Chaos

by A D Swanston

  To a lawyer’s mind any suggestion of murder was absurd because the suspicious death of his wife was hardly likely to endear Dudley to the queen and because he would have been taking a wholly unnecessary risk in acting so brazenly. There were more subtle ways of disposing of an unwanted spouse. And the Dudley Christopher had come to know was not a man capable of such a crime.

  When, six years later, he had been invited to enter Leicester’s employment as a recruiter of young intelligencers, he had not hesitated. He had never thought the earl guilty of anything more than zealous devotion to the queen. In other minds, however, he knew that doubts had lingered and festered and never quite been banished.

  He poked the fire, threw a log on to it, and sat back with his eyes closed. He thought more clearly without the distraction of vision. As a pupil he had spent entire tutorials with his eyes closed. Now, if he could have closed his ears as well, he would have done so.

  But there was work to be done. He must call again on Isaac.

  CHAPTER 7

  Invariably lit by candles arranged to give the goldsmith sufficient light to examine the coins and objects he was brought, Isaac Cardoza’s shop, strangely, was in darkness. It was a Saturday, but Isaac would surely be there. ‘How am I to feed my family if I am not here to serve my customers?’ he used to say. ‘You should see the boys eat.’

  Christopher called out but there was no reply. Surely Isaac would never be so careless as to leave the door unlocked and the shop unattended, even for a few minutes. He called again but there still was no reply.

  His eyes were becoming accustomed to the darkness. He found a candle and a flint and managed to light it. The back of the shop remained in shadow but the front appeared as it always did – two simple stools, and a table upon which stood weighing scales, a row of weights and a strongbox – but of Isaac there was no sign. Then the faintest of sounds drew his eyes to the shadows in a corner behind the table. Holding up the candle, he peered into the gloom. A body lay face down on the wooden floor. He stepped around the table and stooped to look more closely. His gorge rose and he had to steady himself with a hand on the table. Isaac’s red hair was a mess of congealed blood. Beside him, in a pool of gore, lay a heavy brass weight. The goldsmith had been struck from behind with great force.

  Gently, Christopher turned him on to his side and put a hand to his neck. There was a flicker of life. ‘Isaac, it is Christopher,’ he whispered. ‘Can you hear me?’ Isaac’s eyes were closed and he did not respond. He tried again but still there was no response.

  He hurried outside and looked up and down the street. Beside a printer’s shop a few doors away a group of urchins were squabbling over something. He shouted out, ‘There is sixpence for the one who finds a carriage and brings it here. Six pennies. Make haste. An injured man needs help.’

  The boys looked up and stared at him. None moved. Then one, the tallest, shouted back, ‘How much?’

  ‘Sixpence. A carriage. Be quick.’

  Pursued by the others, the boy ran off down Fleet Street towards the Strand to find a carriage or cart for hire. Christopher went back into the shop and closed the door. Isaac had not moved but he was still breathing. Christopher took off his coat and placed it very carefully under the stricken man’s head, taking care not to touch the wound for fear of causing more blood to flow. Satisfied that he had done what he could, he picked up the candle and looked around the shop.

  There was no sign of a struggle or of theft. The lock on Isaac’s strongbox, a heavy iron casket, had not been touched. His scales and weights – all but the one used to attack him – were on his table. Even his pens and papers were in order. His purse was still attached by a short chain to his belt. Christopher slipped the chain off the belt and opened the purse. Among the coins was a key. He took it out.

  Christopher swore. This was no robbery. Isaac had been attacked for what he knew, not for what he owned. And it had been Christopher who had brought this upon his friend. He was as much to blame as if he had struck Isaac himself. He sat on Isaac’s chair and tried to breathe slowly. It was difficult. He had killed one man. Was Isaac to be the second?

  The tall urchin crashed into the shop. ‘A cart is outside,’ he panted. ‘I brought it.’ He held out his hand. ‘Sixpence, you said.’

  Christopher ignored the hand. ‘Help me with this man and you shall have it.’

  The boy wiped his nose with a sleeve and grunted, ‘You said nothing about help.’

