Low Treason

by Leonard Tourney

  Good, thought Castell, for whom discretion was the single moral absolute.

  He led the way up the stairs and down a narrow passage to the room that served him as a parlor and bedchamber. On the way he paused to listen at the door of a small adjoining room occupied by his servant Roley. Through the door Castell heard a snore, a cough, and then a thin cry. He nodded to his satisfaction. Roley was asleep, dreaming, but dreams of what sort Castell could not begin to imagine, for his own sleep was deep and obscure and when he awoke from it he remembered nothing but having gone to bed.

  He motioned to Ortega to precede him into his own room but the Spaniard hesitated. Castell smiled at the man’s caution. He said, “Only a minor courtesy, sir. A custom of our nation, if you will. You are as safe here as in a church.”

  His guest looked at Castell skeptically. He was a stranger in a strange land, a dark house. Who knew what spies lurked in the gloom, ready to rush forth at a signal?

  Castell shrugged and entered first. He invited Ortega to take a chair, struck a match and lighted the lamp, holding the long handle of the match until the little cone of red flame burned intrepidly in the wick, and then walked over to close the sashes. He untied the drapes and let them fall. The careful Spaniard would see that no assassin hid in the thick folds.

  “A precaution,” Castell explained. “A light from the window at this hour might arouse the curiosity of some neighbor.”

  “Very wise,” replied Ortega, who spoke good English.

  Would the gentleman take something to slake his thirst?

  Yes, Ortega would drink. Castell watched while the young Spaniard removed his hat and mopped his brow with a lace handkerchief. By the glow of the lamp he saw that the man had a long serious face, a delicate nose, close-set eyes, a high forehead shining with sweat. Not more than five and twenty, Castell judged. Ortega sat down, crossed his legs confidently, and began surveying the room with an expression of amused contempt. Ah, thought the jeweler, not grand enough for you, Ortega, this plain English chamber? You miss the rich cloth of Arras, the cushions of silk and embroidered gold for your delicate buttocks, the portraits of sober-faced churchmen and counts hanging from the walls? Ortega wore black doublet and hose, a little lavender codpiece blooming over his loins like an exotic flower, a great white ruff collar and a pointed beard and mustache, well greased. He had dark eyes and a sallow complexion of the sort found among the Spanish courtiers and their English imitators. About him was the scent of decaying roses, and on the little finger of his left hand he wore a jeweled ring, a blood-red carbuncle flashing in the candlelight like the Devil’s eye. Castell regarded the ring professionally and estimated its value. Flores had been an errand boy, a buffoon. This Ortega was someone to be reckoned with, his foppishness notwithstanding.

  Castell went to his closet, unlocked it, and returned presently with two very handsome cups of finely wrought silver. He was very proud of these pieces. There was a story behind their acquisition, and he was tempted to tell it, but he resisted the temptation, content with Ortega’s look of obvious admiration. The jeweler placed the cups on the table and then filled each with an amber-colored Madeira, very sweet. Ortega sipped. He nodded approvingly.

  They exchanged toasts and small talk, Castell playing cautiously, unhurriedly. Ortega asked about the old Queen. What was the gossip around the court?

  Castell smiled. Elizabeth was failing, suffering from biliousness and flatulence. It was said that she wandered about her chamber waving an old rusty sword, mourning the loss of Essex. The ache in her arm had fallen into her side. In public she stuffed many fine cloths into her mouth to fill out her cheeks. She would not last the summer.

  Ortega’s eyes glimmered; his lips formed into a thin smile.

  And your master, Castell inquired. What of his health?

  In good health, excellent health, Ortega assured him. The salubrious Spanish air, warm and dry, was excellent for the humors, prone as they were to melancholy, the worst enemy of bold enterprises.

  Castell complimented Ortega on his English. Flores had slurred his consonants, squashed his vowels, fumbled like a blind man among his little store of words.

