Текст книги "The Enterprise of England"

Автор книги: Ann Swinfen

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Chapter Nine

I was oddly disturbed by this encounter. What did the maimed soldier mean, that Cornelius Parker was a bad man? I had caught a flash of something between them. In view of Parker’s condemnation of beggars and his imputation that the man might be lying about being an ex soldier, it would be understandable if it was an indication of anger and resentment on the beggar’s part, yet it had seemed like something else. As if the two men knew each other and an old hostility existed between them. Clearly the soldier spoke only limited English, so his warning had contained just those few simple words, yet as I continued my exploration of Amsterdam, I could not forget them.

I retraced my steps to the square with the public well, where a group of women were now drawing water, and turned along the street we had taken yesterday to the Earl’s house. Berden had told me to follow the street along the canal until it met another, and then turn left on Reiger Straat. It proved to be further than I expected, but I found it at last. The houses overlooking this canal, like those near the Earl’s lodging, were large and prosperous, though there was much more activity here. The cranes jutting out from the top storeys were in use at several of the houses, lowering goods on to barges on the canal or lifting other goods from the boats into the houses. This must be the heart of the merchants’ quarter of the town. I found the sign of the Leaping Gazelle, where Sara’s cousin Ettore Añez lived, but there were many men coming and going through the front door, so I hesitated to intrude. I would return when the business of the day was over, or the following morning.

Unable to shake off the memory of the beggar’s warning, I decided to return to the church and ask him to explain just what he had meant, but by the time I had found my way back – and I managed to lose myself twice – there was no sign of him or his dog. A woman was selling hot sweet pastries from a tray hanging from her neck and I bought one. As I ate it, I asked her if she knew where I could find the beggar I had seen there that morning.

Giving me an odd look, she said, ‘I do not know, Me’heer. Sometimes he is there, sometimes not. I do not know where he lives.’

It was clear she thought it strange that I should ask. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I gave a quick nod, as if it was of no importance, and made my way back to the inn.

That evening I decided to sit in a corner of the inn parlour, nursing a tankard of Dutch beer and doing as I had been instructed, keeping my eyes and ears open. Like the previous evening, it soon filled up with soldiers, mostly English, but a few Dutch, who came to eat and drink and play cards. They talked loudly of nothing in particular, complaints about the delays in their pay, an officer who bullied the younger men, the lack of decent boots. Nothing unusual. Very much the same kind of talk as I had heard at Dover Castle. A sudden angry argument erupted between one group of English soldiers and the Dutchmen, with accusations of slacking and cowardice being thrown about. It was starting to turn nasty when Niels Penders, the innkeeper, came through from the back room and broke up the impending fight. He was a big man, but his tactic was cheerfulness and jokes, not force, followed by free beer all round, which seemed to settle the dispute, for the moment at least.

There was nothing suspicious or even interesting in the soldiers’ talk. This evening there were few civilians in the inn, and no sign of Cornelius Parker. I wondered why he had been here the previous evening, when it did not seem to be an inn much frequented by the local Hollanders. I also wondered whether my encounter with him had been entirely a chance one. Could he have followed me? It seemed unlikely, and the idea probably sprang from the nervousness I felt at being alone in this foreign town, with no particular business to pursue. Yet I could not quite shake it off. Could Parker have discovered that I was here on errands for Walsingham, or had he seen us visiting the Earl yesterday? But why should that be of interest to a draper, a merchant dealing in expensive imported fabrics? All the Dutch merchants, I knew, suffered as a result of Spanish blockades of many of their ports. Their merchant vessels were forced to run the gauntlet of the Spanish ships which prowled the Channel, and were only able to sail down past the English coast under escort from Dutch or English warships before they could reach the Atlantic and make their way west to the New World or south to the Mediterranean and Africa. So it was in the interests of all the merchants for the war with Spain to be brought to an end by an English and Dutch victory.

Why had the beggar warned me against Parker?

Tired from my hours of walking over the snow-covered cobbles of Amsterdam and seeing little purpose in eavesdropping any longer on the soldiers’ talk, I decided to go to bed. On the way, I asked Niels Penders to send some hot water to my room. It arrived soon after I did, carried in by a girl of about my own age, the innkeeper’s daughter Anneke. She smiled and curtseyed, and set the bucket of steaming water down beside the table that held a jug and basin. When she was gone, I dragged the clothes coffer against the door to block it, poured the water into the basin, and stripped to the skin.

