Prophecy. S. J. Parris

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      ‘Cecily Ashe,’ Burghley says. He has closed the door behind us and stands by it, twisting his hands together; perhaps he feels we are committing an impropriety, three men gathered to stare at the barely cold body of a young woman. ‘One of Her Majesty’s maids of honour, under the care of Lady Seaton. Her Majesty’s Lady of the Bedchamber,’ he adds, for my benefit.

      ‘Ah.’ Walsingham nods, and clasps his hand across his chin, obscuring his mouth. I have noticed that he does this when he does not wish to betray any emotion. ‘Ashe . . . Then she would be the elder daughter of Sir Christopher Ashe of Nottingham, would she not? Poor child – she has not been at court even a year. The same age as my Frances.’

      We all stand silent for a moment, all our thoughts following Walsingham’s to his seventeen-year-old daughter, the new bride who, perhaps even now, is being led to the marital bed by Sir Philip Sidney, a man eleven years her senior and with notoriously vigorous appetites.

      ‘Almost the same age as my Elizabeth was when she died,’ Burghley adds softly. Walsingham glances at him; there is a moment of unspoken sympathy as their eyes meet and I sense that these two men share an understanding deeper than politics.

      ‘The clothes?’

      ‘Ah, yes.’ Burghley shakes his head. ‘The usual trouble, I suspect. Trying to steal out undetected to a tryst with someone she should not.’ He makes it sound as if this is a common problem.

      ‘Has she been violated?’

      Walsingham’s tone is brisk again; Burghley gives a little cough.

      ‘She has not yet been officially examined by the physician, but the body was found with the breeches and underclothes torn, the shirt ripped apart likewise. There are bruises and bloody marks on her thighs. She was laid out in the form of a crucifix, with her arms outstretched. There is something else you should see.’ Taking a deep breath, he crosses to the body and, taking one corner of the torn material gingerly between his forefinger and thumb as if it might scald him, he folds down the left side of the shirt to expose the girl’s small, pale breast.

      Walsingham and I both gasp simultaneously; there is a mark cut into the soft white flesh, over her still heart. The lines have been traced into the skin carefully and the blood blotted away, so that the mark stands out in jagged crimson lines, a shape that looks like a curved figure 2 with a vertical line bisecting its tail. This mark is unmistakably the astrological symbol for the planet Jupiter. He shoots me a questioning look, swift as blinking, but Burghley’s sharp eye notes it.

      ‘That is not all,’ says the Lord Treasurer, as he covers the girl again. ‘In each of her outstretched hands she held these objects.’ From the wooden dresser beside the bed he holds up a rosary of dark wood adorned with a gold Spanish cross, and with the other hand he presents Walsingham with a small wax effigy, about the size of a child’s doll.

      ‘Dear God,’ Walsingham breathes, holding up the figurine for me to see. It is crudely made, but unquestionably an imitation of Queen Elizabeth; red wool for hair, a cloak fashioned from a scrap of purple silk, a paper crown on its head, a sewing needle protruding from its breast, where it has been stabbed through the heart. We both look at Burghley, who nods, once. No ordinary murder indeed.

      ‘Who found her?’ I ask, breaking the silence.

      ‘The queen’s chaplain,’ Burghley replies, turning away from the corpse.

      ‘What was the chaplain doing in her chamber?’

      ‘Oh – she was not found here,’ he says, with a tight little laugh at the implication. ‘No – the body was outside. There is a ruined chapel behind the Privy Orchard – the last remains of the priory that used to stand on this site. It is separated from the palace compound by high walls and its garden grown somewhat derelict. Lately it has been said –’ Burghley frowns – ‘that it was becoming a popular place for meetings between the queen’s ladies and the court gentlemen, because it is out of the way and not properly patrolled. This sort of thing is strictly forbidden by Her Majesty, you understand. Being a man of stern propriety, the chaplain thought he would check the area as dusk fell. And he found her laid out there as I have described.’

      ‘He saw no one fleeing as he approached?’ I ask.

      ‘No one, he says, though there is an open entrance to the abandoned garden from the river. The killer could have slipped away and hidden on the bank, perhaps even had a boat tied up further downstream. The only other way in is through the gatehouse from the Privy Orchard, but at that time of the evening there are always people coming and going on the palace side, including the yeomen of the guard on their watch. No one recalls seeing anything out of the ordinary. But then dusk was falling and since she was dressed as a boy . . .’ Burghley sighs, runs his palm over his skullcap.

      ‘You have set extra men-at-arms around the gates?’ Walsingham asks.

      ‘Naturally. The wharf at the back where you landed was already patrolled, as was the gatehouse at the front. But the captain of the palace guard has ordered more men to be set around the perimeter walls, and has sent a company to search the Privy Orchard and the deer park. Under cover of darkness, though, I fear they will have little success. The perpetrator could be long gone.’

      ‘Or he could still be inside the compound,’ I offer.

      Both men turn to look at me; Walsingham raises his eyebrows for me to continue.

      ‘Only, it seems this was hardly a spontaneous killing. All these devices and props were carefully prepared. And the victim was chosen deliberately too, it seems – maid of honour to the queen? This killer means to indicate a direct threat to Her Majesty, surely, and he is showing how near he can get to her person. And if the girl was dressed for a tryst, then whoever killed her either knew when and where to find her, or he was the very person she was waiting for.’

      Walsingham tilts his head to one side and considers me.

      ‘You talk sense, Bruno. But let us keep such speculation between ourselves. Her Majesty will hardly be reassured to think that someone familiar to her own household may be behind this, and I must attempt to put her mind at rest.’

      ‘There is speculation enough in the palace as it is,’ Burghley says, his lips pursed. ‘The chaplain raised such a noise when he found her that by the time the news reached me, half the servants had already been to gape at the spectacle and embellished it in their own fashion before passing it on. We cannot hope to keep the details quiet now. Already the lower servants murmur of devilry, that this is the work of the antichrist, come to fulfil the prophecy of the end times.’

      ‘The prophecy?’ I look from one to the other of them, amazed.

      Walsingham catches the alarm in my voice, and laughs softly.

      ‘Did you think it was only learned men like yourself and Doctor Dee who knew of these prophecies? No, no – in England, Bruno, this year of Our Lord 1583 has been the talk of the common people long before it dawned. Even the poorest household has an almanac predicting the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the first of its kind in a thousand years, the dire consequences that will follow, the floods and famines and tempests and droughts, the marvels in the heavens – oh, there have been pamphlets and interludes circulating in the taverns and the market squares for as long as I can recall, promising that the prophecy of the end times will find its fulfilment in these days.’

      ‘The wars of religion in these last years have only fuelled the fire,’ СКАЧАТЬ