‘You are able to read everything I say?’ he asked, pointing to his mouth before slapping Tom on the back. It felt as if he’d been hit with a shovel. Kit had moved to one side so Tom could read what he was saying as he explained to the man whom he called Richard how he was able to lip read.
He felt self-conscious as all eyes turned on him and he looked around at them all, gauging their reactions. Slowly one by one each man began to smile and nod their heads. They turned towards Kit as he began to explain why Walsingham had sent Tom to them and he watched carefully as the reason became clear. The men around him were the Queen’s Men: a theatre group who played for the Queen and who also went on tour around the shires. Who better to go with them and watch certain gentlemen suspected of being in the employ of Mary Stuart, than a silent spy? The men turned to look at him in a new, appreciative light. They were smiling at him, realising he was one of them; someone with a double persona.
Kit went around the room introducing everyone. Tom was surprised to discover Richard was the troupe’s star clown and he proved it by immediately doing a backwards tumble across the room until he crashed into a bench at the other side. Tom was good at remembering names and faces and before long he knew exactly who everyone was. Kit passed him a beaker of ale and indicated for him to sit with them all as they moved their chairs to include him in the circle they’d been sitting in when he arrived.
‘We’re going away,’ Kit explained to him indicating a map laid out on a trestle table in front of him, ‘we need to visit certain establishments as directed by Walsingham.’ He pointed to various villages across Staffordshire and Shropshire, close to where Tom knew Queen Mary was incarcerated. ‘Some of these houses used to be Catholic and it is suspected they may still be. Whilst we are performing, you, Tom, can be watching and reading that which people say, to discover what treason may be going on.’
Tom wondered how long he’d be away. Hugh would be displeased; he needed Tom’s assistance in the stillroom and his constant disappearing to see Walsingham had already garnered complaints and scowls despite neither of them having any say in the matter. And what about Isabel? He’d possibly be gone for weeks, months even and his heart hurt to think he wouldn’t see her during that time. She was due back from Westminster very soon. Supposing she forgot about him? He was hopeful she felt about him the same way he did about her, even though they’d only managed to meet in privacy a very few times. But could he really hope a lowly assistant apothecary who could neither hear, nor speak, would be able to get closer to – nay, marry – one of the Queen’s ladies? As a widow she had more freedom to marry whomever she pleased, but surely she’d choose from the courtiers who surrounded the Queen? There were certainly plenty of single noblemen from which to choose. Rich well-educated gentlemen with money and status.
Once the meeting broke up and a route to the north had been decided, Kit told Tom to return to the theatre the following week. He explained he’d organise a horse for which Tom was very thankful, having walked all across France and Belgium, he had no desire to do a similar journey again. His feet had softened now and he didn’t want to ruin his new boots.
Leaving the premises after waving goodbye to his new acquaintances, Tom wandered slowly back to the wharf. He wasn’t in a hurry as Hugh had no idea when to expect him and with a flash of inspiration he detoured along Cheapside until he reached the Royal Exchange. Built by Flemish workers in pale grey stone, slate and glass it stood out amongst the other buildings with its magnificent gold grasshopper shining on top. He’d seen it on his way through London when he first arrived and knew it was where he needed to visit. It was a risky strategy but he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Absolutely everything.
Inside the building he stopped for a moment amongst the bustle to take everything in. An arcaded courtyard housed many merchants and he could see bolts of brightly coloured silks and velvets as the mercers went about their business, gold and goods exchanging hands. Upstairs a gallery housed shops selling books, birdcages and armour whilst apothecaries prepared remedies for life’s ills. The scent of sweet crushed pennyroyal wafted across. Arriving at a small goldsmith’s shop he stepped inside. He didn’t like to deal with shopkeepers, the usual banter and discussion being too confusing, but this time he had no choice. The man spoke to him as he entered, Tom missing what he’d said as he gazed around the small interior filled with every kind of bauble and jewel he could ever imagine. A glowing gold and ruby carcanet lay on a velvet pillow. It looked so heavy Tom wondered how any lady could wear it around her neck and keep her back straight. Then his eye caught on a small locket on a long chain. It was gold and cut in a filigree design. Would he be able to afford it? He carried his drawstring purse hidden beneath his clothing and strapped to his body so it sat under his arm, flush with his skin. It wasn’t visible underneath his shirt so in theory wouldn’t be found if he were set upon by cut throats. He also didn’t trust his fellow servants at the palace, keeping it on his person at all times.
