Prophecy (2011)

by S. J. Parris

  ‘I had no choice. If I had not swum to the boat I would have been killed on the spot. You have sent Walsingham word of last night’s dinner, I suppose? The date and the list of safe harbours?’

  ‘Of course,’ he murmurs. ‘I took word to Phelippes first thing this morning. But of course I had no written proof to offer. Good God, Bruno - Henry Howard.’ He shakes his head and gives a low whistle, half in admiration. ‘Imagine the reach of that man’s ambition - I can scarcely credit it. You think he even had designs on King James of Scotland? Extraordinary.’

  ‘He is ruthless. I have all the proof I need of that.’ I rub my neck. ‘But I have not told you the half of it yet.’

  Fowler raises his eyebrow and pulls up a cushion, where he sits cross-legged, awaiting the rest of my account. It is true that I have not told him everything; in the account of my night at Arundel House I left out any mention of Henry Howard’s occult pursuits. Nor did I tell him about the mysteri ous stranger who felled my attacker in St Peter Street just now. This is partly out of pride, but also because I have an instinctive sense of unease about what happened. I have suspected I was being followed long before Howard decided he wanted me dead; perhaps there is a chance that the person who saved me tonight did not do so out of gallantry but to prolong the game.

  Taking another draught of wine, I tell him about Lady Seaton’s summons and my trip to the College of Arms. When I reach the part about the old Scottish officer’s information, he places a hand over his mouth and simply stares at me.

  ‘Good God,’ he says eventually.

  ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of Douglas sooner. Perhaps because he was too obvious as a killer. But he always seemed so detached from the scheming of all the others.’

  Fowler shakes his head, his jaw set tight.

  ‘He plays that part well, the laconic mercenary. But Douglas is shrewder than anyone when it comes to his own advancement. It’s how he’s survived so long.’

  ‘But did you ever suspect him?’

  ‘No,’ he says flatly. ‘I suppose he crossed my mind because of his history, but I didn’t consider him seriously because I couldn’t see what motive he could have had. He must have been sizing up the different factions among the plotters all along, deciding which had the better chance of power after the invasion.’

  ‘Why do you and he hate each other so much?’ I ask, when I have drained my glass.

  Fowler’s mild expression hardens.

  ‘He is a man utterly without principle. He curries favour among the Scottish lords that surround the young King James and plays them off against one another. He thinks nothing of taking a life. But most especially -‘ here a shadow crosses his face and his voice drops to barely more than a whisper - ‘he took from me my closest friend.’

  ‘Douglas murdered him?’

  He lowers his eyes.

  ‘No. Though he may as well have done - he is dead to me now. Patrick, Master of Gray. We were friends from childhood, but Douglas has turned him away from me and drawn him into his own influence to further his cause with James.’

  There is such quiet bitterness in his tone, this young man who rarely betrays any emotion, that I find myself wondering at the nature of this friendship. Fowler seems to feel its loss deeply. Watching him, I am struck by an unexpected affection for this man who has become, by necessity, my confidant. How little we know of another’s inner life; perhaps the self-effacing Fowler carries a hidden weight of pain beneath his outward composure.

  ‘I must take all this to Walsingham without delay,’ I say. ‘Only he can protect me from Howard’s thugs. But I fear tonight has shown beyond doubt that I cannot travel alone. Will you come with me upriver?’

  He hesitates. I wonder if he is afraid; he does not look like much of a fighter.

  ‘We should not be seen too often in one another’s company -‘ Then he appears to relent, and stands to straighten his clothes. ‘But you are right, Bruno - who else would you take? Come - I will fetch us lanterns and cloaks. Do you have money for the boatman?’

  I nod. He disappears, leaving me to try and soak up the last warmth from the fire before I am obliged to step out again into that seeping London fog that works its way inside your bone marrow and chills you from the inside out.

  Fowler has strapped on a sword belt under his cloak, I notice. We walk in silence down the incline towards Puddle Wharf, holding our lanterns aloft, though they make little difference in the smoky air. The moonlight is almost obscured by clouds and the city feels muted and otherworldly, as if under a shroud.

