list.’
‘I know nothing of any list!’
‘It is a list of all spies who worked with Kit Marlowe at the behest of our old master Sir Francis Walsingham. Tell us what matter you were engaged in and there may still be some thin hope,’ the scarred man growled.
‘But you know our business! Oft-times we have no idea who else works with us.’
Carpenter feigned boredom. He looked past the pall of smoke hanging over the clutter of poor plague-ridden houses near the Tower towards the tenter grounds on either side of Moor Fields. Long strips of crimson and popinjay blue fluttered in the wind where the cloth finishers were drying and stretching their recently dyed textiles.
Shipwash began to cry. ‘The Unseelie Court! I am a dead man.’
‘How fragrant it could be up here above the foul-smelling streets with the wind bringing the scents of the fields to the north,’ the Earl’s nostrils flared, ‘if not for the stink of piss and sick.’
The captive looked up. ‘I … I kept records. I know that is grounds for treason. But I thought-’
‘You thought you might blackmail someone, somewhere, with some secret or other you had gleaned along the way.’ Carpenter shrugged. ‘Well, we have all considered it at some time or other. Life is hard and a little coin helps it pass easier.’
‘But why is this important?’ Shipwash asked, standing shakily.
‘If we find
‘You could protect me,’ the frightened man said hopefully.
‘No point.’ The scar-faced spy turned up his nose at the man’s urine-stained breeches. ‘The Enemy will simply find another victim to help break down our hard-fought defences.’
‘But if our devil-masked killer still thinks you are handy for a little throat-slitting and flaying, we may yet draw him out into the open,’ the Earl said with a quiver of excitement.
Carpenter sighed and rolled his eyes.
‘What? You seek to use me like cheese in a mousetrap?’ Horrified, Shipwash looked from one spy to the other.
‘For the moment, we will keep you safe,’ Carpenter snapped, glaring at his companion. ‘Now fetch your records.’
The two spies accompanied their anxious colleague down the three hundred steps into the nave. Outside in the rumble of cartwheels and the reek of dung, Carpenter pulled his cap low and sidled up to where his love, Alice, waited with a pot of New World paprika for the palace kitchens. ‘Tell Swyfte’s assistant we have our man Shipwash,’ he whispered. ‘He may yet have the information we need.’
‘Can I kiss you?’ the kitchen maid teased, her eyes sparkling.
‘No!’ The scar-faced man’s cheeks flushed, though it was more with excitement than embarrassment. ‘Alice, I thank you for what you do. But take no risks. I could not bear it if-’
‘Hush,’ she said. ‘If I can help bring this terrible business to an end and we can be together once again, then that is worth any risk.’
Full of gratitude, Carpenter could only give a curt nod and hurry back to his companion.
‘You are a fool,’ Launceston said with surprising emotion. ‘You play games with her life.’
‘Alice is her own woman. I have no more power to drive her away than I have with … you.’
The two spies held each other’s gaze for a long moment. Behind them, heels suddenly clattered on the worn flagstones surrounding St Paul’s. The men spun round to see Shipwash racing away through the crowds swarming into the nave in search of work.
‘Damn him,’ Carpenter cursed. The scarred man and the Earl plunged into the throng, hurling bodies out of their path. Past the bellowing preachers they ran, knocking over booksellers and upending servant girls, elbowing merchants and kicking out at children. But by the time they reached the cart-clogged street, their former captive was nowhere to be seen.
‘Ah,’ Launceston said, placing a finger to his lips in reflection. ‘That went well.’
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
In a frenzy of gleaming black wing, the crows feasted on the fine banquet of young Edward Tulse. Eyes gone, white bone shining through the tatters of his face, the kitchen boy was losing his identity one peck at a time. A day after his life had been taken, the lad still hung from the gallows at Nonsuch, and there he would remain until another victim was chosen to take his place.
Hurrying silently along the first-floor corridor, the lady-in-waiting tried to avert her eyes from the grisly sight, but the deteriorating corpse said too much about life in the palace. The boy, who struggled with some deformity of the mouth, had been as good-natured as anyone consigned to labour all day near the hot ovens during the summer. He could never have been a spy reporting back to his secret Catholic masters.
The young woman paused at the end of the corridor and listened. Outside the crows had been disturbed, taking wing as one, a shadow of black feather and bloody beak passing across the sun. So soon after dawn only the kitchen staff would be up preparing the morning meal, but she could not take any risks. Everywhere she went someone was watching her with beady, suspicious eyes. And not just her.
Accusations were coming thick and fast to the Privy Council: of treason, atheism, unnatural acts, and any other crime that could be imagined. Men and women looked at their friends and acquaintances and wondered who was reporting on whom, and which person could be trusted, and who had most to gain by bringing another down.
‘You are well?’
Grace stifled a cry of surprise. It was Nathaniel, who had crept up on her as stealthily as a cat.
‘You said to be light of foot,’ he muttered. He looked pale, with dark circles under his eyes.
‘I did not say scare me into an early grave.’
‘This creeping around takes its toll, ’tis true. I have not slept well since we parted company with Will. At every noise, I feel they are coming for me in my sleep.’
‘What have you uncovered?’
‘I whiled away an hour with Jane Northwood in the gardens yesterday evening,’ he winced, ‘and someone owes me a great debt for that. After listening to all the gossip of every dalliance and slight and rivalry in the entire court, I began to feel my life drain from me. But by the time the bats were flitting overhead, a lull in the conversation finally appeared and I could ask my question. She tells me Master Cockayne is away in London on some business.’
‘Come, then,’ Grace said, excited. ‘We must search his chamber.’
Her friend’s face grew grave. ‘And if we are caught we will be hanging out there with Edward Tulse.’
‘Now, Nat, before the palace awakes,’ the young woman urged softly.
With a sigh, Nathaniel nodded. He led the way through the still corridors to Cockayne’s chamber, three doors from the spymaster’s own room. Grace listened at the door. No sound came from within, and after a moment she steeled herself and stepped inside.
The chamber was barely bigger than a box, with a trestle, a chair, two stools and mounds of parchments and books. The woman felt her heart sink as she surveyed the piles of papers, but she gave a weary nod to Nathaniel and they began to sift through them. Grace tried to picture Cecil’s adviser at work in the room, a small man, ruddy- faced and grey-haired, hunched over these volumes deep in thought. Where would he hide the play?
The young man tossed parchments aside with seeming disregard. ‘At least we will have some distraction from all this misery,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, what?’
‘Jane Northwood told me there is to be a masque, to take the Queen’s mind off the plague drawing closer to her palace. Costumes and music and dancing, with the most lavish scenery and devices and machines ever to grace Nonsuch. All paid for by the Earl of Essex.’ Nathaniel flashed his friend a grin. ‘If he cannot fawn enough, he will buy
