The Reluctant Assassin

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  She paused but I did not speak. I knew what she meant by private doubts but it was not for me to enlarge on them unless she did so first. I waited, listening to the plash of oars on the river and a couple of boatmen shouting to each other.

  In a curious, tight voice, Elizabeth said: ‘Mary is a menace to me and my entire realm. If she were not there, she couldn’t make secret plots with Spain. And there would be no need for this marriage.’

  ‘Majesty, what are you saying?’

  But I already knew. I had indeed walked into the trap, with my too-farsighted vision of England’s future if Mary prevailed. Elizabeth had had the same vision. She had meant to lead me into acknowledging it. Into acknowledging the true extent of the danger Mary Stuart posed.

  Her fear of marriage was still there. I could see that quite plainly. She might miss Francis, might long for his company, but she wasn’t longing for his bed. She was afraid of it. And it was principally Mary who was pushing her towards it.

  Her attitude would be a sorry disappointment to my captors. To those who were threatening my son.

  Still in that curious voice, as though her throat were constricted, my half-sister, Elizabeth, queen of England, remarked: ‘I really wouldn’t mind at all if something happened to Mary.’

  ‘You … I can’t!’

  ‘Your captors are right to wish for it, even though they haven’t looked as far ahead as we have,’ Elizabeth said. ‘She is a danger to all England. If she were to plot successfully and get England invaded by her friends, then our green fields would be soaked with blood twice over. The same applies if she were to be openly murdered. That could draw avengers here. It would have to look like illness or accident.’

  She still didn’t look at me. ‘We certainly don’t want Spain arriving with a punitive expedition. But Mary’s health isn’t good. Something could be arranged, no doubt, and I’m sure you are clever enough to arrange it, Ursula. Think: it would save your son. Walsingham will get you into Sheffield. I will tell him that I wish to install you with Mary to find out what she is or is not doing; how much of a danger she truly represents, to me or to Francis. I shall say it is because of Francis’ fears and the embassy’s questions that I wish to do this. Walsingham will grumble, because he doesn’t approve of my marriage plans, but he will obey. Talbot will be told the same and will be ordered to have you included among Mary’s entourage. He has charge of her. He can insist. He will invent some suitable purpose for you.’

  She might have been one of Harry’s captors. She sounded just like them. I sat there. Silent. Trembling.

  She still wouldn’t meet my eyes. But she said: ‘If you return to Greenwich Palace at this time tomorrow and go to Walsingham’s office, the necessary documents to get you into Sheffield Castle will be ready for you. If you choose to use them. You are free to choose, naturally.’

  NINE

  Playing For Time

  When the court was in or near London, Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State, often lived at home and attended court by day. But when it was in the more outlying palaces, such as Greenwich, he went with it, to avoid wasting time on daily travel. In all the palaces, he had an office, usually consisting of an outer room where his subordinate clerks worked, and an inner sanctum where he could have privacy. His suite was always very workaday, full of dusty documents and cupboards which often strained at their latches because of the books and maps and paperwork thrust inside them.

  I was at his Greenwich office promptly the next morning, though I was tired. I had had a bad night and had been afraid of having a migraine attack. In times of serious conflict or anxiety, I was liable to such things. However, so far it hadn’t happened. I arrived at Greenwich Palace when the dew was barely off the grass and was ushered in without delay; though the Brockleys were not allowed to come with me and were once more left behind in an anteroom.

  Walsingham was at his desk, dictating to a clerk, who at a signal from his master withdrew, leaving us alone. Walsingham himself stood up politely to greet me.

  He looked as usual, tall, dark of hair and eye, swarthy of complexion, black-robed, intimidating. The queen, who never minded making personal comments about her associates, called him her Old Moor because of his dark skin. He looked tired himself, and I remembered that his younger daughter, Mary, aged seven, had died not long ago. Walsingham, the terror of the queen’s enemies, was in private a loving husband and father.

