He took with him the doll of Queen Elizabeth that had been sent to the queen, of course having taken care to remove the arrow that had been so provocatively stuck into it.

  He discovered very quickly that with the coronation of a beautiful new queen, London had become awash with dolls of her image. At every tinker‘s stall and knick-knack shop, he found a dozen Elizabeth dolls, most of them depicting her in a gold coronation gown.

  Ascham compared the artistry of the dolls on display to the one that he possessed. None of them matched the workmanship of the doll that had been sent to the queen.

  Night was falling when Ascham came to London Bridge.

  The multi-level monstrosity stretched across the Thames atop its twenty mighty stone arches. Even then, in 1559, it was close on 350 years old and, thanks to many fires and inconsistent innovation, it looked like a ramshackle village that had been built and rebuilt many times over: shops and homes jutted out from it at all angles, some of them projecting over the water, others rising to ungainly and awkward heights.

  View of Old London Bridge (c.1600) by Claude de Jongh

  Over the course of his inquiries that afternoon, Ascham had learned of a dollmaker by the name of Mrs Emily Wimple who operated a small shop on the bridge. Apparently, her work was of the finest quality, so much so that she had made dolls at the command of Queen Mary, as gifts for the children of foreign kings.

  Ascham hastened down the bustling bridge.

  Cows and sheep milled about. Sailors, prostitutes, mothers and shopkeepers all haggled and traded: Ascham had often said that if any one place could represent the many facets of English life, it was London Bridge.

  Amid the general hubbub of the bridge’s central thoroughfare, Ascham spied the modest shingle of the establishment he was seeking. It read:

  DOLLS AND OTHER TOYS FOR GIRLS

  PROPRIETER, MRS EMILY WIMPLE

  Ascham entered the shop.

  A hundred dead-eyed dolls stared at him from its shelves.

  They were mainly fashioned in the form of little girls, but there was also a few soldier-dolls and—to Ascham’s dismay—a lot of dolls of Elizabeth in different outfits.

  The store itself was a dim room, shot through with light from a lone window that overlooked the Thames to the west. It was getting late in the day and in the light of the setting sun, the dolls’ unblinking gazes made Ascham feel uneasy. The shop was empty.

  Ascham reached for one of the Elizabeth dolls: a coronation model. With its gold colouring and expert stitching, it was, he realised, exactly the same kind of doll as the one that had been sent to the queen—

  ‘Can I help you?’ a woman appeared suddenly from a side room. She was perhaps forty with a sturdy frame and a rough voice. She wore an apron and had her sleeves rolled up.

  Ascham glanced from the doll to the woman.

  ‘Hello, madam. My name is Roger Ascham and I am here in search of a coronation doll. You are the proprietor, Mrs Wimple?’

  ‘I am. And that doll there will cost you twopence.’

  ‘It is most superbly made.’

  ‘I make the best dolls in London, I do,’ Mrs Wimple said. ‘That one is my biggest seller. Can ‘ardly make ‘em fast enough. The people of London do love their pretty new queen.’

  Ascham turned to the shelf again.

  There must have been twenty identical dolls in it—all depicting Elizabeth in her coronation gown. This wasn’t a unique doll and that disappointed him. The killer could have been one of many customers to have purchased a doll from this store in recent weeks.

  ‘You’ve sold a lot of these coronation dolls, you say?’

  ‘Aye. Close on fifty of the things.’

  ‘The stitching is the best I have seen.’

  ‘Why, thank you. I’ve been blessed by the Lord with nimble fingers. Never sold near as many of the old queen—Mary, God rest her soul—even though she was a much better woman and a right good Catholic. Better than this skinny new strumpet. Brought us back into the fold with Rome, Mary did, you know.’

  ‘I did know that, yes,’ Ascham said. Mary had also burned three hundred Protestants at the stake and in his opinion would be remembered more for the cruelty of her faith that its purity.

  Ascham looked about the shop— and he again saw the window looking straight down the river at the setting sun: it was commanding vantage point from which to watch life on the river…or to shoot an arrow at an oncoming royal barge as it passed under London Bridge.

  He sighed. He had found the source of the dolls, but there was nothing else for him here.

