Prophecy

Chapter Seven

Palace of Whitehall, London

30th September, Year of Our Lord 1583

Lamps are lit on either side of the stairs, though it is not yet dusk, the sun hanging low over the city to the west, scattering amber light over the water. Marie steps lightly down to the boat, a short cloak of white fur wrapped around her shoulders over her evening gown of peacock green silk, her hand resting lightly on her husband’s arm as she skips from the last step into the craft; her clear laugh rings out as she almost loses her balance and clutches at the hand of one of the oarsmen to steady herself. She seems giddy tonight, bubbling with high spirits, flushed with the prospect of an evening at court. Hardly surprising, I think; she is a beautiful woman, with the blush of youth still on her skin, who loves more than anything to be admired, and there is little enough opportunity for that around Salisbury Court. No wonder she feels the need to exercise her charms on me and Courcelles. The ambassador’s secretary steps down to stand beside me now, watching Castelnau and his wife as they settle themselves into the embassy barge for the trip upriver to Whitehall. He is dressed in some fussy suit of dark red; an evening breeze with just a catch of autumn chill lifts his fine blond hair away from his face, and I notice again how exceptionally handsome he is, though I find something too feminine about his full mouth, his almost beardless chin, his laconic pout. He glances sideways at me and back to the river.

‘Nice to see you made an effort to dress for the occasion, Bruno,’ he murmurs. I am wearing a neatly cut doublet and breeches of fine black wool, just as I wear every other evening.

‘In my experience, it is politic not to compete with the ladies on occasions like this,’ I reply pleasantly, folding my hands behind my back and surveying the traffic on the water. ‘They don’t appreciate it.’

Gulls cry and wheel, arcing gracefully over the river to the far bank as the waves lap gently at the foot of the landing stairs. Courcelles looks down at his own clothes, suddenly doubtful.

‘Bruno, Courcelles — get in the boat, for goodness’ sake!’ Castelnau calls, clapping his hands. ‘It will not do to arrive late!’

I settle myself opposite Marie, who smiles and leans forward; as she does so, my eye is caught again by the jewelled brooch pinned to her bodice. Its shape seems oddly familiar, and as I focus on its outline instead of the shifting glitter of the diamonds, I notice that it is a bird with a curved beak, rising up from its nest with wings outspread. It takes a moment before I realise where I have seen this bird before, and I almost cry out; it is identical in design to the emblem carved into the gold signet ring given to Cecily Ashe by her mysterious lover. Instinctively my hand moves to my breast, where I carry the ring in a pocket inside my doublet, in case my room should be searched again.

‘See something to interest you, Bruno?’ Marie says sweetly. I glance up to meet her arch expression and become aware that I have been shamelessly staring at the brooch, which she has attached to the side of her bodice, where the smooth white hemispheres of her breasts swell unmissably over the low neck of her corset. She gives me a look of mock reproach, as if I were a naughty schoolboy; I feel the hot rush of blood to my cheeks. A quick glance at the ambassador reassures me that he has caught none of this; he is busy outlining the arrangements for our return journey in minute detail to Courcelles, whose darting glance tells me that he, at least, has half an ear on our conversation.

‘Your brooch,’ I say hastily, pointing, which only makes me feel clumsier.

‘Ah. Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says, in the same silky voice. ‘It is very special to me. It was a gift from the Duc de Guise when I left Paris.’ She touches it lightly and allows her fingers to drift, almost absently, across her decolletage. I allow my eyes to follow her hand and rest with it on that pale expanse of skin, the fine line of her collarbone and the crescent of shadow that dips between her breasts. At length I wrench my eyes upwards and find hers fixed intently on me.

‘Really? Forgive me —‘ I hear a slight tremor in my voice, and curse it — ‘only I thought I recognised the design.’

‘The phoenix?’ She tilts the brooch slightly, bending her head down towards it. ‘You may well have seen it in France — it is the emblem of Marie de Guise, the duke’s aunt. The brooch passed to him when she died.’

‘The duke’s aunt? So — the mother of Mary Stuart?’

