The clock of the church of St Martin struck seven. It had been as harsh a winter as any could remember and as yet no sign of spring. More snow had fallen in the night and icicles hung outside the window of the bed chamber. Christopher put a hand on the swell of a hip and squeezed gently. Katherine rolled over to face him and propped herself up on an elbow. Despite their excesses, her skin glowed and her green eyes shone. She brushed aside a strand of her auburn hair and traced a line down his cheek with a finger. ‘How you have changed, Christopher,’ she said quietly. ‘There was never such ferocity in you as I felt last night. It was as if some ungodly hand had drawn it from you.’
He ran a dry tongue over his lips and tried to work some saliva into his mouth. ‘It is injustice that draws it from me. Injustice and unnecessary suffering. The slaughter of innocent Huguenot women and children; a gobber-toothed old crone dying in agony on the fire.’ The woman they had seen perish in the flames had been found guilty not only of practising witchcraft but also of causing her one-eyed husband to be seized by convulsions so severe that he had swallowed his tongue and choked to death. One neighbour had testified that he had seen her flying through the night sky, another that she had found a headless cat on her doorstep. Among the woman’s possessions had been discovered a pestle and mortar suitable for crushing the poisonous berries of the laurel or the yew, and a child’s rag doll with a single eye. Evidence enough for her to be tried at the assizes and sentenced to die in the flames.
‘Did you not think her a witch?’ asked Katherine.
‘I did not.’
‘The marks were on her. The jury was in no doubt.’
Christopher pushed himself up. ‘I cannot buy a penny news sheet without its being full of reports of witch trials, yet how many of those who are tried can so much as lift a hand to defend themselves? As for the marks, you have three moles on your back, yet I do not think you a witch. The woman was old and ignorant – nothing more. Some may believe in the devil’s handmaidens. I do not. Wise women with a knowledge of plants and herbs and their healing properties, even an ability to see into the future, I can believe in, but a pact with Satan? Nonsense. Superstition born of ignorance. Burning her was an act of barbarity. It recalled the streets of Paris and horrors I wish never to witness again.’
Katherine climbed over him to reach the smock lying on the floor. She pulled it into the bed and held it to her breasts to warm it before putting it on. ‘Enough. I too regret the manner of the witch’s death but I believe her execution was necessary. You will not persuade me otherwise and eighteen months have passed since the bloodshed in Paris. I understand that it still causes you anguish but let us not begin the day by speaking of it.’
‘The slaughter in France has made irrational fools out of sensible folk. Fear of papists has become fear of the ungodly and fear of the ungodly has become fear of papists. Suddenly there are witches and conjurors and evil all about us. Suddenly that which was once thought absurd is commonplace – witches who fly at night, conjurors who commune with the devil. Fantasy is taken as fact and innocent men and women suffer. The gods of anarchy and chaos must be rubbing their hands with glee at what is to come.’
‘Christopher, that is blasphemous. And you exaggerate.’
‘Do I? You did not see what I saw on the streets of Paris and Amiens.’ Not only did Katherine not see the unspeakable horrors of the slaughter in Paris, as a Catholic she was inclined to disbelieve half the stories she heard about that terrible time.
‘I did not, and thank God for it. I pray the images that plague your nights and your mind will soon leave you.’ She reached out to touch his cheek. ‘Now, dress yourself and come down to the kitchen or you’ll die of cold in this chamber. That window shutter must be repaired. It is no protection in the winter. The wind blew through it all night. Did you not hear it rattling?’ She slipped into the smock and covered it with a simple gown.
‘I was too busy with my dreams.’ As if to banish them, he shook his head like a terrier with a rat. ‘Be off, wench, light the fire and prepare breakfast. My stomach is empty and my mouth full of dust. I need food and drink.’
Katherine threw a shoe at him. ‘I am neither wench nor cook, Dr Radcliff, and you will guard your tongue or sleep alone and go hungry.’ When she slammed the door, the shutter rattled alarmingly.
Christopher knew that no amount of food or drink would rid his mind of what he had seen on St Bartholomew’s Day in Paris two summers before. It never did. And the dreams, although less frequent, were no less intense. He lay back and closed his eyes.
