by Peter Tonkin
Ben, on the other hand, was by no means waiting alone. He was pacing up and down in front of the long mirror in Tom’s practice room, making fearsome passes with his Toledo blade under the icily amused gaze of a tall, powerful-looking man whose assured, courtly bearing was at odds with his ragged clothes, dirty flesh and linen, and unkempt beard. Lady Margaret’s portrait stood on the floor beneath the mirror as though she could enjoy the sight of Ben’s wild rage and the stranger’s dangerous amusement.
‘Welcome home, Tom,’ said the tall man dryly. ‘Your...ah...bricklayer, here, said I should expect you at any moment. And then he went to some practice, which I see is sorely needed.
‘As Master Law was no doubt about to tell you when the chance arose, I have been working in the Clink Prison under his personal jurisdiction this last week, apparently befriending some stupid men with traitorous plots toward who are resting there at present at Her Majesty’s pleasure.’
Tom and Talbot exchanged a speaking look; and Tom indeed would have been glad of the information, had Talbot been swifter to give it to him. For this man was Robert Poley, the secret agent who worked in the dark world between the courtly lights of Lord Robert Cecil and Sir Thomas Walsingham. Lord Hunsdon himself, as Chancellor and Leader of the Queen’s Council, occasionally employed Poley about his most sinister and dangerous business. This was the man who had posed as the lover of Thomas Babbington and caused the death of Mary Queen of Scots by exposing their treasonous plots. This was the man who had murdered Christopher Marlowe in Eleanor Bull’s house in Deptford. This was the man who ruled many of the streets where Tom had to walk with the power of life and death. This was the man who, all too often, was sent to give him his orders; and if he was working with traitors in the Clink, that could only mean he had reason to fear some plot – instituted by Catholic Spain, perhaps, and put forward by Jesuits and secretly Catholic intellectuals in the great houses nearby. Suddenly it did not seem so irrelevant that the room from which he had rescued the portrait so recently had looked a little like a secret chapel.
‘But,’ continued Poley, his voice as light and dry as sand whispering over silk, ‘the moment I looked out of the Clink, between the Rose Theatre and the Bear Pit, earlier this afternoon – looked out in all innocence to see that the Thames was ablaze from Bridewell to Bayard’s Castle, and half of Black Friars put to the torch behind – something told me I would soon be talking to you.’
Six: The Heart
They went to the tavern named The Heart on Carter Lane overlooking the old Prior’s Garden, which still stood behind Black Friars. Here they secured a private chamber, a solid meal from the ordinary below, a gallon of ale and four leather tankards sealed with pitch. Then – over a stew of winter mutton, early carrots, leeks and greens spiced with rosemary and mint, served on great thick trenchers of dark bread – they came to the heart of the matter so far.
‘It was a clever notion to write the message down before the blood consumed the last of it,’ allowed Poley, looking down his long nose at Ben.
‘Unexpected in a bricklayer, perhaps,’ needled Ben, still disgruntled by Poley’s treatment of him so far. Nevertheless, he laid his carefully written note in the middle of the table so that all of them, peering down their noses, over their tankards or through the steam of the mutton stew, could see:
grave
o-one e
erwatc
nger. A
ife, whi
ood in
nd men
ound he
een care
e. I ha
variou
ansfer t
w Year
ies pas
my deat
n I may
ed offic
that yo
opeful
nd take
of Elfin
Help me
argare
ess Cot
‘Any thought at all is unexpected in a bricklayer,’ answered Poley, sneering and narrow-eyed. ‘And I observe you can even write. This is a revelation! And they say the education system is going to rack and ruin, Apprentice Jobson, is it?’
‘It is Jonson, as I suspect you know quite well, Master Poley,’ said Tom, leaning forward and gently taking command. ‘And Ben’s good thought has given us one of only two facts hard enough to grasp left after the blaze in Water Lane.’
‘Apart from the corpses, of course,’ observed Poley, incapable of letting another man take the final word.
