Witness of Bones Read online

  Matthew was about to respond to this cynical counsel when he heard the sound of boots in the corridor outside the cell, then a key rattling in the lock. A rough voice Matthew recognized as the turnkey’s ordered Middleton to stand out. There were several men with the turnkey, one of whom carried a torch. Matthew noticed that one of the men was a cleric, and he suddenly realized why Middleton had plunged into so philosophical a mood. Matthew turned to look at Middleton. The condemned man had not moved from the wall but seemed rather to press himself against it, to dissolve into the stone. The turnkey repeated the order and when Middleton did not respond, two of the warders charged in and took him by force. Middleton let out a pitiful groan as he was dragged out, his shoes scraping the stone. A moment later the cell door clanged shut.

  At the first blush of dawn Joan left Cecil’s garden and headed back in the direction she had come. She prayed Cecil’s young servant had known whereof he spoke. If not, she would be wasting valuable time. She knew going to the Tower with its formidable guards was out of the question. She might easily be taken there, charged, thrown in prison herself and no use to Matthew at all. But the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem—or Bedlam as it was familiarly called—was more accessible. Situated near Bishopsgate on the north side of the

  City, it had no guards or walls, but the lunatics that were housed there were paraded in the street before the building for the enjoyment of the public, composed of common folk and more substantial persons as well.

  In no more than a half an hour, Joan stood without Bedlam, apprehensive but determined. Two men washed down the cobbles in front of the building. The lunatics had not yet been brought out. Down the street stood a parish church; on the opposite side a fair inn, with the sign of the Dolphin. Behind the hospital was a foul-smelling ditch and beyond still the marshy expanse of Morefields where the citizenry went to practice archery. Even farther to the north, Joan could see several fine houses that might have pleased any gentleman’s eye for their construction and noble fronts.

  She had witnessed the spectacle itself on an earlier visit to London. The lunatics, men and women, were paraded in a wide place in the road called Bishop’s Cross. Some made animal noises; some claimed to be kings or queens and were sometimes fitted out with crowns and moth-eaten robes. A perennial crowd pleaser was Jeremy Marsh, who was so afflicted in his brain that he thought he was a dozen or more people and changed from one voice to another in mid-sentence. Others begged alms of the onlookers. Their guardians were always close by. Joan didn’t know whether the lunatics kept the money they garnered or gave it over to their guardians. The crowd was generous; someone was making a good living.

  Since she knew she had time before Sir Robert should come with the ambassadors, Joan proceeded to the Dolphin, open for business even at this early hour. She found herself a table near the front where she could view the street. She ordered a bowl of wine and sat sipping it, waiting and watching. By eight o’clock, the street cleaners had returned inside and a crowd had begun to accumulate at Bishop’s Cross. It was another pleasant day in London and Joan knew that this might make for a larger audience for the lunatics’ antics than normal. In the course of waiting, she saw several coaches arrive, but none she recognized as Cecil’s, which she knew well from having ridden in it during her last sojourn in the city, when Matthew had been busy solving the murders of young men in the Inns of Court.

  She finished her wine and her continued presence was beginning to draw looks of wonder and annoyance from the tapster behind the bar. She ordered another cup of wine and yet another. Finally the Bedlamites emerged, single file. The street about Bishop’s Cross was crowded with spectators. Feeling light-headed from so much drink on a virtually empty stomach, Joan paid what was owed to the tapster and ventured into the street, fearing that in so large a crowd she would miss Cecil should he come with his ambassadors.

  She made her way through the gathering crowd, noticing that now indeed by their antics and outlandish costume the Bedlamites were variously calling attention to themselves by their behavior, while the crowd variously applauded or hooted, some of the sane ones pretending themselves to be lunatic to incite those who were so indeed. In her passage through the multitude Joan noticed several clusters of gentlefolk among the common faces, and at least one she thought might be Sir Robert, until drawing closer she found him to be someone else.

