Eventually, Brown returned with a grizzled man, and she tried to communicate her panic with her eyes. The man looked at her with suspicion written into the weather-beaten lines of his face. ‘This is the passenger,’ said Brown.
‘You said a passenger, not no lady.’
‘She’s no lady.’
‘She looks like a lady, you ask me.’
‘I’m not asking you. Will you take us?’
‘London’s too far.’
‘Just as far as the Westminster Stairs. I wish to take my daughter back up north.’
‘You can go north from here,’ shrugged the boatman.
‘I … I have no horse. There are none to be bought in town – I always rent in London or thereabouts. You will be well paid.’
Amy listened to them barter. She was under no illusion. Brown could have taken her on Jack’s horse – she had seen two in the stable outside the boathouse. He wanted her to think, though, that Jack might have the use of it. She did not trust either him or Heydon to keep their promise. Neither she nor Jack would be allowed to live if they could accomplish whatever strange enterprise they had set in motion. ‘A deal well made,’ said Brown, shaking the man’s hand. ‘We can go now?’ The wherryman nodded and pointed down the street. Brown gave a tight smile, pushed her get her moving, and strode on ahead.
When his back was to them, Amy shook her head at the man, working her gag silently. ‘Your daughter, you said?’
‘Alas,’ said Brown, looking over his shoulder, ‘she was sent from the queen’s own service a common scold and shrew. A great shame on us all. She is being taken home in disgrace. And I daresay the people of the town shall have great sport of her.’
The wherryman looked at her. Seemed to hesitate. Then he shrugged. ‘Me wife’s the same. Wouldn’t mind her ‘avin’ the same treatment, if I’m honest. Boat’s just ahead, up here. I’ll have you in London before tonight.’
Resigned, Amy settled to her fate. But she had no intention of making it easy, making her body as stiff as a board and as heavy as she could so that they had to manhandle her into the back of the wherry. Brown pressed her down onto the floor between the seats, sitting himself. She did not object; she could not.
The boatman pushed away with his oar. There was little traffic this far upriver, and he set to, rocking and heaving the tiny vessel in the gentle swell. She had no idea how long it would take. The sun receded behind a thick smog of clouds, appearing again as they rocked past neatly-hedged green fields. The minutes of darkness seemed, though, to have angered the water, and the boat tumbled, rising, and falling at the front. ‘Are you a’right back there, sir? She gets like this sometimes, this time o’ year.’
‘I am fine,’ snapped Brown. Amy looked up at him as he mopped his brow.
‘You sure, sir? Don’t mind me sayin’, but you ain’t lookin’ so good. Can put in and rest awhile if you like. Some folks need a rest.’
‘I am quite well,’ Brown hissed. ‘Row on, row on.’
Amy’s eyes twinkled.
***
‘Why?’ asked Heydon, throwing his head back and laughing. ‘You ask me why?’ Jack shrugged. He was interested, in a detached sort of way. ‘Why, because I can, you fool. Because I can.’
By the quality of the light slanting in through the gaps in the shutters above them, morning had passed into afternoon. It was a strange thing to know that you would never see another day. To think that the sun would still rise, and other people would see it and wonder at it, but you would be gone, completely. Just gone. It might drive a man mad if he thought about it too much. It might make him rant and rail against the world for daring to go on without him. The Bedlam was probably full of such men. He wished he had said more to Amy. He hoped that she would marry again, to a better man – a stronger man. Yet he didn’t want to be forgotten, and that surprised him. Maybe that was sign that hope still dwelt somewhere within him.
‘Because you can,’ he croaked. ‘That’s why – that’s why this?’
‘I would not expect a small mind like yours to understand me,’ Heydon sniffed, wiping a hand across his forehead. ‘I am from a small city full of small minds. You dare to ask me why? Because I was made to call the tunes. I was made to make men dance to them. You, yonder odd fellow, your foolish wife. And the great ones too. The Catholic rubbish in France, the Scotch queen and the northern rebels, old Norfolk. And Cecil, too. Oh, I wrote him years ago, when I was a lad, offering my services. Did not bother even to reply. Well, I shall show him. His government shall fall with his whore mistress. This land shall lose its popery and its band of scum in Whitehall and Windsor. Think they are better than me, think they can overlook me – they shall not when we have a boy king and his uncle Moray, both beholden to me. I shall see this whole realm in ruins and be a master builder in its new making.’