  Ortega acknowledged the compliment with a stiff nod of the head, looked about him circumspectly, seemed to relax in his chair. He began to talk about himself. This was his first visit to England. The country did not please him. English weather was wet and depressing and as for the women, well . . . His father had been an ambassador to the court of Mary. Of blessed memory. Ortega made the sign of the cross, his eyes narrowed, seemed to cloud over; his brow remained ^smooth, shiny, and tranquil. A precocious child, Ortega had learned English from English servants, good Catholics the ambassador had taken into his service and with him upon his return to Spain

  when Mary died. When that puta Elizabeth . . . Ortega spit out the words beneath his breath, like a curse.

  But Ortega restrained himself. He had not come to talk about himself or to discuss politics. He drummed his fingers on the table.

  “I presume,” said Castell, observing the man’s impatience, “that your master has made known to you the nature of my service?”

  “In part.”

  “Good. Then we can dispense with tiresome preliminaries.”

  Castell pulled his chair up close to the Spaniard’s. He drew a small book from his pocket, and began turning the leaves, searching. He began: “Your master was not displeased with my last report?”

  Ortega shrugged. He had not seen the report. He had replaced Flores, had been directed to come in the captain’s place. Surely that said something of the esteem in which Castell was held. He urged the jeweler to proceed with his new matter.

  “Sir Jeremy Parr,” Castell began. “A letter to a lady. Not his wife, who waits at home in Herefordshire eating her heart out while her husband plays the virginals at court. That I have from another source, entirely trustworthy I assure you and perhaps of value at some later date.”

  “What says the letter?”

  “Sir Jeremy is a great one with the ladies. This scrap affirms—”

  “Affirms what, Mr. Castell?”

  The jeweler sensed the man’s impatience and smiled to himself. He looked more closely at the letter. The figures were round and clear but he wanted to make something of his ability to decipher them, as though they had been written in code and not plain English.

  “Sir Jeremy declares his love, most fiilsomely, I assure you.” Castell began to read: “Most beloved, save for the tender mercy of your kisses and so forth ... I would languish here. I live only until our next meeting, which if present business permit, will remain this Thursday . . .

  should your own circumstances require a different place, we may meet in my chambers, where I do promise—”

  Castell paused, looked up. “I spare the details for brevity’s sake.”

  “Who is the woman?”

  “Alice Farnsworth. A maid about the court, not more than twenty. A lovely piece. Jeremy Parr pursued her most energetically and has bedded her at least twice this term. I have that on good authority, in addition to what is implied in this most impolitic letter. It seems he has now promised to marry her.”

  Ortega smirked. “How can that be if he is already married—or have the English carried their heresy so far as to permit bigamy?”

  Castell smiled tolerantly. So Ortega was a zealot. How tedious. Suddenly the young don sank in his estimation. Behind that brave countenance was a conventional mind after all, a little mechanism of springs and ratchets turning to the whim of Holy Church. Castell shrugged. “Perhaps Sir Jeremy desires to emulate Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. More likely, however, he has forgotten to mention his wife at home.”

  “A simple oversight,” Ortega observed dryly.

  “Well, let’s just say an oversight. It’s possible young Alice does not know the knight is married. And the two little boys—their names slip my mind just now.”

  “I’m surprised,” Ortega said, sipping from his cup and then
holding it up before him to admire the craft of the silversmith. “You seem most informed. About nearly everyone.”

  Castell bowed his head respectfully.

  “The sons are nothing, but the wife is everything."

  “How’s that?”

  “Her father—”

  “Is?”

  Castell murmured the name. A knight of Middlesex, very influential at court. A man of real power. The Spaniard’s eyes shone like hard little stones.

  “Madre de Dios!" Ortega put down his cup and regarded the jeweler intently. Castell smiled to himself and

  allowed the room to fill with the Spaniard’s anticipation. The jeweler had a flair for the dramatic.

  “The wife—Jane Parr—is the knight’s only daughter and he dotes upon her. If his son-in-law therefore were to find himself in a sort of bind—”

  “A bind?”

