On Thursday, March 25th, twelve months to the day since he took leave of the Tsar his master, Osep Grigorievich Nepeja, the first Muscovite Ambassador to England, was summoned to Westminster to present himself before the King and the Queen, and to make his formal Oration.
The State barge, in which he left the Three Cranes wharf in the Vintry, was decked with streamers and flowers and gilding and flew the flag of St George for both England and Muscovy, and carried the arms of both countries. With him travelled Lord Montague and a large number of merchants from the Muscovy Company, as well as ten City Aldermen and his own far-travelled escort, which included the Voevoda and three men from St Mary’s. On the jetty at Whitehall he was met by six lords in velvet, with trumpeters, and by them conducted up the Watergate stairs to the long gallery, and from there to the Great Chamber, hung with brilliant blue baldachine and spread with one of Wolsey’s damascene carpets.
There he was saluted by Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, the Lord Chancellor; William Paget, Baron de Beaudessert as Keeper of the Seals, William Paulet, Marquis of Wiltshire, the Lord High Treasurer; and William Howard, Baron of Effingham, the Lord High Admiral, the last two being Charter Members of the Muscovy Company.
The intent on both sides was to impress. Nepeja, dressed by the Muscovy Company, whose members comprised half the Government wore a gown paned with gold wire and sewn jewels like acorns, with a tall jewelled hat on his great bearded head. The Voevoda with his three colleagues following was as refined as a charming shell cameo in thick silk brocade sewn with white sapphires and cloudy star rubies. Across his shoulders he wore, as Danny Hislop’s dazzled eyes registered, the Tsar’s great barmi of pendant medallions.
Treading between the double line of brilliant courtiers, brittle as the Queen Dowager’s iron flowers at Binche, Danny wondered how much it impressed the middle-aged Governor of a trading town in frozen, Tartar-torn Muscovy. The broad river, so like the Moskva, but lined with great houses and long garden walls, pierced by handsome gateways and jetties. And behind it, instead of the uniform ranks of the izbas, the whole crowded panorama of London with its church spires and towers and the tiered rows of its houses in wood, brick and plaster with their random gables and windows, deep-carved and gilded; the booths and taverns and gardens; the palaces of bishops and kings and the town houses of merchants and nobles in every extravagance of texture and period, Gothic and classical: the black and white of timber and plaster beside brick, moulded or carved in all colours from silver to red to yellow to the kiln-burnt ripeness of mulberry.
The tall chimney stacks, crusted and twisted and diapered. The tiers of glittering glass from tower windows, square headed and mullioned and transomed, and the tailored grey cupolas, capping them. Trefoiled friezes and curling leaf ornament; swag mouldings and roundels in terra-cotta of pure Italian work. Running patterns of plasterwork, such as those which clad the walls of this building, with trailing flowers and mythological monsters: arches of flint and brick chequered, like the one standing outside in King Street. Square Gothic gatehouses, with their feet in the river, such as that which led into the Palace. The tennis courts. The tilt yards. The twenty stone piers of the Bridge.
And what did he make of the Presence Chamber, thought Danny, with its ranks of high leaded lights and great gold compartmented ceiling? And below it, the hangings of gold tissue with the emblems of England and Spain entwined in raised purple velvet, and the frieze of antique work, picked out in gold.
The dais was at the end of the room, under a heavy fringed canopy. And there, the Queen and her consort sat, unmoving, on tall gilded thrones.
Queen Mary looked ill. Dressed as if for a wedding, with her neck thickly ringed with large pearls within her rigid winged collar, and her gemmed skirts unwieldy as curtains, she breathed from her stillness a kind of violent impatience. She was suffering, it appeared, from the rheum and a toothache. And Philip, it was said, from something worse, which he had brought uncured from Brussels, having failed these many weeks to make a recovery.
But he gave no appearance of restlessness. Elegantly disposed, with his thin acquiline nose and stubborn, fair-bearded jaw he was wearing the dress sent him by his bride for their wedding day, of cloth of gold with English roses and pomegranates, all picked out in gold beads and seed pearls. On each sleeve Danny, counting discreetly, identified nine table diamonds, and his white plumed bonnet had a little chain and a medallion with diamonds and rubies.
The long-deferred, long-wanted reunion had taken place at Greenwich, four days before. At every stage of his return, from Calais to Dover, from Dover to Canterbury, from Canterbury to Greenwich King Philip had found two of the Queen’s gentlemen waiting, one of whom had ridden off forthwith to take the Queen news of his progress. On the day of his arrival at Greenwich, each London church sang the Te Deum by order of the Bishop of London, and the church bells rang all the time, while in the palace down river the King and Queen walked to their closet, and heard their first Mass on their knees there together.
They had stayed two days at Greenwich before passing upstream to Tower Wharf with the Court, where they were met by the Lord Mayor, aldermen and sheriffs and all the Crafts in their liveries for the ceremonial ride through the City. King Philip pardoned the prisoners in the Tower in passing, and the noise of bells and trumpets and guns shooting off from the Tower was only surpassed in horror by the noise of the waits on the leads of St Peter’s in Cheap, whom Danny had joined, with Ludovic d’Harcourt, to gain his first, unpredjudiced view of King Philip.
The shopkeepers were glad to see the King present, and the Privy Council, with their palms itching, it was said. But the people gazed at the Spaniards, as Danny was gazing now at the Spanish lords grouped round the throne, and heard without enthusiasm King Philip’s publicized statements instinct (in translation) with goodness and clemency. He wished to enjoy his states, he said, rather than to increase them. And more than anything, because of its cost, its toil and its perils, was he opposed to the waging of war.
Danny recalled retailing that to the Voevoda, and the Voevoda listening with sympathy. In fact, Lymond had quoted him Elder:
O noble Prince, sole hope of Caesar’s side
By God appointed all the world to guide
But chiefly London doth her love vouchsafe
Rejoicing that her Philip is come safe.
