‘He …’ Polmear hesitated, then seemed to make a decision. ‘France. Paris. The French court.’ It was his turn to shrug. ‘Matters of state, not concerning you.’
‘Paris,’ echoed Jack dully. No doubt the secretary was busy with Sir Henry Norris, his old master, discussing his betrayal and what ought to be done with him.
‘I doubt,’ said Polmear, as though reading his thoughts, ‘you’re foremost in their minds. I am sorry to have to pluck you from your ideas of pomp.’
‘Well,’ Jack replied, recovering, ‘I can see that you’re not so great either. You didn’t know he was away.’
Anger flared Polmear’s nostrils. ‘I knew – I didn’t know the length – I –’ The passion faded, and he smoothed back his dark hair. ‘Clever boy. Sharper than you look. Mind you don’t cut yourself, lad. Or your wife’s throat, for that matter. It’s a poor intelligencer who lets his mouth run off with him. Now, see, if you were truly clever, you’d have made your observation and locked it away in your mind, safe.’ He tutted. ‘Never try to score points against men stronger than you. Not with your tongue.’
‘So what am I to do?’ Jack was eager to divert Polmear’s attention from talk of Walsingham.
‘You were a servant, weren’t you? Serve. Until the master returns. Look at the place – it’s in want of care. Mrs Walsingham is in the country. Help make the place ready for the return of the rich folks.’
‘Wait, you mean – wait until I’m put on the end of a rope?’
‘Temporise.’ Polmear smiled at his Jack’s expression and repeated the word. ‘A lesson for you. ‘You’ve been told to do something. Say yes. Agree. No one cares what you think of it, whether you desire to do it. Whether you mean it. It buys you time.’
‘You should have gone for a schoolmaster if you like giving lessons so much. Is it your masters teach you big words and what to do?’
‘Ha! It’s my own errors’ve taught me what to do and what not to do. Now I can tell you. And maybe help you keep breathing a bit longer. It’s by not listening to men like me that I’m only good for watching ports and giving lessons.’ As he spoke, Polmear caught Jack looking around. ‘Heh. Fine place, isn’t it? The kind you might fancy for yourself one day? Me, I wouldn’t have it, not for gold. A grand house with a crew of listening servants wanting fed and watered.’ He spat at the ground. ‘Give me a steady bed and a steady woman any day of the week. A nice barren one with big ducks. No sons troubling me nor wishing me dead for my money.’
‘Amy,’ said Jack. Then, louder, ‘I can’t just stay here. My wife, she must know where I am. I have to go to her, get word to her.’
‘Cole, I’m sorry again. I see my error. I’ve given you the fool idea that this is an offer. It’s not. The master’s friends and I have decided. This is no negotiation. You stay here to await the master’s pleasure. If you run, if you try and get word to your wife, it will not go well for either of you.’ Jack clenched his jaw. ‘Ah, don’t let that temper run away with you. I like you, Mr Cole, and I’m a fair fellow. Your wife knows that you’ve been taken and that you will be quite safe as long as she plays her part. She does not share in your treachery. She might yet have her uses.’
‘If any of you harm her …’
‘Don’t make threats, Cole. Don’t do it.’ Jack relapsed into silence. ‘Good lad. Ugh.’ Polmear looked up at the sky. Little spots of rain had started. ‘Tend the horses, will you? Back where you started, eh? Well, there’s another lesson for you. Life’s like that. One day up, the next down.’
2
The smell of the sea, fresh and salty, blew in on oppressive gusts. Like the harbour at Old Aberdeen, the mouth of the canal was a jungle of masts, albeit on a smaller scale. Before coming to the inland city, Amy had lost no time in enquiring of The Port of Leith’s sailors whether they or any others would be returning to British waters. They would. Would they take her? If she could pay, which she could always find means of doing, even if she had to cut purses. Yet her questions were more born of a desire to take some kind of action. It was intolerable to think that the means of rescuing her husband were there, solid, timbered and seaworthy, and yet she had been commanded by his captor to remain tethered to Lady Northumberland.
