Ballard glanced behind them, checking again that they were not being followed. ‘How can we be sure he will be at home?’
‘Babington will be at Herne’s Rents tonight,’ Goodluck reassured him. ‘He says so in his letter. And if not, he will be there tomorrow. We can beg shelter for the night from his servants, at least.’
‘I hope we won’t be sent to sleep in the stables again, like we were in Calais.’ Maude shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘I’m tired of this endless travelling. I could do with a comfortable bed.’
Goodluck cleared his throat. ‘I just wish to be able to say Mass in the morning, and to give thanks to our Lord for bringing us safely home.’
‘Amen,’ replied Ballard fervently.
‘We are not safe yet,’ Maude pointed out, though he added belatedly, ‘Amen, though, for all that. The Lord himself knows the vital importance of our mission, and has guarded His servants well.’
‘This is the place,’ Goodluck said presently, but held the others back as he checked that the house was not being watched.
As he waited, he caught a slight movement out of the corner of his eye. A hooded figure had withdrawn from a vantage place further along the street, slipping back into the gloomy shadow between two houses.
He glanced at his companions, but they were looking the other way. ‘It seems safe enough,’ he murmured, and knocked at the door.
After a few moments, they heard the bolts being drawn back and a pale face appeared in the crack of the doorway.
The man stared hard at Goodluck, then at Ballard and Maude behind him. ‘Who are you?’ he asked sharply. ‘What do you want at this hour?’
Goodluck pushed his letter from Babington through the crack. ‘To see your master.’
The man took the parchment and studied it upside down by candlelight, clearly an illiterate. Yet he seemed mollified by the sight of his master’s signature at the end. That, at least, he could read.
‘Password?’
‘Brutus,’ Ballard supplied, glancing about the street as though fearful they would be overheard.
The door was opened a little wider. ‘You’d best come in,’ Babington’s servant muttered reluctantly. ‘Wipe your boots, sirs. The rushes here are fresh. The fire’s still alight in the front room, but the master’s gone to bed an hour since. If you will wait in there, I shall fetch him down for you, by and by.’
The fire in the front room was dying, barely a flicker from the white-red embers. Goodluck took a log from the box on the hearth and pushed it into the glowing hot ashes, hoping it would catch. Above, they heard voices. Then the creaking of a man getting out of bed.
They stood in the small front room in silence, looking at each other. Goodluck could see a tense excitement in Ballard’s face, but apprehension in Maude’s swarthier countenance. Perhaps it was only now, back on English soil with the plans for Queen Elizabeth’s assassination, that their mission had begun to feel real. Inevitable, even. They were set on a course from which there could be no swerving. And Babington was the last link in a chain which stretched from the Pope to the Spanish King, and from the exiled Catholics in France to young Anthony Babington, even now stumbling down the stairs towards them.
‘Courage, my friends,’ Goodluck murmured in Latin, and saw them turn to look at him, their backs slowly straightening. ‘Whatever happens to us in the months to come, these Protestant dogs cannot touch our souls. We are apostles of Christ. Let us not lose faith in this, our great mission to restore the one true Church to England.’
Ballard bowed his head, piously making the sign of the Cross. ‘Et in saecula saeculorum, amen.’
‘I do not lose faith in our mission,’ Maude responded irritably. ‘But I sometimes think you trust too readily. Babington is a stout enough soul, and has proved himself in Queen Mary’s service before. Yet he is young.’
‘What of it?’ came Babington’s voice from the doorway, and they turned to see him wrapped in a cloak, a white nightgown beneath, his hose still on.
Goodluck had never met Anthony Babington before, though they had corresponded by coded letter over the months since he had been away from England. Covertly, he studied the young man. His dark dishevelled locks were worn long, curling like a cherub’s about his forehead and cheeks, and there was a fanatical fervour to his voice as he greeted them.
‘My brother in Christ!’ Babington clasped Ballard’s forearm and drew him close for a kiss on each cheek, Roman-style, then turned to Maude with a similarly enthusiastic welcome. ‘How I have missed you both, and was buoyed up in my solitude only by your letters! But I have a letter to show you that will make you weep with joy, I swear it.’