  It was the better part of an hour when foot weary and despairing she spotted the man she sought. He was standing with several tall gentlemen dressed as Germans, he between them, a frail, hunchbacked man of fewer inches than Joan with prematurely graying hair and refined features.

  At once she made a move to approach but the crowd was so pressed together that progress was impossible, nor, she knew, would her vocal appeal rise above the cries of the merry lunatics or the noisy throng they entertained. For a while she lost sight of the diminutive knight, but never of his companions, who were tall with outlandish hats. Joan pushed and shoved, while those around her regarded her intrusion with typical London disdain and hissed crudities at her for what they called her boldness.

  You must get his attention, she said to herself. You must come to where he is and pluck him by sleeve or beard if need be or scream in his face if need be. Anything—that you must do for Matthew's sake.

  Yet it was only the Bedlamites who garnered Cecil’s attention, and in her frustration Joan realized what she must do and do with dispatch before, weary of this curious entertainment, the queen’s principal secretary and the ambassadors moved off to some other part of the city and her chance would be lost.

  She penetrated the ring of onlookers into the area in which now a dozen or so men and women danced and grimaced and then began her own twirling and strange gibberish. She played the madwoman and the fool, mimicking the gestures of the Bedlamites, the contortions of body and limbs. She made faces and extravagant gestures. She babbled incomprehensibly. She twirled dizzily until she could hardly keep her feet. She ducked and stretched. She forsook her sanity and dignity, praying no more than one in her audience would recognize Joan Stock of Chelmsford in this demented creature she enacted.

  As she twirled her eye caught the momentary surprise of those who moments before had been fellow spectators at the sudden emergence of one of the afflicted from their own number, garbed neither in shreds or fustian but good solid cloth, but then she noticed, twirling, that they regarded her no differently than the others, with a mixture of awe and revulsion.

  She stopped her twirling, shrieked maniacally, finding in the feigned behavior a release for her own pent up anxiety about Matthew, and began a sinuous dance in the direction of Cecil. Within moments she was directly in front of him, but could not catch his eye, for at the same time two of the lunatics, their faces wildly distorted and their hair disarrayed, dominated the scene, bowing and scraping in a grotesque parody of courtly obsequiousness that had brought mocking laughter from all who looked upon it but especially Cecil.

  Frustrated at her failure to be noted, despite her own mortifying display, she pushed the woman aside and took her place, falling upon her knees before Cecil and seizing upon his hand and kissing it until she had forced him to look into her eyes and recognize her.

  Cecil’s face betrayed amazement but no recognition. Joan screamed above the tumult of spectators and lunatic, “Matthew has been taken. At St. Crispin’s church. For God’s sake, Sir Robert. Help.”

  Cecil pulled her hand away and turning aside motioned to two armed men standing behind him. Joan heard his sharp command. “Arrest this woman. She’s a continual annoyance with her suits and threats.”

  Joan did not struggle. Stunned by Cecil’s rebuff she allowed herself to be taken by the men, limp as a puppet in their grasp, not really caring where they took her or for what reason.

  Seven

  Master Secretary Cecil sat in a plush, tall-backed chair that almost enveloped him, like a turtle in his shell. He was explaining himself in that patient way he had, speaking slowly in
the resonant voice whose largeness belied his deformed little body. He gestured with his slender white hands.

  “I recognized you straightway, but thought my seeming to do so would serve neither of our purposes. I am sorry, Joan. Believe me, I meant you no harm. My men treated you gently?”

  “Like a lady, once we were out of sight of the ambassadors,” Joan said, still hurt by the rebuff.

  “And others,” Cecil murmured. He glanced toward the mullioned window. As though watching for someone.

  “Others?”

  “Spies. Everywhere I go these days. The queen’s impending death has set the whole country’s teeth on edge. A new order is about to fall upon us. Every man scurries to find a place in it.”

  He thrust himself forward and rested his chin on his fingertips. His large dark eyes took her in. “Now tell me, what has happened to your husband?”

