by S. J. Parris
‘Your good health, Doctor Bruno. I am glad we finally have the chance to talk. I have heard glowing reports of you from our mutual friend.’ He arches his eyebrow to indicate the secrecy that binds us.
‘Likewise, Master Fowler.’ I clink the pot briefly with his. He gives a curt nod, indicating the table with his eyes, and slides one hand underneath it on to his lap. It takes me a moment to understand him; feeling a little foolish, I draw from inside my doublet the copies of Castelnau’s letters lately made at the house of Thomas Phelippes and slip them across my lap into Fowler’s waiting palm. With practised fingers, he tucks them deftly away inside his clothes and wraps both hands around his tankard of beer. I glance briefly over my shoulder around the tavern, but the exchange appears to have gone unnoticed.
‘Thank you. I shall take these back to Whitehall this afternoon,’ he murmurs, barely audible.
‘May I ask you something?’
‘Please.’ He opens his hands in a welcoming gesture.
‘What exactly do you do at court?’
For the first time, he laughs, and his face relaxes. His fringe falls across his forehead again as he dips his head and he pushes it back, revealing keen blue eyes.
‘I make myself useful. You know how it works at the English court - the same as anywhere else, I suppose. Noblemen send their sons to recommend themselves to the queen in the hope of advancement. The difficulty is that there is only one queen and dozens of hopeful courtiers all chasing her favour.’ He pauses to take a draught. ‘So you end up with a lot of young gentlemen who have nothing to do all day but hang about the galleries and halls in the hope that the queen might pass by at some point and take notice of them. In the meantime, there is ample opportunity for them to gamble away their fathers’ money, or trap themselves in a hasty marriage because they’ve got some girl with child, or bluster their way into dangerous duels. And when they find themselves in trouble, they are often too afraid or ashamed to ask their fathers for help.’
‘Which is where you come in.’
‘Which is where I come in. They are very inexperienced in the world, some of these young lads, and often lonely - they want advice and someone to listen. And I have good connections in the City - I know lawyers who can make unwanted marriage contracts go away, find solutions to bad debts, that kind of thing. People who can arrange loans discreetly. This way, I learn everybody’s business around the court, their affairs, their complaints, their alliances, sometimes even the state of their souls. All those snippets of information that interest our mutual friend.’
‘I can see how that would be useful. And they trust you, these courtiers?’
‘They are grateful to me. I am known to keep a confidence. But I suspect at least half of them don’t even remember my Christian name, which is all to the good.’
I regard him with interest. His face is beardless, his hair mid-brown and his skin pale. Only his eyes are particularly memorable; they burn with an intense light, sharp and alert. With his soft manners, he melts easily into the back ground, the ideal observer. I begin to understand his value to Walsingham.
‘But with all the confidences that come your way, you heard nothing to make you suspect this Sir Edward before he was arrested?’ I ask, keeping my voice low.
‘He was one who lived quietly. He always seemed a gentle sort.’ Fowler looks perplexed for a moment, then drains his pot and raises a hand for more beer.
‘Do they suspect a religious motive for the killing?’
‘I know no more than I have told you. Apparently he has a cousin who was once fined for refusing to attend church, but then most families have one of those. Edward Bellamy was not among those suspected of dangerous papist leanings, if that’s what you mean. But I dare say they will get a confession from him in the Tower, one way or another. They will want this business wrapped up quickly so the queen may sleep easy in her bed.’
His fingers curl slowly into a fist and stretch out again as he says this; I wince. It is better not to think about what they do in the Tower. In the summer I saw a prisoner after the interrogators had finished with him; death would have come as a blessing. This thought triggers another memory.
‘Is he a handsome man, this Sir Edward?’ I ask, as the serving girl reappears with her jug. Fowler looks surprised, and amused.
‘I can’t say I’ve considered him in those terms. It’s not how I usually assess young men.’
‘Nor I,’ I add hastily. ‘I only wondered - you know: if he had seduced the girl or forced her.’
Fowler is still looking at me with a curious expression.
‘Now that you mention it - I don’t suppose he would be accounted handsome to women. He has a slight disfigurement - what we call in English a hare lip - and he is rather sickly looking. Not that a spell in the Tower will do much for his looks, either.’ He picks up his beer and we consider this in silence for a moment. Then he leans in closer. ‘But we must concentrate on our own business. Any further news from the embassy, besides these?’ He pats his breast, where he has tucked the letters inside his doublet.
‘Nothing much since last night.’
Leon Dumas and I had walked to Thomas Phelippes’s house after dinner with the packet for Throckmorton to take to Sheffield Castle, Dumas fretting and griping the whole way and continuing to do so all the while Phelippes was expertly removing the seals from Castelnau’s letters to Mary so that we could make our own copies for Fowler to pass on to Walsingham. To my eyes the resealed letters bore no trace of having been intercepted, but Dumas was almost feverish with anxiety when he set off again to Paul’s Wharf to make his delivery; I had to buy him a drink and wait for him to calm down before I was willing to send him on his way.