  ‘So, is you gonna buy the doll or not?’ Mrs Wimple demanded.

  ‘No,’ Ascham said, thinking. ‘Thank you for your time. It is not what I am looking for.’

  Before he left London Bridge, Ascham examined the immediate area around the doll shop. A narrow alley between two of the nearby shops led to the western edge of the bridge. It ended at a little stone balcony that also afforded an excellent view of the river.

  Ascham visited a few of the neighbouring shops.

  Here he found the office of Mrs Wimple’s landlord—a Mr Albert Rimington, a merchant who occupied the much larger store beside hers. He owned the whole building and the two on either side of it, making him the landlord of no less than twelve shops and upper-level flats from which he collected substantial rent.

  But he was nowhere to be found that day, so Mr Ascham left him a note asking for a list of the names of all his tenants on the bridge.

  In the note Ascham stated that he acted on behalf of the queen herself and demanded that Rimington forward the list promptly on the morrow to the palace at Whitehall.

  With nothing else to investigate, Ascham left London Bridge and returned to Whitehall.

  Night had fallen by the time he began to make his way back across London.

  A thick fog had descended on the city, cloaking everything in dismal grey mist.

  As Ascham rode on his mare through the gloom, he had an unsettling feeling, a queer sensation that he was being followed.

  Glancing surreptitiously behind himself as he rode, he saw that a shadowy figure was indeed trailing him, lurking back in the fog, a burly fellow wearing a three-cornered hat.

  Ascham’s heart raced. He tried to remain calm or to at least look like he was calm. He continued on, feigning ignorance of the stalker.

  Then, amid some of the newer factories beside the Thames, Ascham took a sharp left turn and quickened his pace. He then doubled back, tied his horse to a tree and dashed through an empty factory so that he could peer through its windows at the road he had been travelling on moments earlier.

  He saw the shadowy figure arrive on the scene and look about the area, perplexed to have lost his quarry.

  Ascham held his breath.

  It was frightening to stalk someone who had been stalking him.

  Ascham got a fair look at him: he was a big man, stocky, with shoulders as broad as his ample belly. Ascham couldn’t see the man’s face underneath his triple-sided hat; all he could make out were his bushy black whiskers that curled up to become a moustache.

  And he held in his hand a longbow with an arrow notched.

  Ascham swallowed at the sight of it.

  Having lost sight of Ascham, the fellow snorted and went back the way he had come.

  Ascham watched him go and exhaled in relief. He waited a full twenty minutes before he resumed his journey back to the palace.

  He was met at the gates by Hopgood.

  ‘Sir,’ the young Body Guard said as they headed inside. ‘One of our former Catholic Guardsmen did indeed win an archery tournament last year. Silas Maynard.’

  ‘The one who resigned earlier than all the others?’

  ‘The very same,’ Hopgood said. ‘I also found his service records. Maynard was the best shot in the Guard. He won not one but two archery contests at Hampton Court. Both were presided over by Queen Mary herself and she was delighted in his victories. He was something of a favourite of the old queen and it was she who awarded him the golden arrows on both occasions.’

  Ascham grimaced. ‘Do we have any idea where this Maynard fellow went after he resigned from the Royal Body Guard?’

  ‘I asked around. No-one knows.’

  ‘Tell me, Hopgood, did you ever meet him?’

  ‘A few times, yes.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  Hopgood thought for a moment. ‘Large fellow, tall and sturdy, and he had these giant whiskers that he fashioned into a moustache.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Ascham bit his lip.

  So his shadow the previous night had been Maynard. He had been stalked by a master archer.

  ‘This is not good,’ he said.

  ‘Sir,’ Hopgood said tentatively. ‘I found something else in the course of my inquiries, pertaining to Silas Maynard. A few of the men mentioned it but it seemed, well, more a rumour than a fact.’

  ‘Let me hear it anyway.’

  Hopgood said, ‘As Queen Mary lay dying, she summoned Maynard to her bedside. There was only one other person in attendance at that meeting, the Bishop of London, Edmund Bonner. The following day, Maynard resigned. Three weeks later, Queen Mary died.’

