by S. J. Parris
‘Who do you propose?’ Titch shifted in his seat and lifted his head briefly to show Ballard his sarcastic look. ‘Shall we bribe one of her bodyguards, or do you suggest converting a member of the Privy Council?’
Ballard ignored his tone. ‘Neither, my friend. Who surrounds the Tudor at all times, when even her guards are left outside the chamber? Who passes her a cup of spiced wine before she sleeps, and attends her at her close stool, and combs out her hair in the morning?’
‘Wig,’ Babington muttered bitchily.
‘Her women.’ Titch was staring at him now, the sarcasm forgotten. ‘You mean to recruit one of her women? How?’
‘We already have the perfect candidate, do we not?’ Ballard looked expectantly at Babington, who stared back with a blank shake of the head. ‘Come on, Anthony – what of that girl you mentioned? The one who used to share the Queen’s bed as a child, who still receives presents from her?’
‘Bessie Pierrepont?’ Babington frowned.
Gifford gave a small yelp; I kicked him under the table. ‘Sorry. I banged my knee,’ he muttered, when the others turned to him; I was sure I was not alone in noticing the fierce colour that had flushed his cheeks, but Ballard’s attention was all on Babington.
‘You know this girl. You said she keeps her affection for Queen Mary.’
‘Yes, but—’ Babington shook his head, uneasy. ‘She would like to see the Queen at liberty, that is true. I’m not sure she would murder the Tudor with her own hands to achieve it.’
‘Sound her out. She doesn’t need to use her hands – poison would do it. No one would even know it was her.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ Titch flared up again. ‘And what if she dislikes the idea, and runs straight to the Tudor, Your Majesty, there is a young man of my acquaintance has asked me to poison your wine, shall I tell you where to find him?’
‘I would suggest Anthony has more skill in diplomacy than you give him credit for,’ Ballard said, keeping his voice pleasant. ‘By his account, this girl might be open to his persuasion.’
Gifford stifled another exclamation; Babington assumed a modest expression.
‘I don’t know, John. It was some years ago. And I understand she has now set her sights elsewhere.’
For the love I bear you, it shall be done. To whom had she written those words? Not Babington, evidently. And what was she promising? I watched Gifford’s eyes widen as he struggled to interpret this, and wondered if I ought to kick him again. I decided to intervene another way.
‘Forgive me, but you are thinking of involving another woman now?’ I allowed my lip to curl in scorn. ‘When you fear one has already given you away?’ I did not think this would be out of character; I had met enough Spanish Jesuits to know their view of women.
‘We don’t know yet that Clara gave us away,’ Titch said, rounding on me. ‘It’s not for you to impugn a woman you never met.’
‘I am thinking aloud,’ Ballard said, reaching a pacifying hand to me. ‘This girl Anthony mentions, Bessie Pierrepont, formed an attachment to the Queen of Scots as a child. She also took a fancy to Anthony here, when he served as a page to her grandfather, the Earl of Shrewsbury.’
‘I’m sure she has forgotten such foolishness now,’ Babington said, preening. ‘She set her cap at me, it’s true, but I was eighteen, and she barely thirteen. I did not encourage it, you know how girls can be. Their affections flit one way and another as the weather changes.’
‘The point is, she is now a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth Tudor, with better opportunity than any of us to come near her person.’ Ballard would not be dissuaded.
‘I am not sure my master would have offered Spain’s support so readily if he had known you planned to put the business into the hands of a woman.’ I sniffed, doing my best to look like a haughty Spaniard.
‘We did not plan it this way. But we must be flexible as the situation changes – your master would understand that, I think? Listen, Prado.’ He patted my arm again. ‘Say nothing to Mendoza yet, I pray you. I will think on everything we have heard tonight, and we can meet again tomorrow, before we approach the girl or reply to Mary. In the meantime, let us renew our oath to the Queen, and to one another.’
‘Must we?’ Titch slumped in his chair. ‘How many times have we sworn it now?’
‘Father Prado has not sworn it with us. I should like to hear him pledge faith to our cause.’
