The church bell struck the hour in deep, masculine tones, carrying over the neighborhood now enveloped in gathering darkness. Cecil walked through the gate into the yard. At the center of the yard was a pulpit cross much like the one at Paul’s. He paused beside it, looking around him. There was no one beside himself. But he had confidence in the blackmailer; he knew his solitude was an illusion.
He found the main doors of the church locked, and he continued on around the side of the building to the east end. There he came upon a small door standing ajar, as though it had been left open purposely for him. He felt for the rapier at his side, withdrew it from the hanger, and slipped inside stealthily.
For a moment he stood there on the threshold, waiting for his vision to adjust to what seemed at first almost total darkness. But it was still dusk, and slowly he saw. Alert for any movement, any object foreign to the sacred precincts, his eyes swept the nave, found the sanctuary deserted. He breathed easier. He could smell the faint odor of incense and marble, could feel the cold trapped in the stone from the past winter, the cold emanating from the dead buried in the vaults beneath the floor. He proceeded down the short aisle of the transept, past the baptismal font, and stood respectfully before the chancel where a wooden Christ floated ghostly in the vacant expanse above the altar. He could not see the face but he knew how it would appear in the light, twisted in agony, knowing, the knowledge more terrible than the physical suffering—like the face of a prisoner on the rack, listening to his bones snap like dry twigs and knowing at the same time that his suffering had only commenced, that the worst was yet to come.
He knelt before the altar, laid the naked blade before 174
him crossways on the floor, and made a sign of devotion. He prayed futilely for he was too preoccupied to concentrate. His pulse was racing with excitement, drowning his piety in the rush of blood.
“The church is closed.”
He seized the rapier at the words, twisting, pointing the weapon in the direction the words had come, somewhere before him in the gloom. “I have come to pray,” Cecil explained to no one he could see, despising the quiver he heard in his own voice.
A round circle of light approached from the chancel. It was the bellman. He had taken his time descending from the tower. He seemed unsteady, too, terrified doubtless by this specter before him in what he thought was an empty church. Cecil lowered his weapon and stood.
He was a bent old man. A shock of white hair covered the forehead like a cap. Breathing heavily, he approached Cecil and held the lamp above him. He seemed to take notice of Cecil’s condition for he bowed respectfully and explained that if a gentleman wished to pay his devotions to the Almighty then who was he to forbid it.
Cecil pulled a coin from his sleeve and tossed it toward the bellman. It fell from his grasp, ringing on the stone floor. The bellman stooped to pick it up.
“Shall I leave a candle with you, sir?”
“I prefer the dark,” said Cecil.
The bellman nodded and withdrew, leaving the church by the door Cecil had entered. Cecil sat down. He did not have to wait long. He started at the voice, coming as it did from behind him, hoarse and insolently intimate like a whore’s beckoning from a dark alley.
“You’ve come alone, Mr. Secretary?”
“As you can see,” Cecil said. He turned toward the voice, saw the shadowy form of the visitor standing in the middle of the main aisle, halfway toward the back of the church.
“Very prudent. Him around, please. Imagine that the preacher is in his pulpit and your eyes are where your heart should be, fixed upon the holy altar.”
Cecil did as he was told.
“Very good,” said the voice. “I have a very uninteresting face really. I think you can understand why I should want to keep it to myself, and while you have come alone, be assured that I have not. I know you are armed, but please don’t be so foolish as to think you can use that rapier of yours with impunity.”
Cecil listened to the voice, husky and well spoken. London, definitely, not one of the towns. He was dealing with an Englishman and conceivably someone he knew. One of Bacon’s crew perhaps?
“Do you have the letter with you?”
“Mrs. Mallory’s?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Do you think me mad?” replied the voice. “You will have your whore’s missive in good time.”
“How do I know I will ever have it?”
“You do not.”
“Then why should I not get up and walk out of here?” “Because while you do not know you will have it, yet you hope you shall. Also, you know that I would not have arranged this interview were I not serious about this business.”
“This is business, is it? A scurvy sort of business it is.”
“Perhaps, but a business nonetheless.”
“How much do you want?”
“Not how much, what."
“Well, say it.”
“For this woman you were prepared—”
“Yes?”
“To advance her husband to what?”
Cecil took his time answering, knowing that the invention must be a plausible one. But it came to him at last. “Some trifling post in chancery court, not worth more than four hundred pounds a year including bribes.” “Indeed,” responded the other, with equal cynicism. “Well, since you were of a mind to appoint for no more than w'hat pleasure you had of the wench I suppose you would recommend again to suppress publication of the same.”
“To the chancery court.”
“No.”
“What office then . . . and what friend?”
“Sir Thomas Bampton.”
“Bampton?” Cecil knew him, a soldier of modest attainments. The family was Catholic, a mark against him. “He’s a Papist.”
“Oh, sir, be not overly hasty. Remember that tolerance is the child of mercy, mercy a Christian virtue.”
“I am not tolerant of those who bow and scrape to the Roman pontiff.”
