Unicorn's Blood

by Patricia Finney

  At the moment, though, he was no more able to move than Sidney, since his head reeled and pounded and his breath came short if he so much as sat up.

  “Listen,” he snarled sideways at Sidney, who was looking mulish. “The bone is shattered above the knee, it was poking through like kindling wood. I saw it. How can you ever get it straight?”

  “I have heard it can be done.”

  “Where? When? Who by? And I want to meet the man it was done to as well, I want him to walk in here and show me his two straight legs. I am no surgeon, but I know this much: if broken ends of the bone have gone through the skin, that’s it, that is the end, for bad airs get into the flesh and it sickens and blackens and if it be not cut off at once, you die screaming. Do not argue with me, sir, I have seen it, I have seen it too bloody often. Call the surgeons and have them cut.”

  Sidney was clamping his mouth again, the boat’s rocking was moving him against the splints on his leg. He shook his head.

  “Are you afraid of the pain?” Becket demanded rudely. “There’s no blame to you if you are, only have courage. If the surgeon is good enough, it takes but thirty seconds . . .”

  “I am not afraid of the pain.”

  “Why then? Why do you want to die stinking?”

  “I . . . I must be able to serve the Queen. I must not be . . . hideous to her. She will have no man about her at Court if he is not whole and good to look on and she likes me little enough as it is.”

  “For God’s sake . . .”

  “I owe at least thirty thousand pounds, some of it to the Queen. I must try and recoup it, and where else can I do it but at Court? Would you have me search for Raleigh’s El Dorado with my wooden leg, eh, Becket? Now be silent.”

  “No, you can order me no more, sir; I am no longer your sword-master since you have no further need of one. If you want, I’ll sit by you and hold your hand, but I say to you again: have the surgeons cut it off. At once. Before it goes black . . .”

  “No.”

  Sidney shut his eyes and pretended to sleep, which Becket knew was a lie, since his hands were clamped to the side of his litter until his knuckles shone like dice.

  For days Becket stormed and begged as far as his lack of blood would allow him and Sidney remained obdurate. A French surgeon was found for him by the Earl of Leicester, chewing his moustache and red with worry and misery. Apparently it was the very man who claimed to have searched and set just such a wound before, successfully. True to his promise Becket let his hand be crushed while Sidney lay strapped to a table and the surgeon did his work. After an hour of probing, cutting and moving bits of bone around, the surgeon shook his head and said in broken English that it was beyond his power to know where the ball had gone, but at least he had found the wad. Instead of boiling oil, he advised a mixture of honey and rose-water to be poured into the wound to counteract the gunpowder poisoning, and said it was possible the wound might heal even with the ball still lodged.

  Becket felt sorry he had accused Sidney of being afraid of the pain of amputation; he doubted it could have been much worse than such a long hour of searching and Sidney had said nothing throughout.

  In the days following, to Becket’s astonishment, Sidney seemed to be getting better. Every day, morning and evening, he sniffed suspiciously at the bandages for the deadly smell of gangrene, and did not find it. To be sure, Sidney lost flesh like a wax puppet left by the fire and after a week had sores on his back from lying so long, but considering he should have been dead by then, was remarkably well. By that time Becket was up and moving about, a little doddery, but gaining strength every day. The surgeon returned to take out his stitches and considered that if he moved his arm enough to keep the wound soft, he would find no harm come to him from the slash.

  Sidney’s leg was dressed and it seemed to be well enough; it was wasted and pale below the crater left by the bullet but had not gone blue or black and he had feeling in his toes and could move them. It was only the way he would keep flaring up into fevers and then fall into heavy sleep that concerned the surgeon, who believed that the bullet was releasing its gunpowder poisons within.

  Becket, being the man he was and in the rare condition for him of having some money, soon found the boozing kens of Arnhem and a couple of pretty punks. With them as an incentive his Dutch returned to him, which gave him great satisfaction, quite apart from the buttery charms of the girls themselves. Whenever Dyer or Fulke Greville or the Earl of Leicester was there to keep Sidney company, Becket would quietly slope off to drink geneva and aqua vitae with his girls.

