by Peter Tonkin
They searched in pairs, starting in the wreckage of the parlour and spreading out into the devastation of the rest. Dining chambers, reception chambers, galleries and sleeping chambers all were smashed and shattered. Public rooms and private, owners' quarters and servants', living rooms, working rooms and storage rooms - it was all the same. 'Such destruction,' whispered Talbot Law, awed, to his partner, Tom. 'It bespeaks great madness or great rage.'
'Or a great search for a small thing,' said Tom. 'But how could this much have been done with no one coming to investigate or offer help? Where was the Watch?'
'Where are they now?' asked Talbot. Then he answered his own question. 'Paid to look the other way.'
But search as they might - exchanging information when their paths crossed - neither pair could find sight nor sign of Poley's Mistress Kate nor Seyton's silent Margaret, one or the other or both of them carried away by the Spaniard who always wore two swords. And, thought Tom grimly, if the Spaniard had exercised such fiendish cruelty upon a harmless old man and left him like the Inquisition just for amusement's sake, then Morton's fears for Mistress Kate's lingering, torturous death were well founded indeed, and he held out no great hopes that the lady Margaret would fare much better.
Chapter Sixteen - The Mad Room
Tom found the doorway first, though it hardly lay hidden now. Obviously it had once stood in a secret corner of an apparently little-used upper gallery, covered by a tapestry; but now the tapestry was torn asunder and the doorway gaped like every other doorway in the ravaged house. 'This place is like Nijmagen was, when we had looted it and left,' he whispered to Talbot. The old soldier gave one grim nod, and side by side they stepped over the rags of tapestry, through the ravished portal and into the stairwell of the tower.
Round about the outer walls the circular staircase wound, up the shaft of the ancient stone keep and into a turret room. The room was entered by a trap that stood as open as all the other doors. Candle high in one hand, and sword in the other in spite of the oppressive silence of the place, Tom went first. Like Leviathan arising from the depths, he rose into a circular room whose thin, leaded windows nevertheless gave a sight of the moon and stars on every hand. But it was not the heavens beyond those walls that held the secret agent rapt. It was the realisation of what a hell had lain within them. For this was a mad room. Like any public chamber in Bedlam, just outside Bishops Gate, not so far north of here, where the good folk of London could go on a Sunday to see the lunatics chained, stripped, abused and whipped, this was a room designed to hold a lunatic. There were straps and manacles secured to the heavy wooden frame of the bed - though the bedding itself seemed soft and clean - or it must have been so before it was torn asunder and strewn. The posts at the bed's foot were particularly strong and both bolted to the floor. There were manacles and iron belts secured to both of them. The cuffs and waistband, Tom noted automatically, were set for the slimmest of figures.
By the largest of the windows, looking down over the bustle of Stocks Market and Dowgate to the river beside the Steelyard, was a standing lectern half the size of a table. No chair or stool. The books that might have lain upon it or on the little shelf beside it were all strewn in tatters on the floor. Around the bare and brutal walls hung a range of medicinal whips and scourges which ranged from a few light cords such as might be used on a child to the sort of instruments usually reserved for the cart's tail, Tyburn, Paul's Churchyard and Bedlam itself, to whip out the madness as prescribed by medical wisdom for the benefit of the patient. They were all dusty, however, and clearly wanted use.
And what made the room doubly sad in Tom's eyes was the scrap of rag that Talbot was holding now. It fitted so well with the settings of the manacles and the lightness of most of the scourges, for it was a piece of a woman's dress. This, Tom realised, was where Mistress Margaret had lived, until the Spaniard had come with his men, torn the house to pieces searching, tortured the ancient Seyton and spirited poor mad Meg away.
But where was Poley's Kate in all of this? Why had Morton sent her here? What had she seen when she came - and what had she learned? What did she know and where was she now?
What had Poley called her? Tom thought, as his mind raced. My Lady Determination. If Mistress Kate had been here then she would have contrived to leave a message somehow. Yet the old man had not known the name - unless he was just too taken up with Mistress Margaret, whom he must have tended and shielded for at least a year since the rest of the family died. In such circumstances who would give a second thought to some woman but lately arrived when such a trust had been broken in such a manner?
