Shadow of the Axe (The Queen's Intelligencer Book 1)

by Peter Tonkin

  Poley was silent for a moment, apparently digesting all this information. But he was actually thinking about Sir Christopher Blount. They had briefly worked together some years ago, employed by Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s long-dead spymaster. Would Sir Christopher be friend or foe? He wondered. But then he asked, ‘So it would be to these high-born ladies or their immediate underlings such as this man Fitzherbert and his wife that I might apply in the matter of employment,’ mused Poley. ‘But you mentioned other elements in Essex House,’ he prompted. ‘I see myself as something more active than a mere servant.’

  And in all innocence, Cuffe prattled on. ‘Indeed. And with my support, I think you would do better to consider the first of these. As assistant secretary perhaps. Can you write and cypher?’

  ‘I was at Clare College, Cambridge,’ answered Poley, truthfully, ‘though there was some confusion over the matter of my graduation.’ Just the way he phrased it so calculatedly made his position as a recusant as clear as praying over his rosary had done. Catholic students were forbidden graduation in almost all cases; Protestants rarely were.

  ‘Well! There you are then!’ Cuffe took this on board, becoming more confident and expansive still, though keeping his voice low: Essex House had a welcome for Catholic malcontents along with almost every other kind, he inferred without using the dangerous language too clearly. There were great hopes that whoever succeeded Elizabeth would look kindly on the Catholic cause.

  ‘But we digress,’ he concluded. ‘These more masculine elements, if I may so phrase it, are split into two sections overseen by other important individuals, who would be directed by the Earl when he is there, of course. But they fight to follow what they believe his orders would have been had he been present to issue them.’ Cuffe washed the last mouthful of breakfast bread down with a draught of small beer emptying the flagon Poley had purchased for them both.

  ‘There is the martial, almost military, element,’ he continued, after wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘It is led by the Earl’s Welsh steward Sir Gelly Meyrick. It is made up of soldiers, many from the Irish army, many also knighted by the Earl himself. All of them preferring to remain with him rather than to follow the orders of Lord Mountjoy, who has been named as his Irish replacement, in spite of the fact that he and my Lord of Essex are close friends. Mountjoy is also related to the Earl’s step-father Sir Christopher Blount; and family ties are very important, of course. Most of these men seem to be in debt and desperate. They see the Earl as their last hope of solvency, let alone of standing and respect. Sir Christopher Blount and Lady Leicester, for instance, are even today fighting to pay off the late Earl of Leicester’s debts, and are ever more desperate to do so. They and their household are currently resident in Essex House, having closed their main residence in Drayton Basset and their London house in Wanstead. Sir Christopher is Sir Gelly’s equal in authority, being of course, the Earl’s equivalent in power at Wanstead House.’

  *

  Cuffe at least had the good sense to lower his voice to little more than a whisper as he continued, ‘Whatever the Earl’s position after the succession, they all fervently believe it will be one of influence and power – no matter who sits on the throne. And they will all rise with him, as he has promised they would. Have you served as a soldier?’

  ‘No, friend Cuffe. My service has been little more than secretarial, and to no-one of any standing or nobility. But the Earl’s men are the men headed by this Welshman, you say?’

  ‘Indeed. The steward Sir Gelly Meyrick, a Welsh soldier – and aptly enough, for many of the men in this section are Welsh too. Meyrick is supported by petty aristocrats like Sir Thomas Gerard and the Irish lord Sir Christopher St. Lawrence while more substantial friends such as Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, Henry Percy and his cousin Thomas the Catholic Earl of Northumberland, married to Dorothy Devereux, one of the Earl’s sisters, stand ready to throw their weight behind the Earl’s cause if called upon. But in my opinion it is Sir Christopher Blount rather than Gelly Meyrick, even, who currently holds sway over them all. Especially while Lady Lettice and the Leicester household are in residence with us.’

