Annabelle swept out of the room and returned with Merlin behind her. In the light Marcelle could see that his straggly beard was dyed several colours and his hands stained with dye and blood. She took one look and started to scream again. But Merlin came over to her and placed those long fingers on her brow. She immediately went limp. ‘Sleep, little one, sleep in peace,’ Merlin said. He spoke the words slowly and distinctly and Marcelle lay down on the bench and closed her eyes. Her body was relaxed completely as she slept.
Annabelle took the kitten and gave it back to Merlin who looked at the sleeping girl with a strange love in his eyes. ‘This child has been through a bad time,’ he said softly. ‘But it will not trouble her now. When she awakes she will have forgotten.’ Then taking the dead cat, he turned and glided out of the room with his stained robe flowing out behind him.
Annabelle covered Marcelle with a rug. ‘Look after her, Abe,’ she said to her husband. ‘We had better not let her go up there anymore.’ With that, she returned to her boudoir upstairs.
5
Whitehall
Thomas Mayhew was at Whitehall, having spent many frustrating hours sitting in Robert Carr’s apartment waiting for his master to dress for the evening’s entertainment.
‘Stay here, Mayhew,’ Robert Carr had ordered. ‘I will probably need you,’ his voice was shrill and irritating.
So Thomas sat waiting bored almost to tears, while Robert pranced and paraded around his chamber trying on first one coat then another. In the dressing room an old fellow was busy curling and primping his master’s blonde hair and a young lackey was sent chasing in and out for wine and the various potions and pills which his master mixed up and swallowed, fretting and fussing all the time.
‘God, what an ass, what a damned silly fool,’ said Dour Thomas to himself as he sat waiting. His patience was wearing thin.
At last the finished product appeared. Robert Carr the courtier, the King’s favourite playboy, paraded up and down like a mannequin. ‘What think you, Overbury? Does the coat set well at the back?’ he asked his secretary, a well-spoken and unusually intelligent young man. Overbury ran his hand over the shoulders of Robert’s plum-coloured velvet coat. ‘’Tis fine,’ he said. ‘The embroidery goes well with the vest.’ He seemed to have a genuine fondness for Robert, having known him as a youth.
Robert had been a fair-haired page at the court in Scotland, a pawn for every vice in that court of James. For a long while he had enjoyed being the favourite but he seemed to have been on edge lately as though things were on his mind. And he certainly had not been the same since the bewitching Frances had come on the scene. Thomas wondered if Robert was jealous. That type of man did not like women much. ‘They are all a funny lot, I will be glad to get away,’ he thought darkly.
‘All right, you can go, Mayhew,’ Robert squeaked at last. ‘But stay in your lodgings. It is a devil of a job to find you sometimes.’
Thomas left with a sigh of relief. Taking deep breaths of air, he walked back beside the river to those stuffy lodgings and all that scent which sickened him. His lodgings were in a tall three-storey house facing the Thames, and belonged to a shipping merchant. Thomas occupied the two big attic rooms on the top floor, sharing them with two other young men who were only at home when the debts mounted up on them. When that happened they would never leave the house for fear of creditors catching up with them. At the moment the two of them had joined a hunting party and so were away. They would probably return, Thomas thought, with plenty of money in their purses, made, no doubt, on wagers and card playing. Then they would settle down for a while.
Thomas rarely dined at home. He usually went out or was simply away on his travels. But it was difficult to obtain lodgings in the crowded streets of London, so having paid the lease on these humble dwellings, Thomas thought it wise to stay put. It was just the place to hang his hat but that was all, he told himself.
