The Black Sheep's Bride

Chapter One

Early Autumn, 1600

‘Sing it again, Maister, sing it again!’

Martin Chancellor, buccaneer, merchant and poet, was roistering in a tavern in Deptford known as the Bull, not far from the lodging-house where Christopher Marlowe had so mysteriously died. He had not shaved for days and was wearing the well-worn clothes of an ordinary seaman. The only valuable thing about him was the lute which he had been playing to entertain the grimy and crowded room.

He was lying back in the room’s one armchair, his booted feet on a stool. He had a tankard of ale in one hand, and the other was busily waving acknowledgements to his audience. When at last it fell silent, he said, ‘I usually make it a habit, gentlemen, never to repeat myself, so, in a moment or two, after I have wet my whistle, I will favour you with another song, this time one of my own invention.’

His hearers particularly liked being addressed as gentlemen, seeing that they were so patently nothing of the sort, and allowed themselves to fall silent on being promised further amusement. For the moment Martin occupied himself by drinking his ale and examining the faces of the crowd. On his way to the Bull he had had an uneasy feeling that he was being shadowed, or watched, but every time he had turned round to try to find out who it might be, if anyone, he had seen nothing.

Which did not, in his world, mean that there was nothing to see. However, he was not going to allow his enjoyment to be spoilt by such whim-whams. His ale finished, he hammered on the table, lifted his lute from where it rested beside him, and made ready to play and sing. He possessed a good, baritone voice, with which he had enlivened more than one dull moment on the different ships in which he had sailed.

‘As promised, gentlemen,’ he announced, ‘my offering to my own truly fair,’ and began, without further preamble, to sing.

A sonnet to my mistress’ eyes

Avoids the parts I really prize.

So I will celebrate instead

Those that we enjoy in bed…

The entire room sent up a howl of mirth on hearing this. Tankards were banged on tables, cheers rose to the dirty rafters, and most of the rest of the ditty was lost in the uproar. Several complaints were made by many furthest away from him, that the later verses of the song had been lost in the applause created by the first, but to no avail: called on to repeat it, Martin refused with a grin.

‘It’s too late,’ he told them, rising, ‘and I’m too tired. I’ll be off to my bed now.’ He offered his audience a highly suggestive wink, while slinging his lute round one shoulder and making discreetly sure that the poniard he always carried was ready for him to use if aught went amiss on his journey home. Before leaving he flung some coins to the landlord, to treat those who were nearest to the bar and had made the most noise.

Once outside, he took a deep breath and made for the nearest steps down to the Thames, where, despite the lateness of the hour, a wherry might be waiting to row him back to his temporary home, a small house in one of the City of London’s back streets.

Before he reached the riverside he heard running steps behind him. He turned rapidly just in time to see a burly man, wielding an upraised knife, ready to attack him. The lifted knife was a mistake, although it might have put paid to most of the would-be thief’s victims, for Martin, skilled in dirty fighting, chose instead to use the poniard which he had rapidly drawn, not to stab the fellow but to strike him hard in the face with its heavy hilt.

He had chosen the fellow’s nose to aim at: streaming blood, the thief blindly staggered away, dropping his knife. Martin caught him by his left hand, twisted his arm behind his back and, reversing his poniard, now drew it gently across his prisoner’s throat, saying, ‘Can you offer me any reason why I should not slit your throat on the instant?’

‘Aye, master, for it was only your purse I meant to cut, not your throat,’ he managed to gasp.

‘Now, why do I not believe you?’ Martin told him, negligently sliding his poniard once again across the thief’s neck, so that it drew a little blood. ‘For you were busy watching me in the tavern and before that I thought that I saw you in the street on the way to it. Were you hired to kill me? Speak up before I decide to finish you off at once, and then I might spare you.’

‘Your word on it,’ gasped the thief.

‘For what it’s worth, yes. Now talk, before I change my mind.’

‘To tell truth, master, I know not who the man was. He was a little fellow, richly dressed and gave me a couple of groats if I would kill you after such a fashion that it looked like a robbery on a drunken man. As God is my witness that’s the truth on’t.’

