The Eyes of the Queen

by Oliver Clements

  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 the sound comes. The doors crash open and suddenly the room is filled with bulky inconsiderate men with weapons. Her Majesty’s halberdiers. Master Beale, too, sword drawn. Leicester leaps to his feet and places himself before the Queen along with the halberdiers, protecting her. Leicester wears a vest of steel against assassination attempts, Walsingham remembers, so feels safe enough.

  Every man holds his breath. For a long moment nothing happens.

  “Is it him? Is it Hamilton?”

  Beale is at the window, peering out around its edge.

  “A ship,” he says.

  “Stay back, Your Majesty!” the captain of the guard instructs.

  “No,” Beale says. “Look.”

  He gestures and Walsingham joins him.

  On the river: a ship, a smudge of smoke over her bows, her sail dipping to join the gunshot in salute.

  “What ship is that?” Smith asks.

  He squints for his eyes are becoming bad.

  “She’s a fluyt,” Beale tells them. “A Sea Beggar, but my God! Look at her. She’s knocked about.”

  “Seen better days,” Walsingham agrees.

  The ship is very low in the water. Her mast is jury-rigged and her mainsail ragged and smoke smutted.

  “What is she doing here?” Smith asks.

  Dutch ships such as this are recently forbidden in English waters.

  Walsingham turns to Beale.

  “Let us see what her captain has to say before we send to have her impounded,” Walsingham tells him.

  The Queen steps from behind her human shield, thanking those who would save her life, and she demands the captain of the vessel is brought to her presence. Her color is up. An attempt on your life will do that for you, Walsingham supposes.

  After that it is impossible to settle down.

  Burghley sends for more wine, and there is the suspicion that Stanley has lost control of his bladder, so the Queen wants air, and they follow her out to the shade of a cedar tree in the palace’s formal garden, where ice is brought, along with the first of this year’s apples from Kent, and the captain of the Dutch ship.

  “Is this really necessary, Walsingham?” Smith demands. “Really? A Sea Beggar before our Queen?”

  But the Queen is intrigued. Smith reluctantly sends his secretary, amiable Nicholas Gethyn, to fetch the man.

  Gethyn! In among the comings and goings, Walsingham remembers that when last they met Gethyn had something to tell him but was too diffident to spit it out. He was going to ask Beale to look into it. He makes a note of it.

  He wonders if his wife has given birth to that eleventh child yet? Or is it about Ireland? Walsingham has already heard that Smith’s venture to colonize the north with Englishmen is not going according to plan. It has cost many lives and much money and will continue to do so for how long? Years, at least.

  When Gethyn returns, coughing with a kerchief to his lips, he is escorting the Dutch sea captain, Meneer Willem van Treslong. Unlike his ship, Van Treslong looks very fine, as if he has had time to visit a tailor, or planned for such an entrance. He wears a light almost silvery doublet and airy rose-colored breeches qu
ite as large as any of them have ever seen.

  “He might have used them to patch his sails,” Beale jokes.

  Up close his collar and cuffs are bright and starchy white, but his eyes are rimmed red and made Walsingham want to rub his own.

  Van Treslong bows very low when he makes his obeisance to the Queen.

  She greets him with some familiarity, and ambiguity, for it was she who had evicted him and his kind from English ports to placate King Philip of Spain, whose life they made a misery. It was a lesson in being careful of what you wish for, though, because the Dutchmen sailed across the North Sea to seize from the Spanish their ports of Den Brill and of Flushing, from where they still sail to harass their erstwhile masters.

  “I dare say King Philip wishes you were still our guests?” The Queen laughs, removing her hand from Van Treslong’s grip.

  “What is the meaning of this, Master van Treslong?” Smith demands. He is very discontented, for Van Treslong is everything he is not: small, dapper, and Dutch, while Smith is baggy, saggy, and English. He further remains furious that the Dutchman’s arrival has allowed Walsingham to wriggle from the Queen’s hook.