‘Of course. The phoenix was her particular symbol. Because she herself had risen from the ashes so often, you see. Hard fortune could not crush her. Mary Stuart has adopted it too, I hear, to symbolise her own forthcoming return from prisoner to queen. Soon to be effected, if God wills it.’

She smiles, deliberately provocative, showing her neat white teeth; I murmur my assent, but my mind is racing. There is no doubt that the bird is identical to the symbol on the ring. A phoenix — what I had taken for the branches of the bird’s nest, I now saw were flames tapering around it as it lifted its broad wings in triumph. As the boat’s oars settle into a steady rhythm, and the wind across the river grows chilly the further we move into midstream, I turn away from Marie and fix my eyes unseeing on the south bank, while in my mind I conjure a picture of the letters around the phoenix emblem on the signet ring. Sa Virtu M’Atire. I have no difficulty with this — my memory system is built on techniques of visualisation — and as I picture the letters, it is all I can do to keep myself from crying out and striking myself for my own stupidity, for suddenly what was obscure seems as blindingly clear as the gold disc of the sun, suspended before us in the violet sky. Not a code, but an anagram. The letters swirl and rearrange themselves in my mind’s eye so smoothly I believe a child could have solved it: Sa Virtu M’Atire becomes, almost perfectly, Marie Stuart.

I bite down on my knuckles and hunch forward over my knees, lest I give away my agitation with my body, for with this realisation comes another, more chilling: the ring given to Cecily Ashe was more than a lover’s trinket. It must have been a pledge, acknowledgement of an explicit connection with Mary, Queen of Scots, or with her supporters. So was the poison in the perfume bottle also given in Mary’s name? Then the implication can only be that Cecily was in some way involved with the plots against Elizabeth on behalf of Mary Stuart, and as far as I know, those plots all revolve around the French embassy and those who gather in its chapel and dining room. I turn my face out of the wind and back to Marie, as if seeing her properly for the first time.

‘Something wrong, Bruno?’ she asks, moving to lay a hand softly on my arm. ‘You look distressed. Was it something I said?’

‘No — no, thank you.’ I withdraw my arm gently, seeing that Castelnau has looked up and noticed her gesture. ‘I am not made for water travel, that is all. I only have to step into a boat for my stomach to turn somersaults.’

‘That must be inconvenient for you, given all your long journeys by river,’ Courcelles observes drily. I snap my head around.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing.’ He shakes his head briskly, as if he should not have spoken. ‘Only that you are so often out of the house these days. And you seem to go everywhere by boat, that is all — I wonder your purse can bear the cost.’

‘I have letters of introduction to book collectors in London so that I may continue with my own work,’ I say, with a shrug. ‘The river is the quickest way around, after all, and I prefer to travel at my own expense, without the need to borrow your master’s horses. For that, I try to overcome my poor sea legs. Does this trouble you?’

He gives another tight shake of the head and clams up then, so I do not press him. But the little barb he could not resist has given him away. How does he know, and why should he care, where I travel and how? Was he the man in the boat? Could he have been set to follow me to Mortlake by those in the embassy who doubt my loyalty? But that is clearly impossible — he was at Mass with the family yesterday when I arrived back from Dee’s house after being followed by the stranger who landed at Putney. Even so, Courcelles is clearly taking an interest in where I travel. I slide a glance at him and experience a little shiver of distaste. I must not be so complacent as to think that any of my movements go un observed here.

Castelnau distracts us with a commentary on the fine houses whose gardens run down to the river behind high walls as we pass, with details of their occupants: those roofs belong to Somerset House, where the queen had lived as a princess before her accession, now a lodging for foreign diplomats; here you may see the great gatehouse tower of the Savoy Hospital, which the queen’s grandfather founded for the care of the poor, and beyond it, the landing stairs leading to the magnificent grounds of York Place, once the residence of the great Cardinal Wolsey, but commandeered by the queen’s father as a gift to his — here Castelnau checks himself, remembering his professional obligation, and omits the word mistress — to his second wife, he continues, the queen’s mother, Anne Boleyn.

