“The way you read my thoughts, Master Donne, is more than canny.”
Once inside, Jack and Burr waited near the door to let their eyes adjust to the dimness within. It was a large room. At a table in the back a group of men, already drunk before the winter sun had set, sang a bawdy catch in Dutch. The simple refrain was easy enough to decipher, easy to set in an English rhyme:
Lift up a flagon to Greasy-Lipped Gret;
She loves every drinking man she’s ever met.
As Jack started to move toward an unoccupied bench to their left, Burr reached to stay him. The old man pointed toward a small table to their right. There sat Chute with his back to them, leaning over the table in earnest conversation with a darkbrowed, olive-skinned man. Jack edged nearer. Chute was speaking quietly, so Jack had to stand within just a few feet to hear. As the song across the room ended and Chute’s voice became clear, Jack felt his pulse quicken. Dutch. Chute was speaking Dutch—and fluently.
Jack looked at Burr, whose habitually impassive face for once registered surprise: the old man’s brows arched over his red-rimmed hound’s eyes. Jack listened, mentally translating Chute’s words. No, he was saying, he thinks me a true papist. When Jack turned back to the table, the dark-browed man opposite Chute glanced up to meet his eye. Jack turned away as untellingly as he could and eased Burr along the wall and out the door.
Once outside, Burr said, “My old ears are untrusty, filled as they remain with a continual chorus of locusts and crickets, with God knows what other creeping things to swell the din. Am I nonetheless correct in identifying Sir Walter’s jabber as the very tongue we hear spoken in these streets?”
“You are.”
“No Italian, that. What does it mean?”
Jack hesitated. What had Chute just said? “He thinks me a true papist,” not “They think. . . .” The he could be Cecil, or Jack himself. But if he meant Jack, what then of Burr? Had Chute simply left the servant out of account, or did it mean Burr was in league with him? Jack looked into Burr’s sagging eyes, but they betrayed no sign. Well, even if the old man couldn’t be trusted, there was no point in letting him know Jack suspected him. He said, “It means Chute is a spy.”
Burr considered it. “Well. That puts the two of us in something of a bind, does it not?”
The next night Sir William Stanley sat at the head of the table, the sucked-clean bones of a capon arranged in neat rows on the trencher before him. He made a point of keeping his face composed, his wind-chapped lips turned up slightly as if in mild contentment, as Elizabeth told a tale of Jack’s misbehavior in childhood. What to make of this gathering? Most likely all of it was true, just as Elizabeth had said: two converts to the Church of Rome and their old servant, also a would-be Catholic, on a trek to Catholic lands. It was clear Elizabeth thought it true—and faithful Catholic that she remained, welcomed the event. But what woman could not be easily misled?
Englishmen in the flush of youth turning Catholic, setting out for adventure on the Continent: that much was hardly unusual. Stanley had seen plenty of them, and this Walter Chute looked the part. But Jack Donne could no longer be considered young—he must be around thirty—and he spoke with a canny command of his wits. The man bore watching. The old servant must have grown up during the time when England was Catholic. Perhaps he simply wanted to return to his childhood faith. Or maybe he travelled in league with Donne or Chute or both, having joined the ranks of Cecil’s spies.
As Kaatje cleared the table, Stanley took from his pocket a flat wooden box containing a deck of Primero cards. Elizabeth set a neat’s-leather coin-purse on the table before her. Chute pulled out money of his own and said, “I must extend fair warning: I seldom lose at Primero.”
“Time will tell,” Stanley said. “If you can win our Elizabeth’s money, you must needs play with more skill than many a man I know.”
“Do not fear it,” Chute replied. “Only I must grant due warning to our charming hostess: when I play, I play to win. The fair sex must expect no gentle treatment at my hand. But then, upon game’s end, I shall graciously restore all I have won from her.” Having said this, he rose and bowed deeply.
Elizabeth glanced at Burr, flashed him a little wink, then nodded solemnly to Chute. “In that event,” she said, “I shall decline the recompense. But the event has yet to come to pass.”
