All the Queen's Players Read online

  “Good,” he pronounced after a few minutes. “You have Ned Alleyn to the life, and Richard Burbage too, here with the pike. You have considerable talent, although I would prefer it applied to more conventional subjects.” He handed the drawing to Master Phelippes. “Ignore the subject matter, Phelippes, but see if you agree with me on the skill.”

  His guest donned his spectacles and nodded over the drawing for quite some minutes. He refrained from comment on the subject, merely saying, “A talent to be put to good use, I trust, Master Secretary.”

  Walsingham nodded. “I have some ideas. Shall we dine?”

  Thomas Walsingham sprawled in a chair in the Four Swans, cradling a tankard of ale, watching Kit fitting his scant possessions in a leather saddlebag. “Did Phelippes explain anything to you of the message you carry?”

  Kit scowled over a creased shirt as he rolled it tight. “Merely that it was in cipher. He took my boot and kept me shoeless for an hour while some cobbler secreted the message into the heel.” He stamped his foot. “And it’s as uncomfortable as the devil. It feels like a stone.”

  “Well, you’ll be rid of it when you reach Ghent,” Thomas said. “But I think you need a sword, my friend.”

  “And where am I to come by such a weapon?” Kit’s scowl deepened. “I don’t have a gentleman’s purse.”

  Thomas laughed. “Frizer is bringing you one. You may think him an unsavory creature, but he knows this work well and you can trust him while you’re on this mission. Of course, I wouldn’t recommend trusting him if you aren’t working with him. He needs a vested interest to be trustworthy.”

  Kit grunted. “You comfort me.” He crammed the shirt into the bag and fastened the straps. “Why am I chosen for this task, Thomas?”

  “Because you are available,” his friend responded simply. “And in need. You will be paid on your return, remember.”

  “And how am I to pay for my passage?”

  “Frizer will take care of all that . . . passage, lodging, all the necessities.” Thomas got up from his chair and went to refill his tankard. He paused at the window to look down into the yard. “Ah, and see, here he comes. Sidling around the wall as usual. Frizer never cares to be noticed. If you’d take a word of friendly advice, Kit, you’ll watch how he does it. It’s a useful trick to learn in this business.”

  Kit said nothing, merely flung himself onto the bed and took up his own tankard, draining it in one swallow. “Will you be at Scadbury when I return?”

  “Probably, unless my cousin has work for me also. He has mentioned Paris. I may well be sent there to cozy up to Morgan. He works in close secret for Scots Mary and is in secret correspondence with her. It may be that he is the means to finish her.”

  “Finish her . . . in what way?” Kit’s eyes sharpened.

  “You know of the Bond of Association?”

  Kit shook his head, reaching for the flagon of ale.

  “Well, ’tis decreed that if a plot conspires to treason, to do harm to the true queen, then all involved shall be executed for treason, including the one who should benefit from the treason, even if said person was unaware of the conspiracy.”

  Kit sat up. “That’s abominable. How can one who is innocent and unaware be condemned for the fault of another?”

  Thomas’s smile was ironic. “My cousin considers it an invaluable tool in his work, which, my dear Kit, is simply to ensure the queen’s continued reign and the safety of this our beloved realm from the threat of invasion. Spain and France, Catholic to the core, would put Mary on the throne if they could. To do that, they must do away with Elizabeth.”

  Thomas came over to the bed, putting one knee up as he leaned in close, his eyes dark with passion. “But enough of that. Come, one kiss, beloved, before we must part.”

  A knock at the door interrupted the embrace and Thomas growled, “Go away, Frizer. Come back in half an hour.”

  “We’ve a tide to catch,” the disembodied voice declared.

  “Then you must ride faster.”

  Chapter Seven

  MARY STUART EDGED her chair closer to the meager fire. Despite the season, her apartments in this outbuilding of Chartley Hall were always damp and chilly. She coughed into a lace-trimmed handkerchief, and as so often, one cough triggered a violent spasm that left her gasping for breath, her eyes streaming. Her little Skye terrier lying at her feet lifted his head, regarding her with big brown eyes.

