Rodrigo was also my gracious conduit to Constanza who had written faithfully to me since my departure from Santa Maria. Her letters — always fascinating and articulate, warm and filled with news of the farm and factory, with encouragement from her Father and sweet kisses from the children — were a balm to my soul. My letters back to her were never as passionate as I wished them to be, but I had never written letters of love to a woman before, and I abhorred treacly words which could never begin to express what I actually felt in my heart for her. I prayed therefore, that she could read between the lines of my letters, and I knew that she could never misread nor forget what had passed twixt us the night before I had gone.
I used many other disguises to make my way round Corunna. I was often a meat pie vendor at the docks where I could easily count the soldiers and sailors coming and going from the ships. Twas here I learnt the true nature of Spanish military men which in deed caused me alarm. They were tough, disciplined and brilliantly trained, and strutted with a magnificent insolence that made them difficult to rule. Lowborn as many of them were, they were overbrimming with honor and dignity, for the profession of soldiering itself conferred a kind of nobility upon them.
They had no regular uniforms but dressed themselves with extravagant flair and richness — long cloaks, vividly hued doublets and hose, wide brimmed hats with swirling rainbow plumes. Their pride was unmatched, certainly by any English soldiers I had ever known, for they believed that they were fighting for the most righteous of all causes — God Himself.
One day when Enrique had begged to stay abed with a flux I dressed my self as a pilgrim with a wig of long wild hair. I carried a staff and begging bowl and fixed a badge of cowrie shells on my homespun cloak. I made my way from the arcaded city square out Silk Street, past its fine shops and porticoed great houses. Careful to keep my demeanor that of a humble penitent, I never the less observed all the variety of people in the street — for this was one of my great pleasures. Gentleladies veiled from head to foot on their way to church were followed by pages carrying velvet pillows which their mistresses would use to kneel and pray. I saw a man wearing a yellow hood and a long face, both penance for his confession of heresy before the Holy Office of the Inquisition, tho I thought him lucky to have escaped the flames. And there were countless beggars who, by law, held licenses issued by the church to beg alms for six leagues round.
I had nearly attained my destination on the outskirts of town — headquarters for the Royal Provisioners of the fleet — when I felt a rumble under my feet and knew that a company of horsemen were overtaking me. Head bowed humbly I stepped to the side of the road to let them pass when all at once they were upon me! Several soldiers jumped from their mounts and grabbed me roughly, arm and foot. I did not struggle, and spoke softly, hoping to convince them that they had made a mistake. But as they clamped a chain round my neck I heard their muttering. “It is he.” “Inglés.”
I lay in the stinking Court Prison of Madrid for a week with no idea how I had landed there. In the solitary silence of my cell I racked my mind for any understanding of my predicament. Who had betrayed me? Enrique, who had conveniently stayed at home that day claiming illness? Was it Ousley? He had told me many stories of English agents dealing treacherously with one another in the grip of jealousy and the greed for glory. Perhaps one of my countrymen coveted my post in Corunna for himself. Whatever the cause I was in terrible danger of my life. I knew nothing of my captors plans for me — if I would be interrogated, tried, allowed to rot in this place for months or years or the rest of my natural life. Would I be executed — shot, beheaded, or burnt at the stake for the heretic I was? And who in Gods name had betrayed me!
After one week in solitary confinement — or what I thought was a week, for there was no window to the tiny room — I was moved into the common chamber, a vast vaulted affair of dark dripping stone and crumbling masonry. I had never thought I would be grateful for a place amidst such squalor and dangerous company, but I found it an altogether better lot than the maddening isolation of my lonely cell.
