The year wore on. The Queen, who had hitherto left Essex to stew in his own juice, grew impatient with his intransigence and decided to move against him. She ordered that a speech reciting all his many offences should be read out before the Star Chamber by the Lord Keeper, and that Essex should then be summoned to appear before a special court. He declined to attend on the grounds of his illness, whereat the Queen took the unprecedented action of having herself rowed to Essex House to try to speak to him in person and persuade him to attend.
What exactly happened there was never to be known, other than that she never met him—or so it was reported. On the following day, November the 29th, the court was held in his absence, and it ended by listing again all his many misdemeanours, which, it was claimed, taken together, amounted to treason.
He was not, however, immediately arrested, but remained in confinement at Essex House, from where, shortly afterwards, the news filtered out that he was gravely ill, this time of a combination of a stone in the kidney and dysentery.
The citizenry of London buzzed and roared as each new act in the drama was played before them. They were largely on Essex’s side, and decorated many of the City’s walls with graffiti supporting him and attacking the Queen and Cecil, who were thought to be plotting his doom. A number of the nobility went so far as to write letters urging James VI of Scotland to invade England with their help and depose the Queen.
All his supporters, both gentle and simple, were aware that Essex, who had once been the Queen’s favourite, was living in a world turned upside down, where it seemed more and more likely that he would shortly be ending his life on Tower Hill.
Martin’s whole world had also been turned upside down. The self-sufficiency on which he had prided himself since Mary had died had disappeared. His life had been so easy, his goals so simple and direct. How was it, then, that Kate had come to twine herself around his heart so that the thought of losing her made him feel sick? He did not want this; no, not at all.
He had always told himself that if he married again his wife would mean no more to him than any other household chattel, there for him to use when he so willed, without it in any way engaging his feelings. Yet now, no matter how many times, in her absence, he told himself that he would not allow her to affect him so strongly, once she was in his presence he immediately fell under her spell.
He had never been able to understand how it was that some men saw women as witches, as sirens, luring them on to do what they would not, but now that mystery was solved. Yet Kate was no siren. Her innocence was so patent, her goodness so plain, that every time he witnessed it, as when she had comforted Rafe after he had been wounded while defending her, his heart felt nigh to bursting.
All those love songs he had performed half in jest, he now sang in earnest. More than that, to his utter surprise, the muse who had proved shy when he had tried to write a play now became bold, and the words flew from his pen. The many songs mocking love which he had written in the past were quite forgotten, for now he admitted his love for her in every word he wrote.
He did not yet dare to tell the secrets of his heart to Kate. He who had been so forthright all his life was now timid before her, lest, because he had refused to allow her to confess her love to him, she might be reluctant to believe that he had changed. So, slowly and subtly, he would woo her, and pray that his conversion had not come too late to save him.
In the meantime he would finish the song he was writing and, one day soon, he would sing it to her. The music for it was already running through his head even as the words, almost as by magic, formed themselves on paper.
Cupid shot me, this I know
With just one arrow from his bow,
I fell before my lady fair
Enraptured by her face and hair
Her eyes, her walk, hold me in thrall,
Her voice is like a songbird’s call.
Sweet Jesu grant that she and I
May live in Eden ‘til we die.
It was so unlike anything which he had written before that he stared at his work in wonderment. So rapt was he that it was only at the last minute that he registered that there had been a knock on his door.
He shouted, ‘Enter!’ and hastily stuffed the paper in a drawer, trying to look as though he had been busily working at the large ledger which he pulled before him.
It was Jacko, acting as a postboy. He handed Martin a letter which had just arrived. ‘The man who delivered it said that it was urgent,’ he announced, ‘and he would like an immediate answer.’
Now who the devil could it be from? Sir Robert Cecil? M’lord Essex? Master Bevis Frampton? Or was it from some dealer who wished to ride on the back of Andrew Martin’s success? The size of the seal which he began to break told him that this last guess was unlikely.
