The Quality of Mercy (66 page)

Shakespeare patted him on the shoulder. “When was he killed?” he asked.

“I know not the time exactly. It
had
to be during the night. Which means it had to be one of these so-called gentlemen or their staff, damn them!”

“It could have been someone from Hemsdale who stopped in for a meal.”

“True,” Chambers conceded. “I just hope they find the murderer soon. A killer on the loose does nothing for business.”

“When was your brother discovered?” Shakespeare asked.

“Edgar was usually up by six,” Chambers said. “When he still hadn’t come into the dining room by seven, I went to his room. It was locked. I took out my own key… oh God, it was awful!” He buried his face in his hands. “Lying in all that blood.” His hands began to shake.

Shakespeare gave him a minute to calm down. Then he asked, “By any chance was he visited by a whore?”

Chambers blanched white with fear. “Who are you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Where were
you
last night?”

“I had the privilege of being a guest of Alderman Fottingham. I slept at his house.”

The answer softened Chambers’s previously wary face.

“He was visited by a whore, then?” Shakespeare asked.

“Aye,” said Chambers.

“Who?”

“A whore named Catherine Bollingham. She was known about Hemsdale as Cat.”

“You’re sure?” asked Shakespeare.

“Positively,” answered Chambers. “She’s with him now. Lying in the same pool of blood. As dead as he.”

It was the third tooth de Andrada had lost since Christmas. But at least this one had fallen out naturally — from rot — rather than being punched out by Essex’s men.

He stood hunched over the fireplace, a frayed brown blanket of coarse wool over his shoulders. He closed his eyes and thought of Spain — Malaga, so mild in the winters. Amsterdam was a God-forsaken city as cold as fish eyes. Her houses were narrower than reeds, the canals stank of garbage, and the language was an abomination. People here spit when they spoke. De Andrada began to shiver. He rubbed his hands together and warmed them over a kettle hanging inside a tiny fireplace.

Spain was but a faraway dream as long as Philip sat on the throne. The wrinkled old fart of a king would never forgive him for his part in the rebellion of Don Antonio. No matter that the Spanish whoreson had forgiven the rabid wolf Lopez. The witch doctor had money, and that was all that mattered to Philip. Money! It bought the old king furs to warm his brittle bones, soft food for his toothless mouth, young whores to suck his withered stick.

The thought of that old wretch pawing nubile bodies made de Andrada sick with disgust.

Spain and his homeland, Portugal, were lost for the moment. But England was not such a distant revel. The great Isle had more than its share of luscious maidens with their gleaming cornflower eyes and wavy, golden hair. The thought of fair wenches caused de Andrada’s skin to prick with excitement. England was almost within his grasp if he could get the witch doctor done in.

If…

Gods in heaven, how he had mucked it up the first time! He had been so sure he had sufficient evidence against Lopez — the secret cell in Mountjoy’s Inn, and Nan, the chambermaid, who claimed that Lopez kept secret writings in his desk. Who knew that the doctor maintained the sequestered closet just for his whores? And no letters or seditious correspondence from Philip had been found anywhere — not in Lopez’s home, not in the house of Sir George Ames as well.

The news had not sat well with Essex.

De Andrada shuddered as he remembered the men Essex’s secret spy master, Antony Bacon, had sent from England to visit him in Amsterdam. Two of them. The larger one had a jaw as big as a serving bowl, hands the size of saddles. His fingers were twisted, the knuckles like balls of iron. He cracked them constantly.

“We are men of the most esteemed Earl of Essex, Master de Andrada,” the big-jawed man introduced himself.

Crack!

Big Jaw continued, “Our lord — your lord as well — is in good health but is rather displeased.”

Crunch!

“What desires m’lord?” asked de Andrada, shaking. As if he didn’t know. “Whatever it is, twill be my honor to do his bidding!”

Big Jaw smiled.

Pop!

The other one was smaller, but thicker with muscle. His face was so fat that his eyes looked like two currants set in bread dough. The currants held de Andrada with an evil stare.

Calmly, they told what had happened in England.

“Your lord Essex much disliked the Queen’s rebuking,” said Big Jaw.

Crack!