  Cuffe fell silent but Poley allowed his own thoughts to run on, rehearsing a recent discussion he had held with Master Secretary Cecil. While the Queen remained immoveable and Essex stayed out of her favour, the Essex House contingent existed as a constant bodyguard for the ailing Earl; desperate to a man. That most dangerous and combustible of problems – a command of soldiers, armed and ready for battle, being held back with nothing to do. Always, therefore, on the edge of explosive violence. They saw themselves as protecting their master, when he was at home or away from home, from the kind of evils that had poisoned his father in Ireland and would literally stab him in the back in London given half a chance. Especially now, as the Earl lay far beyond their protection though less than a mile down the road. Suffering by all accounts, from the bloody flux – the same illness that had killed his father - an illness widely rumoured to have been caused by poisoning his food in Dublin Castle. The Leicester household, as Cuffe called them, were hopefully something of a balance to the more desperately warlike elements within Sir Gelly Meyrick’s command, even though Lady Lettice had been a loving wife to the murdered First Earl and remained as loyal as Lady Frances to the second Earl, her son.

  ‘But you said there were two sections, Master Cuffe,’ prompted Poley after a while. ‘Might there not be a place for me in the second one?’

  ‘I think not, for you are too simple, kindly and open-handed, friend Poley. This is the intelligence section, if I may so describe it. Sir Anthony Bacon heads a web of spies and agents, even though he is bedridden and possibly near death. He is still powerful and supported by his brother Sir Francis who is much more mobile in every sense – not only moving in and out of Essex House but also from one camp to the other, so to speak; with the ear of the Queen herself as her newly-appointed Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary. At the very least he is a useful go-between; perhaps a vital spy, if a gentleman can be said to lower himself to such a profession. The Bacon brothers are motivated on the one hand by the Earl’s certainty that his enemies at court - Cecil, Raleigh, Walsingham and the rest - are working tirelessly to accomplish his downfall by any means they can manage. On the other hand, they are working to forge links with all of the Queen’s likely successors. Bonds that are stronger than those created by Cecil, Raleigh and Walsingham. And, now I think of it, there might be employment for you as a scribe in this section, for we send out letters all over Europe in a range of languages including French, Spanish, German, Dutch, Italian, Latin and occasionally Greek – hence my association with Anthony Bacon, as well as wielding the pen on behalf of the Earl himself of course,’ explained Cuffe earnestly. ‘But Bacon’s letters have contents that sometimes go beyond the social and academic; that are occasionally set to ensure as far as possible, that whoever ascends the throne – as someone must do soon – all of their fortunes will be mended while their enemies will fall from grace like Icarus of legend flying too near the sun with his waxen wings.’

  Poley’s self-effacing approach worked well enough to begin with but by the afternoon of the second day, the intelligencer discovered that gossip throughout the prison had overtaken his modest plan; had made him a celebrity among the prisoners, and something of a hero to some of them, including Cuffe. ‘Is it true what they are saying?’ demanded the secretary, wide-eyed, as he returned from pouring the morning’s excrement onto the Fleet River and placed the empty slop-bucket precisely on the spot he had lifted it from some time earlier then wiped his hands on the thick woollen hose clothing his thighs and sat to have his ankle shackled again.

  ‘What are they saying?’ Poley genuinely didn’t know.

  *

  ‘Why,’ hissed Cuffe as soon as the turnkey had left the cell, ‘that you have been arrested and condemned to be shackled here on the direct orders of Secretary Cecil, whom people call ‘The Toad’.
Orders that you be arrested and imprisoned because you wounded his man by running him through the arse in defence of the Earl’s man Nick Skeres.’

