Chapter 17: The Hour of the Rat

Edmund did not move. The name hung in the air between them like a blade suspended by a thread. Lord Hunsdon. Henry Carey. The Queen’s own cousin, her trusted kinsman, the man who had carried her through the thick of the Northern Rising and stood guard at her bedchamber door for thirty years. The man who commanded the Gentlemen Pensioners, the very soldiers who protected her person.

“That cannot be,” Edmund said, though his voice lacked conviction. “Hunsdon is a Protestant. He fought for her against the Scots. He is family.”

Cecily’s smile was thin and bitter. “Family is precisely the weapon. Who would suspect a man who shares her blood? Who would search the chambers of the Queen’s own cousin?”

Edmund pressed his fingers to his temples, feeling the familiar ache of a puzzle that refused to sit still. His body yearned for the cool sheets of his bed in Morland’s east wing, for the heavy curtain and the blessed dark. Instead, he was standing in a drafty gallery with a woman who had just handed him the rope to hang himself.

“The letter,” he said slowly. “The original letter I intercepted. It was meant for Mary. If Hunsdon is the one who wrote it, then he has been feeding her information for months. Perhaps years.”

“And we have been chasing the Vintner, and the widow with the blue door, and the list of names.” Cecily’s eyes were bright, almost fierce. “All the while, the viper was sleeping in the next chamber to the Queen.”

Edmund began to pace. The floorboards creaked beneath his boots. “We need proof. A name on a scrap of paper is not enough to accuse the Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners. I will be in the Tower before the hour is out if I go before the Privy Council with such a charge and nothing to back it.”

“Then we do not go to the Privy Council.”

He stopped. “What, then?”

“We go to Walsingham. In secret. Tonight.” Cecily stepped closer, her voice dropping to a murmur. “He has his own network. His own means of proof. If anyone can catch Hunsdon in the act, it is him.”

Edmund considered this. Walsingham had been his unwilling patron, a man who saw through the lazy facade and found something useful beneath. But Walsingham was also cautious, suspicious of everyone, including Edmund himself. To bring him such a charge without evidence was to invite suspicion onto his own head.

“There is another way,” he said slowly. “We let Hunsdon walk into his own trap.”

Cecily raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

“The letter I intercepted was meant for Mary. But it was never delivered. Hunsdon does not know it was lost. He believes his message reached her.” Edmund’s mind was racing now, the pieces clicking into place with a satisfaction that was almost pleasurable. “If we can make him believe that Mary has replied—that she has sent a response—he will have to act. He will have to meet with his accomplices. And when he does, we will be there.”

“You want to bait the lion with a goat.”

“I want to bait the lion with a dead horse,” Edmund said. “Something he cannot resist. A promise of the Spanish landing, perhaps. A date for the invasion. He will want to confirm it. He will reach out to his contacts. And we will see him.”

Cecily was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled—a genuine smile, one that reached her eyes. “You are not nearly as lazy as you pretend to be, my lord.”

“I am extraordinarily lazy,” Edmund said. “This is simply the most efficient path to my bed.”

They left Morland before dawn, riding hard for London with a small escort of trusted men. Edmund’s thighs ached, and his head throbbed with the lack of sleep, but the plan was forming in his mind with a clarity that surprised him. He would need Walsingham’s help to forge a reply from Mary—a reply that mentioned Hunsdon by name, that promised specific details of the Spanish plans. It was a dangerous game. If Hunsdon suspected a trap, he would vanish into the shadows, and they would lose their only lead.

They reached London by nightfall, the streets slick with rain. Walsingham’s house was a fortress of quiet industry, candles burning in the windows despite the late hour. The spymaster received them in his study, a gaunt figure hunched over a desk covered in letters and ciphers. He listened without interruption as Edmund laid out the charge, his thin face betraying nothing.

When Edmund finished, Walsingham sat back in his chair. “You are certain.”

“Certain enough to stake my life on it,” Edmund said. “And my naps.”

Walsingham’s lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. “That is a considerable stake.”

“I need your help,” Edmund said. “I need a forged letter from Mary. One that will draw him out.”

Walsingham was silent for a long moment. Then he reached into a drawer and withdrew a small, leather-bound book. “I have samples of Mary’s handwriting,” he said. “And her cipher. I can produce what you need by morning.”

Edmund let out a breath he had not realised he was holding. “Then we have a plan.”

“We have a trap,” Walsingham corrected. “The question is whether the lion will come to it.”

He fixed Edmund with a gaze that was both weary and sharp. “And if he does, my lord, you will be the one to spring the snare. I cannot protect you if it goes wrong. The Queen will not forgive an accusation against her cousin without overwhelming proof.”

“I understand.”

“Do you?” Walsingham leaned forward. “Because if Hunsdon is truly the traitor, then he has been one step ahead of us for months. He knows the Queen’s movements. He knows her fears. He may even know about you.” A pause. “He may know about Cecily.”

Edmund felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. He glanced at Cecily, who stood by the window, her face unreadable. She had been a widow of uncertain loyalties, a woman with her own secrets. If Hunsdon knew about her, if he had been watching her—

“Then we move quickly,” Edmund said. “Before he has time to act.”

Walsingham nodded slowly. “Tomorrow night. I will have the letter ready by noon. You will deliver it to the widow with the blue door—she is one of my agents, though Hunsdon does not know it. She will see that it falls into his hands.”

Edmund blinked. “The widow?”

“She has been working for me for years,” Walsingham said. “Her blue door is a signal to my network. You stumbled upon her by accident, but I have used her many times.”

Edmund felt a flicker of annoyance. He had walked through that blue door expecting answers, and instead had found only more questions. Now he learned she had been Walsingham’s creature all along. The spymaster’s web was vast and tangled, and Edmund was but a fly caught in its threads.

“Very well,” he said. “Tomorrow night.”

He turned to leave, but Walsingham’s voice stopped him at the door. “One more thing, my lord.”

Edmund looked back.

“If Hunsdon is the traitor, then he will not act alone. He will have allies—men close to the Queen, men who share his faith or his ambition.” Walsingham’s eyes were dark. “When you spring the trap, you may find more than one lion in the cage.”

Edmund nodded slowly. Then he walked out into the rain, Cecily beside him, the weight of the night pressing down on his shoulders. Somewhere in the city, Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, was sleeping peacefully in his chambers, unaware that the Hunter had become the hunted.

And somewhere in the distance, Edmund thought he heard the first rumble of the coming storm.