‘Why can’t you do it?’ spat Jack. ‘You’re well trusted, aren’t you?’
‘Mind your tongue, boy.’
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Good. Mr Polmear is known in much of the north,’ said Walsingham, his voice quite calm. ‘And our work requires that he moves and watches about these islands. You will appreciate, Mr Cole, that we have extended you every courtesy. My own home has been open to you and you have proven you will not run.’
‘And I thank you for the honour of your house, sir.’
‘If you work for your country,’ said Walsingham, dismissing the flattery with an eye-roll, ‘as you have done thus far, you might reasonably expect to live a long and fair life. As will your wife. We will see to it that you meet again. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Mr Polmear, you will run through the instructions.’
Polmear cleared his throat. He put forward his chest, adopting a military bearing, staring straight ahead, and began speaking. ‘In Mr Walsingham’s service you’ll observe the following strictures. You will avoid buying and selling property. You will avoid engaging in legal disputes with neighbours or any other common folk. You will avoid anything that results in writing your name on documents.’ Walsingham nodded approvingly, his eyes on Jack. ‘Avoid fighting you are not trained to,’ went on Polmear, ‘remembering that others might be and that you might again trouble the law and have your name put to it. If you are known, you … you are weakened.’ What was that, wondered Jack – a slight hint of regret? Of embarrassment? Again, Polmear coughed. ‘You will observe always the following general rules: you are what you wear, and you are what you say. You will let your words fashion you. However, you will impersonate no man greater than yourself. You will remain always aware of the days of the week and month, noting when you observe what you observe. If you find you must take extreme measures with any man, avoid using any weapon that can be traced back to you.’ The cadence of recitation dropped. ‘Plainly speaking, I reckon if a man needs a gun or a fancy blade to set to work, he’d better not set to it at all. If you can’t kill a man with your own two hands, you’ve no business doing so.’
Walsingham sucked in his cheeks at the change in tone and frowned at the word ‘kill’. ‘We need none of your opinions. It is better any man in my employ should run from common brawling. As you ran, Mr Polmear. In that, you did do right.’ A lull fell, tension filling it. Jack sensed he had no part in it. Walsingham banged a fist on the desk. ‘Pray continue – with what you have learnt at my table.’
‘Begging your pardon, sir. Ah, where was I?’ He coughed. ‘You … you …’
‘My name,’ prompted Walsingham.
‘Yes, sir. You will use Mr Walsingham’s name never. You will mention him only to trusted men of authority. Even then, only in the gravest of situations. I mean, when your life can’t be saved by any other means. And know that even then it might not save you.’
‘I see our friend understands,’ said Walsingham. He sat back and clasped his hands over his stomach, the image of a man satisfied with his own genius. ‘Each item approved by Sir William Cecil as meet for the training of men of intelligence. Though of my own devising.’
‘Er – just one more, sir?’
‘Oh?’
‘My own rule, sir: sleep well and sleep often.’
‘Very good, Mr Polmear. Very full of wit,’ snapped Walsingham. He turned to Jack, who had stood listening to the oration with his jaw clenched. ‘You understand all that you have heard, boy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yes, what?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Good. Then there is one thing only that remains. Remember always that you are to watch. To gather intelligence and report what you see. No more. Make no constructions on your observations. Do not think you are to employ such wits as you have in discovering men’s motives. It is for we men of state alone to think on such matters. In matters of intelligence, you are a watcher, not a thinker. Now go out, would you?’
Jack slumped and left the room. As he closed the door, he heard some mumbling about diamonds and priests. He rubbed at his temple and began inching down the steps. ‘We’ repeated in his head. Walsingham had been very careful to say it often. ‘We’ meant the whole state – queen, Cecil, Polmear, every rotten agent under every rock in England, himself now included. As he reached the bottom, he began to wonder at the necessity of such a deliberate display of strength. Surely, he thought, only men who were weak felt the need to continually show off how strong they were, how much they knew. Did Walsingham really know he would betray his orders and help the countess to Europe, or was he merely making the best of a bad situation? Was Polmear present in Aberdeen to see that it all went off, or to act as insurance if the plan to hand her over to the Scottish Protestants failed? As he stepped out into the courtyard, he realised one thing: whatever Walsingham knew or not, he would never be privy to it. And he could not beat what he did not know.
