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

  2

  Robert Poley watched Joan Yeomans as she washed. She stood facing away from him beside the ewer of warm water Bess the servant girl had brought, lazily rinsing herself. He could never quite get over Joan’s lack of modesty and he found it both unsettling and exciting. His wife Anne would never go naked, as Joan was now, not even in front of him. Anne always wore a loose shift if she was forced to wash in his presence on his rare visits to his home in the country, and changed it modestly in darkness – often while he slept. Most of all, she kept it on during the increasingly occasional times they came together as husband to wife, pulling its hem up just enough for him to exercise his marital rights and duties. Lying like the carving on top of a tomb as he did so; dry as a desert. Joan Yeomans was another case entirely. But then, he thought idly, perhaps Joan kept her shift on at all times when she was with Master Yeomans the silversmith and cutler, her wittol husband and Poley’s landlord.

  Perhaps the activities that they so pleasantly explored together freed something in Joan that lying with her staid, long-suffering Puritan spouse did not; especially when – as today – they were enjoyed in the brightness of early afternoon. He wondered idly whether his eye should have offended him with its vision of forbidden pulchritude; whether he should be plucking it out as the Book of Matthew directed. He closed his right eye and left his left eye wide as he began to enumerate the sins and commandments he had just been breaking with Joan’s willing help. Lust, gluttony, greed, envy and sloth amongst the cardinal sins. He was even now spending a slothful afternoon in her company instead of going about Master Secretary Cecil’s work as he should have been doing. Robert Devereux was out of the Queen’s favour and caged with Lord Keeper Edgerton in York House; not that he was well enough to go abroad in any case – even as far as Essex House to see his wife and new-born daughter. But the sickly Essex was confined, not broken. There was still work to be done on that score. But, thought the slothful intelligencer, returning to the tempting figure displayed before him, whether Joan kept on her shift with Master Yeomans or not, he envied him everything except his cuckold’s horns. He wondered also whether there was another sin which covered the fact that even when Joan and he were at their most sportive, Lady Janet Percy had a habit of creeping into his mind. As different again to the woman he had married and the woman he was bedding. What was it the poet soldier Philip Sidney had written before his death in battle? Lady Janet was Stella to his Astrophel: a distant star to his ardent stargazer.

  Then, his thoughts ran on, as for the ten commandments: he had come dangerously close to worshipping that soft, warm, pink and alabaster body, with which he regularly committed adultery, which swept him back to the heart of the world of lies he inhabited and sharpened his envy of Master Yeomans even further. Five cardinal sins and four commandments not so much broken as shattered into atomies. It was probably just as well he had been bound for the everlasting bonfire these twenty years and more, the thought ruefully. And for sins far more serious than those he had broken today. None of which, despite the religion he had been raised to believe in, he had ever confessed away or atoned for with any penance whatsoever.

  Joan swung round to face him and he caught his breath, wide eyed at the sight of her, so wantonly displayed. ‘Come, Master Poley,’ she said brusquely, well aware of the effect her nudity was having upon him. ‘Stir yourself. I am off to dress and you need to do the same. Was it not the Cross Keys you promised after an afternoon of delight?’

  ‘It was,’ he agreed, ‘with its ordinary of boiled beef and snippets, together with sweet wine and sugar. And whatever else your fond heart desires.’ That I can afford, he added silently. He swung his legs out of the tumbled bed and stood. He bent to retrieve his clothing and by the time he had straightened once more she was gone, calling for Bess to attend her as she headed for her own room. He used her cooling water to rinse himself then dressed quickly, lacing his old-fashioned codpiece uncomfortably tightly. Perhaps there was a kind of penance there after all, he thought.

  The late afternoon was clement for the season and promised to stay dry. They wandered apparently aimlessly out into the street, side by side, with Bess close behind as the lady’s chaperone. First they meandered east along Hog Lane, where the Yeomans lived, until they came to the Bishops’ Gate. Then they turned right, passed under the gate’s stone arch and joined the bustle on Bishopsgate Street. They followed the thoroughfare south through the city until it became Gracechurch Street at the crossroads with Leadenhall and Cornhill. The Cross Keys stood a little further south, on the very last quiet section before the clamour of Leadenhall Market began, opposite the house belonging to Thomas Smythe, one of London’s leading sheriffs. It was a big, bustling tavern, a cut above most. In terms of facilities, food, drink and clientele if nothing else, thought Poley. Certainly above the brothels of the South Bank he was used to. Where others of his shadowy profession, perennially in debt, foregathered, plotted and planned.

