by S. J. Parris
‘It was not my intention,’ I said, avoiding his steady gaze. ‘I lashed out to save Frances – I must have caught a major artery in his leg. He bled out in minutes, I tried to stop it.’
‘But I thought he had restrained you?’
‘I cut Bruno loose,’ Clara said quickly. ‘To help me save Frances.’
Walsingham’s dark eyes moved from her to me, opaque in the candlelight. He knew he was being lied to, but he also knew better than to push too hard.
‘He was one of my most trusted men,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I still can’t believe he would have hurt Frances or Lizzie.’
‘Believe it, Father,’ Frances said, grim-faced, rubbing her shoulder. ‘He put me in the strappado. It’s only thanks to Bruno and Clara that Lizzie is not floating down the Thames at this moment. He meant to kill her, I’m sure of it.’
‘Because of our father,’ Clara added, turning to Walsingham. He nodded slowly.
‘George was a good man,’ he said. ‘Too good, really. He didn’t have the ruthlessness to be an informer. He wanted to please me, but when it came to it, he was reluctant to betray his friends, he didn’t want the consequences on his conscience. So he was playing me false, passing misinformation – I discovered it, with proof, and he knew I had, but before I could confront him, he fell in the river.’ He held his hands out, palms up. ‘Whether that was an accident or by his own choice, we’ll never know, but I swear this before God, Clara – it was not on my orders. Nor would I have punished you for getting too close to the conspirators – these things happen. I would have helped you, had I known. I wish Robin had understood that. He always had a tendency to believe the worst.’
‘What will happen to them now? The conspirators, I mean,’ Clara asked, barely audible, as if she hardly dared voice the question. I noticed how her hand strayed to her belly as she spoke.
‘They have all fled – Prado’s escape put them on the alert. Their lodgings have been raided and the pursuivants are out searching – they won’t get far.’
‘Will you show mercy, if they cooperate?’
He lowered his hands and gave her a long, steady look.
‘You know I can’t make those promises, Clara. We will see.’
She bowed her head without speaking. At that moment, the baby sneezed and woke herself up, looked around the company with wide blue eyes and burst into tears.
‘You should take her to her nurse, my dear,’ Walsingham said gently to his daughter, who was gradually slumping sideways in her chair. ‘And get yourselves to bed. We can discuss the rest in the morning.’
Frances nodded, and rose to hug him; she seemed half-asleep already. Clara followed her, not looking at Walsingham.
‘Not you, Bruno,’ he said, as I pushed my chair back. ‘A moment longer of your time, if you don’t mind.’
When the door had closed behind the women, he drew up a chair opposite me by the fire.
‘The truth now – did Frances kill Robin?’
‘I killed him,’ I repeated, hearing myself sound as drained as Clara had.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Like all Dominicans, you are an accomplished liar. But I am well practised at spotting one.’
‘You can ask me the same question every day for the rest of my life, with all the instruments in your cellar, you will get the same answer.’
‘I know. You are a stubborn bastard. Let me see your neck.’ He drew his chair closer and raised a finger to tilt my head back. ‘Ah. The Heretic’s Fork. I have never actually used that one. How long do you think you could have endured it, out of interest?’ He sounded professionally curious.
‘I wouldn’t like to guess. But I’m sorry you missed the show,’ I said, a little sharply; he inclined his head by way of apology.
‘You’re a brave man, Bruno. I would give my life for the Queen, you know that. But you risked your life to save the people I love most in the world, and I still have them because of you. I can never repay or forget that.’ He looked away and coughed to hide his embarrassment.
‘What could you have done with Robin, anyway, if he had lived?’ I asked. ‘You would not have tried him publicly for the murder of a Southwark whore – everything would have come out, about the Babington conspiracy. It would have become public knowledge that you allowed a plot against the Queen’s life to flourish so you could entrap Mary Stuart.’
He sighed. ‘I know. He could not have been brought to justice in the usual way, I grant. I only wish I could have questioned him. I was fond of Robin, and I believed he had some affection for me, after all I had done for him.’