Stanley allowed himself to grin, then dealt the cards. He paused as he came to Burr. Jack said, “Join us, Tim.”
Burr replied, “I fear—”
“No fear,” Jack said. “I will stake you. I think, in fact, it is the only way my money is like to multiply. You know the game?”
“Oh, yes, although your faith in my prowess may be misplaced. Nonetheless at the least you shall learn a valuable lesson about investing your money unwisely.”
“Well worth the stake.”
Stanley dealt the rest of the cards, and the bidding began. Chute wagged his head a little and smiled smugly as he won the first round. He raked in the coins and said, “I warned you, did I not?”
After that, though, his luck changed. When he produced a primero, Elizabeth held a maximus. When Chute triumphantly displayed a maximus, Elizabeth trumped him with a fluxus. At one point she even drew a chorus: when she laid out all four knaves, Chute slammed his cards to the table in disgust. In the next hand Elizabeth bluffed with a mere numerus, taking the coins after everyone else passed. Jack won only three or four hands all evening, Stanley just one or two. Burr took in far more than his share. At the game’s end, sizable stacks of coins stood before Elizabeth, while Burr’s winnings lay carelessly heaped in a pile.
Elizabeth nodded to Chute and said, “We must play again sometime. I am sure your luck will return when we do.”
Stanley watched the color rise along Chute’s face, pinking his cheeks and purpling his ears as he replied, “Tonight it proved luck. Then you will see skill.”
Burr slid his pile of coins toward Jack, who shoved them back. Burr objected: “I am but your servant, playing upon your stake—albeit a good and faithful servant, not like the one in the Bible who hides his talent under a bushel, or howsoever the story goes. Or say I am your alchemic stabler, making two pieces of barren metal breed.” In the end the two agreed that Burr would repay only the few shillings it took to make up Jack’s original stake, so that the old man pocketed a tidy sum.
Stanley continued to watch the men closely. Especially this Jack Donne proved a puzzle. There was no clear reason to doubt he was sincere about his conversion, but there was something about him. . . .
Elizabeth stayed with the men after the game, puffing the bowl in her turn as Stanley passed around his tobacco-pipe. At length Jack said to him, “Father Gerard told me I would do well to seek out an Englishman called Guido, but the good father knew not where the man kept himself. Have you heard of this Guido?”
Stanley took care that his eyes betrayed nothing of his suspicion as he said, “Gerard told you this, did he? Yes, a worthy pioner, this Guido, as crafty with a petard as any I know. He fought under my command, and fought ably, not two months since. He is gone now, gone to Rome. He stays there, I think, at the English Jesuits’ college.”
“Aha!” said Chute. “Rome! I knew in my very bones we were bound for Italy. When do we depart?”
“Soon, I think,” Jack said. “I fear we have overtaxed my mother already.”
“You have not,” she protested, and she sounded as if she meant it.
Stanley turned to Jack and said, “Your mother’s graciousness is without limit—as is her beauty.”
Elizabeth’s look said she had heard such things from him before and did not much like hearing them, but at least she nodded in acknowledgment.
Without so much as a glance at Chute, Burr added, “And as of tonight, so is her wealth.”
Chute paused a moment, then said, “Well, tonight I care not what you say, sirrah Tim. We are bound for Rome!”
“One other thing,” Jack said to Stanley. “Has he an
y other name, this Guido?”
Stanley looked Jack in the eye just long enough to say, “None that he cares to use. His work, my work, and yours, Master Donne—fighting for the Mother Church against the apostates now controlling the English throne—requires some circumspection. The Jesuits in Rome will know him by the single name. It will be all you need.” He put on a smile and turned to Chute as he added, “But I trust you shall find that Rome answers all your hopes. And the Jesuits there are most hospitable.”
CHAPTER 10
The Wizard Earl’s note lay open on the table: he had not been able to learn from the English Jesuits any news about an English Guido. When Anne first read the message, her heart misgave. Then she found herself half angry at the Earl for failing to choose his words with enough care to avoid trouble had the letter been intercepted. She closed her eyes in prayer, asking God to give her patience and to show her a way to help Jack. And not two hours later, her prayers were answered.
