gut, not bring him back. She’ll get no use of him. I’ll kill him happily. Her
only
hope that I won’t do that is that M. de Sully is not hanged, understand me?”

Robert Cecil switched his cane to his left hand, and held out his right. “What debt I owe you, Monsieur de Rochefort, I will attempt to pay with this coin.”

I took his small hand in mine, gripping hard.

“Come.” He turned towards the door. “I will ask this much—is it possible to catch a man who may know every action that you take, before you take it? As we have seen in this his escape?”

“I don’t know, monsieur,” I said grimly, as we left the cell, “but I intend to try. We don’t know whether it’s Fludd’s foretelling which allowed him his escape, or merely an impromptu conspiracy with Tanaka Saburo.”

Fludd. Saburo.

Dariole.

It’s nothing to me now that I have put James on his throne. Except that I have, by it, enough of Cecil’s confidence that I may decide and act.

In the dark of the spiral stone stairwell, I asked more questions.

“I need two things, Mr Secretary. The location of the Spanish Ambassador’s Jesuit priests—and the name of the ship most likely to sail on the morning tide for Lisbon.”

At Greenwich, the gates were locked by reason of darkness, but I prevailed on them to let me in. There was a guard outside the room where the Spanish Ambassador’s Jesuit fathers were reported to be keeping Gabriel Santon.

Walking down the long, chill corridor, I saw that, in fact, the guard now wore Cecil’s livery.

I unhooked the suspensor strap of my Saxony rapier and unbuckled the belt, and bundled both sword and dagger in my hand together as they slipped from my body.

“Hold these.” I nodded to the warder. “Let me in; don’t follow yourself.”

The man looked as though he would have said something, but Cecil’s signed pass, coupled with my expression that I dare say was impatient, led him to clutch my weapons in one hand and turn the door’s key with the other.

I pushed past him into the room, swinging the door back so that it should shut behind me.

The door closed with a bang.

Something hit me, hard, behind the right knee.

My knee buckled and I jerked backwards, over-balancing. I recognised it for a man’s boot.

An arm went around my throat from behind, and a fist drove hard into my back—into my kidneys, with the force of a swung hammer.
Gabriel Santon, still with the tough strength of an infantry sergeant.

I could not keep in the grunt of pain; it burst out of me. Not loud enough to be heard by the warder—the door didn’t open.

I reached up and grabbed the arm, pulled it away from the choke-hold on my throat, and turned; seizing his other fist before he could punch me in the face. I shoved Gabriel around, slammed him face-first into the wall, and pinned him against the stone with the weight of my body.

“Three things!” I leaned hard against his back as he wrenched every muscle, trying to get free of my grip. I tightened my hold on his wrists, my lips close to his ear as he swore and gasped under his breath.

“One,” I said. “In six hours I shall be leaving here, on a ship bound out of England for Portugal. Two. I shall be pissing brown for a week. Three,” I finished, “I deserved that.”

Gabriel’s body stayed tense for a few seconds. I wondered if he heard.

His muscles relaxed, together; I loosed him and stepped back.

He turned, his expression all suspicion, ill-temper, and surprise.

He had the strength of a younger man still, as I knew from the pain stabbing in my lower back. He glared at me. Finally, he wiped his wrist across his mouth.