Queen & Country (6 page)

Jane had smiled, why not? The child had disappeared into the sleeping space, returning with a box. And Hew, who had expected to be shown a pebble or a shell, was astonished at the toys the little girl brought out. A pocket wrought in silver with a clasp of pearl, a psalter set with emeralds, in a case of gold, a ruby like a gull's egg in a golden nest.

‘My Daddie got these for me. The bird's nest was a gift, from the king of Russia. He is called the Czar.'

‘Put those away, now,' Laurence had said. ‘They are not for Sunday play. The little horse too. You can eat him at supper.'

His daughter had kissed the gingerbread horse, sucking the sugar that clung to her lips. ‘I will keep him for ever. I never will eat him.'

Her mother had laughed. ‘Do not make promises that you cannot keep.'

When Jane bent low to fill his cup, Hew had confessed to her, ‘I feel foolish to have brought her such a trifling thing.'

‘Indeed, you should not. You can see by her face how much she loves him, though I fear he will be gone by bedtime.'

‘I had no idea she had such precious toys.' He could not reconcile it with that modest house.

‘Precious?' Jane had echoed. ‘I suppose they are.'

‘But you must know their worth.'

‘To Laurence, they are worth that they make our daughter smile, like your gift of gingerbread, and little more than that. They were given to him by some great men on his travels. He went, in his time, to many far places. Moscow is the place he remembers most of all. But he does not care to mention it. Katherine and I are glad he does not go there now. We do not see enough of him.'

‘What do you speak of?' Laurence had smiled at them, helping his daughter to close up the box.

‘I was telling Hew, of the travels you once made.'

‘Once.' It was plain enough that he would not be drawn.
The Muscovite
, Hew thought. What Laurence had been once was buried in the past. Phelippes might allude it, but would never tell.

‘See how modest he is,' Jane had laughed. ‘He does not care at all for precious things.'

Laurence had glanced at his small daughter's face. ‘Do I not, though?' he had asked.

Hew had worked hard, and learned quickly. He was rewarded at last. Walsingham sent word to him that he might send a letter with the despatches to Scotland to his brother-in-law, Giles Locke, at the university. The terms of the letter were carefully prescribed by Thomas Phelippes: the ambush at Dysart had surprised Hew, as much as his captors. The outlaws had left him for dead. By God's grace, he
had survived, and crept into a wood, where he lived on roots and berries for the space of several weeks. Once the clamour had died down, he had made his way through shadows to the English border, which he had crossed buried deep inside a cart of dung.

‘Why dung?' he had objected. Phelippes had grinned at him. ‘Because the Scots will swallow any kind of shit. You want a story that is credible, that does not leave a trace, with just enough of the implausible to test their disbelief; that small, contentious detail will persuade them it is true.'

Hew had not been convinced. Phelippes was indulging his own foul sense of humour. Yet he had no option but to comply. To send a private letter of his own – even if it did not pose a danger to his family – would cost more than he earned in a year.

At Berwick, Phelippes' version of the tale went on, he had met with old friends of his father, who had helped him with money and clothes – you were a sore sight to them – Phelippes had sniggered – and set him on the way to London, where he found employment in the custom house, by virtue of his education and his skill in languages. A letter by return could safely find him there.

He sent his love to his sister, and assured them both that he was safe and well, and whatever else they heard, he denied all accusations that were made of him, maliciously, and falsely, and swore before God who had saved and sheltered him, that he was loyal still, as ever, to God and King James.

That, Phelippes said, was all. He was not permitted to include a private line for Meg, but the letter must be sent to Giles at the College of St Salvator, where there was no doubt it would be read and noted, by whatever spies were working for the king. There was, of course, no mention made of Phelippes or of Walsingham, the house in Seething Lane or of Leadenhall.

Even then, Phelippes would not be content, scouring through the letter he had made Hew write again, with no subtle piece of Scots, lest some secret might be hidden in a foreign word. The result was anodyne, squeezed dry of its sentiment, and all that had remained to
assure Giles of its writer was the sureness of its script, in Hew's familiar hand, that was framed and tempered in the time they shared in France, no other mark remaining of the sender's heart.

