The Quality of Mercy. Faye Kellerman

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 Raphael, how did you meet your end?

      Rebecca had loved him because it had been her duty. She had addressed him with a modulated tone of voice, greeted him with smiles, suffered his dark moods in silence. She knew it was his work, not she, that had been his true passion. Life was a mysterious animal. In the end it was his passion that did him in. She worried that the passion might also destroy her dear Miguel.

      Miguel was her distant cousin but her brother in spirit. He’d never been a lover of women. Yet he was also a dutiful son. If their fathers wished them to wed, they would wed. And what a mockery that would be.

      There was a knock on her door, her mother’s whisperings. Rebecca forced herself upright, unlocked the door, then fell back atop her counterpane. Sarah Lopez, clad in her bedclothes, entered the bedchamber and sat on her daughter’s mattress. A moonbeam fell across her face, turned her cheeks ghostly white. Her eyes looked so sad, but Rebecca had never remembered a day when they had looked happy. Sarah brushed her waist-length gray hair off her shoulders and touched Rebecca’s hand. It was rigid and cold.

      “Under the covers, Becca,” Sarah ordered gently. “I’ll not allow you to grow ill from the frigid air. Tis a tomb inside here—dark and wintry. I’ll call the chambermaid and have her rekindle the hearth immediately.”

      Rebecca squeezed her mother’s hand. “How can I allow myself warmth and comfort when Raphael sits for eternity in an icy bed?”

      Sarah pulled back the bedcovers. “Inside, little one, I prithee.”

      Rebecca slithered underneath the down blanket. Sarah drew the spread up to her daughter’s chin.

      “I’m not half the clever wordsmith that you are, Becca,” spoke Sarah. “I’ve stayed up for hours trying to find proper words of solace, yet my mind is as empty as a newborn babe’s. Tell me what to do to comfort you.”

      Rebecca didn’t answer. Her mother’s voice, though soothing, sounded so weary. It saddened Rebecca to think that she’d brought any more woes to СКАЧАТЬ