A Traitor's Tears (32 page)

‘I heard something about this from my guards,' Lebrun said. ‘She was murdered, wasn't she? By you? Because she'd overheard too much?'

‘Well, what else could I do?
What's all this about you taking secret messages to Dover, Jack?
Jack was Jarvis's first name.
Why you? What's it all about? Well, make sure your chickens and garden are looked after while you're away. I won't try to stop you – I heard just now how well you're going to be paid and I don't grudge it to you, but my, it must be important. Ah, well, I can see that neither of you are going to tell me anything. How unkind of you, when you can see I long to know all about it!
'

‘She sounds like a silly woman,' said Lebrun.

‘She was! Arch, silly, and I knew she'd never hold her tongue and when Jarvis disappeared, she'd talk all the more and someone somewhere might link a dead man, carrying an enciphered letter and found on the Dover Road, with the Cobbolds' missing tenant who was going to Dover with a mysterious message. I told her it was a confidential matter and not something for ladies to concern themselves with, but from that moment on … My God, I was petrified. I couldn't leave her alive! I nearly put a stop to the whole scheme then and there.'

‘I see. Well, I understand that this Jane Cobbold had to be dealt with … By the way, did Jarvis know what you'd done?'

‘Good God, no. I said, he wasn't clever. When Mrs Cobbold left us, he asked if it mattered, what she'd heard, and I laughed and said oh, no, she's of no importance. Then I left, saying I was on my way to London and so I was but I dealt with silly Mrs Cobbold first. I don't think Jarvis dreamed I had anything to do with that, though, not until the last moment. I met him at an inn just outside London, as we'd planned. In the London office, I was thought to be visiting my mother in Norfolk. I gave him the letter, and then I intercepted him on the Dover Road and said I had something else to give him – let's just dismount and sit in the shade under that tree there while I explain, I said. He trusted me until I pulled out my dagger. What he guessed then, I wouldn't know, but he only had a few seconds to do any guessing, anyway. Then the blade was in his heart and that was that.'

‘Poor sod,' said Lebrun cynically. ‘Ah well. You'd got rid of Mrs Cobbold and you'd carried out the Dover Road plan. So why, after all that, did you lose your nerve, as you put it?

‘Because I thought when Jarvis was found he'd be just an unknown corpse. Mrs Cobbold was safely out of the way and I hoped the cipher letter would start the ruin of Walsingham! But Jarvis was recognized all the same! Of all the appalling bad luck! The last thing I expected. A rotten, hateful coincidence!'

‘Or the work of the Devil,' said Lebrun.

‘I felt as if Fate was conspiring against me,' said Wyse, aggrievedly. ‘One of the men who found him had met him before! He'd been with me once or twice when I visited the Cobbold household. He thought he recognized the body. He wasn't certain but then the Stannard woman turned up in London and identified him for sure and that's when I knew that it was all going wrong. I didn't dare to go on. She has a reputation!'

‘You should have got rid of her as well.'

‘I tried, in the end. Not willingly. I'd already killed one woman. I made a good clean job of it but I didn't say I liked it. Besides, as it happens, I find Mrs Stannard attractive. Perverse of me, for she's one of those women who don't know their place, but who can explain these things? Her manservant Roger Brockley was arrested at first for murdering Jane Cobbold. That should have settled that problem, but Mrs Stannard interfered. She got him freed on bail! Then she arrives in Walsingham's office, wanting to talk to me, or so I heard later. I wasn't there when she came. But she'd been to Norfolk and talked to my mother. Obviously, she meant to go on and on, prying and probing, trying to clear Brockley, I suppose. So I tried to marry her, to get control of her. I could have made her love me, I know I could, if she'd only given me the chance, and then I'd keep her in order and she'd lick my hand for it, and keep my counsel. Women are like that. But she'd have none of me. And as I said, she has a reputation.'

‘I know,' said Lebrun dryly. ‘I've heard about her. I once met her husband – Matthew de la Roche. He greatly admires her intellect.'

