TEN

Francis clucked his horse to a trot to catch up with Tom after they turned onto Aldersgate Street, heading north. They were riding to Gorhambury, his boyhood home and the place he loved above all others. He loved his mother too, of course, especially in small doses. After a few days, her constant stream of nagging, coddling, scolding, praise, and exhortation would exhaust his tolerance, and he would flee back to the bachelor serenity of Gray’s Inn. This visit would be mercifully short. He just wanted to ask her a few questions.

They rode in silence for a while through the moist early morning. Yesterday’s fitful rains had damped the dust without creating too much mud and washed the trees and fields clean. It was worth the discomfort of spending a day on horseback to clear the fug of his chambers from his body and his mind.

They stopped at the Angel in Islington for a breakfast of bread and ale and then pressed on. Francis didn’t care for travel as a rule. He suffered from piles and was easily thrown out of balance by unfamiliar food, but he could enjoy an easy pace on a summer day. A fresh breeze blew from the northeast. It wouldn’t get hot for hours yet. The road was not overcrowded and the fields alongside it were green with grass where horses frolicked or glimmering gold where oats ripened in the sun. Yellow loosestrife marked the edges of woods, whose trees were filled with twittering birds.

Travel had its appeal — especially in small doses. And the open road made a good place for confidential conversations.

Francis asked Tom to report on his evening at the tavern. Under his tutelage, his clerk had learned to remember key portions of conversations nearly verbatim, enhanced by his native intuition about the character of the participants.

Tom related his evening at the Goose and Gall, describing the pamphleteers who joined him and Thomas Nashe at their table. At the mention of Oliver Oatmeale, Francis laughed out loud, causing his horse’s ears to twitch. “I thought Oatmeale was a bookseller’s invention.”

“So did I,” Tom said, “and I doubt Dando was born with his name either. They’re scoffers and jesters, but I like them both. They’re men who keep their eyes open and their wits engaged.”

“Good qualities, especially for witnesses. But they don’t seem to know anything of use to us.”

“Not yet, but everyone’s keen to see Martin’s minion locked up.”

“Martin’s minion?” An apt term, with the added twist of being certain to offend the individual so designated.

“That’s what they’re calling the strangler. They all swear the anti-Martinists’ true identities aren’t general knowledge. I believe them. These writers form a somewhat tightly knit company, in their own fashion. Not like a guild — not formally constituted — but there aren’t that many of them. They come from everywhere too. Dando spoke like a gentleman, fallen on hard times, perhaps. Oatmeale spoke like a man who learned to talk like a gentlemen from John Dando. Many are university men, like Nashe and Greene. And Christopher Marlowe.”

Francis nodded. Pamphleteers and playwrights were near the bottom of the literary scale, a rung or two above balladeers. Most books with any claim to more than ephemeral interest were written by scholars and gentlemen of leisure. Pamphlets might relate news about affairs in Europe or press some point of view. This sort were often commissioned by the Privy Council. Francis had written several such things himself, although he didn’t publish them. His were meant for a very select audience.

But catch-as-catch-can writers like Dando and Oatmeale were a different breed, a new breed, unique to London. Their frivolous accounts of strange occurrences, sightings of ghosts, and unsolved murders were published cheaply and quickly to feed the hunger for entertainment of the middling sort. For whatever reason, these writers had chosen to inhabit the shadowland between gentility and trade, scraping out a precarious living, but one lived on their own terms.

“What did you think of Anthony Munday?” Francis asked. “Canon Bancroft mentioned him. He’s the one who arrested that pitiful gadfly Giles Wigginton — a sorry substitute for Martin Marprelate.”

“Nobody likes Munday. They told me as much. I didn’t like him either. My gut tells me he’s one to watch out for.”

“Hmm.” Francis knew his assistant had a great respect for the opinions of that organ. And in truth, it had proved itself worthy of respect on more than one occasion.

Tom added, “They all agreed that Munday enjoyed his work too much, as a pursuivant of Catholics, that is. He liked watching his victims hang. He even bragged about it.”

“Canon Bancroft said he’d been recommended by Sir Richard Topcliffe.” They traded grimaces, remembering the things they’d learned about that gentleman last year.

“Well,” Tom said, “that tells us a lot about Munday’s qualities, doesn’t it? I like him for Martin’s minion. He fits what we know so far.”

