18

What none of them had anticipated was that Mercy would be taken up for questioning before she could be warned of the new developments. Tobias arrived at the Dobbses’ house to learn that she had not come back from her visit to the Marshalsea the day before. At first, the Dobbses had not been much moved on their lodger’s account, assuming she had gone to visit friends or been allowed home, but when Edwin had called to ask after her, they had concluded that something more sinister had occurred. Edwin had gone to the Marshalsea only to be denied entry by the smirking warder.

Tobias knew Edwin as a nodding acquaintance from Porter’s fencing school where he too was a pupil. He took Mercy’s brother aside.

‘Tell me what the warder said exactly.’ ’Sbones, he hoped this wasn’t spiralling out of control. He would never live with his conscience if the little maiden suffered for doing as they had asked.

Edwin gave a helpless gesture. A pleasant enough fellow, he was not at his best in a crisis, reduced to handwringing. ‘He said that Mistress Cherry Pie –’

‘What?’

‘His term for my sister. She takes fresh-baked pies in to your brother, sir. He said that she was wanted for questioning and that he had been ordered to detain her overnight. The officials should be there now. I’ve no idea what it’s all about: Mercy’s never done anything to anyone.’

Tobias had a fairly shrewd idea exactly what it was about. Now the Babington plot had been foiled, the authorities were dotting their final ‘i’s by checking any person with the least connection to the business. Mercy had made herself a person of interest by her faithful attendance on Kit. But this was where the Laceys had to draw a line too and come forward to help.

‘I’m sending word to my brother, the earl. He’ll get her out, I promise.’

Edwin shook himself into action. ‘And I’m going to my father. The City merchants won’t like it one bit that one of their daughters has been detained so unfairly.’

Aye, that was a good idea: the power of the City fathers was not something even the most aloof of governments could ignore. ‘Tell him we’ll meet at your house as soon as the earl can gain leave from court.’ It was a fair way to Richmond; Tobias had already spent a good part of the day sailing up and down the Thames. ‘It may not be until late this evening, but we’ll be there, I promise you.’

No fool, Edwin blinked his pale-blue eyes, trying to fathom why an earl should show such friendship to a merchant family. ‘What is afoot, Master Lacey? Is my sister in danger?’

Tobias thought it very likely, knowing how harsh London prisons were on anyone caught on the wrong side of the door.

‘Deep business, Hart, but Mercy is clear, I promise you. We will protect her for, after all, she is to be our sister.’

Edwin choked. ‘That … that man really means to marry her?’

‘That man is my brother and a finer person you will never meet. And, aye, he’ll marry her, come hell or high water, so I wouldn’t stand in his way if you value your skin. I predict that when he gets out of prison – and he will get out – he’s going to quick-march your sister to the altar before you can say Robin Goodfellow.’

Mercy was afraid. She had never experienced such bone-shaking terror since the last plague outbreak had swept though the city, taking half the infants with it under its black cloak. But that had been a smouldering fear, an anxious watch over the family to see if any showed signs of the illness; by contrast this was a blaze of emotion that left her cowering in the corner of her cell.

The warder – oh, how she hated that man, God forgive her – had waited for her to unpack her latest offering of gooseberry pies before informing her with relish that she was about to become his newest guest. He’d given her no time to send out a message, but marched her straight past Kit’s door to a cell along the corridor. On the watch for a visit, Kit had seen her go by and responded with angry shouts and kicks to his door. He had gone ominously silent after the warder had left her alone.

‘Kit?’ she whispered into the corridor. That was no use: he’d never hear her. ‘Kit!’

No reply.

She had passed the night in dark despair, sure that Kit had done something desperate and been punished for it. By morning she was near frantic – and hungry and thirsty to boot.

The gaoler came back in the early morning with a plate of food. ‘Here you are, mistress. I’ve orders that you can’t mingle with the others in the common yard, so you get waited on. Not as good as your baking.’ He placed it on the pallet bed next to her. Mercy shrank further back against the damp wall, her fist clutching the dried-grass ring tight against her chest.

The gaoler scratched his hose. She closed her eyes, resisting his attempt to draw her attention his manhood as he stood before her. ‘It makes me sorry to see you in here, Mistress Cherry Pie, but you should make the best of it. It won’t go so hard with you if you keep me well disposed towards you.’ He adjusted his belt, wafting the rank smell of unwashed body in her direction as he posed before her.

Mercy swallowed bile and buried her head in her arms.

A rough hand landed on her head, catching in the hair straggling from her coif. He tugged at a lock. ‘Such a pretty thing, aren’t you, but no denying you are all woman. Would you purr for me if I stroked you, I wonder? I can see why the player keeps you at hand.’ A coarse palm drifted over her bodice, but retreated when she curled up in a ball, denying him access to any exposed skin.

