Execution

by S. J. Parris

  He gave me a sidelong glance. ‘He means his father. Robin’s father, George Poole. He was killed by government agents too. Years ago, this was.’

  ‘Really? I heard he drowned.’

  Savage let out a brief, hard laugh. ‘You think a man can’t be pushed?’

  ‘Why was he killed?’

  He checked over his shoulder, and drew closer to me. ‘All right, but you mustn’t let Robin know I’ve told you. He doesn’t like people talking about his family. His father was supposedly an informer.’

  I feigned shock. ‘For the government?’

  He nodded. ‘George Poole was trusted among the Catholics. He used to help organise safe passage and lodgings for priests coming into the country from the French seminaries.’

  ‘And all the time he was in the pay of the Tudor?’

  ‘Exactly. Passing on information about his brothers and sisters in the faith, who trusted him with their lives. Except that – he wasn’t.’

  ‘Wasn’t what? Forgive me, perhaps my English is not so good, but I’m confused.’

  ‘He wasn’t really working for the Tudor. Oh, he was taking government money all right, but only to keep his family safe. He’d agreed to inform because he’d been caught with forbidden books, and Sir Francis Walsingham – you know who I mean?’

  ‘Naturally. Everyone has heard of him.’

  ‘He threatened George. It was gaol or worse if he didn’t agree to work for the government. But George was never truly turned. The information he passed to Walsingham’s people was always false, or wrong in some particular. He tried to protect everyone – his family and his friends. You can’t keep that up for ever.’

  ‘So Walsingham found out this George was playing him false, you think?’

  ‘For certain. And had him killed for it, so it looked like an accident. Then he gave George’s children, Robin and Clara, positions in his household, to show his generosity.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ I asked.

  ‘After I first started helping John, I was picked up and thrown in prison for a couple of months, on suspicion of spreading propaganda,’ he said. ‘In the Wood Street Counter. There’s a lot of Catholics in there, locked up for nothing much. I met an old man who’d known George Poole, told me the whole story. He swore George never gave true testimony to the Tudor’s agents, so they got rid of him when they realised he couldn’t be trusted.’

  ‘And did Robin and Clara know this too?’

  ‘Of course. Why do you think they were part of this plot? They wanted revenge. But now Clara is dead too, almost certainly by the same hand, and for the same reason as her father. I fear it may tip Robin into recklessness. John will have his work cut out talking him round.’

  ‘That is an extraordinary story,’ I said, my mind whirling with the implications. I felt as if I had been looking at a painting that had suddenly been flipped upside down to reveal an entirely different picture. If both Robin and Clara Poole believed that their father had been killed on Walsingham’s orders, what did that mean for their involvement in Babington’s conspiracy? How long had they known – had Walsingham been mistaken all this time about their loyalties? But it still didn’t make sense – if Clara had been killed by Walsingham’s people, he would never have asked me to investigate it. Unless I was being used, so that he could give the appearance of doing something to appease his daughter.

  ‘Hey.’ Savage flicked me on the arm and I jolted back to him; I was so wrong-footed by this revelation that I had stopped listening.

  ‘I said, we must keep our wits about us,’ he said, as we turned up Crooked Lane. ‘If Titch has been taken, they may be waiting.’ His hand slipped to the hilt of his long knife as the sign of the Blue Boar came into view on a tall building ahead.

  ‘He went out at about six, as soon as the boy came with the note.’ Tichborne’s landlady folded her arms and blocked the threshold. ‘He didn’t say where, but he set off as if the Devil were at his heels.’

  ‘What boy?’ Savage asked. The woman – tall and angular, in her late fifties, a widow by her dress – scowled at him.

  ‘I didn’t ask his name. Just a regular messenger boy, with a letter for Master Tichborne.’

  ‘And no one else has been here looking for him?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge, though I was out for an hour earlier. What is this about – is Master Tichborne in trouble?’

  ‘Not at all. Please don’t be alarmed, madam.’ I gave her my most charming smile, but she didn’t seem reassured.

