The Queen's Spy

by Clare Marchant

  Eventually they arrived at a door and Walsingham walked into the room without a knock or pause; there was no argument about who was the boss around here. This room was more comfortably furnished with several thick tapestries to insulate the room, a fire blazing in a wide fireplace and a heavy bressummer beam mantelpiece stacked with pieces of parchment. The man behind the desk immediately got to his feet and they bowed to each other. A moment later Tom joined in. He could see Walsingham explaining about him as he put the paper with his shorthand on it onto the desk and pointed at Tom, along with much waving of his arms. The other man, who Tom assumed was the aforementioned Phelippes, picked it up and scrutinised it before looking at Tom, his eyes half closed, assessing. Then he turned to Walsingham.

  ‘Yes, I can do that,’ he said, ‘leave him here with me. I have an idea.’

  Walsingham patted Tom on the back as he left who turned to face the man across the table. He was short with broad shoulders and light sandy coloured hair and beard, a similar colour to Tom’s own hair, his face pitted with pock marks. His jerkin was plain black grosgrain and fitted close, his white ruff matching the sleeves of his cambric shirt. When he smiled his eyes creased up until they had almost disappeared and Tom silently exhaled in relief. This man looked friendly and he was sure they were going to get on well. He was interested to see what Walsingham had meant about codes and ciphers and how he was to become involved with this additional layer of the spying machine Walsingham managed.

  Chapter Forty-One

  July 2021

  Oliver arrived earlier than Mathilde expected on the Tuesday morning. She was sitting cross legged on a kitchen chair simultaneously eating toast and demonstrating to Fleur how to make a card tower. The little girl was too clumsy, pouting with frustration which just made Mathilde laugh. They heard his voice calling ‘hello’ as he walked around the corner of the house and Mathilde looked at Rachel for moment before leaping off her chair muttering ‘merde’ and racing upstairs to brush her hair and teeth and throw some clothes on. As she took the stairs two at a time, below her she could hear Rachel greeting him.

  Mathilde didn’t even know why she cared if he saw her looking early morning dishevelled, but somehow it mattered and she pulled on some clean shorts and a T-shirt, brushed her hair and pushed her bare feet into a pair of Rachel’s flipflops that had somehow become her own. Plaiting her hair she stared at her face in the dressing table mirror wondering whether or not to dig out her ancient mascara but decided that her sun burnished skin and brush of freckles across her nose and cheekbones were adornment enough. Outside the sun was already climbing across the Wedgwood blue sky, promising another warm day.

  ‘’ello, ’ello,’ Mathilde greeted Oliver airily as she strolled into the kitchen where she’d been eating breakfast not ten minutes previously. Thankfully Fleur, now deprived of her entertainment, had disappeared into the living room so couldn’t say something embarrassing about Mathilde disappearing the moment they’d heard Oliver’s voice.

  He was sitting on the chair she’d vacated minutes before and was nursing a cup of coffee, the steam making his skin flushed. His grin as he looked up warmed her whole body and she couldn’t help smiling back, feeling shy and gauche like a fourteen-year-old, her stomach rolling with pleasure.

  ‘Oliver has some good news,’ Rachel said, pouring herself and Mathilde coffee and sitting down at the table, ‘come and sit down and he can explain.’ Mathilde slipped into the chair beside her sister.

  ‘I received a call over the weekend. An eminent expert in cryptography is visiting the UEA this week to deliver a series of lectures to some of the postgrad students. It’s a big coup for the department as he doesn’t usually travel to the provinces; he mostly stays in London or sometimes Oxford. He’s been to Yale and Harvard but never to East Anglia. Anyway, it’s superb luck that we’re going to be there today because hopefully he can examine your document after the lecture and maybe he’ll be able to decipher it.’

  Mathilde was pleased he was so happy but she had a knot of discomfort inside. Although she wanted to understand the letter as much as he did she was afraid of what they may discover. The air around her grew colder. In the corners of the room shadows eddied and churned and she shivered.