  I dropped a curtsey and was waved to a seat. We looked at each other. Like the queen, who had been known to throw things at him, I trusted Sir Francis Walsingham but didn’t like him. In turn, he didn’t like me. He didn’t consider that women should be engaged in secret missions. Like Sir Edward Heron, he considered that I should put my mind to my stillroom and my needlework and stay out of masculine affairs. The fact that I wished very much to stay out of them but kept on getting forcibly pushed back in never seemed to weigh with him.

  I sat down, and said: ‘The queen bade me come to you. She said you would have documents ready for me.’

  ‘I have,’ said Walsingham grimly. ‘Extraordinary ones. The queen, whom I know, at heart, is averse to marriage, nevertheless seems anxious to remove certain barriers to this one, to the Duke of Alençon and Anjou, and because he – and his government, apparently – harbour fears connected with Mary Stuart, you are to be planted in Sheffield to find out how justified these fears are. They would all do better to be afraid of the English Protestants, many of whom greatly desire,’ said Walsingham, with savage humour, ‘to eat the duke for dinner. They don’t at all like the idea of the queen marrying a French Catholic, even a tolerant one. I am not a fool, Mistress Stannard. I smell something amiss here. Something I am not being told. A secret, hidden purpose. What is going on?’

  I looked at him in alarm. I had not expected this, though perhaps I should have done. He was both experienced and subtle; he could sense, as if through his skin, when something was being kept from him.

  ‘You don’t answer. Listen,’ said Walsingham, ‘I have enough problems to worry me. I don’t regard this project of the French marriage as a means of keeping Spain at arm’s length; I think it’s more likely to provoke King Philip into some kind of attack on us. I also think it’s not, at heart, what her majesty desires, and yet I am supposed to promote it. I lie awake at night, sometimes, haunted by these things. And now, the queen is indulging in mysterious moves of her own and not confiding in me. I insist, Mistress Stannard, that you tell me what you know. Otherwise, I will brave the queen’s wrath and not release the documents I have for you.’

  He was trustworthy. I knew that. I told him.

  He listened without interruption and then, when I had fallen silent, said: ‘Have you reported your son’s disappearance to Sir Edward Heron?’

  ‘Yes. He advised waiting for a ransom demand.’

  ‘He would! Have you reported this further outrage – your own kidnapping?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dear heaven, why not? We could have the tale cried in every town in the country! Every honest citizen could be turned into a spy, searching for Harry. We would find him in no time at all! Someone would come to say that a house near them had been hired by strolling players who trundle handcarts about. You were apparently transported in broad daylight! You would have your son back in a week, most likely! What kept you silent? I will order Heron to set it in hand at once!’

  ‘No!’ I had kept my explanation brief and not mentioned the full details of the hideous threat to Harry. An angry, brazen alarm bell now clanged in my head. ‘No, Sir Francis, you must not. You must not! Harry’s plight must not be cried in the streets.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They warned me. The people who hold him. I think they are quite ruthless. They call themselves honest citizens and think they are patriots but they are ruthless; I fear them. They warned me that at the first sign that I had put the law on their track – and Harry’s abduction being announced in public would be that – they would get him awa
y and carry out their threat to … to sell him as a slave, beyond hope of recovery. I don’t know what they’d do then, but most likely they’d disperse. They’re not really players. I suspect they would just split up and go back to their everyday lives – and then come together again and next time kidnap and threaten someone else, perhaps another member of my household! They threatened that, too. After all, it’s me they want to use, because I just might be able to get into Mary’s household.’

  ‘I see. Yes, I do see.’ Walsingham put his fingers together, placing his palms in an attitude of prayer. He was silent for a few moments, thinking. Then he nodded, as if concluding some private conversation within his head. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that there are two lines to pursue.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘One is that you should play for time. Appear to fall in with their wishes. That means going to Sheffield, though not too hastily. Delay a little if you can. Meanwhile, I will see that Sir Edward Heron does not try to investigate the matter further, or make it public. That is what you want, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes! To protect Harry!’

