The Roots of Betrayal (3 page)

Wednesday, May 3

Clarenceux walked over Fleet Bridge and westward along Fleet Street, toward his house. It was late morning. The bright sun shone on the houses on the north side of the street. His house was on the south side. He looked up at it: a typical, three-story merchant's house. There was a shop at the front—which he did not let but used for storage, so the shutters were always closed—and two floors of accommodation above, with a large hall occupying most of the first floor. It was not much to show for a lifetime in royal service, first in the army at Boulogne, then in the various heraldic ranks at the College of Arms. It was very little, considering he had been born the son of a gentleman. But it was something. And it was more than most followers of the old religion possessed.

The old religion. Catholicism: loyalty to all things holy, as he understood it, including the offices of the Church and the pope. England turning against the old religion had been the tragedy of his life. He had been still young in 1534, barely sixteen, when the old king, Henry VIII, had passed the Act of Supremacy that made him Head of the Church. At the time Clarenceux had not understood the significance of this. It had only struck him when the first wave of monasteries were closed two years later. Three years after that, all the greater monasteries were shut and their possessions confiscated, even the great foundations of Glastonbury and Westminster. Many of the churches that he knew, and where he had studied the arms on the tombs as the dust drifted in the stained-glass light above him, had been pulled down. Some had been sold off—the land, stone, glass, and lead all going to the profit of one of the king's friends. Even the books had been sold off—those that were not destroyed by the abbey's new owners. These actions had set his heart against the tyranny of that king.

When Mary Tudor had succeeded to the throne, there had been no funds to repurchase and rebuild the hundreds of closed foundations. A few monks and abbots were restored, in a token gesture, but the queen had been too conciliatory. She had put her efforts into the persecution of heretics who preached against her and had ignored those heretics who now rebuilt the sacred abbeys as their halls and homes. That had just made the reformers more embittered. The first statute of Queen Elizabeth's first parliament had been wholly uncompromising, ushering in a new age of tyranny. If he was caught maintaining the spiritual authority of the pope, as he believed was right, he would have his house and all his goods, lands, and chattels confiscated. If he was found guilty of maintaining the preeminence of Rome three times, he would be sentenced to death. Heresy—not following the rites of the official Church—could lead to hanging too. Even declining to use the new
Book
of
Common
Prayer
, or speaking of it in a derogatory manner, would lead to imprisonment.

He entered his house to see his manservant, Thomas Terry, who immediately welcomed him in and shut the door. Thomas had served him for many years and was practically a member of the family. He was a strong-minded character. Clarenceux compared him to a slowly rusting iron bar—still unyielding despite all the outward appearances of aging.

“Mr. Clarenceux, sir,” said Thomas, “there was a message from Widow Machyn while you were out. She says she would like to see you, if you would do her the honor.”

Clarenceux nodded and went up the stairs. “Did she say when?”

“No, sir,” said Thomas, following him, “but she seemed very anxious. I presume what she has to say is important.”

Clarenceux paused at the top, trying to think of what it might be. “Thank you, Thomas.”

He turned into his hall, strode past the elm table in the front window to a door in the corner, and ascended the narrow staircase beyond. The age of the house showed most here: the wooden stairs creaked beneath his weight and, at the top, there were a couple holes in the door to his study, where gnarls in the wood had shrunk and fallen out. The room itself was untidy, as usual, with papers and books scattered across the floor where he deposited them in the course of research. There was an empty space above the fireplace where the portrait of his father used to hang. It had been smashed in the searching of his house six months earlier. His father's damaged sword had been straightened and now hung nearby, along with a new blade that Clarenceux had acquired for his own use. Some of the books had been repaired too, and were now stacked in the presses against the walls.

He went to the far side of the room, as he always did on entering, where a small instrument hung with its face against the wall. It was a
chitarra
: a lute-like instrument with a thin neck and five courses of strings. It had an intricately carved grille over the sound hole. He reached up, turned it face outward, and plucked the strings one by one. They were in a particularly unusual musical sequence—just as he had left them. But, even so, he lifted the instrument down and removed the grille. He pushed his fingers through and felt the edge of the document glued there, deep inside. Satisfied, he replaced the grille and put the
chitarra
back, face against the wall.