Tom pointed to the locket and the shopkeeper took it from the wooden display stand and laid it on the counter top in front of him. He knew that wearing the blue coat and smarter clothes Walsingham had given him resulted in being served far more politely than if he were wearing his usual attire. He picked it up and examined it carefully, running his fingertips around the intricate carved gold. Laying it back down, he raised his eyebrows hoping the man would understand that he wanted to know the price. As he did so he made a motion with his hand as if writing and pointed to his ears, shaking his head. It usually worked as a signal he wouldn’t be able to hear a reply and sure enough the shopkeeper rummaged under the bench for a scrap of paper and a quill and wrote ‘five gold angels’ on it. The price was double the amount Tom had expected to pay but even in the much-exalted Royal Exchange he knew there would be some room for negotiation. How easily he could achieve that when he couldn’t speak, he wasn’t sure.
Shaking his head, he crossed out the figure and wrote down what he wanted to pay. The shopkeeper frowned and wrote down another figure. This to and fro of the paper and quill went on for a further two minutes until they reached a figure they were both happy with. Tom handed over the money he’d been saving and pocketed the locket. He could feel it cool against his skin, knocking gently as he walked along the street and jogged down the alley to where boats waited to take passengers up or down the river. He had a plan forming in his head. A way to know whether Isabel felt the same as he did and if there was a future for them as he so fervently hoped. It was reckless and could ruin everything between them but he had to try. Or he’d die always wondering.
Chapter Thirty-One
July 2021
Mathilde stood in front of the triptych; her brows furrowed. The pull it had on her was getting stronger, weaving its threads around her, and yet she was no closer to understanding what it wanted of her. The style was similar to Bosch and yet far cruder; surely not even one of his students would have produced something like this. But the little scenes across it were definitely related to each other as the same people appeared in different scenes. This had to be someone’s life story.
She walked slowly around it until she was stood at the back of the frame. Typically, this was much rougher than the ornate decoration seen at the front. Plain, pale wood still with its rough surface and Elizabethan splinters. Oliver had drawn her a quick Tudor family tree so she could understand exactly how old the painting was. She knew which era it was in France and had touched briefly on the Tudors when she’d read about Catherine Medici and the St Bartholomew Day massacre. They were bloody times, both sides of the channel.
One corner of the frame backing had come away slightly and Mathilde berated herself for being rough with it when she removed it from the chapel wall. Perhaps she’d caught the corner with her claw hammer. She gave it a small push with the heel of her palm to try and force it back into place but it sprang back out further than before and she cursed under her breath.
Leaning in clos
er she peered into the tiny opening, wondering if she could see what the rear of the actual panels was like. As soon as Oliver saw the opening at the back he’d want to arrange to have it closed again professionally in order to protect the integrity of the triptych. This may be her only chance as he was due to arrive later that day.
Screwing up one eye she pressed her face as close as she dared without actually knocking into it and sending it tumbling to the floor. The shadow from her head darkened the opening making it impossible to see and sliding her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans she switched on the torch and shone it inside. The back of the painting was rough, the wood it had been painted on was, as Oliver suggested, not of the finest quality. Her eye paused as she spotted something a little bit further down from the opening. It looked like a piece of cloth or paper, pale in colour.
She squeezed her fingers through the opening moving her first two fingers in a pincer movement to try and reach it but it was too far down as if it had slid down when the triptych was moved. She was going to need some sort of tweezers and she took her hand out while she wondered where she could find something to use. Then she remembered the pair of narrow, long nosed pliers in her van and running out she rummaged through her tool box until she found them.
