Prophecy (2011) (34 page)

Inside the chimney breast the darkness is complete and wraps around me heavy as broadcloth, the smell of soot and must thick in my nostrils. I feel the rising panic in my chest that always comes when I find myself in tight spaces, the furious quickening of my heart and breath, the slick of sweat on my palms, the blind terror of being enclosed. Willing myself to stay calm, I feel the brickwork above my head, patting methodically all around until I encounter what I hoped to find - a metal bracket set into the inside of the chimney, to aid the children when they climb to sweep it clean. No one has been up this chimney for years, I think, as I brace myself with one foot against the back of the fireplace and grip the bracket to pull myself up into the narrow flue, groping blindly above my head for the next one. Cobwebs cling to my mouth and nose; I try to bend my mind to some memory exercises to distract me from the sensation that the walls around me are growing narrower as I climb, feeling for footholds where I can as loose bricks crumble and scatter to the ground below. Soon I can feel the sides pressing against my shoulders; I take a mouthful of sooty air, and it tastes sharper, colder, with the crisp metallic edge of autumn. I can only pray that there is no ornate pot on the top of this chimney, closing me in. The climb has been shorter than I anticipated; I can feel night air on the top of my head, which helps to damp down the fear that rises as my shoulders become wedged for a moment where the flue tapers. With some judicious wriggling, I manage to raise one arm above my head and feel for the top of the chimney; half-squeezing, half-dragging myself, I emerge through the opening, rubbing filth from my eyes as the wind off the river slaps against my face, its perfume of Thames mud and sewage never more welcome.

Clouds chivvy one another across the sky, a bright moon hides its face briefly before reappearing from their blue-grey shadows. There is enough light to see and be seen as I heave myself out of the chimney stack and on to the roof tiles. Here at the back of the house, the building is a jumble of extensions and rooms added on to the main structure. The room that contains the library and Howard’s secret chapel appears to have been built on to the end of the wing as an adjunct; it is only one storey and its roof slopes sharply downwards to the left of the chimney breast I have just climbed. Though the tiles are treacherous from the earlier drizzle, if I can ease myself down slowly it would be a simple matter to drop the distance to the ground from where the roof ends; it cannot be more than fifteen feet. Checking that I still have the papers and my knife secure in my waistband, I hold on to the edge of the chimney breast and begin the slide down the roof on my backside. I have no way of knowing whether Henry Howard has returned yet with his servants and found me gone, nor do I have much idea of which way to run once I reach the ground, but at this point I can only keep moving forward; hesitation serves no purpose now.

In the event, I have no choice; the roof is so slippery that I cannot control the speed of my descent and I first slither and then fall the distance to the ground, landing awkwardly on my left side as I try to soften the impact by rolling. I have barely picked myself up and checked that I can still move my arm when a volley of furious barks splits the night air only a stone’s throw from where I stand. Panicked, I begin to run guided only by instinct away from the noise; from the vigour of the barking I guess this is not the dog I plied with wine earlier, but some other hound kept in the grounds as a guard dog. I should have anticipated that, I think, as my legs carry me surprisingly fast across the open stretch of lawn that slopes down towards the river. Without turning, I feel the dog gaining on me, its ragged breath and the sound of its protest growing alarmingly near at my back. At the foot of the garden an ornate boathouse is built around an inlet from the river where the boats are moored; if I can only reach them and get myself out to open water, the journey back to Salisbury Court is a short one and I might stand a chance of making it before anyone could catch me.

But the door to the boathouse is locked, and I can see the dog now, a tall loping shadow with long legs, barking fit to wake the dead; my body seems to act of its own accord, darting instead across the grass to the iron gate set into the boundary wall where we had entered from the water stairs the previous evening - though it now feels like days ago. The gate is locked too, but fired by the blood pounding through my limbs, I scale it quicker than I have climbed anything, saving perhaps the boundary wall of San Domenico Maggiore, the night I fled from the Inquisition. Hooking my leg over the top of the brick archway, I half-scramble, half-drop to the top of the slimy steps on the other side, where I almost slip into the water. By now I can hear voices from the direction of the house and a flickering point of light that can only be a torch appears out of the darkness. I glance behind me at the ink-black river; even in the fractured moonlight I can see how fast the tide is flowing. But I must not hesitate even for an instant; the torchlight is approaching as the dog hurls itself repeatedly against the bars of the gate, forcing its snout through, lips curled back, demented in its frustration at not reaching me. I look down; the water sounds unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. From the steps it is only a short distance along the boundary wall to the river entrance where the boats are moored, but the current is strong - if I should miss it and be carried downriver …