He turned to Goodluck last. ‘Sir, you are travelling with the two stoutest fellows in the world, and I am glad to make your acquaintance. You must be …?’
‘Father John Weatherley,’ Goodluck lied smoothly, and shook Babington’s hand. ‘We are not strangers, though. We have several times corresponded on the matter of Her Majesty, Queen of Scots, when I was pleased to share certain information with you regarding the support of the Rheims priesthood for any action, however violent, which might see Her Majesty safely installed on the throne of England.’
‘Christ be with you, Father Weatherley,’ Babington said, and smiled into his eyes. ‘And thank you for your letters, too, which have cheered me greatly in these dark times. I always know at once when I have met a man whom I can trust to the death, and you are such a one.’
‘I thank you,’ Goodluck murmured, and bowed his head.
‘Come, my friends, let us all sit and talk. We shall take Mass together in the morning.’ Babington laughed. ‘At least there will be no shortage of priests for the service, with three of you under my roof.’
Ballard smiled, casting off his cloak. ‘Indeed I long to take Holy Communion, and have the comfort of our Lord’s sacrifice in my mouth. It was not possible aboard the ship that brought us. The sea was rough most of the way and we were tossed about horrendously.’
‘Did you arrive in London only tonight? But you must be exhausted!’ Babington stuck his head out of the door and shouted to his servant. ‘Hoxton, fetch wine and food for my visitors. And more wood for the fire!’
They ate and drank, then sat beside the briskly burning fire to warm themselves. Goodluck felt his strength renewed after the long voyage. His senses sharpened, he listened to the three men talk eagerly of their plans, then scanned the letter that was passed to him by Babington, all the while nodding his approval.
‘That is a letter from Her Majesty, Queen Mary, herself,’ Babington told him. With shining eyes, the young man pointed out the rounded, slightly childish signature that had been scrawled across the base of the sheet. ‘You see Her Majesty’s beautiful hand, how it flows most royally to form her name? And do you mark the crossed R for Regina?’
‘The hand of a woman born to be queen,’ Goodluck murmured.
‘It is, indeed, my friend,’ Babington agreed fervently, and clapped him on the shoulder.
‘Then why is she not even now our sovereign?’ A frown on his face, Ballard stood and strode across the room to pour himself another cup of wine. ‘I am sickened to think that a Catholic queen has been kept prisoner by the bastard child of a whore all these years, and none of her followers has succeeded in freeing her. It dishonours us that we have not yet rid the world of the heretic Elizabeth.’
‘It will not be long now,’ Babington reassured him, his face flushed. ‘Pray sit down, my friend, and set your mind at rest. We shall not suffer Queen Elizabeth to live another year, God willing.’ He leaned forward. ‘Father Weatherley, the letter, if you please?’
There was ample space beneath Mary’s signature to forge a postscript, Goodluck noted, handing the letter back to Babington. Nor was there any cross-hatch scoring as a precaution against later additions to the letter. Goodluck wondered at such a lapse in judgement. Queen Elizabeth would never have signed her name in such a way that anyone could have added an incriminating
postscript once the letter had left her hands. It was as though the exiled Scottish Queen was making no effort this time to conceal her involvement. Perhaps Queen Mary had grown desperate to escape her long imprisonment – and desperation had made her careless.
Babington handed the letter across to Ballard. ‘So, what news from His Holiness, our blessed Pope?’ he asked eagerly. ‘You said you had been in Rome.’
Ballard nodded sombrely, smoothing out the letter with reverent hands. ‘It took nearly a month, but eventually I was permitted private conference with His Holiness. I bring a message of support from the Pope to all English Catholics who would see Mary on the throne.’
‘In writing?’ Babington’s smile was tremulous.
‘His Holiness would commit nothing to paper. Nor should we expect him to. The message I bring from Rome is by mouth only, and it promises special dispensation for any man by whose agency the Protestant Queen is murdered.’ Ballard nodded grimly, seeing Babington’s eyes widen. ‘The Pope himself grants us absolution in advance for her murder. It is what you hoped for, is it not?’
‘It is beyond what I hoped for, my friend. That His Holiness should know of our plans and approve of them. This news brings me such joy, I cannot tell you.’ Babington dropped to his knees and crossed himself, speaking in Latin. ‘Hail Mary, the Lord is with thee.’
