Prophecy

‘We are not allowed to associate with the gentlemen of the court,’ she whispers. ‘It is strictly forbidden. Even the merest rumour could have us sent straight back to our families in disgrace with no chance of return, you understand?’

‘That seems hard.’

The girl shrugs, as if to say things have always been arranged like this.

‘Being maid of honour to Her Majesty is the surest step to making a grand marriage at court. This is why our fathers send us here, and lay out their money for the privilege. Cecily told me her father paid more than a thousand pounds to get her a place.’

‘Poor man. A double loss for him, then. But how are you supposed to make these grand marriages if you are not allowed near the courtiers?’

‘Oh, the marriages are made for us,’ she says, with a little pout. ‘Between our fathers and the queen. And naturally no man wants to know us if there are rumours flying about the court concerning our virtue. Besides,’ she adds, slipping into a sly grin, ‘Her Majesty is renowned as the Virgin Queen, so she thinks we should all follow her example. She should really know that all the tricks of secrecy make it the more exciting.’

‘Like dressing as a boy?’

‘Cecily was not the first girl to have tried that. You’re just noticed less – it makes it simpler to slip away. Men have it so much easier,’ she adds, with a pointed look, as if this imbalance were my fault.

‘Well, I’m afraid your poor friend is beyond any disgrace now. So she did have a sweetheart?’

‘She had met someone,’ the girl confides. ‘Quite recently – for the last month she was all smiles and secrecy, and quite distracted. If Lady Seaton chastised her for not having her mind on her duties, she would blush and giggle and send me meaningful looks.’ A resentment has crept into Abigail’s tone.

‘But did she tell you who he was?’

‘No,’ she says, after a slight hesitation, and in the silence that follows her eyes dart away. ‘But in the Maids’ Chamber at bedtime, she would hint that he was someone very important – someone she evidently thought would impress us, anyway. He must have been rich, because he bought her beautiful presents. A gold ring, a locket, and the most exquisite tortoise-shell mirror. She was convinced he meant to marry her, but then she always was fanciful.’

‘So he was here at court?’ In my haste I inadvertently clutch at her sleeve, startling her; quickly I withdraw my hand and she takes a step back.

‘I assume so. He must have been a frequent visitor, anyway, because lately she would often go missing at odd times, and she would come back all flushed and hugging her secret, though she made sure we all knew. She begged me to tell Lady Seaton she was feeling unwell, but the old woman is no fool, as you saw – she was growing suspicious. Cecily would have been found out sooner or later – or ended up with a full belly.’

‘But someone found her first,’ I muse. ‘So she never mentioned his name? You’re certain? Or anything that would identify him?’

She shakes her head, firmer this time.

‘No name, I swear. Nothing except that he was unusually handsome, apparently.’

‘Well, that would narrow it down in the English court.’

She giggles then, finally looking me in the eye; at the same moment, the sound of footsteps echoes along the passageway outside and the laughter dies on her lips.

‘Have you told anyone else of this?’ I hiss. She shakes her head. ‘Good. Say nothing about the secret suitor – neither you nor any of the other girls who knew about it. And tell no one that you spoke to me. If you remember anything else, you can always get a message to me in secret at the French embassy. I have lodgings there.’

Her eyes grow wider in the gloom. ‘Am I in danger?’

‘Until they know who killed your friend and why, there is no knowing who might be in danger. It is as well to be on your guard.’

The treads – two people, by the sound of it – grow closer; just as they stop outside the doors to the gallery I motion to her to keep back in the shadows, out of sight. Then I open the door just as the guards are about to reach for the handle, affecting to jump out of my skin at the sight of them.

‘Scusi – I was looking for the office of my lord Burghley? I think I have become lost in all the corridors.’ I offer a little self-deprecating laugh; they glance at one another, but they lead me away without looking further into the room.

‘Lord Burghley, my arse. You’ll answer to the captain of the palace guard first, you Spanish dog,’ says one, as he drags me roughly towards the stairs. ‘How did you get in here?’

‘Lord Burghley let me in,’ I repeat, with a sigh; in six months in England I have learned to expect this. They regard all foreigners – especially those of us with dark eyes and beards – as Spanish papists come to murder them in their beds. I will find my way to Burghley eventually; what matters is that no one should know the maid Abigail has spoken to me. Cecily’s mystery inamorato may not know that she kept his identity a secret; there is every chance he may want to silence her friends too. Assuming – and I have learned to assume nothing without proof – that he is connected to this bizarre display of murder.

Chapter Three

Salisbury Court, London 26th September, Year of Our Lord 1583

‘Cut off both her tits, the way I heard it.’ Archibald Douglas leans back in his chair and picks his teeth with a chicken bone, apparently satisfied that he has delivered the definitive version. Then he remembers another detail and sits forward in a hurry, his finger wagging at no one in particular. ‘Cut off both her tits and stuck a Spanish crucifix up her. Fucking brute.’ He slumps again and drains his glass.

