Marbeck and the Double Dealer (17 page)

‘We must add detail,' Marbeck said. ‘Enough to make it stick. Give me a Dutch name, suitable for an admiral.'

‘Van Zoren?' Gifford suggested.

‘That should serve. I'll report that Admiral Van Zoren, with a fleet of thirty vessels – requisitioned merchantmen and others – is preparing to sail for Ireland. Cork, let's say. His orders are to anchor there and be ready to meet any Spanish force that might come to the aid of the Irish rebels.'

‘I like it well,' Gifford said after a moment. ‘But have a care. Even if Silvan believes you, he'll want corroboration – names of vessels, their masters and so forth.'

‘I'll plead ignorance as to details,' Marbeck replied. ‘But I can bluff about the guns they carry – I know a little about such matters.'

Gifford nodded approvingly, then a frown appeared. ‘The question is, at what point do we take our story to Cecil?'

‘When we're certain the door is really open. Which may take time.' Marbeck raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you have money? I mean, enough to live on for a while?'

The other shrugged. ‘For myself, I have enough – but I can't keep you as well.' He put on a thin smile. ‘You'll have to call upon your friends.'

A look passed between them; then Marbeck sighed. ‘In that case,' he said, ‘can you lend me enough to hire a boat?'

Late at night, long after the city gates were shut, Marbeck left the White Bear and walked round the walls by Smithfield, Old Bailey and Fleet Street to Bridewell Dock. There he found a waterman who agreed to take him upriver as far as the village of Chelsea. Wrapped in a cloak, he clambered into the skiff and sat down in the stern. The air was heavy again, with a threat of rain; he hoped it would hold off for another hour. Luckily, the tide was in their favour, and the small craft was soon in midstream, the boatman bending to his oars. In minutes the city was behind them. But it was not until Westminster was passed, and the lights of Whitehall Palace a distant blur, that Marbeck relaxed and began to mull things over.

Thus far, matters had gone as planned. He had written his traitorous letter and was satisfied. Silvan would read the words of a disgruntled agent, who was prepared to betray the crown for a handsome reward. As proof of his intent, Marbeck offered a snippet of intelligence concerning an Anglo-Dutch flotilla, bound for Cork in Southern Ireland. A newly promoted admiral, Willem Van Zoren, would command it. That done, though the man knew his real name, he had nevertheless signed himself John Sands. As to where he might be found, he mentioned the name of a drawer at the Duck and Drake tavern in the Strand: a man named Thomas Rose, whose discretion he trusted. After that, it only remained to place the letter under the stone Silvan had described, by the windmill in Finsbury Fields. Gifford would perform that task under cover of darkness. He and Marbeck were of similar height; even if he were observed, they were confident of success.

So, the device was set in motion, and since for the moment Marbeck could do no more, he dismissed it. Midnight was drawing near, or would before he reached Chelsea. And now, at last, his thoughts turned to Lady Celia Scroop.

The fact was he was uncertain how he would be received. It was some time since he had seen her – back in the summer, before he'd gone to Flanders with Moore. She had been preoccupied, he remembered: rumours had reached her that her husband Sir Richard Scroop had a new mistress in the Low Countries. The knight was fourteen years older; Celia had been barely sixteen when they married. Now in her fortieth year, having borne him several children, of whom two had survived infancy, she had long since tired of him. Everyone knew Sir Richard was a blustering rake, who preferred the company of soldiers and whored as it suited him. Hence, his wife sometimes intimated to her closest friends, why should she not respond in the same coin? Though, the fact was, she did no such thing: Marbeck knew he had been her only lover. And though she had teased him often, he suspected that was still the case.

Now he held that thought, for he had little choice. This was more than a visit for the purposes of pleasure: he needed money, and could think of no one else who had as much of it to spare as did Lady Scroop. More, she was clever and discreet – which was why he despised himself for what he was about to do. It mattered little that the sum was needed in the Queen's service and would be repaid: he was coming to scrounge, if not to beg.