They all knelt and joined in, Goodluck also murmuring the Latin words of the prayer along with the other conspirators. If his immortal soul was in jeopardy for this deception, so be it.
When they had finished their prayers, Ballard continued in a low voice, ‘I can tell you also that we shall not be alone in our efforts to subdue the Protestants after the Queen’s death. It is hoped that the Duke of Guise will lead an army of some sixty thousand troops, promised to us by King Philip of Spain. I spoke with his ambassador in Paris, Signor Mendoza. This army would be ready to march on England at the first news of the Queen’s death, to enforce the crowning of Queen Mary if it is resisted by the Privy Council or the people themselves.’
‘The people will neither resist nor question Mary’s right to rule,’ Maude muttered. His gaze slid to Goodluck’s face, then away again. He stretched out his boots to the fire. ‘I say the English people are sick of bending the knee to a known whore. But the Privy Council are another matter.’
Goodluck studied him thoughtfully. There were times when he did not quite trust Maude. His expression was often calculating, his manner shifty, and he watched Goodluck whenever he thought it safe to do so.
Did Maude suspect him of being one of Elizabeth’s spies? The possibility chilled Goodluck. Perhaps he should take some opportunity soon to slip away from them and take his news to Walsingham, before his throat was cut in the middle of the night.
‘Was there any talk of when the deed should be done?’ Babington asked, and at last he seemed nervous, avoiding their eyes as he rose to stoke the fire.
‘August,’ Ballard told him firmly. ‘Mendoza told me the army would be ready by the end of the summer. September at the latest.’
‘It is late May now. That leaves us …’ Babington turned back to face them, licking his lips, ‘hardly any time to prepare. If they wait until she is dead, it may be too late. We shall need military support in London in the days after … after it is done. There are too many Queen’s men in the south. We shall not be able to enforce her cousin’s coronation, not without more Catholics whose loyalty and might we can call on.’
Ballard thought for a moment. ‘There are Catholic lords in the north who may help us. Men of property.’
‘Then you must ride north without delay. Seek out the Catholic landowners and gain their trust. Do not tell them everything. It would endanger our plans if too much is known before the deed itself has been carried out.’
‘No deed,’ Maude interrupted, ‘but an execution. Let us be blunt and call it what it is.’
Ballard nodded, leaning back on the creaking settle. ‘Aye, Queen Elizabeth must be executed. Like her mother before her. Both of them whores and traitors to the true faith.’
‘How to do it, then?’ Babington whispered into the silence that had fallen. ‘With an axe?’
‘If necessary.’
Goodluck looked from Ballard’s stony face to Babington’s wide-eyed terror, and wondered yet again at how such an unlikely gang had ever come together to plot the death of their rightful monarch. Maude, he noted, seemed unmoved by the idea of violence against an anointed queen, though he was shaking his head.
‘A formal execution seems overly complicated,’ Maude murmured. ‘To be beheaded, the Queen would have to be removed from all her women, her courtiers, and taken to a secret place where her crimes could be laid before her, and judgement given. Her death to follow instantly.’ He looked at Goodluck again in that sly, sideways manner. ‘It is how it should be done in a just world. But the chance of our plan being discovered is too high. A select gang, maybe five or six people at the most, that is how you murder a queen.’
Goodluck called his bluff. ‘Then what do you suggest? That we creep into the Royal Bedchamber and strangle the Queen in her sleep?’
Ballard laughed. ‘No, but Maude is right. We stand no chance of engineering a proper trial and execution, however much she deserves to see her death coming. I imagine it will be difficult to come face to face with the Queen, with all her guards and ladies about her, her simpering entourage.’ Ballard smiled unpleasantly. ‘But a dagger, thrust deep into the heart, will send a whore to hell as swiftly and efficiently as any executioner.’
Babington swallowed, but nodded. ‘Then are we all agreed? When the time comes, one of us must seek a private audience with the Queen, stab her in the heart, and rid England of her heresy.’
‘But which of us must wield the dagger?’ Goodluck asked.