It was from Lord Essex, and was half a plea and half a demand that Lord Hadleigh should visit him again.
Martin pulled a sheet of paper towards him and started to write at speed.
‘Lord Hadleigh thanks M’lord Essex for his most gracious invitation, but regrets that, at present, he is so busily engaged on a new venture that he must ask him to be forgiven if he is unable to take advantage of it.
‘He remains your most humble servant.’
He closed it with a seal nearly as elaborate as Lord Essex’s had been, and handed it to Jacko, saying, ‘Give that to M’lord Essex’s messenger.’
‘Essex!’ exclaimed Jacko, making a rude noise with his lips. ‘Him as thinks that poor folks like me are on his side. Does he want you to lend him money? Or raise an army for him? Best you do neither—the poor fellow’s a clodpole.’
This earthy admonition set Martin laughing. Trust Jacko to get to the point straight away. There were even times when he thought that he might be the best man to ask for advice over the dilemma he was in with Kate.
Never mind that, he must attend to his work again—he mustn’t be so moonstruck that he lost a useful deal because he was wool-gathering, as the saying had it. Nevertheless he wondered why Essex was so determined to have him on his side. He had told Kate he would be late home this evening because he had decided to visit the Friday Club, from which he had been absent since his marriage.
If Raleigh were there he would ask him why he thought that he was being pursued so determinedly by the Queen’s fallen favourite.
‘Money,’ said Raleigh pithily. Although he was often a man of many words, there were times when he was a master of brevity. ‘He has none, you have much—oh, and your wits, of course. Those around him are not blessed with many.’
Martin nodded. ‘That’s a reasonable explanation.’
Raleigh grinned. ‘And your good lady—is she being reasonable now you are married?’
‘Manifestly so. She gave her blessing for my visit to the club today. Some of her cousins are coming a-calling and they—and the old aunt—can have a fair old gossip in my absence.’
‘Talking of gossip, I have heard that Southampton, through Sir Gelli Meyrick, has been badgering the players to put on Richard II, that old drama of Shakespeare’s, to help Essex’s cause along.’
‘Why,’ asked Martin, ‘should the actors do anything so dangerous, since it might even be considered treasonable to stage it? Especially after the judgement the Star Chamber has recently handed down?’
‘Money again. At the moment I believe that Southampton is not offering enough. Besides, the matter is not yet urgent. Essex is still ailing and is in no condition to lead a revolt. They are talking of delaying it until after Christmas.’
‘Well, if he and Essex are short of money it does explain why they are trying so hard to enlist me on his side.’
‘Exactly. Of course, if Southampton were to offer them enough money the players would do as he wished—however dangerous it might be. Shakespeare in particular is noted for driving hard bargains of a similar nature. He is that odd thing, a man who is a poet and a businessman, too.’
‘If I wrote poetry would you call me odd?’
‘Certainly, even odder than Shakespeare.’
By now the room was beginning to fill up as the club members arrived.
Martin decided not to show Raleigh his latest songs yet. They were too personal, too much a part of himself that he had never yet revealed to anyone. They were quite at odds with the man everyone, including his father, supposed him to be. Did Raleigh write poetry which he showed to no one?
Ben Jonson, who had just come up to beard Raleigh, was certainly odd, and Martin would bet that he showed everything he wrote to anyone who would read or listen to it. By his expression Raleigh was finding him tedious, and when the man had moved on he muttered at Martin, ‘I wish someone would tell Jonson how to pronounce my name properly. It’s Rawly, not Rally. It may be stupid of me, but I find it annoying to have a man who is so confident that everything he does is perfect misname me so consistently.’
Martin solemnly nodded agreement. His solemnity hid his amusement that Raleigh, who spelled his name a different way in every document he signed, should be so troubled about how it was pronounced.
Well, he thought, all men have their vanities, and although they recognise those of others, they are often unaware of their own.
Some days after Martin had refused again to support Lord Essex, Webster was working in the office when the steward came in to announce that he had a visitor.