'We must get Poley up here,' breathed Tom to Talbot, but the instant that the Bailiff looked down through the trap he said, 'He's on his way.'
A moment later the mad room was more crowded than it was likely to have been in a long, long time. Poley looked around, his expression much as Tom's had been. 'Mistress Margaret,' he said, his voice dull.
Tom nodded. 'But what of Mistress Kate?' he mused.
'What indeed?' wondered Poley, clearly shaken, looking around with a vain attempt to mask his confusion and anxiety.
'Think, man. Morton must have sent her here a day since. This was done tonight or the old man and the candle would have died long since. If she came, would she have lingered?'
'Surely that would depend on what she sought,' chimed in Talbot.
'Aye, but Master Poley here does not know what she sought. Do you?'
'No.' Against his inclination, belief and usual practice; clearly under the greatest duress, Poley followed Tom's more open approach, certain that all here were confederates and there was none to overhear. 'Morton had discovered something he wished to impart to me but he was killed before he could do so.'
Save that he wrote the import of it in a letter, thought Tom, but he said nothing for the moment.
'Since that time,' continued Poley, 'almost all the men he worked with have died too. Everyone who might have known what he discovered is dead or under threat - including Tom, as we know, and myself. What Kate knows only Morton knew, and why he sent her here perhaps even Kate did not know. It is something about this house and how and why all who lived here died. It might even have been to do with that poor old man downstairs and the mad woman they held up here. I do not know. And I do not know how long Kate would have stayed for I do not know what it was she sought. And I do not know whether she was here when Morton's assassin arrived with the other men who did this. I hope she was not, or she will be beyond all help now if they have taken her.'
'Well enough,' said Tom. 'But we have not yet reached the limit of where logic might take us. Master Poley, if we know nothing about why Mistress Kate came, can we at least guess how she came?'
Poley frowned- as did the others. Tom expounded. 'Would she have come as herself. Per exemplum, we know Master Nicholas Blunt of Islington had little enough business on the Bankside; but Nick o' Darkmans was like a Drake or Raleigh among the thieves' brotherhood working there. Is the same true of your Kate? Would Mistress Kate So-andso have had reason to call at Wormwood House? Or would she have come in disguise like an actor or a coney-catcher? And, if so, was there a disguise she favoured? One she would most likely have used?'
Poley answered at once. 'For herself, she would have had no business here. Therefore she would have come disguised. I have often met her at Paul's Churchyard, and I have seen her at play there as though she were at the Rose with Master Shakespeare. I have seen her be the country maiden of Puritan bent, up to hear the sermons. I have seen her pretend to be the courtier of fashion jetting in the walk - almost to the bawd, though I have never seen her whoring. I have seen her act the earnest young assistant to the myriad booksellers there. But that is all. I have never seen her singing "Cherry Ripe" nor bearing a milk yoke such as country wenches do. Only of the better sort...'
Poley's voice trailed off, for he had clearly lost Tom's attention. While the others stood gaping, Tom had fallen on his knees, candle aloft and swo
rd cast carelessly aside. And he was gathering up the scraps of paper on the floor. The remains of the pamphlets and the books such as were sold in their hundreds every day at St Paul's Churchyard.
'The old man,' he explained. 'With his dying breath he talked of the bookseller's boy. It must have been your Mistress Kate in disguise, Poley. She was here today, and some of these at least must be her wares.' Talbot Law held the light high; the Bishop's Bailiff, apparently, being above such common pastimes as scrabbling on the floor. The other three gathered the scraps of paper together. 'These have just been wantonly destroyed,' said Tom. 'There was surely no design to find any message hidden in them. And yet they searched for something small that might be hidden anywhere. Even in a book or pamphlet such as these.' 'Particularly in a pamphlet,' said Poley grimly, 'if we may judge from the state of these. As you find them, pass them to me and I will try to piece them together if I can.' After a while, he continued, in Tom's fashion, 'They searched for more than Mistress Margaret, then. But did they find what they sought once they had discovered her?'
