by S. J. Parris
‘There is no accounting for women’s likes,’ I say, picturing Douglas’s three-day growth of silvered stubble and his belches. Fowler rolls his eyes and nods wholeheartedly, as people step around us. ‘What’s the story about the pie?’
‘Ah, you had better have that from the horse’s mouth.’ He grins. ‘Only Douglas can give that tale the savour it deserves. I’m sure your chance will come. Well – we shall meet again soon, Bruno. Meanwhile, bring me word if any Spanish envoy sets foot in Salisbury Court. Good luck.’ He nods briefly, turns on his heel and is swallowed into the colourful jostling crowds.
The sun has sunk lower over the rooftops as evening eases in, washing London in forgiving amber light that flashes from window panes as I make my way home through the city. On a day such as this, I begin to think I could perhaps learn to feel at home here. Above me, a riot of painted signs creak gently in the breeze, emblazoned with bright pictures proclaiming apothecaries, chandlers, barber-surgeons, merchants of cloth and wine and taverns named for animals of every kind and hue – black swans, blue boars, red foxes, white harts, hounds, hares, cocks and even unicorns. At each side of the thoroughfare a steady stream of people press by: street vendors crying their wares, men with cages of squawking chickens swinging from poles across their shoulders, women with baskets of oranges balanced on their heads and pedlars with wooden trays fastened around their necks full of all kinds of oddities – combs, quills, buttons, brushes and knives, sometimes all jumbled together. In the vast churchyard of St Paul’s, which is more like a marketplace, beggar children thread barefoot through the crowds, importuning the better-dressed ladies and gentlemen, while on one corner a ragged man stands playing a battered old lute and singing a forlorn song, hoping to be thrown a few coins. The smell of cooking meat fights with the stink of rotting refuse, and the richer sort hold pomanders and posies of flowers close to their noses to keep the vapours at bay.
As I cross the courtyard, past where the former shrines and chapels are now fallen into disrepair or turned into stalls for booksellers and traders, a pamphlet-seller steps in front of me, thrusting his wares in my face. I almost dismiss him, but the image on the front of his pamphlet catches my eye and I take one to look more closely. Here, again, are the symbols of Jupiter and Saturn conjoined, beneath a bold title: End of Days? The fellow selling it holds out a hand for his penny, his fingers waggling impatiently. He has his hood up, despite the sun; a wise precaution, since I can see at a glance that neither the printer nor the author has dared put his name to this piece of work, meaning that it is printed illegally. Intrigued, I scrabble for a coin and walk away, bumping into people as I read the thing. The anonymous author writes with a doom-mongering tone: he has attempted to cast the queen’s horoscope from her nativity and tie his dramatic predictions to the coming of the Fiery Trigon, the terrifying alignment of the great planets whose symbols decorate the front. Queen Elizabeth’s days are numbered, he writes; God will smite England with war and famine and her disobedient subjects will cry out for a saviour. Inside, there is a woodcut of a devil prodding a man with a pitchfork. I tuck the pamphlet into my jerkin to save for Walsingham, though I imagine if he has not already seen it, he soon will.
* * *
I have barely closed the front door behind me at Salisbury Court when Courcelles materialises out of the shadows beside the staircase, as if he has been waiting for my arrival.
‘There is a boy here says he has a letter for you,’ he announces, resting one delicate white hand on the carved wooden eagle that decorates the end of the banister. ‘He has been here the best part of the afternoon and, try as we might, we could not persuade him to leave it for you, not even for a shilling. Nor will he tell us who sent him. He says his instructions are to put it into your hands alone and it was a most urgent and confidential matter.’ His fine eyebrows arch gracefully as he says this; evidently he expects me to offer some explanation.
‘Then I had better see him,’ I reply evenly, though my pulse quickens. I think first of Walsingham, then Sidney, then Dee; any one of them might want to contact me as a matter of urgency, but Walsingham would surely not arouse suspicion by sending an obviously secretive message directly to the embassy, and Sidney is still on his honeymoon, as far as I know. That leaves Dee, and my gut clenches; has Ned Kelley done something to him?
