A Traitor's Tears

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  We reached Dover during the afternoon of the following day and pulled up on the outskirts, to consider what to do next.

  We were hot and tired. It was a beautiful day but the sun was too warm for comfort, and we were all, people and horses alike, dusted over with the pale chalk of the track. Around us were grassy hills where sheep were grazing, and high on one of the hills were the mighty walls and towers of the castle. In the distance, the Channel was a sparkling blue, dotted here and there with shipping.

  ‘Ryder and the rest are staying at the castle,’ I said. ‘But if they’re poking their noses into Ballanger’s weaving sheds, we’re more likely to find them there. We’d better find out where Ballanger works. Well, we do the usual thing, I suppose. We ask a vicar or an innkeeper.’

  ‘Try an innkeeper,’ said Brockley. ‘We’re all hungry and thirsty. We haven’t had any dinner or anything to drink for hours, and nor have the horses. Besides, we need an inn for the night. We’re not expected at the castle. We’re not official.’

  We had been to Dover before and could remember where to find the inn where we had stayed. It was called the Safe Harbour and we had found it satisfactory. We made for it, and Brockley was pleased to find the same ostler there. He was easily recognizable because of the gaps in his front teeth and the droop in his left eyelid. He remembered us as well. We knew he was a reliable man and, for once, Brockley was happy about leaving our horses in his care. Then we all gathered up our saddlebags and made our way round to the front entrance and into the vestibule.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ Brockley said. ‘Will you bespeak some ale and things to eat for us, madam? I’ll do the enquiring about Ballanger.’

  The innkeeper came hastening down the stairs as soon as he heard us arriving in the vestibule, and he didn’t disappoint us. The inn could provide rooms for the night; there was a cool parlour where we could partake of refreshments; and yes, the landlord did know of Ballanger’s establishment and could direct us there. In fact, the place was only a hundred yards away; we had passed it as we rode in. Standing in his front doorway, the landlord pointed it out to us.

  An hour later, our parched throats slaked with ale and our hunger pangs assuaged with cold pigeon pie and fresh bread, we set forth on foot for the Ballanger weaving shed. The horses, their hides now wisped clean of chalk dust, were left in peace in their comfortable stalls, with filled managers and buckets of well water.

  There was nothing secretive about the weaving sheds. Ballanger’s was a long timber building with a slate roof and a row of windows running, as far as we could see, right round the front and side walls. A wide double door opened on to the street and a cart, with a big grey horse between the shafts, stood in front of them. Bales of raw wool were being unloaded and carried inside.

  Though not quite in the businesslike fashion one might have expected, for the men with the bales all seemed to have heads cocked towards sounds from within, and we noticed raised eyebrows and the exchanging of meaningful glances.

  ‘I think we’re in luck,’ Brockley said. ‘Something’s going on – maybe Ryder and the rest are in there.’

  No one took any notice of us. We edged past a skinny youth clutching a bale nearly as big as himself and slipped inside to find ourselves in a place like a big, untidy cave. It had a flagstone floor and a door at the rear had the look of an internal door and presumably led into a further extension of the building. Above us, the ceiling was high, a criss-cross of beams supporting the slate roof and there were three glazed skylights, which amplified the light from the numerous windows. One could understand why natural light was so important. Fire would always be a danger in such a place, for one side of the cavernous room was full of piled up wool bales, to which the new delivery was being added, and the air was full of wool fibres, floating in the shafts of light from the windows. The naked flame of torch or candle would be perilous here.

  The centre of the floor was occupied by two big looms, though at the moment they were silent. The weavers were at their posts but giving all their attention to what was happening on the side of the room opposite to the bales. This was open space, except that half a dozen men were standing in it, involved in an intense discussion. Ryder and his squad were not, however, among them. We stepped out of the way of the bale carriers, and moved to stand by the wall and assess the scene before us. Still, no one seemed to have realized we were there. We were able to listen unchallenged.

