There was an awkward silence. Sir Joseph Mompesson was the first to break it. ‘Haven't you enough evidence to arrest some of these fellows now? This Vicars, say, whom our young friend so aptly calls “the yellow gentleman.”’
‘I could do that,’ admitted Sir Robert, ‘but I prefer to leave them all at liberty till we know the names of the others.’
‘He could be questioned.’
‘I dislike… questioning,’ said Sir Robert, with a faint shudder of distaste. ‘The results are unreliable. Men say anything on the rack: they're as apt to accuse the innocent as the guilty. It's better to watch and watch till you know everything, and then – pounce.’
‘I've another idea about this “peel”,’ said Sir Francis. ‘It might refer to bells, of course – a peal of bells.’*
They discussed that for five minutes, but it didn't help matters much. One can send news by bell – news of a great victory or the death of a monarch or something like that – but it was hard to see how conspirators could use such a very public means of communication.
Suddenly, as I stood there kicking my heels, listening to their argument, I had an inspiration.
‘I know, sir!’
They all looked at me – Sir Francis scornful, Sir Joseph encouraging, Sir Robert just… well, like a mask. His lips moved as he twiddled his pen. ‘Speak up, boy.’
‘Mightn't it be one of the peels in Cumberland – maybe Sir Philip Morton's?’
Sir Robert looked blanker than ever. But Sir Joseph slapped his wide breeches and swore.
‘The boy's got it! And I a Cumberland man – but so long away from home that dashed if I thought of it!’
Sir Robert tapped the table. ‘Please explain.’
‘Peel-towers –’ Sir Joseph and I began together, and we told Sir Robert what they were, and how Sir Philip Morton certainly had one, though it was supposed to be shut up now and uninhabited.
‘An ideal headquarters for a plot,’ said Sir Joseph. ‘I'll be bound that's what it means. They're to send all news by way of the peel-tower. Plain as the nose on my face.’
Sir Robert digested the new theory. The white quill turned over and over against the blackened oak of his table, and it seemed years before his thin lips moved.
‘It's worth investigation. Someone will have to go to Cumberland.’
He raised his eyes and looked straight at me.
14. Secret Agents
THAT was how I joined the Secret Service of the Queen.
It was a service unknown, I suppose, to ninety-nine out of a hundred ordinary folks. They saw, or more likely heard of, Queen Elizabeth mingling freely with her subjects – sitting in church, leading the dances, riding the countryside, stopping to speak to Tom, Dick, or Harry, as the mood took her. They knew there were plenty of men who would gladly see Bess dead. They knew there had been attempt after attempt upon her life, and yet by a miracle (as they supposed) she lived.
It wasn't such a miracle.
Bess wouldn't take care of herself, she took the wildest risks, but she had faithful servants to take care of her. First Walsingham, who'd died a few years before I came to London, then Robert Cecil. It was Walsingham who built up a wonderful system of Government spies and agents, to ferret out all the plots that were going and scotch them before they got too dangerous. Walsingham's men were everywhere. They knew all the codes, all the tricks of the trade. One conspiracy after another reared its head – and Walsingham, selecting just the right moment, sliced off that head, sometimes on Tower Hill, sometimes elsewhere.
Robert Cecil took over the organization which he left. He grumbled at the expense, paid off a number of agents, but kept the thing in being. There didn't seem so much risk now. One by one the Queen's most dangerous enemies were dying off, and she herself wouldn't live for ever. It was easier now to wait for Nature to remove her, instead of risking one's own neck to hasten the process by poison or pistol bullet. But Robert Cecil was a careful man, and he still kept his eyes open, in case… It was lucky he did so.
All this, and a good deal more, we learnt as we rode northwards with Tom Boyd.
We'd been introduced to him one day, soon after that memorable evening at Sir Robert's. A shabby little man he seemed, with a bald forehead and very few teeth – the sort of man you'd never remember having seen before. I suppose that was one reason why he made such a good agent.
‘So you're my guides, are you?’ he said, with a chuckle, and his West-country voice was as rich and thick as cream. He gripped our hands, and we were friends at once.