He wished that he could forget about the document. It was a constant worry. If anyone knew he had it, they might do something extreme. His daughters might be kidnapped and held to ransom. He might be tortured. The very fact that he knew of its existence was a risk. Catholic houses were regularly searched for seditious documents: if royal officers were to come and find it, then Sir William Cecil would not save him. As a Protestant and the queen's Secretary, Cecil would be heavily compromised if anyone found out that he even knew of its existence. No one would step in to save him, Clarenceux, from the gallows.

It was ironic. Here he was, in possession of the means to dethrone a queen—and, moreover, a queen who was an enemy of his faith—and yet he did nothing. His only weapon was one so powerful he dared not use it. It actually made him more vulnerable. He told himself, the moment to use it had not come. In his heart, however, he knew that that moment would never come. He was not reckless enough to start a revolution. Nor did he want a return to the old days, when men and women were burnt at the stake for their religious beliefs. He wanted a quiet life and mutual understanding. That in itself set him against all those who knew he had the document, who were ardent for him to proclaim the queen illegitimate in his role as a herald. The surviving friends of the late Henry Machyn—a secret Catholic fraternity organized to protect the document—expected him to do much more with it. They were collectively called the Knights of the Round Table. They would not wait forever.

He sighed heavily. And wondered why Rebecca had come to see him.

Late that evening, Francis Walsingham was riding through the city, looking up at the open windows of some nearby houses. He wondered who might be watching him. It made him think about spies, and how many there were hidden behind the opaque routines of everyday life. Men who watched their servants for signs of theft of goods or money. Those who watched their neighbors. Servants who listened through thin, plaster-covered partitions to their masters' words in the next room. Clergymen who observed their flocks for signs of sin. Later there would be the night watchmen patrolling the city for strangers out after curfew. The more one looked at a city, the more it seemed that everyone was on the alert. The business of mankind was increasingly that of watching itself, listening to its own sins, weaknesses, and betrayals.

And then there was him, Walsingham, the eyes and ears of her majesty's Principal Secretary. He was the one who felt the pulse of society for signs of rebellions and revolutions, dissent and disservice. His role was to gather all the knowledge that others heard and saw, and to advise accordingly. And when knowledge was not enough, he acted on instinct. That was perhaps the most important part. He had to use a measure of instinct to know when someone was withholding information. Or to know where a plot was likely to emerge, and to be there, listening, to preempt it. As Sir William so often reminded him, if they were to foil nineteen plots out of twenty against the queen, they would have failed.

He turned a corner near his house in the east of the city and saw the high walls of the Tower of London ahead of him. Shielded in that great fortification, he would hear nothing. The queen in her palace heard nothing. Sir William himself heard little. It was essential for him, Walsingham, to be the listener that the queen and Sir William so desperately needed. He had to be in the streets, amid the smells, in order to understand what people told him. But what they really needed was for all these people with their shutters open, listening, to be the queen's agents. A truly loyal people would report dissent and subversive conversations as a matter of course. Their love of their monarch and their spiritual duty to protect her majesty required it of them. Yes, that was what he should be planning: how to make the whole population his agents. How to make them betray one another. Each one could report to the constable of their ward or manor. And those constables could report to the hundredal officers or, better still, the lord lieutenant.

As he approached his house, he saw a horse tethered outside. He did not recognize it. That meant little; he was a poor judge of horses. But even he could see this one was exhausted and covered in sweat.

Walsingham rode through to his stable and dismounted. He shouted for a boy to attend to his mount and went through a passageway to the main hall, a large room open to the roof beams. The walls were relatively plain, decorated only with a pair of rather unflattering family portraits and two faded tapestries. A man was talking to one of his servants. They turned toward him when they heard his footsteps approaching across the flagstones.

“Good day, Mr. Walsingham,” said his servant with a small bow.

The other man said nothing. Walsingham looked at him. “George Latham, is it not? I sent you to Sheffield with your friend, Philip French—”

“
France
, sir,” said Latham. “His name was Philip France.”

“Was?”

Latham held out a piece of paper. It was covered in blood. “He gave his life in your service, sir. The blood you see is that of the man who killed him.”

