The Ringed Castle (75 page)

‘Well?’ had said Danny Hislop, poking his head round the door again afterwards.

‘Well enough,’ Lymond had answered. ‘I give them three days.’

They came back in two, with the regretful refusal of her Majesty of England to license the sale to the Tsar of all Russia, through the Muscovy Company, of the arms and munitions of war he had requested, together with the services of known men of skill.

‘The Queen,’ Sir William said, looking at the ceiling, ‘is sensible of the goodwill of her cousin the Tsar, and would like nothing better than to help him in his present desire for the munitions of war. But the needs of her country, and in particular of her dear husband Prince Philip, at present preclude it.’

He looked at Lymond. There was something faintly inquiring about the look. Meeting it formally, Lymond said, ‘It is a matter of regret to me also. And, I am sure, to the Muscovy Company.’

‘Ah. Yes,’ said Sir William. ‘The Muscovy Company has been much in our minds.’ There was a short pause, which no one filled. Then Sir William said, ‘In Master Dimmock, as you may know, the Company has an energetic and able member who has already proved in the past his ability to conjure men and munitions from the air. It may be that he could do so again. If it were possible for such a thing
to be done, without depleting the Queen’s stocks in the Tower and without, of course, distressing her royal spouse and his advisers by bringing the matter unnecessarily to their attention, the Council, I must tell you, would feel they had no cause to complain.’

‘I see,’ Lymond said. He looked to his left. ‘Master Dimmock. Is it possible to supply the items on the Tsar’s list on those terms?’

Nothing of this, clearly, was novel to Master Dimmock, but he preserved the fiction nobly. ‘I see no reason why not,’ he said.

‘And in reasonable secrecy?’ the Bishop of Ely inquired. ‘You understand; none of this arrangement is directly the Council’s concern, and none of it, therefore, may be set out by the Council in writing. You supply these goods, if you supply them, from your own sources and at your own risk. If King Philip’s advisers discover it, we shall not be able to contravene any veto he will impose.’

‘I think,’ said Master Dimmock, ‘that we can promise to take all reasonable precautions. Mr Crawford, if you wish to proceed, then the Muscovy Company will help you.’

‘I was sure you would,’ said Lymond gravely.

It was over. Master Dimmock served them all with his very best wine, to celebrate the occasion, and Sir William went off with the
De republica
packed in his box, and the prospect of a thousand gold pieces’ profit to be made from the Cardinal. After they had gone, Lymond stood for a while, looking at the empty place where the Cicero had rested on his book-laden shelves, and then locked his papers away and, banging the door, ran downstairs to call on Nepeja.

There, rejoicing had already broken out: the room seemed to contain half the two hundred members of the Muscovy Company and the wine had been round three times already. Master Nepeja’s business had also prospered at last, and on the desk by the window lay the last draft of the league and articles of amity concluded between the kingdoms of England and Russia, ready to be copied and confirmed under the Great Seal of England. He was free to see to his merchanting and to sail.

He was just sober enough to rise to his feet when Lymond came into the room, and then, after the first frowning moments, to realize what Lymond was saying. The second part of the treaty was in operation also. The Privy Council had acceded, in secret, to the Tsar’s other demands.

The implications of that were beyond Osep Nepeja’s interest or understanding. The talks were over, and without prejudicing his or anyone’s trade. He flung his arms round the unexcited person of the Voevoda Bolshoia and scavenged him like a bass broom with his beard. The Voevoda surprisingly did not give way more than a steel fence before him, although he did exchange the greeting, smiling, in the Russian fashion. The sound of his round Russian speech, after
two hoarse weeks of Rob Best, made tears spring to the Ambassador’s eyes and he blew his nose, belching. Lymond left as soon as he could.

‘Well?’ said Danny at supper. There was no news of Peter Vannes and his casket from Venice. There had been no further threats from the Lennoxes: no communication from the Queen. No word from Philippa, who was preparing with the rest to leave London for a week on the 15th. King Philip’s married sister the Duchess of Parma and his widowed cousin the Duchess of Lorraine had arrived at Westminster and were to stay at Greenwich for Easter as well: in order, it was said, to persuade the lady Elizabeth to marry the Duke of Savoy. Since everyone knew that the pretty Duchess of Lorraine was not one of Queen Mary’s favourites, a gloomy Easter was anticipated.

Danny said, ‘Well?’ and as Lymond did not respond, he tried again. ‘Sir? Now the ships can be loaded, the Company is talking of sailing for Russia by the end of April, or early May at the latest. What if Vannes hasn’t arrived when you sail?’

