Marbeck and the Double Dealer (2 page)

‘Indeed you are.'

Cecil never raised his voice, nor had he then. His coolness was legendary. Fixing Marbeck with a steady eye, he had added: ‘Forget about Gifford. I'll allow he has faults – but at least he follows my instructions. Whereas you seem to think . . .' He had paused, whereupon Marbeck had spoken up.

‘What is it I seem to think, sir?'

‘You deal too much in extempore, I was about to say.'

Master Secretary, who since the death of his distinguished father had become not only the Queen's right hand but many other things besides, had allowed a note of weariness to enter his voice. ‘You could have been a player, Marbeck, or so I've heard. You enjoy taking roles – even at a risk to our main business, I might say. Were you indulging in some such foolery in Holland, when you almost got caught?'

Marbeck had merely shrugged, whereupon his master had glanced down at the document that lay before him. It was a lengthy intelligence report, written in spidery symbols, that would take his best code-breaker hours to decipher.

‘That's Gifford's, is it?' Marbeck had said, his voice flat.

‘It's not your affair. I've heard your version of events – now you will leave me to my work. But stay where we can find you. Use the letter-drop in Currier's Row if need be, or write to me as Coppinger at the Star in Cheapside.'

‘For how long must I tarry?' Marbeck had wanted to know. ‘There's some business I was . . .'

But he had broken off, for Cecil had reached for the small bell that stood on his desk. He was a busy man, and that was all the time he would give, even to his best intelligencer. He had rung the bell, the door had opened and Weeks had glided in.

‘This man's leaving,' the Secretary of State had said.

Henry Weeks, Clerk to the Council, had blinked at Marbeck through thick spectacles, then looked at his master. ‘Is there . . . remuneration due?' he had asked in his reedy voice.

‘Not at the present time.'

Cecil had eyed Marbeck as if daring him to protest, but Marbeck knew better. In a matter of minutes he had left Whitehall Palace by a series of passages of increasing dimness and was shown out through a postern gate. He would have walked off, had Weeks not coughed to attract his attention.

‘You're not the only one who grieves,' he had said. ‘You lost a compatriot in Flanders, yet Master Secretary has lost both his wife and her unborn child, and his beloved father, too – all in the space of a few years. Do you wonder at his temper?'

‘I do not,' Marbeck had replied. ‘And I've much respect for him, as I had for his father – whatever you may think, Weeks. Now, if you'll let me take my leave, I intend to get soused. And since I haven't been paid, I'd better find somewhere my credit holds, wouldn't you say?'

He had proceeded to work off his anger by striding to the Duck and Drake in the Strand, where he had indeed managed to get drunk.

That was a week ago. Now Marbeck's enforced idleness was starting to get the better of him. It was more than restlessness: at times it seemed to him as if England – nay, all of Europe – span about him like a whirlwind, while he stood helpless in the centre. A new century had dawned, filled with possibilities, but so far the year 1600 had brought little but woe. War with Spain dragged on as it had for fifteen years, while the one in Ireland seemed to go from bad to worse. His country was beset by troubles – and yet ruled by the cantankerous Elizabeth who, many believed, was losing her grasp of affairs. In her sixty-seventh year, it took the Virgin Queen's women hours to dress and paint her of a morning, to achieve a grotesque parody of the young maid she had once been. More, she had grown erratic – a sore trial to her Council, Marbeck knew, especially Cecil. Though if the man's patience was in short supply, as always he kept it well under control.

With a sigh, he turned his mind elsewhere. Despite everything, he refused to surrender to low spirits; such behaviour was mere weakness. Yet, for a man like him, wasting time was the worst kind of penance. There were other places he could be: a large house in Chelsea for one, where Lady Celia Scroop would be pleased to receive him. He saw her in his mind's eye, smiling expectantly. It had been months . . .

A loud knocking woke him. He sat up in near darkness . . . how long had he slept? Downstairs, the inn was quiet. He glanced at the window and saw a glimmer: dawn was breaking. Then came another knock, and at once he was up and opening the door.

‘Prout. I should have known.'

Leaving the door wide, Marbeck walked in his stockings to the table where he had left his mug, drained it in one, then found his tinderbox. He struck a flame and lit the candle, and in its guttering light turned to the doleful-looking man in outdoor clothes who was closing the door behind him.

