The other man said nothing. Walsingham looked at him. “George Latham, is it not? I sent you to Sheffield with your friend, Philip French—”
“France, sir,” said Latham. “His name was Philip France.”
“Was?”
Latham held out a piece of paper. It was covered in blood. “He gave his life in your service, sir. The blood you see is that of the man who killed him.”
5
Thursday, May 4
Mrs. Barker, kneeling in a black silk and velvet dress, made the sign of the cross over her breast. She watched her priest, Father John Tucker, as he folded away the portable altarpiece that graced the table in the chamber that she used as a chapel. He was tall and thin, in his early forties, with a neat brown beard and sharp, concentrated features. He looked shrewd and serious.
She was much older—more than sixty years of age. She rose to her feet somewhat awkwardly. “Have you spoken to the others?”
“I have, my lady. They are all with us.”
“And Widow Machyn herself—she is still willing to cooperate?”
Father Tucker hesitated. “Yes.”
“You sound unsure. Do you think she will regret betraying Mr. Clarenceux?”
“The way she spoke, I think she truly believes in our cause. She knows that he should have acted by now. She too feels guilty. Her late husband died in the hope that that manuscript would be used, and that Parliament would act to set Elizabeth aside as illegitimate and proclaim Mary. Our patience and pressure over the last few months will pay off; she will do as we ask.”
“Good. The arrangement to switch her to a French ship—is that settled?”
Father Tucker lifted the missal that he had been using and placed it in a concealed cupboard built into the paneling. “Everything is in order. Rebecca Machyn will soon be far away from London.” He closed the panel door and turned to her. “And so will the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement.”
6
Friday, May 5
It was late morning. Sunlight poured in through the window of the study of Cecil House, on the north side of the Strand, and gleamed on the gilt frame of the portrait above the fireplace. Sir Wyllyam Sessylle, aetatis suae xxxii was painted in gold in the top right-hand corner. Francis Walsingham saw Cecil’s judicious face staring down at him from a quite different time, twelve years earlier. He reflected that he was now the same age as Cecil had been when that picture had been painted: thirty-two. Would he be in Cecil’s place in twelve years? Or still dependent on the sly political genius of his mentor and patron?
He turned away and walked slowly across the chamber. Dust shifted in the sunlight. He took a book from a shelf, turned it over in his hands, and opened it. His eyes focused on the words but he could not concentrate on their meaning. He replaced it and sat down at Cecil’s empty writing table, facing the door.
After a minute or two he got up again. Words drifted up the grand staircase outside, too indistinct for him to understand. Something was happening downstairs. He adjusted the close-fitting black cap that covered his receding hair and made sure his ruff was fluffed out and smart. He pulled the sleeves of his black doublet down to their full length and waited. Finally, after another five minutes, he heard footsteps and voices on the stairs as several men ascended.
Sir William Cecil entered the study, carrying a large pile of folded papers, followed by six attendants. His bright eyes were his most distinctive feature, even more noticeable than his reddish-brown beard, which was rapidly turning gray. His hair was thinning a little. The deep-blue velvet of his doublet contrasted strikingly with the pristine white of his ruff. “And remember, for everybody’s sake, don’t allow the ambassador to see the docks too closely,” he was saying to a clerk. “A glimpse is fine—it will reassure him that we are not hiding anything—but the rebuilding of five galleasses will have the opposite effect.” He turned to another clerk. “I need further details on the nature of the dispute between the Merchant Adventurers and the Company of Hanse Merchants at Antwerp. This impasse is most unsatisfactory. If they need an ambassador, I will send them one.” He saw Walsingham. “Ah, Francis, I was told you were here.” Cecil gestured for the other men to leave. “Go, all of you. I will deal with any further matters at one of the bell, in the great hall.”
Walsingham bowed. “Greetings, Sir William. I am glad of your return.”