  ‘A private meeting with Mary on her deathbed?’ Ascham said, his mind turning. ‘And no-one has any idea where Maynard went after he resigned?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But Bishop Bonner still resides here in London,’ Ascham mused.

  He did not need to add that Edmund Bonner was a notoriously fearsome individual. Known to many as ‘Bloody Bonner’ for his role as Mary’s religious enforcer, he had enthusiastically helped her burn hundreds of Protestants alive at the stake. Even after her death, courtiers still feared his power and many openly wondered what Elizabeth would do with the prominent Catholic bishop.

  ‘And as the only participants of that meeting still within reach,’ Ascham said, ‘it would serve us to pay him a visit. We shall see him first thing tomorrow.’

  5.

  The following morning, Ascham and Hopgood left the palace early, heading for the London residence of the Catholic bishop, Edmund Bonner.

  In those first months following Mary’s death and Elizabeth’s accession, Bonner’s position was a most peculiar one.

  He existed in a kind of limbo: he was a living, breathing reminder of the old regime. While the Catholic queen was dead and her reign of terror over, her enforcer was still very much alive— only now he was a bishop without a cathedral, a prince without a kingdom. He did not live in a church or presbytery, but rather in the sumptuous mansion of a sympathetic Catholic lord not far from Westminster.

  At first Ascham and Hopgood were denied entry to the bishop’s residence. It was only when Ascham stated that they were there in the name of the queen that they were admitted.

  Despite that, the bishop made them wait…

  And wait…

  And wait.

  Ascham began to fret as he heard some church bells outside toll the ten o’clock hour. They had only two hours until the queen’s flotilla on the Thames began.

  They were running out of time.

  And then the bishop—finally—granted them an audience.

  Roger Ascham sat before Edmund Bonner.

  The bishop had a broad round face and a pair of cruel black eyes that were completely devoid of compassion or pity. The old Catholic enforcer stared at Ascham as if he were an insect deserving only to be crushed.

  ‘Your Grace,’ Ascham said. ‘Thank you for seeing us. I am Roger— ’

  ‘I know who you are,’ Bonner said. ‘You were Elizabeth’s tutor when she was a girl, the so-called “enlightened” teacher, the one who took her to that chess tournament in Constantinople, the one who believed in broadening her mind rather than leading her down the true path of faith. You are the one who made our new young queen a heretic. What do you want?’

  ‘I want to ask you about a meeting you attended, a special meeting at the old queen’s bedside. About six months ago, you sat in Queen Mary’s bedchamber with a member of her Royal Body Guard, a Catholic Guardsman named Silas Maynard. Immediately after that meeting, Maynard resigned his commission and vanished. I want to know what was discussed at that meeting.’

  Bonner’s lips twisted into a sinister smile. ‘Mr Maynard is a fine Catholic, a soldier of God who is steadfast in his beliefs, very devout. Mary gave him a final order, one last command, to be carried out after her death when Elizabeth became queen. She also gave him a huge payment for this— all in gold— enough to live out the rest of his days in luxury in a quiet corner of the realm once the deed is done.’

  Ascham felt his blood go cold. ‘And what was that last command?’

  ‘Oh, dear, I cannot tell you that,’ Bonner grinned. ‘But I do know that if the new young queen were to meet an untimely end, her cousin once removed, Mary Queen of Scots— a most fervent Catholic— would inherit the throne of England. And that would be something that, if she is watching us from Heaven, would make our dear departed Queen Mary smile. Good day to you, Mr Ascham. I do wish you luck in your mission because, by God you’ll need it.’

  And then Bloody Bonner started laughing, a cruel cackle that echoed throughout the mansion’s halls and corridors as Ascham and Hopgood left.

  Ascham and Hopgood stood on the street outside the bishop’s opulent home.

  It was almost eleven o’clock. Elizabeth’s flotilla was probably venturing out onto the Thames at that very moment.

  Ascham resolved to race back to King’s College to inform the king and return with armed escorts.

  Ascham swore. ‘We’re almost out of time and we have no more lines of inquiry.’

  ‘Mr Ascham!‘ The call of his name made him turn.