  “Ach, Your Majesty, gents, lords, sirs, I bring news,” Van Treslong says. He speaks wonderfully mangled English, slicing across his words as if he held in his mouth a cupful of wet pebbles. “I have just sailed the Western Approaches, from La Rochelle, and I tell you we sighted your Spanish fleet. Quesada’s fleet. That sailed out of Bilbao this last month.”

  “You saw her?” Burghley asks.

  “Sure. Fifteen ships, sir, galleons and carracks, all well-armed. As you see.”

  He indicates his battered ship.

  “She caught us off Ushant three days ago. Wind died, then veered. Long story. Anyway. We get away by skin of teeth. Two dead, including Piet the pilot. We think, my God, us next, but then, before we reach Guernsey, they veer southeast, and leave us to beat northeast. Prayers answered I’m saying. I think, sure, they putting into Saint-Malo. Maybe not enough fodder for horses, eh?

  “So we wait off Alderney. Repairs, you know. Cut the mast away, put in a spar, and got the rudder answering. But always, with eyes out, you know?”

  He points at his eyes.

  “Two days. No sign of fleet, day or night. We start to think maybe she slipped by in the dark? But then, third day, we see her. Sailing…”

  He holds up a finger and smiles.

  “… west!”

  The others—Smith, Leicester, Burghley—are confused, but Walsingham almost laughs. West! West! He feels a great weight lifted. Suddenly he can hear birds sing.

  “West,” he repeats.

  It means Quesada is heading out into the Atlantic.

  The Privy councillors look at one another in confusion.

  “Then we are—saved?” Burghley wonders with a dawning smile.

  “For the moment,” Leicester cautions.

  Derby, Walsingham notes, very nearly crosses himself before remembering where he is.

  “Why?” Smith wants to know. “Why has he sailed west?”

  “Why?” Van Treslong repeats. “How should I know?”

  “Ireland?” Burghley wonders.

  That is always a risk: that the Spanish would land troops in Waterford, or Wexford, and so have a base from which to attack England at their leisure.

  Van Treslong thinks not. “West,” he says, cutting the blade of his palm down. “Out into the ocean, to catch the trade winds.”

  “To New Spain?”

  “Sure. Maybe. Why not?”

  But his venture in Ireland excepted, Smith is no fool.

  “It is not New Spain he is heading for! It is the Northwest Passage! That’s where he is sailing to! They’ve decrypted DaSilva’s pages! They know where it is! By Christ, Walsingham, you have put us out of the pan and into a fire that will roast us for a very long time!”

  Walsingham opens and closes his mouth. At some point he knows he is going to have to tell them: that the DaSilva documents were elaborate forgeries of his own device, made with the help of an old exile, Jerome Cardan, whom he recruited in Paris, and who claimed—with some justification, clearly—to know his way around a natal chart. But he will not tell them yet. Not until this scheme has run its course. Not perhaps until Quesada’s fleet is wrecked upon the shores of Newfoundland or gripped fast in the ice farther north.

  Van Treslong looks incredulous.

  “The Northwest Passage?” he wonders. “You found it?”

  Smith will not share the tale with a mere Dutch Sea Beggar.

  “We almost did,” he snaps. “Until Master Walsingham here lost it in one of his foolhardy schemes of espial.”

  Gratitude does not last long, Walsingham thinks.

  “Pity,” is Van Treslong’s opinion.

  “If what you say of the state of our defenses is true,” the Queen says, “then it is a blessing that Quesada has been diverted, even if it is to find the Northwest Passage. It will allow us time to make reparations. To recruit men. To fetch masts from Sweden. Bend your energies that way, Sir Thomas, rather than waste time in fruitless recrimination.”

  Smith is incandescent but can say nothing further.

  “But Meneer van Treslong,” the Queen continues. “What of the other task with which we entrusted you? What news of our most trusted and entirely beloved Dr. Dee?”

  Later, Francis Walsingham will think about this moment, and think that Willem van Treslong was panicking, but at the time, when the Dutchman stands about to say something, only to stop and close his mouth with a snap, he thinks only that Willem van Treslong is regretful. He is stoppered up, Walsingham believes. He wishes himself elsewhere so that he need not be the one to pass on bad news. Only his eyes move as his gaze roves about the glade, looking for safe berth.