  ‘And to gain time for you. When you get to Sheffield, make a great show of trying to win Mary’s confidence.’

  ‘That could be difficult,’ I said dryly. ‘The last time I encountered Mary, I prevented her from making a bid to escape from Elizabeth’s control. She won’t welcome, or trust me.’

  ‘You were obeying your queen’s orders. Mary herself is a queen and knows very well what a subject’s duties are. You can play on that. Talbot will see that you are placed close to her, somehow, and the rest is up to you. Besides, it is only a pretence. You won’t,’ said Walsingham, ‘actually need to win her trust. There is no question of you carrying out your unpleasant task.’

  ‘No, there certainly isn’t!’ I agreed, earnestly.

  ‘You will need to be careful, though. They may have a spy of their own in Sheffield.’

  ‘They said they had ways of keeping watch on me.’

  ‘Yes. That could mean in Sheffield as well anywhere.’

  ‘Then why,’ I said angrily, ‘can’t their spy carry out their nasty assassination plans?’

  ‘He may be afraid. The penalty would be severe; after all, she is the queen’s cousin and under Elizabeth’s protection. If the assassin were caught, Elizabeth might have to make an example of him. Or her.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘That, of course, is partly why the queen insists that Mary’s death, should it occur, must seem like illness or accident. It isn’t just fear of reprisals from Spain; she also wants to protect you.’

  But she’s still prepared to use me.

  I ought to be used to it, but I didn’t think I ever would be.

  ‘In seizing Harry,’ Walsingham said, ‘your captors are employing about the only lever they can think of, to make you risk performing the deed. However, as I said, there is another line to follow, and knowing your past experience and that of your man Roger Brockley, it is perhaps more hopeful than it sounds. That is for Brockley – mostly him, because if you are in Sheffield you can’t take part – to find Harry and rescue him and identify his captors, so that the authorities can seize them.’

  ‘Brockley himself has said that. He will set about it the moment we return home.’

  ‘It’s a tall order,’ said Walsingham. ‘But it’s our best chance. Whatever happens …’ and here he studied me very gravely ‘… and whatever the queen may wish, Mary must not be assassinated. Any suspicion that her death wasn’t natural might indeed bring reprisals.’

  He got up and prowled about the room. ‘Believe me,’ he said, ‘if Mary could be caught out, getting herself involved in a serious plot to harm the queen, to bring a foreign army here and snatch the crown, then we could execute her openly and even Philip could hardly complain. He is a king and knows the meaning of treason. One day, I sincerely hope … Mary is dangerous, but assassination in the dark isn’t the answer.’

  Sir Francis Walsingham was shrewd and experienced but although this was not apparent until several years later, he was not quite right. He underestimated Philip’s devotion to his religion, and his family feeling, and his dislike of Elizabeth. Once, when she was young, Philip had sought to marry her, but she had refused him. Looking back, I think that he never forgave her. From then on, she was the heretic queen of England, whose mother had ousted Katherine of Aragon, his own relative, from her marriage and her throne. But on this spring day in 1581, the future remained hidden. Mary had not as yet laid herself open to an official executioner, and Harry remained in terrible danger, unless he could be rescued in time.

  I said: ‘I will do as you say. Go to Sheffield but delay if I can, and set Brockley to the hunt.’

  On the way home, I talked earnestly to the Brockleys. ‘I see,’ said Brockley when I had finished. ‘So the queen is sending you to Sheffield to assassinate Mary …’

  ‘I shan’t do it! I can’t assassinate anyone!’

  ‘Walsingham says you must gain time as best you can, while I and what helpers I can find have got to find Harry before you are forced into an impossible position. Three months, they said, didn’t they?’

  ‘Damn them, they did,’ I said.

  ‘And you think that it would be too dangerous to take the obvious route, to let Edward Heron have the news cried in town streets. He’d do that if Walsingham ordered it.’

