H
e remembered to pull the hood over his head as the boat glided under the archway. The drips from the green-slimed stones stung like hail and the soft fingers of hanging weed stroked his face. He shivered again. All the way along the river, past Limehouse and Ratcliffe, he’d felt the raw cold of that November morning. The gilded turrets of Placentia were white with hoar frost and winter, he knew, would come early this year.

Beyond the archway, the boatmen busied themselves. The oars came upright, clear of the sluggish water and pointing to the leaden sky. He could hear the clang and thump of the shipwrights working in the yards and along the wharfs at Petty Wales. Her Majesty’s yeomen in their scarlet livery saluted and escorted him, with their halberds at the slope through the barbican and up the hill.

He had always hated this place, its noise and smell. His Uncle Ned had been Lieutenant of the Tower in the reign of Good King Harry and it had left its mark. The rankness of the river gate had left his nostrils now, only to be replaced by the stink of shit from the animal pens. All very colourful of Her Majesty to own a menagerie, but she didn’t have to smell the place day after day. He wondered what they were feeding the poor creatures; some of them were clearly far from well.

‘Sir William’s expecting you, sir,’ a yeoman told him, clanking with keys and looking grim under his helmet rim.

He nodded in response, too cold to make his jaw work yet. The river’s wind had bitten through his cloak, doublet and shirt into the marrow of his bones and he felt his knee click as he climbed the turn of the stair. The grey morning lit this part of the passageway and he was soon padding along the rush-strewn floor, past the oak panels that William Waad had put in to make his nest that little bit cosier. When you’re Lieutenant of the Tower, you need the odd perk. It was a dour old building, with walls that sweated out the dank smell of fear. No amount of oak panelling would make it feel like home, but the man was doing his best.

‘Mulled wine, Francis?’ William Waad was a solid, square-shaped man, with a florid face and a curious grey curl which he combed carefully forward to hide from the world that his hairline, like the river at ebb tide, had long receded. He had the twinkling eyes and roguish smile of a favourite uncle, except that men like Francis Walsingham didn’t have a favourite uncle. Not even Uncle Ned.

‘I thought you’d never offer, William.’ Walsingham smiled, taking the warm cup gratefully. ‘Bitter on the river this morning.’

‘You’ve come from Placentia?’ Waad ushered his guest to a chair near the fire, dismissing the guard with a nod.

‘I have. And I swear it gets further away every time I make the blessed journey.’

William Waad had been waiting for Walsingham for three days. He knew you couldn’t hurry men like him without running the risk of calling the white-hot beam of his attention on to places perhaps it would be better kept from. After all, oak panelling didn’t come cheap and it might be better if the power that was Francis Walsingham did not think about that too much. Mr Secretary Walsingham kept his own counsel and moved at a pace not used by other men. In his more poetic moments, Waad imagined Walsingham as a spider, sitting at the centre of a web that shimmered like gossamer in the morning sun but which would hold you fast in a deadly and final embrace.

Mr Secretary leaned back in the chair, letting the feeling flow back into his frozen feet as the fire cracked and whispered in the grate. He closed his eyes and let the warmth of the wine do its work. Then his eyes flashed open again and he was himself, dazzling, mercurial, a man with a job to do. ‘What says Master Topcliffe?’ he asked.

‘You know Richard.’ Waad chuckled, pouring himself a warmed goblet too. ‘He always gets his man.’

Walsingham looked at the Lieutenant of the Tower. ‘Oh, I have no doubt of that,’ he said, ‘but these are dangerous times, my dear William, and speed is of the essence. What’s been tried?’

William Waad was a meticulous keeper of records, but he didn’t need to consult the ledger lying on his desk. He knew Topcliffe’s methods, as did Walsingham, but the man was endlessly inventive in the world of pain. Subtle methods were all very well but they were usually slow and, in this case, timing was everything. ‘Beating, of course,’ he said, quaffing his wine. ‘The screws. Not strappado, however. You know Richard doesn’t like it.’

‘Too… Spanish?’ Walsingham asked. He couldn’t imagine Topcliffe objecting to a man hanging by his wrists for any other reason.

‘It smacks of the Inquisition, yes.’ Waad nodded. ‘But I think it’s a mechanical thing with him. Too many ropes and pulleys, I imagine. He believes in art, not science.’

Walsingham smiled. ‘What about the rack?’

Waad shrugged. ‘Waiting for you,’ he said. ‘Er… you have the warrant?’ The Lieutenant of the Tower was a careful man. For years he had sat at the back of the Privy Council meetings, scratching with his quill and dipping into his ink pot. He carried nearly as many secrets in his head as Walsingham and one thing he had learned very early on was never stick your head over the parapet or somebody will blow it off. Only the Queen could give permission for the rack.

Walsingham fumbled inside his coat and produced the vellum, with its wax seal and the royal cipher. ‘“
Ad immo
”,’ he quoted from the document. Then, as an afterthought, he doubted the level of Waad’s scholarship and he added, ‘To the utmost.’

