Shadow of the Axe (The Queen's Intelligencer Book 1) Read online

  The Queen’s Intelligencer

  The Shadow of the Axe: Book One

  A Robert Poley Novel

  Peter Tonkin

  © Peter Tonkin 2021.

  Peter Tonkin has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2021 by Sharpe Books.

  For: Cham, Guy, Cat, Mark and Lana

  As always.

  Table of Contents

  ‘The Earl of Essex was fetched off by a trick.’

  Sir Walter Raleigh, confessing to Robert Tounson, Dean of Westminster, on the eve of his execution, Wednesday, October 28th 1618 (Julian calendar).

  1

  The seven horsemen rode at a fast canter southward along the mud-covered Roman road. It was just after nine on a stormy autumn morning and their cloaks flapped behind them like soggy banners. The fact that they were not at full gallop belied the urgency of their mission. That was caused by bad luck and bad planning; a familiar combination, given the identity of their leader. Their horses were a job-lot obtained at hap and hazard from the stables closest to the ferry-landing in Lambeth on the South Bank of the Thames. They were by no means the quality of mounts that the impatient riders were used to. But, as had been observed in a recent popular play, ‘needs must when the Devil drives…’

  The seven of them had set out at full gallop as soon as they were in the saddle. But had been forced to slow before they reached the broad common at Clapham, their horses winded and threatening to fall lame. Every man paced his own ride as best he could therefore. Each trying to keep up with the rest while their commander pushed on relentlessly. Normal rules of precedence perforce gave way to necessity as first one took the lead and then another. Whoever was riding to the rear was showered in splashes of filthy water and clods of mud kicked up by the hooves in front, no matter how elevated his social station.

  Now, however, as they swung to their right, they were forced into single file. The ground beneath their horses’ hooves became, briefly, less muddy as soil was replaced by stone. One after the other, they thundered over Wandle Bridge. The river ran lively and in spate close below, brimming its banks after two soaking months at the end of an unseasonably saturated summer. A water mill, turned by its torrential force, splashed and groaned nearby upstream. No sooner had they crossed the bridge than they were forced to follow another twist in the otherwise deserted road, but at least they could ride in a group once more, each taking courage from the closeness of his companions. The highway turned westwards to skirt the remains of what once had been a great park. The estate’s boundary walls, like the buildings just visible at its heart, were overgrown ruins now.

  As they passed this, Henry Cuffe wiped a hand down his streaming face and mud-clotted beard. Then he shouted over the noise of the wind and the water, the hoof-beats and the jangle of tack, ‘That is Merton Priory. Or so it was when it stood. Famed because Archbishop Saint Thomas Becket studied there, and Nicholas Breakspear who later became Pope Adrian IV. Both under King Henry II.’ Even at full bellow, Cuffe’s cultured tones betrayed him to be highly educated. Just as the fact that he was the only one not wearing a sword showed him to be a secretary not a soldier. He was a Fellow of Trinity College by the time he was fifteen; a tutor and Master at Merton College soon after, which explained his knowledge of the ruined Priory which shared its name; a lecturer in antique languages at Queen’s and Regius Professor of Greek to the university. All of which he had been before he quit Oxford in his early thirties five years ago. He had headed for London in search of more lucrative and powerful positions. Such as the one he held now – ignorant though he currently was of the deadly dangers that could accompany it. His learned observation, however, was designed to take his mind off the enterprise they were engaged on and the incredible risks resulting from its likely outcome. And, in truth, to take it off the weather as well. This was the kind of relentless downpour he had hoped to leave behind in Ireland when he and his companions came east to England four short days ago.

  ‘Merton Priory indeed. Famed these days for its utter destruction under Her Majesty’s father, King Henry VIII and his creature Thomas Cromwell,’ grunted Gelly Meyrick, his cynical words made to sing by his Welsh accent, his voice trembling with tension too. A swashbuckler, soldier and swordsman of many years’ standing, he paid no notice to the filth on his face and his hooded cloak; but he was not immune to the relentlessly mounting pressure they were all feeling as they got nearer and nearer to their dangerous objective. Every now and then he would ride with his reins in his right fist while his left rested on the hilt of the rapier at his hip.

