Prophecy

Chapter Eight

Palace of Whitehall, London

30th September, Year of Our Lord 1583, cont.

Lord Burghley’s face constricts in an expression of distress. I suspect it is mirrored on my own face, though I don’t yet know why. No one moves.

‘You’re quite sure? This is the man who gave you the message for Lady Abigail?’

Walsingham speaks sharply and the boy looks confused; his eyes flick wildly from me to Walsingham to Burghley and back, as if between us we are trying to trick him.

‘No! Not the message — that is to say — the message came from him, but it wa’n’t him who gave it to me.’

‘You are not making any sense, boy.’

‘He told me the message came from Master Bruno — the man who stopped me in the yard,’ the boy says, a note of panic rising in his voice. ‘I couldn’t rightly see him in the dark, but he had an English voice. This is Master Bruno,’ he adds, pointing again. ‘It wa’n’t his voice. He’s not English.’

‘We know that.’ For a moment Walsingham betrays his impatience, then he masters himself and his tone softens. ‘We need to understand what happened tonight. Jem, is it?’

The boy nods unhappily.

‘Good. Then, Jem — tell us again. A man you don’t know stopped you earlier in the yard by the kitchens and asked you to give a message to Abigail Morley from Master Bruno. Is that right?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you didn’t see this man clearly?’

‘No, sir. The candles hadn’t been lit yet and it was shadowy. And he had a big hat, pulled down over his face, and his collar all up like this, sir.’ He tugs at the neck of his dirty tunic to demonstrate. There is a pause. ‘He might’ve had a beard,’ the boy offers, hopefully.

Walsingham rolls his eyes.

‘He might have had a beard. Well, at least we can rule out the women and children.’

‘Not all the women,’ Leicester says, under his breath, from the window. I catch his eye and he smiles, briefly; despite the tension in the room, I return it. It is almost a relief. Burghley sends him a reproachful stare.

‘And what was the message, exactly?’ Walsingham continues.

‘To tell her — to say that Master Bruno wanted to meet her in secret at the kitchen dock before the concert. He said it was urgent. Then he gived me a shilling.’ The boy glances around again nervously, as if afraid he might be asked to give up the coin.

Walsingham frowns.

‘And you delivered this message straight away? To Her Majesty’s private apartments? How did you manage that?’

‘I took up some sweetmeats, sir. Then the guards can’t stop you — you just say the queen’s asked for ‘em, they don’t know otherwise. The girls — Her Majesty’s maids, I mean — they often get messages in and out by us kitchen boys.’ He bites his lip then, looking guilty. ‘I got as far as I could and got one of them to fetch Abigail.’

‘And how did she seem when you gave her the message?’

‘Frightened, sir,’ the boy says, without hesitation. ‘She said she’d come directly, and not to tell anyone else about it.’

‘And this was before the concert began? How long before?’

‘I couldn’t say, sir.’ The boy looks at his frayed shoes. ‘I don’t know how to read the time. Not long, though — there weren’t many people left in the kitchens, I know that. They gived us the night off because she had her supper early, on account of the music. Her Majesty, I mean. And there was already people arriving.’

Walsingham gives me a frank look.

‘I never sent any such message tonight,’ I say, trying not to sound defensive. ‘Will someone tell me what has happened?’

‘They’ve killed her,’ the boy blurts, glaring at me with accusing eyes. ‘And if it wa’n’t you, then it was the other feller, and if it wa’n’t him, then it was the Devil himself!’

I find, when I hear the words spoken aloud, that I had expected this, or something like it; the sense of foreboding that had taken root when I first noticed Abigail’s absence in the queen’s train had been steadily growing in my imagination, but the bluntness of the boy’s outcry still shocks me. So the killer has found his way to Abigail, I think, as my mind fumbles blindly to make sense of the boy’s story, and though the message was not my doing, the circumstance is indisputably my fault.

Leicester stirs unhurriedly from his place by the window, stretching out his long limbs as if this were his cue. He nods to Walsingham and then gestures towards the door with the slightest movement of his head. Walsingham holds up a forefinger, signalling for him to wait.

‘You’ve been very helpful, Jem,’ Walsingham says gently to the boy. ‘I have one more question. Do you think this man waited for you especially to take his message?’

‘Well — yes, sir.’ The boy blinks rapidly, as if he fears another trick. ‘Because of me taking the message before, see? I suppose he must have known, somehow.’

‘What message before?’ Walsingham’s voice is sharp as a blade again.

‘From Lady Abigail to him.’ He points at me. ‘In Fleet Street, sir. I had to wait half a day in the stables with them French boys threatening to knock me down.’ He bares his teeth, as if the memory of it still stings.

‘Thank you. I’d like you to go with the sarjeant now, Jem. We may have some more questions for you. If you can remember any more details about the man with the hat — anything about his voice, his face, his figure, anything at all that might help us — I would be very grateful.’

‘It’s my fault, i’n’t it?’ The boy looks suddenly to Burghley, who has a grandfatherly air that makes him less severe than the others. ‘If I hadn’t taken that message, she wouldn’t ‘a died, would she? I’m to blame — for a shilling!’ He bunches his fist against his mouth and looks as if he might cry. ‘She was always kind, the lady Abigail. Not like some.’

Burghley lays a hand on his shoulder.

‘It’s no one’s fault except the wicked man who killed her. And with your help we shall find him, so he can’t hurt anyone else.’

The boy gives me a last look over his shoulder as the guard leads him away.

When the door is firmly closed, the three members of the Privy Council turn their eyes sternly upon me.

‘Message, Bruno?’ Walsingham folds his arms across his chest.

