by Talbot Mundy
“Last night you wished me well lost,” I retorted. “What now? Shall I snatch another chestnut for you?”
“Hot-pate! Berden is your friend,” he answered; and he led into a tavern where about a hundred cockscombs rustled it and diced for bare-bubbied tavern wenches’ kisses, or for Spanish jewellery, or to see who should throw mud at the Spanish ambassador on his way to an audience with the Queen that afternoon. We found a quiet place behind an oaken screen in a corner, but the tavern maids were too distracted by being kissed, fondled and shouted at to notice us, so we drank nothing.
“God preserve you, Will Halifax, if I’d not been there last night you were no man’s lucky penny!” exclaimed Berden. “Marry! If an Earl should mislike me as his grace the Earl of Leicester mislikes you, I’d run for it! He had been striving until midnight to win over my Lord Burghley in advance of the morrow’s meeting of the Lords in Council, and had withdrawn at last into another room — to sulk, I daresay; he is given to it. But his servant told him he had seen you in the yard, and he came in again fuming, brushing past me, who was waiting by the door until Lord Burghley should see fit to speak with me. He was ramping hot-indignant, black with anger.
“‘Gramercy and God’s boots!’ says he. ‘What foul treachery is this, Lord Secretary, that you play hob with a Halifax in your yard? By the Lord’s teeth, if the Queen should hear of it she’d rate you for a practiser not fit to sit at table!’
“Plenty more he roared, and all to the same tune, Lord Burghley looking owlish at him, twitching with the gout and saying nothing, waiting to let him spill himself before laying match to his own long cannon — which is my Lord Burghley’s method always; he’s a great one to let t’other do the talking. You’d have thought, to see him sitting there with one leg on a trestle-rest and brandy-wine in a glass beside him, that he was at a sermon from the household chaplain.
“‘Sir Harry Halifax was a pick-thank knight who drew sword against two of my gentlemen,’ says my Earl of Leicester. ‘And for no more cause,’ says he, ‘than that I sought to assume the guardianship of a maid named Mildred Jackson, whom he had the insolence to wish to marry to his lack-grace son — that lout who stands without there in your lordship’s yard. Doubtless he hoped with the girl’s fortune to discharge his own debts, since she will inherit large estates from her mother’s side ere long, being last of her line.’”
“Mildred is no ward for any man. I’ faith she has a stepfather who is her legal guardian,” I interrupted.
“Wait. I am coming to that,” said Berden. “Lord Burghley sipped some brandy-wine, but not a word he answered, no, not even nodding, chin on chest, and anyone who did not know him might have thought him drunk. The Earl of Leicester went on raving at him: ‘That young jackanapes who stands without there dared to have the banns of marriage read three Sundays running, but by the grace of God I heard of it. I warned her stepfather — a hind named Pepperday, who has strangely advanced himself by shrewish practices — I warned him to forbid the marriage lest I cancel the land-holding that he has from me. I also sent word to the parson not to marry them. Sir Harry Halifax met my gentlemen and picked a quarrel on the strength of it. And now, I doubt not, the young squibbe without there comes practising to win your lordship’s influence. I warn you: have him whipped out of the yard unless you wish to lose my friendship, my Lord Secretary!’”
So now at last I knew the secret of my father’s death. I had never doubted his having fallen in an honourable cause; but it rendered me speechless — aye, it choked me to know he had fallen quarrelling in my behalf. A generous and merry-hearted knight my father was, as full of hot speech as a kettle is of steam, and yet as kind as Christmas, without an ignoble thought to mar his disposition.
But Berden did not notice my agitation, he was too full of his story. He went on:
“My Lord Burghley looked up at last and his eyes lit on me where I stood by the door. He looked choleric. I thought he would dismiss me from the room. But instead he ordered: Send one of the servants, Berden, and dismiss that lad Halifax. Bid him begone and not darken my door again!’ But as he spoke he made a sign with his fingers — thus — so that I understood he was talking to impress the Earl of Leicester and was not so set against you as it seemed. Therefore I tried to couch my message to you so that you might not say where you lodged, lest it should reach the Earl of Leicester’s ears but might understand that I meant to find you, but I doubt that the servant — a sleepy and dull-witted fool-delivered my message properly.
