The Queen's Constables

by David Field

  ‘He’ll get suspicious if you turn up with me as well,’ Giles pointed out, and Tom nodded. ‘Which is a very good reason why I’ll be keeping well behind the pair of you. But the first sign of any nonsense and I’ll be there double quick.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be keeping an ear open in this place,’ Giles reminded him, and Tom gave a derisive snort. ‘So as I can learn more sweary words? And now that you’ve found the ship what’s bringing in them there priests, our job here’s done, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s probably other ships,’ Giles pointed out, ‘but I’m not going to sea again if I can help it, so it’s for you to find out what other ships’ captains is making a dishonest shilling by bringing priests into that place on the north side of the river.’

  ‘Can you remember exactly where that spot were?’ Tom enquired, and Giles nodded. ‘Put me on a boat and I’ll show you.’

  ‘Not me,’ Tom asserted. ‘Walsingham’.

  ‘But what about Sunday?’ Giles reminded him, and Tom rose to his feet and nodded towards the public room, where the increasing noise suggested that Lizzie might be needing a hand. ‘Let’s go and serve some customers while we still manages this shithole, because I don’t reckon as how we will for much longer. And on Sunday I’m coming with you.’

  Tom was several yards behind Giles and Barton as they followed the Sunday crowds on their way down Ludgate Hill, with the spires of St. Paul’s ahead of them. Although it was Sunday the streets were just as busy as on a weekday, given Queen Elizabeth’s edict that everyone was required to present themselves at church on Sunday, on pain of a fine in default, in order to worship the Protestant way. This suited Tom for two reasons; the first was his distaste for anything that smacked of Catholicism, and the second, and more immediate, reason, was that he could benefit from the throng of people in order to keep his covert pursuit hidden from Barton.

  Tom shuddered involuntarily as they passed the end of the Old Bailey, and his eyes were drawn down its dusty length to the grim walls of Newgate Gaol, whose dark purpose was in no way lightened by the fancy entrance gateway through which hundreds of innocent men had passed over the years. Men like his father and older brother, falsely condemned as heretics during the purges of Queen Mary, and burned alive only a few yards away from where he was following Giles and his employer. And only yards now from where he had grown up in the pious but happy house in an alleyway off Paternoster Row, in the shadow of St Paul’s.

  His heart sank, and his stomach bile rose, as Barton led Giles to the left, and the north end of the Row came into view. The memories began to flood back into Tom’s unwilling head, and suddenly he could once again smell the rancid sweetness of burning human flesh, and hear the screams of the dying. He prayed for them to keep walking straight ahead, but as if in a sick re-enactment of his most common nightmare they turned into Paternoster Row, and Tom hung back briefly, his heart pounding and his stomach and bowels churning. He cried out in disbelief as they turned into an all too familiar courtyard, and it took all of his strength to step slowly after them, like a man in a dream. It was the dreaded courtyard, and the dreaded door, behind which the vilest of wickedness and Godless vice had been hatched in order to send his dearest family to the pyre.

  The door opened briefly in order to allow Giles and Barton to slip inside. The man opening it for them had only appeared fleetingly, but it had been long enough for Tom. He gave a cry of horror, then ran back up the Row, pausing at its junction to spew up his breakfast. Then he walked like a man in a trance, against the flow of people, back towards Thames Street with unseeing eyes as his brain continued to replay the horrible events that these streets had witnessed all those years ago.

  ‘What in God’s name happened to Tom out there, and where have you been?’ Lizzie demanded as Giles slipped into the back room where Lizzie was struggling to move an empty barrel. ‘Looking for Tom, for the past hour or so,’ Giles complained as he gently moved her aside and lodged the barrel against the side wall. ‘I could see him following us when we went into that there house down in Newgate, but when we come out there were no sign of him. It were a good job nobody seemed to be in the mood to murder me, but I needs to talk to Tom, now that he’s back here.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Lizzie complained. ‘His body’s out the front, as you can see, but his mind’s God knows where. Ever since he come back he’s been like one of them statues you sees outside fancy buildings. He’s just staring into space doing nothing, even though the place’s full, and poor old Mary and me’s been working ourselves into the ground. And her in her condition too!’