Back inside she slid the end of the pliers in, easily removing the item. It was indeed a piece of paper, so incredibly thin that Mathilde held her breath worried in case just exhaling would make it drift away. Whisking the dust sheet off the other end of the table she laid it down carefully on the glossy French polished surface.
The paper appeared to have been folded, a brown line now ingrained across the middle. Mathilde didn’t want to touch it without a pair of cotton gloves – Oliver always put some on before touching the painting – and this item was far more fragile. She peered closely but couldn’t make out what it said, whatever was there had faded over the years. Across the room the curtains fluttered a little despite there being no draught. Picking up her mobile phone, still with its torch on where she’d dropped it on a chair, she called Oliver to tell him of her discovery.
She was disappointed when his phone went to voicemail and in her excitement she couldn’t remember the English words she needed and her message ended up being mixed with French as she blurted out what she’d found. She hoped he could understand her use of ‘cache’. Walking through to the kitchen she went in search of Rachel to tell her the news.
He returned her call an hour later. Rachel was as excited as Mathilde, although she had joked it was probably a sixteenth-century shopping list. They were both delighted when Oliver promised he’d be over as soon as he could.
‘This may be the clue we’ve been looking for,’ he told Mathilde as they arranged for him to come after lunch, ‘it might tell us why a work of art such as this was hidden away in the chapel.’
Mathilde was grateful his interest matched her own and realising she still had two hours at least to wait before he was likely to arrive she decided to go to the garden and do some more digging. She intended to make the patch she’d set aside for her herbs larger and wanted to start clearing the space around where she’d planted. It was the one space which seemed immune from the subtle edge of suppressed expectation that crept insidiously through the hall.
When she popped her head around the living room door to tell Rachel where she’d be when Oliver arrived, her sister jumped to her feet.
‘Hang on, I said I’d show you where Dad’s tools are,’ she reminded her and delighted, Mathilde followed her around the end of the house to a ramshackle wooden shed she’d noticed previously. Pulling open the door, Mathilde stepped inside, breathing in deeply the scent of warm creosote and dried earth still stuck on the implements in front of her. She reached out and ran her fingers across the handle of a spade now worn smooth with age. A warm breeze crept in beside her, brushing her face.
‘They’re so special,’ she whispered, certain that if she turned her head it wouldn’t be Rachel stood behind her but their father.
‘Use them,’ Rachel urged as she wrapped her arm around Mathilde and gave her a squeeze, ‘he’d have loved to know you were enjoying them.’ With a smile she leant momentarily against Rachel’s shoulder before taking the spade and making her way across the garden to the spot in the corner. Now was the time to transplant her herbs from their pots to the ground, a fragment of permanence.
Surrounded by the undergrowth and shrubs her father had tended, it was a link to her past which she felt most keenly there. He’d dug this ground, turned over the soil that had been here forever; and his father before him and however many ancestors before them. Feeling the rich earth run through their fingers, smell the potential in its damp power. Rachel was a blood tie and she could talk about their now deceased relatives, but it was all merely facts about dead people, dust beneath the ground in the tiny churchyard she’d visited. She wanted to know about their habits and peculiarities, the quirks that really made them who they were. Those were the pieces missing from the jigsaw of her father. What did he watch on the television? Did he read a newspaper? Did he insist on eating every meal sitting at the table? She needed to start asking more questions. These were the details she craved but Rachel wouldn’t realise that unless she was more open.
Pushing the spade into the wet soil she began to dig, whilst wondering what she might plant next. A robin flew down in front of where she was working, its head on one side as it watched for any bugs she might turn over, and she smiled at it. A sense of calm settled like a mantle on her shoulders and for a moment she felt as if she’d been here before even though she knew that was impossible. The ghosts of her ancestors crowded in behind her, their long dead breath prickling the hairs on the back of her neck.