‘Turn up on his doorstep in this state and you may as well hang a sign around your neck saying “I’ve given all these to the Privy Council first”,’ I told him. Dumas had wrung his hands. ‘What if she can tell they’ve been opened?’ he bleated. ‘Queen Mary, I mean? Castelnau will kill me!’
‘By the time they get to Mary, they will have been through so many people’s hands, how could anyone point to you?’ I sighed. ‘Besides, Castelnau could not kill a soul,’ I added. ‘Although I wouldn’t put it past some of his friends.’
Now, the originals have been taken to Throckmorton in time for his departure tomorrow and Dumas is on his way back to the embassy. Thus far, the system is working smoothly. I wrap my hands around my mug and lower my voice.
‘The ambassador sends Mary a long letter - four pages, all in code. But his clerk has managed to take a copy of the new cipher, so that should be straightforward. It’s in the package you have. And Lord Henry Howard sends her a copy of his book against prophecy in which he signs himself “votre frere“.’
Fowler nods. ‘How touching. He would have been her brother by marriage, if his own brother’s plot had succeeded. Was there anything concealed inside the book?’
‘No. Phelippes checked when he opened the package.’
Fowler grows thoughtful. ‘Then the book itself must contain some message, or some significance. One of us will have to read it. You are the scholar, I believe.’
I roll my eyes in mock protest. ‘I’ll find myself a copy. At least I will be better armed to argue with him over dinner next time.’
Fowler smiles, but lifts a finger in warning. ‘Be very careful around Howard, Bruno. He believes his family has suffered more than any from the Protestant reforms and he is quite willing to be ruthless in return. The Howards forfeited the lands and titles of the Duchy of Norfolk when his brother was executed, and he has been biding his time for revenge.’
‘And now he wants a war.’
Fowler grimaces.
‘It begins to look that way. None of them really cares about Mary Stuart, they all use her as an excuse to pursue their own interests. But they are quite willing to plunge England into war to achieve them. Has Mendoza visited Salisbury Court yet?’
‘The Spanish ambassador? I am not sure I woul
d recognise him.’
‘Oh, you’ll know Don Bernadino de Mendoza if you see him. Looks like a bear, voice like a war drum. As soon as he comes to speak privately with Castelnau, let me know and I can tell our mutual friend. If Howard and the Duke of Guise can secure Spanish money, all this talk of invasion might grow into more than words.’
‘Isn’t the talk of treason enough, if the queen knew?’
He gives a brisk shake of his head. ‘The queen will not make accusations against Howard or Mary Stuart - nor the ambassadors of France or Spain, for that matter - without absolute proof that they mean her or the country harm. They are all too powerful. And I mean proof that can be held in front of their faces in a court of law. Our friend wants this business to progress far enough that someone spells out their intentions on paper and signs their name to it.’
‘It’s a dangerous game to play.’ I find myself unreasonably irritated by the easy assurance with which he asserts Walsingham’s intentions, as if he is privy to Master Secretary’s innermost thoughts on a daily basis. I recognise also that this is only jealousy on my part; an irrational wish that I were as intimate with Walsingham, or as trusted.
‘Certainly.’ Fowler presses his lips together until they almost disappear. ‘Though it’s no game. I understand from my sources in Paris that Guise is already mustering troops, to be deployed whenever they have the word that England is ready.’
His sources in Paris. He talks as if he is an old hand at this intelligence business, though he can’t be more than twenty-six or -seven.
‘Have you served him long? Our friend, I mean.’
He shrugs.
‘A few years.’
‘And how did you come to be involved in all this?’ I ask, waving a hand vaguely to indicate the web that Walsingham weaves around himself, and which we do not name.
His mouth curves into a half smile.
‘Adventure, at first, I suppose. My father is a respectable Edinburgh burgess who intended me for the law. But when I arrived in Paris a few years ago to pursue my studies, I was surprised by the number of disaffected young Englishmen I found there - converts out of Oxford and Cambridge, tempers running high, all ready to whip up a Catholic rebellion against the English queen.’ He pauses to take a drink. ‘Of course, it’s easy to talk about revolution among your fellows from the safety of a Paris tavern, and it was mostly bluster, but I soon came to see that one or two among them were sincere, and knew something of significance. All I had to do was sit quiet and nod in the right places, and they assumed I was of their mind.’ He glances cautiously around. ‘But I was also sharp enough to realise that what I learned among them might be of considerable value to others, so I waited until I gathered a hoard of useful tidbits and then I presented myself at the English ambassador’s house. It was he who put me in touch with our mutual friend. Afterwards I returned to Scotland and set myself to work cultivating friendships among the few prominent Scottish Catholic lords, those who favour Mary Stuart. I travel back to Edinburgh now and again to keep up with the politics there. It’s essential to our friend to know their intentions, and it seems I have successfully passed myself off among the Catholics there and here as one who supports their cause.’
‘Very enterprising of you.’
He inclines his head as if to say, Perhaps.
‘It was the first time in my life I felt I’d chosen a path for myself, instead of following what my father laid out for me. That was exciting to me.’ He shrugs, implying that I am welcome to think what I like of this.
‘And what of your religion?’