When I first viewed the throng living together in conditions no better than a rats nest, my stomach heaved, for the stench was unbearable. I slowly moved across the crowded floor, perusing the inmates both male and female, allowing them to peruse me. There were ragged misfits, prostitutes, and rich gentlemen reduced to a living nightmare. Heretics waiting for the flames, picaros and cutpurses, cattle rustlers and church thieves. And whilst I saw two putas squabbling over a crust of moldy bread, and several miserable beggars fighting for a bigger piece of piss-soaked floor to stretch their legs on, I saw amongst them, too, glimpses of pure humanity. A woman tenderly ministering to a skeletal man, goodnatured camaraderie in a makeshift gaming area, a one eyed prisoner extracting the rotten tooth of a grandee wearing what remained of a fine suit. And of course the constant stream, day and night, of friends and relatives bringing provisions to their hopeless loved ones.
I had made my first round of the common chamber when the curfew bell was rung. Much to my surprise the prisoners did not begin to settle in for their nights sleep but all, in orderly fashion, assembled to face a raised stair upon which the one eyed man had climbed. Acting as a lay sacristan he bade them all kneel and each in their own way made a silent or muttered prayer. Finally the cyclops intoned, “Jesus Christ our Lord who shed thy precious blood for us, have pity on me, a great sinner.” I was struck at that moment by the extreme religious fervor of even these pitifully confined Spaniards, and shuddered inwardly to think that we in England did have a grave battle before us.
I was thus thwarted that evening of any information gathering, and instead threw my self into a quiet game of knucklebones with a confraternity of “matones.” These were men — the most dangerous in the prison — who murdered for money. They, with their leather doublet over coat of mail and broad brimmed hat with feathers, stayed to themselves — or perhaps others stayed away from them. My approaching them that night, and having them accept me into their game, earned me a measure of respect. So that night when it was time for sleep, a space was silently cleared for me, and a rolled jacket was placed as a pillow neath my head. But I slept very little that night, endlessly musing on the treachery which had landed me in such a hellhole.
I was surprised when I woke on the stone floor, stiff and aching, that I had even slept at all. I had dreamt for the first time of Constanza, bathing naked at the river, the voluptuous beauty of her, her thick wet hair curtaining her breasts. Then the morning routine of the common chamber began and banished all memory of pleasant dreams, replaced by a trio of ugly crones ladling out slops for our breakfast, long lines for the jakes which were beyond description, and the steady trickle of visitors growing into a roaring stream. Twas a social place if nothing else, this gaol, and I moved thro the crowded chamber searching for someone, something that I might use to my advantage — a way to send a message out to a friend, the scent of an escape plot being hatched. Anything!
Then I heard it. “Inglés!” My heart thudded hard in my chest. I stood on a high step and located the gaoler searching for me. I hesitated, knowing I could postpone his finding me almost indefinitely in this chaos, but concluded twas my only hope of learning anything about my condition.
“Inglés!” I called out over the din. He came at once and roughly took custody. He refused to answer any of my questions as he led me out of the common chamber and down a dreadful torchlit corridor. My heart sank as he opened a heavy door and I found myself on the brink of the prison torture chamber.
I have heard that the greatest extremes of pain and terror sometimes bring about a strange lapse in the mind. Memory of the excruciating moments simply disappears, leaving a blessed gap so that a person may continue in his life untormented. I wish that such had been the case with my self that morning in the chamber of horrors at the Madrid prison. But alack I remember it all — the torture engine in the shape of a ladder to which I was bound naked, limb and torso, with thin ropes. The st
icks stuck twixt the cord and the flesh on my chest, lower arms and the scarred place on my thigh, which I guessed would be twisted garrot like to cause pain. The creak of wood as the ladder was slowly adjusted till my head lay slightly lower than my feet. I remember thinking then that no matter how terrible the pain twas preferable to betraying my country and my Fathers trust. I remember, too, the scabrous hands of the man who pried open my mouth and inserted a prong of iron which distended my jaws, the filthy strip of linen laid down the length of my tongue into my throat. I remember the first thrill of fear as bits of linen were stuffed into my nostrils, and the harsh sound as I began breathing through my cloth cluttered mouth. By this time I recognized the method of misery which my captors meant to employ — the water torture. Twas a favorite of the Holy Office, preferable I had heard, to the rack alone or the hoist or the roasting of the victims oiled feet over flames.
