The Queen's Men

by Oliver Clements

  “Well, that is for her to decide,” Walsingham tells him. He looks incalculably somber. “But may I speak to her alone?”

  “If she will let you,” Beale agrees.

  Walsingham gives Beale’s arm one last clutch.

  “You must needs be strong, Robert.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Hampton Court Palace, Hampton, west of London,

  same day, last week of August 1578

  Walsingham taps on the carriage door, and then, hearing no answer one way or the other, he opens it and steps up into the darkness of the interior. He takes the seat opposite the woman about whom he has heard all too much, and looking at her now, he remembers the time he once saw a tiger, crammed in a wooden crate, in Basel. He had not expected it to be there, and he has never forgotten the shock of exchanging stares with something so imperious, so other worldly, and he feels something of that now, as for the first time he lays eyes upon Ness Overbury. She sits, utterly still, utterly composed, staring at him with ice-cold command and he feels his breath forced from his body.

  “M-m-y God,” he stammers, “you are—?”

  He cannot bring himself to look at her as he would to a normal woman, not even as he would the Queen. He hardly dare ask if she is the Queen, in case the question is impertinent. After a moment, it seems she has seen enough, and she turns away and looks through the linen covering of the window. It is a gesture of disgusted disappointment more damning than any the Queen could make, and he feels himself compelled into utter darkness.

  He gathers himself.

  “Mistress Overbury,” he starts, “I am most heartily sorry for the losses you have endured these last few weeks. There is little I may do to assuage the pain you feel, or the hurts you have suffered, but the truth is, and I am ashamed to have to admit this, you are only at the very beginning of your troubles in that regard.”

  She sighs so distantly he can hardly hear her.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Perhaps you know all this?”

  “I do.”

  She even sounds like Her Majesty.

  “He has made me this way,” she goes on. “He has turned me into this. My very existence is evidence of my crime.”

  Walsingham scratches his chin.

  “He is not a bad man,” he says.

  “No. He is not a man at all. He is a boy. A child. He saw something he wanted and he took it.”

  “You might have said no.”

  She laughs a bitter little laugh.

  “So,” she says, “I am to be condemned to burn because I gave into temptation. Because he flattered me. Because I hated my husband and he—Master Beale—promised me a way out of my strictures. He promised to take me away from sheep fields and tallow fat, from Suffolk, from endless abuse of my husband—from my life. And he told me I would be doing something great and good. And now because I believed him, because I believed in him, I am to burn on a traitor’s pyre?”

  “There is no profit in us arguing who has done right, and who has done wrong,” Walsingham tells her. “Perhaps Robert’s idea was a good one. Or perhaps his mind and your mind and all our minds I daresay were clouded by considerations other than… than they appeared. But the fact is that now we are all in an infinitely perilous position, and what we do now matters more than what we did then.”

  “You sound as if you have a suggestion, Master Walsingham.”

  He laughs, unable to believe it.

  “You really, really can sound like Her Majesty.”

  She looks at him unsmilingly and he has to look away.

  “So what is it?” she asks. “Your suggestion?”

  He hardly knows where to start, and if he were not so conscious that time is passing so quickly, he would refine his approach, and take his time, but today he has no such luxury. All he can do is remind her of that spirit which Beale once saw in her—that she might be a bishop, he had said, or discover the Northwest Passage—and then emphasize the perils and pain she now faces—

  “Or?”

  “Or there is a chance you can escape all this, and by doing so come into infinitely more than anything which Master Beale promised you.”

  She is silent, but there is a flicker of interest that marks her apart from the Queen.

  “Go on,” she says.

  * * *

  When it is done, when Mistress Overbury has heard him out and listened to his proposal, she had been silent for a long while before shrugging and asking “why not?” and he did not tell her why not. Walsingham still cannot quite believe it, but he sends Arthur Gregory to the Tower, to prepare things there, and he dismisses all the servants from the palace and summons Mistress Frommond to him in one of the Queen’s privy chambers. When she comes, she is hesitant.