Waad chose to ignore the man’s condescending air. Had it not come from the lips of Francis Walsingham, he would have thought it kindly meant, but with the Queen’s spymaster, it was never possible to be sure how
anything
was meant. ‘Shall I have a guard take you down?’ he asked.

Walsingham stood up and drained his cup. ‘No, no need. I know my way. Good morning to you, William.’ He shook the man’s hand and turned in the doorway. ‘You know, I like what you’ve done in here.’ He waved to the panelling and the tapestries. ‘Very… homely.’ And he was gone.

‘We’re pretty proud of this,’ Richard Topcliffe grunted in his hoarse Derbyshire vowels. He ran his hands lovingly along the wooden frame, letting his stubby fingers play lightly over the gear mechanism, easing the levers. ‘Francis Throckmorton,’ he said with a leer, ‘allow me to introduce the Duke of Exeter’s daughter. I’m sure you two are going to get on.’

Francis Throckmorton wasn’t sure how much more he could take. His nose was broken, he was sure of that and speaking was difficult because of his swollen lips. His right hand was crushed, the fingers black and bloody from Topcliffe’s screws and he had no feeling at all in his right arm. He had heard of the rack, of course, whispered of in hushed tones behind the locked doors that had become part of his nightmare world. The recusant priests on the road had worse tales to tell, from high Germany where they broke men on the wheel and spurred on their wild dogs to rape women of the true faith. And Spain, where they strangled men with wire to the delight of the crowd.

‘This is how it works,’ Topcliffe said, beaming with satisfaction. ‘We’re going to tie you down, the lads and I, one wrist here –’ he pointed to a corner of the frame – ‘the other here. Your ankles –’ he pointed to the opposite end – ‘and then… and this is the beauty of it. I can operate this by myself.’ And he cranked the lever so that the planks jarred down and the ropes creaked taut.

Throckmorton gulped, saliva and blood filling his mouth.

‘Of course,’ Topcliffe said, ‘something’s got to give. You’d think the ropes would snap first, wouldn’t you? But no, that’ll be your joints, laddie, first your arms, then your legs. By then, of course, I think you’ll be ready to have that little conversation we talked about.’

‘Mother of God,’ whispered Throckmorton.

‘Now!’ Topcliffe suddenly barked and his men dragged Throckmorton upright, dragging him across the floor slippery with blood and lashing the ropes around his wrists.

‘Stop that!’ a voice thundered from the doorway overhead. Topcliffe clicked his fingers and the men let Throckmorton drop, sprawling on the rack in pain and fear. They all looked up as a black-robed figure padded down the half twist of the stone staircase and stood in front of them.

‘Sir Francis.’ Topcliffe half bowed and the guards did likewise.

‘Mother of God, indeed.’ Walsingham knelt by the rack, looking in horror at what he saw. His cold eyes flashed again on Topcliffe. ‘You, rackmaster, you’ve gone too far this time. Does Sir William Waad know of this?’

‘I… er…’

Walsingham stood up. ‘You’ve beaten your last victim,’ he snarled. ‘Get out. You, man,’ he snarled at Topcliffe’s assistant, ‘bring me butter and honey. And get this man some water and some brandy.’ They all dithered. ‘Now!’ Walsingham roared and they scampered into the shadows to do his bidding.

Walsingham was on his knees on the cold stone. ‘Francis, Francis,’ he soothed. ‘I had no idea. What on earth happened?’

The man’s shoulders slumped and Walsingham helped him to sit up. ‘Can I… get off this thing, Sir Francis?’

‘My dear boy.’ Walsingham took the lad’s weight and half carried him to the chair. This wasn’t much better; Topcliffe’s fetters were still clamped to the arms. Walsingham unhooked his cloak and draped it over them for sensibility’s sake.

Throckmorton looked at the older man. ‘But you know, surely?’ he said with as much clarity as his swollen lips would allow. ‘You had me arrested.’

‘Me?’ Walsingham looked puzzled. ‘Francis, I assure you…’

‘Trumped up charges. Letters to the Queen of Scots. Mendoza. It’s all nonsense.’

‘Well of course it is.’ Walsingham patted Throckmorton’s good hand. ‘No, no, that wasn’t me, dear boy.’ He sighed and looked furtively around him. ‘Lord Burghley, I’m afraid. You know what he’s like.’

‘No,’ Throckmorton mumbled, tears welling in his eyes. ‘No, I don’t. I’ve never met Lord Burghley. I know nothing of those charges. Topcliffe said—’

‘Topcliffe!’ Walsingham snorted. ‘You’d never think the man came of a good family from Derbyshire, would you? Such an oaf.’

‘Oaf?’ mouthed Throckmorton. ‘That’s putting it mildly, Sir Francis.’

BOOK: Silent Court

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