Divided Loyalties: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  He made to leave the sprawling harbour town. He had made slow progress from the north of England, unconsciously, he supposed, trying to delay the difficult moment. He knew that he lacked delicacy. It would be difficult news to give. Undoubtedly there would be tears. Possibly there would be recriminations. Still, it was his duty.

  And, of course, there was the promise of Amy Cole. He had no idea if the woman still lived or if she was even now in the blank void with her husband. He did not allow that for that possibility. In his head, it had become clear and fixed that he would inflict on Jack Cole’s wife the most hideous of brutalities. The only disappointment was that he could not force Mr Cole himself to watch each one.

  2

  As the winter weather turned milder and wetter, and the band of ladies charged with turning the palaces by the Seine into jewelled nests increased, Amy had struck upon a plan. She did not bother attempting to meet with Walsingham to explain or test it. There was little time. The king’s own royal entry was to take place the following day. In the streets, artists were at work painting canvases and draping them over elaborately moulded and sculpted wooden frames, and the whole city had begun to throng with people eager for spectacle.

  There had been no further attempts on her life – or at least none successful enough even to be apparent. Day after day she had busied herself in needlework, sewing endless white silks to be used as banners and pennants. She had even had the chance to embroider some little samplers, which were to be distributed to souvenir-hunters as gifts, though she suspected that the crowds would much prefer the free bread and wine with which the royal family hoped to win their cheers. At various points – each night, in fact, as she slept with one eye open – she had considered how easy it would be to simply leave after the royal entry. She could hold Walsingham to his word to release her and Jack, and Catherine to her claim that she would be ejected from the palace once the royal court made its entry. Yet, as attractive as it sounded during her sleepless nights, she realised that she would not feel at ease as long the diamond plotters were at large. Even if she regained Jack, they would be more at the mercy of madmen with grudges in the slums or streets of Europe than ever she was in the cloistered, perfumed finery of a French palace. And even in that palace two attempts had been made. Doubtless, if she left after the royal entry, she would get but two steps towards finding Jack before a knife was thrust into the small of her back.

  As much as she hated it, she would have to lead her assassin into the light of exposure. The festivities of the following day would be the perfect opportunity for both monster and unmasker.

  After eating – which now she did only direct from the palace kitchens, which gave the added fillip of food that was still hot – she began walking purposefully back to the royal apartments. She had grown to hate them, to hate the white and the cream and the gold hangings; to hate the women, ladies and servants. It was they who had made her afraid to eat. Any one of them might be trying to get at her – or perhaps all of them, engaged in some conspiracy. The mind was a maze you could get lost in, and the constant thinking, the overthinking, only led her deeper and deeper into it.

  She had even grown to hate the guards, and as she passed two of them stationed in the service corridor, she had to force a smile. As she entered the royal suite, she paused at the half-open door to the ladies’ bedchamber. Inside, she could hear the painted Vittoria de Brieux holding court.

  ‘… says the attempt was on her life when it was my dear girl who was murdered.’

  ‘You should not speak of that,’ grumbled the cracked voice of Madame Gondi. ‘You have been warned not to speak of that affair. Cease prating of the foolish English mare. Damned English.’ But a fit of excited, burbling chatter overtook her as the other assembled ladies begged for more.

  ‘I mean,’ said Brieux, ‘if one wanted that little wench dead in the eyes of French society, one would advise her only to wear one of those ancient, drab gowns.’ Laughter. Amy’s hands balled into fists. Bitch! Where was Kat, the little traitor, who should be defending her? She was on the point of bursting in, when she remembered her plan. She stood, waiting, until the talk turned again to the next day’s events.

  ‘The duke of Guise won’t come, will he? He hates this peace.’

  ‘He will come,’ said Gondi. ‘He has been commanded to come.’

  ‘But to break bread with the heretics! A Guise! What a sight! He would prefer breaking heads. The duke favours violent courses, I hear.’

  ‘And the little maid of Bourbon –’

  ‘They say she’s a heretic!’

  ‘She is only twelve!’