She stood by a stall in the town square, chewing on her nails and trying to work out what to do: plot out her own wild path, beating a retreat to England and searching for Jack herself, or doing as she had been instructed, spying on the countess and hoping that the English government would keep him safe in payment for her cooperation. There had to be some third way, some safer course. It did not suggest itself, and so she trudged towards the lodging house were Seton had boarded the penniless countess.
As she walked, a jumble of harsh and strange languages rose into the air around her: Flemish, German, Dutch, she supposed. It infuriated her that people were living their lives quite heedless of her plight and powerless to do anything about it. She could probably go to whoever the local authorities were in Bruges, pleading for aid, and be met with either laughter or confused apologies. Yet she could not quite bring herself to hate the place. Each city, she thought, had a distinct colour that gave it its character. Aberdeen had been a devoutly austere slate grey – fitting for the countess, who had heard Mass every day. London was an upturned palette, like the mix of people who filled it, ultimately making it loud and messy. Paris was sandy and pale blue, like the faded page of an illuminated manuscript: just right for such an old place. Bruges’ buildings were warm and brown, hearth-like almost. It was welcoming – exactly the type of place one could imagine setting up a little shop and living quietly. If only one had a husband with which to do it.
There was, however, little point in musing, not when action was needed. The countess it would have to be. By now Amy had walked from the canal, where she had come first thing in the morning, to the town square, off of which the arriving party had been lodged. The chorus of voices grew louder, and the fresh sea air gave way to the sting of vinegar from an ale vendor, who was on bony knees scrubbing out his flasks. She stepped around him, knuckling sweat from her forehead.
She entered the narrow lodging by a side door, which lay halfway down a cool alley, and went upstairs to the countess’s suite of rooms. Before she reached them, she could hear Cottam’s querulous voice rising, and another, lower one responding.
‘… launch upon her rescue. In Lancashire they are thwarted.’ This was the deeper voice.
‘It will be bloody,’ said Cottam.
‘The cutting of a tumour is always bloody. Impress upon the lady the necessity.’
‘I shall, I shall. She will want a list of names of men who can be trusted in this land.’
‘Lower your voice, sir. She is resting now. She will have it. And a horoscope shall tell us when she might move. I shall have one drawn up, if you have payment.’
‘Er … my lady has neither a penny nor halfpenny. Coming away in such a hurry, she had not time to bring her jewels, her things.’
‘Alas, this is not what my friends would wish to hear.’
‘Yet she shall – once it is known who she is and why she comes, the whole of the faithful in Europe will give aid. The Holy Father, the Spanish king, French –’
‘I have warned her of France,’ growled the other man. ‘That fellow Walsingham is there. Cecil’s dog. In Paris. They are in fine fettle now that they have captured Storey, but the stars shall not align for them. It shall not rain in England until John Storey goes free. The dogs will lick the heretic queen’s blood and her body shall rot before she dies.’ As he spoke, the timbre of his voice rose. ‘Only then shall the Scottish queen rise to take England.’
‘You’ve told my lady of this?’
‘I have. She has promised me payment on receipt of further news. Further prophecies. I will away and draw the horoscope when the time is most fitting.’
‘Very good, Dr Prestall.’
Amy flattened herself against the smudged plaster wall as the speaker swept into view,
and she drew in her breath at the sight of him. Tall, with a shaved head and an enormous trailing beard, the man was smirking. The sly smile disappeared as he saw her. ‘Out of my way, girl,’ he hissed, pushing past her, the robe he wore trailing and jingling under the weight of the amulets and charms hanging from it. His stubbly scalp was only a whisper away from brushing the ceiling. Amy watched him go.
Prestall, she thought. Not a name she had heard before, but one she would be sure to remember. A sorcerer of some kind, a conjuror, promising the downfall of Queen Elizabeth and the rise of Queen Mary. What was the other name? Storey – John Storey. She would have to remember that too. And Walsingham was in France. It could not be more than a few days’ journey to Paris – and this Prestall had just given her information to pass on.
The English secretary’s face rose into view in her mind, serious and solid. Walsingham had friends at the heart of government, and through them he could do anything, if only he could be persuaded. She was just beginning to wish for a pen and a sheet of paper to write down the words as she had heard them when Cottam’s voice stabbed her from behind.