Taking off his boots, he lay flat on the bed thinking over the events of the last few months. Marcelle’s shy little face swam before him. It was strange how close he felt to this young girl. He longed to make love to her but so rare was a sweet young virgin in this world of vice, he felt he could never dishonour her. He could marry her, he was free to do that, but would she want him? He was nearly thirty and she just fifteen. He thought of the weddings he had seen at court – forced marriages between young people who hated each other standing before the altar of God swearing to love honour and obey. He remembered the wedding of Frances Howard and Robert Devereux and remembered how they had fought and kicked each other only half an hour after the wedding ceremony had ended, how the great Howard family had taken Frances home and the Essex kin sent Robert overseas. The grand world outside had known nothing of these happenings; it was only the serving class to which Thomas belonged, that saw the true colours of these pampered darlings of the royal court of the King. And it had distressed him. No, if ever he married it would be for true love. He would just wait for Marcelle to make up her own mind.
He lay staring up at the rafters, going back to the day when he had been at Theobalds, the great home of the Cecil family. It was on that occasion when the King had come to England from Scotland and everyone had waited eagerly for a change for the better after the years of Elizabeth’s tyrannical rule. Thomas recalled how he had stood bare headed with the rest of his master’s retinue. The sight of the great house of Theobalds had greatly impressed him and to this day he was still awed by its splendour, and could conjure it up in his mind at will, the tall towers of the house each surmounted by a golden weather vane glinting in the bright sunlight, and the broad expanse of window with the tiny leaded panes shining in a myriad of colours. The sight of the rich red bricks against the green magnificent parkland was certainly one to see and remember. That first sight had been nine years ago, when he was nine years younger. Perhaps he would not be so easily impressed by the sight of such a magnificent display now. And it had partly been the circumstances, for he could remember how the Privy Council and all the great men of England had stood before the entrance to the house waiting to greet the new king. In the centre of them all was the white-faced figure of the hunch-backed Cecil, son of the brains behind the late Elizabethan court. The owner of this great mansion was such a small, insignificant man, with the white hands of an artist, Thomas had noticed. He had also noted the way the plumes of the noblemen’s hats waved in the breeze and the jewels glittered on their elaborate dress. But most of all, he remembered their tense set faces as they wondered how they would fare with the funny-looking Scotsman who was to be their king.
Not many of those men were now left, he thought. For heads had soon begun to roll. The new king was no fool. Thomas had watched him that day dismount and walk with his shambling gait as he surveyed his new ministers. With the absurd-looking bonnet on his head and the lewd look in his eye, Thomas thought at the time that he had never seen anyone looking less like a king.
Later that night, while the feasting was in progress in the great hall, small fry like himself looked on. The centrepiece of the hall was a fountain which sprayed water into a huge bowl supported by four naked figures; it was the wonder of the age. All around the walls were magnificent portraits of generations of Cecils, and the ceiling was carved in the form of a star with the painted sun which seemed to move across it. Yes, it certainly had been an exciting day which, for Thomas had ended with a maid, whom he had long forgotten. She had been drunk and very willing when Thomas came across her in the corridor. Oh to be young again, he thought with a deep sigh. His thoughts continued on the same lines as he remembered how the next morning he had accompanied his elder brother and several others to inform their master, Sir Walter Raleigh, of the situation at Theobalds. For Raleigh had not been certain of his own welcome and had sent out his spies to assess the situation before arriving himself to greet the new king.
The family of Thomas Mayhew had been land-owning gentry on the estate of Sherbourne and Dorset, the home of Raleigh, the famous Elizabethan courtier. Raleigh’s son Cary, was close to Thomas in age, and the two boys had been good friends, riding the moors together and fishing in the wide rivers of Dorset. Since his father’s fall from favour and subsequent imprisonment in the Tower, Cary had taken to roaming the streets of London and getting into brawls with the new Scottish courtiers. The Mayhews’ love and loyalty to their famous master had been deep and enduring and his downfall had been a bitter blow to Thomas’ father and elder brothers. But at the time, Thomas, who had been very young and prepared only to live for each day, had not really noticed the significance of these goings-on. However, on the death of his father, he had suddenly decided that the sea would be his life, being quite tired by that time of royal processions and philandering. He made up his mind to travel to the New World and perhaps, if he got the chance, to settle in Virginia. Now that his father was dead, his brother was back on the farm; times had certainly changed since that night at Theobalds.
