Prophecy (2011) (4 page)

‘We have had five people arrested this year in London alone for disseminating printed prophecies of the queen’s death,’ Burghley adds sagely.

‘The people take this nonsense about the Great Conjunction seriously - and not just the humbler sort of folk,’ Walsingham says, his eyes flitting to the dead girl’s breast. ‘It will be all the easier for the secret priests to crawl out of their dogholes and turn the people back to Rome if they believe the second coming is at hand.’

‘She held a rosary,’ Burghley says, almost in a whisper. ‘An effigy of the queen killed, and in the other hand a rosary. The message is clear, is it not? The triumph of Rome and Her Majesty’s death?’

‘Someone wishes us to think along those lines, certainly.’ Walsingham sets his jaw and a nerve twitches in his cheek. ‘And the sign of Jupiter, too. Her Majesty is skittish enough touching these movements of the planets, thanks to John Dee. Now she will insist her fears are grounded.’ He sighs. ‘I should go to her without delay. Bruno - you can begin by talking to anyone close to Lady Cecily who might cast some light on her movements. Say you are Lord Burghley’s man. William, you will point Doctor Bruno to the right people? And have the serjeants-at-arms search every private apartment in the building, as well as the kitchens, the chapel and every common space. If this killer is still hereabouts, he will have a bloody shirt and knife he may have tried to hide somewhere.’

Burghley nods, running his hand over his head again, and looks suddenly weary. He must be a good ten years older than Walsingham, perhaps in his mid-sixties already, though he has the appearance of better health. He glances at me sidelong, his eyebrows knit in concern.

‘You will find the ladies-in-waiting somewhat hysterical, Doctor Bruno,’ he remarks drily. ‘Understandable, of course, though I was hard pushed to get any sense out of them. Still - perhaps a younger man with fine dark eyes and a pleasing smile might have better luck.’ He smiles grimly and pats me on the shoulder as he holds the chamber door open for me.

‘That is the nearest you will get to a compliment from Burghley, Bruno,’ Walsingham says, following behind me.

‘I assumed he was talking about you, your honour.’

Burghley throws a look of amusement over his shoulder.

‘At least he knows how to flatter, this one,’ he observes. ‘Let us hope he can turn it to good use with these women.’

Lady Margaret Seaton, Queen Elizabeth’s Lady of the Bedchamber, does not seem hysterical when I am shown into the private chamber where she waits; if anything, she seems impressively composed, you might almost say guarded. Lord Burghley introduces me as a trusted assistant, before backing politely through the double doors and closing them behind him. Lady Seaton wears black as if she is already in mourning and sits back among her cushions, regarding me with shrewd eyes. She is older, some way through her forties, closer to the queen’s own age, and though her fine skin begins to show the marks of time it is clear that she must have been considered a beauty in her youth. Two younger women sit on floor cushions on either side of her chair, clutching at her hands, both dressed in gowns of white silk and weeping copiously. At length she raises a hand and the girls make an effort to dampen their sobs.

‘What are you?’ she asks, in a clear voice. There is something accusatory in her tone; I sense that her apparent dislike is not personal, but that she is acutely conscious of her station and would prefer to have been sent someone with more authority.

‘I am an Italian, my lady. Lord Burghley has asked me to see if you can recall anything that -‘

‘I mean by profession. You are not a courtier, I don’t think. Are you a diplomat?’

‘Of sorts, my lady.’

She rearranges her broad skirts, rustling the silks ostentatiously while avoiding my eye.

‘How odd, that Burghley should send a foreigner. But continue.’

‘The young lady, Cecily Ashe - do you have any idea who she might have been meeting in the ruined chapel this evening?’

‘The papists have done this, you know,’ Lady Seaton snaps, leaning forwards. At the same time, I note that the red-headed girl kneeling by the left side of her chair bites her lip and drops her eyes to the floor.

‘Why do you say so, my lady?’

‘Because of the sacrilegious nature of it.’ She looks at me as though this should be obvious. ‘I suppose you are one, or have been?’

‘Once. But His Beatitude Pope Gregory had me excommunicated and wishes to burn me. This is why I now live under Her Majesty’s kindlier skies.’