He could do it with his face as bland as a bishop’s. He was perfectly serious now, standing behind Nepeja and his nine Russians in cloth of gold and red damask, listening to the start of the Oration. Nepeja’s voice began with a tremble, and then settled down to its normal vibrating sonority. The Tsar’s letter, somewhat marred with sea water, had already been delivered: The most high and mighty Ivan Vasilievich, Emperor of all Russia, sends from the port of St Nicholas in Russia his right honourable Ambassador surnamed Osep Nepeja, his high officer in the town and country of Vologda to King Philip and Queen Mary; with letters, presents and gifts as a manifest argument and token of mutual amity and friendship to be made and continued for the commodity and benefit of both the realms and people.
Rob Best, threadily, was translating to English, and someone Danny couldn’t see into Spanish. Perhaps the Count of Feria. The beloved, Ruy Gomez had gone to Spain, to fetch money and troops and supplies and without him, it was a wonder that the King went on breathing. But the other lords were all standing round him, and somewhere must be the Jesuit, thirty-seven years old, it was said, and suing for the hand of Jane Dormer. Moved by a quest for knowledge, Danny was scanning the languid cloaked forms when it came to him, as a fly to the nose of a salmon, that he had nearly missed something much more important. The Somerville girl must be there somewhere.
A tall, regal woman: the Countess of Lennox. A small one, Madame Clarenceux. A young one, with fair hair drawn sleekly back in a caul: Jane Dormer, he suspected. And another, perhaps a year younger, of no very great height, but straight-spined, with the fine, straying grace of one of the lesser carnivores. Her dress was modest; her unchildlike face shadowed by a winged cap of sheer stiffened white, with a gemmed tassel worth a small fortune laid quivering against one pure cheek. Danny Hislop said, ‘Christ!’ although under his breath, and saw Adam turn, and then follow the line of his gaze to Mistress Philippa Somerville, newly of Lymond and Sevigny.
She was looking at Lymond, gravely but with a question somewhere, it seemed, in the fine-drawn line of her brows. Hislop saw the Voevoda counter the stare with another one, perfectly soulless. Then as the girl continued to look at him, Lymond’s mouth relaxed for a moment, into something which was not more than resignation but showed some advance, at least, on its habitual arrogance. Under his breath: ‘Majnún and Leylí,’ said Danny Hislop to Adam.
Then the girl looked away, but not before someone else, he noted, had absorbed the small tableau. The Countess of Lennox, it seemed, was interested in Francis Crawford, and Francis Crawford’s wife Philippa. Indeed, her splendid eyes, scanning him, made Daniel Hislop mildly glad, for once, not to be the object of a woman’s attention. He was so intrigued that he barely heard the Oration end, and its two translations, and the Queen’s reply, and the handing over of the two timbers of sables: eighty fine skins of full growth with long, glossy black hair, spared with some pain from the Company’s Storehouse. For the six timbers of sables, the twenty entire sables, exceeding beautiful and the six great skins, worn only by the Emperor for worthiness had never reached London, but swam waterlogged through some deep northern waters, and made mysteries for the inquisitive seal. The Embassy advanced, one by one, to kiss the Sovereign’s hand and be greeted.
The procession reformed when it was over, and as processions do, took some time to retire from the chamber, and nobly escorted, traverse the Great Chamber and then the long gallery which led back to the Thames. In the gallery, Lady Lennox touched Lymond’s arm.
‘Mr Crawford? You can spare an old friend a few minutes. It will be ten at least before your Russian friends are allowed to embark.’
He did not appear, to the three men behind him, to hesitate. ‘I should be honoured,’ he said. ‘A friend is a friend, old or young, in these troublous times.’ And drawing Hislop’s attention, lightly, with a touch on the shoulder, Lymond moved softly out of line and followed the august woman sweeping tight-lipped before him.
She found a small chamber through the next doorway, and walking in, turned swirling to face him. He said, ‘Is the door to be closed? I am uncertain.’
She was wearing the large brooch which had been one of her wedding presents from the Queen twelve years before, showing the History of Our Saviour Healing the Man with the Palsy. And she was on her own ground at last, fortified by royal wealth and favour and the victory of her religion. Margaret Lennox said, ‘What, my dear Francis? Do you think my reputation could be harmed by a man who is soliciting a divorce from his wife on the grounds that he cannot bed her? I am afraid, my dear, your affairs do not speed. A public congregation of Cardinals called specially over the Constable’s matter has proved disinclined to give dispensation. Quos Deus conjunxit, they say, homo non separet.’
‘I wonder,’ said Lymond mildly, ‘if you erect mazes because you enjoy twining. When King Philip declares war, France will at once come to the aid of the Pope, who will then allow the divorce of the Constable’s son to proceed without hindrance. Mine will follow.’
‘But if England and France are at war,’ Margaret said, ‘will not Scotland declare war on us also? And until the divorce is made final, think of the plight of poor Philippa, tied to a Scotsman.’
‘An absent Scotsman,’ said Francis Crawford. He had closed the door and was standing just inside it, the gold barmi glistening in the dimness. ‘I shall be in Russia, I trust, by that time. And I have had legal papers drawn up, abjuring all claim to Flaw Valleys.’
‘But if you leave,’ Margaret said, ‘your divorce cannot go through. And what will the child’s lovers do then? Repeat the sad history which Mr Bailey tells of your mother?’
‘Am I supposed to be devastated?’ Lymond said. ‘I doubt, I truly doubt, if you have time to discover what does and what does not interest me. I take it that you are threatening Philippa?’
‘Your Philippa has been a trifle indiscreet,’ said Margaret Lennox. ‘A childish error of judgement, but it has done me a disservice in Scotland at a time when I wish the Queen Regent’s favour. I think it would be only fair if Philippa’s husband so conducted his affairs that this favour was restored to me. I want my inheritance of Angus.’
‘Wills, wives and wrecks,’ Lymond said. ‘I beg your pardon. The story goes that you sent your priest to Tantallon Castle where your father breathed his last in his arms, thus allowing Sir John to adjust the testamentary documents at his pleasure. I thought you were using the title of Countess of Angus.’
‘I am using it because it is mine,’ Margaret said. ‘Tantallon is mine. All my father’s possessions in Scotland are mine.’
‘Then how inconvenient,’ Lymond said, ‘that you are married to an outlaw and attainted traitor from Scotland. May I advise you about a divorce?’
They gazed at one another. Lymond added, reproachfully, ‘I shall have to swim to the Vintry.’