Courcelles appears visibly bored by the guided tour, but to Marie and me, who have not been in London so long as to have learned the stories written in its stones, the ambassador’s archive of details is fascinating. The mossy brick walls and thickets of chimneys seem to gather colour and life as he speaks of the histories played out in the halls and galleries within. Marie seems especially taken by the fate of Anne Boleyn.

‘To think,’ she says, to no one in particular, gesturing at the walls of York Place as the efforts of the oarsmen carry us around the curve in the river and the house recedes from view, ‘so many years the king loved her, and fought to make her queen, and she waited for him, looking out of those very windows. And everyone was opposed to the marriage, but they could not deny the force of their love. He undid his kingdom for that woman. It’s so romantic. Don’t you think?’

She turns and addresses this question to me, all innocent wide eyes and softly parted lips. I notice how this appears to annoy Courcelles. This is part of her game, I suppose, to play us off one against the other, to inspire us to rivalry. Presumably she does the same with Throckmorton, when he is present, and other men too, no doubt. She does not seem to realise that I have not agreed to take part.

‘And as soon as he had her, he started engineering ways to have her head cut off,’ I say, smiling. ‘Desire attained very quickly sours.’

‘That is rather a cynical view of love, Bruno,’ she chides.

‘It is based on observation. Like all my hypotheses.’

‘Look, here is the palace,’ Courcelles chips in, and we turn to watch the low, red-brick walls of some outbuildings at the water’s edge give way to higher fortifications of pale stone and, just ahead, a structure jutting out into the water with lanterns hung all around it.

Castelnau raises a hand for silence and allows his gaze to travel slowly over us, so that we all have opportunity to note his grave expression.

‘We will have no conversation tonight with Henry Howard and his party beyond a civil greeting,’ he warns, lowering his voice. ‘The English court, and especially Her Majesty, must have no reason to suspect that we have any special dealings with him. Are we clear about this?’ Though he says ‘we’, he appears to be addressing this directly to his wife. We nod dutifully.

‘Pull in at the Privy Bridge,’ Castelnau commands the oarsmen, and Marie begins smoothing her skirts and arranging her cloak anxiously.

The Privy Bridge is not so much a bridge as a kind of pier or jetty, elevated on wooden stilts and built up with a covered walkway that looks like a small house, so that the royal party can avoid the elements on their way to the barge. Tonight the walls of this building are hung with scarlet-and-gold banners embroidered with the queen’s arms, the lion and dragon rampant rippling as the breeze catches them. At the end of the bridge, a flight of steps lead down to a landing stage, and here two men in the queen’s livery are waiting to help visitors disembark. Castelnau hands Marie out of the boat and follows; Courcelles and I fall into step behind them, and I pause for a minute on the stairs, looking up at the palace wall ahead. This is to be my first introduction to the English court, perhaps even to Elizabeth herself, and I am gripped by a strange apprehension.

We are led along a passage and across a broad paved courtyard, surrounded on four sides by grand ranges in red brick, with crenellated balustrades at the roofs and tall mullioned windows edged in pearl-white stone. At the entrance to every doorway and in the cloistered shadows you cannot fail to notice the number of tall young men, armed and wearing tabards bearing the royal standard.

‘Elizabeth grows fearful,’ Courcelles observes quietly, nodding towards one of the granite-faced men. ‘There are not usually so many of the palace guard on display.’

‘Perhaps she has reason,’ I say. He responds with a grim laugh.

From the high open doorway of the Great Hall spills a babble of music and talk, together with the drifting perfume of some scented oil burning to sweeten the air. On the threshold, Castelnau turns and points a finger into my face, so suddenly that I almost trip over him.

‘And no trouble, Bruno.’ He smiles, but the warning is meant.

I understand him. I am here by his invitation and this is no small thing; I have a reputation in Europe for courting controversy, but this evening I am representing the French embassy and, by extension, King Henri himself. I would be expected to conduct myself meekly at the best of times, but in the present circumstances, it is vital that Queen Elizabeth continues to think well of Henri of France and his ambassador. As Castelnau sees it, their relationship may be all that stands between England and war. Courcelles smirks, but I merely nod obediently. Castelnau, satisfied, turns, adjusts his doublet and prepares to make his entrance. As he does so, Marie turns back to me and winks.

