He handed Matthew a parchment upon which there was practically a full page of writing. “This is your testimony,” Stearforth said. “A room is being prepared for you in the house. Take this copy with you. Study it carefully. You’ll need to have it all by heart on Friday. And to recite it with . . . sincerity.”
Sincerity, thought Matthew. That would be a trick if he could do it. He looked at the paper.
The lines blurred. He couldn’t read. Was the difficulty with his eyes or his conscience? He looked up at Stearforth. He couldn’t believe the man’s nonchalance. Here was a confession to a crime which Stearforth had committed—or caused to be committed, and Stearforth had authored it. Was there ever such an impudence since the world began?
“Do you feel no guilt at what you’ve done?” Matthew asked.
“Guilt? What is that, Master Stock, but a foolish impulse of one too easily intimidated by fear of divine retribution?” “You’re an atheist, then?”
Stearforth laughed. “A practical man, rather. That God exists I make no effort to deny, but to be honest, I rarely see his image in my fellow men, but of the devil, rather, and if the devil is God then I have good reason to feel justified rather than condemned.”
“Did you kill Graham?”
“I? No.”
“But gave orders to him who did?”
Stearforth made a low bow of acknowledgment. “Words that if you report them, I’ll deny every syllable and comma.” “And what about me? And my wife? What did we ever do to you?”
“Not a thing,” Stearforth said, laughing again. “Why should you suppose you needed to do anything to me to deserve what has happened? Blame it rather on bad luck, or your own officious long nose. After all, I never forced you to come to London to inquire after Kit Poole’s hoary corpse. That was your notion.”
“But you put me to it.”
“And what if I did? My retort is that you continued what I merely began.”
“What happened to Christopher Poole’s body? Did you steal it to bring me to this pass?”
“Why, you are more intelligent than you seem, Master Stock. But have you come upon this grave truth only now? Poole’s resurrection was mere bait. Yet see what big fish have been caught thereby.”
Matthew looked down at his confession. He could read it now; the words stuck out as though enlarged:I did murder the priest, Stephen Graham seared his brain. Stearforth had written another line of equal power: Sir Robert Cecil paid me twenty pounds with promise of a house in Suffolk. What, a mere twenty pounds and a house that might be a hovel to turn a decent man off! What a world it was that men could even be supposed to risk heaven for such mischief.
Stearforth left him alone to study the words he was to speak, but Matthew spent his time thinking about Joan, where she might be and in what danger and whether he would ever see her sweet face again.
In his house in Chelsea, Sir Robert Cecil sat in his handsomely paneled study and worried about the queen’s torpor and prepared inventories of the royal valuables and memoranda of accounts due and payable. He loved the woman of whom he was principal servant, but he was also a realist. If Elizabeth outlived the month it would be a miracle. Every-time he was in her presence now he saw the skull beneath the skin. Thrice he had dreamed of her death in a single week. Soon she would pass from his life, the way his honored father (and her greater servant) Lord Burghley had, the way his beloved wife had. Cecil was surviving them all, his hair prematurely gray, his health, never robust, as crooked as his back, only his fertile brain a match for the exigencies of his high office.
When the knocking came at his door, he admitted his
visitor and saw, with some anticipation, that it was Richard Staunton.
“How is Matthew Stock?” he asked.
“Well, under the circumstances, Your Honor.”
Staunton came over to stand at attention before Cecil’s desk. The light of the candles extended so far as to illuminate his legs and trunk. The face of the man was hidden in the shadows, and had it not been for the familiar voice, Cecil would have had cause to doubt his visitor’s identity.
“How are his spirits?”
“Good.”
“They’re feeding him well?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You assured him of my regard?”
“As you requested, your honor.”
“And he still maintains his innocence.”
“He does.”
“Good.”
Cecil sat back in his chair and felt a strong pang of guilt. Matthew Stock was more than one of his agents; Cecil considered him a friend. Indeed, he was devoted to the husband and the wife. And where was Joan? She had promised to make a report of her findings as soon as she had learned something. But it had been two days and there was nothing. If it had not been for the queen’s failing health, Matthew’s predicament would have had all of his attention, but his agile mind could not be everywhere at once.
“Did Stock say anything of his wife? Has she been to see him?”
“No, sir. He made no mention of his wife, but seems entirely preoccupied with himself. He spoke most rudely to me, insisting you owed him a great debt for services performed in your behalf and hoped to have speedy release as compensation.”
“Did he say that?” Cecil asked.
“His very words, if my memory doesn’t deceive me, Sir Robert. He spoke with great insolence to me and disparagingly of your honorable self.”
“Prison will change a man, Staunton,” Cecil mused. “That’s God’s truth, sir. Will that be all for tonight?”
“I think so, yes.
Cecil watched Staunton go and kept staring at the closed door as though he could see through it.
Staunton left his master with a feeling of deep relief. Cecil had not been ungenerous to him during his twelve-month tenure as one of the principal secretary’s numerous clerks, and betrayal did not therefore come easy to him. Yet it came, as Staunton felt it must. The old order was changing and Cecil was a part of that order. Every hour might bring the death knell for the ancient woman who was queen and where should Staunton be then, bound to a lord who might have no place under the king who was to come? Yes, where should Richard Staunton be then?
