The Course of All Treasons

by Suzanne M. Wolfe

  “Agreed.” Nick sat back and folded his arms.

  Walsingham sighed. “Annie is, and always has been, working for me. Initially, I put her in Essex’s network to keep me apprised of what he was up to. Then, later, to keep him from sniffing out what I was up to. I sent you into his network for the same reason: to keep Essex occupied with finding a murderer so he would not be tempted to look …” Walsingham paused as he searched for the right word. “Higher, shall we say.”

  “Higher?” Nick repeated. Then the penny dropped. “As in Mary, Queen of Scots, higher?”

  “I told you he was bright,” Annie said.

  Walsingham nodded. “That woman has been a thorn in the side of Her Majesty for almost twenty years. Not only that, but she is positively lethal. As long as she lives, she will be the figurehead of every assassination plot in the land, as well as a perpetual excuse for war with France and Spain. She cannot be allowed to live.” He struck the table hard. “But we have never been able to obtain actual evidence—written evidence—that she condoned any of the numerous assassination plots on Her Majesty,” he went on. “And the Queen demands proof of treason if she is to sign a death warrant for her cousin.”

  “And now you have the proof?” Nick asked.

  Walsingham frowned. “Not yet,” he said. “But we hope to have it by the end of the summer.” He indicated Annie. “Annie is the go-between between the Spanish …”

  “Del Toro,” Nick said.

  “Just so.”

  “She made initial contact with del Toro the night Winchelsea was murdered,” Walsingham said.

  “As a whore,” Annie said. “I was hiding in a doorway and snagged him, set up our meeting in Oxford. Safer, we thought, than London. Saw Simon in the shadows watching. He was a good tracker was Simon.” She crossed herself. Walsingham pretended not to notice, but Nick saw his mouth set in disapproval.

  “Then after receiving the letters in Oxford, Annie brought them to me first,” Walsingham said.

  “Ran into you here,” Annie said, grinning. “Literally.”

  Nick recalled the young man he had bumped into on the doorstep of Seething Lane. He had thought nothing of it. Just one of Walsingham’s myriad runners, he had thought at the time.

  To hide his embarrassment, he said to Walsingham, “Who is the English traitor?”

  “Anthony Babington.” Walsingham leaned back in his chair. He looked exhausted, and Nick reminded himself that he had just suffered a relapse and had returned to London only a few days ago. Annie had told him this on the walk over to Seething Lane.

  “His Nibs being away,” she had told him, “was a major pain in the arse. Normally, I could have hidden out at Seething Lane, but with His Nibs being gone, I had to shift for myself. The only way I could be safe was to constantly change my appearance.”

  “Why risk going to court on May Day?” Nick had asked her.

  “I wanted to explain things and I knew you’d be there.”

  “Then why did you run away?”

  “Because you drew attention to me and were asking all and sundry if they’d seen a young man. You blew my cover, you big loon.”

  Another mistake. But understandable, Nick thought, considering the torturous nature of the case. Nothing had been what it seemed: Annie the traitor was Annie the patriot; unassuming, shy, bungling Edmund was a devious and devilish murderer and traitor; except for the deaths of Winchelsea and Stace and the unnamed prostitute on The Dalliance, all attacks had been personal and not political. Even del Toro, a Spanish agent and sworn enemy of the state, was working, unbeknownst to himself, for Walsingham.

  * * *

  Nick turned his attention back to what Walsingham was saying.

  “Babington and his coplotters have found a way to contact the Scottish queen. They are sending messages to her in the bung of an ale barrel that is delivered to her household. And her replies are sent out the same way.”

  “And you have intercepted them,” Nick said.

  Walsingham allowed himself a thin smile. “We’ve done better than that. The man who delivers the ale is in my pay. We read each letter, copy it, and then reseal it and send it on its way. She is a vain and impetuous woman. It is only a matter of time before Babington gets her written approval for his plot. When that happens, we will have her.” He closed his fist.

  “It was imperative that del Toro be allowed to make contact with Annie,” Walsingham went on. “He had brought the Spanish ambassador’s approval of the plot to be passed on to Babington.”

