A Dangerous Trade: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  ‘I could – I suppose I could teach her, like you’re teaching me. About the faith.’

  Heydon seemed to consider this, leaning back and studying him. ‘You’d like that, eh? She is your wife. You might just tell her what you want her to be and that’s the end of it. Yet…’ He tilted his head and gnawed on his cheek. ‘I think your wife is … I think she won’t come quietly on your travels.’ Jack hung his head, knowing the truth of it. It was a shameful thing to have a wife with opinions. ‘No. Not yet,’ Heydon went on. ‘Not until … well, one day soon she will join the multitude in being brought to the light. Let this be our secret. But please, do think on it. Soon enough a Catholic queen will be in our midst. I have no doubt letters shall arrive for her from all quarters.’ He let a pause draw out, and his lips curled in a smile as Jack’s eyes darted around. ‘Mmm. I tell you, it’ll be my heart and soul’s joy to serve this royal lady when she joins the earl. I would really be hurt if a friend should spoil that.’

  ‘I won’t. I won’t spoil it.’

  ‘Thank you, Jack. Well, then, I’ll bid you goodnight now. But remember that you have a light in you. Can you feel it? Can you feel the light?’ He was teasing, and Jack smiled.

  ‘Yes, like a torch.’

  ‘Like a torch. Thanks for listening. It’s a good friend you are to do that.’ He gave a little bow before leaving the room.

  Jack lay back on his bed, his stomach churning. So Philip was a Catholic. He wanted him to become a Catholic. He had no objection to that in principle, so long as it didn’t involve having to do anything above his duties. He tried to imagine a light burning inside him, and then he imagined it in a sea of other lights. All of them set on an altar in a great cathedral in Rome, or France, or Spain. How different could that be from a bare, unlit, whitewashed church in Norfolk. How much such an image would have disgusted and angered his father.

  He knew that the Catholic priests said they could forgive impure thoughts and past sins. But how far could that extend? How much could one even say to a priest without that priest running off to an authority? And did they hear and judge, as normal men, or were they so used to hearing confessions that nothing shocked them?

  Something in the back of his mind told him that he should ignore such questions. The idea of a holy man granting absolution through the offices of a bishop in Rome was foolish. But … but … then surely the whole of Europe was foolish. Surely his grandparents and their grandparents and all men and women right to the beginning of time were foolish? Amy would probably tell him to ignore Philip, perhaps even to report him or avoid him. It wasn’t illegal to be Catholic in your conscience, that was true, but Jack was fairly sure that trying to make more Catholics was a dangerous thing. It was trading in souls. But why shouldn’t a man convert his friends if by doing so he believed he could make their lives better, perhaps even make their afterlives better? Amy would see it all as something sinister rather than something born of friendship. And she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, bless her. No, he wouldn’t tell her. Some things had to be kept quiet, put in a box and hidden even from a wife. God knew he was experienced enough in that.

  He drifted off to sleep with the candle in his mind still burning.

  Part Two: Spring’s Dawn

  1

  February was a nasty month. Each year it seemed that winter resented its death and each year it spat one last gob of ice, snow, and freezing rain at the world it was soon to leave.

  They waited in the courtyard of Tutbury Castle, a large, decorous band of household servants – the men and matrons at rapt attention, the junior maids and pages fidgeting in the cold. Ordinarily they’d all be at work, in their own stations, their butteries, their pantries, their stables. Instead they had been ordered to muster, in their cleanest clothing, to welcome the Scottish queen. The sourness of fresh whitewash fought a battle against the deep-set smell of the sewer middens. A cold wind seemed to blow it in every direction at once.

  The earl and countess had failed to convince Queen Elizabeth to change her mind about Mary Stuart’s prison. In January had come the announcement that nothing had been proven against the Scottish queen; but still she was to remain in England, her brother Moray returning to Scotland to govern in place of her infant son. An advance messenger had arrived to state that the royal party was approaching – later than expected, but on their way nonetheless. Still nothing was really ready. The servants waited outside to greet the new arrival mainly because most of the rooms were still in shambles.

