Shadow of the Axe (The Queen's Intelligencer Book 1)

by Peter Tonkin

  *

  The roof-leads would make a good defensive position, thought Poley, his mind still running along martial lines, for they looked over the top of the solid outer wall and commanded a wide view of The Strand and Fleet Street. Take a few snaphaunce or firelock muskets up onto the leads or the dormers and there would be slaughter amongst any force trapped against the great outer gate. Or, indeed, one breaking into the courtyard and finding they had nowhere to go. Furthermore, at each corner of the broad frontage stood a turret that must offer even greater defensive potential. Back at ground-level, there were stables on the right opposite a smithy on the left – which Poley reckoned would make a tidy armoury if needed. The Earl’s blacksmith could sharpen swords as easily as he could fashion horseshoes, cast bullets as well as nails. Beyond the stable and the smithy, paths led down the sides of the house towards the gardens at the rear and the River beyond.

  But the pair did not linger. As the rain intensified, Cuffe led the way across to the steps that mounted up to the main door. He bounded up these with scarce-contained excitement and hammered once again. Poley followed more circumspectly, but even so he had reached Cuffe’s shoulder before the door was opened. ‘Master Cuffe,’ said the servant who let them in. ‘Welcome back, sir!’ Then he saw that Cuffe was not alone and the welcome seemed to cool.

  ‘This is my friend Robert Poley,’ said Cuffe. ‘He wishes to become the Earl’s man. That is, he already is of the Earl’s faction but he wishes to be recognised as such.’

  ‘Master Poley,’ said the servant. ‘Your fame precedes you, sir. The moment you arrived I was to conduct you to Master Bacon.’

  ‘Oh, has Sir Francis preceded us?’ asked Cuffe.

  ‘He has sir. It was Sir Francis who warned us you were coming. But I am to conduct you to his brother. Sir Anthony.’

  No sooner had the servant said this than a loud voice spoke over him. Poley knew at once by the accent whose voice it was. ‘You need not bother,’ said Gelly Meyrick. ‘I’ll take Master Poley to Sir Anthony myself.

  ‘I shall accompany you,’ said Cuffe. ‘I can explain the situation to Sir Anthony.’

  ‘No,’ said Meyrick. ‘Sir Francis has explained everything. Sir Antony wishes to see Master Poley alone.’

  Cuffe opened his mouth, almost certainly to argue, thought Poley, but Meyrick simply turned and began to stride decisively away. Poley met Cuffe’s outraged gaze and shrugged, then he turned to follow the Welsh steward. Meyrick had broad shoulders and a slim waist, thick thighs and muscular calves, his legs being well matched by his arms. He was dressed in a dull brown padded doublet and breeches, canions and hose. Shoulder-length hair fell past his slim white ruff. He was neatly turned out, as one might expect from a gentleman soldier. As he was in the house, he did not carry a rapier but there was a long dagger thrust through the back of his belt to lie across the top of his buttocks.

  Poley followed Meyrick silently, keeping firm control of his imagination. Speculation could do nothing other than create fear that might prove to be groundless but would certainly prove to be distracting and dangerous. Better to stay calm and await events, thought the spy. But it seemed he could do nothing about the speed at which his heart was beating; a situation made worse by Meyrick’s icy silence. This meeting would be the first test of many if he followed what was apparently firming up into a clear mission – namely to stay undercover in Essex’s household and do his best to follow Secretary Cecil’s desire for the Earl’s total destruction. Destruction in a manner that could not possibly lead back to Cecil or the Council and arouse the anger of the still-indulgent Queen. Or, come to that, the outrage of the hero-worshipping populace, who, it was feared, might even rise in revolt if their hero was brought down by The Toad.

  Certainly, in the short term at least, he should stay here, where he had been so carefully placed, and discover the lie of the land. Cecil had other spies working undercover here, he knew – he just did not know who they were, yet. But the fact that he himself was known to be – or to have been – one of Cecil’s chief intelligencers might put him in a good place to become a contact if he played his cards right - as well as in a good place to get his throat cut if he put a foot wrong. Sending him alone into the enemy camp without disguise or defence was an interesting tactic, however. But, knowing Master Secretary there would be a reason for this seemingly suicidal approach; if Poley was to be Daniel in this lions’ den then there would, somewhere, be an angel to seal the lions’ mouths.