‘You should be gone. We want none of your eyes and ears here. Gone off to find your husband, I should have thought. Unless you do not care what has become of him. Unless you already know.’
‘I wish to see Lady Northumberland.’ Without waiting for the sarcastic response, she moved past him and into the antechamber where he had been speaking with Prestall. Caught off guard, he tried to move around and ahead of her, but she reached the narrow door and pushed it open, stepping inside.
The countess’s rooms were shuttered, and it took Amy’s eyes a moment to adjust. When they did, she saw that the maid, Kat, was asleep on a cot, the baby at her belly. The sleeping pair seemed oblivious to the countess, who was on her knees at a prie-dieu, chanting prayers in a low, steady voice. She did not respond to the intrusion. Amy stopped, and Cottam was able to grasp her arm and try to force her violently from the room. Their struggle was a silent one, enacted only to the sonorous Latin. Neither gave way, and eventually the countess stopped praying.
‘Why do you disturb my prayers, Amy Cole?’
‘She is come again to disturb us all,’ snapped Cottam. ‘A busy, listening creature, she is – she has no place here.’
‘I’m not the one listens at doors,’ snapped Amy, ‘no, sir, that’s you!’
‘Shrew! Madam, a thankless shrew!’
‘Help me to rise.’ Cottam stopped ranting to do so. ‘Bless you. Now leave us.’
‘My lady?’
‘Leave us, Will.’
‘But –’ She cut him off with a warning look. ‘My lady.’ He bowed his head and backed from the room, looking up only to glare at Amy. In return, she smiled as triumphantly as she could manage.
When Cottam was gone, her smile faded. The countess had crossed the bed and she took the sleeping girl in her arms, nudging Kat awake with an elbow. ‘Go and seek out Lord Seton,’ she said. ‘Discover if his men have found us anything to eat’. Rubbing her eyes, the maid did as she was bid, following Cottam from the room, yawning as she closed the door behind her. ‘She is a fair child, is she not?’ The countess held the baby up.
‘A beautiful lass, my lady.’
‘You have no children?’
‘No, madam.’ Unconsciously, Amy’s arms crossed over her flat stomach.
‘I have four. Four girls. And only one to tend.’ Amy knew this already. She lowered her gaze. ‘And a husband. The earl of Northumberland – the finest man you could care to meet. Handsome as a girl could hope for. And yet lacking wit and without courage.’ At this, Amy looked up in surprise, and found the woman smiling at her. ‘Yes, girl, it is true. Many men are not born with the wit God gave a goose. Your husband, is he so witless that you must harken to his side, wherever that is?’
‘Madam, I …’
‘Do not expect sympathy from me, girl. You have lost your husband as I have lost my family, all save this child. Tell me, is it Cecil who has taken him? Is it Cecil who had you come to my side and your husband to the den of the Scotch heretics?’
‘Sir Henry Norris, my lady, he –’
‘Sir Henry Norris is a nothing,’ said the countess, rolling her eyes. ‘It is William Cecil who rules England. He and Elizabeth, like a monstrous chimera. She the lion’s face and he the old goat behind it. Grasping thieves, both. A supposed queen. My mother had the measure of her mother, to be sure. And for revenge she would have me undone, till I straight am nothing, closely mewed up.’ Amy coughed, her fist a demure little ball at her mouth. The countess echoed it before speaking again. ‘I have heard Norris is to be relieved of his post in Paris. He might be already in England. So you see, my dear, you are quite masterless, with neither husband or patron to protect you.’ Her voice had grown harsh, and she seemed to soften it as she saw Amy crumple. ‘You would rush mad to England, would you? A foolish caper. You must learn to bear your burdens. Anything can be borne if you trust in God that it is not forever. Anything.’
‘But … but I have to find him, my lady. He’ll be punished for what we done.’
‘Perhaps. Yet I cannot but notice that you were left to me.’
‘Just a woman, my lady,’ Amy shrugged, diverting her eyes to the floor. Then she hardened her features. ‘Cecil will have him. And that other one, Walsingham.’
‘You have met these creatures?’
‘I … yes. Last year.’
‘Then I am sorry for you. It might interest you that it is Mr Walsingham who is said to be in Paris now, relieving Norris.’
