“You said I looked like the Milord doctor.”
He bowed in acknowledgment. “You understood me when I spoke Italian?”
“I did; I was not mistaken.”
“I meant no harm, signora.”
“I know that you didn’t. I have come to you—because I think you are an honest man.”
“I should not be speaking with you.”
“We can say I am changing money. Did you mean Roberto Reekie? The English doctor?”
“I knew him,” he said reluctantly. “But I knew nothing of him. I told them.”
“You told who?”
“The men who inquired.”
“Who inquired?” Sarah asked.
He frowned a little. “The authorities,” was all he said.
“Signor Mordecai, may I trust you with a secret?”
“No,” he said firmly. “It is not safe for me to know secrets. And you should trust no one.”
He turned to walk away, shaking his head; but Sarah ran after him and stepped in front of him to bar the way. “I have to trust you,” she said. “I have no one else to ask but you. The Signor Roberto was my uncle. That’s why I look like him. As you say. You knew at once. He was my uncle, my grandmother grieves for him, she wants him home. I have to ask after him!”
He turned. “You are under the protection of Signor Russo. Of all men in Venice, he knows all the secrets. You ask him.”
“I don’t know him,” Sarah gabbled. “And I am not under his protection. I have told him a false name and a pretend reason for being here. I have no friends in Venice, and I don’t know where to begin. My grandmother has sent me to find Robert Reekie. She is a woman of wisdom—she knows things—and she says that she knows, without doubt, that he is still alive.”
His face was graven with lines of sorrow. “Then she is blessed,” he said. “To know that your son is alive is a blessing for any mother. Many mothers do not have that confidence.”
“If you care for them, then care for my grandmother too. Let me tell her that her son is alive?”
He sighed and paused to allow her to speak.
“When did you last see him?” Sarah pressed him.
He thought for a moment. “Three-quarters of a year ago. Nearly a year.”
“Where did you see him?”
“We met at the house of a friend. He too is a physician. He and your uncle were friends, they worked together, they were interested in physic and how it worked. They were interested in preventing fevers—marsh fevers. They were working with patients, they thought they might find a cure.”
“An herbalist?” she guessed, and when he looked yet more grave, she continued: “Worse? Worse than that? An alchemist? A Jewish alchemist?”
“I don’t know what they did,” he said flatly. “I sometimes sold them metals for their work. Always, I had a license. Never did I disobey the law. May I go, your ladyship? I should set out my stall.”
“Wait.” She put a hand on his arm and he recoiled from her touch as if she were a danger to him.
“I am forbidden to touch you,” he said. “Do not harm me, signora, I pray you.”
“But it was I that touched you! What’s wrong with that?”
He shrugged as if he did not expect justice, but only that the law would be used against him. “I am forbidden.”
“Please! Where is he?” she asked simply, stepping closer to him and looking up into his face. “Where is the English Milord? My uncle?”
He pitied her enough to bend his head to whisper. “Alas, he is as good as dead. His mother is right and wrong at the same time. He is not dead; but he is in the well.”
She leaned closer, thinking she had misheard him. “In the well? Did you say he is in the well? What is that? What do you mean—the well?”
“The well is what they call the cells below the Doge’s Palace,” he replied. “Where they keep the prisoners. Those who are awaiting torture and questioning, those who have been accused while evidence is being gathered against them. Those who will be executed.”
“They are killed?” Sarah was breathless with shock.
“They die of the cold and the damp, they are below the canal, lying on damp stone, without light. They die of the heat in summer, and in winter, like now, of the cold and thirst and madness.”
“Thirst?”
“They lick the water from the walls, they are starved.”
“The prison of the Doge?”
“A prison that is itself a death sentence. Most likely he is dead already.”
She was as white as a ghost, but her hand tightened on his sleeve. “But he’s not drowned? He was not drowned in an accident? He was not drowned in a stormy night in dark tides?”
“Denounced,” he said, his face filled with pity. “Far worse than drowned. Denounced.”
DECEMBER 1670, LONDON
Johnnie found the table laid in the parlor, the walls pinned with evergreens, the fire lit in the hearth, and his mother, his grandmother, and his aunt Livia waiting for him.
“This is nice,” he said, looking around at the copper coal scuttle newly polished, and the candle flames dancing over wax candles. “This is so nice! You must have worked hard all week.”
“Your mother did,” Alinor told him. “She has been fetching and carrying every day and Livia pinned up the leaves.”
“I did nothing.” Livia put her hand on his knee and smiled at him. “I just told Tabs what to do. I am a most idle daughter-in-law.”
“She knew how to make things lovely,” Alys defended her.
“I thought you would at least have put up a couple of Caesar heads for us to dine with,” Johnnie joked.
She slapped his leg and made him blush at her touch. “Naughty boy to tease me!” she said. “We’ll have to wait till your mamma has a grand dining room, and then I will fill it with marble. Don’t you think we should sell up here and buy a bigger place upriver?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and was spared by a shout from the yard at the back of the house. They heard Tabs answer and open the warehouse doors and shout: “Mrs. Stoney! It’s a man from the Custom House,” she said.
“An officer?” Alys started, suddenly pale, rising to her feet and opening the door.
Johnnie exchanged one appalled look with his mother. Alinor went white and grasped the arms of the chair.
“Nay!” Tabs said dismissively from the hall. “A porter from the Custom House. He’s got a box for you.”
“Oh, of course, of course.” Alys put her hand to her pounding heart and laughed with relief.
They all crossed the narrow hall into the warehouse and found the porter pushing his barrow loaded with barrels and boxes through the half door of the warehouse. The wintry air blew in with him. “Delivery for Reekie,” he repeated, resting the barrow on its legs. “And duty to pay on the goods.” Alys felt in her pocket for a shilling and paid him for the delivery. “I’ll come down and pay the duty after Christmas,” she said.
“Aye, it’s not a gift!” he joked.
Alys managed a strained smile as Johnnie took a crowbar down from the wall and began to lever the top off the first box. At once the storehouse was filled with the heady scent of strange herbs. Alinor leaned over the barrel and inhaled the perfume.