As succinctly as I can, I outline my dealings with Abigail Morley, from the kitchen boy’s visit to our meeting at the Holbein Gate, when she gave me the bag of Cecily Ashe’s treasures and I first suspected we were being watched, to the discovery Dee and I had made about the perfume and my most recent guess at the significance of the gold ring — which I take from inside my doublet and hand to Walsingham. He turns it over between his fingers, nodding gently, as I continue my story. When I come to the end, they regard me for a moment in silence; I can almost read the separate workings of their minds in their faces.

‘They’ll have to release Edward Bellamy from the Tower.’ Burghley speaks first, squeezing his plump fingers together anxiously.

Walsingham turns on his heel and paces the width of the room, his hands flexing and uncurling. I have never seen him so rattled and working so hard to contain it. Eventually he stops and turns on me with an expression so fierce it startles me.

‘You did not think to pass any of this on to me, Bruno? You appoint yourself this girl’s sole confidant, regardless of the fact that you already suspect the killer has an eye on her? Why did you not come to me immediately?’

‘Your honour, I —‘ I spread my hands out in apology, feeling once again like a schoolboy. ‘I did not want to cause unnecessary panic until I was sure about the perfume bottle. The engraving on the ring I only worked out this evening.’

‘It is my responsibility to judge whether panic is necessary or not. Those objects should have been brought straight to me,’ Walsingham says again, his voice tight.

‘I thought that until I was certain, the fewer people knew of this, the better.’

‘Including me, evidently.’

‘Peace, Francis.’ Burghley extends a hand towards him. ‘The girl said nothing even to Lady Seaton and she would have been too intimidated to approach the Privy Council. She confided more readily in Bruno, and he was sensible to test his theory before coming to us.’ He turns to the rest of us. ‘This serves at least to prove that the killer is familiar with the court and its ways.’ He shakes his head, and his face seems paler. ‘No matter how many extra guards we place around Her Majesty, he knows how to slip right under their noses. Kitchen boys, indeed.’

‘What happened to her? Abigail?’ I hear my own voice falter and there comes a sudden memory of the warmth of Abigail’s breath on my cheek as she whispered the secrets I persuaded her to part with. She had thought I was the one person she could trust; someone knew that, and used the knowledge to kill her.

Walsingham glances at Burghley, then crosses to me and places the flat of his hand between my shoulder blades. ‘Come, Bruno. I want you to see this. We will need every last grain of intuition we possess between us. My lord of Leicester — you had better return to the hall and reassure Her Majesty. She saw the guard enter and she will be anxious enough already, but I think it best the recital is allowed to play out without interruption.’

Leicester gives a terse nod, his handsome face creased in a frown. He turns to me.

‘Your theory, Doctor Bruno, if I have understood correctly,’ he says, his eyes searching my face, ‘is that the first murdered girl, Cecily Ashe, was being set up by her lover as part of a plot to poison the queen, and that this plot is somehow connected to the Guise plans of invasion being cooked up at Salisbury Court?’

‘That is how I read it, my lord.’

‘So she was killed because those who were directing her feared she would betray them?’

‘I believe so.’

‘And Abigail Morley possibly knew enough to identify the lover, or so he thought, therefore he killed her as well?’

Again I nod.

‘Then we have all the suspects right here, within these walls,’ he says, looking around at the two statesmen. ‘Everyone we know is party to this plot of a French and Spanish attack is at court this evening for the concert. The guests were gathered at least three-quarters of an hour before the queen made her entrance — any of them could have had time to slip out unnoticed in the crowd. At this very moment, there could be a man in that hall who quite literally has blood on his hands.’

Walsingham looks uneasy; Burghley tuts.

‘What would you have me do, Robert — publicly arrest Henry Howard and the Earl of Arundel, not to mention the French and Spanish ambassadors, before the whole court on suspicion of murder, with barely a shred of evidence?’ Burghley shakes his head. ‘In any case, it is hardly to be supposed that any of them are committing murder with their own hands, even if there is a connection. They’ll have been safely mingling in the hall in full view of three hundred people while some accomplice dispatched that poor girl, you can be sure of it.’

‘It would be expedient if we could get the guests from the hall to their boats and horses without alerting them to any of this,’ Walsingham says, brisk now. ‘I will instruct the guards to move people swiftly along once the recital is finished.’

‘She will want to see Dee,’ Leicester says, looking at Walsingham with an expression I cannot read.

Walsingham closes his eyes for a moment, as if testing the weight of this further complication.

‘So she will.’

‘She has been greatly agitated since his visit yesterday, as we all know. And now, with this —‘ Leicester breaks off, gesturing vaguely towards the door. ‘Well, it seems more than coincidence. Though she will no doubt take it as prophecy.’

‘Good God. Dee’s vision. I had not thought of it until this moment.’ Burghley presses his hands together as if in prayer, his forefingers touching his lips. ‘I suggest John Dee be questioned immediately. And not necessarily by one of his friends,’ he adds with a warning glance at Leicester. In response to my quizzical look, he turns to Walsingham. ‘We should take Bruno now. Time runs at our heels.’

Walsingham nods.

‘Quite so. Even Master Byrd’s motets cannot go on all night.’

Along a series of corridors, past tapestries and torches flaming in wall brackets, he leads me at a trot, with Burghley following, carrying a light. At every corner the guards appear even more numerous than when I arrived, and there is a tension on their faces that adds to the atmosphere of dread that seems to have infected the palace. We pass into a part of the complex that is clearly the domain of servants and tradesmen, the people behind the scenes whose tireless work allows the glorious pageant of state to run smoothly. Here, too, guards are stationed; as they hear our footsteps their hands move immediately to their pikestaffs, but they step back, respectfully lowering their eyes when they see who it is striding so purposefully and stony-faced towards them.