  ‘We have no evidence against Douglas except this scrap of gossip from Lady Seaton,’ I remark as we reach the empty landing stage. ‘He will argue that anyone could have picked a defunct title out of the lists.’

  Fowler leans out, scans the river and calls, ‘Oars, ho!’ He turns to me while we wait to see if this has any effect. ‘At this stage, I do not think we have any choice. Douglas is notorious for slipping through the net in Scotland, but Scottish justice can be bought and sold. He has never yet come up against the determination of Walsingham. If anyone can extract a confession, it is he.’

  I say nothing; we both know only too well some of the Principal Secretary’s methods for extracting confessions. Walsingham always maintains that God allows him to keep a clear conscience in this matter; that he would rather put one innocent man to the rack than risk the lives of many more by allowing a potential plot to go unchecked. He knows I disagree with him here, and that I question the value of any information wrested from a man whose limbs are being pulled from their sockets; coming from a country ruled by the lash of the Holy Office, I know only too well how easily a man threatened with pain will say whatever he thinks will please the one who can command it to stop. But Walsingham has made the case to his own conscience and found it satisfactory.

  Fowler calls again; after some moments, the soft plash of oars comes through the night, followed by the blurry light of a boatman’s lantern. As the wherry nears us, Fowler turns suddenly and grips my arm.

  ‘I have a better idea - what if we were to take Douglas himself straight to Whitehall? Only - I know him of old. He has a knack of scenting trouble on the wind and making himself scarce - by the time we reach Walsingham and he decides to send armed men to find him, Douglas will have disappeared into the cracks, I could almost guarantee it.’

  ‘How would we persuade him, though? It would be sure to make him suspicious.’

  Fowler considers for a moment.

  ‘I will tell him Mendoza wants to speak with him - that ought to prick his curiosity. He knows Mendoza’s influence over Mary is growing - unlike poor Castelnau’s. And Mendoza is always around the court.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I am doubtful of this new plan; it strikes me that Fowler is over-sensitive when it comes to Douglas, though he is right that the journey to Walsingham and back will take hours.

  ‘Think how much better it would look for us if we were to deliver the man himself direct to Burghley,’ he hisses.

  ‘Where to, gents? Here, take this.’ The boatman throws a rope out from the bow; it falls with a wet slap on the jetty, where I pick it up and haul it in tight.

  ‘Across the river,’ Fowler says, before I have a chance to speak, as he climbs in and arranges his coat. ‘Drop us at St Mary Overy’s dock.’

  ‘Oh, aye? Trip to Southwark is it, gents?’ The lamplight exaggerates his lascivious wink. I follow Fowler precariously into the boat. The cushions seem to have soaked up all the damp and cold in the air and transferred them to my breeches. ‘You’ll come back a few shillings the poorer, I’ll warrant! Make sure you don’t get bitten by a Winchester goose, eh.’ He winks again and cackles as he pushes off with an oar.

  ‘A goose?’ I frown at Fowler, bemused. He breaks into a thin smile.

  ‘It’s an expression for catching the pox. A Winchester goose is a bawd - named because the ward is nominally under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, who licences the whorehouses.
’

  I squint across to where the south bank of the Thames is obscured by mist. Southwark, the borough outside the city walls and its laws, where a demi-monde of brothels, gambling dens and taverns offering illegal fights - animal and human - has spread like a fungus along the river bank. Those who trade in contraband goods and illegal books off the boats do so in the inns of Southwark; pirates, brigands, whores, travelling players and undercover priests rub shoulders with aldermen, lawyers and courtiers disguised to taste the borough’s forbidden fruit. Castelnau warned me to stay away from Southwark almost as soon as I arrived in England; streets where they’d cut a foreigner’s throat for entertainment, he said, especially a man who looked like me. I saw enough of streets like that when I was a fugitive in Italy, so I had largely heeded his advice. Little surprise that Fowler expects to find Douglas here. As the boatman turns the wherry and pulls on the oars to direct us back downstream, I experience a deep sense of foreboding. If I can be attacked in a main street in the city before darkness has even fallen, where there is still the chance of being discovered by the watch, surely it is outright folly to head for the most lawless part of the city under cover of night. I glance at Fowler’s profile; he looks out over the water, determined and intense, his gaze concentrated on the far bank, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. At least I will have someone to watch my back this time, I think, and wonder again who might have fired the bolt that saved me earlier.

