by Jane Feather
Mary leaned forward and took her hand in both of hers, drawing her closer to her chair. “My child, I would be pleased to accept your service. We spend much of our time in prayer.” She looked at Paulet. “Is there anything else, Sir Amyas?”
Paulet bowed. “No, madam. Nothing.” He turned and left.
Outside, Thomas Walsingham waited for him. “Well, did she accept her?”
“Your sister is quite the actor,” Amyas said. “Rarely have I seen a more accomplished performance. Sir Francis must have trained her well.”
“To my knowledge he hasn’t trained her at all. But our master has an uncanny ability for picking his tools. He has agents the length and breadth of Europe convincing Catholics that they are among friends, only to bring them down.”
“Well, your sister convinced Mary in short order. Now she is in, we have to see what she can discover.”
Chapter Twenty-two
KIT MARLOWE SLUMPED in a drinking booth of the Black Bull tavern at Barnard’s Inn regarding his companion through narrowed eyes. John Savage was clearly nervous, twisting his fingers into knots as he talked.
“I wait only word from Father Ballard before I honor my pledge. I told Gifford as much. I do not mean to renege. I made a vow and I will honor it.”
“How do you mean to do it?” Kit reached for his wine cup. “The queen is much guarded when she goes abroad.”
Savage sucked in his lower lip. “A present of jeweled gloves. It is well-known how the queen loves to receive gifts, the richer the better. Her vanity and her avarice are thus both fed. These gloves, beautiful on the outside, will conceal a serpent’s tooth, a particular venom that once it touches the skin works instantly and irrevocably.”
“A method worthy of a Medici or a Borgia,” Kit said, savoring the idea. It could serve well as a plot device in a play one day. “How do you lay hands on this venom?”
Savage shook his head. “I dare not say, not even to you. But I have it in my possession and I wait only Father Ballard’s word to honor my pledge.”
Kit drained his cup and stood up. “Well, that is good enough for me. Father Ballard is expected any day now. If he brings good tidings, you should get your word soon enough.” He raised a hand in farewell and strode away, leaving John Savage to his own thoughts.
Kit stepped out into the muggy heat of a late-June day. The stench of a dead cat in the kennel made him want to retch for a moment, and he thrust his handkerchief to his nose as he untethered his horse from the hitching post outside the tavern. He did not like this work that he was doing for Master Secretary. It had something of the stench of the rotting cat about it. Urging men on to commit an act that would ensure them a traitor’s death sat ill in his belly, and if he could have found a way out of the web, he would have taken it without a backward glance for the payments lost.
He mounted and rode towards the river. He needed to get out of the city for a spell, and the cool freshness of Scadbury beckoned. Thomas had given him carte blanche to use the house whenever it suited him, for work or play, and today he had need of such refreshment.
It was an easy ride to Scadbury once he had made the river crossing and he arrived in late afternoon. The first person he saw was Ingram Frizer, lounging against the trunk of an oak tree just inside the gates. Kit loathed Frizer and the feeling was clearly mutual. But there was some compensation. Wherever Frizer was, Thomas was not far away.
“So Master Marlowe, what brings you here?” Frizer’s voice had a nasal whine and was as unpleasant to hear as his appearance was unsavory. “The prospect of a frolic in the hay?”
Kit controlled his temper with difficulty. He knew Thomas thought highly of Frizer, knew that Frizer managed details of Thomas’s personal affairs that were better not asked about. As a result, on Thomas’s ground Frizer must be permitted his insolence unmolested. He rode past the man, drawing his horse aside with a fastidious air, and cantered up the drive to the house, the man’s sardonic chuckle grating in his wake.
He found Thomas on the terrace, whittling a piece of wood with apparent absorption. Thomas looked up as Kit rode to the bottom of the steps leading to the terrace and smiled a wide smile of greeting.
“You are well come, Kit.” He stood up, tossing the piece of wood aside. “Indeed, I was thinking of you just a few minutes ago.” He came down the steps as Kit dismounted. “It has been too long since you were last here.” He linked an arm in Kit’s. “Let us go in. Someone will see to your horse.”
