The Queen's Men

by Oliver Clements

  Dee does not linger, but shoves him aside. He meets the Queen’s eyes. She’s sitting in her tent, frozen, watchful.

  “Bess,” he says, and keeps running.

  The royal bargemaster is an old man, Sir Someone Someone, and he stands mute and immobile as Dee scrambles toward him and seizes a long loop of the red rope that is twisted especially for the queen’s barge, and he dives headlong into the water, with the red rope trailing behind.

  The water is murky, and tumbling, and for a moment he can see nothing. But Frommond is in pale silk—underwater it is the color of a fish’s belly—and he sees her thrashing to escape the clutches of a man whose legs, even below the surface, are burning. Ever since he was forced to pluck Gerardus Mercator from a canal after breaking through thin ice while skating—this was before he was famous—Dee has thought about swimming, and the mechanics of fish, and of dolphins in particular, which he has never seen, but of which he has read much, and he has, away from the water, developed his own theory of swimming, which he now puts into practice for the first time.

  It works, sort of, and he lays hands on Frommond just before the red rope runs out, and he gets an arm around her waist and holds her fast while the rope tightens around his left arm and then stretches as they are dragged downstream by the river. Then the rope stops him. He stops her. The burning man scrabbles to cling on, and she fights him off, wriggling and twisting, and all Dee can do is hold tight. Frommond fights and bites and kicks at the burning man, and at last she tears herself from his grasp, and though he lashes to stay with them, he cannot. He thrashes in the water, desperately swimming upstream, desperate to hold on, but the current is too strong, and after a moment he fades into the darkness downriver. Frommond makes a panicked lunge for the surface, and air, but Dee pulls her down: the water above is still puckered by orange flame, its surface corrupted by Greek fire. If they put their heads up there, now, their flesh will be burned from their skulls.

  Dee must haul on the rope. With one arm he heaves and twists, so that the rope wraps itself around his arm, each time he moves a little farther upstream, a little farther from the confluence of burning rivers above.

  At last, when he can stand it not another moment, he allows the rope to bring them up, and they surface together into hot scorching foul air. But it is not liquid flame. It is not Greek fire. They suck the stinking, foul air down as if it were ambrosia. After a while each looks around, and they are curtained by flames that burn on the river’s surface as it drifts away downstream and out to sea.

  Frommond clings to him, and he holds her tight. When the flames are gone, the water seems to smoke for a while, and then it passes, just as if it has never been.

  A moment later they hear a scream of pure lasting agony from downstream.

  “Saelminck?” he asks.

  “Saelminck,” she says.

  “Strange,” Dee says. “I did not have him down as a hothead.”

  “Oh Christ, Dee.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Westminster Palace, west of London,

  the day of Her Majesty’s birthday, September 7, 1578

  It is late in the evening—a fine one, thankfully—and Francis Walsingham stands apart from the others under the stars and watches the last of Hatton’s fireworks shimmer in the night over the river, wondering if Her Majesty has not had quite enough pyrotechnics for one day. When they are done—astonishing, yes, but also strangely frustrating—there is to be more dancing, and more wine, but while in most hearts the relief of Her Majesty’s miraculous deliverance from the Greek fire has given way to wild rapture, he finds himself in a mood that might loosely be described as melancholic.

  Perhaps it is because although everybody else is wildly jubilant—the Queen lives! Her enemies are vanquished! Let us have another drink! Another dance! Another kiss!—he cannot share their joy because it seems that all his efforts over the last several years have been to leave him precisely where he was before this year’s events, save the Spanish are ever closer to taking the entirety of the Low Countries, and he has to admit—again—that if it were not for Dr. Dee, Her Majesty the Queen would now be dead.

  That being so, he has to admit yet again that Hatton is right: he, Walsingham, has failed. He has failed his country, and his Queen. He cannot do so again. He tries to imagine what the Queen’s father would have done to him if he had failed him as he has failed his daughter?

  A shudder passes through him, and it is not because of the cold.

  But this can’t go on, he thinks. They cannot just go on like this, waiting for the enemy to come at them. They cannot just go on waiting to lose. They must change their tack. Perhaps it is time to follow Dee’s advice. Perhaps it is time to listen to him and let him have his head. Perhaps he deserves that.