Thursday, May 4

Mrs. Barker, kneeling in a black silk and velvet dress, made the sign of the cross over her breast. She watched her priest, Father John Tucker, as he folded away the portable altarpiece that graced the table in the chamber that she used as a chapel. He was tall and thin, in his early forties, with a neat brown beard and sharp, concentrated features. He looked shrewd and serious.

She was much older—more than sixty years of age. She rose to her feet somewhat awkwardly. “Have you spoken to the others?”

“I have, my lady. They are all with us.”

“And Widow Machyn herself—she is still willing to cooperate?”

Father Tucker hesitated. “Yes.”

“You sound unsure. Do you think she will regret betraying Mr. Clarenceux?”

“The way she spoke, I think she truly believes in our cause. She knows that he should have acted by now. She too feels guilty. Her late husband died in the hope that that manuscript would be used, and that Parliament would act to set Elizabeth aside as illegitimate and proclaim Mary. Our patience and pressure over the last few months will pay off; she will do as we ask.”

“Good. The arrangement to switch her to a French ship—is that settled?”

Father Tucker lifted the missal that he had been using and placed it in a concealed cupboard built into the paneling. “Everything is in order. Rebecca Machyn will soon be far away from London.” He closed the panel door and turned to her. “And so will the Percy-Boleyn marriage agreement.”

Friday, May 5

It was late morning. Sunlight poured in through the window of the study of Cecil House, on the north side of the Strand, and gleamed on the gilt frame of the portrait above the fireplace.
Sir
Wyllyam
Sessylle, aetatis suae xxxii
was painted in gold in the top right-hand corner. Francis Walsingham saw Cecil's judicious face staring down at him from a quite different time, twelve years earlier. He reflected that he was now the same age as Cecil had been when that picture had been painted: thirty-two. Would he be in Cecil's place in twelve years? Or still dependent on the sly political genius of his mentor and patron?

He turned away and walked slowly across the chamber. Dust shifted in the sunlight. He took a book from a shelf, turned it over in his hands, and opened it. His eyes focused on the words but he could not concentrate on their meaning. He replaced it and sat down at Cecil's empty writing table, facing the door.

After a minute or two he got up again. Words drifted up the grand staircase outside, too indistinct for him to understand. Something was happening downstairs. He adjusted the close-fitting black cap that covered his receding hair and made sure his ruff was fluffed out and smart. He pulled the sleeves of his black doublet down to their full length and waited. Finally, after another five minutes, he heard footsteps and voices on the stairs as several men ascended.

Sir William Cecil entered the study, carrying a large pile of folded papers, followed by six attendants. His bright eyes were his most distinctive feature, even more noticeable than his reddish-brown beard, which was rapidly turning gray. His hair was thinning a little. The deep-blue velvet of his doublet contrasted strikingly with the pristine white of his ruff. “And remember, for everybody's sake, don't allow the ambassador to see the docks too closely,” he was saying to a clerk. “A glimpse is fine—it will reassure him that we are not hiding anything—but the rebuilding of five galleasses will have the opposite effect.” He turned to another clerk. “I need further details on the nature of the dispute between the Merchant Adventurers and the Company of Hanse Merchants at Antwerp. This impasse is most unsatisfactory. If they need an ambassador, I will send them one.” He saw Walsingham. “Ah, Francis, I was told you were here.” Cecil gestured for the other men to leave. “Go, all of you. I will deal with any further matters at one of the bell, in the great hall.”

Walsingham bowed. “Greetings, Sir William. I am glad of your return.”

“The feeling is mutual. If I am to be hounded day and night by requests and complaints, let it at least be in the comfort of my own home. But even so, look.” Cecil held up the pile of papers. He flicked among them, found one, and opened it, passing it to his protégé, setting the rest on the table. “Trade with the Low Countries is on the point of collapse. The Merchant Adventurers cannot access the ports because the Hanse has reimposed trade restrictions. It means Spanish intervention, of course; we all know it but we cannot say it. And that is the least of my worries. What am I to do about the earl of Hertford and Lady Katherine Gray, the queen's cousin? Hales's book has just made everything ten times worse.”