  It took only a moment or two to identify Julius Ballanger, because just as we entered, someone addressed him by name. In any case, his well-fed frame and his smooth face, his confident stance and his broad, plausible smile would have marked him out as the man in charge, even though he was in working clothes: boots, breeches, loose shirt and sleeveless jerkin, with a round cap on his head, no doubt to keep wool fibres out of his hair. Beside him was a leaner man who had the air of a chief assistant. The others, who formed a group facing Ballanger and his companion, were dressed more formally, with ruffs and doublets and slashed hosiery. Ballanger was now refuting something that had been said to him. We cocked our ears.

  ‘… you have yourselves agreed that where there is a demand, a growing crowd of would-be customers, then a supply will be forthcoming from somebody. People like the worsted cloth. If they can’t get enough of it, at a reasonable price, in England, they’ll buy from abroad, and pay more. They’ll still buy from somewhere. So why should we in England not provide it for them, yes, and sell some of it abroad ourselves? It will bring in money, help to make England prosperous! You accept all this – you’ve said so, here, this afternoon, under this very roof. So why, now, are you trying to attach strings to it? Why on earth should I have to pay Danegeld to you, in return for a licence to make my loom official?’

  ‘Danegeld?’ said the foremost of the be-ruffed gentlemen, a dignified figure with a neatly trimmed fair beard and a hat with a definitely expensive brooch in it.

  ‘More money than education, that one,’ muttered Brockley in my ear.

  ‘Before the Norman Conquest,’ said Ballanger’s presumed assistant, ‘a king called Ethelred the Unready bribed the Danish Vikings not to raid English shores. The bribe was called Danegeld. It didn’t work. The Vikings took the money and went on raiding. Or so my schoolmaster told me, when I was a boy.’

  ‘We are not talking about bribes!’ said the fair-bearded gentleman indignantly. ‘We are representatives of the Wool Weavers’ Guild in this district and we have the interests of our members at heart. If some of the trades we represent, Master Ballanger, are to be curtailed because worsted cloth doesn’t need them, then there must be recompense in some way. That’s only right. There will be men put out of work. We recognize that licensed worsted looms are going to increase in number, because of public demand. We have said so. But …’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ said Ballanger, also indignantly. ‘We are going round in circles. First you agree, then you ask for a bribe …’

  ‘It is not a bribe!’

  ‘It most certainly is and it would bring my profit margin down to poverty level! I applied in good faith for a proper licence and this is the result!’

  He stopped as a sudden uproar broke out in the street. All heads turned that way. Then the skinny youth I had noticed as we came in burst through the door, almost tripping over the bale he was clutching, and behind him, thrusting him ahead of them like a bow wave, came another half-dozen men. John Ryder and his associates were not among these either. These men, like Ballanger himself, were dressed in working clothes. They were also carrying axes and, by their angry shouts, had a purpose for them.

  ‘What is this?’ Ballanger demanded, stepping immediately, and courageously, into their path. Brockley seized Dale’s hand and my arm, and pulled us both further away, into a shadowy corner.

  ‘You … you … ask that?’ The leader was a big man with the beefy shoulders of an ox and the axe he was carrying had a short handle but a dangerously glittering edge to its blade. He was red with rage and bare
ly coherent. ‘We’ve just got to know of this here … this deputation, this treacherous deputation, coming here to make terms with you and back up your demand for a license. You’ve got away with running this illegal place too long. We let you get away with it because we’re peaceable folk …’

  ‘You look peaceable, I must say,’ Ballanger said, or rather boomed. He had a powerful voice. ‘You’d sound more convincing if you weren’t waving axes.’

  ‘That’s quite right.’ The Weavers’ Guild spokesman bustled forward. ‘By what right do you come bursting in here, brandishing weapons and without an appointment …?’

  He stopped, because at that point, the intruders laughed and he probably noticed that his words were more than a little ridiculous. The axe-wielding leader broke in.

  ‘Peaceable we’ve been, for too long. Because just one illegal loom don’t make so much difference. But give you a licence, and there’ll be ten more like you, springing up, and saying if you can be legal, why can’t they, and snatching our work away out of our very hands. We’re carders and fullers, we are. We get our living carding wool ready for the looms and fulling the cloth in our mills, but worsted yarn isn’t carded and worsted cloth isn’t fulled and if your looms start sprouting up like mushrooms, where are our livelihoods?’