It might be, and it might not. Martin had no wish to kill the clumsy fool, even if he might be doing the state some service by ridding it of such a clodpole, so he privately decided on mercy, but also decided to let his attacker stew for a few moments before he released him.

‘And that’s it? Someone unknown points you in my direction and for a few trifling pennies, and the small sum in my purse, you will cheerfully dispose of me? You sold yourself uncommon cheap!’

‘Aye, maister, so I did. I’m but a poor man. Now will you let me go?’

‘Only when you hand over the groats your unknown master gave to you.’

‘You said yourself they was only trifling…’

‘You,’ said Martin, tightening his grip on his would-be murderer, ‘are trifling with me. Hand over the groats and think yourself lucky that I did not call the watch.’

Now this was an empty threat because, for a variety of reasons, Martin did not wish to involve the law in his business, but the thief was not to know that.

‘Aye, if that will save me.’

Martin released his grip a little so that his assailant could pull the groats out of his purse and hand them over, moaning under his breath while he did so.

‘Now, your name, and where you may be found,’ asked Martin, resuming his iron grip on the fellow.

‘You may find me at the Bull, they know me there. I’m hight Wattie Harrison, an it please you.’

‘Oh, it doesn’t please me at all, but life being what it is, I might need your incompetent services one day. Life is full of such surprises, as you are finding out. One word of warning before I let you go. Try this trick, or any other, on me again and I shall not spare you a second time.’

‘Aye, aye, maister.’

‘And don’t take your knife with you.’ This last instruction came as Wattie bent to pick it up. ‘I’ve a mind not to be attacked after being merciful—I shouldn’t like to have to kill you after all.’

‘By Satan and all the devils you’re a hard man, maister,’ offered Wattie admiringly.

‘Never mind that. Be off with you—and if your paymaster complains because you didn’t kill me, tell him that.’

Wattie pulled a grudging forelock. ‘Aye, so I will,’ and ran lightly down the path, away from the river.

Martin bent down to pick up the knife. He looked at it and gave a wry smile. ‘Now was I a complete fool to let him go? But I do hate to kill a man for nothing—even though I might regret it later.’

He was still pondering on this when, after his journey in the wherry, he reached his small home in an alley just off Forge Street. As he expected when he let himself in by the back door, Rafe, his lieutenant and his best friend, who had sailed with him many times, was waiting for him in the kitchen.

‘You are back earlier than I expected, Master.’

Martin put his lute carefully down on a shabby settle before he answered with, ‘I grew bored with low company, I must be getting old. I am ready for bed and the night is still young.’

‘Never say so, but you cannot retire yet. Two hours ago a high-nosed sort of clerk—or lawyer—arrived, demanding to see you if you were one Martin Chancellor. I told him to come again tomorrow at a more Christian time, but he said that his master had bade him not to return until he had met you, since the matter was urgent. He would not tell me what it was so I put him in the parlour to await your arrival.’

Martin gave a great yawn. ‘I suppose I ought to see him, if only to find out who the devil he can be and why he is here. You told him nothing of me, I trust. He thinks this is my one home? And that I have but the one name?’

Rafe put a finger by his nose. ‘Take me not for a fool, Master. He thinks me one—which is all to the good. He asked me about you, but I wittered to him some nonsense which had you working down at the docks and having gone to the Bull in Deptford for the odd dram after a hard day of it—which seemed to surprise him a little.’

‘Excellent. He may be friend, or he may be enemy, but a confused man waiting for me can only be to my advantage.’

‘So, I thought, Master. May I go to bed now?’

‘Certainly, if only to stop hearing you call me Master. I am Martin to you, Rafe, ever and always.’

Rafe laughed softly at that. ‘D’you know, Martin, I have the strangest feeling that we may be sailing into waters where the old rules which guided us no longer apply.’

‘Dear God, I hope not,’ Martin riposted.

And now to find out who the devil it was who needed to speak to him with such urgency that he was willing to wait so long to meet him.

The parlour which he entered was a small but clean room, furnished with the minimum of cheap possessions, except for a rather splendid clock on the shelf above a primitive hearth. A well-dressed young man with a clerkly air was seated in the one armchair before the fire. He had been reading a book which he had obviously brought with him and which he put down on the small table beside him. A leather satchel stood by his chair.

