by S. J. Parris
His shoulders slumped as a sigh escaped him and I saw him exchange a glance with Phelippes.
‘Do you suppose this has not been considered?’ He sat back. ‘You tell him, Thomas – I am weary of making this argument. I have it with the Queen at least once a week. She favours your method, Bruno. If she could have Mary dead without sullying her own hands or her conscience, she would sleep easier than she has in two decades. So she claims.’
‘Then why does she not do it?’ I turned to Phelippes.
‘It is more complicated than that,’ he said. ‘Lord Burghley wants to remake the constitution of England.’
‘It has become a stand-off between the Queen and Burghley.’ Walsingham leaned in again. ‘You remember him, of course. England’s greatest statesman, stubborn as a donkey.’
Even in the dark of the carriage, I noted the faint gleam of his teeth, a smile of affection, not mockery. I had encountered William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the last time Walsingham had asked me to investigate the murder of a young woman at court, and knew something of his reputation. He was now Lord High Treasurer, and Elizabeth’s most senior and trusted advisor. He was also the man who had raised Master Secretary to his present position, and Walsingham’s loyalty to him was second only to that he showed the Queen. I would need to be careful of my response.
‘The very concept of the divine right of kings hangs on Mary Stuart’s fate, as Queen Elizabeth knows all too well,’ Walsingham continued. ‘Once precedent has been established that an anointed queen may be tried and condemned by a jury like any other private citizen, part of the monarch’s power will have been ceded to Parliament for good. This is Burghley’s goal.’ He tapped his thumbnail against his teeth. ‘Her Majesty the Queen would love nothing more than a silent assassin in the night to do the job for her. But we must ensure that Mary is shown publicly – before all the kings of Europe – to have been the architect of her own downfall, else her death will always be surrounded by the suspicion of foul play. The last thing we want is to make a martyr of her. The whole point is to prove that, when it comes to treason, no one can be above the law.’
‘The kings of Europe will need some convincing. Are you hoping for a letter in Mary’s hand ordering the death of Elizabeth? She is too canny to trap herself like that, surely?’
His mouth grew pinched. ‘Ideally, I had hoped for a letter from Babington spelling out the exact means by which it was to be done, and naming his co-conspirators, and a reply from Mary giving her explicit assent. She is desperate, and growing incautious – I think, if things had continued to unfold as they were, we might have brought her to it. But Clara’s death has thrown all that into confusion. The one letter we have from Mary to Babington hints at her approval of the plan, but in abstract terms only.’ He steepled his fingers together. ‘I am not happy about our chances of convicting her on that alone.’
‘It could be made more convincing,’ Phelippes said, impassive. Walsingham did not reply.
That hardly sounded like due process to me, but I had no chance to comment, as the carriage pulled to an abrupt halt. Phelippes slammed open the door and jumped down. Walsingham gestured for me to follow and I climbed out, peering through the darkness to discover that we were among fields, a few low dwellings and hedgerows standing out along the horizon. It must have been near midnight; overhead a milky moon shone through scraps of cloud, and ahead I could make out the shape of a small building with a pointed roof. The remote bleating of sheep and the drawn-out hoot of a hunting owl carried through the dark. Phelippes had taken a torch from the coachman and knocked on the door.
‘One of the old leper chapels,’ Walsingham remarked, beside me. His breath steamed in the night air and he stamped his feet against the cold. ‘Still has its uses.’
The door scraped open a crack, enough for a stocky figure in clerical robes to appear and demand our business. Phelippes held up his light and when the man realised who his visitors were, he bowed low and held the door wide for us.
‘Any trouble?’ Walsingham asked, moving briskly past him into the shadows of the chapel. Inside, a couple of tallow candles were burning low, and I saw a bed had been made up in a far corner. The air smelled of animal fat, with a reek of piss pots and something worse hovering beneath.