‘I can see you need to think on’t. But then you’re not going anywhere, are you?’ He fiddled with his hose again, chuckled and left to carry on with his rounds.

Seeing where his hands had just been, Mercy left the bread he had brought her to the mice.

Kit had been dumped down in the pit again for his protest at Mercy’s arrest. His bones ached. A sharp twinge with every breath gave him cause to suspect that the warder had fractured a rib with his latest beating. Yet that was nothing to the pain of his imaginings as to what his sweet Puritan was going through. If she was hurt, he would murder the gaoler – he knew he would not be able to stop himself.

He tore up his shirt and used it to bind his chest, moving awkwardly as there was not an inch that hadn’t been bruised.

The worst was that he could do nothing – send no word to their friends, offer no comfort to Mercy. All he could do was pray.

He went down on his knees in the filthy straw and clasped his hands. ‘Remember me, Lord?’ Not the best start to a desperate prayer, but he wagered that Mercy’s faithfulness carried a little credit over to his account. ‘I pray your pardon for not talking to you of late.’ For six years to be precise. ‘But if you would watch over her and get Mercy free of this place, I will …’ What could he use to bargain with an all-powerful God? The idea was absurd. But God had to have a special place in his heart for Mercy – He had to or there was no justice in the world. ‘I will be eternally grateful.’

Feeling foolish, but a tiny bit relieved, Kit got to his feet and resumed his pacing.

The warder was back. Oh, God; oh, God. Mercy hunched in a corner, hoping he would not stay long.

‘Come, Mistress Cherry Pie, there are some kind gentlemen here to talk to you.’

Knowing she had no choice, Mercy rose and smoothed her skirts, feeling with fingertips to make sure that her hair was decently covered.

‘You look pretty enough for their lordships. Come with me.’

With a firm hand on Mercy’s back, he propelled her along the corridor to his office. Three officials robed in black sat behind his table. The warder took his place at the door behind her.

Mercy bobbed a curtsy, not daring to speak first.

‘Mercy Hart?’

‘Aye, sir.’ Her voice was a whisper.

‘Your father is John Hart, mercer?’

Mercy nodded.

‘We need your answer, mistress, for the record.’ The man in the centre gestured to his colleague on his right hand side, the one who was making notes of the interview.

‘Yes, my lords.’

‘You have come to our attention as you have been visiting a certain prisoner – his only visitor according to the warden.’

‘I see, sir. How … how may I help you?’

‘By answering our questions. What would you say were your beliefs, mistress?’

Mercy remembered the schooling her father had given her in this against the day persecution should return to these shores and turn on the reformers. ‘I believe, I trust, as our gracious sovereign, the Queen believes.’

The men nodded, well satisfied. None could argue with that.

The man on the left gave her an avuncular smile. ‘This must all be very confusing for you, a decent Christian girl caught up in this sorry business.’

‘What business is that, sir? Forgive my ignorance, but I do not understand why you wish to speak to me.’

The warder shifted on his feet, but the man on the right shook his head. The official in the centre looked down at a piece of paper before him.

‘You are sixteen?’

‘Aye, marry, sir, I am.’

‘Why do you come to see the prisoner, Christopher Turner?’

Mercy glanced at the more sympathetic of the three men. He was watching her closely. ‘We are betrothed, sir.’

‘You wish us to believe that you, a God-fearing maid, is like to be wed to a player?’

She looked down. ‘We do not have my father’s agreement to the match, sir.’

The notetaker snorted and muttered something under his breath.

‘And you carry no messages for him out of this prison? He has not asked you to communicate with any of his confederates?’

Mercy was relieved she could answer honestly. If the question had been differently phrased she would not have been able to be so forthright. ‘Nay, my lord, on my honour, I carry nothing out. I know of no such confederates.’

The notetaker was somewhat shrewder than his companions. ‘And what do you carry in, mistress?’

‘Mainly pies,’ she replied. ‘The warder here likes fruit, but has a taste for savoury ones on occasion.’

The three men frowned at the gaoler.

‘Good my lords, I have to test them before handing them on to the prisoner,’ the gaoler protested, ‘in case she smuggles messages or weapons to the man.’

‘And has she tried to do so?’ snapped the questioner in the middle.

‘Nay, sir. Just wholesome cooking, nothing else – or I would have told you.’

‘Hmm.’ The official stroked his fingers down the length of a quill lying on the table before him. ‘Have you ever heard your betrothed mention one Babington?’

Mercy could tell from the alertness in their bearing that they had come to the nub of the matter. ‘Nay, sir.’

‘Pilney or Gage?’

