Divided Loyalties: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘I’ll tell you only this. It was a great person bought these pins. Three of them. Three pins for three diamonds. Tokens of love and honour. To be given as gifts. Now away, boy, and take your mad tongue elsewhere. Use your purse on some fine wine. Drink the king’s health.’

  Jack grinned his thanks and wandered away from the stall. Three pins, three agents, each working for a master. One was dead, one’s face was known – familiar, but unfamiliar – and that left one remaining diamond plotter and the mastermind of it all. A great person, he thought. In Paris, that could mean anyone with money and position. Perhaps Walsingham knew who was great in Paris that might wish to see the wars of religion restarted, and that might have three willing agents to set to work. A chill ran through him. He turned on the spot. The crowds had thinned a little, some chasing after the king and his party, but the majority had remained to drink and make merry. If a spark of violence lit them, the scenes would be unimaginable. The joyful, drunken cries and jubilant singing would turn to screams of pain and fear.

  Someone was watching him.

  Jack recognised immediately that one figure was not in step with the rest of the crowd. It was a man. The fellow began stalking towards him. The gait was unmistakable, slow, and deliberate. Wolf-like, he thought. It was the man from York.

  Without hesitating, he slipped between a couple, apologising as he went. He let their bodies mask him. Then he slipped along the street and into the first open door he came to. It was a house, the front of which operated as a shop. A middle-aged woman standing over a simmering pot looked up at him without surprise. ‘It’s not ready yet, my friend. I’ll pass it out when it is.’

  He skipped towards her and alarm changed her face. Before she could cry out, he kissed her. It shut her up. Rather than screaming, she laughed. ‘You drunken fool,’ she cried. ‘I’ll tell my husband. He’ll force you to take me off with you.’

  ‘You do that,’ he said. ‘I’m going to throw coins from the roof – largesse from the king!’ He bounded away from her and up a staircase. He passed the second floor and went up further, where a window opened out onto the roof. Today, rather than having washing laid out on it, it bore what must be the woman’s husband – a corpulent man, lying with a cap pulled over his face to shield him from the sun. He began to rise, slowly at first, and then jerked up when the woman downstairs began screaming. Jack took off, balancing himself on the red tiles. His pursuer must have found the house. ‘Protect your wife, man,’ he cried over his shoulder. ‘A thief and a murderer is abroad!’

  Jack began moving amongst the tiles. His boot slipped. He righted it. His arms went out for balance.

  A sea of red stood before him, stretching out and interrupted only by those who remained standing up on the roofs to finish their drinks and enjoy the comparative peace. He turned and saw his pursuer’s head emerging from the window. Jack’s eyes locked with his, and there again was that strange feeling of familiarity in the killer’s thin features. The man clambered out and stood where the fat man had been resting. To Jack’s delight, the homeowner and his wife stuck their heads through, and began hurling abuse and throwing chunks of bread. The killer stumbled at the surprise but did not turn. Instead, he continued his pursuit.

  Jack moved. Along the roof, careful of the gutter, he realised that he was passing over several attached houses and shops. He could see out over the crowds of people. Hundreds of hats moved about. A false step and he would hurtle towards them, breaking his neck. Then he realised that the he would shortly run out of roof. A narrow side street bisected the main road along which the royal party had travelled. He would have to leap it.

  He allowed only a second to hesitance. Only a few steps of run-up were possible. Trying not to think, Jack leapt, his arms cartwheeling as he sailed over the street. A collective gasp went up from the people below. With a graceless crunch, he landed in a heap on the roof opposite and immediately began sliding. His fingers grasped at the tiles and he managed to grip them before he went sailing over the edge. Slowly, laboriously, he managed to get his right leg up, hooking his foot around the edge of a tile. He dared not turn around to see what was happening as he struggled to his feet.

  The number of people on this section of roofing was thicker. He saw why. Someone had gotten several barrels of wine up, and a girl was doling out mugs of it to those who had remained topside after the king had passed. Jack grasped at the purse he had tied to his belt and jerked it free. ‘I’ll take one,’ he cried, shoving it in the surprised girl’s face. ‘I’ll take a barrel.’ He pushed the purse into her hand and turned.