“When I returned to Lord Burghley’s presence my Lord of Leicester passed me on his way out, looking mollified, and now there stood Jaques in the room with his head all swathed in bandages. He did not see me, for he stood facing Lord Burghley; and ‘Od’s onions! the knave was telling his own story of the night’s adventure, he not knowing we had lodged Stiles safely in the Marshalsea. He was singing his own praises, telling how he rode with his men to take the alderman while you and I sat swilling in a tavern. He made a long tale of how he fell into an ambushment of sailors and how he got his head well broke. He tried to mend his head and fortune by beshrewing us two, saying it was our fault that Stiles had escaped and, moreover, that you had claimed to hold the Queen’s commission, of which he thought you unworthy if in truth you held it and it were not a false pretence, he having seen no document. Whereat Lord Burghley finished his glass of brandy-wine and sent him to the buttery to have his head examined by the steward, he passing me on his way out and looking liker to die of agitation at the sight of my grin than of his hurts.
“Lord Burghley was eager for his bed by that time, so I had to make short work of my story of how you and I took the alderman, but I gave him the receipt from the Keeper of the Marshalsea and told him how Jaques had behaved. When I had done, he asked me:
“‘Did Halifax pretend to hold the Queen’s commission?’
“‘By the rood,’ I answered, ‘he pretended nothing, but he showed good courage and a ready wit.’
“‘But did he claim that I had given him appointment?” Lord Burghley insisted. He was sharp on that. So I answered you had made no claims of any kind, neither to me nor to anyone else.
“‘That lad may go far,’ said his lordship. ‘Does he quarrel readily?’
“I said: ‘He fights like a flash o’ lightning, but to pick a quarrel with him a man might have too act deliberate and show him where the profit lay in not avoiding it.’ I told then how Stiles had offered you a fortune to let him escape, and what answer you made. Whereat he nodded. And presently he said to me:
“‘The Earl of Leicester slew that lad’s father for the sake of a guardianship that he can never get unless he slays a profitable tenant likewise. So I believe that he will seek to slay the tenant, whose name is Pepperday. And it so happens that circumstances favour the Earl of Leicester’s motive, which nevertheless may be prevented if we make speed; and I think young Halifax may gain preferment, though he come not by the wench, who is a rich prize.’
“For a long while after that he sat still, chin on hand, the firelight playing on his crafty face. There are spies — spies everywhere. I doubt not he was meditating how to take me in his confidence and yet to keep what he should tell me from Sir Francis Walsingham, whose servant in truth I am. He, Sir Francis Walsingham and the Earl of Leicester vie with one another for the Queen’s influence, and it is strange how Lord Burghley employs so few agents of his own, preferring rather to borrow them from either of the other two, thus learning something of their practices at risk of letting them be privy to his own. But me he has found silent both ways, so he trusts me more than he does some folks, nevertheless not trusting me more than the Queen trusts any of them, which is to say piecemeal and by fits and starts with ever something in reserve. At last he looked up, staring owlish at me, and said:
“‘Berden, there is a City merchant by the name of Roger Tunby, a dealer in wool, affected to the Queen of Scots, who receives a deal of correspondence from the Earl of Leicester’s tenant Peppe
rday, most of it by the hand of the common carrier. It is known that Tunby has been in league with Stiles and others to give comfort and, it may be, treasonable service to the Scots Queen. Tunby involves Pepperday, and we will take the lesser foremost in the hope the Pepperday in fear of torments may betray his principals, that thus we may catch many disaffected men. But it must be done before the Earl of Leicester learns of our purpose. He is swift and passionate. And if he should slay this rogue Pepperday for his own ends, he might not only get the girl to ward but he would thereby also break a valuable chain of evidence. It must be done swiftly and in silence. None must know of it until Pepperday is safely in the Tower and racked for testimony.’”
“Said he nothing further about Mildred?” I demanded.
