Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  “Of course!”

  There had been an evening at Hilbury Melcombe when his letters had been handled. And Mr Gregory of Lyme had occupied the next room. Mr Gregory of Lyme was the rock on which his five ships had foundered. For those letters told all. There was one from each shipyard.

  Robin rode on again and stopped again. For the seals of those letters had not been broken. He had examined them. No, not one had been defaced in any way. He gave up the problem. It was a futile one in any case, since Walsingham did know.

  But what was mystery to Robin Aubrey riding back under the moon from Sydling Court to Abbot’s Gap was made plain at a later day.

  The Reverend Dr Fuller made a Collection of the Worthies of England almost a century later and found a place amongst them for Arthur Gregory, of Lyme. “He had the admirable art of forcing the seal of a letter; yet so invisibly that it still appeared a virgin to the exactest beholder. Secretary Walsingham made great use of him about the packets which passed from foreign parts to Mary Queen of Scotland,” and apparently some use of him about the shipbuilders’ letters which were brought over by Dakcombe to Mr Robin Aubrey at Hilbury Melcombe.

  CHAPTER XIII. The Knot of Ribbon Again and a Supper at Barn Elms

  “WAIT HERE!”

  Walsingham left Robin standing in the garden and walked by an alleyway of limes towards the palace. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and the river was astir with rowing-boats and wherries. Across the water on the Surrey side the queen’s barge lay at its moorings. Robin was hardly less nervous today than he had been when he had been called out from amongst the oppidans at Eton, but he made as brave a show of indifference as his quickly beating heart allowed him to do. For though this was the private garden of Whitehall there were citizens of London enjoying the sunlight and the air as though the place were their own demesne. Robin understood now how easy of accomplishment a crime such as Babington had planned really was. The road from Westminster passed under an open archway opposite to the door of Westminster Hall and wound past the tilt yard and the cockpit amongst the many buildings of the palace. The garden, with its lawns, its alleys, its flower beds edged with box and marjoram, lay open to all comers. And here the queen walked with her latest favourite or one of her ladies in waiting. Robin saw her now coming towards him from a great hedge of rosemary, with one of her maids behind her. He advanced to her, his hat in his hand, and dropped on a knee in front of her.

  “It’s boy Robin,” she said, and she gave him her hand to kiss. “You have brought me back my knot of ribbon!”

  Robin had had a little gold case made for it, with the lid richly chased and set with rubies. He opened the lid and offered it to Elizabeth.

  “I would lose a knot every day if I thought it would be so daintily restored to me.” She took the case in her hands and the knot from the case and held it against her sleeve. “It is clean out of fashion now,” she said. She was wearing a gown of white silk with an embroidery of pearls, and certainly that faded bow of blue was altogether amiss. “Yet I shall keep it to remind me of a very loyal servant, until in his good time he claims it again.”

  She snapped the lid of the box down and, beckoning to her maid, bade her set it apart in the rose cabinet in her chamber.

  “You shall walk with me, boy Robin,” she said, and when they were out of hearing, “You are set upon a dangerous and thankless mission. I cannot protect you whilst the work is forward, and no trumpet will sound for you when it is done.”

  There was a note of compunction and a great gentleness in her voice, and with them a smile as if she were pleased to walk with him.

  “Yet, Your Majesty, no service could be more felicitous to me. For I serve Your Grace first in some special need, and thereafter myself.”

  “Aye, I heard something of that from my Moor, else I’d have sent him to the devil and bidden him seek someone from the greedy crowd besieging me.” She drew a great sigh, half of it genuine, half of it heaved up to persuade this good-looking stripling what a forlorn and lonely woman it was that he walked with. “If you knew how I am plagued by the cupidity of men. They must have money and titles and God knows what if they but hold a stirrup for me when I mount! But for love of me, where shall I look, Robin?” And she heaved another great “heigh and a ho” which set Robin’s heart swelling with pity.