‘Monsieur Douglas, s’il vous plait.’ Courcelles, the ambassador’s private secretary, raises his almost invisible eyebrows in a perfect mannerism of shock that, like all his gestures, appears learned and rehearsed. He passes a hand over his carefully coiffed hair and tuts, pursing his lips, as if his objection is principally to the Scotsman’s vulgar turn of phrase. ‘I was told by a friend at court she was strangled with a rosary. On the steps of the Chapel Royal, if you can believe it.’ He presses a hand to his breast bone with a great intake of breath. He should be in a playing company, I think; his every move is a performance.

Across the table, William Fowler catches my eye for the space of a blink before he glances away again.

‘These reports do have a tendency to grow in the telling,’ he says, evenly, looking at the ambassador. He too speaks with the Scottish accent, though to my foreign ears his conversation seems more comprehensible than the broad tones of Douglas. Fowler is a neat, self-contained man in his mid-twenties, clean-shaven with brown hair that hangs almost into his eyes; his voice is restrained, as if he is always imparting a confidence, so that you have to lean in to listen. ‘I have been a frequent visitor to the court on official business these past days, and I’m afraid the truth is less sensational.’ But he doesn’t elaborate. I have noticed that Fowler, my new contact whom I have met for the first time this evening and have not yet spoken to alone, has a talent for implying that he knows far more than he is prepared to say in company. Perhaps this is why the French ambassador is drawn to him.

Why Castelnau tolerates Douglas, on the other hand, is anyone’s guess. The older Scotsman is some kind of minor noble, about forty years of age, with prematurely greying reddish hair and a face hardened by drink and weather, who has attached himself to the embassy with the promise of supporting the Scottish queen’s claim to the English throne. Improbable as it seems, he is a senator in the Scottish College of Justice and said to be well connected among the Scottish lords, both Catholic and Protestant; he comes personally recommended by Queen Mary of Scotland. For the ambassador, these connections must be worth the price of feeding him. I have my doubts. Given that I too have been obliged to survive these past seven years by seeking the patronage of influential men, perhaps I should be more charitable to Archibald Douglas, but I like to think that I at least offer something to the households of my patrons in return for their hospitality, even if it is only some lively dinner-table conversation and the prestige of my books. Douglas brings nothing, as far as I can see, and I am not persuaded by his professed interest in Mary and her French supporters; he strikes me as one of those who will always agree with whoever happens to be pouring the wine. It irks me that Claude de Courcelles, the ambassador’s too-pretty secretary, tars me with the same brush as Douglas; Courcelles is responsible for making the embassy’s books balance, and he looks with undisguised resentment on those he views as leeches. I am often forced to remind him that I am a personal friend of his sovereign, whereas Douglas – well, Douglas claims to be a friend of many influential people, including the Queen of Scots herself, but I cannot help wondering: if he is so popular among the Scottish and English nobles, why does he not beg his dinner at one of their tables once in a while? Why, for that matter, is he never in Scotland at his own table?

The murder at court has been the chief topic of conversation at dinner this evening, eclipsing even the usual preoccupation with the Scottish queen and the ambitions of her Guise cousins. That night at Richmond Palace, I told Burghley and Walsingham of my conversation with Abigail; since then, the maids of honour have been given extra guards and the men at court are being questioned again but, naturally, when it comes to forbidden affairs, people are conditioned to lie. Walsingham grows increasingly anxious; the queen’s household at Richmond numbers upwards of six hundred souls. Though the hierarchies are strictly defined – each senior servant responsible for the duties of those below him or her – how can so many people be made to give true accounts of their movements on one evening? Queen Elizabeth, for her part, chooses to believe that a crazed intruder broke into the palace compound; her solution is to move the court earlier than usual to her central London palace at Whitehall, which is not so exposed to the open country and easier to defend. She will not admit the possibility that the killer might still be living among them. Walsingham had said he would send for me if he needed further assistance. Meanwhile, he said, I should return home and turn my attentions to the conversations behind closed doors at the French embassy.

In the wood-panelled dining room at Salisbury Court, the candles are burning low and the clock has already struck midnight, but the dishes with the remains of Castelnau’s grand dinner still litter the table, their sauces long cold and congealed. The servants will clear the board in the morning; after the meal is when the ambassador addresses himself to private business with his guests. Now that England’s most influential and restless Catholic lords gather so often around Castelnau’s table, it makes sense not to risk these discussions being overheard by servants; after all, says the ambassador, you can never be too careful. This means that we must all try to ignore Archibald Douglas toying with the carcass of a chicken, or wiping a finger through cold gravy and licking it while he delivers his half-formed opinions.

Michel de Castelnau, Seigneur de Mauvissiere, pushes his plate away from him and rests his elbows on the table, surveying his company of men. He is remarkably hale for a man of sixty winters; you have to look hard for the flecks of silver in his dark hair, and his dour face with its long bulbous nose is brightened by keen eyes that miss nothing. Castelnau is a cultured man, not without his vanities, who likes his supper table busy with men of wit and progressive ideas, those who are not afraid of controversy and enjoy a good argument in the pursuit of knowledge, whether in the sciences, theology, politics or poetry. I still do not see where a man like Douglas fits into this scheme, except that he has Mary Stuart’s personal blessing. In the low amber light, our shadows loom large behind us, wavering on the walls.