“I am sorry, Sir William. Hales's book? You'll have to forgive me. Who is Hales?”

Cecil walked across to a table beside the window, where a pair of silver goblets was standing next to a lidded pewter wine flagon. He filled one and quaffed it. “When Lady Katherine Gray gave birth, she confessed to my wife's sister that the father was Lord Hertford and that Hertford had secretly married her in a Catholic ceremony.”

“That was at least two years ago.”

“Indeed. But do you recall the consequence—that trial, at which the marriage was declared void? Lord Hertford was found guilty of violating a virgin of the royal family.”

“It's not the sort of thing one forgets,” said Walsingham. “He was fined fifteen thousand pounds. For sleeping with his wife.”

“Quite. His wife just happened to be the queen's cousin, and the queen…Well, you know what I think. My suspicion is that our queen would rather neither of her cousins have any children, so there are no potential heirs to rival whomsoever she eventually chooses. So when Lady Katherine takes matters into her own hands…” Cecil gestured to suggest his frustration. “But the queen's spite has no basis in law.” He took a deep breath. “A man called John Hales has written a pamphlet pointing out that Lady Katherine's children should be recognized in the order of succession. Privately, I agree. I had Lord Hertford transferred to Hanworth last year, on the pretext of there being an outbreak of the plague, and placed him in the keeping of his stepfather, Francis Newdigate. I was trying to lessen the injustice of her majesty's ire. Now it turns out that Newdigate has involved himself in the composition of Hales's book. I have here letters from Newdigate, Lord Hertford, and John Hales all seeking clemency and intervention. Even that damned Robert Dudley has written one. The queen is isolated—and yet she wants me to bring charges of treason against them. It is a disaster. I am meant to arrange for Hales to be found guilty. Ultimately Hertford is guilty of nothing more than falling in love. Frankly, having seen Lady Katherine, I cannot blame him. She could easily make traitors of us all.”

Cecil paused and took another gulp of wine. “Hales's only offense is to point out the legal situation that automatically follows on from them marrying—which no one can deny they have done, with witnesses, and willingly. That the queen does not like it does not render it unlawful: we do not follow Roman Law in this kingdom but our own Common Law. It is hardly surprising that there are plots against her. It's not made any easier by the fact that she won't marry. She has said categorically that she will not marry one of her own subjects. So what are we to do? We look overseas. I favor the house of Austria. Throckmorton, from whom I have just received yet another letter, says that he too favors Austria. Roger Strange favors Austria. Robert Dudley also favors Austria. And what does the queen say? ‘No, Sir William, not Austria.' I despair.”

“I am all the more sorry to be the one who bears you further reason to frown.”

“Francis, you are
not
sorry. It is a constant delight to you, to bring me new challenges. But I trust you not to bother me with trifles. That is why I came back as soon as I could.”

“Thank you. This concerns the dowager countess of Northumberland. You asked that I keep her ladyship under close watch. Several weeks ago I instructed two young men from Oxford to take up lodgings in the area and monitor the movements of those coming and going to her at Sheffield Manor. The day before yesterday, one of them, George Latham, came to me. He had ridden hard, changing horses, and was in a terrible state. Three days earlier, on the thirtieth, he and his companion noticed a messenger riding through the rain toward Sheffield—a man whom they had previously seen carrying messages to her ladyship. And so they moved to intercept him. They caught up with him at Melton Mowbray, in an inn. The messenger killed Latham's companion, and then was himself killed. When Latham searched the corpse, he found a message. The original was soiled in the man's blood, but here is a copy.”

