A Dangerous Trade: An Elizabethan Spy Thriller

by Steven Veerapen

  Inwardly, Jack smiled. Stupid, Bible-spouting heretic. How much better was Latin – a language that buried the irksome lessons of the words in music. ‘Anyway, you should be free of that lady’s influence by the time we reach Wingfield.’ He mopped his forehead with his hand. ‘Jesus, but it shall be a good thing to be quit of this evil place. The poor earl, too – the damp is doing nothing for his humours.’

  ‘We’re leaving?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yes.’ Woodward licked his lips and looked around with a frown. Then he shrugged. ‘No secret to it. Not within the household. Still, if anything falls upon the Scotch queen on the road, I’ll know who to blame, eh? Oh, good day, Mr Heydon.’

  Heydon joined them, slightly out of breath. ‘Good day, Mr Woodward. I understand we are to be on the move before long?’

  ‘News travels fast. Yes, and may God be a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths.’

  Heydon’s mouth formed into the briefest of moues. ‘Very good. Yet I understand the Scottish queen has a request.’

  ‘A reque- what now?’

  ‘Some items that are now in Scotland – she wishes them brought to her. Dresses, jewels, that manner of thing.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’ asked Woodward. Jack’s eyes widened. The old man was sharper than he looked.

  ‘I had it of Mr Morgan,’ shrugged Heydon. ‘He has traffic with the queen’s train from time to time.’ How easy he made lying look. Woodward peered at him down the length of his long nose for a time, as though hoping to detect something. ‘The woman has only just dispatched a man to Scotland. Why has she not asked him to fetch her things back?’

  ‘She forgot,’ said Heydon, giving Woodward a wearied look. ‘Women.’

  ‘Forgot? Ha!’ The steward looked up towards the castle and then back at Heydon. ‘Don’t think I am a fool, sir. Do I look like a fool? I think I begin to see exactly what is passing here.’

  Jack sensed his seemingly unflappable friend stiffen. He did likewise, drawing in a sharp breath. ‘That woman forgot nothing,’ snapped Woodward, slamming a fist into his thigh. ‘She dispatched her own man with no instructions hoping that the earl would have to shoulder the costs of her transport. That is her game – to spend nothing herself and spend our master into the almshouse.’ Heydon and Jack relaxed.

  ‘You have got the measure of her, sir,’ said Heydon. Woodward looked triumphant, but it was a hollow kind of triumph. Eventually he sighed, his whole body seeming to crumple.

  ‘And cannot these things be sent?’

  ‘Apparently the queen wants them fetched. By reliable men of the earl’s. Otherwise she fears they may be stolen and then she should charge them to our sovereign lady.’

  ‘Of course she does,’ murmured Woodward. ‘And we must dance to her tune, eh? I tell you, I shall be glad when this queen is disposed of – ah,’ he added quickly, ‘when our lord is relieved of her.’

  ‘You meet me in that, sir,’ smiled Heydon. ‘If you like I can fetch the things from Scotland.’

  ‘You?’ Woodward’s face screwed up.

  ‘Yes, sir. I don’t mind. In truth if it means an escape from this castle ahead of our move, I should welcome it. If the earl can get me a safe conduct, I should be glad to go.’

  ‘You cannot go alone.’ He turned his attention to Jack. ‘Take Cole with you. For the horses. He’s still acting as that queen’s imp, more’s the pity, until her own master of horse arrives. I release him. Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble, eh?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good, excellent. The earl shall have to write the secretary for that passport. Shan’t be long. The road to London has never been so well stocked with messengers. Well then, get you gone. I’ve enough to do making good this move. Ah, but to be away from this damned place.’ With a weary shake of his head, Woodward tramped in the direction Shrewsbury had gone.

  ‘Fuck you,’ mouthed Heydon after him. Then he turned to Jack. ‘You see, mate. Told you that the true faith would grant you what you wish. Travel. I’m sorry it’s only that heretic-riddled northern waste, but it’s a start, right?’

  ‘We’re really going?’ asked Jack in wonder. ‘We’re really going to travel?’ Then he gave his own little look of distaste. ‘To gather and bring back some dresses and jewels?’