As so often after love-making his thoughts turned to the strange journey that had brought him to this place at this time. From commoner pupil to Doctor of Law at Pembroke Hall, from convicted killer – albeit by accident in a drunken tavern brawl on the day of his mother’s funeral – to service as intelligencer for the Earl of Leicester. Once the verbal swordplay of disputation in the comfort of a Cambridge college, now an endless search for England’s enemies among the alleys and hovels and the halls and mansions of London. Unlike Katherine, he did not see the hand of God in this, or in any earthly affairs, such as his own misfortune. He had lashed out; the man had fallen, cracked his head and died. He had been tried and convicted, only saved from hanging by the testimony of John Young, Master of Pembroke Hall, and would have languished in Norwich gaol until he died had the earl not used his influence to have him released. Christopher had been a good recruiter of clever young men to Leicester’s service and the earl had offered him a position as an intelligencer in London. The hand at work had been an earthly one. God had not been present.
He had grown close to Katherine after the death of her husband, Edward Allington, and she had travelled with him to the city, in part to care for her ageing Aunt Isabel, in part to be near him. She a devout Catholic, he a doubting Protestant, they argued often, on occasions bitterly, and, recently, even more often. He had wondered if they were nearing a fork in the road, at which they would either travel on in the same direction or go their separate ways.
Of course, there was no purpose in peering into a future he could not predict or in dwelling on what fate had brought him, yet sometimes he could not help himself. Even a lawyer’s rigorous mind did not always behave rationally.
Katherine called from the kitchen: ‘Make haste, Christopher. The fire is lit and your breakfast is on the table.’ He stretched his long legs, forced himself out of the bed and struggled into the woollen shirt and trousers he had discarded the night before. He held up the little hand mirror that had once belonged to his mother, grimaced at what he saw and ran a hand through his thick yellow hair and over the stubble on his chin and cheeks. It was past time that he visited the jolly little barber in Fleet Street who would shave him, anoint him with lavender oil or rose water – ‘purchased at great cost from an avaricious apothecary, sir’ – pass on whatever gossip he had picked up as he trimmed beards and pared nails, and offer to let his blood – ‘nothing finer for improving the balance of the humours, sir’ – and all for three pence. The barber – barber-surgeon, he tried to insist upon – was one of a dozen or so tradesmen who had no inkling that their customer was the Earl of Leicester’s chief intelligencer in London and cheerfully chattered away like songbirds: blatherers to a man. Much of what they said was empty twaddle but now and again a shiny nugget emerged from the heap of dross. It was worth encouraging them and paying attention just in case. He took a deep breath and, a little unsteadily, went down to the kitchen.
Katherine had prodded the fire into life and laid out manchet bread, beef and a jug of small beer. ‘Why will you not permit me to find you a new housekeeper, Christopher?’ she demanded. ‘There is little enough food in the house without some of it humming with maggots.’ When his elderly housekeeper had died the previous year Christopher had not troubled to replace her but chose to manage alone or to be ministered to by Katherine. He had hoped that the lack of a housekeeper might induce her to spend more nights here than at her aunt’s house, but the hope had been misplaced. She had made it clear that, much as she loved him, she lived in Wood Street, not on Ludgate Hill. A widow, she insisted, must maintain at least an appearance of respectability. Privately, Christopher thought this absurd but he knew better than to try to persuade her otherwise. Katherine was not a lady who readily changed her mind.
‘I would not be happy with anyone else after Rose,’ he replied, pouring himself a beaker of ale. ‘She knew my ways as another would not.’ He rinsed the ale around his mouth before swallowing.
Katherine grunted and pushed a plate towards him. ‘Then at least let me tutor you in the ways of the market. You pay sixpence for meat worth two pence and are content with bread a week old. The Earl of Leicester’s chief intelligencer you may be, but at looking after yourself you are no better than a child.’
It was true. He had never been much concerned with money or the practicalities of daily life and, left to himself, was unusually inept at both. At Pembroke, a rattling shutter would have been swiftly repaired by a college servant or by a poor sizar in need of a few pennies. In London, it might never be done.
‘This morning we will walk to Cheapside where we will buy fresh meat and winter vegetables at prices I agree with the traders. Then you will know how much to pay in future.’
