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

by Peter Tonkin

  In amongst all this bustle, Poley also observed Sir Christopher Blount and Sir Fernando in close conference. Something – a piece of paper perhaps – passed between them and Poley was suddenly struck by just how close Sir Christopher had got to Sir John Herbert’s escort on their way out. The intelligencer understood it all in a heartbeat. He glanced at Cuffe standing beside him, gazing around with a slightly puzzled frown, and was certain that his constant companion had not noticed what had gone on between Gorges and Blount. A message passed from outside Essex House via Sir John Herbert’s man to those inside. Via Sir Christopher to Sir Fernando. From that moment on, Poley had managed to keep close watch on Sir Fernando. So, soon after Davers was despatched to Whitehall, Poley had managed to detach himself from Cuffe in the crowd. Now he found himself, unsuspected, following Gorges down the garden path through the early-morning fog, unsettlingly aware that there was someone else out there, hidden by the bushes, trees and swirling mist, following him in turn.

  *

  Gorges came to the Essex House stairs and Poley heard the sound his boots made on the wooden steps as he descended. Then there was silence. A little breeze sprang up, making the fog swirl and dance. If it gets much stronger than this, thought Poley, it will likely blow the fog away. And so it did. Not completely, but enough to show the surface of the water and the boat coming up towards the steps with a rhythmic creak of oars. The little vessel loomed out of the clouds, almost monstrous, misshapen, with the tall figure of a man standing in the bows. ‘Wind’s shifting, Fernando,’ called the stranger in a broad west-country accent. ‘The tide’s turning. In more ways than one.’

  ‘I’m here, Walter,’ answered Gorges. ‘And I hear you. What is it that you want?’

  ‘You know what I want, Fernando. I want all this madness to end. I want that fool Essex to settle down and take his punishment like a man instead of a wilful child. If I can’t achieve that, then I’d like you and anyone else I care about well away from Essex House before the Mattins bells start ringing. I warn you, it’s a lost cause. A long lost cause…’

  ‘And I warn you, cousin! You should scurry back to court and cower there for you are likely to have a bloody day of it!’

  No sooner had Gorges finished speaking than there was a sound as loud as a clap of thunder close enough to make Poley flinch. It was only when he smelt the powder that he realised – someone was shooting at Sir Walter. The Captain of the Queen’s Guard seemed unhurt and unshaken, however. He simply sat down, making himself a smaller target and called on the waterman to row him away as fast as possible. But whoever was shooting had time for two more shots before Poley found him, guided by the shower of sparks that accompanied the third bullet out of the musket’s muzzle. The would-be assassin had hidden himself behind a tall bush, which he used at a rest for his weapon and as an efficient method of concealment. When Poley reached the place the shots had been fired from, the man was gone and only his musket remained, leaning against a branch. On the one hand Poley could see a clear view down to the water at the steps; on the other, he saw the fleeing figure vanishing into the foggy shadows. But before he could even begin to give chase, Sir Fernando arrived. ‘Poley!’ he bellowed. ‘Was that you?’ He gestured at the gun which was now resting suspiciously close to Poley’s right hand.

  ‘No, Sir Fernando. I don’t know who it was. He vanished before I got here.’

  ‘Well, if do you find out who it was, tell him he missed!’

  Poley picked up the gun and followed Gorges back up the garden, in through the rear entrance, past the vacant rooms that had housed Sir Anthony Bacon and his physician as well as the room in which Gelly Meyrick had him strung up in the strappado and so into the great hall. Poley leaned the gun against a convenient wall shrugged off his cloak and followed Gorges into the main part of Essex House. Here he discovered Essex and his army standing in a restless crowd, partaking of a meagre soldiers’ breakfast of bread and small beer. ‘It is what Caesar himself favoured,’ Cuffe was saying to anyone who might be listening. ‘Though he preferred to drink vinegar, not beer’

  Essex seemed to swell a little, being compared with Julius Caesar on the morning he had decided to go to battle. But, thought Poley, looking around the assembled faces, this is hardly a Roman legion, let alone a Caesarian army. Gorges crossed to his leader and whispered to him, no doubt about Sir Walter. Essex frowned and shook his head, clearly too preoccupied to think Gorges’ news through in any detail. The atmosphere was well beyond impatience now, more like desperation; and Essex knew it. He had to take action and soon. But what? Poley could almost see it running out of control through his dizzy head. Whither should he lead his eager army? Against the Court or into the City?