By the time he had crossed the yard, suspicion had matured to certainty. Walsingham had masters of his own – the queen and Cecil. He did not seem a man to admit he was wrong, but he did seem one to try and cover up his miscalculations and make them work to his advantage. Jack looked around the quadrangle, suddenly thrumming with life. York, he thought. It was hardly seeing the world – and yet it meant that he was alive. It was an odd sort of punishment, but, he supposed, it was bad enough that he should be punished at all for making what he felt was the right choice.
4
Mr Acre turned the card over in his hands. A knave of diamonds. Written on the back was the word ‘YORK’. It had been left at the tenement in which he was staying, presumably by one of the temporary messengers. The diamond league had only four leaders, each named for one of the face cards. The suit was chosen deliberately – diamonds signified strength. Diamonds were unbreakable, it was said, and steadfast. Though the four faces formed the mind of the operation, nine messengers were scattered across Britain and Northern Europe. Those men, however, were simply hired mercenaries, none knowing the next, none knowing the true plan, and none even knowing that they were part of the great card game.
Acre folded the card into its pocket. The code was clear enough. The man called the knave of the suit was coming to York and would no doubt wish to meet with him. There they could discuss the progress of events. It would not be a particularly edifying conversation.
The truth was that the deaths that had mounted up thus far had not had any discernible effect. The problem, he suspected, was that the priests were simply viewed as disposable sodomites, and Lansing, the reverend, had served only to infuriate the Protestant civic authorities – and what they thought did not matter. They already hated everything and everyone that did not suckle at the teat of their church. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His best thinking was done in the dark.
Yes, he had to admit it: he had enjoyed slaughtering Lansing. That was a grievous fault. It was not just that it was supposedly wrong to enjoy killing – that had long since ceased to concern him – but that enjoying it meant he was likely to make mistakes. Enjoyment brought sloppiness. Groping in the dark, he removed his jerkin and shirt. He could not see his arms, but he could feel the welts and scars that criss-crossed the foreparts. For years now he had disciplined himself with thin cuts. They focussed his mind. If he found that he was losing clarity, that he was drifting into the dark days of unclear and ill-directed wildness, the sharp pain would set things right. The bleeding never lasted long; he was careful about that. The faces of the diamond league – his family – knew that he did it, but they accepted it as part of him. They accepted everything about him. It was they, after all, who had set him to work, knowing that he had the nerve and the skill to ensure their great design was carried out in England.
When he slid out the thin blade he kept at his hip, he grimaced, knowing what was to come. His mind he trained on what would likely be the task ahead: something bigger, gaudier, s
omething that would truly provoke outrage rather than being met with sniggers, closed ears, heretical head shaking, or delight.
He clenched his teeth as the blade bit into his flesh.
It was a foolish and sloppy plan, he thought, as pain gripped him. He did not even believe in their God, however much he loved them.
Again, he cut. He could feel the wetness of the blood trickle. If he had to cut down to the bone he would cease the prattling thoughts that, in the dark, told him that the whole thing was directionless – that those above him, from king to knave, were making it up as they went along. He did not even allow himself to think about the angel who had saved him, and for whom he would lay down his life. It was his place to deliver up the bodies of those that his elders demanded, not to question their decisions. As the blood flowed, he let his doubts and his weakness wash away with it.
