“What are you looking at?” one of them asks the boy by the boat.
Dee watches them through some thrift and a clump of sea kale. They put their guns on top of the dead man, then push the boat down the beach and into the sea. The boy holds the boat’s bow while the men clamber in. They ship their oars and the boy pushes them out farther, and then, nimble as a cat, he is up over the bow and in after them. They begin rowing, smooth and easy, out to sea, where Dee sees there is a light, hanging in the skeleton masts of a ship.
Dee lies dead still and waits. Unfamiliar birds are greeting the dawn. He still holds Mercator’s globe. After a while he looks up again. The boat is quite far out to sea now.
Dee crawls backward, never taking his eyes from the ship’s sails, making sure, and then, when he is, he gets up and begins to run, gripped with the rage of one who has been falsely betrayed.
CHAPTER TEN
Greenwich Palace, September 17, 1572
Greenwich Palace is a few miles downriver from the city of London. It is where the Queen spent the very few happy months of childhood, when she was allowed to play in the hollow oak behind the palace and escape the oppressive loom of her father’s affairs that dominated those terrible years. It is the place she is happiest even now, the place to which she repairs when vexed, or confused or frightened, as she is this day.
A new star has been seen in the heavens. It sits above Schedar and Caph, in the constellation of Cassiopeia, and burns as bright as Venus and can be seen during the day, even through thin cloud.
It is a portent, of course, but of what?
No one knows.
“If only we had Dr. Dee to tell us.”
No one is talking of Dr. Dee though. Not today, with news of Admiral Quesada’s fleet entering the Western Approaches.
“We have reports of militia numbers for Kent and Sussex,” Burghley tells the Queen. “Very low.”
And:
“Hawkins has sent word to say that if we are to see a single one of his new ships before the year is out he needs more iron, more oak, and more skilled wrights. He says he needs reliable supplies of pitch and canvas, too, and pine trees that can only be found in Sweden.”
And:
“The master of the Cinque Ports tells us Her Majesty’s castles at Sandown and Walmer are in so parlous a state he doubts either will stand the breath of a cannon for but a single day.”
And:
“There is still no sign of Your Majesty’s great traitor, James Hamilton.”
But:
“Your Majesty’s cousin of Scotland remains safe under lock and key in Sheffield.”
Her Privy councillors—Lords Burghley, Leicester, and Derby; Sir Thomas Smith also; and plain Master Walsingham—look at one another from the tails of their eyes.
Surely with this great threat bearing down on them, this is the moment to have Mary of Scotland put to death?
Her going out of this world would remove the cause and point of Quesada’s invasion.
But the Queen—in mulberry silks, with a collar so stiff with pearls an axman’s blade might bounce from them—sits so clenched and pale that none among her Privy councillors dare suggest the obvious.
There is a quavering bleat from Derby.
“Her Majesty cannot in good conscience order the death of a queen likewise anointed by God,” he reminds them.
They’ve heard all this before. Mary of Scotland has perhaps a greater claim to the throne of England than its current occupant, but she is a Catholic, and a whore, and to all intents is French, and if not French then she is Scottish, which is as bad, if not worse. Whichever way you look at it, she is England’s and Elizabeth’s Great Enemy, of whom Walsingham and Lord Burghley before him have been conspiring to be rid for a long while.
But because she does not wish to set a precedent, Queen Elizabeth of England will not have another divinely anointed queen put to death.
Yet.
After a moment, Walsingham can resist it no longer. He goes to the window. The panes in this room are removed for the day, though there is scarce a breath of wind, and there is only the garden between him and the broad winding snake of the river. The tide is coming in. Across its oozing breadth is the Isle of Dogs: two trees and a cow. Walsingham tries to look downstream, but his view is blocked by a willow tree.
“Are you looking for something, Master Walsingham?” the Queen asks.
“No, Your Majesty,” he lies, and he turns back to the room.
“If only we had some money,” Derby is bleating still.
“Yes, Walsingham,” Sir Thomas Smith reminds all present. “The last time we were gathered together you’d just lost us the location of the Northwest Passage in one of your sky-brained schemes and left us with this fleet of Spanish galleons on their way to unseat Her Majesty.”
Walsingham nods, for, in truth, that is what he had done.
“You promised you would reclaim the page from Admiral DaSilva’s logbook, Master Walsingham,” Derby continues, “and decode it for us, too, so that we might find some way to resist the Spanish might. So that we might find some way to preserve not only Her Majesty, you, me, and everyone you see here, but also this our nation, and the faith you profess to hold so dear.”
The Queen waits. Does he begin his defense now? Or let the thing run its course?
“Your Majesty,” Walsingham begins. “My lords, I—”
And it is then, at that precise point, they hear the dull rap of a gunshot.
All flinch. Their heads whip to the open window, whence