  “To ten thousand like to me, Your Grace, who have but once seen your face, and to thousands more who have never been so blessed,” cried Robin eagerly.

  “Is it so, good Robin?” she asked wistfully. “In sooth I hope it is.” She walked on with him for another step or two. “I had thought to keep you nearer to me, but the good of the realm overrides us all. So fare you well, and when in God’s time you come back you shall find in your queen a very grateful and loving woman.”

  She had assumed in a second her royal dignity. Robin dropped upon his knee, and she gave him her hand again to kiss. Then she smoothed his cheek and with a smile tapped it once or twice.

  “These boys who give everything and ask for nothing,” and now she sighed with no pretence whatever, “and alas! we must take them at their word. I should give you some favour by which you might bear me in your remembrance, but I should be adding peril upon peril. So go your ways!”

  Robin returned to his lodging and, changing his dress for one of a more sober hue, waited upon Walsingham at his town house by London Wall, and there, meeting Sir John Hawkins and two conveyancing lawyers, signed the papers which gave the secretary authority to deal for his ships with the queen’s navy.

  “So all is clear and your affairs in order,” said Walsingham. “If you will sup with me tomorrow at Barn Elms we shall arrange the particulars of your mission.”

  It was a pleasant family party where grave matters and grave manners were laid aside. The principal secretary warmed to a reticent sort of gaiety; his daughter Frances, who was married to Sir Philip Sidney, then fighting in the Low Countries, put a sprightly face upon her anxieties. They were at pains to make Robin at home, but they sent his thoughts winging away to Abbot’s Gap and making pictures for him of some such household where Cynthia moved and sat making everything beautiful by the daintiness and glamour of her presence.

  “Oh, I have got to come back!” he said suddenly, and Frances Sidney looked at him across the table with so kindly an understanding in her eyes that it quite revived his courage.

  “Of course you will — as my dear man will,” she answered with a little gasp of fear in the middle of the sentence, and a smile of courage at the end of it. “Take it from an old married woman” — she was nineteen and Robin’s age— “women would rather have a call upon their bravery than no reason to be brave.”

  She gave him a little nod of reassurance and rode away to a lighter topic. So she knew of Cynthia, else she would never have used those words. Robin flushed red and was comforted. He turned to Sir Francis.

  “Mr Gregory of Lyme is a very observant person,” he said.

  Sir Francis did not blush like Robin, but a faint tinge of red crept over his face.

  “There is a gift of observation,” he returned. “I think Mr Gregory has it.”

  “It enables him to read letters from their superscription,” continued Robin.

  Sir Francis swallowed, though he had nothing in his mouth to swallow.

  “They call it second sight,” he said gruffly.

  Robin smiled and said with deference:

  “I am glad to know, sir. For otherwise I should have called it first sight, since he seems to know the contents of the letters even before those to whom they are addressed.”

  Frances laughed delightedly, Walsingham himself with an amusement which was not so genuine. Lady Ursula, his wife, had not an idea of what they were talking about. Walsingham rose and said to his wife:

  “My dear, I shall carry our guest away with me to my room. We shall sit late, I expect.”

  Robin took his leave of Lady Ursula. He lifted Frances Sidney’s hand to his lips, and she returned
his courtesy with a warm pressure of the fingers and a gleam of tears in her eyes. But she said nothing, for words were of no use in her case or in his. She lived in terror of the dark day which was to come in two months’ time and rob Elizabeth of the choicest jewel of her court. He was to go forth on a desperate mission without profits or honour, but with such cruel privacy that even his true love must never know till all was done in what corner of the world he wandered or what he did.

  Robin followed Sir Francis Walsingham into his library at the side of the great hall.

  “To our affairs.”

  He drew out a chair from a big square table with a smile and a gesture. Whilst Robin seated himself he turned to a bureau in a corner of the room, and unlocking a drawer fetched out some official papers and a little notebook. With these in his hands he set himself down on the side of the table opposite to Robin.

