Chapter 7: The Vintner’s Ledger

The road to Rye was a ribbon of mud and misery, and Edmund Ashworth, Earl of Morland, had ample time to regret every nap he had ever sacrificed to this enterprise. He had not slept properly in two days. His horse, a placid gelding named Custard, seemed to share his employer’s disdain for haste, picking its way along the Sussex lanes with the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained the colour of old pewter, and the air smelled of wet wool and rotting leaves.

He had told no one of his mission. Not his steward, not his groom, not even the faithful, grumbling servant, Poole, who had been dispatched to London with a letter for his sister that contained nothing more treasonous than inquiries about her chilblains. Edmund had reasoned that a man carrying a cipher meant for Mary Stuart ought to travel light, and alone. The fewer who knew, the fewer who could hang.

By the third evening, he reached the outskirts of Rye, a town that clung to its cliffs like a barnacle to a hull. The inn that Walsingham’s instructions had named was called the Ship’s Mast, and it was exactly the sort of establishment Edmund would have crossed the street to avoid: low-ceilinged, dark, and filled with men who looked at a fine doublet the way a cat looks at a pigeon. He entered with the resigned air of a man entering a bear pit, and asked the innkeeper, a woman with a face like a dried apple, for a room.

“And who might you be, sir?” she asked, not unkindly, but with the suspicion of a woman who had seen too many strangers wash up on her shore.

“A tired traveller,” Edmund said, with his most disarming smile. “And a thirsty one. I am told a man called the Vintner frequents this establishment. We have business.”

The innkeeper’s eyes flickered. She wiped her hands on her apron. “The Vintner’s not here, sir. But there’s a man at the corner table who deals in Bordeaux. You might try him.”

Edmund followed her gaze. At the corner table sat a man of perhaps fifty, with a face that had been weathered by salt and secrets. He was not drinking wine but ale, and he was reading a ledger with the careful attention of a scholar. Edmund approached, bowed slightly, and said, “I am told you know your vintages. I have a taste for something… dark. From the Low Countries.”

The man looked up. His eyes were the colour of cold water. “The Low Countries are troubled, sir. Wine from there is hard to come by. You might have better luck with something from the south, though the Spanish have a heavy hand on the presses.”

Edmund’s heart quickened. The password was clumsy, but it was the one Walsingham had given him. He leaned in. “The Spanish press too hard. A man might wish to cork their bottles.”

The man’s expression did not change. He closed his ledger, slowly, and gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit, friend. I have a cask in the back you might find worth your trouble.”

They moved to a private parlour, where the Vintner—for he was indeed the man, he confirmed with a curt nod—poured two glasses of a pale wine that tasted of regret. Edmund slid the letter across the table. The Vintner did not touch it. He looked at it, then at Edmund.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked.

“A death warrant,” Edmund said, “if it falls into the wrong hands.”

“Then you are not as foolish as you look.” The Vintner picked up the letter, held it to the candlelight, and frowned. “This is not the cipher we expected. The one we were told to expect had a different seal.”

Edmund’s stomach dropped. “A different seal?”

“A griffin, not a rose. This letter—where did you get it?”

Edmund explained, as briefly as he could, the interception at the port, the courier who had dropped it, the misdirected package. The Vintner listened, his face betraying nothing. When Edmund finished, the man set the letter down and pushed it back across the table.

“You have been given a poisoned chalice, my lord. This is not meant for Mary. It is meant for the Queen’s own council—or rather, for a man within it. A man who is not loyal to Walsingham.”

Edmund blinked. “You mean to say I have intercepted a letter meant for a traitor *inside* the government?”

“It is worse than that,” the Vintner said. “This cipher, the rose seal—it is the mark of Thomas Phelippes. Walsingham’s own cryptographer. But Phelippes would never send a letter through Rye. He has his own channels. This is a forgery, designed to look like his work, to be intercepted and to implicate him.”

Edmund felt the floor tilt. “Then I have not stumbled upon a plot. I have stumbled into someone else’s trap.”

The Vintner nodded. “And you have walked into it with your eyes open, which is more than most. The question is: who set it? And why would they want Walsingham’s own man discredited?”

Edmund thought of the courier, the man who had dropped the letter so conveniently. He thought of the street in London, the hushed voices, the sense of being watched. “The courier,” he said slowly, “was too careless. A professional would not have dropped such a thing. He meant for me to find it.”

“Then you were chosen,” the Vintner said. “Question is: by whom?”

Edmund had no answer. He had wanted a nap. He had wanted a quiet life. Instead, he had found a labyrinth that went deeper than he had ever imagined, and at its centre sat a woman with red hair and a claim to a throne she would never sit on.

He folded the letter and placed it back in his doublet. “I must get this to Walsingham. If it is a forgery, he will know.”

The Vintner shook his head. “You cannot go to him directly. If you are being watched, you will lead them straight to him. You need a go-between. Someone who moves in circles where no one asks questions.”

Edmund sighed. “I suppose you have someone in mind.”

The Vintner smiled, and it was not a pleasant smile. “I know a lady in London. A widow. Sharp-tongued, sharper-eyed. She has done work for Walsingham before, though she would deny it. Her name is Cecily Thorne. You will find her near St. Paul’s, in a house with a blue door. Tell her the Vintner sent you, and that the wine has turned.”

Edmund rose, his bones aching. “And if she refuses?”

“Then you are on your own, my lord. And I would advise you to find a very deep hole to sleep in.”

He left the Ship’s Mast with the forged letter burning against his chest. The night was cold, the stars hidden behind a veil of cloud, and somewhere in the dark, he could hear the distant crash of waves on the shingle. He had three days to reach London, three days to find a widow with a blue door, and no idea who had chosen him for this deadly game.

He was tired. He was afraid. And for the first time, he was not entirely sure he would live to see his own bed again.