For days, ever since we had left London, I had slept in the same clothes I wore all day, and I felt tired and grubby. It was a luxurious pleasure to wash all over with the scrap of soap I had brought with me. I had no towel, but a fire had been laid in the small fireplace and after rubbing myself with my cloak I soon dried by toasting myself in front of it. I then washed out my stockings, my shirt and my undershift, wringing them out as best I could and draping them over a chair in front of the fire, which I made up with logs from a basket provided by the inn. I slipped my night shift over my head with a sigh of pure pleasure. Tonight, at least, I could sleep in comfort.

The coffer I left in place behind the door, but I laid my clean shirt, breeches and spare hose ready, in case I should need to dress in a hurry, and with that slid beneath the feather bed and blew out my candle. Within minutes I was asleep.

The next morning I woke slowly, vaguely aware of a cock crowing somewhere not far off, and the clatter of hooves beneath my window. The clothes I had washed, being of thin fabric, had dried in the night, so I folded them and packed them into my knapsack. I dressed in the clean clothes I had laid out and drew the coffer away from the door, hoping that no one would hear the noise I made. Before eating the previous night I had checked that the ostler had fed Hector, but I thought I would visit the stables before breaking my fast. It was still quite early, so it might be possible to call on Ettore Añez before he was too much caught up in the business of the day.

Hector seemed comfortable and well fed, so as soon as I had eaten I set off again on foot for Reiger Straat. There had been no further snow during the night, so what had already fallen was churned up and dirty with the passage of feet and stained with horse droppings. Perhaps because I knew the way, the house seemed nearer this time. The hoists and the barges were not yet as busy as they had been the day before, and only one man emerged from the door of the house at the sign of the Leaping Gazelle, so I decided to make my way up the shallow steps and knock.

The door was opened immediately by a smartly dressed servant who asked me something in Dutch. I replied in English.

‘Is this the home of Mijnheer Ettore Añez?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ he replied in faultless English, with no trace of accent. ‘Who shall I say is calling?’

‘Dr Christoval Alvarez,’ I said, ‘a friend of his cousin Sara Lopez from London.’

‘If you will wait here a moment, sir.’ He bowed and climbed the stairs to the next floor, where I heard the knock on a door and the murmur of voices. I might have been in a gentleman’s house in London, received by one of his upper servants.

The man came quickly downstairs again.

‘If you would follow me, Dr Alvarez?’

On the first floor he knocked at a door, then opened it without waiting for an answer, and I stepped inside. A large window faced the canal, filling the room with reflected light dancing off the water. As I entered, a tall man, thin and elegantly dressed, came towards me with both hands outstretched, beaming at me with genuine pleasure.

‘Dr Alvarez! My cousin has told me much about you and your father in her letters. I am delighted to meet you and to welcome you to Amsterdam.’ He turned to the servant who was just closing the door. ‘Alfred, bring us some refreshments.’

He indicated two comfortable chairs pulled close to the fire. ‘Please, please, sit down. You will take a little wine? You must tell me all the news of Sara and the children.’

It was not much more than an hour since I had eaten at the inn, but in courtesy I could not refuse. As I gave Ettore the latest news of Sara’s family, including the prospects for Anne’s marriage, the servant returned bearing a tray which he unloaded on to a table conveniently placed between the two chairs. A crystal and silver flagon of pale gold wine, two Venetian goblets, two fine linen table napkins, two silver gilt plates and another one loaded with a selection of sweetmeats, tiny sugared pastries, and marchpane shapes. It appeared that Ettore Añez lived every bit as well as the Earl of Leicester.

‘And are you in Amsterdam for long, Dr Alvarez?’ he asked. He was far too discreet to ask what my business here was.

‘Perhaps another week or ten days,’ I said. ‘I am awaiting the return of a colleague who had business elsewhere in the United Provinces.’ I had decided that Ettore Añez seemed a trustworthy man. He was, after all, the cousin of my oldest friend. I would not tell him everything, but I could see no harm in telling him what was common knowledge.

‘We have come from Sir Francis Walsingham, carrying despatches and letters for the Earl of Leicester.’