  “Here is your licence to travel abroad,” he said, unfolding a parchment with a great seal and the signature of Lord Burghley at the bottom.

  “You will see that you may travel with five horses and two servants.” He handed the parchment across the table.

  “Two for my baggage,” said Robin.

  “You are a young gentleman of style and fortune making the grand tour for the improvement of your mind.”

  “But my fortune is gone,” said Robin ruefully.

  “It is on the way to its restoration,” replied Walsingham. “Meanwhile, here is a letter of credit upon the Paris branch of the house of Fugger in Frankfurt and another upon Rospoli the banker at Genoa.”

  Robin looked at them and made sure they were in order.

  “And here is an order upon Sir Thomas Gresham in Old Change for one hundred pounds in gold, which you will draw before you leave London.”

  Robin folded the order and the letters of credit and set them upon the licence to travel.

  Sir Francis was sitting with a paper in front of him. He read it diligently and affixed his signature and then extended it across the table.

  “This is of so much importance that were you to lose it before you could deliver it you might as well start homewards the next day.”

  Robin read the letter.

  “It commends me to Giovanni Figliazzi at the Palazzo Negro in Florence.”

  “Giovanni Figliazzi,” Walsingham explained, “is the ambassador of the Duke of Tuscany to the court of Spain.”

  Robin frowned.

  “He is then a friend of King Philip.”

  “And in very high favour,” Walsingham returned imperturbably. “But he is a better friend to me.”

  Robin bowed.

  “I shall deliver it as quickly as I can.”

  “To be sure,” said Walsingham, reaching out his hand. “You will say in France that you are reserving the glorious treasures of French art and learning for your homeward journey.”

  He took the letter to Figliazzi, folded it and, lighting a taper on the table at his side, sealed it with his signet ring. He held it out again, but Robin drew back.

  “You have forgotten something.”

  “I?”

  “Yes.”

  Walsingham turned the letter over. The superscription was correct.

  “And what have I forgotten?”

  “The gallows’ mark,” said Robin.

  The secretary laughed in a very good humour.

  “I reserve that note of distinction for my friends in England. The gentle hint might not be understood in Italy.”

  Robin packed away the letter of introduction in the pouch at his belt, with his letters of credit and his order upon Sir Thomas Gresham and his licence to travel.

  “Figliazzi expects you,” said Walsingham.

  “I shall use all haste.”

  “The more the better. There are five galleons which Philip has hired from the free city of Genoa, manned with Italian soldiers and sailors. Figliazzi will have charge of those ships; he will sail with them to Lisbon.”

  “Lisbon?” cried Robin, recoiling.

  “It’s your only road to Madrid. There are many Italian galleons and galleasses assembling in Spanish ports. Those from the free cities and from Leghorn go straight to Lisbon. Sr Figliazzi must go there and see all ordered properly before he goes to Madrid.”

  “They are assembling at Lisbon?”

  “Others from Philip’s own kingdom of Naples and the Papal States are to make their rendezvous at Cadiz, where I think another Sir Francis of a more active body than mine may haply lead a lively pavane,” he said with a dry smile. But the smile broadened in a moment. “And I think it likely, Robin, that a sound, swift ship lately built at Poole and named the Expedition may set prettily to its partner in that dance.”

  For a second there flashed through Robin a wild hope that he himself might sail on the Expedition. There would be landing parties. The battle over, he might make his way to Madrid.

  Walsingham read the hope in the boy’s face and shook his head.

  “It will go out and the port burnt and so home again. Besides, Lisbon is the very hub of the Enterprise of England, as they call it. That I know. From every harbour on the Continent where ships are built the best workmen are being hired. Wherever cannon are being cast, cannon are ordered. And all for Lisbon. But that’s all I know. What I must know is this: the name of every ship, whether it be galleon or rowed galleass or small frigate, its tonnage, the number and the calibre of its guns, the trained soldiers that it carries, its captain; yes, every ship, a complete list of the Invincible Armada, as they call it,” and a note of ridicule crept into his voice, “that we may give them a true and hearty welcome.”