Courcelles presses his lips together and points me in the direction of the stables at the side of the house. There I find a skinny boy of about twelve years old sitting miserably on a straw bale, picking at his fingernails while the stable hands jeer at him in French. He shows signs of having been in a scuffle.
‘I am Bruno. You have something for me?’
He leaps to his feet as if stung, and pulls a crumpled letter out from inside his jacket. He wears no livery but he is not poorly dressed. He beckons me closer and passes me the letter as if it contained secret intelligence.
‘From Abigail Morley.’ His voice is barely a whisper. ‘She said I must only put it in your hands, sir, though they tried to take it from me.’ He glances resentfully at the stable boys, who twist awkwardly and look away.
‘You did well.’ I find a coin for his trouble and see him out of the side gate, before pausing in a pool of shadow, away from curious eyes, to tear open the letter. It is written in an elegant, curling hand; Abigail asks me to meet her tomorrow at eleven in the morning at the Holbein Gate, Whitehall. She says she is afraid.
Chapter Five
Whitehall Palace, London
28th September, Year of Our Lord 1583
Another morning of empty blue skies and warm light; I take a wherry upriver to Whitehall, landing at Westminster Stairs, the nearest public jetty to the palace. The River Thames is wide and calm, jewelled with reflections of the sun and white ripples where the breeze ruffles the water’s surface, and I lean back in the boat as the oarsman heaves his way through the flotilla of small craft transporting goods and passengers up and down London or eastwards, out towards the docks.
From the stairs I walk back up King Street past the boundary walls of the palace to the Holbein Gate, a vast, imposing structure that spans the main thoroughfare out of London to the west, joining the sprawling privy apartments and state chambers of Whitehall with the tiltyard and the park of St James on the other side. Three storeys of red brickwork and white stone, with an octagonal tower at each corner in the English style, and grand rooms above the main archway, the gatehouse is patrolled by palace guards and always densely crowded, as all travellers on the road must be funnelled through it to pass in either direction. Abigail has chosen wisely; often the best place to pass unobserved is in a crowd.
From somewhere nearby a church bell chimes the hour of eleven and I wait, hesitant, by the passageway through the eastern tower of the gatehouse, which is reserved for those on foot. Through the central archway, carts pulled by horses or mules churn up clouds of dust from the dry road as traders bring their goods into the palace or on towards the city. People bustle past with bundles or packs and I press myself back against the wall, out of the way; suddenly an old woman with no teeth thrusts a filthy hand into my face, demanding money or food and I jump back, startled. I know from experience that if I reach for a penny, a hundred more beggars will stream in an instant from the shadows with their hands out, but there is such desperation in her face that I cannot refuse; she folds her fingers with their swollen joints painfully around the coin I slip into her palm, clutches at my jacket and pulls me towards her.
‘When hempe is spun, England’s done,’ she croaks into my face, so that I have to reel back from her stinking breath. ‘Take heed, sir. The signs are all about us.’ She points one trembling, crooked finger to the sky, then releases me and scuttles back into the crowd.
I stare after her, puzzling over her words, when another figure wrapped in a thin cloak approaches and guiltily I regret my generosity; here they come already, and I don’t have enough coins to part with them all. But this woman sidles up to me, reaching inside her clo
thes, and from the depths of her hood whispers my name in an educated voice.
‘Abigail!’
‘Shh. We must not be seen. Walk with me into the passage for a moment.’
We step into the shadow of the tower archway; immediately the deep chill of damp stone settles on my skin. The passage through the tower is not wide and we are jostled and shoved, with the occasional curse, as we huddle at one side. Abigail keeps her hood pulled up around her face.
