The Ringed Castle: Fifth in the Legendary Lymond Chronicles

by Dorothy Dunnett

  Sir Henry began to realize that there was more to the problem than had at first appeared. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But when I was there, the Council had very cleverly refrained from telling him that he had no credit left. Fortunately for the sake of his dignity, he guessed, I think, that something was wrong other than this foolish business of Hislop and d’Harcourt.’ He paused. ‘Did you know about that?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Philippa. ‘But I think the less said about all that, the better. If they can prove Mr Crawford was the instigator of the assault, then they may be able to sentence him: he no longer has the protection of the Tsar. If the case against him fails, you can expect him, I think, to go to Russia.’

  Sir Henry Sidney was watching her closely. ‘In spite of what is virtually a sentence of death? Will he not take employment in Scotland? Heaven forbid poor Shrewsbury should have that to contend with on the Borders, but he would be a godsend to that remarkable woman de Guise.’

  ‘The one thing you may be assured of, in Mr Crawford’s singularly erratic life,’ said Philippa gloomily, ‘is that he will not go back to Scotland.’

  ‘But Russia?’ said Sir Henry impatiently.

  ‘Yes, Russia,’ said Philippa. ‘Of course he won’t relinquish Russia. He ploughed it; he sowed it. He now feels his mission, without doubt, is to weed it. Besides, Güzel is there.’

  Sir Henry Sidney drew a long, tactful breath, and expelled it. ‘The lady also,’ he said, ‘was apparently convinced that Mr Crawford would not return.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Philippa. A little colour grew in her cheeks, and went on increasing; it vanished leaving her a little pale, as she had been before. ‘In that case,’ she said prosaically, ‘I think he most certainly will insist on returning to Russia.’

  ‘You may be right,’ Sidney said. ‘But meantime, we have to make sure of your safety. The case against Mr Crawford may hold. And you are his wife. A diplomatic illness, I think, is indicated. You must quietly disappear.’

  ‘Leaving my mother to take the brunt?’ said Philippa acidly. ‘Or should she disappear too, leaving Flaw Valleys to be confiscated while we wander romantically penniless through the Channel Islands, handy for flying in any direction? Whose idea was this? Mr Crawford’s?’

  Henry Sidney gave a sigh. ‘It was more in the nature of a pious hope that if anything untoward happened to him, I should advise you to take to the heather. Or the equivalent.’

  He was a very likeable man. Philippa Somerville grinned at him. ‘Well. I won’t take to the heather,’ she said. ‘But you can trust me to plunge wildly into the equivalent.’

  Sidney was uneasy when he left, having persuaded her to accept none of his help to leave London. He would have been a great deal more uneasy had he returned five minutes later, to find she had left the house by boat, quickly, to visit the home of the Venetian Ambassador.

  From there she went to John Dee’s. It was on her return from that unpublicized residence that she found a courteous gentleman waiting for her at the landing stage at the Savoy, and three more in the garden beyond.

  They were Henry Jerningham’s men, and they wished her to accompany them, they said, on a. small matter of royal business. She was not allowed to change her dress but was taken, just as she was, to the Westminster apartments of the Countess of Lennox who treated her, as she had once before, as a much-cherished guest. But, as before, there was an armed man before every door and the Queen, invoked by courier, merely returned kind messages commanding her sweet Philippa to remain in Lady Lennox’s loving care until the current matter concerning her husband had been fairly examined.

  The heather, as it proved, was extremely comfortable; but Philippa, growling, did not take to it.

  *

  Several days passed. In Henry Jerningham’s house, Lymond bore the waiting with equanimity; his officers a good deal more uneasily. In another part of London Hercules Tait conducted himself with decorum, as he had since his unfortunate arrest, and awaited, with some resignation, the exposure of his folly to Lymond. Elsewhere in the same building Ludovic d’Harcourt and Danny Hislop, incarcerated together, were no longer speaking to each other. Or if Danny, revived, thought of something wittily abusive to say, d’Harcourt no longer answered him.

  On the first of May Sir William Petre and the Bishop of Ely called at Fenchurch Street with royal letters of recommendation under the Great Seal of England for the Sovereign Grand Prince of Russia; and with gifts for the Tsar and for his Ambassador, offering goodwill and friendship between the Queen and King and the merchants and fellowship of the adventurers for and to Russia.

