Castelnau smiles, but his heart is not in it. He looks so drawn that I fear he may have taken some serious sickness.
‘You know what I mean, Bruno. Just do your best to curb my wife’s zeal for disembowelling Protestants when the glorious day comes.’ Another sigh wracks his chest. He presses his hands to his mouth as if in prayer and for a long while he stares straight ahead in silence, apparently focused on nothing. I am not sure whether I am dismissed or not, and am about to clear my throat when he suddenly says, ‘Do you think my wife is making a cuckold of me, Bruno?’
‘Your wife?’ I repeat, like a fool, while my mind scrambles to catch up with the question.
‘Marie. She has a lover, I am certain of it.’
‘What makes you say that?’ I ask, carefully. He is shrewd enough to try and catch me off-guard, if it is me he suspects. As so often, I harden my face into an absence of expression.
‘I have suspected since she returned from Paris. Her moods - she has often seemed flighty, easily distracted. Younger, I suppose.’ He scratches at his beard. ‘Marie has not come willingly to my bed since Katherine was born, and I am not the kind of husband to demand her submission. But she is young still. I forget this sometimes. It was inevitable, I suppose.’
‘But - you have some evidence of her infidelity?’ I ask.
‘The other night - it was foolish of me,’ he begins, not meeting my eye. ‘I had another wakeful night and I felt - not unreasonably, I think - that I was entitled to some comfort from my own wife.’ He says all this to the backs of his hands. Castelnau has a strong sense of personal dignity; it must be painful to him to share a story which ends with his own humiliation. For a moment I wonder why he is telling me all this, if not to accuse me. ‘I don’t usually abase myself to her in that way, but - as you say, the pressure …’ He tails off sadly, his head still bowed.
‘And so -‘ I prompt, after another silence.
‘I went to her chamber. I knocked, tentatively. I don’t think I even entertained thoughts of lying with her then - I only wanted some gentleness, a woman’s touch. A soft hand on my brow. Not too much to ask of one’s wife, is it, Bruno?’
I remember vividly the touch of that hand on my own brow only hours earlier; my skin prickles with the memory of it. I shake my head.
‘Not at all, my lord.’
He pauses again and takes a breath, as if steeling himself for the next part.
‘She was with someone?’
‘No. Well, possibly. She was not there, was the point. Not in her own bed.’
‘So where was she?’
‘I don’t know, Bruno,’ he says, his voice edged with im patience. ‘I didn’t comb the house to find out whose bed she was in. It was enough that she was not in her own. Who knows if she was even in the house at all?’
‘Perhaps she got up in the night to tend to her daughter, then?’ I offer.
Castelnau gives me a sceptical look.
‘You don’t know my wife very well, do you, Bruno?’ he says. ‘She has never been that kind of mother. Katherine has a nurse who sleeps in her chamber. Perhaps I should employ one for Marie as well.’
‘Do you suspect anyone?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice light.
He shakes his head.
‘Anyone and everyone now, Bruno. You have seen my wife. She conducts herself as if to give every man some hope of success - I do not blame her for this, it is just her manner. She is an accomplished flirt - I cannot pretend this was not what drew me to her in the first place. Henry Howard pays her court, of course, but I had thought enough of his probity to believe that he wanted only to secure her support in religious matters. I don’t know, Bruno. I suspect everyone from the kitchen boy to the Earl of Arundel to my own clerk.’ He gestures towards Dumas’s empty chair, then rests his elbows on the desk and presses his forehead into his hands. ‘Watch her for me tonight, will you? If I am not present, she may behave with less restraint. You may glimpse to whom she shows improper affection.’
With difficulty, I drag my thoughts back from Marie’s sinuous body pressing against me, her hand on my chest. Poor Castelnau. Whatever the temptation or the consequences, I determine that I will not be the one to confirm his suspicions.