  ‘It may be…’ Poley weighed the impact of Cuffe’s revelations. The common people hated Cecil The Toad. The insulting nickname had even been scrawled on the door of Salisbury House, his London residence: here lives The Toad. Essex, on the other hand, was still the people’s favourite. The hero of Cadiz and the Azores campaign, nearly ruined in Ireland by the secret machinations of The Toad and his foul cohorts. ‘It may be…’

  ‘Hush!’ commanded Cuffe, too little too late. ‘There are ears everywhere…’

  But the situation Poley found himself in the midst of was simply a reflection of wider problems, he admitted to himself. Problems that reflected on Master Secretary and the wayward Earl alike. Harvests had been bad of late; the last few summers and autumns cold and wet, winters harsh and spring-times non-existent; the weather out of joint. People were starving. Even those with work and food were growing desperate. Poverty-stricken families from the countryside were leaving their ruined farms and desolated small-holdings to come crawling up, begging in the London streets, selling their sons and daughters into the brothels on the South Bank, desperate for succour that never appeared. In the absence of any real replacement for the Old Church’s charitable institutions, the destitute were simply starving to death in front of anyone who cared to look. But the only people who did look nowadays were the sextons’ men with their death carts who collected the corpses and piled them in anonymous mass graves as though they were victims of the plague.

  No-one dreamed of blaming the Queen who was constant in her protestations that she loved her people. That she was, indeed, wedded to them as her single, virginal, life proved all too clearly. So the situation must be blamed on her minsters, chief among them Cecil The Toad, whose occasional attempts to fashion a ‘Poor Law’ were always too little, too late. On the other hand, the dashing Essex was blameless in this catastrophe. He was almost worshipped. He was famous both for his heroic bravery and his open-handed generosity – which was why so many desperate men clung to him.

  Like leeches thought Poley but he was careful to keep his own counsel. Wary of finding himself in another trap, Poley neither confirmed or denied anything about the events which brought him here. The rumours persisted, however, and even the turnkey began to treat him with a little respect. Unfortunately, that respect did not stretch to delivering services without payment. Poley was distractedly beginning to calculate how he could get to Wolfall for further funds or cut his overpoweringly talkative and grateful companion loose, when events took another turn in the mid-morning of the third day.

  The turnkey shuffled in at an hour when he was usually elsewhere. And, for the first time, he was not alone. The big, shambling tatterdemalion was followed by its exact opposite – a slim, neat, precise man of middle years. His cuffs and ruff were pristine, his cloak looked expensive, warm and new, his freshly-brushed hat sat at a precise angle, its feather on the sober side of stylish. Not a hair on his head, moustache or beard appeared to be out of place. Poley knew him at once. This was Francis Bacon who, together with his brother Antony, was in charge of the Earl of Essex’s spy network, as Cuffe had already described. He was also, perhaps more relevantly in the current circumstances, as the Queen’s Counsel Extraordinary, a leading member of the Bar; one of the most powerful lawyers in the country.

  ‘Master Cuffe!’ said Sir Francis, his face a mask of shock and horror, ‘Even though I was alerted to the fact, I hardly believed I would find a scholar and gentleman such as yourself here!’

  Poley was certain at once that Bacon was play-acting. Sir Francis himself had occupied the debtor’s cell not far from this one quite recently, Counsellor to the Queen or not. Debt was common fate among Essex’s followers; and, indeed, among some of those reliant on the Royal Purse as well. The poet and politician Edmund Spenser had been found stone cold at his lodgings in King Street not long ago; starved to death by all accounts while waiting for the exchequer to disburse a grant of £50 promised by the Queen herself.

  ‘We must secure your liberty at once,’ Bacon continued. ‘Wait there! I will return as quickly as I can.’ He turned to leave, gesturing imperiously to the turnkey.

  Poley laughed inwardly at the lawyer’s thoughtless words. As though Cuffe had any choice but to wait there. He was chained to the wall. But then the voluble academic surprised the cynical intelligencer. ‘Sir Francis!’ he called. The lawyer turned back. ‘This man beside me has been my friend and saviour. Can you not secure his liberty as well?’

  *

  Bacon’s cold gaze rested on Poley for a heartbeat. ‘But that is Robert Poley,’ he said. ‘He is Master Secretary Cecil’s man. A courier and an intelligencer to the Council.’

