The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [306]
On Monday as planned, the Muscovy Ambassador left London for Gravesend, accompanied by the city officers and the merchants, who set him aboard the noble ship Primrose, with many tears and em-bracings. He had been told how, having lost the Tsar’s favour, his former colleague Francis Crawford had not yet decided whether to sail back to Russia as expected. And that a small infringement of law had detained temporarily the rest of his party.
Robert Best translated it all, impassively, and John Buckland made no comment either, in public. But when Henry Sidney came on board the flagship, Jenkinson took him below and with Best and Buckland beside him said, ‘What of Mr Crawford?’
And Sidney succinctly replied. ‘There is a legal case pending. And Crawford is tangled with it as well.’
‘But can they hold him?’ Jenkinson said. ‘He is still, officially, an envoy of the Tsar.’
‘Officially,’ said Sidney dryly. ‘But should they deal with him less than gently, I doubt if the Tsar would trouble to lodge a complaint. My guess is that the Privy Council want Mr Crawford as a witness against other, eminent conspirators here in England.’
‘So we sail without him?’ said Robert Best. ‘And without Danny or Ludo?’
But the eyes of Henry Sidney and Tony Jenkinson met. ‘Ships are strange creatures,’ said Sidney, ‘and cannot be ordered like house dogs. A ship may wait a long time for the tide or the wind that will suit her. I think you will be given your orders.’
Rob Best groaned, ‘Lions,’ he said, ‘do not necessarily understand orders. And, my God, how shall we explain to Nepeja?’
‘You’ve forgotten,’ said John Buckland calmly. ‘Once out into the estuary with a freshening wind, and there will be no need to explain anything to Osep Nepeja.’
Chapter 13
With Osep Nepeja on board, the Primrose waited at Gravesend for a week with the three other vessels freighted for Muscovy. At the end of that time the Earl of Arundel, having opened and perused with his fellows the contents of Master Peter Vannes’s box, decreed that an inquiry should be held into the attempts to purloin the chest on its travels, and that all the accused and their supporters should be brought to one room for that purpose.
This was, in the event, one of the many small chambers used for justice in Westminster and was furnished with no more than a long table for the commissioners and/or judges, and with a few unpadded stools and long benches. Inside and out, it was thoroughly guarded.
There were no more than seven commissioners and five of these were, Adam Blacklock noted, members of the Muscovy Company. It was the first thing he saw as he came in out of the sunshine, with Guthrie and Hoddim and Lymond: the long bench with the grey-haired men sitting behind it, in their flapped hats and thick robes and long, busy beards. The President of the Council, Arundel again; with Griffin, the Attorney-General, and Jerningham, as you would expect. Sir William Petre, of course. And two other powerful figures: William Herbert, the 1st Earl of Pembroke, and Paget, the Lord Privy Seal.
And someone he had not expected: a man also grey-bearded but tall and thin and elegant in black silk as an onion skin. Don Juan de Figueroa, the Spanish nobleman once Ambassador at the Emperor’s Court and lately King Philip’s excellent observer and high officer in England. The Queen was represented by her officers of State, but did not care personally to interfere in matters which might be prejudicial to her merchants. The King had sent his eyes and his ears.
The Tsar’s officers were not asked to sit. They had to stand in their small circle of guards and watch Hercules Tait appear, escorted. Tait saw Lymond but showed no recognition: Lymond’s face expressed a hard-tried but still polite patience. All that any of them had been able to discover from that nerve-shattering week in his company was that he was virtually unbeatable at card games.
Then Ludo and Danny were brought in, looking rather ill-groomed, with bruises still yellow