  Accepimus literas vestras amoris et amicitie plenas per dilectum Virum nuntium et legatum Osiph Nepeam ad nos delatas, said Ascham’s elegant Latin.… Speramus hoc fundamentum mutue amicitie, hoc modo bene et feliciter jactum et stabilitum magnos et uberes fructus tum fraterni inter nos et successores nostros, amoris et amicitie firme tum perpetui inter subditos nostros commercii coniunctionem allatuvum.…

  To Master Nepeja, the Queen gave a chain of gold of one hundred pounds weight, a large basin and ewer, a pair of pottle pots and a pair of flagons, all made in the western style which did not in the least take his fancy, and all of gold, gilt or silver gilt, which did.

  To the Tsar of Russia his cousins the monarchs of England sent two rich cloth of tissue pieces, one piece of scarlet cloth, one of azure and one of fine violet in grain. They also sent a set of body armour with helmet adorned with red velvet and gilt nails; and a lion and lioness, living.

  The lions roared in their wagon outside Master Dimmock’s fine house through all the handsome exchanges, translated by Rob Best, and a crowd of some size had gathered by the time Sir William Petre and the Bishop emerged, duty done, and rode away, empty-handed and smiling.

  The merchants were not smiling. Nor were the mariners at Gravesend, as the news travelled there as by drumbeat. With some misgivings Anthony Jenkinson, worthy gentleman and great traveller, stood in the street and looked at the lions from Affrik which he, in truth, had to translate to a contrary heaven across two thousand miles of fierce ocean and deliver, roaring, to their new and sensitive master in Moscow.

  On Monday as planned, the Muscovy Ambassador left London for Gravesend, accompanied by the city officers and the merchants, who set him aboard the noble ship Primrose, with many tears and em-bracings. He had been told how, having lost the Tsar’s favour, his former colleague Francis Crawford had not yet decided whether to sail back to Russia as expected. And that a small infringement of law had detained temporarily the rest of his party.

  Robert Best translated it all, impassively, and John Buckland made no comment either, in public. But when Henry Sidney came on board the flagship, Jenkinson took him below and with Best and Buckland beside him said, ‘What of Mr Crawford?’

  And Sidney succinctly replied. ‘There is a legal case pending. And Crawford is tangled with it as well.’

  ‘But can they hold him?’ Jenkinson said. ‘He is still, officially, an envoy of the Tsar.’

  ‘Officially,’ said Sidney dryly. ‘But should they deal with him less than gently, I doubt if the Tsar would trouble to lodge a complaint. My guess is that the Privy Council want Mr Crawford as a witness against other, eminent conspirators here in England.’

  ‘So we sail without him?’ said Robert Best. ‘And without Danny or Ludo?’

  But the eyes of Henry Sidney and Tony Jenkinson met. ‘Ships are strange creatures,’ said Sidney, ‘and cannot be ordered like house dogs. A ship may wait a long time for the tide or the wind that will suit her. I think you will be given your orders.’

  Rob Best groaned, ‘Lions,’ he said, ‘do not necessarily understand orders. And, my God, how shall we explain to Nepeja?’

  ‘You’ve forgotten,’ said John Buckland calmly. ‘Once out into the estuary with a freshening wind, and there will be no need to explain anything to Osep Nepeja.’

  Chapter 13

  With Osep Nepeja on board, the Primrose waited at Gravesend for a wee
k with the three other vessels freighted for Muscovy. At the end of that time the Earl of Arundel, having opened and perused with his fellows the contents of Master Peter Vannes’s box, decreed that an inquiry should be held into the attempts to purloin the chest on its travels, and that all the accused and their supporters should be brought to one room for that purpose.

  This was, in the event, one of the many small chambers used for justice in Westminster and was furnished with no more than a long table for the commissioners and/or judges, and with a few unpadded stools and long benches. Inside and out, it was thoroughly guarded.

