The Enterprise of England (24 page)

‘Do not be so sure.’ I put my head out of the door and managed to catch the eye of one of the maids. ‘Can you bring us some hippocras?’

She returned quite soon with a steaming jug and two pottery mugs. I waited until I had poured it out before I settled down to tell Berden everything that had happened to me while he had been gone: my encounter with the beggar and Cornelius Parker, my visit to Ettore Añez and his information, my finding of Hans Viederman’s body, and the meeting between Parker and van Leyden.

At this last he leaned forward and opened his mouth to speak, but I held up my hand to silence him and told him what had happened earlier that day – my visit to the Earl and my attempt to warn him, his scornful dismissal of me and my warning, my discussion with Robert Hurst, and finally my visit to the church and what I had learned from the minister about Hans and Parker.

When at last I was silent, Berden rubbed his cheeks with both hands, then leaned his elbows on his knees.

‘I see that I was wrong about your quiet time here in
Amsterdam.’ He gave a rueful grin. ‘I am sorry I was not here to support you. Between the two of us we might have managed to persuade the Earl of the seriousness of the danger. I wonder why he treated you so. Was it merely bravado? Perhaps he did believe you, but for some reason wished not to show it. And my visit to Den Haag was wasted time anyway. The man I sought was not there, he had gone into Italy.’

‘Do you think we should go back to the Earl?’ I said. ‘Or trust to Robert Hurst to protect him?’

‘I have never met Hurst, in the way of Walsingham’s business,’ he said slowly, ‘so I did not recognise him when we called on the Earl before. I have heard that he was one of Sir Francis’s more trustworthy agents. I think he was sorry to lose him. But perhaps that was merely pretence. Perhaps Sir Francis placed him deliberately in Leicester’s service. It would not be the first time he appeared to be doing one thing while really doing another.’

I was relieved to hear this. ‘So you think we should leave matters in
Hurst’s hands?’ I was glad at last to have Berden here to share the responsibility.

‘I think we must. We still have to travel down to
Parma’s lines.’

I shivered. ‘In this weather?’ I would not admit to anything other than dismay at such a winter journey.

‘It is part of our mission here in the Low Countries. I think we should leave tomorrow. Given the state of the roads it will probably take us the best part of three days to get there, and the same to ride back to the coast, where our ship will anchor. No use hoping the canal will be clear enough for Captain Thoms to sail up to Amsterdam.’

‘That will only give us about a day down near
Parma. What can we do in the time? It seems a great waste of effort in the expectation of very little return.’ I found myself suddenly longing to mount Hector and ride straight for the coast, to wait there until our ship arrived.

Berden shrugged. ‘We must follow our orders. Like you, I expect very little profit from it. The weather has put a stop to most travel, so two Englishmen riding about the country are more likely to draw attention than escape it. I doubt that we will be able to make any clandestine observations.’

‘More likely risk capture and imprisonment by the Spanish,’ I said gloomily.

‘At least we both have fast horses,’ he said, ‘so we can probably outrun them.’

‘Hector hasn’t been ridden since we arrived,’ I said. ‘He will be stiff and out of condition.’

‘Perhaps you should exercise him a little today. My Redknoll has had more than enough exercise and will be glad of a brief rest in the stable here.’

‘A sensible idea,’ I said. ‘Once we have dined, I will ride him round to Ettore Añez’s house to bid him farewell. That will give Hector a chance to stretch his legs.’

That is what I did. When I went out to the stable, I found that Hans’s dog was still lurking about. He followed me into the stable, where Hector lowered his head to sniff the dog’s head, while the dog stood quite still. The horse seemed glad to see me, as he always did, even though I had no apple for him this time. I removed his blanket and saddled him, politely refusing the offer of one of the grooms to help. I folded the blanket and laid it across Hector’s withers, in front of the saddle, so that I could leave him some warmth while I spoke to Ettore Añez. As I used the mounting block in the stable yard, I recalled that Berden had promised to teach me to vault on to Hector’s back from the rear, but he still had not done so. At the moment he was dozing in front of the parlour fire and I doubted there would be much opportunity on our ride south.