  And he sees him now, Dr. Dee, in the Presence Room, the center of everyone’s attention, even Her Majesty’s, though he does not look as if he is enjoying it. He is nodding and smiling, but his gaze is drifting off elsewhere, looking for an escape perhaps, or, Walsingham must suppose, Jane Frommond. He knows Dee and knows how little the treacly drivel that courtiers serve up as flattery will mean to him, and he supposes that he, too, would rather pass a quiet hour or two with Mistress Frommond than endure the beady, calculating attentions of women such as Lettice Knollys. It is all fans, arch looks, and point-scoring. Dee is starting to look exquisitely uncomfortable, but at that moment, the music starts, and the dancers must take their places, and Dee looks up suddenly, and sees something—or someone—that sets an alarm bell to ringing. He moves with a curious flowing speed, and Walsingham turns to follow his trail and, through the windows, he watches Dee appear as if by magic at Mistress Frommond’s side just as, with great swagger, Sir Christopher Hatton presents himself to the unfortunate girl with a predatory glint in his eye. Mistress Frommond’s face when she sees Dee brings light to the room. Walsingham finds himself smiling despite himself, alone in the dark, and he stands and watches a moment. Then they start the galliard.

  “Oh my God,” he murmurs.

  He watches as Dee disassembles the dance, removing from it all its habitual grace, and rearranges it in a strange and wonderful new form that he might describe as inimitable save as he watches, others start to join in, and the dance is transformed from a staid forward-and-back into something that is both riotous and joyous; a curious celebration of what it is to be alive; a strange sort of thanksgiving to God for all his benevolences. It makes him smile a deeper smile, though, my God, there is only so much he can stand to watch before it becomes concerning.

  He hears a plate smash.

  And a moment later, when he does not believe he can take any more, there is a voice from behind.

  “Master Walsingham, sir?”

  It is a Yeoman, come for him, sent by Her Majesty, who has retired to her private rooms for a short while and wishes to see him alone. He knew it would come: the summons. The postmortem. What he did. What he didn’t do. If she knows about Ness Overbury, then this may be his last night on earth.

  When he is brought before Elizabeth, he finds she is looking tired, and thoughtful, as well she might after the day she has had, and her diadem is placed on the table next to her chair, as if it were a normal hat that pinches, not an array of near-priceless jewels. There is a fire in the grate, a few candles dotted around, and she is drinking a cup of warm wine, mixed with ginger and verjuice.

  “Not very nice,” she tells him. “Have some.”

  He thanks her, and a servant pours him a cup. She is right.

  She is silent for a while, gazing on the flames.

  “So, Francis,” she says. “Here we are again. Alive, by the skin of my teeth, and again it seems we have Dr. Dee to thank once more.”

  A week or so earlier and it would have pained Walsingham to admit that this may be so. Now he nods.

  “Have you seen his dancing?” he wonders.

  “He tried to teach me to do it, while we were in the Tower.”
<
br />   Walsingham laughs.

  “Is he dancing with Jane Frommond?”

  Walsingham nods again. The Queen pulls an unreadable face, which he reads as her being resigned to a loss that in another life, and at another time, would be insupportable.

  “She wishes to leave court, did you hear?”

  Walsingham has not.

  “She wishes to go to Basel and Geneva, and Strasbourg and even Prague. All the places I never shall.”

  The tiara on the table is heavy both literally and metaphorically tonight.

  “And perhaps John will go with her? Or she with him?”

  Walsingham says nothing.

  “Do you think they will marry?” the Queen goes on. There is an edge to her voice.

  “They do seem to share the taste—or, well, the experience—of adventure. And neither is encumbered, unless I am wrong? Do you not wish them to?”

  She pulls a little face.

  “Not sure,” she says.

  She takes a sip of her drink. She is jealous, of course. As, really, why would she not be? All around her, men and women are finding love and marrying, while she… she remains lonely and aloof. Permitted nothing of the sort. He sighs for her, but she is looking more thoughtful than melancholic now.