  Court or City?

  Court or City?

  *

  But the question was answered almost at once, for Sir Charles Davers returned, his desire to report so urgent that he had not even paused to remove his hat or his cloak. He glanced, frowning, at Essex, then crossed to Lady Rich, who had sent him on the mission from which he was clearly just returning. The pair of them approached Essex, who was talking to a group comprised of Gelly Meyrick, of course, as well as the Earl of Southampton; Lord Monteagle and the Percy brothers with whom he had arranged yesterday’s performance at the Globe. Edward, the third Baron Cromwell, great grandson of Thomas Cromwell who had been responsible for the destruction of the monasteries, as Cuffe had pointed out. Edward Cromwell was a newer arrival but he stood with, Sir John Davies, Sir Fernando and Sir Christopher Blount. Poley came close enough to overhear Sir Charles Davers’s report – though as things turned out he need hardly have bothered. ‘They’ve doubled the guards at the palace,’ said Lady Penelope Rich, her voice carrying over the surrounding hubbub. ‘Every entrance to the palace and at the door to every room has double guards. Sir Charles says there are triple guards at the entrance to the Queen’s apartments. And they’ve closed off access from the River via the Court Steps and the Privy Stairs.’

  ‘Doubled the guards!’ said Essex, stunned. ‘How did they know to do that?’

  ‘Sir John Herbert gave you a list of reasons they might think to do so last night,’ said Lady Rich tartly. ‘The secret meetings at Drury House that clearly weren’t so secret after all. The arrival of hundreds of your supporters in Essex House. The Strand has been heaving with them lately, day and night. The preparations you have been making in the nature of sharp swords, guns, bullets and powder. Surely you must have realised that the Council would have suspected something, even before your intentions were even more loudly announced by the playing of Richard the Second at the Globe yesterday. Or have you been so wrapped up in your plotting and planning that you have been blind and deaf to the real world around you?’

  ‘However that may be, my Lord,’ said Cuffe as he appeared unexpectedly behind Poley’s shoulder, ‘it settles matters does it not? If the Court is closed against us and the Tower is beyond our grasp, then the decision is made for us. We must raise the City!’

  Essex stared at Cuffe as though the academic had predicted some dreadful fate. But then his look of horror became one of resolution. ‘The City,’ he said. ‘I will raise every man, woman, child, master and apprentice. I will raise the starving beggars in the gutters. I will raise the frozen dead if I have to! The City loves me and they will follow where I lead!’

  ‘We will need to organise our troops for an orderly march through the streets, though,’ observed Fernando. ‘You must be at the head of an impressive force, My Lord; not of a simple mob.’

  ‘You are right, Fernando,’ said Essex. He turned to the men immediately surrounding him. ‘See to it,’ he snapped. Then he was off, walking through the assembled crowd, both indoors, and outdoors – down the crowded steps and into the courtyard. Poley followed, fascinated and not a little moved. ‘They seek my life, boys,’ Essex was saying over and over. ‘Raleigh and Master Secretary Cecil. You are all that stand between me and death; my stout body – guard…’ Poley lingered on the
top step, watching as Essex rallied his men while, behind him in the great hall Sir Christopher, Sir Fernando, Sir Gelly and the rest tried to get them organised.

  But before anything concrete was achieved, there came another loud knocking on the postern gate. Fitzherbert came pushing past and Poley followed him. Essex’s major domo opened the postern to reveal not one figure surrounded by guards but four. Poley recognised them all. There was Lord Chief Justice Popham, Essex’s uncle Sir William Knollys, his old jailer Lord Keeper Edgerton and finally the Earl of Worcester. Worcester’s presence surprised the intelligencer. This was clearly a deputation from the Queen and her Council. But Worcester had been a regular visitor to Drury house and one of Essex’s staunchest supporters. An interesting mix of messengers, he thought. Mostly men who were at least partially on the Earl’s side. Able to understand his point of view. The better to argue against it, perhaps. But then the time for speculation was past. The Earl was at the gate himself. ‘So, he bellowed, ‘The Council sends my friends and relatives to slaughter me! I am become Julius Caesar in all truth!’

