Prophecy - Страница 50

‘It’s preposterous,’ he blurts, half rising out of his seat so that the boat pitches alarmingly to one side while we scull past the gardens of the Inner Temple, a drift of leaves blowing down over the wall to rest on the water’s surface as the wind curls along the river and shakes the branches of the overhanging trees. Marie, beside him, lays a restraining hand on his arm. I took the precaution of allowing him to step into the boat after her, knowing he would take the seat at her side; I will have enough to tax my concentration this evening without fending off Marie’s sly touches, her feet searching for mine under the table. Tonight, I intend to stay as far away from her as possible.

Courcelles swats her hand away impatiently. ‘Well, it is! If my lord ambassador is taken ill, I should rightly attend in his place.’

‘You are attending,’ I say, casting my eyes across to the south bank. ‘What is the problem?’

‘The problem, Bruno —‘ Courcelles is obliged to pause as the wind blows his fine hair into his mouth. When he has extricated it, he perches on the edge of his seat and jabs a finger at me. ‘The problem is that I am his personal secretary. I know his business better than anyone at the embassy. I should be the one to represent his views to the party this evening. What are you, exactly?’

I deduce from his palpable indignation that Castelnau has taken him aside before we left and made clear that he is sending me to this parley in his stead. No wonder Courcelles feels usurped. I raise an eyebrow.

‘No doubt you are about to remind me.’

‘I will tell you,’ he continues, the pointing finger trembling with pent fury. ‘You are a fugitive, living at my lord ambassador’s expense because our weak sovereign has some misplaced affection for you, based on your shared disregard for the Holy Church! Not even a Frenchman!’ he adds, shaking his head as if this single offence were beyond contemplation.

‘Enough, Claude,’ Marie says, in a bored voice.

‘Why?’ Courcelles is too riled to back down. ‘Is he going to write to King Henri and report my words?’

‘Who knows who Bruno writes to, in his secret little room,’ she says, batting her lashes at me with an insouciant smile.

‘My lord ambassador asked me to voice one or two things on his behalf, that is all,’ I say, turning back to the far shore as if I were unconcerned either way. ‘I’m sure he would not object, Courcelles, if you were to offer your opinions as well.’

‘What does it matter, Claude?’ Marie pulls her velvet cloak tighter around her shoulders. ‘Everyone will have a chance to speak, I’m sure.’

‘It is a question of protocol,’ Courcelles exclaims, his voice rising to a squeak. ‘If the ambassador is indisposed, I am his next in command, and I should be officially dispatched to represent the interests of France in my lord ambassador’s place. Not this — impostor.’

‘It’s a supper party, Claude,’ she says, as if to a sulking child. ‘Not a council of war.’

‘Isn’t it?’ He rounds on her; immediately she slaps his arm, nods to the boatman, makes a frantic silencing motion with her lips. The boatman appears not to have heard, but you can never be too careful, is what Marie’s gesture implies. You never know who might be an informer. I focus on the water eddying under the oars. Castelnau may think I am there as his eyes and voice, but I have a bigger plan. In my mind, everything converges on Arundel House and the Howard family: the invasion plot, the murders of Cecily Ashe and Abigail Morley, Ned Kelley, Mary Stuart and — here I hardly dare to hope — the lost book of Hermes Trismegistus, the book stolen with violence from John Dee fourteen years ago. This unexpected chance to penetrate the Howards’ domain must not be wasted; I must contrive a means of uncovering the secrets I am now convinced lie hidden somewhere behind the wall of mellow brick that looms up on our right as the boatman steers us in towards a narrow landing stage with a set of steps leading up to an archway and an iron gate. I have a plan half-formed at the back of my mind; to work smoothly, it will require a generous handful of good fortune, the candle and tinderbox concealed in my pocket and some impeccable play-acting on my part.

A servant in Arundel livery attends us at the top of the water stairs, his head bowed as he holds open the gate. I stand back, allowing Courcelles his moment of gallantry in handing Marie out of the boat. She climbs two steps, hitching her skirts up away from the slime that covers the stones at low tide where the river licks them, then turns to me as if she has remembered something.

‘Your friend the clerk, Bruno — what was his name again?’

‘Dumas,’ I say, though I am sure she knows this. ‘What of him?’

