The Eyes of the Queen

by Oliver Clements

  The priest strikes a light. They are surrounded by cured leather skins, as if in a bed at home, save the stench is so powerful. There is a crucifix on a low table, covered in a cloth, and what looks like a very small tabernacle. In one corner is a chamber pot.

  The priest takes off his hat. His skull is shaved and dented with old scars, small pox, and worse.

  “I am called Father Simon,” he says.

  He moves as if to take Hamilton in his arms.

  Hamilton thrusts him back. “Do you have it?” he asks.

  “All in good time, my child.”

  “No. No. Now.”

  The priest’s eyes catch the rushlight’s glow. He looks like no one Hamilton has ever seen before. A fervor rises from him, like a miasma. He has a perverted zealotry of purpose. Every fiber of Hamilton’s body revolts against him.

  But he is a priest.

  “Father,” he adds.

  The priest’s breath is cold, as if from a crypt.

  “Very well,” he says.

  He turns and is gone for some little while. When he comes back, he carries a long tube of waxed linen. Hamilton takes it, feeling the familiar heft of the gun, muffled by padding and sackcloth. He cuts through the bindings to reveal the gun within, a sister to that he spent so many days shooting in Ferniehirst. With her he could shoot the head off a wren at fifty paces. A woman’s from a hundred will be easy.

  A woman’s from two hundred remains to be seen.

  It is an object of great beauty, longer than any ordinary arquebus by a cubit or so, slender where she can be, beefy where she need be, the work of the finest smiths in Lombardy. In its stock, an ivory lozenge with a verse from the book of Numbers: “The Avenger of Blood shall put the Murderer to Death.”

  There is fine black powder and there are balls, each blessed by the pope himself, with words from the Old Testament engraved by the best Venetian craftsmen upon their silken surfaces. He runs his fingers through the powder, searching for larger crumbs that will blow with too much force, and then he rolls each ball between finger and thumb. Even the slightest irregularity will send it awry.

  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 pr
eserved 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.

  “It says nothing about shooting me,” Dee says.

  “No,” Van Treslong says, slightly shamefaced. “That instruction came a day later.”

  “Another note? Who brought this one?”

  Van Treslong refers back to his log once more.

  “Master Peter Bone of the Foresight. Very stupid man. Bad sailor, too. Lovely boat though. Fast, you know?”

  “We must ask him,” Dee says.

  “He’s trying to make himself a second Hawkins,” Walsingham tells them, “trafficking souls along the Guinea coast.”

  He means there will be nothing heard from him for months, if not years, if ever.

  “You have that letter, too? The one that instructs I should be killed,” Dee prods.

  Van Treslong does, but for various reasons Walsingham needs to persuade him to pass it over. When he does, it is on similar paper to the first, though smaller in dimension, and the seal hangs by its ribbon from one side of the paper, rather than from its center. Walsingham reads it through in silence, then passes it to Dee.

  It is in the same hand as the first letter, intended as an addendum to that letter, which—it says—had been written earlier and sent before certain diverse and shocking details had been brought unto Her Majesty’s attention. This letter tells Van Treslong that Dr. Dee is this day disclosed as a notorious papist, heretic, and traitor sent by the pope in Rome to countenance the destruction of the life of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. It requests that should Meneer van Treslong ensure Dr. John Dee does not reach England to carry out his entirely wicked act then he—Van Treslong—will find the nation accordingly grateful, to wit: a further seventy ryals, delivered by hand of said Master Bone of the Foresight, in cash.

  “She sent the money there and then?” Walsingham demands. “In cash?”

  “Yes,” Van Treslong admits.

  The writer of the letter goes on to explain, owing to the secret and sensitive manner in which the information as to Dee’s culpability was revealed, the matters herein contained are in no wise to be discussed, mentioned, or disclosed to any person, or persons, whatsoever, on pain of the direst consequences. The writer concludes by asking Van Treslong to burn the letter after reading.

  “Oh, yes,” Van Treslong says vaguely, as if that were something he meant to do.

  Dee is not listening. He is looking at the signature.

  It is signed Elizabeth R.

  It is his own death warrant, signed by Bess. His Bess.

  He drops the letter. The seal lands with a clunk. His body is made of ice, and ash, and something very tender. The horror of his betrayal almost chokes him.

  Van Treslong pushes his mug of beer his way. Dee drinks, hardly noticing the bitterness of the hops, hardly noticing the beer on his doublet. Seagulls wheel overhead, screaming like the souls of the damned.

  “Well, that at least explains that,” Walsingham says. He takes the pistol from Dee and pinches the fuse between beer-wet fingers.

  Dee puts down the empty mug.

