Salvation (26 page)

26

Peggoty’s smile was ingratiating. ‘Can I help you, sir? If it’s washing you want doing, you won’t find better rates than ours in the whole of
London.’

‘I’ve not come for that. I’m looking for a girl called Meg. I believe she lodges here.’

A surly expression replaced the smile. ‘She’s not in some sort of trouble, is she?’

‘No, I just want to talk to her.’

‘She’s not here.’

‘When will she be back?’

Peggoty was already closing the door but he wedged his foot in it.

‘I don’t want anyone wasting her time,’ she scowled.

Lamotte produced a shilling and held it out. ‘I promise to be brief.’

‘She’s gone to
Lincoln’s Inn with some washing, but there’s plenty more work to do when she comes back.’ She snatched the coin. ‘Now get your foot out of my door.’

Taken aback by the ferocity of her tone, Lamotte removed his foot just in time as the door slammed in his face. This Meg was to be pitied, he thought ruefully as he set off for
Lincoln’s Inn.

On the way, he studied the women he passed, but even allowing for the fond judgement of a young man in love, none of them even approached Tom’s description. Then a girl caught his eye and he stopped. The hair slipping from her white cap was dark and luxuriant. Her expressive eyes were of such a dark blue that they were almost black. If this was Tom’s girl, he was right: she was lovely.

‘Meg?’ he asked as she drew level with him. He heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘My name is Alexandre Lamotte,’ he said. ‘I believe you were looking for me?’

‘Master Lamotte! Please tell me quickly. Have you seen Tom? Is he alive?’

‘I think so, although I can’t be sure.’

Smothering a cry, she swayed and he caught her elbow to steady her. ‘Forgive me,’ she gasped.

‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ Lamotte said with consternation. ‘I shouldn’t have frightened you like that. Let’s find you somewhere to sit down then we can talk.’

He led her to a wooden bench under an elm tree nearby
where he pulled out a handkerchief and dusted down the seat before motioning her to sit. She gave a shaky laugh. ‘I’m a poor washerwoman now, Master Lamotte. I have no airs and graces.’

Lamotte frowned. ‘How has this come about?’

‘I ran away from my home and my husband. At first I tried to find Tom but it was hopeless. Misfortune brought me to London then, by chance, I saw a playbill with Tom’s name on it. The man who gave you my message told me you might know where he was.’

When he set out that morning, Lamotte had intended to do his best to put this girl off in any way he could, but now she was before him, so clearly distressed, he found he was unable to dissemble. When he told her of Tom’s capture and his imprisonment, Meg turned pale. ‘I was afraid of that,’ she whispered. ‘Is he still there?’

‘No, he was moved to another prison away from London.’

Her face fell. ‘Is it far away?’

‘Yes, but he escaped on the journey.’

‘Where is he now? I must go to him.’

‘It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. He went to deliver a letter to the family of another prisoner who escaped with him and I haven’t heard anything from him since then.’

Meg shivered. ‘And you think some harm might have come to him.’

Lamotte took her hand. ‘I have no evidence for that. We must keep hoping he will return to us safely.’

Meg rallied. ‘Perhaps this family will know where he has gone.’

‘I suppose they might. If much longer passed with no word from Tom, I had thought of going to see them myself. They live at a place called Lacey Hall near Exeter.’

The remaining colour drained from Meg’s face. ‘Lacey Hall? What was the name of the prisoner who escaped with Tom?’

‘Richard Lacey.’

‘It can’t be,’ she whispered.

‘Why do you doubt it?’

‘I know the Laceys. They helped me after I ran away from my husband.’ Her voice shook. ‘Did Tom tell you how Richard was captured?’

‘No, do you know anything of it?’

Meg felt a terrible sense of foreboding come over her. ‘I was there when the priest hunters came to the house. We knew they were close by, but they struck so swiftly, Richard only just managed to hide before they broke in.’

Her fingers twisted in her lap. ‘I knew their leader, a man called Ralph Fiddler. He once worked with Tom in Salisbury.’ She broke off. ‘You’ve heard his name before?’

‘Yes. When Tom was first arrested, I asked him if there was anyone who might wish him ill. He said the only man he could think of was Ralph Fiddler.’

‘Ralph offered me a chance to save Richard, at least I believed he did, but now you’ve told me Richard was captured, I fear he lied to me. He said that if I went away with him, he would give up the search for Richard and leave the house for good.’ A sob caught in her throat. ‘I agreed. He made me promise not to explain my actions to Richard’s sister Beatrice – they lived at Lacey Hall together. Of course she was horrified and angry that I seemed happy to take up with a man who was our enemy. It broke my heart to leave, knowing what she thought of me.’ She bowed her head. ‘So Ralph arrested Richard after all, how Beatrice must hate me.’

