The Grove of Eagles

by Winston Graham

  I saw Mr Killigrew again the following morning. He had spent a restless night and had been badly bitten by bugs. He was very cold, so I left him two extra coats. The covering for his board was rotten, he said, and there was nothing but filthy straw for a pillow. The food he had paid to have cooked in the jail kitchen had come in blackened to cinders. Anslowe had denied him even the liberty of the prison, saying it was against the orders he had been given.

  “Go tell Mrs Killigrew how I am situated. Do not spare the description, for there is still some money coming into the house from time to time and the first claim on it must now be mine. If I cannot obtain releasement—leave me alone, man! I have nothing for you!” This to one of the ragged skeletons who had been importuning him as he spoke to me through the bars. I threw the wretch a penny. “And curb your generosity, Maugan! When you are rich you may use your money as you please. Not now!”

  “Sleep in these extra coats, father. Otherwise you’ll get them stolen in the night. D’you want for books or a chess-board?”

  “I’ve pen and paper, that’s more important. Already I’ve written to Cecil. Tomorrow it will be the Queen. And I have my dice … But none of these vile creatures are fit to play with!”

  “I trust soon you may be moved.”

  “When you see John and Jane make out a strong case to them. She has the money or could get it. And if John can see his father so languish he has a heart of flint. Get them both to understand my plight. It’s a matter of urgency, for with my cough I may not see the winter through!”

  “I’ll do everything I can. But take heart, for the case could have been a worse one.”

  He blinked at me with bloodshot eyes. “Those old men. Many of them had grievances against me—old grievances. But Cecil! I would not have thought it of him to sit by like a little frog hearing everything and saying nothing. And the Queen! She’s getting old, Maugan, that’s what’s wrong. She forgets her old friends and makes up with new ones. It’s a common complaint of age. Alas, alas … You leave for home tomorrow? Hasten, for the sooner I am out of this the better.”

  The fish market outside was full of bustle and shouting; beyond, near the clutter of shacks around St Margaret’s church, two women were fighting in the centre of a jeering crowd. With a sense of depression and with a sensation of guilt that in some way I should have been able to help my father more, I turned into one of the many ale houses and drank a tankard of beer.

  Perhaps the sensation of guilt arose from the feeling of pure contentment which ran willy-nilly all the time at the back of my thoughts. The anxiety of those dark days, the fear of worse to come, was all the time illumined for me by the thought of Sue. If in two or three months I married her the world could be what colour it chose, my own life: would be pitched to a new happiness. Whoever was bankrupt, I would be rich. Almost every morning when I woke this thought of her was a shock, a stimulus, a vivid flood of excitement breaking into sleep, as if someone entered a dark room and flung back the curtains.

  So now if I was to play fair with her the last move had to be made.

  It was a narrow house, not far from Durham House. A supercilious boy with long fair hair took my letter and left me waiting at the door. I waited while my feet grew cold, then he took me in.

  “Lord Henry will see you when he is free.”

  I stood on a handsome marble floor in a high narrow entrance hall. In the distance someone was playing the lute. It was a tune I did not know.

  The impudent boy came through the hall again and stared at me. I stared him down.

  “Lord Henry will see you.”

  We went upstairs and into a big room lined with books. A fire burned in an open hearth, and near it, squatting on a rug, another handsome boy was fingering the lute.

  In an arm-chair with a book open on his knee was an elderly man in a fur-trimmed jacket. Although his face was much lined, his hair was black and drawn across the crown to hide his baldness. He had a long nose and sensuous lips. My letter was open on the table. A heavy scent of violets hung in the room.

  We waited until the next verse was over.

  “Beauty sat bathing by a spring

  Where fairest shades did hide her;

  The wind blew calm, the birds did sing,

  The cool streams ran beside her.”

  With two fingers the elderly man suppressed a yawn. “ Poke the fire, Claude, it waxes cold.”

  The young lutist dug at the fire with an iron rod. “ We have a visitor, my lord.”

  “That I know. Master Maugan Killigrew.” Lord Henry picked up the letter, glanced through it and for the first time glanced at me. “Master Maugan Killigrew, come here.”

  I came and stood beside the table.

  “I have had word about you from my friend Henry Arundell.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “He tells me you are a young man of parts. One of the Killigrews who proliferate about the Court. Do you know Court life?”

  “No, my lord. My experience, such as it is, has been in Cornwall and in Spain.”

  “Ah, in Spain. Just so. I believe Mr Arundell mentions that. You were a captive but escaped. How did you find the Spanish?”

  “Fierce in battle, my lord. Fanatical in religion. Charming in personal contact.”

  He looked me over. “Ah. A talent for summary, I see. Hasn’t he a talent for summary, Claude?”

  The boy shrugged and began to pluck at his lute.

  “My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye

  To see what was forbidden;

  But better memory said, fie!

  So vain desire was chidden.”

  “A foolish conclusion to a pretty song,” said Lord Henry. “ Do you play, Killigrew?”

  “Indifferently, my lord.”

  “All young men should learn with their alphabet. My tutor would not permit me, he being a puritan. Until the regime changed and he was dismissed. I always say I learned under Mary.”