  Late one afternoon – Becket had just done telling them for the fifth time the sad story of how a woman he loved in London had fallen with child by him and then refused to marry him, but instead married some bastard burgher with a fatter purse – he noticed that there was another man in the taproom who kept looking at him, as bony-faced as a horse, wearing the buff coat of a soldier and a nervous expression. Becket toasted him in Dutch and invited him over.

  The man wanted a private talk, so Becket regretfully left his girls and went out into the street with the man.

  “Is it true you are Sir Philip Sidney’s sword-master?” the man wanted to know. Becket agreed that he was, and being a little drunk, added some stirring stuff about how he had saved Sir Philip’s life at Zutphen.

  “Sir, I will be straight with you,” said the man in English. “I am a Catholic Englishman in the service of Parma.”

  Becket’s hand instantly went to his sword-hilt.

  “Please, sir, I have . . . important information concerning the Queen. Please.”

  “Why would you care about her, being a traitor?” Becket demanded, thrusting his face close to the man’s.

  “To be a Catholic is not necessarily to be a traitor,” said the man steadily, “although those around the Queen would make it so. If the Queen would allow it, I would far rather fight for her, but she will not and I must live, knowing no other trade.”

  “Hmf,” said Becket, moving back but still keeping his hand near his sword.

  The man smiled a little. “Besides,” he said, “it may well be the Providence of God that sent me to fight for Parma. Otherwise I would never have heard of this matter.”

  Becket and the man had reached the canal-side, and they sat themselves down at one of the sentry-places.

  “Well?” Becket wanted to know.

  “Parma has got wind of a deadly libel against the Queen, something that would turn most of her subjects against her.”

  “This is nothing new,” sniffed Becket, thinking sadly about his two blonde pigeons who had no doubt found other company. “The Papists are always publishing some such filth about her. What is it this time? That she has borne three children by the Earl of Leicester and Raleigh is her new paramour?”

  The man grinned. “No. This is a different thing altogether. I want to show it to your master, Sir Philip Sidney.”

  “Why not me?”

  “With respect, sir, you are not Sir Francis Walsingham’s son-in-law.”

  “Why not tell it to Sir Francis himself?”

  “Because, sir, Walsingham is in England and I am in the Netherlands and I have no wish to risk the rack. I was to pass the knowledge I have to someone who can see it investigated and then my conscience will be clear.”

  Becket nodded. “Well, what kind of proof do you have that this libel is not some chimera you have dreamt up for gold?”

  “A letter from Parma to the King of Spain concerning it.”

  Becket raised his eyebrows. “How did you get it?”

  “Among other things, I am the courier.”

  Becket laughed and shrugged. “Very well, I’ll get you in to meet Sidney.”

  The meeting happened that night, while Sidney was working on a song to be called “La Cuisse Rompue,” upon what he called the sad and hilarious matter of his wounding. He was in good spirits and had eaten well, showing no signs of fever.

  Sidney had never had much to do with W
alsingham’s intelligence gathering, but he knew enough to be able to open the courier’s bag secretly by taking a plaster-of-Paris impression of the seals.

  Within was a number of letters, some militarily quite useful, but only one double-sealed in oiled silk. With great care, they unpicked the stitching. Parma had used a simple numerical cypher combined with code-names in clear: some were easy to understand, such as “Jezebel” for the Queen, and some more difficult, such as the Book of the Unicorn.

  Sidney called one of his secretaries to make copies of all the letters, while he talked affably with the courier who insisted that his name was Smith.

  When the copying was done, they resealed the silk and the bag itself and gave Smith gold for his service and safe conduct out of Arnhem – although, as Becket said, it was equally likely he had been sent to show them a wild goose to chase, to distract them from something else.