‘I see.’ Her expression changes to one of curiosity. ‘What did you do to upset him?’

‘I have read books forbidden by the Holy Office. I abandoned the Dominican order without permission. I have written that the Earth turns around the Sun, that the stars are not fixed and that the universe is infinite.’ I shrug. ‘Among other things.’

She considers this with a slight wrinkle of her nose, as if a bad smell had drifted into her orbit.

‘Good heavens. Then I’m not surprised. To answer your question, I have no idea why Cecily should have been in that chapel. I last saw her at about four o’clock this afternoon, when she was engaged under my supervision with the other maids of honour in preparing the queen’s jewels for the evening. There was to be a musical recital in the great hall after supper. Master Byrd was to play.’ Here she pauses, and there is a minute tremor in her voice. The red-haired girl stifles a sob. ‘Cecily retired to dress with the other girls before Evensong, and that was the last time I set eyes on her.’

‘But evidently she slipped away to meet someone, disguised as a boy. Do you know who that might have been?’

Lady Seaton’s eyes narrow.

‘Preposterous,’ she says, eventually, though her voice remains steady. ‘The very suggestion. These girls are under my direct authority, Master -‘

‘Bruno.’

‘- yes, so the idea that I should be so lax with their honour and reputations is deeply distasteful to me, especially in the circumstances. Her Majesty does not tolerate immorality at her court. Whatever your customs in Italy, the Queen of England’s maids of honour do not engage in trysts in broad daylight for all to see.’

I am tempted to ask whether they always wait until dark, but sense that she would not respond well to mockery. The red-haired girl darts a furtive glance upwards and catches my eye for a moment before quickly looking away, evidently distressed.

‘I can only assume that she was crossing the courtyard and was dragged into the chapel garden by her assailant,’ Lady Seaton asserts, nodding a full stop, as if this is the last word on the matter. Then her face softens into something like regret. ‘Cecily was a particular favourite of Her Majesty’s, you know. She liked Cecily to read to her from Seneca in the evenings. Cecily had the best Latin of any of the girls.’

‘
Seneca
?’

‘Oh, yes, Master Bruno - no need to look so astonished. Our sovereign is highly educated and she expects the same standards of her attendants. She will not have girls who can’t read to her and understand what they read.’

I glance down at the red-haired girl, who blinks up at me again, biting her lip. She is the one I need to speak to, if I can only find a way to get her alone. I wonder if she reads Seneca. She looks barely old enough to have learned her letters.

‘Why was she dressed in men’s clothes?’

‘I cannot account for that, Master Bruno. The girls are high-spirited, they do sometimes get up to games and pranks. Dressing up, and so on …’ The words die on her lips. It is clear that she will swear black is white if she must, rather than willingly offer anything that might reflect badly on her own vigilance over the dead girl.

‘Thank you for your help, my lady.’ I bow and make as if to leave, then turn back, as if struck by an afterthought. ‘There is no reason to suppose that Cecily had any loyalty to the Roman faith?’

Lady Seaton is so outraged by this that she rises to her feet, though the vast bulk of her farthingales means she almost becomes stuck in the chair, so the gesture loses some of its impact. She shakes off the girls’ hands on her arm.

‘How dare you, sir! Her family’s loyalty to the queen is impeccable, and if you think I would not have been able to sniff out a papist right under my own nose -‘

‘Forgive me. I was only thinking aloud. She was found with a rosary in her hand.’

‘Planted on her by the papist conspirators who carried out this heinous deed!’ She points a finger into my face. ‘I think you should leave, sir. You come here charged with finding poor Cecily’s killer and instead accuse her of whoring and popery!’

I murmur an apology for any offence caused and retire, backing through the doors in a low bow. As I leave, I catch the red-haired girl’s eye and try to convey by a look that I would welcome any confidence she may choose to share. It is not clear if she has understood.

The many fine tapestries hanging on the walls keep the corridor free of draughts, but I hear an insistent wind worrying at the window frames as I settle myself almost out of sight in a bay opposite the stairs, where I can watch the door to the chamber I have just left. Walsingham will be some time with the queen, I suppose, and there is nothing for me to do but wait and hope that the young maid of honour with the red hair will show herself at some point, without the company of Lady Seaton.