‘They have the wrong man,’ she whispers, without preamble. ‘I didn’t know who else to tell.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because Sir Edward Bellamy tried to court me once, and we laughed about it – I mean, Cecily and I. It was cruel of us, but he is such a poor figure of a man. No woman would want him, for all his lands, unless she were past caring.’ She rubs self-consciously at her throat as she says this. ‘But Sir Edward is a gentleman and does not deserve to have this pinned on him. He was not her secret sweetheart, I would swear to it.’
‘But her lover was not necessarily her killer. It need only have been someone who knew she had a tryst that evening. The lover could have been one of Sir Edward’s friends, perhaps?’
The bottom half of her face is visible below the hood; she chews her lip doubtfully.
‘I just do not believe he could kill anyone, or be party to it. He is so mild-mannered.’
‘Quiet men have murdered before.’
She shakes her head decisively.
‘It doesn’t feel right. He sold Cecily his old clothes so she could disguise herself as a boy – that much I believe. But I think the palace guard were just glad to make an easy arrest so the queen will think they are doing their job. Anyway, I did not ask you here for that. There is something else.’
She beckons me closer and from inside her cloak draws out a little velvet bag tied at the top with ribbon.
‘Lady Seaton went through Cecily’s things to give her father when he came.’ She speaks so low that her face is almost touching mine to make herself heard. Her breath is warm on my cheek. ‘But I suspected she was looking for something that might give away Cecily’s affair. She found nothing. She didn’t know about the cushion.’
‘What cushion?’
‘It was one of Cecily’s most beloved things – a little cushion that she embroidered as a child. A bible text, flowers, you know the sort of thing. She kept it on her bed – I thought it was just a sentimental keepsake, for when she was homesick, but one day she showed me how she would unpick the seam and hide her secret gifts inside the cushion cover.’
She holds out the bag; I weigh it in my hand. It is light and chinks softly as I move it.
‘These are the presents from her admirer, everything she had sewn inside the cushion. I don’t know what use they may be – I can see no clue in them, but perhaps you might find something. Especially since everyone seems determined to find Sir Edward guilty – it would be a terrible thing if he were to take the punishment for it.’ She tugs at my sleeve, and there is something childlike in the gesture. ‘There is a design on the ring, an emblem. It is not the Bellamy arms, though it is no one’s I recognise. But you could give it to Lord Burghley – he might know.’
‘He might. Have you told anyone else about these things?’
She bites her lip and looks away, but then she shakes her head firmly. Again I have the sense that she is holding something back.
‘I almost did when they arrested Sir Edward, but I could not approach Lord Burghley myself. Besides, I remembered what you said. If the killer is someone inside the court, he might know that Cecily was my friend, might he not? So he might think she had told me her secrets and want to stop my mouth too?’ She raises her face to me and in the dim light I see how pale she is, how her lips are trembling, though she tries to fight it.
‘You are brave to have brought me Cecily’s things – thank you. I have no doubt that they will be invaluable.’ I place my hands on her small shoulders to reassure her. ‘As for the danger, I think it more likely that this killer, if it is not Sir Edward, will be glad to let another man take the blame and remain in the shadows. Why would he risk drawing attention to himself with another attack when he has the chance to get away with murder?’
‘I suppose that would depend upon why he killed Cecily in the first place,’ she says, sensibly. ‘I mean, a man might kill a woman because she is with child and he doesn’t want to marry her – you hear such stories. There was a great deal of that kind of talk at first around court. But that spectacle he made of her body –’ she shudders – ‘makes me think it must be something else. What if he killed her because she knew something she should not? He would want to silence her friends then, sir, would he not, in case she had shared confidences?’
Looking down at her earnest face, I begin to think that I have underestimated Abigail Morley. These have been my own thoughts; I have even wondered about Lady Seaton, whether her defensive manner on the night of the murder was all to do with the fear of salacious gossip, or whether it masked another motive. I squeeze the girl’s shoulders gently.
‘Why do you say that? Did Cecily give you reason to think she was guarding dangerous secrets?’
‘It was only that –’ she hesitates, glances around – ‘since she met this man, she had begun to talk a lot of prophecies.’