  Becket knew Spanish and Sidney had been learning it. They spent much of the night on cracking the cypher, over a jug of wine and some sausage. After a few hours’ sleep they went back to it, Sidney quite merry to have something to keep his mind off his various pains and his boredom. Becket told him of the little Jew, Simon Ames, who could undoubtedly have cracked the cypher in an hour, but unfortunately was dead and Sidney agreed. He had known the man, who had in fact recommended Becket as his sword-master, but this way was more amusing.

  At last they had prized open the oyster, to find within a very black pearl, as Sidney said, if it was a true one.

  A Jesuit had come to Parma straight from England, saying that he had met an old woman, once a nun. The old nun claimed to have come by a manuscript book of the Queen’s, embroidered with a unicorn, which contained her last will and testament, written when she was fourteen, that named the Queen of Scots as her heir. It also contained a confession as to how she had come so close to death, and that was the gunpowder in the bomb.

  There was no amusement in it at all when the cypher finally yielded. Sidney had gone white when they realised what was emerging from their work. Becket, who was far less of an idealist, had begun wondering uncomfortably how far he could get from England and still live somewhere reasonably civilized. Constantinople, perhaps. He had heard that Turks could keep six wives if they wanted.

  Sidney’s bony hands were shaking as they held the scrawled paper.

  “If Parma’s ‘Jezebel’ is the Queen . . .” he whispered.

  “She must be; who else commands the Earl of Leicester?”

  “Then . . . then she is no virgin, nor never has been since she was fourteen.”

  Becket nodded glumly. “If it be true. It could be a ruse.”

  Sidney rallied a little at the suggestion. “Of course it could be a black Papist lie to dissever us from her allegiance,” he said. “But . . . but see here, it seems Parma believes it. This is addressed to Father Parsons in Rheims, asking him to send another priest to track down the old nun and buy her book from her.”

  “That might be a lie also. For our benefit.”

  “It seems genuine.”

  “Well, it would, if it were a lie. Why did the Jesuit not buy the book at once, when he heard about it last year?”

  “See here, it says he was hunted and could not stay to search for her again.”

  Sidney was silent, staring out of Mlle Gruithuissen’s long glazed window, watching the people in the street distort and ripple as they passed by the glass.

  “If it is a lie, it is a black and wicked one which must be stopped,” he said at length, “If it is the truth . . .”

  “Depend upon it, they lie.”

  “But if it is the truth . . . then the Queen is no better than a whore.” Sidney’s voice shook.

  “Well, Sir Philip,” Becket said uncomfortably, “the Papists have always said she has the Earl of Leicester in her bed and Sir Christopher Hatton in her bed and now Sir Walter Raleigh; God knows they have given her the entire Court as her lovers before now. Why are you so distressed?”

  Sidney’s wraithlike fist came down on the table next to his bed with a surprising crack. “Because no one could live five minutes at Court and think it true,” he shouted. “No one could know my father-in-law or my uncle and believe a word of it. Jesus Christ, Becket, if Walsingham thought for a second she was not chaste, he would never serve her, never in a thousand years. Knowing the man, if he thought her a woman of such immorality, he might well work against her. At least he would remove to the Netherlands. He would have nothing to do with her. And my uncle of Leicester also. I have heard him talk about her, how in their youth she would dance with him and ride with him, and tap his cheek or lean on his shoulder and it would drive him wild because he desired her and she would never yield.”

  “Surely it is a lie, Sir Philip . . .”

  “But a plausible lie,” shouted Sidney, his hollow cheeks flushing unhealthily. “It’s the most plausible lie they have ever told. Not Leicester, not Hatton, not now when her every move is surrounded by eyes, but long long ago, in her brother’s reign, when she was a chit of a girl. And there was scandal then about her, I know, my uncle told me of it. There were rumours that she was with child of Thomas Seymour, the Admiral of England.”

  “Who?” Becket asked, puzzling at the new name. Sidney huffed with impatience.

