Holy Spy

Chapter 34

Babington was putting the final touches to the letter. Gilbert Gifford had gone two hours since and left him with the chore of enciphering the thousand-word missive. Fighting the exhaustion of a night without sleep and a great deal too much wine, he slogged on through the morning, transfiguring his finely wrought words, character by character, into the secret code that would keep it safe.

Sometimes he wondered about this cipher. How secure was it truly? There were twenty-three symbols, each denoting a letter of the alphabet. Only the letters J, V and W were absent. In addition there were thirty-five symbols standing for whole words or, sometimes, whole phrases. To make things yet more complicated for any would-be codebreaker he used four nulls – symbols without meaning – and a separate symbol which signified that the next symbol equated to a double letter. Surely no man could break such a code. It was hard enough to read or write even with the cipher at his side. His valet tapped at the door, then entered. He did not look happy.

‘What is it, Job? I am mighty busy.’

‘A boy, sir. I told him to go away, but he would not. Says he has a letter for you.’

‘A letter?’

‘I told him to hand it to me, but he said he had to put it in your hand and no one else’s.’

‘Bring him in; and fetch him ale.’

Job frowned as though he must have misheard his master. ‘You wish to see him?’

‘Did I not just say so?’

‘Yes, sir. But I thought-’

‘Sometimes you think too much, Job. Now go and bring him to me.’

‘Very well, master.’

Babington turned over the draft letter and the encryption he was working on so that neither the words of the original nor the strange symbols of the secret code should be visible. A few moments later Job reappeared with a boy of about eleven years.

‘This is the boy. Are you sure you wish me to fetch ale?’

‘I am as certain of it as I am that you will have a birching by day’s end. Now go and do as you are told.’

As Job slunk away, Babington looked at the messenger boy. He was clean enough and bright-eyed. A small leather satchel was slung across his shoulder.

‘I am told you have a letter for me, boy.’

‘Are you Babington?’

‘I am indeed.’

‘What is your church-given name?’

‘Anthony. What is the meaning of such an impertinent question?’

‘I need to be sure you are the man I am looking for, which I now am – for I was told you dressed bravely and had a lordly manner. Here, take this.’ From his satchel he pulled out a sealed letter and handed it over. Babington received it with trembling hands. Was this truly the work of the blessed Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and rightful Queen of England? He kissed the paper, scarce daring to break the seal. So Gilbert Gifford had spoken true; he had hardly dared believe it.

‘I was told that I should wait if you required me to, Mr Babington.’

‘Yes, please, do wait. I will have a letter for you to take whence you came.’

‘Then I shall be pleased to have the ale.’

‘What is your name, boy?’

‘Call me whatever you like. Boy will do.’

Babington nodded and gestured to the boy to sit at the far end of the room to wait. He had two paragraphs more to transcribe. Not much, perhaps, but it was a painstaking business and would take him the best part of an hour. First, however, he must give himself the pleasure of opening the letter he had received.

Using his dagger, he slit open the seal, then unfolded the paper. It was encoded. He smoothed the paper down on the table and squinted at the symbols, comparing them with his cipher. The tiredness fell away as he worked and the sense appeared before his eyes. The very first words made his heart leap. ‘My very good friend . . .’ She called him friend ! He read the words quickly, then again, more slowly, savouring each one, and worked on. And at the end of the letter, the name he most desired to see: Marie R.

Once more he pressed the letter to his lips and kissed it.

‘Are you done yet, master? You must know that I will require recompense for my time.’

Babington looked across the room at the small boy. Impatience and boredom were evident in his sullen voice. No, he was far from done. But he had a new surge of energy to finish his own letter, one that he was certain would make Mary’s spirits soar and give her hope that her long confinement would soon be over.

Off Margate Head, Boltfoot was allowed half an hour’s respite from his labours for food. He stood on deck and stretched his aching back, smoking a pipe of tobacco and looking out across the choppy grey water to the coast of Kent. It was no more than half a mile away but it might as well have been ten thousand miles for all the use its proximity might be to him. He would never be able to swim such a distance.

‘Take a good long look at it, Mr Cooper, you’ll not see England again for a few months.’

Boltfoot grunted. He had lost hope some hours ago when they rounded the Nore, the sandbank that marked the end of the Thames and the beginning of the North Sea. Maywether was making things worse, seeming to take great pleasure in his discomfort, working him to exhaustion in the mending of kegs. And with the ship tacking into a freshening gale, it felt as though the voyage would take years not months. He knew all that any man needed to know about long voyages; three years before the mast under the command of Sir Francis Drake had taught him of the privations that inevitably lay ahead: hunger, thirst, foul ale and fouler food, beatings, sickness, scurvy, storms and deaths. Such had been the mariner’s lot since man first went to sea.

‘I’d make it worth your while to get me ashore, Mr Maywether.’

‘Would you now. Would you now.’ It wasn’t a question, more a statement of mockery.

‘How would ten pounds sound to you?’