But the splendour of the spectacle before us drives all other thoughts from my mind. The hall arches overhead, the upper portion of its walls all light from the high pointed windows of stained glass, drawing the eye upward to the dark wood spans of the great hammer-beam roof, with its elaborately carved tracery and gilded spandrels. From each of the wall braces hangs a coloured banner embroidered with some royal insignia in golds, crimsons, azures. The lower parts of its long walls, where I can glimpse them through the crush of people, are decorated with exquisitely detailed Flemish tapestries depicting scenes from the Old Testament, bordered with gold damask. Courtiers in silks and velvets of all hues gather in groups or mingle around the room, glancing at one another and parading their finery; the men wear puffed knee-breeches with white silk stockings to show off their calves, doublets with sleeves slashed to reveal the jewel-coloured lining, and wide starched lace ruffs that give them the air of birds fanning out their feathers in a mating display, with cuffs to match. Over one shoulder they drape short capes of velvet fastened with gold or jade brooches, and as they lean in to converse, the long peacock feathers on their caps nod and sway, and sometimes become tangled up with one another. Some of them carry silver pomanders at their belts, and the air is thick with spiced perfume; they all, without exception, carry ornamental swords, swinging by their thighs in elaborately embellished scabbards. I am surprised that a queen who lives under perman ent threat of assassination should tolerate her courtiers coming armed into her presence, but perhaps even she dare not part a gentleman from his weapon. Sidney once told me that she had forbidden duelling among the gentlemen of the court, with a penalty of losing one’s right hand. The awkwardness of their costumes obliges these courtiers to walk with their legs slightly parted, in an exaggerated swagger; there is something comical about their strutting and their anxious glances to one side and the other to make sure they are being noticed. I can only imagine what they would be like if there were more women present.

A group of musicians play subtle string compositions in a vaulted alcove set before one great window that stretches from floor to ceiling. The effect is magnificent as the setting sun slants low through the patterned panes, illuminating the musicians’ heads and shoulders before painting its coloured geometry over the rush-strewn floor.

Marie’s head swivels from left to right and back, bright-eyed as a child at a carnival, and I smile to myself. This is certainly the place to be if you are a young woman seeking male admirers. There is a noticeable surfeit of young men in the hall. It is said that the queen does not like to have to compete for the attention of her courtiers — still less as she ages — so they are encouraged to leave their wives at home; certainly the few women present are older, nearer the queen’s own age, strapped tightly into bodices above broad farthingale skirts, their faces stiff with paint. Already Marie is drawing glances as we progress slowly through the crowd; though she holds tight to her husband’s arm, I notice that she smiles to herself and does not lower her eyes as she ought when she finds herself the object of some gentleman’s hungry stare.

I crane my neck and scour the crowds for familiar faces, but there is no sign of Abigail. At the far end of the hall, nearest to the musicians, seating has been arranged on a platform in front of the panelled wall, with a gilded throne in the centre; I presume that the queen and her attendants will make a grand entrance before the concert proper begins, with her ladies in her wake. The likelihood that I will have the chance to speak to Abigail alone is small indeed — court etiquette demands that I stay close to Castelnau and wait for his introduction — but perhaps I may be able to get a message to her requesting another meeting. I still suspect that she is holding something back, and my recent discovery about the ring makes it all the more urgent that I persuade Abigail to confide any more secrets. But beyond this, since her unexpected remark about finding a prospective lover, I have been intrigued by the possibility of seeing her again; at times I catch myself wondering if she might have said this for my benefit, though at others I tell myself I am being ridiculous. Nonetheless, I cannot suppress a frisson as I cast my eyes around the glittering crowd for a possible glimpse of red-gold hair.

