23
Sheffield Castle was one of the more uncomfortable prisons in which Alison had spent the last fifteen years with Mary Stuart. It was three hundred years old, and felt it. The place was built at the confluence of two rivers and had a moat on the other two sides, and to say it was damp was a grim understatement. Its owner, the earl of Shrewsbury, had quarrelled with Queen Elizabeth about the meagre allowance she gave him for Mary’s keep; and in consequence Shrewsbury provided the cheapest food and drink.
The only redeeming feature of the place was a deer park of four square miles just across the moat.
Mary was allowed to ride in the park, though she always had to be accompanied by an escort of armed guards. On days when she did not want to ride, for any reason, Alison was allowed to go into the park on her own: no one cared if she escaped. She had a black pony called Garçon who was well-behaved most of the time.
As soon as she had the avenue of walnut trees in front of her she galloped Garçon for a quarter of a mile, to burn off his excess energy. After that he was more obedient.
Riding fast gave her a feeling of freedom that was brief and illusory. When she slowed Garçon to a walk, she remembered that she lived in a prison. She asked herself why she stayed. No one would stop her if she went back to Scotland, or France. But she was a prisoner of hope.
She had lived her life in hope – and disappointment. She had waited for Mary to become queen of France, then that had lasted less than two years. Mary had come home to rule Scotland, but had never been truly accepted as queen, and in the end they had forced her to abdicate. Now she was the rightful queen of England, recognized as such by everyone – except the English. But there were thousands, perhaps millions, of loyal Catholics here who would fight for her and acclaim her as their queen, and now Alison was waiting and hoping for the moment when they would get the chance to do just that.
It was a long time coming.
As she was passing through a grove, a man she did not know stepped from behind a massive oak tree and stood in front of her.
He startled Garçon, who skittered sideways. Alison brought the pony under control swiftly, but not before the stranger had come close enough to grab the bridle.
‘Let go of my horse, or I’ll have you flogged,’ she said firmly.
‘I mean you no harm,’ he said.
‘Then let go.’
He released the bridle and stepped back a pace.
He was a little under fifty years old, she guessed; his hair thinning on top, his reddish beard bushy. He did not seem very threatening, and perhaps he had taken the bridle only to help her control the horse.
He said: ‘Are you Alison McKay?’
She lifted her chin in the universal gesture of superiority. ‘When I married my husband I became Lady Ross, and when I buried him a year later I became the dowager Lady Ross, but I was Alison McKay once, a long time ago. Who are you?’
‘Jean Langlais.’
Alison reacted to the name, saying: ‘I’ve heard of you. But you’re not French.’
‘I am a messenger from France. To be exact, from Pierre Aumande de Guise.’
‘I know him.’ She recalled a young man with waves of blond hair and an air of ruthless competence. She had wanted him on her side, and imagined them as a team, but that had not been their destiny. He was no longer young, of course. ‘How is Pierre?’
‘He is the right-hand man of the duke of Guise.’
‘A bishop, perhaps, or even an archbishop? No, of course not, he’s married.’ To a servant girl who had been impregnated by one of the rowdy Guise adolescents, she remembered. Much to Alison’s regret.
‘His wife died recently.’
‘Ah. Now watch him rise. He may end up as Pope. What’s his message?’
‘Your imprisonment is almost over.’
Alison’s heart leaped in optimism, but she suppressed her elation. It was easy to say: Your imprisonment is almost over. Making it happen was another thing. She kept her expression neutral as she said: ‘How so?’
‘The duke of Guise plans to invade England, with the backing of King Felipe of Spain and Pope Gregory XIII. Mary Stuart must be the symbolic leader of this army. They will free her and put her on the throne.’
Could this be true? Alison hardly dared to think so. She considered what she should say. To gain time she pretended to muse. ‘Last time I saw Henri de Guise he was a little blond boy ten years old, and now he wants to conquer England.’
‘The Guises are second only to the royal family in France. If he says he will conquer England, he will. But he needs to know that his cousin Mary will play to the full her role in this revolution.’
Alison studied him. His face was lean and handsome, but his looks gave an impression of flinty ruthlessness. He reminded her somewhat of Pierre. She made her decision. ‘I can give you that guarantee here and now.’
Jean Langlais shook his head. ‘Duke Henri will not take your word for it – nor mine, come to that. He wants it in writing, from Mary.’
Alison’s hopes faded again. That would be difficult. ‘You know that all her outgoing and incoming letters are read by a man called Sir Ned Willard.’ Alison had met the young Ned Willard at St Dizier, with Mary’s half-brother James Stuart, and then again at Carlisle Castle. Like Pierre, Ned had come a long way.
Recognition flickered in Langlais’s eyes, and Alison guessed that he, too, knew Ned. He said: ‘We need to set up a secret channel of communication.’
‘You and I can meet here. I get to ride out alone about once a week.’
He shook his head. ‘That might do for now. I’ve been observing the castle, and I see that security around Queen Mary is slack. But it may be tightened up. We need a means that is more difficult to detect.’
Alison nodded. He was right. ‘What do you suggest?’
‘I was going to ask you that. Is there a servant, someone who routinely goes in and out of Sheffield Castle, who might be persuaded to smuggle letters?’
Alison considered. She had done this before, at Loch Leven, and she could do it again. Many people called at the castle every day. They had to supply food and drink and everything else needed by Queen Mary and her entourage of thirty people – even an imprisoned monarch had a court. And that was on top of family and hangers-on of the earl of Shrewsbury. But which of the callers could be charmed, bullied or bribed into this dangerous business?
Alison’s mind went to Peg Bradford, a plain, raw-boned girl of eighteen who came to collect the soiled linen and took it home to wash it. She had never before seen a queen, and made no secret of her worship of Mary Stuart. The queen of Scots was past forty now, and her beauty had gone; captivity had made her heavy, and her once-luxuriant hair had deteriorated so much that in company she wore an auburn wig. But she was still that fairy-tale figure, an ill-fated queen, nobly suffering cruelty and injustice, irresistibly seductive to some people. Mary played up to Peg almost automatically, hardly thinking about it: to such people she was always regal but friendly, so that they thought she was marvellously warm and human. If you were a queen, Alison knew, you did not have to do much to be loved.
‘A laundress called Peg Bradford,’ Alison said. ‘She lives in Brick Street next to St John’s church.’