  Giles hurried back into the customer area and pushed past the silent and immobile Tom in order to work alongside Mary, who poured ale into pots from the large jugs that Giles filled from the barrel, then handed them out to yelling customers as the alehouse filled to near capacity on what should have been revered as a holy day. After what felt like the longest day of their working lives Giles and Mary assisted the last of the drunks out into Thames Street and locked and bolted the heavy front doors, embraced briefly to celebrate a job well done, then made their way upstairs, to where Tom, like a walking corpse, had been assisted by Lizzie an hour previously. A large ale pot was in front of him on the table, and to judge by the state of the barrel they kept in the corner it was by no means his first. He was roused by their entry, and looked up at Giles through watery eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, then dry retched.

  ‘Where’s Lizzie?’ Mary enquired, and Tom looked confused. ‘I think she took herself off to her bed, after telling me what she thought of me. But it weren’t my fault.’ His eyes began to fill with tears, and Mary took Giles gently by the hand. ‘Come on, father to be,’ she smiled encouragingly, ‘let’s leave Tom to work it all out and get to our bed. My legs won’t hold me up for much longer anyway.’

  The next morning Giles found Tom in the same seat that he had left him in the previous night. The air in the upstairs room stunk like the rear yard of a brewery, and Tom was doing his best to chew on a slice of stale bread as he looked up. The two men’s eyes met, and Tom dropped his gaze to the table in his embarrassment.

  ‘You could have been done in, and I ran out on you when you most needed me. But I had my reasons, and I can only say as I’m sorry.’

  ‘You did that last night – more than once,’ Giles chuckled, and Tom grinned sheepishly. ‘I don’t remember nowt after coming up here to try and clear my head. When it wouldn’t clear, I tried to drown it. Was I bad?’

  ‘No idea,’ Giles replied truthfully, ‘since we were all too busy pouring that pissy ale into the customers. I put the money from last night into the bag under our bed, by the way,’ he advised Tom, who had one issue that was still puzzling him. ‘How did I finish up in this room?’ he enquired, and Giles grinned. ‘Ask Lizzie, because she were going on for half an hour or more about how heavy you was to help up the stairs.’

  ‘And she hasn’t finished going on about it, neither,’ Lizzie announced loudly as she bustled into the room, then pierced Tom with a glare. ‘You ever get into that state again and you’ll be looking for your nuts in the back yard out there.’

  Giles sniggered, but Lizzie shot him a venomous glare that silenced him instantly. ‘If either of you’s wanting some breakfast, get out of my way,’ she demanded. ‘But first I needs to open one of these here windows, to get the smell out of this place. Did you shit yourself or what, Tom?’

  Advising her that he couldn’t be certain that he hadn’t, Tom gestured to Giles with his head that they should go downstairs. ‘Let’s go into the yard and find my nuts,’ he added with a wry grin.

  Out in the yard, Tom perched awkwardly on an empty barrel and apologised to Giles yet again. Giles shook his head to indicate that it wasn’t necessary, but enquired what had led to Tom’s disappearance in Newgate. The colour began to return to Tom’s face as he looked up at Giles.

  ‘That feller what let you and Barton into the house. What business were he a
bout?’

  ‘That’s what I needs to tell you,’ Giles replied excitedly, ‘or perhaps you and Walsingham. So far as I could make out, he’s the feller what organises the landings of the priests once they crosses the Channel. We was there for more instructions, and he told Barton as how there’d be some more for him to collect in Calais next week. He didn’t say exactly when, and I’m afraid I didn’t get his full name. Only that he’s called “Francis”.’

  ‘Francis Fucking Covington,’ Tom muttered, then stared at Giles with pain-filled eyes as he added ‘The same Francis Fucking Covington what sold my dad and brother to the Catholics. They was burned at the stake not yards from where you was having your little meeting, where Newgate turns into Smithfield. You passed my old house on your way to your meeting, and Cousin Francis obviously hasn’t moved house since he went to it with his sister in there, and earned his absolution by selling out two innocent souls. Now perhaps you can understand why I were missing when you come out of there.’

