The Rebel's Mark

The riveting tale of power and secrets from the bestselling historical crime series, perfect for fans of S J Parris and Shardlake

S. W. Perry

• Publisher: Corvus
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781838953997
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: Literature

'MY FAVOURITE HISTORICAL CRIME SERIES' S. G. MacLEAN
'BEAUTIFUL WRITING' GILES KRISTIAN
-----------------------------------
In a world on the brink of change, showing any weakness can be fatal...
1598. Nicholas Shelby, unorthodox physician and reluctant spy for Robert Cecil, has brought his wife Bianca and their child home from exile in Padua. Welcome at court, his star is in the ascendancy. But he has returned to a dangerous world.
Two old enemies are approaching their final reckoning. In London, Elizabeth is entering the twilight of her reign. In Madrid, King Philip of Spain is dying.
Elizabeth has seen off more than one Spanish attempt at invasion. But still she is not safe. In Ireland, rebellion against her rule is raging. And if Spain can take Ireland, England will be more vulnerable than ever.
When Robert Cecil receives a desperate plea for help, he dispatches Nicholas to Ireland to investigate. Soon he and Bianca find themselves caught up not just in bloody rebellion, but in the lethal power-play between Cecil and the one man Elizabeth believes can restore Ireland to her: the unpredictable Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
Praise for S. W. Perry's Jackdaw Mysteries
'S. W. Perry is one of the best' The Times
'No-one is better than S. W. Perry at leading us through the squalid streets of London in the sixteenth century' Andrew Swanston
'Historical fiction at its most sumptuous' Rory Clements

READERS ARE GOING WILD FOR THE REBEL'S MARK
'Exceptional' *****
'I fall more in love with the characters with each book' *****
'Brings the past to life' *****
'Loved every minute' *****
'Not to be missed' *****

PART 1

The Death of Kings

1

The Atlantic Ocean, sixty leagues south-west of Ireland, September 1598

Since the sandglass was last turned, the storm has stalked the San Juan de Berrocal from behind the cover of a darkening sky. It has sniffed at her with its blustery breath, jostled her with watery claws, spat at her with a sudden icy blast of rain. Along the western horizon where the twilight is dying, flashes of lightning now ripple. Whenever the carrack rises on a wave crest, they seem brighter. Nearer. It is only a matter of time, thinks Don Rodriquez Calva de Sagrada, before the accompanying thunder is no longer drowned by the roaring of the sea and the screaming of the wind.

Drowned.

Don Rodriquez has faced death before in the service of Spain. He has made voyages longer and more uncertain even than this one. But to drown… that, he thinks, would be an ignominious death for a courtier of The Most Illustrious Philip, by the Grace of God, King of Spain, Aragon, Valencia, Mallorca, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia.

The deck cants alarmingly as the San Juan plunges down a vertiginous slope of black water. Don Rodriquez flails wildly for something to hang on to. His hands seize the wooden housing of the ship’s lodestar, brightly painted red and gold – the colours of Castile. Beneath his numb fingers, the wet timber is as slippery as if the paint were blood. But to let go, he is sure, would result in him sliding off the deck and into the maelstrom surging mere feet below. He is beginning to wonder if the captain – fearful of interception by one of those sleek English sea-wolves bristling with cannon and possessed of Lucifer’s luck – has made a fatal error of judgement.

As the deck soars upwards again, leaving Don Rodriquez’s stomach somewhere in the depths of the ocean, the captain – a short, taciturn fellow with the darting eyes of a scavenging gull, and whose seaman’s contempt for the landsman who chartered his ship has not abated since they left Coruña – pins his chart against the lid of the lodestar box. The corners thrash wildly in the gale like the wings of a bird trying to escape the hunter’s net. ‘Be not dismayed, my lord!’ he says with an insulting smile as the index finger of his free hand, encased in the thick felt of his glove, makes landfall in the pool of dancing light cast by the helmsman’s lantern. ‘God, in his infinite mercy, has provided us with a safe anchorage – here.’

Don Rodriquez leans forward to study the map. It is a portolan chart, purchased in Seville for more maravedís than he had cared to pay. Everything on it – from the compass bearings to the harbours and inlets, promontories and coves – is based upon reports from Spanish fishermen who once plied these waters. But since the outbreak of the present war between the heretic English and God-fearing Spain there have been few enough of those in these waters. What if the map is out of date, and the English have built a castle where the captain’s finger now rests? Besides, it will be utterly dark soon. Not even a lunatic would consider a night landfall on such a treacherous coast. And only a lunatic who was heartily tired of life would do so in the face of an approaching storm.

‘Here’ turns out to be some distance from Roaringwater Bay, where the captain had promised to put them ashore at first light.

‘Is there nowhere closer? Every extra hour I am ashore is an hour given to the English to contrive our ruin.’

With an impertinence he would never dare risk on dry land, the captain says, ‘We made a pact, my lord, did we not? I am not to ask why a grand courtier of our sovereign majesty wishes to interrupt his voyage to the Spanish Netherlands to spend a night in Ireland. In return, the same grand courtier shall leave all decisions of a maritime nature to me. Yes?’

‘Yes,’ admits Don Rodriquez despondently. ‘We agreed.’

‘Trust me – I know these waters,’ the captain adds. ‘I have sailed them before, with the Duke of Medina Sidonia.’

The man’s familiarity with the coast of Ireland is why Don Rodriquez hired him in the first place. Now, thinking on the fate that befell the commander of the grand Armada, he is beginning to have second thoughts.