‘I’ll make contact. But you need to prepare her.’
‘Of course.’ That would be easy. Alison could picture Mary holding Peg’s hand, talking to her in a low, confidential voice. She could imagine the joy and devotion on Peg’s face when she was entrusted with a special task for the queen.
‘Tell her that a stranger will come,’ said Langlais. ‘With a purse of gold.’
*
IN SHOREDITCH, JUST outside the east wall of the city of London, between a slaughterhouse and a horse pond, there stood a building called The Theatre.
When it was built no one in England had ever seen a structure like it. A cobbled courtyard in the middle was surrounded by an octagon of tiered wooden galleries under a tile roof. From one of the eight sides a platform, called a stage, jutted out into the yard. The Theatre had been purpose-built for the performance of plays, and was much more suitable than the inn yards and halls where such events were normally put on.
Rollo Fitzgerald went there on an autumn afternoon in 1583. He was tailing Francis Throckmorton. He needed to forge one more link in the chain of communication between the duke of Guise and the queen of Scots.
His sister Margery did not know that he was in England. He preferred it that way. She must never get even a suspicion of what he was doing. She continued to smuggle priests from the English College into the country, but she hated the idea of Christians fighting each other. If she knew he was fomenting an insurrection, she would make trouble. She might even betray the plot, so strongly did she believe in nonviolence.
However, all was going well. He could hardly believe that the plan was working with no snags. It had to be the will of God.
The laundress Peg Bradford had proved as easy to persuade as Alison had forecast. She would have smuggled letters in the laundry just to please Queen Mary, and the bribe Rollo gave her had been almost superfluous. She had no idea that what she was doing could lead her to the gallows. Rollo had felt a twinge of guilt about persuading such an unworldly and well-meaning girl to become a traitor.
At the other end of the chain, Pierre Aumande de Guise had arranged for his letters to Mary to be held at the French embassy in London.
All Rollo needed now was someone to pick up the letters in London and deliver them to Peg in Sheffield; and Throckmorton was his choice.
Admission to The Theatre was a penny. Throckmorton paid an additional penny to get into the covered gallery, and a third penny to rent a stool. Rollo followed him in and stood behind and above him, watching for an opportunity to speak to him quietly and inconspicuously.
Throckmorton came from a wealthy and distinguished family whose motto was Virtue is the only nobility. His father had flourished during the reign of the late Mary Tudor, but had fallen from favour under Elizabeth Tudor, just like Rollo’s father. And Throckmorton’s father had eagerly agreed to harbour one of Rollo’s secret priests.
Throckmorton was expensively dressed, with an extravagant white ruff. He was not yet thirty, but his hair was receding into a widow’s peak which, together with his sharp nose and pointed beard, gave him a bird-like look. After studying at Oxford, Throckmorton had travelled to France and contacted English Catholic exiles, which was how Rollo knew of his leanings. However, they had never actually met, and Rollo was far from certain that he could persuade Throckmorton to risk his life in the cause.
The play was called Ralph Roister Doister, which was also the name of the main character, a braggart whose actions never matched his words. His boasting was exploited, by the impish Matthew Merrygreek, to get him entangled in absurd situations which made the whole place rock with laughter. Rollo was reminded of the African playwright Terence, who had written in Latin in the second century BC. All students had to read the plays of Terence. Rollo enjoyed himself so much that for a few minutes he even forgot his deadly mission.
Then an interval was announced and he remembered.
He followed Throckmorton outside and stood behind him in a queue to buy a cup of wine. Moving closer, Rollo said quietly. ‘Bless you, my son.’
Throckmorton looked startled.
Rollo was not wearing priestly robes, but he discreetly reached inside his shirt collar, grasped the gold cross that he wore under his clothes, showed it to Throckmorton for a second, then dropped it out of sight. The cross identified him as a Catholic: Protestants believed it was superstitious to wear one.
Throckmorton said: ‘Who are you?’
‘Jean Langlais.’
It had crossed Rollo’s mind that he might use other false names, to confuse his trail even more. But the name of Jean Langlais had begun to acquire an aura. It represented a mysteriously powerful figure, a ghost-like being moving silently between England and France, working secretly for the Catholic cause. It had become an asset.
‘What do you want?’
‘God has work for you to do.’
Throckmorton’s face showed excitement and fear as he thought what this might mean. ‘What sort of work?’
‘You must go to the French embassy – after dark, cloaked and hooded – and ask for the letters from Monsieur de Guise, then take those letters to Sheffield and give them to a laundress called Peg Bradford. After that you must wait until Peg gives you some letters in return, which you will bring back to the embassy. That’s all.’
Throckmorton nodded slowly. ‘Sheffield is where Mary Queen of Scots is imprisoned.’
‘Yes.’
There was a long pause. ‘I could be hanged for this.’
‘Then you would enter heaven all the sooner.’
‘Why don’t you do it yourself?’
‘Because you are not the only one who has been chosen by God to do his work. In England there are thousands of young men like yourself eager for change. My role is to tell them what they can do in the struggle to restore the true faith. I, too, am likely to go to heaven sooner rather than later.’
They reached the head of the line and bought their drinks. Rollo led Throckmorton away from the crowd. They stood on the edge of the pond, looking at the black water. Throckmorton said: ‘I have to think about this.’
‘No, you don’t.’ That was the last thing Rollo wanted. He needed Throckmorton to commit. ‘The Pope has excommunicated the false queen, Elizabeth, and forbidden Englishmen to obey her. It’s your holy duty to help the true queen of England regain her throne. You know that, don’t you?’
Throckmorton took a gulp of wine. ‘Yes, I know it,’ he said.
‘Then give me your hand and say you will play your part.’
Throckmorton hesitated for a long moment. Then he looked Rollo in the eye and said: ‘I’ll do it.’
They shook hands.
*
IT TOOK NED a week to get to Sheffield.
Such a distance, 170 miles, could be covered faster by someone who kept horses permanently stabled at intervals along the route, so that he could change mounts several times a day; but that was mainly done by merchants who needed a regular courier service between cities such as Paris and Antwerp, because news was money to them. There was no courier service between London and Sheffield.
The journey gave him plenty of time to worry.
His nightmare was coming true. The French ultra-Catholics, the king of Spain and the Pope had at last agreed on joint action. They made a deadly combination. Between them they had the power and the money to launch an invasion of England. Already spies were making plans of the harbours where the invaders would land. Ned had no doubt that discontented Catholic noblemen such as Earl Bart were sharpening their swords and burnishing their armour.
