Her eyes. It is the nickname she had for Dee, Walsingham recalls, from some silly symbol Dee’d once scratched on the wall of his cell when they were both in the Tower together. He—Walsingham—has the report somewhere. A monad? Something like that. It was one of the many things that had spurred Leicester to act—without her knowledge, of course—to separate the two, so that she did not fall further under Dee’s influence and succumb to his more outlandish theories.
“Well, good riddance,” Smith says. “I never liked him. Too clever by half.”
There is a moment’s surprise, for this is disloyal in the extreme, but Smith is actually beaming with pleasure, and might even dance a jig, while the others, Walsingham notes, the others think more or less the same thing.
“The bastard punched me once,” Leicester says. “I have never forgotten that, though…”
He seems of two minds.
“Nevertheless, gentlemen,” Walsingham says, “he has performed a most valuable service for his Queen and his country, and… and…”
He indicates the Queen, who is still sitting with her eyes shut.
The others mumble their reluctant acceptance of his point. Gethyn coughs softly and looks at his kerchief as if for traces of something. Smith shoots him a strange, gloating look. Walsingham tries to recall why Smith so hates Dee.
It was something to do with his infernal colony in Ireland, he remembers now, and how Dee suggested the Queen invest what little money she had elsewhere in the New World rather than in Smith’s scheme in Ulster. Smith had taken it very badly.
“With Your Majesty’s permission,” Walsingham starts, “I will show Meneer Van Treslong to our kitchens. Perhaps give him a bun.”
The Queen opens her eyes.
“Yes,” she approves.
But Van Treslong hesitates and simpers a little. He indicates his ship, out at anchor in the river.
“I was hoping,” he says. “My ship… We’ve made some repairs, but…”
He trails off. It is not an unreasonable request, but the Queen is ever prudent with money. This time, though, she honors her debts.
“Meneer van Treslong has taken pains on our behalf,” she says, “and in recompense for his efforts, especially in regard to our beloved John Dee, I am more than happy to offer him such assistance as he needs to furnish his good ship anew.”
Van Treslong straightens the tips of his mustache and bows in gratitude.
Walsingham leads him in retreat through the garden, on which the Dutchman has some thoughts.
“Absurd, these strange patterns of hedges and beds.”
“Celtic knots,” Walsingham tells him.
“Pffft.”
When they are beyond earshot, Walsingham speaks.
“What happened with Dr. Dee?” he asks.
Van Treslong’s smile falters, and he pulls a face. He shakes his head.
“I did as the Queen instructed,” he says, “but when we got there, it was crawling with soldiers—we thought the cardinal’s.”
He trails off. He is wearing strong perfume, Walsingham notices. Ambergris. But the smell of his body is beginning to emerge in the warmth of this late sun. It is the truth, behind the lies.
“So?” Walsingham asks. “You saw the body?”
Van Treslong nods tightly.
“Took it off, as instructed, and then—overboard. At sea.”
Walsingham never liked Dr. Dee, but this—is not what he wanted.
“He will be with his precious angels, I suppose,” he says.
“Sure,” Van Treslong says. “And he served his purpose, no?”
Walsingham agrees.
But then he wonders when he ever told Van Treslong what that purpose was.
“Do you believe Quesada is sailing for the Northwest Passage?” he asks.
Van Treslong is unsure.
“At this time of year,” he says, “no, but he might cross the ocean to be ready to sail north when the ice melts in spring?”
In his wildest dreams, Walsingham sometimes hoped that Quesada would be foolhardy enough to follow DaSilva’s directions there and then and find himself trapped by ice and freeze to death, but no one is such a fool as to set off into the northern latitudes in September.
“Though we can live in hope, eh, Francis?” Van Treslong laughs.
“Have you told anyone else about Quesada?” Walsingham wonders.
“Only you, and…”
He gestures at the Queen and the members of the Privy Council gathered in the shade of the cedar tree. They are trying to console her. Did she really feel so strongly about Dee? Walsingham feels a further twist of the blade of guilt. Burghley, in his red, looks rotten, and Smith is still jeering, and it is only Gethyn who looks to the Queen’s person and comfort.
“Good,” Walsingham says. “Will you keep it to yourself, Willem?”
Van Treslong looks at him carefully.
“Controlling the flow?”
“Something like that,” Walsingham agrees.
* * *
An hour later Walsingham is at Seething Lane, and Beale wonders at his boss.
“You do not seem so very pleased?” he asks.
“I am,” Walsingham tells him.
“But?”
“But it is a mere reprieve. They will be back to set her free next year, or the year after. So long as she is alive. They will be back. And each time, stronger than ever.”
He means Mary of Scotland, of course, and the Spanish, or the French. He is forcibly stuffing linens in a saddlebag.
“Pack your stuff, will you, Master Beale,” he says.
“Where are we going, Master Walsingham?”
“Up t’North,” he says. “To t’Sheffield to see if we cannot once and for all declaw the bitch.”
* * *
The road north is long, but they travel it swiftly, lightly encumbered on good horses, and without drawing overmuch attention to themselves they aim to be in Sheffield within five days. A courier might have overtaken them, in the night, say, or by a different road, so they ride fast and far each day, doing as much as they might to forestall word of Quesada’s change of tack from reaching Sheffield before they do, and most especially the castle’s royal prisoner.
Beale had broached the subject of Dr. Dee on that first day.
“So he did not manage to retrieve the DaSilva document?”
Walsingham had shrugged.
“Perhaps we will never know,” he said, which had struck Beale as strange, but Walsingham was deep in thoughts elsewhere.
“Talbot knows to expect us,” he had told his secretary, “the others, too.”
“The others?”
“The watchers, in the castle.”
They ride in silence after that, both thinking, and Beale divines the scheme before they reach Oakham. Or at least identifies its possibilities.
“How can you be certain that Queen Mary knew Quesada was coming to rescue her?” Beale asks.
Walsingham, never comfortable on a horse, gives him a look.
Of course, Beale thinks, he told her so himself.
“I had to explain why her guard was doubled,” Walsingham admits.
Beale laughs.
“So how will she hear that Quesada has changed course?” he wonders.