Sir Robert had decided, after a good deal of pen-twiddling, to send one of his best agents to have a sniff round Cumberland. But he had no suitable man who knew the country. If Tom Boyd went alone, he would be as helpless in the mountains as a blind man; and in the villages, talking to folk in that Somerset voice of his, he'd be as noticeable as a Negro.
So it was agreed that I should go with him. If the key to the mystery lay in the Morton country, I knew all those hills and dales like the knuckles of my own hand. People would talk to me as a neighbour, and they'd talk to Boyd if I was there to vouch for him.
‘But if I'm recognized,’ I pointed out, ‘I'll be in trouble at once with Sir Philip's men. Couldn't I have a free pardon or something, so they can't touch me?’
Sir Robert had shaken his head at that. ‘You can't have a pardon till you've been convicted of a crime. We can promise you this, though: if you are unfortunate and get arrested, we'll see that nothing unpleasant happens to you.’ He smiled. ‘Even we Secretaries of State have to observe the formalities of the law.’
‘I'll keep him out of mischief, sir,’ promised Boyd. ‘My plan's this: we go up to Cumberland disguised as a pedlar and his boy. When we get on the ground, we find ourselves a hiding-place; maybe young Brownrigg knows a barn where we can sleep, or perhaps his dad will shelter us. Young Brownrigg doesn't show his nose by daylight, unless it's dead safe. Only his family and trusted friends know that he's back home at all. If he can put me in touch with them, I can manage all the rest.’
Of course, Kit wanted to come, and of course nobody except myself saw any necessity for a second boy to go on the expedition. What they'd have said if they'd known the truth about her, goodness alone knows!
So there was a great argument, and ninety-nine reasons quoted against her going, and the end of it was (as you can imagine) that when we rode out along the Great North Road with our little string of packhorses there were three of us, not two.
It was early in June now, and the weather the best you could wish for. Our way took us up the eastern side of England, through country which was entirely new to us. We touched the fringe of Sherwood Forest, I remember, and slept a night on the close-cropped greensward under the great oaks which must have stood there since Robin's day. Then we went on across the Vale of York, which was flat as a board and very dull to our eyes, being hill-people. This road went on and on to the borders of Scotland, but we were glad when it was time to turn off towards Richmond, and follow one of the lonely trails up over the Yorkshire mountains and down the other side into our home country.
It was good to be in the high hills again, though these Yorkshire fells are different from ours, being mostly green and rounded, without sharp crags or precipices. But they were mountains. We could see the heather, though it wasn't yet in bloom. Wherever we went we could hear the friendly sound of water, leaping down over the square grey stones. Of stone, too, were the houses, like those of home; we'd left behind us the red brick and straw thatch, the white plaster and tarred beams. People's voices were more friendly, and they looked at us with the light of welcome in their faces, being lonely folk in their high valleys. The food was food again, not just something to stay your hunger with.
We really traded as we went along: we had a fine mixed store of ribbons and Sheffield knives, salt and spice, liquorice and Spanish oranges, song-sheets, and about everything else you can think of.
‘No harm in a profitable sideline,’ said
Tom. ‘We agents aren't paid too well, and I'm getting on. Some day I'll be too old for this game, and what then? I've got to save. I fancy a little tavern of my own, not too far from the Tower.’ He laughed. ‘I might name it “At the Sign of the Keyhole”, eh?’
So on we went up the valleys, wasting no time, but trading enough for people to think us genuine. Then, one morning I'll never forget, we started at dawn, left the last farmstead behind, and climbed up and up the soaring spine of the mountains. We looked to the priming of our pistols. There were wild men up here, working in the mines and living like beasts. Back in the dale villages they'd told us fearsome tales of pedlars who'd been murdered for the few shillings in their purses, and then thrown down bottomless pits in the limestone, so that their bodies were never found. We kept a sharp look out, I can tell you, but no one interfered with us.
It's not for that I remember the morning, but for the blessed moment when we topped the last crest of the trail and saw a whole new world laid out at our feet.
