The Heretic’s Creed

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  After that, we were handed over to a yet more high-ranking usher, who led us up some stairs and across a lobby to a pair of double doors, heavily carved with a criss-cross pattern with what looked like thistles dotted here and there. The doors were flanked by more guards, armed with halberds. They saluted our guide, who led us through into an anteroom. It was already full of people, all men. The usher spoke to a clerk, who hurried away through a further pair of carved doors, similar to the ones by which we had entered and similarly guarded.

  ‘Your arrival has been reported. You now wait until you are called,’ said the usher, and disappeared. James Douglas was evidently receiving, but we would have to take our turn.

  We waited for an hour, standing together. From time to time, a clerk emerged from the further door, which presumably led to the earl’s audience chamber, and called out a name, whereupon one of the crowd would be shown in. None of them showed any interest in us beyond a glance at me and Dale, probably because we were the only women there. Many of them clearly knew each other, so there was a low hum of talk, from which we were excluded. The place was gloomy, since the glass in the small panes of the leaded windows was thick and a dark shade of greenish-blue, admitting little light. There was nowhere to sit down, and the panelled room was bare. The darkly polished wooden floor had no coverings; there was no hearth, and the day, though bright, was cold. I think we all longed for our cloaks.

  Dale muttered to me that perhaps it was a ploy to discourage people from waiting. ‘If some of them give up and go away, my lord will have fewer folk to trouble him.’

  ‘Hush,’ I said. ‘We’re representing the queen. We must keep up an air of dignity and guard our tongues.’

  Finally, my name was called and we all went forward, only to have the guards bar the way for Brockley and Dale. The clerk who had summoned us, a thin, black-gowned fellow, said testily: ‘I was only bidden to call Mistress Stannard,’ and I had to leave my attendants behind. I followed the clerk inside on my own.

  I had expected to find the Earl of Morton seated in a chair of state, but instead, he was standing behind a littered desk, turning over sheets of paper and conferring with several other gentlemen and a couple of clerks. This room, which was sizeable, was better by far than the anteroom, for its tall windows had larger panes and thinner glass and let in a certain amount of sunlight, and there were tapestries on the walls and paintings on the ceiling. But it was wildly untidy, with more documents strewn carelessly on side tables and window seats and on an uncushioned settle, and there were crumb-strewn plates and used goblets here and there amid the paperwork. It was also nearly as cold as the anteroom, for although there was a hearth with a fire in it, the place was too big to be easily heated.

  Everyone there was in fact warmly clad, many of them wearing their cloaks. For a moment, I had a comical vision of these noble gentlemen and their no doubt highly qualified confidential clerks, when arriving to attend to their business, resisting the ushers and clinging to their mantles.

  James Douglas was recognizable at once, because although his doublet and hose were plain brown and his ruff plain holland, the cloak he wore slung round his shoulders was a rich black velvet with gold embroidery and an ermine trim. Not that I would have needed that to identify him, for he stood out of the crowd in any case. He possessed that unmistakeable aura of power that defies definition but is instantly obvious, and the attitudes of those around him were visibly deferential. He was tall, with a long chin, and had hair and beard of pale ginger, though there were grey streaks in them. He was over fifty, I thought. He had light eyes which fixed their glance on my face immediately.

  ‘Mistress Stannard. An emissary from Queen Elizabeth. You are welcome. A message from her majesty has been long expected.’ He had a strong voice, the kind that could thunder commands above the sounds of fighting, and his Scottish accent wasn’t too heavy; he was easy to understand.

  ‘I have it here, my lord,’ I said, making my curtsey and proffering the introductory letter and the missive from the queen both together. One of the attendant gentlemen stepped forward to take them and hand them to the earl.

  ‘We do not often have ladies to deal with,’ said Douglas, as he unrolled the letter of introduction. ‘We are gentlemen and must remember our manners. Madam, you may be seated. Clear a space on that settle, someone. Mistress Stannard has come to us all the way from London. John, bespeak some refreshments.’