  “Learned under Mary,” said Claude, “ suffered under Elizabeth, was pensioned, dead and buried. The third day—”

  “Claude,” said Lord Henry, “take your blasphemies off and give Herbert and Arthur the benefit of them.”

  The boy pushed out his lower lip but did not move.

  Lord Henry took up another letter and read it carefully through. “This is the one from Mr Arundell. I learn from it that you have seen service with Sir Walter Ralegh.”

  “Yes, my lord. I worked as a secretary in his household for six months.”

  “Why have you left?”

  “As you say, I was a prisoner in Spain.”

  “And now you are no longer welcome?”

  “Oh, yes. But it is the same position. I seek something better.”

  “Ah, something better. I doubt if I can offer you anything better. I am quite without influence, unwelcome at Court, living in this small style … Claude, I told you, you may go.”

  The boy sulkily left the room.

  “A disobedient youth but engaging … I see Mr Arundell says he is hoping to marry.”

  “Oh? …”

  “A strange ambition in a man nearing fifty. And one whose tastes have always rather been …” Lord Henry’s eyes trembled with malice. “However … that should not detain us.”

  I swallowed and stared at a sacred painting hung between the bookshelves.

  “You write and speak Spanish, Killigrew?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “That is not a common attribute. It could earn you some interesting post.”

  “Less of an attribute seeing we are at war with Spain, my lord.”

  “Commerce and art do not stop at the dictation of princes. Have you any other qualifications?”

  “I know something of war.”

  “I think that will be a diminishing asset, for we are all weary of it. Do you understand—diplomacy?”

  He said it in such a way that much more than a single word was conveyed.

  “I have had some experience.”

&n
bsp; “No doubt it runs in the family. Your relatives are supporters of Cecil, are they not?”

  “I think, my lord, they prefer to see themselves as servants of the Queen.”

  “But who does not? Who does not? Our noble Elizabeth—whom God preserve—we all worship and serve. But under her great men sometimes differ as to how she may best be served. I … now I am an adherent of Essex.”

  “Indeed.”

  “My friends, Francis and Anthony Bacon, and I, we support his lordship when and how we may. Yet am I on happy terms with Sir Robert Cecil and his father too.”

  Until now I have not consciously brought to mind Ralegh’s conversation in the cabin of Warspite that June night on our way to Cadiz. ‘Oil and water,’ he said. ‘But Thomas Howard is much to be preferred to his uncle, Lord Henry. If you ever meet him I commend him to your study.’

  Suddenly in the middle of a serious of questions Lord Henry said something to me I could hardly credit. I stared at him stupidly, certain I must have misheard.

  He repeated: “ I gather you are a Catholic, Killigrew.”

  “No, sir! I cannot imagine where you have—how that misunderstanding can have arisen!”

  He unfastened two buttons of his jacket, dusted a little snuff off the fur. His vigorous malicious face was flushed with the heat. “In a country such as ours, my dear Killigrew, misunderstandings are always arising. Consider how they have affected my family. My father, the Earl of Surrey—he came to have a misunderstanding in the matter of religion and the regency in the time of the last Henry, so he lost his head. I was 18 at the time. A little younger than you.”

  “If you—”

  “And then there was my brother, the Duke of Norfolk. There was misunderstanding about him too, some rumour that he might marry Mary Queen of Scots. He lost his head. I was 33 at the time.”

  I did not interrupt again. Lord Henry settled his slippered feet on the footstool. “ Then there was my nephew, the Earl of Arundell, who misunderstood our Queen so grievously as to become a Catholic and not to hide his views. He died in prison two years ago. All these mistakes could perhaps have been avoided by wiser men such as we.”

  He dusted his jacket again.

  I said: “Henry Arundell can know nothing of my religion. All that—”

  “Oh, he doesn’t. He does not mention it.”

  “Then in what way—”

  “I have heard that you were converted while in Spain.”

  I still struggled to understand this thing. “What one does in an enemy country is done under duress. There can be no—”

  “Under duress?” He raised his ieyebrows ironically. “ But of course. All decisions are made under duress. That is an axiom of life. In the winter weather I suffer from an affection of the kidneys. Warmth and a dry air prevent it, so I wrap myself about and keep a fire, which I see you find too great. I act under duress. In Rome and Florence, which I visited some twelve years ago, the day’s warmth was such that one needed no other heat at all … So with religion, my dear Killigrew. In England I am a confirmed Protestant. So I trust are you. Only a fool shivers when the cold draughts blow.”

  I did not like this man but I could not but be aware of the subtlety of the intelligence probing mine. He appeared quite open, indeed to be forthcoming in the history of his family, but by nuances, delicately calculated pauses, sardonic expressions, he was all the time challenging my responses.

  “I wonder, my lord, how you came to have such information about me.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It well could.”

  “I am a peaceful man, Killigrew, and pursue peaceful ends. Leave it at that. The value of the incident lies not in itself but in the light it sheds on character. One is given to suppose that you are a politic person.”

  “My lord, I seek preferment.”