  What went on at the Cross Keys might not be much more honest, he thought, but at least it was a cut above the Southwark alehouses and indeed more local hostelries like the Bell away on the south side of the market, whose proprietoress had been carted as a bawd not long ago. The food was certainly better; the patrons richer – or more confident in their debt-management. And none of the drink was watered.

  *

  Both Poley and Joan Yeomans were regular customers. This was not only a pleasant place to pass the time, but also an easy walk from Master Yeomans’ shop – so, should occasion call Poley to leave unexpectedly, Joan could call on her husband easily enough and he would take her home. As Poley led the women through the tavern’s main room, he automatically scanned the other clientele crouched secretively over tables under clouds of tobacco smoke. He registered and dismissed the carefully manipulated games of chance, cards or dice, the purse-cutting and the pocket-picking. None of it was his concern. He paid closer attention to the more familiar faces – minor hangers-on at court or at the great houses that lined the Strand, standing between Whitehall Palace and Bridewell, fronting onto the thoroughfare but backing onto the River.

  There were actors between assignments or out of work with their theatres closed by the Chancellor, though not, this season, by the plague. Playwrights who honed their wits against each-other across the tables with raucous verbal sallies then put their sharpest witticisms into the actors’ mouths. Words which could lead those that spoke them as well as those that wrote them to the Clink, the Marshalsea or the Fleet prisons, depending on which of the powers that ruled their lives and their city was most offended. The pamphleteers whose printed work was for sale in the precinct of St Pauls and who ran the risk of the Fleet or even of the Tower if what they wrote caused offence in the wrong quarter. But most of all, Poley was keeping an eye out for others of his own shady profession who might have come north of the river today. Men like that might well come hunting him.

  For an unsettling moment he thought he caught sight of Richard Baines, with whom he had worked in the low countries ten years since. The sight disturbed him because he had watched Baines being hanged at Tyburn six years ago. Baines’ neck had been thick, the drop short and spy had lacked sufficient merciful friends to pull his heels and break his neck. It had taken a long time for Baines to strangle as the noose tightened slowly despite his wildly jerking dance. The Tyburn Jig they called it, danced beneath the Three-legged Mare of the gallows there.

  But then Poley saw Richard Paradine and at least he was certain Paradine was still alive. Nodding to his fellow intelligencer, he settled Joan and Bess at a table near the door where the breeze kept the tobacco fumes at bay. He pulled his sword and scabbard from his belt and laid them across the table, then called for sweet wine and sugar as one of the servers came over. The sweet wine was an indulgence which Joan had more than earned, even though Poley was very well-aware that by buying her a bottle he was putting money into Essex’s purse, for the Earl owned the license to import sweet wines at Her Majesty’
s gift. Master Secretary Cecil would not approve, should he ever find out. He ordered a flagon of Malaga sack for himself, righting the balance a little on the assumption that part of the payment would be bound for Spain. Perhaps, he thought wryly, he should also order uskebeaghe and send some revenue north to Scotland. Cover all ends that way. For the succession to Gloriana’s throne seemed to hang between Essex, the Spanish Infanta Isabella, Lady Arabella Stuart or King James. But when the server came back with their order, Poley put all such idle thoughts aside and demanded food for them all – beef boiled with herbs, lovage and spinach in a thick savoury sauce with peas on snippets of fried bread. There would be sweetmeats in due course as well – Joan shared her sovereign’s taste for all things saccharine. But then, so did most of the women in Elizabeth’s wide realm, he thought.

  They had no sooner settled with their drinks than there was a stirring at the door. Poley glanced up. Nicholas Skeres came shouldering ill-temperdly into the place followed by John Wolfall. Skeres was retired from intelligence gathering. He was Essex’s man these days and, like most of the Earl’s hangers-on, he was short of cash. As was the sickly, incarcerated Earl himself of course – his profits from the sweet wine trade long lost in paying his Irish army and likely to be confiscated in any case at his angry monarch’s whim. Skeres had probably borrowed some cash from Wolfall, a notorious money-lender, who was dunning him for repayment now by the look of things. Though the moneylender would need to be careful how he went about it. Skeres was solidly built. His neck was almost as thick as Baines’ had been. As for the size and power of his limbs – the only man of Poley’s acquaintance who exceeded them was the murderous Ingram Frizer. Both Frizer and Skeres had dangerously short tempers and had relied more than once on their powerful masters to save them from accusations of murder. Skeres and Poley exchanged glances. Poley shrugged, hoping to convey sympathy, understanding and inability to help.