They paused their conversation while a pair of doubly burdened horses trotted past them. Each horse was ridden by a well-dressed man with a better-dressed woman behind him, each woman wearing a vizard to protect her face from the dust and sun. The strange-looking masks seemed ill-omened, if one believed in such things.

After they’d passed, Tom said, “It’s obvious Martin’s minion is someone who knows that tight circle of pamphleteers intimately.”

“It’s obvious that he does not,” Francis said, “since he managed to confuse John Lyly, a well-known favorite of the court, with this John Little, who sounds like the meanest sort of writer, spinning homilies out of exaggerated rumors of unnatural weather.”

“The poor man was strangled, Mr. Bacon.”

“And may God rest his immortal soul. I only meant to underscore the difference between the actual and purportedly intended victims. John Lyly is also a very small man, shorter even than my cousin Robert. The murderer must have only heard — or rather, misheard — the name. And then what? How would he find him?”

“He might have asked for John Lyly in the tavern and been pointed at Little, then followed him home. That does suggest someone who knows which tavern to ask in.”

“Or someone who got the names from one who really does know. You said your friend Nashe is a prattler.”

“True.” Tom lifted his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow. The day grew warmer as the sun rose above the tree line.

Francis added, “We must not ignore the possibility that these murders have nothing to do with Martin Marprelate, even if the intended victims happen to be anti-Martinists. Greene and Lyly are the most popular writers of the day. You say your friend Nashe also has talent. Perhaps the killer fears another strong competitor and wants to stop him before he can get fairly started.”

“And here comes sour-faced Anthony Munday again. Dando thought he was envious that the others were hired to write anti-Martin counterstrikes when he was not. He fancies himself a rival to Robert Greene.”

That motive made more sense than any of the rest so far.

They rode in silence for a little while, separating to ride around a cart loaded with hay — a cart large enough to transport a disassembled printing press. They both studied it as they passed, plainly wondering the same thing.

Tom said, “Munday’s the best we’ve got. Everything seems to fit.”

“Only the most trivial elements. You’re forgetting the most important thing we’ve learned about Anthony Munday.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s working for Canon Bancroft. He wants to catch Martin, not protect him. If he’s the strangler, he must be playing a very complicated game, working for both Martin and the anti-Martins.”

“Oatmeale thought of that too, except he was casting Nashe as Martin’s minion.”

Francis didn’t want to hear an account of that absurd proposal. But was it really so absurd? Not that Nashe would pretend to be trying to murder himself; the other part. “Now that I think of it, it’s not impossible Martin should have a spy inside the enemy camp. He hasn’t been caught in spite of the best efforts of the Church authorities.”

“You would do it,” Tom said. “If you were Martin, I mean. You’d want to stay one step ahead of the hounds. Martin’s minion must feel sorely threatened by Nashe’s snooping. One false move now and the whole delicate deception collapses. It’s good.”

“No, it isn’t. It’s too complicated. People are rarely so bold in actuality. The fox runs and hides; he doesn’t dress himself in a hound’s skin and join the pursuing pack.”

They came in sight of the outskirts of Barnet and let the discussion drop. Martin Marprelate had sympathizers everywhere. They couldn’t risk being overheard.

They stopped at the Mitre Inn and engaged a private room for two hours. They made a small meal, not wanting to overstuff, and then stretched out for a nap. At least, Francis napped. Tom pulled out a pamphlet by Anthony Munday, displaying it with the air of a man whose work was never done. Since the piece was entitled A View of Sundry Examples Reporting Many Strange Murders, Francis felt justified in ignoring the implied reproach.

The horses were fed and rested as well. They set out again, this time riding into the heat of the day with the sun beating down on them. Francis wished he’d worn a hat with a wider brim, however undignified it might look. Those glimmering fields of oats now glared whitely, and the frolicking horses stood listlessly in whatever shade they could find.

Ah, well. Last leg. After an hour or so, Francis noticed Tom muttering under his breath and counting on his fingers. “What are you calculating?”

Tom glanced at him as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. “I’m adding up fees for my suit of general livery, trying to figure out how long it will take me to get to the end.”