He lifted his head, hearing the call of an owl in between the plash of the boatman's oars. Mercifully, the man was not garrulous like most of his kind, and their journey passed without discourse. London was distant now. In the faint glow of the boat's stern lantern he could see fields drifting by, on the Middlesex shore at his right. To his left, the Surrey shore was lost in darkness. Now and then he made out the ghostly shapes of cattle or sheep, and was reminded briefly of the banks of the Scorff, back in Brittany. But when the lights of a certain landing stage appeared ahead, he forgot all else. Soon he was clambering on to the jetty, paying off the waterman and walking up a flight of stone steps. Beyond a clump of trees, Scroop House loomed.

The lady was up, of course; she seldom went to bed until the small hours, or rose before noon. Marbeck was recognized by servants and shown into a firelit chamber. There he found Lady Celia Scroop, playing at cards with a young woman-in-waiting. As he entered, she looked up and froze.

‘By all that's holy . . .' She gazed at him, then with a sigh turned to her companion. ‘Will you leave me, Alice?' she said. ‘Here's John Sands, wafted in on the night breeze as always. Some legal business, is it, sir?'

Marbeck smiled and bowed low.

He woke with the dawn and listened, lying still. Beside him in the vast, curtained bed, Celia slept on silken pillows. She looked at peace, thick auburn hair half covering her face. At the foot of the bed her voluminous nightgown lay in a heap, along with petticoats and stockings of fine lawn. Marbeck yawned, then turned on his back and thought about the previous night. As he'd hoped, if not expected, there had been little conversation: an exchange of pleasantries that soon gave way to words of affection, then to fleshly delights. To his relief, her feelings towards him appeared unchanged; when he finally slept, he was drained of all feeling and strength, like a man who has been close to death.

‘Your lips move . . . what do you whisper?'

He turned; she was awake and watching him.

‘Did I so?' He smiled. ‘I forget . . .'

‘No – you merely refuse to reveal it.' She gave a yawn and shifted her body to face his. ‘Must it always be so with us?'

He drew his hand from under the coverlet and brushed the hair from her face. ‘Why . . . are you discontent?'

‘Perhaps I am.' But she returned his smile.

‘You're lonely,' he said after a moment. ‘I saw it last night, as you sat at cards. Do your children not lighten your days?'

Her smile faded. ‘Henry's sixteen and at Oxford – perhaps you've forgotten he went up for the Michaelmas term. And Beatrix prefers exercising her pony to all else. So, since you ask, sir – somewhat late, I might add – no, my children do not provide much comfort.'

‘I ask pardon.' He began stroking her cheek. ‘Should I have come to you sooner? I've thought of it often enough.'

‘Then, what stopped you?' Celia asked. But before he could answer, she laid a finger on his lips. ‘Nay – spin me no tales, Marbeck. I ask not where you've been, nor what you've done. I learned that lesson long ago.'

He was silent, but his caresses continued.

‘Yet now I wonder why you're really here,' she added. ‘To ask what I've heard at Court? I regret to say I haven't been there, not since the Queen returned from her Summer Progress. I seem to have lost my appetite for tittle-tattle.'

‘I came for several reasons,' he said finally. ‘One is to ask you to loan me fifty crowns.'

Her eyes narrowed, but she made no reply.

‘It will be repaid with interest,' he added. ‘If there were another way, I wouldn't be so importunate – or so insolent. You're the only person I can trust to keep it secret.'

A sigh escaped her lips. ‘By the saints, Marbeck,' was all she said.

Still he caressed her. ‘None would blame you for refusing,' he said. ‘Nor even for having me thrown off your landing-steps into the river. But I have to ask.'

Suddenly, she caught his hand and held it. ‘And what if I ask something of you in return?'

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You know I'll do what's in my power.'

‘Though somehow you always avoid spelling out what that means,' Celia said. Then: ‘I hear things about you, Marbeck.'

He waited.

‘Lady Bacon – Sir Francis's mother – was a friend,' she went on. ‘I haven't seen her in years. But it's an open secret what services her other son has performed for the Crown. Anthony is another who's never married, who spends much time abroad.' She sighed. ‘You play the Great Game, too. And in the time we've known each other, I've seen it change you. I believe it devours you. One day, there'll be nothing left.'

He frowned slightly. ‘Where does this lead?' he wondered. ‘Would you wish me to stay in London, to be called at your pleasure?'

She shook her head. ‘Not that.'

‘Then what?'