  The men around him began to echo his shouts so that it became impossible to hear anything further. But within moments, the Earl and Fitzherbert were escorting the four messengers through the mob and up the steps. As they passed Poley, he fell in behind them. There was far too much noise and excitement for anyone to pay particular attention to him so he was able to follow them up to the Earl’s library while Gelly Meyrick, Fernando Gorges, Southampton and Baron Cromwell joined them. And while the assembled supporters waved their swords and shouted, ‘Kill them! Kill them all!’

  *

  Poley pushed through the door with several others before Fitzherbert managed to close it. The Earl was locked in lively discussion with one messenger after another.

  ‘You accuse me of writing seditious letters to many men and the King of Scotland and I tell you such letters have been forged and I am innocent of them. Moreover, my life is at risk! There is more than Walter Raleigh who seek my immediate death…’

  ‘That is nonsense,’ answered Popham at once.

  ‘Tell that to my page whose arm was cut off when Thomas Grey tried to kill me,’ snarled Southampton.

  ‘An act for which he has been jailed!’ said the Lord Chief Justice.

  ‘A sentence of less than a month!’ answered Southampton. ‘He is out on the streets once more. With the same mankilling sword, I’ll wager, on the hunt for My Lord of Essex, for myself, for any of us!’

  ‘That’s enough,’ snapped Essex. ‘My Lords, I leave you here for your own safety. As you can hear, your lives would be lost on the instant were you to venture out of the room. I will have the door guarded and release you as soon as it is safe to do so.’ Then he led all the others out, closed the door behind them and locked it. ‘Gelly,’ he said. ‘Fetch Sir John Davis to stand guard and any one of your own men who can be relied upon to stand with him.’

  ‘Sir John Davis and Owen Salisbury then,’ nodded Gelly and went off in search of them.

  ‘Right…’ Essex stood with his back to the locked library door, surrounded by men awaiting his orders, the wind utterly taken out of his sails. ‘To the City, My Lord,’ Poley prompted, like the devil in Marlowe’s play of Faustus. ‘To make the citizens rise in revolt.’

  Southampton emphasised Poley’s words as he advised, ‘Think, My Lord, the bells for morning prayer have sounded. If we organise our time as well as our forces, we will arrive in the City just as the congregations are all coming out. All of London will be on the streets and able to hear our message.’

  ‘Especially somewhere like Paul’s Cross,’ added Cuffe, ‘where great crowds gather on Sundays in any case to hear the preachers. Today, they will hear you instead.’

  ‘And rise at your word as you plan,’ added Poley once more.

  ‘Not to mention that Paul’s Cross is but a stone’s throw from Sheriff Smythe’s house and he has often sworn to support you,’ concluded Southampton. Somewhat hopefully, thought Poley. Sheriff Smythe lived on Gracechurch Street, a goodly number of stone throws from St Paul’s. But who was he to argue? Especially as the Earl seemed to be stiffening his sinews and summoning up his blood at last, as Burbage had put it, playing Henry The Fifth at the Globe, just as Essex was leaving for Ireland; the last time Poley had seen a performance at the theatre.

  The Earl swept forward, clattering down the stairs as the crowd parted to let him past then closed ranks to follow him. Down the stairs, across the entrance hall and out onto the top step. ‘Open the great gates!’ he ordered. Then he realised he was not yet armed. But Fitzherbert once more rose to his rescue. ‘Your sword, My Lord,’ he said and Essex raised his arms as the faithful servant buckled his belt in place. ‘And your standard.’ Fitzherbert’s son Tom pushed to the Earl’s side, holding a banner with the distinctively complicated Essex coat of arms high and proud.

  The Earl ran down the steps and into the yard with Tom his page hard on his heels. The excited mob of his supporters, still not quite organised, parted before him and he strode towards the slowly opening gates. Beyond them lay the Strand, which as far as Poley could see was utterly deserted. Even the guards who had escorted Council’s messengers had vanished. At the threshold, Essex hesitated once more. As he looked back it must have been obvious to him that his senior officers had not yet organised his army of followers. But he had opened the great gates and could not wait any longer now. He glanced across at the stable beside the smithy. His thoughts were clear as day. Should he ride into the city? To do so would elevate him, make his position more powerful, establish him as the leader. But that had already been done by Tom Fitzherbert and his banner. Riding would also make his plan of addressing crowds and congregations more difficult. A moving and convincing speech could all too easily be ruined by a restless mount.