  *

  Poley soon found himself distracted, however, by his unexpected surroundings. He knew the basic layout of Essex House, as it shared its architecture – internal and external – with York House and Durham House both of which he knew well. In the most general terms, the formal and family rooms upstairs, mostly to the front but also overlooking the gardens and the River to the rear; below stairs and to the rear with little if any view were only the servants’ quarters – though some servants also slept in tiny garrets high up in the eaves. Space was likely to be at a premium. Not only were the Earl’s numerous hangers-on to be accommodated here along with his household and servants, by the sound of things Lady Leicester and Sir Christopher had brought a number of their household from their great houses. The Bacon brothers would be housed with one or other of these contingents, he thought. But Meyrick passed the stairs’ foot and led him into the rabbit-warren usually only occupied by retainers of one sort or another, the store rooms and the kitchens. Silently but unhesitatingly, Meyrick plunged on through the corridors past rooms of varying size, function and heat – from carpentries and cold storage rooms to oven-warmed bakeries and kitchens. The further they went, the narrower and darker the passageways seemed to become.

  At last, Meyrick’s purposeful footsteps slowed and Poley found himself confronted by a kind of partition that seemed designed to wall off a considerable area at the very back of the house. Meyrick opened a door in this and stepped forward into a disorientating brightness. Poley followed him, eyes narrow against the glare, every nerve alert against the possibility that this was a trap. So that, confusingly, the first thing that struck him was the smell. The whole place stank of sickness and damp. Stenches powerful enough to overcome the ripeness of any odours clinging to Poley himself and his soiled clothing. He froze, blinking away tears, vaguely aware that Meyrick had stepped behind him and closed the door. There was a moment of silence, then Francis Bacon’s familiar voice said, ‘Welcome, Master Poley.’

  As his eyes cleared, Poley stepped forward. ‘Sir Francis,’ he answered guardedly as he made his formal bow. ‘Sir Anthony.’ The brothers could hardly have been more different. Sir Francis sat on a high-backed wooden chair beside a small table piled with documents, precisely as neat and tidy as he had appeared that morning in the Fleet. His brother lay propped against a pile of pillows in a tumbled bed within reach of that same table. His face was thin and sallow, all cheekbone and straggly beard. Hooded, intelligent eyes stared unwaveringly from the dark depths of sunken sockets. Poley had heard they suffered from occasional bouts of blindness but they looked clear-sighted now. The bedding covering his body could not conceal the bloated belly and the swollen, thick-bandaged, gout-stricken legs.

  Sir Anthony explained the odour of sickness. The rest of the room explained the odour of dampness. A pair of store rooms had been knocked together into a makeshift bedroom with a third enclosed by the partition to make a dressing room cum hospital. The outer walls in all three rooms were floury with damp that seemed to be rising through the very brickwork. Sizeable windows looked out along the garden down to the River and the Essex House steps where a skiff was currently moored. By Poley’s reckoning, they looked a little east of south but they still let in the last light of the low sun before it was doomed to be swallowed by the clouds already raining here. There was a rainbow over the Paris Garden on the south bank opposite.

  ‘Thank you, Sir Gelly,’ said Anthony. Even his voice was sickly and old. But he must only be in his early forties,
thought Poley; the same age as he was himself and a couple of years older than his brother Francis. But, sickly or not, there was no doubting the tone of command. Apparently without another thought Meyrick turned and left the room. As the door closed behind the Welsh steward, Sir Anthony said, quietly, ‘Well, Master Poley. And what are we to make of you?’

  ‘Cuffe says he is turned,’ said Sir Francis. ‘Certainly, rumour has him cut off by Cecil on some whim or other and resentful. Possibly seeking redress. Mayhap revenge.’

  ‘Cuffe does not lack learning,’ nodded Sir Antony. ‘But as sure as there is a Heaven above, the man lacks insight. He is an innocent, scarcely more than a babe-in-arms for all his Latin and Greek.’

  ‘Is he such a bad judge of men?’ wondered Sir Francis.

  ‘Is he?’ wondered Sir Anthony. ‘What say you Master Poley?’

