Prophecy - Страница 33

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?’