  “The Lord Protector’s brother, who married King Henry’s last Queen. They say he tried to oust his brother from the Protectorship by kidnapping the boy – King Edward one night; only one of the Court lap-dogs raised the alarm and King Edward’s guards were roused when he shot it. He died on the block for treason and nearly dragged the Princess Elizabeth down with him.”

  “He was her paramour? When she was a girl?”

  “She was his ward, she lived in his household after he married Catherine Parr. There were evil rumours, it was said that Catherine Parr found her in Seymour’s arms. Certainly she was sent from the household. When Seymour was arrested, they arrested her servants as well and the Council had her interrogated for a week on suspicion she was part of Seymour’s plot. She stayed away from Court for nine months or more. And then she returned. My uncle said he himself believed ill of her, as the whispers passed around, but then when he saw her, so slender and pale and always thereafter until she came to the throne, always dressed in grey or white, as almost a nun . . .”

  Sidney buried his face in his hands and struggled for breath.

  “Sir, sir,” said Becket, “be calm, please. This is only a Papist lie.”

  “You know it could be true,” Sidney whispered.

  “I know simply talking of it as we are doing is certainly treason,” said Becket grimly. “I say we burn the papers, forget the whole thing . . .”

  “We cannot. The original letter is on its way to Rheims.”

  “Intercept the man, kill him; burn those letters also.”

  “To put such a thing in train, I must tell my uncle,” Sidney answered quietly. “Do you think I should do that?”

  Becket took a breath to answer, then thought a little further. “Perhaps not,” he allowed.

  “Do you think I should tell my father-in-law.”

  Becket winced. “No.”

  “If the Queen is not our Belphoebe, if she is not our Astraea, if she is no more a virgin than a strumpet at the Falcon, then she is nothing. She has founded her Court on a lie, a most corrupt and abject and wicked lie.”

  Becket shrugged. “So? Why are you so distressed?”

  “Do you not care? Why does it not distress you, Becket?”

  “I have known many whores. They seemed no worse than other women, and some of the better because more willing to please.” He tried to make a joke of it, to lighten the atmosphere, but it fell flat. It came to him then that one of the things that made Sidney what he was lay in a kind of willed innocence. The ethereal ladies of his phantasy were one thing; real women were too practical and earthy for him. As far as Becket knew, he had had no carnal dealings with women at all until he was handfasted to Frances Walsingham.


  For the first time Becket wondered if Sidney was a boy-lover, like the Earls of Oxford and Southampton, but no, that was too simple an answer. As the Greeks said, the only real friendship was between men: how could a man be friends with creatures as unpredictable and passionate as women? True, the Queen had a mind like a man’s, but was herself alone, the only Phoenix of her age. The Virgin Queen. And if she was no virgin . . . The people of Scotland had risen against their Queen and thrown her out when she had proved to be ruled by her quim; the same might yet happen to the Queen of England. Certainly none of the Puritans would ever again hail her as God’s Protestant Champion.

  Sidney was shaking his head violently. Becket knew that Sidney too was something of a Puritan: one who thought that the pristine purity of the reformed religion was the only thing that mattered. By extension, one who valued purity above all. “We must find out the truth of it,” Sidney was saying. “We must. God who brought Smith to us, God requires it of us.”

  “Surely it can wait until you are well,” Becket said, not liking the brightness of Sidney’s eyes nor the flush in his cheeks.

  “It will have to,” Sidney agreed, “although you could make enquiries for me, could you not?”

  Becket sighed. He had thought that was coming. Sidney believed his soldiering and skill with a sword meant more than it did, and had refashioned Becket in his poet’s mind as a chivalric knight of the Queen, such as Sidney wished to be.

  “Well, I am no intelligencer, not yet a pursuivant,” he said unhappily.

  “But you are the only man who can do it,” Sidney blazed at him. “We can tell no one else; this is too grave a matter.”