‘My lord ambassador, I will do as you wish. But if I might advise - there is no profit in allowing yourself to be tormented by phantoms. While you have no proof against Marie, confine your worries to real problems.’
He smiles thinly.
‘You counsel well, Bruno.’ He reaches unexpectedly across the desk and places one of his large, black-furred hands over mine. ‘I don’t mind telling you this now, but I did not want you in my house at first, though you were under the patronage of my sovereign. Supporting a known heretic, under my roof! I thought you had played upon Henri’s weak nature to win his affection. But I quickly conceded my error. You are a good man, Bruno, and I am gladder than ever that you were sent to my house. There is no one in England I would confide in so readily.’ He gives my hand a squeeze.
‘Thank you. I am honoured.’ But I must look away first. I am not the good man he believes me to be, and his confidences, that I so readily pass on to Walsingham, may well be his downfall. But at least, I tell myself, I am not the one having his wife. ‘Where is Leon?’ I ask casually, nodding towards the empty desk.
‘Leon? Oh, I sent him out this morning to catch Throckmorton before he left for Sheffield. I have written a personal letter to Queen Mary, refuting Howard’s accusations and assuring her of my personal loyalty. I do not want Mary to believe this embassy is not fit to handle her secret correspondence. And I do not want to be sidelined in this enterprise in favour of Mendoza. We must avoid that at all costs.’ He sets his jaw and glances again at Dumas’s chair. ‘I had expected Leon back by dinner time. I hope he has not taken advantage of an unscheduled outing to stop off in a tavern. I don’t want him ending up in your state.’
‘I don’t think that is Leon’s way,’ I say mildly, though I feel a distinct pricking of unease. Where is Dumas? Where might he have gone in his over-wrought mood? I dig my nails into the palm of my hand; if only Marie had not interrupted his confession.
‘No, you are right,’ Castelnau says, pushing his chair back and crossing to the door. ‘There are plenty of clerks who would, mind. I am fortunate in Leon - he is a diligent boy, if a little prone to nerves. Well, Bruno,’ he says, holding the door open for me, ‘thank you for listening to an old man’s troubles.’
‘My lord ambassador,’ I murmur, inclining my head.
He smiles, his face seeming to collapse inwards under the weight of tiredness.
‘Tonight, Bruno, you will be
my
ambassador. Don’t let me down.’
As the door closes behind me, Courcelles appears out of the shadows in the corridor a little too quickly.
Arundel House, London
2nd October, Year of Our Lord 1583
Wind gusts sideways across the river, scuffing the brown water into serried rows of white peaks, buffeting the ambassador’s private wherry and making its lantern swing wide arcs of orange light as dusk and the swollen clouds seem to press a lid down over the city of London.
The Earl of Arundel’s town residence is one of these grand red-brick houses bristling with tall chimneys whose abundant lawns stretch down to the river’s edge, where a high wall keeps them from the sight, if not the smell, of the Thames and its motley traffic. Though only a short distance upriver from Salisbury Court, the journey provides ample time for Courcelles to make clear his feelings about my role this evening.
‘It’s preposterous,’ he blurts, half rising out of his seat so that the boat pitches alarmingly to one side while we scull past the gardens of the Inner Temple, a drift of leaves blowing down over the wall to rest on the water’s surface as the wind curls along the river and shakes the branches of the overhanging trees. Marie, beside him, lays a restraining hand on his arm. I took the precaution of allowing him to step into the boat after her, knowing he would take the seat at her side; I will have enough to tax my concentration this evening without fending off Marie’s sly touches, her feet searching for mine under the table. Tonight, I intend to stay as far away from her as possible.
Courcelles swats her hand away impatiently. ‘Well, it is! If my lord ambassador is taken ill, I should rightly attend in his place.’
‘You are attending,’ I say, casting my eyes across to the south bank. ‘What is the problem?’