Just then, the knot of people ahead of us parts and I spot, across the room, a dangerous confederacy: Henry Howard and his nephew Philip, Earl of Arundel, deep in conversation with Don Bernadino de Mendoza and Archibald Douglas, who I almost don’t recognise. He appears to have had a shave and a haircut for the occasion and looks younger and markedly cleaner than the last time I saw him. Castelnau dips his head in greeting; Howard responds with a curt nod, and turns back to say something to Mendoza, who whispers back, still staring at our party. Over Marie’s head, Castelnau glances at me, and there is fear in his eyes.

But he continues to weave his way towards the dais, keen to secure us a vantage point near where the queen will be sitting, the better to catch her eye; as I follow him through the crush, to my delight I spot Sidney standing with his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, the two of them head and shoulders above everyone else. Sidney’s hair sticks up more wildly than usual, as if he has just stepped out of a strong wind; I try to catch his eye as his gaze travels the hall. When he eventually notices me he smiles warmly, but he makes no move in my direction, and I remember with a pang that here in public, especially under Castelnau’s nose and with Courcelles watching me like a cat, I must keep a wary distance from those closest to Elizabeth. The Earl of Leicester is imposingly aristocratic in an elaborately embroidered doublet of plum velvet; he keeps his arms folded tightly across his chest as he too scans the crowd, his face with its high cheekbones and thin lips set in an earnest expression, his eyes alert. Presently he leans in to Sidney and says something that makes them both laugh; I turn away, biting down the regret that I can’t join my friend. It strikes me that, of all my acquaintance in England, there is barely anyone I can talk to openly. In this great jostle of over-dressed men, I feel suddenly isolated, and weary of acting a part.

But these thoughts are dispelled as the musicians cease their tune and into the silence that follows there rises one clear note of eight trumpets together. As if at some unspoken command, the crowd falls back to either side to create a path from the main entrance to the raised seats at the far end of the room, and I see that a carpet has been laid up the centre of the hall. Castelnau eases us through so that we stand at the front, nudging Marie forward. A hush descends on the hall, before the trumpets ring out their signal again and the double doors are flung open; the courtiers drop as one to their knees, and, glancing up, I see the white skirts of a girl scattering rose petals over the carpet to either side as she processes slowly up the aisle formed by the kneeling guests.

Raising my head as far as I dare, I look up past this girl and set eyes, for the first time, on the Queen of England. Since even before I arrived in her realm, I have carried the image of Elizabeth Tudor in my mind as a symbol of possibility: the Protestant monarch who has dared to defy three successive popes over the twenty-five years of her reign. It is foolishly presumptuous, I know, but I always believed that, if I could only find a way to make her listen or read my words, she would feel some instinctive affinity with me. Like me, she has been excommunicated for heresy and declared an enemy of the Church for her ideas; the Holy Office seeks her death as it does mine; despite the best efforts of her more rational advisers such as Walsingham and Burghley, she encourages men like John Dee, and takes a keen interest in his esoteric pursuits. If any sovereign is suited to be the patron of a heretic philosopher with unorthodox and provocative views, it is surely this open-minded, unashamedly intellectual woman who, behind the generous smiles she bestows now on her fawning courtiers, must have a will of steel to have ruled so long alone in a world of men.

Elizabeth Tudor walks at a stately pace, upright in her bearing and surprisingly graceful in her movements, given her years and the obvious weight of her ornate gown, with its skirts of thick scarlet-and-gold brocade, the scarlet bodice all embroidered with tiny garnets and pearls. At her neck she wears a small ruff of starched lace, with a stiff collar, a delicate structure of wire and finer lace, standing up behind her head; three long ropes of pearls are fixed at either side of her collar and hang in tiers across her front. Her dark red hair is an extraordinary confection, piled high and pinned in loops on top of her head, so that she must hold her neck almost without moving to maintain her balance. I suspect it is a wig. Her entire posture is an exercise in regal control. Behind the white veneer of ceruse that coats her face, her expression is inscrutable, her eyes, lips and brows painted in like a mask. She is not beautiful, but in her face is a refinement that goes beyond beauty, a look of purpose and self-possession that makes beauty seem trivial. In her hands she carries a fan of tall red feathers with a mother-of-pearl handle and she moves, as do her ladies, in a fine cloud of perfumed powder. For one ridiculous moment I find myself hoping she will glance to her left and see me, but she continues without haste towards the seats, smiling at the kneeling crowd, but always maintaining that inward-looking poise. As they pass in her wake, I notice the maids of honour, all dressed in long gowns of white silk, following her steps impeccably while their eyes stray feverishly around the room, alighting here and there on young men before flitting coyly away. Behind the maids march the older attendants, the seven Ladies of the Bedchamber, among them Lady Seaton, who happens to glance down as I look up; our eyes meet and she frowns with what I take for curiosity, before returning her gaze to the front, arranging her face back into its habitual, slightly sour expression.

