Divided Loyalties: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘No. Haven’t seen the fool since he broke a window. We’ve been all night swimming in foul airs from the sea. No doubt he has ranged away to hide from his crime.’

  ‘But where is he?’ A note of hysteria had crept into her voice. Cottam shrugged, but she thought she read curiosity in his face, if not suspicion.

  ‘Perhaps the sailors favour his company, beardless young whelp.’

  ‘To hell with you,’ snapped Amy, unable to contain herself. ‘Lord Seton!’ she shouted. ‘Are you there, my lord?’ Cottam’s eyes popped and he tried again to wrestle the door, but the rumble of Seton’s voice interrupted him.

  ‘Who is there? Kat?’

  ‘Amy Cole, my lord. Please, please come. Please.’ Irritated murmuring filled the air, and Amy had time to look at Cottam in triumph before he was forced to step back and make way for Seton. The older man stood, grumpy-looking and unshaven, his fine doublet unbuttoned.

  ‘What do you mean by this, coming to the men’s quarters?’

  ‘I can’t find my husband!’

  ‘Ha! Young Cole. If he’s a thimble of sense he’ll be hiding from me, so he will. Asked him to fix a window in here and he breaks it and is gone.’

  ‘I can’t find him!’

  ‘Have you looked, girl?’ Amy bit her lip, turning on the spot and blinking at the sun. ‘Don’t you be turning your back on your betters, lass, when I’m having words with you.’ Amy barely heard him, but when he spoke again, the softness that had come into his voice brought her back. ‘Ach, listen, lass, he’s not grown a fish-tail and taken to the sea, has he? Like as not he’s supping breakfast. Now you go a wee wander and come to me when I’m dress– when you’ve found him. Tell him not to fash about the window. We’ll be home and dry in but a day or two. You find him and bring him to me and don’t be bothering my lady. She needs her rest, her and the bairn.’

  Amy stared at the door as it closed, her mind racing. He broke a window and hid. Breakfast, she thought – he’ll be having breakfast somewhere in the sun.

  He wasn’t. Nor was he in the galley. Or the deck. Amy wandered everywhere she could, stopping only to vomit over a rope-railing. Then she tried again, less wildly, more methodically, supposing that they might just have missed each other somewhere, despite how small the ship was. It was no good. The sailors at first ignored her, and then began laughing at her and calling her names, to which she did not even bother to respond with insults. When she returned to Seton, her panic had risen to such a height that he and Cottam had to take an arm each and march her to the countess. If they did not escort her, she insisted, she would burst in herself and demand the lady order the ship to turn around. ‘He’s gone in the sea,’ she said, tears beginning to run from her eyes. ‘He’s fallen, he’s fallen in, and we’ve just been sailing away and leaving him, leaving him drowning.’ It had become fixed in her mind; she could see him, groping in the dark for the rope, hoping to relieve himself over the side, only for the deck to pitch, slope, and deposit him into the depths

  ‘Cottam,’ Seton snapped when they stood before the door to the countess’s cabin. ‘Take her in and explain matters. I shall speak to the captain. Gang, now.’ He released Amy’s arm and stamped off, allowing the clerk to roughly drag her inside. Out of the corner of his mouth he hissed, ‘keep quiet, woman. Do not forget yourself.’

  ‘My lady,’ Amy cried, as soon as they were in. The little scene, rather than Cottam’s furious look, shut her mouth. Lady Northumberland was lying supine on the bed, one arm over her eyes. Kat, the nursemaid, was sitting on the stool, the baby in her arms. The countess rose, her expression more curious than otherwise. ‘What is this?’ she asked. Something of her calmness communicated itself to Amy, and she let her arm slip from Cottam’s grip.

  ‘This wench says her husband has run off, my lady,’ he said.

  ‘Run off, at sea?’

  ‘He’s not aboard, my lady,’ Amy said. The passion had drained from her voice. ‘He’s not anywhere. I can’t find him, not anywhere.’ It rose again. ‘He’s gone over the side, he’s gone overboard in the night, I know it!’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said the countess.

  ‘She’s insensible,’ Cottam sniffed. ‘Mad.’ Amy turned furious eyes on him, ready and eager to begin shouting. A lifetime of being spoken down to and spoken over had taught her exactly how best to make her voice heard.

