A Column of Fire

by Ken Follett

Two questions wracked him as he hurried west. Did Aphrodite know the name of the courier to Sheffield? And, if she did, would she feel sufficiently indebted to Ned to tell him the secret?

  He was going to find out.

  He left the walled city of London at Ludgate, crossed the stinking Fleet River, and found the Housse residence, a pleasant modest house on the less expensive north side of the Strand. He knocked at the door and gave his name to a maid. He waited a few minutes, considering the remote possibility that Bernard Housse had married a different Aphrodite. Then he was shown upstairs to a comfortable small parlour.

  He remembered an eager, flirtatious girl of eighteen, but now he saw a gracious woman of twenty-nine, with a figure that suggested she had recently given birth and might still be breast-feeding. She greeted him warmly in French. ‘It is you,’ she said. ‘After so long!’

  ‘So you married Bernard,’ Ned said.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered with a contented smile.

  ‘Any children?’

  ‘Three – so far!’

  They sat down. Ned was pessimistic. People who betrayed their countries were normally troubled, angry individuals with massive grudges, such as Alain de Guise and Jerónima Ruiz. Aphrodite was a happily married woman with children and a husband she seemed to like. The chances were slim that she would give away secrets. But Ned had to try.

  He told her that he had married a French girl and brought her home, and Aphrodite wanted to meet her. She told him the names of her three children, and he memorized them because he was in the habit of memorizing names. After a few minutes of catching up, he steered the conversation in the direction he wanted it to go. ‘I saved your life, once, in Paris,’ he said.

  She became solemn. ‘I will be grateful to you for ever,’ she said. ‘But please – Bernard knows nothing of it.’

  ‘Now I’m trying to save the life of another woman.’

  ‘Really? Who?’

  ‘Queen Elizabeth.’

  She looked embarrassed. ‘You and I shouldn’t discuss politics, Ned.’

  He persisted. ‘The duke of Guise is planning to kill Elizabeth so that he can put his cousin Mary Stuart on the throne. You can’t possibly approve of murder.’

  ‘Of course not, but—’

  ‘There’s an Englishman who comes to your embassy, collects letters sent by Henri de Guise and takes them to Mary in Sheffield.’ Ned hated to reveal how much he knew, but this was his only chance of persuading her. ‘He then brings back Mary’s replies.’ Ned looked hard at Aphrodite as he spoke, studying her reaction, and thought he saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. ‘You probably know the man,’ he said insistently.

  ‘Ned, this is not fair.’

  ‘I have to know his name,’ Ned said. He was dismayed to hear a note of desperation in his own voice.

  ‘How can you do this to me?’

  ‘I have to protect Queen Elizabeth from wicked men, as I once protected you.’

  Aphrodite stood up. ‘I’m sorry you came here, if your purpose was to get information out of me.’

  ‘I’m asking you to save the life of a queen.’

  ‘You’re asking me to be a traitor to my husband and my country, and betray a man who has been a guest at my father’s house!’

  ‘You owe me!’

  ‘I owe you my life, not my soul.’

  Ned knew he was defeated. He felt ashamed for even trying. He had attempted to corrupt a perfectly decent woman who liked him. Sometimes he detested his work.

  He stood up. ‘I’ll leave you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid I think you should.’

  Something was nagging at the back of his mind. He felt she had said something important that he had overlooked in the heat of the argument. He wanted to prolong his visit and ask more questions until she said it again, but she was looking angrily at him, visibly impatient to see the back of him, and he knew that if he did not go, she would just walk out of the room.

  He took his leave and dejectedly returned to the city. He climbed Ludgate Hill and passed the Gothic bulk of St Paul’s Cathedral, its grey stones turned black by the soot from thousands of London fireplaces. He came within sight of the Tower, where traitors were interrogated and tortured, then he turned down Seething Lane.

  As he entered Walsingham’s house, he remembered what Aphrodite had said: ‘You’re asking me to be a traitor to my husband and my country, and betray a man who has been a guest at my father’s house!’

  A man who has been a guest at my father’s house.

