Holy Spy (40 page)

The old woman pushed past Sorbus, elbowing him as she did so. Without ceremony, she unlocked the bolts on the coffer and pulled open the lid.

‘Come, Mr Shakespeare. Come. Take a look.’

Shakespeare advanced further into the room and peered into the coffer. The glint of gold and the sparkle of gemstones flashed their promise. Never in his life had he seen such riches.

‘How full would you say this coffer is, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘About a quarter full. You have remarkable wealth, ma’am.’

‘Do I, indeed? This coffer has been sore depleted, Mr Shakespeare. I have done an audit against the ledgers and the amount here does not accord with what is written. Indeed, great amounts of gold and silver coin are missing. My best estimate is that forty thousand pounds in coin and bullion is gone.’

The sum was scarcely credible. A man could almost buy a county with such riches. Peering into the chest, the glint of gemstones caught Shakespeare’s eye. ‘What of the diamonds and emeralds?’

‘The gems are almost all there. It is the gold and silver that is depleted.’

‘And your great diamond, ma’am?’

‘What do you know of that?’

‘It is famous. Besides, your grandson told me of it.’

‘Well, he had no cause to.’

‘So you still have it?’

‘Mr Shakespeare, will you please keep to the matter in hand. It is the theft of gold and silver that concerns us.’

‘Indeed. Had the locks been forced or broken?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Then who had access to the keys?’

‘I did,’ Joan Giltspur said. ‘And Nick. They were the only sets of keys. And since his death I have possession of both sets. No one else has ever been allowed in this room.’

‘What about your grandson?’

‘No, Arthur did not have keys. He has never shown the slightest interest in the fortunes of this family, so there was no need for him to have them. If ever he needed gold, all he had to do was ask Nick or me.’

‘You must have the house searched – thoroughly. Every nook of every servant’s room, beneath the boards and in the attics. Check the yards and gardens for freshly dug earth. This is an enclosed house so not easy for anyone to leave with such a quantity of treasure.’

‘No.’

‘No, ma’am?’

‘No, I will not have my house searched.’

‘Do you not wish to find your gold – and the person responsible?’

‘Of course I do. And I have summoned you here because I wish you to discover these things, Mr Shakespeare. Find the culprit and I suspect you will also discover the name of Nick’s murderer. For myself, I have only one name in mind: Katherine Whetstone. She must have somehow acquired use of Nick’s keys. Perhaps he found out. Perhaps that is why she killed him. Bring her to justice for me and I will reward you well.’

Chapter 34

Babington was putting the final touches to the letter. Gilbert Gifford had gone two hours since and left him with the chore of enciphering the thousand-word missive. Fighting the exhaustion of a night without sleep and a great deal too much wine, he slogged on through the morning, transfiguring his finely wrought words, character by character, into the secret code that would keep it safe.

Sometimes he wondered about this cipher. How secure was it truly? There were twenty-three symbols, each denoting a letter of the alphabet. Only the letters J, V and W were absent. In addition there were thirty-five symbols standing for whole words or, sometimes, whole phrases. To make things yet more complicated for any would-be codebreaker he used four nulls – symbols without meaning – and a separate symbol which signified that the next symbol equated to a double letter. Surely no man could break such a code. It was hard enough to read or write even with the cipher at his side. His valet tapped at the door, then entered. He did not look happy.

‘What is it, Job? I am mighty busy.’

‘A boy, sir. I told him to go away, but he would not. Says he
has a letter for you.’

‘A letter?’

‘I told him to hand it to me, but he said he had to put it in your hand and no one else’s.’

‘Bring him in; and fetch him ale.’

Job frowned as though he must have misheard his master. ‘You wish to see him?’

‘Did I not just say so?’

‘Yes, sir. But I thought—’

‘Sometimes you think too much, Job. Now go and bring him to me.’

‘Very well, master.’

Babington turned over the draft letter and the encryption he was working on so that neither the words of the original nor the strange symbols of the secret code should be visible. A few moments later Job reappeared with a boy of about eleven years.

‘This is the boy. Are you sure you wish me to fetch ale?’

‘I am as certain of it as I am that you will have a birching by day’s end. Now go and do as you are told.’

As Job slunk away, Babington looked at the messenger boy. He was clean enough and bright-eyed. A small leather satchel was slung across his shoulder.

‘I am told you have a letter for me, boy.’

‘Are you Babington?’

‘I am indeed.’

‘What is your church-given name?’

‘Anthony. What is the meaning of such an impertinent question?’

‘I need to be sure you are the man I am looking for, which I now am – for I was told you dressed bravely and had a lordly manner. Here, take this.’ From his satchel he pulled out a sealed letter and handed it over. Babington received it with trembling hands. Was this truly the work of the blessed Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and rightful Queen of England? He kissed the paper, scarce daring to break the seal. So Gilbert Gifford had spoken true; he had hardly dared believe it.

‘I was told that I should wait if you required me to, Mr Babington.’

‘Yes, please, do wait. I will have a letter for you to take whence you came.’

‘Then I shall be pleased to have the ale.’

‘What is your name, boy?’

‘Call me whatever you like. Boy will do.’