Anne embraced her cousin, who stood pouting before her. Then she held him at arm’s length and said, “Thank you, Francis! This is the sort of intelligence I can use. Somerset House, you say? Tomorrow?”
Francis turned from her and replied, “Yes, tomorrow, if you must know. This new Scots porter trains today with the old, then tomorrow keeps the post on his own. But I like it not. This whole business of paying her servants for such information: it can lead to no good. If I can pay them to talk, then so can someone else, and they will prove no more loyal than a Frenchman. For my own name’s sake I say I like not this business.” He turned back and faced her. “But even more for your sake. What you propose, in so far as I understand it, puts you in danger. Do you not think Queen Anna will arrest you the moment she sees you?”
“I will be alone. Do I look like a threat to any woman or man? I will trust my tongue to work nimbly enough to forestall any arrest.”
“Think of your children.”
“I am thinking of them. The children need their father home again, and I work to that end.”
“Well,” he said petulantly, “I like it not.”
“I understand. But I thank you, Francis. Now no word of this to anyone.”
“Oh, fear me not on that account. I would fain forget my part in it.”
The next morning the splendid coach Anne had hired with her cousin’s money pulled up at the gatehouse of Somerset, where Queen Anna of Denmark kept court while King James remained at Westminster. Anne handed the new porter, a dull-eyed young man with red hair and a carbuncular face, a card on which Francis had written, in a disguised version of his beautifully florid hand, The Lady Bedford. The porter took the card and held it next to a short list of names. He looked from card to list and back again for what seemed minutes. He scratched his head. At last Anne tried to turn her nervousness to irritation as she said, “Come, sirrah: what, are you a porter and cannot read? Where is the usual man at this post? I am the Lady Lucy Harrington Russell, Countess of Bedford. I know my name is there on the list. Give me the paper, and I will show you.”
“No, no, not necessary,” the porter said. “I know my letters, and can see the name here on the list, plain enough. You may proceed.” Anne snatched the card from the porter’s hand as he nodded to the coachman.
Inside the marble-columned anteroom, Anne gave the tall, dour-faced doorman another card, this one reading, Condesa de Mediana. He took the card and said, “My lady Countess, I am afraid I do not understand. I was not informed of your visit today.”
“Not . . . eenformed? Monsieur Cecil, ze Secretary: Cecil, ’ee give me assure. . . . I am sorry very much: my Angleesh, no ees good. ¿Habla Español? Parlez Français?”
“No, my lady, English only, and Danish. But Secretary Cecil sent you, do you say?”
“Yes! ’Ee say call on ze Queen today. At zis houer.”
“Very well, then. Pray have a seat, and I will return momentarily.”
“Pray?” She placed her hands together in a reverent posture and gave him a quizzical look.
“No. Sit. Here.” He gestured toward a chair. “Sit, please, and I will return soon.”
“Si! Soon.”
Anne sat as he disappeared into an adjoining room. She smoothed her dress, the same one Francis had bought for her visit to Lady Bedford. The stiff bodice exposed more flesh than Anne would have liked, but Francis had said such was the fashion among the Spanish. He said the dress looked lovely on her. Exquisite, even.
A moment later the doorman appeared again. He knelt and motioned to the open doorway as he said, “Her Royal Majesty, Anna of Denmark and Norway, Queen of Scotland, England, and Ireland.”
The Queen entered, attired no more elegantly than Anne. Two ladies-in-waiting followed. Anna of Denmark was a plump woman with pale skin, a large straight nose, wiry blonde hair, and kindly eyes. Anne dipped into a deep curtsey as she took the Queen’s extended hand. The doorman said, “The Countess of Villa Mediana.” The Queen gestured her to rise, then moved to embrace her.
Anne used the moment to take the greatest chance of that risky day, trusting everything to the rumor that the Queen held secret Catholic Masses to which her husband turned a blind eye. Just after kissing the Queen’s cheek, Anne whispered, “Father Gerard sent me.”