But already his thoughts ran ahead. He gazed at her face, bereft of last night's paste and paint, and for the first time noticed the lines about her eyes. She was tired, he saw: tired perhaps of being the dutiful wife to a man like Sir Richard.

‘If I were widowed, what then?'

He blinked. ‘What . . . surely you don't wish to take me as a husband?'

At that she gave a yelp of laughter. ‘I never thought of it,' she said. ‘You haven't a penny, nor a title, nor even the prospect of one. Neither can men like you be honoured, hence—'

‘Then tell me, for I grow weary of this.'

He spoke sharply, but she was unfazed. She knew Marbeck better than most – better than he liked; and at what followed, he was the one taken aback.

‘Could you arrange it?'

He feigned not to understand, but she saw through it.

‘You have the means, do you not?' Celia spoke very quietly. ‘Or, at the least, you know men who do. I hear the Low Countries is a cauldron . . . a quagmire, where sickness accounts for more deaths than the war. A man may die a thousand ways.'

‘You truly ask this of me?'

She hesitated. ‘If I did, would you carry out my desire?'

‘What, become an assassin – kill Sir Richard?' They gazed at each other. Then a suspicion dawned. ‘Or do you merely test my feelings?' he added.

She was still holding his hand. Now she released it – and, catching him unawares, thrust it down suddenly, below his waist. ‘How strong are those feelings, truly?' she demanded.

He caught his breath.

‘How strong?' she repeated harshly. ‘You dally with me like a whore, then disappear again as if whisked off the face of the earth. How do I know who you are with betimes – or what taint you may carry?'

‘You said long ago, you'd not ask these things,' Marbeck answered, his voice taut.

‘Then, perhaps I've grown weary,' she threw back. ‘Like Her Gracious Majesty, for all her wit and gaiety, her paint and finery. You know what's underneath it all, as well as I: a wrinkled, bald old woman, who stares at death.'

But it was Marbeck who laughed then. ‘The Queen is sixty-seven years old! You're a maid by comparison—'

‘I speak not only of age, Marbeck!' With an impatient sigh, Celia withdrew her hand. ‘A body growing old is one matter – what about the end of all that we've known? The end of the Tudors?'

He stared at her. ‘Well, that will come,' he said, after a moment. ‘Elizabeth is the last. But it's plain enough who will succeed, even if few want to admit it. We'll have a king – he may be a Scot, but he's a king already and knows what to expect.'

‘No – you fail to understand.' She sighed. ‘I speak of this new century, and the new England to come – one to which you may find yourself unsuited.'

‘I?' He gave her a puzzled look.

‘You, and those like you.'

‘How is that?' he asked, not liking the notion. ‘I answer to Whitehall – to the Council. Whether Queen's or King's, makes no difference. The state needs men to serve—'

‘Yet James Stuart, if he does become king, has little stomach for the war with Spain – just like their new king,' she said, in a gentler tone. ‘He's a parsimonious man, they say, and wars are costly. Master Secretary Cecil understands that. Let the hotheads – Essex and his friends – pursue their warmongering ways; Crookback Robert merely counts the cost. And if James becomes king, he may choose to forget what's past and make peace with the Spanish, the first chance he gets.'

‘He may do so – but what of it?' Marbeck countered. ‘Do you think England lacks enemies? There's always another war beyond the horizon—'

‘And you will attach yourself to it – just like my husband.'

Her voice was flat. Taken aback, he made no answer.

‘Well . . . so it has always been, and so it remains.' Celia let out a long breath and finally put a hand to his cheek. ‘I'm a fool to expect anything else,' she added. ‘You're too restless to do otherwise . . . as you're unfit for marriage. Perhaps I did test you, though I had no strategy. Nor do I look to the future, as a rule. I find it arrives quickly enough.'

They were both silent for a while. Then, catching sight of the marks on his arm, she frowned. ‘I would have asked you yesternight,' she said. ‘Are those burns?'

He nodded, not wanting to elaborate.

‘Well . . . mayhap we've said enough,' she murmured. ‘Go now to the chamber where you're supposed to have slept, and I'll send a servant. Ask what you will of him. Then, when you've refreshed yourself, take your leave. If anyone should ask . . .' She broke off and gave a wan smile. ‘But none will, for they know what's passed.'