‘You have seen the Earl?’

‘Aye, the evening we arrived. The day before yesterday.’ I paused, then thought I would venture a question. ‘When we saw the Earl, there were two men dining with him: Sir John Worthington, one of his cavalry captains, and a Dutchman, Mijnheer van Leyden. I wondered whether you knew anything about them.’

Ettore poured us each more wine while he considered.

‘I know very little about Worthington. Little more than his name, in fact. He may be a cavalry captain, but I doubt whether he has ever led a cavalry charge in battle. I understand that he is one of the Earl’s favourites, kept well away from any real fighting.’ He paused, sipping his wine, then ate a few of the tiny pastries.

‘Van Leyden, now, I do know. He is a merchant here in Amsterdam, dealing in spices from the islands of the east. Or at least he was. Last year he lost his two largest ships, one to storms in the Indian Ocean, one to the Spanish. He was ruined, forced to sell his two remaining ships and look about for other employment. That was when he took up a position with the English.’

I understood from the way he said ‘the English’ that he did not regard himself as belonging to that nation, although we had spoken entirely in English, not Portuguese and certainly not Dutch. Perhaps, like my father and me, he felt himself still a stranger in northern Europe, even though, like his cousin Sara, he had been born here and never lived in Portugal. The sense of being an outsider is not easily overcome, even after one or two generations.

‘What do you think of him?’ I asked bluntly. ‘Van Leyden?’

He gave me a thoughtful look in which I caught a sudden resemblance to Sara. ‘He is not generally liked. There was no great mourning when he went out of business last year. There had been talk of false weights, of spices adulterated with cheaper produce, or tainted with mould. I would say that he is not altogether trustworthy. Moreover he has been humiliated by his losses, and I believe that he is not a man to take that well. Such humiliation can make a man dangerous.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, digesting this. ‘So do you think van Leyden himself might be dangerous?’

‘Dangerous to whom?’

‘Well, I suppose to the Earl, as he seems to be on intimate terms with him, dining in his house. And also perhaps to the alliance between England and the United Provinces.’

‘That alliance is already on quaking ground,’ Añez said. ‘Each side blames the other for failure on the battlefield. Zutphen was a disaster. Sluys a tragedy. It has reached a point where the commanders on both sides distrust each other, while the common soldiers come to blows in the streets. This is no way to withstand the Spanish, especially with a general of Parma’s skill in command of them.’

I had not realised things were so bad. Were the fears Leicester had expressed about treason and treachery merely this general falling out between the two nations? Or was there something more particular?

‘I believe the Earl has asked the Queen repeatedly if he might return home,’ I ventured.

‘Very likely.’ He nodded. ‘One can hardly blame the man. He is not a soldier. I am no soldier myself, but even I can understand that he has no grasp of military matters. But who would replace him?’

‘Perhaps his stepson, the Earl of Essex.’ I gave a wry smile, reflecting my view of Essex. ‘Sir John Norreys would be the wiser choice.’

‘I agree. When you saw the Earl, did you gain any idea of his plans?’

‘No, we were not made privy to anything of such importance.’

Añez held up the wine flagon again, but I shook my head and put my hand over my glass.

‘There was something else,’ I said, ‘that I wanted to ask you.’

‘Certainly.’

‘It may be nothing, yet I found it disturbing.’

I gave him a brief account of my meeting with Cornelius Parker and the cryptic warning from the beggar, and explained that I had seen Parker at our inn the previous night.

‘You say he accosted you in the street, uninvited?’

‘Aye. Came up behind me and remonstrated with me for giving a small coin to the maimed soldier. I was taken aback. And even more so when he offered me “entertainments”, unspecified.’

‘And the beggar warned you that he is a bad man.’

I nodded.

He sat back in his chair, studying the fire. ‘Cornelius Parker is as slippery as an eel. I doubt you could pin any crime to him, yet, like van Leyden, rumours cluster about him. Many of his goods are what he says they are, fine fabrics imported generally through Constantinople. Yet it is whispered that his ships sometimes carry other goods – arms which he trades with the Spanish and the Musselmen – slipped in amongst the bales of cloth. He has other business interests as well, brothels here in Amsterdam, in Den Haag and even in Antwerp.’