  “Mistress Overbury is come,” he tells her.

  “I saw Master Beale, by the river. He looked… distressed.”

  “Yes, well,” Walsingham says. “Not as distressed as Mistress Overbury.”

  Frommond does not pretend to understand him.

  He tells her about the child. Light flees from the room.

  “Dear God,” she says. “What a thing.”

  Walsingham nods.

  “That is not the least of her troubles,” he goes on, “but neither is it the greatest: the greatest is that Sir Christopher Hatton knows Arthur Gregory refused his men permission to search Mistress Overbury’s carriage on the road from Ely, and so he has appeared with fifty men at my door in the Papey, believing she is to be found there. He is on his way here, now, with yet more men.”

  He shows Frommond a piece of paper that he tells her is a message from the Papey.

  “Then we must get her away,” Frommond says.

  Walsingham agrees.

  “But where?”

  “Surely you have some place she will be out of harm’s way?”

  “Not really,” he says, “unless—”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless. Well. I have a stone,” he says “with which I might kill two birds, Mistress Frommond, with your assistance?”

  She waits. He tells her.

  She won’t do it, of course. In fact, she is astonished he should even ask.

  “No! She cannot have agreed! She must be out of her wits!”

  Walsingham admits that may be the case, but that is just how it is. They cannot give her months in a darkened room eating lettuce soup.

  “Will you talk to her?” he asks.

  Frommond is shocked.

  “Will I talk to her? Will I talk to her? If I talk to her, I will talk her out of it.”

  “What alternatives will you offer her? Dry wood or green wood for her pyre? Chains or ropes? Will she—and I am sorry to be saying this in front of you, Mistress Frommond—want Her Majesty’s torturer, Master Topcliffe, to rape her or not? Vaginally or anally? Or both? I am sorry to use such rough words before you, Mistress Frommond, but those are the only other realistic alternatives you can offer her.”

  Frommond stares, thunderstruck.

  “But what will they do when it is discovered Ness is not the Queen?” she asks. He almost smiles. She has made the first step his way.

  “How well do you know your gospel, Mistress Frommond?” he asks.

  She shrugs.

  “As well as any man ought.”

  “The Gospel according to Saint Matthew, chapter six, verse thirty-four?”

  She thinks.

  “Ah,” she says. “So that is it? ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ That is your justification for this? You will cross that bridge when you come to it?”

  He holds out his hands.

  “It is all I can do, Mistress Frommond,” he tells her. “By the time it is learned Mistress Overbury is not Her Majesty, they will be in Turkey, too late and too far away to act against us, even if they wished to, and by then we will have the naft.”

  “But what about her? What about Mistress Overbury? What will they do to her?”

  “Nothing that we wo
uld not, if she did not go with them, don’t you see? And there is a chance—a likelihood—that they will take no action. Why should they? She is a personable woman. She is able to look after herself as well as any man I know.”

  Is that true? He does not suppose so, but it does not matter. He must do what he must do to protect the realm, and its Queen, and Mistress Overbury must likewise do what she must do. She is being given a chance to live, and she must take it.

  “In a calling such as mine, Mistress Frommond,” he tells her, “there oftentimes comes a moment when a situation needs to be resolved. Things need to be pushed. People need to be pushed. I am not suggesting that Mistress Overbury is expendable, but at the same time, I am afraid she is. I need her out of here, you see? I need to ensure that she cannot implicate Robert Beale in this, who in turn would implicate me, and hence Sir William Cecil, whose departure, should he fall, will leave Her Majesty as prey to any old huckster such as Hatton.”

  “But it is you whom you wish most of all to protect, isn’t it?”

  Walsingham sighs. What does she want of him? Acknowledgment?

  “Yes,” he tells her. “I wish most of all to protect myself.”

