by S. J. Parris
‘Really? Why was that?’
I glance at Fowler; this is not what I had intended at all, to face Douglas down in a seedy tavern. There may be two of us, but there is no knowing how many of the men drinking on the other side of the door are his friends and cohorts. My shoulders tense; I feel now that we have turned badly off-course.
‘It’s a family title of yours, is it not?’
The room falls very still.
‘Mine?’ Douglas still smiles, but this time through his teeth. He lays down his pipe. ‘Oh, very probably. There are as many branches of the Douglas family in Scotland as there are stars in the sky, Bruno — we’ve won and lost more titles than you’ve said Masses in your sorry life. Why does it interest you?’
‘Because I believe the young maids at court were killed by a man claiming to be the Earl of Ormond,’ I say, drawing my dagger. Behind me, I hear the sleek rush of steel as Fowler pulls his sword from its scabbard.
Douglas throws his chair back abruptly and jumps up, his body poised to spring either way in an instant. From the speed of his reaction I see that, despite his apparent devotion to debauchery, he is strongly built and carries himself like a man in good physical condition. But after a moment, he bursts out laughing.
‘Oh, and you’ve decided that’s me, have you? Because of a title belonging to some ancient forebear, that anyone might have borrowed? You think that would stand up in a court of law?’ His laughter sounds aggressively false in the small room.
I move cautiously around the table towards him, as he backs against the wall, his hands held up, palms upwards.
‘If you are innocent, there is nothing to fear,’ I say, and realise with a chill that this is Walsingham’s argument when he questions Catholic suspects.
Douglas continues to smile uncertainly. Eventually he lowers his hands, but I can see his body is still tensed and alert.
‘Put the knife down, Bruno, and stop being a fool.’
‘You’re coming upriver with us, Douglas — you don’t have a choice.’ I make my voice as commanding as I can, my knife still held out in front of me, pointed at him. Douglas turns to Fowler, a pleading expression on his face.
‘Yes — put the knife down, Bruno.’
Fowler’s voice remains gentle and expressionless, even as I slowly turn, amazed, still unsure that I have heard correctly, to find his sword levelled at me from the other side of the table. Douglas relaxes his shoulders. A long silence unfolds as we continue to look at one another.
‘Come on, Bruno — you think a pretty wee girl like that Cecily would take a ring off a grizzled old drunk with a face like this?’ Douglas asks eventually, pointing at himself. ‘You’re joking. No, I could never pass myself off as an earl, despite the family name.’ He grins and folds his arms, as if he is watching an interlude, but my eyes are fixed on Fowler. He continues to look at me with that level, unperturbed expression and I realise, as I have not before, that he might easily be described as handsome. His face is perfectly symmetrical, his features neat and regular, and his eyes are clear and earnest.
‘You.’ There seems little else to say.
He inclines his head a fraction but doesn’t move the sword.
‘The Earl of Ormond, at your service,’ he says, in the impeccably clipped tones of the English aristocracy. ‘You put us in a difficult position, Bruno,’ he adds, in his own accent. ‘I was relying on you to find something that would incriminate Howard or the Earl of Arundel in time to get them arrested before this invasion plan gathered too much momentum abroad. But you started poking about in the wrong corners.’
I grip my knife; Fowler still points his sword at me. He would run me through before I could reach Douglas, even with the table between us, I estimate, and relax my arm slightly. Douglas, apparently satisfied that I am not about to lunge, reaches for his pipe and sets about relighting it.
‘I don’t understand,’ I say eventually. ‘You want the other conspirators arrested? You meant for the invasion to fail?’
Fowler glances at Douglas, who shrugs as if he could not care either way.
‘You might as well satisfy his curiosity,’ he says, sucking hard on the pipe stem, his breath emerging in short, urgent puffs as he tries to coax the leaf to take light. ‘It’s not as if he can tell anyone now.’
‘The last thing we want is for Mary Stuart to be released from prison,’ Fowler says, smoothly. ‘She must come nowhere near the English throne. She must be condemned for treason.’