“The feeling is mutual. If I am to be hounded day and night by requests and complaints, let it at least be in the comfort of my own home. But even so, look.” Cecil held up the pile of papers. He flicked among them, found one, and opened it, passing it to his protégé, setting the rest on the table. “Trade with the Low Countries is on the point of collapse. The Merchant Adventurers cannot access the ports because the Hanse has reimposed trade restrictions. It means Spanish intervention, of course; we all know it but we cannot say it. And that is the least of my worries. What am I to do about the earl of Hertford and Lady Katherine Gray, the queen’s cousin? Hales’s book has just made everything ten times worse.”
“I am sorry, Sir William. Hales’s book? You’ll have to forgive me. Who is Hales?”
Cecil walked across to a table beside the window, where a pair of silver goblets was standing next to a lidded pewter wine flagon. He filled one and quaffed it. “When Lady Katherine Gray gave birth, she confessed to my wife’s sister that the father was Lord Hertford and that Hertford had secretly married her in a Catholic ceremony.”
“That was at least two years ago.”
“Indeed. But do you recall the consequence—that trial, at which the marriage was declared void? Lord Hertford was found guilty of violating a virgin of the royal family.”
“It’s not the sort of thing one forgets,” said Walsingham. “He was fined fifteen thousand pounds. For sleeping with his wife.”
“Quite. His wife just happened to be the queen’s cousin, and the queen…Well, you know what I think. My suspicion is that our queen would rather neither of her cousins have any children, so there are no potential heirs to rival whomsoever she eventually chooses. So when Lady Katherine takes matters into her own hands…” Cecil gestured to suggest his frustration. “But the queen’s spite has no basis in law.” He took a deep breath. “A man called John Hales has written a pamphlet pointing out that Lady Katherine’s children should be recognized in the order of succession. Privately, I agree. I had Lord Hertford transferred to Hanworth last year, on the pretext of there being an outbreak of the plague, and placed him in the keeping of his stepfather, Francis Newdigate. I was trying to lessen the injustice of her majesty’s ire. Now it turns out that Newdigate has involved himself in the composition of Hales’s book. I have here letters from Newdigate, Lord Hertford, and John Hales all seeking clemency and intervention. Even that damned Robert Dudley has written one. The queen is isolated—and yet she wants me to bring charges of treason against them. It is a disaster. I am meant to arrange for Hales to be found guilty. Ultimately Hertford is guilty of nothing more than falling in love. Frankly, having seen Lady Katherine, I cannot blame him. She could easily make traitors of us all.”
Cecil paused and took another gulp of wine. “Hales’s only offense is to point out the legal situation that automatically follows on from them marrying—which no one can deny they have done, with witnesses, and willingly. That the queen does not like it does not render it unlawful: we do not follow Roman Law in this kingdom but our own Common Law. It is hardly surprising that there are plots against her. It’s not made any easier by the fact that she won’t marry. She has said categorically that she will not marry one of her own subjects. So what are we to do? We look overseas. I favor the house of Austria. Throckmorton, from whom I have just received yet another letter, says that he too favors Austria. Roger Strange favors Austria. Robert Dudley also favors Austria. And what does the queen say? ‘No, Sir William, not Austria.’ I despair.”
“I am all the more sorry to b
e the one who bears you further reason to frown.”
“Francis, you are not sorry. It is a constant delight to you, to bring me new challenges. But I trust you not to bother me with trifles. That is why I came back as soon as I could.”
“Thank you. This concerns the dowager countess of Northumberland. You asked that I keep her ladyship under close watch. Several weeks ago I instructed two young men from Oxford to take up lodgings in the area and monitor the movements of those coming and going to her at Sheffield Manor. The day before yesterday, one of them, George Latham, came to me. He had ridden hard, changing horses, and was in a terrible state. Three days earlier, on the thirtieth, he and his companion noticed a messenger riding through the rain toward Sheffield—a man whom they had previously seen carrying messages to her ladyship. And so they moved to intercept him. They caught up with him at Melton Mowbray, in an inn. The messenger killed Latham’s companion, and then was himself killed. When Latham searched the corpse, he found a message. The original was soiled in the man’s blood, but here is a copy.”
