She shakes her head, firmer this time.
‘No name, I swear. Nothing except that he was unusually handsome, apparently.’
‘Well, that would narrow it down in the English court.’
She giggles then, finally looking me in the eye; at the same moment, the sound of footsteps echoes along the passageway outside and the laughter dies on her lips.
‘Have you told anyone else of this?’ I hiss. She shakes her head. ‘Good. Say nothing about the secret suitor – neither you nor any of the other girls who knew about it. And tell no one that you spoke to me. If you remember anything else, you can always get a message to me in secret at the French embassy. I have lodgings there.’
Her eyes grow wider in the gloom. ‘Am I in danger?’
‘Until they know who killed your friend and why, there is no knowing who might be in danger. It is as well to be on your guard.’
The treads – two people, by the sound of it – grow closer; just as they stop outside the doors to the gallery I motion to her to keep back in the shadows, out of sight. Then I open the door just as the guards are about to reach for the handle, affecting to jump out of my skin at the sight of them.
‘Scusi – I was looking for the office of my lord Burghley? I think I have become lost in all the corridors.’ I offer a little self-deprecating laugh; they glance at one another, but they lead me away without looking further into the room.
‘Lord Burghley, my arse. You’ll answer to the captain of the palace guard first, you Spanish dog,’ says one, as he drags me roughly towards the stairs. ‘How did you get in here?’
‘Lord Burghley let me in,’ I repeat, with a sigh; in six months in England I have learned to expect this. They regard all foreigners – especially those of us with dark eyes and beards – as Spanish papists come to murder them in their beds. I will find my way to Burghley eventually; what matters is that no one should know the maid Abigail has spoken to me. Cecily’s mystery inamorato may not know that she kept his identity a secret; there is every chance he may want to silence her friends too. Assuming – and I have learned to assume nothing without proof – that he is connected to this bizarre display of murder.
Salisbury Court, London
26th September, Year of Our Lord 1583
‘Cut off both her tits, the way I heard it.’ Archibald Douglas leans back in his chair and picks his teeth with a chicken bone, apparently satisfied that he has delivered the definitive version. Then he remembers another detail and sits forward in a hurry, his finger wagging at no one in particular. ‘Cut off both her tits and stuck a Spanish crucifix up her. Fucking brute.’ He slumps again and drains his glass.
‘Monsieur Douglas, s’il vous plait.’ Courcelles, the ambassador’s private secretary, raises his almost invisible eyebrows in a perfect mannerism of shock that, like all his gestures, appears learned and rehearsed. He passes a hand over his carefully coiffed hair and tuts, pursing his lips, as if his objection is principally to the Scotsman’s vulgar turn of phrase. ‘I was told by a friend at court she was strangled with a rosary. On the steps of the Chapel Royal, if you can believe it.’ He presses a hand to his breast bone with a great intake of breath. He should be in a playing company, I think; his every move is a performance.
Across the table, William Fowler catches my eye for the space of a blink before he glances away again.
‘These reports do have a tendency to grow in the telling,’ he says, evenly, looking at the ambassador. He too speaks with the Scottish accent, though to my foreign ears his conversation seems more comprehensible than the broad tones of Douglas. Fowler is a neat, self-contained man in his mid-twenties, clean-shaven with brown hair that hangs almost into his eyes; his voice is restrained, as if he is always imparting a confidence, so that you have to lean in to listen. ‘I have been a frequent visitor to the court on official business these past days, and I’m afraid the truth is less sensational.’ But he doesn’t elaborate. I have noticed that Fowler, my new contact whom I have met for the first time this evening and have not yet spoken to alone, has a talent for implying that he knows far more than he is prepared to say in company. Perhaps this is why the French ambassador is drawn to him.
Why Castelnau tolerates Douglas, on the other hand, is anyone’s guess. The older Scotsman is some kind of minor noble, about forty years of age, with prematurely greying reddish hair and a face hardened by drink and weather, who has attached himself to the embassy with the promise of supporting the Scottish queen’s claim to the English throne. Improbable as it seems, he is a senator in the Scottish College of Justice and said to be well connected among the Scottish lords, both Catholic and Protestant; he comes personally recommended by Queen Mary of Scotland. For the ambassador, these connections must be worth the price of feeding him. I have my doubts. Given that I too have been obliged to survive these past seven years by seeking the patronage of influential men, perhaps I should be more charitable to Archibald Douglas, but I like to think that I at least offer something to the households of my patrons in return for their hospitality, even if it is only some lively dinner-table conversation and the prestige of my books. Douglas brings nothing, as far as I can see, and I am not persuaded by his professed interest in Mary and her French supporters; he strikes me as one of those who will always agree with whoever happens to be pouring the wine. It irks me that Claude de Courcelles, the ambassador’s too-pretty secretary, tars me with the same brush as Douglas; Courcelles is responsible for making the embassy’s books balance, and he looks with undisguised resentment on those he views as leeches. I am often forced to remind him that I am a personal friend of his sovereign, whereas Douglas – well, Douglas claims to be a friend of many influential people, including the Queen of Scots herself, but I cannot help wondering: if he is so popular among the Scottish and English nobles, why does he not beg his dinner at one of their tables once in a while? Why, for that matter, is he never in Scotland at his own table?
The murder at court has been the chief topic of conversation at dinner this evening, eclipsing even the usual preoccupation with the Scottish queen and the ambitions of her Guise cousins. That night at Richmond Palace, I told Burghley and Walsingham of my conversation with Abigail; since then, the maids of honour have been given extra guards and the men at court are being questioned again but, naturally, when it comes to forbidden affairs, people are conditioned to lie. Walsingham grows increasingly anxious; the queen’s household at Richmond numbers upwards of six hundred souls. Though the hierarchies are strictly defined – each senior servant responsible for the duties of those below him or her – how can so many people be made to give true accounts of their movements on one evening? Queen Elizabeth, for her part, chooses to believe that a crazed intruder broke into the palace compound; her solution is to move the court earlier than usual to her central London palace at Whitehall, which is not so exposed to the open country and easier to defend. She will not admit the possibility that the killer might still be living among them. Walsingham had said he would send for me if he needed further assistance. Meanwhile, he said, I should return home and turn my attentions to the conversations behind closed doors at the French embassy.
In the wood-panelled dining room at Salisbury Court, the candles are burning low and the clock has already struck midnight, but the dishes with the remains of Castelnau’s grand dinner still litter the table, their sauces long cold and congealed. The servants will clear the board in the morning; after the meal is when the ambassador addresses himself to private business with his guests. Now that England’s most influential and restless Catholic lords gather so often around Castelnau’s table, it makes sense not to risk these discussions being overheard by servants; after all, says the ambassador, you can never be too careful. This means that we must all try to ignore Archibald Douglas toying with the carcass of a chicken, or wiping a finger through cold gravy and licking it while he delivers his half-formed opinions.
Michel de Castelnau, Seigneur de Mauvissiere, pushes