‘So — courting Cecily Ashe, killing her — all this was to frame the conspirators and betray Mary?’ I shake my head. ‘Then who do you want on the throne — Elizabeth? I thought you meant for her to be poisoned?’
Fowler looks at me pityingly.
‘We want the true heir on the throne, Bruno. The king who will unite this divided realm, under the guidance of his trusted advisors. The one descendant of Henry Tudor whose legitim acy has never been in dispute.’
It takes a moment for me to realise who he means.
‘King James of Scotland?’ I turn to Douglas. ‘You have done all this for him? What about his mother?’
‘Old, ill, overweight, out of touch, a bag of resentments and revenge,’ Fowler says. ‘No one wants a woman like that at the helm of a nation already precariously divided.’
‘No one wants a woman at all,’ Douglas offers, with a chesty laugh.
‘But the English Catholics have used Mary as a rallying cry for too long to suddenly change their minds,’ I protest. ‘There would be riots if Elizabeth died and she were not released.’
‘You insult us, Bruno.’ Fowler breaks into a hint of a smile, showing his even teeth. ‘We are canny enough to take that into account. That’s why it was so important that this invasion plot go far enough that the main conspirators could be picked up by Elizabeth’s authorities. That deals with Mary, the Howard family and Castelnau and his wife — all tried for treason, all imprisoned or executed by Elizabeth. Before she is tragically struck down by a mysterious illness on her own Accession Day.’
‘Without the Howards, the English Catholics couldn’t organise a game of cards,’ Douglas adds, gesturing to the pile on the table. ‘Elizabeth dies, no heir, the English are rudderless — then bring on the only person who can restore order and harmony to the country, together with the Scottish lords and advisors he most trusts.’ He smiles and indicates himself and Fowler.
‘Or who can best manipulate him,’ I say. ‘But Elizabeth is past bearing an heir now, so King James will inherit the throne anyway. Why so much risk to hasten the day?’
‘Elizabeth could easily live another thirty years,’ Fowler says. ‘Or some Catholic plot will unseat her in favour of Mary — if not this one, then another. The Spanish would move in — my lord the king could be shut out of the succession altogether. There was greater risk to his sovereignty in waiting. One must take charge of one’s destiny, Bruno, instead of waiting for Providence to show its hand, do you not agree?’
I shake my head, incredulous.
‘My God, this was an elaborate plan. But contingent on so many elements, it was bound to fail.’
‘It would have succeeded, if not for the girl.’ He clenches his teeth and the muscles in his jaw stand out.
‘Cecily.’ I stare at him. ‘So you drew her into your plot by making her fall in love with you. But she changed her mind, is that it?’
‘She seemed spirited enough. The queen had intervened to stop a budding romance some months previously because she didn’t consider the young man in question a significant enough match. The girl was furious and itching for revenge — I nurtured that and offered her the opportunity. But she was hot-headed — she didn’t have the patience to wait until the right moment.’ An expression of regret registers in his eyes for a moment, but I am not fooled; any sorrow he feels is only for the failure of his own plans.
‘So you had to kill her. But the display — the astrological signs, the witch’s doll — all that was to cast suspicion on
the Catholics? Didn’t you run the risk of tightening security around the queen or being discovered yourself?’
He makes a dismissive sound with his lips.
‘Once Cecily Ashe changed her mind about helping me, she had to be silenced, that was beyond doubt. And you could hardly hope that the death of one of the queen’s own maids would go without scrutiny, so we decided we may as well use it overtly to sow fear and confusion in the court and the city. A frightened populace will be all the more eager to embrace a strong leader.’
‘It worked,’ Douglas remarks, tapping his pipe on the side of the table. ‘The way people were talking in the taverns, you’d think they expected Beelzebub to rise up out of the Thames and burn the city to the ground. Shitting themselves, they were, especially after the second one.’