And now, worst of all, Mary Stuart was involved.
Ned had received a message from Alain de Guise in Paris, via the English embassy there. Alain continued to live with Pierre and spy on him: this was his revenge. Pierre, for his part, treated his stepson as a harmless drudge, made him run errands, and seemed to like having him around as a dogsbody.
Alain’s message said Pierre was rejoicing that he had succeeded in making contact with the queen of the Scots.
This was bad news. Mary’s approval would give the whole treasonous enterprise a cloak of holy respectability. To many she was the rightful queen of England, and Elizabeth the usurper. Under Mary’s auspices, a gang of foreign thugs became an army of righteousness in the eyes of the world.
It was maddening. After all that Elizabeth had achieved, bringing religious peace and commercial prosperity to England for twenty-five years, they still would not leave her be.
Ned’s task of protecting Elizabeth was made more difficult by personal court rivalries – as happened so often in politics. His Puritan master, Walsingham, clashed with the fun-loving Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. ‘Secret codes, and invisible ink!’ Leicester would jeer when he ran into Walsingham in the palace of White Hall or the garden of Hampton Court. ‘Power is won with guns and bullets, not pens and ink!’ He could not persuade the queen to get rid of Walsingham – she was too smart for that – but his scepticism reinforced her miserliness, and the work done by Walsingham and his men was never properly financed.
Ned could have reached Sheffield at the end of his sixth day of travel. However, he did not want to arrive muddy-stockinged and road-weary, in case he needed to impose his authority. So he stopped at an inn two miles outside the town. Next day he got up early, put on a clean shirt, and arrived at the gate of Sheffield Castle at eight in the morning.
It was a formidable fortress, but he was irritated to see that security was careless. He crossed the bridge over the moat along with three other people: a girl with two lidded buckets that undoubtedly contained milk; a brawny builder’s lad carrying a long timber on his shoulder, presumably for some repair work; and a carter with a vertiginous load of hay. Three or four people were coming the other way. None of them was challenged by the two armed guards at the gate, who were eating mutton chops and throwing the bones into the moat.
Ned sat on his horse in the middle of the inner courtyard, looking around, getting his bearings. There was a turret house that he guessed would be Mary’s prison. The hay cart rumbled over to a building that was clearly the stable block. A third building, the least uncomfortable-looking, would be where the earl lived.
He walked his horse to the stable. Summoning his most arrogant voice, he shouted at a young groom: ‘Hey! You! Take my horse.’ He dismounted.
The startled boy took the bridle.
Pointing, Ned said: ‘I presume I’ll find the earl in that building?’
‘Yes, sir. May I ask the name?’
‘Sir Ned Willard, and you’d better remember it.’ With that Ned stalked off.
He pushed open the wooden door of the house and entered a small hall with a smoky fire. To one side an open door revealed a gloomy medieval great hall with no one in it.
The elderly porter was not as easy to bully as the groom. He stood barring the way and said: ‘Good day to you, master.’ He had good manners, but as a guard he was next to useless: Ned could have knocked him down with one hand.
‘I am Sir Ned Willard, with a message from Queen Elizabeth. Where is the earl of Shrewsbury?’
The porter took a moment to size Ned up. Someone with nothing but ‘sir’ in front of his name was below an earl on the social scale. On the other hand, it was not wise to offend a messenger from the queen. ‘It’s an honour to welcome you to the house, Sir Ned,’ said the porter tactfully. ‘I’ll go immediately to see whether the earl is ready to receive you.’
He opened a door off the hall, and Ned glimpsed a dining room.
The door closed, but Ned heard the porter say: ‘My lord, are you able to see Sir Ned Willard with a message from her majesty Queen Elizabeth?’
Ned did not wait. He opened the door and barged in, stepping past the startled porter. He found himself in a small room with a round table and a big fireplace – warmer and more comfortable than the great hall. Four people sat at breakfast, two of whom he knew. The extraordinarily tall fortyish woman with a double chin and a ginger wig was Mary Queen of Scots. He had last seen her fifteen years ago when he had gone to Carlisle Castle to tell her that Queen Elizabeth had made her a prisoner. The slightly older woman next to her was her companion Alison, Lady Ross, who had been with her at Carlisle and even earlier at St Dizier. Ned had not met the other two but he could guess who they were. The balding man in his fifties with a spade-shaped beard had to be the earl, and the formidable-looking woman of the same age was his wife, the countess, usually called Bess of Hardwick.
Ned’s anger doubled. The earl and his wife were negligent fools who put at risk everything Elizabeth had achieved.
The earl said: ‘What the devil . . .?’
Ned said: ‘I am a Jesuit spy sent by the king of France to kidnap Mary Stuart. Under my coat I have two pistols, one to murder the earl and one the countess. Outside are six of my men hiding in a cartload of hay, armed to the teeth.’
They did not know how seriously to take him. The earl said: ‘Is this some kind of jest?’
‘This is some kind of inspection,’ Ned said. ‘Her majesty Queen Elizabeth has asked me to find out how well you’re guarding Mary. What shall I tell her, my lord? That I was able to enter the presence of Mary without once being challenged or searched and that I could have brought six men with me?’
The earl looked foolish. ‘It would be better if you did not tell her that, I must admit.’
Mary spoke in a voice of queenly authority. ‘How dare you act like this in my presence?’
Ned continued to speak to the earl. ‘From now on she takes her meals in the turret house.’
Mary said: ‘Your insolence is intolerable.’
Ned ignored her. He owed no courtesy to the woman who wanted to murder his queen.
Mary stood up and walked to the door, and Alison hurried after her.
Ned spoke to the countess. ‘Go with them please, my lady. There are no Jesuit spies in the courtyard at the moment, but you won’t know when there are, and it’s as well to get into good habits.’
The countess was not used to being told what to do, but she knew she was in trouble, and she hesitated only a moment before obeying.
Ned pulled a chair up to the table. ‘Now, my lord,’ he said. ‘Let us talk about what you need to do before I can give Queen Elizabeth a satisfactory account.’
*
BACK IN LONDON, at Walsingham’s house in Seething Lane, Ned reported that Mary Stuart was now better guarded than she had been.
