Silence And Shadows Collection

Chapter 4-2

Noah waited.

‘What’s the point. You won’t understand. You’ll think it something momentous when it absolutely is not. Something shameful–’

Noah’s heart lurched. ‘A man?’ Please God. He could not bear this for his son. He knew too well its grim cost in fear.

Hal’s eyes widened. ‘How did you know?’

He groaned, unable to help himself. It felt like a knife in his guts.

Hal smiled, hard and cynical. ‘There it is. Just as I expected. And it was not a man it was a boy a year or so younger than me. I am not a sodomite, Papa, which is the conclusion you’ve jumped to and reacted to, just as I knew you would. I met him in the town. I liked him. We drank together and I took him to my rooms where we drank some more and talked about women, believe it or not. And then … well, the talking ended as it usually did at school. That is when the porter came in and saw us. Someone reported me bringing him in.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s all it is. Means nothing, like I said.’

What they usually did in school? Holy God. He had gone to sea at thirteen. You were lucky to get a private toss without being belted. He took a deep breath. ‘I understand, I think. So forgive my misapprehension.’

Hal still looked at him with contempt. ‘Well, I can’t expect you to know me when we have seen so little of each other over the years. Mama might not doubt I had the w***e but at least she would never think me a sodomite.’

Noah understood then, he must explain himself. ‘It wasn’t about you. It was because of me.’

Hal frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

Noah sat up straighter in his chair. ‘You see, Hal, I was with a man. And I would tear my own beating heart from my chest to save you from it. My response came from fear. Fear for you.’

Hal began to smile but it froze on his face. ‘I thought it was a joke.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not a f*****g joke though, is it? You mean it. You’re a–’

‘I’m afraid I am.’

Hal stood, his face now a mask of disgust. ‘Then, Sir, I shall say good day.’

Noah folded his arms on his desk and put his head down upon them. ‘Christ.’ It would have been far better to be a hypocrite than to have so shocked his son with this. What could he have been thinking? ‘Christ’s f*****g wounds. I’m an imbecile.’

Raphael

RaphaelUnder a generous pile of furs with our feet snug upon heated bricks, we made it to King Street unfrozen and halted close to Richmond House.

Frances smiled and patted my hand. ‘I shall try and visit you again, should you wish it, of course?’

I squeezed her fingers discreetly. ‘What do you think, Carissima?

‘Very well, I’ll let you know when.’

I stood beside my coach watching her walk to her door swathed in her fur-lined mantle knowing, somehow, I must secure payment for my latest work from her. Papà insisted copies of all worksheets and bills of sale were sent to him each quarter. It would not be long before I received a letter telling me to pursue her for it.

I turned to Rory. ‘Take me to Horse Guards and then wait. I have another errand.’ I would go to Tom’s office. Perhaps he might be persuaded to join me for a pie and ale in a nearby Ordinary? He would know which one was best. While the carriage creaked and the four sets of hooves rattled over the cobbles, I contemplated all Frances risked with our liaison and very much hoped Tom might be able to reassure me that with enough discretion it would be possible to keep her safe.

Once Rory lowered the steps again, I hurried across the yard to mount the stairs up to Tom’s office beside the clock tower. With his door ajar, I saw immediately he wasn’t there, though his clerk was able to tell me he had just left on his way to speak to a guardsman in Scotland Yard. I told Rory to take the coach home as it was too cold for him to wait. I could easily find a hackney on King Street, either after luncheon with Tom or sooner if he were not free to join me. I still wonder why I did not climb into the warmth of my coach and return home there and then. There was no urgency to seek reassurance from Tom and, as it turned out, I was unable even to ask for it for quite some time.

I was far from certain of the most direct route to take through the old palace’s warren of roadways, alleys, and courts, weaving around the newly built stone and red-brick houses and terraces cheek-by-jowl with the old timber-framed York Place era buildings. I kept up a brisk pace because of the cold, especially with my erratic path taking me mostly through shadow where the frigid air felt painful to breathe and savage-looking icicles hung from eaves in windowless walls. I had just rounded the corner to enter another narrow passage which I hoped would take me from inner to outer Scotland Yard when I halted, confronted by man on the ground propped askew against the wall, his cloak splayed out around him. Disconcertingly, he was completely rimed with frost which sparkled in the dim light as though he were strewn with diamond dust. I knew then he must be dead, though I moved to him to make quite certain of it. His chin was resting on his chest which was crusted with a dark stain. Frozen blood? His rimed hair still tied neatly at his neck suggested there had been no fight, or not much of one. I held his icy head between my hands and lifting it, found myself looking into the very dead eyes of James Villiers.