‘An interesting thought,’ Lymond said. He was not, Danny thought, looking quite so carefree as on previous occasions; or perhaps had merely less patience than usual for the bastards of Bishops. Lymond went on, ‘I am not, if that is your point, contemplating taking Mistress Philippa with me to Russia, much as you would adore to witness the consequences.’

‘What, then?’ Danny said. ‘He may be held up indefinitely.’

‘Somehow,’ Lymond said, ‘I don’t think so. I think Peter Vannes will arrive, with papers or without them, before the Ambassador and I leave for Russia.’

‘And me,’ Danny said. He gazed at his commander’s occupied eyes. ‘Why? Why should you think so? A premonition? Mr Dee’s crystal ball?’ He flinched as Lymond looked at him at last. ‘I’m just persistent by habit,’ said Danny.

But Lymond, changing his mind, had decided to answer him. ‘For one inadequate reason,’ he said. ‘Today, the English Privy Council agreed to all the Tsar’s demands for skilled men and armaments.’

‘I know. Mind, voice, study, power and will, Is only set to love thee, Philip, still. Hooray,’ Danny Hislop said.

‘Hooray,’ Lymond agreed. His face, older than his years, was not accommodating and his eyes, too brightly coloured for a man, were perfectly bleak. ‘Except that when these talks started, I had no hopes of this concession, and there was no reason why it should ever have been granted. Why did they grant it? Why? Why?
Why?’

To which, if the Voevoda Bolshoia did not know, Danny Hislop could venture no answer.

In April, Sir Henry Sidney returned to London to obtain money and arms to make a second incursion against the Scottish colonizers in Ulster. On his way to Whitehall he called at Penshurst to see his two small children Philip and Margaret, and to learn from his wife the latest news of the Court. When he left, he took Nicholas Chancellor with him.

After what he had learned from his wife, his reception by Heath and Petre and the rest was no great surprise: it seemed that the supply of arms was at present even shorter than the surplus of money. Bearing this discovery with him, more in rueful admiration than anger, Sir Henry descended one bright Monday in April on the London home of old Lady Dormer, and demanded an introduction to Philippa Somerville’s husband.

It was the sole invitation in that macabre three weeks of celebration that Lymond accepted with any willingness. Received at Court and released from his ambassadorial duties, Osep Grigorievich Nepeja was free at last to plunge over the beard into the revelries arranged by the Muscovy Company, feasting and banqueting in other men’s homes, and seeing without stint the unrivalled wonders of London.

Muscovite Ambassadors, outwith the control of their Tsars, were not encouraged to view the marvels of other lands and comment upon them. But after weeks endured chained to the conference table, Master Nepeja was unable to resist it. He was shown all over Whitehall and Westminster. He saw St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower and the Guildhall of London. He viewed, as the Spaniards had all done before him, the Round Table of the enchanted King Arthur, with the names of the twelve knights still written where they used to sit round it.

The Lord Mayor gave him a banquet, with five Knights Aldermen and five other Aldermen and many notable merchants of the Muscovy Company. Master Nepeja attended it in a gown of rich tissue, his undergown being of purple velvet embroidered, and the edge of his hat set with pearls and other fine jewels, while his horse trappings were crimson velvet embroidered with gold, and his bridle gorgeously sewn. Those who lined the streets and admired him were not to know that the horse was a present, or that the rich cloth of tissue, the cloth of gold raised with crimson velvet, the crimson and purple velvet in grain, the crimson damask and the damask purpled of which his clothes and those of his nine servants were cut, were all gifts sent to his rooms by Her Majesty.

Nor, from a distance, did they as yet show much signs of soiling. Master Nepeja hoped, when the time came to hand them back to their donor, that she would take the length of wear into her reckoning.

Francis Crawford, with clothes of his own and money to supplement them, did the same polite rounds without enthusiasm, in between arranging, with great efficiency, for the four ships now loading in London to be suitably freighted with his special cargo. It was there that he came across Tony Jenkinson conferring with John Buckland his Master, and Buckland introduced the two men.

Jenkinson showed him over the
Primrose
, his flagship. At two hundred and forty tons, she was a third as big again as the
Edward Bonaventure;
and the
John Evangelist
, the
Anne
and the
Trinity
were all larger than the little
Esperanza
and
Confidentia
, and even than the
Philip and Mary
. And Jenkinson, too, who was to succeed Richard Chancellor; who was to try the overland route to Cathay which had been Richard Chancellor’s dream, and whom Richard Chancellor had commended, proved to be young and dark haired and vigorous, with the kind of driving curiosity which had already taken him to Germany and the Low Countries, the Alps and Italy, Piedmont and France, Spain and Portugal, Rhodes, Malta and the Levant, Sicily, Cyprus and Candia, Greece and Turkey, Galilee and Jerusalem, Algiers, Bona and Tripoli.