  ‘Is it true the husband is gone, Mr Cottam?’ The countess seemed to sense a fracas brewing and sought to forestall it.

  ‘So she says. His lordship is making some enquiry of the captain. Yet I think there is some dark business afoot. I said, my lady, that the pair could not be trusted, man or wife. I thank God we are put to sea again before they could work their design.’

  ‘We’ve no design, you pompous goat,’ spat Amy, before looking again to the countess. ‘He’s fallen in, I know it. And we’ve been sailing on while he drowned.’ She began sobbing, anger, frustration, and shock reddening her face. The sound woke the baby, who began to match it.

  ‘Kat, take her out. Walk with her, feed her, anything,’ said Lady Northumberland. She screwed her eyes shut briefly, and kneaded her forehead, before smoothing her features. As Kat bustled out, holding the screaming child in a close embrace, Lord Seton opened the door and stood back for her. ‘My lord, I hope you have some solution to this madness which overtakes us. We are making for Bruges still, are we not?’

  ‘Aye, my lady.’

  ‘What news of the boy?’

  ‘Jack,’ mumbled Amy.

  ‘None. Yet …’ he trailed off, biting his lip as though deciding whether to speak further in company. He shrugged. ‘The captain says another loon has gone. Lad who joined as a sailor not a day before we left Scotland. From the Low Countries, he said, looking for passage home. Spoke little. Looks like he made off during the night. Skiff’s missing.’

  ‘What?’ This was Amy, wild hope drying her eyes. ‘What’s a skiff? Did Jack go with him?’

  ‘A skiff,’ said the countess, raising a knuckle to her lips, ‘it is a small craft, is it not?’

  ‘Aye, madam, a wee thing. For passage between larger vessels. Or to make for shore. The captain reckons if it carried the two men, one other maun have been aboard The Port of Leith for to lower it. He’s asking the rest of the lads now. If any has helped a robbery in the taking of it, he’ll be flogged for it.’

  ‘So he’s alive? He went off on a boat? Why? He wouldn’t go on a boat without telling me!’

  ‘Mrs Cole …’ The countess started to rise, and Seton ploughed past the two servants to give her his arm. ‘Bless you, my lord. You are sweet to me.’ He smiled. ‘Mrs Cole, I cannot speak for your husband. I do not know him. I have said before I have my cares regarding you and him both.’ A head taller than Amy, she looked down and drew in her cheeks. ‘Yet I think he would not dare to leave you without word.’ Amy shook her head, trying to make sense of it all. ‘In the strange circles in which you have moved, are there any who would wish him harm?’ Again, Amy only shook her head. ‘His past employers, perhaps.’ This brought her round, and her mouth dried. She tried to speak, but it seemed full of sawdust. She licked her lips.

  ‘We must go back,’ she said eventually. ‘For this skiff. We must go back and discover it.’

  ‘We shall do no such thing,’ said Cottam, and all eyes turned to him. ‘There, my lady, my lord – there’s the game. Back to England, eh? To deliver us all into the English queen’s hands!’

  ‘Hang the English queen. I’m going back, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me, I swear I will, I’ll go over the side and swim.’

  ‘You see? Insensible!’

  ‘Enough!’ The countess’s voice had turned to iron. ‘Mrs Cole, if you persist I shall have you tied down.’ Seton looked at her, amazed, and her face quickly softened back into its usual patrician lines. ‘My lord, I am feeling quite unwell.’ She took a tighter grip on his arm. ‘If you would take me out to hear what the captain says out of his own mouth
, I should be right grateful.’ Amy was momentarily pulled out of her hysteria as she saw Lady Northumberland demurely turn her eyes to the floor, and Seton visibly melt. Silly old fools, she thought – the lady past thirty and Seton about forty. They left, Cottam scurrying after them, and she collapsed to the cabin floor. An urge came upon to smash up the room, upend the cot, the cradle. What other remedy was there for frustrated helplessness? She sat awhile, gripping and releasing the folds of her dress, sweat beading her forehead. After a while, she rose and walked unsteadily out into the sunlight. Staring out to her left, across the sea, their wake made a white v-shape. A rainbow sprung from the horizon, petering out into nothingness. She had no idea how far they had travelled since dawn had broken.