  ‘Haha! Not a bit of it. Oh, we’re going, to be sure – right into the belly of the beast. The land of wild men in the mountains and fire-breathing preachers filled to the brim with heresy, eh? But,’ he said, taking Jack’s arm and moving him away from the stinking mass of servants, ‘we need to get something out of that realm a damn sight worthier than some baubles and trinkets.’

  ***

  Amy made her way down from the castle with her latest bundle of dirty laundry. This time the castle’s guards ignored her entirely. She imagined that they thought her a vile shrew, neither worthy of speaking to or leering at. Good, she thought – let them think it.

  She made her way into the parklands and sat down on a fallen log. Finally, winter seemed to have given up the ghost. She breathed deeply of the fresh air. One grew so used to the permanent stench of Tutbury that even on sweetening day the sewage didn’t seem to bother you; but when you managed to get out into the open air it was like being given a fresh meal after starvation. She enjoyed a few lungfuls before she put her lips together and blew. A few bars of ‘The Hunt is Up’ were her signal. At intervals she whistled them.

  For weeks now, she had been engaged in passing information to the mysterious man in brown. He had terrified her that first time, when he had grabbed her, and she thought she was about to be murdered or worse. Yet he had whispered in her ear, calming her. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s secretary’s men – an agent working on behalf of Sir William Cecil. It was his job to discover what was really going on within the earl’s household: whether anyone was too familiar with the Scottish queen, the earl and countess included; whether her confinement was too loose; whether the soldiers were reliable or lazy. It was a funny thing, that – Mr Brown, as Cecil’s man called himself, had been encouraged to spy even on loyal English soldiers. A fake name, she guessed, or a convenient one.

  She had acquiesced, because what else could she do? She considered feeding him only the weakest of information – saying that Mary Stuart’s captivity was rock-hard, and that the earl’s household disdained her entirely. But she didn’t want to lie if the lies could be caught out. And Brown had caught her – quite literally – on a day when she had been eager to spit hatred at everything within Tutbury’s walls.

  Her husband, she suspected, had developed some fascination with the damned Scottish queen, as ridiculous as that was. She had felt it – known it – when he had come in from one of her hunting expeditions. His eyes had been bright and wild, and he had kissed her with an unusual force. Then he had half-carried her into the crumbling lodge – the place used now for drying sheets whilst workmen fitted it out as a servants’ dormitory – and made love to her. It was quite unlike the sticky fumbling that had characterised their relations in their old chambers – the ones which were over as quickly as she suspected all lovemaking was the world over. It was wild and, in other circumstances, might have been exciting. Afterwards, she had felt cheap. It was no better than whoredom making love to someone who was thinking about someone else.

  Worse, she suspected Mary of encouraging Jack’s lusts, casting her smiles around at everyone to win friends. But more than anything she wanted the traitorous little priest Heydon to be carried off, preferably by an armed troop. But how to engineer that without compromising Jack? At all costs she had to protect him. He was being an idiot and worse, but he was her husband. He needed her protection.

  At length Brown appeared through the undergrowth. As always, he made no sound, alerted her in no way to his coming. As always, she started.

  ‘Good day to you, Mrs Cole,’ he said. ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘They’re moving her to Wingfield,’ she said
. She liked that he went straight to business.

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know. Before April is out.’

  ‘I see. I suppose the earl has already sought permission for that, then. I shall find some lodging nearby there – do not try and reach me. I will reach you if I can.’

  Not for the first time, Amy wondered how on earth Cecil and his men operated. From Brown’s example, it seemed they gathered information that was freely given by honest means. It almost seemed like they distrusted one another – the great secretary his men, and probably the men each other. ‘The priest Heydon,’ she said. ‘He is still overfamiliar with the Scottish queen’s folk.’

  Brown spat at the ground. It was rare for him to show emotion but mention of priests always brought it out. ‘Damned rat.’

  ‘Have you discovered anything about him?’ she asked, genuinely interested in the man who had stolen her husband from her.