‘It is Master Bevis Frampton, sir, and when I informed him that Lord Hadleigh was out he asked if he might speak with you.’
Frampton! Who had he really come to see? Martin or himself? Logic said that he must be the fellow’s target, since he must surely know that Martin visited the City every day. But what could Frampton want with Martin’s secretary?
‘Admit him,’ he ordered.
‘Here?’ queried the steward.
‘Of course, where else?’
Frampton walked into the room, bowing and fluttering in Webster’s direction as though he were Lord Hadleigh himself.
‘Most gracious of you to see me. I trust that I do not disturb your labours.’
Of course he was disturbing Webster’s labours, but he did not say so.
‘I always have time for visitors if they have something substantive to say to me.’
‘Most wise of you, I am sure. It is about the matter of Lord Essex that I wished to speak to m’lord, and you will doubtless report to him anything which I have to say to you.’
‘You may depend upon it.’
‘It is the following.’
Bevis leaned forward and fixed Webster with a hard and unwavering stare, at the same time beginning to beat monotonously on the desk with his forefinger.
‘You can hear me, I hope,’ he said, not once, but twice and then again. ‘And will at all times acknowledge me as your one and only master.’
He repeated this again and again, keeping his baleful eyes fixed on Webster’s.
Webster recognised at once the true nature of Bevis’s behaviour. Some called it the evil eye, others had more fanciful names for it. Whatever happened, he must not allow Frampton to take control of him in order to force him into doing something against his will.
The fellow must be allowed to believe that his tricks were working, and Webster prayed that he would be strong enough to overcome them.
‘Repeat after me,’ he was ordered, ‘the following words, “I will always carry out your orders, Master.”’
‘I will always carry out your orders, Master.’
‘Again.’ And the tapping grew more and more relentless.
‘I will always carry out your orders, Master.’
‘Excellent. Listen carefully to me. On the first occasion on which you are alone with Lord Hadleigh in this room, you will take up the dagger I shall give you and thrust it into his breast with such force that he dies. Now repeat that after me.’
Webster did as he was bid in a monotone.
‘And again.’
Bowing his head, the slave appeared to obey his master yet once more.
‘Yes, you will always obey my orders in future. Take the dagger and hide it where you may easily find it when the time comes to use it. Say again that you will carry out my orders.’
‘I will carry out your orders.’
‘Good, now hide the dagger!’
Webster pulled open a drawer in his desk and placed the dagger in it.
‘Excellent. Now, as proof that you have become my servant, who will obey me whenever I command you to do so, fall on to your hands and knees, crawl towards me and lick my boots until I tell you to stand again.’
Webster, swallowing his revulsion at this loathsome command, did as he was bid.
‘Now stand up straight and look me in the eye.’
He was obeyed again.
Bevis, his eyes still hard on Webster’s, intoned, ‘When I snap my fingers together you will forget what I have just told you, but when the time is right you will remember my orders, and will act upon them.’
Webster blinked after seeing the snapping fingers, and then said, brightly, as though nothing untoward had happened since Bevis had spoken to him of his wish to leave a message for Martin, ‘I understand that you require me to report to Lord Hadleigh on certain matters relating to Lord Essex. You may give me your message and I will inform Lord Hadleigh of it when he returns.’
‘Well said: it is this. Lord Essex asks Lord Hadleigh to reconsider his refusal to join him in his enterprise. Once that enterprise is successful he may choose whichever post in government he wishes and in due course will receive a Marquessate. That is all. You will not forget?’
Webster shook his head. ‘No, Master Frampton, I never forget anything. Ever. I do assure you of that.’
‘Then I will bid you good day.’
After Bevis had taken his leave, Webster pulled his kerchief from his sleeve, poured water on it from a pitcher which always stood on his desk and scrubbed his mouth vigorously in order to take away the foul taste of the humiliation he had recently suffered, but which he felt sure had been necessary to convince Frampton that his vile trick had worked.
