A Fine Madness by Alan Judd (best classic books TXT) 📕

‘If what had gone ahead?’

I had tried to sound as if I wasn’t greatly interested but he was immediately defensive. ‘Nothing much, future plans, that’s all.’

‘Ten in the morning until six in the evening is a long time to discuss nothing much.’

‘Not where property’s concerned. Always complicated, property matters. And Widow Bull does a good spread. Looks after her gentlemen. Good food and good drink. Makes it hard to leave.’ He turned to me with a grin.

‘Property matters’ could mean everything or nothing, from great estates to bundles of kindling. It came out in court later that Frizer and Skeres were at that time plucking the feathers of a naive young heir, Drew Woodleff. They lent him money in return for a bond repayable by sale of commodities that they controlled and which would never make anything like the sum owing, leaving him potentially forfeiting his property. That was their usual game.

But it was very unlikely that this was what they met to discuss that day. Small beer for Poley, who sought to benefit from great affairs of state, while Christopher, I hope and still believe, would disdain such cozenage, even as cover for meeting. When he was freed from gaol following the Bradley affray he spoke of the many victims of such deceits he had met there, all imprisoned for debt as I am now. Some went mad or hanged themselves with the new moon. I can understand that.

On the other hand, Christopher admitted that it was in gaol that he learned about coining. That might have been what they were discussing, a grand coining fraud overseas as alleged in the Flushing business. Christopher could plausibly have contributed his knowledge and it would have been good reason to get himself into the meeting. But it was clear I wasn’t going to get much more out of Frizer that day. The rack would doubtless have yielded an answer but from what Sir Robert had said there was no question of official proceedings.

My talk with Frizer was ended by Sir Thomas’s return from hunting, so I had no chance to smoke out anything about what Poley was up to. He probably wouldn’t have told me, anyway, even if he knew. I got in a mention of the Earl of Essex, asking if Skeres was still in his service. Frizer shrugged. ‘Far as I know.’

‘Fortunate for him.’

‘Long as it lasts.’

Sir Thomas greeted me kindly and invited me to stay, though he was clearly going to be busy entertaining his huntsmen and would have no time for private discussion. I gave him the letters I carried and asked whether I might visit him again to discuss Christopher and his poetry. ‘Most certainly,’ he said earnestly, gripping my hand. ‘He is much missed here. I – myself – I miss him badly.’

Although we spoke again later that day we did not discuss Christopher. Nor did I question Frizer any further. As for Sir Robert’s worry about Poley and Frizer being poached by Essex, I doubted it from the first. But it was not in my interest to say so until I had completed and been paid for my investigation. It was not that I thought the Earl of Essex too honourable to plot in this manner, nor because I doubted that he would recruit Poley to his cause if he could. No, it was because I thought him incapable.

The whole thing was too subtle for him. If he had been capable of such subtlety he would not have gone about town rejoicing openly when Ralegh was disgraced for marrying Elizabeth Throgmorton, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, without permission. The Queen banned them both from Court and they had to remove themselves to Devon. By rejoicing so openly Essex made himself look stupid. I expect, sir, that you know the story of his bursting in upon the Queen while she was dressing, an unforgiveable presumption? And how afterwards he mocked her aged appearance before his courtiers? That showed him to be as ill-mannered as he was crass. It is also said that in exasperation he once turned his back on her at Court, his hand on the hilt of his sword. That alone was enough for his death warrant, without his later allowing his supporters to shout against the Queen in the streets and briefly even to take up arms. He thought he had the woman in the palm of his hand, but he reckoned not with the monarch. No, sir, this was not a man who could plot and scheme as Robert Cecil – who certainly could – feared.

Yes, it is true that there were some who said after the event that Ralegh himself contrived Christopher’s death for fear that he might tell the Council of Ralegh’s own free-thinking and heresies. But that was even greater nonsense, to my mind. I have been at the heart of many secrets and plots, as you know, great plots with great consequences. I know how hard it is to bring off a plot successfully, how many have to be involved and how difficult are timing and coordination. It is fantastical to think that Ralegh could have engineered such a thing from Devonshire, even had he wanted to. He was a leader and a philosopher, maybe a heretic, but he was no plotter. What of all the others who were involved with him? Would he have had to murder them too when they were investigated?

I next saw Nicholas Skeres. Frizer was a rough diamond but with him you at least knew what you were getting. With Skeres you never knew where he stood because he was forever shifting according to where he thought you stood. He was a man without qualities, a chameleon who took on the shapes and colours of whomever he was with but whose one consistency was the relentless pursuit of his own advantage. He was like Poley but shallower and more obvious, lacking Poley’s charm.