‘I thought Spain controlled Antwerp now.’

‘It does.’

I took off my cap and ran my fingers through my hair. ‘Do you mean that Parker is in the pay of the Spanish?’

He shrugged. ‘That I cannot say. It is as certain as can be that he has dealings with them.’

Something else struck me. ‘Is he a Catholic?’

Añez shook his head. ‘That I do not know. It is not safe to admit to being a Catholic these days, here in the United Provinces. I am sure he attends the free Dutch Protestant Church, but may nevertheless be a secret Catholic.’

I thought of the Fitzgerald family, where Walsingham had sent me last year. They had taken me with them to an English Protestant service like any respectable family, yet they celebrated the Catholic mass in secret.

‘I would have supposed,’ I said slowly, ‘that for a man like Parker, his best interests are served by continuing to trade legitimately, rather than engaging in dangerous activities.’

‘That would seem to be true. But men can be swayed by many things – passion for a cause, revenge, or, for men like van Leyden or Parker, money. I think that Parker, like van Leyden, could be a dangerous man.’

‘Aye. Well, I thank you for your information, Senhor Añez.’

‘To such a friend of my cousin Sara, I am Ettore.’

I smiled. ‘My friends call me Kit.’

We shook hands on it as I stood up to leave. So absorbed had I been in our conversation that it was only now that I noticed how dark it had grown. The glint from the canal had disappeared and the very room was full of shadows.

‘There will be more snow soon, I think,’ he said.

‘Aye, I’d best be back at my inn before it starts. I am staying at the Prins Willem.’

‘The best inn here in Amsterdam, though not the most expensive. The soldiers can become noisy in the evening.’

I laughed. ‘So I have noticed.’

He walked with me down the stairs to the front door.

‘If you should need any more information, or any help,’ he said, ‘do not hesitate to come to me.’

‘I thank you.’

We bowed our farewells and parted at the top of the steps. As I headed back along Reiger Straat, which had become busy again while we talked, I pulled on my cap and flipped the hood of my cloak over it. Already it had begun to snow, just a few idle flakes drifting down to be lost in what was already lying on the ground, but the clouds were big-bellied with the weight of the unshed masses that would fall before evening. I thought there was just time to try to find the beggar once more before I sought the shelter of the inn. The way to the church where I had seen him was easier for me to find now, but there was no sign of him, nor of the woman selling pastries. Indeed the streets were emptying fast as everyone made for shelter.

I walked back to the Prins Willem, hastening my pace as the snow began to fall in earnest. By the time I reached the inn my shoulders were coated with a layer of snow and the dirty snow in the streets had been covered with a fresh blanket of white. It was so dark that some of the shop keepers had already lit the torches outside their premises at midday. Although I had not been carrying out Walsingham’s original instructions, sitting in corners listening to the gossip of soldiers, I felt that I had gained far more valuable information from my visit to Ettore Añez. Clearly both van Leyden and Cornelius Parker were men who needed watching.

For the next two days it snowed without ceasing, a steady, relentless fall. At first there was little wind, but toward the end of the second day a stormy gale blew up, driving the snow into drifts against the sides of buildings until in some places they reached nearly to the height of the windows. Few people stirred outside. Some of the soldiers still came to the inn during the evening, but Niels Penders told me that they were men billeted in the town. Those quartered in the camp outside Amsterdam were confined to their tents, and a wretched time they must have been having out there in the bitter cold. Inside the inn we were kept warm by roaring fires in every room, the food was plentiful, and clearly the inn had a cellar abundantly stocked with beer and wine and even a form of aqua vitae.

I visited Hector several times a day, but the stable was solidly built of brick and the grooms had a fire in their room at one end, whose warmth filtered through to the horses. Confined to the inn, with no one to talk to except the innkeeper and his family and nothing to occupy me, I grew irritable with boredom, but there was nothing for it but sit out the storm. I wondered where Berden was – still in Den Haag, or perhaps caught by the storm on his way back to Amsterdam. In the afternoon of the second day, a carter who had struggled to the inn with a load of logs told us that the canals were freezing. News I did not welcome. It seemed we would have a bitter ride toward Parma’s troops, then a journey to the coast before we could meet our ship for the return journey. That was, if Berden ever returned and we could manage to ride anywhere at all. So thick was the snow by now that I feared being trapped in Amsterdam for weeks, until the thaw came.