Martin was early home that day. He immediately walked into the withdrawing-room, to find Kate and Aunt Jocasta there. They were busy making a purse to hang from Kate’s waist—or rather Aunt Jocasta was. Kate was admiring her aunt’s dexterity with the needle while she read to her.
‘I hoped that you would not be late home today,’ Kate told him when he walked forward to kiss her on the cheek—a simple act which set his passion for her boiling again. He wondered whether he had the same effect on her, but since he had told Kate not to talk of love to him, she had tried to obey him by not committing any act which could be construed as provocation.
Unknown to her, far from cooling him down, her reticence set him on fire. He wondered how he might get rid of the old aunt, but before he could frame some sort of excuse, Kate said, ‘Master Webster asked me to tell you that he wishes to speak to you on a most urgent matter and begs that you will do him the honour of attending on him as soon as you arrive.’
‘Oh, I am always ready to honour Webster, as he well knows, but today I prefer to honour my wife first.’
Aunt Jocasta, who was learning to recognise when her presence was not required, picked up her needlework and said, ‘I wish to take a short walk in the park before night falls. I wonder if I could have Master Jackson with me to act as my guard.’
‘Certainly,’ both Kate and Martin replied together, and once she had gone they joined in laughing together at their eagerness to be alone.
‘I don’t think that I can wait to pleasure you until we retire upstairs,’ Martin told her, seating himself on the long settle and pulling her on to his knee. ‘I have noticed that you have taken to wearing much less in the way of stiff court clothing lately, and consequently it will be easier for me to undress you.’
Kate teased him with, ‘Your clothing is as cumbersome as mine was, if not more so. What do you propose to do about that?’
‘Take off my breeches, and since your skirts are so light today, you may keep them on and lift them for me so that we may enjoy ourselves without delay. The floor will give us more room than the settle and you may use one of the cushions from it to support your head once we descend there.’
And if, when they reached it, the floor was uncomfortable, neither of them, in their mutual joy, noticed it. Kate, her skirts above her head, felt like a parlourmaid accommodating her master, something which made Martin’s lovemaking even more exciting—if that were possible.
That they might be interrupted at any moment was another thing which added to her pleasure. Never mind that they were man and wife, to enjoy themselves on the withdrawing-room floor, instead of respectably in bed, gave the whole glorious business an illicit air.
Both of them must have felt it, for they rapidly shuddered simultaneously into such a powerful climax that they lay there exhausted for several minutes without moving. Martin, who was usually the first to recover, suddenly sat up, kissed Kate on the cheek, and picked up his breeches which he had thrown on to the settle in his haste to get at her, saying, ‘I know that we are husband and wife, but we do owe an example to our servants, and making love in the early afternoon is not one we ought to encourage.’
Kate sat up, too, rearranged her skirts, and picked up the cushion, remarking, ‘It wasn’t as comfortable as the bed, but that did not matter overmuch. Besides, the difference seemed to add a certain zest to the act.’
Martin pulled her to her feet, laughing again. ‘Go to, wife. Next time we’ll try the wall. Who knows, you might enjoy that even more.’
Soon the only evidence of their love-making was in their flushed faces. Martin had scarcely finished fastening his breeches when there came a knock on the door.
‘Enter,’ he called, trying to look as grave as though he had just been reading a book of sermons.
It was the steward.
‘Master Webster asks, m’lord, if it would be convenient for you to attend him in the office as soon as possible. He begs pardon for troubling you so soon after you have returned home, but says that the matter he wishes to discuss is an urgent one.’
Well, Webster might really have had to beg pardon if he had sent the steward along a few moments earlier, was Martin’s immediate reaction. He turned to Kate, who was contriving to look extremely demure for a woman who had just been enjoying herself so earthily only a few minutes earlier.
‘You will excuse me, wife.’
She smiled coyly at him. ‘Only if you will promise to engage me again in a similar project to the one which we have just enjoyed.’
‘With pleasure,’ he grinned back at her. ‘And now to see what is engaging Webster so mightily.’