‘I guessed you'd be here,' Nicholas Prout said. ‘You need to find another bolt-hole. You'll become too familiar.'

‘My thanks for the advice,' Marbeck said. ‘What do you want with me?'

‘I carry a message, from Master Secretary.'

‘At this hour?'

‘He's worked through the night.'

Suddenly, Marbeck felt relief: at last something was happening. Reining in his impatience, he waited while Prout drew a folded paper laboriously from his sleeve and handed it to him. It was an order in Cecil's own hand, instructing him to go to the Marshalsea prison, collect intelligence from a person who had been questioned and bring it to him – not at Whitehall, but at his home in the Strand.

He lowered the paper. ‘Do you know what this is about?'

Prout shook his head. ‘But there was a codicil – a verbal one. He says Sangers will await you.'

He wore a look of distaste; the name of the Queen's most enthusiastic interrogator (nobody used the word
torturer
) was enough to dampen any man's spirits. Marbeck looked around for his shoes. As he sat on the bed to put them on, he found the messenger's eyes upon him.

‘I heard about Moore – a bad business,' Prout said stiffly. Receiving no reply, he added: ‘I've heard other things too, of late.' He was in full Puritan humour; Marbeck waited for the sermon.

‘Your name's been linked to someone of substance – a married lady, whose husband is serving the Crown in Holland,' the messenger went on. ‘Master Secretary dislikes scandal. It's . . .'

‘Bad for business?' Marbeck eyed him. ‘And do you know what I think, Prout?'

The other indicated that he didn't.

‘I think you've become a tedious man. A decade ago you risked your life for Lord Burleigh – as many of us did. Now his son treats you like a lackey, and you're content to let him.'

Prout's expression hardened. ‘And it looks as if he's treating you in the same manner.'

Having fastened one shoe, Marbeck turned his attention to the other. ‘But, unlike you, I don't care a fig for gossip,' he said. ‘I take my pleasures where and when I can. You haven't forgotten how it is, I think?'

‘Nay . . . I haven't forgotten,' Prout said, after a moment.

‘That's well.' Marbeck stood up and met his eye. ‘Stuffy in here, isn't it? I believe I'll take the morning air, before I make my way to Southwark. Will you join me, or do you have further business elsewhere?'

‘I don't,' came the reply. ‘Yet I'll not walk with you, Marbeck. I fear you may outpace a man of my years. Though I'll offer another word of advice, which you may heed or not: I'd take care which way you step, if I were you.'

‘I'm always careful, Prout,' Marbeck said.

He saw the messenger out, waiting until his footfalls faded on the stairs. Then he moved to the bed, reached under it and drew out his basket-hilt sword in its scabbard. As he buckled it on, a feeling stole over him: one of anticipation. At least this time of inaction was over, even if, for the moment, his role seemed to have been reduced to one of despatch carrier.

But an hour or so later, when he had crossed London Bridge and arrived at the gates of the Marshalsea prison, the matter took on a different aspect.

Having been passed through various doors, he was finally admitted to a square chamber, where a short, squat figure in a leather jerkin stood. The room was dank and windowless, and hung with irons whose purpose Marbeck knew well enough. Noises assailed him through the walls, as he stayed by the open door; the prison reek almost made his stomach turn.

‘Master Sangers,' he said, and the man rotated his body towards him. ‘I'm John Sands, sent by order of the Crown. Do you have information for me?'

The inquisitor squinted at him, an unpleasant grin appearing above his unkempt beard. ‘That I do, friend,' he replied. ‘It cost me a day's and a night's labour to get it, but I won through in the end. Then, I always do. I've uncovered a matter of grave import – worth a reward, I'd say. Mayhap you'll tell Master Secretary that when you see him.'

He waited, but Marbeck merely eyed the man.

‘Aye – a grave business,' Sangers repeated, his grin fading. ‘The subject's a Portugee: a physician – but I knew he was something more. Now he's made full confession.'

‘Then I'll hear it, too – from him,' Marbeck said.

The other shook his head. ‘That won't do. He's spent – you'll get naught out of him.'

‘Nevertheless, I would speak with him.'