He stared ruefully up at the ceiling. Here he was in London in a world of intrigue and with a lecherous old king on the throne of England who changed his mind with his vests.
Swinging his legs to the floor, he stood up. He had better go to the tavern, there was no sense in getting depressed. And perhaps he would meet Cary and their friend Ben Jones. Those two would soon get rid of his doldrums. Leaving his lodgings, Thomas walked to the city tavern in search of company. He pushed his way through the crowded streets past St Paul’s towards Cheapside. There had been a hanging that day and a very bloodthirsty crowd was still standing around. Some of them were very drunk, watching the victim’s remains being drawn and quartered, just as a butcher does a pig. The smell of blood and the evil expressions on the spectators’ faces made Thomas’ stomach turn. ‘There but for the grace of God go I . . .’ he muttered, very aware that these words had a different meaning for him today than they used to. He wondered, not without anxiety, if Betsy had disposed of old Sam’s body securely, and he hoped that she could be trusted. Then annoyed by his worries and morbid thoughts, he shook his head. ‘Don’t know what the hell is wrong with me. I must be getting an attack of something,’ he told himself. Leaving the crowds behind, he turned down a narrow passageway, where men wearing white aprons stood at the corners and little boys called out: ‘This way, sir, a fine roast, turkey and good wine!’ They were all touting for the restaurants that were huddled together in the small alley, but Thomas passed them and made his way into the dark interior of the steak house at the end of the row. As he climbed down the narrow stairs he had the feeling that he would find the company he needed so badly today.
The air downstairs was thick with smoke and the smell of food and wine. Deep voices chattered at each other in the high-backed cubicles, and rushes were strewn on the floor so liberally that the waiters carrying heavy trays slithered across it. At a long bar at the end, young men dressed in all their finery quaffed ale from pewter tankards. On the walls were hunting scenes and scenes from the popular plays of Will Shakespeare and his Company of Players. There was not a woman in sight, for this was a male stronghold; no female ever crossed its threshold. It was Charlie Brown, the proprietor, who insisted on this. ‘A man likes to relax when he’s drinking,’ he would pontificate. ‘Wenches is all right once you have had your fill.’
Thomas ordered a meal and after he had eaten and drunk several tankards of ale, he began to feel much better and more light-hearted. Several young men he knew greeted him and offered to join him. Most of them, it seemed, had run out of credit with Charlie Brown. Thomas made it clear that he wanted to remain alone for the time being, but kept his eyes fixed on the door, as he looked out for Cary. When they had been lads, Thomas had taught Cary to fish in the rivers at their home in Dorset and Cary, a wild youth, had run with him happy and carefree over the moors. They had climbed the tall pine trees and pelted each other with the large cones that fell from them. Then Cary had gone to sea but in spite of the separation and the difference in their stations in life, Cary never passed Thomas. Whenever Thomas was feeling depressed, it was the sight of Cary that always gladdened his heart, and it was the jolly look in those strange wide eyes that he longed to see.
Now he had spotted him, and Thomas watched with affection as Cary gracefully descended the stairs into the room.
Tall and slim, with chestnut curls, Cary was wearing a smart green and white doublet with long white pantaloons. A short, fur-trimmed cape hung about his shoulders. Young Cary was a man of fashion but he was no fop; and he had been in more scrapes than the average young man of his day.
‘Ye Gods, is that you, Dour Thomas?’ he cried, when he saw his old friend.
‘’Tis me, not a ghost,’ answered Thomas, jumping to his feet and slapping Cary on the back.
‘You look worn to the skin and bone. Is thy mistress overworking thee?’
Thomas laughed, for he knew that the quip referred to his new master. The effeminate Carr was always the subject for his joke.
‘Join me for dinner,’ said Cary. ‘Will you, Thomas? I have an invitation to dine with Robert Rich. You may join us.’
The two young men adjourned to the private dining room behind the back of the restaurant. There were other men in there, red faced and arguing amicably. In all it was a lively evening. After an eight-course meal, musicians were summoned and sang bawdy songs. They had wagers on drinking feats, which added to their consumption.