  ‘Much to the injury of the local peasantry, no doubt’ observed the Irish lord Christopher St. Lawrence, shaking his red head sadly despite the danger into which it put his saturated hat with its bedraggled feather. ‘Many of whom lost employment at the priory thereby and any chance of help or relief of their poverty at the same time. At least so it is at home.’ The tenth Baron Howth was a new addition to their leader’s closest companions. He had joined the army only a few months ago and the inner circle more recently still. Now he pulled his Irish green plaid cloak tighter about his shoulders and shivered. Cuffe wondered whether the fiery baron with his notoriously short temper was beginning to regret his association with the rest of them. And with their charismatic leader.

  ‘It rests in her Majesty’s hands to take care of her poor now not only as sovereign but as the defender of the faith in all her realms,’ added Thomas Gerard, with a shrug. ‘Now that the old church and its institutions are no more.’

  ‘In the hands of Cecil and the Privy Council more like,’ sneered Gelly Meyrick, no friend to either the Secretary or the Council. ‘Each one more grasping than the last.’

  In almost any other company this would have been a dangerous conversation; one leading to the Fleet prison or the Tower; perhaps even to Tyburn and the gallows there. But in this company such treasonous blasphemy could pass for everyday banter.

  ‘But her Majesty has lately instituted laws for the succour of the poor,’ said their leader, Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex; who was almost impossible to pick out of the crowd for he was as wet and dirty as the rest. And he was content to be so – a soldier among soldiers - in spite of his importance at court and his favour in Her Majesty’s eyes. Importance and favour he was carrying southward along the road the Romans called Stane Street in hopes that they would stand the test in spite of the fact that he was in disobedience of his Sovereign’s explicit commands. And by no means for the first time. ‘Don’t forget that,’ he insisted. ‘Her Majesty can be generous, when her mood and disposition are aligned. And let us pray that they are so this morning.’ He kicked his mount fiercely in the ribs, raking its flanks with his spurs and it leaped into a grudging gallop once more.

  Essex’s tone as well as his words and action ended the brief discussion. But Henry Cuffe suspected that he was by no means alone in wondering distractedly whether Her Majesty’s Council would ever release sufficient funds to make Her Majesty’s Poor Laws actually bring relief to those who needed it most. In the absence, as St. Lawrence had observed, of the Old Church and its charitable institutions. Independently of the alignment of Her Majesty’s mood and disposition.

  They hadn’t lingered in London for long, but he had seen at first glance how the streets were littered with the starving poor hopelessly begging from near-destitute citizens, a situation that had worsened during the months since he followed the Earl across the Irish Sea to war. And recent experience with Essex’s forces in Ireland suggested that support and financ
e were likely to be insufficient rather than generous or, indeed, adequate. Even when the support was needed for an army which was in the field. Fighting to control a country risen in revolution. A near-universal uprising led by Catholic traitors supported by the Spanish and Italians at the behest of the Pope, so that the security of the realm stood in deadly danger.

  A fact that lay at the root of their mission this stormy morning of Michaelmas Eve, Friday, 28th of September in this last year of the century. A time when change was in the air and the promise of it on almost every tongue. Except one: for Her Majesty had made time appear to stand still, certainly in the way she presented her own apparently ageless person. And by making any plans for her death and talk of succession close to a capital offence.

  *

  At the end of the ruined estate, the road turned south once more. It re-joined the ancient highway which stretched before them, straight as the flight of an arrow. Cuffe spurred his mount back into a reluctant gallop in pursuit of his master and the others. He steadied its head to face along the way towards the distant port the Romans called Noviomagus Reginorum, named as Chichester since the Norman Doomsday Book. He was the last of the group once more so he lowered his head, as his wise mount was doing, rounded his shoulders and tried to calculate how best to maintain close contact with his companions without being showered by yet more of their filth.