I follow Walsingham across a dimly lit yard, where barrels are stacked in one corner and timber in another; two men are moving a pile of sacks into one of the outbuildings by the light of a small lantern. Still Walsingham has not said a word; I desperately want to ask him about Dee, but the Principal Secretary’s expression is so forbidding I hold my tongue. On the right-hand side of the yard runs a long, two-storey building of red brick with a series of tall chimneys. Here Walsingham slows his pace and pauses by a semi-circular grille built into the wall at ground level, rising to the height of a man’s waist. Through the iron bars that close it off from the yard, I hear the gentle lapping of water below.

‘The palace kitchens,’ Walsingham says, gesturing to the building, his voice low. Bending slightly, I see that this grille is the end of an arched tunnel that runs through the middle of the kitchen building, its other end opening on to the river itself. The daylight has almost seeped from the sky entirely, and the tunnel yields only blackness. This, I suppose, is the kitchen dock. At a respectful distance, a huddle of servants whispers urgently between themselves, keenly watching our arrival. From among them I hear the stifled sound of a woman’s sob. Another guard, leaning against the wall by a small door to the left of this grille, pulls himself quickly to attention as he sees Walsingham approach, then at a nod opens the door for us. Walsingham gestures for Burghley to come forward with the torch. The door opens on to a stone-flagged passageway in the kitchen building, where a faint smell of cooked meat and herbs lingers as if ingrained in the brick walls. Almost immediately there is another door on the right, which Walsingham opens slowly and then turns to me.

‘This is not pleasant, Bruno, particularly as you knew the girl. But I want to know what you make of this murder. I am sorry to ask this of you,’ he adds, in a gentler voice. I nod silently and he reaches out for the torch from Burghley.

We step into what looks like a storeroom, perhaps twelve feet across and twenty feet long, empty except for a stack of wooden crates against the wall and an unmoving figure laid out upon the stone floor, ghostly in a white dress. Walsingham moves forward and crouches beside the body, holding up the torch so that its wavering flames illuminate the pitiful end of Abigail Morley.

The bodice of her dress has been roughly torn down the middle and ripped apart to expose her torso. From her left breast a dagger protrudes, plunged into her flesh almost down to its handle. Straight into her heart, I think; I have a disturbing sensation that I have been here before, that I have already seen this image, as if I had lived through it once in the recent past. As I draw closer and kneel on the floor, I realise that the body and the flagstones around it are soaking wet, matted strands of her red hair spread around her head. Walsingham brings the torch nearer and motions silently for me to look again at her breast. On the right side, opposite the dagger, a mark has been crudely carved into her pale skin: an upright cross with a tail curving to the right, like a lower case ‘h’: the astrological symbol for Saturn. I breathe out carefully, trying to slow the hammering in my chest. In an awful moment of clarity, I understand why the Earl of Leicester spoke of Doctor Dee and something more than coincidence. I have not seen this image before, but I have heard it described, before the event. Abigail has been killed almost exactly according to Dee’s description of Ned Kelley’s latest vision in the stone.

Finally I force myself to look at Abigail’s face. Bleached and tinted orange in the torchlight, I am amazed at how serene she looks for someone who has so recently met a violent death. This in itself strikes me as odd; during my years on the road I saw the corpses of men stabbed with blades and there was no such placid expression, rather a twisting of the features, their death throes written into their final expression.

I gesture for Walsingham to hold the torch up to her face; he does so, both of us kneeling now in the water that has slopped around the body, pooling in the worn dips of the old stones. Abigail’s unseeing eyes are fixed on nothing, but the whites are bloodshot, the left one entirely red. There is bruising around the mouth and nose, but no marks on the neck as there were with Cecily Ashe.

‘She was in the water?’ I ask, my voice coming out as barely a whisper.

‘Tied by the hands to one of the mooring rings at the dock here. One of the kitchen girls found her when she noticed the door to this room had been left open. She says she saw the loading-bay doors open and then something white floating in the water, like a ghost.’ He grimaces.

‘She was meant to be found, then. But from her face she didn’t drown,’ I say, almost to myself. ‘I think she was smothered, then stabbed very precisely after she stopped moving. He must have been waiting and taken her by surprise when she appeared —‘ I break off. When she appeared expecting to meet me.

Walsingham rises stiffly to his feet.

‘He came in here, I think.’ He holds up the torch and I see that on the opposite wall from the door where we entered is a wide set of double doors with a heavy bolt across them. Walsingham beckons to me, then hands me the torch and draws back the bolt, opening the right half of the doors, which swings inwards. I see that they open directly into the arched tunnel running under the building, with two wide stone steps leading to the water. The tunnel is the width of a small barge and its arched roof perhaps ten feet high, clearly built to allow boats carrying supplies to be brought directly from the river to the palace kitchens where they can be unloaded into this room. As the end of the tunnel is blocked by the metal grille, it would be impossible to gain access to the palace except through these double doors.

‘This door was open when she was found,’ Walsingham says. ‘So I surmise he came in by boat, the same way he escaped, and she must have opened the door for him herself.’ He rests a hand on the door frame and peers out over the black water softly slapping against the steps in the little channel. ‘She was floating here, right by the dock.’ He points to the water just beneath the step. ‘You’re right — this was meant as another display. If he had not tied the body up she might have sunk or drifted out of the tunnel into the river — he intended for her to be found quickly. Perhaps even while the concert was in progress.’

‘Again the mark of the prophecy — Saturn this time. He wants to leave no doubt that these deaths are connected. And this dagger —‘ I pause again, looking up at Walsingham as another memory surfaces. ‘The doll! Cecily Ashe was found holding a doll with red wool for hair that we assumed was intended as an image of Queen Elizabeth. It was pierced in the heart with a needle.’