‘You take it lightly,’ said Lady Lennox. ‘Perhaps you take it lightly from disregard for the girl. But the sentence for treason in this country is execution. And that applies not only to Philippa Somerville, but to her mother.’ She walked forward slowly, her back to the small latticed window, until she stood immediately before him, blocking the light. She said, ‘I have evidence of her conspiracy. I have only to take it to the Queen. And I shall, unless you help me win my inheritance.’
‘From the Queen Dowager? With my notable lack of prowess?’ Lymond said.
‘And you shall hold Tantallon for me,’ Margaret Lennox said. ‘And, in time, put my son Darnley on the throne.’
There was the briefest of silences. Then Lymond, stretching out his gloved hands, raised her ringed one and brushed it with the lightest and most sardonic of kisses. ‘Margaret. I always misjudge you. Tudor and Douglas you will always be, but Lennox never. We are ignoring the fact that Scotland already has a Queen, betrothed to the Dauphin of France?’
‘We are remembering the fact that war changes many things,’ Margaret said. ‘The Scots are not eager to go to war for the sake of the French, however the Queen Regent may coax them. If they refuse, the French marriage may never take place. Then Mary, Queen of Scots, must needs seek a husband. And my son is eleven.’
‘While she is only fourteen. My felicitations,’ said Francis Crawford. ‘You will be the young Queen’s good-mother. I must encourage you to see Kate Somerville, if she isn’t beheaded, and exchange notes on the experience. I am sure you will succeed but it must, I am afraid, be without assistance from me. I am going back with Nepeja to Russia.’
‘And the Somervilles?’ said Margaret harshly.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did it not occur to you,’ he said, ‘that your convictions about my nature and my habits might now be a trifle outdated? I am not sixteen. I am the Voevoda Bolshoia of Russia, my dear Lady Lennox, and what you do with or to the Somervilles is a matter for your own conscience and undoubted ability, as the Race of Japhet is a matter for mine. And if you fail, send your Darnley to Russia. I might find a princess for him to marry. If she will take him.…’
‘Such as your woman; the woman who keeps you? What is she, this fine whore from Turkey?’ She had clasped her two hands hard together, unable to believe, as yet, that he had refused her.
Lymond smiled. ‘What she is not, despite all you have said, is frustrated. I am not on offer. I extend to you and Matthew my deepest regrets.’
He stretched his hands to the door, and she pulled her fingers apart. ‘You would send your wife and your wife’s mother to the headsman? I mean this. I mean this, Francis. If you sail back to Russia, you will arrive there to find your union dissolved by a higher authority than the Pope.’
He stared at her, and for the first time the wide blue eyes were faintly troubled. ‘Do you suppose that the fine whore from Turkey will expect me to marry her? You almost persuade me to stay here. In any case, why be so impetuous? Your inheritance of Angus may come to you all in the pride of its grease without any inducement but your obvious merits. There are six weeks to pass before the fleet sails. Let us enjoy them, each in our own petty way, and see what the Grand Joculator will bring us. You have forgotten to mention, by the way, what you proposed to do with my son.’
And that, in the end, was what dismayed her: that he could outguess and anticipate even the secret ways of her venom. She set her jaw and staring at him said, ‘I would take him into my kitchens.’
‘Yes. That was what Graham Malett said,’ Lymond remarked. ‘Except that he added something about his bed also. So then I shall admit you to a secret. I killed my son. The child at Flaw Valleys is the son of Graham Malett and his sister Joleta.’
*
He missed the barge going back to the Vintry and the Ambassador, expansive with satisfaction and relief, worried about it at intervals all the way back to Fenchurch Street and upbraided him the moment he arrived, which he did shortly afterwards. Lymond handled him a little like a blast bloomery with an order for toasting-forks, and Hislop and d’Harcourt had to retire hastily, exploding and also regretfully aware that whatever passed between the Voevoda and the Queen’s stately cousin, it was not going to be vouchsafed to them.
Two days after that, by arrangement, two members of the Queen’s Privy Council arrived at Fenchurch Street to open private negotiations at last with the Ambassador, and to begin discussions more secret still with the Voevoda Bolshoia, Mr Crawford. One of these, Sir William Petre, the Queen’s Principal Secretary, was a member also of the Muscovy Company and the other, Thomas Thirleby, Bishop of Ely, likewise a negotiator of long experience through several reigns.
The talks with Nepeja, covering ground already well explored by the merchants lasted more than a fortnight in all, and were not quite so straightforward as either Sir William or the Bishop had been led to expect. The gravity, wisdom and stately behaviour noted and commended so far in the Ambassador were replaced, as the discussions went on, by a certain querulousness.
He was a single foreigner in an alien land, whose tongue he still found incomprehensible. Makaroff and Grigorjeff should now have been at his side, and eight other merchants from the ill-fated Bona Esperanza guiding him; supporting him; lending weight to his arguments, helping him to detect sharp dealing and bad faith among these arrogant Englishmen. Left on his own, Osep Nepeja made sure that at least he should be no easy victim of guile.
With concealed exasperation, the Company officers noted it.
The trading concessions, it was true, were not quite so boundless as those granted them by the Tsar, but were reasonable enough considering that English ships would be carrying the Russian cargo, and that the Russian cargo must therefore necessarily be limited. There was no limit on the number of trading posts the Tsar might set up, in London or outside of it; although it was highly unlikely, considering the Russian economy and their dependence again on English bottoms, that the Tsar would find it worth while to have any.
All this had been thrashed out already, in long sessions with the Company at which Lymond and his colleagues had sometimes assisted, and other invisible sessions, between the Company and the Queen’s Privy Councillors, at which they had not. It seemed to the merchants now, excusing themselves to an impatient Bishop and a resigned Principal Secretary, that the Ambassador’s recalcitrance was due in part to his distrust of the separate talks which were also proceeding, in English, between the two Privy Councillors and Mr Crawford on another subject entirely.
Osep Nepeja resented the confounding of commerce with politics. He had told Robert Best, privately, that King Philip had led him aside on the day of the Oration and had asked him his views on the provision of materials of war between his nation and Russia.
‘And what did you say?’ had said Robert Best, who was as fascinated as anyone by the spectacle of Russian rebellion.
