Treachery (45 page)

‘I would never have asked her to meet me anywhere so remote,’ I say, subdued. ‘She should have realised that.’

‘She thought it was some game of yours,’ Lady Drake says. ‘She was excited by the prospect. She likes to push the bounds of propriety – it is the sort of thing she would consider daring.’ She looks at me as if this is my fault. ‘Oh God. Is she in danger?’

‘I don’t know.’ I attempt to sound reassuring, but my stomach is knotted with dread. ‘I think we should find her as quickly as possible.’

‘But whoever would want to harm Lady Arden?’ Lady Drake presses her hand to her mouth again; her eyes are wide and threatening tears.

I glance at Sidney. ‘I think it more likely that someone is trying to get to your husband. A woman alone is an easier target – and you are usually surrounded by armed men, my lady.’

Her eyes widen further. ‘You think someone meant to harm me as well?’ She flinches and looks about wildly, as if expecting to see an assassin running at her with a sword.

‘I think, my lady,’ Sidney says, stepping forward and taking her gently by the arm, ‘that you would be advised to go directly to the Mayor’s house and stay there until your cousin is found safe and well. Keep your husband’s armed men close about you.’

‘But I cannot wait there, making polite conversation, not knowing what is happening,’ she cries, clutching at my sleeve. ‘I had rather wait here for Sir Francis, he will know what to do.’

‘Your husband will be occupied with all that is going on here, my lady,’ Sidney says. ‘Better he knows you are out of harm’s way with the Mayor while he searches for Lady Arden. Come – I will walk you there myself.’ He offers his arm; after a brief hesitation, she takes it.

At the door, she turns and pins me with a fierce look. ‘Find her, Bruno. Since you are partly to blame.’ She sweeps out, towing Sidney in her wake. He grimaces at me over her head on his way out.

I throw open the door to the tap-room, where Mistress Judith is wiping down the tables.

‘Where is Hetty?’ I demand. She snaps her head up, alarmed at my tone.

‘What has that slattern done now?’ She straightens, hands on her hips. ‘She has been slow doing her rounds this morning, I know – I had another guest complain his chamber pot had not been emptied since last night. I do apologise, sir – I’ll send her up when I find her, useless wench.’

‘No – I need to speak to her urgently.’

She stares at me for a moment, then appears to think better of arguing. She points to the yard. ‘I sent her out to the pump for some water – that was a good half-hour ago. I dare say she is idling with the stable boys, though I have warned her against it. “Listen up, my little madam,” I told her …’

She is still talking as I stride out into the yard. I doubt the stable boys are of much interest to Hetty – not unless they have pockets full of coins they will trade in return for spying on the guests. Around the corner of a stable block I find her, a wooden pail by her feet, giggling with a gawky lad in a rough canvas jerkin. She glances up and at the sight of me the laughter dies on her lips.

‘Do you know what they do in my country to people who spy?’ I roar, bearing down on her with a hand to the hilt of my knife. ‘Gouge their eyes out with the point of a dagger, that’s what.’ She gives a yelp and stumbles backwards, kicking over the pail. Water spreads in a pool around her feet.

‘Now, look here, mate,’ the youth begins, stepping towards me, ‘you can’t just talk to people—’

‘If you want to keep your balls, my friend, make yourself scarce before I lose my temper,’ I say, facing him down with a stare that could melt lead. The force of this anger is invigorating, and I am only partly putting it on. The weight of my earlier weariness has evaporated, burned up in my fury; I feel every inch alive, coiled, every nerve ending charged. The boy pauses briefly to consider his options, then scrambles around the corner, scattering gravel under his boots in his haste.

‘You are going to tell me everything,’ I say to Hetty when he is gone, circling around so that I have her backed up against the wall of the stable. My hand still hovers over my knife but I keep it sheathed; let no one say I drew a knife on a young woman. But at least the sight of it has wiped that infuriating smirk from her face. ‘It was you in the corridor last night, wasn’t it? Hiding in the shadows, spying on me?’

‘I just go about my jobs, cleaning and that,’ she says, with that same sulky defiance. ‘Can’t help it if you happen to be where you should not.
Sir
,’ she adds, with a sarcasm that would wither the leaves on the trees.

‘The man who has had you spying on me,’ I say, taking a slow breath to keep me from losing my temper and slapping her, ‘he gave you a letter this morning. What did it say?’

She glares at me with pure loathing. ‘I can’t read. I told you that already.’

‘Oh, come on. You expect me to believe that? When you have been deceiving me from the beginning?’