  A tug at her elbow turned her, and she found herself staring at a boy of about fourteen. ‘Mrs Cole? Urh ye Mrs Cole?’ She said nothing. ‘It wiz me.’ Colour rose in his cheeks, making him look even younger. ‘It wiz me helped yon man wi’ the moustaches get the skiff aff. Yer husband wiz wi’ him. Hands tied.’

  ‘What?’ Amy grabbed the boy’s jerkin and shook, bringing a look of fear to his face. ‘Man with the moustache?’

  ‘He sailed wi’ us. Told me to get you telt after they were gone.’

  ‘You let him steal my husband? I’ll get you flogged! The captain’s asking questions now – I’ll see you whipped bloody!’

  ‘Naw,’ said the boy, shaking his head. Her mania had put fear into him. She could tell. ‘He said you widnae get me intae trouble. Said to get only you telt. Say nothin’ tae the captain.’

  ‘What?’ she asked again. ‘What’s going on? I’m telling on you.’ Only when the words were out did she realise how childish and petulant they sounded. ‘Where is Jack? What has this knave done with him?’

  ‘Said to tell you Mr Cole was going back to England. Tae make answer for himself. Said if you told … the lady …’ Sudden confusion overtook him. ‘Lady …’

  ‘Northumberland.’

  ‘Aye, her. If you told her, you’d no’ be seein’ your husband again.’

  ‘But why? Why? What am I to do?’

  ‘Said you’ve jist tae stay by the lady. Watch her. And Mr Cole will be safe. Meet you later. And I’ve tae remind you who you work for. That wiz all.’

  Only then did Amy realise she was still holding the boy’s coat, and her hands had turned white. She released him. ‘Why?’ she asked, but this time to no one. As soon as he was free, he turned and scuttled up a rope ladder that went up the side of the cabin. She put her head in her hands. Jack had been taken back to England, probably to be tortured and interrogated. Punished, even. She was the hostage for his life, expected to spy on the countess and report her movements to … well, to whomever would contact her with news of Jack. When that might be, she had no idea. She had no option, either. If it came to either betraying the countess or saving her husband, she would see Lady Northumberland thrown to the sharks. She had killed for him before, and she would see the whole ship rotting on the bed of the Narrow Sea before letting him die.

  Turning to grip the rope, Amy again tossed bile into the ocean.

  4

  The Reverend Henry Lansing of Gilling East hated the north and every papistical savage in it. His dispatch north, designed to ensure uniformity amongst the recalcitrant Catholics, had been a sentence rather than a sinecure. When the northern rebellion had failed and its participants sentenced to hang, he had ensured that his parish followed the letter of the law. So it was that the remains continued to hang from trees – there had not been gallows enough to accommodate all two-hundred-and-twenty-five of them – when the softer ministers and justices had ordered the bodies discreetly cut down and claimed by their families. It did not make East Gilling the most fragrant part of Yorkshire, but then the entire north smelt of rotting meat anyway. The summer heat had done little to improve matters. The corpses, which had been stripped naked by opportunistic vagabonds the night of the executions, had since been picked clean by birds, and what fell from them carried off by rats. Only skeletal remains were still visible, some suspended and some littering the ground.

  It was, he reflected, of little consequence to the rabble, save to sear their hatred of the reformed faith and the queen who led it into their hearts. He doubted if even the news that reached Gilling East from farther north would wipe the scales from their eyes: two filthy priests out of Douai, one having sodomised the other to death before taking his own life, blood still smeared around his privy member. He smacked his lips at the scandal, trumpeted by all good Protestants and studiously ignored or dismissed as a lie by the papists. There was nothing quite as effective at bringing a body into hatred as its sins and corruptions being held up to the world.

  The only good thing about the north was the money that was free for the taking from the attainted rebels. Reverend Lansing sat in a good chair with his feet to his fire and a board across his capacious lap. He put aside the sermon he had been working on. He smiled. Isaiah 44. To the verses, he had added his own flourishes: rebellion was a sin; disobedience to the queen was disobedience to God; rebels deserved their shameful deaths, to be hanged in chains, their bodies fit for carrion. Every man, woman, and child who harboured Catholic thoughts was a traitor – all who believed the Pope’s false doctrines and bulls still were traitors, and they too should be hung in chains, for no gentleness could ever hope to win papist hearts.