Babington nodded and gestured to the boy to sit at the far end of the room to wait. He had two paragraphs more to transcribe. Not much, perhaps, but it was a painstaking business and would take him the best part of an hour. First, however, he must give himself the pleasure of opening the letter he had received.

Using his dagger, he slit open the seal, then unfolded the paper. It was encoded. He smoothed the paper down on the table and squinted at the symbols, comparing them with his cipher. The tiredness fell away as he worked and the sense appeared before his eyes. The very first words made his heart leap. ‘My very good friend . . .’ She called him
friend
! He read the words quickly, then again, more slowly, savouring each one, and worked on. And at the end of the letter, the name he most desired to see:
Marie R
.

Once more he pressed the letter to his lips and kissed it.

‘Are you done yet, master? You must know that I will require recompense for my time.’

Babington looked across the room at the small boy. Impatience and boredom were evident in his sullen voice. No, he was far from done. But he had a new surge of energy to finish his own letter, one that he was certain would make Mary’s spirits soar and give her hope that her long confinement would soon be over.

Off Margate Head, Boltfoot was allowed half an hour’s respite from his labours for food. He stood on deck and stretched his aching back, smoking a pipe of tobacco and looking out across the choppy grey water to the coast of Kent. It was no more than half a mile away but it might as well have been ten thousand miles for all the use its proximity might be to him. He would never be able to swim such a distance.

‘Take a good long look at it, Mr Cooper, you’ll not see England again for a few months.’

Boltfoot grunted. He had lost hope some hours ago when they rounded the Nore, the sandbank that marked the end of the Thames and the beginning of the North Sea. Maywether was making things worse, seeming to take great pleasure in his discomfort, working him to exhaustion in the mending of kegs. And with the ship tacking into a freshening gale, it felt as though the voyage would take years not months. He knew all that any man needed to know about long voyages; three years before the mast under the command of Sir Francis Drake had taught him of the privations that inevitably lay ahead: hunger, thirst, foul ale and fouler food, beatings, sickness, scurvy, storms and deaths. Such had been the mariner’s lot since man first went to sea.

‘I’d make it worth your while to get me ashore, Mr Maywether.’

‘Would you now. Would you now.’ It wasn’t a question, more a statement of mockery.

‘How would ten pounds sound to you?’

‘And you got ten pounds, have you, Cooper? Show it to me.’

‘It’ll be there when I get back. I pledge it. You know me of old, Mr Maywether, I’m an honest man.’

‘Aye, that you are. But what do you think Herr Bootmann would have to say about it?’

‘Same for him. You got another two coopers in the fleet. That’ll do – and they could apprentice another.’

‘So that’s ten pounds for me and ten for Bootmann?’

‘Aye.’

‘Which means, if I’ve done my reckoning right, that you got twenty pounds – and you’re only offering me ten. And there was me thinking you an honest man.’

‘If you could get me to land without Herr Bootmann’s cooperation, then the twenty would all be yours.’

Godfrey Maywether laughed. ‘You’ll have to do a lot better than that, Mr Cooper.’

‘And does our time together under Drake mean nothing to you? We travelled the whole world together, you and me. We’re copesmates, you and me. Last time I saw you, I was planing staves and you were sewing sails.’

‘What’s past is past, Cooper. I’m the ship’s master now and you’re the dirty knave that does what you’re told or feels the lash of a whip. So get yourself back to your work – and you’ll do a double watch. One wrong move and I’ll have you striped at the mainmast for attempting to bribe an officer.’

Shakespeare scratched letters on a square scrap of paper: ‘If anyone requires a position as footman, apply to the household of Lady Cutler, Seething Lane’. Soaking in the afternoon sunshine, he rode at a brisk trot along the straight mile to St Paul’s, where he nailed the notice to the Si Quis door. Without waiting, he rode back to Leadenhall and the home of Thomas Phelippes.

The excitement of Walsingham’s codebreaker could not have been more evident. He and Gilbert Gifford were in the back garden drinking beer with Phelippes’s new bride, Mary. A table had been dragged out into the space; on it lay plates of delicacies, which kept being added to by a pair of maids.

‘Take a seat, Mr Shakespeare. Drink and eat your fill.’

‘I take it something has happened,’ Shakespeare said.

‘As I said it would, Mr Shakespeare. Mr Gifford and I have organised it all. We had no need of any help from the sly Robin Poley.’

‘I share your distaste, Mr Phelippes, but in truth Poley has helped keep Babington from fleeing in panic. We have much to thank him for.’

‘If you say so. But I say more fool you. For myself, I would rather trust an envenomed serpent than Robin Poley.’ He threw a glance at Gifford and grinned. ‘Shall we show him what we have?’

Shakespeare’s eyebrows shot up. The slimy and brilliantly devious Phelippes comparing another man to a serpent was indeed a curious turnaround, for no man was more reptilian than he.

‘Show him, Tom. I think it will be a wondrous surprise.’

‘Here then. All deciphered for you.’ He pulled out sheets of paper. ‘Mr Anthony Babington’s letter to the Queen of Scots, which arrived not two hours since.’

‘Then he has written it?’