Hopes, fears and wild conjectures were given a sharper focus by two significant events. Lord Burghley vanished and Dr John Mordrake appeared on the scene. The old fox who had served his Queen so faithfully throughout her reign had now gone to ground. William Cecil, Baron Burghley, was the Lord High Treasurer, the senior figure in the government, a man of real political vision with a firm grasp on the complexities of state. In fading from view and affecting an attack of gout, he was giving tacit acknowledgement of the hopelessness of the situation. Dead queens need no bulwarks.
Dr John Mordrake’s intervention was an even clearer signal. He was a desperate last gamble. Orthodox medicine had failed and so it was time to invoke magic. Dr John Mordrake was a scholar, sage, mathematician, alchemist and astrologer. His detractors called him a mountebank and his adherents a genius but nobody could gainsay the fact that a stream of small miracles had flowed through his eccentric career. The long, lean, bending creature in the black gown and black buckled shoes lived and worked in his laboratory in Knightrider Street. A mane of silver-grey hair gave him an almost saintly quality but it was offset by the dark power that seemed to emanate from him. Nobody could be sure whether the huge medallion which dangled from a chain around his neck was a holy relic or the badge of Satan.
The Earl of Banbury inclined to the latter view.
‘Was the old devil allowed to see Her Majesty?’
‘He was in her private apartments for an hour.’
‘What took place, Roger?’
‘Even my spies cannot peer through walls.’
‘Mordrake will not save her!’ said Banbury with ripe contempt. ‘Though he practises the arts of necromancy, he will not raise her mouldering old body from the dead.’
Chichester smiled thinly. ‘He left with a bottle.’
‘What did it contain?’
‘What else but the Queen’s own urine?’ said the other. ‘Doctor Mordrake hastened back to Knightrider Street to put the royal piss to the test. My man tracked him. This time he was able to peer through walls.’
‘How so?’
‘Because walls have windows, sir. By bribing his way into the bedchamber opposite Mordrake’s house, he was able to take part in the experiments as if he were standing at the shoulder of the venerable fraud.’
‘Did Mordrake examine the contents of the bottle?’
‘In every way.’ Roger Godolphin grew lyrical. ‘He touched, he tasted, he held it up to the light. He applied chemicals to change its colour and heat to change its consistency. In short, sir, he did everything but drink the draught down and sing an anthem. From that one pint of liquid history — taken, as it were, from the past life of our dear departing Majesty — he could foretell the future.’ He chuckled quietly. ‘And he did not like what he saw.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because he began to shudder so much with fear and shake so much with horror that he dropped the bottle on the floor and it was smashed to pieces. The worthy doctor has given a precise diagnosis here. Queen Elizabeth fades away. All he has to remember her by is some damp floorboards.’
‘Your spy deserves ten crowns for this!’
‘He rendered better service yet.’
‘Did he so?’
‘When Mordrake recovered his wits enough to be able to hold a pen, he scribbled a letter and sent if off to the Palace by messenger.’ The Earl of Chichester smirked. ‘My fellow intercepted that messenger. A few gold coins gained him a glance at the letter.’
‘What did it say, Roger?’
‘Forty-eight hours.’
‘That is all?’
‘What more was necessary? Death sentence is passed.’
Banbury rubbed greedy palms. ‘Forty-eight hours!’
‘Two more days of the Tudor dynasty then we move in! Dr John Mordrake has earned his fee, I warrant. That learned magician, who can read the signs of the zodiac, has seen the future of the English nation in a bottle of piss.’
‘I applaud his inspiration.’
‘But forty-eight hours to wait.’
‘How many of the Privy Council have we bought?’
‘Enough.’
‘How many of Westfield’s supporters have we lured?’
‘More than enough.’
‘And Burghley?’
‘We still practise on him,’ said the other. ‘Bess has bestirred herself in Hardwick Hall. She made her gout-ridden stepson, Gilbert Talbot, write to Burghley to advise him to make trial of oil of stag’s blood for his ailment. The Earl of Shrewsbury will win over the Lord High Treasurer by means of the pains in their feet. They will soon walk as one!’
The Earl of Banbury executed a little dance of triumph then threw his arms around his host in congratulation.
‘You have been a supreme general, sir!’
‘Yes,’ said Chichester smugly. ‘I have deployed my army like a strategist. A case of money well spent!’
Nicholas Bracewell took against Cornelius Gant the moment that he saw him. He detected a veiled hostility in Gant’s manner, an ingratiating smile that was really a smirk of malice, friendly gestures that hid a deep contempt, a mock humility that cloaked a soaring arrogance. Nicholas had a job which required him to weigh men up at a glance and he found Gant severely wanting. He could sometimes enjoy the company of plausible rogues — Sebastian Carrick had been a case in point — but here was a more malevolent species. It was paradoxical that a religious purpose brought Gant to the Queen’s Head so early in the morning.
‘I have come for the angels’ wings, sir,’ he said.
‘Wings?’
‘Master Marwood told me of them. You staged a play in his yard that had an angel in the story. He remembers those wings very well, sir.’
‘What of it?’ said Nicholas warily.
‘I wish to buy them from you.’
‘We never sell our costumes.’
‘Then let me rent the wings.’
‘That is not our policy.’
‘I will pay well.’
Cornelius Gant flipped back the edge of his coat and detached a large bag of coin from his belt. He tossed it to Nicholas who got an immediate idea of its worth. Westfield’s Men were being offered far more for the loan of their wings than it cost to make them in the first place. It would be a profitable deal but the book holder hesitated. Gant read his mind and threw in another hand-washing grin.
‘You think I will fly off with your wings!’ he said with a cackle. ‘But I will bring them back even as I take them. To this end …’ A second purse was untied from his belt. ‘I leave this as surety. When the wings return, you give me back this purse. Is not this fair?’
‘It is, sir.’
‘Then the deal is settled.’
‘Why do you want those wings?’
‘I do not wish to be an angel, that I can tell you.’
‘Is it for some kind of play?’
‘Come to St Paul’s on Saturday.’
Cornelius Gant would say no more but his money was real and his terms generous. The wings had been made for an early play by Edmund Hoode that had now fallen out of the repertoire and they were simply taking up space in the room at the inn where Westfield’s Men stored their costumes and properties. Nicholas consented. When he showed Gant to the storeroom, the latter was delighted with what he saw. The wings were some five feet in length, covered in white feathers and joined by a leather halter which had been fitted around the shoulders of the actor playing the angel. It was this device that particularly thrilled Gant and he tried the wings on, flapping them for effect.
‘Thank you, Master Bracewell. They are ideal.’
‘Be careful, sir. They are partly held by wax.’
‘So?’
‘Remember Icarus. Do not fly near the sun.’
Gant went off into a paroxysm of reedy cackling.
Nicholas was now treated to one of the most unlikely sights he had ever witnessed at the Queen’s Head. Its landlord came skipping blithely over to them. At a time of national calamity, when a dying sovereign was turning the capital into a city of sadness, Alexander Marwood might finally have come into his own. His sustained misery would at last be appropriate, his skulking despair a common mode of behaviour. Instead of this, he was sprightly and joyful. He fell on his visitor as if Gant were his oldest friend and he pressed him to free ale and victuals. Nicholas watched it in bewildered silence. When the two men went off arm in arm, he wondered if he had taken leave of his senses.