I rode Hector across the square to the street that led to the Earl’s house, the dog trotting along behind. I held Hector down to a very slow walk, remembering how slippery the streets had been that morning. I could not risk the horse falling and possibly breaking a leg. As we passed the Earl’s house I slowed further and looked it up and down, but nothing seemed amiss. All was quiet.

In Reiger Straat, business was being carried on as usual, but rather less energetically than it had been the first time I came here. I tied Hector up outside Ettore’s house and strapped the blanket over him, saddle and all. It would give him some protection. Although the earlier snow had ceased, the heavy sky threatened more. The dog settled down next to him, as if it was his rightful place.

Ettore greeted me as courteously as before. When I told him that we would be leaving the next morning, he said, ‘Ah, that is unfortunate. I had hoped that when your companion returned I might invite you both to dine.’

‘I’m afraid he is quite set on leaving tomorrow, and he is the senior man.’

‘Of course, I quite understand.’

When refreshments had been brought in as before, I gave Ettore a complete account of what I had observed of Parker and van Leyden, how the Earl had rejected my warning, and how Hurst would try to prevent any harm coming to him.

‘This is a bad state of affairs indeed,’ he said. ‘If the Earl were to be poisoned here in Amsterdam, not only would he suffer. The whole town and the whole country would be held responsible for his death.’

‘One man has died already,’ I said, and told him about Hans Viederman.

He did not seem surprised. ‘I think your assumption that this is somehow connected with Cornelius Parker is probably correct. If he did not do the deed himself he almost certainly paid someone to do it. So, Hans Viederman is dead.’ He sighed.

‘You knew him?’ I was surprised. Where could their paths have crossed, the wealthy merchant and the beggar?

‘He was a musician, a composer, before he was pressed into the army. That should never have been allowed, but by the time it was known, he was gone. He was a fine musician, very gifted.’

I thought of the squalor of that leaky cottage with its earth floor and hardly any furniture.

‘I do not understand,’ I said, ‘when he returned to Amsterdam, even though he had lost his legs, could he not have continued with his music? How could the loss of his legs have affected that?’

Ettore gave me a compassionate look. ‘Hans lost more than his legs in the fighting, Kit. He lost his spirit. His soul, if you like. When he first returned, he took to drink, hit his wife and child, could not work. There was no music left in him. Then his wife abandoned him and he lost his house. When there was nothing left, he took to begging on the streets. Some of us tried to help him, but he was a difficult man. He threw our offers of help back in our teeth. He said he had lost his legs, his music and his family; he would not lose his independence as well.’

I looked down at my clasped hands and felt tears pricked my eyes. ‘He was playing a pipe when I saw him.’

‘Perhaps he was beginning to find his way back to his music at last. Now we will never know.’

‘Poor man.’

‘Aye, poor man. One of thousands in this war.’

When I left Ettore’s house I thanked him for his kindness and asked him to send me word if he heard anything more about Parker and van Leyden, or whether an attempt was indeed made on Leicester’s life, although I expected I would hear news of this last through Walsingham’s office.

Hector and the dog were waiting patiently for me in the street and I rode slowly back to the inn.

The next morning Berden and I rode south out of
Amsterdam. No word had come from Hurst. I hoped van Leyden had not harmed him. I took a warm farewell of the Niels Penders and his family, who had made my stay at the inn remarkably comfortable. I did not think I had ever been lodged so well. As the dog seemed determined to follow me, I persuaded one of the grooms to shut him in the stable until we left. In truth I was glad to see the back of Amsterdam. The memories of the dead Hans, the two conspirators, and Leicester’s arrogant dismissal of me all overshadowed the comfort of the inn and the pleasure of meeting Ettore Añez. On the other hand, I was dreading the ride ahead.