  ‘Mr Ascham, sir!’I have a note from the queen for you.’

  He handed Ascham the scarlet envelope. It bore the queen’s seal.

  ‘ and this also just arrived at the palace for you. From Mr Rimington, a landlord on London Bridge. His messenger said you would be expecting it.’ He handed over the rolled sheet of parchment.

  ‘Thank you.’ Ashcam opened the queen’s envelope first. A note inside it was written in her gorgeous handwriting:

  MY DEAREST TEACHER,

  I CAN WAIT NO LONGER. I MUST GO TO MY BARGE NOW

  AND COMMENCE THE FLOTILLA. I PRAY THAT YOU HAVE

  SUCCEEDED IN YOUR MISSION. IF YOU HAVE NOT AND

  TODAY SHOULD BE MY LAST, I DO HOPE WE MEET AGAIN

  IN THE HEREAFTER.

  IT HAS BEEN MY HONOUR TO LEARN FROM YOU.

  YOURS,

  BESS

  ‘Damn it, she’s gone to the river,’ Ascham said.

  He unrolled the parchment from Rimington. It was a list of all the tenants in the Rimington’s shops and flats on the bridge:

  20A DOCKRILL

  20B GAMBLE

  20C CORBETT

  20D BALCOMB

  22A FREEMAN

  22B LAWTON

  22C RUSSO

  22D MOLES

  24A WIMPLE

  24B MAYNARD

  24C WATERWORTH

  24D HOLMAN

  Ascham examined the list, hawk-like.

  It listed the tenants in ascending order, as was the custom in those days: the shop on the ground level of a building was marked A, the one above it, B, and so on going up to D. Mrs Wimple’s ground-floor shop, for instance, was 24A.

  Ascham saw the next entry 24B MAYNARD

  ‘Maynard,’ he said aloud. ‘The flat above the Wimple doll shop is rented out to Silas Maynard…’

  Ascham broke into a run, dashing for his horse.

  Hopgood gave chase. ‘What is it?’ he called. ‘What have you deduced?’

  Ascham flew up into the saddle of his mare. ‘Maynard must have been watching me from the upper flat when I went to the doll shop on London Bridge. It was indeed he who followed me home. He knew I was getting close, so he followed me and probably would have killed me had I not doubled back when I did. Make haste, my good man! We must get to London Bridge, to the flat above the doll shop, before the queen’s barge does! That’s where he’s going to shoot her from!’

  They galloped at full tilt through the City of London, thundering past wagons and stalls and fist-waving citizens.

  They could see the vast crowds gathered in the riverfront, waving at the royal barge as it floated by, parallel to their gallop. In between the buildings that he passed, Ascham caught flashing glimpses of the royal barge on the Thames.

  On the glittering barge, Queen Elizabeth—young and resplendent in an enormous golden dress and sun-like crown—sat on her throne, waving, and smiling at her adoring people.

  Ascham came to the London Bridge and even though no-one was permitted to ride on horseback down its central thoroughfare, he just galloped straight onto it, yelling ‘Make way! Make way in the name of the queen!’

  Hopgood chased after him, mouth agape.

  They came to the doll shop and Ascham was off his mare before she had even stopped, charging for the staircase to the first floor.

  Just before he reached the stairs, he glimpsed the river through the alleyway: and he saw the royal barge not five hundred yards away, almost within range of an archer on the bridge.

  He bounded up the stairs, trying to untangle his bow from his back as he did so.

  He reached the flat marked ‘24B’ and kicked open the door with a bang.

  And he found himself staring at the man he had beheld the previous night in the darkened streets of London, the man with the three-sided hat and the bushy whiskers and moustache: the former queen’s Body Guard and champion archer, Silas Maynard.

  He was crouched at the window overlooking the river with a longbow and an arrow in his hands. The arrow was not yet notched, although it was, Ascham saw, another golden one.

  From his position by the window, Maynard gazed directly down at the approaching royal barge, with a clear shot of the queen.

  When Ascham kicked open the door, Maynard spun in surprise and for the briefest of instants, both men froze, recognising and assessing each other from a range of fifteen feet, separated by the length of the room.

 

1 2 3 4