A Queen's Spy - - (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

so severe she now refused to speak to her father. For the last week she had been shut in her room for fear of her yelling to anyone who would listen what Henry planned to do with her. Jane, it seemed, had no illusions that it was for her father and Northumberland that she was to be made monarch. Recognising that she was nothing more than a piece on a chessboard and she had told her father, on the last occasion she had spoken to him, that he should take a look in a mirror for she was sure he would see the strings that Northumberland had such a tight hold on.

Henry tapped his fingers against the chair arm. He was sure Northumberland was losing his political charm. He made assumptions about the support he would receive and did little these days to consolidate it. Henry’s suspicions that he had allied himself to the wrong camp were always with him. The arrogance of the man he now supped with did nothing to help allay his fears.

 

†

 

On the same night on the other side of London, another meeting was taking place where Northumberland’s plans were being discussed in detail.

Thomas Wyatt was a military commander of some note, his prowess on the field had, however, been born of necessity. The estates he had inherited from his father had been riddled with debt and he had been forced to pursue a military career, which he did with success. His battlefield endeavors had provided him political status as the member of Parliament for Kent. He had not been at the meeting in London with Byrne, his loyalties lay with Mary’s claim to the throne. Northumberland was a man who Wyatt did not like, and his scheme to change the succession shocked him.

Northumberland had petitioned every man, seeking support for his cause, Wyatt amongst them, but his feeble arguments were nothing more than a thin veneer to legitimise a scheme to place himself on the throne, and one Wyatt could not countenance.

Richard had met Wyatt before. His estate in Kent was adjacent to some of his father’s land, and they had also met when Richard had worked for Seymour. Wyatt was a man crippled by a flawed inheritance and he had traded information with Seymour in return for his patronage. With Seymour behind him he had secured a command of his own and made a name for himself. When he was at Court, he lodged in an elegant town house belonging to his sister near The Strand, and it was here that Richard had come to seek him out.

“You’ve spoken to Northumberland then?” Richard enquired. Both men sat in high backed chairs facing a warming fire. Between them was set a low table with glasses and a wine flagon, now half empty.

Thomas Wyatt shifting in the chair straightened his legs out, moving his feet closer to the fire. “Who hasn’t spoken to him? He’s become incautious in the extreme. What started out as quiet enquiry has become his battle cry. He might as well nail a proclamation to every door stating his intent. He’s overstretched himself mightily.”

“Overstretched?” queried Richard reaching over and topping off Wyatt’s glass.

“The man begs for support and makes repeated promises, and they are promises he cannot keep. I was talking with Godfrey Mount last week, he’s got a large estate near the Welsh boarders, and he can raise a fair number of men if he was pressed to do so. Northumberland promised to resolve a property dispute in Godfrey’s favour if he would pledge his support. It transpires that Northumberland promised the same to Lord Neath as well, the very man whom Godfrey is in dispute with. Now the fool has lost the support of both men. Mount was going to back Northumberland but when he found out about this double dealing he withdrew from the cause entirely, pledging himself to Mary.” Wyatt reached for the glass and eyed Richard over the rim. “So which side are you going to join when the time comes?”

Richard settled back into the chair and regarded Wyatt seriously. “Unlike you, no one is seeking my support with gilded promises.”

A smile twitched the corner of Wyatt’s mouth. “So, you’ll wait and see then?”

Richard shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Well avoid Northumberland, otherwise you’ll have tied yourself to another worthless scoundrel who will be bound for the block,” Wyatt replied swilling the wine around the inside of the cup and watching the stain of it drain back towards the bottom.

Richard ignored the reference to Seymour and turned the conversation instead, now in a direction he wanted it to go. “You used to supply Seymour with information, and I know you are still well placed at Court and in Parliament as well.”

Wyatt smiled. “So, we get to the point at last. You want my support?”

“I do. It might be that you can help me to find my feet on the right side of the path,” Richard supplied. “You are no supporter of Northumberland, if you have any news from his camp I would like to know it.”

Thomas Wyatt rubbed a hand over his face thoughtfully. “And why would I want to do that?”

Richard reached inside his doublet and fished out a small red leather purse, the top of it tied closed with cord. He dropped it onto the table between them, when it landed it made an unmistakable chink as the coins inside rattled.

Wyatt, his eyebrows raised, placed his glass on the table and took the purse, deftly pulling the securing string loose so he could observe the contents. Hefting it in his hand his eyes could see the ten gold coins inside. Wyatt pulled the cord tight again, closing the purse and set it back on the table next to the glass. “That is quite a sum. What is it you want to know?”