“Too long,” Francis said. “The odds of your agents achieving a survey of your lands accurate enough to satisfy a feodary of the Court of Wards are nearly nil. They have a vested interest in finding errors, and find them they will.”

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“It isn’t. The whole notion of wardship is unfair. And ultimately harmful to the Crown’s interests. People conceal lands owing feudal duties, so the queen gains nothing when they’re passed on. Then the feodaries hire agents to search out concealed wards. Neighbors must either inform on their neighbors or lie to government officials. Worse, sometimes the agent or the feodary exacts a bribe to wink at the concealment. That encourages people to view the whole system as corrupt, which of course it is. Even if all the laws are followed to the letter, the court’s procedures have grown so bloated the queen ends up with a mere fraction of the total fees.”

“How can that be allowed to go on?” Tom asked, indignant. “That court should be abolished.”

Francis chuckled. “It’s difficult to abolish an institution that provides comfortable livings to so many lawyers.”

Tom shot him a black look, as if it were his fault.

“You might as well save your pennies,” Francis advised. “Suits of general livery are doomed to failure. You should borrow the money to pay the fine for special livery and get it over with minimum fuss. That’s what everyone else in your position does.”

“My father didn’t approve of debt, especially for such large sums. It drags out the agony and ties your hands in the future.”

A naive view. Francis couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t owed money to someone, except for the brief period after Tom’s father had paid off his creditors in exchange for taking his son under his wing. Francis had resented the imposition at first, but things had turned out well enough.

“If you’re thrifty,” he said, “you should be able to pay it off by the time you pass the bar. Meanwhile, nothing will teach you thrift better than my aunt’s guardianship. You’re flourishing under her care. Frame your mind toward contentment, Tom. You have many years of study and hard work ahead of you. Why not leave your estate in my aunt’s capable hands in the meantime?”

That excellent counsel — free of charge — won him another black look. Tom nudged his horse to trot ahead, leaving Francis alone with his own thoughts, which were beginning to focus on the soreness of his bottom and the aching of his head.

They skirted the west side of St. Albans and took a grassy lane leading to Gorhambury House, entering the estate where Francis and his brother Anthony had grown up. The boys had explored every brook, pond, and burrow and known which birds nested in which favorite trees. These days, Francis did little more than stroll around the well-tended paths near the house, but he liked to imagine the landscape still contained those boyhood wonders.

He slowed as they approached the break in the trees deliberately created to frame the first view of the house, smiling as he heard the soft “God’s bollocks!” as Tom caught sight of it. They stopped by mutual consent to admire the prospect.

“Home,” Francis said.

“It’s like a palace.”

“Her Majesty did grace us with her presence a time or two.”

The house had been enlarged in 1568 in anticipation of such a visit. Three stories surrounded a central courtyard with a chapel and a long gallery on the west side. The walls were built of flint for strength, hidden by pale pink plaster tooled to resemble bricks. The crowning element was the central front porch that rose the full height of the building. Sir Nicholas had designed it himself, sparing no expense. Doric columns flanked the arched entrance on the ground floor. Ionic columns stood atop those to frame the upper windows. The columns were faced with gleaming white clunch trimmed in the costliest limestone. Atop the whole, outside the small windows of the attic, stood a pair of painted wooden angels, which Lady Bacon had nicknamed Anthony and Francis, admonishing her sons to look up at them and be guided by their better natures.

“Magnificent,” Tom said. “I look forward to seeing your mother again.”

“She’ll be glad to see you, here where you can’t escape her. She’ll question you about me, about Gray’s, our chaplain, Sunday services, the food. No need to go into any detail; in fact, say as little as possible. I’ll tell her about our commission. You can simply answer that I’ve asked you not to discuss it with anyone.”

“I understand.” Tom chuckled. “She corners me every time she comes to visit her sister.”

“Then you’ve had practice. After supper, if you would, make an excuse to leave us alone. I want to speak with her in private.”

“Gladly. It won’t be dark for a couple of hours yet. I’d love a walk to stretch my legs.”

“If you should happen to notice anything to suggest a printing press has been installed anywhere . . .”

Tom tapped his nose. “If there is one, I’ll smell it out. I’ll poke in everywhere, chat with the servants, see if there’ve been any visitors lately. Especially anyone holed up in a chamber writing.”