Minutes pass, and more minutes. Distant creaks and footfalls tell of activity elsewhere in this warren of passages, but my corridor remains empty. Cupping my hands around my face to the window pane I can make out, under the moonlight, the expanse of the palace compound ahead of me, the great hall on the west side and the chapel on the east, connected to the complex of privy apartments by a narrow covered bridge that spans the moat dividing us from the Great Court. The palace is well protected, bordered on one side by the deer park and another by the river, and all its gates and entrances heavily guarded against intruders. But the truth is that any would-be assassin has ample opportunity to run at Queen Elizabeth during her open procession from the Chapel Royal to her chambers of state every Sunday, or her summer progressions around the country, or any of her many other public appearances. Walsingham frets endlessly over her faith in the love of her subjects - naive, in his opinion - and her desire to show herself unafraid amongst them; but she insists that she will not be cowed by whispered threats. She likes to meet her people face to face, to give them her hand to kiss. Perhaps this is because Master Secretary Walsingham does not tell her everything he hears regarding plots hatched in the seminaries in France, now filled with angry young Englishmen in exile, who believe that the Papal Bull of 1570 declaring Elizabeth a heretic also gave them, in not so many words, a mandate to kill her on behalf of the Catholic Church.

But tonight’s murder is not the reckless act of a hot-blooded youth willing to martyr himself for his faith; there is a chilling touch of theatre about it, a degree of planning designed to inspire real fear. Fear of what, though? The Catholics? The planets? There is a message, too; Burghley reads it straightforwardly, but I am not so sure. The sign of Jupiter troubles me, perhaps only because it comes so near to me and Doctor Dee and our secret work. I stretch my legs out in front of me and sigh. After my experience in Oxford, I had hoped for some respite from the under-currents of violence that attend the court of Elizabeth. I am a philosopher, after all; what I really wish for is time to work on my book in peace, for as long as King Henri III of France sees fit to go on paying for me to live here with his ambassador. When I agreed to work for Walsingham shortly after my arrival in England, I had thought it would be merely a question of keeping my eyes open at the embassy, watching who among the English nobles came to dinner there, who stayed for Mass, who grew close to the ambassador and who was corresponding with whom among the Catholics in exile. Now, for the second time, I find myself caught up in a matter of violent death and I am not sure what is expected of me.

My thoughts are disturbed by the soft click of a door opening at the end of the passageway; I shrink back into the window seat and lean my head around cautiously, but in the dim light I can only make out the figure of a woman, too slender to be Lady Seaton. She carries a candle in a holder and walks briskly towards me; as she passes under a sconce of candles on the wall, I catch a flash of red-gold under her white linen cap and whistle softly through my teeth. She gives a little cry and immediately stifles it with her hand; I press my finger to my lips, uncross my legs from the seat and we both freeze, still as marble, waiting to see if any guard comes running. A moment passes before we are satisfied that no one has heard.

‘I waited for you. Can we speak privately?’ I ask her, my voice barely escaping my lips.

She hesitates for a moment, then glances over her shoulder before nodding. Holding her finger to her lips, she gestures for me to follow her, and leads me down the staircase, along another passage and into an empty gallery, unlit except for the moonlight that spills through the diamond panes, casting pale shapes on the wooden boards, faintly coloured where the windows bear heraldic emblems of stained glass. Almost as soon as the doors swing shut behind us, she appears to regret her decision; her eyes open wide in fear and she looks frantically about her.

‘If they should find me here -‘

I make soft reassuring noises, such as you might make to a skittish horse, while guiding her away from the door towards one of the large windows.

‘You were friends with Cecily?’

She nods, with emphasis, then smothers a sob behind her handkerchief.

‘What is your name?’

‘Abigail Morley.’

‘You know more than Lady Seaton, I think, Abigail,’ I prompt gently.

She nods again, disconsolate; she will not meet my eye and I guess that she fears disloyalty to her dead friend.

‘Did Cecily have a lover? Did she tell you she was going to meet someone? If you know anything, it may help to catch him.’

Finally the girl raises her head.

‘Lady Seaton says it was black magic.’