  ‘I suggest you come back tomorrow, gentlemen.’ From the way she looked at us, I suspected the last word was not meant sincerely.

  ‘We’ll wait for him,’ Savage said, and made to push past her.

  ‘You will not,’ she said, standing her ground. ‘This is a respectable house. Do you want me to shout for the watch?’

  ‘No need for that, good madam.’ I produced a half-crown from my purse. ‘We are friends of Master Tichborne and promised we would meet him here when he returned. We will make no disturbance.’ I bowed low and she appeared somewhat placated, though she turned the coin over in her hand with an astute eye.

  ‘You’d better not. And if he’s not back in an hour, you leave. I won’t have strangers in the house late at night.’

  The house was a handsome old building with a wide wooden staircase. Titch rented two rooms on the top floor. The door to his lodgings was locked, as I had expected.

  ‘Not a problem.’ Savage bent to examine the lock, and pulled out a long thin metal implement from the sheath of his knife, looking up at me with a quick, knowing grin.

  I feigned admiration as he worked the mechanism of the lock, trying not to wince as I heard it scrape repeatedly, pressing my nails into my palms to stop myself offering to help, knowing I could have done the job in five minutes; he was enjoying showing off a skill he supposed the intellectually arrogant Jesuit could not compete with.

  Eventually the lock yielded and we found ourselves inside a narrow pair of adjoining rooms below the roof, with a low slanting ceiling rising to a point in the centre – an odd choice for a man of Titch’s size, who must have found it impossible to stand upright except under the highest point. It was almost dark now; I found a tinderbox on the windowsill and lit a couple of candles.

  ‘It didn’t sound like he’d been arrested,’ I said tentatively, looking around. I knew, as Ballard and Savage could not, that Walsingham had no intention of picking up any of the conspirators yet, but I was curious to hear what other explanations Savage might put forward, since he knew Titch better than I did. The rooms were barely furnished, with a bed, desk and washstand, and a large wooden chest standing open, a jumble of shirts, doublets and hose strewn around the floor.

  ‘All we know is the pursuivants didn’t come to the house,’ Savage said, lifting some of the clothes and peering in the chest. ‘This messenger boy could have been a decoy, to lure him somewhere they could pick him up more easily. But if he’s been taken by the authorities, I’d expect this place to have been searched. She says she was out this evening – they could have waited for her to leave.’

  ‘The lock had not been forced.’

  ‘They wouldn’t need to use force, government men – they would do what I did. The state of this.’ He picked up a red silk doublet from the floor, dusted it down and began folding it. ‘This would cost more than some men make in a year, and look how he treats it. Hard to tell if searchers have been through the room, the way he leaves his things.’

  I almost laughed; he sounded like the boy’s mother. ‘Did you fold your clothes, at his age?’

  He gave a reluctant smile and rapped on the bottom of the chest with his knuckles, at each end and in the middle. ‘Probably not. We should take a look at his papers, see if anything’s missing. Try the desk.’

  ‘How would we know what’s missing? Surely he wouldn’t have left letters lying around. Listen, do you think he could have run?’

  ‘Lost his nerve, you mean?’
He crouched by the chest, considering. ‘I suppose it’s possible. But if I’d had to bet on any of them bolting, I’d have said Gifford. He’s the nervy one. Jumps like a startled hare if you so much as look at him.’

  ‘Everyone does that when you look at them.’

  Madonna porca, Gifford; even now he would be on his walk with Ballard along the riverbank, bleating out God only knew what in his panic. I had to hope he could keep his mouth shut for one more evening; once he was on the road to Staffordshire, he was no longer my responsibility.

  Savage acknowledged the truth of my words with a dry laugh. ‘I wouldn’t have thought Titch had it in him to take off – not without Babington’s permission. They’ve been friends since they were boys, apparently – Titch follows him everywhere. From what I can see, he’s never made a decision of his own in his life.’

  And yet, I thought – Titch had been the one vehemently refusing last night to believe that Clara could have been murdered. He and Babington had appeared visibly shocked and upset by the news, but they had responded to it in different ways; that argued some independence of thought on Titch’s part, or perhaps some knowledge that his friend was not privy to.