‘I said,’ answered Master Nepeja, ‘that such matters lay outside my commission, and I did not understand them. Would that I could be sure that the Voevoda will reply so, when consulted on matters of trade.’
Best, in the interest of all parties, reported this later to Lymond. ‘He thinks you’re parcelling up Russia in English between you.’
Lymond was not in a tolerant mood. ‘Then if he can learn English in time, tell him that he is welcome to sit in on our discussions. But I am damned if I am going to conduct a major negotiation with an interpreter perched at my elbow. The terms of this treaty were made clear long ago by the merchants. All he has to do, for God’s sake, is let them rewrite it all in long words.’
The second treaty, they all knew, was a different matter. Long before this, Lymond had delivered to the Privy Council, with the greatest circumspection on both sides, his formal note indicating the Tsar’s wish to discuss with her Majesty’s Council the provision of certain skilled men and materials outwith the normal channels of commerce. Long before, he had placed the same note before the leading members of the Muscovy Company with a single question. If the Privy Council gave him licence to proceed, were the Company prepared to supply such items as he required and give them space on their ships, assuming a reasonable percentage of profit?
To this, the Company had agreed. Conditions had never been mentioned. A withdrawal of the Company’s privileges in Russia had never been threatened or even hinted at by Lymond. But the possibility was there, in the very fact that the Tsar had sent this man to negotiate. It was small wonder, the Company recognized wryly, that Osep Nepeja, merchant of Vologda, was uneasy.
So the official negotiators set out, most anxiously primed by the Company and bearing with them also, on the other side of the balance, all the concerted warnings of their fellows on the subject of the Crown’s present outlay and embarrassments, both fiscal and political; and the Crown’s commitments, apprehensions and expectations in all those areas which this inconvenient demand from the Tsar of Russia might affect.
Because of the secrecy of the matter, only Sir William Petre and the Bishop of Ely came to the house in Fenchurch Street for these talks, with a scrivener, who entered with them, and their servants, who waited below. And in the room where the Tsar’s envoy Mr Crawford greeted them was permitted only one other person: the owner of the house, Master John Dimmock. For although lion-hunter had been Ludovic d’Harcourt’s epithet for their host, he was much more than that. Now in his sixties, and older by ten years than the other two members of the commission, John Dimmock had spent the better part of the two previous reigns as royal agent on the Continent, with the care of buying provisions and levying soldiers. And the provisions he had been buying were the munitions of war. If the Queen’s Council were to decree that the Tsar should have what he asked for, Master John Dimmock was the man who would supply it. The house in Fenchurch Street had not been lightly chosen.
Nor were Petre of Oxford and Thirleby of Cambridge, both practised in civil and canon law; both experienced in negotiations at home and in embassies overseas also since the reign of King Henry. The French had complained of Sir William Petre during the haggling over Boulogne six years ago: We had gained the last two hundred thousand crowns without hostages, had it not been for that man who said nothing.
He said nothing now, listening to the man Crawford embark on his preamble. He had found him cordial, which was to be expected, and also a man of address, which he had been warned about. The exposition was brief and also lucid: it dealt with the geography of Russia and the nature of her government, with her income and her natural resources, and with the measures now being taken to lead the whole country forward to that prosperity which its states had once enjoyed before the incursion of the Tartars. It described explicitly the present threat to the nation’s security, and the steps the Voevoda Bolshoia had taken to counter them. It then proceeded to make the two obvious points on which the Russian case rested: that in order to trade successfully, Russia must have stability. And that in pushing the Tartars from her borders, she would be performing a service for the whole of Christendom, and particularly for those countries opposed to Turkey, who held the Tartars in vasselage.
Petre, who had a pain in his stomach, wished it was time to eat. However, so far, so good. Behind him he could hear the scrivener’s pen squeaking, and he hoped he had put down, and accurately, all the facts and figures Crawford had just given them. It was unusual, to say the least of it, to be quite so frank. Whether it was naiveté or the exact opposite, he was not yet quite sure. It was certainly an extremely large army, and well organized, so far as one could gather. Thirleby, beside him, said, ‘You are to be commended, Mr Crawford, on what you and the Tsar before you have achieved already. Two of your Tartar settlements have been disbanded, I gather, and you have already launched attacks on the third.’
‘It is the third which concerns us,’ Lymond said. ‘It is so placed, as I have said, that it is difficult for an army of any size to overwhelm it. On the other hand these Tartars can, and do, send raids up to and into Moscow itself. May I remind you also that they dwell on the borders of Turkey. Even if we exterminate the Crimean Tartars, Turkey is always a threat. More so now, when her attention is no longer occupied with the Persian wars. A Russia overrun by Turks, as Hungary was, is not something, I imagine, that England would favour, however great the distance between us.’
The Bishop said, ‘The Queen’s grace would indeed be desolate were such a thing to happen. Although, to be selfish, it would be pleasing to see Turkey occupied in something other than aiding our enemies the French.’
‘You must weigh that,’ Lymond said, ‘against the disadvantages should Turkey obtain a foothold in the Baltic.’ He did not pause, Petre noticed, to register the hit but proceeded in the same conversational tone. ‘I am under no illusions about your own difficulties here. Poland and Sweden have already lodged formal objections against any proposal to supply us with arms. The Tsar has made no secret in the past of his wish to win back the land on the west of his borders. There has already been fighting in Sweden. If Russia obtained a firmer hold on the Baltic through conquest, the Hanseatic towns would have cause to protest: Antwerp would be rightly disturbed.’
Sir William Petre removed his hand from the front of his doublet. ‘And so should we,’ he said dryly. ‘There would be no need for shipments from St Nicholas Bay if Russia were to begin trading directly through the Baltic.’
‘And this trade with Russia is important to you,’ Lymond said. ‘As, of course, it is to the Tsar. It is five years since the wool trade began to decline. We all know how the new discoveries have taken shipping away from the Baltic, and how your markets there are being affected also by war. Russia has given you a new outlet for trade and a new use for your ships since the fishing fleet dwindled. The Company will increase its fleet as it prospers, and hence the number of ships and trained seamen which the Queen may call on at need. The Navy, I am told, would not be displeased at the prospect. Already the Company is providing cheap cable and timber; it is patient in the matter of loans; it is financing exploration which may open Cathay before you, with promise of treasure far exceeding that of New Spain. And further, at this … confused station in the nation’s affairs, the success of the leading merchants in London would continue to support and uphold the Crown at a time when goodwill is perhaps as precious as money.’