  ‘Mind you don’t catch it on the door,’ Oliver instructed as he and Mathilde slid the triptych wrapped in an old quilt into the back seat of the car. After seeing how small the boot was when they’d stowed the pet shop purchases she’d wondered how he intended transporting it to the university. She hadn’t realised, until Oliver explained, how important it was for the experts to see the provenance of where the note had been discovered. It was now in its dark velvet pouch, nestled on top of the painting to prevent it moving about. Mathilde had suggested she lay it on her lap but Oliver had explained the heat from her legs could affect the integrity of the ancient document.

  ‘The head of faculty has said we can wait in her office,’ he explained, ‘where the pieces will be safe.’

  Mathilde nodded although her mind was elsewhere. Taking the items from the house was making her gut tense, acid bile clawing at the back of her throat. She looked back as they drove away, so unnerved that she was sure she would see a ghost watching from the window, but the blank panes of glass reflected the pale blue sky, streaked with the remains of herringbone clouds as they stared back reproachfully at her.

  They had to drive around the university perimeter road three times before they found the badly signposted building they needed.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Oliver groaned as a notice announced that there was no parking outside and they needed to park in the visitors’ car park at the Sainsbury Centre. ‘We can’t carry the triptych all the way down from there,’ he complained as he pulled up outside the office building, ‘I’ll stop here and help you carry it in, then I’ll go and park while you wait with the pieces, okay?’

  ‘You’re the driver,’ Mathilde shrugged. She rarely paid attention to any ‘no parking’ signs and abandoned her van wherever she liked. Any parking tickets were thrown in the nearest bin, knowing she’d be long gone before anyone came looking for her. She smiled at Oliver’s law-abiding agitation as she helped him remove their precious cargo and place it on a conveniently empty table in the reception area before he headed back outside to park.

  The office they needed was on the second floor and Mathilde breathed a sigh of relief when they were finally there and the triptych and letter were safely ensconced on the desk. A secretary had been told to expect them and brought through coffee and biscuits which they consumed on the other side of the room, well away from their precious cargo. Oliver kept looking at his watch and Mathilde couldn’t bear to think of his disappointment if they were ignored.

  Thankfully, at almost exactly midday they heard voices in the outer office and a group of people strode in. The older of the men who looked to Mathilde like a kindly old grandfather, his smiling face and twinkly eyes making her warm to him immediately, introduced himself as the Assistant Dean of the university, before he turned to another gentleman stood behind him.

  ‘This is Professor Thornton,’ he explained, ‘I’ve told him all about your find and the chapel at your home, he’s very interested to take a look.’ The professor, to Mathilde’s surprise a much younger man probably only in his early forties, managed a tight smile and a curt nod of his head as if he were conserving energy for the task ahead. Or perhaps for his lunch.

  Oliver quickly unwrapped both items as if he’d been caught unawares. Mathilde could see how important this meeting was to him and that it may improve his career to be a part of it. He stepped to one side to let the expert take a closer look as he slipped his eye loupe out of his pocket and bent closer.

  The room was silent other than the hushed noise of five people barely breathing. The professor nodded from time to time as he looked over the tiny scenes Mathilde now knew so well and then at the crest on top of the frame before moving on to the piece of parchment he was most intereste
d in. He spent so long scrutinising it Mathilde wondered if he’d forgotten the rest of them were there. Eventually he stood back up, flexing his back, cramped after so long crouched over.

  ‘And you say that you found this letter behind the work of art?’ he asked, looking between Oliver and Mathilde. She was waiting for Oliver to speak but when he didn’t she thought she’d better answer.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she replied. ‘There was a small gap at the top here,’ she pointed, ‘between the frame and the picture. I could just see something inside so I used some thin pliers to pull it out.’ The professor visibly winced at the mention of her pliers and she wanted to giggle.