‘The
problem
, Bruno -‘ Courcelles is obliged to pause as the wind blows his fine hair into his mouth. When he has extricated it, he perches on the edge of his seat and jabs a finger at me. ‘The problem is that
I
am his personal secretary. I know his business better than anyone at the embassy. I should be the one to represent his views to the party this evening. What are you, exactly?’
I deduce from his palpable indignation that Castelnau has taken him aside before we left and made clear that he is sending me to this parley in his stead. No wonder Courcelles feels usurped. I raise an eyebrow.
‘No doubt you are about to remind me.’
‘I will tell you,’ he continues, the pointing finger trembling with pent fury. ‘You are a fugitive, living at my lord ambassador’s expense because our weak sovereign has some misplaced affection for you, based on your shared disregard for the Holy Church! Not even a Frenchman!’ he adds, shaking his head as if this single offence were beyond contemplation.
‘Enough, Claude,’ Marie says, in a bored voice.
‘Why?’ Courcelles is too riled to back down. ‘Is he going to write to King Henri and report my words?’
‘Who knows who Bruno writes to, in his secret little room,’ she says, batting her lashes at me with an insouciant smile.
‘My lord ambassador asked me to voice one or two things on his behalf, that is all,’ I say, turning back to the far shore as if I were unconcerned either way. ‘I’m sure he would not object, Courcelles, if you were to offer your opinions as well.’
‘What does it matter, Claude?’ Marie pulls her velvet cloak tighter around her shoulders. ‘Everyone will have a chance to speak, I’m sure.’
‘It is a question of protocol,’ Courcelles exclaims, his voice rising to a squeak. ‘If the ambassador is indisposed, I am his next in command, and I should be officially dispatched to represent the interests of France in my lord ambassador’s place. Not this -
impostor
.’
‘It’s a supper party, Claude,’ she says, as if to a sulking child. ‘Not a council of war.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He rounds on her; immediately she slaps his arm, nods to the boatman, makes a frantic silencing motion with her lips. The boatman appears not to have heard, but you can never be too careful, is what Marie’s gesture implies. You never know who might be an informer. I focus on the water eddying under the oars. Castelnau may think I am there as his eyes and voice, but I have a bigger plan. In my mind, everything converges on Arundel House and the Howard family: the invasion plot, the murders of Cecily Ashe and Abigail Morley, Ned Kelley, Mary Stuart and - here I hardly dare to hope - the lost book of Hermes Trismegistus, the book stolen with violence from John Dee fourteen years ago. This unexpected chance to penetrate the Howards’ domain must not be wasted; I must contrive a means of uncovering the secrets I am now convinced lie hidden somewhere behind the wall of mellow brick that looms up on our right as the boatman steers us in towards a narrow landing stage with a set of steps leading up to an archway and an iron gate. I have a plan half-formed at the back of my mind; to work smoothly, it will require a generous handful of good fortune, the candle and tinderbox concealed in my pocket and some impeccable play-acting on my part.
A servant in Arundel livery attends us at the top of the water stairs, his head bowed as he holds open the gate. I stand back, allowing Courcelles his moment of gallantry in handing Marie out of the boat. She climbs two steps, hitching her skirts up away from the slime that covers the stones at low tide where the river licks them, then turns to me as if she has remembered something.
‘Your friend the clerk, Bruno - what was his name again?’
‘Dumas,’ I say, though I am sure she knows this. ‘What of him?’
‘It appears he has run away. My husband sent him on an errand this morning and he has not returned. I wondered if you knew where he might have absconded?’
‘I have seen nothing of Dumas -‘ since this morning, I am about to add, but check myself in front of Courcelles, who regards me as always with his chin tilted slightly upwards, as if he is trying to avoid a bad smell ‘- today,’ I finish.