‘Apart from the corpses, of course,’ allowed Tom, long-used to the game. ‘But let us begin with the message, such as it is, before we return to what little is left of the messengers.’
‘We had begun to consider this,’ Ben advised both Poley and Talbot Law.
‘We had,’ confirmed Tom. ‘But the weight of subsequent events is added to what seemed relatively trifling at the early part of the investigation.’
‘Meaning?’ demanded Talbot, the only auditor whose sole motive was to support the Master of Logic and further the investigation, while the others tried to score points as though they duelled with the wooden blunts that stood in the corner of the fencing room in Tom’s school, seemingly unaware that this was a matter for sharps, if ever there was one.
‘The message is apparently a call for help. It seems to have been sent to me, and may have come from Lady Margaret Outram, Countess Cotehel, to whom in the past, as Kate observed, I have rendered some trifling service. Beyond that we can establish little from the words themselves.
‘The letter begins with my name. That seems clear. Then the next is “o-one e...”. This must mean that in all her household at Elfinstone Castle she has “no-one else” whom she can trust...’
‘Except for the two she sent with her messages,’ observed Poley.
‘And if they were the last two she could trust, then her danger is compounded, is it not?’ added Ben, not to be outdone in this matter of reasoning.
‘Indeed,’ allowed Tom. ‘In more ways than one, perhaps. Especially if she sent two because she could not trust one alone to do her bidding and no more than her bidding. Now you see how events subsequent to the original arrival of the letter have added their weight and emphasized the danger. For “danger” is the next word but one, is it not? Or “anger”, though they be terribly closely allied. And the word just before it must be “overwatched”. The danger seems most puissant, moreover for it seems to threaten her “life”, does it not?’
‘Possibly,’ added Ben, getting to grips with the puzzle now and confronted with the next few fragments of words, ‘there is no “good in” the people beside her. No good women “and men” who stand “around her” at all. Even though she has “been careful”, nevertheless she has – see where it says “I have” here – “various” suspicions. I confess I cannot see the relevance of “transfer” or “New Year” or indeed of “sundries past”, but I think she clearly speaks of “my death”. And if that is so, the fact that little else can be gleaned before she begs “Help me” and signs with her name and title seems to make little difference at all.’ ‘True enough,’ allowed Tom quietly. ‘And well expounded...’
‘For an apprentice bricklayer...’
‘For an apprentice in the Art and Science of Logic,’ countered Tom before Ben became too distracted by this. ‘I thank you, Master Poley.’
‘Hum. But even so, master and apprentice both, there is precious little meat upon the lean bone of supposition,’ Poley countered, his tone on the very edge of a sneer.
‘True. And therefore would it seem a trifling matter, after all, had this been discovered in the filth of the Black Friars kennel, obscured by mud instead of blood. I return to my words addressed to Ben earlier, of the added weight of subsequent events. If that were the case, were this mud instead of blood, then all this exercise of logic would truly be a waste of time and effort. For there is not a word or part of a word in the whole missive that could not be interpreted some other, more innocent way.
‘Bu
t we do have two dead servants come from Elfinstone wearing Lord Outremer’s livery, the first of whom bore the blood-boltered missive itself, the second of whom might have been left in secret for the Greek Fire to consume with the house where he died – but who was publicly broadcast instead, at some risk, and therefore with some point. And we have the picture of Her Ladyship mutilated in that most sinister manner, in the garret of the murder house, destined to burn with the house, for it is a dangerous piece of evidence. And we have the stranger, cloaked and masked, who caused all these things – who doubtless cut the portrait, and who, as like as not if my logic holds, is known to Lady Margaret, and covets Lady Margaret; who has overwatched her in the past, and closely enough to have aroused some suspicion within her breast; who has taken decisive action now; who wishes to cut her off from her friends, indeed from any hope of help, so that he may...’
‘So that he may what?’ demanded Poley, when Tom hesitated. ‘So that he may do what?’ he repeated, when Tom was slow to respond.