  ‘That’s right!’ shouted an excited voice from behind him. ‘Taking bread out of the mouths of our wives and children, you are, Ballanger, and we’re not going to have it.’

  ‘No, we ain’t!’ The rest of the newcomers joined in.

  ‘We won’t stand for it!’

  ‘No, that we won’t! We’ll make firewood of your looms, and we’re going to do it now! Come on, lads!’

  Dale let out a scared whimper. ‘Keep huddled in this corner,’ said Brockley. ‘We’ll get out when we can. This is going to be nasty.’

  It was nasty already. Ballanger’s assistant had sprung to his side and so had his weavers, forming a line between the intruders and the looms. Axes were flourished menacingly. After an uncertain moment, the Guild representatives moved to join the defenders, two of them drawing daggers.

  And then, at last, came the familiar voice of John Ryder, bellowing: ‘Stop!’ in a more stentorian tone than I had ever heard him use before, and in through the door, striding purposefully, came Ryder himself and ten liveried men behind him, all with swords out. The angry intruders swung round to be confronted with a row of sword points. From the defenders, a cheer broke out. The invaders started to expostulate but Ryder raised his voice again.

  ‘An end to this unseemly business! Everyone who is not part of this establishment – leave now!’ A jerk of his head and his men moved to leave the way out clear. ‘Or you’ll be taken up for causing a public affray.’

  ‘Now see here!’ The leader of the carders and fullers was truculent, standing with feet apart and gripping the handle of his axe in a determined fashion. ‘We’re here with a right good grievance and you can’t—’

  ‘I can. You leave these premises, or I can send to the castle and have a squad down here big enough to take every man of you to its dungeons. I’d have brought them with me if I’d known this was happening. I only found out on the way here! All Dover is buzzing with rumours about angry carders and fullers getting together to attack Ballangers. But it was still a disagreeable shock to find a lot of deliverymen clustered round the street door, scared out of their wits, and saying that there were madmen inside, threatening people with axes! I represent law and order and mean to have it respected. I repeat, everyone who doesn’t belong here – go!’

  They were going, the carders and fullers first, pushing axes into belts, melting past him, slipping off through the entrance. Their leader snarled at them to stay but only a couple lingered beside him, until Ryder walked towards them, sword in hand, whereupon they gave in and trailed out after the rest of their friends. They were all, I thought, essentially honest tradesmen who had been stirred up by rabble-rousing speeches, but were not really in the habit of marching about in gangs, brandishing weapons. The gentlemen from the Weavers’ Guild followed them out, though in a more dignified manner.

  ‘We were here on proper business, at the invitation of Master Julius Ballanger,’ their leader said as he came level with Ryder.

  ‘I also have proper business, though not at Master Ballanger’s invitation,’ Ryder said dryly. ‘Mine, however, is on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. You may pursue your own business some other time.’

  He nodded in satisfaction as the last of them went out and then, turning, found himself looking straight at me and the Brockleys, as, indeed, the Ballangers and their weavers were now doing.

  A familiar figure emerged from the party of men with Ryder. ‘Mistress Stannard? Whatever are you doing here?’ said Roland Wyse.

  He sounded astonished. As well he might, I thought, if he really had doctored my wine that evening in The Boar. He had probably believed that I was dead or at least seriously indisposed. Finding me here must be quite a shock.

  ‘Who are these people?’ Master Ballanger said. ‘When did they come in? I never noticed them!’

  ‘You were much engaged with the leader of the deputation from the Weavers’ Guild,’ I said. ‘You didn’t see us. Captain John Ryder knows who we are, though.’

  ‘Yes, although how you come to be here is a mystery,’ said Ryder. ‘But we’ll discuss that later. I won’t order you out though I must ask you to keep back and not interfere.’ He turned to his men. ‘You have your orders,’ he said. ‘Search these premises. Don’t miss one single cranny. Test every floorboard, every panel, every keyhole. Proceed! You.’ He pointed his sword at the Ballangers and their employees. ‘Stay where you are. Wyse, bring in the fellows who were delivering the wool. I’ll keep them all together.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’ demanded Ballanger. ‘What do you mean, search these premises? Who are you? What do you expect to find?’