Hew had questioned, at the time, the direction to the custom house. ‘For surely, nothing sent there can be thought secure?'

‘It will never reach there,' Phelippes had assured him, and the answer, sure enough, which Hew awaited eagerly, had never graced the place to which it was directed – ‘Her Majesty's customs at the port of London' – but came to him direct, shorn of string and seal, from Seething Lane itself. Giles had written also under some constraint, in phrasing Hew felt certain had been overlooked in Scotland. Giles and Meg gave thanks to God that Hew was safe. They prayed that by God's grace he would be returned to them. Sir Andrew Wood, the crownar, had captured four men who took part in the raid on Hew's party at Dysart; the four men had been hanged at the side of the moor, where their corpses hung still, to creak in the wind, a warning to all who passed by. One had caught fire, by itself; a sure and certain proof that they were now in Hell. Before they were hanged, the four men had confessed; they had slaughtered the king's men for their bright swords and doublets, and had left Hew for dead. Therefore his escape must be thought fortuitous, and nought to do with them.

Andrew Wood, as it seemed, had hanged his own men. Why had they confessed? Because, as Hew supposed, the killing of the king's men was an act of treason, and there were other, less appealing, ways to die. Andrew Wood the sheriff hanged them quick and high. He caught them with the bridles of the horses in their hands, and that was his prerogative. Perhaps, the king would say, his actions were impetuous, his hastiness presumptuous. Sir Andrew would reply he acted out of loyalty to his Grace, a will to keep the peace, in that unruly place, a thirsting for revenge. He trod a dangerous path. In his waking consciousness, Hew remembered little of the dark and frantic night, when he was wrested from his captors' grip on Dysart Muir, the outer vale of Hell, where earth was turned to fire. Two of
the king's men had perished in the fray. Of those others, who fled, God knew what hopes they had now.

Phelippes had asked him, what was the matter, conscious of the shadow that had crossed his face.

‘Six men died to bring me here. Two that were guards of the king, and four that were charged with their deaths.' Hew had no control, no kenning of the ambush, and as little hand in what was his own fate, yet that did not absolve him of his sense of guilt.

‘Then let us hope that you are worth the cost.'

The rest of Giles' letter dealt with slight domestic things: the land at Kenly Green, the keeping of the farm, ‘We pray to God that all may be restored to you, as you must be to us. Sir Andrew Wood attends to us, and takes care of our claim. God willing, you may once again find favour with the king.'

‘Amen to that,' Phelippes had said.

The channel had been opened then. And there were further letters, to and from both Giles and Meg. It was a relief to him to know when they were safe, which as the years had passed, he had not always known. Yet relief had been tempered with guilt. He had carried those deaths on his conscience for days. Phelippes, while he mocked, was sharp enough to see where a man might be most vulnerable, and careful enough to attend to his needs. He had taken Hew out to drink at the Bull, drowning his sorrows in sack. There he had asked him if he had a lass, someone back at home. Hew had not thought of,
would not think of
Clare, and had answered, no.

‘In a service such as ours,' Phelippes had observed, ‘a man should have a wife, or at least a wench. It does not serve him well, to be quite alone, as you seem to be.'

‘You and I are the same,' Hew had pointed out. ‘For I do not see you with a wife yourself.' In age and education, they were both alike, then twenty-eight years old.

‘That is a fault that I intend to remedy, now that I am home. But for you, whose life is thrown in turmoil, I can recommend the widow
of a friend, who will keep you company these chill winter nights, and offer consolation in your present grief.'

‘I thank you,' he had answered, ‘but I do not want a whore.'

‘Audrey is not a whore. And, if she were, you could not afford her. She will like you, I think, and you will like her. She is a breath of fresh air.'

