A Traitor's Tears (15 page)

‘That
woman
!' said Dale. ‘She must be nearly fifty and she makes eyes at everything that wears breeches!'

‘If young Gilbert isn't careful,' said Brockley, ‘he'll find himself in bed with her, wondering how he got there. She's the kind of woman that has to show that she's more attractive than other women are.'

‘I wonder,' I said. ‘That young man didn't strike me as easy prey. But you're right about her. I saw it in her eyes. I wonder if she was really quite the virtuous wife she claims.'

‘Probably not,' said Brockley with a snort.

‘Did you think she was attractive?' Dale asked suddenly.

‘In a way,' Brockley told her. ‘Only a man would recognize it, but there is a … pull. As though one were a compass needle that has to point to the north.'

‘Dale,' I said solemnly, ‘if you wish to hit Roger, I sympathize, but there are people about and you'd do best to wait until he's alone with you.'

We laughed as we made our way towards the inn.

N
ot that the laughter endured for long. Our anxieties were too serious for that. ‘We leave for London tomorrow,' I said, as we entered the White Hart. ‘We
must
track Wyse down. He's the last hope. If only he hasn't been sent off on an errand to the Scottish border! But probably not – they'll want him to tackle that cipher. He can do it if anyone can.'

‘I'll talk to the landlord about routes,' Brockley said. ‘There ought to be a quicker way home than the one through Lowestoft.'

The landlord, as we found later on when we were enquiring about supper, answered to the name of Ezra Spinner, which to my mind didn't suit him. For me, it conjured up a picture of a thin man with spidery arms and legs, while Ezra was in fact a fat, jolly soul with slightly short ones. He was well into his fifties judging by the silver colour of his wild and curly hair. His laugh was a resounding guffaw, which he demonstrated to us in most hearty fashion when we told him that we'd come from London by way of Lowestoft. There was laughter, too, from some of the others present, for several local men had called in for a pint of ale to round off a day's work.

‘Round by Lowestoft? From Lunnon Town! It's a wonder your horses' legs ain't been worn down by six inches!' said a man who was surely a farmer, judging by the earth on his practical leather boots and under the nails of his strong, broad hands.

A man who had been sitting unobtrusively in a quiet corner remarked: ‘It must have taken you a week, for sure.' His voice sounded familiar and we realized that it was Dr Yonge. ‘There's a far better route than that,' he said. ‘Ezra, haven't you got a map?'

‘That I have,' said the landlord. ‘Cat! Where are you? Where's that map I keep for confused travellers! Bring it here!'

His wife appeared from a back room almost at once, carrying a scroll which she spread out on a table. She was a striking woman, though not young, for her face had mature lines even though her wavy hair was dark and she was probably proud of it for she let two long tresses escape from her cap and snake down on either side of her face, to brush against her little ruff. She was quite well-dressed, as was her husband, and the room was well maintained, its cobbled floor swept clean and its settles polished. Drinks were served in good pewter goblets and tankards. The White Hart was prosperous.

‘Turned off the road from Diss, did you?' Cat Spinner said, pointing to Diss on the map. Her accent was strong but agreeably so, as Gilbert Shore's had been, with the musical up and down cadences of East Anglia. We agreed that we had come from Diss. ‘Then you goes back to that turn, and goo on west a way, to Thetford. Then you turns south and goo through Newmarket and this place here, Bishops Stortford, so it's called, not that I've ever been so far. That's your road. Just straight on south from Thetford and then bearing a bit west, but all on the one road, and there you are, Lunnon Town.'

‘Many thanks,' I said. And then asked civilly: ‘You were born here in Kenninghall?'

‘That she was,' said her husband with one of his hearty laughs. ‘Blacksmith's daughter, then got a place as maid to Mistress Wyse, as lives just along the road, till I took a fancy to her and wed her – and her plump stocking full of her savings!'

‘Mistress Wyse was generous enough in her way, for all her faults,' said Cat.

‘We've met the lady,' I said. ‘We called on her today, as it happens. We thought her son, Roland, was there. We had a … a business matter to discuss with him – and we hoped to catch him up. It seems now we'll have to chase him back to London.'