  ‘Obviously I can’t say for certain,’ he began, ‘but as you have already had the triptych dated and we know it’s sixteenth century then it seems most likely this is authentic. It’s an extremely exciting find; obviously in code which we can see, and quite possibly was written by Walsingham or one of his cohort. In the sixteenth century, at the height of the numerous Catholic plots to put Mary Queen of Scots on the throne, Walsingham used a network of spies to intercept the letters sent between the conspirators and the Spanish. Have you heard of the Babington plot?’ He looked at Mathilde and she shook her head, making a mental note to add it to her growing list of English history to research. ‘It resulted in Mary Stuart losing her head. Lord Burghley, who was the Queen’s Chancellor, made sure his man raced between London and Fotheringay Castle where Mary was imprisoned, to ensure the warrant was carried out before the ink was dry.’ He turned back to the letter in front of him. ‘But what’s even more interesting about this document is the hidden message written between the lines of code in some sort of crude invisible ink. We do know it was sometimes used by coders at that time. I need to have this properly studied by my colleagues in the laboratory here; this requires specialist chemicals to help expose the hidden words. Although you’ll need further research done on the triptych in due course you don’t need to leave that today.’

  ‘Okaaay,’ Mathilde wasn’t sure about leaving the letter behind but on the other hand she really wanted to know what it said and whether it would help her to understand the disturbing dreams she was having and reveal more about the unhappy souls that hid in the shadows.

  ‘When our investigations are complete we would ask that you give – or loan,’ he added hastily, seeing her eyebrows begin to rise, ‘the triptych and letter to a museum. They’re national treasures.’

  She hadn’t even considered that anyone would expect her to hand the pieces over and she had no intention of doing so. They belonged at the hall … and maybe she did too? Making a non-committal noise and shrugging her shoulders she turned to help Oliver swathe the painting in its protective covers again.

  Oliver collected the car and they drove home again. He chatted on about everything the professor had said as if Mathilde hadn’t been in the room and she couldn’t decide if he thought her English wasn’t good enough to understand, which for part of the explanation was true, or if he was so excited he just wanted to tell himself all over again.

  As they arrived home Mathilde let the breath she’d been holding all day slowly seep out of her. Getting out of the car she turned her face to the warm sun and closing her eyes, smiled for a moment. The triptych was back where it belonged and once the mystery of the document she’d found was unravelled she was certain that finally the weary ghosts who walked the corridors of Lutton Hall could be laid to rest.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  March 1585

  Every night Tom lay down on his pallet bed beside the stillroom, his heart hurting as thoughts of Isabel filled his head. His days were filled with assignments for Walsingham and he frequently found himself waiting in the dim shadows of taverns and playhouses, even the corridors of Westminster Palace, watching people’s faces as they gave away their secrets. Three men were currently residing in the Tower because of information he’d passed on and he couldn’t help making comparisons with his own wife in the same castle, albeit that her surroundings were more comfortable. Those men were being kept deep in the bowels of the bloody tower where the stinking cold stone walls absorbed the sounds of screaming. Despite the work he’d done for Walsingham the man didn’t yet seem inclined to let her free. What more did he need to do?

  Between his constant work and pining for Isabel Tom rarely had the time nor inclination to eat, just grabbing at anything he found in the kitchen when the cook looked the other way. His firm, muscular body was beginning to waste away, shadows where there had once been brawn, and his face looked aged beneath its tanned exterior. Dark bruises were smudged beneath his eyes, their deep grey now dull and opaque. Every waking moment was wretched.

  He’d been sent by Thomas Phelippes to work with the Superintendent of St Bartholomew’s hospital, Doctor Timothy Bright. As well as an eminent surgeon and a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney, who in turn was married to Walsingham’s daughter Frances, Bright was fast becoming a cryptography expert; inventing shorthand to be used alongside the ciphers that were passed between Walsingham’s spies and interpreting the frequent letters intercepted from France and destined for the papist plotters. Tom’s ability to condense entire memos into one or two lines of shorthand was proving invaluable.