  Polmear’s killer was tensing to make the leap over the alley. As he left the first roof, Jack pushed the barrel of wine, still half-full, over the tiles behind him. It sloshed, and a chorus of aggrieved cries sounded behind him. From the ground, too, came shouts of rage from those who had suffered a sudden and vinous rainstorm. He ignored them. The shift in noise unbalanced his pursuer, and the sudden soaking of the tiles wrecked his landing. The man slid, cursing, from the edge of the roof. Jack watched as his head, and then his arms, and then hands disappeared.

  And then he began running again.

  ***

  Amy waited in the ladies’ bedchamber, alone for the first time that day. She paced, her mind at war with itself. The sight of Jack – the knowledge that he was safe – had lightened her heart and her mood. If she had known it before, she would not have put such a reckless plan in train. It was the operation of that plan that stayed her happiness.

  After the royal entry, a banquet was to take place at the Louvre. The grand palace was only a short walk past the gardens to the queen’s house at the Tuileries. Before Amy had come to the ladies’ bedchamber, Catherine had told her that the duke of Guise would arrive before eight o’clock. That, the rumour went, was the time at which he would sneak his innocent young Protestant conquest into the Tuileries and ravish her.

  Of course, nothing might happen. Other people, Amy mused, panic building, were unpredictable. They had a knack for being stupid when you wished them to be clever, and clever when you required them to be stupid. She felt sweat run down her back. She put her fists to it and cracked it.

  Bells rang out.

  But then, bells had been ringing on and off all day, signifying nothing but celebration. Amy made to sit down, wishing for a clock, or a watch, or at the least a reliable church bell, when the door opened.

  The duke of Guise entered the room, flanked by guards. He gave her an angry, suspicious look, before his mask of charm fell into place. She gulped. The greatest risk to her plan was that she had no way of telling how much the man knew about the rumour she had started, or about anything that was going on. Catherine had not deigned to tell her anything beyond the fact that he would arrive at the ladies’ room before eight – and that Amy had best put the time until then to good use packing her things. She had done so, not needing Kat, whom she had released to enjoy the day of festivities. It had, after all, been her work once, and soon might be again.

  ‘My dear English lady,’ said Guise. ‘This is all some game? I am a married man, as beautiful as you are.’

  ‘Stay awhile, your Grace.’

  ‘I can do nothing else. The king’s mother has commanded it. After she has commanded that I spend the day and evening dancing with the Protestant ladies.’ A bitter edge overtook him. ‘And the last lady – the last lady ran from the room before the moment I was to leave. What is this?’

  ‘I … I think there has been a grave injustice done your Grace.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘A foul plotter has been using you to try and attack the faith.’

  ‘What? What plot?’ Guise looked more angry than confused. ‘Is this why the old queen had these men escort me? I – am I to be arrested, huh?’ He put a hand on his hip, indignant.

  Before Amy could think of a reasonable response, the door flew open. Into the room stepped a number of men she did not recognise. Each one of them was wearing black, and each had a sho
rt dagger drawn. They looked around the room – first at Guise, and then at Amy, and then at the guards. Not seeing what they expected, they put away their weapons and turned, grabbing at someone just outside Amy’s line of vision.

  When they had hold of the woman, they threw her into the room, where she went down on her knees. ‘This? This is your great ravisher?’ shouted the apparent leader of the Protestant gentlemen. ‘What fool’s errand have you brought us on, woman?’

  ‘A foolish prank,’ said a voice from the doorway. Catherine had arrived, ladies on either side of her. Everyone in the room joined Vittoria de Brieux in getting to their knees. ‘And a cruel one. Pray, good friends, return to my son.’ Walking on their knees, their faces crimson, the Protestants fled the room, leaving the queen-mother and her ladies, the duke and his guards, Amy, and Madame de Brieux. Looking down at the latter, Catherine said, ‘those are fine diamonds you have chosen to wear tonight, my lady.’

  5

  ‘I have no knowledge of this woman,’ said Guise. ‘Nor of any strange thing here.’

  ‘Of course not. Merely a small prank, as I said.’

  ‘I may go, your Majesty?’

  ‘You may.’