  *

  ‘I say, Sir Anthony, that what Master Cuffe reported to Sir Francis is the simple truth. It required understanding but no insight. I was in all innocence passing the time of day in a tavern near my lodgings when Master Secretary’s creatures descended upon me. Wolfall, his moneylender and Frizer his roaring boy. Their excuse being that I had advanced some coin to Nick Skeres, who is the Earl’s man. Frizer the bully challenged me over the matter and when I answered him in the street outside, I was beaten unconscious and shoved into the kennel where I near drowned. Robbed of my purse and my rapier, I was dragged before Justice Hall and thrown in the Fleet. What I have done in offence, I know not; certainly I have done nothing that I stand accused of except wounding Frizer. But I have clearly angered the Council in some manner so that they now seek to destroy me through false accusations and summary arrest. If you can discern any friendship towards me from Master Secretary Cecil in all of this then you can see a great deal more than I can. I have been done down by him and his creatures, robbed of property, reputation, comfort and lodging and I find myself saved only by Nick Skeres’ friends and allies, to wit Master Cuffe and Sir Francis. If this does not show you my new situation and reason for being here as plain as day, then the problem is yours, not mine.’

  ‘And if I decide you are a liar, that this sad story heard by my brother has no more substance than a performance at the Globe or Blackfriars; and that Master Cuffe, for all his vast learning, has been all-too easily deceived?’

  ‘Then you must fear that I am in truth still working for Master Secretary Cecil despite all the evidence to the contrary. And, if that were the case, you would need to decide how you should react to this suspicion.’

  ‘And if I wish to react by slitting your throat and leaving your body outside Cecil’s front door at Salisbury House beneath the writing that labels him The Toad?’

  ‘I suggest that it would be unwise to do so – or even to have me disappear, in fact,’ answered Poley, his tone reflecting a calm he did not feel. ‘For you know that Master Secretary has eyes and ears here in Essex House that will report matters to him. Especially were I still his man in truth. Anything out of the ordinary, particularly of a fatal nature, might stir him and the Council into retaliation. Which might prove dangerous while the Earl your master is caged in York House and so near death with the bloody flux. There is, as you of all people must understand, a danger in even the slightest hesitation in his treatment. Her Majesty, I understand, has sent no fewer than eight doctors to examine him. Eight doctors and her special soup.’

  ‘Her soup!’ Sir Francis almost scoffed.

  ‘Perhaps it would be as well, Sir Francis,’ observed Poley quietly, ‘to remember that the last great favourite to whom she sent her special soup was the Earl’s step-father Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, as he rode north in Armada Year, growing ever sicker as he did so. The outcome, as I’m sure you know, was fatal.’

  ‘A threat?’ whispered Sir Anthony.

  ‘A consideration. Against which letting me run free to convince you and the highly suspicious household of my good intentions towards the Earl must carry some weight.’

  ‘At least it would give us time to devise a fate for you that causes no alarm to the Secretary or the Council,’ said Sir Francis.

  ‘Or one we can explain away,’ added Sir Anthony, ‘as the death of Christopher Marlowe was explained away seven years ago. Of course, the middle route – and one which might serve us well,’ he mused after a moment more, ‘is to let Sir Gelly and Sir Christopher Lawrence have their way with you. They have questions they wish to have answered. And, though they might lack the equipment or expertise of Rackmaster Topcliffe in the Tower, they are sure that you would tell them everything they want to know after a while.’

  ‘I can see two possible problems with that notion, Sir Anthony.’ Poley held up a finger. ‘Imprimis, that approach would be bound to lead me to a fate similar to Marlowe’s, with the concomitant dangers to the Earl we have just discussed’ He held up another. ‘Secundum, it would in any case be a waste of their time. If they simply ask what they want to know, I shall answer as truthfully as I am able without any pressure being applied.’

  The brothers exchanged a glance that seemed to establish some kind of agreement. ‘I’m satisfied,’ said Sir Francis.

  ‘As am I,’ said Sir Anthony. ‘For the time-being.’

  *

  ‘I will send to Hog Lane for Master Poley’s possessions, clothing and other necessaries,’ said Sir Francis. ‘Then we must see to the matter of tending that headwound, bathing, and dressing in clean raiment.’

  Sir Anthony reached across to the table and lifted a bell which the pile of documents had concealed. He rang this, and almost immediately there was a soft knocking at the door.