Christopher speared a slice of beef with his knife and took a bite. Sure enough, it was tough and stringy and he knew that he had probably paid too much for it. Good meat and vegetables had become harder to find this last twelvemonth. But he would not surrender without some semblance of resistance. ‘I have much to do and it will be bitter cold out there.’
‘Your work can wait. Wear your thick coat. Think of yourself as a pupil newly arrived at Pembroke Hall. Cold or not, there will be traders about and you shall have your first tutorial in the art of purchasing. I should have given it months ago.’
Christopher grunted. ‘I do not wish to break a leg. The streets will be icy.’
‘Then we will take care. Argue no more. This morning we shall go to the market and count ourselves fortunate that we have money to buy food. Many do not.’
That too was true. Three poor harvests in a row and few country folk could now eke a living from the land. The religious houses that might once have sheltered them were long gone and every week more vagrants poured through the city gates seeking work and shelter, found neither and ended their days in Newgate or as dinner for the rats in a filthy alley. Some wards were swift becoming no more than noxious cauldrons overflowing with poverty, crime and disease. Talk in the inns and taverns was of little else.
And as if that was not enough, fearful Londoners awoke each morning half expecting to see Spanish ships on the river. The more scurrilous news books delighted in depicting the unsmiling King Philip of Spain lurking in his Escorial Palace and plotting an invasion of the island for which he reserved most of his papist venom. To Catholic Queen Mary Philip had been married; to her Protestant sister Elizabeth he wished only the fires of hell. With Spanish troops just over the narrow sea in the Low Countries it was not difficult to imagine their arrival at London Bridge one dark night. The trained bands were drilling for just that and if it happened, God alone knew what might befall England.
‘If I must, Katherine, although I would rather be practising my lute. I have been idle of late.’
‘How is it that today you are so keen to return to your lute? Nothing to do with visiting the market, I suppose.’
‘Nothing. I merely thought that playing might lift my spirits after the horror of yesterday. I know I am a poor hand at the instrument but playing requires concentration and does not permit the mind to wander.’
‘Christopher, you are not as poor a hand as you pretend and you can play later, after we have been to the market. I shall go to the chamber to dress. Be ready when I am.’
He waited until he could hear her in the bed chamber before going to the study, where he kept his lute in its fine, tooled leather case hidden under a heap of old clothes. In the eighteen months since it had been presented to him by the Earl of Leicester he had never allowed anyone, not even Katherine or Rose, to touch it. A housebreaker would surely ignore a pile of old shirts and look elsewhere.
He took the instrument from its case and sat as if to play. It was an ivory lute, made in Venice to the earl’s order and had been a prized item in his private collection. He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the body and down the fine lines of ebony that bordered it, savouring the smoothness and the gentle curves of the ivory.
The sound board had been fashioned from alpine spruce and the delicate trellis of the rose was gilded. The back of the neck was decorated with tiny ivory roses and on the peg box had been fixed an ivory plate showing the bear and ragged staff emblem of the Dudley family. It would have cost ten times the price of a common lute and there would be very few like it in England.
The day after the execution of the traitor John Berwick, who had conspired to blow up Whitehall Palace, assassinate the queen and replace her with the Catholic Queen of Scots, Leicester had summoned Christopher to Whitehall and asked to see his right hand – the hand on which the ring and little fingers were bent inwards. When Christopher held it up for inspection, Leicester had looked doubtful. ‘Your first two fingers and thumb are unaffected by your condition, but your third and fourth fingers are a concern. It would be a pity if you could not use them. Using a goose-feather quill to play, as our grandfathers did, so limits one’s range.’
Christopher had been astonished. He had no inkling that Leicester had so much as noticed his hand.
‘There is nothing to be done but try.’ From behind his enormous writing table Leicester had produced the lute. ‘I hope that you will accept this in appreciation of your service in uncovering the Incendium plot and in capturing the traitor Berwick.’ He dropped his voice in mock confidence. ‘Any of the royal lutes would gladly sit in the stocks for a week for this. I thought Anthony Conti was going to faint when I showed it to him.’ Conti’s name was well known for his skill on the lute not only in Whitehall but throughout London. ‘Have you ever played, doctor?’