  One of the humbler-looking clerks bustled away through a small side door, and somebody shifted a stack of files and boxes off the settle so that I could sit down. A small table was pushed close to me and similarly swept clear of oddments, and a moment later John reappeared with a servant bearing a goblet of wine and a wedge of pie on a tray. The pie, by the taste of it, contained pheasant meat. It and the wine were of excellent quality and although I had lately had breakfast, I consumed them to be polite, and found that I enjoyed them, while James Douglas read the introductory letter, set it aside, and began upon the other.

  It was lengthy and he took his time, showing it to some of his companions. They discussed it, in voices too low for me to hear. Then he turned back to me, holding the queen’s letter in his long, pale fingers, and gave me a wintry smile.

  ‘I am indebted to you, on behalf of our young King James and on my own behalf too, since I have to keep this realm safe for him until he comes of age. This is the undertaking I have hoped to receive and I am grateful to her majesty of England. It seems that there has been trouble in getting this to me. According to Lord Burghley, this is the third attempt.’

  ‘That is so, my lord,’ I said.

  ‘You have some knowledge of what the message from your queen contains?’

  He was precise, speaking to the point without wasting words. The pale eyes were penetrating. I remembered hearing that he had been among the men who, many years ago, had murdered Queen Mary’s secretary David Rizzio, virtually in her presence. He had never been her friend even then and he was now her very powerful enemy. I felt thankful that he wasn’t mine.

  ‘I know some of it, my lord,’ I said carefully.

  ‘Then you know why it is important and no doubt you are aware that some of the contents are highly confidential, but all the same … I cannot understand why it should have been intercepted. Even once, never mind twice. If Mary has spies at Elizabeth’s court – and this letter says that she has – I would expect them to be capable of learning the details of the security that surrounds her, without murdering messengers and stealing the correspondence they carry, in such a public fashion! Any message your queen wished to convey to me, would be got to me eventually somehow. Stealing letters wouldn’t prevent that, as indeed it hasn’t. Spies are supposed to work in the dark and keep in the dark. I myself wouldn’t dream of employing men who were likely to use such crude tactics. Mary, who is a foolish and unworldly woman, might do so, but her spies are not chosen by her but by her friends, who mostly have some common sense, though not much,’ he added cynically, ‘or they wouldn’t be her friends.’

  ‘It does seem strange,’ I agreed, since he seemed to want a reply. ‘However, my task was simply to bring it safely this time, and I am glad to have done so.’

  Still holding the letter, he moved away from the desk and beckoned me to follow him, drawing me aside. None of the other men in the room gazed after him, but began quiet conversations among themselves. This, no doubt, was James Douglas’ way of having private conferences.

  ‘I have heard of you, Mistress Stannard,’ he said, dropping his own voice to a level that only I would hear. ‘And the note from Lord Burghley in any case tells me who you are. It also tells me that you have a second task to carry out during your journey – either to or from Scotland. Have you done so yet? I refer to the collection of a book from, apparently, a house full of Catholic ladies in Yorkshire. Tolerated by the English, it seems, though I wouldn’t tolerate them. I would call such a house a vipers’ nest.’

  ‘My second errand is mentioned in o
ne of the letters, then?’ I said. ‘I haven’t been there yet, my lord. I propose to call on the ladies on the way home.’

  ‘The letter mentions the book in case you already have it with you when you reach me. It says that my Lord Burghley thinks I might be interested to see it, as indeed I would be. However, if you have not yet been to Stonemoor, I must do without.’ He looked regretful. ‘A pity.’

  ‘I would have collected it first had I known you wished to see it, my lord,’ I said. ‘As it was, I decided that the first thing I ought to do was to get the queen’s letter into your hands, and worry about the book later.’

  ‘Yes, well, I agree that that was good sense. I approve.’ James Douglas pulled at his beard and the light eyes searched my face. ‘Lord Burghley says that the book still awaits collection because the two messengers who preceded you never got as far as Stonemoor House although they did get as far as York. I wonder … has it occurred to you that perhaps one or both of those earlier messengers did actually reach Thorby village and Stonemoor House and that danger may have overtaken them, not at the hands of Mary’s spies, but in that nest of snakes at Stonemoor?’