‘Maybe it was precisely because he felt dependent,’ I said. ‘It’s a hard burden for a man to feel his life is always in someone else’s hands. Perhaps he wanted to believe his story would have been different if his father had lived, so he turned the blame on you.’ I did not suggest that the brutality of the work he had done for Walsingham must have affected him in some way: made cruelty a habit, or at least blunted his conscience.
‘Perhaps. And what of you, Bruno? You’re a man who needs patronage, you must know something of that resentment.’
‘I hope I would not take innocent lives for it.’
‘What would you most want, if it was in my power to give?’
I glanced sidelong at him, touching my fingers to the puncture wounds in my throat. ‘To stay in London. Write my books.’ And Sophia, I thought – but that is beyond the remit even of Master Secretary.
‘I’ll see what can be done. It’s a delicate matter – there is only so much of this business I wish to reveal to the Queen, as you can imagine. But your testimony may be required when we bring Babington and his friends to trial, since you are the only one of my inside men who was not turned to their side. And you can’t go back to France for the moment. My mole in the French embassy says that Prado managed to deliver a letter there before he went on the run. Mendoza will want your cojones nailed over his mantelpiece the minute you set foot in Paris.’
‘You really think you will bring them to trial?’ I asked, secretly delighted to have another reason not to go back to France.
‘Oh yes. They can’t run for ever, there are armed men with arrest warrants hunting them down. We’ve already taken Thomas Salisbury on his way into London, complete with a list of Catholics who have pledged to help raise an army against the Queen. And we found drafts of new letters to Mary in Babington’s rooms. I believe we have enough in writing to condemn every last one of them as a traitor.’
‘What about Bessie Pierrepont?’
‘Ah. Now that was an interesting business. Your Sophia did well there – she managed to copy a number of letters from Bessie’s room at the Cavendish house. She’s a natural at intelligence work.’
‘She’s good at deceiving people, if that’s what you mean.’ It came out with more bitterness than I had intended; Walsingham shot me a sidelong glance with a hint of a smile.
‘Well, I shall make further use of her skills. You were right to suspect that Gifford was delivering letters to Chartley Manor, from Bessie to Mary’s household, that he was not declaring to Phelippes.’
‘So Bessie was writing to Mary? Sophia thought it was a man.’
‘She was right. Mary’s secretary, Claude Nau, to be precise. There is some kind of courtship between them, it seems. But the gist of his letters appeared to come directly from Mary – he was urging Bessie to petition Queen Elizabeth on Mary’s behalf.’
‘Petition for what?’
‘Apparently Mary was ready to relinquish all claim to the English throne if Elizabeth would allow her to leave England and retire to some solitary and reposeful place, as she puts it.’
I let out a low whistle. ‘So Bessie never intended to kill Elizabeth.’
‘Far from it. She agreed to meet Babington and Ballard only so she could find out their plans and pass them on to her paramour, Nau, who is more cautious than Mary and was urging her to give up this fantasy of ruling England in return fo
r her freedom. Your Sophia persuaded Bessie to tell me everything.’
I wished he would stop calling her ‘my’ Sophia; there was something faintly condescending about it, as if he knew very well that she was not.
‘So Mary Stuart was using Bessie to bargain with Elizabeth about giving up her claim to the throne, even while she knew Babington and his friends were risking their lives and fortunes to put her on it. Does she not care how many fervent young men go to the scaffold for her?’
He stroked his thumbnail along his beard. ‘Last month she also wrote to Mendoza in Paris, telling him she would give her rights to the English crown to King Philip of Spain if her son James would not convert to the Catholic church. Mary grows ever more desperate – her health is failing and she is sick of incarceration. She is promising anything to anyone at the moment, with little thought for the consequences. I almost feel sorry for her.’
‘And what of the consequences? Do you have the evidence you wanted against her?’
His mouth set in a hard line. ‘I can work with what we have. The rest will depend on Queen Elizabeth. It won’t be easy. I fear she will incline to mercy, even with hard proof in front of her.’
Proof which Phelippes partially forged, I thought, though I held my tongue. ‘What about Tichborne? Will there be mercy for him?’