  “Well, consider this. Jeremy Parr’s liaison with Alice Farnsworth is discovered, bruited about. If young Alice should breed it will be all the better. As a consequence, she is disgraced and her lover is in bad odor, loses his place, and is sent packing into the country—or to the Tower, depending on the Queen’s pleasure. You know how impatient she is these days with promiscuous coupling. In her dotage she has begun to take her own virginity seriously, as though she had never been niggled herself, and has become the very monarch of morality. Such a scandal must needs touch even Jane’s father.”

  “An interesting possibility,” murmured Ortega.

  “Yes, indeed.” Castell rose and refilled the cup. He toasted his guest’s master, and then Ortega.

  “Well then,” Castell continued, “say Parr is made aware of the possibility of discovery. Is shown certain letters such as this which prove the affair. He would do much to prevent his adultery from becoming common knowledge, would he not? Oh, the threat of disclosure will be painful to him, but on the other hand I may at the same time offer a remedy.”

  “Spanish gold?”

  “A pension, say. Applied to his purse as a salve for his conscience, like an indulgence.”

  “Do not blaspheme,” Ortega warned.

  “Nay, nay, sir. No offense intended. I have the most profound respect for the Holy Church.”

  “Of which you yourself are not a communicant, or have I been misinformed?”

  Castell laughed genially. “You have not been misinformed. I am an admirer, not a follower, of His Holiness.”

  “A heretic, then?”

  “Well, by a simple sort of logic, yes, if not to be one 44

  is to be the other. The truth is that I claim the privilege of believing as I will, and allow all men the same right.” “But such tolerance is in itself heresy.”

  “Perhaps.” Castell responded in measured phrases. “But I build my own altar, choose my own sacrifice, and invoke whatever deity I will. Please, sir, pray let us not quarrel.”

  The Spaniard bent forward and looked at Castell intently.

  “If you are not one of us, why help us?”

  “Why? Because I choose to. It’s a matter of business.” “It’s a matter of money?”

  “My dear sir, do I look as though I need money? That cup you first caressed not a minute since would put a hundred men in arms and feed their bellies for six months. It would buy twice over every house on this street, every horse in the bam, and doubtless every goodwife to whatever service I dictated.”

  Ortega sank back in his chair, a smile of appeasement playing about his mouth. He said, “Forgive me, Mr. Castell, if I have offended you. You must pardon my curiosity. As our acquaintance deepens, I am sure we will understand each other’s motives better, yes?”

  “Yes,” Castell replied, regaining his composure, sorry now that he had allowed the Spaniard to cause him to lose his temper. Flores, dense and lumpish, had never inquired into Castell’s motives, although the question of why the jeweler, no Catholic, should strive on behalf of a Catholic cause seemed reasonable enough. His present irritation at Ortega’s probing had taken the jeweler by surprise. The sudden rupture of that smooth, inscrutable visage he wore shamed him, and he despised himself for loss of control. He returned to his report with a kind of relief.

  “Say I approach Parr, inform him of what documents have fallen into my hands, being of course not too direct as to just how they have done so. Then I dilate with all rhetorical skill I can muster what great squall he is about to face when his adultery becomes public. He, answering to my helm, comes around to our direction, steers his course for Spain. We help him on his way by asking very little in return for our silence, nothing that might turn his stomach or put starch in his back. Now, then, we have him. Sometime later, say in two months, I approach his wife with this little tale of how her husband has involved himself with us. She will be appalled. What patriotism a woman may have will be inflamed—but as quickly quenched again as she learns what her husband’s treason might buy for him at the block. To wit: a sudden loss of weight in the form of a head, a bleak widowhood for her, and endless disgrace for her sons. While she is savoring these dismal thoughts I put it to her that all may yet be saved—her husband, his honor, and his life—and she made the richer to boot, if she will only secure a few favors from her father.”

  ‘‘She becomes an accomplice in treason, then?” Ortega remarked.

  ‘‘Exactly.”

  ‘‘All of which will do my master precisely what good?”

  “This, sir,” Castell replied with satisfaction. “The girl’s father is at present governor of the Queen’s naval ordnance. He knows every cannon, pistol, and piece of shot in Her Majesty’s ships, how many man them, and in what condition.”