Part Three: Double Dealing
1
Jack sipped at a wooden mug of ale at the far end of a long table. The tavern was nameless, squatting over an alley off the Colliergate. He had been in York for weeks, laying his head in common lodging houses and earning a few coins here and there tethering and brushing horses. Each night he had taken to haunting taverns, looking out for groups of men who seemed out of place, brooding, or who simply kept their conversations quiet and sober. Polmear had escorted him to York, leaving him with a fat purse which he laughingly told him not to spend in one whorehouse or piss against a wall, before departing for God-knew-where. Jack opted to save the money in case of trouble, dipping into it only when he could not earn enough for food or a bed. It would not do to be taken up by the law as a wandering and idle vagabond.
Astoundingly, Jack found he missed the bawdy man, though he would never have admitted that to him. It was the company he missed. A familiar face, even a knavish one, was a beacon in an unfamiliar place. If he could not listen to Amy telling her stories of those who had annoyed her over the course of her day, it was necessary at the least to have a companion to whom he might listen. Other people were around him constantly, but they were strangers, speaking only of practicalities – the price he was charging, the oncoming winter, strange deaths in the county. Living amongst strangers in France had been fine as long as he had had Amy passing judgement on all around him, forming a shield around the pair of them. Without her, he found himself wondering what kind of cutting remarks she would make if she were there. It was both comfort and curse.
He set down his mug. A little way along the table, a trio of men were conversing in low tones, their voices a mellifluous hum. They had been visiting the same tavern for several nights now, never arriving or leaving together. Promising, Jack thought. They always paid their bill and they never got themselves involved in any of the numerous arguments, good-natured or otherwise, that punctuated the evenings. He burped as theatrically and loudly as he could. Though he despised heavy drinking, he had seen enough of it in childhood to know the behaviour. He fumbled for a coin, dropped it, and hissed, ‘shit upon the queen,’ loudly enough for the men to hear. Others heard too, and that was alright. It was rather freeing knowing that you could say what you liked, break any laws of speech, and if some interfering goodman reported you, you could frighten them with the name of one of the queen’s own secretaries. Not, of course, that he had been encouraged to do that: cause too great of an affray and he would be left to hang as an example. ‘Stay out of the eyes of the law,’ Polmear had instructed him: ‘operate under it. Townsfolk are the worse for causing scandals and scandals break intelligencers’.
Good advice. But then, the half-formed idea had come to him that being a poor spy might be the best means of escaping a life of intelligence-gathering all the sooner.
As he stumbled from the table, he saw movement from the corner of his eye. One of the three men had risen, and another put a hand on his arm. ‘You have been loose with your tongue. You might be hanged for it,’ said the first, his eyes mild as he shook off his restraint and slid down the bench towards Jack, his blonde curls bouncing.
‘Good. What’s there to live for when chaos reigns? I would die a martyr.’ Jack turned to the man who now sat by him, challenge painted on his face. ‘You think you’ll be reporting me? A man’s speech is his own. I said hang the heretic queen and I meant it.’
‘Talk you of dying? Peace, son,’ he said. ‘We are not heretics. But you should guard your tongue, lest any of that colour mean to prick it.’
‘Not heretics?’ Jack repeated, blinking stupidly.
‘No. We’re true in the old ways.’
‘Adam!’ hissed the baby-faced man who had tried to stop him. ‘Mind your tongue.’
‘Are we not here to salve true souls?’ said the blonde man, Adam, quietly. ‘It is meet we should encourage as many as have the strength to speak up, is it not, Red Robin?’ Jack guessed that the nickname came from the youngest man’s flame-red hair.
‘What do you say, father?’ asked Robin to the man who had continued to sit. Jack squinted at him. Older than the others, bald as an egg, perhaps twenty-five. Certainly not old enough to be father to either of the others. He sat with his arms folded, studying Jack right back.
‘I say we leave this place. We are causing a scene.’ Jack looked around the room and saw that they had attracted some attention. Even in the half-light, it was clear that heads had turned to the long table, and the chuntering conversation had dimmed. ‘Now.’
‘As you say,’ said Adam, tossing his blonde locks. ‘What’s your name, friend?’