  Life had a way of letting you down, Jack mused. If at first it failed to do so, you could always let yourself down. That was how it seemed as he considered his first few weeks with the Shrewsburys. He and Amy had weaved themselves into the fabric of the household, and yet he had not emerged the strong, powerful protector he had hoped. Instead he had been frozen in impassivity. That would have to change – it might change, with the coming of Queen Mary. He would have more to do, anyway – they all would.

  Jack turned, scanning the crowd. Eventually he spotted Amy at the back, standing amongst some gossiping maids. She looked bored. He had scarcely spoken to her since the move to Tutbury. They slept apart, the servants bunking down wherever they could until more permanent sleeping arrangements could be built; at mealtimes, the horse men had cold food carried down to them in the stable which clung to the outside of the curtain wall. He tried to catch her eye, but she didn’t look over. Instead he caught Philip Heydon’s. His friend gave an exaggerated yawn, and Jack smiled at it. He knew Heydon was anything but bored. For weeks he had spoken of nothing but Mary Stuart: how beautiful she was said to be; how wronged she was; how devoted she was to what he called the true faith – the faith of France and Spain and Europe and the world. But Philip had been doing more than that. He had admitted that he had written to Queen Mary’s secretary, although only on matters of business, to find out what might be needed for her personal offices. He had promised again and again that he would see Jack and Amy off on their travels one day. After all, Jack had offered that desire up to Philip himself. It had been his own idea – his own desire and goal. He had not pressed him into going Catholic, but he had wondered aloud many a time if Jack’s life wouldn’t be better if he were to convert. How much easier the job of travel would become! The thought of travel focused his mind on the supposed arrival of the Scottish queen.

  How long had they been waiting? An hour at least. His earlobes were stinging. Noon had passed, and there might not be much daylight left. Whenever restlessness threatened, though, the usher cried out ‘speak softly, speak softly’ as he made his way up and down the massed ranks, looking for all the world like a round little bowling ball passing over a decayed green. Jack felt a bead of moisture forming at the tip of his nostril. He chanced a look around before cuffing it away.

  Eventually the sounds of approaching horses came, splitting the cold air: the jangle of bells and, cresting the hill, feathered plumes, banners, and mounted riders. The usher disappeared inside, leaving the crowd to murmur. There were dozens of them – a whole troop, perhaps sixty people. At their head rode soldiers in leather jerkins, and another company brought up the rear. As one, the assembled servants fell to their knees, as they had been instructed to do.

  As the new arrivals poured into the courtyard – which had been partially mown and swept – the earl’s horse master stepped forward. Around him hung a mist of pure liquor, and Jack winced. Sickening. The man, Amy said, looked like someone had put clothes on an uncooked chicken. Worse, he was a drunk, kept in office only because he had been Shrewsbury’s friend during long-gone Scottish campaigns. If there was one thing Jack could not tolerate it was a man who drank. He did not object to much, did not feel strongly about much, but drinking to excess was an exception.

  Still, the master’s shuffling movement was the signal for Jack and the other stablemen and grooms to get up and move forwards: a whole team of them – grooms for the stirrups, the palfreys, the reserve horses. The stout master moved towards the
group and, Jack saw, he made for a moustached man who sat near the front of the group. That was bad. He was supposed to attend immediately upon the Scottish queen, not the man, Knollys, who escorted her.

  ‘I bring you your guest,’ said Knollys to the horse master. ‘And this for your master.’ From his doublet he produced a letter and handed it down, before allowing the horse keeper to help him dismount with a creaking of harness and stirrups. ‘Ah, here is the fellow.’

  From the castle stepped Shrewsbury and Bess, both glittering with jewels. The former bowed deeply, and the latter dropped a curtsey before they moved forwards. Shrewsbury let his eyes run over the company. He looked exhausted, Jack thought, and he seemed to have lost weight over winter rather than gaining it. A cloud crossed his face when he saw that his master of horse was busying himself with Knollys, leaving the queen of Scots mounted. Jack looked up at her.