‘The money was not pledge enough?’ I said.
‘Surely you have no objection, Father? Your oath, before God?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Well, then.’ Ballard smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. ‘Anthony – you lead us.’
Babington stood and took a deep breath. A bank of candles at his back cast a gold disc of light on the wall behind him, gilding his hair like a prayer book illumination of Christ at the Last Supper. The wine glowed, and from the way the crimson reflection wavered on the table, I could see how his hand was shaking. He raised his glass, and looked around. ‘So we are of one mind, gentlemen? Perform or die?’
FOURTEEN
‘Walk with me,’ Ballard said, as we left The Castle through the back door, into a smoky alleyway that ran behind the building. ‘Paseemos.’
‘Where to?’ I glanced at Gifford, who hovered beside us. ‘I go with Master Gilbert to Herne’s Rents, are you headed that way?’
‘Gilbert can find his own way home, I’m sure.’ Ballard rested a hand on my shoulder as we emerged into Cornhill. ‘I would like to talk to you alone. Let’s take a stroll. Ho there, boy!’
Out of the shadows, a slight figure appeared, obscured by rippling torchlight. As he stepped closer, I saw that it was the child Ben, though he gave no sign of recognition. Link-boys could always be found loitering outside taverns with their lanterns and torches, ready to guide unsteady drinkers home after dark, but Ben’s presence made me feel unexpectedly looked-after, as if Walsingham and Phelippes had not simply left me to fend for myself.
‘Where to, masters?’ Ben spat on the ground and touched a finger to his felt cap by way of deference. ‘I don’t go south of the river this time of night.’
Ballard turned to me, amused. ‘The cojones on this one.’ Ben glanced up and for a fleeting moment caught my eye with a glint of mischief. He understood cojones, anyway. Ballard said, ‘You’ll go where I pay you to go, lad. My friend and I are taking the air.’
‘You’re not from London, then. People pay good money to get away from the air here.’ Ben sniffed and spat again.
‘A wit too.’ Ballard chuckled. ‘You walk ahead and light the way, and keep your mouth shut. Down Cheapside, towards Paul’s.’ His voice had become subtly bigger, deeper, and his chest seemed broader; he was assuming the persona of Captain Fortescue that he wore in public. He had sent Savage off to stash the chest of money I had brought; all Ballard carried was a plain leather bag that he seemed to have acquired at some point before leaving the tavern.
I looked over my shoulder at Gifford and noted the alarm on his face. ‘Bugger off home to your bed then, Gilbert,’ Ballard said, ‘there’s a good boy. You’ll be on the road soon enough, get your sleep.’
Gifford hesitated a moment, cut me an anxious glance, then bade us goodnight and walked off southwards, calling out for a link-boy as he went.
Ballard left his hand resting gently on my shoulder, as if to make sure I didn’t try and run. I fell into casual step beside him, waiting for him to voice whatever was on his mind. The further we walked from the lights of The Castle, the more uneasy I became; one skinny boy with a small knife would not be much by way of back-up if the priest had already seen through me. Ballard let Ben put a few yards between us as we passed the Royal Exchange, so that we were almost out of the circle of his torch-light, before beginning again in Spanish.
‘I don’t think you told us the whole truth back there, did you, Prado – or whoever you are?’
My pulse jarred; I felt my throat tighten, but I forced myself to keep
the same pace, aware that that fingertip touch on my shoulder would register any tension immediately. ‘You can call me Xavier if you prefer, my friend. I find the English have trouble with the pronunciation, at the back of the throat – though perhaps you won’t, your Spanish is very good.’
‘So is yours.’ His tone was smooth and pleasant; he was giving nothing away.
‘Thank you, I’ve been practising all my life, but it’s good to have the approval of an Englishman. You have travelled in Spain, I take it?’
‘Here and there. I’ve travelled all over.’ His teeth gleamed in the distant light of the torch. ‘Where is your accent from? I don’t recognise it.’
‘Here and there,’ I said. ‘I too have been all over.’ He laughed, and gave my shoulder a brief squeeze before lifting his hand.