Another wave of watery malevolence sends the San Juan into a plunge even more sickening than the last. The sea breaks over the elegantly carved Castilian lion on her prow, and for a moment Don Rodriquez fears she will go on plunging into the deep, never to rise again. From beneath the deck planks, a shrill female scream carries clearly against the clamour of the gale.

‘You had best go below and comfort the noble lady, your daughter, and leave me to my duties, my lord,’ says the captain, fighting the wind for possession of the chart as he tries to tuck it back into his cape.

Don Rodriquez, being a man of honour, objects.

‘You may think me a cosseted courtier, Señor, but I am also a soldier, and I have voyaged in His Majesty’s service before. My arms are still strong. Let me stay here. Direct me as you will.’

The captain glances at his passenger’s well-manicured hands, the fingers laden with bejewelled rings. He looks at the pretentiously styled black curls on his head, the conceit of a man just a little too old to carry them off. A landsman of the worst kind, he decides. A danger on a storm-tossed deck, not only to himself but to all around him.

‘Voyaged where?’ he asks. ‘On the Sanabria, in a pleasure barge?’

‘To New Spain. To Hispaniola.’

The captain looks Don Rodriquez up and down, wondering if this is little more than a courtier’s boasting. ‘You never told me that at Coruña. Was this recently?’

‘Twenty years ago,’ Don Rodriquez admits.

‘Ah,’ the captain says, barely bothering to keep the scorn out of his voice. ‘In that case, your place is not here, my lord. I suggest you go below and leave me and my crew to our profession.’ Then, with the sly smile of a Madrid street-trickster, he adds, ‘I hope you and the women have strong stomachs. We’re in for a tempestuous night.’

Beyond the shuttered windows of the smaller of the two grand banqueting chambers at Greenwich Palace, on the southern bank of the Thames some five miles downriver from London Bridge, the early-September dusk is troubled by no more than a few high wisps of cloud, as insubstantial as an old man’s breath on winter air. Inside, the candles have been lit, the dining boards and trestles cleared away, the covers of Flanders linen folded up and carted off to the wash-house, the plate and silverware removed. As for the diners, if indigestion is in danger of making its presence publicly known, they are doing their level best to suffer in silence. Elizabeth of England does not appreciate having her masques interrupted by vulgar noises off-stage.

Dr Nicholas Shelby and his wife Bianca have removed themselves to the gallery, amongst the other palace chaff who don’t merit a place closer to the players. As a consequence, they have an uninterrupted view of the assembled courtiers bedecked in their late-summer plumage: satin peasecod doublets and venetians for the men, low-cut brocade gowns cascading richly over whalebone farthingales for the women – all striking languid poses around a raised dais covered in plush scarlet velvet. In the centre of the dais stands a gilded wooden chair emblazoned with the English lion and the Welsh dragon. Upon the chair lies a plump cushion covered in the finest cloth of gold. And upon the cushion, like a petite pharaoh perched on a ziggurat, sits a woman with the whitest face Bianca has ever seen.

‘She’s smaller than I expected,’ Bianca whispers into her husband’s ear.

‘Smaller?’ Nicholas answers. ‘What did you expect – an Amazon?’

The court has assembled tonight to enjoy a recital of excerpts from Master Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, performed by the best actors the Master of the Revels has contrived to drag out of the Southwark taverns and transport – standing fare only – on the ferry from Blackfriars.

On the assumption that mirth at the expense of royalty is probably treasonous, Bianca stifles a giggle. ‘Has she let you see what she hides behind all that white ceruse yet?’

‘Of course not. I’m not allowed to actually touch the sacred personage of the sovereign.’

‘Then how can you treat her if she falls ill?’

‘That’s only half the problem,’ Nicholas replies. ‘What if I have to cast a horoscope before making a diagnosis? If it turns out to be inauspicious and I say so out loud, or write it down, I could be sent to the Tower for imagining her demise. At the moment, that’s treason.’

‘But you don’t believe in casting horoscopes before making a diagnosis, Nicholas. You never have.’

‘But the College of Physicians will insist on it. Otherwise they’ll accuse me of not doing my job properly. Remember what happened to poor old Dr Lopez? Being the queen’s doctor didn’t save him from his enemies.’

‘How can I forget?’ Bianca says, rolling her eyes. ‘I see his head on the parapet of the gatehouse every time I cross London Bridge. It’s been up there since before we went away.’ She pulls a face. ‘Except for the jaw, of course. That must have dropped off and fallen into the river while we were in Padua.’

Nicholas rests his elbows on the balustrade and turns his face very close to hers. ‘If you want the truth, I don’t believe she ordered Sir Robert Cecil to call us back to England because she wanted me to be her physician. She can call on any number of the senior fellows from the College. They’d stab each other with a lancet to get the summons.’

Bianca pushes a rebellious strand of dark hair back under the rim of her lace caul. Holding his gaze, she whispers mischievously, ‘Well, it wasn’t because she was in need of a good dancing partner, was it, Husband?’

Nicholas feigns hurt feelings. ‘It’s not my fault I can’t dance a decent pavane or a volta. My feet spent their formative years wading through good Suffolk clay.’

‘Are you telling me that we subjected ourselves and our infant son to several uncomfortable weeks aboard an English barque all the way from Venice just to satisfy the passing fancy of an old woman who wears whitewash on her skin?’ Bianca asks. Then, as an afterthought, ‘And if that’s her own hair, then I’m Lucrezia Borgia.’

Given his wife’s known skills as an apothecary –...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Part 1 : The Death of Kings
• Part 2 : Our English Caesar
• Part 3 : … Greate dammadge to her Majestie…
• Historical Note
• Acknowledgements