‘I don’t believe,’ I said, addressing Sterling and Brockley together, ‘that the count would have sent him off without telling him where to rejoin the party, and to do that he’d have to know that the others were leaving soon and where they were going. That’s obvious.’
‘I was to go to his chateau when my task was done, of course! He’d meet me there!’ shouted Lestrange.
‘So you did know he was planning to leave us,’ said Brockley. ‘By which route would he travel if he was setting out for France? Surely you know that much!’
‘Yes, what’s the good of pretending you’ve no idea which way he’d go?’ Dale screeched. ‘You think we’ll believe that!’
I said: ‘I was told he had been back to France twice since he came to live in England, so I suppose he has a usual route. Though I realize that this time he may have chosen a different one – to fool pursuit. He didn’t confide in you at all, you, his confidential servant, Master Lestrange? Never told you he was taking Mistress Wilde with him to France and never mentioned from which port they meant to sail?’
Sybil burst out: ‘He could have made for Dover, or the south coast or even Norwich! He might well take an unusual road, wicked creature as he was, and eloping with my daughter too! We need to know! We must know! We must catch up with him before he can marry Ambrosia. Master Lestrange, we can’t believe that you can’t tell us, so please tell us! Please!’
‘No, I won’t! I can’t!’ Lestrange’s voice was shaking, but he was looking all round him as though in search of an escape route and his voice had a desperate undertone that made Wolf get up again, snarling. Trembling, Lestrange said: ‘I keep my master’s counsel; I’m loyal to him.’ He tried to straighten his back. ‘I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew,’ he said hastily.
‘Too late,’ Brockley told him. ‘You’ve as good as admitted that you do know. Well, we’ll soon have it out of you. Ah. Here’s Tom.’
‘Three to one. We’ll go to one of the outhouses,’ said Sterling. ‘No need to upset the womenfolk.’
‘We’ll only need to pummel him a bit, or maybe you could set Wolf on him. Or we could heat a poker in a brazier,’ Brockley agreed in a bright voice. ‘He’ll speak in no time.’
The threat sounded all too genuine. I looked at them in alarm but Brockley sketched me another wink and Master Sterling gave me a glint of a smile.
‘Let us go,’ said Sterling. ‘Rest, Wolf!’ The dog got up on his haunches, shook his shaggy coat and gazed at his master, tongue lolling. Sterling started to drag Lestrange to his feet. And Lestrange disintegrated.
It was horrible to watch. I saw the sweat spring out on his temples and the violent tremor that overtook his whole body. He struggled against Sterling, gobbling out the word No! over and over. Tom went to help his father and between them they hauled him upright and held him there, since his knees were clearly unable to support him. Sterling said: ‘Right. That disused tool shed will do. There’s an old brazier in there.’
‘No! No!’ Lestrange shrieked. ‘I’ll tell you!’
TWELVE
Calling for Help
‘Whitefields. The count always stops at a house called Whitefields just outside Dover when he arranges passages to Calais. That’s what he did when he went back to France to talk to the king about getting his lands restored. He did that twice, like Mistress Stannard says. The Fergusons at Whitefields are friends of his. He met the family years and years ago when he visited England as a young man and travelled about. They were new to England too; they came from Scotland. A pair of grandparents, their married son and his wife, and then the grandchildren, a son and two daughters, grown up now though none of them’s wedded yet.’
He paused for breath, looking from one face to another, as though anxious to know whether he was telling us what we wanted to hear. We waited, and he resumed.
‘The Fergusons came south because the grandmother was ailing and they thought the Scottish climate was too harsh for her, that south England might be kinder. The place is a small manor with a home farm and two more that they rent out. It’s called Whitefields because of the chalky soil. I didn’t travel that way because the count told me not to. He said we had important news to deliver to France and it had got to get there and if we went separately, that would give it the best chance …’
‘That important news might be what he overheard Master Spelton say to Mistress Stannard,’ said Brockley. ‘Together with other things too, if he’s a genuine spy. Have you and he been spying for France?’ he shouted. Lestrange gobbled, looking terrified and Sterling shook him violently. ‘Well, have you? Have you?’
