The Queen's Constables by David Field

Author:David Field [Field, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sharpe Books
Published: 2019-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

‘First things first,’ Walsingham smiled encouragingly as he sat across from Tom and Giles at the empty table, his back to the roaring fire, and handed each man a small velvet bag. ‘Your latest payments. You may keep the bags as well, and each of them contains the ten pounds that you are due in the service of Queen Elizabeth.’

‘That’s twenty pounds now,’ Giles whispered gloatingly as he opened his bag and counted the coins, before slipping them into his jacket. Tom was less impressed.

‘You didn’t just come here to give us our wages, did you?’ he demanded suspiciously, and Walsingham’s smile remained unbroken as he looked behind him to confirm that they were alone. The women had taken themselves into the kitchen, where they were engaged in baking bread, and Robert and Lucy were still waging a snowball war in clear view through the front window.

‘As you correctly surmise,’ Walsingham confirmed in response to Tom’s question, ‘matters have moved on since our last meeting, and we have further need of your services. Bradbury’s, anyway.’

‘Why not me?’ Tom demanded peevishly. ‘Giles has done his share, surely, and I’m not one for sitting around.’ Walsingham looked into each of their faces in turn.

‘Which of you has the greater skill on the land?’ he enquired, and Giles was obliged to confirm that it was him. Walsingham nodded, and advised them that ‘There’s a certain house in Dunmow that has need of a gardener once this foul weather lifts, and the new Spring is upon us.’

Since neither of his audience had an immediate reply, Walsingham persevered.

‘We were, thanks to Constable Bradbury’s accurate recall of where the priests were being landed, able to capture one of them who has, for several weeks, been our guest in the Tower. His faith may have been strong, but not sufficient to surmount the experienced attentions of certain of our skilled officers in there, and eventually we obtained from him the likely location of a house in Essex to which he was to be escorted once he landed. Someone in France must have been very unguarded when giving him his landing instructions, but he was eventually persuaded to supply us with the name of his intended host, along with further advice that this gentleman has a modest manor house on the outskirts of the village of Dunmow, which is in Essex, to the east of here, and less than two hours’ ride from the beach on which he was landed, prior to being intercepted. We made the necessary discreet enquiries, and the information we were given proved to be correct. The manor house is known as “Felfield”, and its proprietor is one Sir Henry Felton, the only son of a former candle maker to the late Queen Mary, and a suspected Catholic of the old persuasion. It is, you would agree, highly unlikely that this captured priest, who has spent the past four years in France and was born and raised in Yorkshire, would possess that amount

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