Right and left marched the fells on which we stood, ridge after ridge, summit after summit, from the Trent almost to the Tyne. Before us spread the Vale of Eden, wide, green, and gracious, dotted with little grey towns and villages, dappled with grey cloud-shadows, slowly drifting across the green and gold of the sunny land.
And beyond the Vale, a day's journey, with their proud peaks stabbing through a layer of white cloud, rose the mountains of home… Skiddaw and Scafell, Blencathra and Glaramara, Helvellyn and Great Gable, like giants in their glory. You'll say I couldn't see all those, and I couldn't tell one from another at so great a distance. I'll tell you: I almost persuaded myself I could see my own home, nestling under the shoulder of our own mountain!
All Tom said was: ‘Now we're coming into your own country, lads, we'd better think of disguising you a bit. Not a full disguise, mind, but just something to distract people's attention from your ordinary appearance. It's always the peculiarity that folks notice. If you've a patch on your eye or an ugly scar on your cheek, that's how they'll think of you and remember you.’
We agreed that, for the time being, I should have my head swathed in bandages, and pretend I'd been thrown from my horse. It was a hot kind of disguise for June, but I hoped I wouldn't need to wear it for longer than a day or two.
‘What about Kit?’ said Tom. ‘I can't have you both bandaged.’
‘I'm disguised enough as I am for Cumberland,’ said she, and told him, straight out, what we knew we shouldn't be able to hide from him much longer.
‘Well, I'm hanged!’ he said, and looked at her with his big mouth open, showing his few lonely teeth. ‘If I'd have known –’
‘You can't send me back now,’ said Kit quickly.
‘She's proved herself on the trip up,’ I pointed out. ‘No boy could have done better.’
‘And a girl might be useful in some ways – as a girl. Pete's going to borrow one of his sister's dresses for me, and then, if need be, I can turn into a girl again, as I did that night we went to the yellow gentleman's house. Pete couldn't have managed without me then.’
‘All right, all right,’ said Tom, with a dazed grin; ‘but if I was your father, wouldn't I wallop you when I got you home?’
‘Would you?’ she said very quietly, looking straight at him.
He shook his head. ‘I'd as soon try to wallop a tigress,’ he admitted. ‘I pity Sir Philip; he doesn't know what he's up against. There's only one thing.’
‘What's that?’
‘He ought to thank his lucky stars you won't marry him. Better a quick death on Tower Hill than a lifetime with you.’
‘I do think you're rude,’ she complained.
Kit was guide that day. East Cumberland was her country. She'd been born by the banks of Ullswater, and when she came of age, she said, she'd inherit land there. Her guardian lived over towards Shap more, and that was a spot we gave a wide berth. When she was younger she must have ranged the fells like a mountain cat: she knew every hill, every waterfall, every little tarn lying in the lap of the moor.
We slept that night near the lower end of Ullswater. Kit pointed up the long thin lake, black and yellow under the full moon. ‘I've a house up there, she boasted, ‘with glass in the windows and tapestry with pictures on the wall. And land – ooh, acres and acres. All mine when I'm older. That's what sneaky Philip wanted. To join the estates and buy more – or steal them, and be lord of the land from Penrith to Keswick.’
‘We'll put a spoke in his wheel,’ I said.
The next morning I took the leadership of our little cavalcade, and we groped our way westwards, by lonely byways, across the hump of moor which lies between Ullswater and the Skiddaw country. We had avoided Penrith deliberately. We wanted to get to our true work, and if we went where there were too many people the trading delayed us. So, before the sun had climbed high behind us, round the side of Great Mell we came, and there across the low ground, pale and grey in the full flood of the morning light, rose Blencathra, my own mountain, my home.
Those last few miles passed with maddening slowness. When we reached my own valley it became especially unwise to hurry. Every house we called at, and I had to bend my red face over the goods, to hide it from neighbours who had known me from the cradle. Luckily, Tom did most of the talking, and Kit chipped in when it was necessary, so I never had to open my mouth except once to grunt, ‘Fell off my horse!’ when kindly Mrs Bell asked about my bandages.
It was afternoon when we rode splashing through the beck and looked up the grass slope to the low grey house couched under the mountain.