  Mary Stuart was in her twenties, and, sitting atop a horse, she looked like a figure from a classical story. Her face was flushed with the ride, although her riding habit seemed remarkably clean. Even her hair, jet black, remained unruffled, arranged though it was in an elaborate swirl of curls. Jack felt his heart begin to race as she turned from the castle and looked down at him. She smiled, her cheek dimpling, and held out her bridle. Acting on instinct he stepped towards her and took the reins, holding out an arm for her to dismount. She leant on him and stepped down – a tall woman, but graceful. As she gained the ground, she whispered, ‘merci,’ her breath coming hot in his ear. Then she moved forward, following Knollys, and the other grooms began to help her party off their horses. They had all been told to wait until the royal party was safely indoors before taking the animals down to the stables and safely locking them up.

  Mary joined her gaolers, her back to Jack. So that, he thought, was the much-storied Scottish queen. No murderess there. A woman who had plotted the death of her husband would be swarthy, crooked, and sly. Here was a young woman of manners – a queen.

  ‘Welcome, your Majesty,’ said Shrewsbury, his voice carrying over the din. ‘We bid you welcome to our home.’ Mary said nothing but inclined her head. If she was appalled by Tutbury, as Jack felt sure she must be, she did not show it. ‘Please, your Majesty, won’t you come in and warm yourself. It is the greatest honour that my household and I can express to serve your turn.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, as though with difficulty. Her words were gilded with a French accent. ‘My lord, I have but ten horses and not so much grooms. If it please you I require muckle more of each.’ She turned, tilting her head. ‘Until I have my own master of horse, perhaps this bon jeune homme might serve me.’ She nodded briefly at Jack.

  ***

  ‘She likes you – she wants you to serve her!’ said Heydon. He was standing in the small cubby where Jack slept, just off the stables; a men’s dormitory had yet to be built. ‘Mate, she wants you!’

  Jack tried not to let the excitement show on his face, but he could not resist a grin. ‘Just for a while, Mr Woodward said. Just until the earl has sorted her household out. Her own people will be coming, he said.’

  ‘Bah!’ Heydon waved an arm. ‘The earl will want to lessen her household, not increase it. I’m telling you, you’re in. You know what that means? You’ll be off on all kinds of adventures.’

  Jack’s face lit up at the words. ‘You think?’

  ‘Of course. She’s a queen without a kingdom. She’ll have all kinds of correspondence, things needing fetched.’

  ‘Correspondence,’ echoed Jack, forming the word slowly. ‘You could help with that, though, couldn’t you? Does she have a secretary, do you think?’

  ‘You read my mind,’ laughed Heydon. ‘Have you met Thomas Morgan?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Should I have?’

  ‘He’s one of the earl’s secretaries.’ Heydon dropped his voice even though the cubby was empty but for some rats. ‘He’s one of us. Of the old faith.’ The word ‘us’ brought a glow to Jack’s cheeks, although he wasn’t entirely sure he could count himself a Catholic yet. ‘He intends to work for the Scottish queen in the art of spiery. I have given him my word I should help him. We are a brotherhood, Jack.’

  ‘Spiery?’

  ‘The art of watching. Of listening. Come now, you are in it already.’

  Jack’s spine stiffened, and he began spluttering. ‘You were sent into this household by the duke of Norfolk, were you not?’ Heydon went on. ‘I’m no fool, my friend. The world knows that the duke hopes to marry with this queen. Some on our side hope he will thereafter turn to the true faith. The others – the earl – yes, he knows all about it – think that the duke will convert Queen Mary to heresy and keep her in thrall.’ He shrugged. ‘If you ask me it’s all a foolish notion, but you must play your little part.’

  ‘I … I don’t do anything. I don’t say anything to anyone, I just see that letters get where they should go, that’s all. There’s nothing bad in that, is there?’

  ‘No, no, of course not. Yet … if you are to be a true friend and a loyal man of Rome – if you wish to travel and really see the world – then you might open your eyes a little wider.’

  ‘What to see?’