The night of the second day of blizzard, I lay in bed listening to the wind howling round the corners of the building with a viciousness that seemed almost animate. Every so often there came a crash as a tile was ripped off the roof of the inn or one of the nearby buildings. There had already been a leak in the roof, Marta Penders told me, requiring buckets up under the eaves. It was close to a chimney, so the heat of the fire melted the adjacent snow, sending it dripping through the hole where two tiles had been torn away. All day and all night the bucket had to be emptied at regular intervals, for there would be no chance of mending the roof in this storm.

At last I slept and when I woke the world seemed strangely silent. The wind had dropped and light was filtering in around the shutters of my window. I crossed the floor, wincing at its icy touch on my feet, and opened them. A low red sun cast its light over a glittering snow-covered town, The wind had vanished. The snow was no longer falling. Down below I saw a workman, bundled up in a thick cloak, a scarf wound round his head and hat, making his way slowly across the square and leaving the first footprints to mark it, except for the feathery patterns of birds’ feet which were lightly etched on the surface. Away to the right I could see the canal, no longer a body of water shifting and stirring, but a solid road of ice. Even as I watched, I saw a group of young men sit down on the bank and strap skates to the soles of their boots, then laughing and shouting they launched themselves out on to the frozen canal, dipping and swooping across the ice. My heart lifted at seeing them and I longed to be able to glide like that, as swift and free as a bird in the air.

A few minutes later another group arrived, families with young children, carrying large round trays like the ones used to bring in huge joints of meat to the inn dining parlour. To my amazement, I saw parents setting the trays down on the ice and lifting children – quite small children, some as young as three or four – on to the trays. All the children were carrying pairs of stout sticks and once on the ice they began to propel themselves along by thrusting the sticks against the ice, almost as if they were rowing a boat. The youngest children did little but spin round and round on the spot, but the older ones, more skilled, were soon skimming along the ice at extraordinary speed, darting in amongst the skaters. At any moment I expected to see a collision, but it seemed both the skaters and the children were used to this extraordinary form of sport. I laughed at the spectacle, the boredom of the last few days quite banished as I dressed warmly and went downstairs. I thought that if I could not join in, at least I could go and watch the fun on the canal.

Everyone seemed cheered by the change in the weather. It was still bitterly cold, but the sight of the sun after the darkness of the blizzard was itself enough to raise one’s spirits. I spent the morning watching the sport on the canal, then after dinner decided to try once again to find the beggar and discover whether he could tell me more. Ettore Añez had given me his view of Cornelius Parker, but I wondered whether the beggar knew something else, something perhaps from the back streets of the town which would have been hidden from a merchant, a dealer in precious stones.

As I crossed the square I saw women turning away from the public well. Although I could not understand their speech, from their gestures it was clear that the well was frozen. Underfoot the top layer of the snow had also frozen into a hard crust which crunched and shattered under my feet, so that they sank into the softer snow below. It reached to my knees. Soon my boots and stockings were soaking and my legs felt as icy as the canals, but I ploughed on until I reached the church where I had first seen the beggar. He was not there.

A small crowd of local people was emerging from the church, shaking the hand of the minister and calling out brief greetings to each other before hurrying away to the warmth of their homes. As the minister went back into the church, I followed him.

Most of the people of Amsterdam I had met knew some English, so I spoke to him in English, hoping that he would understand.

‘Dominee, may I ask you about one of your parishioners?’ There was no evidence that the soldier was one of his parishioners, but it seemed a reasonable guess.

He turned and smiled politely. ‘What do you wish to know?’ His English was almost without any accent.

‘A few days ago I spoke to a former soldier, who was playing a pipe and begging outside your church. We spoke about Sluys. I am a physician from England who cared for many of the survivors. I thought I would speak to him again, but he is not there now. Perhaps it is too cold.’

I knew that I was being deliberately misleading in mentioning Sluys, but felt I needed to give some reason for my interest in the man.

‘I know the man you mean, Mijnheer. He does indeed live in this parish, though he rarely attends church. His sufferings, I am afraid, have turned him from God. His name is Hans Viederman.’

‘And you say he lives nearby?’