  ‘You there!’ called an imperious voice from behind him. ‘Make way!’

  Cuffe turned to look over his shoulder and there, close behind, was another wayfarer wrapped in a cloak, astride a horse that looked to have all the fleetness of foot and depth of wind that Cuffe’s mount lacked. The hood of the cloak held the stranger’s hat firmly in place and a strip of cloth covered his mouth and nose, protecting it from the mud and the rain as surely as it concealed his identity. Even so, Cuffe found the voice and the half-hidden face vaguely familiar.

  ‘Make way,’ the stranger called again. ‘Make way all of you! I am on the Queen’s business and you must let me pass!’

  Cuffe amenably slowed his horse, pulling out of the way and the stranger galloped past, then began to push through the rest of the group. They each pulled aside on his bellowed command, gathering together once again in his wake. ‘Did you recognise him?’ Gelly Meyrick asked the group in general.

  It was Essex who replied, ‘That was Thomas Grey. I’d lay my life on it.’

  ‘Grey is no friend of ours,’ said Meyrick at once. ‘Not since the Earl of Southampton put him in charge of the marshal for leading a mounted attack against the Irish rebels without his orders as General of Horse. A humiliation I doubt Grey will ever forget or forgive.’

  Sir Thomas Gerrard turned to Essex and said at once, ‘Let me go after him and talk to him. He has declared himself Cecil’s man and is likely about Cecil’s business more than the Queen’s. But it may be that I can at least convince him to talk to you directly. I’m sure if he will do so, he will agree to give you precedence, my Lord, and hold back so you can reach Her Majesty first. And unannounced, as you had planned.’

  He spurred after Lord Grey before Essex could reply and caught up with him after a few moments.

  Grey reined to a halt and turned. He pulled down the covering and revealed his familiar face to his erstwhile companion in Essex’s Irish army. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘My Lord, I beg you will speak with the Earl,’ said Gerard.

  ‘No!’ snapped Grey. ‘I have important business at court. I have said.’

  ‘Then I pray you to let my Lord of Essex ride before so that he may bring first news of his return himself,’ said Gerard, his tone making clear that he saw Grey as a junior officer if not of lower social rank; that he was unused to begging favours of underlings in this manner.

  ‘Does he desire it?’ asked Grey, his own tone little better than a sneer at the thought that the great Earl of Essex, who had seen him humiliated in front of the entire army at the hand of his acolyte Southampton, should be begging for favours now.

  ‘No,’ answered Sir Thomas, understanding Grey’s tone only too well. ‘Nor, I think, will he ever desire anything at your hands.’

  ‘Then I have business at court,’ said Grey. He pulled up his scarf, turned his horse and spurred on.

  Gerard also turned and trotted back to the rest with the news of his conversation – though the fact that Grey was galloping into the distance spoke volumes for itself.

  ‘God’s death!’ St. Lawrence shouted, instantly enraged at Gerard’s report. He dragged his rapier half out of its scabbard. ‘Let me go after the preening popinjay! I will kill him where he sits. And, after him that foul and twisted toad his master, Secretary Cecil!’

  Essex was tempted to let his hot-headed companion loose. He took a moment to think. But eventually he decided, ‘No Christopher. I will have no violence done to Her Majesty’s servants or her servants’ servants. Especially not in her palace. Particularly not on the day of my return.’

  And so the bedraggled group rode on along the ancient Roman road toward the great palace of Nonsuch. And towards the Queen who was not yet awake or preparing to dress, don her wig and apply the layers of paint and powder she needed in order to face yet another weary day as the ageless Gloriana.

  *

  Sir Thomas Grey, 15th Baron Grey de Wilton, dismounted at the Court Gate Post, handed the reins of his winded horse to a waiting stable lad and strode into Nonsuch. It was soon after half past nine in the morning and almost all of the vast palace was up and a-bustle. He knew the intricacies of the place’s labyrinthine layout and where his objective was to be found: Robert Cecil, Secretary of State and Lord Privy Seal, successor alike to his father Lord Burghley in power and the late Sir Francis Walsingham in spycraft. Not only did he control the Council, he also sat at the centre of a web of agents, couriers and intelligencers stretching from north of Edinburgh to east of the Ottoman Empire, from Cambridge to Cadiz.