  “That’s why you allowed him to land at Dover,” Nick said. “And pass unmolested through the country.”

  “Correct.”

  “And that’s why you were adamant that he had not murdered Winchelsea,” Nick said. He sat forward in his chair so he could be sure that he had Walsingham’s attention. “But you had no proof of this. He could very well have been Simon’s killer. If I had not found Edmund’s seal, del Toro would still be a suspect.”

  At this, Walsingham had the grace to look down. But when he looked up again, there was steel in his eyes. “I would not have arrested him even if I had seen him cut Winchelsea’s throat myself,” he said. “He had to be allowed to deliver his letters and then return to France to report to the Spanish ambassador that all was well.”

  “Even if you had seen him put out Winchelsea’s eyes?”

  “Even so.”

  Nick sat back in his chair. He no longer felt anger, but a kind of weary revulsion. No matter what Walsingham said to the contrary, his agents were expendable pawns in his great game of espionage. A religious fanatic, he would cheerfully watch the whole world burn for the sake of his Queen and the realm. In this respect, Walsingham was no different from his Catholic counterparts in the Inquisition. Perhaps, in his way, he was no different from Edmund himself, who had justified his actions by claiming loyalty to his father. For Walsingham, loyalty to his Queen justified all manner of betrayals.

  The Bible that Walsingham was rumored to so assiduously study had not been written by God, as he thought, but by Niccolò Machiavelli. It was he who had given religious and political fanatics their first and only commandment: “The end justifies the means.”

  To Nick’s ear, this was the most demonic statement he had ever had the misfortune to read.

  “Robert Cecil does not know,” Nick said. It was a statement, not a question. He thought of how the Spider had set him to tracking del Toro to Oxford, and how eagerly he had run to the Queen to inform her that Annie was a traitor, impelled by a burning desire to discredit his hated adoptive brother, Essex.

  “He does now,” Walsingham said.

  Nick could imagine how that conversation had gone. The Spider would have been informed that he had very nearly destroyed the biggest and most important sting operation in his master’s career. And he had done it out of a personal animus against Essex. He must be devastated by his ineptitude, Nick thought, wincing inwardly, knowing that he would bear the brunt of the Spider’s deep professional embarrassment.

  “Robert is young and has much to learn,” Walsingham said, as if reading Nick’s mind. “I thought I was protecting him by not telling him of the Babington plot, but I was mistaken. I underestimated his hatred of Essex.”

  “Protecting him?” Nick said.

  Walsingham gave a weary smile. “Do you think the Queen will thank me when I force her to sign her cousin’s death warrant? Robert’s father, Baron Burghley, and I know that, if I am successful, and I pray God that I am, it will mean the end of our service to Her Majesty. She will never trust us again. She will never forgive us for forcing her to spill royal blood. I had promised Robert’s father I would keep him away from the taint of this. Young Robert is to succeed me, you see.”

  Suddenly, Walsingham looked very old and shrunken in his chair. His greatest espionage triumph was simultaneously his greatest failure. The irony of it was staggering.

  “But to look on the bright side,” he said with an attempt at jollity that was grot
esque, given the bleak outlook for his future, “an early retirement from public service will allow me to spend what little time I have left with my family.”

  Nick thought that in all of Walsingham’s grim life—his witnessing of the Bartholomew Day Massacre, the early onset of cancer, all the blood he had seen spilled and ordered to be spilled—he had never experienced a single day that could have been called bright. Even now, on this warm spring day, a fire was burning in the grate; the windows were closed against the cheerful sound of the birds; thick curtains were drawn against the brightness and warmth of the sun so that the room resembled more a place for the dead than a place for the living. No doubt it was his doctor who had instructed him to keep out the fresh spring air—unlike Eli and Rivkah, most doctors considered fresh air dangerous to the health—but it seemed fitting somehow. Walsingham was entombed alive by his obsession with Catholic plots and conspiracies, an obsession that was slowly killing not only his body but his soul.