“Be subtle about it. Most of my mother’s servants grew up under her care. They’re as devout as she is and loyal to the core.” Francis drew in a deep breath and let it out, fortifying himself.

They clucked their horses into motion, rode down the curving lane to the yard, and dismounted. They were met at once by servants eager to help the young master and his guest. Lady Bacon came out to greet them, kissing Francis on both cheeks and extending a hand for Tom to bow over. Francis felt his petty discomforts — the prickling heat, his aching bottom — dissipate as he let himself be tended by those who knew him best.

Stablemen led the horses away while a man led Francis and Tom to their respective rooms to change their shoes and stockings and wash their hands and faces. Then Francis led Tom down to his mother’s favorite parlor, which faced west onto the orchard. They found supper ready laid on a round table in the center of the room. A fire had been lit since here in the country, where the winds blew unobstructed, even July evenings could be chilly.

Francis took his usual chair by the fire, noting with gratitude the soft pillow that had been placed for him. Tom waited until his hostess had seated herself, then took the remaining chair. They both ate with good appetite, savoring the fresh food, prepared just for them rather than a hall full of hungry lawyers. Everything but the wine, the flour, and the spices had been produced on the estate: partridge pie with mushrooms, a warm spinach salad, and a cheese tart liberally dotted with fresh strawberries. Francis took pride in both the food and its presentation on pewter plates with wine served in Venetian glasses.

He ate in silence while his mother catechized their guest, testing his knowledge of the Bible and Calvinist theology. Tom acquitted himself well enough. After supper, Tom offered his thanks for the meal and begged to be excused, as planned. The dishes were cleared away and Lady Bacon’s armchair moved to the fire. The servant set her embroidery frame ready to hand along with the workbasket filled with silk threads. The piece in the frame had the shape of a collar band and was already partly covered with intricate blackwork. Francis looked forward to receiving another handsome shirt.

He poured himself a second glass of wine, knowing his mother wouldn’t want one. He turned his chair toward the fire as well and leaned back with a sigh composed of a deep physical contentment mingled with the anticipation of a challenging conversation. His mother had been his first and best teacher in every subject from Latin grammar to natural philosophy. Her memory seemed to be playing tricks on her lately, but her powers of ratiocination had not diminished one whit.

Lady Bacon picked up her needle and began to ply it, glancing from her youngest son to her work as she queried him about his health, his diet, and his associates, moving from those absorbing topics to her standard lecture about his inadequate disciplining of Pinnock, whom she judged inadequately schooled in Christian principles.

Francis approved of discipline in the abstract but didn’t like to exercise it himself. When at last she began repeating her favorite recipes for sleeping draughts, he interrupted her. “Mother,” he said, meeting the hazel eyes that had supplied the mold for his own. “I have something rather delicate to discuss with you.”

“Oh?”

The steeply rising tone of that short question told him her mind had leapt in the wrong direction.

“Delicate in the political sense.”

“Ah.” She stabbed her needle into the fabric, folded her hands, and said, “Tell me.”

“I suppose you know about Martin Marprelate?”

“About him? I’ve read every word he’s written. I fully support his aims, if not entirely his methods. But of course you know that.”

Francis nodded. “I wanted to begin at the beginning. I have a new commission from my Lord Burghley.”

“God’s mercy, Frank! Does he expect you to catch Martin Marprelate when the whole episcopacy has failed to find so much as discarded page of misprints?” Her eyes sparkled as she gave Francis a look of mock outrage. “Or does he suspect I’m keeping Martin here?”

She’d jumped straight into the heart of the matter, as he’d known she would. None of the Cooke sisters ever needed lengthy explanations. She seemed delighted by the idea, however, which was not the attitude Francis would prefer.

“If he thinks it, he hasn’t confided as much to me,” he said. “But I have spoken in the past few days to both Canon Bancroft and Archbishop Whitgift, each of whom made a point of implying that they considered you among those likely to be sheltering Martin or his minions.”

“Don’t say minions, Frank. It smacks of the French court and has ugly connotations.”

“That isn’t an answer, Mother.”

“Did you ask me a question?” She beamed at him, enjoying herself. “What is your commission, if I may pry into my son’s affairs to such an extent?”