  There were no more than seven commissioners and five of these were, Adam Blacklock noted, members of the Muscovy Company. It was the first thing he saw as he came in out of the sunshine, with Guthrie and Hoddim and Lymond: the long bench with the grey-haired men sitting behind it, in their flapped hats and thick robes and long, busy beards. The President of the Council, Arundel again; with Griffin, the Attorney-General, and Jerningham, as you would expect. Sir William Petre, of course. And two other powerful figures: William Herbert, the 1st Earl of Pembroke, and Paget, the Lord Privy Seal.

  And someone he had not expected: a man also grey-bearded but tall and thin and elegant in black silk as an onion skin. Don Juan de Figueroa, the Spanish nobleman once Ambassador at the Emperor’s Court and lately King Philip’s excellent observer and high officer in England. The Queen was represented by her officers of State, but did not care personally to interfere in matters which might be prejudicial to her merchants. The King had sent his eyes and his ears.

  The Tsar’s officers were not asked to sit. They had to stand in their small circle of guards and watch Hercules Tait appear, escorted. Tait saw Lymond but showed no recognition: Lymond’s face expressed a hard-tried but still polite patience. All that any of them had been able to discover from that nerve-shattering week in his company was that he was virtually unbeatable at card games.

  Then Ludo and Danny were brought in, looking rather ill-groomed, with bruises still yellow on their faces and wrists. Danny stared round the room until he found everyone, and then rolled his eyes until a yeoman told him to stop.

  D’Harcourt looked round once, gave a kind of grimace in Lymond’s direction and then stood, holding his weak arm with the other, his head bent in thought on his chest.

  Lady Lennox came in, with her secretary John Elder and Philippa Somerville, employing the stalk she had learned balancing sherbet jars on her crown in the Seraglio. After a reasonable length of time her head swam round on its neck and she bestowed a vigorous grimace on her husband. Then she was given a stool beside Lady Lennox’s chair while John Elder stood, holding the chair back behind them.

  Since the two women had come in, Lymond had been standing remarkably still. He returned Philippa’s greeting, Adam noticed, with a look which was both questioning and guarded: Margaret Lennox with a smile was studying him in her turn. And from across the room, oddly enough, Ludo d’Harcourt had lifted his head and was watching also, first Philippa and then Francis Crawford, until Lymond in turn became aware of it; then d’Harcourt, reddening, looked away. The President banged with his gavel. ‘We are waiting for Master Vannes.’

  But he was already at the door, the long-awaited Peter Vannes, Dean of Salisbury, the swarthy Italian now in his sixties who for six years had been Ambassador for England with the Doge and the Council of Ten. And as he came in and bowed to the Council, Adam noticed that he also smiled towards the clerks’ table, where a man sat at the head of the scriveners who was obviously, from his clothes, of some consequence. And that, one took it, must be the Queen’s Latin secretary, Roger Ascham, with some of his staff, ready at need to translate any necessary evidence in that tongue.

  And on the desk before Ascham was a battered wooden box, nailed all over with yellow nails and barred strongly with iron, which had been splintered open, one would guess, with a chisel; and beside it some thirty papers in an irregular bundle; some rolled, some folded; none of them very neatly or efficiently kept. One or two were small notes, of the kind which might accompany a parcel. Some were letters running clearly to many pages, in thick dog-eared sheaves. The private papers of the late Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, with all the damning evidence they must contain of conspiracies and those engaged in them, on the lady Elizabeth’s behalf.

  Peter Vannes seated himself and, without preamble, the Earl of Arundel began.

  ‘I do not mean to spend long over this matter. You are here to explain three attempts to steal or interfere with the coffer you now see before you. The three men concerned are in this room, and from none of them have we been able to discover their reasons, or on whose behalf they have been acting. We have not so far used force, since it seemed that the answer might quite simply lie in the contents of the coffer itself.

  ‘We have now read these papers. As I have said, we have not so far used force. I shall not hesitate to use it now, if I do not receive the answers I require. So I now ask you again. Master Tait, on whose instructions did you attempt to prevent these documents from reaching their proper destination?’

  And Hercules Tait, man of taste and garrulous correspondent, drew breath to answer and was spared the necessity by Lymond, who had played chess with better men than Henry Fitzalan, 10th Earl of Arundel.

  ‘Master Tait acted under my instructions,’ Lymond said.