  ‘No. I have passed his name on.’ That was disappointing. ‘He will be one of many. We had out of one that there is something planned on the true queen’s life.’

  ‘What?’ She stood up. ‘Queen Elizabeth?’ A clever woman, people said. Dressed extravagantly. Amy’s mother used to say of her ‘she’s her mother all over again, that one’ – whatever that meant.

  ‘It is the wish of all that rabble, whatever they say, to make an end of our sovereign lady. Their foul religion – these are the corruptions it breeds in the mind and body. Others like me have heard similar across the north, as I understand. Though what they are plotting we cannot see. Nothing has come from Norfolk? The soldiers haven’t been turned to Mary and brought her letters?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Amy had always tried to dance around the issue of Norfolk. Jack was too involved in that, she suspected. How could he not be? But Brown’s piercing blue eyes held hers.

  ‘Your husband is in no danger from that quarter. Mr Secretary knows all about my lord of Norfolk. He is willing to let the farce play out. It may stop that damned Scotch whore from applying her mind to bloodier designs.’

  ‘You mean Queen Mary knows nothing of any plot to kill Queen Elizabeth?’ At this, Brown gave her an appraising look. She thought she saw something like grudging respect in his eyes. But he only shrugged.

  ‘Who knows with the papists? They have their hands in many evil enterprises. Did you know there was a man killed near here last year?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy, thinking of the countess’s enquiries at the town’s tavern. ‘I heard something about that.’

  ‘One of our own – one of the queen’s secretary’s men. Stuck like a pig and left on the highway, as though some thief had robbed him.’

  ‘How do you know it was a Catholic who got him?’

  ‘Because,’ snapped Brown, looking at her as though she were stupid, ‘a gentleman in the service of my master and our queen does not give way to thievery. No, he was butchered by one of these papist animals, God rest him. But …’ He took off his cap and ran a hand through silvery-white hair. ‘You understand what should happen if our queen is taken off suddenly?’ Amy shook her head, her eyes wide. ‘A whole army of northern men will come down and carry that whore out of here – out of any place she rests her wicked head – and proclaim her queen. A Catholic queen. And then there will be bloody civil war. And it will be the full fury of Catholic Europe unleashed against good Englishmen.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Amy. The Catholic faith meant little to her. It was simply the smell of her childhood. Her mother, God rest her, had burned candles, and invoked saints when she lost things. She had had nothing against it, but no strong feeling for it, either. That was, until she had heard Heydon converting her husband to it.

  ‘Oh? Oh? I don’t think you understand the horror, woman. Do you know what the Catholics will do? Babes shall be roasted alive on spits. Women and boys shall be raped by pock-marked priests, and good men torn asunder. Unless …’ She let his silence draw out, looking past him into the horrors of war. ‘Unless,’ he added, ‘you have the courage to use this.’

  From a pocket hanging from his belt, Brown withdrew a tiny stoppered bottle. ‘What is it?’ she asked. But she already knew.

  ‘A few drops of this will see that accursed whore in her grave and this realm secure.’

  ‘You … you want me to murder Queen Mary?’ gasped Amy. She had stood, and she began backing away. Through the canopy of leaves a spear of sunlight hit the bottle, making it twinkle.

  ‘No,’ said Brown solemnly. ‘Not unless you have word – unassailable word from every mouth from here to London – that our sovereign lady lies dead and Mary Stuart still lives. Then, and only then, to save the lives of every loyal subject of Elizabeth, should you ensure that the Scot drinks of what she has brewed herself for many men. A few drops alone will do it.’

  She stood transfixed by the little vial, slowly shaking her head. ‘I … I can’t. I couldn’t.’

  ‘You have no choice,’ snapped Brown. ‘I may be in London – I may be anywhere – when the Catholics strike. Master Secretary must know that should our queen fall, there will be no false papist usurper to take her place.’

