Might seek a date, however many months hence, which the stars found fortuitous for the announcement of a betrothal which at present would be abhorrent to so many.
Behind me, the coal fire hissed as rainwater dripped down the chimney. I took in a slow breath.
‘How does Blanche feel about this?’
Cecil smiled and made no reply. Which may have been an answer in itself. Blanche was a cautious and watchful woman who only lived to keep the Queen secure. No wonder she hadn’t turned her head this morning as her barge had glid past.
‘If the Queen’s determined on this, then she’ll try again to have Blanche reach me,’ I said. ‘What then?’
‘That, John… is precisely why we’re having this discussion.’
‘I can’t refuse. You know I can’t.’
‘Of course you can’t.’
‘And if what Dudley says about the coincidence of their times of birth is correct, then their destinies may indeed appear interwoven.’
‘Oh,
‘I see.’
Cecil leaned back, folding his arms, giving me silence in which to consider my situation. I recalled how, on our return from Glastonbury, I’d been summoned here and shown a pamphlet handed out free on the streets. It was heralding a second coming – the birth of the child of Satan, the Antichrist, in the new black Jerusalem. Which was London, the fastest-growing city in Europe.
False prophecy originating from France, seedbed of the campaign to put the Queen of Scots on the English throne. I myself had been named as some kind of dark Merlin, canting spells at the lying-in of Queen Elizabeth, pregnant with the bastard child of Robert Dudley. Elizabeth, daughter of the adulterous witch, Anne Boleyn. They were now saying that the Queen – thanks, some said, to the magic and prayers of the French prophet and magus Nostradamus – had miscarried the babe. But the devil would not give in so easily.
I said at last, ‘What would you have me do?’
Cecil rose and put his robe back on, like a judge about to pass a hard sentence.
‘As I see it there are two approaches to this problem. One is for you to spend some time with your charts and return with the information that the stars at present are frowning on the prospects for a union of two people born under their particular signs.’
‘Which, as I’ve already said—’
‘Would be unlikely, yes.’
‘Sir William, I spent more than a year teaching mathematics and the elements of astrology to Dudley. One of the subjects he showed most interest in. What I’m saying is that to convince Dudley – and even the Queen, who’s far from ignorant of planetary movement – that the stars disapprove of their match—’
‘Or might better approve of them under some heavenly configuration not due to take place for… say, five years?’
A lot could have happened in five years. The Queen’s infatuation might have lost some of its fire. Or equally it might be proved beyond all reasonable doubt that Dudley had not killed his wife. Who could say?
I shrugged.
‘If it was not the answer she sought… I’m far from the only astrologer in England. All it needs is for one of them to go to another and my competency would be called into question. Also my integrity and all of my past work, and worse than that—’
‘All right. We’ll go no further down that road. Examined and rejected. This leaves the second path… from which you disappear.’
Cecil rose, sweeping his robe behind him, and picked a single lump of coal from the scuttle with tongs and dropped it on the fire.
‘I mean on one of your ventures in search of the Hidden. We spoke of this earlier. Wouldn’t be the first time, would it? Were you to be gone even for a matter of weeks, that might be sufficient.’
‘Oh.’
I felt a momentary relief. For one instant in time, I’d thought he’d meant that it was to be permanent, and the air betwixt us had seemed, of a sudden, cold with menace.
‘
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Preferably in some place at least two days’ ride from London.’
Dear God, this man thought he could move anyone around, like a chesspiece, to suit his purposes.
Which, of course, he could. After a period when his advice had rarely been sought, Amy’s death looked to be putting him back where he was certain he belonged. And maybe he was right; I could think of no one at this time who was fit to replace him.
Replacing the tongs, Cecil went back to his chair.
‘Methinks this expedition of yours should begin at once. Would you agree?’
‘Sir William—’
‘Which means you won’t be lying at your mother’s house tonight.’
‘But my mother—’ I rose to my feet. ‘My mother has need of me. The fabric of the house wants repair, the roof leaks.’
I’d used this one before, but it was no less true for that.
‘Your skills extend to roofing, John? I’d hardly think so. But we’ll see to all of that. I’ll have a number of men dispatched to Mortlake to mend whatever needs mending. Your mother will scarce know you’re missing.’
He was right. My mother would be in delight.
‘My barge will take you back briefly to collect your bag, but I’ll want you away by nightfall.’
‘That’s impossible.’
‘Two days, then. Maximum.’
‘Sir William, if the Queen thinks I’m making distance between myself and—’
‘My problem, not yours. Two days. And stay out of London, meanwhile.’
The discussion over, Cecil rose.
Enshrouded in a damp dismay, I stumbled out onto the cobbles and knew not which way to turn. The Strand, once the home of senior churchmen, was now rosy with the new brick of London’s richest homes. Not a place which the secretary, his building work yet incomplete, would want to leave.
The rain had stopped and the brightening sky had brought out the chattering wives of the wealthy with their servants and pomanders, though this was hardly an area where nostrils might be assailed by the stink of beggars. Amongst the throng, I espied the unsmiling, unseasonably fur-wrapped Lady Cecil, out shopping with their two glum-faced daughters. Suspecting she’d be among those who considered me little more than a common conjurer, I turned back to walk the other way and thus glimpsed a man discreetly sliding through Cecil’s doorway.
Dark bearded, dark clad and instantly admitted to the house. Unmistakably Francis Walsingham, the Oxfordshire MP known to serve the Privy Council on a confidential level. A coolly ambitious man whom I was more than inclined to mistrust. The very sight of him made me wonder if I were followed and I pulled down my hat, threw myself into the crowd and then slipped into an alley, where I stood with my back to the rain-slick brickwork and found myself panting.
Fear? Very likely. I’d persistently refused the offer of Cecil’s barge, recalling the man who’d been beaten, robbed and drowned. If it could happen once this year, then it could happen again, and who’d question it?
You think me suffering from some persecution sickness? All I can say is that you weren’t with the secretary this day. A man who’d felt himself slipping into the pit and now was scrambling back up its steep and greasy sides.
And was, therefore, less balanced and more dangerous than ever he’d been.
I thought of Dudley, once his friend, fellow supporter of Elizabeth from the start. And then Dudley, drunk on