‘Nay, sir, we don’t talk much when we are together.’ She didn’t mean it to sound as it did, but perhaps her misspeaking was for the good. The three gentlemen all looked down and smiled, doubtless filling in for themselves what the two youngsters did to pass their time together. She blushed, letting them think what they liked of her if it would help Kit.

‘He’s a fine-looking man, some would say. Is he ambitious?’ asked the man in the centre.

‘Aye, sir.’

They looked up, interested pricked.

‘I think he wishes to take the lead in the next new play to be put on at the Theatre. And marry me, of course.’ She looked down at her red shoes peeping out from under her skirts.

‘Humph!’ the notetaker said, clearly dismissing her as empty headed and Kit for a vain fool.

The man in the centre turned to his brethren. ‘Are we finished here, my lords?’

As they were conferring, there came a pounding on the entry to the prison.

‘Open up! Open up!’ roared a man. ‘Stanton, I’ll have your guts for my garters if you don’t give me back my daughter!’

The official in the centre raised his eyebrow at that. ‘Warder, I think you had best go let the man in before he starts dismantling your defences with his bare hands.’

In a moment, the warder was back with John Hart pacing at his side. Seeing Mercy standing in the centre of the chamber, her father pushed past the gaoler and seized her in a punishing hug.

Mercy, you foolish child, what muddle have you got yourself in now?’ he asked, giving her a shake. ‘Are you well?’

Four others clustered into the room behind Hart: Alderman Belknap, Reverend Field, Silas Porter and Edwin.

‘Sirs,’ began the alderman, ‘I can vouch for Mercy being a good girl. The minister here has known her since a baby and will tell you the same. I think you have the wrong party if you suspect her of anything.’

The man in the centre tucked his papers away in a leather folder. ‘I’m happy to tell you that the young lady is not suspected of anything, but being too good a cook for the warder to turn away. We were about to let her go. Gentlemen, we are agreed?’

The two men flanking him nodded.

‘Aye, marry, let the girl go.’ The notetaker blotted his copy. ‘I fear she’ll have enough punishment for her foolishness if she marries the man.’

‘And what of Kit?’ Mercy plucked up the courage to ask. ‘Master Turner, I mean.’

Her father huffed impatiently into her hair.

The notetaker drew a letter from a leather wallet. ‘Now we’ve struck you from our enquiries, young lady, thinking you the last possibility of a connection to … er … another matter, my lord Burghley has given us instructions to release the fellow. We are satisfied that he is no longer of interest to the Crown and, fortunately for him, being a foolish player is not a hanging offence. He is bound over to keep the peace, but otherwise free to go.’

Mercy tugged at her father’s doublet. ‘Please, Father, may we have him fetched and take him with us?’

‘It seems that I can’t stop you getting your way where that young man is concerned. Warder, will you bring him to us? Here’s for your pains.’ John Hart flipped the man a coin.

Mercy resented any more going into that beast’s pocket, but she knew better than to rock the boat at this stage, not when they were so close to getting free.

‘I’d best go with him,’ volunteered Silas, sizing up the man. ‘In case he forgets his way.’

The three officials were showing themselves out as Kit was brought into the room. Hand clasped painfully to his side, he blinked in surprise at the gathering. He made a sorry sight: one blackened eye, a swollen jaw and bruises marring his skin, but to Mercy he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Easing away from her father, who reluctantly let her go, she flew to him.

‘Oof!’ Kit gasped as she collided with his midriff. ‘Easy, love, I’m a bit tender there. Are you well? Not hurt by him?’ He flicked a vicious look at the gaoler.

She shook her head.

‘So why’s everyone looking at us like this?’

A quick survey of the room told her that Silas and the alderman appeared amused, Edwin resigned and her father stoic. Mercy leant away to tell him the good news.

‘We’re free, Kit. Neither of us is the least bit of interest to the Crown.’ And in case he still didn’t understand, she repeated, ‘We can go.’

He whooped with joy, tried to spin her round, but unfortunately his injuries made him drop her after only half a circle. Never mind: they were leaving.

‘Then let us bid farewell to this pleasant hostelry before anyone changes their mind.’ He gathered her to his side, leaning on her shoulder for support.

John Hart didn’t agree with Kit on much, but he seconded the player in this. ‘Aye, we’ll go home and get you cleaned up a bit. Looks like you’ve got some nasty cuts there that need tending.’

Mercy raised an eyebrow at her father’s change of heart towards Kit.

‘Good Samaritan and all that,’ mumbled her father sheepishly.

‘And may I come home too, Father?’ she asked.

‘Aye. The past few days have fair killed me. I can’t seem to stand having you from home, no matter if you deserved it. Come back to the Bolt of Cloth, Mercy.’

‘And Grandmother will paddle you if you keep me away much longer.’

He gave a weary chuckle. ‘Aye, there is that.’