‘We’re honest Frenchmen, honest Catholics!’ bleated Lestrange.
‘Oh, let him be,’ I said. ‘Let him go on with what he was saying.’
Master Sterling growled but relaxed his grip. Lestrange swallowed and said: ‘My master meant to go by way of Whitefields this time too. He said as much to me. You can find it by …’
It poured out of him in a stream. It was painful to watch though I was relieved there had been no need to use force. I knew in my heart that if he had proved obstinate, Sterling would have wanted to proceed to force and it was possible that Brockley would have agreed with him. Even Sybil might. She was anything but ruthless but she was desperate for Ambrosia’s sake.
At the end of Lestrange’s account, Sterling demanded to know precisely what the important news was that was to be reported to France. He did so in such a menacing way that Lestrange, trapped between fear for himself and a powerful reluctance to break his master’s confidence, started to gibber. I rose hurriedly to my feet. ‘Stop!’
Everyone turned to me enquiringly. ‘Whatever Lestrange here intends to report in France may well be very private indeed. It must not be blurted out here!’ I told them. I was thinking rapidly. I adopted a pacific tone of voice. ‘Master Sterling, this is your house, and we have descended on you without warning. But we are all tired. You said we could stay here tonight. If so, we would be grateful.’
‘Surely, Mistress Stannard! I wouldn’t think,’ said Sterling drily, ‘of letting you go off at this hour or in these circumstances! But what of him?’ He pointed to Lestrange. ‘And are we really not to know what news – or information – he is carrying?’
‘Better not,’ I said.
Brockley said: ‘It’s possible that he is carrying state secrets. No one has the right to know those without the consent of the Royal Council.’
While Sterling mulled this over, I said: ‘Have you any secure place where Lestrange can be kept for a night and a day? It probably wouldn’t be longer.’
‘Yes, yes, I’ve a fine sound cellar. He wouldn’t get out of that in a hurry, but …’
‘Tomorrow,’ I said, ‘we must ride for Dover. We dare not delay and I need both Brockley and my groom to be with me. Somehow, we have to catch up with the count and his companions and prevent them from carrying any reports to France themselves. Master Sterling, could you, tomorrow, send a sensible messenger – Tom, perhaps? – to Hampton Court, where the royal court now is, to deliver a letter addressed to Sir Francis Walsingham. He should be there, with the court. I can tell Tom at exactly which entrance he should present himself and what to say to the gate-guard. A letter bearing the seal of Mistress Stannard will be respected; so would a request for a reply that the messenger can bring back.’
I thought I could rely on that, at least. To become the queen’s representative in a political marriage game amounted to quite an elevation in the world of the royal court.
I said: ‘The result should be that Walsingham will send men to collect Lestrange from you. This is a matter of espionage as well as possible murder. It needs to be dealt with at a higher level than that of the local constable and fortunately, Hampton Court can be reached quite quickly. Once this man is in Walsingham’s hands, you need concern yourself with him, and us, no longer.’
‘Walsingham?’ Lestrange’s eyes had bulged with fright at the first mention of Walsingham’s nam
e and he began to plead and protest. Master Sterling looked at Brockley and Tom. ‘Help me get him down to the cellar. Then, Tom, find one of the farmhands and stand him outside the door as a guard. Someone will have to be on guard all night. We’ll do it now.’
It was done. Lestrange, white with fright, struggled so hard that before he could be taken out of the dining room, Master Sterling had to fetch a length of rope so that his hands could be tied. Then, as the three of them dragged him out of the room, he started to cry. He was right to be afraid, for Walsingham’s questioners were notorious. Not for the first time, I hated the way of life that fate had decreed for me, and wished with all my heart that I were not Elizabeth’s kin.
Only, I was. I was at once her sister and her subject, and I owed her a loyalty that must not fail.
