“Sleep in these extra coats, father. Otherwise you’ll get them stolen in the night. D’you want for books or a chess-board?”
“I’ve pen and paper, that’s more important. Already I’ve written to Cecil. Tomorrow it will be the Queen. And I have my dice … But none of these vile creatures are fit to play with! “
“I trust soon you may be moved.”
“When you see John and Jane make out a strong case to them. She has the money or could get it. And if John can see his father so languish he has a heart of flint. Get them both to understand my plight. It’s a matter of urgency, for with my cough I may not see the winter through I “
“I’ll do everything I can. But take heart, for the case could have been a worse one.”
He blinked at me with bloodshot eyes. “Those old men. Many of them had grievances against me old grievances. But Cecil! I would not have thought it of him to sit by like a little frog hearing everything and saying nothing. And the Queen! She’s getting old, Maugan, that’s what’s wrong. She forgets her old friends and makes up with new ones. It’s a common complaint of age. Alas, alas … You leave for home tomorrow? Hasten, for the sooner I am out of this the better.”
The fish market outside was full of bustle and shouting; beyond, near the clutter of shacks around St Margaret’s church, two women were fighting in the centre of a jeering crowd. With a sense of depression and with a sensation of guilt that in some way I should have been able to help my father more, I turned into one of the many ale houses and drank a tankard of beer.
Perhaps the sensation of guilt arose from the feeling of pure contentment which ran willy-nilly all the time at the back of my thoughts. The anxiety of those dark days, the fear of worse to come, was all the time illumined for me by the thought of Sue. If in two or three months I married her the world could be what colour it chose, my own life would be pitched to a new happiness. Whoever was bankrupt, I would be rich. Almost every morning when I woke this thought of her was a shock, a stimulus, a vivid flood of excitement breaking into sleep, as if someone entered a dark room and flung back the curtains.
So now if I was to play fair with her the last move had to be made.
It was a narrow house, not far from Durham House. A supercilious boy with long fair hair took my letter and left me waiting at the door. I waited while my feet grew cold, then he took me in.
“Lord Henry will see you when he is free.”
I stood on a handsome marble floor in a high narrow entrance hall. In the distance someone was playing the lute. It was a tune I did not know.
The impudent boy came through the hall again and stared at me. I stared him down.
“Lord Henry will see you.”
We went upstairs and into a big room lined with books. A fire burned in an open hearth, and near it, squatting on a rug, another handsome boy was fingering the lute.
In an armchair with a book open on his knee was an elderly man in a fur-trimmed jacket. Although his face was much lined, his hair was black and drawn across the crown to hide his baldness. He had a long nose and sensuous lips. My letter was open on the table. A heavy scent of violets hung in the room.
We waited until the next verse was overt
“Beauty sat bathing by a spring Where fairest shades did hide her; The wind blew calm, the birds did sing, The cool streams ran beside her.”
With two fingers the elderly man suppressed a yawn. “Poke the fire, Claude, it waxes cold.”
The young lutist dug at the fire with an iron rod. “We have a visitor, my lord.”
“That I know. Master Maugan Killigrew.” Lord Henry picked up the letter, glanced through it and for the first time glanced at me. “Master Maugan Killigrew, come here.”
I came and stood beside the table.
“I have had word about you from my friend Henry Arundell.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“He tells me you are a young man of parts. One of the Killigrews who proliferate about the Court. Do you know Court life?”
“No, my lord. My experience, such as it is, has been in Cornwall and in Spain.”
“Ah, in Spain. Just so. I believe Mr Arundell mentions that. You were a captive but escaped. How did you find the Spanish? “
“Fierce in battle, my lord. Fanatical in religion. Charming in personal contact.”
He looked me over. “Ah. A talent for summary, I see. Hasn’t he a talent for s~nmary, Claude?”
The boy shrugged and began to pluck at his lute.
“My wanton thoughts enticed mine eye To see what was forbidden; But better memory said, fief So vain desire was chidden.”
“A foolish conclusion to a pretty song,” said Lord Henry. “Do you play, Killigrew?”
“Indifferently, my lord.”
“All young men should learn with their alphabet. My tutor would not permit me, he being a puritan. Until the regime changed and he was dismissed. I always say I learned under Mary.”
“Learned under Mary,” said Claude, “suffered under Elizabeth, was pensioned, dead and buried. The third day “
“Claude,” said Lord Henry, “take your blasphemies off and give Herbert and Arthur the benefit of them.”
The boy pushed out his lower lip but did not move.
Lord Henry took up another letter and read it carefully through. “This is the one from Mr Arundell. I learn from it that you have seen service with Sir Walter Ralegh.”
“Yes, my lord. I worked as a secretary in his household for six months.”
“Why have you left?”
“As you say, I was a prisoner in Spain.”
“And now you are no longer welcome?”
“Oh, yes. But it is the same position. I seek something better.”
“Ah, something better. I doubt if I can offer you anything better. I am quite without influence, unwelcome at Court, living in this small style … Claude, I told you, you may go.”
The boy sulkily left the room.
“A disobedient youth but engaging … I see Mr Arundell says he is hoping to marry.”
“Oh? …”
“A strange ambition in a man nearing fifty. And one whose tastes have always rather been …” Lord Henry’s eyes trembled with malice. “However … that should not detain
us.”
I swallowed and stared at a sacred painting hung between the bookshelves.
“You write and speak Spanish, Killigrew?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“That is not a common attribute. It could earn you some interesting post.”
“Less of an attribute seeing we are at war with Spain, my lord.”
“Commerce and art do not stop at the dictation of princes. Have you any other qualifications?”
“I know something of war.”
“I think that will be a diminishing asset, for we are all weary of it. Do you understand diplomacy?”
He said it in such a way that much more than a single word was conveyed.
“I have had some experience.”
“No doubt it runs in the family. Your relatives are supporters of Cecil, are they not?”
“I think, my lord, they prefer to see themselves as servants of the Queen.”
“But who does not? Who does not? Our noble Elizabeth whom God preserve we all worship and serve. But under her great men sometimes differ as to how she may best be served. I … now I am an adherent of Essex.”
“Indeed.”
“My friends, Francis and Anthony Bacon, and I, we support his lordship when and how we may. Yet am I on happy terms with Sir Robert Cecil and his father too.”