Walsingham reached inside his doublet and pulled out a neatly folded paper. He walked closer and handed it to Cecil, who opened it. In neat black pen was written the following:
CCCCX>CCDCCICCCIIIMMCII-
/IMMMDCICCCCMMV/CMMMCCX+II-CCVI-CCCC-
<-XI-/CICCCCX, MMMDCCCCI
CCCMMMXCCCC+-CCCC
IIXMMMIIXMMMMX,>D/IICCVDMMMCC->V,D
CCCC-MMMDCCCC-DCC-
VMMMICCCC-DIMMMMMMDCCVDCIV, /II-D>-
DCCCCCCCCCX>CCD-LL-
VD
III-CCCCDMMIILCCCCCCCMM, /, DMMMV, /IIX<
CCV, /DCC-CCCC-
CCCCMMM
, LXCCCCCCCCC-CCCCVCCCCCCCCXIVMMIIXDCCC
ICCCCCCCC-+CCCC-MMM-, DVDXI-MMMMMMCC-
IIXMMMMMM-VI-LCCCCCCCMM, /, VD/VII, , DCC-
MMM-I-,DCCDCCVDII-CCCVCIII-MMMICCCC-C
IIIXMMMMMMM-, /CICCCCCCCC-+CCCC-MMM-,
DVDXI-MMMDCCMMCCCCC\/II-III->CIMMM-,
/IICCCC/IIICDCCXMMMMMMVCCC-CCC-MMMMMM-,
>-CCCC>/MMM+- - /CICCCCMMV/CMMMCCX+C
ICCCC/-ID-/MMM-CCCCIV, DMMM+- CCCC
Cecil glanced at him. “Is it a cipher? Or a code?”
“I do not know yet. But whichever it is, it shows that Lady Percy is involved with Catholic plots again. She is communicating in secret with someone south of Melton Mowbray, probably here in London. And this new development must be serious. Normally her agents use cut-out templates that relate to commonly available books. To decipher those, all we need is the name of the book and the relevant page numbers, and often that can be determined by a search of the sender’s and recipient’s premises, coupled with some persuasive questioning. This is different. It is hard to decide whether it is a cipher or a code—because it is based partly on Roman numerals and partly on symbols. If it is a cipher, it is not a straightforward one.”
Cecil studied the document. “There are repetitions nonetheless. I see a few instances of ‘DCC-.’ It should not be too difficult.”
Walsingham stood beside Cecil, pointing with his finger. “But there are six consecutive appearances of the letter ‘C’; here, seven; and here eight of the letter ‘M.’ No word has a treble letter in it, let alone six, seven, or eight. These are Roman numerals. And that is where the problem lies, for there is no easy way to determine whether ‘CCCCC’ is one word or one letter, or two letters, or two words or a single number representing a sentence. Likewise the appearance of ‘IV’—is that one letter, one word, or two?”
“Someone must be able to decipher it, Francis. If it is meaningful, there has to be a way to extract that meaning.” Cecil looked at the DCC and tried the usual first step of substituting the most common element in the message with the most common word in the language. But the most common four-letter words with a double letter in the middle used vowels—EE and OO—and those did not fit the other appearances of CC in the code. Even separating out the numerical equivalents—500, 200, and a dash—did not simplify things. If that was a common three-letter word like “and,” for example, then 200 was an N and the first word had to begin with a double N. If 200 was “the,” then the first word began with a double H.
“I see what you mean,” Cecil acknowledged. “This is nothing like a straightforward Caesar cipher.”
“There seems to be a pattern of variation on numbers. Two hundred appears regularly, in the form of ‘CC.’ But does ‘IICCV’ relate to two, three, or four numbers? It is difficult to know where the breaks are, where a word begins and ends.”
“The messenger riding through the rain—do we know who he is? Where he comes from?”
Walsingham walked to the small table by the window and poured himself a goblet of wine. “No. I have asked for the body to be embalmed and brought to the city as quickly as possible. It will take some days. No one locally knows him. Latham says that he took fright immediately when accosted. Also, he was riding hard through very heavy rain when they noticed him. This message, whatever it means, was urgent. Given that fact and its originality, it must be important.”