  The very first list Ned had made, when he arrived in Paris with Walsingham eleven years ago, had been a register of English Catholics who called at the home of the count of Beaulieu in the rue St Denis.

  Walsingham never threw anything away.

  Ned ran up the stairs to the locked room. The book containing the Paris list was at the bottom of a chest. He pulled it out and blew off the dust.

  She must have been referring to her father’s Paris house, must she not? The count had a country house in France but, as far as Ned knew, that had never been a rendezvous for English exiles. And Beaulieu had never appeared in the register of Catholics living in London.

  Nothing was certain.

  He opened the book eagerly and began to read carefully through the names, recorded in his own handwriting a decade ago. He forced himself to go slowly, recalling the faces of those angry young Englishmen who had gone to France because they felt out of place in their own country. As he did so he was assailed by memories of Paris: the glitter of the shops, the fabulous clothes, the stink of the streets, the extravagance of the royal entertainments, the savagery of the massacre.

  One name struck him like a blow. Ned had never met the man, but he knew the name.

  His heart seemed to stop. He went back to the alphabetical list of Catholics in London. Yes, one man who had visited Count Beaulieu’s house in Paris was now in London.

  His name was Sir Francis Throckmorton.

  ‘Got you, you devil,’ said Ned.

  *

  WALSINGHAM SAID: ‘Whatever you do, don’t arrest him.’

  Ned was taken aback. ‘I thought that was the point.’

  ‘Think again. There will always be another Throckmorton. We will do all we can to protect Queen Elizabeth, of course, but some day one of these traitors will slip through our fingers.’

  Ned admired Walsingham’s ability to think one step ahead of the current situation, but he did not know where Walsingham was going with this. ‘What can we do, other than be ever-vigilant?’

  ‘Let’s make it our mission to get proof that Mary Stuart is plotting to usurp Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘Elizabeth will probably authorize the torture of Throckmorton, given that he has threatened her throne; and Throckmorton will naturally confess; but everyone knows that confessions are unreliable.’

  ‘Quite so. We must get incontrovertible evidence.’

  ‘And put Mary Stuart on trial?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Ned was intrigued, but he still did not know what Walsingham’s devious mind was planning. ‘What would that achieve?’

  ‘At a minimum, it would make Mary unpopular with the English people. All but the most extreme ultra-Catholics would disapprove of someone who wanted to unseat such a well-loved queen.’

  ‘That won’t stop the assassins.’

  ‘It will weaken their support. And it will strengthen our hand when we ask for the conditions of Mary’s imprisonment to be made harsher.’

  Ned nodded agreement. ‘And Elizabeth will be less worried about being accused of unfeminine cruelty to her cousin. But still . . .’

  ‘It would be even better if we could prove that Mary plotted not only to overthrow Queen Elizabeth but to murder her.’

  At last Ned began to see the trend of Walsingham’s thinking, and he was startled by its ruthlessness. ‘Do you want Mary sentenced to death?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ned found that chilling. To execute a queen
was the next thing to sacrilege. ‘But Queen Elizabeth would never execute Mary.’

  ‘Even if we proved that Mary had conspired to assassinate Elizabeth?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Ned.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said Walsingham.

  *

  NED PUT THROCKMORTON under twenty-four-hour surveillance.

  Aphrodite had surely told her husband about Ned’s call, and the French embassy must have warned Throckmorton. So, Ned figured, Throckmorton now knew that Ned suspected the existence of the correspondence with Mary. However, based on the same conversation, Throckmorton presumably believed that Ned did not know the identity of the courier.

  The team tailing him was changed twice a day, but still there was a risk that he might notice them. However, he did not appear to. Ned guessed that Throckmorton was unaccustomed to clandestine work and simply did not think to check whether he was being followed.

  Alain de Guise wrote from Paris to say that Pierre had sent an important letter to Mary Stuart by a courier. That letter would have to be smuggled to the imprisoned Mary by Throckmorton. If Throckmorton could be arrested with Pierre’s letter in his hand, it might serve as objective proof of his treachery.

