The priest watches him, his stare disquieting.
“We must go to Greenwich,” Hamilton tells him hurriedly.
“Tomorrow, my child. It is too dangerous now: she will have guards in numbers. Ushers. Agents. Poursuivants.”
His voice hisses like a snake. Usshherssss, agentsssss, pourssssuivantssss.
“I will need to see the lay of the land.”
“Put your faith in God, my child, for He is the wise father and will guide you in all things.”
His hand crawls out of its long greasy sleeve to cup Hamilton by the cods.
* * *
Queen Mary has been ill these last few days, but now she is up, out of bed, on her feet, in blood-red grosgrain and ostrich feathers, pacing by her window.
“Where is she?”
Mary Seton does not know and cannot explain it.
“Gone, Your Majesty. The boy John says she left with her bag, two days ago, but he did not think to tell me.”
“Why? Why would she leave me? Why would she abandon me?”
“I am certain it is a misunderstanding, Your Majesty.”
“When I am queen, I will have her winkled out and I will repay her disloyalty.”
Mary Seton looks around to see that they are not overheard.
“Oh, the mice are not yet back behind their wainscoting,” Queen Mary says. “And even were they I should not care to curb my tongue, for I shall be queen long before they are able to bleat their nothings into the ear of my dear cousin of England.”
* * *
John Kennedy sits on a log within the Tower’s doorway, barely sheltered from the thin rain, and he strokes the knife away from him. A very thin peel rises from the spoon’s handle to fall to join the others beneath his feet, and he thinks his mother will like it.
* * *
In Waltham Cross, in Hertfordshire, nearly 170 miles to the south, Margaret Formby is offered a ride for the last twenty miles to London by a dark-skinned sumpterman, whose cart holds three sacks of unmilled grain and a sad-eyed cockerel in a cage.
* * *
“There is no need for this, Dee,” Walsingham tells him. “I am as anxious to talk to Meneer van Treslong as you are.”
But Dee keeps the barrel of his pistol pointing at Walsingham’s nethers.
“Walsingham,” he explains again. “I trust you only so far as a man might spit a rat, so sit tight and let us pray Master van Treslong has not yet weighed anchor.”
They are in the stern of a ferryman’s humble riverboat, the ferryman pulling on his oars, anxiously eyeing the gun that smokes in Dee’s hands. Behind them, following along in his official boat, sit the rest of Walsingham’s guards, halberdsmen, and so not much help in this situation. Dee feels their contemptuous gaze on his back. But he has the upper hand here.
Evening is falling. Gray clouds scud overhead, and the tide is on the wane. Their passage downstream to Limekiln is swift.
“Over there,” Walsingham points, and the oarsman slushes his oar and the boat noses toward the northern bank where it is lined with wharves and cranes and forested with the masts of many ships. Somewhere in among them all they hope to find Master van Treslong’s fluyt, the Swan.
When they do, squeezed in between a carrack and an old-fashioned caravel, its repairs seem nearly complete, and its deck smells of pitch and resin and new-sawn wood. Van Treslong sits under a spread of rust-red sailcloth, talking to a man in a bearskin hat, a mug of beer at each of their elbows. Gone are the voluminous breeches, on are patched sailor’s slops.
“Eh!” he greets them. “I was about to set off to Southwark!”
His little eyes darken when he sees Dee’s pistol.
“Meneer, please, no firespark.”
Dee ignores him.
“This is Dr. Dee,” Walsingham introduces them.
“Dr. Dee?”
Van Treslong stills, but his eyes are lively, flitting from one to the other for a long moment before he gets to his feet and extends his hand to shake Dee’s. Dee curtly greets Van Treslong in his native language, then they slip into English.
“It’s an honor, Dr. Dee,” Van Treslong says, “to meet you alive.”
He catches the eye of the man in the bearskin cap. Broken nose, scarred knuckles. He gives a sort of a shrug. Both are looking at the gun. Only one ball, but who’d they rather take it?
Walsingham does not waste time. “Willem, Dr. Dee has some questions for you about what happened off Nez Bayard a few weeks ago.”
Van Treslong turns his questioning gaze on Walsingham.
“Sure,” he says, slowly. “But… you want me to tell him everything? I mean, it is your choice, Francis.”
Walsingham is puzzled.
“If you please, Willem.”
Van Treslong shrugs. His logbook sits on the table. For God and Profit. He opens it and finds the right page.
“So,” he starts, “I got your first note—the ciphered one—delivered twenty-first day of August. Off La Rochelle.”
He proffers the book so that they may see the mark he has made. There are plenty of them on the page, each signifying a certain event, probably entered by men who cannot read, let alone write. It forms, Dee supposes, a little code of its own based on shared knowledge. He would like to see more, at another time, but Van Treslong is going on.
“That message was about Quesada’s fleet. Shadowing it. To let you know when it entered the Narrow Sea. Yes?”
Walsingham agrees.
Van Treslong flips a page and runs his finger over the various further squiggles.
“Then, second message. Not coded. Brought by hand of Master Raleigh aboard the Pelican. This one I kept. Not every day Queen of England writes a man a letter, hein?”
He actually has it, still, kept safe in the back of the book. It is a single sheet of paper folded in thirds, with a hard disk of brittle wax, carefully preserved when the letter was cut open. He takes it out and passes it to Walsingham.
Walsingham reads out the letter. It is addressed to Willem van Treslong, Master of the ship the Swan, from Elizabeth, by Grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, delivered this day by hand of Master Raleigh of the Pelican. She requests and requires that in addition to the task entrusted to said Master van Treslong by Her Majesty’s most loyal and well-loved servant Master Francis Walsingham—to wit: the providing of information as to the whereabouts and disposition of his Catholic Majesty King Philip of Spain’s fleet, newly sent out of Bilbao to cajole, threaten, and menace the said queen and her peoples of England, as well as all those peoples of the Reformed faith—the said Master van Treslong is required to proceed henceforth with as much dispatch as is deemed necessary to stand off the promontory known as Nez Bayard, at sunup on the eighth day of September to wait for communication from another of Her Majesty the Queen’s servant, Dr. John Dee, who, should he, by the grace of God, find himself on said promontory, will request and require of Master van Treslong safe passage back to Her Majesty’s kingdom of England.
In consideration of such endeavorments thereby involved, and likewise conveyed by the hand of said Master Raleigh, Her Majesty’s treasury is able to advance to Master van Treslong the sum thirty ryals, cash, in addition to such moneys as agreed by Master Francis Walsingham, with another thirty ryals payable on delivery of said Dr. Dee to a port of his choosing.