  The landing stairs at St Mary Overy’s dock are slimy and narrow; I pay the boatman his shilling and follow Fowler upwards as he negotiates with one hand against the dank wall of the quay, his lantern held out in the other. One mis-step and we could be plunged into the black water lapping beneath. We emerge at the top on to a muddy, open area where two narrow streets branch away southwards, each lined with two- and three-storey houses crowded together and canted forward so that their gables threaten to meet in the middle, like the foreheads of two people conversing. A number of these houses are distinctively whitewashed to mark them out as brothels. Fowler motions to the right; I follow him, keeping so close that I am in danger of tripping him in the fog. Despite the cold, plenty of people are abroad; rowdy groups of young men, arms slung around one another’s necks and roaring sea-shanties or their own filthy versions of war ballads; women in garish colours, usually in pairs and pitifully underdressed against the cold, and more sinister figures, those who stand in doorways with their cloaks pulled up around their faces, watching and waiting. Where there are whores and gambling, there will always be great demand for meat and drink, and this street boasts an abundance of taverns, each spilling out its scent of roasting meat and warm beer every time its door is opened. If I did not feel in such immediate fear for my life, I would enjoy the atmosphere of Southwark, I think; there is a kind of frisson to the night, as if those of us who slink through the fog are tacit comrades in our pursuit of illicit pleasures.

  Halfway along this street, Fowler ducks under an archway between two buildings and down a narrow alley that opens into a small courtyard with houses on three sides. By the entrance to the building on the left, a girl with her bodice half-unlaced lolls against the door frame, winding a strand of hair around one finger. She regards us with mild interest through eyes cloudy with drink as we pass, looking us both up and down, but Fowler ignores her and pushes open the door. It gives on to the tap-room of a tavern with a low ceiling and blackened beams, ill-lit and thick with the smells of tobacco smoke and unwashed bodies.

  ‘How do you know to find him here?’ I whisper to Fowler as he presses between tables where men argue or slump over their beer.

  ‘This is where the disaffected Scots drink,’ he hisses back. ‘It’s how he stays abreast of what’s going on back home.’

  I guess from his tone that it is not only Douglas who scavenges information in this filthy room. At the far end of the tap-room Fowler lifts the latch of another door and holds it open for me to step through.

  In the back room, Douglas sits at a small table opposite another man, intent on a card game. A pile of coins sits in the middle by the stack of discarded playing cards and a pitcher of beer. Beside it, an oil lamp flickers in the draught from the open window in the back wall. Douglas sucks on a long-stemmed clay pipe that coughs out sour smoke; but for the open window, the room would be as foggy as the night outside. Both men have a girl on their knee; plump, giggling, interchangeable creatures with thick face paint and bare shoulders. Douglas glances up at the interruption, briefly acknowledges me and Fowler, and nods to the table.

  ‘With you in a moment, friends,’ he mutters, holding the cards in his hand up to confide in his young companion. She points at one; Douglas laughs.

  ‘Lucky I’m playing this hand, then, and not you, love.’

  He peels away and lays down a jack of hearts; I watch his long, broad hands with a macabre fascination, the delicate way he holds the card between thumb and forefinger. Those hands that squeezed Cecily Ashe and Abigail Morley around their slender white necks until the life choked out of them. The same hands that cut signs into their breasts, and marked the sign of the messenger on Dumas for a joke. My mouth is suddenly washed with sour bile at the image; it is all I can do to hold myself back from lungeing at him.

  His opponent curses in a thick Scots accent, and Douglas scoops the pot of coins towards himself.

  ‘Sorry, Monty,’ he says, laughing. ‘I’ll give you another chance later. Piss off for the now, though - these gentlemen have private business to discuss, by the look of their faces.’