  ‘At least no-one tried to do me in,’ Giles advised him in an effort to raise his spirits.‘Thank the good Lord for that,’ Tom muttered, then looked up as he saw Lizzie in the back doorway, hands on hips in standard battle pose. ‘If either of you wants any breakfast, you’d better come upstairs now, while there’s some left’ she shouted. ‘Robert eats everything in sight these days, and Mary claims as how she’s eating for two.’

  ‘Giles tells me that we’ll soon be getting away from here,’ Mary announced cheerfully as she smeared mutton dripping onto her dry crust. Giles met Tom’s quizzical gaze and hastened to assure him that ‘It’ll be your decision, obviously, but now we’ve got both ends of the plot I reckon that Walsingham won’t have any more need for us.’

  ‘As I understand it,’ Tom replied, ‘we’re nowhere near finished yet, although you may be right that we can stop pretending to run this here alehouse. First thing we needs to do is talk to Walsingham and tell him what we knows already, then see if it’s enough. We knows the name of the person what gives Barton his instructions regarding when there’s priests to be collected and delivered, and you reckons that you know where some of them’s being dropped off. But for all we know, there’s lots more ships, lots more priests, and lots more dogs like my filthy rotten cousin doing the organising.’

  ‘Your cousin?’ Lizzie echoed, and Tom nodded. ‘The same cousin what betrayed your dad and your brother?’ she persevered, and Tom smashed his fist down on the table. ‘Yes, the same bastard, so leave off talking about him!’ Without another word being exchanged, they left the remains of the breakfast to a gleeful Robert, and went about their various tasks for the morning.

  Chapter Five

  Three days later Tom and Giles clumped up the narrow staircase to the ‘convenience chamber’ above the chandler’s shop, where Walsingham awaited them sitting before the roaring fire in the only available chair. As they stood uncertainly, awaiting acknowledgment that he was aware of their presence, he waved them forward with a stern admonition.

  ‘This had better be something worthy of my attention, since I have been obliged to delay an audience with Her Majesty. She does not take kindly to such slights, but hopefully Cecil can keep her amused until my tardy arrival. So – out with it.’

  ‘We knows where them priests is being landed,’ Tom announced proudly, ‘and we knows who’s organising things from this end. In fact we knows him very well.’

  ‘The second point first,’ Walsingham commanded as his face lightened a shade, and Tom experienced a deep sense of long delayed justice as he obliged. ‘His name is Francis Covington, and I’m ashamed to say that he’s my cousin. But, since you seems to know so much about my life before I went to Nottingham, then you’ll know that nothing would make me happier than seeing the bastard on the end of a rope. Or maybe having his head cut off. Or being boiled alive. Or even burned at the stake, like my dad and older brother.’

  ‘Revenge is best served cold, or so they say,’ Walsingham replied as he allowed himself the hint of a smile. ‘But you may have to wait a little while longer in order to see family justice prevail. I need to know precisely where he lives, in order that I may have his house watched.’

  ‘So that he can bring other priests into the country?’ Tom protested, and Walsingham’s smile disappeared. ‘Leave it to those who best understand these things to decide how to play the game, Constable Lincraft. He clearly cannot be acting alone, and by keeping watch on his house we may note, and follow, those who visit it. One by one we arrest them well after they have left the immediate vicinity, and it will take this Master Covington a considerable time to realise that his game is up. Then he may join the others as playthings for our torturers in the Tower. Now, what of the priest landings?’

  It was Giles’s turn to speak, and he did so carefully and in suitable tones of respect, since Walsingham was clearly not in the mood for levity, and the matter was too serious anyway.

  ‘The Kittyhawk dropped anchor at the same place on four out of the seven trips we made to France,’ he explained. ‘On each of them trips we’d stopped in Calais, and fellers was taken on board what had their heads covered with hooded cloaks. Them same fellers was dropped off in the same place by the Thames – some sort of island with trees on it what had a river coming in from the right as you looks at it. There were a rowing boat come off the shoreline each time, and the fellers in the cloaks got into it and was rowed to shore.’

