"This is an easy code, one used by children," Phelippes said. "I can
undo it in my head."
"Then do so." Walsingham leaned back and watched him intently.
" "I watch all dispatches and there is nothing now in the works. The
Guises are hard at work plundering Mary's dower estates. With her
uncle the Cardinal dead there is none to act on her behalf." " He
handed the paper back to Walsingham with a proud flourish.
Walsingham smiled. "Very good! Very good! And so fast! You are
indeed all my enemies claim you are. Now do not you go over to them!
That would be a sore loss. Yes, as you see, the income of the Scots
Queen has been sorely cut. The French are weary of supporting three
dowager queens: the widows of Henri II, Francois II, and Charles IX.
Catherine de Medicis complained, "The Queen of Scotland holds the
fairest rose of France," and has swapped the rich dower lands of
Touraine for inferior ones elsewhere. This has cut Mary's income in
half, severely curtailing her ability to pay for her plotting, not to
mention her ostentatious alms giving here in England. The tide turns
our way, Phelippes, it turns our way."
"Can we speak honestly?" asked Phelippes. "I hesitate to say what I
think and wonder, even in my own thoughts."
"There should be no barrier between us. Between husband and wife,
between lover and beloved, between mother and child, yes but never
between spymaster and his agent! Pray speak," said Walsingham. "I am
true to mine own."
"Now that it can be assumed that Queen Elizabeth will have no heir of
her body, since the French "Frog' came to nothing .. . who will it
be?"
"James of Scotland," said Walsingham. "He is Protestant, and shows
himself eager to please Elizabeth, even to the extent of ignoring his
mother's plight. Queen Elizabeth will be succeeded by King James."
"Or, as they sometimes say in the streets, King Elizabeth will be
succeeded by Queen James," Phelippes giggled.
Walsingham stiffened. "Pray do not joke about Her Majesty! But as for
James, yes, he shows that distressing Stuart predilection for taking
male favourites." He winced. "At least that meddling French cousin
has been run off. Another blow for the Guises. I told you, the tide
is turning, turning, in our favour."
"Not if James agrees to rule jointly with his mother."
"He won't. He, like all true Stuarts, wants to sit on his throne
alone. He has nothing to gain by allowing his mother to join him on
it. She's only a nuisance to him, as she's a nuisance to Elizabeth, as
she's a nuisance to everyone. There's no place for her any longer,
Phelippes. And do you know what happens to something when there's no
place for it any longer?" He jerked open one of the drawers and pulled
out a letter. "This is outdated. Its contents are of no relevance."
He tossed it out the window, where it landed in the street. Three
horses in a row stepped on it and ground it into the mud. "That's what
happens. It's very simple. We have to keep our drawers neat,
Phelippes; we have to get rid of the useless."
He stood up and pulled open another drawer. "I keep things tidy. All
these drawers have locks, and the keys let me say that there is no way
they can be duplicated. The locksmiths who made them are ...
unavailable. The windows have bars, and there is only one door into
this chamber. I never leave it unlocked, never, even for an instant,
any more than I would leave the lid off a cage with venomous serpents.
A second of carelessness can cause a lifetime of regret. Do you
understand me, Phelippes?"
"Yes."
"What I am saying is that everything here is precious, and secure. Now
in this drawer lies an exhibit of how I shall render the Scots Queen to
follow that scroll out into the street, there to be trampled under." He
pulled the drawer out and set it on his table. Lifting its hinged lid
for it had a cover he took out a high-heeled shoe, a bottle, a prayer
book, and a length of material, and lined them up neatly.
"Several years ago, in 1575 to be exact, I had the good fortune to have
the opportunity to threaten to torture a certain London stationer,
Henry Cockyn. The mere threat was enough! He revealed to me all the
secrets of the Queen of Scots' methods of communication. Silly things
like these!" He held up the shoe and scratched at the middle of its
heel. A round plug soon tumbled out, revealing a hollow chamber. "And
this!" He pulled the cork out of the round bottle, revealing a similar
hiding place. "This was a little trickier, because the contents had to
be protected against the moisture of the wine." He patted the
material. "This used the alum writing. As if to help me, she also
wrote instructions to all her correspondents." He shook his head. "She
took a certain delight in all this. I suppose it was like her
needlework, and helped her pass the time creatively."
"Where did you get all this?" asked Phelippes.
"Here and there," said Walsingham. "The extent of her correspondence
has been staggering. Naturally, the more of it there was, the more
could be intercepted. The shoe is courtesy of the connection to Lady
Northumberland around the time of the Northern Uprising. The material
went under the protection of the French envoy, who thought he was
sending a simple gift. The bottle was carried by a Jesuit posing as a
merchant of Bordeaux wines entering Dover. And while Anthony Babington
was still in her household, the codes bloomed like the daffodils on a
spring hillside. Now he has left, and is just as busy fomenting plots
in Paris, which are promptly reported by Paget."
"You will have to have a trunk to house these," said Phelippes.