  Joan told the story, beginning with Graham’s visit to Chelmsford. Cecil interrupted to mention that he knew the cleric, by name at least, but had never heard him preach and would not recognize his face. Nor had he heard of his murder. “The man was in a fairway of being elevated to bishop, but he was no one I commended. There was too much bite in his sermonizing, or so I was told. I don’t know about the Bacon crew. Of the so-called resurrection of Christopher Poole I have naturally heard. London can talk of little else, save for the queen’s condition.”

  “Graham said he came upon your orders.”

  “Then he lied. I never gave him any. You two deserved a rest, not another mission in London.”

  “I was of the same mind—and so was Matthew—but we came thinking otherwise.”

  Cecil made a shrewd face. His fingers moved to the tabletop and he began to drum them nervously. “I smell a plot in this, Joan. But go on.”

  She told him how they had come to London and how Matthew had gone off to the church to Graham and to see the grave—and how when Matthew did not return she went in search of him only to find him taken for Stephen Graham’s murderer.

  Cecil seemed now even more distressed. He said, “This Poole’s cousin is Margaret Whiteside, Lady Elyot. A cultivated woman in whose company I have often found myself during the past few months. She’s no Papist but her cousin was, yet she loved him dearly and arranged for his burial at St. Crispin’s. The resurrection, as it is called by pious believers, is as great an embarrassment to her as it is to me since it reflects on her own loyalty. I need not say that the fact that I have been lately in this woman’s company touches my own person. My enemies would like nothing better than to see me discredited—both with the queen and with him who is likely to be her successor.”

  He meant the king of Scotland, Joan knew that. James was a resolute Protestant, fastidious in principle, although of his practice there had been nasty rumors. Yet surely there would be no room in his new realm for a murderer of godly ministers.

  In an instant she realized how broad in scope was the treachery of Cecil’s enemies. But what did a mere clothier and constable have to do with such weighty matters of conflicting sects and kingly powers?

  “But why Matthew?” she asked, feeling the terrible burden of having been used by strangers.

  1 Doubtless because of me.”

  Cecil rose from the chair; his little body moved deftly to the window. “Your husband is no longer an obscure clothier of Chelmsford. At court at least, his service to me is known—to my friends and enemies.”

  She asked what enemies he meant.

  “Certain of my cousin Bacon’s faction—those who adored my lord of Essex before his fall. Who wished him well and might have conspired with him in the queen’s overthrow. Those gentlemen you saw me with at Bedlam—”

  “The German ambassadors.”

  “Dutchmen, rather. But I did not mean those. The English gentlemen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Those are my friends, several my servants. At least two I know of are presently in the pay of my enemies to report where I go and whom I see.”

  She said, “But why don’t you send them packing, imprison them?”

  Cecil turned to her, smiled sadly. “It is better to know your enemies—more particularly to know their spies—than to be in ignorance. I at least know who they are and thereby may watch both my actions and my tongue when I am in their presence. I fear only what I do not know and that is who in particular is behind this present plot.”

  The plot. She considered the word, its meaning. He spoke of it as a commonplace thing, a known quantity. He didn’t seem afraid as she was. He seemed to sense her lingering confusion.

  “My ruin. That’s their aim. As I said, it is known at court that Matthew has served me well. Consider how this strange concatenation of events must appear. First, a lady with whom I am known to keep company pays the burial expenses of a man who for his religious persuasion is little better than a traitor. The man’s body is snatched, doubtless by his coreligionists, so that the Roman faith might be strengthened and at the same time the taint may be more deeply stained into this same lady’s name. Then, lo, my secret servant, Matthew Stock, is discovered to have murdered the very man most vocal in decrying the fraud. You see how I am implicated on two counts—because Lady Elyot is my friend and because Matthew Stock is my servant? No, Joan, it is not your poor innocent husband whom the devil wants, but me. I am the target. It was for this reason that I pretended not to recognize you in the street. Although I had not heard of Graham’s murder nor Matthew’s arrest, the very mention of St. Crispin’s church made me wary of how I might respond in front of my so-called friends.”