  And yet, blighted as Walsingham surely was, Nick still respected him. There was no question that he was a genius at what he did. If there was a man who could permanently remove the threat of Mary, Queen of Scots, after nineteen years of imprisonment and Elizabeth’s refusal to send her to the block, he was sitting before Nick on the other side of the desk.

  As a Catholic, albeit a recusant one, Nick could not condone this. But nor could he condone assassination plots against his own queen. He was caught as surely as a fly in amber. And, for his family’s sake, his brother in particular, he would have to remain caught.

  Nick glanced at Annie. She was in the same position as he, forced to cooperate with a government that was inimical to her faith if she were to help restore her family fortunes.

  “It goes without saying that you must not breathe a word of the Babington plot to anyone,” Walsingham said. “On pain of death.”

  Then, as if as an afterthought, he added, “Anthony Babington is a young recusant.” He smiled. “Like you, Nick.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The Black Sheep Tavern

  “So you see, John,” Nick said, “Walsingham’s last words about Babington were intended to remind me that I am well and truly on his hook. I’ll never escape.”

  Nick looked despairingly at the still form of his friend lying on the bed. They were alone in the room, Maggie having been persuaded to go downstairs to spend some time with her children.

  How could he keep wading through the moral sewers of the espionage world without his best friend beside him? He and John had been companions since before they could talk. With Robert being ten years older than Nick, John was more of a brother to him than a friend. They had done everything together since they had been old enough to run outside and play: caught fish in the Windrush, poached rabbits off a neighbor’s land, built castles out in the woods, and when they were older, stood guard outside the barn while the other learned about the birds and the bees with a willing local girl. Then later, they’d guarded each other’s backs in vicious knife and sword fights in low taverns and back alleys in Spain and France. Nick could not imagine going through the rest of his life without him.

  He put his head in his hands and pressed his fingers to his eyes.

  “Stuff Walsingham.”

  Slowly, Nick raised his head.

  John’s eyes were open.

  Nick grabbed his hand. “John,” he said. “You’re awake. My God. You’re awake.”

  “It was Edmund who attacked me,” John said, the sound of his voice raspy, as if his vocal chords had dried up.

  “I know.” Nick squeezed his hand. Typical of John to think of the case first.

  “He’s the killer, Nick, not Annie.”

  “I know that too. I’ve been telling you all about it.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me again,” John said. Then he frowned and squinted at the window. It was dusk. “How long have I been asleep?”

  “More than a week.”

  “A week!”

  Nick couldn’t help but smile at the amazement on John’s face; then his smile turned into a laugh, a little unsteady at first, but once he began, he found he could not stop. Tears coursed down his face. And every time he thought he had himself under control, he looked at John scowling at him for being the object of ridicule, or so he thought, and started again.

  The sound brought Maggie, Henry, and Matty carrying the baby running up the stairs, followed closely by Hector. Hector leapt on the bed, careful not to land on John, and began slavering John’s face, his tail pounding joyfully on the bed.

  “He knows you need a wash,” Nick said. “You stink.”

  Then Nick removed Hector so Maggie could take her husband in her arms. Up to now, she had not made a sound, just stared numbly at John smiling up at her, his wits and memory intact, the man she loved come back to her against all hope. As soon as she felt John put his arms around her, she began to sob, the sound tearing out of her like a barbed arrowhead being withdrawn slowly from a deep wound.

  “Come, children,” Nick said. “Let’s leave them alone for a while.” And he led them quietly downstairs.

  * * *

  The next day, Nick put a sign on the tavern door: OPEN FOR BUSINESS: JOHN WOKE UP.

  Almost immediately the place was crowded with well-wishers, people who had spent a week in unaccustomed and unwelcome sobriety, and the frankly curious. Despite Maggie’s strenuous and vociferous objections, and Rivkah and Eli’s quieter and professional ones, John insisted on being carried downstairs and placed in a chair padded with the lambskin the Queen had given him as a gift. Here, on his throne, as Henry called it, John sat while the entire population of Bankside, it seemed, came to pay court to the man they regarded with as much awe as had the friends and relatives of Lazarus.