  He wants to add more but knows when to remain silent. Anything now will only give Frommond purchase and allow her to start the cycle of conversation over again.

  After a moment Frommond registers defeat and sighs.

  “What is you want me to tell her?”

  “Prepare her for it. Dress her for it. Pack her a coffer to take with her. Soothe her nerve.”

  “Oh, do you think she will need it soothed?”

  Walsingham sighs.

  “I know it is a big step, Mistress Frommond. But Dragoman Beg is delightful company, and do not believe the tales you hear of Ottoman barbarity: in many ways they are infinitely more civilized than we. He has set aside the master’s cabin for her, for example, and it is— Well, a month or so at sea, in such luxury, might well be what would do Mistress Overbury most good.”

  Walsingham has seen the cabin. It is more comfortable than anything Mistress Overbury can have ever known. There is silk even on the deck. Such opulence! Does that mean anything? He doesn’t suppose so, but it shows good intent, or enough of it to cleanse his conscience.

  “The tide turns at six o’clock, Mistress Frommond. It would be best if we were ready to set off then. Can you see that she is dressed appropriately? The first impression she makes will be the one they remember, so can you apply all her antimony and lead to some effect?”

  He means make her look exactly like the Queen. Frommond nods.

  “Take jewelry—not her best—from Mistress Parry. There is to be a ring on each finger, and a diadem in her hair. But Mistress Frommond, if I may, please ensure that no one, not one solitary human being, not even a dog, lays eyes on her, yes? Find her a boat cloak and ensure she is well covered and when it is done, open a window and hold up a candle. I will come for her then.”

  Frommond looks helpless, dispirited, and sad.

  “One thing, though,” she asks, before she goes, “why ever would a man name the possession of a woman as a price for anything, especially a queen?”

  Walsingham remembers that letter, the one he wrote to Jenkinson’s then unnamed merchantman: What did he say? He wishes he had kept a copy for he remembers the comically grand tone of his words, as if it were he who was the real power behind the throne, and the Queen, Her Majesty, was a dispensable figurehead. Perhaps he is to blame for putting the idea into Sokollu’s mind?

  “I cannot say,” he tells her.

  But she knows there is some age-old thing here—women as chattels—and she nods slowly and turns and is gone about her business. Walsingham watches her go. What a woman, he thinks. Then he thinks of himself: what a man, and he is ashamed, but not so much that he will change his course, and so he, too, turns and sets off toward the river, where Cecil’s barge—a luxurious thing, with sixteen oarsmen, and Mustafa Beg will not bother too much with the differences in the livery badges—waits ready to take Ness to her appointment with destiny.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  London, same day, last week of August 1578

  Dee leaves Hatton’s house on the Strand through his well-appointed watergate and hails a wherry.

  “Why, hello, Dr. Dee!”

  It is Jiggins.

  “You are looking somewhat ill-used, Doctor.”

  Dee’s linen is filthy.

  “Never mind all that, Jiggins, just take me to the Tower.”

  “Can’t do that, sir. Not till the tide turns. The bridge’ll be impassable.”

  This is a common enough reservation, for when the tide is coming in, the weight of water through the arches can flow as a weir.

  “As near as you can make it then.”

  “It’ll be an extra penny.”

  “I will have to pay you when next I see you.”

  Jiggins rolls his eyes but agrees.

  “Lot of action on the river today, Doctor,” he remarks as he leans on the oars to take him out into the flow. “Sir Christopher Hatton and a barge full of his men going up and down like turds on the tide. And Master Walsingham, too.”

  “Do you know where is he?”

  Jiggins does not. Dee has him land him under the bridge at Drinkwater Wharf and he clambers up the steps and heads east: Thames Street, Billingsgate, Petty Wales, and finally the Lion Gate where he is met by the Yeomen of the Guard, eking out the shade in their broad-brimmed hats.

  “What do you want?”

  “To see Master Walsingham.”