  ‘The same place every time?’ Walsingham enquired with a returning smile, and Giles nodded. ‘And if you put me in a boat,’ he added, ‘I reckon I could take you there.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Walsingham murmured. ‘When are you due to make your next trip?’

  ‘He isn’t,’ Tom insisted, then explained as Walsingham raised a querulous eyebrow. ‘He reckons as how the captain – a feller called Barton – suspects him of something, and I reckon the time’s come to pull him out of all this. He’s soon to become a father, I might add, and I reckon he’s done enough already.’

  Walsingham thought deeply before asking Giles ‘You believe that this man Barton suspects you of being a spy for the Queen?’

  ‘He suspects me of something, anyway,’ Giles confirmed. ‘He were asking if I were a deserter from that army I’ve been pretending to be a soldier in, so I don’t think he believes the story I’ve been feeding him.’

  ‘So if you were arrested for desertion, this would add some credibility to your assumed identity?’ Walsingham enquired. ‘Yes,’ Giles conceded reluctantly, ‘but I’m not sure as I want to go back on the Kittyhawk even if it does.’

  ‘Believe me,’ Walsingham advised them both, ‘if Bradbury is arrested as a deserter he won’t be free to rejoin his ship, or anyone else for that matter. He’ll be taken to the Tower for execution.’ He smiled as he watched the colour drain from both their faces.

  ‘Clearly we would only pretend to arrest him. We would take him to the Tower, then release him after a day or two. But if we make his arrest very public – for example, inside the main room of the Saracen’s Head - we could also close it down for harbouring him, which would give the rest of you the plausible excuse to leave there for good.’

  ‘We’re not running back to Nottingham and leaving Giles on his own,’ Tom protested, and Walsingham nodded. ‘Indeed, you are not. You can both be of further service to Her Majesty.’

  ‘How?’ Tom enquired. ‘And come to that, where?’

  ‘As to the “where”, I can arrange for you to move into the countryside, but not far from London. Slightly to its west, to a village called Chelsea, where we have access to a house that is currently empty. You simply pretend that you’re moving on in search of another commercial venture after your alehouse has been closed down, and you await further orders while enjoying the country air in the meantime. As for you, Constable Bradbury, from the Tower it’s an easy journey down river, where you can show us this landing place that you mentioned. Then you may rejoin the others in Chelsea.’

  ‘The
women want to go back to Nottingham,’ Tom grumbled, to be met with a grim smile from Walsingham. ‘And I would much rather be on my estate in Hampshire, but we are all in the service of the Queen, and her interests – as ever - must take preference over our own. Go back to your alehouse and prepare for departure. Bradbury to the Tower, and the rest of you to the house in Chelsea that my messenger will give you directions to when the time is appropriate.’

  Even though they had been prepared well in advance for what was to happen, Mary couldn’t suppress a squeal of fear when, two days later, the front door of the Saracen’s Head was kicked open during the busiest time of the day, and four soldiers armed with swords and pikes, dressed in the red, black and gold uniforms of the Gentlemen Yeomen of the Tower Guard strutted in and demanded ‘Giles Bradbury, the filthy deserter.’

  Giles made a token gesture of running through to the back room, into which he was chased and dragged back out before being hauled out into the street and thrown into a cart prior to being tied at the wrists and ankles before the wagon moved off, surrounded by the soldiers who marched solemnly alongside it. Once they had passed under London Bridge the wagon driver turned to address Giles. ‘Them ropes not too tight, are they?’ Assuring him that they were not, Giles lay back on the floor of the wagon and watched the clouds floating by on a stiff westerly wind until his vision was obscured by an archway, and he realised that they were entering the Tower precincts.

  Back at the Saracen’s Head there were several loafers demanding to know what had just happened, and an apparently shamefaced Tom admitted that his young brother in law had deserted the royal service some time previously, and had sought sanctuary in the alehouse run by his sister and her husband. ‘Stupid bugger shouldn’t have shown his face out the front here,’ one drunk remarked uncaringly, and Lizzie made a big pretence of bursting into tears and calling him a ‘rotten arsehole what doesn’t deserve to be served in a decent establishment like this.’