‘It appears he has run away. My husband sent him on an errand this morning and he has not returned. I wondered if you knew where he might have absconded?’

‘I have seen nothing of Dumas —‘ since this morning, I am about to add, but check myself in front of Courcelles, who regards me as always with his chin tilted slightly upwards, as if he is trying to avoid a bad smell ‘— today,’ I finish.

It is true, and has been a source of growing concern; several times this afternoon I have been to Dumas’s little room under the eaves, only to find it locked. I have found excuses to disturb Castelnau in his office at intervals too, to find Dumas’s desk still empty, until I was afraid my intrusions would look suspicious. By late afternoon, even the ambassador had grown troubled by his clerk’s absence and talked about sending servants out to look for him; he feared Dumas might have fallen victim to some anti-foreign assault, as I am supposed to have done, but my anxiety is more particular. He had been in a state of great agitation this morning, consumed by guilt and fear over his part in stealing Mary Stuart’s ring; this much I knew. But what exactly did he fear? He had taken the ring for money, he said, but Dumas had never struck me as an opportunistic thief, so had someone paid him to steal it? The same person who then gave it to Cecily as a lover’s gift? Denied by Marie the chance to confess and ask my advice, as he had wanted, what might Dumas have done in his state of desperation? Had he confessed his guilty secret to someone else? Had he named the person and, more importantly, did that person know? I feared for his safety, as I feared equally that a piece of the puzzle has disappeared with him.

‘Perhaps he has run away,’ Courcelles says smoothly. ‘What he knows from my lord ambassador’s letters might be worth a great deal of money to some people, and ser vants are always desperate for coins. You can never trust that sort.’ There is a provocative note in his voice that makes me look twice at him; could he know something about Dumas, or is he merely trying to rattle me? But I am never sure of the degree of complicity between him and Marie. How much might she have overheard outside my door this morning?

‘Dumas is an honest man,’ I snap back, stepping precariously out of the boat and almost losing my balance on the wet stairs. ‘More honest than many I know.’ Courcelles makes no move to assist me. Marie shivers.

‘Oh, stop bickering,’ she says, impatient. ‘He is only a clerk. He’ll either turn up or he won’t. Let’s get out of this wind.’

We are led by a steward through the Great Hall of Arundel House, past the rich linenfold panelling and the ornamental armour, into a narrow passageway with walls painted green and gold. At the far end I can see a heavy oak door, left ajar just far enough to glimpse inside a stack of shelves lined with handsomely bound books.

‘What is that room?’ I call to the steward, gesturing to the end of the corridor. He pauses and half turns, not pleased to have been detained.

‘That is my lord of Arundel’s private library,’ he says, almost without moving his lips. ‘Please, let us not delay. The earl and my lord Howard are expecting you.’ I do not miss the emphasis on ‘private’, but my heart is hammering in my throat as I glance back at the door. Before we reach the end of this passageway, the steward knocks for the sake of formality on a door set into the panelling and proceeds with a bow into a warmly lit room, not broad but with a high decorated ceiling and two tall windows, reaching almost from the floor to the top of the panelled walls. Here a long table is set with silverware and wrought branching candlesticks, all reflecting skittering beads of light from the flames. I note, with relief, that the stone floor is thickly scattered with scented rushes. This is exactly as I had hoped. We are late, it seems; the party is already gathered and, as we enter, the gentlemen rise to greet us. Philip Howard moves from his seat, his hand outstretched. Beside him, a shaggy white dog, a Talbot hound by its appearance, stands warily, its nose thrust forward quivering, almost the height of its master’s hip.

‘Madame de Castelnau, Seigneur de Courcelles, bien-venus,’ he says, with a graceful bow. ‘And Master Bruno. Benvenuto.’

‘Be sure to give Bruno his proper title, Philip,’ Henry Howard remarks, sitting down again, having barely risen in the first place. ‘He is a doctor of theology, and he is most offended when people forget. Dear God, Bruno — what has happened to your head? I had heard of your reputation as a brawler, but I thought you had left that behind in Italy along with your religious vows.’

I touch my fingertips to the wound at my temple — much improved since the day before, but still a raised welt of dried blood that must have looked alarming.