‘I hadn’t intended to kill the second girl,’ Fowler says, sounding almost apologetic. ‘But when I saw her talking to you at the Holbein Gate, Bruno, I started to worry. Cecily never knew my real name, but I was afraid she might have told her friend enough detail to identify me, and I guessed Walsingham must have asked you to look into the death. So I had to make sure she didn’t talk either. I thought if we copied the first murder, it would smack of astrology and conjuring — people would think it was the work of a deranged madman trying to fulfil the apocalyptic prophecies.’
‘Deranged wouldn’t be so far wrong. So it was you following me, then, all that time. Then you were the man with the hat at the Whitehall concert?’ I am struggling to piece this together.
Fowler shakes his head.
‘That was Douglas. I was waiting on the river in a boat. Once the concert had started, I knew it would be quiet at the kitchen dock. The girl came down as the message instructed. After I had dispatched her, I took off the old smock I had over my own clothes and rowed around to the Privy Bridge, where I was admitted to join the concert.’
‘And Ned Kelley? Where does he fit in, with his visions and his drawings of the murdered girls?’
Fowler frowns; he and Douglas exchange an uncomprehending look.
‘Who is Ned Kelley?’ Fowler asks. I stare from one to the other; both are skilful dissemblers, as I know only too well by now, but they appear convincingly at a loss. Perhaps Henry Howard was telling the truth about Kelley after all.
‘Never mind. But there is one thing I don’t understand,’ I say, as I struggle to take it all in. ‘Without Cecily, Elizabeth still lives. What happens to your plan now?’
‘Accession Day is a while off,’ Fowler says, with a half smile. ‘Time enough to set other wheels turning.’
‘You have another assassin?’
‘There’s no shortage of hot-blooded young men in France ready to martyr themselves for the Catholic cause — especially among those exiled supporters of Mary in Paris, where our friend the Master of Gray has been living these past few years, making friends. Poison would have been more elegant, but one expendable youth with a pistol in the crowd, especially one with links to Mary …’ He trails off as if the subject bores him.
‘I hope that’s cleared things up for you, Bruno,’ Douglas says, brusquely, rising and brushing the drift of ash from his clothes. ‘But that’s probably enough talking, eh.’
‘Wait — what about Dumas?’ I ask, my voice rising with the need to keep them talking.
‘Before you came along and hired him with Walsingham’s money, I’d slipped him a few coins to give me an idea of the ambassador’s correspondence. When he told me Mary Stuart was sending private packets to Henry Howard through Throckmorton, I gave him a considerable sum to look out for their contents — any gifts or jewellery, anything I could use to make it look as if the girl had ties to Mary,’ Fowler says. Douglas flashes him an impatient look but Fowler seems to feel he owes me this explanation, perhaps in recognition of the misguided trust I once placed in him. ‘But I could see he was unequal to the strain of so much secrecy. He sold his loyalties too widely and he didn’t have the temperament for intrigue. I knew he’d crumble and tell you about the ring eventually. He swore he hadn’t when he was begging for his life, but I didn’t believe him.’
‘Was I next on your list of people to be silenced?’ I ask, moving almost imperceptibly away from him towards the window. Keeping his eyes on mine, he matches my movement.
‘I was relying on you to convey the necessary evidence of the invasion plot to Walsingham first,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘I even thought you might find a way to blame Howard for the murders — you seemed determined to. But I knew you’d discover the truth about the ring eventually and then I would have to decide what to do with you.’
‘What did King James promise you both?’ I ask, looking from one to the other. ‘How many lives would you have cut down, to secure his throne? He must have offered you the moon.’
‘James knows nothing of this yet,’ Fowler says, as if proud of the fact. ‘He is young and confused enough in his religion to fall easy victim to stirrings of conscience. We will present him with a throne when he has no choice but to take it, and thank us.’
‘Whereas you don’t know what conscience means, do you? What is your religion — aside from power?’
Fowler laughs unexpectedly at this, a rich, open laugh, and he sounds for the briefest moment like the man I had believed him to be.
‘There is no version of faith that cannot be interpreted to fit the desired political ends. I would have thought you’d learned that much on your travels, Bruno. Personally, I would advise young James to favour the Catholic Church, but only because that is where the balance of power lies in Europe, although —‘
‘Enough now, William.’ Douglas brings his hand down flat on the table. ‘We need to finish this business.’