So, thought Jack. That was it. A vengeful scheme by a man who had been disappointed of preferment, and fancied toppling the lot and bringing in new blood. Like a servant who, ignored by his master, decided to poison the whole household, and invite a new family to govern him. Sad, really. It was sadder still to have been taken in by such a man.
‘There. For a while you shall know more than any man in this realm. And then you shall die by your knowledge. I told you that the business of watching was a dangerous one. Trading in secrets buys only death for trash like you.’
‘You said you were an ordained priest,’ said Jack.
‘And so I was. And I saw all the lechery and buggery of that foul rabble. The rabble that your pretty tall Scotch wench loves, and the old harridan in the castle up yonder tolerates with a wink. All soon to be at an end.’ He smiled, but it looked to be a pained one. ‘Hold – what is that?’
Jack had heard nothing, but Heydon stood, stretched his legs and grimaced, and then crept up the steps, careful not to dislodge the caliver. He opened the wooden shutter a crack. ‘Yes!’ he hissed, ‘yes! I had thought we might be here some days, or even longer. ‘Bells. The stupid old strumpet is having the castle ring its bells to announce her presence abroad. And…’ He leant out further. ‘Music, now. That, my friend, is the sound of sweet music. Sweeter still to my ears.’ Jack strained. His sight and his hearing seemed poor, driven by the rough treatment and the lack of food and water. Yet, as the seconds passed, he thought he did hear something. A haunting sound – music indeed, and the most beautiful he had ever known. He closed his eyes and let it come to him. He wanted it to be the last sound he heard, the gentle rise and fall of music, melodious and lilting. It was a sound to die by. Heydon’s voice cut over it, a knife through butter. ‘The queen’s barge. The old jade is airing out her cunny. It will pass us – it will pass! Alas, my friend, it is time for you to make your end. I shall have you swinging by the time I shoot.’
Jack forced himself into a sitting position as Heydon returned down the few short steps. His voice, when had spoken, had sounded strained. ‘No sense in fighting it, man,’ he said, before clutching at his stomach. ‘Christ’s wounds, you would not think that I would be overcome by ill humours on this day.’ He pulled Jack to his feet and nudged him towards the rope, under which he had set the gun’s box. It was just big enough to stop his feet touching the ground when his neck was in the noose.
Willingly, Jack stepped up and rotated his upper body until the noose dangled before his face. ‘Good lad,’ said Heydon. ‘I shall unbind your hands now. Try nothing.’ He did, and Jack didn’t. ‘And now your feet.’ He bent and, as he did so, slid to the ground and hunched double. ‘Jesus! Jesus, my belly! What … what is … ow!’ Panting, he got to his knees and undid the ankle bindings. As he started to stand, Jack kicked out, hard, his boot connecting with Heydon’s stomach.
He slipped away from the noose, and the box, which had been on its side, tipped, spilling whatever remained inside, little packets and hand-sized caskets. Heydon screamed in agony. ‘I cannot see! What is this? I cannot see!’ He choked on something, and within seconds Jack realised it was a gush of vomit, soured ale studd
ed with chunks of bread.
‘My foolish wife,’ said Jack, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘She’s poisoned your ale.’ He recalled Amy’s last words to him – the words that had inspired hope when she had breathed them in his ear. ‘Drink nothing.’ He leant over Heydon and plucked off his cap, crinkling it in his hands. He could feel the papery resistance beneath the false lining and edged up the stairs with it. Leaning out of the window, he blinked at the brightness and then launched the cap into the river. In the distance he could see the queen’s barge. Sunlight dappled its green and white pain. In the long aft section, rowers in the same colours plied their oars. Behind them the musicians played, and in the rear of the boat a covered cabin section was tenanted by a bright palette. He squinted, waiting for the reflection on the glass windows to pass, and could see the queen at the back, her seat higher than everyone else’s. They were only about thirty feet away, and the barge moved smoothly, cutting through the water like a blade. No one seemed to notice the hat as it surfed the water before sinking.