“Who his supporters are, what they can lend to him in terms of military strength, and who is against him. I am sure the situation is not a fixed one,” Richard said.

Wyatt grunted. “You’d be right. There are many men who make it quite plain that they are in the market place for the best deal. Mary is not at court, her faction remains quiet, and at the moment it is only Northumberland who is seeking to turn everyone to his side.”

When Richard left an hour later the purse remained on the table and he was confident that Wyatt would supply him with news. Wyatt had no liking for the man, and even less liking for the contrived plan he was intending to use to secure the power behind the throne.

 

†

 

The purse that Harry offered did not go unclaimed. In the end, it was the prize of one man. That he did not live to take possession was due to his fatal misjudgement of the ability of his quarry.

At Harry’s direction, his men searched alehouses, brothels and all places where men who had slipped from the last rung of the ladder of humanity sought obscurity. One, Peter Hardwood, avoided looking in the dock land. He took himself instead on a tour of the usurers, moneylenders, and pawnbrokers; the mont-de-piété of London. Harry had described a man outcast and short of money. Well, maybe he had borrowed, thought Peter, who from times spent as a collector of debts for a previous master knew the marketplace well, and most of those who operated within it.

Mya the Jew was his first call after the bells had struck noon. His customers always thought of him as half a man, so short and spare of frame he was almost a dwarf, and yet he lacked the ill-proportioned limbs of that breed. But whatever lack of physical presence Mya’s God had blessed him with, they knew he had been greatly endowed with what lay between his ears.

Items for sale were kept in the front part of the shop under the watchful eyes of a pair of unlikely looking shop attendants. Two stocky men, short blades visible in their belts and with bare muscled forearms, ensured Mya’s goods remained secure in the shop. Here all manner of chattels crowded the uneven wooden shelves: household pewter of varying quality, pots and pans of all sizes. A lute with two broken strings vied for position with a pile of assorted bridles, candleholders, and two sooty oil lamps. There was a display of ill-matching brown earthenware plates, jugs and bowls and, out of reach of straying fingers, cheap women’s jewellery hung from a nail-spiked board next to a long, worn display of boots a cobbler would despair at.

Wheat prices had doubled in 1550, and bad harvests in the two successive years had kept prices high. Mya had fared well from the misfortune of the common man. When times were hard, men needed money. To start with, they took the coins home and fed their families, but then, as life tumbled towards hopelessness, they needed money for the oblivion of the alehouse. As Peter waited to see Mya, his eyes ran over the shelves packed with trinkets that had been rendered superfluous by the death of their owners in the sweating sickness epidemic that had taken so many lives the previous year.

Scenting profit, the withered usurer listened hopefully to Peter’s questions, head tipped back in an effort to defy his lack of height and look into Peter’s face. No, he had not seen such a man. Of course, he scoffed back at Peter, he had a good memory for all who owed him money, and the one Hardwood sought was, most unfortunately, not among them.

Peter thanked Mya briskly for his time. He turned, his hand about to lift the curtain so he could duck back from Mya’s inner sanctum to the shop, when something caught his eye.

Behind the cloth that partitioned the back part of the shop, and where Mya conducted private business, gems and other items of worth were neatly stacked on shelves under the Jew’s watchful gaze, the owners and marks loaned against them carefully transcribed in Mya’s books. Some would be without owners, redemption time long past, payment not made; for others, the owners would still remain hopeful of possessing again the goods they had been forced to leave in return for scant coinage.

Peter had spent now three years in Harry’s service. He was well aware of his master’s worship and fear of Robert Fitzwarren and had seen the man on many occasions. He instantly recognised the Fitzwarren crest engraved in the silver work of a sword hilt. The sword lay horizontally along the back of a shelf it shared with a selection of ladies trinket boxes. Next to the hilt stood four matched silver goblets, not of the current fashion, but nevertheless all containing a good portion of the valued metal. Their surfaces had been tainted by the acidic touch of fingers, the marks contrasting with the high shine from the weapon. Peter knew it had not been there long.

Peter turned back to Mya. “It appears you might be able to help me after all.”

Mya lifted his eyes to Peter’s face and smiled. “That would be most fortunate, please tell me how?” Mya’s eyes followed Peter’s up to the shelf where the sword lay.

“How long have you had that sword?” Peter asked.

“Mmm… The man you seek is not the one who brought that; he does not fit the description you gave. However, there may be some connection. My records could be checked…” Mya left the sentence unfinished.

“For a price?” Peter grinned.

Everything in Mya’s shop had a price, even information. Currency tendered, Mya smiled toothlessly and turned to the half-completed and