Closing my eyes, I jump; the shock of the cold water knocks the breath out of my body and the black water closes over my head so fast that for what seems like an eternity I am submerged, fighting the burning in my lungs as I flail my way to the surface. As my head breaks through and I snatch a mouthful of air, I begin to struggle with all the strength left in my limbs against the force of the flow, which has already dragged me almost past the edge of the archway leading into the boathouse. As a boy I was a strong swimmer, though these past years in northern lands have muted my enthusiasm for the sport; now determination and fear combine to overcome the stiffness already setting into my limbs and I force my way through the current until I can grasp at the edge of the boundary wall and propel myself into the calmer waters of the boathouse channel. The men’s voices carry through the windows and the light of their torch casts shadows on the arched ceiling of the boathouse, but it seems from the angry tone of their exchange and their violent rattling of the door handle that they do not have the key to the boathouse either. My hands are so frozen I can barely bend them to grip the sides of the nearest boat, but I will myself to heave my weight over the edge and sit for a moment, gathering my breath.

I am shaking so violently from the cold that the chattering of my teeth echoes around the walls; attempting to untie the rope that secures the wherry to an iron ring in the wall is almost beyond my numb fingers, but perhaps fortune is smiling on me, because I stumble back into the boat as it finally comes loose, and with shaking arms I shunt myself back along the wall with one of the oars until I emerge again into the choppy waters of the Thames. From the shadows behind me, a man’s protests join with the relentless barking of the dog in a chorus of anger, which fades as I set my face into the wind and bend the last of my strength to holding this little craft steady along the north bank, hoping that I can see enough to recognise the landing place at Water Lane and the garden wall of Salisbury Court. As the prow of the wherry catches a large wave head-on, the spray drenching me again with icy water, and a sharp pain arrows through my left shoulder as I try to wrench myself back on course, the prospect of the embassy walls has never seemed more enticing.

Salisbury Court, London
3rd October, Year of Our Lord 1583

I set the boat adrift into the tide as I leap from it into the soft mud that silts the cobbles where Water Lane slopes down to the river. The moonlight and the pale edge of sky against the eastern horizon allowed me to see enough to recognise the Temple Gardens as I passed and to steer my way into the bank in time to disembark at home. Soaked, chilled, shivering uncontrollably and fighting a fierce headache behind my eyes, I drag myself the few yards up Water Lane to the garden gate of Salisbury Court and almost weep with relief when I find it unlocked. I do not expect to have the same luck with the house; I am wondering if any of the servants are awake yet and how much consternation or gossip my appearance will occasion, when I pass through the walled garden and notice a light burning in one of the ground-floor windows. Creeping closer, counting the windows, I realise that the glow comes from Castelnau’s study. Sleep still eludes the ambassador, it seems, poor man. How Courcelles must have relished giving him the account of why I had not returned with them last night! I owe him an explanation of that at least, and perhaps it is preferable to waking the servants. I set my jaw and, crouching low, tap gently against the window pane.

There is a cry of alarm from inside, and the sound of something falling. Then a shadow appears at the window, holding up an oil lamp.

‘My lord ambassador - it is I, Bruno.’ I can hardly force the words through my rattling teeth.

A pause, and the window opens a crack.

‘Bruno? Dear God, man, what on earth has happened to you? What are you doing out there?’

‘Can I come in first?’ I indicate the window; he pushes it wider and I hoist myself on to the sill before tumbling through and landing with a dull thud like wet laundry on the floor. Castelnau holds up the lamp and stares at me in wordless disbelief as I pick myself up. In the still air of his study I am aware of the fierce reek of Thames mud coming off me. The ambassador takes a step back. Eventually he shakes his head.

‘I knew philosophers in Paris. They were quiet men with dusty beards who confined themselves to their books. They did not fall through windows in the early hours covered in blood and shit. I feel there are whole realms of your life that I cannot begin to comprehend, Bruno. What is that all over your face? It looks like soot.’ He sounds not accusing but sorry. ‘I thought you stayed at Arundel House?’

‘I fell in the river on the way back,’ I gasp, wrapping my arms around my chest through a series of violent convulsions. ‘I can explain -‘

‘You will die of cold first - here, take those clothes off and put this on.’ He shrugs off the heavy woollen robe he wears around his own shoulders. Underneath he still wears shirt and breeches; it appears he has not even made a pretence of going to bed. ‘Get yourself by the fire.’

He holds out the robe, nodding to indicate I should hurry; with some embarrassment, I peel away my filthy wet clothes and drop them in a heap at my feet. My dagger clatters to the floor and I pick it up hastily and lay it on the edge of his desk. It is only as I lift my shirt over my head that I feel the sodden paper plastered against my skin. Castelnau watches with curiosity as I unstick it and hold it away from me, my heart dropping like a stone. The ink has smudged beyond recognition. I curse aloud in Italian and find myself fighting back tears of fury at my own failure; for the second time I have lost a piece of vital evidence that would have been beyond price to Walsingham.