Walsingham went immediately to the heart of the matter. ‘Can you guarantee that she is not communicating with the outside world?’
‘No,’ Ned said with frustration. ‘Not unless we get rid of all her servants and keep her alone in a dungeon.’
‘How I wish we could,’ Walsingham said fervently. ‘But Queen Elizabeth won’t permit such harshness.’
‘Our queen is soft-hearted.’
Walsingham’s view of Elizabeth was more cynical. ‘She knows how she could be undermined by stories about how cruel she is to her royal relative.’
Ned was not going to argue. ‘Either way, we can do no more in Sheffield.’
Walsingham stroked his beard. ‘Then we must focus on this end of the pipeline,’ he said. ‘The French embassy must be involved. See what English Catholics are among the callers there. We have a list.’
‘I’ll get on with it right away.’
Ned went upstairs, to the locked room where Walsingham kept the precious records, and sat down for a session of study.
The longest list was that of well-born English Catholics. It had not been difficult to make. All families who had prospered under Mary Tudor and fallen from favour under Elizabeth were automatically suspected. They confirmed their tendencies in several ways, often openly. Many paid the fine for not going to church. They dressed gaudily, scorning the sombre black and grey of devout Protestants. There was never an English-language Bible in a Catholic house. These things were reported to Walsingham by bishops and by Lord Lieutenants of counties.
Both Earl Bart and Margery were on this list.
But the list was too long. Most of these people were innocent of treason. Ned sometimes felt he had too much information. It could be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. He turned to the alphabetical register of Catholics in London. In addition to those who lived here, Walsingham received daily reports of Catholics entering and leaving the city. Visiting Catholics usually stayed at the homes of resident Catholics, or lodged at inns frequented by other Catholics. Doubtless the list was incomplete. London was a city of a hundred thousand people, and it was impossible to have spies in every street. But Walsingham and Ned did have informants in all the Catholics’ regular haunts, and they were able to keep track of most comings and goings.
Ned leafed through the book. He knew hundreds of these names – lists were his life – but it was good to refresh his memory. Once again, Bart and Margery appeared, coming to stay at Shiring House in the Strand when Parliament sat.
Ned turned to the daily log of callers at the French embassy in Salisbury Square. The house was under surveillance day and night from the Salisbury Tavern across the road and had been ever since Walsingham had returned from Paris in 1573. Starting from yesterday and working backwards in time, Ned cross-checked every name with the alphabetical register.
Margery did not appear here. In fact, neither she nor Bart had ever been found to contact foreign ambassadors or other suspicious characters while in London. They socialized with other Catholics, of course, and their servants frequented a Catholic tavern near their house called The Irish Boy. But there was nothing to link them with subversive activities.
However, many callers at the French embassy could not be identified by name. Frustratingly, the log had too many entries of the form Unknown man delivering coal, Unidentified courier with letters, Woman not clearly seen in the dark. Nevertheless, Ned persisted, hoping for some clue, anything.
Then he was struck by an entry two weeks ago: Madame Aphrodite Housse, wife of the deputy ambassador.
In Paris, Ned had known a Mademoiselle Aphrodite Beaulieu who appeared fond of a young courtier called Bernard Housse. This had to be the same person. And if it was, Ned had saved her from a gang of rapists during the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
He turned back to the alphabetical register and found that Monsieur Housse, the deputy French ambassador, had a house in the Strand.
He put on his coat and went out.
Two questions wracked him as he hurried west. Did Aphrodite know the name of the courier to Sheffield? And, if she did, would she feel sufficiently indebted to Ned to tell him the secret?
He was going to find out.
He left the walled city of London at Ludgate, crossed the stinking Fleet River, and found the Housse residence, a pleasant modest house on the less expensive north side of the Strand. He knocked at the door and gave his name to a maid. He waited a few minutes, considering the remote possibility that Bernard Housse had married a different Aphrodite. Then he was shown upstairs to a comfortable small parlour.
He remembered an eager, flirtatious girl of eighteen, but now he saw a gracious woman of twenty-nine, with a figure that suggested she had recently given birth and might still be breast-feeding. She greeted him warmly in French. ‘It is you,’ she said. ‘After so long!’
‘So you married Bernard,’ Ned said.
‘Yes,’ she answered with a contented smile.
‘Any children?’
‘Three – so far!’
They sat down. Ned was pessimistic. People who betrayed their countries were normally troubled, angry individuals with massive grudges, such as Alain de Guise and Jerónima Ruiz. Aphrodite was a happily married woman with children and a husband she seemed to like. The chances were slim that she would give away secrets. But Ned had to try.
He told her that he had married a French girl and brought her home, and Aphrodite wanted to meet her. She told him the names of her three children, and he memorized them because he was in the habit of memorizing names. After a few minutes of catching up, he steered the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go. ‘I saved your life, once, in Paris,’ he said.
She became solemn. ‘I will be grateful to you for ever,’ she said. ‘But please – Bernard knows nothing of it.’
‘Now I’m trying to save the life of another woman.’
‘Really? Who?’
‘Queen Elizabeth.’
She looked embarrassed. ‘You and I shouldn’t discuss politics, Ned.’
He persisted. ‘The duke of Guise is planning to kill Elizabeth so that he can put his cousin Mary Stuart on the throne. You can’t possibly approve of murder.’
‘Of course not, but—’
‘There’s an Englishman who comes to your embassy, collects letters sent by Henri de Guise and takes them to Mary in Sheffield.’ Ned hated to reveal how much he knew, but this was his only chance of persuading her. ‘He then brings back Mary’s replies.’ Ned looked hard at Aphrodite as he spoke, studying her reaction, and thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. ‘You probably know the man,’ he said insistently.
‘Ned, this is not fair.’
‘I have to know his name,’ Ned said. He was dismayed to hear a note of desperation in his own voice.
‘How can you do this to me?’
‘I have to protect Queen Elizabeth from wicked men, as I once protected you.’
Aphrodite stood up. ‘I’m sorry you came here, if your purpose was to get information out of me.’
‘I’m asking you to save the life of a queen.’
‘You’re asking me to be a traitor to my husband and my country, and betray a man who has been a guest at my father’s house!’
‘You owe me!’
‘I owe you my life, not my soul.’
Ned knew he was defeated. He felt ashamed for even trying. He had attempted to corrupt a perfectly decent woman who liked him. Sometimes he detested his work.
