The Quality of Mercy. Faye Kellerman

small as a rat’s. Cold, calculating, and stingy. Did the King not recognize the service that he—Manuel de Andrada—had performed for him?

      He had spied against Don Antonio for Philip, had even bribed a helmsman to deliver the Pretender to the Throne of Portugal into the hands of the Spanish king. But the note had been found. Though written in special ink, it had been deciphered. His treason against Don Antonio—who was now in exile, somewhere in Eton, de Andrada had last heard—had landed him six months in the Tower.

      Had that been part of Lopez’s plan to do him in? Had Lopez only rescued him because he had known about the doctor’s mission? Had Lopez been afraid that he—de Andrada—would be of loose lips?

      He thought a moment.

      No, de Andrada thought, decidedly not. Lopez had been a true healer back then—kind and true-hearted. It was Lopez who’d secured his release from prison. The doctor had taken him into his own home, fed him fresh meats, clothed him in vestments that didn’t itch. Had Roderigo not intervened in his behalf, he would have been behalved.

      But curse Lopez now. He had dealt deceptively with his faithful servant—Manuel de Andrada—just like the rest. Though Lopez professed that he was a guest in his house, without any funds, de Andrada was completely at Lopez’s mercy. Aye, the doctor had turned into a witch doctor. Roderigo Lopez had beguiled him, forced him to act as a go-between with the King of Spain, inveigled him into his Jew-saving intrigues. And now, after months of dedicated work, de Andrada was being discarded, tossed out the window like shit in a chamberpot.

      He sighed. In his life he’d been employed by so many, turned traitor to so many. It was hard to keep them all sorted.

      How would the doctor arrange the death—his death? An accidental fall from a horse? Did not the groom look at him with naughty eyes? When had that been? A week ago? Two weeks? Aye, when Saturn had been in Pisces, the sun sign of his birth. A bad omen!

      He rolled over onto his back and groaned.

      Poison perhaps? Aye, poison was a favorite pastime of the physician to the Queen. De Andrada remembered too clearly Lopez’s verbal offer to poison Don Antonio. Aye, Lopez denied it to the world, and nothing in writing could prove otherwise, but de Andrada had heard the words uttered from the witch doctor’s lips. Bottles of potions were stored in Lopez’s still room. Jugs of Indian acacia. Barrels of distilled hemlock, ripening, aging like kegs of fine wine!

      De Andrada trembled.

      Suddenly all was clear. Why was he always the first to be served at dinnertime, at suppertime as well? It was not as they claimed—that he was a guest, and as such, honored with the first fruits of the kitchen. Nay, his portion of food had been tainted. Slow and painful poisoning!

      The realization of why he’d been so ill of late.

      Marry, it was so logical now. They hated him. Had he been invited to the house of the doctor’s brother-in-law?

      No.

      The reason for the exclusion?

      It could only be treachery against him. He was wasting away on a stiff straw pallet, racked with fever and pain brought on by poison, while they laughed at his impending death.

      He gasped and coughed, trying to bring up his supper. After a minute of retching, he gave up. The juices of his stomach had eaten up the stew hours ago.

      The stew, he thought. He recollected tiny pieces of fleshy vegetable mixed with roots, leeks, and mutton.

      Mad apple!

      He shuddered. Had the stew contained eggplant as well as rat’s bane? Poison was not enough for the doctor’s delight. He was trying to drive him mad as well!

      He’d take no more meals with the evil ones!

      Suddenly he smiled. He was safe—at least temporarily. How much he had overheard! How many “secret” letters he had read! How much he knew! Lopez had disregarded his own rules—destroy anything written, talk softly, trust no one.

      And then there was Nan Humbert—the Ames’s chambermaid. All he had to do was pray with the withered, Puritan biddy and she’d sing much about the family whispers. She had bigger and better ears than he did.

      De Andrada started to plan his defense.

      Who was Lopez pitted against? Who loathed Lopez as much as Don Antonio … No, that wasn’t it. Who loathed Lopez more than he detested the doctor himself—and had the power to turn his hatred into action? Certainly not Lord Burghley. He and Lopez had become friends of late. Not his crookback son Robert Cecil either.

      Who?

      Why, the ambitious red-haired youth with the fair face and the choleric temperament.

      Essex!

      He would ingratiate himself with Essex. Offer to spy against Lopez in order to secure the lord’s favor.

      The smile widened to a grin.

      Essex. Such an impetuous cock. He’d do anything to advance his War Party. It was no secret that the lord longed for war—for an astounding military victory over Spain, with him at the head of the troops. How Essex hungered for power, the cheers and adulation of his countrymen, the admiration of his peers. How he ached to win the hand of Eliza. Oh yes, it was the crown of England that the lord desired. It was no secret at all. Even Her Majesty knew his wants.

      But the High Treasurer, Lord Burghley, and Lopez were obstacles, both secretly advocating peace with the King of Spain to Her Majesty. Lord Essex was bound to welcome his help, would receive Manuel de Andrada with much cheer, heaping angels upon him as payment for well-executed spying.

      Of course, there was the small matter of Antony Bacon, Essex’s spy master. De Andrada would have to convince him that he was trustworthy. Bacon was a clever man, exceedingly wary. But hadn’t he, Manuel de Andrada, fooled other equally clever men? Bacon was but one small obstacle to overcome.

      De Andrada felt confident and congratulated himself for a scheme so brilliant.

      He hugged himself harder, tighter, squeezing his knees against his chest.

       Eat no food. Not even the fruit in the bowl.

       But he was hungry.

       One bite of apple?

       Nay, do not succumb. It is all vile.

       A half bite?

      Not even a lick.

      He would not give up without a fight! He would scrape and bite and claw and kick, but he would not give up without a fight. If he would lose his head, so would a witch doctor.

      Rebecca lay atop her feather mattress, wondering how her father was planning her future. She had no idea how late it was as she couldn’t see the sand glass on the mantel opposite her bed. Yet she refused to light her candle, consuming solace once again from the darkness. Her chamber walls, like those in her uncle’s Great Hall, had been draped in black cloth, hiding the arras work and tapestries. She felt as though she were sleeping in a bat’s cave. The sole illumination came from moonbeams streaking through her bedchamber’s window. They fell upon the table next to her bed, highlighting the pitcher and washbasin on the tabletop. Outside, the winds whistled through the shutters, swayed the boughs of the newly budded trees, kicking up eddies of dirt and dust, a moving sketch done in charcoal and framed by the window sash.

      Her future. If only she had some control over her destiny. Her life, always in the hands of another—her elders, her cousins, her brother, God—in any hands but hers. Were her hands any less capable than Benjamin’s, than Dunstan’s or Thomas’s? But her hands had the misfortune to be attached to the body of a woman.

      She swallowed back tears, cursed her lot in life. A moment later she broke into sobs, feeling sudden shame at her rantings. Why had she been allowed to live and her betrothed taken in his prime?

      Poor