‘But he's my prisoner, and I say not.' Sangers tensed like a wrestler, his shoulders swelling. ‘There's only one piece of intelligence that matters in any case,' he went on. ‘Everything else he spewed was chaff. Now, will you hear it from me or not?'

‘If the intelligence is important, Master Secretary may want to question the man himself,' Marbeck persisted. ‘And if he's near death as you say, you'd best make an effort to keep him alive until then – or it might be said you hadn't done your work properly.'

At that Sangers's cheeks puffed up like a bladder. He was fuming, but he sensed the other man's authority. He wet his lips and glared.

Suddenly, Marbeck understood. ‘The poor wretch is already dead, isn't he?'

The inquisitor said nothing.

‘Very well.' Marbeck sighed. ‘You'd best tell me what you learned from this unfortunate physician, before he expired. And, for your sake, I hope it was worth the trouble.'

‘Then hear this!' Sangers snapped. Turning aside, he spat heavily. ‘What I learned, from yon whoreson papist, is that Master Secretary has an intelligencer in his service who's playing a double game: a cove called Morera,
who's been feeding him false information. One who claims to spy for our Queen, yet takes his true orders from the Spanish. So go you, Sands – or whatever your name is – and tell your master that. And if I were in your place, I'd think twice before coming here again saying I'm not up to my work! Now, is that plain enough for you?'

‘T
he physician called himself Gomez,' Sir Robert Cecil said. ‘But to his masters at the Escorial he was Salvador Diaz
.
His house has been searched, and it appears he was indeed in the pay of the Spanish. Though whatever else he might have told us, it's now too late.'

The spymaster stood beside a table spread with papers, in his private chamber at Burleigh House in the Strand. Marbeck stood nearby, towering a foot above him.

‘Yet Sangers is thorough, if nothing else,' Cecil went on. ‘And I'll believe Gomez's testimony, since he gave it in return for being allowed to make his peace with God – his last confession. Though he's given us only a code name:
Morera.
In Spanish it means “Mulberry”.'

‘So – one of our intelligencers is a double-dealer,' Marbeck said, though without surprise; after all, the Crown too used such people when necessary.

‘Let's assume so,' Master Secretary replied. ‘And whoever he is, we must flush him out – and quickly.'

It was unlike Cecil to state the obvious, Marbeck thought. But he sensed the man was rattled. ‘In which case, sir,' he ventured, ‘do you have—'

‘Suspicions?' Cecil broke in. ‘Suddenly, I find I have several. And, worse, I'm forced to the conclusion that every report – every scrap of intelligence that has crossed my desk of late – might be false. The outcome could be disastrous . . . A storm has broken about our heads.'

‘What will you do?' Marbeck enquired. ‘Examine those who have entered your service in recent times? Men who've shown signs of discontent, or—'

‘Or merely of loyalty.' The Secretary threw him a bleak look. ‘I don't mean you, Marbeck,' he added. ‘You may be a coxcomb at times, but my father trusted you – as do I.'

He looked away, and in the silence Marbeck thought briefly of Lord Burleigh, the Queen's beloved and most trusted minister. In the two years since his death she had aged ten, it was said. But Marbeck had no doubts about the abilities of his crippled son: a man who saw and heard everything. It was said he'd even had a spy in the house when his father lay dying, to eavesdrop on those who came to pay their respects.

‘Tell me plainly –' Master Secretary's voice broke Marbeck's thoughts – ‘do people still call me the Toad? I've seen what's chalked on walls, about the city.'

‘Some do, sir,' Marbeck answered, straight-faced. ‘Though I suspect they're of the Earl of Essex's party.' He would not have admitted to knowing the Queen's nickname for his master:
Elf
; let alone the more sinister one he had earned: that of
Roberto il Diavolo.

Cecil allowed himself a trace of a smile. He picked up a paper, glanced at it and tossed it back on to the table. ‘Just now, the Earl of Essex isn't uppermost in my thoughts,' he said. ‘A mountain of work lies ahead. My clerks and I will have to sift through everything – cross-referencing, double-checking . . .' He paused. ‘Several recent despatches concern but one thing; a business that weighs heavily on me. I think you know what I speak of: the new ships the Spanish are constructing at Lisbon.'