The Reluctant Assassin

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  We went to the cottage, where he had taken up residence, and the reference was produced. It spoke highly of him. It looked as though one of the two positions I wanted to fill now had a likely occupant. Next, I must see to the matter of Harry’s new tutor.

  Sybil provided me with the list and I examined the applicants carefully, sitting once more in my comfortable small parlour. She and Dale sat with me, so that I could talk things over with them. I was particular about the kind of man I wanted as Harry’s teacher, but also aware that I shouldn’t delay over the decision, because the lad couldn’t be left to run wild for very long. At the moment, he was probably with Brockley, who gave him regular instruction in horsemanship and often entertained him by telling him stories of his army days. Well, all that was satisfactory, but not on its own. Habits of regular study needed to be instilled. I hoped that the three letters now before me would contain promising information.

  One was from a resident of Woking, an ordained man, who apparently preferred teaching to preaching. He said he had had experience but the details he gave showed that he had been teaching younger children than Harry. I read the letter to Dale and Sybil, who both agreed with that conclusion and shook their heads at it.

  ‘He might find Harry a handful,’ Dale said candidly.

  The other two letters were from Guildford. One said that his erstwhile pupil had now been sent away to school, leaving him without a post; the other said that his current post was not to his liking, but didn’t say why, though he offered notable credentials, concerning a knowledge of languages, history and modern science.

  ‘I had better see those two,’ I said finally. ‘I would especially like to meet the Guildford man whose latest pupil has gone away to school. That’s a nice, straightforward reason for seeking a new post, and it doesn’t sound as though he was teaching an infant. I think …’

  The door of the parlour opened and Brockley stood on the threshold. I stared at him in amazement, for never in all the long years of our acquaintance had I seen Roger Brockley look like that. His expression was that of a man who had been struck on the head and left dazed. His eyes seemed glazed and he was opening and shutting his mouth as though he wished to speak but couldn’t.

  ‘Brockley?’ I said.

  Adam Wilder appeared behind him. ‘Madam, a new applicant for the post of tutor to Master Harry has presented himself. I asked him to wait in the great hall. He …’

  Adam himself seemed lost for words at this point. He moved alongside Brockley and glanced at him, and Brockley took a deep breath and attempted to speak. All that came out, however, was an extraordinary sound which I can best render as Glug!

  I stood up, scattering the three application letters, which had been on my lap. ‘What is this? Brockley, what on earth is the matter with you? Adam, just who or what have you told to wait in the great hall? A monster? An archangel with wings? A demon with horns and a forked tail? A unicorn with human speech and a testimonial as a skilled tutor? Will one of you please explain?’

  ‘Brockley really should be the one to tell you, madam.’

  ‘Brockley?’

  ‘Glug!’

  ‘Brockley!’

  Brockley took another deep breath and this time managed it. ‘The applicant isn’t a monster, madam. He says … well, he looks like … he says he’s my son.’

  THREE

  Out of Nowhere

  I took control of the situation and marched us all, Sybil and Dale included, to the great hall, where we found the new arrival standing beside the central table and looking nervous. Brockley and Wilder stopped just inside the door to stare at him and their expressions really would have done justice to a two-headed unicorn, but the stranger was in fact a perfectly ordinary man, somewhere in his mid-thirties, clean-shaven, with neat, short hair and decently dressed in a brown doublet and breeches suitable for riding. A stout cloak and a black hat had been put down on the table.

  Though there was one striking thing about the stranger. Except for being considerably younger, he was the living image of Brockley.

  I found that I too was staring at him. There was my dear Roger Brockley, miraculously shorn of something like a quarter of a century. The light brown hair was the same, except that there was no grey in it, and there were Brockley’s high, gold-freckled forehead and calm, blue-grey gaze. He smiled, a little shyly, at my amazed face and said: ‘You are Mistress Stannard? I am sorry that I seem to have startled everyone. It isn’t so strange, surely, that a son should …’

  ‘I didn’t know I had a son!’ Brockley had now recovered his powers of speech. ‘I don’t understand this. This man has come out of nowhere. Who are you, sir? When were you born? What is your name?’

