He had been laid very respectfully on a table draped in a white cloth and there were candles at his head and feet. Father Fernando, Ridolfi’s chaplain, whose plump pink face always reminded me of the painted cherubs on the ceiling of the great hall, had accompanied us. He drew back the covering sheet discreetly, presumably so that we should not see the damage done by the assailant.

  ‘A coffin has been bespoken,’ Ridolfi said, in appropriately hushed tones. ‘There is no need of an inquest; he was clearly the victim of a violent theft. The purse he carried inside his doublet was missing.’

  ‘The watchman told us it was very dark in the alley where he was found,’ said Father Fernando. ‘There are high walls to either side, apparently. No one knows why he should go into such a place when there is a direct way back here through well-populated main streets, but he may have thought it was a short cut. Poor boy.’ Father Fernando sounded genuinely upset. ‘And he was about to be dismissed! Somehow that makes it worse.’

  ‘Dismissed?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Ridolfi with regret. ‘And very publicly, too. Yesterday morning, I expected a business acquaintance to call on me and I instructed Bruno to place a flagon of wine and two glasses ready in my study. When he did so, he found Kingham in there, going through some papers I had placed on my desk, ready to be discussed with my visitor. They were of no great importance – they concerned the rental for this house and a mortgage on some land I own in Italy. It didn’t matter who read them, but all the same, Kingham had no business to be looking at them. Bruno was outraged and created such a to-do, shouting at him, and dragging him to the hall where I was breakfasting, that most of the household must have heard him.’

  ‘And of course, Signor Ridolfi had to dismiss him, then and there,’ said Fernando sadly. ‘A great pity. And I fear that Bruno talked about it to the kitchen staff, afterwards. I have reproved him myself for his gossipy habits. Signor Kingham was not only ordered to leave this house by today, but had to be the subject of stares and whispers as well.’

  ‘Worst of all,’ said Ridolfi, ‘when he went out yesterday, it was because I had dismissed him. He had not known her long but he was hoping to marry his young lady in the Lower Town. She is the daughter of a shoemaker. He went to see her, to tell her that he was leaving this household. This morning, Father Fernando took word of his death to the girl and her family. It seems that Kingham told them that he was obliged to go back to England unexpectedly and hoped she would come with him. She and her parents said they would have to consider the matter. They all came here to see his body and the poor bambina cried very much. She is only seventeen. Well, her parents will have to look elsewhere for a match for their Anna.’

  ‘What a tragedy,’ I said blankly. I saw Dale looking at me. We had both thought that Timothy Kingham was frightened. It looked as though his fears were justified.

  A tragedy for Timothy and his Anna: also a disaster for me. I had been relying on Timothy’s help in my dangerous assignment. Now I was cast back on my own resources.

  During the Mass, I covertly watched Signor Ridolfi, as he stood and knelt and prayed. He did it all with a humble mien and no expression whatsoever on his smooth olive countenance. I wondered what he was thinking.

  In London, I had found that he was scheming against Queen Elizabeth, but I had not hated him for it. It was an absurd plot, too unwieldy to have any hope of success and I thought him foolish to believe in it. He inspired me more with sorrow than anger. No, I had not disliked him.

  Now, I wasn’t so sure. I had overheard him apparently trying to get the Duke of Alva to back him in a scheme which almost certainly involved the invasion of England. Timothy Kingham had been caught in Ridolfi’s study, illicitly reading Ridolfi’s papers. And that same evening, Timothy Kingham had been found stabbed in an alley where he wouldn’t normally have gone.

  A picture came into my mind. It was a picture of Timothy, making his way back to the Ridolfi house in the fading evening light, and meeting someone – a man – who belonged to this house. Someone he knew and did not distrust. Someone who suggested taking a short cut, or having a drink in a tavern; just through here, this is the way . . . And I pictured Timothy, accompanying his acquaintance into a narrow alley where high walls to either side cut out the light so that dusk was darkness already. And then the glint of a blade; a cry, too brief and not loud enough to summon help; and a body slumping to the ground, and the assailant stooping over him to take the purse. Timothy carried it under his doublet, but the searching hands evidently found it.