‘Cristo Santo.’ I carefully set him back just as he had been, crossed myself commending him to God, and continued on my quest to locate Tom, though now for a very different reason.

Cristo Santo

It was not without some trepidation that I waited outside the much grander Horse Guards’ office of the Captain of the Yeoman Guardsman, Sir Henry Willets, while Tom told him of my discovery and its circumstances. He had viewed the body himself beforehand but had left it in place, though under guard, as Sir Henry would wish to see it in situ. I understood he would also wish to interview me and, though Tom had not said it in so many words, I would be considered a suspect. I could quite see why a murderer might claim only to have discovered a body as a tactic to divert attention when, in truth, he was responsible for it and so then why said finder should be suspect. However, this did not prevent me from finding it a particularly uncomfortable situation.

It would not be in my favour either that I was both a foreigner and a Catholic though Papà had insisted I went through the motions of converting to Anglicanism once in England. Crossing the Thames I believe it is called, colloquially. Not to do so would have affected trade in terms of higher taxation and restrictions upon my travel. Though I doubted I was the only secret papist at court amongst those surrounding the King when the Queen and two of his mistresses were openly so, and his brother the Duke of York was likely a convert.

I made a mental note to run like the devil in the opposite direction should I stumble across another corpse. Yet, if witnessed, would this not look to be a sign of guilt? The obvious answer seemed never to find one again but then I had not intended to locate this one. Had I known my way in the palace, I would not have entered that benighted passageway. Did the fact that I had make me more likely to be guilty or less? It was hard to know.

The wind had risen again and blundered down the chimney in the hall where I waited, sitting on a wooden bench. I adjusted my position, the sooty smoke blown out from the fire which seemed to offer little in the way of heat, making me cough. Though my eyes had been fixated on the door behind which my situation was being discussed, when it opened, I was startled enough to emit a rather high-pitched sound, much to my embarrassment.

An elderly clerk stood in the doorway, eyeing me. ‘You are required within, Sir.’

My heart pounded uncomfortably, and my mouth felt dry as dust when I followed him into the office. ‘Gentiluomini.’ I looked from one to the other. What had possessed me to speak in Italian? Tom looked amused while Sir Henry’s jowls trembled with apparent outrage. Well, then, he was easily outraged. But not a good start.

Gentiluomini.The only difference I could discern in their uniforms was considerable additional gold lace on the latter’s. In their persons, however, they were opposites. Almost comically so. Though not many could match Tom’s physique, few were as slight as the captain. He brought to mind a shrivelled hobgoblin from a disagreeable fairy tale, his long thin neck and disproportionally large head adding something of the look of a dandelion clock.

Tom smiled reassuringly and pointed to a chair. ‘Sit, Raphael.’

I sat. Sir Henry faced me across his desk while Tom sat on a stool to my right. From the heat remaining on my seat, I knew he had but lately removed himself from it. To my left was the clerk, pen in hand, ready to write down all I said. Sir Henry already held a paper which I imagined noted Tom’s report. I trusted him to have carefully remembered all I had told him. Sir Henry’s first question, though, took me by surprise.

‘Please account for all your movements in the last twenty-four hours.’

I broke out in a cold sweat. The twenty-four hours in which I had bedded Frances Stuart. Something I was, of course, unable to speak of. ‘There is very little to tell.’ I thought then of my papà’s business advice that when truth was not possible, stick as close to it as was feasible. ‘I was at my workshop and residence in Cheapside all day yesterday and arrived at the palace this morning with some pieces of jewellery for the Duchess of Richmond. As I was here and it was nearing lunchtime, I decided to see whether my friend Lieutenant Monkton were free to join me. I was on my way to find him in Scotland Yard when I stumbled across Signor Villiers.’

SignorSir Henry steepled his fingers, frowning. ‘How does this explain your presence in Bride’s Cut?’

‘Bride’s Cut? I didn’t know it had a name. I’m unfamiliar with the palace layout, Captain. I was attempting to find my way to the outer part of Scotland Yard.’

‘But Bride’s Cut would not take you there.’

I shrugged and smiled, ruefully. ‘So I discovered.’

‘And just where did the passage lead you, Master Rossi?’

‘To a closed court. If it has a name, it is unknown to me.’ I glanced at Tom, who appeared relaxed, and took heart from it.

Sir Henry leaned forward. ‘Can anyone confirm your whereabouts yesterday, particularly during the hours of darkness? Where did you dine? Did you have company? That sort of thing.’

‘I dined at home alone. My manservant can vouch for it.’ Giuseppe would confirm my story, but no other servants were in a position to do so. Would this arouse suspicion if discovered? I must pray it would not. ‘I can tell you nothing further, Captain. I trust I’m now free to go?’