  ‘And her father is nothing, a man of no religion.’

  Amy had heard enough. She threw the door open. Madame de Brieux turned her glazed face towards her, and Madame Gondi her withered one. Amy could sense some of the other ladies nudging one another and felt the eyes on her dress. It was the same the world over, she thought, from palace to provincial town. People formed vicious little cliques, and she was always an outsider. Well, it was better to be an outsider amongst a coven of society ladies than to feel so amongst one’s own people.

  ‘Ah, our friend now of longstanding, ladies,’ said Brieux. ‘You have quite missed our conversation. Perhaps ladies do not converse so in England.’

  ‘No. Not outside henhouses,’ said Amy. A little ripple went through the group. ‘Or kennels.’ Madame Gondi, appropriately enough, barked laughter. ‘The theme of tomorrow’s events, you know, is peace. In that spirit, what would you all say to us sitting at rest today and playing a game of cards?’ Amy put her hand to her throat and laughed too.

  No one was willing to play, and the other ladies left her to sit by herself. She did not mind. She listened again to their chatter which became more muted as the cries of the guards signalled Queen Catherine’s arrival. The old woman sailed past them all and into her own room without a glance, speaking all the time in rapid French to the ladies of her bedchamber. In her wake, Kat returned, a bundle of sheets in her arms.

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Washing sheets.’ The girl reddened.

  ‘A fine time at it.’ Amy was aware that she had taken to the role of mistress a little too well. More gently, she took Kat by the hand and lowered her voice. ‘Listen. If I were to tell you something, could you have this palace’s servants knowing of it?’ When she began to protest, Amy cut her off. ‘I know what servants’ gossip is, girl. God, but I do know. I tell you and you tell another, who tells another, and soon they all know. And their mistresses will then find out tonight, when the time comes for them to be undressed and put to bed.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Kat, with only a trace of reluctance.

  Amy smiled, and told her.

  ***

  Jack munched on an end of bread as he surveyed the house on Saint-Marceau. He had missed French bread. He had even missed French crowds, and those filling the city were arrayed in all manner of finery in anticipation of the coming of the king. Huge signs reading ‘CONCORDIA’ hung across streets. Lodging houses were full, with visitors even ejecting vagabonds from the gutters to claim their spots. On an ordinary day, Paris, with its network of nearly three-hundred streets, was a rabbit warren which dwarfed York and made even London look small. On extraordinary days, it was a seething, pregnant beast.

  He spent longer than he had intended watching the house which had been pointed out to him as that belonging to ‘Monsieur L’Anglaise’. It seemed a pretty poor place for Walsingham compared to his home in Aldgate. It seemed a poorer place to arrive at after weeks of hard living.

  Since fleering York, Jack had taken a circuitous route through England, avoiding major towns and cities on the off chance that there was a hue and cry out for him. He had spent as little as possible, on a horse at first, which he thereafter traded, usually downwards, as he went. Food for himself and his mount had to be worked for: a day of labour here, a day of animal-tending there. He had skirted London and, when he reached Ports
mouth, had to work over a week until a ship sailing for Dieppe would give him passage. Then he was free to make his way directly to Paris – a journey of over a hundred miles, without benefit of fresh horses. Yet it had all seemed fine – his only choice. It was moving forward. It was returning to Amy.

  Only now did it seem like folly.

  Because he had avoided news, he had no idea of what had reached London and gone ahead of him. None on the smooth journey across the Channel had heard of anyone carrying news to Walsingham – or, if they did, he could not get it from them by subtle and indirect means. Yet it was inconceivable that the queen’s man did not know of the death of Edward Polmear. And so Jack continued to stand before the man’s house, as bustling, singing, cheering people barged past him in all directions, unsure if he was walking into interrogation or accusation.

  When the sun was high, he plucked up his courage and knocked on the door. A male servant answered, a little too quickly. The look of surprise told Jack the fellow had been opening the door anyway, and almost immediately a thin man stepped out. It was not Walsingham. ‘Black, black, everything black, no colour,’ the man grumbled in French. He darted a look at Jack. ‘Nothing but black!’ he said, and then stomped off.