Staunton did not proceed to his own rooms in the house, but went out into the night and walked a quarter of a mile to the far more modest dwelling of his cousin Roger Achely in Lime Street, where receiving a good welcome of his cousin and his wife, Staunton sat down to a late supper for which he repaid his hosts by such news of court as he had.
When his cousin’s wife pleaded weariness about eleven o’clock and absented herself to bed, Staunton gave his cousin copies of Cecil’s letters he had secretly conveyed from the house and told him all of Cecil’s concern for his imprisoned agent.
“Excellent news,” said Achely. “You are doing well. Trust me that His Grace shall know of it and reward you handsomely.”
Achely went to his cupboard and brought back a little leather purse and handed it to Staunton. Staunton undid the strings and poured the contents into his hand. He counted out five silver pieces, newly minted and shining by the firelight.
“A goodly sum,” he murmured happily.
“Well within your deserts, dear cousin,” Achley said.
This pleasant transaction was a cause of gratification to them both, and during the next hour they drank enough Rhenish to keep them standing at the chamber pot the rest of the night.
Sometime close to twelve of the clock, Staunton thanked his cousin for his hospitality and set out for home. His intoxication greatly diminished his proper caution as he traveled through the empty streets. Yet he was not so besotted to fail to notice the two men walking behind him at a distance. They were only shadows against the houses, almost figments of his imagination. Like him they bore no torch or lamp but depended upon a generous moon, but their path was so congruent with his own and their pace so steady, it was not long before his suspicion grew and varying his way, once even doubling back o
n his tracks to confirm his fears, he was sobered completely and began to run.
He dared not look behind him but he could hear the clatter of their feet in pursuit and was out of breath entirely when he entered the back gate of Cecil House terrified that his pursuers, robbers surely, would follow him inside.
Clutching his purse to his side he did not feel safe until, admitted to the house by a sleepy-eyed butler who regarded him and his winey breath with disapproval, he made his way to his own room and closed the door soundly behind him.
He went at once and hid the purse in a chest he kept concealed in the bottom drawer of his desk along with copies of other documents he had made and hoped to pass to his cousin at regular intervals in order to ensure a constant supply of gratuities for his betrayal.
He was making ready for bed when the door opened and two men came in. He was commencing to complain of the rudeness of their entry when they fell upon him.
“You villains,” he cried, struggling to free himself. “Sir Robert shall know of this and have you beaten roundly.”
His threat was no sooner spoken than Cecil himself appeared in the doorway.
“Sir Robert knows of it and more,” Cecil said.
Staunton realized at that moment that the men constraining him were the two who had followed him from his cousin’s and he felt such a weight of terror that his bowels loosened despite himself.
“Jesu God. He’s beshit himself,” said one of the men, noticing the disgrace.
“His incontinence bespeaks a guilty conscience,” Cecil said, looking down at Staunton’s leg, and then to one of the men who held Staunton. “Let him clean himself. Then bring him downstairs.”
The serving man to whom this order was given had drawn a pistol and was holding it to Staunton’s chest. With his free hand he shoved Staunton toward his bed and watched with steely eyes as Staunton removed his hose and tossed them, into a corner. He cleaned himself with water from a basin, dried himself with a towel, and then put on fresh hose he took from a chest in the corner. At the same time the second serving man was complying with Cecil’s instruction that the room be searched.
Later, Staunton fell on his knees to beg his master’s forgiveness even before the stolen letters were discovered and presented to Cecil.
Cecil, who seemed only a few inches taller even when Staunton was kneeling, looked at him with a remorseful expression.
“How did I know?” Cecil said, putting Staunton’s question into words. “You lied about Matthew Stock. He would never have said what you reported. That was what you wanted me to think.”
Staunton let his head drop forward. “Please forgive—”
“Yes, I’ll forgive,” said Cecil. “But first you’ll talk—freely or from a depth of pain beyond your imagining. The choice is yours. Afterwards, we’ll negotiate the terms of my forgiveness.”
Fourteen
The motions of the Plover had rocked her into a fitful sleep in which Matthew’s face appeared, disappeared, changed whimsically to other faces, but once, alarmingly, to Stear-forth’s.
Then the ship’s more vigorous pitch and roll jerked her awake. The strangeness of the place seized her like a gaged fist. She sat upright in the bunk and cracked her head on an overhanging beam. The captain had hung an oilskin cloak on it which looked disturbingly like a hanged man swinging on the gibbet.
It took her a few moments to remember where she was and why, and then deep apprehension replaced the strangeness and aggravated the growing turmoil in her stomach caused by the restless motion of the ship.
She went to the mullioned window and looked out. Through the early morning mist she could see the broad expanse of rough water and a spreading wake and flat, green land on either side. The ship was still in the river but proceeding toward its wide mouth and beyond the channel, to the sea. Joan had never been at sea and she knew from the queasy feeling in her gut that it would be an ordeal. She was also afraid of Captain Morgan. What orders had he been given concerning her, once they reached France?