  Brown moved towards her and grabbed her wrist, forcing her hand open and jamming the vial against her palm. It was cold, but her fingers closed over it. ‘There,’ he said. ‘And pray God you never have to use it, for if you do, it means that our sovereign lady has been slain. Lock it up somewhere safe. Under a loose board, or some such secure place.’ Amy was still shaking her head, but her eyes had fallen on Brown’s, hazel green lost in the glare of crystal blue. ‘Of course,’ he said, his voice turning smooth, ‘you can prevent all that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You help me stop any Catholic plotters dead.’

  ‘But … but the Scotch queen will have someone to taste her food. Before she eats it. Surely she will?’

  ‘Bah! A nonsense job of work. No good poison goes to work immediately. This one will take some hours, long after the queen has judged her meat tasty and fair. If she eats it at noon, by the time the sun falls she will have given up the ghost. First her insides will churn, and then her innards will revolt. I …’ He paused, watching Amy’s face. She had felt the colour drain from it. ‘Never mind tasters, girl. This must be used to stop any plotters in their tracks, to rob them of their false idolatrous queen. No matter who they are, do you understand me?’ His tone thickened with meaning. ‘If your husband falls in with these evil brutes, I will do what I can to save him. If you tell me all that you see, tell me all that they do, open up their hearts to Secretary Cecil.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amy. ‘Yes. I will.’ He nodded once and then turned, marching deeper into the woodlands. She fell to her knees and buried her face in the sodden laundry. After a while, she stood, her legs wobbling, and tucked the vial into her bosom.

  4

  Letters and documents had never greatly interested Jack. They were the stuff of lawyers, of masters, of nobles. But the document Heydon had spoken of – the one locked in a casket deep in the private home of Queen Mary’s bastard brother – that was different. It was exciting. It was a dusty thing – probably, Heydon said, a forgery – but something necessary to a far greater scheme. It purported to be a charter written by the ancient Scots acknowledging England’s suzerainty over them. Who had really written it, and when, and why – none of that mattered. If it could be pried from the earl of Moray’s secret coffer and brought to England, it would kill off any of the stuffy old lawyers’ claims that Scotland’s kings – that Scotland’s queen – were foreigners and unfit to inherit the English throne. If Elizabeth died suddenly, and proof were discovered that Scotland was a mere vassal of England, its people not foreign but English subjects, then Queen Mary would be the rightful heir.

  And Queen Elizabeth would die suddenly. Of that Jack felt quite confident.

  He had balked when Heydon had suggested it, but his friend had quickly pointed out that the English queen was older than Queen Mary. She led a single life, which everyone kne
w dried out the body. She had had smallpox before and nearly died – the next illness would carry her off for sure. And then there would be men who would say, ‘we cannot have the Scotch queen be our mistress – she is a foreigner and the laws of the land decry it’. Those men, Heydon had explained, had to be shut up. If it took a dodgy document filched from the servile earl of Moray, so be it.

  As April marched on the household at Tutbury – now a sprawling confusion of arriving Scots and French and the Shrewsburys’ English staff and hangers-on – began to pack up for the move to Wingfield. The day before he and Heydon were due to leave for Scotland, Jack sought out Amy.

  He took a gift – a little package of honeyed pastry he had begged from the kitchen – and found her carrying some folded napkins in from the courtyard. It was almost exactly a year since they had been married; it seemed the thing to do. She gave him a wan smile, looked down at the bundle of soiled rags in her hands and then at the package he carried. ‘Your thing looks more interesting,’ she said.

  Jack smiled and took her by the elbow, stepping to the side with her to allow some men carrying a table board to pass outside. ‘I wanted to see you,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed you.’ That was true. He had been sleeping poorly at nights. He had grown used to the sound of her light breathing near him, lulling him off. Sleeping in a corner of the stables at Tutbury, the night was punctuated by farting, snoring, and often mumbling. Worse than that was the intermittent sound of marching feet as soldiers patrolled the castle grounds above. Lights burned incessantly too. It was difficult to sleep in a place that never slept itself.

  ‘I thought you had plenty of company with your new friend,’ she said, before biting her lip. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ve been busy is all. But now that Queen Mary has her own man to look after her horses and grooms things will go back as they were. I think. I just have to do one thing first.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  ‘I have to go with Philip up to Scotland.’