  I stood quite still and for a moment did not answer, as an unease surfaced in my mind. Though hitherto unacknowledged, it had been present within me from the very beginning. In fact, from the moment when Cecil admitted to me that the search for the two missing Messengers had been narrowed down to the space between York and Stonemoor. It had been strengthened by the encounter with Master Maxton in York, when he confirmed that both men had indeed used his stable. And though I had never put it into words even in my own head, never contemplated it directly, I had instinctively acted on it when I decided to deliver the letter to James Morton first, and collect the book afterwards.

  At length, I said: ‘I had thought of that, my lord. That was why I came to Scotland first, meaning to go to Stonemoor later, whereas the two men who went before me seemingly intended to do the reverse. But I must go to Stonemoor before I go home. I have undertaken to do so.’

  He frowned, staring at the letter he was still holding. ‘You are conscientious. That is a virtue, no doubt. And I myself can’t really see why this household of women should want to harm Queen’s Messengers. They would risk ending the toleration they have so far been shown and bringing catastrophe down on their heads. But all the same … one never knows, with snakes. Take care as you journey on, Mistress Stannard. Still,’ he added, ‘you are a sizeable party. They might find it difficult to do away with you all!’

  ‘But it’s ridiculous!’ said Brockley, when we had left Holyrood and were on our way back to Ambrosia’s home. For the Brockleys’ benefit, I had been recounting my interview with James Morton. ‘Here we have a house of middle-aged ladies pretending to be nuns,’ said Brockley. ‘They’re timid by nature – well, Cecil apparently told you that they keep within the law and send representatives to the village church! They obviously want to keep out of trouble. They are short of funds and want to sell a valuable book to help their finances. And they’ve been knocking Queen’s Messengers on the head and stealing the scrolls they carry? I never heard of anything so absurd!’

  ‘They might have been paid by Mary’s people,’ said Dale. Dale had in the past had a terrifying experience in France, when she was arrested as a heretic and barely escaped a horrible death. She did not like Catholics and was ready to believe anything of the Stonemoor House ladies.

  ‘Mary’s adherents are perfectly capable of intercepting messengers themselves, if they want to,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t need to seek help from a lot of respectable, God-fearing women. James Douglas says it’s hard to believe that Mary’s spies would want to attack messengers in any case. It makes no sense.’

  My own doubts and fears throbbed in my mind like twinges of toothache but I mustn’t frighten Dale. I must not admit that I was anxious. Anyway, my errand had to be completed. I put on a brisk manner.

  ‘It’s all very mysterious but we have no choice. We are bound next for Stonemoor and that’s that. If we time our journey with care, we might not even have to spend a night there! Then all we have to do is travel home. We haven’t found any of Christopher Spelton’s signs anywhere and I don’t suppose we will.’

  ‘I’ve gone on looking,’ Brockley said. ‘Mostly in the stables and tackrooms, wherever we’ve made a stop. They’re the likeliest places. If he put chalk signs inside houses, or even on the outside walls of houses, someone would very likely clean them off, but on stable premises, they might not arouse much interest – grooms and stable boys often scrawl graffiti here and there. But there’s been nothing.’

  ‘I’ll be glad once we’ve been to this Stonemoor place and then got away from it,’ said Dale, with feeling. ‘I can’t abide trouble,’ she added with pathos, ‘and time and again, whenever we go on an errand for the queen, trouble is what we get.’

  ‘I hope not this time!’ I said, with determined cheerfulness.

  Though in the depths of my mind, anxiety remained.

  SEVEN

  No Bigger Than A Man’s Hand

  We spent a week in Edinburgh, which was what we had planned, though the wet weather which suddenly set in would in any case have kept us from leaving sooner. We paid a visit to Kate’s relatives in Edinburgh, to tell them about her marriage. They made us very welcome, but getting there and back involved hurrying through rain-swept streets with our cloak hoods pulled over our heads, and taking dry indoor slippers with us, in a bag which Dale carried.