  “We are a small nation, as you know, Francis, with limited resources, in terms of almost everything, and we face across the battlefield a deadly enemy, with almost unlimited resources.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “So we need to husband our resources very carefully, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Again, yes.

  “And I think one of those resources that needs husbanding is trust.”

  “Trust?”

  “Yes. You—we—are engaged in a dirty, rotten business, Master Walsingham, do not think I do not see that. I know the moral compromises you make on my behalf.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. And I think this year you have made more than anyone’s fair share of them.”

  She knows about Ness Overbury.

  “And I believe you are distracted by them,” she goes on. “You are becoming so used to dealing with double-dealers, the dishonest, the deceitful, and the corrupt that you are in some way becoming tainted.”

  “Your Majesty!”

  “Don’t stop me, please, Francis. I say this only out of concern. I know that were you not so invested in my person, and in our nation, you would never permit to flourish a plot that might see a woman take the throne in my place and rule as a puppet for who knows whom.”

  He hangs his head and drops to his knees.

  “Ma’am,” he says. He cannot ask for forgiveness. It is too much. The silence lingers. He stares at the rug. At his own knees on it. He feels the Queen moving. He sees her skirt hem before him. He can hear her breathe. She sighs.

  Christ. What does he do? Throw himself on the floor? Kiss her feet? Weep?

  “Francis,” she goes on, in a softer voice yet, filled, he thinks, with infinite sorrow. “Whatever Sir Christopher Hatton may say, however he imputes your motives, I know that your heart beats for me, and for England, and so Master Walsingham—”

  He feels something placed on his shoulder. Not her hand. A sword.

  “I knight you, Sir Francis Walsingham, for secret services done for your country.”

  And she taps him first on one shoulder, then on the other, and finally on the head.

  “Arise, Sir Francis,” she says.

  And he does. Tears spill like rice. And he sees, standing beside her, emerged from behind a curtain, to hand her the sword, is Sir William Cecil, patting those soft little hands together in pleasure.

  “Very nobly done, Your Majesty, very nobly done.”

  A servant has brought in a tray of gold cups, and there is proper wine, and the three stand together, and Sir Francis can hardly believe it and they toast him again and again, and then they toast Lady Ursula, and it seems the whole sorry day is forgotten.

  “Before I let you go to tell your wife, Sir Francis, there are two further things you must do for me.”

  “Anything, Your Majesty.”

  “You have a book in your study, don’t you? A humble little thing such as a wool merchant might keep?”

  He does. It is the very first thing he will burn, come the day the Spanish arrive, for it contains the names of his seven most secret, most unexpected, most valued servants.

  “There is one more name I should like you to add to that list,” she says. “The name of one who has proved infinitely resourceful, patient, and useful.”

  “Your Majesty?”

  “I should like you to add Frommond, Lady Jane Frommond.”

  “Double oh eight, Your Majesty?”

  “Double oh eight, Sir Francis, why not?”

  Why not, indeed?

  “And the other thing, Your Majesty?”

  “The other thing is that I want you to let John Dee go. Let us listen to him, and give him his freedom to act as he wishes. Let him go abroad. Let him take the fight to Spain, to the Vatican, to the Holy Roman Emperor. Let us unleash him on them! Let us see how they like that.”

  “Very good, Your Majesty, yes. Let us see how they like that.”

  * * *

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The Queen’s Men is obviously a work of fiction, but like all historical fiction it is based on a true story. That is not to say that in 1578 Dr. John Dee rediscovered the long-lost secret of Greek fire, and that Queen Elizabeth was only saved from its devastating effects by a piece of quick thinking under an arch of London Bridge, or that Robert Beale groomed a royal look-alike from Suffolk who was later secreted onto an Ottoman ship in return for thirty barrels of crude oil, or that there was such a guild as that of the Black Madonna of Halle, but it is to say that this is the kind of thing that could have happened, given the place there and the time then.

  Well, maybe.