‘Because he got Clara pregnant? In the scales of justice, that hardly tips the balance against plotting to kill the Queen and aid invasion by a foreign army. Besides, he’s married.’
‘Really? He told Clara it was a betrothal only.’
‘Clara, like her brother, chose to believe what suited her. You should get some rest now, Bruno. I’ll send a physician to you in the morning. I have business to finish.’
I glanced at the door and lowered my voice. ‘With Douglas? You know he’s a murderer – I’m amazed you would meet with him alone.’
Walsingham pressed his thumbs into his eyelids for a moment, and I thought again how much he appeared to have aged. ‘I know all about Archibald Douglas, far more than you do. Sometimes in politics, Bruno, you have to deal with people you don’t like, some of whom certainly ought to be in prison.’
‘But what is he doing here? What was all that business about love?’
At this he laughed, and some of the tension seemed to slide from his shoulders. ‘He’s telling the truth, for once. He comes as an ambassador from young King James of Scotland, with a proposal of marriage for Her Majesty. Do not repeat that to anyone.’
‘You’re not serious? James is, what, twenty? And the Queen is fifty—’
‘About to turn fifty-three. We can safely say he’s not driven by ardour, but it seems he’s entirely serious. James is ambitious – he wants the English throne after Elizabeth, and it would be extremely convenient for him if his mother was taken out of the running. That makes Douglas our ally, for now, so you’ll have to be civil to him.’
‘I’d rather have the Heretic’s Fork again. She won’t marry James, will she?’
‘Of course not. Though’ – he dropped his voice to a whisper – ‘I predict she will grant him the succession. But she’ll make him wait.’
He showed me to the door. I stood, awkwardly, wondering how to take my leave, when he pulled me into a brief and very English embrace; barely any part of us touching, with a manly pat on the shoulder for reassurance, lest I become too emotional.
‘I meant it, Bruno – I shall never forget the service you have done my family. When this business with the conspirators is over, I will find a way to recompense you. Now get some sleep.’
Outside the room Douglas was hovering, suspiciously close. As I passed him, he caught me by the wrist.
‘I told you we were alike, you and me,’ he said, with his wolfish smile, his face too close to mine. ‘We seize our chances where we can.’
I pulled away and said nothing, because I had an unpleasant feeling that there was some truth in this.
‘How’s that lovely girl of yours, Bruno?’ he asked casually, as I walked away. ‘I often think of her late at night, when I’m alone in my bed, and even when I’m not.’
I wheeled around to point a finger in his face; the guards by the door gripped their swords tighter, anticipating a fight. ‘You go near her and I will kill you.’
‘You can’t, I’m an ambassador now. Diplomatic immunity.’ He gestured to himself and gave a little swagger. ‘Until the next time, old pal. I’m sure there will be a next time.’
‘You’d better hope there isn’t,’ I said, though in my present state, I could not blame him for laughing. He leaned in close again.
‘And you’d better hope your friend Walsingham lives a good long life,’ he whispered, ‘because there’s no one else in this whole damned country who’s got your back.’ He gave me a playful dig in my sore ribs as a parting shot, and disappeared through the door, chuckling as I doubled over in pain.
You’re wrong, I thought, as I straightened up. When Philip Sidney returns from the war and learns that I saved his wife and daughter, he will petition the Queen day and night until she gives me some manner of official employment. I will be able to court Sophia properly then, and concentrate on my books. Mary will be executed, and the Catholic threat will die with her. England will enjoy a time of peace and prosperity, and I might finally feel that I had found a place where I could think and write freely, and call home.
I knew, even without Douglas’s malicious laughter ringing in my ears, that it could never be as simple as that.
EPILOGUE
20th September 1586
A cold morning, overcast; it felt not so much as if autumn had come early, but that summer had given up before it arrived. The scaffold had been built especially at St Giles Fields, to allow for more spectators. Despite the chill and the early hour, most of London had turned out for the spectacle; pie-sellers and girls with pitchers of hot cider moved among the crowds, finding ready business. Fathers lifted children on to their shoulders for a better view, and the youngsters shrieked and pointed with all the excitement of a day out.