“Someone murdered two pamphleteers in London a week ago, which would not be remarkable except that they appear to have been mistaken for two of the men posing as Mar-Martin, writing the popular anti-Martinist works that have been appearing since June.”

“I’ve heard of Mar-Martin. I refuse to read such vulgarities. But I must admit Martin did supply the provocation. He ought to have left out the insolence and confined himself to the plain truth.”

Which is what she would have done. At least Francis could be confident that Martin Marprelate was not an alias for his own mother.

“He would have lost three-quarters of his audience in that case,” Francis said. “The most appealing aspects of Martin’s works are his irreverent witticisms.”

“That could be debated, but not now since you only grant me one night of your company.”

“I have a commission, Mother. I can’t keep my lord uncle waiting. You wouldn’t want more men to die while I sit here eating strawberry tarts.”

“Certainly not.” She gave him that wiser-than-thou look, the one that said she knew perfectly well that he was making excuses. “What makes you think Martin has anything to do with your murders? I assume that’s the weighty matter my Lord Burghley has asked you to investigate.” She wrinkled her nose as at a bitter odor. “I don’t like it, Francis. He uses you as a mere thief catcher, slightly glorified by some vague political dimension to the crimes. It isn’t dignified. It isn’t worthy of your talents.”

Francis shrugged. He’d thought the same thoughts, but what use was it to complain? These tasks seemed to be the best he could get. Until this year, they had at least afforded him the occasional private conversation with his most powerful relation. “If I could identify Martin Marprelate, I’d lay up a very great store of political capital.”

“A dubious antecedent, dearest. Martin could be anyone. Indeed, why should you assume Martin is singular? We have a Martin Junior. Soon no doubt we’ll hear from Martin Senior. And if Martin has a son, why not a daughter? If a father, why not an uncle? A mother, an aunt, a cousin, a godparent? Or all of them together, writing as one devoted family.”

“That has occurred to me as well, although the works are written in a consistent voice. His style is distinctive. But whether the author of Martin’s works is one man or many, he must have confederates to operate that secret press. There can only be one of those.”

“Not so. Many skilled tradesmen and women share our religious views.”

Francis didn’t correct that our. “But printers serve apprenticeships with members of the Stationers’ Company. There aren’t an infinite number of them. And presses are expensive. I don’t know what a full set of type costs, but it must be a substantial investment.”

His mother shrugged at that. “There are many wealthy persons among our number, all of whom would willingly lend Martin and his pressmen a hand, if needed. We are legion, my son. Our truth can not be denied.”

Francis repressed a sigh, taking a sip of wine instead. “Perhaps. Happily, I am only tasked with stopping one individual. My best conjecture at present is that the pamphleteers were murdered to prevent them from discovering Martin’s press. One of the anti-Martinists has been scouting around, picking up rumors and bits of gossip. My clerk says the man has a talent for teasing confidences out of people.”

“Ah, well, then. Your work is half done.” Her tone dripped with irony.

“I know. But my man Clarady is also good at teasing out confidences. And I can gain access to depositions and whatever official records have been collected. There may be a clue hidden in them that has hitherto gone unregarded.”

“At least you’ll be safe inside the library at Lambeth. I don’t like the idea of you consorting with these scoffing pamphleteers. Their kind attracts violence, the way they live.”

Francis couldn’t imagine how his mother — gently bred and tended every day of her life — could know anything about the dread satirist and others of his ilk. She’d dined at respectable establishments like the Antelope Inn, where the redoubtable Widows Guild held their monthly meetings, but in her mind that would be nothing like the Sodoms and Gomorrahs where playwrights and poets squandered their idle hours.

He gazed out the window, where the day had almost disappeared, leaving only a thin band of ruddy light atop the orchard wall. “That isn’t what I wanted to discuss with you, Mother. Although I am glad to know you don’t have Martin Marprelate living in your gatehouse.”

“Not now.” Lady Bacon gave him a saucy smile, revealing the ghost of the lively young woman she once was. “If Martin asked me for house-room, I might provide it.”

“Mother!”

She shrugged one slender, black-clad shoulder. “I haven’t been asked. I merely share with my own son, in the privacy of my home, the opinion that the Theses Martinianae are precisely what I would have written myself.” She smiled again. “Although I did not.”

Francis gave her a dry look. “Who do you think Martin is?”