“M’lord Essex does not like to play the fool for the doggish Jew’s delight!” the fat face with the currant eyes said.

Big Jaw added: “M’lord is much ired, as Her Majesty chose to reprove him in front of his servants. Her voice was far from modulated, and other courtiers have since been known to glance at our lord with bemused scorn.”

Snap!

“What plans have you to change the situation to the good of your lord Essex, Master de Andrada?” said Fat Face.

He quaked as they spoke, sniveled as they began to bang their fists into their fleshy palms.

De Andrada croaked out. “I pray you, tell Lord Essex that I’ll rectify the situation forthwith, I swear. I still know much, I still have many spies—”

“We need evidence, Master de Andrada,” Fat Face said. “Secret letters and documents. People who will speak of Lopez’s treachery against the throne of England. The Queen’s bench needs evidence to prosecute!”

De Andrada answered, “I swear on behalf of the Almighty I’ll bring you evidence!”

“Soon,” said Big Jaw.

Pop!

“Very soon,” said Fat Face. “His lordship expects to hear from you by the twentieth of January.”

And then they beat him to a bloody pulp.

He’d recovered quickly and went to work. He contacted every single whore in the dock areas of Holland — every strumpet who had seen and serviced ships of the Englishman. Perhaps over the years they had seen something lurking in the shadows at night — a well-hidden transaction of money followed by stowaways being sneaked off the ships. If one whore had seen just one suspicious-looking thing…

If…

De Andrada’s diligence had paid off. At the start of the second week in January he met up with a twig of a blond whore who spoke of a good-looking but odd man. He was Portuguese and kept to himself, never succumbed to her advances. The stew thought at first the odd man to be a buggerer, but he never went with the boys either. He spent most of his time scribbling notes to himself, walking amongst the incoming ships. And he always appeared at night.

“He was friendly, though,” she said to de Andrada as an afterthought.

“Why do you say that?”

“He waved at me, winked at me. I think he wanted me sore, but some wights are a little…” She shrugged her bony shoulders.

“What else was strange about him?”

“That’s all, man,” the whore said, smiling with brown teeth. “Just the way he skulked around the ships at night. I thought him a thief, I did.”

“Mayhap he was.”

“Mayhap,” said the whore.

“Did he skulk around all the boats?” de Andrada asked.

“Only the English.”

De Andrada had no choice but to lay down a plan and hope. With a few coins — stews came cheap — he enticed the whore into partnership.

The night came. With friendly banter the stew distracted the Portuguese. De Andrada sneaked up from behind, slipped a sack over the man’s head and hit him with a stick. When the man was completely out, the whore acted as lookout while de Andrada dragged him to a secluded spot under the pilings of a canal and rummaged through his pockets and purse. The man had six gold coins of Levantine currency and a letter that identified him as Gomez D’Avila.

De Andrada rummaged deeper into his pockets and found a mysterious communication — a letter written to David and signed by Francisco de Torres.

De Andrada had no idea who Francisco de Torres was, but knew that David was the witch doctor’s connection in the Low Countries. It was safe to reason that this Gomez D’Avila was, in fact, David.

The letter spoke cryptically of deliveries of pearls, musk, and amber for His Worship.

The bearer will inform Your Worship in what price your pearls are held. I will advise Your Worship presently of the uttermost penny that will be given for them, and crave what order you will have set down for the conveyance of the money and wherein you would have it employed. Also, this bearer shall tell you in what resolution we rested about a little musk and amber, the which I determined to buy.

His Worship was, of course, King Philip.

D’Avila was coming back to life. De Andrada hit him again, stuffed the gold coins and letter in his own doublet and ran back to his closet.

Under the flickering light of a rush candle de Andrada reread the letter. He had two weeks to formulate a plan of attack.

Who under God was Francisco de Torres? Never had the name been mentioned in Lopez’s household, and never had Nan, the bitch chambermaid, spoken of him.

Assume, de Andrada thought — for the moment at least — that Francisco de Torres was a man in the secret employ of Lopez. Or better still, that de Torres was a false name for the witch doctor himself. The witch doctor had written the enigmatic letter to his agent David, now identified as Gomez D’Avila.

