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

by Peter Tonkin

  ‘If you tell me you could replace my code-master, then I’ll have to cut your throat myself,’ said Sir Anthony and there was no mistaking the threat in his tone as well as his words. Poley left his expression blank as he weighed the possible fundamentals behind the menace. Because he was almost certain that Sir Anthony was his own code-master.

  ‘Anthony,’ said Sir Francis. ‘Surely that’s enough. I was there. What happened to Legge was an accident. Had I not pulled him back, it would have been Poley who was trampled to death. But I did pull Poley back and so by chance, it was Legge who was killed. Nick Skeres tried to pull him aside as I pulled Poley but it was not to be. So, if fault there was, it was mine. Now Poley is in a position to help us. Is keen in fact to help us, if only to revenge himself against his erstwhile masters who have stabbed him in the back as a reward for long and diligent service. And how is his offer to help us answered? With threats of throat-cutting!’

  Sir Anthony and Sir Henry exchanged a long look. ‘Very well,’ said Sir Anthony at last. ‘Your help will be welcome, Master Poley.’

  Sir Henry nodded silent agreement. ‘But do not expect to be working on anything other than the dullest, everyday communications,’ he warned.

  ‘I expected nothing more,’ said Poley.

  And so it began. At first there was a quiet, sorrowful interim during which Sir Francis, apparently blaming himself for the boy’s death as much as he congratulated himself for preserving Poley’s life, attended Legge’s post-mortem. He did so on behalf of Essex House, sympathising with the coroner who had several witnesses to the accident, Nick Skeres chief among them, but no-one able to identify the owner of the horse and wagon that had killed the victim. Legge’s head had been so badly crushed that only the Queen’s Counsellor Extraordinary or Skeres could have formally identified him, both having seen him fall. But no-one at all was able to say where the fatal vehicle had come from or gone to.

  These were sinister facts which Sir Francis pointed out in private to Poley, for the Queen’s Councillor still believed that only his quick thinking had saved him and doomed the young man. Poley might, therefore, have been the intended victim, had the whole ‘accident’ actually been staged as Sir Anthony suspected. But this was something that had already occurred to the cautious intelligencer. Meyrick and St. Lawrence stood high on the list of his suspects – unless they had persuaded the Earl of Southampton to take fatal action on behalf of his friend the Earl of Essex. Unless, of course, he had got the whole situation back-to-front and Legge had been the actual target after all. The youngster had detailed his experiences in Denmark at length and within the hearing of Lady Janet amongst others. A word to Cecil might have generated just this outcome – a place for a replacement Danish expert in Wotton’s secretariat. The only element of that theory which unsettled him was the thought of Lady Janet passing on the fatal information. Perhaps it had been Southampton’s doing after all…

  Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton remained an enigma, thought Poley. As Essex’s General of Horse he had been the Earl’s right hand in Ireland and clearly remained his most powerful supporter here in England. But, like Poley himself, Southampton obviously found his hands tied by his commander’s incarceration in York House. Yet there still buzzed around the Earl and around Southampton House, a body of men like a swarm of bees in search of their queen. Many of them, like their companions in Essex House, soldiers by avocation and training, impatient by temperament and brutally ruthless by nature. No matter what was going on in circumspect secrecy in Essex House, Poley could not imagine that things were quite so calm and quiet in Southampton House. Or in Drury House in Wych Lane, which Southampton also leased, and which, apparently, was becoming a popular meeting-place.

  *

  It was also the guilt-stricken Sir Francis who had arranged for Legge’s broken body to be returned to his home parish of Swyncombe in Oxfordshire after the coroner’s ruling of ‘accidental death’, Poley discovered. Here, in the absence of the family and the aristocratic sponsors who had smoothed his way to Oxford – all dead of the plague – he had arranged for the young man’s funeral to be held in St Botolph’s church there. According to the parish records, it was where Legge had been baptised less than 30 years earlier. And finally Sir Francis arranged for him to be buried in the nearby churchyard beside the rest of his kith and kin – those who were not in the local plague pits.

