They all plotted. In this very room she had overheard supposedly cryptic conversations between the Earl of Essex, Mountjoy and these women, which she’d have been an idiot not to understand. It was the queen’s fault, of course, for refusing to name her successor; they had to consolidate their position in advance with whomsoever that might be. But they did it so carelessly. Amateurs, thought Barbary. And if they believed Mr Secretary Cecil wasn’t aware of what they were up to, they were mad.
‘Dice or cards tonight?’ asked Frances.
‘Dice,’ said Barbary. But Elizabeth Vernon was not staying and Lettice had a headache, so dice was overruled for cards and they settled on Gleek, which could only be played with three. A pity. Very difficult to cheat at Gleek, which was a game of memory, patience and bluff. However, Frances had no memory for cards, and as for Penelope, patience was not a quality the Devereux possessed.
‘And the wagers?’
‘The usual.’ They played for servants, a good butler or maid being more priceless than rubies. In a recent game of Ketch Dolt, Barbary had managed to offload the dreadful Roland onto Vernon, and replace him with Rich’s Philip.
Penelope broke out a new pack and handed round counters. ‘I warn you, my dear Boggart,’ she said, ‘that tonight I intend to play for Winchard.’
‘Winchard?’
‘I love Winchard. He’s so ugly. I’ll put him in a pie and get him to jump out at the queen. That should finish the old hag off.’
This was what she’d wanted. Barbary feigned reluctance. ‘Winchard is a man among men. He held an entire mob off my coach today.’ She gave an edited version of the running footman story. They shrieked with laughter. ‘But I’m no pinch-buttock, as we say in the Fleet. I’ll wager Winchard if you put up Joseph.’ She said it idly. Everything was resting on this. She needed Joseph. Badly.
Frances looked alarmed. She was, after all, mistress of the house even though Penelope acted as if she was. ‘Please, please not Joseph, Boggart dear. What about Daniel?’
Barbary shook her head. ‘I’ve got Philip.’
‘Janet?’
‘No, I’ve got Maria. But if the stake’s too high…’
‘Very well. Joseph.’ Penelope Rich’s chin was up.
So far so good. Joseph was what she’d come for. With Joseph, a Leonardo da Vinci of marchpane, she could rule the world, certainly put on a supper to knock the Queen of England’s eye out. Now for it.
They played, they stopped for refreshment. Wine in winking glass, plovers on beds of sallet, lobster, tarts and creams from the magical Joseph. Barbary was two up, Frances one and Penelope three. Winner would be the first to reach the best of seven. She dare not let Penelope take another game, but her own cards were krap. With every wit she possessed she couldn’t win unless the luck changed. At the moment it was with Penelope. Why hadn’t she insisted on dice?
Essex, Henry Cuffe and Mountjoy came in from the bowling alley, smelling of sweat, a summer night and, from Mountjoy, the inevitable nicotine.
‘Will you stay for supper?’ Frances was suddenly intense.
Essex kissed his wife’s hair. ‘Sweetheart, this weary knight must drag himself to the palace in a moment. She too wants to play cards.’
Frances looked tragic; she had the right sort of face for it, thin and dark. Unlucky at cards, she ought to be lucky in love, thought Barbary, but she wasn’t. She’d married Philip Sidney not long before his death, knowing that his true love was Penelope Rich. Then she’d married Essex, knowing that his love, true or not, was the queen’s. Poor old Frances was a natural martyr.
‘Robert,’ said Penelope, ‘what do you say to having the Bettys’ Winchard on the staff? He’s as good as won.’
‘Excellent. We can put him on the roof as a gargoyle.’
‘You haven’t won him yet,’ said Barbary.
As the women began to play again, the men drew off to a corner. Barbary could hear some of their muttering: ‘…send to Victor… sign of Venus failing…’ Amateurs. She’d latched on to their code weeks ago, enough anyway to realise that ‘Victor’ was James of Scotland and ‘Venus’ was the queen. Well, if they wanted to dice with death, that was their business. She needed to concentrate on the cards in hand. She was playing for stakes higher than theirs. She was playing for the soul of Ireland.