'No,' said Tom roundly. 'Had they found what they sought, then their destruction would have stopped. It did not stop - therefore they did not find it.'
'Quod erat demonstrandum,' said Talbot. 'You should still consider Bartholomew Fair if they close the theatres again.'
'But stay, there is more. I rival Doctor Dee tonight. For the thing they sought might have been concealed anywhere - or they would never have broken everything. In a padded chair-seat, behind a picture, even in a mad girl's bedding; in a pamphlet. Most especially in a pamphlet. It is of paper, then, and written or printed. Some document of legal weight and import.'
'A map of the route to Cathay?' hazarded Ugo, unexpectedly romantically, thinking no doubt of how the Lords of Outremer had made their enormous fortune.
'A chart of the Spice Islands,' Talbot took up the theme.
'I'd hazard something more immediate and practical. What about you, Master Poley?' asked Tom. Poley merely grunted in reply, consumed with trying to rebuild the ruined books upon the lectern by the window.
Tom sat at more ease on the edge of the bed. 'We have a house recently bereft of its lord and his family,' he said. 'A house about to fall into the hands of the next in line, Hugh Outram, Baron Cotehel, friend to the dazzling young earls of Southampton and Essex, desperate to keep up with the brightest and most dangerous stars at Court. But within the death-house, what do we find? An ancient chamberlain who remains in spite of all; remains against all reason. And why? To tend a mad woman in the tower. Who should this woman be? Who could ever garner such loyalty in the face of her insanity?'
'The daughter of the house,' spat Poley over his shoulder. 'Half a wit could see it clear, but that you obscure all with your exercises of logic.'
'The daughter of the house,' agreed Tom cheerfully. 'The last of the dead lord's line. Beloved daughter of a father richer than Croesus, the ballast of whose very ships is gold instead of stone, or so the story goes. And what might the Spaniard and his cohorts be searching for among the writings of the house, therefore?'
'They seek the old man's will,' snapped Poley.
And Tom swung round then, his lips thin and his level brows twisted in a frown. 'Right, Master Poley. The will. And they do not have it. You see how swiftly and clearly we can move forward when you say what you think and tell us what you know instead of equivocating with half-truths and secrets.
If we sit atop a pyramid of mystery and murder, as you say, then you above all others hold the plans to the place and we need to see at least a part of them. Can you begin to imagine what they will do to Mistress Margaret, mad or not, if they think she might know where the will of Lord Outremer might be hidden?'
'There,' said Poley, and this time it was his turn to let his rage have rein. 'There. In that very question lies the reason I will never share the whole truth with you. You would charge off to save the fate of one mad girl in the face of the plague of treason and assassination that holds us in its grip. You exercise your logic well, Master Musgrave, but you exercise it on a trifle, on a toy. Did you not listen when I read Morton's missive to you? Have you no idea what he suspected?'
'Aye,' said Tom. 'Well enough.'
'Then expound again, O Master of Logic, whom nothing ever escapes. Cut this Gordian knot of black satanity for me with the shining sword of your reason.'
Tom, sitting in the wreckage of the mad woman's bed, looked up at Robert Poley then, his sympathy stirred by the man's frustrated rage. 'Very well,' he said. 'Without the cant and rigmarole, in plain blunt terms.
Your intelligencer Morton feared that one of the Spaniards currently kicking their heels at Essex House is an assassin. A man who can kill by blade or knife or more darkly subtle means. He believed that this man or another like him has found employment here regularly in the past five years, working at the behest, perhaps, of Essex or Southampton or Outram or some other of their dangerous circle. The assassin's employment has been political and personal. He has added his dangerous wisdom to the ravages of the plague and so the senior line of Lord Outremer's family have all died out - all but the mad girl in the attic.
'But, feared Morton, and fears Master Poley, all too clearly, there have been others dying suddenly over recent years, dying mysteriously before their time, suddenly clearing paths to power and wealth, as Hugh Outram's path is now so clear to Lord Outremer's titles, houses and fortune.