  Heydon grinned, a big, open, friendly grin. ‘Wonders, mate. This year will be filled with them.’ He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. A friendly gesture. Jack always heard that about the gentry and those above them: that they could shift their speech and their gesture to their audience. That they could bind men to them. That they could command and be obeyed by the force of their natures and fair speech. In his experience some had it and some didn’t. Philip Heydon, he decided, did. ‘This year shall see the north rise, a damned heretical Jezebel deprived of life, and the true faith restored.’

  ‘I don’t know about any of that,’ said Jack. ‘I – what is it you want me to do?’

  ‘Do? You don’t have to do anything but be a good friend. Pledge your loyalty to this fair queen and let your brothers do what they must.’

  A shiver of fear ran through him and he suddenly wanted to be with Amy – to listen to her little tales about the women servants and work. Heydon seemed to read his mind. ‘But you mustn’t say anything to anyone – not that wife of yours nor the earl and his folk nor anyone. That is the thing about men in our trade,’ he sighed. His voice had turned lofty, eloquent. ‘We must trade in the comforts of loose tongues for guarded ones. It’s why women are ill fit for this work; they talk loosely. Alas, a man on such secret service must trade his right to speak freely for the ... ah, the rewards of doing the right thing. But the rewards – the salvation of our souls and the adventure of it all – that makes it all worth it.’ Again, he clapped Jack’s shoulder. ‘You’re a good man, Jack Cole. You stick by me and I’ll see that you get all that you want out of this life.’

  ***

  So that was the Scottish queen, thought Amy as she walked towards the room off the laundry where the female servants had set up a temporary camp. What on earth did men see in her? Too tall by half, and with a baby face. Some men probably liked that, though – that look of innocence and pretty helplessness. But then men never knew what was good for them.

  She paused at the low doorway to the hall. There was no actual door, but some rough material hung from the lintel. Even working through the nights for weeks, it had been impossible to make Tutbury fully habitable. Instead, teams of servants had toiled to furnish and freshen a small number of chambers and halls, leaving the others to continue festering. Living in the few hastily assembled rooms felt like being on a little collection of islands amid an unfriendly sea. And despite everything the place still stank, the reek recognising no boundaries.

  She raised her hand to pull back the dividing curtain when she heard voices within. ‘I don’t like her,’ said one. She recognised it as belonging to one of her fellow maids, Alice. ‘You can tell she’s a bitch without her even opening her mouth.’ So, thought Amy – her colleagues were no more enamoured of the famous Mary Stuart than she was. />
  ‘Well see, there’s the problem. She’s a shrew into the bargain.’

  ‘What’s the husband like, though?’

  ‘The horse lad? I think he’s handsome.’

  ‘I think he’s odd – looks like she’s broken him down with the wagging tongue of hers. You heard him talk? You can barely hear him. I reckon he’s lost his tongue through listening to hers. Why are they even here anyway?’

  The conference dissolved into laughter and Amy felt her ice grip her heart. It melted as anger flared. She threw back the curtain and flounced into the room, her skirts trailing. ‘A fine right you have to speak ill of anyone,’ she snarled. Flustered, the two gossiping maids dropped their eyes to the ground. Alice looked up and began, ‘we weren’t speaking of you –’ but Amy cut her off.

  ‘I don’t give a damn who you were speaking of. Prating tongues that speak ill turn black and drop off.’ That was one of her mother’s warnings. ‘Although I’ll have you know my husband is worth ten of each of you. If he speaks softly it’s because his tongue isn’t so fat nor so stupid as yours.’ Then, knowing it was petty, she added, ‘maybe if you spent less time talking about other people, you’d be able to find husbands of your own. And not be such a pair of fat little pigeons.’ There, she thought. Bridges burnt. But she was still too angry to care. She threw herself into gathering as many bedsheets as she could and, with her arms laden, she turned on her heel and kicked the makeshift door aside.

  Once she was back in the hall, she felt tears sting and blinked them away. She had been nothing but nice to her fellow maidservants since she arrived – and they had seemed happy to rub along with her. Why, she wondered, why did people always have to be so false? And why did she always have to rise to it?