He rose as Martin entered and stared at him. At his rough clothes, at his heavily bearded face, his unruly black hair, and his blue eyes, startlingly bright against what could be seen of his brown skin. His lip involuntarily curled a little. He made no effort to speak and it was Martin who finally broke the silence by asking, ‘Who are you? And what business brings you here, sir, that you were willing to wait so long for me to come home?’

The young man picked up the satchel, saying, ‘My name is Thomas Webster, and you, I hope, are Martin Chancellor?’

‘And if I am?’

‘Then I also hope that you can prove to me that you are the man of that name for whom I have been looking.’

‘But why have you been looking for me? That is, if I am Martin Chancellor.’

‘More strictly, it is m’lord the Viscount Bretford who is Martin Chancellor’s father and who has the most urgent need to speak to his son.’

‘Has he, indeed! You surprise me greatly, since I could scarcely describe such an act as sending for me after fourteen years’ absence as an urgent one.’

Martin had often wondered whether he would ever see his father again. He might once have thought that he might seek him out, but never that the first overture would come from his father.

‘So, you need proof that I am the rightful Martin Chancellor!’ He gave a short laugh before saying, ‘Oh, I can prove that—if I need to. The marks of the flogging he ordered for me two days before I left home are still on my back—as well as the brand on my shoulder marking me as thief and rapist. Will that do for you and m’lord? Would you have me strip here? And if I told you to take yourself back to him with the message that I have no desire ever to meet him again, what then?’

‘That he is old, lonely, like to die soon, and wishes to see you, and yes, the message is urgent.’

‘Yet you may not tell me of it.’

‘No, he wishes to speak to you himself.’

‘You say that he is lonely. He has my brother John. Is he not enough for him?’

Webster’s face grew shuttered. ‘M’lord has said little to me of his reasons for wishing to speak to you, but of your mercy, I would beg you to do as he asks.’

‘He showed me little enough when I lived with him as his son, so why should I trouble with him now?’

‘I know nothing of the past, but I would ask you to reconsider. We are all sinners who need mercy, either from God or our fellows, you, I, and m’lord.’

Martin turned his back on him and stared into the fire as though he could read the future in its flames. To go, or not to go? What had he to gain or to lose? No talk of mercy moved him, and as for God, he was one with Sir Walter Raleigh, since they neither of them believed in such a nonsense. If he gave way and agreed to accompany Webster to Bretford House at this unwonted hour, it would be out of curiosity, simply to find out why in the world his father wanted to see him so urgently.

‘Very well,’ he said abruptly. ‘I will return with you—and I will bring my friend, Rafe Dudgeon, with me.’

‘Oh, I am sure that m’lord will agree to that. May I say how pleased I am that you have made this decision.’

‘No, you may not. It is no affair of yours, and I do not yet know whether it is any affair of mine that my father should, after so many years, seek me out. I go to find out what bee is buzzing in his bonnet and for no other reason. Now, sit down for a moment while I speak with Rafe and make ready to accompany you. Have you been offered any refreshment during your long vigil?’

‘A little—but a pint of ale would be welcome before we set out.’

‘That you shall have—and at once. I will see to it myself.’

With that Martin took his leave.

Some instinct told him that neither he nor Rafe would return to Forge Street that night, so after he had fed Webster, they both packed small satchels with a change of linen before accompanying him to Bretford House, that magnificent palace on the Strand, so different from the small cottage where Webster had tracked him down.

Late though it was, there were footmen on duty. It was apparent that they had orders to admit him to m’lord at once. This they did, after staring at Martin’s appearance—as the butler later said to the staff, ‘It was hard to tell which was master and which was man.’

Despite Martin’s protests, Rafe was detached from him, to accompany the butler to the kitchen where, Martin later discovered, he was wined and dined. Once he had gone, a footman led Webster and Martin up the great staircase to m’lord’s bedroom and not, as Martin had expected to the downstairs withdrawing-room, the latest word for a place where a gentleman might be private, far away from the chambers of state.