‘What kind of prophecies?’
‘Oh, you know the kind of thing, they’re two a penny – that the queen’s days are numbered, that England will be destroyed. You hear such stuff on every street.’
‘I heard one just now, I think, from an old crone. “When hempe is spun, England’s done.”’
Abigail nods enthusiastically.
‘That is a favourite among the servants. You know what it means, of course?’ She drops her voice. ‘It’s the Tudor line. Hempe stands for Henry, Edward, Mary and Philip, and Elizabeth. The old granddams quote it to predict England’s downfall when the last Tudor dies. Cecily knew them all.’
‘But she only showed an interest in such things recently?’
‘This past month or so. I wondered what ideas this man had been putting in her head. I would tell her, “Cecily, some of these things you’re saying could be treason!” She just laughed at that, as if she didn’t care, and told me everyone was talking of it.’
‘Did she mention religion? Or who she thought should take the throne instead?’
‘No, nothing like that. It was more of a personal resentment,’ Abigail adds, then claps a hand to her mouth. ‘I don’t know if I should tell you this.’
‘Abigail.’ I look her directly in the eyes. ‘It would be as well to tell me anything that might help. Why did she resent the queen?’
‘When Cecily first came up to court, last year,’ she whispers, drawing in closer to me as a group of boys in the garb of apprentices elbow their way past, ‘she had a sweetheart from home, some gentleman’s son she’d known since she was a child. He got himself to London in the hope of seeing her, but when Lady Seaton heard of it she told the queen and they had him turned away. Cecily was forbidden even to write to him. He wasn’t high-born, you see. She forgot him quickly enough, but she didn’t forget her resentment of the queen for it. And she was afraid the queen might interfere with this new man as well.’ Her eyes flit from side to side. ‘For being too high-born for her.’
I cannot help but laugh at this.
‘I had no idea love was so minutely calibrated. Must you all measure your husbands’ status so carefully?’
She giggles, sounding for a moment light-hearted.
‘I may not choose my husband for love, but I shall make damned sure I choose my lover carefully. What? Would you look so shocked?’ she adds, in response to my expression, which makes her giggle all the more. ‘No need to be such a prude, even if you were once a monk.’
‘Are you going to stand there blocking the way all day, then?’ grumbles a heavy-set man in a coarse smock as he lumbers past, knocking Abigail hard enough that she stumbles into m
y arms as I try to stop her falling. Startled, she regains her balance and brushes herself down as we look at one another, then quickly glance away.
‘I should probably –’ she says, gesturing back towards the palace wall.
‘Yes. But take care, Abigail. Make sure you do not go about the palace alone. Someone at court knows who killed Cecily and why, and you are right – he may be watching you. Be wary about who you trust.’
‘It is hard to know who to trust at court after this.’ She laughs, a nervous, high-pitched sound, her fingers twisting at the strings of her cloak. ‘I mean, how do I even know that I can trust you?’
‘You can trust me, Abigail. I have no pledge to give except my word.’ Gripping her shoulders a little tighter, I make her look into my eyes. She searches them with her pale green gaze, and eventually she nods.
‘Yes – it is odd, for all the women say never trust foreign men, especially those from Spain or Italy. But I feel I can trust you. Will you let me know if you learn anything more? It would help me to feel safer.’
I am about to promise, when two young dandies in puffed satin push roughly by us, this time jostling Abigail into the wall.
‘Hey! Watch yourselves!’ I call after them; the shorter of the two, who wears a scarlet cap with a peacock feather, turns at my accent.
‘Do you speak to me, you Spanish whoreson?’ He pauses, spits on the ground and seems about to come back for me, but his friend restrains him, and with a last filthy look, they resume their walk.
‘Fools,’ I mutter, though I am grateful that they were not spoiling for a fight in the street. ‘Thank you for trusting me. And, Abigail – you must let me know if you remember anything more that Cecily told you. It could be essential.’