  The duke of Guise moved to the door and put his hand on the handle. ‘That creature there,’ he said, inclining his head towards Brieux, ‘she has been a constant pain to me. Ever trying to move me to violent courses, despite your policy of peace. Seeking privy talks with me whilst her slave girl entertained my men. I did not pursue them. I broke with her some time ago.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Catherine. Guise stuck out his chin and swaggered from the room. ‘Let us hope you did not,’ she added when he had gone. The guards did not follow him. ‘You may stand,’ she smiled. ‘All but you, my lady. So. It is you have been intriguing here.’

  ‘She is the queen of diamonds, your Majesty,’ Amy said, the words bursting out. ‘I told you it was one within the household when it was just a small number. I told you, your Majesty.’

  ‘Be silent. She is the queen of nothing. Explain yourself, woman.’

  ‘I know nothing,’ said Brieux, her painted face betraying as much.

  ‘Yet you brought those hereti– those our friends here, hoping to incite their wrath against the duke.’ Still, she said nothing. ‘And I think you have done worse things in this place.’ Catherine turned to Amy, finally.

  ‘She poisoned me. It was her that told me to use that lotion. Put poison in it during the night, or had her maid to it.’

  ‘The maid now dead,’ said the queen-mother. ‘The one beyond all earthly questions.’

  ‘Dead because she knew too much! I reckon it was that girl that she had lock me in with the wolf. And you heard the duke – she had the maidservant … carry on … with his men so that she could speak with him. The diamond plot, your Majesty – it is to bring the church into disgrace.’

  At this, Brieux finally looked up at Amy. Her eyes alone betrayed her fury.

  ‘Yet this creature is a Catholic,’ said Catherine. ‘She has never shown herself to love the Huguenots. I have known her for a great many years.’

  ‘The diamond leaguers, your Majesty, they are Catholic. But Catholics with a grudge against the Roman church.’

  Catherine looked non-plussed, as though the concept of an enemy within was too much to deal with. ‘Leaguers? There are many?’

  ‘Four, perhaps. Well, less now. One is dead. My husband killed him in York.’

  At this news, Madame de Brieux let out a single plaintive wail. ‘You have murdered my child,’ she cried. She began crawling along the floor towards her cot and threw herself on it. As soon as she began moving, the guards moved to protect Catherine.

  ‘You have no children,’ said the queen-mother, speaking over her protectors.

  ‘My children,’ the stricken woman repeated, banging her fists on the coffer by her bed. ‘Ripped untimely from me. Sold to English filth to be reared savages. Whom have you killed? Whom?’ She wiped her face, her hand coming away coated in dried paste. When no one answered, she said, ‘my babies.’ As though in shame, she turned again to her coffer and threw herself on it, scattering the lotions and potions that littered its surface.

  ‘When did you have children, woman?’ asked Catherine. ‘You disclosed no children to me.’

  ‘Not to you or anyone,’ hissed Brieux. ‘Thirteen I was, when I had my first, and fifteen at the last. Taken from me by their father, year after year, using me as he wished. A man of the corrupt church, a priest of Rome who brought shame on the faith. Curly blonde hair and the face of an angel. But not the manner nor the morals. It was me who discovered them when their filthy false parents died. Me who gave them purpose. Which of my children have you murdered?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Amy, her voice hardly audible.

  ‘You think you have stopped them? I have set them on their path. They will have their revenge on Rome’s corruptions. They will avenge my lost child. And me.’

  ‘You will not die,’ said Catherine, folding her arms. ‘You will talk. You will tell me all that you have done. If you will not, your secrets will be drawn from your lips until all your friends are betrayed, children or no children. Guards, you will take this wretched creature and–’

  Before anyone could do anything, Vittoria de Brieux began moaning. She slumped fully over the coffer and, as she did, her hands fell open. A pair of vials slipped to the carpet, empty. ‘Jesus,’ said Amy. ‘The poison. She’s eating it. She’s eaten it.’