‘I wonder,’ said Sir William Petre, ‘if I understand you aright. You desire the Queen’s grace, notwithstanding the protests of her neighbours, to provide you with the wherewithal to make war, or we forfeit our trade with you and have our explorations curtailed by the Tsar? It seems, whether he knows it or not, that your Tsar has the Golden Horde within his gates once again, throwing aside peace and prosperity for a mirage. If that is the case, sir, we have nothing more to say to one another.’ And he laid his hand on his papers.
Outside the door something clinked, as it might be a dish on a tray. Lymond said, ‘You must tell me, of course, if you wish to renounce your trading agreement, and we can at least avoid wasting your time or mine any longer. Mr Dimmock, is that your intention?’
The door opened and the smell of food entered the room. Mr Dimmock, remembering without surprise that he had informed Mr Crawford only yesterday of Sir William’s poor stomach and its need of constant replenishment, said, ‘It is not the Company’s intention, sir, but in these matters we must be ruled, as you know, by higher policy.’
‘Then,’ said Lymond, ‘perhaps, after a break for refreshment, we should consider what those matters of higher policy are.’
It was remarkable, Sir William thought, truly remarkable what a difference to the temper a morsel of food could bring about. He remembered the other day attending a long and devoted conference between the Queen and her Cardinal Pole, while still awaiting the Bull to confirm him in possession of all his monastery lands. The Queen had forgiven him, he now believed, the service he had performed for her father in suppressing the monasteries. It had left him with a good thirty-six thousand acres in Devonshire alone. But he still felt the knife in his stomach when he thought of the dangers.
Thirleby, on the other hand, had changed coat quite as often and appeared to feel nothing at all. His only great disappointment had been to miss the Lord Chancellorship when Gardiner died. The Queen had suggested it but King Philip, he knew, had objected. He wondered if the Tsar’s envoy knew that. He was extremely surprised to discover how much the fellow did know. It was usual for an envoy from one of the less worldly quarters of Europe to state his case and then reiterate it against all opposition, with whatever weight of threat or financial blandishment could be added, until one side or the other began to concede, and an adjusted agreement was somehow thrashed out. It always took a long time.
He did not think this was going to take a long time, because this fellow not only knew what he wanted: he had thought through the English objections. Disconcerting. Agreeable, even, since argument was one’s business. He thought of the patient hours with Nepeja and fully understood, even more than the Company, precisely why the Tsar of Russia had entrusted this errand to this man.
After the break, it was the English objections they began with. Petre let the Bishop take the lead, while he gazed around at the books. He thought he saw a De republica, but it couldn’t be. Pole had once spent two thousand gold pieces trying to trace that in Poland. He behaved, as he often did, as if he were not listening.
‘Since you speak of Sweden,’ said the Bishop of Ely, ‘you may well know the consequences of your fighting there last year. The harvest suffered. No Swedish corn has come to Brussels and bread has failed, so that no armies can be mustered. No men may gather anywhere until the new harvest is reaped, and wheat meal sold last winter, sir, at forty-six shillings the quarter, so that our women laid their newborn babes in the streets, unable to nurture them while you were sailing at your ease upon this embassy.’
‘I beg to say,’ said Lymond, ‘that I cannot recall standing in so many cornfields: perhaps some other conflicts took place in Holland and Brittany as well. Your point, however, is taken. And at this moment the Tsar should be receiving an ambassador from Sweden in his turn, suing for peace between our nations. Provided Russia is strong and firm, as she showed herself to be last summer, this peace will continue, and your corn will be safe. Meanwhile Sweden may upbraid you, but she cannot march upon you.’
‘She can, however, cancel her commercial treaties,’ Dimmock said.
‘It is unlikely, because they are to her advantage. But she may do so,’ agreed Lymond. ‘It is for you to decide how severe a blow this could be. It was a risk you also took, I imagine, when you launched your present trading agreement with Russia. It may reassure everyone to remember that Lithuania has no standing army and is unlikely to resort to force, particularly when it would mean depleting her Russian frontiers.’
It was time to interfere. ‘On the other hand,’ said Sir William Petre, ‘it may encourage an alliance between Poland and Lithuania and Livonia, and Livonia belongs to the Order of Teutonic Knights which have long been the special concern of the Emperor, and therefore of King Philip.’
‘Except,’ said Lymond, ‘that thirty years ago the Order’s Master repudiated the Pope and turned Lutheran. And I am told that both Poland and Lithuania are being pushed by the Czech Brethren towards Protestantism, while the Lithuanian lords have come to think Calvinism fashionable. It is not a fever which the Queen presumably would like to see spread. In fact, my Tsar extracted an undertaking three years ago from Livonia that they would make no alliance with Poland, and he is at present in a position to enforce it. He is not a friend, as you may know, to the Roman Church, but neither will he allow other faiths to spread within his borders.’
‘You have said that Russia is making a peace, on her own terms, with Sweden,’ Petre said. ‘You have said that, given arms, she can secure herself from attack from the Tartars and from the group of countries inclined to Protestantism on the west. You have not told us what the Tsar’s own ambitions are towards these last two groups. Do you expect us to believe that, given the chance, he will not force a way through Livonia into the Baltic? Or do you wish us to believe that, given the chance, he will send his armies, suitably fortified, into Turkey?’
One did not judge by question and answer. One judged by the tone of the voice and the speed of the breathing; by the unexpected move of a foot or the flick of an eyelid. Petre knew he was watched, and he watched in turn, and saw nothing but an excellent mind operating with perfect serenity. Lymond said, ‘Under no circumstances whatever, while I am Voevoda Bolshoia, will Russia send an army to Turkey. If you will think of what I have already told you, you will see that this is impossible, and if I were to promise it, I should be quite unworthy of my position, or else stupidly deceitful. We shall drive out the Tartars, and we shall destroy Turkish prestige and the supporting armies they send at the same time. But that is all I can promise. That, and the fact that we shall resist any invasion by Turkey to the last stone and the last man.