‘No one has been near the place,’ the man said, leading us to his straw pallet, which he pulled aside to reveal a hatch set into the floor. ‘Save a couple of vagrants looking for shelter. I gave them bread and threatened them with the constable if they returned. Otherwise quiet.’ He drew a key from his belt and unlocked an iron padlock that secured the opening, pulled back a bolt and lifted the hatch to reveal a set of steps. Cold air and the unmistakable stench of stale blood and dead flesh rose through the gap. I recoiled, stepping backwards into Walsingham.
‘Steady, Bruno.’ I felt his hand rest on my shoulder a moment longer than necessary, as if to impart courage. ‘Let Thomas go first with the light.’ He turned to the curate, or watchman, or whatever he was. ‘Fetch me a lantern and keep your eyes on the door.’
I took a deep breath and followed Phelippes into what must have once been a crude crypt beneath the chapel. The smell of death intensified and as my eyes adjusted, I saw a table had been constructed on two trestles, with a shape draped in a sheet lying on top. Phelippes approached it, his face contorted against the stink, twisting his features into a grotesque mask in the flickering light as he pulled the cloth back. It snagged in places where the body’s excretions had caused it to stick to the skin. I fought down bile and pressed my sleeve to my face as I willed myself to look at the sight he had uncovered.
Her face – what remained of it – was hideous; a gaping hole where one eye and the nose had been, now collapsed in on itself as the flesh around it had begun to blacken. The head had been crudely shaved and the ears sliced off. The girl was clothed, though her feet and arms were bare, the skin mottled; the bodice of her gown was stiff with dark stains. Her remaining eye, wide and bulging, seemed to stare upwards at horrors she would never divulge.
‘Dio porco,’ I breathed, through my sleeve.
‘I know.’ I felt Walsingham’s shoulder touch mine as he held up the lantern. ‘Thoughts?’
I shook my head; my only thought at present was to escape to the cool night outside, breathe deeply, run a mile from this obscenity and everything he was asking of me. Even a boat back to France and the wilful stupidity of my students seemed preferable to what he was proposing, now that the girl’s body was in front of me. Instead, I fought down my nausea and approached the table, steeling myself to examine her with a physician’s impartiality. It was hardly the first time I had been in the presence of violent death; somehow I never grew inured to it. I would have made a hopeless soldier, as my father had been fond of telling me.
‘She was found in a churchyard, you said?’
‘A graveyard,’ Walsingham corrected. ‘The Cross Bones, in Southwark. No church involved – it’s a scrap of wasteland, given over by the Bishop of Winchester for the burial of those who can’t be put in consecrated ground. Suicides, unbaptised infants, but mostly the criminals and prostitutes who turn up dead in the borough. Saves too many questions about what happened to them.’
‘The ward of Southwark is outside the legal jurisdiction of the City of London and instead falls under the governance of the Bishop of Winchester, which makes it effectively lawless,’ Phelippes put in, helpfully. ‘This is why it is full of bear pits, brothels and gaming houses – the Bishop turns a blind eye and the city authorities cannot intervene.’
‘I know. I am familiar with Southwark,’ I said, giving him a look which was lost in the dark. I turned back to Walsingham. ‘Do you suppose her killers meant to bury her there, to keep her from being found?’
‘I would say that was likely not their intention. She was discovered at first light by the night watchman – old fellow, getting on for seventy. If they had wanted to hide the body, there were easier ways to do it.’
‘Then she wa
s supposed to be seen,’ I mused. ‘And in a whores’ graveyard. The face, too, and the hair – that would fit. A deliberate display, rather than merely cruel torture.’
‘What do you mean?’ He moved closer beside me, raising his light to illuminate that grisly mutilation. I fixed my eyes on Clara’s hand, cold and white at her side, slim fingers curling gently inwards. I noticed that her nails were neatly filed and well cared for; she was evidently a woman who had taken pride in the details of her appearance. That should not have affected the degree of horror I felt at what had been done to her, but somehow it seemed to make it worse. I swallowed.
