have a game to play, John. If you will take a hand for me.’
The relief to see his lord happy was so great that John assented at once, without thinking. ‘Of course.’
‘Sit down.’
John pulled a little stool up to the dark wood desk and the two men went head to head, Robert Cecil speaking so softly that a man in the same room could not have heard them, let alone any of them waiting outside the door.
‘I have a letter that I want delivered to Lord Monteagle,’ he whispered. ‘Delivered to him and none other.’
John nodded and leaned back. ‘I can do that.’
Cecil reached across and pulled him closer again. ‘It’s more than a messenger boy I want,’ he whispered. ‘The contents of the letter are enough to hang Monteagle, and to hang the messenger. You must not be seen delivering it, you must not be seen with it. Your own life depends on you getting it to him with no man seeing you.’
John’s eyes widened.
‘Will you do it for me?’
There was a brief silence.
‘Of course, my lord. I am your man.’
‘Don’t you want to know what’s in the letter?’ Superstitiously, John shook his head.
Cecil, mightily amused at the sight of his gardener stunned into silence, broke down and laughed aloud. ‘John, my John, what a poor conspirator you will make.’
John nodded. ‘It is not my trade, my lord,’ he said with simple dignity. ‘You have others in your service better skilled. But if you want me to take a letter and deliver it unseen, then I will do that.’ He paused for a moment. ‘It will not undo Lord Monteagle? I would not be a Judas.’
Cecil shrugged his shoulders. ‘The letter itself is nothing more than words on a page. It’s not poison, it won’t kill him. What he does with the letter is his own choice. His end will be determined by that choice.’
John felt himself to be swimming in deep and dark waters. ‘I’ll do what you wish,’ he muttered, clinging only to his faith in his lord and his own vow of loyalty.
Cecil leaned back and tossed a small note across the table. It was addressed to Lord Monteagle, but the hand was not Robert Cecil’s nor that of any of his secretaries.
‘Get it to him tonight,’ Robert Cecil said. ‘Without fail. There’s a boat waiting for you at the jetty. Make sure you are not seen. Not in the streets, not at his house, and not, not, with the letter. If you are captured, destroy it. If you are questioned, deny it.’
John nodded and rose to his feet.
‘John-’ his master called as he reached the door. John stopped and turned around. His lord sat behind his desk, his face, his whole stance alive with joy at plotting and trickery and the game of politics which he played so consummately well. ‘I would trust no other man to do this for me,’ Cecil said.
John met his master’s bright gaze and knew the pleasure of being the favourite. He bowed and went out.
He went first to the knot garden and gathered up his tools. The plants which were not yet bedded in he took back to his nursery plots and heeled them into the earth. Not even an act of high treason could make John Tradescant forget his plants. He glanced around the walled nursery garden. There was no-one there. He rose to his feet and brushed the earth from his hands and then he went to the potting shed where he had left his winter cloak. He carried it over his arm, as if he were headed for the hall for a bite to eat, but turned instead towards the river.
There was a wherry boat waiting at the lord’s private jetty but it was otherwise deserted.
‘For London?’ the man asked without much interest. ‘In a hurry?’
‘Yes,’ John said shortly.
He stepped into the little boat and he thought the lurch it made at his weight was what caused the sudden pounding of his heart. He sat in the prow of the boat so the man might not have the chance to look in his face, and he wrapped himself warm in his cape and pulled down his hat over his face. He was sure that the sunlight along the river was pointing a rippling finger towards him so that every fisherman and riverside walker, pedlar and beggar took particular note of him as the boat went swiftly downstream.
The river flowed fast down to London, and the tide was on the ebb. They did the journey quicker than John had hoped and when the boat nudged against the Whitehall steps and John leaped ashore it was only dusk. He blamed his sense of sickness on the movement of the boat. He did not want to recognise his fear.
No-one paid any attention to the working man with his hat pulled down over his eyes and his cape up to his ears. There were hundreds, thousands of men like him, making their way across London for their suppers. John knew the way to Lord Monteagle’s house and slipped from shadow to shadow, making little sound on the dirt and mud of the streets.
Lord Monteagle’s house was lit by double burning torches in the sconces outside. The front door stood wide open and his men, hangers-on, friends, and beggars passed in and out without challenge. His lordship was dining at the top table at the head of the hall, there was a continual press of people all around him, friends of his household, servants, retainers and, towards the back of the hall, supplicants and common people who had come in for the amusement of watching the lord at his dinner. John hung back and surveyed the scene.
As he waited and watched, a man touched his shoulder and went to hurry past him. John recognised one of Lord Monteagle’s servants, a man called Thomas, hurrying to dinner.
The note was in John’s hand, the direction clear. ‘A moment,’ he said, and pressed it into the man’s hand. ‘For your master. For the love of Mary.’
He knew what a potent spell that name would weave. The man took it and glanced at him, but John was already turning away and diving into an alley out of sight. He took a moment and then peered cautiously out.
Thomas Ward had entered the big double doors and was making his way to the head of the table. John saw him lean to whisper in his master’s ear and hand him the note. The job was done. John stepped out into the street again and strolled onward, careful not to hurry, resisting the temptation to run. He strolled as if he were a working man on his way to an inn, hungry for his supper. As he turned the corner and there was no shout of alarm, and no running footsteps behind him, he allowed his pace to quicken – as fast as a man who knows that he should be home by a certain time. One more corner and John allowed himself to run, a gentle jogging run, as a man might do when he was late for an appointment and hoping to make up for the delay. He kept a sharp watch out among the dirt and cobblestones so that he did not slip and fall, and he kept a brisk pace until he was ten, fifteen minutes away from Lord Monteagle’s, out of breath, but safe.
He took his dinner at an inn by the river and then found he was too weary to face the journey back to Theobalds. He headed instead for his lord’s house near Whitehall, where Tradescant might always command a bed. He shared an attic room with two other men, saying that he had been sent to the docks for some rarity promised by an East India trader but which had proved to be nothing.
When all the clocks in London struck eight, John went down to the great hall and found his master, as if by magic, also resident in London calmly seated to break his fast