‘I remember it well.’ He rubs the back of his hand across his chin. ‘Made like a witch’s poppet. Her Majesty was deeply disturbed by it. And now he has taken to using human dolls. But the intent remains the same, do you not think — to mimic the death of the queen?’

‘As heralded by the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn,’ I muse.

‘I recall Her Majesty pointing out this girl to me once when her ladies were gathered in the Presence Chamber,’ Burghley offers from the doorway. ‘She asked me if I did not think the girl the very likeness of herself in her youth. The comparison amused her. And indeed, when you looked closely, it seemed there was a distinct resemblance, though it was just the red hair, I suppose. Poor child.’

‘And yet …’ I shake my head as I shift my position by the body; my knees are growing numb from the wet stone. As I continue to stare at Abigail’s marble face, I realise that my attention has grown analytical, my reasoning mind has taken over from the emotion I felt at her death a moment earlier. ‘Something is not right here.’

‘You certainly have a gift for understatement, Doctor Bruno,’ Burghley says drily.

‘I mean to say — my theory must be wrong. Now that I look closely, the facts do not support it.’

Walsingham gives an unexpected bark of mirthless laughter. ‘It is a rare man who can admit that, Bruno. Most of my acquaintance strain always to bend the facts to their theories. Explain yourself.’

‘It doesn’t make sense. I had believed that Cecily Ashe was killed because she had been part of a conspiracy to murder the queen and she had perhaps changed her mind, or somehow become a threat to that plot and the other people involved. And now Abigail, who was suspected of knowing her friend’s secrets, and who may well have been seen talking to me, is also dead. But then, why, in both cases, leave the bodies where they will be found, within the court, and displayed so as to point explicitly to the queen’s death at the hands of Catholic assassins? If the very purpose of killing these girls was to silence them, to protect the conspirators …’

‘Perhaps the purpose was to punish them publicly,’ Walsingham says sagely. ‘If the killer knew or suspected it was too late to keep them silent, he may have chosen to make an example of them instead, for their betrayal.’

‘And jeopardise his own plot in doing so?’

‘Perhaps there is more than one plot,’ Burghley suggests.

‘God’s blood, William, there are a hundred plots, perhaps a thousand!’ Walsingham exclaims, pressing the palm of his hand to his forehead and beginning to pace again in the confined space between the open loading bay and Abigail’s body. ‘Most of them at the level of that sorry fellow picked up on the road from York, waving his pistols and ranting. But when we have a bottle of poison almost in the queen’s own bedchamber, brought there by a girl who owns a ring bearing the impresa of Mary Stuart, and Howards lurking about the French embassy talking of an invasion force, I think we may safely assume we are dealing with one extremely serious conspiracy to regicide and war.’

‘Then I ask again — why call attention to a plot to kill the queen if these deaths are to safeguard one?’

‘I don’t know, Bruno — to sow fear and confusion? To lead us in one direction while they attack from another? In any case, I thought you had made it your business to solve this without anyone’s help.’ The quiet anger in his voice is unmistakable. He makes a gesture of exasperation with both hands, waving the flaming torch alarmingly; its guttering light briefly illuminates a glint of something at Abigail’s neck. I reach forward to touch it and instinctively my outstretched fingers shrink from the chill of her skin; again I recall how close she stood to me under the Holbein Gate, the warmth and solidity of her flesh that time I clutched at her arm when we first spoke in the queen’s privy apartments at Richmond. All that eager life, pinched out as easily as a candle. I set my face firm and reach out a second time, willing myself not to recoil; from her cold flesh my fingers hook out a sturdy gold chain fastened at her throat. Its pendant has slipped round behind her head and become tangled in her hair; impatiently I fumble to free it, a few strands of red-gold hair coming away in my hand with the chain. Attached to it is a lozenge-shaped locket, also carved in gold.

‘Look at this.’ I hold it out to Walsingham, as if to make amends.

He turns it over in his fingers, looking at me expectantly.

‘I never saw her wear this before,’ I add.

‘She may have saved her best jewels for court occasions. You open it.’ Walsingham holds the light steady; even Burghley draws closer to see. The catch is delicate and my fingers clumsy; Burghley starts to hop from foot to foot, puffing through pursed lips.

‘We should not stay too much longer — the concert will be almost over.’

Walsingham ignores him and bends closer, so that the heat from the torch almost scorches my face. I work my fingernails into the clasp and at last it springs open. The right half of the locket reveals an enamelled painting, seemingly undamaged by its recent immersion. It shows a red phoenix, its head turned to the left and its wings outstretched, in a nest of flames. Inside the left half, two initials are finely engraved, a capital M entwined with a snaking S. I pass it to Walsingham; even with the play of shadows on his face, I see him blanch.

‘What is it, Francis?’ There is a new note of anxiety in Burghley’s voice.

Walsingham clenches the locket in his fist.

‘Mary Stuart. Always Mary Stuart. So this girl was also part of the plot. By Christ, have they recruited the whole of the queen’s household?’

‘The locket was not Abigail’s,’ I say, hearing my knees click as I finally stand, shaking out the stiffness in my legs.

‘How do you know?’

I tell them about Abigail’s oddly furtive manner at the Holbein Gate. ‘She mentioned a locket when she first told me about Cecily’s secret suitor and his gifts, but there was no locket in the bag of love-tokens she passed to me. My guess is that she decided at the last moment to keep it for herself. That’s why she seemed guilty.’

Walsingham considers this for a moment.