‘In some ancient societies – Byzantium, for example – a woman who committed adultery was punished by having her head shaved and her nose and ears cut off.’ I spoke slowly, forming the thoughts even as I voiced them. ‘Though she was intended to survive the disfiguring. It was a way of marking her betrayal for life, and ensuring no other man would touch her.’
Walsingham clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You see, Thomas – this is why we have need of Bruno’s mind. I had supposed they meant to obscure her identity, so she could not be easily recognised, but I confess that made little sense, given that they left her clothes. I had not thought it might be symbolic.’
He fell silent and I knew his thoughts had flown back, as mine had, to the last time he and I had stood over the body of a girl whose killer had left symbols carved into her flesh.
‘Perhaps I am reading too much,’ I said quickly. ‘I only wondered if someone was making a point about betrayal. How was she identified?’
‘I have people among the night watch and the constables in every borough. Clara had gone out on the evening of the twenty-seventh and was expected back at Seething Lane later that night. When she had not appeared by the following morning, I put out word that I should be notified immediately if the body of a young woman turned up anywhere in the city. The Southwark watch sent word and I dispatched Thomas to identify her. I saw her later, after we had the body brought here.’
‘And you’re certain it’s her?’ I raised my head to look at Phelippes.
‘Quite certain,’ he said. ‘Clara Poole had a large birthmark down the right side of her neck and her collarbone.’
I held my breath and leaned closer. Though the skin was discoloured and the light poor, I could make out the shape of a port-wine stain on the girl’s neck, where the blood had been cleaned away.
‘The dress is hers too,’ Walsingham said, ‘though the sleeves had been removed, along with her shoes.’
‘How did she die?’
‘I was hoping you might tell me.’
‘She would have bled like a slaughtered pig,’ Phelippes remarked. I heard Walsingham softly click his tongue in disapproval.
‘Yes, but not enough to kill her,’ I pointed out, ‘not for a long time. If her attacker cut her and starting beating her, she would have been well able to scream and alert the watchman before she bled out. I would guess she was dead when she was mutilated.’
Walsingham exhaled slowly through his teeth. ‘Small mercies,’ he said, in a choked voice.
I steeled myself and parted the stiffened lace collar to look at the girl’s neck. ‘It’s difficult to see by this stage if there’s bruising. But the way that eye is protruding – I’d say she was strangled or smothered. No other injuries?’
‘None visible, beyond the obvious.’
We contemplated the body in silence. I looked again at the bloodied mess of her face, the lips pulled back over the teeth. It would have taken effort and strength to inflict that kind of damage; the force of the blows had splintered the bone of the eye socket. If she had been beaten like this even after she was dead, it argued a loss of control by the killer, a frenzy of rage and hate. But to shave her head and sever her ears suggested the opposite: an elaborate, planned disfigurement that would have taken time, when the murderer must have known there was a chance the watchman might hear and disturb him. Why run the risk of getting caught, unless the mutilations were meant to send a message?
‘Thomas had the body brought here immediately,’ Walsingham continued, ‘before talk could spread. The man upstairs is the curate of the local parish church, he keeps the key to this chapel and does me loyal service when I need to use it for such purposes. He knows how to keep his mouth shut.’
I wondered how many other corpses Walsingham had stowed here, in case their discovery should prove inconvenient. Bodies moved in the dead of night from the cellar at Barn Elms, perhaps.
‘So – her death is not made public?’
‘No. I wanted to see if anyone came asking after her, or said anything that implied a knowledge of her killing. The watchman who found her is being held in custody for the time being, to stop him gossiping, and the constables have been paid to keep quiet.’
‘Does her brother know?’
‘Yes.’ In the dim light I saw his face tighten. ‘He has taken it hard, as you would expect, especially as I will not let him see her. It is all I can do to hold him back from running Babington through with his dagger, bringing the whole edifice crashing down, and if Robin knew the detail of what had been done to his sister I would have no hope of restraining him. I have had a great deal of work to persuade him that my way of bringing her justice will serve her memory better.’ He sighed. ‘Robin is a solid, loyal man, but Clara was all the family he had. His desire for revenge burns hot, and I fear it may eclipse his commitment to the greater good. You will meet him – his knowledge of Babington’s group will be useful to you.’