Walsingham reached inside his doublet and pulled out a neatly folded paper. He walked closer and handed it to Cecil, who opened it. In neat black pen was written the following:

CCCCX>CCDCCICCCIIIMMCII-<\CCCCCC-,

/IMMMD\C\ICCCCMMV/CMMMCCX+II-CCVI-CCCC-

<-XI-/C\ICCCCX, MMMDCCCCI

CCCMMMXCCCC+-CCCC

IIXMMMIIXMMMMX,>D\/\IICCVDMMMCC->V,D\

CCCC-MMMD\CCCC-DCC-

VMMMICCCC-D\IMMMMMM\DCCVDC\IV, /II-D\>-

DCCCCCCCCCX>CCD-LL-

VD

III-CCCCDMM\IILCCCC\CCCMM\, /\, D\MMMV, /IIX<

CCV, /DCC-CCCC--/D\VIMMMMMMMMIII\I,/L\

CCCCMMM<\DMMV, /IICC-CCCC-I+\, MMMCC-IIXMMMM<

\, LXCCCCCCCCC-CCCCVCCCCCCCCXIVMMIIXDCCC\

ICCCCCCCC-+CCCC-MMM-, DVDXI-MMMMMMCC-

IIXMMMMMM-VI-LCCCC\CCCMM\, /\, VD/VII, \, DCC-

MMM-I-,DCCDCCVDII-CCCVCIII-MMMICCCC-C\

IIIXMMMMMMM-, /C\ICCCCCCCC-+CCCC-MMM-,

DVDXI-MMMD\CC\MMCCCCC\\/II-III->C\IMMM-,

/II\CCCC/IIICDCCXMMMMMMVCCC-CCC-MMMMMM-,

>-CCCC>\/MMM+- - /C\ICCCCMMV/CMMMCCX+C\

ICCCC/-I\D-/MMM-CCCCIV, DMMM+- CCCC

Cecil glanced at him. “Is it a cipher? Or a code?”

“I do not know yet. But whichever it is, it shows that Lady Percy is involved with Catholic plots again. She is communicating in secret with someone south of Melton Mowbray, probably here in London. And this new development must be serious. Normally her agents use cut-out templates that relate to commonly available books. To decipher those, all we need is the name of the book and the relevant page numbers, and often that can be determined by a search of the sender's and recipient's premises, coupled with some persuasive questioning. This is different. It is hard to decide whether it is a cipher or a code—because it is based partly on Roman numerals and partly on symbols. If it is a cipher, it is not a straightforward one.”

Cecil studied the document. “There are repetitions nonetheless. I see a few instances of ‘DCC-.' It should not be too difficult.”

Walsingham stood beside Cecil, pointing with his finger. “But there are six consecutive appearances of the letter ‘C'; here, seven; and here eight of the letter ‘M.' No word has a treble letter in it, let alone six, seven, or eight. These are Roman numerals. And that is where the problem lies, for there is no easy way to determine whether ‘CCCCC' is one word or one letter, or two letters, or two words or a single number representing a sentence. Likewise the appearance of ‘IV'—is that one letter, one word, or two?”

“Someone must be able to decipher it, Francis. If it is meaningful, there has to be a way to extract that meaning.” Cecil looked at the DCC and tried the usual first step of substituting the most common element in the message with the most common word in the language. But the most common four-letter words with a double letter in the middle used vowels—EE and OO—and those did not fit the other appearances of CC in the code. Even separating out the numerical equivalents—500, 200, and a dash—did not simplify things. If that was a common three-letter word like “and,” for example, then 200 was an N and the first word had to begin with a double N. If 200 was “the,” then the first word began with a double H.

“I see what you mean,” Cecil acknowledged. “This is nothing like a straightforward Caesar cipher.”

“There seems to be a pattern of variation on numbers. Two hundred appears regularly, in the form of ‘CC.' But does ‘IICCV' relate to two, three, or four numbers? It is difficult to know where the breaks are, where a word begins and ends.”

“The messenger riding through the rain—do we know who he is? Where he comes from?”

Walsingham walked to the small table by the window and poured himself a goblet of wine. “No. I have asked for the body to be embalmed and brought to the city as quickly as possible. It will take some days. No one locally knows him. Latham says that he took fright immediately when accosted. Also, he was riding hard through very heavy rain when they noticed him. This message, whatever it means, was urgent. Given that fact and its originality, it must be important.”

“How many men do you have working on it?”

“Two. I had three copies made last night. The original is safely stored in my house.”

“Good.” Cecil paused. “The more men, the greater the danger of information leaking out. Work your clerks around the clock. Offer them every incentive to keep going. Decipher it quickly, but don't make any more copies—and don't let the existing copies out of your house. Until we know what this means, treat it as dangerous.”