They kept trying to refill her glass so that she’d get muzzy, and when she sipped they accused her of cheating by keeping a clear head. Still, they were tipping back their wine faster than she was. The calls were coming louder. ‘Tib. Fifteen to the dealer.’ ‘Tim.’ ‘Towser.’ ‘Tumbler.’
‘The Ruff.’
‘I’ll vie the Ruff,’ said Barbary. Frances had surprised herself and everybody else by taking two games. Each of them was three up. This was the last hand.
‘I’ll see it.’ Frances was getting cold feet.
‘I’ll see and revie,’ said Penelope.
Now then. She had six trumps, the knave, the ten, the five, the six and the two. Frances had drawn the king and the four some time back, and Barbary was pretty sure she had some more – but not as many as herself. She’d won, unless bloody Penelope Rich had the four aces, which took the game regardless of trumps. She certainly had two. Her eyes were sparkling, but that might be the wine. She was damned sure it was the wine.
Here goes Ireland. ‘I’ll see it.’
Frances laid down her hand. Only four trumps. But no.
Slowly, holding Barbary’s eyes with her own, Penelope flicked a card onto the table. The ace of trumps. She flicked another. Ace of hearts. And another. Ace of spades. Then she smiled, and spattered the rest onto the table, a motley collection without an ace among them. ‘Will you take Joseph now, or shall I have him sent round?’
‘I’ll take him,’ Barbary said, ‘wrapped.’
* * *
The supper was a triumph. From the moment in the garden when the queen put up her hand to the branches of the apple tree above her head, picked an apple and exclaimed: ‘It’s marchpane,’ its success was assured. It had been a dreadful risk. Rob had sweated at Barbary’s choice of theme, which was Robbery. ‘A play on your name, see, Rob.’
‘A play on my neck. She’ll hate the reminder that crime is rife.’
‘She won’t. I’ve written to Spenser to write us a masque in which she steals everybody’s hearts. She’ll love it.’
‘What about a naval theme?’
‘Essex did that.’ He’d set 300 artificers to dig a lake in the shape of the Channel, filling it with wine and gilt model ships with guns that exploded scented powder in a mock battle. For a finish he’d given the queen a gold fishing rod and she pulled out a golden trout with pearl eyes. They couldn’t compete on that scale.
Rob gave in because he couldn’t think of anything cleverer. They’d have to gamble on the novelty of it. Joseph nearly killed himself to crown his career and created a complete orchard out of marchpane. It used up a shipload of sugar that Rob had been hoping to sell. It was a hot September and stopping the damn thing from melting, let alone keeping the flies off it, nearly killed Barbary as well. Rehearsing the staff, ordering the food, hiring enough silver for 150 – it was a small supper by the queen’s standards – acquiring sufficient seamstresses to make the costumes, finding composers and musicians, consulting the Lord Chamberlain on precedence and etiquette, she became thin and doubtful. ‘Oh, Rob, it’s all wrong. It’s the wrong theme. I’m sorry, Rob.’
With the die cast, he’d become amazingly calm. ‘Whether it sends me to Ireland or the Tower, I’m grateful for your trouble, Margaret.’
Edmund Spenser did them proud. From Munster he sent a masque that began with Eve stealing the apple, went through allegorical and mythical thieves like Pandora and Prometheus, including a lot Barbary had never heard of, and ended with a hundred stanzas of such grotesque flattery to the ‘Lovely Arch-Robberess Who Has Stolen Her Nation’s Heart’ that, translated into material sugar, they could have made another orchard from it.
&n
bsp; Parts were written into it for the three children; another risk. Elizabeth had made no reference to Henry since she’d first acknowledged his existence. By this time Rob was so numbed by the enormity of his gamble, he said: ‘I have only one son and one neck. Go ahead.’
And Henry, dressed as a playing card knave, stealing tarts away from Catherine, the Queen of Hearts, very nearly stole the entertainment as well, especially when he gave the tarts to ‘Her Majesty, the true queen of hearts’ in the audience. Elizabeth said: ‘His gallantry gives us cause to wonder at his years, God bless him. He will be a singular man.’