‘It’s true!’ She looks indignant. ‘All I know’s he gave me that letter and said I was to wait till you’d gone out, then take it to that woman you been with last night.’

‘Has he been paying you well for spying on me? Bringing me letters?’

‘Better’n you,’ she retorts. The smirk reappears. I raise my hand in a flash of rage; she cowers and I lower it, trembling, shocked at myself. I have never struck a woman in my life, and some have given me better reason than this.

‘That lady you delivered the letter to,’ I say, through my teeth, ‘may die because of it. I hope you think that was worth the few pennies he threw you for your trouble.’

‘What?’ The colour drains from her face; her mouth hangs open and she stares at me in horror. ‘But he’s a respectable gentleman. Least, he talks like one.’

‘Do you think? Did you never question why he has no ears?’

‘He said you cut them off him in a duel. He said he had to fight you because you wronged him, and you cut his ears off, and he has been looking for you ever since.’

‘
Dio porco
– Hetty, will you believe anything? What kind of a duel would that be?’ I throw my hands up. ‘What else did he tell you?’

‘That you are a dangerous man and you go by several names because you are wanted for murder in three countries.’ She sounds as if she is quite impressed by these credentials.

Despite myself, I cannot help a brief, incredulous laugh. ‘I am only dangerous if you cross me. So you must know where to find this man. You have been his messenger long enough.’

‘I don’t, sir, I swear it.’ Her bravado quickly deflates. ‘I would meet him at the back door of the yard. He used to come into the tap-room, that’s how he knew to find me. But he doesn’t come in any more.’

Not since he saw Sidney and me and thought we recognised him, I think. I grab her by the upper arm and she makes a strangled squeak. ‘Listen to me. If you know anything more about this business that you have not told me, now is the time to spill it. That lady is a relative of Sir Francis Drake. If any harm comes to her because of that letter, I will make sure he and all of Plymouth know of your part in it. Understand?’

Her round face crumples and she nods mutely, tears springing to her eyes. ‘I never meant harm to no one, sir, on my life. Carrying letters is not a sin, last I heard.’

I let her go with a sigh. ‘No. But lying is. And so is abetting a murderer.’

She looks stricken, but she volunteers nothing further. Either she is as ignorant as she says, or Jenkes frightens her more than I do. Suddenly her expression changes as her eyes dart past me; her mouth curves into a malicious little smile. I whip round to see the stable lad reappear with a solid-looking man from the kitchen.

‘You all right, love?’ he asks her, balling his big hands into fists at his side in readiness. I fix Hetty with a hard look; I see her calculating the opposing risks. Finally she picks up her pail and nods.

‘Fine, Harry. Just getting the water.’ She shoots me a resentful glance.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ I say, with more self-possession than I feel, as I walk calmly between them towards the gates of the inn yard. I keep a hand to my knife, half expecting them to hurl themselves after me as soon as my back is turned, but they content themselves with a few muttered curses.

I turn in the direction of the Hoegate at a half-run, forcing myself to believe that there is still a chance of catching Lady Arden before Jenkes finds her. It is broad daylight, the streets are far from deserted, the castle itself is garrisoned: what can they do, in such a public place? They can hardly attack her right there. In any case, that will not be their intention; Lady Arden is of no use to them except to bargain with Drake. At least, I must hope that is true.

I quicken my pace as I reach the open ground of the headland. A sharp salt breeze chafes at my face. The air carries the promise of rain. Ahead, the castle looms on the promontory, its four round towers planted like sentries, keeping watch out to sea and over the harbour mouth.

I follow the path that skirts the walls of the castle on the seaward side, but there is no sign of a woman alone. A few people are out walking, though most hurry purposefully with packs or baskets, shawls or caps pulled tight against the wind. I make my way between the scrubby trees, searching to either side, until I emerge to the east of the castle, where a footpath runs down to a row of houses that line the harbour wall. Directly ahead of me is a kind of gatehouse, built around an archway with three exits. One, to my right, leads out to another path that runs along the edge of the Hoe, at the top of the cliffs where Jonas must have been pushed to his death. The archway to the left leads out to the road around the harbour, and the one straight ahead opens on to a steep flight of stone steps down to the water, where iron rings are set into the wall for mooring. I take the first couple of steps, but there are no boats tied up. I turn instead to the right, out towards the Hoe. The gatehouse gives on to a square battery jutting out into the harbour, with four cannon arrayed along it. A bored young man wearing the town livery and holding a pikestaff stands by the wall, keeping a cursory watch out to sea. A scrawny dog sits by his feet.