  ‘The tailor,’ sniffed the English steward. ‘Can I help you, lad?’

  ‘I’m here to see Mr Francis Walsingham. Was told this is his house.’

  ‘Is he expecting you?’

  ‘No. Probably not. My name is Jack Cole, tell him. Please. I’ve come from England.’

  ‘Wait here.’ The door closed. Jack looked nervously behind him. A reprieve, he thought. A final chance to lose his nerve and flee. ‘He is at home to you.’ Jack jumped. He had not heard the door open again.

  He was shown through the house and upstairs to a small office, dominated by a hand-drawn map of Paris which hung on a wall. Or, at least, that would have dominated it, had not Francis Walsingham been seated at the table, his head low and wolfish, his jaw clenched.

  ‘I saw your tailor, sir,’ said Jack, grinning, not knowing what pulse of nervousness drew it from him.

  ‘Jack Cole. Last sent to the north. Now standing before me hundreds of miles from that place.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I beg your pardon, sir. I thought I must make report to you of … Mr Polmear is dead.’

  ‘I heard this. Murdered in his bed.’

  ‘My bed, sir.’

  ‘Do not interrupt me.’ Jack bowed his head, twisting his cap in his hands. ‘I confess I half-expected you, Cole. I daresay I hoped you might come to me. Yes, you see, when news reached me that Mr Polmear was slain, and nothing of you, rational thought lay before me several possibilities. One: you slew him and ran, having betrayed us to the papists.’

  ‘No, sir, I–’

  ‘What did I just say, boy? Two: you had also been slain and lay dead somewhere. Three: you were on your way with news of what madness has overtaken that country and, I might dare hope, that you have stopped it.’

  ‘Three, sir – it’s three. Mostly three.’

  ‘Then I am glad. Not for your sake, nor even Polmear’s, but for that I should not like to have to explain either your death or your guilt. What happened up there? As you recall it, boy, I wish to know everything.’

  Slowly, methodically, Jack told Walsingham everything, stopping only when the secretary halted him and asked for clarification. When he had finished, Walsingham sat back, looking, strangely, relieved. He wiped a hand across his mouth, making the black moustache crinkle. Then focus returned to his eyes. ‘You used your own name in the north?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And mine?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you are less than useless there now. Lacking even Polmear’s skills of subtlety and force. All you have for me is what little sits between your ears. You say there were two other priests who were with this killer-papist. I have written word from the late Mr Polmear also that three seminary priests were plying their trade in York. Where are the other two?’

  ‘Slain, I believe, sir.’ To bury the lie, Jack began to pile on truths. ‘He would have killed me too. As I say, he had a man killing for him. Tried to kill me and when he failed, the priest tried. When I … when he died, sir, the one called Adam, the first fellow returned. He killed Mr Polmear – it had to be him. But none would listen.’

  ‘So you fled her Majesty’s justice. No, no, I am glad of it. It is bad enough to have lost one man to the north. The expense of finding two fresh ones is beyond me, I regret.’ Jack grimaced at the coldness with which he spoke of Polmear, but he was not surprised by it. ‘May I see this diamond pin?’ Jack produced it and handed it across the desk. Walsingham held it up close to one eye.

  ‘You have noted the marking here?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘It is a hallmark. A mark of the jeweller who made it. French.’

  ‘I used it to open the lock – I might have crushed it a little.’

  ‘It is a mark, you fool. I am not blind. These have been used by the guilds in France and England for hundreds of years. Since the days of the first Edward and Philip the Fair.’

  ‘Does it say who it belongs to? Their name?’

  ‘No. It tells us only which smith or smiths worked the gold. A master jeweller might know – might recall the fellow who bought the thing.’

  ‘You’re sure, sir, that it’s French?’

  ‘Fairly sure. I need no more. You will go to the guilds on the morrow and discover what you can of it.’ Walsingham held the pin out and dropped it into Jack’s palm. He returned it to his pocket.