He stood up. ‘I’ll leave you,’ he said.
‘I’m afraid I think you should.’
Something was nagging at the back of his mind. He felt she had said something important that he had overlooked in the heat of the argument. He wanted to prolong his visit and ask more questions until she said it again, but she was looking angrily at him, visibly impatient to see the back of him, and he knew that if he did not go, she would just walk out of the room.
He took his leave and dejectedly returned to the city. He climbed Ludgate Hill and passed the Gothic bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral, its grey stones turned black by the soot from thousands of London fireplaces. He came within sight of the Tower, where traitors were interrogated and tortured, then he turned down Seething Lane.
As he entered Walsingham’s house, he remembered what Aphrodite had said: ‘You’re asking me to be a traitor to my husband and my country, and betray a man who has been a guest at my father’s house!’
A man who has been a guest at my father’s house.
The very first list Ned had made, when he arrived in Paris with Walsingham eleven years ago, had been a register of English Catholics who called at the home of the count of Beaulieu in the rue St Denis.
Walsingham never threw anything away.
Ned ran up the stairs to the locked room. The book containing the Paris list was at the bottom of a chest. He pulled it out and blew off the dust.
She must have been referring to her father’s Paris house, must she not? The count had a country house in France but, as far as Ned knew, that had never been a rendezvous for English exiles. And Beaulieu had never appeared in the register of Catholics living in London.
Nothing was certain.
He opened the book eagerly and began to read carefully through the names, recorded in his own handwriting a decade ago. He forced himself to go slowly, recalling the faces of those angry young Englishmen who had gone to France because they felt out of place in their own country. As he did so he was assailed by memories of Paris: the glitter of the shops, the fabulous clothes, the stink of the streets, the extravagance of the royal entertainments, the savagery of the massacre.
One name struck him like a blow. Ned had never met the man, but he knew the name.
His heart seemed to stop. He went back to the alphabetical list of Catholics in London. Yes, one man who had visited Count Beaulieu’s house in Paris was now in London.
His name was Sir Francis Throckmorton.
‘Got you, you devil,’ said Ned.
*
WALSINGHAM SAID: ‘Whatever you do, don’t arrest him.’
Ned was taken aback. ‘I thought that was the point.’
‘Think again. There will always be another Throckmorton. We will do all we can to protect Queen Elizabeth, of course, but some day one of these traitors will slip through our fingers.’
Ned admired Walsingham’s ability to think one step ahead of the current situation, but he did not know where Walsingham was going with this. ‘What can we do, other than be ever-vigilant?’
‘Let’s make it our mission to get proof that Mary Stuart is plotting to usurp Queen Elizabeth.’
‘Elizabeth will probably authorize the torture of Throckmorton, given that he has threatened her throne; and Throckmorton will naturally confess; but everyone knows that confessions are unreliable.’
‘Quite so. We must get incontrovertible evidence.’
‘And put Mary Stuart on trial?’
‘Exactly.’
Ned was intrigued, but he still did not know what Walsingham’s devious mind was planning. ‘What would that achieve?’
‘At a minimum, it would make Mary unpopular with the English people. All but the most extreme ultra-Catholics would disapprove of someone who wanted to unseat such a well-loved queen.’
‘That won’t stop the assassins.’
‘It will weaken their support. And it will strengthen our hand when we ask for the conditions of Mary’s imprisonment to be made harsher.’
Ned nodded agreement. ‘And Elizabeth will be less worried about being accused of unfeminine cruelty to her cousin. But still . . .’
‘It would be even better if we could prove that Mary plotted not only to overthrow Queen Elizabeth but to murder her.’
At last Ned began to see the trend of Walsingham’s thinking, and he was startled by its ruthlessness. ‘Do you want Mary sentenced to death?’
‘Yes.’
Ned found that chilling. To execute a queen was the next thing to sacrilege. ‘But Queen Elizabeth would never execute Mary.’
‘Even if we proved that Mary had conspired to assassinate Elizabeth?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Ned.
‘Nor do I,’ said Walsingham.
*
NED PUT THROCKMORTON under twenty-four-hour surveillance.
Aphrodite had surely told her husband about Ned’s call, and the French embassy must have warned Throckmorton. So, Ned figured, Throckmorton now knew that Ned suspected the existence of the correspondence with Mary. However, based on the same conversation, Throckmorton presumably believed that Ned did not know the identity of the courier.
The team tailing him was changed twice a day, but still there was a risk that he might notice them. However, he did not appear to. Ned guessed that Throckmorton was unaccustomed to clandestine work and simply did not think to check whether he was being followed.
Alain de Guise wrote from Paris to say that Pierre had sent an important letter to Mary Stuart by a courier. That letter would have to be smuggled to the imprisoned Mary by Throckmorton. If Throckmorton could be arrested with Pierre’s letter in his hand, it might serve as objective proof of his treachery.
However, Walsingham wanted Mary, not Throckmorton. So Ned decided to wait and see whether Throckmorton got a reply from Mary. If she consented to a plot, and especially if she wrote words of encouragement, she would stand condemned.
One day in October, while Ned waited anxiously to see what Throckmorton would do, a gentleman of the court called Ralph Ventnor came to Seething Lane to say that Queen Elizabeth wanted to see Walsingham and Ned immediately. Ventnor did not know the reason.
They put on their coats and walked the short distance to the Tower, where Ventnor had a barge at the wharf waiting to take them to White Hall.
Ned fretted as they were rowed upstream. A peremptory summons was rarely good news. And Elizabeth had always been capricious. The blue sky of her approval could turn in an instant to lowering black clouds – and back again.
At White Hall, Ventnor led them through the guard room, full of soldiers, and the presence chamber, where courtiers waited, and along a passage to the privy chamber.
Queen Elizabeth sat on a carved and gilded wooden chair. She wore a red-and-white dress with a silver-gauze overdress, and sleeves slashed to show a lining of red taffeta. It was a youthfully bright outfit, but it could not hide the passage of time. Elizabeth had just passed her fiftieth birthday and her face showed her age, despite the heavy white make-up she used. When she spoke, she showed irregular brown teeth, several missing.
The earl of Leicester was also in the room. He was the same age as the queen but he, too, dressed like a wealthy youngster. Today he wore an outfit of pale-blue silk with gold embroidery, and his shirt had ruffs at the wrists as well as the neck. To Ned it looked absurdly costly.