  At the word ‘poison’, everyone in the room leapt back. Still, the woman’s whimpers went on, turning to cries of pain and she folded to the ground, clutching at her stomach. Only Catherine did not move. Out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw the queen-mother staring in rapt, grim fascination as Brieux writhed and convulsed, now screaming in agony. ‘It is a fast poison,’ she said. ‘Very fast when swallowed. It burns her. It burns her from the inside. Has she supped it all? Left none to be examined?’

  ‘Physicians, your Majesty,’ said one of the ladies, her hand wrapped around her throat. ‘Shall I call for them?’

  ‘The physicians are attending on the king,’ said Catherine. ‘My son has more value than this painted priest’s whore. She is dead already. Her plot has failed.’ The woman was still in her death throes when Catherine turned to face the room. ‘May God be praised we are free from all threat of war. It must be given out that the lady has suffered some malady of the heart. See to it. Put it about the court that it was my lady’s sudden illness which took me from the king’s side. This disgusting affair must not be allowed to threaten the peace in any way. This dead and broken creature is a nothing, and her death must mean nothing. To anyone. You understand me?’ The two women who had escorted the queen-mother to the ladies’ chamber nodded, bowed, and fled the room in haste. Then the old woman turned to Amy.

  ‘Alas, but when those Protestant fellows hear that she is dead, it shall be me has the blame of it. I can see the cruel rumours their false friendship will breed – that the king’s mother poisons her own women for the playing out of jests.’ She shook her head, her hooded eyes bitter, before returning her attention to Amy. ‘Your own plot succeeded, girl. You have found your plotter.’

  ‘One of them, your Majesty. She said ‘children’.’

  ‘Yet this was the creature you heard was about my person. That is all that concerns me.’

  ‘You … your Majesty trusted her?’ Amy let her eyes dart to the dead woman, but only briefly. Her face had contorted and swollen beneath its cosmetics.

  ‘Hmph. I have known she had meetings with the duke of Guise. But their purpose and their design I could not divine.’

  ‘The duke … might the duke have known of her plot?’

  ‘No. Certainly not. The duke has faults, but he would have countenanced nothing that sought to hurt the Roman religion. This monstrous woman tried to use him to her own twisted purpose. To turn him to violence. God knows the violence of the last wars brought the censu
re of the world down on the heads of true Catholics. Speak no more of his grace.’

  ‘You knew she was up to something?’ gasped Amy. ‘You knew, your Majesty? You might have told me. I mean – it might have helped me to discover her plotting.’

  ‘I need tell you nothing, girl. You are nothing to me. You have done me good service. You shall be repaid for it.’

  Amy bowed her head. Whatever the odd balance of personalities and politics between the queen-mother and the duke of Guise, she did not understand it. Nor did she want to. Yet an unpleasant premonition had suddenly come over her that Catherine was going to ask her to join the royal household on her own merit. The old woman’s next words swiftly disabused her of the idea.

  ‘The gratitude of my house is that these guards do not take you from the palace and whip you bloody through the streets of Paris. It is a foul and abominable crime to spread false slanders and rumours about your betters. As you did with the duke of Guise.’ She raised a hand to stop Amy before she could respond. ‘A foul and treasonable crime also to have illicit traffic with a foreign ambassador when you were living at my table. Oh yes, I had you watched as you took yourself to that English Puritan’s house.’ Catherine smiled at Amy’s look of angry surprise. The smile was not malicious. More softly, the old woman said, ‘I am giving you your freedom from this wretched world. Take it, take your Scotch girl, and run. Run away this night. Get you gone to your sour English friend. I am sure you have much to tell him. And when you leave my realm, which I hope you shall do in all haste, you might have a royal escort to speed you to your lady of Northumberland or wherever you chance to go. Now pray get out of my sight and my house.’

  ***

  Jack sat in the parlour of Walsingham’s house in Saint-Marceau, waiting for his master to return. After he had lowered himself from a rooftop, he had run, not waiting to see how badly Polmear’s killer had been hurt in the fall. It was unlikely to have done too much damage – a break of something vital was the best he could hope for. He found he could not sit still for any length of time, and he sprang up again and began worrying at a tablecloth. He was still at it when the click of the lock drew his attention. It might be the master, or any one of the senior servants, all of which had been given the festival day as a holiday. He put his hand to the dagger at his belt all the same.