I now saw a cupboard opened, and inside lined neatly by the dozen were jars of brownish water. The chamber door opened and preceded by a cloying waft of jasmine perfume, in strode a Spanish official, elegantly clad in black and altogether puffed with the importance of his duty. Without waiting to question me he said to his assistant, “Begin.”
The first jar of water was poured at a slow and steady rate down my throat. I tried at first to swallow the water but soon, with my lungs near to bursting, came the impulse to breathe. I could not, for my passages were yet filled! I gulped faster but the linen rag was soaked with water. I was seized by panic. I saw looming before me the monstrous black waves of the storm on my first Channel crossing. Which was worse, I wondered, the horror of drowning in mid ocean, or the horror of that same fate tied to a ladder in a Madrid prison? I gagged, spewing water, choked and began to suffocate. A blackness overtook me and blessedly I lost consciousness. The blessing, tho was short lived. I came alive from my asphyxiation with a bolt of fiery pain in my newly healed thigh as the stick twisted and tightened the rope tied round it. I shrieked with agony, yet remember thinking that this pain was bearable next to the cruelty of the water.
Now that I had been initiated, the official began his interrogation in a silken voice, demanding to know the details of my mission. He assumed I was one of Walsinghams men, and I did not disavow it. But after a time I understood to my horror that he had no real interest in anything I might divulge to him, for English spies had, every one of them, the same mission — to relay the movements of the Armada back to the Queen. What I knew had little importance. He had in his clutches one of his mortal enemies — God’s enemy — and his purpose was simply to inflict upon my mind and body as much pain as he could contrive until I should die.
A plan was beginning to form in the chaos of my brain when another jar of water was taken down from the shelf, and the assistant brought the forked device in order to pry open my mouth again.
“I am not what I seem!” I managed to shout before the fork was clamped on my face.
“And what would that be then, Inglés?” said the official, only mildly interested. He had, of course, heard every excuse, explanation and lie conceivable from previously captured spies, including the one I was about to speak, tho I believed it would buy me the time I needed to organize my thoughts.
“I am a double agent, Señor.”
With a tiny nod the direction was given to pry open my mouth. The official regarded me with a disdainful expression which said, You will have to divulge more than that, idiot.
“I work in concert with Sir Edward Stafford who, as you know, shares intelligence with Ambassador Mendoza in Paris.”
This served to bring him up short, and now he gazed at me with much less indifference. There was no way of telling the extent of his knowledge of Spains network of spies, especially at so high a level.
“There is something more that you should know,” I continued, planning my next words even as I spoke, for I knew that whatever was said in the next few moments would either save my life or end it. “I think you should know exactly whom you are interrogating, Señor. Whom you are preparing to torture to death.”
Whether twas the words I had spoken or the conviction with which I had uttered them, the official waved his assistant away with a flick of his perfumed fingers.
And then I told him the truth. At least a part of it.
Forty-four
“The heretic queen’s bastard, are you?” Francis Englefield quivered with sarcasm. He was furious, as well, for the miserable luck of being blind at such an interesting moment. If he could but see this young man. Well, not so very young. Randall had described him as twenty-five or thereabouts. Englefield had many times been in the presence of Queen Elizabeth at that very age, and even several times of Lord Leicester whom this person, this English spy, was claiming as his father. If only he could see the man himself — the reddish hair and dark eyes, the naturally pale skin, sun-burnt and weathered — surely he would know if there was the slightest chance that the story was true.
