The Ringed Castle - Dorothy Dunnett [308]
He paused. Philippa, keeping her gaze on the ceiling, heard someone near her swallow, quite audibly. ‘Go on, sir,’ Arundel said.
And Lymond went on in the same, undisturbed voice. ‘As you know, important trade agreements were in project between your country and Russia. My Tsar was about to cast aside the long-standing connections he already possessed through the Hanseatic ports and other parts of the Baltic, and rely instead on a new route and a new agreement with England. The stability of England, her prospects and the hazards which might threaten her woollen trade, her finances and her shipping, were therefore of great importance to us. For this reason, since I spoke the language and had many connections in Europe, I was asked to find out what I could about the present condition of England.
‘It was not, naturally, something I wished widely known. It is however a mode of insurance which we thought essential, in view of the many rumours of disturbances reaching us.’
‘I see,’ said Arundel. He did not look surprised.
Sir William Petre, glancing at him, added a question. ‘We are to understand therefore that you wished to study the Earl of Devonshire’s papers to find out what plots might be afoot which threatened the security, as you thought, of this throne? The man is dead; the plots, if there were any, long abandoned. Why then go to such trouble, Mr Crawford?’
‘Because I, too, had corresponded with Edward Courtenay,’ Lymond replied. ‘I sought information about England, which on occasion he gave me. I was not anxious that this traffic should be made public. You will have seen the letters, no doubt, in the casket.’
There was a long pause, during which the eyes of Arundel and Pembroke met and parted. It was Pembroke who finally spoke. ‘There were no such letters here in the casket,’ he said. ‘There were no letters, notes or reports of any consequence whatever. You have had your trouble and these men have died, Mr Crawford, for nothing at all. For less than nothing, since your interest in our domestic affairs was already known to us. Your correspondence over the years with Master Lychpole has been no secret. As you say, nations must make their own safeguards. I am surprised that you underrated ours so seriously.’
‘You astonish me,’ Lymond said. ‘May I know what directed your attention to Master Lychpole?’
The Earl of Pembroke smiled. ‘You have taken us, under duress, into your confidence, Mr Crawford,’ he said. ‘I do not think we need take you into ours. Especially as it will be our melancholy duty to regard what you have told us as a matter for prosecution. The Attorney General cannot lightly overlook espionage, nor yet violence and murder in our quiet English lanes.’
Adam Blacklock stared at the man. Quiet English lanes. There was a smugness in Pembroke’s voice, not only triumph. And if you looked closely at the others, you sensed the same thing: an air of satisfaction; of superiority. It came to Adam suddenly that these men had been concerned with the casket not only to seek evidence against the lady Elizabeth; against Dee and his friends; against all those conspirators paid by the King of France who had entangled Edward Courtenay so foolishly, so often in their tortuous intrigues. They had been afraid, each of them, for himself.
And it was then that Lymond said, ‘You had better then cultivate Venice, whom the Pontiff is wooing so heartily to his cause. For I have Master Tait’s word that you were not the first to open the box there, since the Bailiff of Padua sealed it. The papers you found inside were harmless because all the rest of Edward Courtenay’s documents have been extracted and kept by the Doge and Senate of Venice.’
No one spoke. Prowling like fire, comprehension, vibrating and hideous, ran through the judicial chamber.
Venice. Venice, seduced by the Pope and publishing abroad those very secrets the Council had dreaded to