Whether they should make a topical reference to Ireland cost Barbary and Rob sleepless nights. The situation over there had calmed down but… Eventually they included it in the buffoonery. Winchard, dressed as an asinine O’Neill, lumbered onto the stage; Rob, dressed in an English soldier’s uniform, made of silk, stole the Irishman’s trousers, revealing Winchard’s backside to be wearing a target through which emerged a forked tail. Archers appeared from behind the marchpane trees and shot blunted arrows at it.
Elizabeth laughed until she cried. Barbary closed her eyes with relief. She felt no guilt at exposing the O’Neill to ridicule; he could hardly incur more hatred than he had already, but she’d had a momentary qualm about exposing Winchard – needlessly as it turned out. Winchard was so happy at his performance he refused to leave the stage and had to be dragged off.
The peroration went down beautifully. The buffet – for which half the wildlife of the home counties had laid down its life – spread from one end of the hall to the other and went down even better.
As she left, Elizabeth smiled maliciously at Barbary: ‘Did you draw on your own experience, Boggart?’ Then relented and kissed her: ‘We have enjoyed ourselves.’
Cecil helped his hostess to the gallery’s oriel window from which they watched the final rehearsed surprise of the night. Elizabeth’s coach was being waylaid by silver-clad highwaymen, led by Rob, in order to steal a kiss from its royal occupant.
‘I congratulate you,’ the Elf said. ‘A most entertaining evening.’
‘Does it get Rob Ireland?’
Mr Secretary Cecil’s small face beamed at her. He loathed direct questions nearly as much as he hated direct answers. ‘I believe it will. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to suggest that Sir Rob should first reconnoitre the ground, as it were, and join Marshal Bagenal to see for himself the problems of its warfare. She has just whispered to me to prepare the necessary orders.’
‘And then will he be Lord Deputy?’
‘I see no reason why not. God willing.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rob left for Ireland within the week.
‘All that trouble,’ Barbary moaned, ‘all that money and you’re still not appointed.’ With the building and furnishing of the house, and with the supper, they were in debt to the tune of £30,000.
Rob was less displeased than she was. ‘It will be no bad thing to gain experience of this form of soldiering at first hand. If I were appointed without it, Ormond and all the Dublin men would be telling me to do this or that and I should be unable to gainsay them.’
‘Shall we come with you? We can stay at Hap Hazard, or with the Spensers.’
During all the time they’d been living together, he had never asked her about her time in Ireland.
‘No,’ he said sharply. Then he softened. ‘There is too much to be seen to here.’
‘Very well.’ She’d had to offer, but it was a relief that he had refused; she was getting too old to be badgered with uncomfortable memories and confusion. She was very nearly middle-aged, a woman with responsibilities; sometimes nowadays she looked back and wondered where the girl she had been had found all that emotion.
She would miss Rob, though. Their relationship had become equable; if anything, his reliance gave her the upper hand. As he had come to trust her, he had become less guarded, more able to drop formality and display something of the real man behind it. And a very considerable man that was, she’d decided. The desperation for advancement which had panicked him in his early days had eased as advancement had come. He was still ambitious, but ambition had begun to include his soul, not just his fortune. In those early days in the Order, she thought, he must have dreamed of righteousness as well as riches and was now carefully attaching it to his reputation. He took pride in being known at court as bluff, honest Rob. One night, as they sat together over supper, he had confessed that he was disappointed by the morality of the society in which he moved: ‘In all honesty, Margaret, there are times when one could believe oneself to be back in the Bermudas.’
Not that such realisation had softened his dislike of the Order. He’d severed the professional connection between Barbary and Mr Secretary Cecil, telling the Elf he did not wish his wife to carry out any more assignments, especially those which returned her to her old haunts. Unperturbed, Cecil agreed.
Even when Cuckold Dick turned up to inform them that Galloping Betty was dying and asking to see them both, Rob had refused to go. ‘The woman may account herself my mother, but I have never done so,’ he said.
Barbary hadn’t gone either. ‘You may go if you wish, Margaret,’ Rob had told her, ‘but I should be sorry to see the improvement between us jeopardised by a return to those people.’ She’d thought about it, but it had been when Sylvestris was recovering from the measles and by the time he was fully better it was too late.
The days before he left passed in a tumult of packing interspersed with instructions. ‘Henry is now too old to have the maid sleep in his room.