Leicester seemed pleased with himself, Ned noticed with unease. He was probably about to score points off Walsingham.
Ned and Walsingham bowed side by side.
The queen spoke in a voice as cold as February. ‘A man has been arrested in a tavern in Oxford for saying that he was on his way to London to shoot the queen.’
Oh, hell, thought Ned, we missed one. He recalled Walsingham’s words: Some day one of these traitors will slip through our fingers.
Leicester spoke in a supercilious drawl that seemed to imply that everything was absurd. ‘The man was armed with a heavy pistol, and he said that the queen was a serpent and a viper, and he would set her head on a pole.’
Trust Leicester to rub it in, Ned thought. But in truth the assassin did not sound seriously dangerous, if he was so indiscreet that he had been stopped when he was still sixty miles away from the queen.
Elizabeth said: ‘Why do I pay you all this money, if not to protect me from such people?’
That was outrageous: she was paying only seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, nowhere near enough, and Walsingham financed much of the work himself. But queens did not have to be fair.
Walsingham said: ‘Who is this man?’
Leicester said: ‘John Somerfield.’
Ned recognized the name: it was on the list. ‘We know of Somerfield, your majesty. He’s one of the Warwickshire Catholics. He’s mad.’
The earl of Leicester laughed sarcastically. ‘So, that means he’s no danger to her majesty, does it?’
Ned flushed. ‘It means he’s not likely to be part of a serious conspiracy, my lord.’
‘Oh, good! In that case his bullets obviously can’t kill anyone, can they?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
Leicester overrode Ned. ‘Your majesty, I wish you would give someone else the task of protecting your precious person.’ He added in an oily voice: ‘It is the most important task in the kingdom.’
He was a skilled flatterer, and unfortunately Elizabeth was charmed.
Walsingham spoke for the first time. ‘I have failed you, your majesty. I did not recognize the danger posed by Somerfield. No doubt there are many men in England who can do this job better. I beg you to give the responsibility to one of them. Speaking for myself, I would gladly put down the burden I have carried so long, and rest my weary bones.’
He did not mean this, of course, but it was probably the best way to handle the queen in her present mood. Ned realized he had been foolish to argue. If she was annoyed, then telling her she need not worry only irritated her further. Humble self-abnegation was more likely to please.
‘You’re the same age as me,’ the queen shot back. However, she seemed mollified by Walsingham’s apology; or perhaps she had been led to reflect that in fact there was no man in England who would work as hard and as conscientiously as Walsingham to protect her from the many people, mad and sane, who wanted to assassinate her. However, she was not yet ready to let Walsingham off the hook. ‘What are you going to do to make me more secure?’ she demanded.
‘You majesty, I am on the point of destroying a well-organized conspiracy against you by enemies of an order quite different from John Somerfield. These people will not wave their weapons in the air and boast about their intentions in taverns. They are in league with the Pope and the king of Spain, which I can assure you Somerfield is not. They are determined and well financed and obsessively secretive. Nevertheless, I expect to arrest their leader in the next few days.’
It was a spirited defence against the malice of Leicester, but all the same Ned was dismayed. This was premature. An arrest now would bring the conspiracy to an early halt, and in consequence they would not get evidence of Mary Stuart’s complicity. Personal rivalry had interfered again.
The queen said: ‘Who are these people?’
‘For fear that they may be forewarned, your majesty, I hesitate to name names’ – Walsingham looked pointedly at Leicester – ‘in public.’
Leicester was about to protest indignantly, but the queen said: ‘Quite right, I shouldn’t have asked. Very well, Sir Francis, you’d better leave us and get back to your work.’
‘Thank you, your majesty,’ said Walsingham.
*
ROLLO FITZGERALD was anxious about Francis Throckmorton.
Throckmorton was not like the men who had been trained at the English College. They had made a life commitment to submit to the rule of the Church. They understood obedience and dedication. They had left England, spent years studying, taken vows, and returned home to do the job for which they had prepared. They knew their lives were at risk: every time one of them was caught by Walsingham and executed, the death was celebrated at the college as a martyrdom.
Throckmorton had made no vows. He was a wealthy young aristocrat with a romantic attachment to Catholicism. He had spent his life pleasing himself, not God. His courage and determination were untried. He might just back out.
Even if he stayed the course, there were other dangers. How discreet was he? He had no experience of clandestine work. Would he get drunk and drop boastful hints to his friends about his secret mission?
Rollo was also worried about Peg Bradford. Alison claimed Peg would do anything for Mary Queen of Scots; but Alison could be wrong, and Peg could prove unreliable.
His biggest worry was Mary herself. Would she cooperate? Without her the whole plot was nothing.
One thing at a time, he told himself. Throckmorton first.
He would have preferred to have no further contact with Throckmorton, for security, but that was not practicable. Rollo had to know whether everything was going according to plan. Reluctantly, therefore, he went to Throckmorton’s house at St Paul’s Wharf, downhill from the cathedral, one evening at twilight, when faces were hard to make out.
By bad luck Throckmorton was out, according to his manservant. Rollo considered going away and returning at another time, but he was impatient to know what was happening, and he told the man he would wait.
He was shown into a small parlour. A window looked onto the street. At the back of the room, a double door stood a little ajar, and Rollo looked through to a grander room behind, comfortable and richly furnished, but with a pungent smell of smoke: the manservant was burning rubbish in the backyard.
Rollo accepted a cup of wine and mused, while he waited, over his secret agents. As soon as he had established communication between Pierre in Paris and Mary in Sheffield, he would have to make a tour of England and visit his secret priests. He had to collect maps from them or from their protectors, and confirm guarantees of support for the invading army. He had time – the invasion would take place in the spring of next year – but there was much to be done.
Throckmorton came in at nightfall. Rollo heard the manservant open the door and say: ‘There’s a gentleman waiting in the parlour, sir – preferred not to give his name.’
Throckmorton was pleased to see Rollo. He took from his coat pocket a small package which he slapped on the table with a triumphant gesture. ‘Letters for Queen Mary!’ he said exultantly. ‘I’ve just come from the French embassy.’
‘Good man!’ Rollo jumped up and began to examine the letters. He recognized the seal of the duke of Guise and that of Mary’s man in Paris, John Leslie. He longed to read the contents, but could not break the seals without causing trouble. ‘When can you take them to Sheffield?’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Throckmorton.