As we had feared, the road was in a terrible state, with high drifts blown up into banks on either side and stretches of the road either churned and filthy or else almost impassable. At the end of three days’ riding, and two nights spent in the worse kind of roadside inns, Berden reckoned that we were nearing the outlying posts of the Spanish army. The local people we questioned were evasive, constantly glancing over their shoulders as if they feared a hidden Spaniard behind every bush. It was understandable. If they were this close to the Spanish army, they could be attacked at any time. Had they been noticed speaking to Englishmen, their fate might be worse. We found an inn for our third night, a miserable hovel little more than the poorest kind of peasant house which provided ale for the villagers to drink and had one room to accommodate travellers. That night we did not even remove our boots when we retired to our chamber.

There had been whispered conversation between the local men drinking in the dirty ale room while we were trying to chew our way through a pottage of gristle nestled in an unnameable grey liquid. Berden spoke some Dutch, but even he could not understand the broad local dialect. The men kept glancing at us furtively, then whispering again, which caused my scalp to prickle in apprehension.

As we were sitting on our beds, deciding whether to risk the bedbugs and fleas or to sit up all night, I turned to Berden. ‘I have a bad feeling about those men,’ I said. ‘I don’t think the horses are safe.’

He grunted. ‘You may be right.’

I picked up my satchel and knapsack. ‘I think I will sleep in the stable. It cannot be any dirtier than this.’

I watched him debate with himself. He had seemed very tired when he returned to Amsterdam and one night’s decent sleep there had not restored him much. The days and nights on our journey had been exhausting.

‘No need for you to come,’ I said. ‘I doubt they will try to steal the horses if one of us is there.’

‘Very well, but be careful, Kit.’

‘I will.’ We had been given only one candle here, but Niels Penders had pressed on me a candle lantern and a supply of candles when we left the Prins Willem, assuring me that I would find the inns of the south very primitive, lacking the most basic of essentials. I was glad of it now, lighting a candle from the stump we had (reluctantly) been given
here, and fixing it in the lantern. There was no fire in the room, the only fire in the whole house being a central hearth in the ale room downstairs, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. I left one of the candles with Berden, for the stump would not last much longer, and made my way downstairs. I had to walk through the room where some of the men were still drinking. They watched me with hostile eyes as I headed outside to the stable. I wondered why they were so hostile. After all, England was here to support the Dutch against the Spanish. They should have seen us as friends. Perhaps it was because we were better dressed than they and seemed more prosperous. Although our clothes were very workaday and plain, some of them were dressed in little better than much mended rags. Such men, I thought, will do anything for money. Even steal horses or betray their country’s friends. It was not a comfortable thought.

It was very cold in the stable. Even though we had put on the horses’ blankets, they still shivered from time to time, and so did I. For a while I sat on a dirty up-turned bucket, but I grew colder and colder, until my feet were numb. To gain some ease, I walked about until they thawed a little. The more I thought about those men, the more apprehensive I became, until I decided to saddle the horses, in case we needed to leave in a hurry. I could throw their blankets over their saddles and they could hardly be any colder than they were already. I had finished Redknoll and was just buckling Hector’s bridle when I heard a noise at the door. I stiffened, but slipped the leather through the buckle, my fingers clumsy. The noise came again, a scratching noise. It was probably rats. I relaxed and loaded my gear into my saddle bags. When they were strapped in place, I went to the door, carrying the lantern. Opening the door a crack, I looked down, expecting to see the two evil eyes of a rat. Instead, a furry shape flung itself through the door, nearly knocking the lantern out of my hand. It was Hans’s dog.

Steadying the lantern and saving the lit candle from falling out into the straw, I leaned on the door to close it again. The dog was frantic in his eagerness to leap up on me, trying to lick my face. I set the lantern down on a beam and sat down rather suddenly on the bucket, allowing the dog to express his joy at having found us. He must have followed us for miles. He coat was sodden and matted and he was desperately thin. I had nothing to give him but an end of the dry bread we had been given with the pottage and which I had been unable to break with my teeth. I gave it to him and he chewed it up at once.