  A curious glow had spread over his pale face. The long years of doubt and hanging off and step-toeing on, of prevarications and shifts, of skies clouding and clearing were coming at last to their end. The disclosure of the Babington conspiracy would certainly bring treachery into so plain a light that even Elizabeth could no longer save the head of Mary of Scotland. With her removed there was England, a new province for Spain, a saving addition, with its wealth and commerce, to bankrupt Philip’s empire. The stage was all set. Walsingham had never a doubt to what end and climax the play would go — neither he nor any other loyal Englishman. God would be with them for one thing. But they must be ready, and to be ready they must know to a demiculverin what strength they had to meet.

  “Lisbon first!” he cried. “You will travel in Figliazzi’s train, a young Italian gentleman, speaking Spanish, as we know, with the accent of Italy. In a few months Figliazzi will proceed from Lisbon to Madrid. Again you will go in his train, your work for the realm done and yourself free for your pious task.”

  “I shall do what I can,” said Robin.

  “You will want an Italian name.”

  Robin looked up with a start.

  “You will leave your own behind you on the borders of Italy,” continued Walsingham.

  “Yes.”

  “It must be a name which will escape attention.”

  Robin laughed.

  “I have it, sir.”

  “Let me hear,” said Walsingham.

  “Carlo Manucci,” said Robin.

  It was the name of a character in a play. He had acted it once. Well, here was another character to be acted with something of the same trickery and diplomacies. He must act this part better than the earlier one, to be sure, for in this case the stake was the stake, not a flogging. But the same name would be suitable.

  “Carlo Manucci,” Walsingham repeated, and he wrote the name in his little book, and looked at it straight and looked at it sideways.

  “Carlo Manucci. It will do as well as another.”

  Sir Francis Walsingham made a good many mistakes in his career. He was wrong when he wanted to pour out Elizabeth’s small treasury to the arrogant deputation from the Low Countries. He was wrong when he urged her to squander money on the grasping and needy earls of Scotland. But perhaps he was never so wrong as when in his ignorance he told Robin that as a name Carlo Manucci would do
as well as another. However, Carlo Manucci was agreed upon.

  “But you must not sign your letters by that name,” he added.

  “No?”

  “You will send them in the ambassador’s bag to Florence, and they will be addressed to Mr Arthur Gregory at my house on London Wall.”

  “I shall remember,” said Robin.

  “And you will sign them D 1.”

  “D 1,” Robin repeated.

  Sir Francis shifted in his chair, and hummed and ha’ed for a moment.

  “I do not as a rule let one of my agents know of another. It is for their own security that they should work in an independence which is complete.” Walsingham did not give his reason. But it was plain enough. Under the question, a prisoner could reveal no more than he knew. “But there will be one in Cadiz with Medina-Sidonia in a like case with you. Figliazzi knows of him, and if there be need he will make you acquainted.”

  Upon that he shut up his little book and replaced it in the drawer of the bureau. Robin rose to his feet. The interview was over.

  “You have no other instructions, sir?”

  “None,” said Walsingham as he locked the drawer. “Yet, wait a little! There is one, of course, so plain that it hardly needs utterance.” His back was turned towards Robin. He was still very busy with his bureau. The order hardly worth utterance was thrown backwards over his shoulder in an offhand and indifferent way.

  “You will say not one word about your mission to anyone in the world, man or woman, boy or . . .” there was a pause for perhaps the space of a second as he withdrew his key from the lock— “girl.”

  Certainly he was very easy and confident, but no answer was given to him. It was obvious, nevertheless, that he waited for one. His back was still turned to Robin, and his hands still pretended to be busy with his bureau, but he was waiting. Every line of his figure proved it. He got an answer in the end, very quietly given and very likely the answer he expected, though the last one which he desired.

  “That, sir, cannot be. There is one who must know.”

  Sir Francis heaved a sigh. Love affairs were the very devil.