The Enterprise of England (21 page)

‘There was something else,’ I said, ‘that I wanted to ask you.’

‘Certainly.’

‘It may be nothing, yet I found it disturbing.’

I gave him a brief account of my meeting with Cornelius Parker and the cryptic warning from the beggar, and explained that I had seen Parker at our inn the previous night.

‘You say he accosted you in the street, uninvited?’

‘Aye. Came up behind me and remonstrated with me for giving a small coin to the maimed soldier. I was taken aback. And even more so when he offered me “entertainments”, unspecified.’

‘And the beggar warned you that he is a bad man.’

I nodded.

He sat back in his chair, studying the fire. ‘Cornelius Parker is as slippery as an eel. I doubt you could pin any crime to him, yet, like van Leyden, rumours cluster about him. Many of his goods are what he says they are, fine fabrics imported generally through Constantinople. Yet it is whispered that his ships sometimes carry other goods – arms which he trades with the Spanish and the Musselmen – slipped in amongst the bales of cloth. He has other business interests as well, brothels here in Amsterdam, in Den Haag and even in Antwerp.’

‘I thought
Spain controlled Antwerp now.’

‘It does.’

I took off my cap and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘Do you mean that Parker is in the pay of the Spanish?’

He shrugged. ‘That I cannot say. It is as certain as can be that he has dealings with them.’

Something else struck me. ‘Is he a Catholic?’

Añez shook his head. ‘That I do not know. It is not safe to admit to being a Catholic these days, here in the United Provinces. I am sure he attends the free
Dutch Protestant Church, but may nevertheless be a secret Catholic.’

I thought of the Fitzgerald family, where Walsingham had sent me last year. They had taken me with them to an English Protestant service like any respectable family, yet they celebrated the Catholic mass in secret.

‘I would have supposed,’ I said slowly, ‘that for a man like Parker, his best interests are served by continuing to trade legitimately, rather than engaging in dangerous activities.’

‘That would seem to be true. But men can be swayed by many things – passion for a cause, revenge, or, for men like van Leyden or Parker, money. I think that Parker, like van Leyden, could be a dangerous man.’

‘Aye. Well, I thank you for your information, Senhor Añez.’

‘To such a friend of my cousin Sara, I am Ettore.’

I smiled. ‘My friends call me Kit.’

We shook hands on it as I stood up to leave. So absorbed had I been in our conversation that it was only now that I noticed how dark it had grown. The glint from the canal had disappeared and the very room was full of shadows.

‘There will be more snow soon, I think,’ he said.

‘Aye, I’d best be back at my inn before it starts. I am staying at the Prins Willem.’

‘The best inn here in Amsterdam, though not the most expensive. The soldiers can become noisy in the evening.’

I laughed. ‘So I have noticed.’

He walked with me down the stairs to the front door.

‘If you should need any more information, or any help,’ he said, ‘do not hesitate to come to me.’

‘I thank you.’

We bowed our farewells and parted at the top of the steps. As I headed back along Reiger Straat, which had become busy again while we talked, I pulled on my cap and flipped the hood of my cloak over it. Already it had begun to snow, just a few idle flakes drifting down to be lost in what was already lying on the ground, but the clouds were big-bellied with the weight of the unshed masses that would fall before evening. I thought there was just time to try to find the beggar once more before I sought the shelter of the inn. The way to the church where I had seen him was easier for me to find now, but there was no sign of him, nor of the woman selling pastries. Indeed the streets were emptying fast as everyone made for shelter.

I walked back to the Prins Willem, hastening my pace as the snow began to fall in earnest. By the time I reached the inn my shoulders were coated with a layer of snow and the dirty snow in the streets had been covered with a fresh blanket of white. It was so dark that some of the shop keepers had already lit the torches outside their premises at midday. Although I had not been carrying out Walsingham’s original instructions, sitting in corners listening to the gossip of soldiers, I felt that I had gained far more valuable information from my visit to Ettore Añez. Clearly both van Leyden and Cornelius Parker were men who needed watching.

For the next two days it snowed without ceasing, a steady, relentless fall. At first there was little wind, but toward the end of the second day a stormy gale blew up, driving the snow into drifts against the sides of buildings until in some places they reached nearly to the height of the windows. Few people stirred outside. Some of the soldiers still came to the inn during the evening, but Niels Penders told me that they were men billeted in the town. Those quartered in the camp outside Amsterdam were confined to their tents, and a wretched time they must have been having out there in the bitter cold. Inside the inn we were kept warm by roaring fires in every room, the food was plentiful, and clearly the inn had a cellar abundantly stocked with beer and wine and even a form of aqua vitae.

I visited Hector several times a day, but the stable was solidly built of brick and the grooms had a fire in their room at one end, whose warmth filtered through to the horses. Confined to the inn, with no one to talk to except the innkeeper and his family and nothing to occupy me, I grew irritable with boredom, but there was nothing for it but sit out the storm. I wondered where Berden was – still in Den Haag, or perhaps caught by the storm on his way back to
Amsterdam. In the afternoon of the second day, a carter who had struggled to the inn with a load of logs told us that the canals were freezing. News I did not welcome. It seemed we would have a bitter ride toward Parma’s troops, then a journey to the coast before we could meet our ship for the return journey. That was, if Berden ever returned and we could manage to ride anywhere at all. So thick was the snow by now that I feared being trapped in Amsterdam for weeks, until the thaw came.

The night of the second day of blizzard, I lay in bed listening to the wind howling round the corners of the building with a viciousness that seemed almost animate. Every so often there came a crash as a tile was ripped off the roof of the inn or one of the nearby buildings. There had already been a leak in the roof, Marta Penders told me, requiring buckets up under the eaves. It was close to a chimney, so the heat of the fire melted the adjacent snow, sending it dripping through the hole where two tiles had been torn away. All day and all night the bucket had to be emptied at regular intervals, for there would be no chance of mending the roof in this storm.