‘Mind that washing!’ called my mother sharply, bustling out and shading her eyes at us. It was all laid out, white and spotless, on the close turf, with stones holding it down. Mother looked down at us as though we were all strangers, but she smiled at the sight of our great bundles. She loved to pick over a pedlar's stock; it was one of her few pleasures, living so far from markets and being so busy.
‘Good day to you,’ she said to Tom as he swung himself from the saddle. ‘And what have you brought to show me? All the silks of China and the perfumes of Arabia?’
‘Something more precious, ma’am,’ said Tom, with a smile and a bow, and I ran forward to her, grinning from ear to ear.
I needn't describe the next hour. You know what mothers are, and maybe you know or you can imagine how it feels to come home after nearly a year away.
‘But I don't think you should have come home, all the same,’ she said, looking worried. ‘I don't know what your dad will say when he comes in. Glad as we all are to see you, and your friends! But' – she shook her head – ‘it's dangerous.’
I told her then – Tom nodding his permission – that I was now in the Queen's service. Sir Philip was more likely to see the inside of a prison than ever I was.
‘All the same,’ she said, ‘you won't want him to know you're back in these parts, or it may upset Mr Boyd's plans.’ She knitted her brow in thought. ‘We can trust most of the neighbours, but not all. Here and there you find there's a man trying to make up to Sir Philip. People tell tales.’ She turned to Tom with a gesture of apology. ‘We'd gladly take you all in, Mr Boyd, and hide you if
we could, but I just don't think it's possible. It would leak out that you were here. It isn't that we'd mind, but it wouldn't help you in your work.’
‘I quite understand, Mrs Brownrigg.’
‘Since Peter threw that rock,’ said my mother, smiling, ‘this house has got itself a reputation – and it's not one the family is ashamed of. All the same –’
‘That's all right. We'll find somewhere.’
‘I know!’ I cried. ‘We'll go and live at the Stronghold!’
15. The Lonely Tower
‘THIS'LL suit us down to the ground,' said Tom cheerily. ‘Comfortable? Goodness, man, when you've slept in stuffy cupboards and hidden up to your neck in a river and stowed away for a hundred miles in a boat full of rotting fish – then you know the meaning of luxury.’
‘Well,’ said Dad doubtfully, ‘if there's anything you find you want, just send down to the farm after dark. We'll none of us come near you unless you send word for us.’
‘It'll be safer that way, Mr Brownrigg.’
‘Good night, Dad,’ I said.
‘Good night, Peter. Good night, lass. ’Night, Mr Boyd.’ My father picked up his stick and stepped away, a shadow on the moonlit mountainside.
The Stronghold made a splendid hiding-place. The overhanging boulder offered ample shelter. When it was light we would gather bracken and make comfortable beds with the blankets we had brought. There was good drinking water within a stone's throw, and, as I have told you, Sir Philip's peel-tower was only a little way down the valley. By walking half a mile we could reach a spot from which we could look right down on it.
We could get all the food we wanted by sending someone after dark to my mother. Our horses were stabled at Bell's farm, ready for us if we needed them in a hurry. That was safer than keeping them at ours. Mr Bell owned more horses, anyhow, and he had a story ready to account for these if necessary. Everything had been done very carefully; it had been a lot of trouble, but it hadn't been worth taking risks. First we had ridden out of Lonsdale in full view of everyone as if leaving the district; then Mr Bell had met us in the dusk on the main road and taken over the horses; finally, my father had joined us and helped us carry our gear up the mountain before the moon rose.
We snatched some sleep, in spite of our excitement and the hardness of the ground. Then, when the sun got up, I led the way cautiously along the mountainside.
There stood the old tower, black and lonely against the morning. Not a wisp of smoke curled from the roof.
‘A very nice place for a little dirty work,’ said Tom slowly as he looked down on it. He took something from his doublet, a kind of metal tube with glass in it, and put it to his eye. Then he handed it to me. I looked through and gasped softly. It was like magic – the tower seemed much nearer. I could see the front-door quite plainly at the head of the stone stairs.
Cue for Treason Page 11