He found his secretary seated at his desk, an odd expression on his face.
‘Come now,’ asked Martin, who was all aglow after his recent bout with Kate. ‘What is it that occupies your interest so strongly that you need my presence with such urgency?’
Webster rose, opened a drawer in the desk, pulled something from it and held it out towards Martin.
‘This,’ he said.
This, to Martin’s surprise, was a dagger. He took it, for once bemused.
‘Why is this urgent? Is there something remarkable about it?’
‘Yes,’ Webster told him and fell silent again.
Martin examined it carefully. ‘It looks very ordinary to me,’ he said at last. ‘Cease to bait me before I attack you with it in order to gouge a proper explanation out of you.’
Webster’s laughter was heartfelt. ‘A very apt answer, m’lord, as you will see when I tell you how it came into my possession.’
‘It’s yours, then?’
‘Not exactly, or perhaps, after a fashion, yes. This afternoon I had a visitor, our suspected assassin, Bevis Frampton. He said that he came to visit you, but, in truth, as I soon discovered, he had come to visit me. After we had exchanged a few polite words he turned an evil eye on me to bend me to his will—together with a drumming finger and a constant repetition of the same words.
‘Briefly, when he thought he had conjured me into a state where he could control me with his voice, he gave me the dagger you hold and told me to kill you with it when we were next alone together. By great good fortune I had heard tell of this wicked trick and was able, by an act of will of my own, to behave as though he had genuinely overcome me. He then bade me to forget what he had ordered me to do, until you and I were alone together when I would instantly carry out his fell intent.
‘For a moment I thought to kill him, or take him prisoner, but I dare not risk being unable to convince anyone that something so strange could be true. Better by far to present you with the dagger and hope that you would believe me.’
Martin put the dagger down carefully and stared at Webster.
He thought of what his brother had written in his Commonplace Book before he spoke.
‘Yes, your story is a strange one, but recently I read an account written by someone who had suffered a like strange experience at the hands of a man who was almost certainly Bevis Frampton. I was inclined to believe this to be a fable from someone who was ill when he wrote of it, but you are not ill. Are you prepared to swear on the Bible that you are telling me the truth?’
‘Willingly.’
‘Then you need not swear—I believe you. What do you think that, knowing this, we ought to do about Frampton?’
‘We can do nothing through the law,’ Webster said slowly, ‘for my story would sound like a fantasy which I had invented. We must go carefully, all of us, and try not to be alone with him.’
‘That is not enough. He must be dealt with, but short of murder, how? There is a puzzle for us, and only for the two of us. Best you say nothing of this to anyone else.’
‘The other and more important question is,’ said Webster, ‘what will Frampton do when he learns that I have not killed you, and that he has failed again?’
Martin said, slowly, ‘I have found in the past that, in the end, time and chance often solve such puzzles for us. I would like to act against him immediately, but, as things are, it might not be wise.’
‘So we do nothing?’
‘For the moment, yes. What is of more immediate importance is that I must thank you for saving my life—for had you not tricked Frampton while he believed that he was tricking you, I would be lying here dead.’
‘And I would be on my way to the gallows,’ remarked Webster dryly.
‘True, but it does not lessen the favour you have done me. One way or another I shall repay you.’
Webster shook his head, ‘No need for payment of any kind. I was but doing my duty.’
‘You must leave me to be the best judge of that,’ was Martin’s answer.
The matter was left there.
‘Was Webster’s business really very urgent?’ Kate asked Martin over supper, to receive a light-hearted answer from him. ‘Not really, secretaries tend to believe that all matters which they deal with are urgent. Suffice it that the problem was soon settled.’
Webster had asked to be excused from joining them in their meal that night. ‘Safer so,’ he had said privately to Martin, ‘One or the other of us might say something which would enlighten your clever wife as to what happened here today. By tomorrow it will be a little behind us, and not the first and only thing on our minds.’