‘Where is Fiddler now?’

‘I don’t know. He had me taken to his house in London. Later on, he followed me there,’ her knuckles blanched, ‘but not long afterwards, he disappeared. I decided to leave the place and that is how I came to be at Peggoty’s.’

‘You must put it all behind you,’ Lamotte said firmly. ‘There
’s no use distressing yourself over what is past. I’ll take you to Lacey Hall and hope there is news of Tom there.’

A look of alarm crossed Meg’s face. ‘Beatrice! Must I face her?’

‘When she hears what you have told me, I’m sure she will forget her anger. Now we have plans to make. Will it be too arduous a ride for you?’

‘No.’

‘Then tomorrow I’ll buy a well-broken mare and, if you will permit me, suitable clothes for you to travel in.’

She smiled. ‘You
’re very generous, Master Lamotte. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve such kindness.’

‘Reuniting you with Tom will be ample reward.’

Suddenly Meg’s face paled once more. ‘What shall I say to Peggoty?’

‘The harridan I met when I came to find you? Don’t worry, I’ll deal with her.’

‘Master Lamotte?’

‘Yes?’

‘It may be of no importance but before Ralph’s manservant, William, and I ran away from Ralph Fiddler’s house, I found a gold ring inscribed with the letters
WK
.’

Lamotte frowned. ‘You thought the initials were William Kemp’s?’

‘I wondered if they might be,’ she faltered.

Lamotte pondered for a few moments. ‘Even if you’re right, I doubt that alone would be sufficient proof that Fiddler is the murderer,’ he said at last. ‘He could simply have stolen the ring after, or even before, Kemp died. But we should certainly not dismiss the possibility that there is more to it than that. Do you still have it?’

Meg nodded.

‘Then with your permission, I
’ll take it with me. There’s someone I’d like to show it to.’

27

Lacey Hall

December, 1587

‘I hoped we wouldn’t meet again,’ Beatrice said coldly when she had dismissed the manservant who answered the door to Meg and Lamotte.

Meg’s palms were clammy. Her legs felt as if they would give way beneath her.

‘I suppose Ralph Fiddler has left you?’ Beatrice went on. ‘I hope you don’t expect pity. You don’t deserve it when we never showed you anything but kindness.’

A few paces away, Lamotte watched them, uncertain whether to intervene. So the woman he had seen at Newgate was Richard Lacey’s sister. It seemed fate intended them to meet but he wished it had been in more propitious circumstances.

Meg looked close to tears. Putting aside caution, he stepped forward. Beatrice gave him a wintry glance.

‘Who is this?’

She doesn’t recognise me, Lamotte thought. But then why would she? We only met for a fleeting moment.

‘My name is Alexandre Lamotte, madam. May we have your permission to come in? We’ve had a long ride from London.’

‘Not of my requesting, sir.’

Lamotte checked a sharp reply. ‘Madam, you are angry but if you will hear us out, I think your anger may be assuaged.’

Beatrice’s eyes narrowed.

‘I believe you already know your brother is in France,’ he persisted, ‘but there are other matters that need explanation.’

She frowned. ‘Who told you where Richard is?’

‘Please, let us in and we’ll tell you everything.’

After Meg finished her tale, Beatrice was silent for a while then she went to Meg and took her in her arms. ‘Can you forgive me for doubting you?’

M
eg’s voice trembled. ‘Of course: I understand how it must have seemed to you. I was a fool to trust Ralph.’

‘Do you know where he is now? I often fear he
’ll come back. Agnes still wakes crying at night; none of us sleep easy in our beds.’

Meg shook her head. ‘I’ve heard nothing since the night he left me in
London.’

‘I hope some ill has befallen him,’ Beatrice snapped. Then a look of sympathy came into her eyes. ‘I expect you were hoping to find your Tom here. If only we had known who he was. I was away from home when he came – we had all been in such low spirits, I decided to take Sarah’s children to the Advent market at
Exeter. Bess and Alice accompanied us, so only John was here to speak to Tom. When we returned, I chided him for asking no questions of a man who had brought us such good news. Anything more he could have told me of Richard would have been so welcome. I had no idea how unfortunate John’s omission was in other ways. I’m so sorry I can’t help you but you will find Tom, I’m sure you will. You mustn’t give up hope.’