‘On the West, my answer is as plain as I can make it. These lands belonged to the Tsar. Their loss has meant the loss of an outlet which we sorely need. I cannot pretend that the Tsar has forgotten this, but he sees daily, with the return of your ships, how this loss may be repaired, or partly compensated for, by this new link by the north with your country. I am therefore empowered to give you, and therefore the three nations of Poland, Lithuania and Livonia, a guarantee. My tenure of office in Russia is to last for five years: I hope longer. But I shall promise you, here and now, that for these five years I shall not send an army or permit an army to be sent against any one of these three countries, provided that in their turn they make no move to attack me or the Tsar.’
There was a brief silence. Then Petre said, ‘Can you make such a promise? I have Master Chancellor’s report on this man. He is a fickle ruler, Mr Crawford. Were he to change his mind, I would not give a fig for your contract, for five years or indeed for five minutes.’
‘But,’ said Lymond, ‘I have the army.’
‘So long as you live,’ the Bishop said bluntly.
Lymond smiled. ‘It is another risk you must weigh in the balance. I can only say that, fully trained and appointed, this army under its junta will be capable, with or without me, of keeping its undertaking. And that you must consider that the life of the Tsar, in that country, is exposed to quite as much danger as mine.’
‘And after five years?’ John Dimmock said heavily.
‘After five years,’ Lymond said, ‘we should offend no one, because we should be self-supporting, and need no country’s help. You find it profitable to trade with us now, when we are undeveloped and backward. You will find it ten times as profitable, whatever other outlets we have, when we are thriving. You fear, perhaps, the rise of a new power in the east, where you already have troubles enough with the competing claims of the Empire and France, of the Pope and the German states and Turkey. I can only say that these will change: that the Emperor has abdicated and that the fate of the Empire is not at the moment secure: that Suleiman is old and Turkey may not always remain the power that she has been. The secular power of the Pope is also in question. Affairs change; power shifts. You cannot stop it happening. And I should like you to believe that if you exercise your veto, and keep Muscovy in the backwater where she has fallen, it will not serve your immediate ends, and it may bring about an explosion out of her ignorance and poverty and resentment which your descendants will have cause to regret.’
The Bishop of Ely was unmoved by the thought of his descendants. ‘Should we send hackbuts and teachers to the Gold Coast, so that the natives may greet us in Latin when we go to buy pepper?’
It was a mistake. Lymond looked at Sir William Petre and Sir William heaved a brief sigh and said, ‘As I am sure Mr Crawford is aware, we sent shiploads of pikes and armour to the Gold Coast with Wyndham, only five years ago. It was less a matter of education, it must be said, than of securing our trade there against other competition.’
‘In spite of the complaints of Portugal,’ Lymond said. ‘Perhaps, Sir William, we have covered sufficient ground for one day. There is the list of men and materials which my Tsar would wish you to send him. The profit to the Muscovy Company will be comparable to the profit they would be prepared to accept on the highest grade of their cloth. I propose that a thousand pounds of corn powder should yield the same profit as one piece of double-grain velvet; and that the same amount of serpentine powder should equate to one piece of a pile and a half, the rates for the rest to be settled between us. I am at your disposal at any time: perhaps your secretary would advise me when you wish to continue the discussion.’
It was the kind of list Petre had expected, if a little more specific than he had hoped: 3,500 hackbuts; 1,000 pistolets; 500 lb matches; 100,000 lb saltpetre; 3,000 corselets; 2,000 morions; 3,000 iron caps; 8,000 lances; 9,000 lb corn powder; 60 cwt sulphur; 52 fodders of lead. And the trained men one would also expect: ironfounders and engineers and gunners, physicians and apothecaries, printers, mathematicians; shipwrights.
Petre took the list and rose, Thirleby with him. ‘As you say, we shall place this before our colleagues and return. You are assiduous, Mr Crawford, in the service of your master.’ He bent an inquiring gaze, not ill-humoured, on the other man, twenty years younger, now standing before him with Mr Dimmock. ‘Your own country of Scotland then holds no attraction for you? I thought perhaps you were bent on repeating the great alliance between Scotland and Russia and Denmark, which was to result in the crushing of Sweden.’
Lymond did not smile in return, nor turn the matter as Petre expected. ‘I have had offers from that quarter, certainly,’ Lymond said. ‘But, so far, I have not been tempted.’
With an effort which contorted his stomach again, Sir William Petre refrained from looking at the Bishop. But outside on his horse, riding through the streets with his thirty velvet-dressed followers, he looked at Thirleby all right, and said with feeling, ‘My God!’
‘Yes. It was a threat,’ the Bishop said, ‘to make all other threats pale into insignificance. The question is, how far does he mean it?’
*
Behind them, Daniel Hislop put his head round Lymond’s door and said, ‘Yes, my lord? You wanted to see me, my lord?’
‘Come in and shut the door and stop being vivacious,’ Lymond said, without looking at him. Dimmock had gone. His papers, scattered over the table, had been gathered together and he was putting them away in his cabinet: Danny caught sight of glassware and licked his lips, audibly. ‘No,’ Lymond said.
‘But it went well?’ said Danny.
‘Well for whom?’ Lymond said. ‘It went according to plan. I want your report on the Vannes affair, please.’
He had shut the cabinet door, and locked it. Instead of sitting again, he stayed by the cabinet, tossing the key a little, idly, in his hand. He looked perfectly fresh, which was more than Petre and Thirleby had done. A clever bastard. Danny said, ‘Unless Peter Vannes lands off the south coast in a rowing boat, we’ll know as soon as he sets foot in England. I have men at Dover and Canterbury and Gravesend and Greenwich. And if it’s humanly possible, they’ll get his papers from him. It cost me a fortune. That is, it cost you a fortune. But if the Queen gets those papers and finds you’ve been corresponding with her sister and Courtenay, I suppose it will cost you your neck. It’s a pity we couldn’t take action earlier. We might have had Vannes waylaid in Venice or after.’
‘I am hoping,’ Lymond said, ‘that Hercules Tait has done precisely that. He was under orders to do so, if anything happened to Courtenay. The double precautions are simply because it has become doubly important. It now seems that Mistress Somerville has implicated herself.’