  “Ah. You flatter me with that original confidence … I have no preferment for you—as such. But there could be employment.”

  “Tell me of it, my lord.”

  “Hold hard. Let nothing be done in haste. All young men are the same.”

  A log fell and blazed. The light in the room by now was fading, and the fire sent dim and secret colours leaping over books and tables and chairs: purple, ochre and green. Like the conversation the firelight obscured as much as it revealed.

  “Sit down, Killigrew. You have certain ductile qualities which I believe could be useful to me. But I sense inflexibilities too, which would have to be plumbed before we proceeded far. A limb will move, but only according to its joints. Mental anatomy needs just as careful study.”

  I pulled forward a chair of black carved oak. The wood seat had been worked to represent the naked Greek figure of Mercury.

  “You go too deep, my lord.”

  “Oh, no, I assure you, there is no depth in what I say, only a little caution. Tell me, do you admire your uncle?”

  “My uncle?”

  “Sir Henry Killigrew.”

  “Why, yes …”

  “Do you have his qualities?”

  “What do you consider them?”

  “An ability above all for secret negotiation, for loyalty to his master.”

  Lord Henry was watching me with half-closed lids. It was impossible to tell how much he was in earnest.

  “Sir Henry is older than I am, my lord. No doubt those qualities grow.”

  “Not unless they are firmly there at the start. When do you leave for Cornwall?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Ah … All this is premature. Again haste when haste is unprofitable. I take it you have no further connections with Ralegh?”

  I did not know what to answer. “We are going straight home, my lord. My father is in prison for bankruptcy, and my stepmother may need me to help. Once that is done—then it is done. Two weeks, three weeks perhaps.”

  Lord Henry still had the book open on his knee. “Do you know that old Latin precept: ‘There is a time for saying nothing and a time for saying something, but there is no time in which all things should be said’.”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Perhaps this is a time for saying something, but a little only. As I have told you, the most I can offer could be called maybe a gainful employment. As a secretary, you understand. A secretary and if necessary a messenger. Consider it while you are riding home. Now you may go.”

  Chapter Six

  We rode back to Cornwall, Wilkey and I, in a succession of days of blinding rain. The farther west we went the more sodden the sky and the more waterlogged the tracks. Rain seemed to become so complete a part of nature that to end a day not soaked to the skin would have been unfamiliar and remarkable. And each day the wind grew stronger as if determined to hold us back.

  We got as far as Launceston and then Stephen Wilkey, who had taken a chill early, gave up and said he could travel no farther. We were again spending the night at Penheale. The Grenvilles suggested I might well stay a day or two more until the weather improved, but I said no, I would go on. So I left Wilkey in their charge to follow at will and went on across the wild moors alone.

  Such was the gale here that I could not make fair progress and so slept at Bodmin in a tiny cavern, while the storm howled round the shoulder of the hill and every match seemed about to lift off the roof. Next morning even Trudy was loth to start, but we were away soon after daybreak. My mind was pricked on by its own uncomfortable spurs.

  Over the Goss Moors, at last into the shelter of the Ladock valley, a bite to eat in Truro; the short day would soon be drawing in; but one was too near home now to halt at the Bonythons’. Set in a cleft of the green hills, Penryn came quicker than expected. Sensing the end of it all, Trudy had quickened her step. Past the old mill, and the sun was flaring over the hill.

  The gate was open. That was the first thing wrong. Never in my lifetime open and unguarded.

  The long chestnut avenue to the house was rutted deep with mud and water, as if more wagons or coaches than usual had been over it. The te
nts were still on the hillside. The wind was breaking at last into lost eddies and vicious squalls that grew less frequent with every hour.

  At the back entrance by the kitchens were three carts. Two of them were piled with furniture and cloths. I had no need to tether the mare, she was already walking towards the stables as I ran into the house. The first person was Meg.

  “Maugan!” she said, forgetting herself. “Dear life, I’m that glad to see you!” And put her arms round my neck.

  I kissed her on the mouth, sweet memories in spite of all. “Dear Meg. Is all well?”

  “Well? All’s ill. Dear life, tis a nightmare. Two days gone a sheriff’s officer come and served an order—distraint or some such for a Mr Coswarth. There was none here to stay ’im so in ’e come. Tis rumoured Mr Killigrew’s in a debtors’ prison and all London pressing for payment—is it true, Maugan? So afore cocklight yesterday a half-dozen bailiffs was here waving papers in their ’ands—bonds or some such and asking for payment.”

  “Oh, Meg …”

  “And none here to deny ’em. So in they come and begin seizing on this, that and th’ other as part of their debt. All yesterday and today they been carting things away. It’s been like a war—men shouting and fighting. They even tore the curtains pulling betwixt them!”

  I went through the kitchens, past a couple of servants, into the great hall. Gone was the Pavia tapestry, the plush chairs on which Mr Killigrew and the special guests sat, the stools, the curtains, the fire-irons. Ash was scattered well away from the fire as if it had been blown about by the gale.

  “Young Mr John Killigrew?”

  “No sight of ’im.”

  “Where is Mrs Killigrew?”

  “In her chamber, sick.”