  Perhaps it is more accurate to say that The Queen’s Men is set against the backdrop of a true story, because many of the bit parts and the turning points of the novel are based in fact: Sir Christopher Hatton—aka the Dancing Chancellor—did promise Mary, Queen of Scots, that on the death of Queen Elizabeth he would bring her down to London in state to take up her throne (though he subsequently gave Walsingham no cause for further suspicion and was later involved in the prosecution of Queen Mary in her shameful show trial), and Cornelius de Lannoy—the Dutch alchemist—likewise promised Queen Elizabeth extravagant gains and was imprisoned in the Tower only because she believed he was stealing his product, from where he “escaped” in 1566 (after bribing the guards with something that may or may not have been gold).

  Anthony Jenkinson—here given somewhat unfair narrative treatment—was just as impressive a figure, traveling thousands of miles to befriend Russia’s Ivan the Terrible before traveling south across the Caspian Sea to become the first Englishman to reach the court of Shah Tahmasp at Qazvin, in modern-day Iran, where he was not so lucky, for exactly the reasons described in the novel. The artist Nicholas Hilliard, too, is another name from history, who was just coming into the peak of his miniaturist powers in the late 1560s (having learned much of his trade from the great court painter Levina Teerlinc, daughter of Simon Bening, himself the last of the great Netherlandish painters) and whom we know acted as a spy in the French court for Francis Walsingham. There is no evidence Hilliard was nicknamed Points the Painter, of course, but he was perpetually hard up, despite his resonant success, and the old hesitate-to-adjust-your-clothing-at-the-pub-door trick is as old as time itself, so why not?

  Elsewhere Nonsuch House (not to be confused with Nonsuch Palace)—so-called because there was nonesuch like it in the whole of the kingdom—was the first flat-pack house to be erected in England, brought over in 1577 from Holland and assembled by Dutch joiners on London Bridge (famously using no nails, which sounds improbably cool, but nail here means nail of iron, rather than of oak, which—wood being cheaper and easier to come by—is what were then used in most
buildings). That year also saw the first navigation locks to be built on the river Lea, under the oversight of the clerk to the Court of Sewers, in part to help William Cecil ship building supplies to his lavish palace, Theobalds House, which he was having built in Hertfordshire, and again, by Dutch engineers, who often stayed in barges while they worked in teams. As then, so now; England’s genius relied on her immigrants, while her rulers availed themselves of the public purse.

  And talking of houses, I recommend anyone with time on their hands to visit Sulgrave Manor, in Buckinghamshire, once owned by George Washington’s grandfather—who makes a cameo appearance here, though of course there is no evidence that he ever rented the house out to Robert Beale—the gable of which still carries the arms of Queen Elizabeth, complete with lion and dragon, with which Jane Frommond became so familiar during her summer under its roof. It is now a small museum dedicated to Anglo-American relations.

  And it was about this time that the English began to reach out across other seas, too, to cement relations elsewhere, and particularly with her enemies’ enemies, and specifically the Ottomans, and Queen Elizabeth’s relations with the Ottoman Sultan Murad III became extremely friendly, so much so that the English came to see the Ottomans as the Protestants of the East, while the Ottomans came to see the English at the Moslems of the West, each an ally in the fight against Spain and the Catholic Church. Trade flourished and embassies were sent and more about this can be read in Jerry Brotton’s fascinating book The Sultan and the Queen (Penguin), which lays out the little-known story of how vital relations with the Turks were for England’s subsequent flourishing on the world stage.

  There are other facts that have steered the narrative, some of which will have a familiar ring, too, such as the appearance of the Great Comet in 1577, just as the new star had appeared in 1572, leading in both cases to states of heightened awareness of doom, and to rashes of wild End Times speculation. And readers will note the continued, and constant, flow of the river Thames through both books. This is because the Thames was, until the nineteenth century, London’s main thoroughfare, being far easier to traverse than the filth-clogged streets, though doing so required knowledge of the tide, especially under the city’s only bridge, where at low tide, the starlings were so sturdy the river’s flow was constricted into a torrent too powerful for all but the foolhardiest of pilots. Curiously, and ironically perhaps, the two hundred tons of ore that Martin Frobisher brought back from what is now Canada in the hope that from it Dee might distill gold was to lie worthless in a depot in Deptford for decades until it was finally used to construct—of all things—a road.