‘Perhaps she was foolish enough to wear it about court before today,’ he says. ‘If our killer — or at least, the one who hires the killer — is indeed a courtier, he may have seen it around her neck and recognised it as the locket he gave to Cecily.’

‘In any case, my lord Burghley is right,’ I say, glancing at the Lord Treasurer. ‘There is more than one man behind these murders. Whoever stopped the boy Jem in the yard could not have got back out to the river and rowed up the kitchen channel in time to meet Abigail. I’d bet he delivered the false message from me, then walked calmly back to the hall while someone else waited out on the river with a boat. And I’d wager anything that at the moment she was killed, the man in the shadows was applauding the choir in full view of the queen and the whole court.’

Walsingham sighs as he pulls the door of the loading bay shut and secures it with the bolt. The smell of the river recedes a little.

‘I need proof, Bruno. Suspicions are no good when they touch people as powerful as those we have in mind here. A ring, a locket — Her Majesty will not move against her cousin for such trinkets, and in any case, Mary Stuart will only say they were stolen by those who wish her harm. It seems certain that whoever is directing these murders is a familiar face at court. And he is clever. He may still be plotting to attack the queen by another means. Who was Cecily Ashe’s lover?’ He grips my shoulder and gives it a little shake, his face close to mine.

Burghley coughs discreetly.

‘I think we really must return. The concert will be almost over, and the French ambassador’s party will be wondering at Doctor Bruno’s absence. Francis — you return with Bruno to the hall. I will endeavour to see that those servants and guards who know of this terrible business are kept at a distance until the guests have all departed. Let the rumourmongers wait until tomorrow, at least, before their tongues run riot.’ He sucks in his cheeks, and motions for us to leave first.

Walsingham and I pass through the kitchen yard, now almost entirely blanketed in darkness, and back to the passageway by which we had come.

‘He is following you, Bruno, this killer,’ he says in a low voice, over his shoulder. ‘He knew that kitchen boy had been to Salisbury Court.’

‘Unless he was at Salisbury Court already.’

‘That nest of vipers. That is where the proof is to be found, I have no doubt of it. Keep your eyes sharp as a falcon’s, Bruno — only you can lay your hands on the evidence that will condemn one or all of them for treachery. But be careful. He must know you are hunting him. And if you come across anything else — however trivial it may seem — bring it straight to me, by any means you can. Understood?’

‘Yes, your honour.’ I lower my head, chastened.

He stops walking, turning to face me so abruptly that I bump into him. ‘There is something else I must ask you, Bruno.’ He glances around and lowers his voice yet further. ‘Have you ever heard John Dee speak of visions? Glimpses of the future granted him by angels, that sort of thing?’

I hesitate, possible answers caught in my throat. Against my advice, Dee must have recounted Kelley’s vision of the red-haired woman in the white dress to the queen when she summoned him the previous evening. The old fool, I think; too proud, too eager to impress. I would bet, too, that he did not mention Ned Kelley, but took credit for the vision himself; he would have wanted the queen to believe he alone had the gift of speaking with angels, though he would have presented the image as some kind of metaphor, no doubt, a sign that the heavenly guardians had care of her royal person. And now, only one day later, the vision is fulfilled horribly, almost to the letter. Did Dee not say Kelley described the red-haired woman being swept away by a great torrent, and Abigail’s body found floating in the water? This must have been what Leicester meant when he spoke of more than coincidence. In a flash of understanding, I see that he is right: Ned Kelley knew. There can be no other explanation: he described the murder of Abigail Morley before it happened, and it was no angel or demon who imparted the knowledge. No wonder the cunning-man has run away.

‘Bruno?’ Walsingham bends closer to look into my face, a warning in his eyes.

‘He has mentioned something of the kind,’ I mutter, not wanting to seem that I am withholding more secrets from him. ‘He has a showing-stone which he believes to yield images, if the circumstances are apt.’

‘Speak plainly — you mean he is conducting seances to contact spirits. It’s all right, Bruno — you are not betraying him. You and I are of the same mind — we both want to protect Dee. But he has invited a deal of trouble for himself.’ He sighs and checks again to make sure we are not overheard. ‘Yesterday evening, Doctor Dee shared with the queen a vision he had lately seen, of a red-haired woman with the mark of Saturn on her naked breast, pierced through the heart and carried away by a great river. He told her it was a vision of the desires of her enemies, vouchsafed by her guardian angels so that she might be on her guard. Or some such nonsense. This morning Her Majesty saw fit to relate that vision to the Privy Council. She did so out of mischief, I believe, to irk Henry Howard. She has always made it her business to mock publicly all threats of danger to her person, whether based on real intelligence or fantasies like this one of Dee’s, to show the world that she is unafraid. She could not have known — well, you see the difficulty, Bruno.’

I nod. I see it very well. John Dee unknowingly predicted the murder of Abigail Morley and the queen’s most senior advisers know it; the obvious conclusion will be that this foreknowledge in some way implicates him. Why could he not have listened to my advice?

‘He told me as well,’ I whisper, leaning closer. ‘But he did not tell you the whole truth. The vision was not his, though he would have wanted the queen to believe that he has that gift. He keeps a scryer in his house.’

I tell him, as briefly as I can, about Ned Kelley, his clipped ears, his portentous visions of spirits in the crystal, the way he has insinuated himself into Dee’s household, his disappearance after prophesying something very like the death of Abigail Morley. When I have finished my account, Walsingham presses his lips together and shakes his head.

‘Poor Dee,’ he says, eventually, with a note of compassion. ‘So passionately seeking after the unknown, he misses what is right under his nose. He had ever the fault of trusting those who should not be trusted.’