Her playful expression turned Sphinx-like, giving the distinct impression that she knew more than she let on. “An educated person. A devout student of Calvin’s teachings. A passionate advocate for a full Reformation — a true Reformation. Beyond that, I wouldn’t care to speculate.”

Why speculate about something she already knew? Francis doubted he’d ever get a better answer. “Some people think he may be a member of one of the Inns of Court.”

“Do they? Which one?”

“Does it matter? The four inns together must have over a thousand members.”

“You’ll never find him that way, then.” She sounded amused.

“Many people think Martin is a member of the House of Commons.”

Lady Bacon smiled her Sphinx smile again. Confirmation? Or dismissal of an absurd notion? She used that smile when she wanted him to solve a problem — a tricky translation, a moral argument — for himself. She could be frustratingly opaque.

Francis took a sip of wine, savoring its fruity sweetness as it glided down his throat. “I had a curious thought as we were riding today. I wonder what you might think of it.”

Lady Bacon raised her thin eyebrows, ready to listen.

“I should note first that I haven’t actually spoken with my lord uncle.”

“I thought he gave you this hazardous, undignified, and doubtless unpaid commission.”

Francis couldn’t fault that description. “The excuse given to me, when I answered his summons, was that he hasn’t recovered from my aunt’s death.”

“We all miss her,” Lady Bacon said. “I am comforted to know that Mildred is in heaven now, freed from pain and care.”

Francis nodded. “My uncle is shifting many burdens onto my cousin’s shoulders. He’s given Robert charge of his stable of intelligencers.”

Her nostrils flared. “A category in which he includes you, I suppose.”

“Not quite, I hope. But it was Robert to whom I spoke, relaying his father’s wishes, ostensibly. I’ll have Clarady deliver reports and ask for money for expenses.”

“Good. He’ll be more difficult to refuse, especially since dipping into his purse would mean negotiating with my sister Elizabeth.” Her eyes flashed. “I’m surprised she allows her ward to engage in such unsavory activities.”

“She doesn’t know. And please don’t tell her.” Francis let a small pause develop while he organized his central point. “I don’t see Robert very often, you know. Only on occasions when we both happen to be attending upon the queen, and then there are always so many others present.”

“You were never close friends,” she observed. “You always went your separate ways, even when you three appeared to be playing together. Anthony is headstrong. No one can tell him what to do, nor does he wait to see if he’s being followed. You have that preternatural capacity for intense focus. You could kneel beside the fish pond for an hour, enraptured by the little world under the water, while other children ran and shouted all around you. Robert wasn’t interested in the secret life of ponds. He prefers the secrets of people. He loves to find them out and store them up, waiting for that moment of best advantage. I could well believe that he’s discovered who Martin is and is holding that secret close to his chest until its revelation serves his purposes.”

“That’s a perspective I hadn’t thought of.” Francis well remembered days like the ones his mother described. “But Robert and I have never been rivals, not explicitly. And you know, Mother, he fits the general assumptions about Martin’s background.”

“Ha!” Lady Bacon’s eyes twinkled. “Is that where you’re headed?”

“I know, it’s absurd at first blush, but consider it. He’s educated, well versed in Calvinist principles. He spent several months in Switzerland in Theodore Beza’s own house. He’s never lived at Gray’s, although he is a member. He has served as a member of Parliament.”

“Apart from the travel and the residence at Gray’s, all that could be said of you.”

“I know, but I have no motive to play Martin Marprelate. It would be a terrible risk with nothing to gain.”

“You might do it to please your mother.” She batted her lashes at him.

“It would not please you to see me hanged for treason, Mother. And we both know I’m not Martin, so that is not a helpful observation.”

She clucked her tongue. “It would be as great a risk for Robert as anyone else.”

“No one would ever prosecute Lord Burghley’s son for writing pamphlets,” Francis said with a touch of bitterness. “That’s one of the best arguments in favor. Hear me out. Martin Marprelate has dominated Archbishop Whitgift’s every waking moment for the better part of a year. All he can think about is catching Martin, silencing him, punishing him, and drowning out his ideas with a cacophony of rebuttals. But Martin isn’t the only man in England who wishes the archbishop wielded less power and had less influence with the queen. A member of the Privy Council might foster such a character in order to distract the archbishop from other business. This councilor could easily protect his creation from discovery and fund the whole venture from his own purse.”