‘Excellent.’
There was a banging at the front door. Both men froze, listening. It was not the courteous tap of a friendly caller but the arrogant hammering of someone hostile. Rollo went to the window and saw, in the light of the lamp over the door, two well-dressed men. One turned his head towards the light and Rollo instantly recognized Ned Willard.
‘Hell,’ he said. ‘Walsingham’s men.’
He realized in a flash that Ned must have had Throckmorton under surveillance. Throckmorton must have been followed to the French embassy, and Ned could undoubtedly figure out why he had gone there. But how had Ned got on to Throckmorton in the first place? Rollo realized that Walsingham’s secret service was a good deal more effective than anyone imagined.
And in a minute Rollo would be in their hands.
Throckmorton said: ‘I’ll tell my man to say I’m out.’ He opened the parlour door, but he was too late: Rollo heard the front door opening and the sound of demanding voices. Everything was moving too fast.
‘Go and stall them,’ said Rollo.
Throckmorton stepped into the entrance hall, saying: ‘Now, now, what’s all this racket?’
Rollo looked at the letters on the table. They were unmistakably incriminating. If they contained what he thought they did, they would condemn him and Throckmorton to death.
The entire scheme was in jeopardy, unless Rollo could get out of this in the next few seconds.
He picked up the letters and stepped through the half-open door into the back room. It had a window onto the yard. He opened it swiftly and clambered through. As he did so he heard the voice of Ned Willard, familiar to him since childhood, coming from the parlour.
In the middle of the yard was a fire of dead leaves, kitchen sweepings and soiled straw from the stable. Looking farther down the yard he saw, in the shifting red light of the bonfire, the outline of a man approaching through the trees. He must be a third member of Ned’s team, Rollo reckoned: Ned was meticulous, and he would not have omitted to cover the back exit from the house.
The man shouted at Rollo: ‘Hey, you!’
Rollo had to make a split-second decision.
Throckmorton was doomed. He would be arrested and tortured, and he would tell all he knew before he was executed. But he did not know the real identity of Jean Langlais. He could betray nobody except the laundress, Peg Bradford; and she was an ignorant labourer who would do nothing with her worthless life but give birth to more ignorant labourers. Crucially, Throckmorton could not incriminate Mary Stuart. The only proof against her was in the letters Rollo held in his hand.
He crumpled the letters and threw them into the bright yellow heart of the fire.
The third man ran towards him.
Rollo stayed precious seconds to see the paper flare up, blacken, and begin crumbling into ash.
When the evidence had been destroyed he surprised the third man by running straight at him. He gave the man a violent shove, causing him to fall to the ground, and ran on past.
Rollo ran down the length of the yard. It led to the muddy beach of the river Thames.
He turned along the waterfront and kept running.
*
IN THE SPRING of 1584, Pierre went to watch the marchioness of Nîmes being evicted from her house.
Her husband, the marquess, had got away with being a Protestant for decades, but Pierre had been patient. The country house in the suburb of St Jacques had continued to be a centre for heretical activities even after Pierre’s great coup in 1559 when he had had the entire congregation arrested. But now, in 1584, Paris was in thrall to an unofficial group called the Catholic League, dedicated to wiping out Protestantism, and Pierre had been able to haul the marquess before the supreme court called the Parlement of Paris and have him sentenced to death.
Pierre had never really been interested in the old marquess. The person he really hated was Marchioness Louise, now a glamorous widow in her forties. The property of heretics such as the marquess was confiscated, so his execution had left her destitute.
Pierre had waited twenty-five years for this moment.
He arrived just as the marchioness was confronting the bailiff in the entrance hall. He stood with the bailiff’s men, watching, and she did not notice him.
She was surrounded by the evidence of the wealth she had lost: oil paintings of country scenes on the panelled walls, carved hall chairs gleaming with polish, marble underfoot and chandeliers above. She wore a green silk gown that seemed to flow like water over her generous hips. When she was young every man had stared at her large bust, and she was still shapely.
‘How dare you?’ she was saying to the bailiff in a voice of authority. ‘You cannot force a noblewoman to leave her home.’
The bailiff had undoubtedly done this before. He spoke politely, but he was unyielding. ‘I advise you to go quietly, my lady,’ he said. ‘If you don’t walk, you’ll be carried, which is undignified.’
She moved closer to him and pulled back her shoulders, drawing attention to her breasts. ‘You can use your discretion,’ she said in a warmer voice. ‘Come back in a week, when I will have had time to make arrangements.’
‘The court gave you time, my lady, and that time is now up.’
Neither haughtiness nor charm had worked, and she allowed her despair to show. ‘I can’t leave my house, I have nowhere to go!’ she wailed. ‘I can’t even rent a room because I have no money, not one sou. My parents are dead and all my friends are terrified to help me for fear that they, too, will be accused of heresy!’
Pierre studied her, enjoying the tears on her face and the note of panic in her voice. It was the marchioness who had snubbed young Pierre, a quarter of a century ago. Sylvie had proudly introduced him to the young Louise, he had uttered some pleasantry that had displeased her, and she had said: ‘Even in Champagne, they should teach young men to be respectful to their superiors.’ Then she had pointedly turned her back. The memory still made him wince.
He relished the reversal of position now. He had recently been made abbot of Holy Tree, a monastery that owned thousands of acres of land in Champagne. He took the income for himself and left the monks to live in poverty, in accordance with their vows. He was rich and powerful, whereas Louise was penniless and helpless.
The bailiff said: ‘The weather is warm. You can sleep in the forest. Or, if it rains, the convent of St Marie-Madeleine in the rue de la Croix takes in homeless women.’
Louise seemed genuinely shocked. ‘That place is for prostitutes!’
The bailiff shrugged.
Louise began to weep. Her shoulders slumped, she covered her face with her hands, and her chest heaved with sobs.
Pierre found her distress arousing.
At that point he came to her rescue.
He stepped out of the little group by the door and stood between the bailiff and the marchioness. ‘Calm yourself, Madame,’ he said. ‘The Guise family will not allow a noblewoman to sleep in the forest.’
She took her hands from her face and looked at him through her tears. ‘Pierre Aumande,’ she said. ‘Have you come to mock me?’
She would suffer even more for not calling him Pierre Aumande de Guise. ‘I’m here to help you in your emergency,’ he said. ‘If you would care to come with me, I’ll take you to a place of safety.’