  Did the assailant know it was there? If he came from this house, he well might. Was his purpose truly theft, or did he just want to make the attack look like robbery? And if the latter – why? Was he acting under orders and if so, whose?

  Signor Ridolfi?

  I had the same room that I had had when we stayed in the house for Margaret’s marriage, and the Brockleys once more had the small room adjoining. That night, in my chamber, I held a council with the Brockleys and described my suspicions about the death of Timothy Kingham. When I had finished, Brockley summed matters up.

  ‘Let us think where we stand. We overheard Ridolfi asking the Duke of Alva for men and money. Alva refused. We have let Cecil – Lord Burghley – know of this. We think that a man called Charles Baillie may be carrying letters from Ridolfi to certain people in England and we have given his description to Lord Burghley. We know that Timothy Kingham was planted here as a spy, and that he was killed the very evening after he was caught prying in Ridolfi’s study. So – what next?’

  ‘I think this household is a dangerous place,’ I said, ‘and if you want to go back to England at once, the two of you, well, it might be wise.’

  ‘But ma’am, you’ve got to have a maid!’ said Dale bravely. ‘And I don’t want another woman in my place.’ She added: ‘I hate all this Popishness but I’ll say the prayers and bend the knee to that statue of Our Lady in the vestibule and everything. I won’t fail. I promise.’

  ‘If I were to desert you in a time of danger, madam,’ said Brockley, ‘I think Master Stannard’s ghost would haunt me.’

  ‘You surely don’t believe in ghosts, Brockley.’

  ‘I might believe in this one,’ Brockley said. ‘We shall stay, madam. What do you propose to do next? The way to get firm evidence – details of what Ridolfi is up to – seems to lie in reading his letters, but . . .’

  ‘Not if I can avoid it,’ I said. ‘For the time being, it’s eyes and ears while we all look as innocent as we can. Talk to the grooms, Brockley. Oh, and cultivate the butler, Giorgio Bruno. He has a busy tongue. But arouse no suspicions! Dale, keep your ears open whenever you hear the women talking. We may learn all we need to know, just by keeping alert.’

  ‘How long are we to stay, ma’am?’ Dale asked, pleadingly.

  ‘No longer than I can help,’ I said, ‘but I think we must forget the three-day limit. I’ll need more than that if I’m to work without Kingham.’

  TEN

  Heart Failure

  The Ridolfis’ house had been let to them furnished, along with a small staff which included a cook who now acted as an assistant to Ridolfi’s own chef (who regularly travelled with his master), and a big black tomcat whose job was to catch mice but whose favourite occupation was getting himself locked out at night and then yowling noisily to be let in.

  There was a room exclusively for music, provided with a spinet, a dulcimer and a lute. This was one of Donna’s favourite places. A week after my return to Brussels, just after breakfast, she drew me there so that we could practise a song that had caught her fancy.

  She was playing the lute while I was seated at the spinet, when she suddenly broke off (causing me to strike a discord in confusion) and exclaimed: ‘Dear Ursula! It is so good to have you here. Please stay at least until we leave Brussels. I am always homesick when I’m out of my own land, and Roberto travels so much. We spend half our lives away from Florence. A friendly companion is such a blessing.’

  Ridolfi had, in fact, gone off on a solitary journey shortly after my return to Brussels, as soon as poor Timothy Kingham’s funeral was over. I didn’t know where he’d been and nor did Donna. He had come back two days earlier, just before supper. ‘He has people to visit, business to do while we’re in the Netherlands,’ Donna had said vaguely.

  I had wondered if that meant taking the opportunity to talk to the Duke of Alva again. I rather thought it had, for the day after his return, I chanced to step out of my bedchamber just as Ridolfi, down in the entrance vestibule, was greeting a messenger, and in tones so eager that my attention was caught.

  ‘You have his reply?’ The words came up clearly. ‘Good!’

  My bedchamber door opened on to a gallery with a banister overlooking the vestibule. Cautiously, I leant over it. Ridolfi was there below with another man, presumably a courier, breaking the seal on a letter. As I watched, he began to read. Then he cursed, loudly and uninhibitedly, and threw the letter down on the floor. The messenger stepped backwards in alarm and I retreated hurriedly into my chamber.