Ballard made a dismissive gesture. ‘Whichever of us is still standing. If it falls to me, I will do it gladly.’
Babington put out his hand, palm down. ‘We must all swear it. In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.’
‘Amen,’ Goodluck murmured, and placed his hand on Babington’s.
The other two followed suit, each declaring, ‘Amen.’
Babington shook off their hands, breathing fast. He sat back and stared at the fire, his face suddenly pallid and sickly looking. ‘So we are sworn to it. The Queen will die. Let us talk no more of this business. In the morning, you and Maude must make preparations to ride north,’ he said, glancing at Ballard, ‘and I will write a reply to Her Majesty, Queen Mary, letting her know that a Catholic army is ready to fight in her cause. She will be glad of such news.’
Goodluck drained his cup. ‘Is it safe to write such a letter?’
With a quick grin, Babington looked back at him and nodded. ‘Ah, but there’s the beauty of it. I write my letters in a code devised by Her Majesty herself. It is quite cunning, and if the letter should fall by some mischance into the wrong hands, it will be unintelligible to those who do not hold the key.’ He yawned, stretching luxuriously. ‘Besides, the messenger I send is a resolute Catholic and highly trustworthy in this cause. I have never met a braver fellow. Gilbert Gifford will not fail us.’
Six
Dearest Cathy,
It seems an age since we were at court together. I received your letter last month and am glad to know you and your son are in good health. How strange it must be to nurse a babe in your arms! And is your husband returned yet from the Low Countries? I keep you all in my daily prayers. Write again and this time spare no details, I wish to hear everything.
But I have news for you, dearest friend. You remember one W. S. who so rudely accosted me at the masque? He has spoken to me since then, many times, and I was mistaken in him. In truth, I am in love with him and hope to be Mistress Shakespeare one day. There, it’s out, and looks so cold and hard on paper. But I do, and my heart sings for the gentleman. For I swear he is a gentleman, though a player too, and from the land.
I was sorry to hear you have been
lonely with your husband at the war. I am lonely too, not being at court any more. Come and stay with me in Cheapside, if you will, and bring the child with you. I long to see you again. And keep me in your prayers also.
Yours, Lucy
PS W. has promised nothing, yet I trust him. Am I wrong to do so?
‘SO ALL THIS is yours now?’ Cathy asked Lucy, glancing curiously about the dark, cramped house in Cheapside. She shifted her young son from one hip to the other, hushing him as he protested. ‘Since Master Goodluck’s death?’
Lucy threw back the front shutters, and warm sunlight streamed in through the window. ‘His body was never found, so it remains Goodluck’s property until his death can be decided.’ She tickled the child under his chin. ‘This one’s growing bonny. He must be nearly two now. Does he favour his father?’
‘I can hardly remember,’ Cathy replied, then managed a wry smile at Lucy’s surprised glance. ‘Oh, do not misunderstand me. I love Oswald well enough. But I have not seen him in nearly a year, not since he went off soldiering in the Low Countries. What if he never comes back, Lucy? What if he is killed out there?’ She shook her head bitterly. ‘I do not know how we will survive if my husband dies.’
‘Whose command is he under?’
‘He is with Lord Leicester’s troops.’ Cathy hesitated, then giggled, her face suddenly diverted. ‘With the great man himself. But you will not have heard the stories. You have not been back to court, have you?’
‘Not since the Queen in her wisdom dismissed me,’ Lucy agreed, then laughed. ‘No, don’t look like that. My life here is not so terrible, though it seems you receive news of the court while I am shunned. But I am happy now, for you are here at last and we shall be like sisters again.’
It was good to have Cathy to stay. The weeks since she had left court had been filled with days of loneliness and, later, fear of what lay ahead once her guardian had gone and she seemed to have lost her place at court. She knew ways to earn money in the city, but had so far turned her face against them. She might be a virgin no longer, but that did not mean she should become a prostitute. Instead, she had been gradually pawning her last few possessions from court to pay for the upkeep of Goodluck’s house, plus her own meagre needs. Sir Francis had written to her in a kindly manner on several occasions, offering assistance, yet she had felt too much shame in her loss of position to reply. One day perhaps, if she grew desperate enough, she would ask for his help. But that day had not yet come.
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