His father, propped up by many pillows, was seated in his great bed, with its Viscount’s coronet mounted at the top of the green and gold curtains. Martin scarcely recognised him. He remembered him as a large man of great presence, ruddy of face, hale and hearty, with a voice which could, as his retainers were fond of saying, be heard half a county away.

Now he was shrunken and withered, his face was as grey as his hair and his hands were ceaselessly plucking at the sheets. His voice was still cold and severe when he spoke at last, after his faded blue eyes had ceased to roam over Martin’s face and figure. It was, however, low and hoarse, quite unlike the commanding bellow of old.

Martin offered him no bow, no filial deference, merely stood there waiting to be spoken to.

‘Martin?’ his father said, and the word was a question not a statement.

‘Unfortunately so, m’lord.’ He would not call the man before him father.

‘I’ve had you sought by my agents for the last six months. I was beginning to think that Martin Chancellor had disappeared from the face of the earth.’

‘Did you indeed?’ Martin was quite determined not to initiate any subject of conversation with his father. He would not tell him that his existence as Martin Chancellor had ended on the day he had fled from his home, until he had revived it in mockery of what he had once been.

‘Yes, and the matter which I need to raise with you has become more and more urgent.’ The man on the bed fell silent as though speaking over-much tired him.

Still Martin said nothing. What he found surprising was the raging anger which was beginning to overcome him. At first when he had run away, hatred of his father had ruined his days and nights, but gradually, as time passed, he had left it behind. It was of no consequence: he had created a life for himself far from the one which he might have led before that fatal night.

Perforce his father spoke again. ‘I have only sent for you out of necessity. Nigh on six months ago your brother, John, died of the great pox—something which only my physician and I knew he had contracted. His death left you, my remaining son, as the one person who could get an heir to ensure that the Chancellor estates do not revert to the Crown—with all the ills that such an act might entail.

‘Some months before John’s death Lord Clifton and I had arranged that he should marry Lady Kate Wyville, his ward. She was his dead sister’s daughter and the heiress of the late Earl of Wyville’s estates and fortune. John fell ill shortly afterwards and the marriage was postponed pending his recovery. After his death I asked Lord Clifton if he would agree to my other son, Martin, who would become the new Baron Hadleigh, replacing him as Lady Kate’s future husband—if you could be found, that was.

‘Lord Clifton, who has been my friend for many years, was most agreeable, provided only that you were found before six months were up. That period of time ends in ten days. In short, you have become my heir and the future husband of one of the richest heiresses in England.’

Martin began to laugh. He laughed so hard that he started to stagger, and only saved himself from falling by seating himself on a bench before one of the windows. His father and Webster, who had been standing near to the door, stared at him in astonishment.

Lord Bretford said, frostily, ‘I fail to see why what I have just told you should have caused you so much amusement.’

‘You do?’ Martin stopped laughing, rose and advanced to the foot of his father’s bed. ‘Your brain must have become addled since you have grown old if you do not find it a subject for comedy that your good son should have died of the pox and that the bad one should then be desperately searched for in order to save the family fortunes by marrying the so-called good son’s leavings.’

His father’s grey face turned even greyer. Martin heard Webster behind him give an involuntary gasp after he had finished.

‘You have not changed,’ his father finally achieved. ‘You come here looking like a piece of scum from the gutter and when I make you a grand offer—which you do not deserve—you choose to insult me.’

‘A grand offer? I have a life of my own. So why should I choose to live the one you have so belatedly offered me?’

‘A life of your own! And pray what might that be? I understand from Webster that you are living in a hovel in a dirty back street and you come here looking like a beggar. Yet I still stand by my offer. Accept it—and I am ready to forget the past.’

‘You are ready to forget the past! I, however, am not. I shall not remain here this night, but will leave immediately. I would bid you goodnight, but that I do not wish to bid you a good anything.’

He moved towards the door, to walk past Webster, except that the man followed him out and shutting the door behind him took him by the arm.

‘A moment,’ he said abruptly. ‘I would speak with you.’

Martin felt a deathly tiredness overcome him. ‘Whatever can you have to say to me?’

