S Parris - Prophecy

‘Look at this.’ I hold it out to Walsingham, as if to make amends.

He turns it over in his fingers, looking at me expectantly.

‘I never saw her wear this before,’ I add.

‘She may have saved her best jewels for court occasions. You open it.’ Walsingham holds the light steady; even Burghley draws closer to see. The catch is delicate and my fingers clumsy; Burghley starts to hop from foot to foot, puffing through pursed lips.

‘We should not stay too much longer — the concert will be almost over.’

Walsingham ignores him and bends closer, so that the heat from the torch almost scorches my face. I work my fingernails into the clasp and at last it springs open. The right half of the locket reveals an enamelled painting, seemingly undamaged by its recent immersion. It shows a red phoenix, its head turned to the left and its wings outstretched, in a nest of flames. Inside the left half, two initials are finely engraved, a capital M entwined with a snaking S. I pass it to Walsingham; even with the play of shadows on his face, I see him blanch.

‘What is it, Francis?’ There is a new note of anxiety in Burghley’s voice.

Walsingham clenches the locket in his fist.

‘Mary Stuart. Always Mary Stuart. So this girl was also part of the plot. By Christ, have they recruited the whole of the queen’s household?’

‘The locket was not Abigail’s,’ I say, hearing my knees click as I finally stand, shaking out the stiffness in my legs.

‘How do you know?’

I tell them about Abigail’s oddly furtive manner at the Holbein Gate. ‘She mentioned a locket when she first told me about Cecily’s secret suitor and his gifts, but there was no locket in the bag of love-tokens she passed to me. My guess is that she decided at the last moment to keep it for herself. That’s why she seemed guilty.’

Walsingham considers this for a moment.

‘Perhaps she was foolish enough to wear it about court before today,’ he says. ‘If our killer — or at least, the one who hires the killer — is indeed a courtier, he may have seen it around her neck and recognised it as the locket he gave to Cecily.’

‘In any case, my lord Burghley is right,’ I say, glancing at the Lord Treasurer. ‘There is more than one man behind these murders. Whoever stopped the boy Jem in the yard could not have got back out to the river and rowed up the kitchen channel in time to meet Abigail. I’d bet he delivered the false message from me, then walked calmly back to the hall while someone else waited out on the river with a boat. And I’d wager anything that at the moment she was killed, the man in the shadows was applauding the choir in full view of the queen and the whole court.’

Walsingham sighs as he pulls the door of the loading bay shut and secures it with the bolt. The smell of the river recedes a little.

‘I need proof, Bruno. Suspicions are no good when they touch people as powerful as those we have in mind here. A ring, a locket — Her Majesty will not move against her cousin for such trinkets, and in any case, Mary Stuart will only say they were stolen by those who wish her harm. It seems certain that whoever is directing these murders is a familiar face at court. And he is clever. He may still be plotting to attack the queen by another means. Who was Cecily Ashe’s lover?’ He grips my shoulder and gives it a little shake, his face close to mine.

Burghley coughs discreetly.

‘I think we really must return. The concert will be almost over, and the French ambassador’s party will be wondering at Doctor Bruno’s absence. Francis — you return with Bruno to the hall. I will endeavour to see that those servants and guards who know of this terrible business are kept at a distance until the guests have all departed. Let the rumourmongers wait until tomorrow, at least, before their tongues run riot.’ He sucks in his cheeks, and motions for us to leave first.

Walsingham and I pass through the kitchen yard, now almost entirely blanketed in darkness, and back to the passageway by which we had come.

‘He is following you, Bruno, this killer,’ he says in a low voice, over his shoulder. ‘He knew that kitchen boy had been to Salisbury Court.’

‘Unless he was at Salisbury Court already.’

‘That nest of vipers. That is where the proof is to be found, I have no doubt of it. Keep your eyes sharp as a falcon’s, Bruno — only you can lay your hands on the evidence that will condemn one or all of them for treachery. But be careful. He must know you are hunting him. And if you come across anything else — however trivial it may seem — bring it straight to me, by any means you can. Understood?’

‘Yes, your honour.’ I lower my head, chastened.

He stops walking, turning to face me so abruptly that I bump into him. ‘There is something else I must ask you, Bruno.’ He glances around and lowers his voice yet further. ‘Have you ever heard John Dee speak of visions? Glimpses of the future granted him by angels, that sort of thing?’

I hesitate, possible answers caught in my throat. Against my advice, Dee must have recounted Kelley’s vision of the red-haired woman in the white dress to the queen when she summoned him the previous evening. The old fool, I think; too proud, too eager to impress. I would bet, too, that he did not mention Ned Kelley, but took credit for the vision himself; he would have wanted the queen to believe he alone had the gift of speaking with angels, though he would have presented the image as some kind of metaphor, no doubt, a sign that the heavenly guardians had care of her royal person. And now, only one day later, the vision is fulfilled horribly, almost to the letter. Did Dee not say Kelley described the red-haired woman being swept away by a great torrent, and Abigail’s body found floating in the water? This must have been what Leicester meant when he spoke of more than coincidence. In a flash of understanding, I see that he is right: Ned Kelley knew. There can be no other explanation: he described the murder of Abigail Morley before it happened, and it was no angel or demon who imparted the knowledge. No wonder the cunning-man has run away.

‘Bruno?’ Walsingham bends closer to look into my face, a warning in his eyes.

‘He has mentioned something of the kind,’ I mutter, not wanting to seem that I am withholding more secrets from him. ‘He has a showing-stone which he believes to yield images, if the circumstances are apt.’

‘Speak plainly — you mean he is conducting seances to contact spirits. It’s all right, Bruno — you are not betraying him. You and I are of the same mind — we both want to protect Dee. But he has invited a deal of trouble for himself.’ He sighs and checks again to make sure we are not overheard. ‘Yesterday evening, Doctor Dee shared with the queen a vision he had lately seen, of a red-haired woman with the mark of Saturn on her naked breast, pierced through the heart and carried away by a great river. He told her it was a vision of the desires of her enemies, vouchsafed by her guardian angels so that she might be on her guard. Or some such nonsense. This morning Her Majesty saw fit to relate that vision to the Privy Council. She did so out of mischief, I believe, to irk Henry Howard. She has always made it her business to mock publicly all threats of danger to her person, whether based on real intelligence or fantasies like this one of Dee’s, to show the world that she is unafraid. She could not have known — well, you see the difficulty, Bruno.’

I nod. I see it very well. John Dee unknowingly predicted the murder of Abigail Morley and the queen’s most senior advisers know it; the obvious conclusion will be that this foreknowledge in some way implicates him. Why could he not have listened to my advice?