‘The wharf should be reinforced. Tom Motte must see to it.
‘Do not neglect family prayers either at morning or night. Any servant who does not attend to be fined twopence.
‘The cochineal from the Indies should be at Bristol by the end of the year. See Martin sells it for not a penny under forty shillings a pound. It will cover the debts with sufficient left over for the household and the fitting of more ships. I shall write to Martin, but you must oversee the matter.
‘In my absence I would rather you do not gamble any more. Especially at Essex House. It is a dangerous place and has served its purpose.
‘A copy of my will is with John Forber of the Scriveners’ Company, another at the Archdeacon’s Court. Effingham and Cecil are its executors and Effingham is also Henry’s guardian. I have included in it an instruction that he is to consult your advice in matters concerning Henry’s upbringing.’ He frowned. ‘Though not necessarily take it.’
‘Very well, Rob.’
In leaving he lingered uneasily at the door. ‘I have been gratified, Margaret, by your conduct since you became mistress of my household…’
She knew him well by now. His pomposity was due to worry about Helen and because he didn’t know how to say so. ‘Rob,’ she said, equally pompous, ‘we have become what we always should have been, friends. I shall watch over Helen, and Henry, and Tilsend and Betty House and the cochineal for you. You watch over Ireland for me.’
She stood in the oriel window to get a view of his ride up the Strand. He was in his splendid plum velvet, his entourage following behind in blue livery with Rob’s badge, an anchor, on their left sleeve. She felt very proud. A small crowd of Londoners, always attracted by a to-do, were cheering. Barbary opened a pane to wave a handkerchief, and the loyal wife seeing her brave lord off to war got a cheer for herself.
Yet there was no war. Almost as quickly as he’d set fire to the north of Ireland, the O’Neill damped it down and went back to his old tactics, suing for peace and pardon, protesting his ‘dear wish to obtain Her Majesty’s favour’.
Nobody really believed him, but the colonial administration was in disarray and needed its own time to recoup. It advised the queen to give assurances to the rebel ‘which later may be cancelled and forgotten’. And hope still flickered that O’Neill meant it; it was his genius that those to whom he made promises always believed against the evidence that h
e might keep them.
In an England which had been badly shocked, there was reassurance at the return to his old game. He was the Running Beast again, the cowardly, shape-shifting prevaricator. The Great Satan of Clontibret had been an aberration.
Rob’s letters always began ‘My good wife Margaret’ and ended with ‘Your affect. husband, Rob Betty, Kt.’ The pages between reiterated his instructions, with others he’d remembered since. Apart from the fact that Marshal Bagenal had received him with honour and it was raining in north-east Ireland, she had no indication of his condition.
But that winter he wrote:
‘You should not be amazed that Her Matie has freed Sir Richard Bingham from his imprisonment and sent him once more to Ireland. He is known everywhere for a good soldier and she will have need of such, a matter to far outweigh promises which, you say, she made to a common Irish pirate.
‘You tell me his gains were ill-gotten but were you here, which I thank God for your sake and Henry’s you are not, you should see such base dealing by Her Matie’s servants in this place as to make you wonder if she were not better to employ common rats.’
After that his complaints against those who lined their own pockets in Dublin while the army went ‘naked and weaponless’ were constant. She learned of the vicious circle which sustained revolt, of officers kept short of supplies and pay being forced to commandeer the harvest of loyal clans, leaving them starving and in rebellion.
From Elizabeth’s point of view, millions had been poured into Ireland and gone nowhere. But Rob said that the supplies, uniforms and arms which arrived in Dublin were frequently half the amount on the requisition orders, or sometimes didn’t arrive at all. Much of the corn, powder and match which lumbered on the sixteen-day journey to Chester disappeared while it was in the sutlers’ warehouses, was frequently spoiled during the crossing, and dwindled even more on reaching the other side.
The levies of men who’d been snatched from English and Welsh villages for an army in a country many of them had never heard of were ragged. They deserted as soon as they could, looted in order to eat, or died of disease. Captains kept short of money put in for the pay of a command up to full strength, then filled in the blanks with starving Irishmen who rode pillion on other soldiers’ horses and whose weapons were no more than cudgels.
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