He can hear murmurings and the occasional forced laugh from the throne to his right as the business of the court proceeds.
“Come on, come on.”
Eventually his hopes are answered before his fears are confirmed.
Burghley’s barge makes its way through the river traffic coming down from the city. Five oars on each side, but its flags are not raised. Odd, he thinks. He slips away from his place by the window. He needs to intercept the Lord High Treasurer before he speaks to the Queen or most especially Smith, so he is out into the garden before Burghley’s bargemaster gives the order to up oars and a boy in the barge’s bow tosses a rope ashore. Walsingham notices a slight slackness among the bargemen, though, and the reason soon becomes clear: their passenger is not Lord Burghley, but another man, and a boy.
“Dee, what in God’s name are you doing here?”
“Couldn’t find a regular ferryman,” Dee tells him, “but listen, Walsingham, I have had a dream.”
“Oh Christ, Dee! I don’t have time for this.”
But then he thinks: The Queen will wish to see Dee. Sir Thomas Smith will not be able to prevent that.
“Come on,” he says, without asking what Dee’s dream might be.
* * *
The Queen remains in her great mirrored library, with Sir Thomas Smith, and a small audience of the loose affiliation of lords and ladies from her court. She wears russet silks today, in keeping with the slight autumnal chill.
“Where is Master Walsingham?” she asks. “He was much agitated earlier.”
Smith laughs dismissively. “There is always something to agitate Master Walsingham.”
“But he is gone?”
“He will be back, Your Majesty, I have no doubt.”
She thinks Smith would like to keep her in aspic. But he is sweating, she notes, and forever dithering on the cusp of asking some favor he fears she will only decline. His colony in Ireland—he tries to hide the reports that come in, but the others in her council talk of the disasters quite freely. She wonders how much money he has lost, and what personal costs he bears too.
An usher in plum velvets comes and stands before both, looking ruffled, and seems, for that moment, unable to find his words. It is Sir John Ivesy.
“Sir John?” she prompts.
“Dr. Dee, Your Majesty, he is arrived this minute, in Lord Burghley’s barge, and seeks—”
Elizabeth cannot believe it. She gets to her feet.
“Dr. Dee? Our Dr. Dee? Dr. John Dee?”
“No!” Smith shouts.
The Queen finally glares at him and Sir John looks from one to the other in mute confusion.
“Send for him,” the Queen says.
When the man has gone, she turns to Sir Thomas.
“You forget yourself,” she says.
He can only bow his head.
She lacks the heart to scold him further, for she is too taken up with the idea that Dee lives. She crosses to the window. Sure enough: Lord Burghley’s barge is moored against the bank, and her yeoman, too, are astir about something.
She turns as she hears the footsteps and the grounding of her guardsmen’s halberds. The doors open, and in comes first Francis Walsingham, and then her own, entirely beloved, John Dee.
She almost runs to him, but she sees his face. His expression is cold and haggard, entirely and actively repelling any friendship between them. She cannot even stifle a gasp. She returns, stunned, to sit in her throne under her cloth of state. She feels as if staring down from a height. The floor moves of its own accord, and she is fraught at her lack of control, at her inability to predict what will happen next.
Dee bows without looking at her.
“Dr. Dee,” she says.
“Your Majesty.”
“We believed you dead,” she says. “We heard rumors.”
“Premature, I am afraid, your Majesty.”
Walsingham is hopping up and down, anxious to unburden himself. She turns to him.
“But Master van Treslong—” she starts. “He told us. He told us you were dead?”
“Your Majesty,” Walsingham interjects, “we can discuss the whys and wherefores at some later date.”
“Hold your tongue, Walsingham!” Smith barks.
“What is amiss, Master Walsingham?” the Queen overrules.
“Your Majesty, I believe your life is in immediate and grave danger if you remain here in Greenwich. You should prepare to move to the safety of the Tower.”
“What nonsense is this, Walsingham?” Smith demands.
“Sir Thomas, please, silence, we pray.”
She stands and comes down the steps. She wishes to stand close and look Dee in the eye.
“John,” she says.
“Your Majesty,” he replies.
His voice is cold, and his face is closed, like a gripped fist.
Walsingham speaks, low and urgent. “Please, Your Majesty, we can discuss this matter later. I have reliable information that Spanish troops will land—in the garden, not a hundred paces from here—today. We need to move your person to the safety of the Tower.”
It is an exaggeration, perhaps, a lie, but intended for good effect. It snaps the Queen from her intense concentration on Dee and brings her up short.
“How do you know this?” she asks.
“Again, Your Majesty, I will tell you all, but we need to move you, and move you now.”
“No,” Dee cuts across, addressing Walsingham. “That is not right. That is what they want you to do. They want you to take to the river, Your Majesty. They will shoot you in your barge.”
Smith scoffs.
“With a gun? Impossible.”
Dee holds up the ball.
“Look at this,” he says.
The Queen takes it.
“It is very beautiful,” she says, for it is: almost black, silken smooth, and perfectly round. It has a lovely, heavy feel in her palm, but it feels utterly deadly, and it makes her shudder.
Dee summons Thomas Digges from the shadows.
“What is it now, Dee?” Smith asks.
“Show Her Majesty your lens, please, Thomas.”
Thomas takes the small lens from the back of his perspective glass and passes it to the Queen. She holds it as one might a coin.
“Hold it like so,” Dee instructs, “and look through it, at the ball.”
She does so, and then takes a second look.
“What does it say?” she asks.
Engraved in the ball, in letters so minute they are not visible to the naked eye, are the words “The punishment of your iniquity is completed, daughter of Zion.”
“From the book of Lamentations,” the Queen murmurs.
“What sorcery is this?” Smith demands.
“It was found in the saddlebag of a man come to town, two days ago, along with some black powder, and this.”
Dee shows them the copy of the papal bull.
The Queen blanches.
“Burn that thing,” she mutters, looking away.
“I believe there is an assassin sent to kill you, Your Majesty,” he says. “Someone gifted with a gun.”
She places her hand on her throat. This is utterly chilling. Kings and Queens have always been prey to assassins’ blades, of course, and so have always taken care to surround themselves with loyal bodyguards. The invention, and improvement in accuracy, of the gun brings with it a terrible new threat, which no one yet knows how to counter, including Francis Walsingham.