Christopher had confessed that, as a boy, he had been taught. ‘My mother had a fine singing voice, my lord, and insisted on my taking lessons in order to accompany her. When I left home and went up to Cambridge, however, I played no more. It is a source of regret.’
‘Well, here is an opportunity for you to start again.’ The earl handed the instrument to Christopher. ‘Sit and try it out. Let us see what you can do.’
To refuse would have been unforgivably discourteous. Christopher took a seat, placed the body of the lute on his lap and the fingers of his left hand on the neck. When he rested the little finger of his right hand on the sound board and played a few chords, he found, to his surprise, that he could use his third finger without undue difficulty. The little finger would be more of a problem but one that with a little dexterity he could overcome.
Immediately he regretted having admitted to playing as a boy. ‘I fear that I shall not do such a fine instrument justice, my lord,’ he said. ‘It is years since I played.’
‘Nonsense, doctor. I can tell by your posture that you have been well taught. You read tablature of course.’
‘I do, my lord, and music.’
Leicester nodded. ‘The lute has been correctly tuned. Why not try something simple from memory?’
After more than twelve years, no tune would be simple. Christopher racked his brains. ‘I recall learning one of Thomas Wyatt’s poems set to music, my lord – “Wilt thou go walk through woods so wild”. I could try that.’
‘Perfect. Not a difficult piece. You will manage it with ease.’
Christopher breathed deeply, as his teacher had long ago instructed him, adjusted the angle of the lute slightly, and began, slowly at first, and then picking up speed as the movement of his right arm became familiar. His teacher’s voice came back to him. ‘Pluck the strings with the arm, Christopher, not the hand.’
When he reached the end, he put down the lute, knowing that although he had not made a fool of himself, he had coped poorly with one difficult change of stops and that his playing had been less than fluent.
Leicester clapped his hands. ‘Bravo, doctor. Your thumb misbehaved a little and with practice you will play faster and with more divisions, but I believe you could be a fine musician.’
‘Thank you, my lord, although I fear that you flatter me.’
‘I do not. And I hope that playing will prove as beneficial to you as it does to me. A well-played tune is a sovereign cure for every malady from melancholy to gout. Harmony and balance in music as in life. Take the lute, doctor, and learn to play it well.’ A sly grin crept over the narrow face. ‘In fact, if you practise hard enough I might be able to offer you a position as a musician with my players. How would you like that?’ Of the troupe of players he sponsored, the earl was inordinately proud.
‘It would of course be a great honour, my lord, although for the present …’
Leicester had laughed. As his mood invariably mirrored that of the queen, Her Majesty must have been in fine spirits that day. ‘Quite, quite. Just a jest. But do practise, doctor, and one day you may play at court.’
It had been typical of the earl – a thoughtful, valuable gift, polite encouragement, a touch of humour and care for his intelligencer’s well-being. And a complete surprise. Christopher had left the palace clutching the lute and wondering at a man who could be so generous in word and deed, yet, when his humour was ill, also unreasonable and impatient. Rather than risk the carts and horses and mud and muck of Fleet Street, he had wrapped the case in his gown and taken a wherry to Blackfriars steps.
Since that day he had taken great care of the gift, cleaning it often and replacing broken strings and worn-down frets. He had bought music from the booksellers’ market in St Paul’s yard and from Mr Brewster’s shop in Fetter Lane, practised regularly, and had, he thought, become tolerably competent again. He had also come to realize that his playing and his choice of music reflected his mood – light and fluent when happy, slow and dull when not. Sombre pavans, jolly galliards, and dompes for quiet contemplation. His favourite piece of all was entitled ‘My Lady Cary’s Dompe’. It lifted his spirits when they were low and he played it often.
Working for the earl was seldom easy and sometimes downright impossible, but he took quiet pride in the gift and wished that Leicester would ask about his progress. He never had. That too was somehow typical of the man.
He was wondering whether to risk a chord or two when there was a knock on the door. He cursed, replaced the lute in its case and went to open it. An icy blast swept into the house. Despite being wrapped up in a thick, fur-trimmed coat and hat, the young man standing outside was shivering. Narrow in the shoulder and several inches shorter than Christopher, he looked as if a strong gust might send him hurtling down the hill. ‘Roland,’ said Christopher, surprised. ‘Come in at once before you perish.’