‘Have you seen anyone come by here?’ I ask him, urgently.

‘Have I seen anyone?’ He screws up his face and looks at me. ‘Like who?’

‘I’m looking for a woman.’

‘En’t we all.’

I make an impatient noise. ‘Have you seen a woman come by here, on her own? Well dressed? She might have met a man, or two men. Somewhere near here, by the castle?’

‘I’m paid to watch out there,’ he says, pointing to the bay. ‘I en’t got time to be worrying about who’s meeting who behind me. There’s guards on the castle walls, ask them.’

‘This woman might have been kidnapped,’ I say, my eyes still darting about at any sign of movement on the path. The soldier’s face registers a flicker of interest at this news.

‘Really? What, here?’

‘You haven’t seen anyone get into a boat here? Or walk off that way, along the cliff?’

He considers the question. ‘There’ve been boats coming and going by the steps. Now I think of it – there was a group got into a small boat a while back. One of them might have been a woman, but they had cloaks on so you couldn’t exactly see. I only took notice because they was completely silent. All of them – never spoke a word to one another. Two of them kept very close, like they was almost joined together. The third was waiting in the boat, he was at the oars.’ He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t really pay them any mind though. It wasn’t anything too far out of the ordinary.’

‘But did you see where they went?’ My thoughts are racing ahead, a dozen terrible tableaux forming one after another in quick succession in my mind’s eye.

‘Out there,’ he says, pointing vaguely at the ships rocking at anchor in the Sound. I follow the direction of his finger. The majestic ships of Drake’s fleet dominate the horizon, pennants snapping in the wind. Among them, smaller merchantmen showing the colours of France, the Netherlands or the Baltic states and between all these great hulls, the rowing boats bob back and forth, ferrying men and goods in and out of the harbour, the lifeline between the big ships and the town. This boat the soldier saw could be anywhere by now – if it was even them.

‘Keep your eyes open, will you? In case you should see those men again, or anything unusual. One of them has no ears – if you see him, apprehend him at once.’

The youth looks amused. ‘Who do you think you are, Spaniard – my commanding officer?’

‘A woman’s life could be in danger. A wealthy woman,’ I add, and he registers this with interest, calculating the potential advantage to helping. ‘You can get word to me at the Star on Nutt Street. Ask for the
Italian
,’ I say, over my shoulder.

I cast a last glance at the bay under its swiftly moving canopy of clouds. The gulls scream and circle ceaselessly around the ships. There is nothing I can usefully do here on my own, with no idea even of which direction to pursue them. My best course of action is to return to the Star and find Drake; with all the companies of armed men at his command, he will surely be able to organise search parties along the roads and out into the Sound. But they will have to hurry, I think, as I step back into the shadow of the gatehouse; if Jenkes and Doughty have taken Lady Arden by boat, they could easily have reached one of the ships by now. Who knows what contacts they might have on these merchant vessels – they could be out into the English Sea by dusk, and Drake would surely need some greater authority than his own name to board and search foreign vessels.

I pause by the archway that leads to the water stairs, peering out at the harbour, my chest constricted with guilt over Lady Arden. I am about to take the path back up past the castle when I notice something white on the floor in the corner. Bending closer, I see that it is a piece of paper, balled up, as if it has been tossed aside by someone coming in or out. I crouch by the top of the stairs and unfold it; as my eyes skim the neat, sloping hand to the bottom of the page, a chill washes over me. The signature is my own.

Except that, of course, it is not: the letter is signed in my name, and ripe with full-throated declarations of passion. It begins ‘
Carissima
’ and asks the recipient to meet me by the castle gatehouse, where I would have a surprise for her.
Gesu Cristo
. She would have been surprised all right, to find – what? Rowland Jenkes with a knife, I imagine; it would have been a simple matter to press a blade to her ribs from under the cover of a cloak, without anyone noticing. To make her walk the short distance to the river stairs, keeping as close as a lover, the point still pressed against her skin, and force her into a boat. Why did she not scream for help? I did not understand that – but she must have dropped the letter before she was made to walk down the steps to the water, in the hope that someone would find it and make the connection.
Carissima
. Dear God – and she believed I wrote this. Are women so easily deceived by a little gilded flattery? I crumple it in my fist, my face burning with anger; I feel implicated, as if the blame is partly mine as Lady Drake said. If I had not gone to Lady Arden’s room last night, if I had not been seen, I would not have handed them a weakness to exploit. If that damned maid had not been so greedy for a few pennies … But this game of
what if
achieves nothing.