‘Jack. Only Jack. Son of a gentleman, fallen on hard times since the southerners took our land when the north fought back.’ It was an invention, of course, but one he felt had the ring of truth. A great many old families of the north had had their lands and goods confiscated and their patriarchs hanged for rebelling against Elizabeth the previous year.
‘Very good, Jack. We shall speak further, if you like.’ He leaned in and breathed into his ear, ‘the cellar of the old Carmelite Friary. You know it?’
‘Aye.’
‘In a half hour.’
‘Mebbe,’ Jack burped. He slumped down again and stared morosely into the brown pool of ale as the three men took turns leaving. It had not been hard at all – it was exactly as Polmear said. The fellows had even betrayed themselves, using ‘father’ and calling him ‘son’ when two of them were only about his own age. After a while, he pulled himself up from the bench, handed over a few coins to the tapster, and slipped into the evening.
Winter had come early to York. Though it was still only touching November, frost sparkled on the ground, forming white veins over puddles and fallen leaves. The streets were silent and empty. Something had shifted across the north of England following the failed rebellion. Beyond just the hundreds of men who had gone to their grave – or to hang, crumbling, from trees – there seemed to linger a morose, suspicious stillness. He had noticed, on his nights moving from tavern to tavern, that those abroad on the streets went about their business silently, as though afraid of who might be watching from the shadows. More than once he had shivered, not out of fear, but because he knew that he had become what they feared. He was the narrowed eyes. He was the pricked ears. He was one of those who had brought about their men’s deaths and would, if he could, soon bring more to the gallows. The only way to live with it was not to think about it. If he did, if he leapt into the life Walsingham had prepared and enjoyed it, as Polmear seemed to, he would lose a part of himself. He would slide down the hierarchy from man to the animals, scrabbling about the ground, picking at carcasses.
He did not creep. To do so would only mark him out. Instead he strode the mostly empty streets, hard by the frozen sewer channel, and made his way to the old tenement building on Stonebow Lane, which he knew to have formerly been the home of the Carmelites. It was a tall building, partially decayed. To whom it belonged now he did not know – someone wealthy, probably, who rented the rooms above ground out for crippling prices. That had been the purpose of England’s reforma
tion, as everyone in Europe knew. It was not to reform or root out problems in the old church, but to grab its wealth and share it amongst those loyal to the crown. No windows were lighted above, and so he slipped around the side of the building, going slowly until he felt the ground sink to a low opening. He inhaled the cold night air, breathed out, and knocked. A small door opened immediately, and he crouched his way in.
He shielded his eyes from the sudden burst of light as Adam closed the door behind him. The other two men, little Red Robin and the older one, were affixing torches to the walls. The cellar was low and vaulted, so that none of them could stand to their full height, and the floor alternated flagstones and dirt. It was a grubby, shameful place for the faith which even now commanded great cathedrals across the continent. ‘You are priests?’ asked Jack, willing hope and awe into his voice. Shoots of fear helped it tremble.
‘Speak you of priests?’ asked the older man, who attempted to cross his arms. The effect was almost comical in the tiny room.
‘I’m a true Catholic,’ said Jack. ‘Why did you bring me here if you’re not priests?’ The fellow shrugged, turning to Adam.
‘You were speaking immoderately. Could have got yourself killed, my friend. It is up to us to protect the liberty of men’s tongues and hearts, if they be true.’ He sighed. ‘We are lately arrived from Douai. Sworn to protect those who oppose the heretical faith in this realm.’ Jack felt his heart leap and then sink. They were exactly what he had sought, and yet had feared finding. ‘Did you speak true? You are of the old gentry of the north?’ Jack only mumbled noncommittally in response. ‘My elder friend here is Father Thomas. Born in Newcastle. Moved abroad to take orders years since. He does not trust strangers.’ The bald man shot him a dark look, his lip protruding. In response, Adam thrust a fist into his palm. ‘But it is boldness we need if we are to reclaim England.’
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