‘Something valuable, I take it?’ Castelnau asks, as I flap the paper uselessly back and forth. When I do not reply, he ushers me gently towards the hearth, where the embers of a fire are quietly dying. He takes the paper from my hand and spreads it out over the flagstones in front of the fire, but I can already see that there is no chance of proving that it once showed an illegal genealogy in Henry Howard’s hand. All I had to offer Walsingham was the report that such a document had once existed; I would need to get this information to Fowler as soon as possible. Perhaps he was already preparing to take his report of last night to Walsingham at first light, to inform him of the invasion plans, the list of Catholic lords and safe havens, and tell him that I had contrived to stay the night, whetting his appetite for whatever further evidence I might bring. Again, I would let them down.

In the silence, the first birds strike up their chorus outside the window. The ambassador wraps his beautiful robe around my muddy, soot-streaked body and crosses to his desk to pour me the last dregs of wine from a decanter. I guess that he must have drunk the rest himself in the long sleepless hours. I clasp the glass between my hands, trying not to spill it as I shiver, while Castelnau comes to stand beside me in front of the glowing ashes. He gives another of those great sighs that suggest he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders.

‘There is bad news, Bruno.’ He speaks without looking at me, and before the words are out of his mouth, I know what he is about to tell me. ‘Leon is dead.’

I bite my lip. Part of me has expected this since Dumas failed to return yesterday, but I have tried to persuade myself that there could be some other explanation. If only Marie had not interrupted, if only I had been more forthright in prising out his story about the ring, if I had paid more attention to his fears instead of dismissing his nervous disposition. I take a sip of wine, feeling sick to the depths of my stomach, but find myself unable to swallow; I cannot avoid the certainty that Leon Dumas, like Abigail Morley, died because of me, and that I should have prevented it.

‘What happened?’ I ask eventually, after we have stared together into the hearth for a few minutes.

‘The aldermen came last night, after you had all left,’ he says, his voice flat. ‘Some boatmen found his body in the river down by Paul’s Wharf and reported it.’

‘Paul’s Wharf?’ I glance at him. ‘By Throckmorton’s house, then?’

‘Nearby. They think he was strangled by some cut-purse. It’s a dangerous part of town for that - all the foreign merchants coming off the boats. He had nothing on him but the clothes he was wearing when they pulled him out. He had been in the water some hours, they said.’

‘How did they know to come here?’

‘They asked the dockhands and boatmen at the wharf. Someone recognised him, knew he was French. Said he was a familiar face down there.’

So he would have been, from all the trips to Throckmorton, I think. So where was the young courier now? On his way to Mary Stuart in Sheffield? If Dumas was killed near Paul’s Wharf, did his killer follow him there, or lie in wait, knowing that he was a regular visitor to Throckmorton’s house? In fact, the one person who would have known to expect a visit from Dumas was Throckmorton himself. I glance across at the window and recall the day I found Throckmorton in this office unannounced, the way he could not keep his eyes off the ambassador’s desk. Dumas was killed because of the ring. Everything centres around the ring. Dumas stole the ring from Mary’s letter before it reached Howard, someone paid him for it, and the ring ended up with Cecily Ashe. I rub my eyes; my tired brain gropes for connections, but again I come back to Cecily’s mystery lover, the man who gave her the ring as a pledge of their pact, the same man who gave her a vial of poison for Elizabeth Tudor. Dumas had to die because he knew this man’s identity; it is the only explanation. But why now - unless this man had new reason to fear that Dumas was about to expose him? At this thought, my body convulses so violently that the wine in my glass lurches and spills a drop on the flagstones, and the word that springs instantly to my mind is on my lips before I can stop it.

‘Marie.’

‘What was that?’ Castelnau turns to look at me with redrimmed eyes.

‘I - nothing.’ I had not meant to speak her name aloud. ‘Marie - she came home safely last night?’

‘Yes, of course. And Courcelles. He was full of stories of how you disgraced yourself and the embassy. Of course, I realised that you must have been putting on a show.’ He inclines his head with a meaningful expression.

‘My lord?’ It is fortunate that I am shaking so violently that any show of anxiety is lost.

‘I did not say as much to Courcelles, but I guessed that you took to heart my fears that Henry Howard is shifting his loyalties towards the Spanish. I supposed you had decided to take the opportunity to find out what you could while you were under his roof, disarm them into revealing something by a show of drunkenness. Courcelles would not have the subtlety to understand such a strategy.’ He laughs weakly. ‘Besides, last night I had other matters on my mind. Come with me, Bruno. I want you to see him.’

‘They brought the body here?’

‘He has family in France, poor boy. They’ll want the body back to bury him there, but I don’t know if that can be arranged in time.’ He passes a hand across his brow. ‘I must write to them. In the midst of all this.’ He waves a hand imprecisely, but I understand: he means the invasion.

