Chapter 22: The Widow’s Veil

The words hung in the salt-scoured air like a fog off the Channel. Edmund stared at Cecily, his mind shedding its usual indolent haze with the speed of a struck flint. The widow with the blue door. The woman who had handed him a forged letter that had set the Privy Council ablaze. His mother.

“You have a singular talent for timing, my lady,” he said at last, his voice dry as old parchment. “I confess, I had thought the pistol at my breast might be the most unsettling moment of this evening. I stand corrected.”

Cecily’s lips tightened. “I did not bring you here to play riddles.”

“No, you brought me here to be shot at by a Spaniard with excellent tailoring. The maternal revelation is merely the after-dinner entertainment.” He glanced back at the warehouse, its dark mouth still yawning behind them. The man with the pistol had retreated when Cecily had produced a small vial of something she had flung at his face—a trick she had learned, she claimed, from a Flemish apothecary. Edmund had not asked for details. He was learning that with Cecily, details were best left undisturbed.

They walked along the quay, the stones slick with tide and shadow. The ship in the distance had drawn closer, its hull low and broad—a merchantman, or so it seemed. But Edmund had learned that things in Dover were rarely what they seemed.

“Your mother,” he said, “is the woman Walsingham believes is the linchpin of the Spanish correspondence. The woman who gave me a letter that almost sent half the nobility to the Tower. And you are only now seeing fit to mention this.”

“I did not know until this week,” Cecily said. “I had not seen her in twelve years. She was supposed to be dead.”

Edmund stopped walking. “Supposed to be.”

Cecily’s face was pale in the fading light. “She was a lady-in-waiting to the old Queen’s household. When Mary of Scots arrived in England, my mother was among those who petitioned for her release. She was arrested, tried for sedition, and sentenced to be hanged. Her sentence was commuted to exile. She vanished. I was seven.”

“And now she is in London, behind a blue door, feeding forgeries to the Queen’s enemies.”

“She is not the enemy, Edmund. She is a pawn.”

“A pawn who nearly cost me my head.”

Cecily’s eyes flashed. “And yet you are still wearing it. Perhaps she saw something in you that I have only recently begun to see.”

Edmund felt the small, dangerous warmth of that remark. He ignored it. “What does she want?”

“She wants to see Mary free. She believes, with all her heart, that the Scottish Queen is the true heir and that Elizabeth is a bastard usurper.” Cecily’s voice softened. “She is wrong. But she is not evil.”

“The road to the block is paved with good intentions,” Edmund said. “And her intentions have placed us in a warehouse with a pistol at my chest. Tell me, does she know about Hunsdon?”

Cecily hesitated. That hesitation was answer enough.

“God’s teeth,” Edmund muttered. “She knows.”

“She has been corresponding with him for months. She believes he is the instrument of Mary’s restoration. She does not know he has been in league with Spain.”

“Or she does not care,” Edmund said. “Fanatics are remarkably indifferent to the finer points of treason.”

They reached the end of the quay, where a small inn leaned over the water like a drunkard at a fence. The sign creaked in the wind: The Gull and Anchor. Edmund pushed open the door, and they stepped into a low-ceilinged room thick with pipe smoke and the murmur of sailors. He found a corner table, ordered a bottle of wine, and poured two cups with the deliberate ceremony of a man who wished to appear unhurried.

“We have a problem,” he said, sliding a cup toward Cecily.

“We have several.”

“Hunsdon believes we are chasing him. He will move quickly. The Spanish are in Dover—that man in the warehouse was no merchant’s guard. And your mother is a thread that, if pulled, could unravel the entire tapestry.” He took a long drink. “I need you to tell me everything you know about her. Every name, every safe house, every contact. I will not see her hanged, Cecily, but I will not see England drowned in blood for her fancies either.”

Cecily looked at him for a long moment. Then she reached into her bodice and produced a folded paper, creased and worn. “This came for me this morning, delivered by a boy who said it was from a lady in London. I have not opened it.”

Edmund took the paper. The seal was plain, unmarked wax. He broke it with his thumb and unfolded the letter. The hand was elegant, feminine, and unhurried.

*My dearest daughter,* *If you are reading this, you have survived Dover. I pray you have. The man who met you at the warehouse is called Rodrigo de la Vega, an agent of the Spanish crown. He is not to be trusted, but he is not our enemy. He believes he is using me. I am using him.* *Hunsdon has fled London. He goes to Plymouth, where a Spanish fleet will arrive by month’s end. He intends to open the harbor to them. Walsingham does not know. The Queen does not know. You must tell them.* *I have done terrible things to protect a cause I believed was just. I have discovered too late that the cause was a lie. Forgive me if you can. Forget me if you cannot.* *Your mother.*

Edmund read the letter twice. The wine sat untouched before him. The noise of the inn faded to a distant hum.

“Plymouth,” he said at last. “Hunsdon has gone to Plymouth.”

Cecily’s eyes widened. “Then we are already too late.”

Edmund shook his head. “No. He will not move until the fleet arrives. He must be certain of his prize before he opens the gate. We have days, perhaps a week.”

“Days,” she repeated. “We cannot reach London in days. Not to warn Walsingham, not to move the Queen, not to—”

“We do not go to London,” Edmund said, rising. “We go to Plymouth.”

“Edmund, that is madness. We have no soldiers, no authority, no—”

“We have the truth,” he said. “And we have this.” He tapped the letter. “And we have your mother, who has just given us the most valuable gift a spy can offer: the enemy’s plan.”

He looked at her, and for the first time in his life, he felt the strange, restless energy of purpose stirring in his chest. It was deeply uncomfortable. He resolved to take a nap as soon as the realm was saved.

“Cecily,” he said, “we are going to stop a war. And then I am going to sleep for a week.”

She smiled, a thin, brittle thing. “If we survive.”

“That,” he said, “is the part I am still negotiating.”