Rory Clements - The Queen's man

In the morning, hungry and ill-rested, he took breakfast at the tavern, and then strode along Seething Lane, avoiding the piles of horse-dung and human waste that clogged the way. The stench did not help his mood. Why in God’s name had the gong farmers not cleared this path overnight? A kite wheeled overhead, searching for its dinner. Another perched on the roof of St Olave’s, pecking the juicy muscle meat from some rodent. London, once a lion among cities, was becoming more and more like a sick tomcat.

Arriving at Walsingham’s mansion, he sought out the senior intelligencers. This house, close by the Thames and the Tower, was one of Sir Francis’s two residences. On Walsingham’s advice, Shakespeare had deliberately found a house close by for his own dwelling. ‘If you wish to work for me, I expect nothing more than your body and soul, John. That means you either live with me, or near me. I cannot be doing with sending messengers to fetch you.’

Near to him seemed the better option.

He found Thomas Phelippes in a back office. The room was stacked high with books and documents and smelt of sweat. Phelippes was peering down hard through his small round spectacle-glasses, examining a scrap of paper, his lank yellow hair falling about his pox-ridden face.

‘Mr Phelippes.’

‘Wait.’

Shakespeare pulled the paper from the table. ‘No, Mr Phelippes, this will not wait.’

Phelippes tried in vain to snatch back the paper. ‘So the fledgling crow thinks it has talons?’

He ignored the barb. ‘I have come from Mr Secretary at Oatlands. A Frenchman named François Leloup has landed covertly and is at large in England. It may be that he has gone to Sheffield. I am to ride there this day. You, meanwhile, along with Mr Gregory, are to raise a search for him in London and the south.’

‘Do you think to command me?’

Shakespeare had had to put up with Phelippes’s goading ever since he joined Walsingham’s service and it was becoming tiresome. Phelippes knew very well that the order had come from Walsingham. ‘I will tell you about Leloup.’

The codebreaker laughed. ‘I know all about the good Dr Leloup. I know more about him than does his own mother.’

‘Then you will know under which stone to look.’ Shakespeare replaced the paper on the table. ‘Good day to you, Mr Phelippes. You know what is required of you.’

Shakespeare turned to walk from the room, but he felt the clasp of Thomas Phelippes’s hand on his sleeve.

‘Wait, Shakespeare. Let us talk more of this Frenchman.’

Shakespeare paused, shaking off Phelippes’s hand. ‘Very well. What I know is what Mr Secretary has told me, that he is about fifty, elegant, assured, dark-haired when last he saw him, with a prominent nose and only one arm. He will not find it easy to hide.’

Phelippes nodded. ‘His arm was carried away by a cannonball at Jarnac, where he was helping the wounded. In France they know him as Le Museau du Loup .’

‘The Wolf’s Snout. Mr Secretary mentioned that.’

‘Guise will have ordered him to prepare the way for his invasion fleet. He wants the bosom serpent free and our own sovereign lady murdered. These are all parts of the whole.’ Phelippes leant forward excitedly, all signs of hostility gone. ‘I have come from Bruges this week. I learnt there that Guise and the English exiles have sent priests to England who have been told that their mortal souls are safe however many they kill, so long as their victims are Protestants. It accords with everything that Mr Secretary’s man Lawrence Tomson discovered from the papal agent in Bologna.’

‘Did your Bruges contact name the priests?’

‘He named one. Benedict Angel, originally of Warwickshire. Find him and we may find Leloup too.’

Father Benedict Angel made the sign of the cross and bowed low. Then he turned, away from the crucifix, the missal, the chalice and paten on the little table that served as an altar. His heart was a flood of raging fire, fanned by the glory of the mass. At times, he could not breathe, so overwhelming was the passion and joy of Christ within him. Every sinew told him to shout it loud amid the heavenly choir of trumpets and voices, the fury of bliss in the storm. Yet his voice was as quiet as his manner; no one would ever see the torrent and turmoil within.

Once the mass was said, the sacred objects must be hidden without delay. He quickly removed his robes — the exquisitely embroidered chasuble, the cincture and the white alb. Who knew when the door would be hammered down with a ram? The aroma of incense could not be hidden so easily. ‘Florence, if you would pack away the mass things.’ His sister bowed to him and set about her chore, wrapping the precious artefacts in a woollen cloth. With her golden hair tied back and concealed beneath a coif, it seemed to him that she looked very much like the nuns at Louvain. But the life of quiet contemplation would never be her lot; she must fight like him, a soldier of God.

‘I have here a letter,’ he said, holding aloft a folded paper, the seal broken.

He stood small and neat by the fire. He kept his hair and beard short. Now that his robes were removed, he wore a dun-coloured doublet and hose. He thought they made him look like a gentleman of Calvinist persuasion, which was the guise he adopted while travelling through England. Here in Warwickshire, however, he could not walk abroad, for he was too well known. He had come to this house by night and had stayed hidden away by day. He had been here all summer long and had reconciled many souls to the true faith. There was but one more task to be undertaken, and then his mission would be complete.

He looked around him at the faces of his companions and it seemed to him that they glowed with ardour in the glimmer of a dozen candles. Here in this well-appointed room, light and shadow flickered on the walls. The windows were shuttered against the moonlight and against prying eyes.

Apart from Benedict Angel and his sister, Florence, there were five others present: three men and two women. They would do Christ’s holy work. The forces of repression, of Walsingham, Burghley and the pseudo-Church, would call them conspirators; he called them God’s agents.

They watched him expectantly, their eyes on the letter he held, awaiting word of what they should do next.

‘This letter is a precious treasure,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It is written in the hand of our most gracious sovereign lady, Mary. The true Queen of England, Ireland and Scotland. Look — ’ he unfurled the paper and pointed his finger at the bottom of the page — ‘this is her name, in her own hand. Marie R .’

His eyes were caught by a movement. The young man named Somerville had pulled out his pistol. He was dangerously excited. ‘Put away the pistol, Mr Somerville.’

But Somerville was not listening. He waved the weapon around, pointing at imaginary targets. One moment, his eyes were on Father Benedict Angel, the next on some object such as a book or cup. He pretended to pull the trigger and made a little popping noise with his pursed lips. ‘There she is. Look, I shoot the usurper dead.’ He stared at Angel, looking for approbation.

‘I know you have come here this evening in the hope of final orders,’ Angel said, ‘but in the name of Jesus Christ and His Holy Mother, I beg you to have patience.’ He looked at the other faces. ‘All of you. Trust in this letter.’

‘What does it say?’ Somerville demanded urgently. He had lowered his pistol. ‘What does it say?’

‘It is encoded in a cipher no man can break, not even Walsingham and his demons. But — ’ Angel waved aloft a second piece of paper — ‘I have here a concise version of her words, written for me by one of those closest to her who helped her write it and who knows the code.’