Chapter 37: The Falcon’s Perch

Edmund found the court at Whitehall in a state of barely contained chaos. The corridors buzzed with whispers of the Armada’s progress, of supply ships being fitted at Lisbon, of the Duke of Parma massing his army in the Low Countries. Servants scurried with armfuls of documents, and gentlemen of the Privy Chamber wore the harried look of men who had not slept in days.

All of which Edmund considered a perfectly good reason to find a quiet corner and close his eyes.

He did not get the chance. A page in Walsingham’s livery found him before he had taken three steps into the great hall, pressing a sealed note into his hand with the apologetic urgency of a man who knew he was delivering bad news.

*The Falcon flies before the noon bell. Meet me at the old counting house on Threadneedle Street. Come alone. — W.*

Edmund crumpled the note in his fist and sighed. The old counting house. Of course. Walsingham’s preference for dilapidated buildings and shadowed corners was well known, but Edmund suspected the spymaster simply enjoyed watching his agents stumble through cobwebs and rat droppings.

He made his way through the crowded streets, keeping his hood low against the drizzle that had begun to fall. London was a city on edge, its citizens caught between fear of invasion and the daily grind of existence. A street vendor hawked oranges; a preacher shouted of Babylon’s fall; two boys chased a pig through the muck of the thoroughfare. Edmund stepped aside to let them pass and nearly collided with a tall man in a dark cloak.

“Your pardon,” Edmund said, stepping back.

The man inclined his head—a thin, angular face, eyes the colour of slate—and continued on his way without a word. Something about the encounter prickled at Edmund’s mind, but he could not say why. He watched the man disappear into the crowd, then shook his head and pressed on.

The counting house stood at the end of a narrow alley, its sign long since rotted away. The door was unlocked. Edmund slipped inside to find Walsingham standing at a dusty window, peering through a crack in the shutters at the street beyond.

“You are late,” Walsingham said without turning.

“I am precisely on time,” Edmund replied, brushing dust from his sleeves. “You are early. That is not the same thing.”

Walsingham made a sound that might have been amusement, had the man possessed any capacity for such an emotion. “The Falcon has been sighted. He arrived in London last night, travelling under the name of a Flemish merchant. He is here to meet with Hunsdon’s remaining accomplices and to deliver the final signal for the Armada’s sailing.”

“And you know where this meeting will take place?”

“I know where he is staying. A house near the Tower, leased to a man called Gresham. It is one of the properties Hunsdon used for his more discreet correspondences.”

Edmund felt the familiar weariness settle over him. “So I am to go to this house and… what? Knock politely and ask if anyone inside would care to confess to high treason?”

“You are to observe. The Falcon will not meet with the conspirators at the house itself. He will choose a neutral ground. A tavern, a church, a wharf. Somewhere he can watch the approaches and slip away if needed.”

“And how am I to know where he will choose?”

Walsingham finally turned from the window. His face was gaunt, his eyes deep-set and shadowed, but they burned with the intensity of a man who had spent his life watching others. “Because you will follow him. You have a talent for being overlooked, Morland. Your reputation as a lazy, indolent lord precedes you. Use it.”

Edmund opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. The spymaster was not wrong. There was a certain freedom in being underestimated. He had built his entire public persona on it.

“Very well,” he said. “I will follow the Falcon. And when I find where he is going?”

“You will wait. You will watch. And you will report back to me. Do not engage him. Do not approach him. The Falcon is not like Hunsdon’s other allies. He is trained, disciplined, and utterly without mercy. If he suspects you, he will not hesitate to kill you.”

“How reassuring.”

Walsingham’s thin lips curved into something that was almost a smile. “I have arranged for Cecily to meet you at the house. She has a better eye for detail than you do, and she knows the Falcon’s methods better than anyone in my service.”

Edmund raised an eyebrow. “She knows him?”

“She was married to one of his agents. A man who died in the service of the Crown. She has spent the years since learning everything she could about the Falcon’s network.”

The words landed like a blow. Edmund had known Cecily carried secrets, had suspected her past was tangled with the very forces they were fighting. But to hear it confirmed so plainly, and from Walsingham of all people, unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

“She never told me,” he said quietly.

“She tells no one. Not until she must.” Walsingham’s gaze was steady. “You are the first person she has chosen to trust. Do not make her regret it.”

Edmund said nothing. The rain had intensified, drumming against the shutters in a steady rhythm. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell tolled the hour.

“The noon bell,” Edmund said. “You said he flies before noon. That gives us less than an hour.”

“Then you had better move.” Walsingham pressed a folded paper into his hand. “The address. And a description of the Falcon—tall, slate-eyed, a scar along his left jaw. He favours a black cloak with a silver clasp.”

Tall. Slate-eyed. Dark cloak.

Edmund’s blood ran cold.

“I saw him,” he said. “On the street just now. A tall man in a dark cloak, with eyes like slate. He nearly knocked me over.”

Walsingham’s face went very still. “Did he see you?”

“He looked at me. Briefly. Then he continued on his way.”

“Then he knows your face.” The spymaster’s voice was low, dangerous. “And if he knows your face, he will be watching for you.”

Edmund felt the weight of the moment settle over him. The Falcon had seen him. Had marked him. And now he was meant to follow the man through the streets of London without being noticed.

He thought of his bed at Morland, of the soft feather mattress and the warm quilts, of the long, blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep that awaited him there.

It seemed a very distant dream.

“Then I shall have to be cleverer than he is,” Edmund said, tucking the paper into his doublet. “Which, given my reputation, should not be difficult.”

Walsingham’s eyes glinted. “See that you are. The fate of this realm may depend on it.”

Edmund turned toward the door, then paused. “Cecily,” he said. “She will meet me at the house?”

“She will. And Morland—trust her. Whatever secrets she carries, she carries them for a reason.”

Edmund nodded, though the unease in his chest did not ease. He stepped out into the rain, pulling his hood low, and began to walk toward the Tower.

Somewhere ahead of him, a man called the Falcon was flying.

And for the first time in his life, Edmund Ashworth, the Lazy Earl, was the hunter rather than the hunted.

He yawned.

It was going to be a very long morning.