Commendone's face was an elaborate mask of wonder.
"Sallies o' nights?" he said.
The other young man swung his legs to and fro, and began to chuckle. He caught hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and looked down on Johnnie in the chair with an amused smile.
"And I had thought you were right in the thick of it," he said. "Thy very innocence, Johnnie, hath prevented thee from seeing what goes on under thy nose. Why, His Highness, Sir John Shelton, and Mr. Clarence Attwood leave the Tower night after night and hie them to old Mother Motte's in Duck Lane whenever the Queen hath the vapours and thinketh her lord is in bed, or at his prayers. Phew!"—he made a gesture of disgust. "It stinketh all over the Court. I see, Commendone, now why thou knowest nothing of this. The King chooseth for his night-bird friends ruffians like Shelton and Attwood. He would not dare ask one that is a gentleman to wallow in brothels with him. But be assured, I speak entirely the truth."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders once more. "I know nothing of it," he said, with a quick, side-long glance at Ambrose Cholmondely. "I am not asked to be Esquire on such occasions, at any rate."
"And wouldst not go if thou wert," Cholmondely said, loudly. "Nor would any other gentleman that I know of—only the very scum and vermin of the Court. The game of love, look you, is very well. I am no purist, but I hunt after my own kind, and so should we all do. I don't bemire myself in the stews. Well, there it is. And now, much refreshed by this good wine, and much heartened by our compact, I'll leave thee. I must get back to guard at the garden gate. Her Grace will be leaving anon to dress for supper. Perchance to-night the King will be well enough to make appearance. While thou hast been away, he hath been close in his quarters and very sick. The Spanish priests have been buzzing round him like autumn wasps. And Thorne, the chirurgeon from Wood Street, a very skilful man, hath, they say, been summoned this morning to the Palace. Addio!"
With a bright smile and a wave of his hand, he flung out of the room.
Johnnie finished the lukewarm sack in his goblet. He had learnt something that he wished to know, and as he saw his friend pass beyond the windows outside, his feet crunching the gravel and humming a little song, Johnnie smiled bitterly to himself. He knew rather more about King Philip's illness than most people in England at that moment. And as for Duck Lane—well! he knew something of that also. As the thought came to him, indeed, he shuddered. He remembered the great ham-like face of the procuress who kept this fashionable hell. He heard her voice speaking to him as, very surely, she spoke to but few people who visited her there. He thought of Ambrose Cholmondely's fastidiousness, and he smiled again as he wondered what the Esquire would say if he only knew.
It was not a merry smile. There was no humour in it. It was bitter, cynical, and fraught with something of fear and expectation.
He had drunk the wine, and it had reanimated him physically; but he rose now and realised how weary he was in mind, and also—for he was always most scrupulous and careful about his dress—how stained and travel-worn in appearance.