The two went inside and upstairs, and the sound of the slamming door to Thomas’s bedchamber echoed through the quiet house. Ingram Frizer stood in the hall and heard the sound. His expression was hard to read as he turned on his heel and left the house.
An hour later Thomas rolled onto his back, dabbing at his damp chest with the crumpled sheet. “Ah, I have missed that.”
“I too.” Kit stood up, stretching his thin frame. “Where have you been these last two weeks?”
“In the north. I had to escort Rosamund to Chartley. She has joined Mary’s ladies in imprisonment.”
Kit stared at him. “Rosamund is dragged into Walsingham’s net too?”
“Rather she swam into it.” Thomas sat up on the bed. “The wretched girl lost her virginity at some point. Sir Francis says it was last summer at Scadbury, but I don’t believe it. However, that is the story and must not be questioned. The queen discovered she was no longer virgin and banished her. Master Secretary put the situation to good use as is his wont.”
“I am sorry for it,” Kit said slowly, reaching for his shirt. “She is too young to be so corrupted by Walsingham’s machinations.”
Thomas shrugged. “We are all grist to his mill, beloved. And mayhap he will find her a husband, spoiled virgin or no, if she does his work well.”
“Savage wants to know how soon he can expect the word from Ballard.” Kit laced his trunk hose.
“Soon enough. A week ago we intercepted a letter to Mary from Morgan in Paris advising her to make contact with Anthony Babington. He grows more committed by the day according to Will Creighton. We hope he will write to her himself, telling her of the efforts being made on her behalf. If she commits herself in writing, then . . .” Thomas shrugged eloquently. “Why, then we shall see what we shall see.”
“I like it not.” Kit stood at the window, gazing out at the sunbathed fields around Scadbury.
“Then keep it to yourself.” Thomas came up behind him, running a lascivious hand over his buttocks.
Kit turned with a smile into his lover’s embrace.
At Chartley the long summer days passed in a tedium broken only by the Friday high spot when the brewer exchanged the empty ale kegs for full ones. Mary’s excitement was palpable as she waited to see if there was a letter in the keg, and her anxiety as she waited for the following Friday when she could send off her own response was pathetic.
One Friday morning she emerged from her bedchamber with a sealed parchment. “Rosamund, I have a letter for the empty beer keg before the brewer arrives with a new delivery. Will you take it for me?” She reached into the little netted purse at her waist and drew out the leather pouch, carefully inserting the letter into its drawstring neck.
“Of course, madam.” Rosamund took the pouch and slipped it into her bodice. It had become her duty almost by default to act as postman, and the task facilitated her own need to pass on her own reports. Mary’s secretary, Claude de Nau, had visited the previous evening, and Rosamund had faithfully recorded the conversation between them. De Nau had talked of a Father John Ballard, an outlawed priest who had secretly landed from France in a small fishing village in Cornwall. He was gathering together a group of passionate Catholic supporters. Two of them were law students at the Inns of Court. The names Gifford and Savage had been mentioned.
Rosamund had no idea whether this information was new to Sir Francis, but he would want to know what Mary knew of the plots being hatched on her behalf. She hurried to the buttery and removed the bung from t
he empty keg. She opened the pouch containing Mary’s letter and slipped her own folded sheets inside together with Mary’s, then inserted the pouch into the space below the bung. She pushed the bung in tightly and returned to Mary’s side, taking up her rosary to murmur the now familiar prayers.
An hour later they heard the sounds of the brewer’s dray on the cobbles outside, the rolling rattle of the full kegs on the cobbles. The empty kegs sounded light as they were rolled out to the dray. And the brewer’s horse clopped on iron hooves out of the yard.
Phelippes or some other agent of Walsingham’s would read Mary’s letter and Rosamund’s reports. Hers would go on to Sir Francis, and Mary’s to its intended destination, its contents no longer a secret.
“Hurry and check the fresh keg, Rosamund.” Mary was pacing her chamber, her eyes febrile with anticipation. “Don’t forget it will be the one with a cross on the side. I am certain there will be something today. I feel it in my bones.”