  “No, it doesn’t,” he says. “It doesn’t at all. Why would Bess wish me dead? She cannot believe I am some papist firebrand sent to kill her! By the blood of Christ, Walsingham, you have to help me.”

  Dee is now suddenly unmanned and utterly desperate.

  And there is something strange about all this, Walsingham thinks. He remembers Van Treslong’s appearance at the Privy Council meeting in Greenwich, after he had fired his gun from the river; and how the Queen had wept to hear of Dr. Dee’s death.

  “One moment, Willem,” he says. “You told us Dr. Dee was dead.”

  Van Treslong laughs awkwardly.

  “Well,” he says. “We shot someone.”

  “But not Dr. Dee.”

  “Seems not.”

  “Why?” Walsingham presses.

  “Why did I tell you he was dead? Or why did I shoot someone? Why do you think, Francis? You see a plot? You are too long in your espial game, I think.”

  “So it was just the money? Just the seventy ryals?”

  Van Treslong shrugs. “There’s a reason we’re called Sea Beggars.”

  He is right, of course, but there is not much money filling up the coffers of England, and the Queen is notoriously tight with it. It was a surprise, even, when she offered to foot the bill for repairs to the Swan. She would not, surely, give money away, the whole sum in advance?

  “And why seventy ryals?” he wonders aloud.

  “Ten more than bringing me home,” Dee supposes.

  Van Treslong smiles in confirmation. He is missing only one tooth. That is good for a sailor. That money must explain those new breeches, Walsingham supposes.

  And just then a boy appears from the cabin holding those selfsame breeches over his arm, with that same doublet. He holds them out to show they are clean, as requested, ready for Van Treslong’s night out in Southwark. The Dutchman collects the two letters for his logbook and stands to bring the meeting to a close.

  “Verdammt!” he cries. Seagull shit lands with a splatch on the doublet. Van Treslong cuffs the boy and seizes the jacket and starts brushing at the cloth.

  Walsingham notices Dee’s hand move like a snake. A moment later, the letters are gone, and they stand to go.

  “Thank you, Willem,” Walsingham says. “God give you a good evening.”

  “Sure you don’t want to come?” he asks. “They are going to set the dogs on an ape tied to the back of a horse!”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  London, October 10, 1572

  Robert Beale is summoned from his office just before curfew.

  “Some bint with a funny accent,” the porter tells him. “After Master Walsingham and will not take no for answer.”

  Beale sets aside his work on the accounts of their recent action with something like relief and follows the porter into the yard, where, standing behind the gates, is a road-weary Margaret Formby.

  When she sees him, she starts to weep.

  He summons bread, ale, an apple for the love of God, and with her mute permission he takes her elbow and guides her to the fireside in Master Walsingham’s outer office.

  After a little while she gathers herself.

  “I am sorry; I did not know who to come to.”

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “Is there… a woman I might talk to? I have much to say that I cannot…”

  She trails off and Master Beale understands. He calls for Mistress Walsingham to the outer office and introduces the two women, then he leaves them to i
t, though only so far as the doorway, where he stands out of sight and listens to what is being said.

  At first the girl is nervous, suspicious even of Mistress Walsingham, but Mistress Walsingham is a good listener, and the girl soon plucks up courage, and her tale pours out.

  At first it is heartrending, and Mistress Walsingham clucks maternally, shocked at Queen Mary’s devilish treatment of the girl.

  “You poor soul, no Christian should be made to practice such a thing!”

  But then she starts on the ruse with the candlestick, and what was done while Francis Walsingham was looking elsewhere, and it becomes very alarming.

  * * *

  Queen Elizabeth sets out to Greenwich from Windsor. It is not yet cool enough for the blue cloak lined with marten fur, but she shivers uncontrollably tonight and starts at every sound—the barking of the dogs, the slop of the river against the pontoon, the distant laugh of the bargemaster’s boy. She has had more days like this recently, of the sort when she will stand at her window and look out over the horizon and sense it: the massed malignance that is gathering there. So much hatred, gathered up from all over Christendom, and it is pointed at her, at her tiny fluttering heart, which she can feel beating like a finch in a cage. It is fear. Fear for her life, for her country, for everything she knows.

  And so she shivers like a greyhound.

  Accompanying her are three ladies-in-waiting and Lord Burghley. Burghley wants passage only to his house on the Strand, for he is ailing of some complaint and wishes to consult his own physician from the comfort of his own bed.

  Her Majesty’s barge is a luxurious craft: a sharp prow, eighteen oarsmen, a small deck on which a chair may be placed so that she may be seen by the city’s populace. Then: a cabin with glazed sides in which she may retreat should the miasma on the river prove too much, screened by dense velvet curtains the color of blood, and aft, a deck for the helmsman and bargemaster.

  Her bargemaster sends word that he aims to pass under the bridge just as the tide is on the slack.