‘This: you are throwing away a fortune, a rich and clever wife, and the chance to allow the old fool in there to die happily. Now, I must inform you that I have also discovered your many secrets. I know that you do not need his fortune, that you have another name and that it is a good one and an honoured one, even if you occasionally amuse yourself by enjoying yourself as you did when you first went to sea. Moreover, what have you to lose by obliging your father?

‘Those whom m’lord employs, the estate itself and all its dependants will lose everything. I do not name myself as one of their company, since I shall still have my good name to sell—but they will have nothing. Why are you doing this? To satisfy your taste for revenge? M’lord thinks that you are a penniless ne’er-do-well and I have not disabused him of that false belief. Can you not see that your best revenge would be to accept his offer? And, saying nothing of your own truth, laugh at him while you deceive him, and at the same time save those unfortunates who cannot help themselves?’

‘You know the truth of me—and have not told him?’

‘Why should I? His judgement is poor: he worshipped his so-called good son, and he believes that he is doing you a favour by forgiving you, the so-called bad one. Do yourself a favour—go back and tell him that you have changed your mind—with one condition only.’

Martin was fascinated. The previously anonymous man before him had changed colour like that odd animal the chameleon—or like himself, for that matter!

‘And that condition is?’

‘That you will be allowed to employ me to assist you in your new life. After all, he believes that you will not be accustomed to such grandeur.’

To Martin’s amusement, the wily fellow had the audacity to offer him a wink when he had ended his sentence. ‘I had not believed you to be a rogue,’ he said at last.

‘No? As you must well know, we are all rogues when it comes to acting on our own behalf.’

Should he do as Webster had suggested? Did he really want a wife to be chosen for him by two old men? On the other hand, as Rafe had so often told him, he ought to marry, and in the class from which he had sprung most marriages were arranged ones. And since he no longer believed in love, he might as well marry without it.

Was the fellow trying to blackmail him? Almost as though he had read his mind, Webster leaned forward and said confidentially, ‘Have no fear that I shall use my knowledge of your true self to gain a hold over you. After all, it would be a strange sort of power to use against a man—that you knew that he was a success when everyone else thought that he was a failure!’

‘True enough.’

The more Martin thought about it the more attractive Webster’s advice became. To pretend that he was virtually a beggar by allowing his father to believe that, in accepting him as his son again, he was doing him the greatest favour, was indeed a joke. Life had grown dull lately, which was why he was masquerading as Martin Chancellor, a poor seaman, to try to enjoy himself as he had done when he had been a poverty-stricken lad trying to make his way in the world.

‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘I will do as you suggest, but if I should choose to tell him the truth at any time, I shall do so.’

‘Oh, that is your choice, and if the lady does not please you—then that is your choice, too.’

‘Amen to that.’ Many women had pleased Martin Chancellor since he had fled the family home, and he doubted that this one would be any different.

He walked back into the bedroom to tell the old man that he had changed his mind. ‘I will agree to become your son again,’ he said, ‘on one condition—that you allow Webster to be part of my household in order to help me to behave as Lord Hadleigh should.’

To which Lord Bretford said, smiling a little, ‘At last, the prodigal has returned. Of course you may have Webster to serve you; I can think of no better task for him.’

Webster, still in the background, had a hard time of it trying not to laugh aloud. Martin’s face remained impassive.

‘First of all,’ said his father, his face alive with interest for the first time since his son had arrived, ‘you must consent to live here for a time, ready to meet your future bride when I have informed her guardian of your return.’

Martin shook his head. He might have guessed that his father’s attempt to control him would begin immediately and he intended to have none of that. ‘Not so. I have a home of my own, and duties connected with it to which I must attend. I will visit you whenever it is convenient to do so.’

He was lying, of course, for the home to which he was referring was not that in Forge Street. It struck him that he and the truth had rarely been friends since he had ceased to be Lord Bretford’s son, and being restored to that position had certainly not changed matters. If anything it had made them worse!

His father’s hands began to pluck at the bedclothes again. ‘It is a bad omen, Hadleigh, that you have begun your new life by defying me, but if you must, you must. I am prepared