Jack turned, rubbing his wrists. He had made it. Now to find Amy, to stop Brown before he could kill her and Queen Mary. In the gloom of the boathouse, he knocked over the caliver, sending it down the steps, sprinkling gunpowder as it went. Below, he saw Heydon’s face blossom into light. It the glare of his tinderbox, it looked purplish. Jack opened his mouth to cry out as he saw that, whilst he had been entranced, the man had tossed about packages of gunpower. He held one the of the little casks of the stuff in his hand.
She saved my life, he thought. Thank you, Amy. I’m sorry. Be safe. Live for us both.
The room did not ignite in one blast, but in a rapid succession of them, the first flame catching its mark and eating hungrily at the fuel around it. Breeding. Setting off others.
Jack’s final thought was of Amy before the world carried him off in a dull whump.
10
‘What ails him?’ asked the wherryman. He had lain down his oar and was scrabbling frantically at his jerkin. There were thick wedges of black dirt beneath his long, pointed fingernails.
‘Mmph,’ said Amy. The man stepped over the seating planks towards her, passing Brown, who was leaning over the side of the boat, vomiting. He pulled down her gag.
‘That man is a traitor,’ she cried. She was surprised at the strength in her voice. ‘He’s stolen me away from the queen’s own palace. I’m … I’m a servant to the queen herself and he’s stolen me!’
‘What?’ he asked, his mouthing gaping. ‘What?’
‘He’s a rebel – a northern rebel. He means to kill the queen!’ She thought about adding that he planned to kill the Scottish one too but suspected she would lose him. ‘He hopes to free the Scotch queen and bring her south,’ she said instead. ‘He’s a common traitor.’
‘Is it true? What … what do I do, my lady?’ Amy rather liked that.
‘Put in somewhere. Anywhere. Where are we?’ Before he could answer, Brown cried out in pain. He rolled back into the boat and the smell of vomit and faeces washed over them all.
‘This is no sickness,’ cried the wherryman. ‘He has the plague – it’s the plague. Oh Mary and the saints!’
Brown tried to stand. He moved towards Amy, stumbling as the wherry drifted. ‘You bitch,’ he said. ‘I’ll … ugh…’ Her hands were still bound. The boatman was no use; he sat immobile, transfixed by what he apparently thought was a plague victim advancing towards him. As Brown got closer, Amy braced her back against a seat and kicked out, hitting him just below the waist. It was enough. The movement made the boat rock crazily and Brown cried out again, before careering over the side and into the water. His splash set a nearby game of swans careening into the marshy riverbank, screeching in fury.
‘Mother of God,’ the wherryman screeched. Amy let the momentum of the rocking boat help her stand.
‘Unbind me, you fool!’
‘Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am.’ He skipped around her, one arm out for balance, and untied her wrists. She massaged each in turn. ‘What should I do? I must needs report this. The water bailiff!’ Amy ignored him, looking over the side herself. She could not see Brown’s body. The boat was moving so wildly that it might already have left him behind. Turning, she scanned the wake. Nothing.
‘Would you – return me to Windsor. Return me at once, I’ll – I shall report this. To Sir William,’ she added, with meaning. He seemed to understand, leaping to oars. ‘Where are we?’ He looked over to their left, and she followed his gaze to a stream joining the Thames. A jumble of houses lay on either side of it.
‘Sweeps Ditch. Around Staines, ma’am. It’ll be a journey back. Fightin’ the river, like.’
The wherry turned and nosed its way back in the direction they had come. Amy kept her eyes on the water, eager to see if Brown had washed up or was floating somewhere. Hopefully he had gone straight to the bottom. She had been unsure if the poison would work, until she heard that Queen Mary’s death was really intended. Probably Brown thought she had hidden it somewhere – she was sure that was what he’d instructed. If it worked so well on him, it should have done the same to Heydon – before he could do anything to Jack, she prayed. A few drops were supposed to be enough to kill, given time enough. She had upended the entire contents into the jug they shared.