  However, Walsingham wanted Mary, not Throckmorton. So Ned decided to wait and see whether Throckmorton got a reply from Mary. If she consented to a plot, and especially if she wrote words of encouragement, she would stand condemned.

  One day in October, while Ned waited anxiously to see what Throckmorton would do, a gentleman of the court called Ralph Ventnor came to Seething Lane to say that Queen Elizabeth wanted to see Walsingham and Ned immediately. Ventnor did not know the reason.

  They put on their coats and walked the short distance to the Tower, where Ventnor had a barge at the wharf waiting to take them to White Hall.

  Ned fretted as they were rowed upstream. A peremptory summons was rarely good news. And Elizabeth had always been capricious. The blue sky of her approval could turn in an instant to lowering black clouds – and back again.

  At White Hall, Ventnor led them through the guard room, full of soldiers, and the presence chamber, where courtiers waited, and along a passage to the privy chamber.

  Queen Elizabeth sat on a carved and gilded wooden chair. She wore a red-and-white dress with a silver-gauze overdress, and sleeves slashed to show a lining of red taffeta. It was a youthfully bright outfit, but it could not hide the passage of time. Elizabeth had just passed her fiftieth birthday and her face showed her age, despite the heavy white make-up she used. When she spoke, she showed irregular brown teeth, several missing.

  The earl of Leicester was also in the room. He was the same age as the queen but he, too, dressed like a wealthy youngster. Today he wore an outfit of pale-blue silk with gold embroidery, and his shirt had ruffs at the wrists as well as the neck. To Ned it looked absurdly costly.

  Leicester seemed pleased with himself, Ned noticed with unease. He was probably about to score points off Walsingham.

  Ned and Walsingham bowed side by side.

  The queen spoke in a voice as cold as February. ‘A man has been arrested in a tavern in Oxford for saying that he was on his way to London to shoot the queen.’

  Oh, hell, thought Ned, we missed one. He recalled Walsingham’s words: Some day one of these traitors will slip through our fingers.

  Leicester spoke in a supercilious drawl that seemed to imply that everything was absurd. ‘The man was armed with a heavy pistol, and he said that the queen was a serpent and a viper, and he would set her head on a pole.’

  Trust Leicester to rub it in, Ned thought. But in truth the assassin did not sound seriously dangerous, if he was so indiscreet that he had been stopped when he was still sixty miles away from the queen.

  Elizabeth said: ‘Why do I pay you all this money, if not to protect me from such people?’

  That was outrageous: she was paying only seven hundred and fifty pounds a year, nowhere near enough, and Walsingham financed much of the work himself. But queens did not have to be fair.

  Walsingham said: ‘Who is this man?’

  Leicester said: ‘John Somerfield.’

  Ned recognized the name: it was on the list. ‘We know of Somerfield, your majesty. He’s one of the Warwickshire Catholics. He’s mad.’

  The earl of Leicester laughed sarcastically. ‘So, that means he’s no danger to her majesty, does it?’

  Ned flushed. ‘It means he’s not likely to be part of a serious conspiracy, my lord.’

  ‘Oh, good! In that case his bullets obviously can’t kill anyone, can they?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  Leicester overrode Ned. ‘Your majesty, I wish you would give someone else the task of protecting your precious person.’ He added in an oily voice: ‘It is the most important task in the kingdom.’

  He was a skilled flatterer, and unfortunately Elizabeth was charmed.

  Walsingham spoke for the first time. ‘I have failed you, your majesty. I did not recognize the danger posed by Somerfield. No doubt there are many men in England who can do this job better. I beg you to give the responsibility to one of them. Speaking for myself, I would gladly put down the burden I have carried so long, and rest my weary bones.’

  He did not mean this, of course, but it was probably the best way to handle the queen in her present mood. Ned realized he had been foolish to argue. If she was annoyed, then telling her she need not worry only irritated her further. Humble self-abnegation was more likely to please.