‘Met our queen bee, have you?' said the farmer, breaking in unexpectedly. We looked at him in surprise. ‘Oh, we all know her. Pretty well, some of us.' He sounded sour.

‘Now then, Samuel Goodbody.' Ezra shook a disapproving head. ‘I don't like that kind of talk in my inn, and well you know it.'

I caught Dale's eye and knew that she had recognized the name. So had Brockley, who muttered, very softly, so that only Dale and I could hear: ‘I suppose she nipped his romance with Blanche in the bud.'

Dr Yonge, however, said very seriously: ‘Quite right. It's a sin to destroy a woman's character.' Whereupon another man, who had put a wicker basket containing dead marsh birds down by his feet and was probably a wildfowler, remarked: ‘There ought to be a few laws against destroying marriages. She's had a hand in spoiling one or two. A tiresome woman, that one. I cast no stones at her virtue; there are folk who never put a foot wrong and still cause trouble. I'm sorry for that niece of hers that lives with her.'

‘Cousin,' said Ezra. ‘Blanche is her cousin.'

‘Cousin, then. She'll eat all Blanche's young men afore Blanche ever gets to taste them. She's done that afore.' His gaze rested candidly on Samuel Goodbody, who buried his nose in his tankard. ‘And Gilbert Shore'll be next, mark my words,' the wildfowler added.

‘I fancy,' whispered Brockley, ‘that after spoiling Blanche's love affair by ogling Master Goodbody herself, she dropped him once the mischief was done. He hasn't forgotten, I fancy.'

‘Hush,' I said.

‘I repeat, I don't like this sort of talk,' said Ezra, addressing the wildfowler. ‘Mistress Wyse has had her troubles. Robert Wyse was a stern man. The daughters had to marry where they were told and one of them's very miserable with the man her father picked. She didn't want to wed him but her father thrust her into the marriage. Whole village knew about it.'

‘Could be that Robert got to be stern after provocation,' hazarded the wildfowler, swigging ale.

‘Now, thass enough,' said Ezra. ‘And she's good to her servants, like Cat says. Cat knows. Don't you, Cat?'

‘Well, I was her maid till I married,' Cat said. ‘She don't have a personal maid these days. Yes, I'd say she was a generous mistress and still is, I daresay.'

‘Ezra's right. We shouldn't tattle,' said Dr Yonge, and Ezra nodding agreement, turned to us and said: ‘Is that map of any help to you?'

‘Yes, it is,' Brockley said. ‘I think we should write down the places we're going to pass through. Thetford, Newmarket, Bishops Stortford … Madam, did you bring any writing things with you?'

‘Indeed I did,' I said. ‘I'll fetch them.'

We had a good supper at the inn. The White Hart charged quite reasonable rates and it was plain that unlike Agnes Wyse, they could afford saffron, which had certainly been used in the spicy bread and butter pudding. Joseph ate with us and I told him to enjoy his fill.

In the morning, we set off early. It took only four days to reach London by the new route. I longed to get back to Hawkswood and to little Harry, but first of all, I must go to court and Walsingham's office, and try to speak to Roland Wyse.

Walsingham's offices at Whitehall were much like the ones he used in the other palaces. He usually travelled with the court although not always. Since Lord Burghley (though I still thought of Burghley as Cecil) had now ceased to be the Secretary of State and become Lord Treasurer instead, Walsingham had been promoted to share the duties of Secretary of State with another court official, a man called Sir Thomas Smith. I had never met Sir Thomas but had been told that he was older than Walsingham and very learned and from observing the offices they both used, I assumed that they had much in common.

All the suites consisted of three or four well-proportioned rooms with elegant panelling, patterned leading for the windows, and red and white Tudor roses in the ceiling beams. All the rooms were also furnished with plain tables and stools, and fitted with shelving so laden with document boxes and bulging folders and weighty reference books that most of the panelling was hidden. Some rooms also had maps pinned up on the walls. Little that was decorative had been left on view.