‘He does. If you turn right outside the door of the church and follow the narrow passage that runs along our outside wall, there are a few small houses on the other side. Hans’s house is the last of these.’

‘Does he have family?’

The minister shook his head sadly. ‘When he came home from the fighting, with . . . his legs like that . . . crippled, his wife left him and took their little boy with her. She has gone to live with her parents in a village about five miles from Amsterdam.

I felt a flash of anger on the soldier’s behalf. ‘She abandoned him, when he had most need of her?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘He had moments of terrible rage, after what happened. His wife was perhaps afraid. Or could not live with him any longer. We should not judge, who do not know everything that lies between man and wife. He is better now. He survives, though perhaps he may never be able to forget his bitterness.’ He gave me a smile of great sweetness. ‘Go and see him. Any hand reaching out in friendship will do him good. I expect he had decided to stay within doors in this cruel weather.’

‘I will,’ I said, ‘and I thank you, Dominee.’

Following the minister’s directions, I ploughed my way through the snow in the alleyway. It must be a shortcut through from one main street or square to another, for the snow was churned up by many feet. As I reached the end, I realised it led to yet another canal. At the last house, a wretched hovel of one storey with a roof of tattered reed thatch, I knocked loudly on the door. There was no answer, so I knocked again, calling out, ‘Hans? Hans Viederman? I am the Englishman who spoke to you a few days ago. Beside the church. May we speak?’

This time there was a noise from inside, a scrabbling of claws and an anxious barking. So the dog was there at least. Where the dog was, the man was likely to be. Tentatively I tried the door, which was neither locked nor bolted. Reasoning that the man, crippled as he was, might be in difficulty, I opened the door and stepped inside. A furry shape hurled itself at me out of the dark interior and I staggered back, but the dog was not attacking me. He licked my hand and whined and wagged his tail all at once. The house felt curiously empty. It was also bitterly cold, while the damp seemed to seep in through the walls and roof, as though they were sucking it up from the surrounding snow and ice.

‘Hans!’ I called again. ‘It is Dr Alvarez. Do you need help?’

He would not know my name, but perhaps my profession would provide reassurance. I was growing more and more uneasy. The dog ran from me toward the back of the house, then ran forward to me again. I followed him, groping my way in the small amount of light thrown by the open door. There appeared to be just one room, though it was difficult to judge until my eyes had adjusted to the dark interior.

He was lying on the bare boards at the far end of the single room, below the closed shutters of the only window. One stool. A rough table on which stood an empty plate, scattered with breadcrumbs, and an overturned ale mug made of stained horn. The stumps of his legs protruded from under the table, but the rest of his body was hidden from view, so I crouched down beside him. His wrist when I lifted it was as cold and clammy as the ice on the streets, but I did not need the absence of any pulse to tell me he was dead. His throat had been cut almost from ear to ear. There was a great deal of blood, but so cold was it in the house that it had frozen. The dog sat down beside me and whined softly in his throat.

Because of the bitter cold in the house it was difficult to judge how long the soldier had been dead, but the frozen blood indicated that it was many hours. I sat back on my heels, my heart pounding, unsure what I should do. I was a stranger here, and I was supposed to keep in the shadows, yet I could not leave this death unreported. Unsure of what legal system operated here – did they have coroners? – I realised that the best thing to do was to go back to the church and tell the minister what I had found. As I stood up, a frightening thought struck me. Could this death have any connection with Cornelius Parker, who had seen me speak to the soldier? Cornelius Parker whom the soldier called a ‘bad man’ and whom Ettore Añez considered untrustworthy and possibly dangerous? For although I might call it a death, it was in truth a murder.

I found the minister in the church, to my relief, for I did not know where he lived or who else had authority here.

‘Dead?’ he cried in a shocked voice. ‘This bitter weather. There are always some of the poor who are taken.’

‘It was not the cold,’ I said grimly. ‘His throat was cut.’

He pressed the knuckles of his right hand against his mouth, but even so could not suppress the cry that broke from him.

‘Killed? Murdered?’

I nodded. ‘I am a stranger here, a messenger come with despatches for the Earl of Leicester. I do not know how you manage such things here in Amsterdam.’ I looked at him appealingly. ‘I will be leaving in a day or two. Can you take charge? I would not know what to do.’