  ‘Just do it, boy, or you’ll get nothing.’

  The boy shrugged and stepped forward. At the sight of Isaac, he started. ‘Been attacked, has he? Does he live?’

  ‘He is alive. Take his legs, gently now, and I’ll take his shoulders. Be careful.’ They manoeuvred him out of the shop and into the street where the cart was waiting.

  The driver took one look at Isaac and spat into the dirt. ‘A Jew. Why take the trouble?’

  Christopher snarled, ‘If you want the fare, hold your tongue. This man is my friend and he needs help quickly.’

  ‘I want no Hebrew blood in my cart.’

  ‘Then drive with care. I will travel with him.’

  They laid Isaac on the seat with the coat under his head. Christopher returned to the shop to lock the door with the key he had taken from Isaac’s purse, took a shilling from his own purse and gave it to the boy. ‘You did well.’ The boy grinned and ran off, waving the coin above his head and shouting to the other urchins. Christopher climbed on to the cart. He laid Isaac’s head on his lap and held it steady. ‘Leadenhall, driver. Make haste but with care.’

  The Cardozas lived near the meat market at Leadenhall. It was a year and a half since Christopher had been led to their house by Isaac’s sons, Daniel and David, but he remembered where it stood well enough. The lanes were too narrow for a cart so he alighted at the market, paid the muttering driver and managed to carry Isaac down one lane and then another and from that into a small yard, one side of which was formed by three narrow dwellings. At the door of the middle house he called out. Nothing happened.

  Reluctant to put Isaac down, he tried again, more loudly. This time he heard footsteps and the door was opened by a red-haired boy of about sixteen. Christopher knew him. Daniel was the elder of Isaac’s two sons. ‘Daniel, your father has been attacked.’

  The boy stepped forward to help Christopher bring his father inside. They carried him up to a bed chamber and laid him on the bed. ‘I will tell my mother,’ he said, a tremor in his voice.

  Christopher had met Sarah Cardoza only once and that briefly. He remembered her as a slight figure with an aquiline profile, bright eyes and a clear gaze – a strong, handsome woman, who smiled often. She bent over Isaac, kissed his forehead and whispered to him in Hebrew. ‘Fetch Saul Mendes,’ she ordered Daniel. ‘Tell him it is urgent.’ When Daniel had left she took Christopher’s hands. ‘I thank you for bringing him. What happened?’

  ‘I know only that he was attacked in the shop, where I found him.’

  ‘A robbery? It is what I have always feared.’

  ‘I think not. There was no sign of one and the door was unlocked.’

  Sarah took a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Not a robbery.’ She took a deep breath and spoke slowly. ‘Of course I know a little of the work Isaac does for you, doctor, work he is proud to do for the country that shelters us. Is this connected in some way to it?’

  It was not the time to speak of the counterfeit testons. ‘That I cannot say, Sarah, but you have my promise that whatever the reason for this, I shall find it. Has Isaac mentioned anything unusual or acted strangely in the last few days?’

  Sarah shook her head. ‘No. The children and I would have noticed anything out of the ordinary. His humour has been as it always is.’

  Christopher handed her the purse. ‘I have kept the key so that I might go there again.’ Sarah nodded. ‘Do you know where the key to his strongbox is?’

  A tiny smile played fleetingly around Sarah’s m
outh. ‘He did not like to have it with him in case he lost it. It is under a floorboard at the back of the shop.’

  ‘When did he leave this morning?’

  ‘Around seven, immediately after our morning prayers, as was his habit.’ Sarah began to sob. ‘No more than a few hours ago and now …’

  Christopher took her hand again. ‘I will return to the shop. Send word to Ludgate Hill when he wakes.’

  ‘Be sure that I shall, doctor. Our community will pray for him and Saul Mendes is a skilled physician. He helped deliver all three of our children. He will save Isaac.’

  Christopher retrieved his coat and let himself out. Already the sun was low and such warmth as there had been was fast disappearing. A few flakes of snow were falling. He shivered and pulled the coat tighter around his shoulders.