  I told the Brockleys what I had seen and we agreed that at a guess, though there was no proof, Ridolfi had indeed made another attempt to persuade the Duke of Alva into lending troops and money, and had once more been refused. A guess was all it was, of course. There was no certainty.

  I felt that I was wasting my time, and endangering myself and the Brockleys, by remaining here. For all her promises, Dale still, sometimes, failed to acknowledge the statue of Our Lady and sometimes didn’t recite the responses during Mass. Eventually, someone would notice.

  ‘It’s kind of you to make me feel so much at home,’ I now said to Donna. ‘But you mustn’t press me to stay too long. I have things to attend to in England. Come. Let’s start the piece over again.’

  I was turning my music back when there came an urgent tapping on the door, and I heard Dale calling my name. Donna tutted but I rose at once and opened the door, to reveal a pale and worried Dale outside.

  ‘Ma’am! Oh, ma’am!’

  ‘Dale, what is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Roger, ma’am. He’s had an accident. Oh, ma’am, can you come?’

  ‘Excuse me, Donna,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can.’ I probably sounded perfunctory and Donna, who was too polite to protest but was in some ways oddly childish, pouted. I shut the door behind me and said tersely: ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On our bed, ma’am.’ Dale had seized my elbow and was dragging me towards the stairs. ‘He got himself indoors and up to our room and I fetched some hot water for him but oh dear, I can’t abide to see him like this . . . he said to bring you at once; he wants to see you.’

  I outdistanced her up the stairs. Brockley was seated on the bed with a steaming bowl of water on a table beside him. His jacket was off and his right shirtsleeve was rolled back. One shoe was off as well and he was alternately sponging his right ankle and a vicious graze on his right wrist and forearm. He looked round as we came in and said: ‘No need for alarm, madam. Nothing’s broken. I’m going to have a few fine bruises though.’

  ‘Whatever happened?’ I stepped aside to let Dale take over the business of sponging him.

  ‘I was nearly ridden down,’ Brockley said. ‘Not on purpose. Simple accident.’ He had obviously been shaken, however. ‘I’d been out, on foot, down to the Lower Town to a saddlers there. I help the grooms when I can and there was a new bridle needed. I said I’d place the order and save someone else the trouble. So I did, and I was just coming back into the stable yard, walking in under that archway from the road, when a rider in the Signor’s livery comes hurtling through in the other direction, going as if all the devils in hell were after him. The horse’s shoulder caught me and threw me against the wall of the arch. And did the man pull up to see if I were hurt?’ said Brockley, rhetorically and indignantly. ‘No, he did not! He went straight off along the road, still galloping. I bashed an ankle and I’ve had a crack on the head as well . . .’

  ‘What? Where? On the right side, like that graze? Here?’ I was already feeling his scalp. Dale, still sponging, said: ‘There’s a lump there, ma’am, but the skin’s not broken.’

  I had found it. Brockley winced as I pressed, but I was trying to find out if there was any damaged bone. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t.

  ‘You must rest,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a marigold ointment in my baggage, and another one with comfrey and golden seal in it. Gladys gave them to me before we left home. I’ll get them. They’ll help that graze.’

  I picked up the jacket and found the torn cuff which had been scraped against the stone wall and pushed back so that his right wrist and forearm had had no protection beyond his shirt.

  ‘My right shirtsleeve is ruined as well,’ Brockley said ruefully. ‘But there’s something more – that’s why I sent Fran to fetch you. I picked myself up, madam, and then a couple of the grooms – they’d seen what happened – came to help me. Well, I wasn’t feeling so well but I was still capable of asking a question or two. What sort of horseman comes tearing straight out of the stable yard at a gallop as if he was leading a cavalry charge? Ruining his horse’s legs, going at that speed on cobbles and paving stones! What did he think he was doing, I said to them – the grooms, I mean. Who was he and where was he going, careering off like that?’

  ‘And?’ I said.

  ‘One of them said he was one of the Signor’s own couriers and he’d come rushing to the stables and ordered them to saddle a fast horse; He was taking an urgent letter to King Philip of Spain, from the Signor.’