It is only when the queen has mounted the dais and taken her throne with her maids gathered around her that I notice Abigail Morley is not among the women and immediately my chest clenches.

Walsingham, Burghley and a number of other grave-looking, silver-bearded men in black — the statesmen of the Privy Council, I presume — take up their positions at the sides of the dais, hands clasped behind their backs as if they were on duty. If Walsingham notices me, he gives no indication. Elizabeth gestures for her subjects to rise, which they do with varying degrees of stiffness, and when the rustling has died away, she stretches out a hand.

‘My lords, ladies and gentlemen,’ she begins, in a clear voice, pitched low for a woman but carefully measured, familiar with public speeches. ‘I have invited you here to enjoy some new compositions by Master Byrd, sung by the choristers of our Chapel Royal. The beauty of music, both sacred and secular, transcends all bounds of race and religion, and is for all.’ With this, she gives a nod, and the main doors of the hall open once more.

‘She says this to appease the Puritans,’ Courcelles whispers at my back. ‘There are plenty in her council who think polyphonic music among the worst sins of Rome.’

I nod, but my attention is on the man now walking up the central aisle towards the dais; short, with brown hair swept back from his forehead and a neatly trimmed beard, only his darting eyes betray a restless energy as he leads the choir — thirty men and twelve boys — towards the alcove in front of the grand window where the musicians had played. This William Byrd is watched around the clock by Walsingham’s agents; he makes no secret of his Catholic faith, and his pos ition as Gentleman of the Chapel Royal only protects him so far. But the fact that Elizabeth not only disregards his religious disobedience but continues to exalt him so publicly is read by some as a sign of ambiguity in her own faith, or merely as an indication that she knows her own mind and will not be bullied by extremists of any faction.

An expectant silence falls over the court as Byrd waits for his choristers to settle themselves in lines. When he is satisfied, he raises both hands and pauses at full stretch, his arms taut as a bowstring; the audience holds its breath and for the space of a heartbeat we all seem suspended in time, caught between one moment and the next. Then Byrd lowers his hands in a sweeping gesture and a note breaks forth from the smallest boy, pure and clear as birdsong, its sweetness echoing to the beams of the roof. Barely has he begun his note when the other voices join him, layering their harmonies piece by piece over one another, the bass notes holding firm and melancholy beneath the soaring, liquid music of the boys’ voices. The song is a prayer for the queen, though the words slide through the melodies like water pouring over a fountain of glass. The effect is so beautiful, so otherworldly, that the hairs on my neck prickle and stand up. I glance sideways at Marie and her expression takes me by surprise; her head is tilted back, her eyes closed, her lips softly parted, as if she is allowing the music to ravish her. Seeing her so seemingly transported, I revise my opinion of her; I had thought her too superficial to be moved by beauty, unless it was her own reflection in a glass. Perhaps I have judged her too harshly. Then I have to look away; there is something so provocative about the curve of her exposed throat, the moistness of her open mouth, her pale eyelids, that I experience a sudden surge of desire that rebels against my will and my better judgement. I cannot allow myself to indulge those thoughts about my host’s wife.