‘With Courtenay? Deceased?’ Danny said.
‘With the lady Elizabeth. Alive,’ Lymond said. ‘Through the Lennoxes’ efforts. They are merely attempting to control my movements: a popular occupation.’
‘They want you out of the country?’ Danny said, speculating generously. And as Lymond threw the key, with a sudden sharp gesture, on his bed, Danny said, ‘I simply love having secrets from Adam and Ludo, but I am risking my fair neck in the Cause. You are supposed to supply me with some basic information, if not to inspire me. Actually, I should love to be inspired. Why don’t we like the Lennoxes?’
‘Because they talk too much,’ Lymond said. ‘What are Blacklock and d’Harcourt doing?’
‘Blacklock, Adam, is drawing maps,’ Danny said. ‘Having been offered the position of cartographer with the Muscovy Company at twenty pounds per annum when you have departed, and having accepted with alacrity. D’Harcourt, Ludo, has got a new woman at Smithfield. Neither of them is likely to burst in on us.’
‘And you?’ Lymond said. He did not, to Danny’s regret, address him as Hislop, Daniel.
‘I,’ said Danny, ‘am risking my neck for Philippa Somerville. I suppose. When your divorce comes along, may I court her?’
‘You will have to discuss the matter,’ Lymond said, ‘with a number of other gentlemen, including one Austin Grey who may even fight you. As a reward for … what is your principal characteristic, would you say?’
‘Treacherousness,’ said Danny, gloriously.
‘That,’ said Lymond pleasantly, ‘is everyone’s principal characteristic. As a reward for bloody persistence, you may know that the Lennoxes have threatened Philippa if I leave the country. They may do it, it seems in two ways. One is by implicating her in my downfall, which is what you are contriving to prevent. The other is by accusing her of trading information to Scotland, which I hope the Queen Dowager is contriving to prevent. There is an inheritance which Margaret Lennox wants very badly. The Queen, I trust, is going to offer her a Chancery suit provided she exculpates Philippa in writing from any suspicion of treachery.’
‘But I thought,’ Danny said, ‘that you and the Queen Dowager of Scotland were no longer on visiting terms? Have you written to her?’
‘No,’ Lymond said.
‘Then——’ said Danny, and cut it off, because he knew now where Lymond had written. There was only one person in Scotland who both knew Philippa Somerville and stood well enough with the Queen Dowager to persuade her to take part in the stratagem, and that was Lymond’s elder brother, Lord Culter. Who at Edinburgh had knocked Lymond clean out of his senses.…
Daniel Hislop, in whose being a mad curiosity flourished at the expense of his undoubted acumen, said simply, ‘Christ! What did you say?’
Francis Crawford turned, and looked at him; and Danny’s smile became suddenly very pretty, if a trifle rigid. ‘I doubt,’ said Lymond dryly, ‘if it would inspire you.’
*
Sir William Petre took occasion to call on Cardinal Pole and ask him if he had discovered the Cicero he was looking for: Cardinal Pole, who shared his interest in rare books, admitted that he had not. Several days after that, Sir William and the Bishop called again to hold soothing talks with the Muscovite Ambassador Osep Nepeja, and to pass directly from there to another part of the house, where they continued their rather more interesting discussions with the Tsar’s other envoy, Mr Crawford.
The grounds for negotiation this time were slightly more practical, and had to do with the very real obstacles in the way of supplying either men or material of the kind the Tsar wanted in these ominous days of impending war. While making this perfectly clear, it had to be admitted that, first, the current truce between France and the Empire was still, officially, unbroken, and that, secondly, although there was talk of war, informed opinion stated that war could not possibly occur until after the harvest, or June at the earliest. Which argued that since England—of course—was neither at war nor about to go to war, the lowering of her own stocks of weapons and powder was undesirable, but not completely out of the question, provided they could be replenished.
But that, of course, was a different story. For gunpowder and sulphur, as Mr Crawford surely knew, were imported to England from Antwerp. And the Low Countries, of course, were conserving every ounce of munitions against the feared counterattack by the French in the summer. Permission would never be given by King Philip’s advisers in Brussels.
Discussion, becoming speculative, lingered round the possibility that the Tsar, supplied with hackbuts and morions and lances, would feel that England had responded sufficiently. This was countered, quite as delicately, by the assurance that the Tsar would understand all England’s problems: none better. But that the less secure her frontiers, the less security Russia could offer her traders. Which left Sir William Petre and Mr John Dimmock with the prospect of explaining to their fellow members of the Muscovy Company why their privileges were being curtailed. Not because of the whim of the Grand Duke of Muscovy. But because King Philip needed the powder for his forthcoming war on the Pope.…
‘Unless,’ Lymond said at this point, ‘the Council cared to leave this particular aspect in Mr Dimmock’s most able hands?’
Murmuring, Sir William expressed the opinion that the conference might well break up for further individual discussions. Through the years until his son’s marriage, the Emperor Charles had made many attempts to prevent the export from the Low Countries to England of war materials needed for his own continuing wars. And for the further excellent reason that the English, having bought his supplies, were not above reselling them to the French to use promptly in battle against him.
Through the years, also, the English had found many ways of circumventing this embargo, and none better than Master John Dimmock. Curious transactions took place between the owners of different warehouses: solid citizens of Amsterdam bought sulphur from solid citizens of Antwerp and resold it; and, mysteriously, hired ships from Antwerp were to be found unloading barrels of gunpowder at Harwich. The captain and searchers at Gravelines were rarely sober for work, so often were they sought out and banqueted, and each New Year’s Day, the captain received twelve ells of black velvet and his customars eight ells apiece of black cloth to encourage them to leave their gates open.
But that, of course, was before the fortunes of England were linked to those of the Empire through the marriage of the Queen to the Emperor’s son. As Lymond, bidding them all farewell, assured them that he fully understood. At the same time, he pointed out that he believed the Court was moving to Greenwich for Passion Week, and that if a cargo was to be collected, the time remaining for discussion was not therefore very great.…
Sir William Petre and the Bishop of Ely did not speak to each other on this occasion, when riding home. The book on the shelves, Sir William had taken occasion to check, was the De republica of Cicero. Mr Crawford had noticed his interest, and, taking it down, had let him look at it. ‘A fine copy, I think. I bought it from a man called Pierre Gilles for fifteen hundred gold pieces,’ Lymond said. ‘Or was it a thousand? I really cannot remember.’