'But his investigation did not begin here. His suspicions were not aroused here - but at Lathom House. So, I surmise, he and you - and the Council - fear that Lord Strange, who died two months since, died of poison and murder. And, said Morton's message to Master Poley, one such also died at Kenilworth, or rather at Buckstones. That could only be Lord Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, the Queen's own darling and strong right hand, at the end of Armada year. And another died less than a league up the road at St Augustine's Papey hard by Bevis Marks, halfway between this place and Bedlam. To wit Sir Francis Walsingham a little more than four years since - Mr Secretary Walsingham the secret councillor, unmasker of plots and master of intelligence, for whom, I guess, Master Poley here has worked. If Morton has discovered that even such men as those were not safe, 'tis no wonder he beset his house with traps and sought to hide himself behind an actor's mask, as poor Kit Marlowe did before him.' Poley was white. 'Do you know what you are saying, man? Do you not see where your precious logic has led you? You talk of treasons so terrible it is treason even to think of them. A breath of such thinking goes outside this room and we are all fodder for Topcliffe and his monstrous machines. We would die to a man like Babbington, choked to the very edge of death at Tyburn but watching our guts and private parts burn in the hangman's brazier. Forget your Master Marlowe blinked out on a summer's evening like an ant beneath an impatient heel, here and gone in the blink of an eye. I saw it done to Babbington and his crew of plotters slowly and by the book and I tell you young Chidiock Tichbourne was still alive and screaming when the horses ripped him asunder into quarters.
'Yes, I worked for Mr Secretary Walsingham and it was I who brought down Babbington and his traitorous confederates; I who brought down Mary Queen of Scots and led her to the headsman. But in the face of this, even I am helpless. And so, I fear, are the Council for whom I work.'
'Master Robert,' said Tom gently, using the man's Christian name to call him back from the horrors he was all too clearly reliving. 'What is truly dangerous about this is that you believe it to be true and yet you fear even to talk of it. You fear to talk of it even to us who are your best help, your only hope. Because of this, secret treasons and unsuspected murders done in the past are starting to happen again and Morton somehow has used the deaths of this poor family to prove that the earlier deaths were in fact assassinations. People are dying, now - this very day - all around you because you believe what Morton believed to be true, and you cannot seem to call a halt to the slaughter because you cannot get your grip upon the heart of it.'
&
nbsp; 'That at least is the truth,' said Poley, more quietly. 'It is a monstrous thing. It has grown slowly, unsuspected and in secret. When Master Secretary Walsingham and we dealt with Ridolfi, Babbington and all therest, we had a view of the plot like hunters hounding the hart. We were able to take action, to cause the plots to misfire under our eyes and within our own control. But this is different. This has become a monstrous thing with its roots and branches twisting from the stews to the throne room; yet it is a hydra without one single throat to cut, one single head to lop.'
'Then we must find that throat and that head,' said Tom. 'But in the meantime we must also look to Mistress Kate and Mistress Margaret if we can, before their deaths are added to the growing list.'
'So, Master Poley,' said Ugo, solidly, practically, unshaken in the face of such terrifying treason, 'have you found any messages hidden in the books?'
And Poley himself looked quite surprised when he answered, 'Yes, I have.' Then, in the face of Tom's cold stare, he added, 'I was about to tell you when the Master of Logic tempted me into a forbidden conversation, like Mephistophilis in Master Marlowe's play.'
Tom put that sinister little aside into the purse of his memory as he crossed to look at what Poley had laid out on the lectern. It was a copy of an old pamphlet newly reprinted, a popular text about the treatment of madness by Dr Andrew Boorde, called 'The Second Book of the Breviary of Health'. 'You see how it opens?' asked Poley, tracing the writing with his finger across the rags of paper he had carefully fitted together. ' "First, in the chamber where the patient is kept in, let there be no pictures or painted cloths about the bed or the chamber ..." You see that? Now, observe how these marks signal and add to words within the writing. Your Master of Cyphers now abed would appreciate this, Tom. For see how the pamphlet goes of sweet savours and study and merry communication before threat of fear and punishments, but warm meat and cassia fistula and epithyme. But see how another message is pricked out and added to with a mark here and a cross there.'