  As John’s doctors, Rivkah and Eli were much caressed and admired, and their standing in the community, already high, rose astronomically. John insisted they sit on either side of him, like lesser members of the royal family, in order to take the credit for his miraculous recovery.

  Only Nick and Eli could see that this made Rivkah profoundly uncomfortable. Without her cloak and concealing hood to protect her, she felt exposed. She did not mind when neighbors and former patients came into the tavern, but by the second day, strangers from the city of London itself were making the trek over the bridge to see the man who had woken from the dead. Then she would look down, uncharacteristically tongue-tied, and Eli would have to answer for her. On the third day, she stayed home. Nick missed her but was glad that she was spared the torment of notoriety. Eli also stopped coming after the fourth day, but it was not shyness that kept him away but fear of persecution for heresy.

  “There are many who would say that what we did with John was a blasphemy,” he said, his face grave. “The unlettered call it a raising from the dead, and this is a dangerous rumor. They do not understand that it is a natural waking from a long sleep. Of what kind this sleep is, we do not yet know. But we do know the patient is not dead, for his heart beats and his lungs fill with air. The irony,” he went on, “is that Rivkah and I did nothing but stitch the wound on his head and keep him warm and fed and clean. His body did the rest. Somehow, for reasons unknown to science, severe head wounds heal themselves by putting the body into a long and profound slumber. It is a miracle of nature, not of medicine.”

  John had lost much weight; now he had awoken, he could not stop eating. And so neighbors and friends brought gifts of food whenever they came round and sat and watched John eat with a satisfaction that revealed they considered themselves a small part in his recovery.

  Will Shakespeare dropped by with Sir John Staffington in tow. While Sir John went to sit by John to congratulate him on his recovery and watch him eat with a look of profound admiration on his face, as if he had discovered a kindred spirit, Nick took Will aside. He could see the young would-be playwright was down in the dumps despite his happiness for John’s recovery.

  “The Ghost was a disaster,” he said mour
nfully. “When the Queen told Edgar—he was the one who came out to introduce it, you remember?—to ‘get on with it, man,’ I knew it was all downhill from there.”

  “It helped me solve my case,” Nick said, refilling Will’s tankard. As usual, Will was more than a little tipsy. He and Sir John must have started early, as it was only midday.

  “It did?” Will said, brightening.

  “The theme of revenge and loyalty,” Nick said. “That was the heart of the motive. Of course,” he said, slyly, “I know what a classicist you are.”

  Will goggled at him. “Are you accusing me of nicking the plots of Greek tragedy?”

  “The name of Orestes did spring to mind,” Nick said.

  Will buried his nose in his tankard. Then he looked at Nick, his eyes twinkling. “Don’t tell anyone, especially that git Marlowe.” Will and Christopher Marlowe had an intense, if mostly friendly, rivalry.

  “Swear.” Will said this in the deep voice of Hamlet’s father’s ghost.

  Nick laughed. “I would, but I can’t make up my mind. Whether ’tis nobler …”

  Will punched him in the shoulder, making Nick spill his drink. “You bastard.”

  “I swear.”

  * * *

  That evening, Nick stopped by Eli and Rivkah’s and asked if they wanted to go for a walk in Paris Garden.

  “You go, Mouse,” Eli said. When she turned to get her shawl, he winked at Nick. Nick gave him two fingers.

  As they strolled along the riverbank, Nick told Rivkah how Edmund had begged Nick to kill him.

  “Did I do right?” he asked, stopping and looking out across the river. In the rosy dusk, there were still plenty of craft on the water, some lit by lanterns hanging from stanchions on the sterns. To the east, gulls circled and canted in the darkening sky over Billingsgate, swooping down behind the bridge to snatch up the offal thrown by the fishmongers into the river. Their plaintive cries came to him clearly. A lone raven beat the air upstream, cawing for its mate.

  “You ended his torment,” Rivkah said, putting a hand on his arm. “And you prevented a far more hideous death.”