S Parris - Prophecy

I nod, with feeling.

‘And you?’ he prompts. ‘I know you call yourself a Catholic at Salisbury Court.’

‘It’s a question of freedom,’ I say, after a while, looking into my mug. ‘There is no freedom of thought under the rule of the Inquisition, no freedom to say What if ? and then to imagine or speculate, and in such a climate, how can knowledge progress? The book I am writing now, for instance — in my own country I would be burned just for setting those ideas on paper. So when Wal—, when our friend approached me, I agreed because I thought the intellectual freedoms of Elizabeth’s England worth defending.’

‘But you have still not told me your religion,’ he says, with a knowing look.

‘I have been charged with heresy by Catholics in Rome and Calvinists in Geneva,’ I counter, smiling, ‘and when it comes to factions, I side with neither. My philosophy transcends both. But for that, you will have to read my book.’

‘I await it eagerly,’ he says, lifting his mug with a mischievous glint in his eye.

We sit in companionable silence for a few moments, finishing our beer.

‘But don’t you ever feel …’ I shake my head, lay my hands on the table. ‘I don’t know. Guilty?’

He regards me with those clear, serious eyes.

‘For betraying trust? For having more than one face? Of course,’ he says, and smiles sadly. ‘To feel no guilt would mean you had no conscience, and our friend would never trust a man with no conscience, for there would also be no loyalty. I placate my conscience with the thought that if I must betray someone on a personal level, I do it for the good of the country.’

I nod, thoughtfully; this is the argument Walsingham has always presented to me. What he doesn’t tell you is that personal relationships are often the more compelling, and that to betray someone whose trust you have won pulls against human nature.

‘You feel this keenly though, I think,’ Fowler whispers, studying me carefully. ‘You are fond of the ambassador.’

I acknowledge this weakness with a tilt of my head.

‘He is the one good man in Salisbury Court.’

‘He is trying to please too many people,’ Fowler says, as if this is the definitive judgement on the matter. ‘That is what will undo him. But guard yourself against sentiment, Bruno. If he ends up assisting with plans for a Catholic invasion, he is a traitor, regardless of his good intentions.’

‘I know this.’ I catch the sting in my voice; again, I find I resent his tone of seniority, and am ashamed of myself for it. Does he imagine I need to be told how to perform my role in the embassy? Perhaps I am being over-sensitive; it is a valuable warning for anyone in our business, as I learned to my cost in Oxford.

‘Of course.’ Fowler sits back, holding his hands up as if to mitigate any offence. ‘And for now, it is all about the letters. This enterprise depends on you and your friend the clerk.’

We pay for the beer and press our way through the crowded tavern, emerging into the slanting afternoon light. The weather has improved the mood of the Londoners; as we walk down Friday Street, people smile and greet one another, remarking on the unseasonable warmth, instead of shoving you aside with their usual grim-faced determination. Fowler and I walk in silence at first, subdued by our conversation; only now, as I watch the passers-by cheerfully going about their business, am I able to understand the weight of the work we are engaged in. We are talking about nothing less than a possible invasion, by France or Spain or both, whose ultimate aim is to unseat Elizabeth and bring England back under the control of Rome. And what will become of her Protestant subjects then, these ruddy-faced market traders and broad-hipped goodwives merrily sidestepping the horseshit on the cobbles as they wave to one another and call out for the hundredth time that you’d think it was July, wouldn’t you?

Sidney and Walsingham were both in Paris during the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572, when ordinary Huguenot families were systematically slaughtered in their thousands by Catholic forces and the city’s gutters ran with Protestant blood. This, I know, is what Walsingham fears above all: the same happening in the streets of London if the Catholics take power again. In Paris, there are plenty of people who murmur that the Duke of Guise was responsible for the bloodshed on St Bartholomew’s Day.

‘This is where I leave you,’ Fowler says, as we reach the corner of Watling Street. ‘If you need to get a message to our friend, you can reach me at my lodgings close by the cock-pit on St Andrew’s Hill.’ He pauses, laying a hand on my arm. ‘Watch who comes to Mass at Salisbury Court this evening. See if Howard brings any Englishmen we don’t already know about. And keep an eye on Archibald Douglas. He is not quite the drunken boor he pretends to be.’

‘Then he is a master of deception,’ I say. ‘I wonder that Castelnau and Howard put up with his manners.’

‘They tolerate him because Mary Stuart tells them to. And Douglas trades on the fact that she is deeply in his debt. You know it was he who engineered the murder of her second husband, Lord Darnley?’

‘The one who was blown up?’

‘The very one.’ Seeing my eyes grow wider, he smiles. ‘That is why Douglas may not go back to Scotland — there is a warrant out for his arrest. He is a notorious intriguer, and suspected of other political conspiracies to murder besides. And he is devilishly clever in the way he works his hooks into people — witness the fact that King James likes him, though he is suspected of murdering James’s own father. Women apparently find him beguiling.’

‘There is no accounting for women’s likes,’ I say, picturing Douglas’s three-day growth of silvered stubble and his belches. Fowler rolls his eyes and nods wholeheartedly, as people step around us. ‘What’s the story about the pie?’

‘Ah, you had better have that from the horse’s mouth.’ He grins. ‘Only Douglas can give that tale the savour it deserves. I’m sure your chance will come. Well — we shall meet again soon, Bruno. Meanwhile, bring me word if any Spanish envoy sets foot in Salisbury Court. Good luck.’ He nods briefly, turns on his heel and is swallowed into the colourful jostling crowds.

The sun has sunk lower over the rooftops as evening eases in, washing London in forgiving amber light that flashes from window panes as I make my way home through the city. On a day such as this, I begin to think I could perhaps learn to feel at home here. Above me, a riot of painted signs creak gently in the breeze, emblazoned with bright pictures proclaiming apothecaries, chandlers, barber-surgeons, merchants of cloth and wine and taverns named for animals of every kind and hue — black swans, blue boars, red foxes, white harts, hounds, hares, cocks and even unicorns. At each side of the thoroughfare a steady stream of people press by: street vendors crying their wares, men with cages of squawking chickens swinging from poles across their shoulders, women with baskets of oranges balanced on their heads and pedlars with wooden trays fastened around their necks full of all kinds of oddities — combs, quills, buttons, brushes and knives, sometimes all jumbled together. In the vast churchyard of St Paul’s, which is more like a marketplace, beggar children thread barefoot through the crowds, importuning the better-dressed ladies and gentlemen, while on one corner a ragged man stands playing a battered old lute and singing a forlorn song, hoping to be thrown a few coins. The smell of cooking meat fights with the stink of rotting refuse, and the richer sort hold pomanders and posies of flowers close to their noses to keep the vapours at bay.