Chuckling came from behind him, low and humorless. “Let me entertain you, then, with an account of what will transpire if you do not cooperate. First, your affair with this woman becomes a public scandal, giving your many enemies no little pleasure and a great lever to dislodge your worship. By your promise to sell office for amorous favors you lose all credit with the Queen, for comes another recommendation from you and she will ask, what whore does he favor now? You will also lose credit with her successor.”
“Her successor? What—”
“Now, Sir Robert, it is common knowledge that you favor the little Scots King, he who drools and loves to surround himself with theologians and pretty boys. What will His hypocritical Majesty say of a counsellor more earnest to obey his lust than either the King of Heaven or the King of England? You’ll be out on your ear, sweet Robin, out on your ear, along with Wat Ralegh and the other white boys with a codpiece too small for their cod.” “Why should she believe you?” Cecil responded sharply, outraged at the threat.
“First, there is the letter. The woman who wrote it is a fool, doubtless, who would blab before she’d keep her peace. Oh, I promise you it would be a great scandal. Remember Ralegh’s fall, Sir Robert, and take heed. A wise man knows when there’s no door in the wall and doesn’t batter his brains by making one with his head.” Cecil said, “All right, to what post would you have this Sir Thomas Bampton preferred?”
“Warden of the Cinque Ports,” said the voice with steely determination.
“Warden? Absolutely not. Henry Brooke—”
“Yes, I know, your brother-in-law, Lord Cobham, holds the post at the moment, so you must shift him elsewhere.” “Have you thought that out as well?”
“I’ll leave it to your discretion, sir. No one will be surprised if you recommend your brother-in-law. Why, how else is a man to get ahead in the world but through influence and—”
“Blackmail!”
“I was about to say money. Surely none is advanced through merit—not in this world.”
“Perhaps not, but this Sir Thomas Bampton—what will be thought? The Wardenship is no mean office.”
“And Sir Thomas is no mean man. He’s of good blood, a family of soldiers, can handle a sword, and men. Prevail upon the Queen for his appointment and you’ll have your letter again—not the copy but the original—a piece of paper for peace of mind.”
Cecil asked cynically, “How can I have peace of mind— or for that matter how could you? How can you be sure that once the letter is back home again I’ll not arrest this Thomas Bampton?”
“On what charge, pray? He knows nothing of this. Besides, for you to reveal him as having had his office by extortion would be to admit your part and the gross sale of office. There now, Sir Robert, think about it and tell me if you can think of an alternative to doing as I suggest.”
“Who are you?” Cecil asked.
“One who would do his country a service.”
“That’s not much of an answer. No scoundrel but he proclaims himself a patriot.”
“Perhaps, but that’s all you’ll have of me tonight. Now tell me, what is your answer? Will Bampton have the post and you your letter or will the Queen have intelligence about her chief minister that will cause her ears to bum and lose you your place in her esteem? Think how much
pleasure your fall will give your enemies. Think what harm it will do your country.”
Cecil thought, suppressing his rage, his inclination to seize the rapier and rush the man. Who was this Bampton? A Papist. The whole thing was some sort of Roman plot, then, just as he had suspected. But as yet he could not discern its scope. The Warden was the chief military officer in the east. His responsibility was to guard England’s flank from invasion, to police the coming and going of persons, some of whom were spies.
‘‘Very well, Sir Thomas Bampton it shall be.” ‘‘When?”
“Soon.”
“How soon, Sir Robert? Name the date, for you shall not have your letter before Bampton has his appointment.”
“Oh, very well,” Cecil responded with feigned exasperation. “I see the Queen Wednesday. I will recommend Lord Cobham to another office. There’s a vacancy on the Privy Council. Yes, it would please him greatly. Bampton shall have Lord Cobham’s place.”
“How soon will the Queen issue the letters patent?” inquired the voice.
“These days the Queen usually confirms at once, unless there’s some difficulty, but I doubt there will be.”
“You’d better pray there won’t be.”
“Bampton’s appointment will satisfy you, then?”
“It will. When the appointment is made public, we will do our part.”
“Good. Then how can I get the letter?”
“It will be delivered to your residence, never doubt it. Thank you, Sir Robert. You have been most cooperative.” Cecil made no reply. Presently he heard footsteps. The other man was leaving. The raspy voice called from a greater distance. “Meditate awhile longer, Sir Robert. With your permission I’ll leave first. You may follow thereafter at your leisure.”
Cecil said nothing. He listened to the footfalls of the blackmailer on the stone floor, he heard the door he had entered open and close, and then there was nothing except his own breathing in the dark. Yet he listened, not to his breathing but for the eyes and ears that shared the darkness, Castell’s witnesses. They would be there, somewhere, the witnesses, hiding behind the altar or beneath the pews or in the choir where even whispers were magnified fivefold.
But they did not appear and presently he grew weary of waiting. He carried his naked sword from the church, its hilt moist in his hand, slippery like a snake, a thing of shame to him now that it had not been used as it should have been to strike dead this thing with whom he had conversed.