‘Fair enough. We are wary of each other – that’s to be expected. I was not even warned that you would be at the supper tonight. I’d have liked to have been told, so that I could be prepared.’
‘I am sorry for that. I was instructed only to seek out Master Gifford and he would direct me to your group. I had the impression the others were not sure when you would return from France. But you only arrived today, is that right?’
‘Of course. Why would I pretend otherwise?’
‘I did not suggest you had. But you say you think I have deceived you in some way?’
It seemed best to address the accusation head-on. I tried to run my mind back over the conversation as it had unfolded, desperate to identify the slip that had given me away so that I could come up with a rebuttal, but my thoughts were racing so fast I could put my finger on nothing. He slowed, and walked for a few moments in silence, pulling at his beard, his eyes on the ground.
‘It is not true to say no one except me knew you were in London. As you know.’
I waited, my heart skidding. He stopped dead and turned to face me.
‘I’m talking about the French.’
‘Ah,’ I said, to buy myself some time while he expanded on this.
‘I mean to say, if you are to send your dispatches back to Mendoza in Paris through the French embassy, they must know of your arrival. Paget told me he would write ahead and tell them to expect you. But my question is this: how much of your business here do they know?’
‘That is a question for Paget, surely,’ I said, breathing carefully while I tried to process a number of reactions: relief, that he did not suspect me of not being Prado, combined with panic about what Paget might have told Ballard regarding the French, that I was supposed to know. The opportunities to give myself away seemed to multiply at every turn. ‘I don’t know how much he has told them.’
‘Are you serious?’
I couldn’t tell if he was angry or amazed, or both. I was feeling my way blind; why hadn’t Walsingham found out about Prado’s communication arrangements with the French? That would have been far more use than his birthday. ‘Why – you don’t trust them?’
‘Well, there’s the question. Does one ever trust the French? Things are better now, I suppose, than under the last ambassador, but that’s not saying much. You’ll know about him from Mendoza, of course – Michel de Castelnau. It was his fault the Throckmorton business failed in ’83 – letters to Mary being leaked to Walsingham through the embassy.’
I nodded soberly, waiting for him to go on.
‘But did you know this – ’ his voice rose in indignation – ‘they say he kept a known heretic lodging with him at the embassy. A Dominican from Naples, excommunicate, wanted by the Inquisition. The King of France sent this man to London to keep him out of trouble, because he was going to get himself killed in Paris. Paget reckons he was the one intercepting the letters.’
‘Disgusting,’ I said, swallowing hard. ‘But this man is long gone, I presume?’ I hoped he would not see me wiping the sweat from my palms on my breeches.
‘Oh yes. At least the new ambassador, Chateauneuf, is a true Catholic – he wouldn’t have someone like that under his roof, and told King Henri so.’
‘But still you doubt the French?’
He lifted a shoulder, non-committal. ‘Even without the Italian, that embassy is leaky. I know Paget and the rest of Mary’s friends in France use the diplomatic packet to send their letters to her, and Gifford collects them when he rides to Staffordshire, but we have never thought it wise to involve the French directly in this plan. I can see that it’s the quickest way for you to get letters to Paris, though. I just wanted to know if Chateauneuf had any idea about’ – he jerked his head back towards The Castle – ‘what we spoke of in there.’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ I said carefully.
Ben had stopped, a few yards away, at the junction with Cheapside. Now he ambled back towards us, torch balanced in the crook of his arm, one thumb tucked into the waistband of his breeches.
‘Not my business, masters, but if you’re going to stand around in the street gabbling away in foreign, that’s a good way to get rocks thrown at your head, or worse. If there’s any trouble, I’m off. Just saying.’
Ballard clicked his tongue, impatient. ‘All right, go on ahead. We’re behind you.’ He resumed his pace again, sunk in thought.
Glimmers of candlelight filtered through the shuttered windows of the grand houses along Cheapside. The street was cobbled here, and for a while the only sound was the click of our boot heels on the stones.
‘What happened to him?’ I asked, in English, to prevent another question I might not be able to answer – and also because, with unforgivable vanity, I wanted to know what was being said of me in Paris. ‘The Italian, I mean.’