Watching them, Lamotte wished he felt as confident. He and Meg had stopped at the inn in
Winchester on the way to Devon but the landlord had not seen Tom. Now there was no news at Lacey Hall of his whereabouts.

But he must keep Meg’s spirits up. ‘Mistress Lacey is right, Meg,’ he said.

With a start, as if she had forgotten his presence, Beatrice looked over to where he stood. ‘Sir, I beg you to forgive me for offering you such an uncivil reception.’

‘You have no need to apologise, madam. These are unusual circumstances.’

Beatrice smiled and the warmth of her smile banished the memory of the inauspicious start. ‘Thank you for your generosity, sir,’ she said.

Lamotte glanced at Meg’s dejected face, knowing that she was very little reassured. It was possible something had delayed Tom on the road, but if he had headed for
Winchester after he left Lacey Hall, it was odd they had not found him there a few days ago.

‘What should we do, Master Lamotte?’ Meg asked. ‘Should we go back to
Winchester?’ She turned to Beatrice. ‘Tom was to go there when he had seen you. Perhaps he’s there by now.’

‘I think I should go alone,’ Lamotte said, silencing her protests with a frown. ‘The journey here was wearying enough for you and the weather is becoming more treacherous with every day that passes.’

‘I agree,’ Beatrice broke in. ‘I won’t hear of you going. You must stay with us. As soon as he finds Tom, Master Lamotte will bring him back to you.’

The memory of Amélie’s brisk voice flashed across Lamotte’s mind and he smiled. ‘It
’s good advice, Meg. You must take it.’

28

London
 

March, 1588

Where it slowed to pass through the arches of London Bridge, the river still froze. Often, Lamotte stopped to watch groups of boys playing boisterous games on its glassy, perilous surface. In those dying days of winter, when the sun was rarely seen, he frequently filled his spare hours with solitary walks. Some of the time he went to visit the family in Angel Lane, but often he simply felt the need to be alone with his thoughts.

Tom had never arrived at the inn in
Winchester and January and February went by without any message from him. Meg was still at Lacey Hall and it grieved Lamotte that he had no good news to send her in response to her anxious enquiries.

Often, he was tempted to go and visit her; it would be an opportunity to become better acquainted with Beatrice Lacey, but always, at the last moment, he held back, telling himself that the roads would be seas of mud or it was a bad time to leave the theatre. The latter was certainly true.
London was an uneasy city and apprehension increased the price of daily necessities. The theatre was a luxury and the Unicorn’s takings were down.

As he had agreed with Meg, on his return to
London, he had taken the ring she had given him to Walsingham. The spymaster had been distracted, almost brusque, but a flicker of interest crossed his face as he listened to the story of where the ring had been found. He had asked to keep it, but that was more than two months ago and Lamotte had abandoned any serious hope of the subject being raised again. No doubt Walsingham was far too preoccupied with the threat from Spain to have time for the petitions of ordinary mortals. The start of the month had brought alarming news from merchants coming to London from Lisbon. The mouth of the Tagus was black from bank to bank with fighting ships and crews to man them were being pressed into service from every available source.

April arrived but brought no better weather with it. The sunless streets remained dingy and the days were cold.
On one of his walks along the river, Lamotte watched the sharp wind whip the grey water into choppy wavelets. On the ferries and barges, people huddled in thick woollens as if winter had never left.

The clock of a nearby church tolled twelve and, wrapping his cloak around him more tightly, he started for home. In
Lombard Street, a gang of apprentices loitered, hooting at passers-by. Lamotte ducked into an alley, relieved he had noticed them in time. In spite of all the years he had lived in London, he found his swarthy looks still marked him out as a man who was not a native by birth, and as the Spanish threat grew it was easier to find a flock of white crows than an Englishman who loved a foreigner.

‘Is the fire lit in my study?’ he asked his servant, James, as he took off his cloak in the hall at
Throgmorton Street.

‘Yes, master.’

‘Then bring me a bottle of claret there and tell Cook I’ll eat as soon as the meal is ready.’

‘Yes, master. Master, there is a message for you. I left it on your desk.’

Lamotte groaned. It would be theatre business, no doubt. He hoped it didn’t mean he needed to go out again, just when he was looking forward to a warm fire and some good claret.

In his study, he picked up the message with distaste then stopp
ed. The hand was a familiar one. He steeled himself; what did Walsingham want this time? As usual, the note was short and there was no indication that he needed to attend as a matter of urgency, but in spite of the cold, he decided to go that afternoon. He would only waste the time in speculation otherwise.