So only Rafe ate with them and Aunt Jocasta, and he was full of the latest gossip which had run round the ordinary where he had taken his midday meal.
‘It is said that the Queen has banished Bacon from the precincts of the court, and that she is considering taking similar action against Raleigh. There is talk that he belongs to a mystic circle which meets privately to discuss topics which are best left to those who rule England.’
‘I know,’ said Martin, ready to defend Raleigh, a man whom many, jealous of his varied accomplishments, lost no time in attacking, ‘that he’s a member of a group called the School of Night. He told me recently, however, that they discuss quite different matters—such as the nature of the world we live in and its true history, together with other theories which Dr Dee has propounded.’
‘Which means,’ Kate said shrewdly, ‘that he—and they—might be questioning the truth of the Bible. Were Sir Walter to live under Catholic rule he would be in danger of death by burning rather than simply being banished from the court.’
‘True,’ said Martin slowly. ‘Her Grace is not so harsh as most rulers, but you must understand that there are times when only the most condign punishment of those who are traitors will answer.’
‘Such as the execution of the Queen of Scots,’ Rafe said.
‘True again, and it took Lord Burghley many days before Her Grace consented to sign the death warrant of a woman who had repeatedly encouraged those who had tried to murder her.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Kate, showing how quickly she was beginning to understand the devious nature of the great world of politics and diplomacy, ‘she might have thought that it would be dangerous to execute a fellow monarch because it might serve to spur on others to do the same. Not only that; since in the end she was compelled to give way in order to save the state, it ought to serve to persuade Lord Essex to behave himself lest he meet the headsman one fine morning.’
‘He’s not clever enough to learn his lesson,’ riposted Rafe with a grin, and they all began to laugh, so that to Martin’s relief the table talk turned to other matters than death and treason.
‘Let us talk of Christmas,’ he proposed. ‘I have had a letter from my father: a letter which surprises me. He has asked me to spend Christmas with him, bringing with me my wife and my immediate entourage. There are certain matters which he wishes to discuss with me.’
All his hearers stared at him. Aunt Jocasta was the first to speak. ‘How very strange. In the last conversation I had with your father before I left Bretford House, he was adamant that he had no wish ever to see or speak to you again.’
‘So he told me before I left,’ Martin said. ‘I would have thought that the sun would rise in the west if I set eyes on him before he was laid to rest in state in his coffin.’
‘The question is,’ Kate offered quietly, ‘do you wish to oblige him?’
Martin was almost of a mind to say no. Instead, he said something which Kate thought was also strange. ‘I shall have to consult Webster before I make a decision.’
Rafe, who was a trifle jealous of Webster, exclaimed, ‘And Jacko, too, I suppose.’
‘Why Webster?’ queried Aunt Jocasta, who thought that all servants should know their place—always excepting Jacko, of course.
Martin shrugged his shoulders. He could not tell them of the great service which Webster had done him and that in the doing he had shown wisdom and judgement beyond his years. ‘I have always found his advice to be worth having.’
‘Do you want mine?’ enquired Rafe belligerently over his syllabub.
‘Always,’ said Martin, ‘and whenever you care to give it.’ He had no wish to hurt Rafe’s feelings, but his talents lay in other directions than those of Webster.
‘Ask yourself what’s in it for your father, that he so suddenly wishes to see you? Or for you, if you obey his wishes? Or if you don’t?’
‘Well said, but it doesn’t advance the matter much, does it? I still have a decision to make, and a difficult one.’
Kate said suddenly. ‘The past is dead and gone, except in our minds where it never dies until we do. Let us consider the present. Had you been your father’s best beloved son, would you be happier than you are now—successful and well-respected, surrounded by friends? Your brother was your father’s best-beloved—was his life so happy and successful?’
She did not add ‘happily married’, but the inference was there.
‘Are you trying to say that he did me a favour?’
‘No,’ she told him, her eyes hard on him. ‘Only to look at the consequences of his behaviour. Is it in you to be magnanimous, to forgive him, to think how he suffered when John died as he did? That he deserved to suffer is no matter. In the end we all make our own lives and die our own deaths.’