  ‘Spain!’ Dale and I said it together.

  ‘Spain.’ Brockley looked better now. The warm water was easing his pain. ‘Seems the fellow said he’d got to make the best speed he could. I don’t know if you know it, but the Signor’s got arrangements for remounts on main routes; all these bankers have. A lot of innkeepers get juicy sweeteners for having good horses always at the ready. You’d think bankers were royalty, the way they make life easy for themselves. Well, this fellow told the grooms his letter was so important, he’d been ordered to go as fast as he could and waste no time. The whole thing had the grooms gossiping and speculating. The Signor’s had correspondence with King Philip before, it seems, but not like this.’

  ‘Spain!’ I said again. ‘What do we make of that, I wonder?’

  I broke off speculating to get the ointments for Brockley. They were in a leather bag in my clothes press. In the short time that it took me to step through to my own chamber and collect them, however, I did some swift thinking. Returning, I said: ‘I wonder if this was the result of that letter from Alva?’

  ‘I’m wondering the same thing,’ said Brockley.

  I opened the bag and began handing the ointments to Dale. ‘If we were right about Alva’s letter, and if Ridolfi is writing to King Philip because of it . . . then what is he saying?’

  Brockley’s graze, now that it had been cleaned, no longer looked so bad. Dale, spreading marigold salve gently over it, said: ‘The Duke of Alva is King Philip’s man, isn’t he? I mean, doesn’t he have to do what King Philip says?’

  ‘If Ridolfi is writing to Philip to ask him to order Alva to lend those troops . . .’ said Brockley.

  ‘It’s all ifs,’ I said. ‘We don’t know. Maybe Alva’s letter just said he couldn’t accept some invitation or other and Ridolfi was upset because he likes to show off his high connections. And maybe your hell-for-leather messenger was being sent on business to do with finance. Ridolfi is a banker, after all.’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Brockley. He gave me a significant look.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Look what happened to Kingham.’

  ‘I know you don’t like it, madam, but it’s all I can think of. If we can get a glimpse of the Signor’s correspondence, it could tell us a lot. He may keep copies of letters sent as well as the ones he receives. Men in his position mostly do.’

  ‘Brockley, I can’t. I think we should just send word to Lord Burghley, tell him what has happened and what we guess. He probably has someone in the Spanish court. Spying into correspondence always has been my nightmare and after I was caught by Anne Percy, and then Sybil Jester nearly lost her life doing it for me, well, I took against it. No, Brockley.’

  ‘I’m fairly sure I know where he keeps his private papers.’ Brockley seemed determined to be obtuse. ‘I showed a visitor into his study once when Bruno was off duty. There was what looked like a document box on the shelves to the left of the desk. It had a padlock. You could make the attempt at night. I would stand guard.’

  ‘Brockley, you’re behaving as though you were Lord Burghley, or the queen herself! Don’t give me orders. No!’ I said furiously and marched off through the connecting door, shutting it after me with a bang.

  Next day, I woke with another migraine.

  ‘All right, madam,’ said Brockley, when he and Dale arrived at my bedside with Gladys’ potion. ‘I won’t mention the matter of reading Ridolfi’s documents again.’

  ‘Thank you, Brockley.’

  I drank the potion and turned over. Brockley’s reassurance didn’t help. The attack didn’t climax until halfway through the afternoon, by which time the pain had made me feel as feeble as a newborn mouse.

  Because I knew that like it or not, Brockley was right.

  ‘As quietly as we can,’ I whispered, as the Brockleys came through the connecting door. ‘You’re both coming?’

  ‘I can help keep watch, ma’am, and I’d worry myself to death, lying in bed, wondering what was happening,’ Dale whispered back.

  ‘You have your picklocks safe?’ Brockley asked.

  ‘Yes.’ I patted my skirt, and felt the secret pouch and the outline of its contents beneath my palm. I glanced down and saw that in accordance with my instructions, the Brockleys were both wearing soft slippers, just as I was. I had a lantern, ready lit. I picked it up. ‘Come along.’

 

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