She was not that. But what she was, was billowing, open and voluptuous. He found between her sheets a dark, familiar scent, sweaty, stale and sweet, fleshly warm and comforting. Audrey's husband had been killed in the service of Lord Cobham's brother, while he was ambassador in Paris. It had not, Phelippes said, been a glorious death; he had lost his life in a drunken brawl, but Sir Henry had been moved to subscribe to a small pension, in view of Audrey's plight. She had given birth to her husband's child, eleven months after his death (her womb being stopped on account of her grief). The infant was lodged with foster parents landward from the city, and on Sunday afternoons, she would walk out to see it, sometimes taking Hew, to admire its fat fists and fair apple cheeks. She had taken Hew to bed with a willing heart; she had sorely missed a husband's conversation, by which she meant nothing he said.

Audrey's conversation, vigorous and frank, had restored Hew to himself, and brought relief from a burden that could not be shared. Phelippes had been right. There was comfort in the flesh. Thomas, for his part, had wanted something more. He had sought a wife in whom he could confide. His parents' choice had not been Mary, who was dark and saturnine. Frances had confessed, she found her cold and strange. She was, in every way, a perfect match for Phelippes. They shared an inner life, of perfect understanding. And Mary doubtless knew what Thomas did at Chartley, while she lay bereft, in his father's house.

Chapter 4

Chartley

Hew arrived at Stowe-by-Chartley five days after leaving London, in the afternoon of the eighteenth of July. On departure from Caxton, the grey horse had slowed, weathering listlessly in the fierce sun, which gathered in force as the steep road inclined. Somewhere north of Stamford, they had left the track, diverting to the west through a maze of paths, to follow on the trail of the post from Loughborough. They came into that place to find the post long gone. A farmer's boy, eventually, had walked with them for miles through thickets, weeds and mud, straddling streams and ponds, and left them in the village leading to the hall, in shadow of the castle higher up the hill. Grey Gelding, plodding softly through a haze of heat, came to rest at last. The manor here belonged to the earl of Essex and the family Devereux, whose crest was traced on every door and lintel post in gold and crimson lake. His mansion was built around a cobbled courtyard, settled in a moat that on this summer's day sank deep and still and soundless as the sky above. Like the scattered cottages the manor overlooked, its timbered slats were closed, and seemed to be asleep. No one took the air, or water from its fountain, no one kept the watch above the wooden parapets, cock-eyed and incongruous upon its gabled roofs. A path had been cut to the edge of the moat, felling and clearing the earl's copse of trees, and here Hew dismounted and let the horse loose. He walked on alone to that smooth flank of water, and stood there a moment, reflective, to look, when he sensed at his back the stirring of leaves, and catching the sunlight, the glint of a sword.

‘If you care for your life, do not move.'

Grey Gelding, driven from the shelter of the wood, harried by his halter in a stranger's hand, passed by him so closely he caught his hot scent, the sliver of sweat, a diamond-drop glistening across his sleek back. ‘Please treat him well. He has come a long way.'

There were four men at his back. Doubtless, they had watched him as he rode up through the wood, hidden by the trees. One among them asked. ‘What business have you here?'

‘I have a letter,' he said, ‘for Thomas Phelippes.'

‘Who told you he was here?'

‘The man who sent it to him.' He had learned from Phelippes how to be impassive, to present a coolness, stubborn and reserved, in response to questioning. He applied that learning now, and was rewarded by confusion in his captor's face, the flickering of doubt. They stepped back to confer. They were, he thought, makeshift young soldiers, unsure of their command. One of them said, ‘You must come to the keep, to speak with Sir Amias.'

Hew agreed. ‘Of course.'

Sir Amias Paulet had the keeping of that place, and of its present guest. Phelippes ranked Sir Amias close among his friends, had served with him in France, and counted him among the few men he could trust. Sir Amias was a man who did not shirk his charge. It was likely that the soldiers here belonged to him, and not to Robert Devereux. That, Hew considered, was in some way a relief. What concerned him, most of all, was the temper of the men, who were ill at ease. They reminded him of skittish, temperamental horses, that were quickly put to flight, and could not be relied upon. There was no knowing what might fright them, or where that fright might lead. It was hard not to find their nervousness infectious.

Hew followed to the castle, which had fallen into ruins. The moat that surrounded it, a clogged and brackish green, sank deeper than the lake which graced the nearby manor house, and its stagnant waters seeped into the rock. What remained of the walls had a penetrating dampness, and a bleak blank coldness that no sun could lift.