‘A virgin defiled in the very court of the Virgin Queen.’ The ambassador’s gaze travels steadily over each of us in turn. ‘My friends, this was done to slander the Catholics. Why else? Crucifix, rosary – it matters little. The details may differ in the reports but the intent is the same: to stir up fear and hatred – as if more were needed. The Catholics have done this, the English are saying in the street. The Catholics will stop at nothing, they mean to kill our Virgin Queen and make us all slaves to the pope again. This is what they are saying.’ He puts on a peevish, whining approximation of an English voice to simulate the common gossips. Courcelles laughs sycophantically. Douglas belches.

‘What I hear,’ says a new voice that cuts through the silence like a diamond on glass, ‘is that her body was marked all over in blood with symbols of black magic.’ He looks directly at me as he says this, the one who has spoken in that clipped, aristocratic tone, the one who sits half in shadow at the far end of the table. Everything about him is sharp; pointed face, pointed beard, brows like gothic arches, eyes hard as arrowheads. He has been unusually silent this evening, but I can feel the resentment emanating from him like the heat of a fire every time he turns those narrowed, unblinking eyes on me.

Castelnau casts a nervous glance my way; despite his secretary’s misgivings, the ambassador has never been other than a genial, even kindly, host to me since I arrived in April as his house guest, at his king’s request, but I know this part of my reputation troubles him. In Paris I taught the art of memory – a unique system I had developed from the Greeks and Romans – to King Henri himself, who called me his personal philosopher; naturally this elevated position drew envy from the learned doctors of the Sorbonne, who whispered into every ear that my memory techniques were a kind of sorcery, born of communion with devils. It was these rumours, together with the rising influence of the hard-line Catholic faction at the French court, that led to my temporary exile in London. Castelnau is an honest Catholic; not an extremist like the Guise crowd, but devout enough to be worried when people joke to him about keeping a sorcerer in his house. He is another who warns me that my friendship with Doctor Dee will not do my reputation any favours. I suspect he says this because his close friend Henry Howard hates Dee, though the cause of this passionate hatred remains a mystery to me.

Lord Henry Howard continues to stare at me from under his arched brows as if his position demands that I account for myself. ‘Did you not hear any such reports, Bruno?’ he adds, in his smoothest voice. ‘It is your area of expertise, is it not?’

I smile pleasantly as I return his stare, unyielding. It would shock him to learn that I alone among the company saw the dead girl with my own eyes, but naturally no one at Salisbury Court knows I was there that night, any more than they know the truth about my work for Walsingham. Castelnau thinks that my acquaintance with Philip Sidney works to his own advantage; occasionally I feed him snippets of disinformation from the English court that support this illusion. Poor, trusting Castelnau; it gives me no pleasure to deceive him, but I must shift for myself in this world and I believe my future is safer with the powers of England, not France. I have no such qualms about informing on the likes of Henry Howard; a dangerous man, as Walsingham warned me. Since the execution for treason of his elder brother, the late Duke of Norfolk, this Henry Howard, at the age of forty-three, is now the senior member of the most powerful Catholic family in England. He is not to be underestimated; unlike many of the English nobles, he has an excellent mind and has even taught Rhetoric at the University of Cambridge. Sidney says the queen appointed him to her Privy Council because she knows the wisdom of keeping one’s enemies close, and because she likes to keep her more Puritanical ministers on their toes.

‘My lord is mistaken – I am only a humble writer,’ I reply, holding out my hands in a gesture of humility. ‘Like your lordship,’ I add, because I know the comparison will annoy him. It works; he glowers as if I have questioned the legitimacy of his birth.

‘Oh, yes – how does your book, Howard?’ Castelnau asks, perhaps grateful for the distraction.

Howard leans forward, an accusing finger raised to the ceiling.

‘This murder – this was precisely the point of my book. When the queen herself leans so openly on divination and on conjurors like John Dee, her subjects are encouraged to follow suit. Since she has led them all away from their proper obedience to the pope, is it any wonder they clutch at supposed prophecies and any old grand-dam’s tales of stars and planets? And where there is confusion, there the Devil rubs his hands with glee and sows his mischief. But people do not take heed.’

‘You are saying, if I understand you, my lord, that this murder occurred because people have not read your book thoroughly?’ I ask, all innocence. Castelnau flashes me a warning look.

‘I am saying, Bruno –’ Howard enunciates my name as if it set his teeth on edge – ‘that all these things are connected. A sovereign who turns her face from God’s anointed church, who claims all spiritual authority for herself but will not walk out of doors without consulting the constellations? Prophecies of the end of days, the coming of the antichrist, rumours of wars – the proper order is overturned, and now madmen are emboldened to slaughter the innocent in the name of the Devil. I’ll wager it will not be the last.’

Douglas snaps his head up at this, as if the conversation at last promises more of interest than his chicken carcass.

‘But if the reports are to be believed,’ I say, carefully, ‘it seems rather that this killer did his work in the name of the Catholic Church.’

‘Those who have slipped out from under the authority of Holy Mother Church will always be the first to blaspheme her,’ Howard counters, as quick as if we were fencing, a thin smile curving his lips. ‘As I suppose you would know, Master Bruno.’