S Parris - Prophecy

I hold my hands up.

‘Lady Seaton is a guest of your master today, I believe. I am told she has an urgent message for me. If you would be so kind as to enquire? I can wait here.’

‘You will wait here and all. You’re not coming in with a knife. Get back in there, Meg, till we sort this one out.’ He holds the gate for the girl and she scuttles back inside. The man gives me a last glare.

‘Say your name again. Slow, like.’

‘Bruno. Tell her, Bruno.’

He nods, and the gate shuts behind him. The alley remains silent. I lean against the wall, swivelling my head from one side to the other, convinced now that I have been tricked, that I am standing in this mud-churned lane quite probably awaiting my execution. Well, I think — I have looked death in the face more than once and I have learned a bit about putting up a fight from my years as a fugitive in Italy. If I have been summoned here to die, I will not make it easy for them.

Time drips past, so that I have given up trying to count the minutes. A gust of wind drives flurries of dead leaves up the length of the alley; some cling to my legs before whirling onward. When the gate opens again I leap against the far wall, hand to my belt. A grey-haired man in a smart black doublet and starched ruff appears in the entrance and looks me up and down.

‘You are Bruno? Lady Seaton’s messenger?’

‘Er — I am.’ I allow my breath to slide out slowly; he does not seem about to run me through. Was the letter genuine after all?

‘Step inside. I am steward to Sir John Spencer.’ He ushers me through the gate into a small courtyard at the rear of the house. Several chickens scratch around the yard, perhaps looking for grain spilled from the sacks waiting to be loaded into storehouses. ‘Wait here. But I’m afraid I must ask you to hand over your weapon while you are inside our walls.’ He reaches out apologetically.

Still I hesitate, but as I glance over his shoulder I see, with a flood of relief so great that my legs almost buckle, the prim figure of Lady Seaton appearing around the corner of the house.

‘Oh, there you are, Bruno — I need you to take a message to the palace for me urgently,’ she calls in that same peremptory tone as before. This is clearly some cover she has devised for having someone of low birth visit her at her friends’; her acting is deplorable, but it seems to have the desired effect. I produce a sweeping bow; the steward glances at me curiously, then does the same and retreats back into the house without demanding my knife. A servant pauses to stare in the course of hefting a wooden pallet across the yard, but returns to his work at one stony look from Lady Seaton.

She offers a vinegary little smile.

‘They have still not caught the brute who killed my girls,’ she begins, with an air of accusation. ‘Sir Edward Bellamy was released without charge after Abigail Morley was found, though you may imagine the whispering at court when he showed his face again, poor man. The stink of accusation takes a long time to clear. People wanted it to be him, you know, so they could sleep easy in their beds. But the court must hold its breath in fear once more, and some of my girls are near hysterical. And the queen grows impatient.’

‘They are hopeful of finding him soon, I believe.’

‘Pah.’ Her mouth shows what she thinks of this claim. ‘They do not know what I know.’

‘What?’

She beckons me over to a corner in the shelter of a low brick storehouse.

‘They released Cecily Ashe’s body to her father for burial last week. The rest of her family came down from Nottinghamshire. There was a service in the Chapel Royal. I took the opportunity to speak to her younger sister.’

I nod to her to continue, aware that I am holding my breath.

‘Of course, the father won’t allow that poor girl anywhere near the court after what happened to Cecily and you can’t blame him, although I dare say it won’t make much odds to her marriage chances — it was Cecily had all the looks in that family, more’s the pity.’ She sniffs. ‘But you know how sisters are with confidences.’

I did not, but I nod in any case, anxious not to interrupt.

‘I got the girl away from her parents and pressed her on what Cecily had written of this beau of hers.’

‘The one you assured me did not exist?’

She purses her lips.

‘Never mind that. Apparently Cecily had been writing to her sister every week — the maids’ letters are supposed to go through me, of course, but they find ways and means to smuggle them out. She was not keen to tell me, but I can be extremely persuasive.’

‘I don’t doubt it.’

She nods, as if appeased.

‘Well — this beau. Cecily had written to her sister that she was soon to become a countess.’

‘So he was an earl?’ My blood quickens again; in my excitement I clutch at her sleeve.

‘Unhand me please, Bruno.’ She smooths the silk down, but when she deigns to glance at me I see her eyes are bright with the relish of her tale. ‘So he said. I had to prise it out of the girl with threats in the end. Told her if she didn’t give me the name and any more girls died, I would tell the queen in person that she was responsible for hiding the murderer. That put the fear of God in her, I can tell you. They’re stubborn creatures at fifteen.’

‘I can well imagine.’ I picture the terrified sister cowering before Lady Seaton’s waspish tongue. ‘She gave you a name?’

‘Not a name, but a title. She claims Cecily never told her his name. She confided only that he called himself the Earl of Ormond.’ She leaves a dramatic pause for me to digest this. I shrug to indicate my ignorance.

‘So — do you know this man?’

She turns to look at me directly and her expression is gleeful.

‘That is the whole point, Bruno — there is no one of that title at court!’

‘But then — he could be anybody claiming a false title,’ I say. ‘How will it help us?’

‘I didn’t say it was a false title, just that to my knowledge there is no one known as the Earl of Ormond at court. And I know everyone ,’ she adds, as if I had tried to suggest otherwise. ‘I thought it might be something you could look into. I dare say it might be some old family name that has become assimilated into another house or become defunct — the annals of the English nobility are full of half-forgotten subsidiary titles like that.’

‘So — he was English, then?’

She frowns, as if unsure of my point.

‘Well, I assumed so. How else could he have persuaded Cecily that he held an earldom?’

I push my hair back from my face, impatiently revising my theory; Courcelles speaks good English, but his French accent is so pronounced as to make him sound comical to native speakers. Lady Seaton is right; he could never have convincingly posed as an English noble, and Cecily would surely have mentioned either to her sister or to Abigail if this impressive suitor had been a Frenchman. No; much as it frustrates me to have to let go of the idea, though Courcelles’ face may fit, I don’t believe he was posing as the Earl of Ormond.

‘But how would I ever find out about such a title?’

She looks at me as if I am being wilfully stupid.

‘The College of Arms hold all the records. At Derby Place, off St Peter Street. I am sure they would know something.’

‘Where is Ormond?’

‘How should I know, Bruno? I am not a cartographer.’

‘Did you tell Lord Burghley about this?’ I ask, curious.

She sucks in her cheeks again.

‘There is no love lost between Lord Burghley and myself. I never had the sense from him that he cared very much about the maids. Their deaths are a political problem to him, and he will find a political solution, you may be sure. Meanwhile my girls are terrified, Bruno, that this killer has his eye on more of them. My queen is afraid too, though you would never hear her admit it. These murders were grotesque threats against her. And it is poisoning the atmosphere at court — we look at every man now wondering, Is it him ? Is it that one? He must be found and put where he cannot harm any more of us.’ She wraps her shawl closer around her shoulders as another gust scuffs up the leaves in the yard. ‘I was not willing to be dismissed yet again as a foolish woman by Lord Burghley. But you had a look about you, with your sharp questions and your sharp eyes. When I saw you with the French ambassador at court I realised at once that you must be one of Francis Walsingham’s recruits. You need not answer that. I am as discreet as the grave.’