If something happened to Jack first, if he were arrested for a few months’ flirtation with a pretty queen’s religion... Well, she would never forgive him for being so stupid. And their last proper conversation would have been a fight!
They had proceeded along some way, the minutes seeming an eternity and each bend taking an age to pass, when a larger tilt-boat slowed alongside them. It was coming from the direction in which they were heading. ‘You goin’ to Windsor,’ its oarsman asked.
‘I am that,’ the wherryman answered. ‘What news?’
‘Bad fire up that way. By the town.’
‘What?’ Amy shrieked, sitting up and addressing herself to the man. ‘Where?’
‘Nothin’ to concern yourself with, my lady. An accident, they’re sayin’. Some vagabonds usin’ an old boathouse. Their fire got out of hand, looks like. Queer thing, though, it looked like explosions from where I was sittin’.’
‘Their? Vagabonds?’
‘Rough men – masterless sorts.’
‘I know what a vaga – you say more than one?’
‘S’what I heard. Two men was pulled out, both burned up. Nobodies, my lady. The queen’s barge was nearby, but no one of quality was hurt. Just an accident. Probably they was storin’ squibs there for a pageant or that, and the fire touched them off.’
Amy had stopped listening. She collapsed on her seat, her legs shaking.
Jack was dead.
‘Well, good morrow to you. Both.’ The skipper of the tilt-boat doffed his cap and continued on his way. Amy’s wherryman did the same.
But Jack was dead.
The sun began to wane, and she wondered if it would ever rise again.
***
Amy disembarked at Windsor. As she prepared to leave the boat, she found Brown’s satchel, stuffed with money and papers. She took the purses and, as she did so, one of the papers fell to the floor. She picked it up, frowning and let her eyes run over it. ‘By Christ’s blood,’ she murmured as she read the accusation against her and Jack. She quickly stuffed the paper down her bodice and gave the ferryman as little as she dared, tossing the bag into the Thames. If he was unhappy about it, the look on her face must have warned him off quibbling. She wandered towards the old boathouse and saw it gutted, apart from some timbers standing over the river, whose dampness had protected them. A couple of men were ambling around the still-glowing embers of the place, empty buckets in their hands. Smoke still drifted up, smudging the coppery sky. A man in royal colours stepped out of the wreckage and shooed them away. She decided to go no further.
This was where he died, she thought.
The horses were both still in the stables, amid kicked and smashed railings.
There had been no mistake. Throughout the journey by wherry, she had been hoping that was the case: that someone else had come upon Heydon, freed Jack, and then … and then what? Blown himself and Heydon up? She knew it was a fantasy, but she had wanted it to be true. She thought back to that last kiss, the one she had left all over his face. Did that make up for the fight they had had? For calling him a nobody, a nothing?
She went to the stables and fell to her knees beside his horse. She let her tears flow, tears of disbelief, of anger. Then she hugged and nuzzled at the horse, because he had brushed it and cared for it. Her poor, lost boy, never happy. The boy she had married and promised herself she would protect.
As night fell, she began to wonder what to do. Nothing seemed possible; nothing seemed real. She took his horse and went into the town. People were still moving around the streets, wraithlike, discussing the two dead men and what they had been doing. It was mighty suspicious, apparently, happening so close by the queen’s barge. And with the north said to be on the march, well – it was mighty suspicious.
She ignored all the pleas for news. Her dress seemed to attract people who thought she might know something, but her mad staring eyes seemed to do the trick. Could she return to the castle? No. She had run away again, disappeared. She could not face Bess, nor any of the other servants. They would have questions she couldn’t answer. Walsingham and Cecil, too – they might be ready to see her now, after a fire and an explosion. She wanted nothing to do with either of them. Jack was dead now, and nothing seemed to matter.
She took his horse and rode away from Windsor, vaguely heading north. She spent days on the road, sleeping in strange inns and refusing company. A dim idea formed in her mind that she would just ride on until she either died or reached the end of the world. Perhaps she had to pay a penance. She had murdered two men, watched one of them writhe in agony. She would go on until Brown’s money ran out, and then she would starve. Sometimes her mother’s image came into her mind, but she pushed it away. She had wandered too far from the wise old woman’s teachings and did not want to face her ghost.
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