Dee lies dead still and waits. Unfamiliar birds are greeting the dawn. He still holds Mercator’s globe. After a while he looks up again. The boat is quite far out to sea now.
Dee crawls backward, never taking his eyes from the ship’s sails, making sure, and then, when he is, he gets up and begins to run, gripped with the rage of one who has been falsely betrayed.
CHAPTER TEN
Greenwich Palace, September 17, 1572
Greenwich Palace is a few miles downriver from the city of London. It is where the Queen spent the very few happy months of childhood, when she was allowed to play in the hollow oak behind the palace and escape the oppressive loom of her father’s affairs that dominated those terrible years. It is the place she is happiest even now, the place to which she repairs when vexed, or confused or frightened, as she is this day.
A new star has been seen in the heavens. It sits above Schedar and Caph, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, and burns as bright as Venus and can be seen during the day, even through thin cloud.
It is a portent, of course, but of what?
No one knows.
“If only we had Dr. Dee to tell us.”
No one is talking of Dr. Dee though. Not today, with news of Admiral Quesada’s fleet entering the Western Approaches.
“We have reports of militia numbers for Kent and Sussex,” Burghley tells the Queen. “Very low.”
And:
“Hawkins has sent word to say that if we are to see a single one of his new ships before the year is out he needs more iron, more oak, and more skilled wrights. He says he needs reliable supplies of pitch and canvas, too, and pine trees that can only be found in Sweden.”
And:
“The master of the Cinque Ports tells us Her Majesty’s castles at Sandown and Walmer are in so parlous a state he doubts either will stand the breath of a cannon for but a single day.”
And:
“There is still no sign of Your Majesty’s great traitor, James Hamilton.”
But:
“Your Majesty’s cousin of Scotland remains safe under lock and key in Sheffield.”
Her Privy councillors—Lords Burghley, Leicester, and Derby; Sir Thomas Smith also; and plain Master Walsingham—look at one another from the tails of their eyes.
Surely with this great threat bearing down on them, this is the moment to have Mary of Scotland put to death?
Her going out of this world would remove the cause and point of Quesada’s invasion.
But the Queen—in mulberry silks, with a collar so stiff with pearls an axman’s blade might bounce from them—sits so clenched and pale that none among her Privy councillors dare suggest the obvious.
There is a quavering bleat from Derby.
“Her Majesty cannot in good conscience order the death of a queen likewise anointed by God,” he reminds them.
They’ve heard all this before. Mary of Scotland has perhaps a greater claim to the throne of England than its current occupant, but she is a Catholic, and a whore, and to all intents is French, and if not French then she is Scottish, which is as bad, if not worse. Whichever way you look at it, she is England’s and Elizabeth’s Great Enemy, of whom Walsingham and Lord Burghley before him have been conspiring to be rid for a long while.
But because she does not wish to set a precedent, Queen Elizabeth of England will not have another divinely anointed queen put to death.
Yet.
After a moment, Walsingham can resist it no longer. He goes to the window. The panes in this room are removed for the day, though there is scarce a breath of wind, and there is only the garden between him and the broad winding snake of the river. The tide is coming in. Across its oozing breadth is the Isle of Dogs: two trees and a cow. Walsingham tries to look downstream, but his view is blocked by a willow tree.
“Are you looking for something, Master Walsingham?” the Queen asks.
“No, Your Majesty,” he lies, and he turns back to the room.
“If only we had some money,” Derby is bleating still.
“Yes, Walsingham,” Sir Thomas Smith reminds all present. “The last time we were gathered together you’d just lost us the location of the Northwest Passage in one of your sky-brained schemes and left us with this fleet of Spanish galleons on their way to unseat Her Majesty.”
Walsingham nods, for, in truth, that is what he had done.
“You promised you would reclaim the page from Admiral DaSilva’s logbook, Master Walsingham,” Derby continues, “and decode it for us, too, so that we might find some way to resist the Spanish might. So that we might find some way to preserve not only Her Majesty, you, me, and everyone you see here, but also this our nation, and the faith you profess to hold so dear.”
The Queen waits. Does he begin his defense now? Or let the thing run its course?
“Your Majesty,” Walsingham begins. “My lords, I—”
And it is then, at that precise point, they hear the dull rap of a gunshot.
All flinch. Their heads whip to the open window, whence the sound comes. The doors crash open and suddenly the room is filled with bulky inconsiderate men with weapons. Her Majesty’s halberdiers. Master Beale, too, sword drawn. Leicester leaps to his feet and places himself before the Queen along with the halberdiers, protecting her. Leicester wears a vest of steel against assassination attempts, Walsingham remembers, so feels safe enough.
Every man holds his breath. For a long moment nothing happens.
“Is it him? Is it Hamilton?”
Beale is at the window, peering out around its edge.
“A ship,” he says.
“Stay back, Your Majesty!” the captain of the guard instructs.
“No,” Beale says. “Look.”
He gestures and Walsingham joins him.
On the river: a ship, a smudge of smoke over her bows, her sail dipping to join the gunshot in salute.
“What ship is that?” Smith asks.
He squints for his eyes are becoming bad.
“She’s a fluyt,” Beale tells them. “A Sea Beggar, but my God! Look at her. She’s knocked about.”
“Seen better days,” Walsingham agrees.
The ship is very low in the water. Her mast is jury-rigged and her mainsail ragged and smoke smutted.
“What is she doing here?” Smith asks.
Dutch ships such as this are recently forbidden in English waters.
Walsingham turns to Beale.
“Let us see what her captain has to say before we send to have her impounded,” Walsingham tells him.
The Queen steps from behind her human shield, thanking those who would save her life, and she demands the captain of the vessel is brought to her presence. Her color is up. An attempt on your life will do that for you, Walsingham supposes.
After that it is impossible to settle down.
Burghley sends for more wine, and there is the suspicion that Stanley has lost control of his bladder, so the Queen wants air, and they follow her out to the shade of a cedar tree in the palace’s formal garden, where ice is brought, along with the first of this year’s apples from Kent, and the captain of the Dutch ship.
“Is this really necessary, Walsingham?” Smith demands. “Really? A Sea Beggar before our Queen?”
But the Queen is intrigued. Smith reluctantly sends his secretary, amiable Nicholas Gethyn, to fetch the man.