"I think not. I have at last come to an understanding of how to
destroy her," said Walsingham. "Are you familiar with the thirty-fifth
Psalm? "For they have privily laid their net to destroy me without a
cause: yea, even without a cause have they made a pit for my soul. Let
a sudden destruction come upon him unawares, and his net, that he hath
laid privily, catch himself: that he may fall into his own mischief."
"
Walsingham waved his hand over the exhibit. "This is how we'll catch
her. Her childish faith in such tricks will be the bait. It's very
simple: we'll shut off her lines of communication. Then we'll reopen
them with one she will believe is utterly secret. For that we'll
employ all these devices: secret bottles, codes, and so on. Every line
she receives and sends out will be monitored by us. Sooner or later a
plot will come along, and when she agrees, in writing, to it " He
jerked his head sideways as if a noose had tightened on it.
"Shall the plot be false?"
"No need for that. A real one will do. Of course, since we will be
aware of it from the beginning, it will be harmless." He began putting
the objects back in their drawer. "The Throckmorton Plot was
instrumental in revealing to us the extent of her freedom to send and
receive letters. Shrewsbury has been far too lax. It is time that he
was replaced by one of our own persuasion, and that she became truly
imprisoned. She'll be locked up, like the princess in the tower her
admirers always imagine, and there'll be no letters of any kind." He
sighed. "Oh, how distraught she will be ... and then how happy, when
the 'secret' communication is opened!" He laughed for the first time
that afternoon. "I daresay it will be the happiest day of her life and
of ours."
SEVENTEEN
The two ladies stood on the roof of the Turret House, a little square
tower built on the edge of the great manor hunting park, and looked out
over the October countryside. The hunt was beginning; down below they
could hear the baying of the hounds making their own peculiar sweet
music, the music of autumn and the frosty chase. Shrewsbury had
magnificent dogs, and today all his packs were ready. There were the
long-legged coursing hounds, like the deer hounds and buckhounds, and
the smaller hounds that tracked by scent, like the bassets and
bloodhounds. Their voices blended and rose up, yearning to begin the
hunt, as their masters tried to restrain them.
By Mary's feet, her own little terriers and spaniels were answering
their larger cousins, scampering and crying out in high-pitched
yelps.
"No, my dears, you cannot join them," said Mary, bending over and
trying to soothe them. "You must stay here with us and merely look on.
Why, you are so small they might mistake you for a hare and run you to
ground." She picked up the Skye terrier and ran her hands over his
smooth coat. "I know you have a keen sense of smell; the kennel master
says you can follow a scent two hours old. But, my old friend, the
truth is, I could not bear to lose you." She held him close to her; he
was the only survivor from the litter that Lady Bothwell had sent her
almost ten years ago. She had named him Armageddon because it seemed a
long and comical name for the fierce little animal, and because
whatever else Bothwell had been, he had been a warrior who had longed
for the final battle. Of course they had shortened it to Geddon, which
sounded innocent enough.
"Look! Shrewsbury is calling to us!" said Mary Seton, who was her
mistress's companion on the roof. They leaned over the edge and looked
down.
Shrewsbury, mounted on his hunting horse, was waving up at them. "We'll
return after the hunt, and come up then," he called.
Mary waved back at him to show that she understood. Often the hunters
came back to the tower lodge for refreshment after the hunt, and
recounted their adventures. Shrewsbury had quite recently built the
three-storey tower, a fashionable feature of hunting parks, and
decorated it beautifully fine plaster work ceilings with flowers of
France, England, and Scotland, the arms of the family over the
fireplaces, and heraldic designs in the glass windows.
The party put spurs to their horses and galloped off, the bright sun
gleaming on their horses' flanks, the excited hounds scampering
ahead.
Mary Seton watched as her mistress looked yearningly out after them.
There had been times when she had been allowed to go hunting, but
exaggerated reports some saying that she roamed far and wide had
reached the English Privy Council, and Shrewsbury had been reprimanded
for carelessness, and the privilege withdrawn. Not that it mattered
now; Mary was unable to ride these days owing to her health. There had
even been days last summer when she had to be carried about in a
litter, and her only outside activity was to sit placidly beside the
duck pond. But Seton knew that still she was unable to hear the sound
of the hounds baying, and watch them rushing off, without wanting to
go, and forgetting the state she was now in. Her heart was still
athletic and young, captured in an aging, immobile body.
As is mine, thought Seton. I, too, have stiff fingers and a spine that
no longer wishes to bend and bear weight.
Mary was standing framed against the blazing reds and golds of the
trees in the park, with the deep brilliant blue of the sky enfolding it
all. Suddenly Seton remembered seeing this before .. . where?
"How well those colours become you," said Seton. "They are jewel
tones, like the ones Clouet used in painting you." Yes, that was where
it had been.
"Clouet!" Mary said with a laugh. "In the days of long ago. You have
the memory of a scholar." She sighed and gestured toward the park. The
hunters were almost out of sight, but they could still hear the hounds.
"These colours are more beautiful than any paints could ever be."