‘Religion?’ He looks surprised. ‘It was never my principal motive, strange as that may sound. Yes, I was raised in the Protestant Church, but I have often felt I have more in common with moderate Catholics than with the more extreme devotees of my own faith. Excessive religion of any kind is dangerous, in my view. Elizabeth Tudor understands this, I think.’
I nod, with feeling.
‘And you?’ he prompts. ‘I know you call yourself a Catholic at Salisbury Court.’
‘It’s a question of freedom,’ I say, after a while, looking into my mug. ‘There is no freedom of thought under the rule of the Inquisition, no freedom to say What if? and then to imagine or speculate, and in such a climate, how can knowledge progress? The book I am writing now, for instance - in my own country I would be burned just for setting those ideas on paper. So when Wal—, when our friend approached me, I agreed because I thought the intellectual freedoms of Elizabeth’s England worth defending.’
‘But you have still not told me your religion,’ he says, with a knowing look.
‘I have been charged with heresy by Catholics in Rome and Calvinists in Geneva,’ I counter, smiling, ‘and when it comes to factions, I side with neither. My philosophy transcends both. But for that, you will have to read my book.’
‘I await it eagerly,’ he says, lifting his mug with a mischievous glint in his eye.
We sit in companionable silence for a few moments, finishing our beer.
‘But don’t you ever feel …’ I shake my head, lay my hands on the table. ‘I don’t know. Guilty?’
He regards me with those clear, serious eyes.
‘For betraying trust? For having more than one face? Of course,’ he says, and smiles sadly. ‘To feel no guilt would mean you had no conscience, and our friend would never trust a man with no conscience, for there would also be no loyalty. I placate my conscience with the thought that if I must betray someone on a personal level, I do it for the good of the country.’
I nod, thoughtfully; this is the argument Walsingham has always presented to me. What he doesn’t tell you is that personal relationships are often the more compelling, and that to betray someone whose trust you have won pulls against human nature.
‘You feel this keenly though, I think,’ Fowler whispers, studying me carefully. ‘You are fond of the ambassador.’
I acknowledge this weakness with a tilt of my head.
‘He is the one good man in Salisbury Court.’
‘He is trying to please too many people,’ Fowler says, as if this is the definitive judgement on the matter. ‘That is what will undo him. But guard yourself against sentiment, Bruno. If he ends up assisting with plans for a Catholic invasion, he is a traitor, regardless of his good intentions.’
‘I know this.’ I catch the sting in my voice; again, I find I resent his tone of seniority, and am ashamed of myself for it. Does he imagine I need to be told how to perform my role in the embassy? Perhaps I am being over-sensitive; it is a valuable warning for anyone in our business, as I learned to my cost in Oxford.
‘Of course.’ Fowler sits back, holding his hands up as if to mitigate any offence. ‘And for now, it is all about the letters. This enterprise depends on you and your friend the clerk.’
We pay for the beer and press our way through the crowded tavern, emerging into the slanting afternoon light. The weather has improved the mood of the Londoners; as we walk down Friday Street, people smile and greet one another, remarking on the unseasonable warmth, instead of shoving you aside with their usual grim-faced determination. Fowler and I walk in silence at first, subdued by our conversation; only now, as I watch the passers-by cheerfully going about their business, am I able to understand the weight of the work we are engaged in. We are talking about nothing less than a possible invasion, by France or Spain or both, whose ultimate aim is to unseat Elizabeth and bring England back under the control of Rome. And what will become of her Protestant subjects then, these ruddy-faced market traders and broad-hipped goodwives merrily sidestepping the horseshit on the cobbles as they wave to one another and call out for the hundredth time that you’d think it was July, wouldn’t you?
Sidney and Walsingham were both in Paris during the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572, when ordinary Huguenot families were systematically slaughtered in their thousands by Catholic forces and the city’s gutters ran with Protestant blood. This, I know, is what Walsingham fear
s above all: the same happening in the streets of London if the Catholics take power again. In Paris, there are plenty of people who murmur that the Duke of Guise was responsible for the bloodshed on St Bartholomew’s Day.
‘This is where I leave you,’ Fowler says, as we reach the corner of Watling Street. ‘If you need to get a message to our friend, you can reach me at my lodgings close by the cock-pit on St Andrew’s Hill.’ He pauses, laying a hand on my arm. ‘Watch who comes to Mass at Salisbury Court this evening. See if Howard brings any Englishmen we don’t already know about. And keep an eye on Archibald Douglas. He is not quite the drunken boor he pretends to be.’
‘Then he is a master of deception,’ I say. ‘I wonder that Castelnau and Howard put up with his manners.’
‘They tolerate him because Mary Stuart tells them to. And Douglas trades on the fact that she is deeply in his debt. You know it was he who engineered the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley?’
‘The one who was blown up?’
‘The very one.’ Seeing my eyes grow wider, he smiles. ‘That is why Douglas may not go back to Scotland - there is a warrant out for his arrest. He is a notorious intriguer, and suspected of other political conspiracies to murder besides. And he is devilishly clever in the way he works his hooks into people - witness the fact that King James likes him, though he is suspected of murdering James’s own father. Women apparently find him beguiling.’
‘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.