‘If it were not for the detail of the water, I would have said Kelley got his prophecy from some penny gossip sheet,’ I say. ‘But he told Dee he saw the woman swept away by a torrent of water, and then Abigail’s body was found in the channel by the dock. A needless delay on the killer’s part, to tie her to the mooring-ring, unless there was something symbolic about it.’

‘We must find this fellow Kelley, by whatever means. He will tell us where he gets his foreknowledge, willingly or otherwise. It is not from any spirit in a stone, that much is certain.’

‘Your honour does not believe that the world contains more than our eyes alone reveal?’ I ask, with a half smile. His face remains grave.

‘Not in the sense that Dee or the queen believe it, nor even you, Bruno. I have seen enough of life to believe that God gave us reason to use it, and that evil is conceived solely in the hearts of men. But this Kelley must be questioned. I will send forces to smoke him out.’

I shake my head.

‘He will go to ground if you pursue him with force. It must be done subtly — he will only give up his secrets by coaxing or trickery. Let me try with him. He dislikes me, but he might at least be persuaded that I am on his side.’

Walsingham nods, and lays a hand on my shoulder.

‘Very well, Bruno. But find him quickly. Burghley will have sent for Dee tonight. The Privy Council will have to question him, and it will not look good for him once the details of this murder are known.’

We proceed along the painted corridors until the strains of the music can be heard once more, the fluting voices seeming more ethereal than ever by contrast with the scene we have just witnessed. As we turn a corner, a young man in the livery of the Palace Guard comes hurtling towards us with urgent steps, shouldering his way past me and mumbling an apology without looking back; as I recover my balance, the stumble causes a memory to jolt back.

‘Philip Howard!’ I whisper, stopping short.

‘What?’ Walsingham turns, his eyes narrowed.

‘Philip Howard was at the Holbein Gate the day I met Abigail.’ I lower my voice until it is barely audible. ‘He and his friend pushed past us, but he might well have been watching before that. He fits the description of Cecily Ashe’s lover too — he’s handsome and titled, just the sort of man a young girl couldn’t resist showing off to her friends about. And he has a connection to Mary Stuart through his uncle and the embassy.’

Walsingham presses his lips together.

‘The Earl of Arundel is another one we cannot possibly accuse without iron proof. I will have him watched. Now, Bruno, you must return to your party. The ambassador will be curious about your absence. I leave you to find something plausible to tell him.’ He pats me on the shoulder once, then directs me to a side door back to the hall, where two guards with pikestaffs now keep silent watch.

I slip in as quietly as I can through the back of the crowd, most of whom have their attention politely fixed in the direction of the choir, and find myself on the opposite side of the hall from which I left. A few heads turn at the sound of the door, but their curious glances last only a moment. On the dais, I notice that the chair to the right of the queen’s, where one of her ladies had been seated, is now occupied by Leicester, who leans in towards her, his expression solicitous. Elizabeth’s own face, beneath its mask of ceruse and rouge, is impossible to read, but her eyes do not flicker from the singers; in her unwavering attention, she seems to set an example to her subjects. Through the heads of the audience, I catch a glimpse of the vigorously waving arms of Master Byrd. Only now, as I fold my arms across my chest and stare hard at the floor, breathing deeply, do I realise how I am shaking.

‘Doctor Bruno. You look as if you have seen a ghost.’

The clipped voice at my shoulder, instantly recognisable; I turn to see Lord Henry Howard standing at a distance from his party and regarding me with interest. I drag my hand across my face as if this will pull my expression into some semblance of normality, and attempt a cordial acknowledgement. Howard has had his beard trimmed for the occasion; it makes his looks spikier than ever. His black hair is neatly combed back, and in his hands he holds a velvet hat trimmed with garnets and an iridescent peacock feather.

‘Or perhaps I should say a spirit?’ he adds, with the same feigned politeness, turning the hat slowly between his fingers.

I am still in shock, and though I can barely feel my legs, it occurs to me that the knees of my underhose are wet from kneeling beside the body. It is unlikely that Howard will look closely enough to notice, but it does not help me to feel any more at ease in his presence. In fact, I am so conscious of my soaking knees that it takes me a moment to register what he has said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘You are spending a great deal of time in Mortlake, I understand, in the library of our friend Doctor Dee?’ he goes on. ‘So the ambassador mentioned.’

‘I sometimes use his library for research,’ I say slowly, hardly able to bend my mind to caution at this time. Howard arches one of his elegantly pointed eyebrows and gives me a long look, as if to tell me not to be disingenuous.

‘So he’s conjuring spirits now, is he?’

‘I don’t know where your lordship has that idea,’ I say, but I hear the waver in my own voice; all I want is for him to stop this needling and leave me in peace so that I might gather my thoughts before I rejoin Castelnau.

‘He has been sharing his prophetic visions with Her Majesty,’ Howard says, his eyes roving over the heads of the crowd to where the queen sits on her dais with Leicester. ‘For her part, she chooses to ridicule them by sharing them with the Privy Council. You may imagine how we all laughed.’ He turns abruptly to look at me. ‘But of course, if Dee is attempting to speak with spirits, he could be arrested for witchcraft. I doubt she could save him then.’

‘My lord, I know nothing of this.’

‘You are close to Dee, are you not?’

‘I respect him as a scholar. But I must say, John Dee strikes me as too sensible a man to attempt anything of that kind.’

‘What, summoning devils, you mean? In a showing-stone? Or animating statues?’