Master Sterling came back presently, rubbing a bruised cheekbone. ‘That’s done. Your man Brockley is trying to calm the fellow down and offering to fetch clean clothes from his room for him. He’s wet himself, poor devil. Brockley seems to be a decent Christian man and he’s keeping to that, even though Lestrange did manage to punch him in the eye. He says we shouldn’t leave him all night with his hands tied, and we’ve given him a pallet to sleep on. You will want to write a letter, I take it, Mistress Stannard. I have a study you can use.’
He showed me to the study, not much bigger than a broom cupboard but no doubt adequate for the needs of Stag-Leys. A battered stool was placed at a scratched table, on which was a pile of paper and a writing set with quills, ink and sander. On a shelf behind the table were some old-fashioned tallies, no doubt recording bushels of cabbages and apples and numbers of calves or piglets. It also held a couple of glass tumblers, and an earthenware cider jar on the floor in the corner was presumably there for anyone – Master Sterling or his unidentified priest – who found account keeping too much of a strain without alcoholic lubrication.
I settled myself on the stool and set about preparing the letter which Tom must carry to Walsingham.
It took a long time, as I had a long story to tell and I wasn’t satisfied with my first draft, which meant starting again. But by the time I was finished, I had fully explained why my wedding had been cancelled, and all that had happened since. I had asked for Lestrange to be collected as a matter of urgency and I had also asked for men to be sent to Dover at speed to support us. My little party might catch the count up but we might need help if we were to stop him from sailing.
We ate supper in the kitchen with the family and a crowd of farmhands. Master Sterling said beforehand: ‘The farmhands will know much of what has gone on, of course, since I’ve been arranging for them to act as his guards. They know that we have a French spy in the cellar. Deborah would have told them anyway! But I have spoken to them myself. They will ask you no questions. This is a Catholic household but an honest one. Treason finds no friends here.’
He was right. The hands greeted us civilly, paid no attention to the bruise on their employer’s cheekbone and Brockley’s incipient black eye, and then talked about a new onion patch that was promising well and argued amiably over the best treatment for a cow with a cut on one of her legs, while they did justice to the supper with the good appetites of outdoor men. Only one didn’t quite match that description, and that was a quiet, grey-headed individual who, I gathered from the conversation, did no heavy work but kept a general eye on things and reported on anything that required attention. And kept the accounts in order and said Mass, I reckoned.
The Sterlings made us comfortable that night. Sybil and I shared a smoothly sheeted bed in one chamber, and were able to undress by a warm fire, while the Brockleys had the adjacent room, also provided with a fire, and Joseph was settled in a room over the stable, along with other grooms and farmhands.
Sybil and I, however, slept uneasily and I woke at once when there was a light tap on the door. I sat up, nudging Sybil and reaching for the candle on the table by my side of the bed. The tap came again and I said come in in a low voice, while I slid out of the bed and lit the candle from the embers of the dying fire. Brockley stepped into the room, also carrying a candle and what looked like a small scroll of paper.
‘Madam? I am sorry to disturb you, but I had to bring this to you as soon as possible. I had no chance earlier; you were never out of the company of our host.’
‘Bring what? What is it, Brockley?’ I sat down on the edge of the bed and set my own candle on the table. Sybil, behind me, was pulling a pillow into place to support her head and saying: ‘What’s that in your hand, Brockley?’
‘When we took Lestrange to the cellar, madam,’ Brockley said, ‘he looked such a mess – doublet torn, and not just that …’
Brockley much disliked mentioning anything at all coarse in the presence of ladies. Master Sterling had thought otherwise. ‘It’s all right, Brockley, Master Sterling told us. You offered to fetch clean clothes for him, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. We were going to untie his hands before we left him, so he’d be able to change. Well, seeing him in such a state gave me an idea. He told me where to find things in his room and I just went and got them. Only,’ said Brockley, ‘his saddlebags were there too and I searched them. I found this. It was sealed and addressed to some French name I didn’t know. I took the liberty of breaking the seal. It’s all in French but I can read that. Here you are, madam. It tells us all we need to know.’
I took the scroll, which unrolled itself in my hands. Brockley put his candle beside mine and in their double light, I read the letter. I said: ‘My God!’