Searching for distraction, I allow my gaze to wander again around the hall, observing the faces, the variety of responses, from immersion to undisguised boredom; suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I am aware of a commotion near the dais. Standing on tiptoe, I am near enough to see that one of the Yeomen of the Palace Guard, evidently in a state of some urgency, has approached Lord Burghley and is whispering frantically in his ear. Edging back, I insinuate myself between Courcelles and Castelnau so that I have a clearer view of Burghley through the heads of the audience. His face is drained of colour; I see him cast around and gesture for Walsingham, a small, tight movement of the hand. Walsingham excuses himself, squeezing past his companions on either side to join Burghley, who draws him close in whispered conference. Eventually Walsingham looks up, his eyes rake the crowd for a moment, and as soon as I catch the frozen expression on his face, I feel a sudden lurch in the stomach, a certainty of horror.

By now several people are turning to look at the source of the disturbance while the singers’ fluting voices still rise to the rafters. Elizabeth herself has noticed and leans forward, hands resting on the arms of her throne, to see who dares interrupt the concert, with a look of irritation that quickly turns to concern as she sees her two senior statesmen huddled with the soldier. Walsingham holds up a hand to her, a gesture that says, Don’t worry, we have this under control. But his face is tight with anxiety and now he raises himself on tiptoe, searching the crowd again, as if he hoped to find someone in particular. Then he leans in to the soldier, whispers some hasty instructions, and the three of them — Burghley, Walsingham and the guard — leave the hall by a side door.

I try to concentrate on the music but the blood is hammering at my temples: the palace guard, his look of fearful urgency; Burghley and Walsingham and their strained expressions. Something terrible has happened, I am certain of it, and try as I might to rein in my worst imaginings, my mind returns again and again to the absence of Abigail among the queen’s maids and the suspicion that someone had been watching our exchange at the Holbein Gate. But I can hardly leave the concert and follow Walsingham; publicly I am no one here, only an insignificant guest of the French ambassador. It is not my place to ask questions. The choir continues its ethereal song; there is a movement, another disturbance, at the other end of the hall, opposite the dais, but when I crane my neck to look, I see that it is only servants bringing in candles, which they fit into wall sconces between the tapestries as the last of the daylight is dying. Then I notice that, behind the servants, armed men have unobtrusively slipped into place either side of the main doors, and still the singing continues. My palms are sweating; I wipe them on my breeches and fix my attention on the choir, but my mouth is dry. Another motet begins and fades to its bittersweet, plaintive close.

‘Giordano Bruno?’

His breath is hot on my cheek, his voice barely audible. In the corner of my vision, a bearded face appears so close to mine that I can’t focus.

‘Don’t turn or speak, sir. In a few minutes, find a moment to slip through the door behind you, as discreetly as you can. Master Secretary’s orders.’

He moves away as invisibly as he arrived, without my even having seen his face fully. I wait until I am sure that Castelnau, Marie and Courcelles have their eyes fixed on the choir and take a short step backwards, then another, until I am hidden by other guests. A side door is built into the panelling; as I approach, the guard there holds it open a fraction and I back through the narrow gap. On the other side, a tall young man, bearded and wearing a black suit, waits for me. He has the appearance of a clerk.

‘This way.’ He gestures to the corridor ahead.

‘Can you tell me what this is about?’

He shakes his head, his mouth set in a grim line, and motions for me to continue down the passageway that leads away from the Great Hall towards a warren of state apartments. When we need to turn a corner, he places a palm lightly on the small of my back to show me the way. At the end of another corridor he stops outside a door and knocks, before ushering me into a small, sparsely furnished office with tall windows. The Earl of Leicester leans against the wall by the window, looking out at the darkening sky as if deep in thought while shadows carve deep hollows around his eyes and the sharp bones of his face; Walsingham paces, one hand clasped across his mouth and chin; Burghley stands by the writing desk, watching the door, his skullcap awry and his white hair sticking up in tufts where he has run his hands through it. Beside him, to my immense surprise, stands the skinny boy who brought me the message from Abigail three days ago. He wipes his hands repeatedly on a streaked apron that suggests he works in the kitchens, and by the look of his face he has been crying. As the guard shuts the door softly behind me, the boy points at me and cries, accusing —

‘That’s him, sir! That’s the man!’