  It would have been the same route that Isaac took from Leadenhall to Fleet Street that morning and every morning. Christopher walked as quickly as the streets would allow, trying to keep his mind clear and his thoughts on the crime, rather than the victim or his family. He hurried on, barely noticing the children tugging at his cloak and begging for coins, the forlorn cries of traders trying to sell off the last of their stock before packing up their stalls for the day and the painted fruit-sellers lurking in dark doorways.

  Inside the shop, he lit half a dozen wax candles and spread them about. Isaac’s strongbox was constructed of thick oak with iron fixings and nails and a heavy, hinged lock. The box and lock were intact. Isaac’s attacker had made no attempt to rob him. He found the key under the loose board and opened it. Inside were a number of silver objects – a pair of spoons, buttons, plate, a pair of small boxes – but nothing of very great value. He took them out and put them on the table.

  He found no coins but Isaac was a clever man. He felt around the edges, found a flaw in the wood and pulled gently. A panel slid open. In it was a small leather pouch, much the same colour as the wood of the box. In it was the Dudley teston that he had left with Isaac.

  He put the other items back in the strongbox, locked it and replaced the key under the board, stuffed the pouch into his purse, pinched the candles and locked the door behind him.

  He hurried home to Ludgate Hill and let himself in. Without bothering to remove his coat, he went to the kitchen and found a bottle. He filled a beaker and emptied it quickly. It did not help. He could not put his mind to the crime, only to Isaac. The blow had been cruel enough to fracture his skull. If it had, he would be lucky to live. Even if not, it was a deep wound from which much blood had flowed.

  When had he last shed a tear? Even on the day his mother died, even in Paris where he had seen babies skewered like piglets and old women roasted on fires he had not cried. Not once. Later he had felt guilty, wondering if the lack of tears betrayed a lack of true feeling. But it was not that. It was the need to survive, to act, to return to London with intelligence of the Incendium plot, that had enabled him to push those terrible sights to the back of his mind and to concentrate on his task. The suffering had come later when the plot had been foiled and the danger was past. Still there had been no tears but a mind battered by what his eyes had seen and his ears had heard. And his nose had smelled. The woman burned at Smithfield had recalled the sickly stench of seared flesh, but there had been no tears.

  Now, the tears did come and he howled. Was his distress for Isaac, a good man who had served the country in which he lived but of which he was not a citizen, was it for his wife and children, or was it for himself and the dreadful certainty that it was he who had caused Isaac to be attacked? It was for all of these. He let the tears run their course and made another feeble effort at prayer. He hated himself for praying. His faith in God was flimsy at best but at times of pain or grief he still found himself doing it. What else was there?

  One bottle became two and, eventually, slumped in his chair, his eyes closed. Sometime later he awoke and knew that he should have gone straight to Whitehall.

  A guard stationed at the palace’s Holbein Gate escorted him to the earl’s apartments and asked him to wait while word was sent to the earl. Even an agreeable scent of lavender could not endear the earl’s antechamber to him. It was furnished to impress, even intimidate, and dominated by a large portrait of Her Majesty, but he had been obliged to sit there often enough and no longer found it as unsettling as once he had.

  When the earl swept in, immaculate in gold-trimmed doublet and grey silken hose despite the early hour, Christopher rose from his chair and remembered to bow low. After their last meeting, the earl would be watching him closely. Christopher followed him into his private apartment. It, too, was furnished and decorated every bit as richly as might be expected of a man of such high office, with a huge walnut writing table and a smaller companion on which had been set a chess board with ivory pieces and a cylindrical brass clock, which had been a gift to the queen from a Bavarian admirer and had never worked. She had passed it on to Leicester.

  Even before Christopher could open his mouth to speak, the earl thrust the leaflet into his hand. ‘There, Dr Radcliff, read that. What devilment is behind it? It is as if some evil force, too cowardly to show itself, is set upon dragging up ancient falsehoods and blackening my name. Well, what do you make of it?’