  “Such a man will not bend easily,” Ortega said.

  “Yet he will bend. Hold me to it.”

  “My master will hold you to it, Mr. Castell.”

  “But see, Count, we need very little more from the old man than an inch of compliance. Let him keep his inventory in his shirt for all we care. If the duke does not already have access to such information as it contains I would be very much surprised. But compliance—to any degree— becomes an entanglement of such a nature that once observed it is set down by all who do so as the very image of treason. The man would be hopelessly compromised.”

  “I see,” said the Spaniard. “You are a resourceful man, Mr. Castell—though not, as you have confessed, of the faith.”

  “Oh, I have faith, sir—in other men’s faithlessness. It is the very rock of my salvation. Empty a man’s pocket or purse and you’ll find his very soul down there clanking around amidst the copper and silver. All that a man has will he give for some bauble, be it a pretty jewel or a pretty eye. All religion comes down to that in the end— and a great bulk of the statecraft, which to my mind is nothing more than knavery on a grand scale. As for resourcefulness, you may lay that down to a fertile imagination.”

  “Sobering thoughts, Mr. Castell,” said Ortega, looking at the jeweler beneath his pencil-thin brows and with a strange sort of wonder. “How much will Sir Jeremy require in the way of compensation?”

  “Say, two hundred pounds per annum. He will be so happy to have his adultery concealed and his father-inlaw’s wrath stayed that he will come to the lure more ready than a starved hawk,” Castell said.

  “But what of the old knight? If Parr’s whoremastering is kept to him, us, and the whore, what hold may we have on the father?”

  “Why, no less than what I have already said, sir. Look you now. Your question touches upon the very quintessence of my art. A trade secret. But never fear. For a paltry sum I’ll have Parr and his father-in-law in our pocket in not a month’s time.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me,” said Castell, smiling benignly.

  Ortega shrugged. He continued. “My master trusts you, but you said you had three pieces of information.”

  “Item two,” Castell intoned, turning to another page in his book like a preacher preparing to read the text for Sunday’s sermon. “The Earl of Harvenhurs
t is nearly bankrupt. He has been sending desperate appeals to moneylenders throughout the City to which they, knowing of his penury and the gross unlikelihood of repayment, have turned an ear of stone.”

  “The Earl of Harvenhurst, you say?”

  “A young fool, of your years, a very tidy dresser and great chaser of the ladies. He has pawned his estate to pay his debts and has not a bam or privy unsold.”

  Curious, Ortega asked: “What debts?”

  “What you would expect—gambling and wenching. He does not show his face at home once a year since he came into his majority and the old earl conveniently died.”

  ‘‘Of natural causes?”

  “So it is generally believed. The old man was swollen with gout and a dozen other vicious diseases of the flesh. Had he fallen from his horse or died in his sleep we might have made something of that. However—”

  “The old earl left a large sum of money?”

  “A great sum. But it was hardly enough. The young earl went through it in a year’s time, then began to suck upon his friends. He has rooms at Lincoln’s Inn, is much seen on the Strand and at the theaters. His former associates disdain his company like the plague, fearful he will dampen their doublets with his tears. But he has made new acquaintances.”

  “Could he not find some help from the Queen?” Castell grinned in the dark and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Not likely,” he said. “The young earl is one of your faith, sir, although his family has always been loyal to a fault. For all of that, they have found no welcome at court.”

  “Then how could he be useful to us?”

  Castell relaxed, drank deep from his cup, then stared at the ceiling thoughtfully. “Our young friend’s penury has driven him to extremes. He has become—how shall I call it?—a purveyor of sorts. You see, a desperate man has a certain odor about him. It both repels and attracts. The great ones in the City, sensing our young man’s folly, have been quick to put him to use. His mind has become a bountiful purse of scandal in which we might find all manner of interesting coin—relationships, entanglements, betrayals, enormities—you know the sort of thing. Between this lord and that lady, the neither of them married—this lord and that pretty boy. Such stuff, sir, as would turn the stomach of an honest man, could such be found in London.”