  The other man grumbles, but shunts the girl off his knee and pushes past us.

  ‘You and all,’ says Douglas to the girl on his own lap, who pouts and fusses but eventually accepts a coin and a slap on her behind to make herself scarce. He taps his pipe on the side of the table, stuffs it with fresh tobacco and spends a few moments trying to make it take light from his tinderbox. When he is finally puffing out gusts like a blocked chimney, he turns to me.

  ‘Will you take a drink, gentlemen?’ He gestures to the pitcher. ‘I’ll send for another if we’ve run out.’

  I glance at Fowler and he nods encouragement; puzzled, I realise he means for me to put forward our ruse. His dislike of Douglas extends even to addressing him directly, it seems.

  ‘We’re not stopping,’ I begin. ‘We are on our way to Whitehall and have a boat waiting - we came to see if you would join us?’

  ‘Whitehall, is it?’ He puffs thoughtfully. ‘And what business have you at Whitehall that would draw me away from this august company?’

  ‘Henry Howard is meeting Mendoza there and has asked us to be part of the company, to discuss what happens after the invasion,’ I say. My voice sounds too loud for the room. Douglas regards me through narrowed eyes and breathes in smoke as if he finds it nourishing.

  ‘Really? Mendoza? At Whitehall?’ He sounds idly curious as he examines the bowl of his pipe. ‘That doesn’t sound very likely to me, Bruno. Are you sure all these blows to your head haven’t confused you?’

  I lower my eyes for a moment, cursing myself for having listened to Fowler; I should have insisted that this approach would only serve to make Douglas more suspicious. I glance over my shoulder for support from Fowler, but his eyes are fixed on Douglas.

  ‘This was the message I had,’ I say, trying not to falter.

  ‘When did you get this message - while you were staying at Arundel House? Did you find anything interesting there, by the way?’

  His voice is still cheery, but there is an edge to it. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that I could tell you were giving all that wine to the dog. You think I can’t tell a real drinker from a fraud? So I guessed you must have a good reason for wanting to get yourself in for the night. What were you looking for? Evidence of Howard’s treason?’

  ‘Why would I want that?’

  ‘Same reason any of us want it. To see him in the Tower.’ I look at him, unable to untangle the implication of his
words. Is this a confession that he has shackled himself to the Guise cause? What reason could he have for wanting Henry Howard arrested for treason?

  ‘I -‘ I begin, but cannot think of what to say next. ‘Bruno has been to the College of Arms this afternoon,’ Fowler says softly, behind me. I whip around to him, confused. What game is he playing now?

  ‘Oh, aye?’ Douglas looks amused. ‘There’s a fancy hobby for a man like you, Bruno, armorial history. Turn up anything of interest there, did you?’

  I am tired of his tone and his sense that it is he who is toying with us.

  ‘Yes, I did. I looked up the Earl of Ormond’s line.’

  ‘Really? Why was that?’

  I glance at Fowler; this is not what I had intended at all, to face Douglas down in a seedy tavern. There may be two of us, but there is no knowing how many of the men drinking on the other side of the door are his friends and cohorts. My shoulders tense; I feel now that we have turned badly off-course.

  ‘It’s a family title of yours, is it not?’

  The room falls very still.

  ‘Mine?’ Douglas still smiles, but this time through his teeth. He lays down his pipe. ‘Oh, very probably. There are as many branches of the Douglas family in Scotland as there are stars in the sky, Bruno - we’ve won and lost more titles than you’ve said Masses in your sorry life. Why does it interest you?’

  ‘Because I believe the young maids at court were killed by a man claiming to be the Earl of Ormond,’ I say, drawing my dagger. Behind me, I hear the sleek rush of steel as Fowler pulls his sword from its scabbard.

  Douglas throws his chair back abruptly and jumps up, his body poised to spring either way in an instant. From the speed of his reaction I see that, despite his apparent devotion to debauchery, he is strongly built and carries himself like a man in good physical condition. But after a moment, he bursts out laughing.