The letter detailed the information that Lestrange was carrying. The warning about Spelton’s double mission was there, but there was much more. There were details of a new plan to build warships at speed, explaining where the shipyards were and how the business was to be financed. In less than a year, England would have the one hundred and seventy ships that earlier, she had only pretended to have.
There were also details of a plan, under discussion by the queen and her council, to send a very secret mission to Spain, with a view to resuming diplomatic relations and possibly offering trade advantages in exchange for an undertaking not to support any attempt made by Mary of Scotland to foment a rising in her favour in England. There were other things, as well, of a minor nature. But these …
We all looked at each other in the candlelight. The flames flickered, dancing over the sloping ceiling and the beams that crossed it and curved down the roughly plastered walls; the small hearth with its glowing embers, a woven wool mat in red and blue on the plank floor in front of it. This house was full of warmth and security, part of the safe everyday world in which I longed to stay but could not, for Sybil’s sake and for Spelton’s.
I said, wearily: ‘We have to give chase even into France if it comes to it. We have to do our utmost, whatever the outcome. If the count gets his copy of this to its destination, it could endanger England as well as Christopher Spelton! I can only pray that Walsingham sends some men hotfoot to Dover to back us up. My letter asks him for help. And now we’d better try to get to sleep.’
THIRTEEN
Whitefields
We made an early start. It was a Sunday and normally I wouldn’t have chosen to travel on the Sabbath, but there was no time to spare and Mr Sterling, when I apologetically mentioned the matter, agreed with me. We must make the best speed we could, though some of us were very tired and unfit. Brockley was tough considering his age, but the hair that had once been brown was now mostly grey and fighting with Lestrange had taken much strength out of him. His black eye was truly spectacular. Dale looked exhausted.
Tom left early on his errand to Hampton Court with my letter. Before he set off, I asked for it back since I wished to add something extra concerning the paper found in Lestrange’s room. But he was still on his way before dawn, and we set out soon after. Daylight was still not quite complete when we mounted. The sky was overcast, which worried me. I hoped the weather would stay dry for our journey.
It did
, but by the time we reached Dover on the evening of the second day, Dale was telling me that she couldn’t abide another half-hour in the saddle because her back ached and her behind was too sore and Sybil was in much the same state as I could tell from the strain in her face, although she said nothing, or not about that. Instead, she said that if this was Dover, where was Whitefields? Had we passed it? We must, must get there. She had got to find Ambrosia. To Sybil, finding Ambrosia meant far more than catching up with the count.
We had pulled up at the roadside to talk it over. ‘It’s nearly dark,’ I said. ‘I’m too weary to go any further myself – nearly as bad as you, Dale. We should find an inn.’
‘I agree, madam,’ Brockley said. ‘Fran must rest. That inn we’ve used before, the Safe Harbour, is just along the road from here. I think we should go there for the night, if they’ve room.’
Sybil started to protest but then did what I had half-expected her to do ever since we left Hawkswood, which was to fall off her horse while it was standing still. ‘That settles it,’ I said, while Brockley and Joseph were dismounting to help her up. She had gone down in a slow slither and was not hurt. Once on her feet, she started to apologize. But I looked at her drawn face and said: ‘No, Sybil, you’re worn out too, and it’s too late to descend on these Fergusons and create a disturbance, which we certainly would if we found our quarry there. We’ll try the inn.’
‘But we’re here in Dover; we can’t be too far away from this house Whitefields!’ Her voice was shrill. ‘What if Ambrosia is there now but we miss her by delaying till tomorrow?’
‘Don’t argue, Sybil!’ I snapped. ‘We go to the inn.’
At the Safe Harbour, the ostler and the landlord were still the same, and remembered us. The landlord, a broad-built, smiling fellow called Ralph Harrison, welcomed me and the Brockleys by name, expressed himself pleased to meet Mistress Sybil Jester, and introduced us to his twenty-year-old daughter, who had come to help him run the inn. ‘Left her with my sister after her mother died, but we all have to work in this world, and best she should work beside me, her father, till she’s married. Ain’t that so, Bessie?’
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