After some delay while my credentials were investigated, I was admitted and found Walsingham at his desk, dark-clad as ever, with his black hair as usual cut short. His personal secretary, a quiet, greying individual called Humphrey Johnson, was reading letters at a second desk, and on the way in, I passed through an outer office where three clerks were seated at a table and busy with whatever mysterious tasks were given to clerks in this department. But Wyse was not there.

‘Yes, he came back, but I've sent him into Hampshire,' said Walsingham, ‘with a squad to ask awkward questions in a house there.'

Walsingham's idea of humour was always grim and apt to appear at unexpected moments. His smile invariably made me think of Death in a jovial mood. ‘These foreign priests,' he explained. ‘They are constantly creeping into the country, like a plague of mice, trying to convert decent Protestants to their Papist faith. There are seminaries devoted to preparing them. There is one particular order – the Jesuits – that is said to be planning a virtual crusade. None of them just want to spread their faith; they also want to convince our people that our good queen ought to abdicate in favour of that pestiferous woman Mary of Scotland. The house that Wyse has gone to has almost certainly been harbouring them.'

‘When do you expect him back?' I asked.

‘Soon,' said Walsingham, ‘though I'm not exactly certain when. If you want to talk to him, I'll send him down to Hawkswood. I don't mind sending him off on errands. The truth is, he's hardworking and fairly competent, but I find it wearisome to have him at close quarters. I don't think he's ever liked me much, but some time ago, I began to have the feeling that he really hated me. I don't know why. I've never done him any harm, though I am beginning to feel that I would like to! However, I assure you that I have questioned him myself, about Jane Cobbold's death, and he remembers nothing to the point. He says he caught up with Sir Edward Heron at Cobbold Hall, took dinner and then got on his horse and started for London. He passed Jack Jarvis's cottage and stopped to pass the time of day with him, but nothing more. He went into the cottage but only for a few minutes. He saw no strangers, observed nothing out of the way.'

‘And I've been chasing him round the countryside just to find that out,' I said wearily. ‘I've just been to Norfolk, hoping to catch up with him there. I managed to have a few words with his mother, but she didn't know anything useful.'

‘My poor Ursula. You've wasted your time. You might have known that we would question him. After all, he does belong to my department. If any of my men are close to a serious crime, I'm bound to make enquiries.'

‘Did he have a chance to look at the cipher letter?' I enquired.

‘Oh, yes. He decoded it in a few hours. He's extremely gifted that way, you know. But it told us nothing helpful – either about Jarvis's death, or Mistress Cobbold's.'

‘What did it say?'

Walsingham frowned. ‘It's so unlikely that I've lain awake puzzling over it. Unlikely, I mean, because I just can't see how Jack Jarvis, cottager at Cobbold Hall, rearing chickens and growing vegetables, came to be making for Dover with a letter for an illicit worsted mill – not named – giving details of likely customers and markets, including fairs in France and the Netherlands.'

‘
That's
what the letter was about?' I said, astonished.

‘Yes, it was! Now, who would pick a scruffy, elderly cottager as a messenger for such a purpose? Anyone running such an enterprise and wanting to find custom would send his own agent to collect information and if an agent wanted to send a confidential interim report while he was still out in the field, as it were, he'd hire an ordinary courier and send the letter to his employer's private house.'

‘
Is
there an illicit loom in Dover?' I asked.

‘Oh, yes. We've known about it for quite a long time. So far, it hasn't concerned my department. Worsted looms are small ale as far as we're concerned; we leave it to the weavers' guilds to bring prosecutions if they think fit. The fact is, people want this new worsted and where there's demand, someone usually comes forward to supply. The worsted looms will all be made legal one of these days. Though this one
may
attract my attention before too long. I've heard a whisper that this is another place that's being used as a safe house for Catholic priests coming in through Dover, in disguise. But the letter doesn't refer to that in any way.'

‘Could the decoded letter itself be in a form of code? A second line of defence?' I hazarded.

‘I thought of that,' said Walsingham, sounding slightly offended at the idea that he might have failed so to do. ‘All I can say is that I and my staff tested the notion as thoroughly as possible and either the clear version of that letter is
not
any form of code, or it's an impenetrable one. Frankly, the cipher is complex enough to make a second line of defence pointless.'