Rosamund took two jugs from the kitchen and crossed the yard to the buttery. It was deserted, as she had hoped. Four full kegs stood against the far wall. Rosamund examined them, looking for the cross with which the brewer marked Mary’s keg for identification. She prized up the bung from the top and felt inside. Her fingers encountered a leather pouch identical to the one she had inserted earlier in the empty keg. She drew it out rapidly, slipping it inside her bodice, then she filled her jugs with ale and sauntered back across the yard to the outbuildings.
Mary was waiting for her, her impatience visible in every line of her tall, thin body. “Well?”
“There is something, madam.” Rosamund handed her the leather pouch, then bent to stroke the terrier, who had greeted her return with a wet nose pressed against her leg.
Mary almost snatched the pouch from her, her fingers shaking as she opened the drawstring and took out the closely written sheet. She sat down, drawing the candle close, and began to read. “Oh, ’tis from Master Babington.” Her eyes moved rapidly along the lines, and when she had finished, she leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes briefly. “It is to be done,” she said quietly. “Finally, may God be praised, it is to be done.”
“What is that, madam? What is to be done?” Charlotte leaned close as if to hear secrets.
“Why an invasion, Charlotte. My cousin the Duc de Guise, together with Philip of Spain, has prepared a joint invasion force.” Mary smiled, a rare thing these days. “I knew I could rely on the Holy League in the end. For my mother’s sake if not for mine.”
Her mother had been a Guise, and her cousin Henri de Lorraine, the third Duc de Guise, had formed the alliance of the Holy League with Philip II of Spain, the pope, the Catholic nobility of France, and the powerful Parlement of Paris, which brought the full weight of the Catholic Church in France to bear. The league was a vital counterweight to King Henry III of France should he renege on his promise to continue the persecution of the Huguenots. If the king stayed true, then he could count on the support, both military and diplomatic, of the immensely powerful Guise family. Should he fail, he would find himself in armed conflict with the most powerful and influential families in France.
“How is it to be done, madam?” Rosamund asked the question when it seemed Mary’s reverie would continue unbroken.
Mary seemed visibly to shake herself back to reality. “Master Babington says that he and his fellows are preparing the ports to receive the invasion, supplying them with a strong cadre to join with the invaders when they land. After they land, I am to be delivered from this captivity.” She fell silent, a shadow passing over her previously radiant countenance.
“And what then, madam?”
Mary sat up straighter and took up the letter again, reading aloud. “He writes of the dispatch of the usurping competitor, Elizabeth, by six noble gentlemen, all private friends of his, who for the zeal they bear to the Catholic cause and to my service will undertake . . .” She paused as if finding the words hard to form. Then she continued with resolution, “Will undertake that tragical execution.”
She let the letter fall into her lap, from where it fluttered to the floor. “I would wish the last was not necessary.” She closed her eyes again.
Rosamund bent to pick up the letter. Sir Francis’s interest in Babington was now explained, as was Will Creighton’s friendship with Anthony Babington. Will was presumably acting on Master Secretary’s orders. Was there anyone she knew not playing on Sir Francis’s stage?
She glanced down at the letter in her hand. It was addressed to My dread Sovereign Lady and Queen, unto whom only I owe all fidelity and obedience. Her eye skimmed the page, and two lines jumped out at her, lines that Mary had not read aloud. Forasmuch as delay is extremely dangerous, it may please your most excellent Majesty to direct us, and by your princely authority to enable such as may advance us.
Sir Francis would know the contents of this letter. It would have been read by Phelippes before the brewer inserted it into the keg. And they would be waiting now for Mary’s response.
“What will you reply, madam?” Rosamund laid the letter carefully on the table beside Mary.
“I do not know as yet, Rosamund.” Mary took up the letter again. “I must consider very carefully. It is not possible to overestimate how much is at stake.”
Jaunty pennants flew from the colorful tents dotting the vast stretch of lawn leading to the river at Hampton Court. The queen sat on a dais, beneath the shade of an awning, her household around her. She was leaning forward slightly, her expression rapt as she watched the two jousting knights in the lists below the dais. It was all in play, of course, on this hot summer day, but the ferocity of competition was still in the charge as the knights rode at each other, lances poised. The clash of lance on shield seemed to make the air shiver, and the crowd roared its approval as they turned, took fresh lances from their squires, and prepared for a second sally.