At these words, I cannot quite keep my face from reacting; immediately, his eyes light up, knowing he has scored a hit. I take a deep breath. Either Henry Howard has decided to extend his hatred of Dee to all Dee’s known associates, or he has been given reason to believe that Dee and I might be intimate enough for the old magus to have divulged the secret of Howard’s own quest for the Hermes book. And if that is the case, what has happened to give him such an idea? Has Castelnau really mentioned my trips to Mortlake, or is it possible that Howard has been following me? Though he too was hearing Mass at Salisbury Court when I returned from Mortlake yesterday, he could easily have set some servant to watch my movements. I meet his mocking gaze briefly, but I am too badly disconcerted by the evening’s events to stare him down with my usual bravado. Animating statues is an overt reference to the Hermetic magic, and he expects me to rise to it. I decide my best course is to feign ignorance and say nothing.

‘You had better take care, Bruno,’ he says, eventually, when it becomes clear that I am not going to respond. ‘The reputation you enjoyed in Paris as a black magician already begins to spread in whispers through the English court.’ He gestures at the people around us.

‘I wonder how that could have come about,’ I say, with flat sarcasm.

‘Oh, rumour travels with winged sandals, like Mercury, does it not?’ He smiles like a cat. ‘Stand too close to John Dee and you may find he drags you down with him. There is enough fear and mistrust of stargazers and magicians at court for that. The people clamour to be told the future, then they turn like a pack of dogs on the one who shows them. Even monarchs.’

‘Is that a warning, my lord?’

‘Let us call it a piece of advice.’

‘If I should encounter any stargazers or magicians, I will pass it on.’

He is about to reply, but at this moment the voices of the choir fade to their valedictory note and the assembled crowd erupts into enthusiastic applause. The queen gestures for William Byrd to step up to the dais, where, on bended knee, he is permitted to kiss her extended hand before standing to face the court and take a bow. Amid the continued applause, he leads his choir in procession back through the throng as the high double doors are flung open for their departure.

When the choir has departed, Queen Elizabeth rises to her feet and the court drops as one to its knee, until she holds up a hand and motions for us to stand again. The musicians resume their places and take up a gentle background tune as the queen, assuming a gracious smile, as far as her tight face-paint will allow, arranges her train and beckons her maids to take it up, before stepping down with dignity from the dais; it is apparently her custom after such occasions to take some time to mingle with her subjects, allow them to bow and flatter and even, if they dare, petition her. At this cue, eager courtiers press forward, jostling one another for the chance to exchange a few words with their sovereign. Fortunes have been won and lost on the strength of such brief conversations, if the queen is in a mood to be pleased by a well-turned compliment or an appealing face; it is an opportunity not to be missed, and these Englishmen know it. I watch with growing admiration the way she moves among them; if Leicester has told her that another murder has been committed within the walls of her palace this evening, she gives no sign of it, and her resolve seems designed to ensure that the courtiers and guests gathered in the hall should have no inkling of it either. I notice that Leicester keeps close behind her, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword.

Mendoza appears at Howard’s side, lays a hand on his shoulder and casts a dismissive glance at me.

‘Ah, el hereje,’ he remarks, with a nod, as if it pleases him to have invented a nickname for me. He speaks in Spanish, in a low voice muffled further by his copious beard. ‘Look there, where your ambassador struggles so anxiously for an audience with the English queen.’

I follow the movement of his head to see Castelnau, pushing as politely as he can towards Elizabeth, his expression almost pathetically hopeful as he attempts to catch her eye.

‘He would tread on his own child’s head just for one of her smiles,’ Mendoza sneers. ‘He still thinks he will broker a treaty between France and England, does he not?’ He fixes his small, black eyes on me.

‘I am not the person to ask, senor.’

‘Don’t give me that, Bruno! You were a confidant of the king of France and it pleases the ambassador to involve you in affairs of state, though God only knows why. Tell me — has Castelnau told the French king that Guise is amassing troops against England?’

‘That I do not know.’ I have grown so used to deception that even when I am able to answer a question honestly, I sound implausible. ‘But I think it unlikely.’

‘Why do you say that?’

I hesitate.

‘For the sake of his wife. And because for the moment he would not want to give King Henri more reason to fear the Duke of Guise.’

‘And because he still thinks he can engineer a satisfactory outcome between all parties, no? He imagines he is controlling this enterprise — balancing one set of interests against another?’

‘Perhaps.’ I recall what Fowler had said about Castelnau trying to please too many people.

‘It is touching, his faith in diplomacy.’ Mendoza shakes his head. ‘I shall almost be sorry to see him disillusioned. But you are an astute man, Bruno. Astute enough not to yoke yourself to a monarch whose days are numbered.’

‘Do you mean Elizabeth or Henri?’

‘Either. Both. A new day is dawning. Men like you and Castelnau will need to decide where you stand. If you have any influence over him, you would counsel him well not to let his king hear what is discussed in the embassy. Entendido?’

He draws himself up to his full imposing height and puffs out his chest, his beard bristling. He does not intimidate me, but I am in no state at present to argue with him. I merely nod my agreement and take the opportunity to slip away backwards into the milling crowd.

‘Bruno.’

I turn in the direction of the murmur, and there, leaning against the wall between the hanging tapestries, is William Fowler, dressed in a neat suit of grey wool, with a matching cap clutched between his hands.

‘What did Howard want?’

‘To remind me again how much he hates me,’ I say, glancing over my shoulder at Howard as he and Mendoza confer, their dark heads together, while the courtiers around them press towards the queen. My head is spinning; I am not sure what to make of my brief exchange with Henry Howard. He must fear that Dee has told me something I could use against him and was warning me that he has the power to bring me and Dee down together, but I cannot escape the implication that he has been watching me closely. The thought makes the hairs on the back of my neck prickle; was it Howard, then, or someone working for him, who saw me with Abigail at the Holbein Gate? Instinctively I glance over my shoulder again; for the first time since this business began, I feel a chill of real fear.