  *

  As he stood there, characteristically hesitant, Sir Christopher Blount strode past him, taking a contingent with him to form a vanguard. He pulled out his sword, and began shouting. Such was the clamour in the yard that Poley couldn’t really hear what Sir Christopher was saying; but it sounded to him like, ‘Saw, saw, saw. Trey, trey, trey!’

  As Sir Christopher’s men moved out into The Strand, the Earl at last committed himself. He pulled out his sword and turned to the men behind him. ‘For the Queen!’ he shouted. ‘For the Queen!’ And he too strode out into the Strand young Tom Fitzherbert staunchly at his side, the Essex coat of arms high and bright on the dull, misty morning. Poley stood and watched. For once, the intelligencer was hesitant himself. Every fibre of his being demanded that he follow and see this madness through to its end. But his mission was complete. There was no more for him to do. In spite of what he was shouting, the Earl of Essex was leading an army out into the City in direct contravention of the will of Queen and Council. It was High Treason and there was no going back from that. Not now. Not ever. Master Secretary had won. Without having been involved in the situation at all, except as the Earl’s apparent friend and wise councillor, he had pulled off his deadly trick just as planned. He had caused the Earl destroy himself. Absolutely and utterly. Whatever happened this day, Essex had nothing left to look forward to but the Tower, the block and the axe.

  But then Cuffe was at Poley’s shoulder, fizzing with excitement. ‘Come, dear Robert,’ he said. ‘We stand at the dawn of a brave new day! Let us go and see history being made! Perhaps even make a little history ourselves, what say you?’ And before he knew it, Poley was down the steps, across the yard and out into the Strand with the rest. He and Cuffe joined what looked in truth very much like the mob that Southampton, Gelly Meyrick and the others had been ordered to organise into some semblance of order. The fact that their leader had set off before they could do so and they had simply given up was soon made clear when Southampton pushed past Poley astride a horse. Baron Cromwell followed him, also mounted. The Strand was now packed with Essex’s supporters, many waving their swords, most of them shouting. The horses slowed, u
nable to push any further through the press of people, but Southampton yelled, ‘Make way there!’. He and Cromwell walked their horses more quickly and Poley pulled Cuffe into the space they left behind them so that the two of them could also make faster progress. Also, noted Poley, the road widened as they came to St Clement Danes. But it was here that the first whisper of trouble appeared. The two horses and the two men behind them caught up with the Earl, who was standing, frowning as he looked towards the great old church. ‘What is it?’ asked Southampton.

  ‘I was expecting the congregation to come out and join us, the first of all the churches that we pass by. But they haven’t and Sir Christopher tells me they’ve even shut their doors against us.’

  ‘No doubt the fearsome spectacle we present has frighted them,’ said Southampton bracingly. ‘Let us go on. I’m sure the people will join in behind us when they realise what’s a’foot. And you still have your great speech to make at St Paul’s Cross.’

  But Essex still hesitated; which was fortunate in one way at least, thought Poley, for it allowed Monteagle, the Percys, Gelly Meyrick and Fernando Gorges to catch up with him. They were also all on foot and were quick to form a protective ring around him, as though he was in fact leading his two-hundred man army into battle, banner flying bravely.

  ‘I’ll go on ahead,’ announced Baron Cromwell as they closed ranks. ‘Sheriff Smythe should be at his home in Gracechurch Street as soon as he has returned from church. I’ll tell him what’s going on so that he can start organising his people. It was the apprentices, was it not, and the City Watch that he had promised?’

  ‘Very well,’ said Essex. ‘I will be there in person soon after noon. Tell him…’ But Cromwell had already eased his horse through the men following Sir Christopher who was now marching towards Temple Bar and Fleet Street. The Earl looked around at the houses lining the roadway here. All their doors were closed but their upstairs windows were open. As far as the eye could see, stony faces were gazing down on him and his men. ‘For the Queen!’ he shouted up at them. ‘We march for the Queen. Her Council have sold us all to Spain. We must rescue the Queen from them or we will soon have the Infanta upon her throne!’