‘Women shouldn't be encouraged to develop their intellects, even if they have them,' said Wyse irritably. ‘Which they mostly haven't. In my opinion, Mrs Stannard's intellect is mostly that of the manservant Brockley. But what of it? She somehow got Brockley out of prison, so she had his help again. I got away to meet Jarvis – and kill him – by saying I had to go to Norfolk because my mother was ill. By the grace of God, none of Walsingham's other clerks managed to decipher the letter I'd planted on Jarvis and when I came back, it was handed to me to decode. I thankfully snatched at the chance to stop the whole thing. I made up another letter, with something in it about an illicit loom I knew there was in Dover. Fairly harmless, I thought – a mystery that no one would solve. But …'

‘You should have been the one to go on and on! You should have finished the work! Think of the gain!'

‘Haven't you understood what I'm saying? It was too bloody dangerous once Jarvis was recognized. I was known to be acquainted with him, known to be a visitor at Cobbold Hall, known to dislike Walsingham. People might start making connections! I wanted to keep in the shadows and I felt as though someone carrying a bright torch was searching those shadows, to shine a light on my face!'

‘I suppose you did have some reason to panic,' agreed Lebrun thoughtfully.

‘I'd made further plans in case that one letter wasn't enough,' said Wyse glumly. ‘I'd thought, if I could get invited into Walsingham's house, or go there on some pretext – with a message, something like that – I could plant some more damaging cipher letters, from and to Walsingham. I quite enjoyed planning what they might say, if decoded.'

‘Brilliant! Oh, why
didn't
you go on?'

‘I dared not. Oh, dear God, first that stupid Cobbold woman, and then Ursula Stannard! She wouldn't let things drop, she just
wouldn't
. I thought of trying to get Brockley out of the way – to make it look as if he'd killed himself from guilt or fear – but that was foiled, too …'

Beside me, Brockley moved sharply, and I saw Ryder's hand come out and press down, hard, on his shoulder, to keep him silent.

‘And after that,' Wyse was saying, ‘urged no doubt by Brockley, she
still kept on probing
. I met her by chance in an inn, and she told me she'd found out things about me. She'd found out that Thomas Howard was my brother. She was getting so near, so near. That was when I tried to be rid of her. I thought I'd poisoned her bedtime wine – and then I come here, to Ballanger's and there she is! Alive and well!
Nothing
went right for me!'

‘They'll make you confess once you're in the Tower; you can be sure of that,' said Lebrun brutally. ‘So if you had gone on, you wouldn't be in a much worse position than you are now and you would have avenged your brother's death. And Walsingham might have been brought down. Walsingham, who urged the queen into signing your brother's death warrant.'

‘Dear Thomas. He was good to me, kind to me, he helped me. I loved him.'

‘And you want Walsingham discredited, executed if possible. Of course you do! You can still do it!' There was excitement now in Lebrun's voice. ‘You can! Tell them you've a statement to make! Be eager to make it! They'll want to know why you substituted a false cipher letter for the original! You can say you were protecting Walsingham, being loyal to your employer, that you didn't believe he could possibly be a traitor! But now you've had time to think and you've changed your mind! You can declare that the letter that damages him was genuine! Footpads killed Jarvis! The letter may still achieve its aim. You will have your satisfaction – and the true church will have a dangerous enemy made harmless. Do it, Roland! It's your golden opportunity, and ours, and it's still there! Why, it could save your life!'

The silence that followed this was lengthy. Then Wyse said: ‘Are you telling me that when you advised me how to get rid of Walsingham, you were pursuing a motive of your own? That you wanted to use me to get Walsingham destroyed? That you were trying to make me a tool?'

‘We both wanted him dead. I said, it was our chance. What's wrong with that? With him discredited, the usurper queen—'

‘Elizabeth is not a usurper!'

‘To us she is. It was a bitter thing for her to order Norfolk's execution; we know that. He was a kinsman and she thought him a friend and yet he betrayed her twice. Discrediting Walsingham would weaken her further. If she believed that Walsingham, too, had betrayed her, who, after that, could she trust? She would falter, lose faith in her own judgement, be vulnerable as never before, liable to make the wrong decisions, suspicious of her best men … alienating even those who have so far supported her. Driving some of them into the arms of those they once called enemies. She would become a much easier target for those who love the true queen and want to bring her to the throne.'