‘He is? Then he can’t have Jack yet – there wouldn’t be time, would there?’
The countess smiled, years falling from her face. She really was quite beautiful, thought Amy; she could see what Seton and the rest of the Scottish Catholics who had been her saviours saw in her. After replacing the child in its makeshift cradle, the older woman sat. ‘You have a very strong desire to protect that young man of yours, do you not?’ Amy did not respond, falling to her knees instead and clasping her hands before her. She had no desire to parade her love, in whatever form it took, before this grand lady. There were some things you didn’t let masters or mistresses have. Little displays of entreaty usually satisfied them. ‘No, girl, do not kneel. You have a mind. A mind, and a husband you wish to protect. Alas, I fear you do not have the wit to hide it. You will learn. Never reveal what you calculate. Then they know you’ve a mind of your own.’ Amy nodded her head, only half-listening. Though her pose was all supplication, her eyes had slid down and to the side. So Walsingham really was in Paris. A messenger with the benefit of post-horses could surely make it in a day or two.
‘Who was that man?’ she asked abruptly.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m sorry, my lady. A man left just now. He frightened me. A tall man with a beard.’
‘An apothecary. A friend. Or he would be.’ The countess’s tone had hardened again. ‘At any rate, you can do nothing more foolish than chase your husband. He saw you last in my train. If he comes to find you, it shall be me he seeks, for it is I who am known. You will only get yourself lost otherwise. If you truly do have a shred of wit, you will not roam far. Good day, Mrs Cole.’ Amy had worked for enough titled women to recognise a dismissal. Besides, she wanted to be gone. Bowing her head, she backed from the room and closed the door.
Thankfully, the unpleasant Cottam was nowhere to be seen. His things, though, were; paper and inks and sand, all laid out on the top of a coffer. She had wit enough, she thought, chancing looks behind and ahead of her. Hastily, she scribbled a message on a piece of paper:
Mr Walsynghamm
Wee tryed to stay the c’ess but ytt was safer to get her out of Scottlonde where in Bruges shee is visyted by a man called Prestall, the sayd Prestall calling himself friend and speaking of Mary of Scottlonde. My husbonde ys at no faulte for the whyche I woolde you showlde protect him and I wyll wryte more.
Your servant,
Amy Cole
Her heart in her throat, she sanded the page and folded it into her bosom. There, she thought – you really are a filthy traitor now. She noticed that her hand was shaking and her legs unsteady as she fled the building and wandered the market place, searching for a merchant who would be travelling to Paris. Using the few coins she had to her name, she found a wine-seller who claimed he would be leaving the next day to replenish his stock and urged and goaded him to get moving until his wife chased her away.
Regret and panic descended. The countess had invited her to stay, though not, Amy suspected, out of trust. Rather, she supposed the woman intended to watch over her. Still, the thought of returning to a house in which she had just betrayed the mistress was distasteful. She was still debating what to do, sweat tricking down her back, when she heard the screams.
A crowd had gathered at the entrance to the alley down which lay the countess’s lodgings. Pushing her way through, Amy found the ale-seller she had spotted earlier lying just outside the door, bent double. Loudly she asked, first in English and then in French, ‘what is this? What’s happened?’
The unfortunate old wine-seller groaned, jabbing a finger at her. He croaked something out in a language she did not have, and she turned an uncomprehending face to a man in the crowd. In French, he replied, ‘says he was ordered to bring ale directly to this house. Give it to the lady as a gift, on account of the heat.’
‘Who? By who?’
Her interpreter looked at her almost apologetically. ‘Diamond?’ he shrugged. Amy looked again at the aged seller, rolling around now in a puddle of his own wares. No one was helping him; instead, people stood back in fear. They drew back further as he vomited – a thick, bloody foam. Cries went up for the local burgesses as he convulsed and stilled, only his legs twitching. The door opened and Cottam stepped out. ‘What is this noise, my lady is rest–’ He took in the sight, his eyes roving the crowd who were pressed against the walls of the alley. They landed on Amy and his mouth fell open. ‘You!’ he gasped. ‘What have you done?’
Divided Loyalties: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller Page 6