  ‘I think,’ said the newcomer, ‘that one thing I am, sir, is your mirror image! I can see it in your face, that you have realized that. My name is Philip. I’m known as Philip Sandley but …’

  ‘Known as Philip Sandley? That isn’t your real name?’

  ‘My real name is Philip Brockley. I am the lawful son, sir, of Roger Brockley and his wife Joan.’

  ‘My first wife!’ said Brockley.

  ‘You remarried? Is my mother dead, then?’ Philip Sandley – or Brockley – seemed disconcerted. ‘I suppose I might have expected that. I was born in February 1545. I believe, sir, that when King Henry invaded France in June 1544, you were in his army. You left England before you knew that I was coming into existence.’

  ‘Yes. I had to go. I was working as a groom for a lord who chose some of his able-bodied male employees to go with him when he joined the king’s army and I was one of the ones he picked. I didn’t return for over a year,’ said Brockley. ‘The war ended the following June. I came home in July. My wife had left me. I didn’t find her for nearly two years and when I did, yes, she was dying. She didn’t recognize me and certainly never said she had a child. She died …’ an old pain coloured his voice ‘… because she had – got rid of one.’

  ‘I see. I know that she had a husband – my father – called Roger Brockley and that she ran away with some travelling actors,’ Philip said. ‘Well, with one of them in particular …’

  ‘Her lover,’ said Brockley bitterly. I saw Dale flinch, and also saw him reach out to her and briefly grasp her hand. Without words, he was saying: You are my wife now, my dear and faithful and honest wife. Don’t mind my memories. I saw her look at him gratefully.

  ‘I know that much,’ Philip said. His voice, too, was like Brockley’s. ‘The people who brought me up were a family called Sandley. They didn’t hide my origins from me. I was born in February, as I said. The troupe my mother was with had been working during the winter months in the Sandley household. The master of the house was Thomas Sandley, a well-off London merchant. Travelling players always try to find somewhere to stay put during the cold weather. They offer regular entertainment for the dark evenings and for Christmas, and so on, in return for shelter until the spring returns. My mother gave birth to me there and she told the family her story. Master Sandley and his wife had no children and they were willing to adopt me. My mother thought it best, they told me. Life on the road can be hard, for a tiny child, or with one. She left me with them.’

  ‘You don’t remember her?’ Brockley said.

  ‘No. She left with the troupe when I was but a few weeks old. I know nothing of what happened to her after that. I stayed with the Sandleys. They were good to me. I took their name. They educated me. Master Sandley had shares in a ship that brought in spices and silks, and when I grew up, I helped him in his warehouse and his counting house.’

  ‘But you didn’t stay there?’ Brockley said.

  ‘Master Sandley died when I was twenty-three and his wife went to live with her sister somewhere. He left me a little money, which helped while I set about looking for work as a clerk. But in one house where I applied, although I didn’t get the clerk’s post, I was offered the chance to be a tutor to the young children of the family. So I took to tutoring and liked it. I like child
ren. My first family outgrew me, and that’s when I took the post I have just left. That was with a family called Dawes – Master Dawes is a small landowner. I was teaching twins, a brother and sister, but they are sixteen now. The boy has become his father’s assistant, and the girl is to be married. I have testimonials, from Master Dawes and from the people I worked for before him.’

  ‘Yes, we’ll want to see those,’ I said. I glanced at Brockley. I was beginning to take to this young man but if he was truly Brockley’s son – and I couldn’t suppose that he wasn’t, not with those looks – then Brockley would have a say in the matter.

  ‘Master Dawes doesn’t have anything to do with court affairs,’ said Philip. ‘But he has a cousin who is sometimes at court. The cousin visits him now and then. I used to dine with the Dawes family, and one day, when the cousin was there, the talk turned to court affairs and I heard of Mistress Stannard, who lives not so very far from Guildford, and of Roger Brockley who is her manservant. I thought then – could that be my father? I thought of approaching you, but then I decided not to; I had my life and you have yours and I realized that you probably had no idea that I existed. But when I heard the vacancy here for a tutor being cried in the streets of Guildford … I hesitated at first but I do need a new post, so … here I am,’ said Philip.