He sighed. The last thing he desired was to be sent on another mission. He hoped that was not the reason he was summoned.

‘Tell Cook I’m not ready to eat yet after all,’ he said when James returned with the claret. ‘And fetch my hat and cloak.’

Ten minutes later, with a fortifying glass of claret warming his blood, he was on the way to
Seething Lane.

Walsingham looked up from the papers he was studying. ‘Good of you to come so promptly, Alexandre,’ he observed calmly. ‘You are in tolerable health, I hope, in spite of the weather?’

‘Thank you, yes. I hope your lordship can say the same?’

Walsingham nodded and Lamotte tried to contain his impatience. Surely Walsingham had not summoned him to discuss his health or the weather? He wished this polite preamble was over.

‘Please, sit down.’

Gingerly, Lamotte took a seat; Walsingham leant back in his chair and steepled his hands. ‘You are to be congratulated, Alexandre.’

‘I—?’

‘Indeed. Thanks to you, your friend Tom Goodluck is no longer charged with the murder of William Kemp.’

Lamotte was dumbfounded.

‘Let me explain. Do you recall the papers you found in Manfredi’s lodgings?’

‘I do.’

‘As a matter of routine, I gave them to my decipherer to read. I was surprised when he came to see me. He believed one of them contained a code he recognised. I told him to study the matter further and eventually, he unravelled a story that carried us along some very profitable paths, one of them leading to a man you mentioned to me a few months ago in connection with a ring you brought me: Ralph Fiddler.’

Lamotte stiffened - all attention now.

‘My men had for some time been watching a Salisbury lawyer named William Kemp. We suspected he was a Catholic and his work as a lawyer made him privy to a great deal of information about the affairs of the wealthy men in his locality. We believed he was passing this information to a Spanish agent in London to be used if the invasion succeeded. At some point Signor Manfredi became involved. It appears he was working for both sides and paid for it with his life.’

Walsingham paused. Trying to hide his impatience, Lamotte waited for him to continue.

‘We were close to arresting Kemp when he was murdered. He was already dead when Ralph Fiddler came to my attention in London. I noticed him because the speed of his promotion to pursuivant was unusual.’ Lamotte remembered that Walsingham preferred to use the formal term for a priest hunter.

‘I was not involved in the matter,’ Walsingham went on. ‘A watch is being kept on the men who were. As I’m sure you appreciate, the role of a pursuivant provides excellent opportunities for amassing information about the men who hunt down Catholic traitors. Such information is of great interest to
Spain. If she conquered England, those men would be among the first to be seized.’

‘You thought Fiddler was working for
Spain?’

‘We strongly suspected it. I set one of my agents to find out his history and it came to light that he had been employed by William Kemp. The question that arose then was whether Fiddler knew of Kemp’s secret life. Were they in league? When you brought me the ring, it interested me. If it had belonged to Kemp, why would it be in Fiddler’s possession? One possibility was that Kemp had given it to him, but he might also have stolen it.’

Lamotte struggled to take everything in.

‘In any case, I decided it was time to apprehend Fiddler. He must have sensed he was being watched for he had left his house in
London. My men eventually arrested him at Dover, trying to flee to France. Under interrogation, he admitted he had found out about Kemp’s activities. He claimed he would never have sought to profit from them personally – something I strongly doubt in view of his subsequent career. His story was that he was waiting until he had enough information to report Kemp. But then matters took a different turn. Late one night after a May Day celebration, Fiddler returned to his lodgings at Kemp’s house. He admitted he had drunk a good deal and was in a resentful mood with Kemp because the old man had denied him wages on some trivial pretext. He challenged Kemp and there was an argument. During the course of it, Fiddler struck Kemp hard and he fell.’

Walsingham stopped and cleared his throat. ‘When Fiddler realised his master was dead, he became desperate. Then he remembered he had seen Kemp’s groom very drunk at the celebrations. The groom had let slip that your friend Tom Goodluck had promised to help him home. If by chance Tom had been weary enough to snatch some sleep at Kemp’s stables rather than return to his own lodgings, there might be a way of putting the blame on him. To cut the story short, the plan worked. Later Fiddler used the money and information he found among Kemp’s possessions to obtain favours and further his ambitions in
London.’

A great wave of relief broke over Lamotte.

Walsingham’s shrewd eyes studied him. ‘I never found out for sure if your friend went down with the
Curlew
. Your demeanour suggests otherwise, but you do not need to tell me any more.’

‘Thank you,’ Lamotte stammered.

Outside, he gave way to jubilation. Tom was a free man. At last there was good news to take to Lacey Hall.