  ‘And they might … harm my son,’ I said. ‘No. Would harm him. They meant it. It’s Harry I’m thinking of, afraid for, all the time.’

  ‘Oh, ma’am!’ said Dale miserably, jolting along on Brockley’s pillion.

  ‘All right.’ Brockley was frowning, thinking. I looked at him gratefully. He was a reassuring man to have at one’s side in an emergency. After a moment, he said: ‘I could always try beating Laurence Miller up until he tells what he knows, but I am not at all sure that he does know anything. We could be wrong about him.’

  He was silent for a while, and we let the horses walk quietly while he ruminated. Then he said: ‘Madam, when we found Philip, he was lost and reeling about and he hasn’t been able to tell us exactly where the attack took place but we found it when we searched for you, because we found the dogs.’

  ‘Our poor dogs!’ I said, and the tears sprang into my eyes.

  ‘We brought them home and buried them,’ Brockley said gently. ‘But I am wondering, if we were to go to the place where you were seized, you might remember something useful. It’s a long chance, but perhaps you would. Can you take us there? Now? And have you any idea, anyway, of which way you were taken – north, south … whatever. Could you hear anything that might be a clue?’

  I thought, and then shook my head. ‘I could hear very little, on either of my journeys on that handcart. The carpet I was wrapped in was too thick.’ And stifling and horrible. I wrinkled my nose at the memory. ‘I heard faint sounds – hooves, wheels, voices once or twice, but nothing … nothing distinctive.’

  ‘Never mind. I think,’ said Brockley, ‘that we had better go at once to where you were snatched and see if anything stirs your memory. Now, as I said, before we go home.’

  I knew the woods round Hawkswood very well and it was easy for me to lead us to the place where disaster had struck. I guided us along the track through the stand of beech trees. I drew us to a halt and pointed at some bushes on the right.

  ‘They sprang out from there,’ I said. ‘And there … they dragged me from my saddle and Philip from his and they killed the dogs here! They told me that some things – matters of state, they meant – were more important than the lives of dogs. I think the lives of Goldie and Remus were more important than the lives of those vile plotters!’ I swallowed hard. ‘We will have to buy some new dogs, and look after them better!’

  ‘I suggest, madam, that you enquire if your friend Mistress Ferris, at White Towers, has any young dogs for sale. I believe she and her husband are breeding half-mastiffs in a serious way, these days.’

  ‘Ye
s, they are,’ I said distractedly. Christina Ferris was a very old friend. I had helped to promote the marriage between her and Thomas Ferris, and that was the occasion on which I had first met and crossed swords with Sir Edward Heron. And yes, of course we must replace the dogs. I hoped that the Ferrises would be able – and willing – to help over that. My unusual way of life had caused the death of a dog before, and that dog, too, had come from White Towers. I was beginning to feel that I was a dangerous person to be attached to, whether one was a dog or a servant – or even a son.

  But just now, I must think only of Harry. I brushed away my tears and leant over Jewel’s shoulder, staring at the ground. It was noticeably trampled on both sides of the track, which was no help at all. Brockley, however, was moving slowly on along the track, looking at the ground. ‘There’s something here,’ he called.

  I followed him, and came up beside him. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘Sign,’ said Brockley, and pointed. ‘It’s a different time of day from when the woods were searched for you,’ he said. ‘That was late morning; this is late afternoon. The light is different. No one saw those marks then, but they’re there.’

  He was right. The traces were very faint, but the sunlight filtering through the trees was now at the right angle to light them up. There were trodden weeds on the edge of the track, one or two barely discernible footprints, and yes, one unmistakable wheel-mark.

  Brockley looked up and around. ‘The traces lead north. What’s north of here? The village of Priors Ford … Did you go through a village, would you say? Madam, please think.’

  I tried. I did remember a few things. ‘I believe we did, yes. We went over cobbles, I think. Not for long, but I’m sure we did. It could have been Priors Ford.’