  ‘He seems a quiet sort of boy,’ I said, picking up the books on the desk one by one and shaking them for loose papers. There were no letters that I could see. I wondered what message this boy could have brought to Titch that had sent him running in such a hurry, willing to miss his meeting with his friends at the bear pit without even waiting to send an explanation. I crossed to the bed and checked under it, to find a large leather travelling bag, pressed flat. At first glance, it did not appear that Titch could have fled for good – unless something had scared him so much that he had run with only the clothes on his back.

  ‘He keeps his thoughts to himself,’ Savage said. He had emptied the chest and was feeling his way around the inside, pressing the corners with his fingertips; I could guess what he was looking for. ‘You want to talk about motives for being part of this business – I couldn’t begin to fathom his. I’ve seen no sign of fervent faith in the months I’ve known him, though he takes the Mass soberly enough with the rest of us, and I know he resents his family’s losses under the Tudor. But I’ve never heard him hold forth about justice or true religion or Mary Stuart’s sufferings, or any of the stuff that gives young Babington such a cockstand. I’d have said Titch is only with us for the same reason he went off to France with Babington – he was bored and his friend wanted an adventure. Except that – ah.’

  Whatever he had been about to add, it seemed he had found something in the chest that distracted him. While I waited for him to share it, I checked under the mattress and pressed my fingers along its seams in search of hiding places but could see nothing. Either Titch had no secrets to hide, or he had concealed them so well they were defeating us. I stood and stretched my back. As I did so, my gaze alighted on a twist of paper in the empty grate. In a room so conspicuously devoid of any papers, notes or letters, it stood out. I sidled across to the hearth, hoping that Savage would not notice, but he was bent deep inside the chest, his attention all focused on whatever was within. I heard a smooth click; in the same instant I bent and retrieved the scrap of paper and slipped it into the lining of my doublet.

  ‘Here, look at this.’ Savage lifted out the false bottom of the chest to reveal a secret compartment. Inside were several bundles of papers and a number of fat cloth bags; he picked one up and tossed it in his palm, with the unmistakable chink of coins. ‘He hasn’t run anywhere, not without his money. And there are letters here – any government searcher worth his salt would have found these.’ He lifted a sheaf of papers tied with red ribbon.

  ‘Then what?’ My mind raced through the possibilities. The answer was all in the message the boy had brought to Titch earlier. I had a feeling it might be written on the paper I had just hidden away; I had noticed that a corner was singed, as if someone had tried to burn it with a candle flame in haste and tossed it into the grate without checking to see it had caught. But I did not want to read it in front of Savage, in case it contained information that would give me an advantage.

  Before he had a chance to voice another theory, we were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, galloping up two at a time. Savage motioned me behind the door; we blew out the candles and drew our knives, breath held, as the steps drew closer. The door crashed open, admitting a long shadow and the wavering light of a lantern catching on the edge of a sword—

  ‘Fuck me!’ Titch jumped back, almost dropping his weapon, his eyes darting from me to Savage. ‘She said there were men waiting, I thought they had come to arrest me.’ His gaze darted to the open chest with its false compartment removed, and his expression hardened. ‘But this is near as bad – what are you doing, going through my letters? Did Ballard send you to spy on me?’ He held out the sword and levelled its point from me to Savage, hurt and fury etched on his face.

  ‘Peace, brother.’ Savage raised a hand to placate him. ‘We also thought you had been taken, when you failed to show up at the bear pit.’

  Titch waved this away, as if it were an unimportant detail. ‘I had to be elsewhere at short notice.’ I could have sworn then that his eyes flitted to the hearth, but if he noticed the paper was missing, he gave no sign of it. ‘That’s not a reason to break into my rooms, God’s death.’

  ‘We were afraid that if you had been arrested, they might have made a search of your lodgings,’ I offered.