Lady Bacon clapped a hand to her breast and said, “Oh, my Lord and Savior, Frank! You do possess the most extraordinary mind.”

He laughed at the praise, glad she hadn’t scoffed at his convoluted proposal. “Then you don’t think it’s completely beyond the pale?”

“Far beyond, if it were true, which I very much doubt. Although . . .” She picked up her needle and took a few more stitches. Francis waited, giving her time to consider the ramifications of his proposal. After a few moments, she put down her needle. “I assume you’ve cast your uncle in the role of Machiavelli, with Robert as his instrument.”

Francis nodded. “They would never have intended murder to result from their stratagem, of course. Although it would amuse Robert to set me on the trail, daring me to catch them out. But the archbishop isn’t fond of Robert. He said as much to me on Tuesday. He doesn’t like him being slid onto the Privy Council without discussion. But my uncle wouldn’t want to provoke a direct confrontation with him and risk raising the queen’s ire.” Francis traced his moustache with his index finger, frowning. “No. Now that I’ve said it all aloud, I can see that it’s too intricate. Too indirect.”

“I’m not so sure. Your uncle is a deep strategist, willing to set small things in motion and step back to allow them to develop with only an occasional nudge to keep them moving in the desired direction. And your cousin Robert has always been a sly one. He’s willing to allow his desired ends to justify his means.”

“I expected you to tear my mad little notion into pieces.”

“Your aged mother has a few surprises left.” She smiled fondly at him. “You and Robert have much in common, but you were brought up quite differently. I don’t think either of you realizes it. By the time you boys were born, the long, dark days of Queen Mary were past.”

Francis grew still. She rarely spoke of that time, now thirty years past. While others of their religious beliefs fled for the safety of the Protestant Low Countries, Sir Nicholas and his new wife, Anne, remained in England, offering their services to the Catholic queen. Lady Anne obtained an appointment as a gentlewoman of the queen’s Privy Chamber, tending the monarch’s personal needs, swallowing her faith and her fears to help her husband keep his job — and his head. Francis admired her for that more than any other of her many achievements.

She spoke in her storytelling voice. “When our good Queen Elizabeth succeeded to the throne, your father and I chose to put those days behind us, not wanting to burden our children with past troubles. But your uncle William, now my Lord Burghley —” She broke off with a sniff. She’d never reconciled herself to the fact that her brother-in-law had been elevated to the peerage while her husband had not. “Your uncle could never stop gnawing over old battles, mumbling out which stratagems succeeded and which failed. That persistence makes him an extraordinary councilor and works to the good of the realm. But I believe he infected his son with that sense of pervasive intrigue and the need for constant, sometimes ruthless, defensive action.”

“But my uncle hates turmoil and disruption. That’s one of his best-known qualities.”

“Yes,” Lady Bacon said, “but he hates and fears religious persecution even more. And that is what Whitgift has come close to with his wicked oaths, forcing men to choose between their God and their queen. They must perjure themselves in this world and the next to satisfy him or face the severest punishment. That makes men desperate, my son, and desperate men are not moderate. They are not calm. They do not work steadily and contentedly toward the betterment of all mankind.”

The great goal of the humanists, whose philosophy Francis had absorbed at his father’s knee. “But my uncle wouldn’t invent Martin Marprelate just to stop Whitgift from exacting those oaths, using mockery to add insult to the injury.”

His mother waited, watching him with that expectant gleam in her eyes that said she was waiting for him to work the problem out by himself.

“My uncle wouldn’t do it,” Francis said slowly, “but Robert might. He would enjoy the deception and the cleverness. Having spent his life, as I have, under the shelter of Her Majesty’s long peace, he doesn’t share his father’s fears of religious upheaval. He would consider Martin a calculated risk, a reasonable gamble. Nothing that couldn’t be charged to a few well-paid servants who could be whisked abroad if things got too sticky.” He frowned at his mother. “I wouldn’t allow myself to think about it, but now that you’ve helped work it all through, I believe it may be possible that my cousin Robert is behind this whole controversy.”

Lady Bacon’s lips curved in the satisfied smile that said he’d done well. He’d arrived at the desired solution.