  I said: ‘What subjects can you teach? My son Harry Stannard is nine years old and already has a grounding in Latin and Greek. I have also seen to it that he has begun to study arithmetic and history.’

  ‘I can teach all those,’ said Philip with assurance. ‘And I have taught all ages. My first pupils were six and seven when I began to tutor them, and I stayed with them as they grew up. The Dawes children were already growing up when I took them on. I would be happy to take a pupil aged nine.’

  I looked at my steward. ‘Wilder, please arrange a bedchamber for Master Sandley. We had better call him that. It will be confusing to have two Brockleys in the house. See that he is looked after until his room is ready and then show him to it. Go with Wilder, Master Sandley. Brockley, Dale, I want to talk to you in the parlour.’

  ‘Here are the testimonials,’ Philip said, turning to his discarded cloak and hat, and searching an inner pocket of the cloak. He produced two small parchment scrolls and held them out. I took them with a nod.

  In the parlour, I sat down to read them while the Brockleys stood by, silent and waiting. Then I looked up. ‘These are good. It sounds as though he is a competent tutor and he seems to have had a good many years of experience. But the circumstances being what they are … Brockley, do you want your son here? And Dale, will you be happy about that?’

  ‘I will be happy with whatever Roger decides,’ said Dale loyally. ‘It has to be for him to say.’

  ‘I would like to get to know him,’ Brockley said slowly. ‘This has come as a shock – dear heaven, yes, a shock and no mistake. But it is a pleasant shock, though I feel I need to get used to it! As long as he really does prove to be a good tutor, I would like him to be here. On approval, perhaps, as you have done with Laurence Miller, madam.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said.

  The next few weeks were most pleasant. I did not know that this was the time of stillness that so often precedes a storm.

  At the end of three weeks, in the middle of April, a party of strolling players presented themselves. There were seven of them, six men and a young woman. They arrived on foot, trundling a big, heavy handcart piled with hampers and boxes and bundles containing their belongings and their props. It needed three or four of them at a time, to push and pull it along. I looked at them with interest, wondering if they had any connection with the players who had led Joan Brockley astray, but this was obviously not the case, for they were all too young.

  They were striking to look at, the men in tunics patterned with big, vividly coloured squares, the woman in a bright turquoise gown sewn with glittering crystal beads and all probably related to each other, since every one of them had slightly swarthy, gipsy-like complexions and thick, dark, shoulder-length hair, except for the young woman, whose hair was red.

  They all spoke with the same accent too, which sounded as though they came from somewhere north of London. The woman didn’t take part in the short play that they performed for us, but she had a lute and sang songs for us, and one of the players, the one who seemed to be their leader, did card tricks. He was a tall, lanky man with very long fingers which flickered among the cards, apparently reading them by feel.

  They arrived at dusk, nicely in time to ask for their pay in terms of supper and beds for the night, and we obliged. The evening turned into a jolly party. The players left the next day and our usual, orderly life resumed. We were all very happy. For nearly a fortnight, we continued to be happy, until …

  FOUR

  Into the Void

  April was passing and the weather had improved, becoming if anything unusually warm for the time of year. I was reading in the small parlour one afternoon without the need of a fire when Dale appeared in the doorway, to announce, in a primly disapproving voice, that Philip Sandley wished to see me, concerning future plans for Harry’s education.

  ‘I met him at the top of the stairs, ma’am, just coming out of the schoolroom. He asked where you were and I said I would ask if you were able to see him.’

  ‘I’ll be very happy to talk to him,’ I said. ‘It’s time we consulted together. He has had some weeks now to work with Harry and find out how far his studies have already taken him, and I want to know how my son is progressing.’ I looked at her unsmiling face. ‘What is it, Dale? What’s wrong with Master Sandley?’