They should have met long since, he and Lymond. Jenkinson had been conferring for weeks with Best and Buckland and with the other three men from St Mary’s: in several sessions at the house of John Dee they had barely missed one another. It was not all entirely by accident. Lymond did not greatly wish to meet Tony Jenkinson, and although, once introduced, the younger man’s enthusiasm overbore any restraint on his part—did Mr Crawford know that they had been in the Levant at exactly the same time? how strange that he and his friends had not met in Aleppo! was it true that Dragut Rais’s mistress was now living in Moscow?—Lymond left before long. It was coincidence that the first person he met on entering Lady Dormer’s parlour by invitation next morning should again be Jenkinson, and the second, Richard Chancellor’s younger son Nicholas.

There was no doubt who he was, even before Lady Dormer led him forward to introduce him: he was the image of Christopher. And he was staring at Mr Crawford as his brother had looked at the Voevoda Bolshoia, one night long ago, in Güzel’s beautiful house in Vorobiovo. Nicholas said, ‘I am told, sir, that you swam after my father.’

There was no escape from the tasteless situation. Beside him was his hostess, old Lady Dormer; beyond her Jenkinson; and behind him Ludovic d’Harcourt, whom he had also been asked to bring. Lymond said, ‘We all did a great deal of swimming, and some of us were lucky.’

He paused, and the voice of his child-bride said prosaically, ‘If you are wondering who enlightened him, I did. Robert Best told us the story. Nicholas, Emma is asking for you.’

‘But——’ said Nicholas uncertainly.

‘Emma is asking for you,’ said Philippa firmly. ‘You can come back at suppertime.’ And to Mr Crawford, as the boy disappeared, Philippa said, ‘It is really not easy to receive someone’s thanks, but you must make the effort. Is this the man who doesn’t like eagles?’

Ludovic d’Harcourt, smiling, took her hand. ‘What …? Robert Best?’ Lymond said.

‘No. John Buckland,’ said Philippa. She grinned back at Ludovic d’Harcourt. ‘It was you who buried the Tartar girl?’

‘Philippa …’ said Lady Dormer with a perfect and natural kindliness. ‘I think the gentleman would prefer to enter and sit. Where is Henry …? Ah, there you are. Mr Crawford, Henry; and Mr d’Harcourt. This, gentlemen, is my dear Jane’s uncle, Henry Sidney.’

Courtier, soldier, patron of the arts and the sciences, conqueror in single combat of James Mack O’Neil and Vice Treasurer and General Governor of all the King’s and Queen’s Revenues in Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney rose to his feet from behind a red velvet chair with silk tassels and said, ‘I beg your pardon. I am delighted to meet you. Aunt Jane, I’ve dropped an eye on your beautiful floor.’

‘Then pick it up!’ commanded old Lady Dormer. ‘I will not have my maids tormented by your wandering eyes. Mr Crawford, you will help him.’

Mr Crawford, exquisite in a high-collared jerkin with hand-ruffs, dropped neatly on his hunkers at the other man’s side and said, ‘One of Master Dee’s contrivances, do I gather? Is this what you are looking for?’

Sir Henry received the round painted glass with relief. ‘He gets them from France. It’s not worth my life to mislay them. Now.’

‘Over here,’ Philippa said. Standing just inside the porch of the room, she had her arm round a great feathered owl. Four times life-size at least, it reached as high as the neat, stiffened pads at her shoulders. The great dish of its face, lacking an eye, gazed at the company soulfully.

‘My … stars,’ said Ludovic d’Harcourt. Sir Henry fitted the eye in its place.

‘Now,’ said Philippa, and stepping aside, let the owl go. There was a rumbling sound, and the owl started to move. It advanced upon them across Lady Dormer’s small Turkey rugs; it lifted its wings. Its eyes, headily beginning to spin, gave off intermittent beams of red and mysterious light. Its beak opened, and a strident call, earsplitting and monotonous, attacked the eardrums of everyone in the room. Lymond, on his feet, slid a table out of its way: Jenkinson, jumping,
removed a cushion. The call wavered and sank; the revolving light halted, the wings dropped to rest. The owl, creaking, came to a sudden sharp halt, and one of its eyeballs fell out.