‘I would like to see him,’ I say. The ambassador nods as if his head is too heavy to hold up. I am seized by a sudden urge to confide in him, to tell him of the counter-plots eddying around him, of Henry Howard’s ambitions, of his wife’s machinations, of Dumas and the ring. In my exhaustion, I almost believe for one absurd, fleeting moment, the instant it takes to draw breath, that I might be relieved of this burden if I share it with him, if I tell this upright, fatherly man caught between so many conflicting factions that I am not what he thinks, that I have been deceiving him all this while but that, ultimately, we both desire the same outcome: to prevent a war. I cup my hand over my mouth and lower my eyes to the floor until this insanity has passed and floated away like smoke. I have chosen to live a double life, and I must remain faithful to that choice, even when the strain of it almost fells me.

‘You realise how little you know a man, though you sit beside him for the best part of every day,’ Castelnau muses, subdued, as he leads me along the passageway towards the rear door by the kitchen. ‘I never asked him about himself, you know. All I did was bark instructions at him from dawn to dusk. I don’t think he was happy in England, but he never complained.’

He takes a key from a chain at his belt, unlocks the door and leads me across the small courtyard to the collection of outbuildings and storerooms that surround it on two sides. My feet are bare and so cold that they hurt against the cobbles, but the ambassador seems not to have thought of this and with a great effort of will I force myself to ignore it. The sky is light enough now to do without candles, and when he pushes open the door to one outbuilding I see clearly the form of Leon Dumas laid out on a trestle, his head contorted to one side at an unnatural angle. Castelnau stands in the doorway as if keeping vigil, without looking at the corpse; I pull the robe tighter around myself and approach the table slowly.

Dumas’s large startled eyes have been closed, but his face is not peaceful. It is bruised and swollen, the lips puffy and parted. Gently, with one forefinger, I pull back the neck of his shirt to see the mark of a ligature around his throat. I picture him walking those streets by the dock, preoccupied with the guilt he had tried unsuccessfully to unburden on me, ambushed by the killer stepping out of the shadows with a cord or a twist of cloth.

‘He must have been set upon in broad daylight,’ I murmur. I reach out and lay my fingertips on his cold arm.

Castelnau shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

‘You know what it’s like down at the docks, Bruno, it’s a bad part of town. The boatmen always brawling, half of them drunk in the day. Thieves on the lookout for any opportunity. People turn a blind eye.’

‘But Leon did not go about looking as if he would be worth robbing on the off-chance,’ I say, glancing down at Dumas’s worn breeches, now filthy with river silt.

‘What are you saying?’

I hesitate; the ambassador has enough weighing on him at the present time, perhaps it would be kinder to let him persuade himself that Dumas was the victim of a random assault by an opportunistic robber.

‘You are wondering, I think, if he was not attacked by a street thief but by someone who knew of his business,’ he says, when I do not reply.

He glances at the door as he says this, chewing on the knuckle of his thumb, and for an awful moment I wonder if he is hiding something. I stare at him across Dumas’s corpse, until he meets my eye.

‘What I do not know, Bruno, is whether he got his letter to Throckmorton before he was attacked. The aldermen said they found nothing on him, but that does not mean it couldn’t have been taken. If he was known as a regular visitor, perhaps someone might have guessed …’ His voice trails into anxious silence.

‘That he was a courier to Mary?’

‘They say Francis Walsingham has eyes everywhere,’ he says, pulling at his beard. I turn my own eyes studiously back to the body on the table. ‘Suppose Throckmorton has been indiscreet? We may presume they watch Mary’s servants closely in Sheffield Castle - what if Throckmorton has been recognised up there as he comes and goes? I will confess, Bruno,’ he murmurs, lowering his voice, ‘I have been wondering about Leon’s loyalty since I learned of his death. He wrote out my private letters, as you know - he had access to the secret ciphers, all of it. I never thought to doubt him until tonight, but now I can think of nothing else. What do you make of it, Bruno? Might he have been so desperate for English coins that he would have sold me and the embassy?’

His eyes grow wide and behind the tiredness I see that he is genuinely eaten up with fear; immediately I see what I must do, though his words strike at my heart and my every instinct is to look away in shame. Instead, I shake my head.

‘You have begun to jump at shadows, my lord.’ I make my voice as reassuring as I can manage, remembering the tone my father would use when I was a boy and woke with night-terrors. ‘The burden you must carry would have broken a lesser man by now, and this terrible business has shaken us all.’ I lay a hand gently on Dumas’s frozen body. ‘But Leon was true to you and to France, I am sure of it. Let us not allow fear to distract us from our purpose now. As you said yourself, Paul’s Wharf is a dangerous enough place for a foreigner.’