  “Madam, why do you not take to your bed? You are ill and weak.” One of her ladies came forward anxiously, bending to wrap a lap rug around her knees and adjust the shawl over the queen’s shoulders.

  “I would be right enough if I were permitted to take the air.” Mary shivered in the shawl, then resolutely took up her needlework. Embroidery was her most beloved occupation, but in this grim, drafty prison she found less and less pleasure in it. She sighed, remembering the old days at Shrewsbury Castle when George Talbot had been her guardian and she and his wife, Bess, had passed so many happy hours at their embroidery. The tapestries they had worked on together were some of her most precious achievements.

  She looked around the gloomy chamber with a sigh. It was so damp and chill that if it weren’t for the curtains and tapestries, it would be uninhabitable. Her ladies huddled around the fire and she felt a stab of guilt. She knew it would be right to release them from their duty to her, but she could not manage without them. She needed their companionship, and their nursing.

  At the beginning of her long years of imprisonment she had had her own court in exile and enjoyed all the trappings of royalty. Those days were long gone and the comforts of her first confinement at Shrewsbury replaced by one increasingly grim prison after another. Over those interminable eighteen years the ladies who had accompanied her into exile had gradually disappeared. Some had died, others had returned to their own lives and families. They had been difficult to replace and now her personal attendants numbered only five ladies of the bedchamber, who were served by four maidservants.

  Illness had rescued her from the horror of Tutbury Castle, high on its windy hill where every needle draft through the ill-fitting windows and walls of her prison had given her an ague so fierce the physician had despaired of her life.

  She should have died. That would have saved her cousin Elizabeth some trouble, she reflected with grim humor. It was worth hanging on to life, such as it was, simply to thwart the queen of England.

  She heard the outer door to her prison opening and recognized instantly the hard tread of her present and most pernicious jailer, Sir Amyas Paulet. The door opened and he stood there, not even baring his head. The little dog growled softly but didn’t move.

  “I am glad to see you out of your bed, madam. Your health is improving, it would seem.”

  “Not really.” She selected another silk from her basket. “But I find it lifts my spirits to be occupied. Of course, that probably annoys you, Sir Amyas. Since you spare no efforts to keep my spirits in the trough of despair.” She looked briefly at him, loathing the sight of him, the neat ginger mustache and little beard, the thin lines of disapproval on either side of the downturned mouth, and the hard eyes of the fanatical Protestant.

  He ignored this, glancing over his shoulder to click his fingers at two men who stood in the door. They moved swiftly to Mary’s chair of state set beneath the cloth of state that she herself had embroidered at the beginning of her imprisonment with her chosen motto: In my end is my beginning.

  Under Mary’s shocked gaze they dismantled the cloth of state and removed it, together with the chair.

  “What are they doing?” Mary’s chief attendant faced Paulet in white-faced fury. “By whose order is this done?”

  “That is no business of yours, my lady.”

  He turned to leave but Mary’s voice arrested him. She spoke quietly, wearily. “What is the meaning of this, sir?”

  He turned back to her. “Madam, you know its meaning. You are no longer possessed of royal status, thus you are not entit
led to the accoutrements of royalty. In future you must consider yourself a subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.” With a bow he turned on his heel and left.

  Mary stared into the fire, hearing only distantly her ladies’ outraged protestations. She knew what it meant. By stripping her of her royal status she was rendered subject to the ordinary rule of law like any other subject of the realm. Would her cousin dare to subject her to a trial, dare to order her death? Cold fingers of fear crept up her neck. She had never envisaged this. She had been certain that Elizabeth would honor their kinship, and, so passionately wedded to the divine rights of her own royal lineage, that she would never lightly cast aside those of another queen.

  But she had been wrong. Elizabeth had perhaps succumbed to the persuasions of her councilors, or men such as Paulet, who saw in Mary an implacable and most dangerous threat to the throne. Her lips thinned. And she would be so, if she were given the chance. The stakes were even higher now. She must gain her freedom, ascend the throne of England, if only to save her own life. And in the doing she would return this poor realm to the only religion of salvation.