  Even if Skeres understood the full complexity of Poley’s gesture, he chose to disregard it. Instead, he came pushing through the bodies and weaving between the tables like a bear escaped from the Baiting Pit with Wolfall dogging his heels like a starving cur.

  *

  ‘Poley!’ bellowed Skeres. The unsteadiness of his gait and the volume of his voice explaining why he appeared to have no ready money long before the stench of Canary wine on his breath confirmed the matter. ‘Robert Poley! Well met!’

  Joan Yeomans stirred unhappily at Poley’s side. ‘What is this?’ she wondered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘Yet.’

  Poley weighed the alternatives, which were admittedly few in number. Skeres and he had worked together in the past, together with Ingram Frizer who was now Sir Thomas Walsingham’s man. Bonds stronger than friendship lay between them. The fact that they had been commissioned to murder the playwright, poet, spy, smuggler atheist and trickster Christopher Marlowe major among them. Skeres had a claim on him that could not be dismissed too lightly therefore. Any attempt to do so, indeed, might well lead to violence. And there were always watch-officers hanging round the edges of the market ready to arrest rufflers too ready with their swords, daggers or fists and throw them in the nearest jail.

  ‘I have given succour to the Earl of Essex already,’ said Poley easily, nodding at the bottle of sweet wine. Then he looked past Skeres to Wolfall. ‘How much more coin to give some relief to the Earl’s man here?’

  ‘He owes me sixty pounds!’ snarled Wolfall.

  ‘Does he?’ Poley glanced at Skeres, who was hanging his head now. He glanced back at Joan who was frowning, clearly and wisely wanting the matter settled as quickly and quietly as possible. ‘And how much will satisfy you this afternoon?’ he asked.

  Wolfall hesitated, his mouth working as he tried to calculate a meaningful sum.

  ‘No more than a shilling,’ suggested Joan.

  ‘A shilling,’ agreed Poley. He looked up at Wolfall and Skeres. ‘It will be a shilling or nothing and both of you can go hang.’ He reached into his purse and produced the coin. An old silver shilling minted for use in Ireland; probably worth about ninepence, he thought. But it would do. He tossed it onto the table beside his flagon of sack and his sword. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Though God’s my witness I can ill-afford the sum.’

  Skeres made a grab for it but Wolfall was quicker. He snatched the money and was gone. ‘There,’ said Poley. ‘Now you have an afternoon of quiet at least, Nick. Spend it wisely. And spend it elsewhere.’

  Skeres snarled inarticulately and ungratefully but he turned and began to push his way towards the bar.

  ‘Was that wise?’ wondered Joan. ‘Should we have sent him off with nothing but a boxed ear?’

  ‘Probably,’ answered Poley. He reached for his glass. ‘But your suggestion was charitable. And I have several very pleasurable sins to atone for this afternoon.’

  Joan Yeomans chuckled – a most unladylike sound.

  Before Skeres even reached the bar, there was another stirring at the door. Wolfall was back and once more he was not alone. Poley frowned as he recognised the money-lender’s new companion. It was another old friend from Francis Walsingham and William Cecil’s superannuated secret service. The very man he had just been thinking about. It was coincidence almost stretched into witchcraft. The professional murderer Ingram Frizer paused in the doorway. Frizer still worked for Francis Walsingham’s nephew, and successor as spymaster, Sir Thomas. Try as he might to forget it, every time he encountered Frizer, Poley saw Christopher Marlowe’s stricken face as Frizer’s cheap dagger went into his forehead, just above his eye. Poley had seen his fair share of death, but he had never seen anyone die as quickly as Marlowe died with Frizer’s blade stuck inches deep in his brain. He would never forget the way the life in those quick and clever eyes went out. No lingering. No last thoughts. No time even for surprise.

  Like two bright candles snuffed by one icy breath.

  ‘Not another one!’ said Joan Yeomans as Wolfall led Frizer across the room. ‘This looks less like coincidence and more like a stratagem.’