The Queen took a step back, a look of alarm momentarily crossing her face. Almost immediately, though, her expression changed to curiosity. For several heartbeats she peered closely into Anne’s eyes. The Queen then whisked a hand toward her ladies-in-waiting and said, “Leave us alone for a time. We will occupy the blue room.” She spoke carefully, as if making an effort to suppress her words’ remaining Northern inflections, both Danish and Scots, as if conscious of conforming each utterance to the London courtly dialect. The effect was to make her sound distant and unapproachable, but her gestures flowed with welcoming ease. The attendants stepped aside as the Queen led Anne down a hallway and into a small, sparsely appointed room. “This chamber,” she said as she sat, motioning for Anne to do the same, “will be changed, even in a few days. Most of the—how do you say?—furnishings have already been removed. Do you know the man Inigo Jones?”
“I have heard the name, and I think my husband knows him. An architect, is he not?”
“Yes. That is the word: architect.” The Queen was so careful to pronounce every part of the word she gave it five syllables. “Mr. Jones has designed all the changes. Even now, he is with his. . . . How do you say . . . his pictures?”
“His drawings. His plans for the renovation.”
“Yes, drawings. What is this renovation?
“It means a thing made new again.
Queen Anna nodded and said, “I see.” She folded her hands in her lap, then said, “So your husband knows him.”
“I think so, yes.”
“And when you speak of your husband, I do not think you mean Count Juan de Tassis of Villa Mediana, do you?”
Anne lowered her eyes. “No, Your Majesty.”
“I met Señor de Tassis at the peace conference here last summer. He said his wife the Countess was old and ailing.” With only a hint of a smile the Queen added, “Either you are not the Countess or your recovery has been remarkable.”
Anne took a deep breath. “I needed to see you.”
“And here you are. But who you are, I have not yet learned.”
“My name is Anne Donne. Before I married I was Anne More, Sir George More’s daughter and the Lord Keeper’s niece.”
“Ah. And your husband?”
“John Donne, who was the Lord Keeper’s secretary before we wed.”
“Oh, yes. I have heard something of this marriage. Sir George has not been—how do you say?—sparing of his displeasure.”
“Quite so.”
“You said Father Gerard sent you. Might I ask whether that also was untrue?”
Looking directly at the Queen, Anne said, “It was quite true.” She thought she carried off the deception—an entirely unaccustomed thing for her—fairly well. In fact she was sur
prised at how easy it seemed.
The Queen’s face remained unreadable, a blank mask, as she replied, “You are subject to arrest: not only for falsely imposing upon our person but for commerce with a Catholic priest, and what is more, a Jesuit priest.”
“I am aware of my guilt and of the risk to myself, Your Majesty, and I beseech your pardon. Know, though, I have information that concerns the safety of the realm, and of the Royal Household in especial.”
The Queen relaxed in her chair, as if learning about threats to her family were the most ordinary thing in the world. “Speak on.”
“I devoutly believe Father Gerard when he says that he and the other Jesuits desire no harm to any rightfully appointed sovereign: not to your family nor any other lawful princes. The Jesuits are here only to administer the sacraments to their flock.”
With a languid wave of the hand, the Queen replied, “They say these things, yes.”
“I believe them. And a token of their troth is that they have sent me to warn you about a hot-headed Catholic who means violence to your family.”
The Queen fingered the string of pearls about her neck. “And who might this—how have you said it?—hot-head— be?”
“He is an Englishman called Guido, known by no other name to the good father. This Guido must be found and stopped before he sets his plan in motion.” Anne knew nothing of any plan against the throne, whether hatched by Guido or anyone else, but why else would Cecil have set Jack on the trail of the man? Perhaps the lie’s plausibility was what made it easy for her to deliver it with conviction.
“But what is this plan?”
“I do not know, nor does Father Gerard. But he has learned from some conscience-stricken soul that evil plans are laid, and that Guido lies at the heart of them.”
“I see. But why do you come to me with these news? Why not to his Majesty—or rather, to his chief minister, Lord Cecil? He is the one who busies himself with such matters, not I.”
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