‘There’s a bar full of people the other side of that door,’ I say, raising my voice; it wavers a little mid-sentence. Douglas tilts his head and grins.
‘Do you not know where you are, Bruno? The Liberty of the Clink, this ward is called. Half a mile to the south-west, we’d be under the jurisdiction of the High Sheriff of Surrey. Half a mile north, across the river, they abide by the laws of the City of London. But this little patch of ground is governed by the Bishop of Winchester, and he doesn’t care. We’re all outside the law here, son. We could leave your body in the street outside a bawd-house and people will just step over you as you rot.’
Fowler adjusts his grip on the sword; I have barely the space of a heartbeat to make my decision. Before he can respond, I grab the oil lamp from the table and hurl it at him; he tries to jump back but the flame catches his sleeve and he lowers the sword as he bats at it with his free hand. Just as Douglas lunges at me from the other direction, I lift one end of the bench beside the table and push it at him; furious, he throws it aside but he is obstructed for the instant it takes me to pull myself to the window sill and hurl myself out. I land with a clatter among milk churns in a muddy storage yard; on the far side a gate leads out to a side street. Douglas jumps from the window just as I slam the gate behind me and take off blindly through the misty streets with no notion of where I am heading.
All I can do is run now, into the opaque night. I hear him — or both of them — close behind; several times I think I hear their breathing, or perhaps it is only my own, disappearing into the white mist as my heart hammers in my ears. The streets are no more than lanes here, ungravelled, churned by hooves and cartwheels; as I run, the cold air makes my eyes stream, but from the sounds and the drift of the mist I think I am running towards the river. Around a corner I collide with two men who bellow their indignation but are too drunk to do anything more; I disentangle myself and pray that they trip up my pursuers. At the end of this narrow street the houses give way to open ground; the mist is thinner and I can make out the shape of trees to my left. But there are pounding footsteps from behind and I plunge on, away from the buildings; a few yards ahead the ground appears to give way and I almost fall into an inlet, one of the channels cut inland from the river bank. A fierce stink of refuse and
sewage comes off it; I skid to a halt and run along its bank instead, looking at the ground, until I find a narrow wooden bridge built across.
I keep on running, my chest aching fit to burst, determined not to glance behind me as a large building looms out of the mist on my right, like a high circular tower with walls of flint. A thick, sharp scent of animal excrement and blood rises from the ground, where straw is trodden into the mud underfoot. Of course; I must be at Paris Garden, the Southwark bear ring. This might afford me a place to hide. Keeping close to the wall, I scuttle around until I find a low double gate where the animals are brought in from their enclosures. This is easy enough to climb over, and I emerge into a broad ring, hung with skeins of mist. In its centre, a sturdy stake fixed into the ground, with chains wreathed limply over it, and in a circle all around, three tiers of wooden seating with a canopy overhead. Exhausted, I haul myself over the brick wall dividing the arena from the stalls and throw my aching body to the floor beneath the first row of benches. Face down, I listen to my ribs heaving against the floor, my ears pricked for the slightest sound.
It seems only a moment before I hear the timbers creak somewhere on the opposite side of the ring. Then the low murmur of voices, seemingly from the entrance behind me, though the mist distorts my perception.
‘That side.’ Douglas’s voice, low and urgent. ‘I’ll take the other.’ I hear footsteps on the wooden steps behind me; I decide that keeping still will help me more at this stage than trying to crawl away on my belly. The tap of steel on wood; the boards creak as he approaches, feeling with the point of his sword under the benches to either side. This must be Fowler, then. In a fair fight, man to man, I think I could overpower him, but he has a sword and I have only my short-handled dagger. Only the sons of gentlemen were taught to duel with swords where I grew up, nor was it part of my training as a Dominican novice; learning to fight with my fists and a knife became part of a necessary education when I lived as a fugitive in Italy, but it would be no match for a good swordsman with a sharp blade.