  ‘Priests, possibly,’ said Ryder. ‘My name is Captain John Ryder, and I am here on the orders of one Francis Walsingham. You may have heard of him.’

  Ballanger stood with his mouth open, struck speechless. Ryder’s men scattered about their tasks and Ryder himself came over to us. I said, ‘Has a queen’s messenger found you?’

  ‘Yes. He reached the castle just as we were about to set out for this place. He delayed us. I’ve read the message.’ Wyse had gone out to fetch the deliverymen, but Ryder dropped his voice all the same. ‘Roland Wyse has apparently been doing very odd things with the cipher letter found on Jarvis’s body, and Walsingham wants an explanation. Wyse knows nothing of this, by the way. I take it that you do, however. I assume that it’s the reason why you’re here.’

  Wyse reappeared, herding the deliverymen in front of him and pushed them to stand by the looms with the Ballangers and their people.

  ‘Leave them there and join the search,’ said Ryder. ‘I’ll stand guard.’ He ran a finger suggestively along the blade of his sword. The group by the looms looked nervous. Wyse gave me a further puzzled glance, but obeyed, disappearing through the door at the rear of the room. I watched him go and then turned back to Ryder.

  ‘On Brockley’s behalf,’ I said, ‘I have been searching out facts. They made me suspicious of Wyse. When we came across him at The Boar, I set a trap. I don’t know whether the message from Walsingham mentioned it, but …’

  Ryder listened attentively while I described my trick with the wine, the discovery of the dead mice and the details of my conversation with Walsingham. ‘He doesn’t know we’re in Dover,’ I finished.

  ‘I daresay! No, his message didn’t tell me about it. It’s been left to me to decide whether to question Wyse at once or take him back to London first. I suspect you would like me to do some questioning myself, forthwith?’

  ‘Yes.’ I looked at Brockley and Dale. ‘All three of us have a stake in this.’

  His brow creased. ‘This is a serious matter. I must consider it carefully. I must also finish my task here, as well. I
have orders to do that.’

  I said, ‘How is it that you didn’t get here – to these works, I mean – before? You say the queen’s messenger delayed you this morning, but you surely reached Dover yesterday!’

  ‘The hazards of travel. One horse cast a shoe, miles from a forge, of course. Miles from anywhere! It was open common, all around. We had to lead the horse slowly for two hours to find any habitations, with its rider perched behind a friend. Then we found a village with a smithy and had the new shoe put on – after a long wait while the customer ahead of us had two plough horses and a pony shod. All round, four shoes for each of them. Then next day, one of the other horses stumbled in a pothole, came down and cut its off foreleg badly. Again, we were miles from anywhere, though we did find a farm where we could leave the animal to be looked after. But then we had to carry on with another man riding double, until we found a hiring stables where we could get a replacement. We didn’t get to Dover till last night. I’d begun to think we never would! Where are you putting up?’

  ‘The Safe Harbour,’ said Brockley.

  Ryder looked at him seriously. ‘I wish with all my heart, old friend, that you were indeed in a safe harbour. If it was a shock when we arrived here to find that a dangerous mob was ahead of us, it was just as big a shock to find you inside!’

  Brockley said, ‘Wyse is coming back. I think they’ve found something.’

  Wyse was hurrying towards us from the rear door. ‘Captain, there’s something you should see!’

  ‘A priest in hiding?’ asked Ryder hopefully.

  ‘No, sir. But perhaps a place where one might have hidden. It’s through there.’ He pointed to the door.

  ‘Show us,’ said Ryder.

  I and the Brockleys were not exactly invited to accompany Ryder and Wyse, but we went anyway and no one objected. The rear door, it turned out, led into living quarters. Unlike the weaving shed, they were built of stone and were probably older. We found ourselves first of all in a passageway that stretched from left to right. A door immediately opposite to us, however, was open and we followed Wyse through, to find ourselves in a dining chamber, big enough to seat twelve, with pewter and silverware displayed on a walnut sideboard. The left-hand wall had panelling; the others were of bare stone except for one mille fleurs tapestry.