Free Queen & Country by Shirley McKay

that could not be so, for itwas evident to Hew that it was one of the originals that Phelippes had transcribed. Besides it lay the alphabet, and both were written neatly in an unfamiliar hand. A fascination drew Hew to the desk. He could not help but whisper, ‘Is that cipher hers?’
    Phelippes asked, ‘Why have you come?’, his grey eyes drawn narrow with doubt.
    â€˜I have a letter for you, Tom. It concerns Mary. I am sorry to say that the news is not good.’
    The colour fled from Phelippes’ face. He looked blank, uncomprehending. ‘Mary?’
    â€˜She has lost the child.’
    Tom let slip a sound that was something like a sigh. He was thinking of that queen his purpose was to ruin, and in that moment had forgotten that he had a wife.

Chapter 5
    The Lion and the Hare
    That queen, Phelippes called her, sounding it like Cicero, accusing and direct, to mark her from the proper one, the Sovereign queen Elizabeth. Hew had met that queen in 1584. Though he had not expected it, it did not come about by chance. She had been in the keeping of the earl of Shrewsbury. And although she had complained of restrictions on her liberty, she was granted freedoms then which since had been withdrawn, and which she had already known were coming to their end. At that time, she had held hopes, of her son in Scotland and her friends in France, and Walsingham designed to penetrate those hopes, and shape them to his own, before he snuffed them out. To that end and purpose, he had ventured Hew.
    For as long as Hew had known him, William Phillips had been plagued with a cruel arthritis. In the springtime of that year, a dampness from the river crept into his bones and ravelled them in knots. Clysters were prescribed, but offered no relief, and a raft of purging swept him to his bed, clinging to his blankets, through the bitter winds that blasted into March. Hew had written to his sister, asking for a remedy, and Meg sent by return a receipt for oil of comfrey, to be rubbed into the joints, and for nettle broth, infused with bittersweet. The old man was suspicious, and had baulked, at first. But Frances in her quiet way had followed Meg’s instructions, ordering the ointment and the herbs from the apothecary, searching at the river banks and edges of the parks for the sweetest nettle leaves, with her tender fingers nipping out their hearts, gently steamed and simmered in a grassy stew. William had been melted by it, when themuddy potion he had sipped to please her brought a cooling solace to his aching limbs, while the rubbing ointment warmed and soothed his bones. In the month of June, Phelippes had proposed a trip to Buxton Spa, to take the waters there, to round off his recovery. ‘Frances and my brother John will take care of the trade, while you shall take Hew, to attend to your needs. I should come too, were it not for the husting at Hastings.’
    Phelippes had been standing for Parliament, as the member of Hastings, to which he was duly elected. He had been put up for the post by Lord Cobham, to whose younger brother Phelippes was attached during his embassy to France. It was not clear if Phelippes stood with Walsingham’s approval or in spite of him, for Walsingham and Cobham grouped in different camps, but Hew had given up attempting to unravel it. He suspected Phelippes chased so many different threads that he did not know himself, when he doubled on his course.
    William had resisted him at first. Derbyshire, he felt, was too far and remote. ‘There is water at Hastings, is there not?’
    â€˜Not the healing sort.’
    â€˜Bath is a closer resort. And, I am told, very fine.’
    Phelippes had impressed upon him that the trip to Buxton might not be refused. He had arranged it through Sir Francis, with the kind intervention of Lord Burghley himself, that his father should stay as the guest of the earl. The names of three great personages, in a single breath, had blown away