S Parris - Prophecy

‘Nice to see you made an effort to dress for the occasion, Bruno,’ he murmurs. I am wearing a neatly cut doublet and breeches of fine black wool, just as I wear every other evening.

‘In my experience, it is politic not to compete with the ladies on occasions like this,’ I reply pleasantly, folding my hands behind my back and surveying the traffic on the water. ‘They don’t appreciate it.’

Gulls cry and wheel, arcing gracefully over the river to the far bank as the waves lap gently at the foot of the landing stairs. Courcelles looks down at his own clothes, suddenly doubtful.

‘Bruno, Courcelles — get in the boat, for goodness’ sake!’ Castelnau calls, clapping his hands. ‘It will not do to arrive late!’

I settle myself opposite Marie, who smiles and leans forward; as she does so, my eye is caught again by the jewelled brooch pinned to her bodice. Its shape seems oddly familiar, and as I focus on its outline instead of the shifting glitter of the diamonds, I notice that it is a bird with a curved beak, rising up from its nest with wings outspread. It takes a moment before I realise where I have seen this bird before, and I almost cry out; it is identical in design to the emblem carved into the gold signet ring given to Cecily Ashe by her mysterious lover. Instinctively my hand moves to my breast, where I carry the ring in a pocket inside my doublet, in case my room should be searched again.

‘See something to interest you, Bruno?’ Marie says sweetly. I glance up to meet her arch expression and become aware that I have been shamelessly staring at the brooch, which she has attached to the side of her bodice, where the smooth white hemispheres of her breasts swell unmissably over the low neck of her corset. She gives me a look of mock reproach, as if I were a naughty schoolboy; I feel the hot rush of blood to my cheeks. A quick glance at the ambassador reassures me that he has caught none of this; he is busy outlining the arrangements for our return journey in minute detail to Courcelles, whose darting glance tells me that he, at least, has half an ear on our conversation.

‘Your brooch,’ I say hastily, pointing, which only makes me feel clumsier.

‘Ah. Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says, in the same silky voice. ‘It is very special to me. It was a gift from the Duc de Guise when I left Paris.’ She touches it lightly and allows her fingers to drift, almost absently, across her decolletage. I allow my eyes to follow her hand and rest with it on that pale expanse of skin, the fine line of her collarbone and the crescent of shadow that dips between her breasts. At length I wrench my eyes upwards and find hers fixed intently on me.

‘Really? Forgive me —‘ I hear a slight tremor in my voice, and curse it — ‘only I thought I recognised the design.’

‘The phoenix?’ She tilts the brooch slightly, bending her head down towards it. ‘You may well have seen it in France — it is the emblem of Marie de Guise, the duke’s aunt. The brooch passed to him when she died.’

‘The duke’s aunt? So — the mother of Mary Stuart?’

‘Of course. The phoenix was her particular symbol. Because she herself had risen from the ashes so often, you see. Hard fortune could not crush her. Mary Stuart has adopted it too, I hear, to symbolise her own forthcoming return from prisoner to queen. Soon to be effected, if God wills it.’

She smiles, deliberately provocative, showing her neat white teeth; I murmur my assent, but my mind is racing. There is no doubt that the bird is identical to the symbol on the ring. A phoenix — what I had taken for the branches of the bird’s nest, I now saw were flames tapering around it as it lifted its broad wings in triumph. As the boat’s oars settle into a steady rhythm, and the wind across the river grows chilly the further we move into midstream, I turn away from Marie and fix my eyes unseeing on the south bank, while in my mind I conjure a picture of the letters around the phoenix emblem on the signet ring. Sa Virtu M’Atire . I have no difficulty with this — my memory system is built on techniques of visualisation — and as I picture the letters, it is all I can do to keep myself from crying out and striking myself for my own stupidity, for suddenly what was obscure seems as blindingly clear as the gold disc of the sun, suspended before us in the violet sky. Not a code, but an anagram. The letters swirl and rearrange themselves in my mind’s eye so smoothly I believe a child could have solved it: Sa Virtu M’Atire becomes, almost perfectly, Marie Stuart.

I bite down on my knuckles and hunch forward over my knees, lest I give away my agitation with my body, for with this realisation comes another, more chilling: the ring given to Cecily Ashe was more than a lover’s trinket. It must have been a pledge, acknowledgement of an explicit connection with Mary, Queen of Scots, or with her supporters. So was the poison in the perfume bottle also given in Mary’s name? Then the implication can only be that Cecily was in some way involved with the plots against Elizabeth on behalf of Mary Stuart, and as far as I know, those plots all revolve around the French embassy and those who gather in its chapel and dining room. I turn my face out of the wind and back to Marie, as if seeing her properly for the first time.

‘Something wrong, Bruno?’ she asks, moving to lay a hand softly on my arm. ‘You look distressed. Was it something I said?’

‘No — no, thank you.’ I withdraw my arm gently, seeing that Castelnau has looked up and noticed her gesture. ‘I am not made for water travel, that is all. I only have to step into a boat for my stomach to turn somersaults.’

‘That must be inconvenient for you, given all your long journeys by river,’ Courcelles observes drily. I snap my head around.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’ He shakes his head briskly, as if he should not have spoken. ‘Only that you are so often out of the house these days. And you seem to go everywhere by boat, that is all — I wonder your purse can bear the cost.’

‘I have letters of introduction to book collectors in London so that I may continue with my own work,’ I say, with a shrug. ‘The river is the quickest way around, after all, and I prefer to travel at my own expense, without the need to borrow your master’s horses. For that, I try to overcome my poor sea legs. Does this trouble you?’

He gives another tight shake of the head and clams up then, so I do not press him. But the little barb he could not resist has given him away. How does he know, and why should he care, where I travel and how? Was he the man in the boat? Could he have been set to follow me to Mortlake by those in the embassy who doubt my loyalty? But that is clearly impossible — he was at Mass with the family yesterday when I arrived back from Dee’s house after being followed by the stranger who landed at Putney. Even so, Courcelles is clearly taking an interest in where I travel. I slide a glance at him and experience a little shiver of distaste. I must not be so complacent as to think that any of my movements go un observed here.

Castelnau distracts us with a commentary on the fine houses whose gardens run down to the river behind high walls as we pass, with details of their occupants: those roofs belong to Somerset House, where the queen had lived as a princess before her accession, now a lodging for foreign diplomats; here you may see the great gatehouse tower of the Savoy Hospital, which the queen’s grandfather founded for the care of the poor, and beyond it, the landing stairs leading to the magnificent grounds of York Place, once the residence of the great Cardinal Wolsey, but commandeered by the queen’s father as a gift to his — here Castelnau checks himself, remembering his professional obligation, and omits the word mistress — to his second wife, he continues, the queen’s mother, Anne Boleyn.