She remained standing where she was. ‘Where?’
‘An apartment has been reserved, and paid for, in a quiet neighbourhood. There is a maid. It is not lavish, but you won’t be uncomfortable. Come and look at it. I feel sure it will serve you temporarily, at least.’
Clearly she did not know whether to believe him. The Guises hated Protestants: why would they be good to her? But after a long moment of hesitation she realized she had no other options, and she said: ‘Let me put some things in a bag.’
The bailiff said: ‘No jewellery. I will inspect the bag as you leave.’
She made no reply, but turned on her heel and left the room with her head held high.
Pierre could hardly contain his impatience. Soon he would have this woman under his control.
The marchioness was no relation to the Guises, and stood on the opposite side in the religious war, but somehow in Pierre’s mind they were the same. The Guises used him as their advisor and hatchet man but, even now, they disdained him socially. He was their most influential and highly rewarded servant, but still a servant; always invited to a council of war and never to a family dinner. He could not be revenged for that rejection. But he could punish Louise.
She returned with a leather bag stuffed full. The bailiff, true to his threat, opened it and took everything out. She had packed dozens of pieces of beautiful silk and linen underwear, embroidered and beribboned. It made Pierre think about what she might be wearing beneath her green dress today.
With characteristic arrogance she handed the bag to Pierre, as if he were a footman.
He did not disillusion her. That would come, in good time.
He led her outside. Biron and Brocard were waiting with the horses. They had brought an extra mount for the marchioness. They rode out of the Nîmes estate, entered Paris through St Jacques Gate, and followed the rue St Jacques to the Petit Pont. They crossed the Île de la Cité and made their way to a modest house not far from the Guise palace. Pierre dismissed Biron and Brocard and told them to take the horses home, then he escorted Louise inside. ‘You have the top floor,’ he told her.
‘Who else lives here?’ she said anxiously.
He answered truthfully. ‘A different tenant on each floor. Most of them have done work for the Guises in the past: a retired tutor, a seamstress whose eyesight has failed, a Spanish woman who does translations occasionally. All very respectable.’ And none willing to risk losing their place by displeasing Pierre.
Louise looked somewhat reassured.
They went up the stairs. Louise was panting when they reached the top. ‘This climb is going to tire me out,’ she complained.
Pierre was pleased. That meant she was already accepting that she would live here.
The maid bowed them in. Pierre showed Louise the salon, the kitchen, the scullery, and finally the bedroom. She was pleasantly surprised. Pierre had said it was not lavish but, in fact, he had furnished the small apartment expensively: he planned to spend time here.
Louise was evidently confused. Someone she thought of as an enemy was being generous to her. Pierre could see from her face that nothing was making sense. Good.
He closed the bedroom door, and she began to understand.
‘I remember staring at these,’ he said, and put his hands on her breasts.
She stepped back. ‘Did you expect me to become your mistress?’ she said scornfully.
Pierre smiled. ‘You are my mistress,’ he said, and the words delighted him. ‘Take off your dress.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll rip it off you.’
‘I’ll scream.’
‘Go ahead and scream. The maid is expecting it.’ He gave her a powerful shove and she fell back on the bed.
She said: ‘No, please.’
‘You don’t even remember,’ he snarled. ‘Even in Champagne, they should teach young men to be respectful to their superiors. That’s what you said to me, twenty-five years ago.’
She stared up at him in horrified incredulity. ‘And for that, you punish me like this?’
‘Open your legs,’ he said. ‘It’s only just begun.’
*
AFTERWARDS, WALKING to the Guise palace, Pierre felt as he sometimes did after a feast: sated but slightly nauseated. He loved to see an aristocrat humiliated, but this had almost been too much. He would go back, of course; but perhaps not for a few days. She was rich food.
When he arrived home, he found, waiting for him in the parlour of his apartment, Rollo Fitzgerald, the Englishman he had codenamed Jean Langlais.
Pierre was irritated. He wanted an hour to himself, to get over what he had just done, and let his turbulent thoughts become calm again. Instead he had to go right to work.
Rollo was carrying a canvas case which he now opened to produce a sheaf of maps. ‘Every major harbour on the south and east coasts of England,’ he said proudly. He put the maps on Pierre’s writing table.
Pierre examined them. They were drawn by different hands, some more artistic than others, but they all seemed admirably clear, with moorings, quays and dangerous shallows carefully marked. ‘These are good,’ he said, ‘though they’ve been a long time coming.’
‘I know, and I’m sorry,’ Rollo said. ‘But the arrest of Throckmorton set us back.’
‘What’s happening to him?’
‘He’s been convicted of treason and sentenced to death.’
‘Another martyr.’
Rollo said pointedly: ‘I hope his death will not be in vain.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is the duke of Guise still determined to invade England?’
‘Absolutely. He wants to see Mary Stuart on the English throne, and so does almost every important European leader.’
‘Good. Mary’s jailers have raised the level of security around her, but I will find a way to re-establish communication.’
‘So we could begin planning the invasion for next year, 1585?’
‘Absolutely.’
Pierre’s stepson came into the room. ‘News from Picardy,’ he said. ‘Hercule-Francis is dead.’
‘Dear God!’ said Pierre. Hercule-Francis was the youngest son of the late King Henri and Queen Caterina. ‘This is a catastrophe,’ Pierre said to Rollo. ‘He was the heir to the throne.’
Rollo frowned. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with King Henri III,’ he said. ‘Why are you worried about his heir?’
‘Henri is the third brother to be king. The previous two died young and without sons, so Henri may do the same.’
‘So, now that Hercule-Francis is dead, who is the heir to the throne?’
‘That’s the disaster. It’s the king of Navarre. And he’s a Protestant.’
Rollo said indignantly: ‘But France cannot have a Protestant king!’
‘It certainly cannot.’ And the king of Navarre was also a member of the Bourbon family, ancient enemies of the Guises, which was another compelling reason for keeping him far from the throne. ‘We must get the Pope to disallow the claim of the king of Navarre.’ Pierre was thinking aloud. Duke Henri would call a council of war before the end of the day, and Pierre needed to have a plan ready. ‘There will be civil war again, and the duke of Guise will lead the Catholic forces. I must go to the duke.’ He stood up.
Rollo pointed at his maps. ‘But what about the invasion of England?’
‘England will have to wait,’ said Pierre.