  She set aside her embroidery and went to a locked chest standing against the damp wall. A film of mold was growing on the wood where it pressed against the wall. She took a tiny key from within her bodice and unlocked the chest, taking out a packet of letters. They had been delivered to her by a young man, Robin Poley, who had first come into her service when she was at Tutbury and had had the freedom to ride out over Hanbury Hill. Poley had humbly worked with her horses as far as the world knew, but the truth was quite other. He brought letters from her agent Thomas Morgan, in Paris, who recommended the messenger as a loyal servant, one who could be trusted. Ever since, Poley had somehow managed to appear at irregular intervals, following her finally here to Chartley, bearing letters from Morgan describing the efforts being made by her French cousin the Duc de Guise, and the Spanish king, Philip, to order a combined French and Spanish invasion in her name.

  It was in the interests of both France and Spain to have a fellow Catholic on the throne of England, to bring that renegade country back into the Catholic fold, where it would cease to pose a military threat. Mary’s smile was a touch cynical as she reflected that they would expect to rule England through her, but they would find that she was not quite the weak and malleable woman they believed her to be. She would rule in more than name, just as she had ruled Scotland, leading her own army in battle on several occasions.

  Mary sat down by the fire and opened the packet. The letters gave her heart as always. She was not forgotten in this northern wasteland. But it was time she issued her own call to arms, gave some indication that she appreciated their efforts and was willing to do her part to encourage the Catholic gentry in Scotland, who fretted under the yoke of Protestant England. Even though her own son, James, supported by Elizabeth, was on the Scottish throne, ruling as a Protestant king, Scottish Catholics still considered Mary their queen, and they would rally to her cause.

  “Charlotte, would you send Barbara to me?”

  “Yes, madam. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Yes, could you bring me parchment and pen?”

  Charlotte fetched an inlaid ivory standish containing the required articles, and Mary after a moment’s thought began her letter to Scotland. She used the code she always used in her clandestine correspondence and, when she had finished, sanded and sealed the letter, using not the royal seal but a simple imprint from her rosary that hung at her waist. It would identify it as authentic for her supporters, but no one else would understand the significance. Or so she hoped and prayed.

  She handed it to the maid Barbara, who stood waiting for instruction. “Take this and look out for the man Poley. He will make his appearance at some point in the next weeks to do me service. He will be in the village, or in the stables, anywhere he won’t be easily noticed. Give him this.”

  Barbara took the letter and tucked it into her bosom. “I will, madam.”

  Mary sat down again, leaning her head against the hard wooden back of her chair. Her prison, always grim, was now denuded. Her cousin had taken the last vestige of royalty from her. But she could not take away her God. She touched the Agnus Dei on her breast and closed her eyes.

  Sir Francis Walsingham made his way through the long corridors of Whitehall Palace. His brow was furrowed, his step hasty, and he carried a sheaf of papers under his arm. Servants and courtiers dodged aside as he progressed, apparently blind to his surroundings, until he reached the antechamber to the queen’s privy chamber. The two pikemen at the door raised their weapons and banged them down resoundingly on the stone-flagged floor.

  The door opened and a young woman stepped into the corridor. She curtsied. “Her majesty will see you at once, Sir Francis.” She stepped aside for him and glided away, leaving him to enter the royal presence alone.

  Francis bowed deeply, took three further steps, and bowed again. “Your majesty is good to see me.”

  “Nonsense, Francis. I could hardly refuse to see my secretary of state.” The queen set aside her quill and rose from the desk. She was magnificently dressed as always, her gown of crimson velvet edged with pearls, a massive diamond pendant reaching the sharp vee of her stomacher, and her gold and sapphire pomander hanging from her jeweled girdle. She was fifty-three and her once vibrant red hair, faded now, was concealed beneath a jeweled hood.

  “So what have you to say to me? Your message implied some urgency.”

  Her tone was sharp, her dislike of her secretary never far from the surface. Francis was accustomed to it and rarely let it deflect him from any course of action he deemed in his sovereign’s best interest.

  “Not so urgent, madam, that I would interrupt anything more important,” he said with a faint questioning inflection. When she waved impatient dismissal of this, he continued, “I would beg a personal boon, madam.”