‘King Henri’s heretic? Giordano Bruno. He went back to Paris when Castelnau was recalled,’ Ballard said. ‘Got himself into some trouble at court and the King kicked him out on his arse, according to Paget. I understand he’s still hanging around the university there. He writes philosophy books, apparently.’ He reserved more disgust for this than for any of the deviant practices to be found at the Unicorn.
‘Oh yes. I’ve heard they’re good,’ I said, even as the voice of reason urged me to drop the subject. ‘Well written, I mean.’
Ballard shot me a curious sidelong glance. ‘They’re heretical. Paget says he wants to abolish the church as we know it – not just the Catholic faith, he wants to remake the whole Christian religion. This Italian writes that the universe is infinite and man can become like God through his intellect.’
I stifled a laugh. ‘I would imagine his argument is more sophisticated than that—’ I broke off, seeing the look on his face. ‘I mean to say – I would suppose he argues his heresies like a sophist. Though he sounds like a fool.’
He grunted. ‘He sounds like an atheist. Paget’s clearly got some sort of vendetta against him. Says he’ll burn eventually, if he – Paget – doesn’t get him first. One thing’s for sure – this Bruno won’t be coming back to England in a hurry.’
‘That’s good to hear,’ I said, and meant it. ‘Enough about him. What do you make of Paget?’
‘Don’t you know him?’
‘Only by reputation,’ I said, glad he could not see my face in the shadows. I had no idea if Prado was supposed to know Paget; all I could do was stay consistent with my version, and I had already told Babington that we hadn’t met. I had time to wonder, fleetingly, if Ballard was trying to trip me into contradicting myself. ‘I am interested to hear your view.’
‘Huh. Well, I hope you won’t report back if I say I don’t entirely trust him.’
‘You don’t trust anyone,’ I said.
He glanced at me, and let out a bark of a laugh. ‘You have me there. Would you, in my position? Men like Paget, though…’ He let the sentence trail away. ‘You know the kind. Entitled. His father was a baron. I’m not convinced he cares about the souls of ordinary English folk – the Catholic faith for him is a question of reasserting his family’s status. Or perhaps you sympathise. What’s your background?’
‘My father was a soldie
r, my mother a midwife.’
‘But you were educated? How did they afford that?’
I shrugged. ‘I was a bright boy. The Jesuits saw something in me and took me in.’
He nodded thoughtfully. The details belonged to my life, not Prado’s, except that it was the Dominicans and not the Jesuits who had considered me worth the investment, but it seemed to make Ballard warm to me.
‘My father was a master carpenter,’ he said.
‘Like Our Lord.’
He laughed again. ‘Yes, except in Putney. He sent me to the grammar school, but really he wanted me to follow him into the guild. I never had that skill with my hands, though, nor his patience. I was a great disappointment to him, I’m sure. When I was a boy, I wanted to be a soldier.’
‘So you became a priest, to play at one?’ I said, returning to Spanish.
‘Do the scriptures not speak of spiritual warfare?’ He grinned, but it quickly faded. ‘I have a temper, Prado. It’s a terrible thing. Flares up in an instant. As a youth I could have stabbed a man easy as that’ – he snapped his fingers – ‘for spilling my beer or looking at me wrong. Not something I’m proud of. I pray daily for the grace to govern it, instead of allowing it to govern me as it did in my youth. This life I have chosen gives me the chance to direct my rage to a fight I know to be just.’
‘So killing does not trouble your conscience now?’
‘Killing the innocent would, naturally. But I have no qualms about dispatching the enemies of Christ. Why should I? They have none. You heard what was done to that girl, Clara. These people are merciless.’
‘You truly think she was murdered by agents of the Tudor’s government?’ Though we were still speaking Spanish, and I was sure Ben could not understand, I dropped my voice to an urgent whisper.
‘I do not see another explanation.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘I knew nothing of this business until I returned to London tonight. I would have preferred to discuss it with the others before you arrived, to have a clearer picture of where we stood. But I was not given the choice.’