After washing her hands to remove the dirt ingrained under her fingernails, she ate a hasty lunch and waited for Oliver to arrive. She’d left the piece of paper on the table which she’d suddenly realised was a stupid thing to do in a house with a five-year-old running around and hurried through to the dining room to check it was where she’d left it. Thankfully it was, laid thin and delicate as a dead leaf, almost transparent. Perching on the arm of a chair positioned beside the window she watched for Oliver to arrive whilst also keeping an eye on the potentially valuable document at the same time.
At ten past two she spotted his car moving slowly along the drive. There were a number of potholes and she’d seen Rachel wince every time a wheel went down into one, making her car lurch to the side. She didn’t notice them in her van which was built for rough terrain if required. Oliver was only ten minutes late but she had been feeling jittery he wasn’t going to arrive, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair in frustration as each minute passed. Fleur loved Oliver and was excited about him visiting, especially as he often had sweets in his pocket, and she had been hopping from foot to foot, running along the front of the house looking out of the windows in the drawing room in anticipation.
As he knocked on the door and before Mathilde could get to it, Fleur was standing on tip toe and reaching up for the lock. She opened it, a broad grin on her face.
‘We were watching for you,’ she said, standing aside to let him in. Mathilde felt her face flush with embarrassment. It might be true but she didn’t want Oliver knowing. Sometimes five-year-olds should keep their mouths shut, she thought to herself.
After Oliver produced a bag of jelly beans from his pocket and told Fleur she must take them to Rachel he followed Mathilde into the dining room. Taking two pairs of new, fresh gloves from his other pocket and passing a pair to her they both pulled them on. Standing in front of the triptych, he asked, ‘So what did you find? I couldn’t understand your message very well. It would help if you could just speak one language at a time.’ His eyes were sparkling as he spoke and she knew he was teasing not criticising.
‘At the back, here,’ she showed him the space between frame and backboard, ‘see that gap? I think I did it when I took it from the chapel wall. But then I was wondering how I
could nail it back,’ she paused as Oliver’s hand shot out and held on to her arm.
‘Please tell me you haven’t been banging any nails into this?’ He looked horrified. Before she could answer they were interrupted by Rachel bringing in a tray with three steaming cups of coffee on it.
‘Oliver, you really should stop buying her sweets,’ she admonished as she carefully placed the tray on a delicate side table, the legs of which looked so fragile it was a wonder it could bear the weight of the cups. ‘But thank you, she’s happy with a handful of jelly beans and playing with her toy zoo, so I’ve escaped to see what you’re both up to in here. Where is this paper you found, Mathilde?’
Mathilde moved to the end of the table and indicated. ‘I don’t want to touch it,’ she explained, ‘because it looks so fragile and old. The writing is tiny and faded but it looks like it may be a letter?’
Oliver took out his eye loupe and bent down close to it. ‘I’m not sure it’s in English,’ he said. Even his breath close up caused the paper to move slightly and he stood up before continuing. ‘It almost looks like shorthand.’ Rachel nodded but Mathilde looked blank and shrugged at him. He needed to remember that although her English was improving there were still some words she didn’t understand. She looked between the two of them, her eyebrows raised and waited for a translation.
‘Look,’ Rachel held out her phone, on which she had brought up a picture of a section of shorthand, the squiggles and lines.
‘That looks like an insect has walked in some ink and danced across the paper,’ Mathilde exclaimed, ‘how can anyone understand it?’
‘You can if you are trained to,’ Oliver explained, ‘and it’s a lot quicker to write than using full words so in times gone by secretaries used it to take notes and type them up later. It was like a sort of code I suppose.’ As he said this last sentence his voice tailed away, his thoughts elsewhere. ‘A code, of course. Of course,’ he repeated while Rachel and Mathilde looked at each other in confusion, ‘I think this might be written in a cipher. We just need to work out what it says: crack the code.’
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