Sacrilege

“But I have this,” she said, pulling aside the front of her jerkin to reveal a small knife buckled to her belt.

“That will come in very handy if you should need to peel an apple. But I don’t suggest you try your hand at any tavern brawls with it,” I said.

She smiled, and her face seemed more relaxed.

“I’d prefer not to.”

We stood awkwardly for a moment, uncertain of how to say goodbye. Sophia seemed less stooped, less diminished, as if a weight had lifted from her. “Thank you, Bruno,” she said, checking in both directions to see that the street was empty before leaning in and giving me an impulsive hug. “You are a true friend. One day I will find a way to repay you.”

I could only blink and smile stupidly as she stepped back and turned away towards the tavern. I moved to cross the street towards Salisbury Court, wondering what on earth I had undertaken.

“Ciao, Kit,” I called, glancing over my shoulder to see her pause at the tavern door. She lifted a hand in farewell, then executed a mock bow.

She moves too much like a woman, I thought, watching the way she snaked her narrow hips to one side to avoid a man coming out as she slipped through the doorway. This Kit will need some lessons on being a man, if we’re not to be arrested. Before that, though, I needed to find a way to make this madcap plan palatable to the two men whose authority I must respect while I live in London: Michel de Castelnau, the French ambassador, and Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary. Both were certain to be opposed. I sighed. Sophia might imagine that a man enjoys the freedoms she lacks, but we are all beholden to somebody, in the great chain of patronage and favour that stretches all the way up to the queen herself; and even she is not truly free, as long as she lives in fear of the assassin on the stairs, like the poor Prince of Orange.

Chapter 3

“Canterbury?” Sir Francis Walsingham fairly spat the word across the room. “What on earth for?”

“To travel,” I said lamely. “I was thinking that I have been in England over a year now and I have seen so little of the country …” Walsingham gave me a long look and the words dried up. Since I had agreed to work secretly for Queen Elizabeth’s master of intelligence the previous spring I had become skilled at dissembling to everyone around me, but there was no point in lying to Walsingham. Those calm, steady eyes gave you the impression they could penetrate lead. Many a suspected conspirator against the queen had cracked and confessed under that gaze before they were even shown the inside of the Tower of London, with its ingenious array of instruments to assist confession.

“Pilgrimage, is it? Following the example of your patron?” He raised a sardonic eyebrow and tapped the rolled-up letter I had brought from the French ambassador Castelnau on the edge of his desk for emphasis.

Leaning against the mantelpiece, I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and avoided his eye.

“It’ll be a book,” Sir Philip Sidney observed from his perch on the window seat, where he sat with one of his long legs bent up on the cushions, the other stretched out before him. He had barely aged since I first met him in Padua, I thought; especially when clean-shaven, as he was today, he could pass for nineteen, ten years younger than his true age, with his fair hair that always stuck up in a tuft at the front, no matter how he tried to tame it, and the bright blue eyes that lit up his handsome face whenever he sensed adventure. He was wearing only a lace- edged shirt with his breeches instead of the usual starched ruff that was the fashion among the young men at court, and without his stiff brocaded clothes he seemed less self-conscious. “Bruno wouldn’t rouse himself unless it was in pursuit of a book.” He waited until I glanced up and gave me a broad wink.

“Or a woman?” Walsingham looked back to me and I could almost fancy a hint of amusement in the twitch of his mouth.

“I understand the cathedral is very fine,” I said.

“The oldest in England,” Sidney said. “But I don’t believe you’ve developed a sudden fascination for architecture, Bruno. Come on—what’s really tempting you to Canterbury?”

I hesitated; Walsingham grew impatient.

“Never mind the cathedral—what are we going to do about this?” He brandished the letter again, a shadow of irritation flitting across his face.

We were gathered in the principal secretary’s private office at his country home in Barn Elms, some miles along the Thames to the west of the City of London. Since Sidney had married Walsingham’s daughter the previous autumn, the young couple had lived at Barn Elms, Sidney’s finances being too precarious to support a household of his own at present. From my point of view, the situation was ideal—I could visit my friend and arrange meetings with Walsingham at the same time without arousing the French ambassador’s suspicions unduly, though I know it chafed at Sidney to be living in such close quarters with his in-laws.

Behind the wide oak desk, Walsingham sat back and folded his hands together, his gaze focused on the empty fireplace as if deep in thought. Despite the warmth of the day, he wore his customary suit of plain black wool and the small black skullcap that always made him look a little severe. His was a strong face, with wisdom and sadness written into its lines and the pouches beneath his eyes; there were moments when those eyes seemed to contain the weight of all the kingdom’s strife. This was not far from the truth. Walsingham and the intelligence he gathered from his network of informers all over Europe were the queen’s last defence against the myriad plots on her life and the security of England. At fifty-two, Walsingham’s hair and beard were almost entirely grey now; only his black eyebrows served as a reminder of how he must have looked in his youth. Over the past year I had grown to respect this rational, sober man above any other, though I also feared him a little.

The letter that had so infuriated him contained a grovelling apology from Castelnau on behalf of King Henri of France, who said he could not receive Sidney as a guest in Paris as he was unfortunately about to go on a pilgrimage to Lyon.

“Her Majesty will be livid,” Sidney remarked. “I’m quite piqued about it myself—I fancied a trip to Paris.” He leaned back into the patch of sun that spilled through the diamond-paned glass and clasped his hands behind his head.

Walsingham frowned.

“Henri of France is weak, though this is not news to us. He knew Her Majesty was not sending Sidney on a social call, but to persuade him to commit French troops to a joint intervention in the Netherlands. I suppose Castelnau thought we would be less likely to shout at you, Bruno?”

“I believe that was his reasoning, Your Honour.”

“Well, he can explain himself to the queen face-to-face in due course. France cannot dither on the fence for much longer.” He shook his head. “This war against the Spanish in the Netherlands has been a bloody mess for the last twenty years, but the queen is now seriously considering an offer of troops to help the Protestant rebels. If Henri had any conscience he would do the same. Especially since it was his idiot brother who made the situation a hundred times worse,” he added, regarding me darkly from under his brows as if I were somehow implicated.

“My uncle the Earl of Leicester has long argued for an English military intervention to aid the Dutch rebels,” Sidney said, sitting forward with sudden vigour and clenching his fists. “And I would go with him in an instant. Teach those Spanish curs a lesson they won’t forget.”

Walsingham looked up sharply. “Don’t be too hasty, Philip. That war could easily rumble on for another twenty years, with thousands more deaths on each side. In my opinion, it can’t be won, except with a concerted effort by united Protestant forces from all across Europe, and I see little prospect of that.”

Sidney sat back, chastened, and I wondered if Walsingham had interpreted his eagerness for a military adventure as a personal slight, a desire to escape his domestic life here at Barn Elms. Moments passed in silence, the only sound a persistent fly buzzing against the window. I watched the sunlight cast patterns on the wooden boards, broken by flickering shadows from the leaves of the trees outside, and waited for someone to speak.

“God’s death!” Walsingham cried suddenly, slamming his fist down on the desk so that his tortoiseshell inkwell rattled and Sidney and I started out of our private thoughts. “The Prince of Orange has just been shot on his own stairs as he left his dinner table. Can you imagine how this news has shaken Her Majesty? You will not see her show it in public, but she no longer sleeps. She knows Philip of Spain means her to be next.” He took a deep breath