A very good start.

David was to deliver the letter to His Worship, Philip.

But what did the letter mean?

Pearls, musk, and amber. The commodities, de Andrada knew, were code words for Jews under the auspices of the Inquisition — pearls meaning Spanish Jews, musk and amber referring to the Portuguese. From what de Andrada could tell, the cryptic letter asked Philip for the price to buy the Jews freedom.

Lopez, the witch doctor, a present-day Moses, redeeming his people from an Iberian pharaoh. Once Lopez had redeemed
him
from the Tower — a long time ago in another lifetime, before the doctor had turned evil and mistrusted his loyal servant, de Andrada.

The spineless cur. The dog! The wolf, rat, swine, snake…

De Andrada halted his string of curses and returned his concentration to the letter. The correspondence showed that Lopez had secret dealings with His Majesty, but that alone did not imply sedition. Essex wanted Lopez hung for treason, would be happy with nothing less.

That being the case, de Andrada would have to instill new meaning to the code words.

What could Lopez deliver to the Spanish king that would constitute treason?

Secret documents.

Where would Lopez obtain sensitive state secrets?

De Andrada thought and thought but came up with nothing. He discarded the idea that Lopez was delivering secret documents to the King.

What seditious service could Lopez carry out for the King of Spain?

After an hour of ruminating, trying to invent something plausible, de Andrada suddenly slapped his forehead. It had been before his eyes all the time yet he’d been too shortsighted to see it.

Lopez, the poisoner! Lopez, the expert with Indian acacia and henbane! Lopez, the doctor of Don Antonio, who would have poisoned his master while under his service! Lopez, the devil who had tried to poison him!

Ideas swarmed inside de Andrada’s skull.

Pearls, then, would be a code word for Her Majesty! Amber and musk, for England’s most prized possession — her navy. The tale could be very simple. For money, Lopez had promised the King of Spain that he would poison his mistress, Elizabeth Tudor, and arrange to destroy her navy. The former was the easier task, as Lopez was her trusted physician. The latter was more difficult, but money could buy many of England’s secret Papists. For additional ducats Lopez would arrange for the burning and splitting of England’s ships. Hadn’t Philip been seeking a way to destroy England’s navy after his own Armada’s humiliating defeat?

Beautiful! Plausible! If only he could convince
Essex
of his lies! The lord was a rash youth, steeped in hatred for Lopez. Perhaps it wouldn’t take much connivance after all.

De Andrada formulated his treachery:

Item one: Lopez was working for Philip. Even the Queen knew that the doctor had had past correspondence with the King of Spain.

Always blend veracity with fabrication.

Item two: Lopez had offered to poison the Queen and burn her ships for payment. Hadn’t Roderigo offered to poison other sovereigns — such as Don Antonio for King Philip? Again, a basis of truth.

Item three: Logic would then dictate that Lopez would also poison the Queen if Philip paid accordingly. Lopez, the secret Jew, would do anything for his brethren. Everyone knew that Jews — even those scheming Jews who professed to be Protestant — worshiped not God but money.

But evidence! He needed
evidence
!

He had the letter. What else? De Andrada snapped his fingers. Gods, the lies were coalescing like fat atop beef broth.

Item four: De Andrada knew that Lopez’s daughter had in her possession a certain ring — a large ruby surrounded by diamonds — a ring from the old treasury of Spain. Lopez had explained worriedly to his brother-in-law, Sir George, that he had given it to the Queen, but Elizabeth had returned it to Rebecca for some unknown reason. Lopez had been quite distraught that day.

It could be used against us,
Lopez had whispered to Ames.
A ring from the old treasury in our hands can seem very suspicious to the wrong set of eyes.

Then sell it hence,
Ames had replied.

But what if the Queen calls Rebecca back to court and she wears it not,
Roderigo had countered.
Her Majesty will be most displeased
.

In the end they had decided to keep the ring.

Evidence! And seasoned subtly with pinches of truth.

De Andrada would claim that the ring was Philip’s initial payment to Lopez for the gruesome task of poisoning his mistress, Elizabeth Tudor. More recompense would come once the job was successfully completed.