She heard the clomp of boots on the stairs outside the cabin. The door burst open and Morgan appeared.
His face was reddened by the wind, and moisture glistened on his beard and forehead. He looked tired but determined and she once again felt the mixture of attraction and fear that she had experienced in their first encounter. He regarded her with a surprised look, as if he had forgotten she was his prisoner.
“Did you get any sleep?” he asked, as he removed his cloak and cap and threw them on the opposite bunk. He stood firm despite the roll and pitch. Like a tree, she thought, rooted in the deck.
“A little. It wasn’t easy, under the circumstances.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t be. Cook will bring something for you to eat. Can you wait an hour?”
She said she could. The idea of food repelled her at the moment, but she knew she must eat sometime. How she wished she were on dry land again. And yet the captain’s ingratiating manner pleased her. Evidently, he thought of himself more as host than jailer. She thought that a good omen.
“Must I stay in this cabin for the voyage?”
“I’d stand clear of the deck. You’d just be in the way. The voyage won’t be a long one. Have you been to sea before?”
“Never. Not even in a small boat.”
Through his beard Morgan’s lips parted into a genial smile. He sat down on the bunk, removed his boots, and swung his body into a horizontal position with one practiced motion. Seeing him there, staring up at the beams overhead, his expression relaxed, Joan wanted to ask who was piloting the ship, and then she remembered that a captain could hardly be expected to be at the helm at all hours. Of course he would have the one-eyed mate take his place. That stood to reason.
Although relaxing, Morgan did not seem averse to conversation. She asked him how long he had been captain, on what other ships he had served, and then she asked what she really wanted to know: whether he had a wife, and perhaps children. She would like to have asked their names, but that would have been to give away too much. She still was not sure of him, how he might respond to her if he knew exactly who she was and why she was being transported against her will. But then she wondered if he did not already know that from Motherwell or Stearforth.
Morgan said he had been master for three years, having served on another vessel as first mate. Yes, he had served on other vessels; he had worked his way up, having started his career at the age of eight in a pig of a ship that went straight to the bottom within a week of his joining its crew. Most of his shipmates, being unable to swim or find a barrel or beam to float upon, had drowned; he had been fortunate. He could not swim either, but in jumping over the side he had come up near the floating corpse of the ship’s carpenter, a hulk of a man, and the captain being then a mere boy with no more weight than a goose, was able to cling to the dead man’s belt until a benign tide brought both corpse and boy ashore.
“I named my son after him. The carpenter, I mean. He had saved my life unwittingly.”
“And what was his name?” Joan asked, thankful for this opportunity to find out what she wanted to know.
“Simon. Simon Danvers.”
“He must be a fine little boy,” she said.
“Oh, he is. A strapping lad. Eight.”
Joan thought she remembered Elspeth had said her son was seven, but maybe the captain was mistaken. Or perhaps she was. Morgan after all was not that uncommon a name. There might be other sea captains who were Morgans. Her captain might be a cousin or brother, yet how many with a Simon for a firstborn son?
“Is Simon your only child?”
“I have a daughter.”
“And what is her name?”
He looked at her for a moment as though to inquire why she should take such an interest. “Catherine,” he said.
Joan thought: he must be Elspeth’s husband. She marveled again at the coincidence. But then she thought, Why not? The link was Stearforth. But in what precise way? The question was whether
the master of the Plover was really one of the conspirators or a mere instrument? That was what she needed to find out. If he was not a fellow conspirator, she had reason to hope he could become her ally.
Their conversation was interrupted by the appearance of one of the crew, who declared in sailor’s cant that there was something amiss with the sails and the captain needed straightway above deck. With the same easy motion that he had used in getting himself into the bunk in the first place, Morgan swiveled out, thrust his feet into his boots, and in what seemed to Joan no more than a second was on his way out the door again.
Joan noticed at once that he had forgotten to lock the door behind him but she was not sure what advantage escape would offer, given the distance to land and her own disinclination to leap into the river. She could swim no better than Morgan’s poor companions who had gone down with his first ship and she could not count on a floating corpse to clutch to.
Now the ship began to roll more violently than before and her suffering became nearly intolerable. She clutched at her stomach and wished for death, flinging herself back in the bunk and shutting her eyes, as though a self-induced blindness would shut out the sickening motion. She tried to imagine herself in her own bed, with Matthew by her side, but she could not avoid the reality that he was in prison and she in another and hers the cramped cabin of a ship plowing deeper and deeper into turbulent sea. She felt her gorge rise. Seized by a powerful need to retch, she leaned her head over the side of the bunk and gagged helplessly. But there was little in her belly to void but a sour-tasting drool. She had not eaten since noon of the previous day and then only some bread and cheese. Her body convulsed with dry heaves. She sweat as though she had been standing before a raging fire, her head pounded, and again she wished for death, so sick she was.
Firm ground was what she needed. Air, fresh air, was the next best thing. She remembered that Morgan had not absolutely forbidden her to leave the cabin. He had only advised against it. But was she to die for her compliance with a mere suggestion? If she was to die, then she would die with the open sky above her, not entombed in this floating coffin.
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