He appeared to have forgotten – or was wilfully ignoring – the fact that I had not yet agreed to his mad scheme.
‘She must have been killed south of the river, either in the Cross Bones or close by,’ he continued, moving around to the other side of the body on the trestle and peering down, a sleeve pressed to his mouth, eyes narrowed as if trying to solve a cipher. ‘Babington and his friends were dining together in the City on the night of the twenty-seventh, but the party broke up before midnight, so any one of them could have gone to meet Clara in Southwark without the others knowing.’
‘Did she give any hint that she feared they suspected her?’ I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on the girl’s hands.
He glanced at the steps behind us. There was no trace of any movement, but he lowered his voice regardless. ‘No. But in her last communication with Thomas she had promised to bring us a list of English Catholic nobles and gentry around the country who had committed to providing money and men for an invasion, once the Queen was dead. One of Babington’s group had ridden out to gather support over the last fortnight, and was due back in London any day. It would have been invaluable in anticipating possible landing places for foreign troops. Not to mention having all those confirmed traitors by name.’
‘So you think the act of stealing this list gave her away? I suppose it was not found on her?’
‘We don’t know that she even had the list yet. But she could have expressed too great an interest in it, and aroused suspicion that way. Or let slip any number of ways that she was spying.’ Walsingham shook his head. ‘You heard my daughter – she thinks I feel no remorse for this death. She could not be more mistaken. Clara and Robin’s father died in my service, I took them into my household when they had no other prospects, and they have both served me willingly. This should never have happened. But Frances cannot see that private griefs must give precedence to matters of state.’
‘She is young,’ I said gently.
‘So was this one.’ He reached out and rested his fingertips briefly on the cold flesh of the girl’s hand. ‘She should have made a better marriage, become a mother. I should have looked to that, instead of— No matter now.’ He raised his head and his eyes gleamed black in the lantern light. ‘I must find out what is happening inside this Babington conspiracy, Bruno. What her death means for its progress. If they fear betrayal and decide to hold off, we may never bring the Scottish pretender to justice.’
‘
How long had Clara been intimate with the Babington group?’ I asked, as his words had prompted an idea.
‘Robin first introduced her in March,’ he said, narrowing his eyes at me. ‘Why?’
‘Three months. Have you checked to see if she was with child?’
‘The body has not been examined by a physician. What makes you suppose that?’
‘Only that, in my experience, it can be a pressing reason for a man to rid himself of an inconvenient mistress. It might be worth a look. The motive may be nothing to do with your conspiracy.’
Walsingham looked down at the girl, considering, a hand on the hilt of his knife; I half-feared he might perform the examination himself right there. ‘In your experience?’ he said, after a while, with an eyebrow cocked.
‘My experience of murder.’
He nodded. ‘Very well. Thomas, send for the physician to do what is required at dawn. She can’t stay here more than a day longer. That’s another confrontation I must have with her brother, who wants to take her all the way to Essex to have her buried with their father.’ He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘We should go to our beds now, sleep a few hours while we can. There is much work to do.’
Again, in that half-light, I saw how drawn he looked, before he turned abruptly for the steps as Phelippes pulled the sheet over the body. Upstairs Walsingham exchanged private words with the curate – I saw him slip the man a purse from his cloak – and, to my great relief, we emerged from the chapel into clean night air. I stretched up to look at the stars and breathed deep.
‘Gifford will be at Thomas’s lodgings when you arrive,’ Walsingham said, as the carriage lurched back over the rutted road towards the city. ‘Say nothing to him of our plan – I will be the one to brief him. But keep your ears open for anything Gifford has to say to you. He may be less guarded than he is with Thomas.’