Agathe fanned herself as she watched, aware of a tight knot in her breastbone. Arnaud, sitting his horse at the far end of the field, was measuring up his opponent. Nothing in his bearing indicated tension, indeed he appeared almost nonchalant as he weighed the lance in his hand and waited for the trumpet call that would start the charge. But she was troubled nevertheless. A suppressed tension had been about him ever since the banishment of the Walsingham girl. A pent-up energy belied by his customary languid grace, and she could only think that his feelings for the girl had run deeper than she had thought. He had given her the impression that he wanted a toy, a virgin to seduce, and she had gone along with it, not because she approved of his game, but because she had never yet refused him anything.
The trumpet sounded the challenge and Arnaud glanced once towards the stands. Agathe waved a scarlet ribbon in encouragement. He was too far away for her to see if he acknowledged her gesture, but then he dropped his visor and his horse leaped forwards. His opponent, young Lord Morganston, gave an exultant cry as he galloped, his lance held high. Arnaud’s glossy black charger reared at the first clash of lances, then wheeled and charged again. Arnaud, his mouth twisted in a grimace of ferocious determination, drove his lance into the youth’s shield, the full force of his body behind the thrust, his horse shivering beneath him with the power of the impact, and Lord Morganston fell from his saddle in an awkward tangle. His foot was caught in the stirrup, and as his horse pranced in distress, he bounced helplessly over the ground.
Men rushed onto the field, seizing the reins, calming the horse while they released the rider. Morganston lay in an armored heap on the dry ground, unmoving. Arnaud turned his horse back to the tent pavilion, his face impassive beneath his visor.
Agathe gazed in horror. She had been afraid of this, afraid that that suppressed energy would break loose and Arnaud would forget the essential fact that this tourney was a mock battle. No one was supposed to be hurt, it was all for show. The challengers were displaying their skill and grace, not their ability to unhorse or injure their opponents.
She looked at the queen a
nd her heart sank. Elizabeth had risen from her chair and was leaving the dais with an expression of disgust on her rouged and powdered countenance. Her household were gathering themselves to follow her.
Roger Askew rode up the driveway of a half-timbered manor house in Barn Elms some miles to the south of London. It was a hot July afternoon and he was glad to be free of the stench and heat of the city for a few hours. He dismounted at the front door, handing his horse to a lad who came running from the stables at the side of the house, and banged the great brass knocker.
The servant who opened the door led him across the stone-flagged hallway and through a wainscoted parlor and out onto a terrace at the rear of the house. Sir Francis Walsingham was pruning rosebushes along the edge of the terrace. He looked up and a smile of pleasure creased his ordinarily severe countenance.
“Roger. You are well come indeed. Ursula will be pleased to see you. She and Frances are deciphering Philip’s latest letter from Flushing. The man’s script leaves much to be desired.” He set aside his secateurs and shook his friend’s hand vigorously. “Before we go to the ladies, I would have speech with you.”
“Gladly.” Roger looked around at the mellow stone and timber of the house, the sweep of lawn leading down to the gently ambling Thames, the vibrant rosebushes. “In truth, Francis, I have long envied you this patch of heaven. After Seething Lane it must bring sweet relief.”
“It does. Unfortunately I have few opportunities to indulge these days. Her majesty’s affairs keep me in Seething Lane. However, since the queen is disporting herself at Hampton Court, I thought to take a few days of peace myself . . . let us stroll to the river if you’ve a mind to.”
“Gladly.” The two men walked across the lawn and down to the riverbank. Walsingham’s barge was moored at the water steps, and a stone bench beneath a weeping willow on the bank offered a haven from the hot sun.
“I am much troubled in my mind, my friend.” Walsingham sat down, stretching his legs in front of him. Roger Askew was one of the very few people he trusted with more than the bare bones of his thoughts, his plans, his fears, and his hopes. “This conspiracy to liberate the Scots queen from captivity comes to a head. The plans are laid, and Mary has been informed of them and asked to give them her blessing. Once she has put her signature to the paper, then we will have her.”