  Poley said nothing. He nodded his agreement as he watched them coming. Frizer was as drunk as Skeres but he went quiet where his ex-colleague got loud. Mean and deadly where Skeres was all puff and bluster.

  ‘Frizer here owes me one hundred pounds,’ said Wolfall.

  ‘That should be worth two shillings,’ said Frizer. ‘I’m worth twice what Skeres is worth in any case.’

  It was at this point that Poley found himself fully in agreement with Joan’s assessment. He was caught in the middle of a dangerous and carefully prepared trap.

  *

  Poley sat silently, looking up at the two men. Then his gaze flicked over to the service counter. Skeres was standing with his back to the board, elbows up on the edge, his expression somewhere between a grin and a sneer. Poley’s primary objective – other than ensuring he came out of this alive – was to keep Joan and Bess clear of the violence whose threat hung in the air like the tobacco smoke. Like thunder. ‘Not today, Ingram,’ he said quietly, shifting his attention back to the money-lender and the murderer.

  Frizer’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. ‘D’you tell me I’m worth less of your charity than Skeres?’ he demanded, his eyes two venomous slits. ‘Or is it that you hold my master Sir Thomas lower than the Earl of Essex? Is that it?’ He leaned forward but raised his voice. ‘Do you secretly consort with the Earl of Essex?’

  ‘Consort? What are you thinking, Ingram?’ asked Poley mildly. ‘You would make the matter of a shilling or two into a matter of lies and loyalties?’

  ‘Of treachery and double-dealing!’ sneered Frizer.

  Poley’s eyes narrowed to match his accuser’s. They were sailing desperately close to the wind here. Thomas Walsingham’s man accusing him of being a secret supporter of Essex could not be too loudly rebutted or Skeres – as someone who genuinely worked for the Earl – would wade in. Which at the very least would put Joan and Bess in danger of wildly
wielded blades. Unless he could find some way to defuse the situation, it promised to run all too swiftly out of control. ‘Two shillings it is, then,’ he acquiesced. And knew at once that he had made a mistake. Skeres shrugged himself off the bar and started shoving his way back across the room. ‘Two shillings for Walsingham’s man and but one for the Earl’s?’ he bellowed.

  Poley grabbed his sheathed sword and heaved himself to his feet. ‘Outside,’ he snarled, pushing past Frizer and Wolfall, leaving Joan and Bess safely at the table. The two spies fell in behind him and Skeres fell in behind them. Poley could feel his self-control beginning to slip away as he became more and more certain that this was a trap. Skeres and Frizer, with the help of Wolfall, were up to some game to snare him like the most gullible coney being gulled in a Southwark alehouse brothel. By the time he attained the street, he had talked himself into a rage. ‘So!’ he growled, swinging round. ‘Who dies first in the matter of an Irish shilling?’

  At the sound of his voice, the passers-by fell back but a good number of them stopped, a makeshift audience to a promising drama, their numbers soon augmented by a crowd of idlers tempted up from the nearby market.

  Frizer answered at once by tearing his rapier from its sheath. Poley did the same, throwing the empty scabbard aside. He fell into his preferred posture, side-on, feet spread, fist in the basket hilt low, point held high and steady; his gaze flickering to the surface of the road which was their makeshift piste, registering the slope to the kennel or gutter in the centre of the street on his right. Then up to Frizer’s sneering face. He would have liked to be certain of Wolfall’s whereabouts – and Skeres’ for that matter – but Frizer looked too serious to take for granted. Especially as he threw himself into the attack at once.

  Poley had on occasion taken lessons with a master of defence and was quite capable of applying the lethal theories propounded by Maestro Capo Ferro of Siena but two circumstances stopped him. The first was the simple wildness of Frizer’s attack and the second was that he did not wish to kill the man, though the temptation to do so was strong. He collected Frizer’s blade in an enveloping riposte, therefore and guided its point over his shoulder as he stepped in almost breast to breast. Had he been holding his dagger, Frizer would have died then with the blade deep between his ribs. But Poley was not, so he stepped back and fell into terza, the third defensive position; the only true defensive position according to Capo Ferro. Side-on, leading foot forward and pointing towards his opponent; rear foot crossways, anchoring him firmly should he wish to step forward into attack or backward in riposte. His hilt was near his leading knee and his point was angled upwards once more, blade ready to meet anything Frizer did.