It is true, and has been a source of growing concern; several times this afternoon I have been to Dumas’s little room under the eaves, only to find it locked. I have found excuses to disturb Castelnau in his office at intervals too, to find Dumas’s desk still empty, until I was afraid my intrusions would look suspicious. By late afternoon, even the ambassador had grown troubled by his clerk’s absence and talked about sending servants out to look for him; he feared Dumas might have fallen victim to some anti-foreign assault, as I am supposed to have done, but my anxiety is more particular. He had been in a state of great agitation this morning, consumed by guilt and fear over his part in stealing Mary Stuart’s ring; this much I knew. But what exactly did he fear? He had taken the ring for money, he said, but Dumas had never struck me as an opportunistic thief, so had someone paid him to steal it? The same person who then gave it to Cecily as a lover’s gift? Denied by Marie the chance to confess and ask my advice, as he had wanted, what might Dumas have done in his state of desperation? Had he confessed his guilty secret to someone else? Had he named the person and, more importantly, did that person know? I feared for his safety, as I feared equally that a piece of the puzzle has disappeared with him.
‘Perhaps he has run away,’ Courcelles says smoothly. ‘What he knows from my lord ambassador’s letters might be worth a great deal of money to some people, and ser vants are always desperate for coins. You can never trust that sort.’ There is a provocative note in his voice that makes me look twice at him; could he know something about Dumas, or is he merely trying to rattle me? But I am never sure of the degree of complicity between him and Marie. How much might she have overheard outside my door this morning?
‘Dumas is an honest man,’ I snap back, stepping precariously out of the boat and almost losing my balance on the wet stairs. ‘More honest than many I know.’ Courcelles makes no move to assist me. Marie shivers.
‘Oh, stop bickering,’ she says, impatient. ‘He is only a clerk. He’ll either turn up or he won’t. Let’s get out of this wind.’
We are led by a steward through the Great Hall of Arundel House, past the rich linenfold panelling and the ornamental armour, into a narrow passageway with walls painted green and gold. At the far end I can see a heavy oak door, left ajar just far enough to glimpse inside a stack of shelves lined with handsomely bound books.
‘What is that room?’ I call to the steward, gesturing to the end of the corridor. He pauses and half turns, not pleased to have been detained.
‘That is my lord of Arundel’s private library,’ he says, almost without moving his lips. ‘Please, let us not delay. The earl and my lord Howard are expecting you.’ I do not miss the emphasis on ‘private’, but my heart is hammering in my throat as I glance back at the door. Before we reach the end of this passageway, the steward knocks for the sake of formality on a door set into the panelling and proceeds with a bow into a warmly lit room, not broad but with a high decorated ceiling and two tall windows, reaching almost from the floor to the top of the panelled walls. Here a long table is set with silverware and wrought branching candlesticks, all reflecting skittering beads of light from the flames. I note, with relief, that the stone floor is thickly scattered with scented rushes. This is exactly as I had hoped. We are late, it seems; the party is already gathered and, as we enter, the gentlemen rise to greet us. Philip Howard moves from his seat, his hand outstretched. Beside him, a shaggy white dog, a Talbot hound by its appearance, stands warily, its nose thrust forward quivering, almost the height of its master’s hip.
‘Madame de Castelnau, Seigneur de Courcelles,
bien-venus
,’ he says, with a graceful bow. ‘And Master Bruno.
Benvenuto
.’
‘Be sure to give Bruno his proper title, Philip,’ Henry Howard remarks, sitting down again, having barely risen in the first place. ‘He is a doctor of theology, and he is most offended when people forget. Dear God, Bruno - what has happened to your head? I had heard of your reputation as a brawler, but I thought you had left that behind in Italy along with your religious vows.’
I touch my fingertips to the wound at my temple - much improved since the day before, but still a raised welt of dried blood that must have looked alarming.
‘You should see the other fellow,’ I say.