  ‘Tomorrow is the king’s return, I heard. It’s all that’s spoken of out there.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Walsingham, his face darkening. ‘This wretched royal entry. They say artists are busy at work, turning this whole city into a blasted carnival.’ He drummed his fingers on the desk.

  ‘I was hoping, sir … that you might have news out of the Low Countries. Of my wife.’ Walsingham shifted in his seat – a little uncomfortably, Jack thought. His heart turned over in fear. ‘She’s well, isn’t she? I mean, nothing’s happened to her, has it, nothing bad?’

  ‘Your wife is well. Or was, the last I heard. She … she left the traitor-countess. Not on my orders, I might add, but acting according to her fallen mistress’s mad schemes. In truth, Cole, she is here. In Paris.’

  ‘What?’ Jack nearly launched himself onto the desk, held back only by Walsingham’s hard face. ‘Where? There’s so many people – I went to where we used to lodge last year first, but there was no room. No Amy. Where, sir, please?’

  ‘Becalm yourself, you foolish boy. Your wife, I believe, is still resident in this new palace hard by the Louvre. The Tuileries. She has been taken in as a lady, no less, by the dowager queen – the king’s mother.’

  ‘A lady?’

  ‘Yes. A disgusting ploy. A shameless thing.’ He tutted. ‘Women’s wit and wiles.’

  ‘Can I go there? Can you get me in to her?’

  ‘Indeed I cannot. I am Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador in this realm, not a pander to a pair of carnally-minded servants.’

  ‘But … but I need to see her. It’s been …’ Jack began counting on his fingers, and found he was not even sure. ‘So long. She’ll be worried – must have been worried. Have you seen her? Spoken to her?’

  ‘I have. Be assured, I told her of your continued good health.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, you or Polmear?’

  ‘Be careful, Cole.’ Walsingham’s voice had taken on a silky air of menace. He softened it. ‘She is well. Living better than you have been, I should warrant. In fact, it might interest you to know that she has been engaged in discovering the diamond plotter in France. The fellow to your dead priest.’ Jack only gaped. ‘So you see, both of you have been making use of the knowledge you gained at the traitor-countess’s table.’

  ‘But these folk are dangerous, these diamonds.’

  ‘Your wife has proven herself a hard lady.
Determined.’

  ‘Has she found anything? The plotter about the French queen?’

  ‘She has not discovered a name, to the best of my knowledge. I did share with her that which I had uncovered.’

  ‘What’s that, sir?’

  ‘Only what you have found,’ shrugged Walsingham. ‘A small group of plotters. Two, I see, were in England. One is now dead. That leaves three. If they travel in pairs, it might be that two are at the French court.’

  ‘Hoping to bring the wars of religion again? As I thought?’

  Walsingham’s mouth worked, as though he was tasting the idea. ‘Perhaps. A grudge against their own faith was my thought. God knows we of the true faith have suffered angry sects enough. It is fair that the papists have their share. Of course, when those of our faith disagree it is by reasoned debate and logic. When these monsters do it, it is by blood and murder.’ Almost as an afterthought to his rant, he added, ‘Your wife helped me some in discovering the plot.’

  ‘Please, Mr Walsingham – when can I see her?’

  Walsingham stood for the first time. It seemed to cause him a little pain. Jack wondered what age he was; he guessed past forty, but by how much it was hard to say. He had the manner of an old man, but his hair remained mostly black, and the lines on his face, though deep, were few. He did not answer directly. Instead, he said, ‘where are you living in this city? You said your former house was full.’

  ‘Nowhere, sir. I mean, I thought to sleep under a hedge or in a ditch.’

  ‘Well … you have slept under my roof before. You shall do so again. You are an Englishman in France after all. And I own I should not like you to do anything foolish this night. Lodge here, if you will, and you might accompany me to this blasted royal entry tomorrow. As my serving man, no more. You will keep your mouth shut and your manner civil until and unless I say otherwise. I shall find some means of getting your wife to you. In return, you will do my business. When you are free, you will discover the history of that pin.’