CHAPTER FIVE
Whitehall, September 1, 1572
Heavy summer rain beats upon the shoulders of his cloak as Francis Walsingham hurries up the steps of the palace. He has not slept in five days, and whenever his eyes shut for longer than a blink, he relives the hellish days in Paris after Saint Bartholomew’s. He can hear their songs, see their smiling faces as the Catholics laughed and danced and waved their bloody axes in the air. As if it had been carnivale.
Now, though, he is come fresh from home in Mortlake, chin shaved, mustaches tipped in oil, hair kept in place by a neat black velvet cap. His doublet is very dark, his collar broad and white as snow, and the only concession he has made to his journey across the Narrow Sea and up through Kent are his mud-spattered riding boots. He does not want to look too tidy.
Thunder rumbles in the south. He takes the steps three at a time and does not break stride as the two halberdiers before the door ground their weapons in salute and stand aside to let him pass. He marches straight into the long, paneled anteroom where he finds Robert Beale, another of his intelligencers, bent over a fire, busy feeding papers into its depths. He is dressed as soberly as Walsingham, though his collar is smaller. Beale starts when he sees Walsingham.
“So it is true?”
Walsingham nods once, keeps walking. He unties his cloak and throws it to a standing servant. Beale slides the rest of the papers into the fire. Together they walk the length of the room toward another pair of halberdiers guarding another set of doors at the far end.
“The lucky were cut down,” Walsingham tells Beale. “The unlucky garroted.”
Beale runs a finger under his collar.
“Dear God. Does the Queen know?”
“Only the half of it,” Walsingham tells him.
“God save them,” Beale murmurs.
“God save us,” Walsingham corrects.
Beale is confused. He breaks step.
“Us?”
He has never known Walsingham to exaggerate.
“There has been a breach of— I have lost a document. To them.”
“Something sensitive?”
They have reached the halberdiers at the second doors now, and Walsingham must begin his act, if his plan is to succeed.
“Enough,” he says. “The DaSilva document.”
The halberdiers ground their weapons and step back as the doors open.
“Leave me, Robert,” he tells Beale. “This is my mess, and mine alone.”
Beale says nothing. But he nods and steps back and away. Walsingham stands quite alone.
Through the doorway is a very fine room: tall windows, tapestried walls, a fire ablaze in a brick-built hearth. Walsingham notices none of this. He is fixed by the stare of the woman who sits in a tall chair at the head of a long table filled with the bulky shapes of her Privy Council. The eyes of this woman are the fiercest blue and see straight through him. He is grateful to have to bow his head and stare at the floor.
“Master Walsingham,” the woman says. “We have heard dire tidings from Paris. Tell us we are misinformed.”
He raises his head again. The woman is in silver, with a high collar, and her fiery red hair is tamed with a garland of gold, studded with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.
She is his Queen.
Walsingham looks her in the eye.
Once again, he is caught unawares by the powerful effect she has on him, just as she has on every man in the land, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the humblest turnspit. It is not that she is especially or particularly beautiful, but she possesses something no mere painted courtesan could ever hope for: an extraordinary combination of fragility and strength, of high seriousness with dark humor, of fierce intelligence and passionate sensuousness, of silk and steel. That, Walsingham thinks, is what so unmans a man.
Her question still hangs.
He gathers himself. “I regret I cannot, Your Majesty.”
And now there is movement among the men gathered at the table, three of them, heads turning on collars like turnips on plates. Chief among them is Lord Burghley, the Old Fox to whom Walsingham owes much. He is gray bearded, dressed in rich red today, with a cloak of plum, his chain of office around his shoulders. He looks more fretful than Walsingham has ever seen him. Then there is Sir Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, impressively dapper in mustard velvet, one eye always on the Queen to gauge her reaction, and change tack accordingly; and then there is Sir Thomas Smith, the sneering Secretary of State, who has lost much weight recently, so that you may see his skull beneath his skin. Perhaps only Walsingham knows why this should be: Smith has been trying to plant Englishmen in Ulster, in the north of the island, to civilize it, but the Irish have taken exception and killed many of the settlers, burned down their buildings, and scorched the earth. And though he persists in hope, Smith has already sunk and lost almost all his money in the enterprise and is forever on the lookout for more, most especially from the Queen, who will not give it to him.
Of the Privy Council, only Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, is missing. Interesting.
There is a long silence. A peal of thunder overhead. Much closer already. Wind rattles the windowpanes. Smoke is blown back down the chimney.
“So then,” she says. “We are alone.”
It is dramatic, of course, but no one contradicts her. This is something they have all feared would one day happen: that France would fall to the Catholics, and now she has, and all Christendom is united under Philip of Spain. Only Reformed England holds out: lone, isolated, and meager-powered England.
Perhaps God has forsaken them.
“But it is not hopeless, eh? Walsingham?”
This is from Sir Thomas Smith. He is smiling at Walsingham, encouraging him, and yet—
Does he already know?
Walsingham remains silent.
“Well, since Master Walsingham chooses modesty,” Smith continues, “then I shall have to blow his trumpet for him. He has—what word would you use, Master Walsingham? Procured?—procured for us, the most startling piece of intelligence imaginable, haven’t you? Something to show that God has not entirely forsaken His English nation. Something to tip the balance of power in our favor.”
The Queen is skeptical.
“What is this… intelligence?”
Walsingham closes his eyes. He waits.
Smith has the bit between his teeth. “It is material taken from the logbook of the Portuguese admiral Baltazar DaSilva.”
Now Walsingham opens his eyes to find Smith smiling at him, but his eyes are alive with malice. Smith believes he is feeding Walsingham gallows rope. The Queen is looking pleased, albeit uncertain, as if she has been promised a great surprise for her birthday.
“And what does it disclose, this material?”
“I regret to say, ma’am, that I cannot say: for as I believe Sir Thomas knows full well, the material has been taken from us.”
There is a slight recoil, not least from Smith.
“Taken from us?” he repeats. “Taken from us by whom?”
It is an act. It fools some, but not Walsingham.
“It does not matter,” Walsingham tells them.
“By God it matters, Walsingham!” Smith bellows. “It matters a great deal. It has been taken by one of your ‘espials,’ hasn’t it? Admit it, man! You have failed. This is what your nonsensical intelligencing has come to! Abject bloody failure!”