‘And you got ten pounds, have you, Cooper? Show it to me.’

‘It’ll be there when I get back. I pledge it. You know me of old, Mr Maywether, I’m an honest man.’

‘Aye, that you are. But what do you think Herr Bootmann would have to say about it?’

‘Same for him. You got another two coopers in the fleet. That’ll do – and they could apprentice another.’

‘So that’s ten pounds for me and ten for Bootmann?’

‘Aye.’

‘Which means, if I’ve done my reckoning right, that you got twenty pounds – and you’re only offering me ten. And there was me thinking you an honest man.’

‘If you could get me to land without Herr Bootmann’s cooperation, then the twenty would all be yours.’

Godfrey Maywether laughed. ‘You’ll have to do a lot better than that, Mr Cooper.’

‘And does our time together under Drake mean nothing to you? We travelled the whole world together, you and me. We’re copesmates, you and me. Last time I saw you, I was planing staves and you were sewing sails.’

‘What’s past is past, Cooper. I’m the ship’s master now and you’re the dirty knave that does what you’re told or feels the lash of a whip. So get yourself back to your work – and you’ll do a double watch. One wrong move and I’ll have you striped at the mainmast for attempting to bribe an officer.’

Shakespeare scratched letters on a square scrap of paper: ‘If anyone requires a position as footman, apply to the household of Lady Cutler, Seething Lane’. Soaking in the afternoon sunshine, he rode at a brisk trot along the straight mile to St Paul’s, where he nailed the notice to the Si Quis door. Without waiting, he rode back to Leadenhall and the home of Thomas Phelippes.

The excitement of Walsingham’s codebreaker could not have been more evident. He and Gilbert Gifford were in the back garden drinking beer with Phelippes’s new bride, Mary. A table had been dragged out into the space; on it lay plates of delicacies, which kept being added to by a pair of maids.

‘Take a seat, Mr Shakespeare. Drink and eat your fill.’

‘I take it something has happened,’ Shakespeare said.

‘As I said it would, Mr Shakespeare. Mr Gifford and I have organised it all. We had no need of any help from the sly Robin Poley.’

‘I share your distaste, Mr Phelippes, but in truth Poley has helped keep Babington from fleeing in panic. We have much to thank him for.’

‘If you say so. But I say more fool you. For myself, I would rather trust an envenomed serpent than Robin Poley.’ He threw a glance at Gifford and grinned. ‘Shall we show him what we have?’

Shakespeare’s eyebrows shot up. The slimy and brilliantly devious Phelippes comparing another man to a serpent was indeed a curious turnaround, for no man was more reptilian than he.

‘Show him, Tom. I think it will be a wondrous surprise.’

‘Here then. All deciphered for you.’ He pulled out sheets of paper. ‘Mr Anthony Babington’s letter to the Queen of Scots, which arrived not two hours since.’

‘Then he has written it?’

‘Hence the beer and cakes, by way of celebration.’

‘Has Mr Secretary seen it yet?’

‘I have sent him word. He sent a message back that I should decode it first then bring it.’

‘Show me.’

Shakespeare took the deciphered letter. It was covered in blotches of ink and occasional crossings-out, but it was easy to read and understand. He grasped his beer and drank it halfway down in one draught. The letter was a lighted taper at the edge of a trail of black powder.

‘Is this all true?’

‘All true.’

‘Surely these are your words, Mr Gifford – you have merely counterfeited his writing.’

‘Not so. They are all Mr Babington’s own words – and encoded in his own fair hand. We have him, Mr Shakespeare. We have him as close-tied as a hog at the slaughter. And soon we shall have her.’

The letter began, Most mighty, most excellent, my dread sovereign Lady and Queen, unto whom I owe all fidelity and obedience. That alone would be enough to secure a death warrant for treason. But there was much more. The letter spoke of invasion plans, ports of entry, parties of rebels to welcome the invaders ashore, the deliverance of Mary from captivity and, most deadly of all, ‘the dispatch of the usurping competitor’.

Shakespeare read the words aghast. So vain, lazy Babington had poison in his heart after all. Walsingham had been right. He even spoke of sending ten gentlemen with a hundred followers to free Mary – and of having six ‘noble gentlemen, all my private friends’ prepared to kill Elizabeth.

And there was a postscript for Mary’s secretary, Gilbert Curl, begging information about Robin Poley.

Shakespeare handed the letter back to Phelippes. ‘God in holy heaven, sir. I think we had best take this to Mr Secretary without delay.’

‘Then you are impressed, Mr Shakespeare?’

‘I confess I had not seen such darkness in Babington.’

‘Then let us go now. You, Mr Gifford, will stay here until I return – and keep your pink little fingers away from my bride. All being well, you and I will be required to ride, separately, for Chartley this night.’

Shakespeare rose from the bench. How would the letter be received at Chartley, he wondered. Would Mary take the bait and reply in kind; or would she have the sense to simply throw Babington’s letter in the fire?