Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

It would be awkward if Ned were to come home now. But he would almost certainly be out all day: work would have piled up on his table while he was in Paris. And he was supposed to have dinner at Cecil’s house. The likelihood of a surprise return was low — she hoped.

In the mirror she did not look much like a man. She was too pretty, and her hands were too small. She put a coal shovel up the chimney and brought down a quantity of soot, then used it to besmirch her hands and face. That was better, the mirror told her. Now she could pass for a grubby little old man of the kind who might well be used as a messenger.

She left the house by the back door and hurried away, hoping that any neighbours who glimpsed her would not recognize her. She went east to Ald Gate, and passed through it out of the city. She walked through fields to the village of Hoxton, where Monteagle had a suburban house in a large garden. She went to the back door, as a scruffy messenger would.

A man with his mouth full of food came to the door. She handed the letter to him and said in her gruffest voice: ‘For Lord Monteagle, personal and very important.’

The man chewed and swallowed. ‘And who is it from?’

‘A gentleman that gave me a penny.’

‘All right, old boy, here’s another.’

She held out her hand, small but dirty, and took the coin, then she turned away.

Ned Willard and most of the Privy Council were sitting around Robert Cecil’s dining table when a servant came in to tell Cecil that Lord Monteagle needed to speak to him very urgently.

Cecil excused himself and asked Ned to go with him. Monteagle was waiting in a side room, looking anxious, holding a sheet of paper as if it might explode. He began with what was obviously a prepared sentence. ‘The writer of this letter appears to think me a traitor,’ he said, ‘but I hope to prove I am not by bringing the letter to you, the secretary of state, within an hour of having received it.’

It struck Ned as ironic that the tall, strapping young Lord Monteagle was so visibly frightened of the dwarfish Cecil.

‘Your loyalty isn’t in doubt,’ Cecil murmured pacifically.

That was not quite true, Ned thought; but Cecil was being polite.

Monteagle proffered the letter and Cecil took it. His high, white forehead creased in a frown as he began to read. ‘By the Mass, this is untidy handwriting.’ He read to the end, then passed it to Ned. Cecil’s hands were long and fine-boned, like those of a tall woman.

Cecil asked Monteagle: ‘How did this come to you?’

‘My manservant brought it to me at supper. It was given him by a man who came to the kitchen door. My man gave the messenger a penny.’

‘After you had read the letter, did you send someone to fetch the messenger back?’

‘Of course, but he’d disappeared. Frankly, I suspect my servant may have finished his supper before bringing the letter to me, though he swore otherwise. At all events, we couldn’t find the messenger when we looked for him. So I saddled my horse and came straight here.’

‘You did the right thing, my lord.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What do you think of it, Ned?’

‘The whole thing is plainly some kind of fake,’ said Ned.

Monteagle was surprised. ‘Really?’

‘Look. The writer cares for your preservation, he says, out of the love he bears some of your friends. It seems a bit unlikely.’

‘Why?’

‘The letter is proof of treason. If a man knows of a plot to kill the king, his duty is to tell the Privy Council; and if he does not do so he may hang for it. Would a man endanger his own life for the sake of a friend of a friend?’

Monteagle was bewildered. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said. ‘I took the letter at face value.’

Cecil smiled knowingly. ‘Sir Ned never takes anything at face value,’ he said.

‘In fact,’ Ned went on, ‘I suspect the writer is very well known to you, or at least to someone to whom you might show the letter.’

Once again Monteagle looked out of his depth. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘No one writes like this except a schoolboy who has not yet gained full control of his pen. Yet the phrasing is that of an adult. Therefore the writing is deliberately disguised. That suggests that someone who is likely to read the letter knows the sender well enough to recognize his hand.’

‘How dreadful,’ said Monteagle. ‘I wonder who it can be?’

‘The sentence about the wickedness of the time is mere padding,’ Ned went on, thinking aloud. ‘The meat of the message is in the next sentence. If Monteagle attends Parliament, he may be killed. That part, I suspect, is true. It fits with what I learned in Paris.’

Cecil said: ‘But how is the killing to be done?’

‘Key question. I believe the writer doesn’t know. Look at the vagueness. “They shall receive a terrible blow... they shall not see who hurts them.” It suggests danger from a distance, perhaps by cannon fire, but nothing more specific.’

Cecil nodded. ‘Or, of course, the whole thing could be a figment of a madman’s imagination.’

Ned said: ‘I don’t think so.’

Cecil shrugged. ‘There’s no concrete evidence, and nothing we can check. An anonymous letter is just a piece of paper.’

Cecil was right, the evidence was flimsy — but Ned’s instinct told him the threat was real. Anxiously he said: ‘Whatever we think, the letter must be shown to the king.’

‘Of course,’ said Cecil. ‘He’s hunting in Hertfordshire, but this will be the first thing he sees when he returns to London.’

Margery had always known this terrible day would come. She had managed to forget the fact, even for years at a time, and she had been happy, but in her heart she had realized there would be a reckoning. She had deceived Ned for decades, but a lie always came back to you, sooner or later, and now that time had come.

‘I know that Jean Langlais means to kill the king,’ Ned said to her, worried and frustrated. ‘But I can’t do anything about it because I don’t know who Langlais is or where to find him.’

Margery felt crucified by guilt. She had known that the elusive man Ned had been hunting most of his life was Rollo, and she had kept this knowledge to herself.

But now it seemed that Rollo was going to kill the king and queen and their two sons, plus all the leading ministers including Ned himself. She could not allow that to happen. Yet still she was not sure what to do, for even if she revealed the secret it might not save anyone. She knew who Langlais was but not where he was, and she had no idea how he planned to kill everyone.

She and Ned were at home in St Paul’s Churchyard. They had eaten a breakfast of hen’s eggs with weak beer, and Ned had his hat on, about to leave for Robert Cecil’s house. At this moment in the day he often lingered, standing by the fire, to share his worries with her. Now he said: ‘Langlais has been very, very careful — always.’

Margery knew that was true. The secret priests she had helped Rollo smuggle into England had known him as Langlais, and none of them had been told she was his sister. The same went for all the people he conspired with to free Mary Stuart and make her queen: they all knew him as Langlais, none as Rollo Fitzgerald. In being so cautious he was unlike most of his co-conspirators. They had approached their mission in a daredevil spirit, but Rollo had known the quality of the people he was up against, especially of Ned, and he had never taken unnecessary risks.

Margery said to Ned: ‘Can’t you cancel the opening of Parliament?’

‘No. We might postpone it, or move it to a different location; though that would look bad enough: James’s enemies would say the king is so hated by the people that he’s afraid to open his own Parliament in case he might be assassinated. So James will make the decision himself. But the ceremony has to take place some time, somewhere. The country must be governed.’