‘Did you note the portrait we rescued from the burning house?’ answered Tom, at last.
‘Aye. Though your bricklayer danced around it like a bear while he swung his good sword like an ape with a club.’
‘Did you note how it was cut?’ Tom’s words overwhelmed the outraged croaking of Ben Jonson, goaded too far at last.
‘Of course. From throat to bodice. Across the face and across the throat. I had thought Apprentice... Hobson, is it?... had done it in his wild cavorting.’
‘Jonson,’ corrected Tom thoughtlessly. ‘No. Our man did that. And it is that – whatever it might actually mean to him – that he is preparing to do to the Lady.’
‘But,’ said Poley, testing as ever, ‘why now? – if he has been content to watch and wait, to do so since the New Year, perhaps, as the letter says. What is there that has goaded him into action now?’
‘Something we cannot fathom from this distance, surely,’ said Talbot. ‘Something we could only descry if we went to Elfinstone itself.’
‘The New Year,’ mused Tom. ‘Why mention that at all? Unless...’ He lapsed into thoughtful silence again. Then, Socratic as ever, he asked, ‘Old Law, you celebrated the New Year with the rest of London, did you not?’
‘I did. On the first day of January last...’
‘But your wife, the good Lady Bess, at the Nag’s Head Inn down in the depths of Winchester – when will she and her country friends celebrate New Year?’
‘Ha! They will ever hold to the Old New Year! They will hold their festival at the end of this month and celebrate the coming of the year country-fashion, with feasting and foolishness. And, God’s my life, that’s less than a week hence! I had clean forgotten...’
‘Thus, were the household at Elfinstone to be bound by ancient tradition, say, the reference to New Year might well be less innocent than Master Poley supposes – a moment in the safe past that the Lady first became aware that more eyes than usual were overwatching her. It becomes a date in the dangerous future – in the future but all too close at hand – when something fearful might be expected to occur, the promise of which might well have proved the good to set everything in motion: her call for help, his silencing of that call; his realization of how much she fears; his need to act before the fears lead to further danger to himself and his plans...’
‘All at Old New Year... Why then?’ wondered Ben.
‘At the very least,’ said Tom grimly, ‘the festivities must offer opportunities to the agile mind.’
As the thoughtful little party broke up each to return home for the night, Tom took Poley aside. ‘I must go down there,’ he said. ‘I must go to Elfinstone.’
‘All the way to Elfinstone? Does she not own properties much closer at hand where you might start instead?’
‘Two houses here in London, but as you must know yourself, she never opens them; and after what she suffered within their walls, that is little surprise. She hates the town and resists all calls to come to Court. She fears to lose control of her life again, to lose her son once more...’
‘To fall within the dangerous orbit of her ravisher, the boy’s natural father,’ purred Poley.
‘On whom you and your masters keep the closest of eyes. Have you not got eyes riveted to the Lady Margaret as well? Or at least to her son, the young Lord Outremer?’ As Tom spoke, so the speed of his words slowed, for his mind became distracted by a realization: that he had been tricked – hoodwinked, perhaps.
‘We had,’ allowed Poley grudgingly.
‘Ah. So the body in the Fleet was not simply a message for the Lady Margaret. And there must have been two missing messages, both gone from the chamberlain’s purse.’ He took Poley’s silence as a kind of admission and proceeded, still speaking slowly.
‘Then you must take responsibility for the bodies and see what further you can find about them. I must to Elfinstone with all haste to replace your eyes and give the silent lady, at the least, a voice.’
‘I think you must,’ agreed Poley.
‘Can you get me the passes and permissions? Or shall I to Lord Hunsdon? I’ve no wish to risk a whipping at every parish line I cross between here and Rochester.’
‘Is this a matter for Lord Hunsdon? He is Lord Chamberlain and even though you are his man you should trouble him only with matters fit for the Council’s notice. Or the Star Chamber’s.’
‘And you see nothing for either of them in this matter, Master Robert?’