  Cecil sat down again and resumed his characteristic pose, resting his chin on his fingertips, his fine dark eyes hooded in thoughtfulness.

  “But what is to be done—about Matthew I mean?”

  “There’s the rub.”

  “He must not languish in prison—or, God forbid, be hanged for a crime he did not commit.”

  “He shall not,” Cecil said.

  “Then you will order his release?” It was more a plea than a question.

  “Ah, that I cannot do,” he said.

  She stared at him in disbelief.

  He raised a palm to stay the anger she had not expressed but felt rising within her. “Let me explain.”

  “Oh please do, sir.”

  “The case stands thus. If I order Matthew’s release—and I assure you it lies within my power to do so without so much as a word of explanation as to my motives—I will do nothing less than give my enemies comfort and undeniable proof that Matthew is my tool. See, they will say, he protects his minion.

  He impedes justice, which wants not reasonable grounds for Stock’s arrest. Thus he proves his own complicity in the plot to kill an honest minister whose only crime is godly zeal against Roman superstition.”

  “But if you do nothing,” Joan said, “Matthew will be tried, and surely it will be a public trial with much ado about how he has served you in the past. You will still be implicated— and be made to seem a betrayer of your friend and faithful servant.”

  Cecil smiled again, but shrewdly, not benignly as before. “Oh, dear Mistress Joan, you have excellent political instincts for a housewife. Would that I had a dozen such woman—or even a half dozen—to advise me in matters of state. But don’t despair. Between exposing myself as Matthew’s champion and a vain effort to keep myself aloof there is a middle road.”

  “Which is?

  “To work with all the cunning in my power to identify the real murderer and the bold conceiver of this plot before Matthew comes to harm or our relationship becomes a matter of public interest. I know of no other effectual way of saving Matthew. For consider, if I intervene on his behalf I will be condemned. Trust me that further evidence will accrue against me. I will be seen as a Papist sympathizer and plotter. My honest dealing with Spain will be exploited. The queen will spew me from her mouth. The king to come will regard me as hiss and byword. My enemies will triumph and England will be the worse for it.”


  “But Matthew would be saved,” she could not help saying. He was her husband, her life. Let England go hang if she lost his precious soul to the executioner’s rope.

  “Alas, it would not turn out as you expect. For if I order his release and what I fear transpires, he would only be confined again, now perceived more guilty than before. As the queen’s principal secretary I can draw him out, but as a condemned traitor I have not the power to save even myself. No, Joan, we are in the hands of no mean chess player. He anticipates our every move and cries check whatever we do.”

  “Then what is to be done?” she cried in desperation.

  “We shall move to avoid his check—until such time that we can ourselves cry mate.”

  Joan thought about this. She knew little about chess except that it was a game of complicated rules and stratagems, played by men of great intelligence and cunning. And yet if her husband was to be one of the pieces, moved willy nilly on the checkered board, she would insist on playing too. “Tell me,” she asked, “how can I help?”

  Cecil smiled and reached across the desk to take her hand. “You don’t disappoint me, Mistress Joan. The truth is that you can be of great help—to your husband and to me.” “Only speak it, Sir Robert.”

  Cecil thought for a moment. Then he said, “It is known that Matthew has been in my employ. Your own service, while to my own mind not a whit less valuable, is less well known. As I have said, my own moves will be watched and reported. I will do what I can to see that no harm comes to Matthew while he is imprisoned. But there is something you can do. This same Stephen Graham whom Matthew is said to have murdered has a sister who lives in the suburbs, the wife of a ship captain. She may know if her brother had enemies—or if he was involved with some patron at court. I suspect that Bacon circle behind this intrigue, but will forbear accusations until proof is at hand. When I know who engendered this plot I will find means to bring him down.” “I will go find Graham’s sister forthwith,” Joan said. “Take care, Joan. These malefactors may have killed her brother for no other reason than to implicate Matthew. If so, it is an act of unquestionable evil.”