Berden laughed. “No more than this: that if the wench has substance and is nicely born the Queen herself may like to dispose of her in marriage. That would put her out of your reach, Master Will! He bade me lodge the girl in safety without the Earl of Leicester’s knowledge and to watch shrewdly that you have no intimacy with her. For I am to take you with me down to Brownsover, and as few men as we can manage with because of the risk of talking. I have the warrant,”
“For Mistress Mildred Jackson?” I asked.
“Nay, for Tony Pepperday.”
So my feelings were mixed of relief and new anxiety. By a stroke of fortune I was given leave to save my Mildred from the Earl of Leicester’s clutches, which would nevertheless bring us no whit nearer to the state of man and wife. And I was now unarguably Berden’s man, not he mine. I could not pretend this time to have a Queen’s commission in my pocket, and it called for wits and goodwill unless he and I were to fall foul of each other’s disposition.
“Berden,” I said, “I did you an injustice. When that serving man brought me your message in the yard last night I thought—”
“Pish! Tush!” he interrupted. “Any greenhorn would have thought me treasonable to a friendship. Any -old hand would have sworn it was so. If you were a practised hand at court I could never convince you this minute that I lie not. But the truth is, that I like you; and another truth is that a like or a mislike couldn’t mend inevitables. An I liked you twice as well, we’d be of small use to each other but for fortune that throws us together. Count on Berden!”
I sat silent, seeing he was turning over in his mind how he might turn me to his own use under a cloak of amity. For my own part I was puzzled to know how to manage him. Suddenly he shot a question at me across the table; “Tell me about the Popish plot in Brownsover!”
I laughed. It sounded clownish in my ears that little Brownsover should make a stir in London. All our countryside might possibly have raised an hundred men, not counting the Earl of Leicester’s following; and of the hundred more than half would take the Queen’s side of whatever quarrel. Moreover, the Earl of Leicester being reckoned chief of all the Protestants in Warwickshire (though little he cared for religion and was only serving what he thought the strongest cause), and he being Lord-Lieutenant of the county, there was not much chance of Popish plots succeeding, not though the wandering priests were many, as all men knew.
“I only know,” I said, “that Tony Pepperday was formerly a Papist and recanted.”
“With his face,” said Berden. “How about his heart?”
“He has none.” I was confident of that.
“Well, I will tell you this,” said Berden. “There is many a port in England by which foreigners might land to set the Scots Queen on the English throne. One is Plymouth. Another is Bristol. Brownsover is nigh the main road to them both. A man in Brownsover might busy himself cozening the yokels to receive such strangers with a goodwill. Once a Papist, always a Papist. Tony Pepperday, you mark me, will cry for a priest and unction and a Mass or two to save him when the Tower rack tightens his sinews and loosens the truth!”
The thought of Tony on the rack was no more satisfying to my mood than the knowledge that I was now subordinate to Berden. But I saw my way to overcoming Berden’s advantage, just as I hoped to save Tony the pain, not giving credence to the story of his plotting, for which I judged he lacked the needed spirit, nor not considering the rack a reasonable instrument of justice.
“Berden,” I said, “I have three men and two good horses. Need we more men?”
“Nay,” he answered, “not with you and me to lead. The fewer the merrier!”
Whereby I knew I should not be too long his subordinate.
CHAPTER TEN
Of the plight of Roger Tunby and the restitution that he made.
BUT I had yet to learn the inwardness of Berden’s news. Lord Burghley had unbosomed to him more, of urgent import, than he chose to repeat to me; Lord Burghley trusting him because he knew, I doubted not, particulars of Berden’s past and choosing me for this new errand because the Earl of Leicester’s enmity was likely enough to make me strive to come between him and his quarry; also because my love for Mildred, spoken of by Berden, made me sure to try to rescue her from any other mortal’s clutches; and because I knew scarce anyone in London, which should make me clap my tongue less than another might; and because I did know Brownsover; and not least because I had my own horses, so saving expense to the Queen.