Castell watched Cecil leave the church and then reentered the sanctuary where he was presently joined by two other men. One of these was the youngest son of a famous earl, exhausted into submission now from his long struggle on Castell’s hook and willing to do anything. Besides, the young man detested Cecil. His family had supported Essex and were now suffering for it, so his part to join the present conspiracy was more like a golden opportunity than another obligation to a blackmailer. The other witness to the proceedings of the evening was Sir Jeremy Parr. He had no particular desire for Cecil’s fall but Castell had him now exactly where he had wanted him from the beginning. In the dim light Parr looked very wretched indeed. He looked like a man who realized that a debt he thought he had paid had now turned into an even greater one.
“Did you hear it all?”
“Every jot and tittle,” said the earl’s son, not without satisfaction.
“ You, Sir Jeremy? ’ ’
Parr nodded glumly.
“By the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established,” Castell intoned with wry amusement.
“Will he appoint Bampton?” asked the earl’s son in a high clear voice.
Castell looked at the young man. He was tall with narrow shoulders and long wispy hair. In the dim light his oval face was almost featureless, like a half-finished mask
with only the eye-holes cut. “Doubtless he will, or we have spent our time here in vain.”
“And what happens when he does?” Parr asked, still glum. “You tell me, Sir Jeremy. Bampton is one of your coreligionists. What follows if a Catholic is appointed Warden of the Cinque Ports?”
“Nothing, if the man loves his country and his Queen,” Parr replied defensively.
“Indeed, but I fear it may appear otherwise.”
“You mean it may be made to appear otherwise, ’ ’ said Parr. Castell chuckled humorously and regarded the knight. Parr was no fool. Perhaps he had taken too great a chance in selecting him for a witness. If that were the case, the fault could be undone. Accidents could happen to anyone. “Right you are. But as it turns out Bampton is no traitor. When he receives the appointment I shall reveal all.” “That will be the end of the little monkey,” said the earl’s son.
“That will be the end,” agreed Castell, smiling.
Eleven
HE was again in the river and he knew he must be dreaming because he was swimming and, awake, he did not know how to swim. He was propelling himself with great ease as though the water were no more substantial than thin winter air, moving his arms in great arcs and experiencing an exhilarating weightlessness that left him almost giddy.
The water was green and vibrant with bright shoots of sunlight. Beneath its shimmering surface Matthew could breathe, miraculously, and he could see down to the bottom where eels with colorful stripes and long sinuous bodies undulated in the current and the sand was white like salt crystals. He glided past the wrecks of sunken ships, fully rigged, their decks strewn with treasure, and over the ruins of submerged cities. He was delighted, entranced; he wanted to keep swimming forever, exploring this undersea world.
But then at length the water grew murky. His breathing became labored. He was conscious of his extremities now, his cumbersome arms and legs, ill suited for this watery world. They felt heavier and heavier. How heavy the garments were, how heavy his shoes. He struggled to remove them, but found himself unable. He was seized with a sudden fear of drowning; he gasped for air, grew dizzy. The beating of his heart was deafening.
Balump, balump, balump.
Bump, bump, bump.
He started from sleep. The river vanished. He was sitting up in his bed, and he could hear Joan’s soft breathing next to him.
Joan stirred and sat up, too. “Whafis it, Matthew?”
‘‘Somebody at the door.” He was still not fully awake. The dream had shaken him. What had it meant?
“Shall you see to it?”
“Who’s there?” he called.
The knocking continued.
Matthew felt Joan’s hand upon his shoulder. Without speaking he got out of bed, struck a light, and walked toward the door. They had retired early, exhausted, even though they had done nothing the previous day b
ut stay within doors and wait. Joan had worked at her sewing, Matthew had sung and read from his Hakluyt with much pleasure. They had talked and stared from the window to the narrow street below, but they had not expected news of the conspiracy so soon.
But here was news now certainly. From behind the door their visitor had identified himself. It was John Beauclerk, Cecil’s secretary.
“Sir Robert’s secretary!” Joan exclaimed with excitement. “Pray, admit him. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. ’ ’
“But this early,” Matthew protested, thinking not so much of the conspiracy as of the hour, which seemed to him most improper for callers, regardless of their purpose. He set down the candle, unbarred the door, and opened it. Beauclerk looked cross and disheveled.
He said: “Sir Robert says you are to come now. Both of you.”
“Now? Pray what hour is it?” Matthew picked up the candle and held it aloft so that it illuminated the bedchamber and a good deal of the passage without.
“Two, perhaps three of the clock,” replied Beauclerk.
He was a tall young man with fair hair, a long scholar’s face, and very pale eyes. He was standing in the passage with his arms akimbo, and his resentment at having been commanded to this nocturnal errand was as evident as his contempt for the country constable before him.
Joan rose and joined the men at the door. “What news from Sir Robert?”
Beauclerk regarded her sourly and shrugged. His master had given him their names, the sign of the inn where they lay, and directed him to fetch them. He had not inquired into his master’s purpose. It was not his place, Beauclerk added, looking askance at the chamber’s shabby furnishings, for Matthew had chosen a mean room, so as to make their presence at the Bell less noticeable.
“It’s certain the jeweler has approached Sir Robert,” Matthew said to his wife. “The plot is afoot, just as you said. I’ll wager my life upon it.”
Low Treason Page 19