I stood on a rise at the back of the crowd, far enough away – I hoped – that I would not be able to see their faces. At my side, Sophia edged closer against me and I felt her shiver.
‘You don’t have to watch this, you know.’ I put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her towards me. She resisted at the implication that she was not strong enough to endure it.
‘Walsingham says I do,’ she murmured, her eyes fixed on the platform where the executioner and his two assistants were preparing their equipment. I saw her take in the cross-frame where one of the youths, halfway up the ladder, tugged on the nooses to test the knots; the butcher’s block in the centre, with its two cleavers and various metal hooks catching the sky’s dull light; the iron cauldron at the back on its trivet over a low fire, steam already rising from the water where the entrails would be thrown. ‘He says if I am to work for him, I must understand the end point. Intelligence work is all for the purpose of rooting out the Queen’s enemies, he says, and if I can’t stomach the result of my labours, I should not get involved in the first place. He says this is especially hard for a woman, but I must cultivate a certain ruthlessness, or I will be too easily diverted from my path.’
‘You’ve never had any trouble with ruthlessness before,’ I said.
She glanced up to see if I was joking.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she said, slipping her arm around my waist. ‘I would not have liked to do this alone, and I could not persuade Lady Grace to come with me, she’d have fainted before we reached the Charing Cross. I’ve never seen a traitors’ execution before, though I know what it entails, of course.’
‘Of course.’
A silence fell between us, as both our thoughts turned to the fate of her son’s father – an execution that was the direct result of my investigations for Walsingham. She let go of my waist and moved subtly away from me.
‘So he wants you to go on working for him?’ I said,
to change the subject.
‘That’s what he says. He is occupied with the trial of Mary Stuart at the moment, but once that is over he spoke of training me in the art of ciphers and placing me somewhere I can be useful.’ She shrugged. ‘It may come to nothing, I know. He is always so busy – I fear he will forget me.’
‘He won’t. He knows a good mind when he sees one, he won’t let yours go to waste. And what news of…’ I hesitated, unsure if I should ask about Phelippes’s enquiries into the whereabouts of her son, since she had not mentioned it.
‘My boy?’ She looked down. ‘Not yet. Thomas is trying to trace the couple who bought him from my aunt, through contacts in Kent. But I have faith, Bruno. If anyone can find him, Thomas will. I am closer than I have ever been.’
I said nothing; there was no need for me to point out all the many ways reality might turn out to disappoint her. She knew them as well as I did, but she needed to hold on to her hope, just as I needed to believe that one day I might live and write freely without persecution for my ideas, and Walsingham needed his dream that, with Mary Stuart dead, Elizabeth and her Protestant England would be secure.
‘Look,’ Sophia said, nodding towards the scaffold and pressing tighter against me as an eerie silence descended on the crowd. People drew back as the cart approached, pulled by two black horses with plumes in their harness.
A heavy drumbeat started up from somewhere near the front, slow and ominous, as if for a religious procession. The prisoners stood shakily in the cart, their hands bound, staring out with wild eyes; all except Ballard, who was tied to a chair. I could only guess at how badly he must have been racked; I wondered who had done it, now that Walsingham no longer had Robin Poole. Would he have turned the handle himself? They looked thinner, older, scoured-out; nothing left now between them and eternity but this short walk up the steps and minutes that would feel like hours of unimaginable horror.
A tremor of anticipation passed through the spectators as the conspirators were handed down and lined up at the edge of the scaffold; Queen Elizabeth herself had demanded a special degree of cruelty to this execution, in view of what they had planned for her, to strike ‘more terror’ into those watching. According to Phelippes, Babington had broken down and begged for mercy at his trial, blaming Ballard for everything. He and Titch had been captured to the north of London, in St John’s Wood, where they had tried to disguise themselves as beggars by dressing in rags and staining their faces brown with walnut juice. They had held out for nine days, until hunger had forced them to beg food for real, and a householder had recognised them from the description circulated in the pamphlets Walsingham had distributed immediately after their flight. Ballard had not lasted so long; he and Savage had been taken after only a day, hiding in a priest-hole at the home of one of his Catholic flock.