  Eventually, one morning when the sun was offering a small promise of warmth and the trees in the grounds of St Bartholomew’s were covered in tiny unfurling new leaves, Bright noticed Tom’s slow decline.

  ‘You look ill, my friend,’ he mouthed slowly. After several weeks of working together every day, the doctor was now adept at speaking at a speed Tom could easily understand whilst still being able to keep a momentum so others barely noticed.

  Tom just shrugged and shook his head, bending over the document he was translating into their new shorthand. The letter had already been coded but the additional process reduced it to a small piece of parchment which could be hidden anywhere on a person’s body. Even in those parts where nobody would wish to look.

  Bright tapped him on the arm to make him look up again knowing that unless Tom was actually facing him anything he was saying was instantly lost in the cool clean air drifting in from the open window and around them. Tom looked at him, frowning.

  ‘If you are ill I can help you,’ Bright said, ‘but you need to tell me what ails you.’

  ‘Nothing that you can help with,’ Tom wrote quickly on his wax tablet, ‘my wife Isabel is still being held at the Tower and until the Queen releases her, I cannot see her. We are unable to live as man and wife.’

  ‘Then we must do something to change this situation,’ Bright replied, ‘or you are of no use to anyone. Leave it with me.’ He returned to the work he was doing and Tom did the same. He had little faith that his friend would have enough influence.

  Early the following morning the familiar page arrived in his room and passed him a note. Tom instantly recognised Walsingham’s writing and wondered with a sinking heart who he was being asked to spy on next. The page was trying to mime an action. Eventually he stopped and looked at Tom, his face tilted expectantly. Tom had no idea what he wanted and used his universal sign of not understanding by shrugging his shoulders and holding his arms out to the side, palms upwards. Everyone now knew what that meant.

  The page took Tom’s hand and pulled him through to his bedroom and rummaged through the press in the corner until he pulled out Tom’s blue coat. It was very grubby down one arm where Tom had needed to press himself into the corner of an alley to avoid being seen. He’d been watching a conversation between two Catholic agitators who Walsingham was very keen to know more about. The boy quickly rubbed at the marks with a corner of Tom’s blanket until the coat looked slightly less dishevelled and then he handed it to Tom before doing a mime of someone bowing down on one knee.

  Tom’s heart began to pump hard in his chest and he felt his breath start to quicken. He was expected at an audience with the Queen which explained why the page was so agitated, trying to hurry him along and across the courtyard to th
e royal apartments. Why did she want to see him? Was Isabel unwell? Was he about to go and join her in the Tower? He’d be happy with that if it meant they were together but he absolutely didn’t want to end up back in the stinking gaol he’d previously been in.

  Following the page on his shaking legs, it took ten agonising minutes to reach the Privy Chamber. Immediately he fell to his knees, keeping his head bowed.

  As usual he had no idea if he were being spoken to and so stayed there for a long while, just the occasional swish of a skirt out of the corner of his eye any indication there was still someone in the room with him. Eventually someone gave him a tap on the arm and he looked up to see the Queen, sitting upright on her throne, beckoning him forward. Tom was relieved to see Walsingham and Burghley with her, two men he trusted to give him a fair trial, if that was what this was about to be.

  ‘I have told Her Majesty about your helpful work with Doctor Bright in the hunt for those who would depose or assassinate her. She has noted that you have worked hard on her behalf and as recompense has agreed to free your wife from the Tower.’

  A sudden movement of pale green made Tom turn his head and there before him was Isabel. She was wearing the dress she’d worn on the day they’d married only now it hung off her shoulders. The partlet at the top couldn’t disguise her collar bone with deep shadows beneath. Her face was as beautiful as ever, despite her cheekbones and fine bone structure now sharp and angular, her skin as pale as the white linen he knew she’d be wearing beneath her gown. Tears slowly edged their way over her eyelashes and rolled down her face. Without waiting for permission Tom ran forward and scooped her up into his arms as if she were about to tumble to the floor. She looked so shaky he strongly suspected that she might. The hot wet of her tears trickled down his neck as he held her against him.