  ‘Even if they had, you have no need to fear – I am not a fool. I keep nothing here that would incriminate the rest of you. And who are you to go through my belongings, master Spaniard? Until last night I didn’t know you from Adam.’ But his gaze returned to the chest; he had not expressed any concern about his money, though there was plenty there for the taking – only that we might have looked at his letters. I could not help wishing he had come back later and given us a chance to read them.

  ‘You should have sent word to say you weren’t coming.’ Savage sheathed his knife decisively and held out his empty hands to show he meant no harm. ‘After what happened to Clara, we feared for you, and for ourselves. As for the intrusion’ – he gestured to the chest – ‘we have taken nothing, nor read a word. Count the money if you want. You have no cause for anger. John asks that we have no secrets among ourselves.’

  Titch let out a bitter snort of laughter, but he put his sword away. ‘John asks. John Ballard is not my master as he is yours,’ he said, leaning down to speak close to Savage’s face with a sneer. ‘The bear-baiting is an entertainment for fools, and if I have no appetite for it I do not need his permission to stay away.’

  ‘Whereas whoring is a pastime of honourable gentlemen,’ Savage said, stepping back with an expression of distaste. ‘Don’t look so surprised – it doesn’t take a great wit to work out where you’ve been. Your doublet’s buttoned wrong and you smell of cunt. Wash yourself after, next time.’

  Titch sat heavily on the bed and stared at me, shocked by Savage’s bluntness.

  ‘It’s true,’ I said, sounding apologetic. It was only now that I noticed his flushed, sated face and hooded eyes, and the smell of sex on his clothes and hands.

  ‘So must I make my confession to you now, Father?’ he said, scathing.

  ‘Only if you wish to.’

  ‘I don’t. I have done nothing wrong.’ The belligerent look fell from his face and for a moment I glimpsed a glazed, dreamy expression in his eyes that might just have been the afterglow of his passion.

  Savage snorted. ‘Listen, boy – I don’t care how many whores you tup, that’s between you and your wife, but—’

  ‘I have no wife,’ Titch protested. ‘I am betrothed only, and it is not adultery if no marriage vows have been exchanged, isn’t that right, Father?’

  I spread my hands in equivocation, uncertain of the theological niceties, but I was spared the need to answer by Savage cutting in.

  ‘Not interested. I care only that your tho
ughtlessness causes the rest of us to fear for our lives, and dash across town in case you’ve been taken. Who was your message from?’

  ‘My what?’ Titch pressed himself back against the wall, instantly defensive.

  ‘Your landlady said a boy sent a message this evening and you went racing off. So who summoned you?’

  ‘It was…’ he lowered his eyes, blushing, and tugged at the hem of his doublet. ‘You’re right. It was from a – a girl.’

  Savage moved around the side of the bed and leaned in close; I watched as Titch shrank from him. ‘First I’ve heard of a whorehouse that sends out for the customers. You had better not be playing false with us, Tichborne. Prado here will be able to smell if you’re lying, it’s an old Jesuit trick.’

  Titch flicked his eyes sideways to me; he could not tell if he was being played for a fool. ‘I’m not lying,’ he said, barely audible. ‘But she’s not a whore, you’re the one who assumed that. She’s a barmaid. She sends to let me know – her husband is out.’

  Savage reared up, rolling his eyes like a spooked horse. ‘God save us. Well, I hope whatever she does to your skinny cock was worth it. Next time you find quim more pressing than your oath to your comrades, give us warning so you don’t waste any more of my fucking time. Got it?’

  Titch nodded, deflated, and sank back against his pillows.

  ‘Come on, Prado.’ Without waiting, Savage stamped away down the stairs. I glanced at Titch.

  ‘You know, I would be happy to hear your confession if you wish it,’ I said, from the doorway. It had not occurred to me that my role as a priest might invite confidences with minimal effort; I was beginning to like the idea.

  ‘No thank you, Prado.’ He looked up at me with tired eyes. ‘I have nothing to confess. Shut the door behind you.’

  I bowed my head in deference and left him. I didn’t need to be a Jesuit to smell when someone was lying.

  * * *

  ‘Arrogant little bastard.’ Savage was still fuming when I caught up with him in the street.