  Meanwhile, under the grudging protection of Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Anthony Bacon as well as of Lady Lettice and her husband, Poley was able to put aside any immediate fears that he might again be the victim of Meyrick and his bully-ruffians or the mysterious entity who had arranged for the horse and wagon to come charging down Thames Street. The bellicose element were in any case increasingly fully occupied as couriers taking the letters produced by the Secretariat to their destinations and returning with replies. It seemed that the Earl’s steward Gelly Meyrick as well as his wife Lady Frances managed occasional visits to the Earl; visits which generated yet more correspondence.

  Poley used the quiet time of household mourning to settle to work, with the Leicesters’ blessing, next to Cuffe who appointed himself as mentor. It was Cuffe who explained the further sub-sections of the Secretariat. Letters that went out over Essex’s signature and seal were destined not only for contacts abroad but also for the Court and the men and women who held most power therein. Essex himself wrote most regularly to the Queen and relied on the occasional visitor to take his missives out of his prison and into the royal presence – if not always into the Queen’s hand. Poley, with his more limited remit, was able to replace Legge swiftly, painlessly and surprisingly easily, though Cuffe’s last unthinking revelation made the intelligencer begin to wonder whether there was anyone in the Secretariat with the ability to copy the Earl’s handwriting and style so closely that it might be mistaken for his own. That way the number of letters heading toward the Queen might be augmented and the Earl’s case strengthened. He put the idea on one side to be discussed later with the younger Bacon brother.

  In the aftermath of Legge’s death, this section of the household went out less and less. Poley, keen to keep away from the sort of trouble that nearly hit him on Thames Street and, in any case, eager to become just another unremarkable face amongst the busy secretariat, stayed within the confines of the House as well. Not that there was much temptation to go abroad. For, had the Summer and Autumn been unseasonably wet and cold, the Winter closed its icy jaws upon them like those of a ravening wolf. The Thames froze and fairs were set up on it, easy for those in the houses on the Strand to visit – for they just had to step down off the steps at the end of their gardens. But for many, the forced excitement of the Frost Fairs was more than counteracted by the number of frozen corpses lying like statues in the ice-bound streets. By the faces of the helpless suicides staring up through the glass-clear ice at passers-by walking above. The only time they all ventured out was on the Sabbath when, registered in the Parish of St Clement Danes with its associations with Leicester, they all trooped across the Strand to services.

  At first, Poley was surprised by the amount of Danish correspondence required of him. Regular letters sped away to young King Christian IV at Elsinore; to Councillor Holger Rosenkranz and several others of the powerful Rosenkranz family; and, indeed, to others on the Danish Council. To the youthful prodigy Caspar Bartholin at Copenhagen University who had caught the Earl’s eye a couple of years earlier when he gave lengthy and impressive public orations in both Latin and Greek while still in his teens. And had, by all accounts, impressed the Danish Royal court by reading aloud to them at the age of four. The infantile Bartholin had read not only to them, but also the young Scottish King, visiting Denmark in pursuit if his princess bride.

  Every now and then Poley also found himself writing to the princess bride herself: Anne, King Christian’s elder sister, now Queen of Scotland. But there was little of importance in these missives speeding east and west across the North Sea or north and
south along the length of England. Nothing of even the faintest political relevance to the current political situation, the Earl’s incarceration or the ageing Queen’s succession; not even in those destined for the Scottish court. They were all so bland and innocuous that he began to suspect a cypher hidden somewhere within the innocent observations. But, try as he might, he could find nothing. He further began to suspect that many of the most tedious missives were simply given to him to ensure he had something to do while his loyalty was verified yet again. The extension of that thought, of course, was that the letters were not only used to occupy the intelligencer but also to keep continued contact with a range of people who might, when the time was right, be relied upon to sway Queen Anne and, through her, her husband. Meanwhile the truth of his story was being tested, with the care and meticulousness that King James apparently applied to the testing of witches.