Roland Wetherby stepped inside and stamped a sprinkling of snow from his shoes. Christopher closed the door quickly. ‘God’s wounds, Christopher,’ Roland said, shaking his head, ‘but it is cold out there, cold enough to freeze a man’s balls. There is ice on the streets and they are treacherous. Take care when you go out.’
‘I would much prefer not to go out, Roland. In fact I had a mind to devote the morning to my lute, but Katherine wishes me to accompany her to Cheapside.’
Wetherby pulled off his gloves and rubbed his hands together. ‘There will be precious few traders about today and, in any case, my friend, the noble earl has other plans for you. He summons you to Goldsmiths’ Hall immediately. The lute later, perhaps.’
‘What in the devil’s name does the earl want of me at this hour and why Goldsmiths’ Hall?’ It was unlike the earl to summon him when it was barely light although at least the Hall was nearby in Foster Lane. He would not have far to walk.
Wetherby grinned. He rarely knew something about Leicester that Christopher did not. ‘I have an inkling, but better that you should ask the earl.’ He glanced up. Katherine, now properly dressed and her hair brushed and arranged to frame her face, was coming down the stair. He bowed low. ‘Mistress Allington, good day. I had not thought to see you this morning. Do you fare well?’
Katherine turned her smile on him. A ladies’ man Roland Wetherby was most emphatically not, yet he was as susceptible to her charm, when she chose to use it, as any. ‘Mr Wetherby, a pleasure to see you. I fare well, thank you. But I trust you have not come to take Christopher away. Today he is to be my pupil, although between you and me, I do not expect much.’
‘Alas, I fear that the lesson must wait, madam. The earl has other plans for him.’
Katherine made a moue. ‘How disappointing. I was looking forward to teaching a doctor of law how not to spend a shilling when sixpence will do. I am vexed but still I wish the earl good fortune. Christopher’s head will be throbbing and his mind befuddled. Like so many of your sex, he is prone to excess.’
‘We saw a woman convicted of murdering her husband by an act of witchcraft burned at Smithfield yesterday,’ explained Christopher. ‘I sought solace in a bottle.’
‘Several bottles.’
‘Very well, Katherine, several bottles, not that they brought much comfort. We should not have been there and I know not why we stayed. The woman suffered greatly.’ He closed his eyes as if trying to banish from his mind the image of her fleshless face and blackened bones. ‘Now, sit, Roland, and take a beaker of beer. Ignore Katherine. Her temper is never sweet before midday. The earl must wait until I have finished my breakfast. I will join him presently. How is his mood today?’
Wetherby remained standing. ‘Sour. He frets about the queen’s progress to Kenilworth although it is still eighteen months away and every day finds something new and unpleasant to say about Christopher Hatton. Yesterday he was “a mincing prancer”. Today, who knows? “Captain of the Gentlemen Prancers”, perhaps.’
Christopher laughed. At only thirty-three, the handsome Hatton, the finest dancer at court, or so they said, had, to Leicester’s annoyance, been appointed Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, a high office for one so young.
‘And his mood will not be improved if you keep him waiting. You know how he dislikes it.’
‘No more than I dislike being taken from my breakfast. I will say that the streets were dangerous and forced me to take unusual care. Or that I was detained by an old woman who had fallen and needed my help.’
‘He will not believe you.’
Christopher shrugged, poured beer from the jug into a beaker and handed it to Wetherby. ‘Sit down and tell me what I might expect at Goldsmiths’ Hall. I am not at my strongest and do not wish to be ambushed by the earl.’
‘I shall return to the bed chamber,’ said Katherine, ‘so that you may speak freely.’
‘And quietly. You will of course be listening.’
Katherine poked out her tongue and flounced off. Wetherby pulled up a chair. ‘Oh, very well, Christopher, if you insist. I will tell you what little I know but you must pretend to know nothing. You may happily incur his displeasure but I do not wish to.’
‘Nor will you. Now what is it that I do not know?’
Half an hour later, when Wetherby had returned to Whitehall, Katherine handed Christopher his thick coat. ‘Return directly,’ she said, ‘I shall be here and impatient to know exactly what the earl has in mind for you.’