  Now Grey found him sitting warming his feet by the fire in the private chamber normally assigned to him when he was attending Her Majesty at Nonsuch. On a table beside him sat a bowl of milk which was steaming gently and some crusts of bread. ‘Welcome, Thomas,’ said Cecil as a servant held the door open for Grey. ‘What news?’

  Cecil was in his thirty third year, which was young to be already the most powerful man in the land; one of the most powerful in Europe, even though he was his father’s second son and his elder brother now bore the title 2nd Baron Burghley. His slim figure with its slight hunch was clad as usual in black. Only the thin ruff was white. His long face was pallid, its colour, or lack thereof, emphasised by his dark brown hair and thin, pointed beard. The agonies of his childhood – from being overlooked and patronised as second son to the ministrations of a series of physicians employed by an upright, athletic, deeply disappointed father to straighten his back and make his dwarfish figure stand tall – had forged some kind of iron in his will. His time at St John’s College Cambridge and studying Disputation at the Sorbonne polished his intelligence and his purpose. Honed his ruthless streak to razor-sharpness.

  ‘Essex is just behind me, riding with half a dozen of his closest companions.’ Grey shrugged off his wet, mud-spattered cloak and draped it over a chair near the fire. He put his hat and scarf on top of it. His eyes never left Cecil’s long, pale face.

  There was an instant of silence. ‘A small group? Not his Irish army or a regiment from it?’ Cecil’s slightly bulbous brown eyes rested on him, their gaze almost luminous, at its most piercing.

  ‘Not with him now. Not yet. He has left more men under the command of Southampton in London. How many more I can’t say. But he’s in too great a hurry to wait for a larger force to be organised. And of course a regiment would have to march here in any case.’

  ‘Not a regiment of horse. But it would be slow work bringing so many horses across the river – either by the Bridge or the Horse Ferry.’

  ‘He came over by ferry himself - from Westminster to Lambeth. Hired horses
there and came galloping south as though the Devil was at his heels. I dogged his footsteps on a faster horse; unsuspected until I overtook him on the road.’

  ‘We need to know how many are under Southampton in London. Especially as he is General of Horse.’ Cecil reached across the table. Beside the steaming bowl was a small bell. He lifted it and rang. ‘How many more may be following on behind. And what Essex in fact purposes by this.’

  ‘He says he wishes to talk with Her Majesty,’ continued Grey. ‘His man Thomas Gerard asked me to yield the road to him so he could come to her unannounced.’

  ‘Did he so?’ Cecil fell into a calculating silence.

  The door to the room whispered open. A servant stood awaiting his command.

  ‘Bring me…’ said Cecil, then he paused. Took a moment more, his mind clearly racing. Came to a decision. ‘Bring me Robert Poley,’ he commanded. The servant turned to go. ‘Wait,’ ordered Cecil. The man froze as though the quiet word had been one of the Queen’s shrillest commands. ‘Thomas, have you broken your fast? Do you require anything?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ answered Grey.

  ‘Very well.’ Cecil turned back to the servant. ‘You may go. And fetch me Robert Poley.’

  The servant bowed and disappeared.

  Grey shifted his steaming cloak to one side and, at a nod from Cecil, he sat. ‘Go fetch Robert Poley?’ he asked. ‘Not, Go warn the Queen that the Earl of Essex is on the way?’

  ‘I thought you said,’ mused Cecil, his voice little more than a whisper, ‘that My Lord of Essex wishes to come upon Her Majesty unannounced.’

  ‘That’s what Gerard told me.’ Grey paused, frowning. ‘Do you mean to permit such a thing?’

  Cecil’s lips stretched into the ghost of a smile; an expression without the slightest hint of humour. ‘Just because the Earl has been so precipitate in leaping into action does not mean that we should be equally hasty in countering him.’