“How many men do you have working on it?”
“Two. I had three copies made last night. The original is safely stored in my house.”
“Good.” Cecil paused. “The more men, the greater the danger of information leaking out. Work your clerks around the clock. Offer them every incentive to keep going. Decipher it quickly, but don’t make any more copies—and don’t let the existing copies out of your house. Until we know what this means, treat it as dangerous.”
7
Clarenceux closed the heavy volume of the Skinners’ Company accounts. He had been checking them in his capacity as one of the Wardens but had not been able to concentrate. His mind had been elsewhere. Seven or eight times he had realized his additions had not tallied with the written entry, and almost every time a second check had revealed that he was at fault, the written entry was correct. Only one correction was marked—one correction to show for an hour sitting in blurred contemplation.
He got up and set the account book back in its place on a shelf and left the chamber. He waved good-bye to the porter and stepped out into the mild air of the street. It was a short walk to the Machyn house in Little Trinity Lane. Every so often a quarrel of glass in an upstairs window would catch the sun and reflect a brilliant ray of light into his eyes. The mud had dried and was firm to walk on—except at intervals where a cellar or drain had leaked and the ground was still wet, churned by cartwheels and hooves. He breathed deeply of the summer air, tinged with the familiar and not dislikable aroma of the clay, mud, and horse dung of the streets, and a slight whiff of seawater. It was a good day to be out of doors. It would be even better if he were already riding down to Chislehurst, to see his friend Julius.
Perhaps Rebecca would accompany him?
Immediately he put the thought out of his mind. Although she had gone to Summerhill with him last December, that had been when they were fleeing for their lives. The moral code that permitted them to be together then now stipulated that he, a married man, should keep a respectful distance from Widow Machyn. There was no doubt what people would say if he were to be seen riding out of the city with her. He had witnessed too many otherwise respectable people clothed in white at the church door repenting of their sins to have any doubt in the matter.
Outside Rebecca Machyn’s home, he paused and looked up at Mrs. Barker’s elegant house on the other side of Little Trinity Lane, with its high glazed windows and its carved jetties supporting the upper floor. He recalled the horror of last December, when he had killed a man in this street and fled through the backyards
behind that house, desperate beyond belief. He made the cross over his chest and closed his eyes in prayer. Oh Lord, may such fear and doubt never enter my heart and mind again.
He knocked on the oak door of the Machyn house with the hilt of his eating knife and waited. After a short while he heard a woman’s voice and footsteps. Rebecca opened the door.
Instantly his heart felt glad. He saw her long dark hair, her brown eyes, the large mole on the side of her face. He saw the tragic beauty of her countenance. He saw the woman with whom he had shared so many dangers. He felt purposeful. He smiled.
“Good day, Rebecca. Thomas told me you called.”
She did not respond. Just as he had been instantly gladdened by the sight of her face, now he was just as swiftly alarmed by her lack of welcome.
“You did call at my house?”
“Yes, I did. It was…nothing.” She looked at him, almost tearful.
“May I come in?”
She nodded, left the door open for him, and turned and walked along the corridor to the hall. Clarenceux shut the door behind him. It was dim and chilly inside, especially standing here alone. This was not the reception he had expected.
Henry Machyn’s old workshop was at the front, on the right. This used to be filled with his rolls of black cloth and heraldic paintings; now it was almost empty. Looking through the open door Clarenceux could see four large chests in the center. The rest of the room was bare, the walls stripped of their decoration, the work table gone.
He walked down the corridor, past the staircase, and into the hall. Opposite was a large fireplace of stone with a bread oven built into its side. Tallow candles lit the room; there were no windows in here. Two chambers above, the storeroom at the rear and the workshop at the front blocked out any light. A series of cloths painted by Henry Machyn hung on the walls. In one or two places they had started to fray. The floor was covered in straw and there was a smell of stale ale and urine. Two chests were the only storage. A wooden table stood in the center.
The Roots of Betrayal Page 4