Concerning which, I may as well write this now as later: in the more than fifteen years that I have served her with brain and blade and at the risk of life and limb, I have never once received from the Queen in full my wages or expenses; nor am I a rare instance of her parsimony, as I hope to tell. So that, seeing with how great success she has governed England, and how rarely any servant of the Crown has had his just dues, unless indeed he merited the axe or prison, I am left now wondering whether it is politic in rulers to be generous, or even just, and whether it is not wiser to be patterned after Nature, niggard and extravagant and unpredictable, all things by turns to all men, nor never the same to anyone twice running.
Himself the Queen’s chief minister, Lord Burghley never knew from day to day what sudden change of policy might leave him beached on the rocks of ridicule or see him scolded like a thief for daring to oppose some scheme of Leicester’s or of Walsingham’s — they three plotting each against the other and united in nothing except jealousy of lesser ministers and zeal to preserve England from a foreign yoke. Never one of them knew which other might forfend him in some policy or, by reaching the Queen’s private ear, might gain a personal advantage.
They knew each other, those three men. They understood each other’s motives, and I think they took as much delight in damaging each other’s fortunes as in serving the Queen, though of the three the Earl of Leicester had the greater malice and the lesser genius.
“This poor caitiff, Tony Pepperday,” said Berden, “is but a straw man, whom the Earl of Leicester will accuse of treason for the sake of obtaining the Jackson girl to ward, and whom Lord Burghley will likewise accuse for the sake of forestalling the Earl of Leicester, whose ways he knows and I know also. Burghley will wait on the law. Leicester will take law into his own hands, sending his men to pretend to catch Pepperday red-handed and to slay him in the act, then hurrying to the Queen in person to brag of his care for her Grace’s safety and to beg for the rich girl’s guardianship. Burghley is no man’s friend, but Leicester is all men’s enemy, especially yours, and none can trust him overnight. Our business is to spoil the Earl of Leicester’s, game in Burghley’s interest. It is dog eat dog, in London Town.”
But if that were so I was minded first of all to look to mine own profit. Willing though I was to serve the Queen and to obey her ministers, I was likelier to be useful — aye, and in higher matters — were my purse well lined. I made up my mind that instant to see Roger Tunby first of all, and in spite of Berden’s urgency, he pleading we should spur for Brownsover within the hour. He tried to hector me:
“Will Halifax,” he said, “you ride at my behest. You must obey me!”
But I answered I was sworn as yet neither to secrecy nor obedience and he could ride without me if he saw
fit. Whereat he grew silent and I understood that either Lord Burghley had commended me or else he judged me to stand higher in his lordship’s| favour than as yet was advertised. I was encouraged of his silence.
So we rode to the mews, where I was careful to choose horses such as sailor-men might ride with risk of nothing worse than chafing of their hams. Will Shakespeare was there. He had won his way into Burbage’s crabbed graces and the two were chaffering. Burbage, it appeared, beside the mews was owner of a theatre out in the fields across the river and did a double business, hiring out horses to the gentry who rode to the plays, where his son James Burbage was the great tragedian. Will had a plan to make a little substance for himself by caring for the horses while their riders saw the plays; Burbage was to give him the monopoly, and in return he was to rest assured that the horses were well blanketed and neither horse nor blanket stolen. Burbage, in return for the monopoly, demanded money surety and there negotiation hung, Will having neither money enough nor bondsman.
I drew Will aside and told him what I had in mind regarding Roger Tunby. Presently he and I went on foot together to the old chuff’s house and found him in a great rage, bullying his ‘prentices for no reason that they or anybody else could understand; but knowing what I now did, and guessing what I guessed, I thought it likely enough that his own forebodings agitated him. He would have kept us standing in the rain the while he lectured us anent our dallying and gadding. Noticing my cloak was torn he called me toss-pot and accused me of tavern brawling, saying he did not doubt I had found me a bawdy shrew already who would drag me down to beggary, and serve me right. But when I told him I bore word from Joshua Stiles the alderman he changed his tone of voice and invited us into the counting-house at the rear of the shop. It was too dark in there for us to see each other’s faces readily.