Chapter 33: The Candle's Answer

The boots on the stairs did not pause. They came with the steady, unhurried rhythm of a man who knew exactly where he was going, and Edmund felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise in answer. Walsingham’s hand went to his belt, where a slender dagger rested, and the darkness of the room seemed to thicken around them like a shroud.

“Stay behind me,” Walsingham whispered.

“I have no intention of doing otherwise,” Edmund murmured, though his fingers had already found the hilt of his own blade—a decorative thing, more suited to the court than the field, but it would do if it came to that.

The footsteps reached the landing. A pause. Then a knock—three quick raps, followed by two slower ones. A code, or a signal. Walsingham’s shoulders relaxed, but only by a fraction.

“That will be Phelippes’s clerk,” he said, his voice low. “He has the night watch over the cipher room.”

“And you trust him?”

“I trust no one.” Walsingham moved to the door, his hand hovering over the latch. “But I know his knock. That will have to suffice.”

He opened the door a crack, and a sliver of candlelight from the corridor spilled into the room, illuminating the gaunt face of a young man with ink-stained fingers and the hollow eyes of one who had spent too many hours in the service of cryptanalysis. He bowed hastily.

“Sir Francis, forgive the intrusion. There is a message—urgent, from the French embassy. The courier insisted it could not wait until morning.”

Walsingham took the sealed paper, his eyes scanning the exterior. “Did he say who sent it?”

“Only that it was for your eyes alone, sir. He was gone before I could ask more.”

Walsingham dismissed the clerk with a curt nod and closed the door, breaking the seal with his thumb. The candle had been relit, and in its flickering light, Edmund watched the spymaster’s face shift through a series of expressions—curiosity, then cold fury, then a grim, knowing calm.

“What is it?” Edmund asked.

“It seems our friend Phelippes has been busy,” Walsingham said, handing him the paper. “This is a copy of a letter he claims to have intercepted from a Spanish agent in Antwerp. It names a new contact in London—a merchant in the cloth trade, operating out of a warehouse on Thames Street. But the date is wrong. The letter is dated three weeks hence.”

Edmund read the words, his brow furrowing. “A letter from the future? That is either a miracle or a forgery.”

“It is a trap,” Walsingham said flatly. “Phelippes is testing me. He wants to see if I will act on false intelligence, and if I do, he will know that I have begun to suspect him. The question is whether he sent this to lure us into a trap of his own making, or whether he is simply covering his tracks.”

“Or,” Edmund said slowly, “he is sending us a message. A warning, perhaps, disguised as a lure. The merchant on Thames Street—if we go there, we may find nothing. But if we do not go, we may miss something vital.”

Walsingham regarded him with a look that was half respect, half exasperation. “You have a talent for making everything more complicated than it needs to be.”

“It is a gift,” Edmund said, folding the letter and tucking it into his doublet. “The question is what we do with it. If Phelippes is the traitor, then his every word is suspect. But if he is not—if he has been turned, or if he is playing a deeper game than we know—then this letter may be the only true thing he has ever given us.”

“And if it is a trap?”

“Then we spring it,” Edmund said, with a sigh that suggested he would much rather be in bed. “But we do so on our own terms. Send word to Cecily. She knows the river better than anyone, and if we are to go to Thames Street, I would rather have her with us than a company of your men-at-arms who could not find their way out of a brothel without a map.”

Walsingham’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “You have a high opinion of her.”

“I have a realistic one,” Edmund said. “She has saved my life more times than I care to count, and she has never once asked me to explain myself. That is a rare quality in a woman, or in anyone.”

The spymaster nodded, reaching for his cloak. “Then we go to Thames Street. But we go carefully. If Phelippes is watching, I want him to see us take the bait. We will give him the satisfaction of thinking he has outwitted us—and then we will see what he does with that satisfaction.”

They left the house by a back stair, emerging into a narrow alley that stank of fish and rotting vegetables. The fog had thickened, muffling the sounds of the city, and the few lanterns that burned along the street cast pools of sickly yellow light that did little to pierce the gloom. Edmund pulled his collar up against the damp and followed Walsingham’s swift, sure footsteps toward the river.

They found Cecily at the appointed place—a stone stair leading down to the water, where a wherry bobbed in the murky tide. She was wrapped in a dark cloak, her hood pulled low, and she looked up at their approach with a sharp, assessing gaze.

“The merchant on Thames Street,” she said, without preamble. “I know of him. A man named Barrow. He deals in fine wool, but his real trade is information. He sells to anyone who will pay, and he has a talent for knowing things he should not.”

“Then he is either a fool or a very dangerous man,” Edmund said.

“He is both,” Cecily said. “Which is why I have never trusted him. But if Phelippes sent you to him, then there is something there—something that Phelippes wants you to find.”

“Or something he wants us to be seen finding,” Walsingham said.

Cecily’s eyes flicked to him, and for a moment, Edmund saw something unreadable pass between them. “That too,” she said. “But if we go in the front door, we will be walking into whatever he has prepared. So we will go in the back.”

She led them along the riverbank, past warehouses and wharves, until they came to a narrow building that leaned precariously over the water, its timber frame dark with age and damp. A single lantern burned in an upper window, and the sound of a creaking sign announced the presence of Barrow’s establishment.

“There is a door on the river side,” Cecily said, pointing to a low arch barely visible in the fog. “It leads to the cellar. From there, we can reach the counting house without being seen.”

“And if Barrow is expecting us?” Edmund asked.

“Then we will make sure he is disappointed.” She drew a small pistol from beneath her cloak, checking the priming with practiced efficiency. “Shall we?”

Edmund looked at the dark water, the fog, the looming silhouette of the warehouse, and felt the familiar weight of exhaustion settle over him. He had not slept properly in days, and his body ached with the accumulated strain of a dozen narrow escapes and sleepless nights.

But he also felt something else—a sharp, bright thread of curiosity that pulled him forward despite his weariness. The letter, the merchant, the hidden trap: they were pieces of a puzzle that he was only beginning to see, and he could not turn away from it.

“After you,” he said.

Cecily smiled, a flash of white in the darkness, and led them into the night.