She goes to the parlour for the bag of balms and ointments she keeps for emergencies. She slips in a small knife, just to be on the safe side.
‘Stay here, Ned,’ she says. ‘I’ll go on my own. You keep an eye on Mistress Moonbeam here.’
46
The wherry drops them at the Cecils’ private water-stairs. At the Covent Garden house they’re told Lord Burghley is at Whitehall. A brisk walk past Henry’s old tilting ground takes them beneath the Holbein gatehouse and into the vast jumble of grand houses, government offices, gardens and chapels that’s grown up around the spot where Edward the Confessor first raised his royal palace on the banks of the Tyburn. Somewhere inside this maze is the human incarnation of England’s majesty. Everywhere there are guards, to ensure she doesn’t end up like poor Prince William of Orange, shot by an assassin with a wheel-lock pistol in his own home. To carry a firing piece anywhere inside the palace boundary is now an act of treason. Nicholas and John Lumley find their way barred by two bearded halberdiers in full plate.
‘Please be so good as to have your servant open that box, my lord,’ says one of them.
Lumley signals for the servant Adam to open the pine chest he’s carrying. Nicholas’s heart starts rat-tat-tatting like a tambour in a parade.
‘Samples of chamber hangings, sirrah,’ says Lumley with an understanding smile that’s meant to show he appreciates the difficulties a guard must face, when so many men of note pass through his gate every day. ‘My lord Burghley much admired the ones in his room at Nonsuch when he came there last with our sovereign lady. I promised to bring him some samples from the weaver. Show the sergeant, Adam.’
The guard, who’s heard only the words ‘Burghley’ and ‘our sovereign lady’, takes a cursory look inside the chest and signals his mate to stand aside.
They track down Burghley and his entourage to a row of chambers next to the Court of Requests. Even then their quarry proves elusive. ‘His Grace is presently in discourse with members of the Privy Council, my lord,’ says an unforgiving face whose tone reminds Nicholas of an examination of competence before the College of Physicians: What ancient scholars have you studied?… Quote from them, in defence of your treatment for choler… What does Brasbridge have to say on the subject of serpiginous ulcers? He certainly has the same butterflies in his stomach.
‘I really do think my lord Burghley will wish to see me, no matter how pressing the discourse,’ says Lumley, with a courage Nicholas can only admire.
‘And why would that be, my lord?’ asks the unforgiving face.
‘Why don’t you tell him, Nicholas?’ says Lumley generously.
So, taking his cue from the surroundings, Nicholas does. He whispers his poison into the man’s ear, in the best tradition of a practised courtier.
Burghley is old and tired. The marrow in his bones aches at the slightest whiff of treason and sedition. How did it happen, he wonders – how did my lifelong service to my sovereign turn the birdsong outside my window into a never-ending warning?
These days he can’t sleep much beyond a couple of hours at a stretch. His mind brims with fear for the future. His greatest dread is that one simple act of inattention – perhaps the churchwarden in some remote village failing to notice that one of his flock has suddenly started avoiding sermon on a Sunday – may lead to an English traitor taking the road to London. It’s happened before. All it takes is a head full of the Pope’s edict that killing your queen is no crime, because she’s a declared heretic – and a pistol in the saddlebag.
So when four men – one of whom he recognizes as his son’s nemesis, John Lumley – are ushered into his presence, following the uttering of the dread word ‘treason’, Lord Treasurer Burghley fears the worst.
‘A Jesuit – in hiding at Nonsuch!’ he exclaims when Lumley has delivered the news. He could be speaking of some particularly lethal species of serpent.
‘An agent of the Pope, Your Grace. A deceiver,’ Lumley says without the slightest trace of theatricality. ‘Though I’ve known him for many years, he was able to hide his infamy even from me. Had I even the slightest suspicion, I would have denounced him instantly.’ He turns to Nicholas. ‘Perhaps you know Dr Nicholas Shelby – I understand your son Robert employs him on matters of extreme sensitivity. Nicholas, show His Grace what we discovered.’
Like a street entertainer performing a trick, Nicholas slowly withdraws Francis Deniker’s vestments from the pine chest now lying open on Burghley’s desk. He lays them out carefully for the Lord Treasurer to inspect. The crosses of gold thread and the jewels sewn into the heavy damask gleam like beacons lit to warn of an approaching enemy. Next, he takes the altar stone from its cloth wrapping and sets it down. He pulls back the covering from the chalice and places the gleaming silver bowl on the altar stone. All that’s missing is the sound of a celestial choir singing the Benedictus. He glances at Lumley’s long face. There’s not a flicker of emotion on it, though what it’s costing him to see the symbols of his faith used in such a manner, he can’t begin to imagine.
Burghley stands up with surprising speed for such a stately old man. For one extraordinary moment, Nicholas fears the octogenarian Lord Treasurer is about to jump onto his chair like a parlour maid surprised by a mouse.
‘Merciful Jesu!’ he cries. ‘The whole heretical set!’
‘And hidden in the bosom of my household!’ agrees Lumley, allowing his Northumbrian burr free rein to show what a simple, straight-dealing fellow he really is. ‘I can only reproach myself for not having uncovered this heresy earlier.’
‘And you knew nought of this deception?’ Burghley asks, a last bubble of suspicion lingering on the surface of his revulsion.
‘Nothing at all, Your Grace,’ says Lumley sadly. ‘I freely admit I have always been a church Catholic – but, as the law demands, I observe all that is asked of me by the new faith. I pay my recusancy fines. The queen herself knows it. But a hider of Jesuits, never. I would defend her faith to the death.’
Nicholas has the urge to applaud. Lumley has performed his part almost exactly as he’s been coached.
‘Do you have the rogue under guard, my lord?’ asks Burghley.
‘Sadly, no.’
‘He’s at large?’
‘I fear so, Your Grace.’ Lumley constrains himself to merely the barest wince. ‘When Dr Shelby tried to take him, his violence knew no bounds. He killed my clerk, poor Master Deniker. Dr Shelby here was lucky to escape with his life. Show him, Nicholas–’
Nicholas turns his head to reveal the still-healing wound that he sustained in the Nonsuch mews.
‘He must be hunted down without delay, without mercy!’ says Burghley, calling for pen and paper so that he might draft the order. ‘Does this agent of the Antichrist have a name?’
For the first time since they arrived at Whitehall, Nicholas detects a tremor of doubt in Lumley’s voice, as if he’s only now begun to comprehend how this will end for the man he once held so close in his affections. ‘Indeed he does, Your Grace,’ Lumley says slowly, regretfully. ‘His name is Gabriel Quigley.’