When the report from the prison had come to Englefield’s attention, the secretary had at first scoffed at the suggestion. Certainly it was farfetched. But then with a few calculations he had determined the vague possibility of its truth. Back in the first years of Elizabeth’s reign, he remembered, rumors of illegitimate children gotten by her stud Robin Dudley were as thick as flies on a dungheap. So he had had the prisoner walk the thirty-odd miles from Madrid to El Escorial for interrogation. If only it were true, mused Englefield, a natural successor to the English throne in his power. He might persuade the King to abandon his suicidal plan to rule England himself… . No, he must not suffer any delusions. The man was surely an impostor. He must settle for amusing himself with the prisoner, listen and appreciate the story — the details and convolutions that a mind’s imagination could invent in order to keep its body from the flames of the Auto da Fé.
“I am that indeed,” answered the man who called himself Arthur Dudley. An interesting choice of a Christian name, thought Englefield. The name of Elizabeth’s paternal uncle, first heir of the Tudor dynasty, who never lived to see himself crowned and whose untimely death put Henry VIII on the English throne. Yes, and the Tudor fascination with the Arthurian legend… .
“However, my mother as yet has no knowledge of me. She believes I was stillborn. Only my father knows I’m still alive.”
Englefield was sure he detected a note of anger in the man’s last response. Oh, this might prove to be a roaring good tale! “Are you getting all this, Randall?”
“Every word, Sir Francis. Have no fear.”
“And how, pray tell, did you make your way from a royal English birth to the torture chamber in a Spanish prison?” he demanded of Arthur.
“’Tis a long story, sir, but if you have the patience and your scribe has the ink, I shall tell you everything you wish to know.”
Forty-five
I had met with King Philips English secretary for five days running, and his interrogation of me had been not only painless but at times almost pleasant. Francis Englefield was a strange peacock of a man, skeletally thin with thick spectacles which did him no good whatsoever, and attired in the most outrageous costumes — enormous starched ruffs, a parrot green doublet one day, sulphur yellow with scarlet hose the next. I wondered that a blind man should choose such flamboyance which he could not himself enjoy, and I wondered also how an Englishman — even a Catholic — could choose to live in service to the King of Spain.
I was a storyteller by nature, and whilst at times I merely related the facts of my life, at others I fabricated and twisted them to suit my purposes. Really there was only one purpose — to save my own neck. I had determined there was little I could do to further damage England. True, she had lost a loyal agent for the moment, but the invasion was a foregone conclusion, and I knew that alive there was some further chance of service to perform. I was no good to anyone dead.
I told Englefield and his scribe Randall the truth of my birth and upbringing and the odd incident of my arrest by the Privy Coun
cil Guard at Milford Haven beach when I was fourteen. I spoke of my military service in the Netherlands War, and even my presence at the assassination of Prince William of Orange. I explained that I had been called home to the deathbed of Robert Southern, there to be told of my true lineage. I even described my journey to London and the meeting with Lord Leicester, taking great pains to describe his lodgings at Greenwich in order to lend authenticity to my account.
Twas at this juncture, however, that adherence to the whole truth left off, and the spinning of the tale began. I said that Leicester had been utterly convinced of my story — in deed had blanched upon hearing the details of my birth and kidnapping by Kat Ashley and William Cecil, and also at the evidence of my Grandmothers black eyes and sixth finger. But whilst he had embraced me as his son and heir in the privacy of his lodgings, Leicester had thereafter schemed to rid him self of me for ever. He had explained that my Mother could not yet be told of my existence, but begged me to spy for England. Then I had been sent with his secretary to the home of Walsingham where I was issued a passport, and hustled aboard a ship bound for Calais. I related my shock and rage when I comprehended that I had been cut off altogether, that Leicester refused to answer my correspondences, and that I had been officially barred entrance to England for the rest of my natural life.
I had peppered the tale with enough names and places and details to give him pause, and urged him to verify them all. But twas not till I began to expound on the hurt and angry betrayal I felt at Leicesters rejection of me, that Englefields interest became truly piqued. I said that whilst my adoptive Father had been a Protestant, my Mother Maud had been an ardent Catholic, and that my personal sufferings of the past two years had revealed to me my real religious inclinations, bringing me back to the True Faith.
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