  *

  Poley found it strange to be at once at the centre of so much industry and yet so far away from the centre of power. It came as an absolute surprise to him – and one that he found deeply unsettling – when Sir Francis appeared during the last days of November and dashed straight through the house to talk to his brother. Poley had no idea at all what the emergency might be. He had not been this ignorant of momentous events since before the Great Armada sailed. He didn’t have to wait long to find out what was going on, however. Sir Henry Wotton came grim-faced into the Secretariat, heavy with Sir Francis’ news. ‘My Lord the Earl is to be arraigned before the court of Star Chamber,’ he announced. ‘He is to admit in detail to his shortcomings both in Ireland and since. He will have to answer examination by the Lords of the Council who are the Star Chamber judges and Sir Francis fears he will have to do so without his legal support.’

  Poley was so surprised, he nearly gave himself away. ‘Has not Her Majesty demanded Sir Francis also attend?’ he asked. ‘Surely, as Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary…’

  ‘Ah,’ said Cuffe, unconsciously turning suspicion away from the intelligencer, ‘You know all about the Star Chamber do you not, Robert? The Star Chamber was the weapon Cecil the Toad used to destroy you!’

  ‘To attempt my destruction indeed,’ answered Poley. ‘Though all he achieved was to drive me here into Essex House and make me his enemy and the Earl’s friend ‘til death.’

  He was interested to learn, however, that whatever the Queen’s desires in the matter, Sir Francis did not attend the procedure when it came to pass. For, a matter of days later, Essex’s formal arraignment was cancelled. He remained sickly in York House with Lord Keeper Edgerton and nothing more was done to him. On the other hand, the Star Chamber was addressed by Edgerton and others who detailed the charges that would have been brought had the Earl been well enough to face them. Poley watched this shadow-play of judgement from a distance, feeling unsettlingly removed from the action. A sensation he was sure he was sharing with many other residents of Essex House, trapped in a kind of limbo or purgatory as they were. Until the Queen or her Council decided precisely what to do with Essex, whose continued imprisonment was becoming more and more of a problem.

  Whoever had persuaded Her Majesty to move against Essex through the Star Chamber had clearly failed to convince her to follow the threat into any meaningful action. Try as he might, albeit in secret, Master Secretary Cecil and his associates had not convinced Her Majesty to continue with the destruction of her one-time favourite. If the instigator of the move had, in fact, been Cecil, he had learned once again, that he could not rely on the Queen to take the next, fatal, step. Poley remembered all too well how an identical situation had proceeded with Mary, the Queen of Scots, attracting deadly plots as a honey-pot attracts wasps. Until the Secret Service had caught her red handed, plotting Elizabeth’s downfall with Babington and his associates. Only then – and only just – had the Queen been moved to take action. Which, by all accounts, she still bitterly regretted. Regicide was a dreadful sin in anyone guilty of it, she believed – but in another Sovereign it was especially damnable.

  Furthermore, even the limited freedom presented by their visits to church made the keen-eared intelligencer increasingly vividly aware that the procedure at the Star Chamber had only served to complicate matters. The Earl’s presence had been made impossible by his sickness. Allowing things to proceed in his absence had only managed to enhance the Earl’s popularity and the hatred in which the Toad and the Council were held by the general populace. Sunday sermons began to address the matters of the Earl’s sickness, how it was identical to the questionable ailment that had killed his father; how it was brought upon him through the evil of his enemies; and how were he to recover, he and he alone could mend the sickness in the Realm which so dangerously paralleled his own. Psalm 147 became a favourite text: ‘He healeth the broken hearted and binds up their wounds…’ As did Proverbs Chapter 12 Verse 18: ‘There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword, but the tongue of the wise is health.’ And when the Queen retired to her palace at Richmond, it was to the sound of the bells in all the City churches being rung for her ailing victim.

