Although Marion's secret trip to London entailed great personal tragedy, it was in other ways highly successful. Working through Robert, Sir David strengthened ties in the French circle until, by 1582, he had installed a spy in the French embassy itself.
Things were moving quickly for the men who served Walsingham. Although the queen still preferred to vacillate, events in Europe were making it essential to consolidate her alliances with the European Protestants, and above all, to make the crown secure from a Catholic heir.
Even as early as 1580, the country was being infiltrated by Catholic missionaries from the continent. They had contacts not only with important exiles, but with English and Scottish Catholics, and, Walsingham was sure, with Mary of Scots herself.
Impulsive, optimistic, but also ruthlessly clever, Walsingham had built his network of spies into a huge organization. It was largely due to them that the foreign conspirators were tracked down and executed. Much of this information came to Walsingham through Sir David, who in turn received it from his secretary. In the performance of his real, rather than his assumed, duties, Robert had been nearly murdered on at least two occasions. Once, he had been attacked in the streets of Paris and had escaped only by slaying his two assailants. On the other occasion, he had got off less lightly. He was attacked as he disembarked from a boat that had just brought him back from a meeting with an agent ensconced at the court of Rome, and had been stabbed and left for dead on a corner of the dock. Somehow he had managed to stagger home, and after three weeks, was well enough to work again. During his convalescence, Sir David gave out the story that Robert had been jumped by poachers while walking in the park at his country estate. They later heard that the agent in Rome had disappeared and since his loyalty was above question, it was simple to figure out what had happened.
As the executions and imprisonment of priests and missionaries continued, cries went up from abroad of religious persecution. True, many Catholics died, but there was solid substance to Lord Burghley's claim that they died, not as Catholics, but as traitors.
Nicholas Saders, an English scholar and onetime leader of English learning at Louvain, was in Ireland as a papal legate, together with Spanish soldiers. Rome had sanctioned teaching that the murder of Elizabeth would not be a sin, and had approved schemes by Spain of invasion through Scotland and the release of Mary.
The capture of a Spanish agent on the Scottish marshes, disguised as a dentist, revealed Mary's knowledge of the Spanish schemes. In the following year, the spy Sir David had infiltrated into the French embassy led to the seizure of Francis Throgmorton who, under torture, revealed the details of yet another plan, and the Spanish ambassador was ordered out of the country.
Still Elizabeth would not act. Why she would not order the execution of her cousin when presented with so much damning evidence of her duplicity, no one could fathom, but Walsingham knew that he must obtain irrefutable proof that Mary was actively involved in the threats to Elizabeth's life and crown before the country would be rid of “the French whore.” That they must be rid of her was obvious to every one, it seemed, except the queen herself.
The year was 1584, and although Walsingham's trap for Mary was slowly tightening, there was still much work for his agents and Robert was once again in Paris. He had come to collect a report from one of his men stationed at the French court, and his business took but little of his time. The agent was only marginally useful, delivering little but general court gossip, and yet even this must not be overlooked. If less than an enemy at present, France was still a dubious friend to England.
Robert's supposed purpose for being in France was the purchase of two blackamoors. True, they could be bought in London, but the best house servants were trained in Paris.
Actually, it was Robert's intention to do just that. Although he doubted very much that his duality was known, he was in constant fear that some harm might come to Belinda while he was absent. Sir David had told him of a huge, mute blackamoor who would make an excellent body guard for his niece, and since the slave was to be sold with his younger sister, Belinda would have a hand maid, as well. She had grown tall and womanly in the past four years, and at sixteen was in need of a trained servant to care for her personal needs.
It was late in the afternoon when Robert arrived at the address Sir David had given him. The sale was a private one, and the address was that of a sumptuous home on the outskirts of the city.
Robert was made welcome by his host, and when they were seated in the lavish salon, sipping the best French brandy, the slaves were sent for.
“I wouldn't be selling either of them at all, but now that my wife has been called to God, there is no longer a need for them here. The male, Jacques, was her servant from childhood, and has been well trained. My wife would let no one else dress her, and assured me many times that Lala could do more with her hair than any maid or stylist in Paris.” He smiled again. “Remarkably beautiful, as well.”
Robert sipped his brandy and returned his host's smile.
“Fine. Feminine beauty is always a pleasure, even in one's ward's blackamoor. I have no taste for ugly servants.”
The blacks, he knew, were completely tame, having been brought into the Paroux household when the female was only an infant, and her brother no more than six. However, he was surprised to see their attire when they were ushered in. The blackamoors he had seen around the English court were popularly dressed in the Oriental fashion or kept half naked. These were garbed in an entirely European manner.
At a gesture from Monsieur Paroux, Jacques stepped forward, leaving his sister waiting just inside the door. He would certainly be the perfect bodyguard, his formidable appearance being enough in itself to render protection from anything less than a full scale mob. He was well over six and a half feet tall and heavily built for one who could not yet be twenty. His massive shoulders stretched the cloth of the fine lawn shirt he wore, and though he did not, of course, wear the hose of a gentleman, his yeoman's trousers were tight enough to show off legs the size of young tree trunks. There seemed not a trace of fat on him, and when he walked he moved with the grace and silence of a stalking animal.
Robert stood up, ostensibly to inspect the man at closer range, but in truth because he felt damned uncomfortable sitting with the huge black towering over him. Even standing, he felt like a child beside its father, but at least it made the man a little less awesome.
“Jacques knows that you will be his new master. He understands little English, but if you keep your instructions simple for awhile, he will learn.” Monsieur Paroux paused. “I shall miss him. He is intelligent, faultlessly loyal; indeed, the perfect servant.”
Jacques bowed low, smiling slightly. His smile was not the servile, ingratiating smirk of most savages, but simply the smile of one who is in complete agreement with another's words. It reminded Robert that the French were inclined to treat these creatures as fellow men, no less human than any other servant. Though his own feelings were not quite so liberal, it wouldn't be too hard in the case of Jacques to treat him as he seemed to expect. One could hardly picture the proud, calm giant who stood before him dancing a jig in cap and bells or prancing around on all fours at the end of a chain.
“He will do splendidly. Perhaps you would explain to him that his duties will be much as they have been. I intend him to serve my young ward in much the same capacity as he served your dear wife.”
Monsieur Paroux spoke to the slave in rapid French. Jacques listened intently, nodded once, turned and bowed to Robert then retired to stand like an ebony pillar beside the door. Paroux then waved his sister forward.
As Lala walked gracefully and somewhat shyly across the thick carpet, Paroux watched her with affection and more than a little pride.
“This is Lala. Is she not the thing of beauty I told you?”
Robert stared. The girl's gown was fashionably low cut, and her bare arms and shoulders looked like smooth, rounded carvings of jet black marble against the soft lavender of her dress. Her bosom was round and high, rising into a slim neck and soft throat. The short, tightly curled wool formed a neat cap for the small skull, and her face was, of its type, flawless. Like her brother, she had thinner lips than most negroids, and the bridge of her nose was higher, tilting the slightly flaring nostrils upward. Her eyes were huge, slightly slanted and, though darker, as deep and gentle as the eyes of a fawn. She was so strikingly lovely that Robert wished he had been buying her as a concubine, rather than as a hand maid for his niece. Had this been the case, it would have been quite in order for him to ask her to disrobe, but under the circumstances he felt that such a request would be taken as very poor manners by his host.