  Christopher glanced at it. ‘It is lamentable, my lord. I saw one such at the Guildhall. I have come to report—’

  Leicester’s black eyes bulged. ‘God in his heaven. Even while I was grieving for my wife, gossipers and rumour-mongers were spreading falsehoods about her death. No matter that the coroner’s jury rightly found it to have been an accident, the muck-rakers would not be silenced. And here is the damnable thing again. If Amy’s death had natural been, Would Dudley then have wed our queen? Marked with a cross. A double insult and not only to me and my family but to Her gracious Majesty. It is treason.’

  ‘There has been an outbreak of such slogans, my lord. This is but the latest example.’

  ‘I am aware of that. Most are not worthy of attention, but this is different. What must we expect from the next example, do you suppose? An attack on my sanity? A threat to the queen’s life?’

  ‘I trust not, my lord.’

  ‘Why have the criminals not been apprehended? They must have been observed or are they sorcerers, able to render themselves invisible while they carry out their evil work?’

  ‘Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,’ whispered Christopher, before he could stop himself.

  Leicester glared at him. ‘What do you say, doctor?’

  ‘The Book of Daniel, my lord. The writing on the wall at Belshazzar’s feast, prophesying his death and the end of his kingdom.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember, of course.’ Leicester frowned. ‘Why do you mention it?’

  ‘Here is another invisible hand at work, my lord. A hand that signs its name with a cross. I have seen three slogans, each marked in the same way. And my agent Isaac Cardoza has been attacked in his shop and is close to death. He has not spoken.’

  ‘The Jewish goldsmith. Was it a robbery?’

  ‘It was not, my lord. Nothing was taken. But I fear the attack was connected to the false coins. I had asked him to look out for them.’

  ‘You instructed him to be discreet, I trust?’

  ‘I did, my lord. He would have been most cautious. And mind-ful of your wish for discretion, I have spoken to no others.’ An untruth which once he would not have countenanced, but what was to be gained from mentioning Ell or Katherine?

  ‘Although not, it seems, sufficiently cautious for his own protection.’ Leicester walked to the window and looked out on to the queen’s garden below. It was his habit when pondering a problem. ‘We shall have to search out the coiners and the authors of these malignant slogans by other means.’

  Leicester turned to take a coin from his desk and tossed it in his hand. ‘These are a monstrous affront to my family. No doubt you know about the false accusations of counterfeiting made against my father.’

  So Leicester was will
ing to speak of the matter. Christopher had thought he was not. ‘I do, my lord. Mr Martin has informed me of the history of these coins. He thought I should know.’

  It was as if the earl had not heard him. ‘My own father, Earl of Warwick, Duke of Northumberland, a privy councillor and loyal servant of the Crown, a counterfeiter? Ridiculous, yet there were some who believed it. And the mere belief damaged not only him but the country. Currency that cannot be trusted is more dangerous than an enemy in plain sight. It does not oil the wheels of trade but brings poverty and conflict. That and the treason they represent are why these felons must be found and punished without delay. As must the slogan-writers. We shall have to risk tongues wagging. Find them.’

  ‘I shall endeavour also, my lord, to find Isaac Cardoza’s attacker.’

  Leicester nodded. ‘Of course, of course.’

  Christopher felt his temper rising. The counterfeit testons and the slogans had unsettled the earl in a way that news of Isaac’s condition had not. ‘The Book of Martyrs in St Paul’s church has been defaced and plague crosses are appearing on houses that have never been afflicted by plague.’

  Leicester slumped on to his chair. ‘Plague crosses? Good God. It has the appearance of a conspiracy to cause not only harm to my family but also confusion and unrest when our eyes should be on our enemies across the narrow sea. Who in the name of all that is holy is behind this? Spanish spies? French Jesuits?’

  ‘Someone who wishes England to suffer. Someone who wishes you to suffer. Someone clever enough to carry out these crimes without being caught.’

  For a while Leicester sat with his head in his hands and his eyes closed. When he spoke his voice was firm. ‘Put aside all your other work, doctor. Use whatever resources you can muster. Our enemies must be found and destroyed.’

  ‘Without Isaac Cardoza, my resources are diminished but naturally I will do as you say, my lord.’

  ‘I depend upon you to repay my faith in you, Dr Radcliff. You will have my support in any action you take.’