  Although nothing more was said or done as the year and century dragged to its icy end, and Lady Janet arranged no more secret assignations, Poley felt the lack of contact with her keenly. But pressure was growing on him, from outside the House as well as inside, to undertake some sort of action at the earliest possible moment. However, until the Earl of Essex came home, the intelligencer’s hands were tied.

  *

  By the third week in December, everything had apparently returned to normal in the Secretariat. The Council tried to muzzle the recalcitrant priests with limited success, though their texts were soon dictated by the Advent and approaching Christmas seasons. The Queen went down to Richmond Palace for Christmas, as though fleeing from those accusing bells, taking the court and Lady Janet with her; Poley found her absence strangely compounded by distance. Sir Francis retired to Twickenham Lodge for the festive season, once he had organised Her Majesty’s Christmas Present of a beautifully embroidered petticoat. Twickenham Lodge was immediately across the river from Richmond palace. His present was particularly expensive because his failure to appear against the absent Essex before the Star Chamber had angered the Queen and he was close to becoming persona non grata at court. He invited his brother to go to Twickenham with him but Anthony was too unwell to be moved or, indeed, to bother with gifts. And besides, thought Poley, Anthony would never rely on Wotton to keep a close enough eye on him.

  The Earl’s sisters, Dorothy Percy, Countess of Northumberland and Penelope Rich, Countess of Warwick, came to pay their respects to their mother and sister-in-law; and to report on how their efforts to make the Queen look kindly on their wayward brother were progressing. One precious present after another, Poley calculated as he shook his head at the closeness of the families – as if there weren’t enough Percys involved in the situation already. Or Blounts, come to that, for Lady Rich was widely known to be Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy’s, mistress.

  But amid all this bustle, Poley found himself penning yet more tedious missives. He produced one after another in a seemingly endless stream of banality, hardly leavened by the Yuletide greetings they contained. Wearily cynical, Poley began to believe that they were never actually despatched. They were probably piled in a file somewhere, or used as kindling for the fires needed more and more often as the bitter winter continued to close its grip even inside Essex House and the century slowly died, lingering as doggedly as the old woman on the throne. Like an ancient stepdame, he thought half-remembering a line from a play he had seen in happier days, long withering out a young man’s revenue. ‘And the hopes of every powerful person in the kingdom,’ he added under his breath.

  Poley’s protectors kept him safe, but still nobody trusted him. Which was not really a worry. The Earl’s household continued to behave as though their master was in residence, even though he remained caged in York House. Poley was certain that Lady Frances had some way of communicating with
her husband between those rarely-permitted visits but he could not find out precisely how this was done, any more than he could find out what really happened to his laboriously transcribed letters. The grieving wife continued to plead her husband’s cause almost daily at court, however – as long as it was at Whitehall. And Poley knew better than most how effective a conduit the court was for the passage of messages all sorts to every conceivable destination. Even to those kept close in prison. But he was content to watch and wait until the Earl was granted his freedom.

  Then word spread though the household that the Queen had run out of patience. None of Essex’s supporters – wife, sisters, mother – was allowed to come to court, not even to see the New Year entertainment of Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday. The winter season became almost as bitter within Essex House as it was without. And the slowly-approaching Spring promised no better.

  It was Francis Bacon who brought the news two bitter months later at the beginning of March, hurrying in out of a wet, near-freezing evening that, like most of the new year so far, prophesied so little for the new century. The Queen had stayed longer than usual at Richmond and Bacon had also been staying at Twickenham Lodge for an extra couple of weeks, to be only a ferry ride away from the court, still in the Queen’s bad books, despite the petticoat and her constant need of his advice. And he remained as unpopular at court as he was in the streets – each faction pro- or anti-Essex suspecting him of working for the other side. But as the new year progressed, the Queen returned to Whitehall and Sir Francis moved back to his rooms in Greys Inn. From where he visited the court almost as often as Lady Frances had done before she was forbidden entry, slowly winning his way back into Royal favour.