Page 317 of A Column of Fire

The man chewed and swallowed. ‘And who is it from?’

‘A gentleman that gave me a penny.’

‘All right, old boy, here’s another.’

She held out her hand, small but dirty, and took the coin, then she turned away.

*

NEDWILLARD ANDmost of the Privy Council were sitting around Robert Cecil’s dining table when a servant came in to tell Cecil that Lord Monteagle needed to speak to him very urgently.

Cecil excused himself and asked Ned to go with him. Monteagle was waiting in a side room, looking anxious, holding a sheet of paper as if it might explode. He began with what was obviously a prepared sentence. ‘The writer of this letter appears to think me a traitor,’ he said, ‘but I hope to prove I am not by bringing the letter to you, the secretary of state, within an hour of having received it.’

It struck Ned as ironic that the tall, strapping young Lord Monteagle was so visibly frightened of the dwarfish Cecil.

‘Your loyalty isn’t in doubt,’ Cecil murmured pacifically.

That was not quite true, Ned thought; but Cecil was being polite.

Monteagle proffered the letter and Cecil took it. His high, white forehead creased in a frown as he began to read. ‘By the Mass, this is untidy handwriting.’ He read to the end, then passed it to Ned. Cecil’s hands were long and fine-boned, like those of a tall woman.

Cecil asked Monteagle: ‘How did this come to you?’

‘My manservant brought it to me at supper. It was given him by a man who came to the kitchen door. My man gave the messenger a penny.’

‘After you had read the letter, did you send someone to fetch the messenger back?’

‘Of course, but he’d disappeared. Frankly, I suspect my servant may have finished his supper before bringing the letter to me, though he swore otherwise. At all events, we couldn’t find the messenger when we looked for him. So I saddled my horse and came straight here.’

‘You did the right thing, my lord.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What do you think of it, Ned?’

‘The whole thing is plainly some kind of fake,’ said Ned.

Monteagle was surprised. ‘Really?’

‘Look. The writer cares for your preservation, he says, out of the love he bears some of your friends. It seems a bit unlikely.’

‘Why?’

‘The letter is proof of treason. If a man knows of a plot to kill the king, his duty is to tell the Privy Council; and if he does not do so he may hang for it. Would a man endanger his own life for the sake of a friend of a friend?’

Monteagle was bewildered. ‘I never thought of that,’ he said. ‘I took the letter at face value.’

Cecil smiled knowingly. ‘Sir Ned never takes anything at face value,’ he said.

‘In fact,’ Ned went on, ‘I suspect the writer is very well known to you, or at least to someone to whom you might show the letter.’

Once again Monteagle looked out of his depth. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘No one writes like this except a schoolboy who has not yet gained full control of his pen. Yet the phrasing is that of an adult. Therefore the writing is deliberately disguised. That suggests that someone who is likely to read the letter knows the sender well enough to recognize his hand.’

‘How dreadful,’ said Monteagle. ‘I wonder who it can be?’

‘The sentence about the wickedness of the time is mere padding,’ Ned went on, thinking aloud. ‘The meat of the message is in the next sentence. If Monteagle attends Parliament, he may be killed. That part, I suspect, is true. It fits with what I learned in Paris.’