‘Well?’ had said Danny Hislop, poking his head round the door again afterwards.
‘Well enough,’ Lymond had answered. ‘I give them three days.’
They came back in two, with the regretful refusal of her Majesty of England to license the sale to the Tsar of all Russia, through the Muscovy Company, of the arms and munitions of war he had requested, together with the services of known men of skill.
‘The Queen,’ Sir William said, looking at the ceiling, ‘is sensible of the goodwill of her cousin the Tsar, and would like nothing better than to help him in his present desire for the munitions of war. But the needs of her country, and in particular of her dear husband Prince Philip, at present preclude it.’
He looked at Lymond. There was something faintly inquiring about the look. Meeting it formally, Lymond said, ‘It is a matter of regret to me also. And, I am sure, to the Muscovy Company.’
‘Ah. Yes,’ said Sir William. ‘The Muscovy Company has been much in our minds.’ There was a short pause, which no one filled. Then Sir William said, ‘In Master Dimmock, as you may know, the Company has an energetic and able member who has already proved in the past his ability to conjure men and munitions from the air. It may be that he could do so again. If it were possible for such a thing to be done, without depleting the Queen’s stocks in the Tower and without, of course, distressing her royal spouse and his advisers by bringing the matter unnecessarily to their attention, the Council, I must tell you, would feel they had no cause to complain.’
‘I see,’ Lymond said. He looked to his left. ‘Master Dimmock. Is it possible to supply the items on the Tsar’s list on those terms?’
Nothing of this, clearly, was novel to Master Dimmock, but he preserved the fiction nobly. ‘I see no reason why not,’ he said.
‘And in reasonable secrecy?’ the Bishop of Ely inquired. ‘You understand; none of this arrangement is directly the Council’s concern, and none of it, therefore, may be set out by the Council in writing. You supply these goods, if you supply them, from your own sources and at your own risk. If King Philip’s advisers discover it, we shall not be able to contravene any veto he will impose.’
‘I think,’ said Master Dimmock, ‘that we can promise to take all reasonable precautions. Mr Crawford, if you wish to proceed, then the Muscovy Company will help you.’
‘I was sure you would,’ said Lymond gravely.
It was over. Master Dimmock served them all with his very best wine, to celebrate the occasion, and Sir William went off with the De republica packed in his box, and the prospect of a thousand gold pieces’ profit to be made from the Cardinal. After they had gone, Lymond stood for a while, looking at the empty place where the Cicero had rested on his book-laden shelves, and then locked his papers away and, banging the door, ran downstairs to call on Nepeja.
There, rejoicing had already broken out: the room seemed to contain half the two hundred members of the Muscovy Company and the wine had been round three times already. Master Nepeja’s business had also prospered at last, and on the desk by the window lay the last draft of the league and articles of amity concluded between the kingdoms of England and Russia, ready to be copied and confirmed under the Great Seal of England. He was free to see to his merchanting and to sail.
He was just sober enough to rise to his feet when Lymond came into the room, and then, after the first frowning moments, to realize what Lymond was saying. The second part of the treaty was in operation also. The Privy Council had acceded, in secret, to the Tsar’s other demands.
The implications of that were beyond Osep Nepeja’s interest or understanding. The talks were over, and without prejudicing his or anyone’s trade. He flung his arms round the unexcited person of the Voevoda Bolshoia and scavenged him like a bass broom with his beard. The Voevoda surprisingly did not give way more than a steel fence before him, although he did exchange the greeting, smiling, in the Russian fashion. The sound of his round Russian speech, after two hoarse weeks of Rob Best, made tears spring to the Ambassador’s eyes and he blew his nose, belching. Lymond left as soon as he could.
‘Well?’ said Danny at supper. There was no news of Peter Vannes and his casket from Venice. There had been no further threats from the Lennoxes: no communication from the Queen. No word from Philippa, who was preparing with the rest to leave London for a week on the 15th. King Philip’s married sister the Duchess of Parma and his widowed cousin the Duchess of Lorraine had arrived at Westminster and were to stay at Greenwich for Easter as well: in order, it was said, to persuade the lady Elizabeth to marry the Duke of Savoy. Since everyone knew that the pretty Duchess of Lorraine was not one of Queen Mary’s favourites, a gloomy Easter was anticipated.
Danny said, ‘Well?’ and as Lymond did not respond, he tried again. ‘Sir? Now the ships can be loaded, the Company is talking of sailing for Russia by the end of April, or early May at the latest. What if Vannes hasn’t arrived when you sail?’
‘An interesting thought,’ Lymond said. He was not, Danny thought, looking quite so carefree as on previous occasions; or perhaps had merely less patience than usual for the bastards of Bishops. Lymond went on, ‘I am not, if that is your point, contemplating taking Mistress Philippa with me to Russia, much as you would adore to witness the consequences.’
‘What, then?’ Danny said. ‘He may be held up indefinitely.’
‘Somehow,’ Lymond said, ‘I don’t think so. I think Peter Vannes will arrive, with papers or without them, before the Ambassador and I leave for Russia.’
‘And me,’ Danny said. He gazed at his commander’s occupied eyes. ‘Why? Why should you think so? A premonition? Mr Dee’s crystal ball?’ He flinched as Lymond looked at him at last. ‘I’m just persistent by habit,’ said Danny.
But Lymond, changing his mind, had decided to answer him. ‘For one inadequate reason,’ he said. ‘Today, the English Privy Council agreed to all the Tsar’s demands for skilled men and armaments.’
‘I know. Mind, voice, study, power and will, Is only set to love thee, Philip, still. Hooray,’ Danny Hislop said.
‘Hooray,’ Lymond agreed. His face, older than his years, was not accommodating and his eyes, too brightly coloured for a man, were perfectly bleak. ‘Except that when these talks started, I had no hopes of this concession, and there was no reason why it should ever have been granted. Why did they grant it? Why? Why? Why?’
To which, if the Voevoda Bolshoia did not know, Danny Hislop could venture no answer.