  Elizabeth looked at him with interest. “Indeed, that is unlike you, Francis. You hector me constantly on what I should be doing to protect the realm and further my own interests, but I do not recall your ever asking me a personal favor.”

  “I beg to contradict your majesty. I do not believe I ever hector.”

  The queen shook her head impatiently and took a seat. “I will call it what I wish.”

  Francis bowed. “As your majesty wishes.”

  “So, what is this boon?” She waved a hand towards a chair and gratefully he took it. The queen was capable of standing for hours and had kept many a diplomat and statesman on his feet almost to the point of collapse.

  “I have a young cousin, madam. Rosamund Walsingham. She is orphaned and in the guardianship of her eldest brother, Edmund, who is . . .” He paused, carefully putting the sheaf of papers onto his lap. “Who is quite unsuited to the task. Her elder brother Thomas has done his best, but, as you know, Thomas works in your service and cannot be always in attendance on his sister.”

  “Thomas works for you.” It was a crisp correction. In certain moods it pleased her majesty to deny knowledge of or interest in her secretary of state’s secret service. In other moods she would question Francis closely on every detail, and some of his agents, those engaged in the more respectable end of the service, were actually servants of the crown, paid by Sir Thomas Heneage, the treasurer of the Queen’s Chamber, on presentation of a warrant signed by Sir Francis. The less reputable were paid off the books, frequently out of Walsingham’s own purse and dealt with by Master Phelippes on a mission-by-mission basis. Most of the time, Elizabeth chose to ignore their contribution.

  “Quite so, madam.” Francis bowed his head in acknowledgment, although he knew the queen had talked several times with Thomas about aspects of some of his missions. “And as such cannot undertake full guardianship of his sister.”

  “How old is the girl?”

  “Seventeen, madam.”

  “And of what person . . . what character?”

  “A pleasing enough countenance, I would
say.” Francis chose his words carefully. “But I doubt she would stand out too much in a crowd.” The queen could quickly become jealous if one of the ladies of the court seemed to outshine her, and she was particularly sensitive to this in the more youthful ladies of her retinue.

  “And her character?” The queen played with her jeweled fan in her lap, opening and closing it with rapid, little movements.

  “As far as I know, madam, exemplary.”

  “And you ask my patronage for her?”

  “I would beg your majesty to take her into your service as a most junior lady of the bedchamber.”

  “Is she able to provision herself? As you know, the ladies in my service receive only one court dress a year. She must be able to make shift for herself otherwise.”

  Francis hid his inner sigh. He knew well the queen’s parsimony, a frugality that did not apply to her own wardrobe. “I will undertake to provide her with all necessities. When she has acquired a little court polish, I will find a suitable match for her.”

  “If I take to the girl, I will find her a match myself,” her majesty declared, standing up. “You need not trouble yourself. Bring her to me.” She walked towards a door in the far wall, which Francis, rising swiftly to his feet, knew led into her bedchamber. “Is that all, Master Secretary?”

  “There were one or two other matters, madam.” Francis gathered his papers close to his chest and followed her.

  Elizabeth walked into the vast chamber. Virginals stood against the far wall, a fire burned in the grate. Even in summer the stone walls of the ancient palace held a chill. “Tell me,” she commanded, sitting down at the instrument.

  “Madam, I would urge you once more to act more decisively against your cousin.” Francis laid his papers on the top of the instrument. “I have letters here from Mary to Thomas Morgan in Paris, asking him how much support she can expect from the French king. How big an army of invasion will he guarantee.”

  Elizabeth’s mouth thinned. “I have told you, Master Secretary, that I will do no more against my cousin. I have removed her chair of state, but I do not believe that that in itself can uncrown a queen, for all that Sir Amyas believes it can. Those letters you have can show me nothing worse than I have seen countless times before. My cousin is well guarded, her imprisonment not as pleasant as hitherto, and I am convinced Amyas Paulet will let nothing slip past him.” She ran her fingers over the keys. “I am tired of your gloomy prophecies, sir.”