Tom only used Poley’s given name when he wished to focus Poley’s considerable intellect on something of crucial importance. Poley knew it. ‘I have overlooked something?’ But there was just too much surprise in his dark, rich tones.
‘I doubt it, but allow me to expound. There is still one aspect undiscussed – a crucial aspect, I would say. For who was it that ravished Lady Margaret all those years ago? Who is the father that dare not own his child? Who, because of that, can never lay his hands upon the fortune that his bastard son stands heir to, though he is desperate for money and would go to any lengths...’
‘The Earl of Essex,’ admitted Poley, naming his master’s greatest enemy at Court – his own greatest enemy, therefore; and Tom’s, come to that. ‘Lord Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex.’ His tone was that of a satisfied man and Tom saw at last exactly how Poley had been playing with him: distracting him by teasing Ben Jonson while subtly guiding the Master of Logic into the very position in which he found himself now; ensuring that he must take action – at a speed and with a purpose that suited Poley and his ever-murky ends.
‘The Earl of Essex – who, you and your masters fear, would have the apparently disinterested goodness to step in and look after the child should any harm befall his sadly damaged mother?’
‘Exactly,’ admitted Poley.
‘Who may well have, therefore, a very lively interest in seeing that some harm certainly does befall her? For he will by that one single stroke find himself master of one of the vastest fortunes in the country, two of the largest houses in London and two of the most important castles in the kingdom – Cotehel, if my memory serves, famously strengthened and armed by Henry himself over the matter of the French wars fifty years since, and further armed by Her Majesty since the Armada.’
Poley was silent for an instant. Then he said, ‘Oddly enough, I have some passes here to hand. The very things you need, I think though of course it would be madness to set forth tonight, even were you able to get past the Watch and over the river to your Bailiff’s jurisdiction.’
‘Marry, well thought on. I shall need a pass for Talbot; and, as we are bound for one of the greatest and most historic stone edifices in the South of Merry England...’
‘One for the bricklayer. Of course. I had not foreseen the bricklayer. But that will take until the morning.’
‘Until the morning, then. We have little choice in any case. But early.’
Seven: Elfinstone
‘It belies its name,’ observed Ben cheerfully, swaggering
in Tom’s footsteps some few minutes after dawn next day.
‘What does?’ Tom was wrapped in thought – with much to think about, not least the implications of finding that his self-appointed apprentice had not gone home to Islington last night after all, but had crept into Tom’s doorway in Black Friars and slept there, lucky to avoid the Watch’s notice and that of the cloaked killer, who might well still be lingering nearby.
‘Hog Lane,’ said Ben simply.
Indeed it did belie its name, thought Tom. He had never really considered it before, but the thoroughfare upon which Poley partook of bed and board with Master and Mistress Yeomans belied its name in truth; and, when a man considered it, it belied its function as well. Hog Lane – it sounded innocent enough, like the veriest foetid kennel designed to join a pig-farm to a butchers’ shambles. Instead it was the nearest and fairest of roadways just outside the City, north of the Hound’s Ditch, which lay like a moat along the northern wall – and one of the busiest. It opened on the right hand out of Bishopsgate Street, north of Bishops’ Gate, just north of Bedlam, the Hospital for Madmen. And for Madwomen, thought Tom grimly, remembering who had written the letter that had started all this.
The main path of the lane, which they followed now, meandered through the fair meadows that rolled away past the big, busy artillery yard behind St Mary’s Spital towards the Butts in Spital’s Field itself. This was one of the open areas where every hale city-dweller must come to practise archery – and such martial arts as would keep the warlike Spanish at bay – by law, on Sundays. Here, where Hog Lane ran roughly parallel to London Wall, the solid, spacious houses stood, innocently enough, amid garden plots a-glitter with dew and fragrant with spring flowers – and separated the vital artillery yard from the great gun foundry that supplied it. What a convenient place, thought Tom, for a spy and spy-master to be lodged.