‘But has something happened?’ Fowler whispers, edging closer around the back of a couple of spectators. ‘I saw you come in looking white as a corpse. I wondered if perhaps —‘

I give a tight shake of the head, to indicate that I cannot speak of it there.

‘The queen’s advisors were coming and going half the concert too,’ Fowler persists. ‘I noticed Walsingham leave.’ There is a note of anxiety in his voice, which I recognise because I have felt it myself; it is the fear of missing some important moment, of being left out. This time it is I who know more than him, I who am in Walsingham’s confidence, and despite the circumstances, this pleases me.

‘Bruno, are you all right?’ he persists. ‘You look terrible. Does it have something to do with Howard?’

‘Meet me tomorrow,’ I hiss, through my teeth. ‘Two o’clock. Not the Mermaid — some other place.’

He thinks for a moment, then sidles even closer.

‘The Mitre, Creed Lane. The back room.’ He slips past me as he says this and melts into the crowd in that way of his, like a grey cat into the shadows.

I work my way between shoulders towards Castelnau’s party. The ambassador is still fighting for a position near the queen; Marie and Courcelles are huddled together, whispering. Courcelles is the first to notice me, with a wrinkle of his delicate nose.

‘Where have you been?’ he demands.

I gesture with my head towards the royal party, as if nothing is amiss.

‘Queen Elizabeth herself?’ Marie says, apparently impressed, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders with a little shiver. The wind is up over the river, carrying the first scent of frost. The boat’s lanterns sway in time with the soft ripple of the sculls in and out of the water. I think of Abigail’s killer rowing away downriver, leaving her lifeless body floating in the kitchen channel, her red hair spread out around her, waving like water weed.

‘Did you hear that, Michel?’ Marie nudges her husband and nods back to me, her eyes gleaming in the lamplight. ‘The Queen of England wants to learn Bruno’s memory system, and it was I who asked first. How very fashionable you have become, Bruno!’

Courcelles eyes me coldly.

‘But the queen did not know you would be attending the concert. It seems strange that her people should have been awaiting you with such alacrity.’

‘She has heard of me through Sir Philip Sidney,’ I say, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘He knows something of my work and has apparently mentioned it to Her Majesty.’

He continues to regard me with that same sceptical expression. I am conscious that to insist too much on my story will only compound his suspicions. I care little what Courcelles thinks for himself, but I cannot have him dripping doubt into Castelnau’s ear, now that my place at Salisbury Court has become so essential to Walsingham.

‘Did you have the sense that something was going on tonight, though?’ Courcelles persists, addressing his question to the whole group. ‘All those guards. And the queen’s advisors running in and out. The Earl of Leicester whispering in her ear. It was odd — as if something was amiss but they were trying to pretend all was as normal.’

Castelnau looks perturbed. ‘I noticed nothing amiss.’

‘Nor I,’ I say, hastily.

‘You were not there,’ Courcelles points out.

‘It is a shame they made you miss the whole concert, though,’ Castelnau says thoughtfully, in a manner that suggests he is not wholly persuaded by my story. ‘I have not heard its like. They must have had a great many questions to ask you, eh?’

‘The queen is enthusiastic about my art of memory, it seems, but her advisers had heard some unfortunate rumours regarding my methods.’

‘That it’s black magic by any other name?’ Courcelles says, one eyebrow arched. ‘All of Europe has heard those rumours.’

‘Something of the sort.’ I shoot him a withering smile, but it is lost in the dark. ‘In any case, they wanted to put their minds at ease that I was not a danger to the royal person or to the reputation of her court.’

‘It is a marvellous opportunity,’ Castelnau says thoughtfully. ‘They do seem to like you, these English. I suppose it is your reputation as a rebel against the pope.’ His eyes drift to the middle distance and I wonder if he is still questioning my excuse, or calculating how my favour at court might work to bolster his own standing with the queen.

‘Perhaps, my lord.’ I begin to fear that I may eventually trip myself up with my cat’s cradle of lies.

‘Well, the queen will have to wait her turn,’ says Marie, leaning forward with a disarming smile. ‘I requested that you tutor me before she did, and I stake a prior claim.’ She lays a hand on my arm. ‘We shall begin tomorrow morning, while Katherine is with her tutor. No — I shall hear no excuses, Bruno.’ She turns to her husband, her eyes eager, her hand in its green silk glove still resting lightly just above my wrist. ‘Won’t that be something for this tedious English court to talk about, Michel — that the wife of King Henri’s envoy shares a teacher with the Queen of England!’

‘I thought you disapproved of the Queen of England?’ Castelnau says mildly.

‘I thought you disapproved of Bruno,’ Courcelles adds, with a pointed look.

I return his glance with equanimity, but his words offer a useful warning. I do not know Marie de Castelnau. I do not know her intentions with regard to me, nor the root of her interest in my work; I know only that she is fiercely committed to the Catholic cause of Mary Stuart and the Duke of Guise. For so many reasons, I must not let her catch me off-guard even for a moment. I hope briefly that the ambassador might forbid it, on grounds of propriety.

Castelnau appears to be thinking, then allows the beam of his patriarchal smile to sweep slowly across me and his wife. ‘If it would interest you to learn, my dear, I’m sure Bruno would see it as a service. Heaven knows we could all do with a better memory.’

This appears to be the last word on the matter. Marie gives my wrist a little squeeze before settling back among the cushions, lamplight playing over the satisfied curve of her mouth as the oars continue to splash their steady rhythm through the black river. From under the fine curtain of his hair, Courcelles continues to study me with his fox eyes, just waiting for one false move. I watch the water part over the blades in silver rivulets and picture again the marble-cold face of Abigail Morley, who died tonight partly because of me.