  It dawns on Walsingham what Van Treslong cannot bring himself to say.

  “He is dead?” Walsingham asks.

  Van Treslong nods once, very slowly.

  Walsingham cannot believe it. Dee—dead? Another soul to stain his conscience. But then he thinks, if Dee is dead, then how did Quesada come to decrypt the chart, or so they believed? And what is Van Treslong even doing here? Can he wish to bring the good news so dearly? Ah no: his ship. He wants the Queen to offer use of the dry dock.

  Meanwhile all look to the Queen, who has shut her eyes, and tilted her head back to prevent the tears leaking down her powdered cheeks. She is utterly, unexpectedly grief-stricken.

  “Oh, John,” she says. “Whatever will I do without my eyes?”

  Her eyes. It is the nickname she had for Dee, Walsingham recalls, from some silly symbol Dee’d once scratched on the wall of his cell when they were both in the Tower together. He—Walsingham—has the report somewhere. A monad? Something like that. It was one of the many things that had spurred Leicester to act—without her knowledge, of course—to separate the two, so that she did not fall further under Dee’s influence and succumb to his more outlandish theories.

  “Well, good riddance,” Smith says. “I never liked him. Too clever by half.”

  There is a moment’s surprise, for this is disloyal in the extreme, but Smith is actually beaming with pleasure, and might even dance a jig, while the others, Walsingham notes, the others think more or less the same thing.

  “The bastard punched me once,” Leicester says. “I have never forgotten that, though…”

  He seems of two minds.

  “Nevertheless, gentlemen,” Walsingham says, “he has performed a most valuable service for his Queen and his country, and… and…”

  He indicates the Queen, who is still sitting with her eyes shut.

  The others mumble their reluctant acceptance of his point. Gethyn coughs softly and looks at his kerchief as if for traces of something. Smith shoots him a strange, gloating look. Walsingham tries to recall why Smith so hates Dee.

  It was something to do with his infernal colony in Ireland, he remembers now, and how Dee suggested the Queen invest what littl
e money she had elsewhere in the New World rather than in Smith’s scheme in Ulster. Smith had taken it very badly.

  “With Your Majesty’s permission,” Walsingham starts, “I will show Meneer Van Treslong to our kitchens. Perhaps give him a bun.”

  The Queen opens her eyes.

  “Yes,” she approves.

  But Van Treslong hesitates and simpers a little. He indicates his ship, out at anchor in the river.

  “I was hoping,” he says. “My ship… We’ve made some repairs, but…”

  He trails off. It is not an unreasonable request, but the Queen is ever prudent with money. This time, though, she honors her debts.

  “Meneer van Treslong has taken pains on our behalf,” she says, “and in recompense for his efforts, especially in regard to our beloved John Dee, I am more than happy to offer him such assistance as he needs to furnish his good ship anew.”

  Van Treslong straightens the tips of his mustache and bows in gratitude.

  Walsingham leads him in retreat through the garden, on which the Dutchman has some thoughts.

  “Absurd, these strange patterns of hedges and beds.”

  “Celtic knots,” Walsingham tells him.

  “Pffft.”

  When they are beyond earshot, Walsingham speaks.

  “What happened with Dr. Dee?” he asks.

  Van Treslong’s smile falters, and he pulls a face. He shakes his head.

  “I did as the Queen instructed,” he says, “but when we got there, it was crawling with soldiers—we thought the cardinal’s.”

  He trails off. He is wearing strong perfume, Walsingham notices. Ambergris. But the smell of his body is beginning to emerge in the warmth of this late sun. It is the truth, behind the lies.

  “So?” Walsingham asks. “You saw the body?”

  Van Treslong nods tightly.

  “Took it off, as instructed, and then—overboard. At sea.”

  Walsingham never liked Dr. Dee, but this—is not what he wanted.

  “He will be with his precious angels, I suppose,” he says.

  “Sure,” Van Treslong says. “And he served his purpose, no?”