  ‘You’re the same age as me,’ the queen shot back. However, she seemed mollified by Walsingham’s apology; or perhaps she had been led to reflect that in fact there was no man in England who would work as hard and as conscientiously as Walsingham to protect her from the many people, mad and sane, who wanted to assassinate her. However, she was not yet ready to let Walsingham off the hook. ‘What are you going to do to make me more secure?’ she demanded.

  ‘You majesty, I am on the point of destroying a well-organized conspiracy against you by enemies of an order quite different from John Somerfield. These people will not wave their weapons in the air and boast about their intentions in taverns. They are in league with the Pope and the king of Spain, which I can assure you Somerfield is not. They are determined and well financed and obsessively secretive. Nevertheless, I expect to arrest their leader in the next few days.’

  It was a spirited defence against the malice of Leicester, but all the same Ned was dismayed. This was premature. An arrest now would bring the conspiracy to an early halt, and in consequence they would not get evidence of Mary Stuart’s complicity. Personal rivalry had interfered again.

  The queen said: ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘For fear that they may be forewarned, your majesty, I hesitate to name names’ – Walsingham looked pointedly at Leicester – ‘in public.’

  Leicester was about to protest indignantly, but the queen said: ‘Quite right, I shouldn’t have asked. Very well, Sir Francis, you’d better leave us and get back to your work.’

  ‘Thank you, your majesty,’ said Walsingham.

  *

  ROLLO FITZGERALD was anxious about Francis Throckmorton.

  Throckmorton was not like the men who had been trained at the English College. They had made a life commitment to submit to the rule of the Church. They understood obedience and dedication. They had left England, spent years studying, taken vows, and returned home to do the job for which they had prepared. They knew their lives were at risk: every time one of them was caught by Walsingham and executed, the death was celebrated at the college as a martyrdom.

  Throckmorton had made no vows. He was a wealthy young aristocrat with a romantic attachment to Catholicism. He had spent his life pleasing himself, not God. His courage and determination were untried. He might just back out.

  Even if he stayed the course, there were other dangers. How discreet was he? He had no experience of clandestine work. Would he get drunk and drop boastful hints to his friends a
bout his secret mission?

  Rollo was also worried about Peg Bradford. Alison claimed Peg would do anything for Mary Queen of Scots; but Alison could be wrong, and Peg could prove unreliable.

  His biggest worry was Mary herself. Would she cooperate? Without her the whole plot was nothing.

  One thing at a time, he told himself. Throckmorton first.

  He would have preferred to have no further contact with Throckmorton, for security, but that was not practicable. Rollo had to know whether everything was going according to plan. Reluctantly, therefore, he went to Throckmorton’s house at St Paul’s Wharf, downhill from the cathedral, one evening at twilight, when faces were hard to make out.

  By bad luck Throckmorton was out, according to his manservant. Rollo considered going away and returning at another time, but he was impatient to know what was happening, and he told the man he would wait.

  He was shown into a small parlour. A window looked onto the street. At the back of the room, a double door stood a little ajar, and Rollo looked through to a grander room behind, comfortable and richly furnished, but with a pungent smell of smoke: the manservant was burning rubbish in the backyard.

  Rollo accepted a cup of wine and mused, while he waited, over his secret agents. As soon as he had established communication between Pierre in Paris and Mary in Sheffield, he would have to make a tour of England and visit his secret priests. He had to collect maps from them or from their protectors, and confirm guarantees of support for the invading army. He had time – the invasion would take place in the spring of next year – but there was much to be done.

  Throckmorton came in at nightfall. Rollo heard the manservant open the door and say: ‘There’s a gentleman waiting in the parlour, sir – preferred not to give his name.’

  Throckmorton was pleased to see Rollo. He took from his coat pocket a small package which he slapped on the table with a triumphant gesture. ‘Letters for Queen Mary!’ he said exultantly. ‘I’ve just come from the French embassy.’

  ‘Good man!’ Rollo jumped up and began to examine the letters. He recognized the seal of the duke of Guise and that of Mary’s man in Paris, John Leslie. He longed to read the contents, but could not break the seals without causing trouble. ‘When can you take them to Sheffield?’