  ‘Not so,’ said Cuffe fervently. ‘Or if he was once, he is no longer. Master Secretary has cut him off. Disowned him utterly. He is here for aiding the Earl of Essex’s man Nicholas Skeres, who is well known to both of us, I think. And for speaking in defence of the Earl, against Master Secretary.’ The academic lowered his voice. ‘I have heard that he stands accused of possessing A Conference on the Succession which, as you know, is banned; and saying in public that the Queen is best succeeded by the Earl, and that as soon as possible!’

  Bacon paused for a heart-beat longer, his speculative gaze still resting on Poley. ‘Turned from Master Secretary to The Earl, has he? Well, he wouldn’t be the first to do that.’

  Poley said nothing but he met that insightful gaze as though it were a rapier blade, steadily.

  ‘His misfortunes started when he sought to help Skeres, giving him monies because he serves the Earl, and was forced to wound Ingram Frizer, Secretary Cecil’s creature, who challenged him in consequence,’ persisted Cuffe anxiously. ‘Furthermore, I am certain that he would be welcomed in Essex House for the services he has rendered to me if for no other reason!’

  ‘Very well,’ decided Bacon after a moment more. ‘I will see what can be done.’

  Poley had no idea what magic Francis Bacon used, but Cuffe and he were free by noon. The lawyer was nowhere to be seen, so they walked shoulder by shoulder through Belsavage Yard and out onto Ludgate Hill, Cuffe chattering excitedly about the welcome they would both receive in Essex House when they got there. No-one in the Yard disturbed them. Partly because Wolfall was not there, reckoned Poley. And partly because men walking out of the prison were nowhere near as interesting to the businessmen and women thronging the place as men being escorted into the prison. The sky was clouding over and a wet afternoon was in prospect so they hurried up Ludgate Hill, across the Fleet Bridge into Fleet Street, then straight on until they reached the Temple Bar, beyond which Fleet Street became The Strand. From there it was no distance to hurry past the Middle Temple grounds to the church of St Clement Danes. Ahead of them, the Wych Street led up towards Holborn while the hill at their feet led down into The Strand which ran straight on to Charing Cross and York House where the ailing Essex lay imprisoned.

  Essex House, however, stood immediately across the road on their left, the first house on The Strand. It could almost have been the last on Fleet Street but Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who had caused it to be built, planned that it should be the first house on The Strand, confided Cuffe, rendered even more voluble by relief at his release. And the Earl of Essex insisted on the same thing now that the house was his. ‘No-one wishing to shine at court would wish to be domiciled on Fleet Street, associated as it is with the filth of the open sewer the river has become,’ said Cuffe cheerily.

  Or with the prison from which we have just been released, thought Poley. He paused there, aware of the enormity of the step he would be taking if he accepted Cuffe’s repeated assurance that there would be welcome and shelter for him at Essex House. But then, to be honest with himself, he had no practical alternatives. The Yeomans’ house was clearly closed to him. He had no money to finance a trip to his wife in the country
– nor any hope of employment there if he managed the journey somehow. The hovel Mistress Poley currently resided in belonged to her sour-faced parents in any case and he would risk anything rather than go crawling back there. But the fact clearly seemed to be that he now found himself in a place and situation which forces far beyond his control had put him in. And there was, realistically, only one path forward. He would have to take it, no matter what dangers lay in ambuscade along it.

  Chattering on excitedly and hurrying as the first drops of rain began to fall, Cuffe led the way across the busy road to hammer on the great gate that led into the courtyard which fronted the main entrance to the house itself. The small postern in the great gate was opened at Cuffe’s knock, and the pair stepped through into the flagged courtyard, standing between Essex House and The Strand as the gardens behind stood between it and the River. The yard was wider than the house-front which stood high and imposing. It loomed intimidatingly in solid red brick, reaching four stories before it attained the roof-leads that bounded the roof itself. The red clay roof-tiles sloped up in a hill behind them, broken by a series of dormer windows, and a low wall stood knee-high in front of them, square holes in which were releasing runoff from the rain already.