  “Well, he is not here and if he were he would not— Why, it is Dr. Dee! Well bless my soul, look at you, sir. I hardly recognized you. You look like shit.”

  “Thank you. Do you know where he is?”

  “He is not here, sir, but his man Master Gregory is within, sir, fixing things up for this evening, if he would serve?”

  Dee has no time to wonder what is happening this evening. Gregory will do. He will understand the gravity.

  “I need to see him.”

  * * *

  Gregory receives him in the Lanthorn Tower. Dee tells him about Saelminck.

  “Christ,” Gregory breathes. “When was he released?”

  “This morning.”

  “And how many of them were there?”

  “Five or six, I suppose?”

  “Why did they leave?”

  “How should I know? A visit from a rich uncle from Bruges?”

  Gregory looks skeptical.

  “He saw you’d recognized him, didn’t he? That’s why he left.”

  “You’d best hope that’s why,” Dee tells him. “And not because he has a task at hand.”

  Gregory takes his point.

  “You have to tell Walsingham,” Dee tells him. “He has to cancel it.”

  Gregory nods.

  “He’s due here on the turn of the tide,” he says. “Can it wait?”

  It will have to, Dee supposes. Gregory suggests a wash and some fresh linen. Dee accepts and when he is washed and in new—to him—linen, he returns to find Gregory drinking ale. Dee thinks it must be about five o’clock. He is starving. What a strange day.

  “What have you been up to then?” he asks. “The last I saw you, you were digging a grave for two men you’d killed.”

  “I’ve had to dig another since,” Gregory tells him. “Ness lost her baby.”

  Dee is silent for a while. Christ. Poor Ness. Poor Robert.

  Some bread arrives, and some wine, and Dee eats. From the window Gregory indicates the hole Dee made in the wall, mended now, though still obvious.

  “Most prisoners just scratch their name.”

  “Happy days,” Dee replies. They seem a long time ago now, forever linked in his mind to meeting Frommond for the first time.

  “Anyway,” Gregory says. “It is good you are here. The naft has come. Just this last week. An Ottoman from Turkey or somewhere brought it, though it is
yet to be unloaded. But Master Walsingham will want you to crack on with it.”

  “No,” Dee says.

  Gregory laughs.

  “Why not?”

  “Do you know how dangerous it is? Having a weapon like that?”

  “Do you know how dangerous it is not to have it? The Dutch are about to be swept into the sea and then the Spanish will be here, and everything you hold dear, all your precious books and your learning: they will become a crime. You’ll be whipping yourself to a pyre in Smithfield, just for believing the earth revolves around the sun.”

  “It is still too dangerous. That it exists. The Spanish know we have it, don’t they? They will be setting their alchemists to work on divining its secret, and there will be a race to own it, and perfect it, and it will set us at one another’s throats for all time.”

  “We are already at one another’s throats, Dee. Have you not noticed? Your head is too often in your books!”

  “I cannot do it,” Dee says.

  “It is too late for that. You are like a woman with child deciding she did not wish to do the deed in the first instance.”

  “I may still say no. Listen: no.”

  Gregory smiles and gestures at the walls that enclose them.

  “Look where we are! Look where you are. You’ve no choice.”

  Dee is silent for a moment.

  “Look, Dee,” Gregory goes on. “There are thirty barrels of naft, aren’t there? You are not going to make enough to set the world alight. You will manage two or three barrels perhaps?”

  Dee thinks ten.

  “How much of a difference can that make? It can burn a fleet, yes. But no more. Its real power lies in the fact that the Spanish know we have it, that is all. That is what will keep them at bay. It is a deterrent. A defensive weapon.”

  “But what if—I don’t know—it falls into the wrong hands? What if you lose it? It is stolen?”

  “From here?”

  “You know what you and Walsingham are like. Anything might happen.”

  “That is why it is being kept here, in the armory, in the Tower, guarded by two hundred Yeomen of the Guard.”