‘You mean Mary Stuart?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘That damnable woman, who had her husband murdered, married his murderer and would like to bring a Spanish army to England to put her on Elizabeth's throne and force England back to the Catholic faith with the help of the Inquisition? You made me a living tool not only for getting rid of Walsingham, but also to benefit
her
? You were conspiring against Elizabeth and tricking me into helping you? Helping you to destroy her as well as Walsingham?'

Wyse's voice had risen to a falsetto. I felt Captain Yarrow move sharply. In a tiny whisper, he said: ‘We didn't expect this!'

‘Of course,' Lebrun was saying, quite coolly. ‘It is how we work. To achieve our ends, any means will do. All are sanctified by their purpose. They—'

‘My God, I'll kill you!'

‘What are you …?'

Lebrun's protest broke off in a shriek and a gurgle. We could not see but we could guess that Wyse's hands were round the throat of his one-time friend. Yarrow and Ryder sprang for the door and plunged through into the next room. Brockley went after them and I followed with Dale. She and I huddled in the doorway and watched as Wyse was dragged away from the choking Lebrun, who fell to the floor, clutching at his throat, his face congested.

‘Two splendid confessions,' said Captain Yarrow happily, standing back and once more rubbing his hands together. ‘Perfect!' He turned and gave Brockley a cheerful smile. ‘I think your name will be cleared now, sir. I feel you have little in future to worry about.'

I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to watch as Lebrun, still gasping and choking, and Wyse, who had broken down in tears of mingled rage and fear, were manacled and taken away. But as he was being hauled towards the door, Wyse did momentarily drive his feet in hard enough to force his guards to a halt. He looked at me.

‘I would have made you a good husband, Mistress Stannard. You've thrown away the chance of a lifetime. I'm a generous man. I give to charity; I am chivalrous towards women who are truly womanly. I could have made you happy. But women are so foolish!'

The guards tugged at him, but Yarrow signalled to them to wait. Brockley said sharply: ‘But you don't mind pretending to care about them – when it suits you. You took leave from your work, didn't you, because you said your mother was ill and needed you, when all the time you were planning to meet Jack Jarvis and kill him.
Was
your mother ill, by the way? We know you went on to see her. She didn't deny she'd been ill when we visited her. But the timing of her sickness was convenient, wasn't it? What's the truth? I was nearly hanged because of you. I want an answer! You'll have to give one to Francis Walsingham anyway. Why not to me?'

‘Oh, I invented the tale that she'd sent for me, but when I reached her, I told her she must back my story up, that it was part of a matter of state and that she must not ask questions. She did as I asked.' Astonishingly, he smirked. ‘As I said, women are foolish. It can be useful, sometimes.'

I stared at him. ‘I can't make sense of you. I think you loved your brother of Norfolk but you could never have loved me, or any woman, including your mother. You hold us in contempt and that sits ill with love.'

Then I turned my back, and when eventually I did turn round again, Wyse and Lebrun were gone.

‘What will happen to them?' Dale asked timidly. Brockley had come to her and was holding her close to him, his arm round her shoulders.

‘Those two?' said Yarrow. ‘Better not to know. They'll hang at the least. They'll be fortunate if it's no worse.'

I shuddered, and was thankful that this time he didn't rub his hands together.

‘The Ballangers may get away with fines and a stay in a gaol,' Ryder said, amplifying. ‘As for the two we took in for arson, unless someone saw them setting light to the weaving shed, it may be hard to convict. They may well get away with it. And now, let us leave these little stone rooms, Captain Yarrow, for we all want light and air. Indeed we do.'

‘W
yse talked freely enough when he knew we'd overheard every word,' Ryder told us, arriving at the Safe Harbour that evening to join us for supper. ‘He confirmed everything and added details. His orders to Jarvis were to meet him – in The Boar inn, as it happened – to receive a confidential letter to be taken to Dover. Then he waylaid Jarvis on the road, killed him and let the letter – the real original, that pointed such a shocking finger at Mr Walsingham – be found on him, to be deciphered, whether by Wyse or someone else.'