  ‘I can’t like him, ma’am.’

  ‘Why ever not? Well, I realize that he came as a shock to you, being Roger’s son, but you said you were happy to have him here if Brockley wanted it. Has he upset you in some way? Surely he hasn’t been rude to you. He seems such a well-spoken young man.’

  Dale sighed but I looked at her and she gave in. ‘No, ma’am. It’s not that. It’s just something about him. I can’t explain.’

  ‘Is it because he’s part of Brockley’s past and probably reminds Brockley of … well, things that happened then? Of his first wife? Joan?’

  Dale’s eyes dropped and she fiddled with her girdle. I said: ‘Joan has been dead for years and years and Philip never knew her. She parted with him when he was a baby. Oh, Dale! You can’t be jealous of a woman dead so long! I expect Brockley is happy to find that he has a son. I haven’t discussed the matter with him, of course, but he looks cheerful. You surely don’t want to spoil it for him.’

  ‘No. But I wish we …’

  ‘I know.’ I did know. When they were first married, there was a possibility of having children, but it hadn’t happened and now it couldn’t happen. ‘Please, Dale,’ I said beseechingly. ‘Don’t hate Philip for what he can’t help. You need not have much to do with him, anyway. He’s Harry’s tutor and his work doesn’t overlap with yours. Harry seems to like him. Now, will you send him to me?’

  ‘Very well, ma’am.’

  Dale disappeared and I sat where I was, shaking my head and thinking that keeping all the currents of a big house smooth was sometimes a superhuman task.

  Philip’s arrival stopped me from brooding. He came into the room smiling, and had evidently noticed nothing wrong with the way Dale had treated him. His mind was entirely on Harry. He sat down at my request, and began on a report.

  ‘I am pleased to say that he’s ahead of his age as far as Latin and Greek are concerned, Mistress Stannard. I understand that you started him on them quite early, before he ever had a tutor?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I enjoy them myself,’ I said, ‘and I hoped he would take to them, which I think he has.’

  ‘You were well taught as a child, I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  When my mother was sent home from court, where she had been one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s ladies, because she was with child by a man she would not name, she sought shelter wi
th her brother, my Uncle Herbert, and his wife, Aunt Tabitha. They were never very kind to her or to me when I came into the world, but they did give us a home, and I was allowed to share my cousins’ very good tutor. I explained some of this. I had never been secretive about it and no doubt Brockley had told his son a certain amount.

  Philip listened, and nodded. ‘There’s nothing like starting young. I find him a willing pupil, in fact, intelligent for his age. I took care to choose Latin and Greek texts that were likely to appeal to him, and I think that’s working well. For instance, he has become very interested in the Roman historian Livy’s account of how Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants. He keeps wanting to know what will happen next. Which means applying himself to Livy’s Latin! He also seems to be well taught in religious matters, not that I would presume to instruct him in those. I have heard Dr Joynings, your vicar at St Mary’s in Hawkswood, preach and thought him a very sound man. He is new, I understand.’

  ‘Yes. His predecessor, Dr Fletcher, has retired. He was a sound man, too,’ I said. But I smiled, because although I had liked Dr Fletcher well enough, I also knew that he had orders from Sir William Cecil to keep an eye on me, since, as the queen’s sister and occasional secret agent, I might sometimes be in danger. I knew the surveillance was for my own good but I still didn’t like it. I hoped that Fletcher’s replacement, Dr Sebastian Joynings, had no such brief. He was a jolly, rubicund little man and certainly an excellent preacher. Everyone had taken to him.

  ‘There is some Catholic influence in the house, though,’ Philip was saying. ‘One of the maids was telling me that Ben Flood, who works in your kitchen, is Catholic and even attends Masses somewhere.’

  ‘He does, but I don’t interfere. He is a good servant to me. I can trust him. He doesn’t try to convert anyone – certainly not Harry.’

  ‘That’s good. I did wonder. I am really very pleased with Harry, except for one thing. He is not well advanced in arithmetic. That’s what I most want to discuss with you.’