  Everyone turned. Beside him, Adam heard Guthrie swear; and across the room Danny Hislop’s empty stomach gave a croak of despair. Philippa, allowing her head to drop back, stared at the ceiling inhaling and reviewed, speechlessly, a number of telling ejaculations in Turkish. The Earl of Arundel said slowly, ‘Indeed? And the attacks by the men Hislop and d’Harcourt were made on your orders as well? May I ask why, Mr Crawford?’

  Her husband’s manner, thought Philippa approvingly, was quite perfect: deferential without being obsequious; serene without being flippant. Lymond said, ‘The severity of these attacks I regret. They were made under my orders and I in turn have been acting, Lord Arundel, on behalf of my employer the Tsar.’

  He paused. Philippa, keeping her gaze on the ceiling, heard someone near her swallow, quite audibly. ‘Go on, sir,’ Arundel said.

  And Lymond went on in the same, undisturbed voice. ‘As you know, important trade agreements were in project between your country and Russia. My Tsar was about to cast aside the long-standing connections he already possessed through the Hanseatic ports and other parts of the Baltic, and rely instead on a new route and a new agreement with England. The stability of England, her prospects and the hazards which might threaten her woollen trade, her finances and her shipping, were therefore of great importance to us. For this reason, since I spoke the language and had many connections in Europe, I was asked to find out what I could about the present condition of England.

  ‘It was not, naturally, something I wished widely known. It is however a mode of insurance which we thought essential, in view of the many rumours of disturbances reaching us.’

  ‘I see,’ said Arundel. He did not look surprised.

  Sir William Petre, glancing at him, added a question. ‘We are to understand therefore that you wished to study the Earl of Devonshire’s papers to find out what plots might be afoot which threatened the security, as you thought, of this throne? The man is dead; the plots, if there were any, long abandoned. Why then go to such trouble, Mr Crawford?’

  ‘Because I, too, had corresponded with Edward Courtenay,’ Lymond replied. ‘I sought information about England, which on occasion he gave me. I was not anxious that this traffic should be made public. You will have seen the letters, no doubt, in the casket.’

  There was a long pause, during which the eyes of Arundel and Pembroke met and parted. It was Pembroke who finally spoke. ‘There were no such letters here in the casket,’ he said. ‘There were no letters, notes or reports of any consequence whatever. You have had your trouble and these men have died, Mr Crawford, for nothing at all. For less than nothing, since your in
terest in our domestic affairs was already known to us. Your correspondence over the years with Master Lychpole has been no secret. As you say, nations must make their own safeguards. I am surprised that you underrated ours so seriously.’

  ‘You astonish me,’ Lymond said. ‘May I know what directed your attention to Master Lychpole?’

  The Earl of Pembroke smiled. ‘You have taken us, under duress, into your confidence, Mr Crawford,’ he said. ‘I do not think we need take you into ours. Especially as it will be our melancholy duty to regard what you have told us as a matter for prosecution. The Attorney General cannot lightly overlook espionage, nor yet violence and murder in our quiet English lanes.’

  Adam Blacklock stared at the man. Quiet English lanes. There was a smugness in Pembroke’s voice, not only triumph. And if you looked closely at the others, you sensed the same thing: an air of satisfaction; of superiority. It came to Adam suddenly that these men had been concerned with the casket not only to seek evidence against the lady Elizabeth; against Dee and his friends; against all those conspirators paid by the King of France who had entangled Edward Courtenay so foolishly, so often in their tortuous intrigues. They had been afraid, each of them, for himself.

  And it was then that Lymond said, ‘You had better then cultivate Venice, whom the Pontiff is wooing so heartily to his cause. For I have Master Tait’s word that you were not the first to open the box there, since the Bailiff of Padua sealed it. The papers you found inside were harmless because all the rest of Edward Courtenay’s documents have been extracted and kept by the Doge and Senate of Venice.’

  No one spoke. Prowling like fire, comprehension, vibrating and hideous, ran through the judicial chamber.

  Venice. Venice, seduced by the Pope and publishing abroad those very secrets the Council had dreaded to meet with in these papers. Not the plots and counterplots between France and Elizabeth—those would be destroyed or suppressed. But the rest.… The polite, probing exchanges between Edward Courtenay and the men now in high office who had not been so certain of high office when the death of one young king led to such drastic changes in religion and government.