  However, the day before we wished to leave, the rain obligingly stopped and on the morning of Monday the 6th of March we woke to find the clouds gone. There was frost on the roofs of Edinburgh, but the sun was out again and there was no wind. We could start for Stonemoor at once.

  There were tearful partings, for who knew when any of us would make the four-hundred-mile journey from Hawkswood again? Brockley and Joseph fetched the coach from the stables where it and our horses had been kept during our stay, and loaded our baggage. There was much embracing and a good deal of weeping. The children howled, Ambrosia and Sybil sobbed in each other’s arms, and Brockley, busy stowing hampers inside the coach, shook his head at the uproar.

  ‘It hardly seems worthwhile to have family reunions,’ he remarked, somewhat cynically, ‘since they have to end in such a display of grief!’

  ‘They’ll all be all right once the wrench is over,’ I said encouragingly. ‘We shall have plenty to occupy our minds once we’re on the road. There’s a good seventy miles to go to reach Stonemoor. I’ve been studying the maps.’

  ‘So have I. It’ll be rough travelling,’ said Brockley glumly. ‘We’ve got to go across the moors this time.’

  We both had vivid memories of previous journeys in the north. I nodded, having been worried about the same thing. The road ahead was unknown to us and could be much rougher than the heavily used Roman road which was the direct route to the south. However, the first two days of our journey went well enough. The track was bumpy but wide and despite the recent rain, not too muddy. We made quite good speed. By the second nightfall, we were on the edge of the moorland and could hope to reach Stonemoor the next day.

  There are few inns in the north, except on the main road. Off it, we had to seek shelter at farms. The one we found this time, though it was isolated, was quite big, lying in a shallow vale, encircled by heathery hills. The soil in the vale was evidently fertile and the place looked prosperous. The fields that spread round the farmhouse had well-tended drystone walls, and we saw three or four labourers’ cottages, each with its own patch of land for vegetables and chickens. The farmhouse itself was sturdily built of grey stone, with a fair-sized stable adjoining it. When we led our horses in, we found that the farm boasted three horses of its own: a grey cob, a big, hairy-heeled workhorse, and a brown mare.

  At this farm, and at the one where we had spent the previous night, Brockley and Joseph followed what had become a habit and looked sharply round the stable in case Christopher Spelton h
ad left his red chalk sign there, but he had not.

  The farmer’s name was Master Thwaite and he and his wife made us very welcome. Mrs Thwaite was lame, which I suppose limited her movements and explained why, unusually for a farm wife, she was fat. There was a maidservant, a lively, bonny lass, who probably had to do most of the housework on her own, but was clearly not downtrodden. Master Thwaite, in contrast to his wife, was wiry and active. Neither of them had many teeth and were apt to shoot out spittle when they spoke, and as with their maidservant, their northern accent was strong. Communication with any of the three was difficult but they were all kind.

  We were offered one room with a wide bed for the ladies and a straw-filled barn for the men (though the Brockleys looked depressed at this arrangement). We also searched our indoor quarters for signs in red chalk, just in case, but were not unduly surprised to find that there weren’t any.

  ‘And bedchambers wouldn’t be a likely place for them,’ Dale remarked, echoing Brockley.

  We were excellently fed. The Thwaites, most hospitably, slaughtered a couple of chickens for our benefit. After supper, we gathered round our maps to discuss the route for the final stage of the journey to Stonemoor. Evening was falling and the Thwaites’ living room was both dark and smoky but there were candles on the table and by their light we could follow the maps well enough.

  The Thwaites were puzzled by them; clearly they were not used to such things. However, they knew their district, and they knew how to get to Stonemoor. Despite the difficulty of talking to them, we managed to establish that the track which had brought us from the north continued straight on southwards for some miles and then forked, and that we should take the left fork. The right-hand path went eventually to York, ‘Though it be a roughish track,’ Master Thwaite said. The left-hand way would take us in a south-easterly direction and led to Thorby and Stonemoor. But we should start early and press on hard, because there were no habitations along the way.