  He could imagine the look on his flock’s face at the condemnation of their beloved idolatry and the denunciation of their dead fathers and brothers and sons. They were out of luck. If they did not attend, did not listen to their false religion debunked, they would be fined. In place of the pages, he laid out a bag of gold. He knew how much he had accumulated already, but it had become a ritual to count it out each night. There was no finer sight than neat little piles of coins, each the same height. He lifted one between his thumb and forefinger. An angel, with the queen’s bust in profile, she looking rather flat-faced. It caught the light of the fire. He placed it down and was about to reach for another when someone knocked at the door.

  ‘Damn and blast it,’ he hissed. His housekeeper had left and his wife was visiting her sister down south, and not due to return until the following day. He paused, hoping that the visitor would go away. The knocking repeated, more insistently. Cursing again, he replaced the coins in their velvet bag and hoisted himself up, taking the board to a cabinet which lay against the wall. He shut it away, turning the key in the lock. Still the hammering persisted, and he grunted his way to it.

  Opening the door, Lansing found himself looking at a thin-faced, dark fellow. ‘Yes? What news, neighbour?’ He assumed that the man was of his parish. Seldom did he bother looking at their faces.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir,’ said the stranger, turning his hat in his hand, ‘my name is Acre, sir.’ Pleasantly unprepossessing, thought Lansing.

  ‘Yes, and how might I help you, Mr Acre?’

  ‘I’m but Goodman Acre, sir, no more.’

  ‘I see.’ He stood, the forced smile on his florid features starting to wane.

  ‘I’ve come to beg a favour, father, about the next sitting of the church courts. My brother’s to be examined. He’s been right poorly of late, you see. Missed services.’ Lansing tutted. His brow had already furrowed at the word ‘father’. Acceptable, of course, but stinking of Rome.

  ‘A serious matter, goodman. Services must be attended. He shall have to pay his fines.’ He waved a fat finger in the young man’s face. Warm air blew in, carrying on it the sweet smell of the herb garden. ‘Unless, of course, you have something else to discuss?’

  ‘I do, sir.’ Acre coughed discreetly. ‘My mam and I – it’s just the two of us – we don’t have much. But we thought we could come to … oh, what was it mam said? A private arrangement.’ He reached down and tapped a purse that hung from his belt. Coins tinkled. ‘Save going through the courts, see, and us not able to pay the fines, and even if we could, you know, it going away to London.�
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  Lansing smiled and threw the door wide. It was not the first time he had made such arrangements. ‘Well, young man, I should be glad to hear your case privately. Come in, come in. Don’t want to be advertising your business for all the world to see.’ He stood back and let Acre inside, smiling to himself.

  Lansing returned to his seat before the fire. He did not ask his guest to sit, though the bare box on which his wife usually sat was vacant. ‘Well then. How many weeks of church has he missed?’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’ Lansing turned to the young man, who was standing with his hands behind his back, surveying the room as though he had never set foot in a decent house before. Probably he had not, thought the reverend. Savages, all.

  ‘How many weeks of church?’

  ‘Three, sir.’

  ‘Three,’ said Lansing, clucking his tongue. ‘That’s a grave matter.’ He leant forward, half-swivelling to pull the box before his chair. He coughed, and then tapped a finger on it.

  ‘Oh, yes, father.’ Acre pulled loose his purse and emptied it out on the wooden surface. Lansing leaned in, surprised at the amount. Instinctively, he began sorting it into piles, his lips moving as he counted.

  ‘Is it enough?’

  ‘Hm?’ The fool was throwing him off. ‘Yes, yes, enough.’

  ‘And your wife shall return on the morrow?’

  ‘My wife?’

  ‘Mrs Lansing, sir.’

  Lansing paused. ‘How the devil did you know?’ He shook his head. It must be known in the parish that Anna had gone south. He bent again to the pile of money. He did not have time to finish counting. Before he could, he sensed his visitor behind him. He made to turn, and the man’s arm was around his neck, snaking from his left side. His mouth fell open. Acre’s hand slid across his throat. The pain was so sudden, sharp, and intense, that his eyes bulged. Blood spurted, drenching the coins. Lansing slumped forward, hitting the box with a muted thud.