At last I slept and when I woke the world seemed strangely silent. The wind had dropped and light was filtering in around the shutters of my window. I crossed the floor, wincing at its icy touch on my feet, and opened them. A low red sun cast its light over a glittering snow-covered town, The wind had vanished. The snow was no longer falling. Down below I saw a workman, bundled up in a thick cloak, a scarf wound round his head and hat, making his way slowly across the square and leaving the first footprints to mark it, except for the feathery patterns of birds’ feet which were lightly etched on the surface. Away to the right I could see the canal, no longer a body of water shifting and stirring, but a solid road of ice. Even as I watched, I saw a group of young men sit down on the bank and strap skates to the soles of their boots, then laughing and shouting they launched themselves out on to the frozen canal, dipping and swooping across the ice. My heart lifted at seeing them and I longed to be able to glide like that, as swift and free as a bird in the air.

A few minutes later another group arrived, families with young children, carrying large round trays like the ones used to bring in huge joints of meat to the inn dining parlour. To my amazement, I saw parents setting the trays down on the ice and lifting children – quite small children, some as young as three or four – on to the trays. All the children were carrying pairs of stout sticks and once on the ice they began to propel themselves along by thrusting the sticks against the ice, almost as if they were rowing a boat. The youngest children did little but spin round and round on the spot, but the older ones, more skilled, were soon skimming along the ice at extraordinary speed, darting in amongst the skaters. At any moment I expected to see a collision, but it seemed both the skaters and the children were used to this extraordinary form of sport. I laughed at the spectacle, the boredom of the last few days quite banished as I dressed warmly and went downstairs. I thought that if I could not join in, at least I could go and watch the fun on the canal.

Everyone seemed cheered by the change in the weather. It was still bitterly cold, but the sight of the sun after the darkness of the blizzard was itself enough to raise one’s spirits. I spent the morning watching the sport on the canal, then after dinner decided to try once again to find the beggar and discover whether he could tell me more. Ettore Añez had given me his view of Cornelius Parker, but I wondered whether the beggar knew something else, something perhaps from the back streets of the town which would have been hidden from a merchant, a dealer in precious stones.

As I crossed the square I saw women turning away from the public well. Although I could not understand their speech, from their gestures it was clear that the well was frozen. Underfoot the top layer of the snow had also frozen into a hard crust which crunched and shattered under my feet, so that they sank into the softer snow below. It reached to my knees. Soon my boots and stockings were soaking and my legs felt as icy as the canals, but I ploughed on until I reached the church where I had first seen the beggar. He was not there.

A small crowd of local people was emerging from the church, shaking the hand of the minister and calling out brief greetings to each other before hurrying away to the warmth of their homes. As the minister went back into the church, I followed him.

Most of the people of
Amsterdam I had met knew some English, so I spoke to him in English, hoping that he would understand.

‘Dominee
, may I ask you about one of your parishioners?’ There was no evidence that the soldier was one of his parishioners, but it seemed a reasonable guess.

He turned and smiled politely. ‘What do you wish to know?’ His English was almost without any accent.

‘A few days ago I spoke to a former soldier, who was playing a pipe and begging outside your church. We spoke about Sluys. I am a physician from England who cared for many of the survivors. I thought I would speak to him again, but he is not there now. Perhaps it is too cold.’

I knew that I was being deliberately misleading in mentioning Sluys, but felt I needed to give some reason for my interest in the man.

‘I know the man you mean, Mijnheer. He does indeed live in this parish, though he rarely attends church. His sufferings, I am afraid, have turned him from God. His name is Hans Viederman.’

‘And you say he lives nearby?’

‘He does. If you turn right outside the door of the church and follow the narrow passage that runs along our outside wall, there are a few small houses on the other side. Hans’s house is the last of these.’

‘Does he have family?’

The minister shook his head sadly. ‘When he came home from the fighting, with . . . his legs like that . . . crippled, his wife left him and took their little boy with her. She has gone to live with her parents in a village about five miles from Amsterdam.

I felt a flash of anger on the soldier’s behalf. ‘She abandoned him, when he had most need of her?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘He had moments of terrible rage, after what happened. His wife was perhaps afraid. Or could not live with him any longer. We should not judge, who do not know everything that lies between man and wife. He is better now. He survives, though perhaps he may never be able to forget his bitterness.’ He gave me a smile of great sweetness. ‘Go and see him. Any hand reaching out in friendship will do him good. I expect he had decided to stay within doors in this cruel weather.’

‘I will,’ I said, ‘and I thank you
, Dominee.’

Following the minister’s directions, I ploughed my way through the snow in the alleyway. It must be a shortcut through from one main street or square to another, for the snow was churned up by many feet. As I reached the end, I realised it led to yet another canal. At the last house, a wretched hovel of one storey with a roof of tattered reed thatch, I knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer, so I knocked again, calling out, ‘Hans? Hans Viederman? I am the Englishman who spoke to you a few days ago. Beside the church. May we speak?’

This time there was a noise from inside, a scrabbling of claws and an anxious barking. So the dog was there at least. Where the dog was, the man was likely to be. Tentatively I tried the door, which was neither locked nor bolted. Reasoning that the man, crippled as he was, might be in difficulty, I opened the door and stepped inside. A furry shape hurled itself at me out of the dark interior and I staggered back, but the dog was not attacking me. He licked my hand and whined and wagged his tail all at once. The house felt curiously empty. It was also bitterly cold, while the damp seemed to seep in through the walls and roof, as though they were sucking it up from the surrounding snow and ice.