They all, including Martin, stared at her in wonder.
‘You mean that we ought to visit him?’
‘That you should consider it most carefully. You have now listened to our advice. By all means consult Webster—and then make up your own mind. He is your father, not ours.’
Her speech confounded Martin a little, but also told him something. That, he reflected, is why I love her, not simply lust after her. For it is love I feel, for her mind, as well as her body. By the gods, she equals the Queen in wisdom!
Aunt Jocasta twittered at them all, ‘Your father was always wrong-headed, given to strange dislikes—and for no reason. I mind me he hated our cousin Rollo, and a kinder and better fellow never lived.’
‘Perhaps he disliked him because he was a kinder and better fellow,’ Kate suggested.
Rafe shook his head at this, but Martin stared at Kate as though she had suddenly grown two heads. Dare he believe such a strange explanation of his father’s behaviour towards him? That he had been disliked because, far from thinking him a worthless wretch, his father had begun to understand that he was the stronger and better of his two sons and had decided that he would make up for John’s deficiencies by favouring him and putting down his rival.
It was almost impossible to believe it to be true. It would be a perversity of such magnitude that anyone who held to it would be…Martin had no word in his vocabulary to describe such a man. And yet…and yet…if it were true he could never forgive his father, but he might be able to pity him—which was a different state of mind altogether if the theologians and the philosophers were to be believed.
Yes, he would speak to Webster, because he was the only person he knew, beside Kate, who would be able to follow such a convoluted argument. Rafe lived in the world of the here and now and would dismiss any such discussion as airy nonsense.
Meantime Bevis Frampton railed against Fate: Hadleigh still lived. His attempt to corrupt Webster by his black arts had been a failure. Either Webster had tricked him, or the power he had gained over him had worn away before he had met his victim. All was to do again. He bitterly recalled his early youth, when everything had been so easy. He had disposed of his first victim, Harry Grantly, so successfully that no one had ever suspected him.
True, he had failed with Oliver Woodville, but that had been an exception. All of his other victims, save only the Queen, his one other failure, had gone to their deaths unaware of who had sent them there. He would himself engineer Hadleigh’s death, not leave it to others. If Essex, as he hoped, soon mounted an uprising against the Queen, he might, in the general mêlée which was sure to follow, find some way of ending Hadleigh’s run of luck. While he waited on that he would keep watch on him and his minions.
Webster, when approached for his advice, and told of Lord Bretford’s invitation and the response to it by Rafe, Kate and even Aunt Jocasta, thought carefully for some minutes, his eyes fixed on some horizon which Martin could not see. It was perhaps as well that Martin could not read his secretary’s mind, for Webster was thinking, already? Has what I put in train succeeded already? Or has the old fool suddenly had a fit of wisdom, looked at what Martin has done and truly is, and come to the conclusion that, somehow, he must have misjudged him in the past?
Aloud, he said, ‘I would give your father the benefit of the doubt, as it were. He is an old man, near death, and he might be seeing the past in a different light. Why he rejected you and why he now wishes, so suddenly, to see you again—and at Yuletide, too—remains a mystery which might be solved if you were to visit him. Kate’s suggestion that you allow the past to die seems to me to be a wise one. You have nothing now to prove to him or to any man—what you have done speaks for itself.’
‘So I go.’
‘That is my advice—but the final decision must be yours.’
‘Then I shall accept his invitation—if only to find out why he has made it.’
‘A most sensible decision—if I may say so.’
‘You may, indeed.’
When Martin had gone Webster lay back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling. He had been tempted to make the decision for Martin, in order to discover whether his own machinations had succeeded, whether the vow which he had made when he had found John Chancellor’s commonplace book, to right the wrongs done to Martin, was obviously on the way to fulfilment.
In the end, though, it had to be Martin’s choice, not his.
It was going to be a very interesting Christmas.