Philip smiles uncertainly. I sense that he feels a familial obligation to treat me with disdain, but does not quite share his uncle’s conviction in the matter. I incline my head politely in return. I am not surprised to find that it is Henry Howard and not the young earl who takes the head of the table. Though the Duchy of Norfolk was forfeit when Henry’s brother the duke was caught in his plot to marry Mary Stuart, and the Arundel title now comes through Philip’s mother, it is quite clear to any onlooker that Henry Howard is de facto head of the Howard clan, and that his nephew defers to him in status and judgement. And also in deed, I wonder, looking at Philip as he now gestures around the table. My spirits sink at the sight of Don Bernadino de Mendoza seated at Henry Howard’s right hand; the Spanish ambassador merely grunts a brief acknowledgement of our party’s arrival, before ripping into a hunk of bread with his teeth. Archibald Douglas is here, and Fowler too, and at the foot of the table, opposite Henry Howard, a pale young woman in a blue dress, her fair hair bound under a plain hood. She seems to sense my enquiring gaze, meets my eye for the space of a blink, then looks quickly away.
‘Now we are all present, I think,’ Philip says, casting around the room. ‘I was most sorry to learn of my lord ambassador’s illness, madame. I trust he is comfortable and will soon find his health improved.’
Marie’s eyes narrow.
‘I thank you. I had not realised he had informed you already.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Philip folds his hands together and glances at me. ‘His clerk came this morning with a message, sending your husband’s apologies and explaining that he had asked Doctor Bruno to attend in his stead.’
‘Weak constitution,’ Mendoza observes through his half-chewed bread, to no one in particular.
I smile graciously at Philip. That was smart of Castelnau, I think, to make my presence official in advance. But by ‘his clerk’, does the earl mean Dumas? Did the ambassador send him with a message here as well as the delivery to Throckmorton? And if so, who was the last to see Dumas before he failed to return?
Philip Howard points me to a chair on the far side of the table, tucked against the wall, adjacent to the pale young woman, who glances up at me shyly as I take my seat and this time risks the faintest of smiles. The dog pads over and rests its muzzle in her lap; she strokes its head absently.
‘I don’t believe you are acquainted with my wife Anne, Doctor Bruno?’ Philip says.
‘
Piacere di conoscerla
,’ I say, bowing low so that they will not see my face. A wife! It takes me a moment to absorb this information. A wife throws my speculations about the Howards and the murders off course; I had all but convinced myself that the Earl of Arundel must be the handsome, impressive young courtier who had wooed Cecily Ashe, and that he had done so at his uncle’s behest to further the assassination plot. But if Philip Howard is married already, this cannot be. I take my seat, frowning.
‘You all right there, Bruno?’ Douglas, seated opposite me, grins affably, reaching for his glass. ‘You had a face on you for a moment there like a man trying to shit a turnip.’
‘A little stomach trouble,’ I say, composing my expression into a smile. ‘Probably hunger.’ I must give nothing away. What I must do is model myself on the man opposite.
‘Aye, we’re all bloody hungry waiting for you,’ Douglas says, waving his glass in the air for a refill. Immediately, a servant peels away from the far end of the room, where bottles and dishes are laid out on a wooden buffet, and stands at his elbow with a bottle of wine. When he has poured for Douglas, I hold my glass aloft too, by its delicate stem, and drink off the contents almost in one. Douglas watches as if impressed, and grins wider.
Supper passes uncomfortably, as Mendoza bombards Marie and Courcelles with questions about the factions at the French court, interrogating them closely about the degree of support for the Duke of Guise among the French nobles and the waning of King Henri’s favour among the people. Frequently he hints at King Philip of Spain’s growing admiration for the young Duke of Guise, while Marie simpers and bats her eyelashes at him as if the success of the conspiracy depends upon the power of her attractions. Courcelles seems torn between his anxiety to please the Spanish ambassador and his instinctive possessiveness over Marie’s attentions. The silences in their conversation are broken by one or other of us attempting stilted small talk about court gossip or variations on the same compliments about the food. These, at least, are sincere; the Earl of Arundel clearly keeps a talented chef.