  ‘Come!’ called Sir Anthony, and a slight young man entered. Poley did not have any particular knowledge about Sir Anthony’s household – as he did about the Earl’s, for instance. But the moment the newcomer spoke, Poley knew him.

  ‘Oui, Monseigneur?’ This was Sir Anthony’s servant Jacques Petit who had served him during his years in France and followed him to England on his return.

  ‘Jacques, conduct Master Poley to Fitzherbert and ask him to arrange ablutions and accommodation. Master Poley’s necessaries will be arriving in due course.’

  ‘Of course, Monseigneur. Master Poley, if you will follow me…’

  As Poley obediently followed the Frenchman out through the maze of corridors, he allowed his mind freer rein than he had permitted on his way in. Sir Anthony clearly and understandably remained suspicious. But Poley could now add Sir Francis to Henry Cuffe on the growing list of his friends in Essex House. That was a list which would require careful nurturing if he was to survive – let alone do any real service to Master Secretary. Should his first moves be defensive – keeping his head low, making himself as nearly invisible as possible? Or should he be more active, seeking out Cecil’s other spies in the household and challenging any suspicions voiced against him? As he followed Jacques Petit into Fitzherbert’s office, he decided that circumstances far beyond his control were likely to decide the matter for him.

  ‘You present me with a conundrum, Master Poley,’ said Lady Frances’ major domo. ‘Of course, I am happy to accommodate you at Sir Antony’s command given only the agreement of Lady Frances and Lady Lettice. But where shall I put you? The household as it currently stands has been organised in sections for simplicity and efficiency. So where would you best be placed? In the Secretariat, alongside Master Cuffe and Sir Henry Wotton who is in charge of it? Or rather in the Martial section with Sir Gelly Meyrick, Sir Christopher St Lawrence, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and the rest? Or, again, with what we might term the Leicester household with Sir Christopher, Lady Lettice and the others?’

  Gelly Meyrick and Christopher St Lawrence interrupted the major domo’s thoughts by shouldering in through the door one after the other. ‘No need to trouble yourself, Fitzherbert,’ growled Meyrick. ‘We’ll take care of Poley.’

  The major domo said nothing but his lips thinned and his eyes narrowed in a frown. Jacques Petit was not
so quiet. ‘You’ll do well to calculate how far you can go in causing affront to Sir Anthony, monsieur,’ he warned. ‘He has given orders that Master Poley be housed, not harmed. Also Sir Francis and, I believe, Master Cuffe will stand for him.’

  The two soldiers hesitated but Poley was pretty sure they were not unduly discomfited by the list of men they might offend by damaging their unexpected guest. The hesitation was enough, however, to let another player join the game. Lady Leicester’s husband, Sir Christopher Blount entered the crowded little room. It was immediately obvious that his presence and importance were at least equal to Gelly Meyrick’s. The Welshman and the Irishman both stepped back. Christopher Blount was a tall, slim man whose long limbs looked every bit as powerful as Meyrick’s. His clothing was richer and more ornate. His hair and beard were trimmed as precisely as Francis Bacon’s. He had piercing blue eyes which not only betrayed a decisive, intelligent character but also explained why the Earl of Leicester’s widow had fallen so completely in love with him mere months after her second husband’s death. And he returned her affection by all accounts, even though she was nearly ten years older than he was. He also had the military swagger that made it no surprise to realise that he had been a colonel with a heroic reputation in Essex’s famously successful attack on Cadiz and his expedition to The Azores.

  ‘Well, Fitzherbert,’ he barked. ‘Have you housed Master Poley yet?’

  ‘We were just debating the matter Sir Christopher…’

  ‘Well don’t bother. He’ll come with me into the Leicester household.’ Sir Christopher Blount turned to the intelligencer as though there was no-one else in the little room. ‘We are old friends. More than that, I haven’t worked out the precise degree of our relationship, but my mother was a Poley. Lady Margery Poley of Badley, some sort of cousin of your father’s, I believe. It is a relationship I mean to stand by.’ He turned back to Fitzherbert and continued, still paying no attention whatsoever to Meyrick and St Lawrence. ‘He comes with me. He stays with me. And anyone wishing him ill or doing him harm will answer to me!’