Chapter 56: The Price of the Queen’s Favour

The dawn came grey and damp over the Thames, the river a sheet of hammered pewter beneath a sky that promised rain. Edmund stood at the window of Walsingham’s chamber in Seething Lane, watching the barges slide past like water beetles, and wished, with a fervour that surprised him, for the simple comfort of his own featherbed at Morland.

Walsingham sat at his desk, the list of ships spread before him like a dead thing awaiting dissection. His quill hovered, then scratched a marginal note. He did not look up.

“Leicester’s own transports,” he murmured, more to himself than to Edmund. “Marked for interception. The Spanish would not sink them, you understand. They would take them. Use them to land their own soldiers on English beaches, dressed in English wool, speaking English oaths. The invasion would be over before a single beacon was lit.”

Edmund turned from the window. “The Falcon did not intend for us to find this. He meant to kill me in that chapel. The satchel was a burden, not a gift.”

“And yet you have it.” Walsingham’s eyes lifted, sharp as shards of glass. “You have a talent for stumbling into truths that other men must dig for with their bare hands.”

“I stumbled into a knife, too,” Edmund said dryly. “The Falcon’s blade remembers my shoulder well enough.”

Walsingham permitted himself the ghost of a smile. “Then you will be pleased to know that your next task requires no swordplay. Only conversation.”

Edmund’s stomach tightened. “With whom?”

“The Queen.” Walsingham folded the list and tucked it into his doublet. “She has summoned you to Richmond. She wishes to speak of Leicester’s command, and of certain rumours that have reached her ear.”

“Rumours?”

“That her favourite’s fleet is compromised. That his name appears on a traitor’s ledger. That a lazy earl with an eye for puzzles has uncovered what her Privy Council could not.” Walsingham rose, his joints creaking like old timbers. “She will ask you what you know. You will tell her. And you will not mention the Falcon’s true master until I have confirmed it.”

“The one who sleeps beside the Queen,” Edmund said slowly. “You know who it is.”

Walsingham’s face was a mask of stone. “I know what the ledger says. I do not yet know what it means. The Queen sleeps alone, Edmund. That is a fact. Unless the Falcon’s master is a ghost, or a metaphor, or something else entirely.”

“Or someone who has access to her chambers at night,” Edmund pressed. “A lady of the bedchamber. A physician. A guard.”

“I have considered them all. And I have found nothing.” Walsingham moved toward the door, then paused. “There is another possibility. One I do not wish to contemplate. But if the Falcon’s master is not a person, but a place—a room, a passage, a hidden stair that leads to the Queen’s own bedchamber—then we are not hunting a man. We are hunting a door.”

The words settled over Edmund like a cold shroud. He thought of the blue door in London, of Cecily’s mother behind it, of the many doors he had passed through in the past months, each one opening onto a deeper darkness.

“Then we must find the door before it opens,” he said.

Walsingham nodded. “We must. But first, you will charm our sovereign. She is not in a forgiving mood. Essex has been whispering against Leicester, and Leicester against Essex, and the Queen is caught between two stallions. She needs a man who asks for nothing, who desires no office, who wants only to return to his estate and sleep until the threat has passed.”

“That is not a pretence,” Edmund said. “That is the simple truth.”

“Which is precisely why she will trust you.” Walsingham opened the door. “A horse awaits. The tide favours us to Richmond. Say nothing of the Falcon. Say nothing of the ledger’s last line. Speak only of the ships, and of Leicester’s danger.”

Edmund followed him into the corridor, his mind churning. The Queen’s favour was a dangerous currency, and he had spent too much of it already.

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Richmond Palace rose from the river like a jewel set in green velvet, its towers catching the first true light of the morning. Edmund was led through a maze of galleries and anterooms, past courtiers who eyed him with the careful neutrality of men who had learned not to show their cards. At last, he was ushered into a small chamber overlooking the privy garden, where Elizabeth sat at a table scattered with papers and the remains of a breakfast barely touched.

She looked older than he remembered. The lines at her eyes had deepened, and her famous auburn hair was threaded with grey that the wigmakers could not wholly hide. But her gaze, when it found him, was as sharp as a blade.

“My lord of Morland,” she said, her voice carrying the familiar edge of command. “You have been busy.”

Edmund knelt. “Your Majesty’s service is its own reward.”

“Flattery will not spare you.” She gestured for him to rise. “I have heard that you have uncovered a list of ships. My ships. Bound for the Low Countries, where my cousin Leicester commands my army. Tell me what you know.”

He told her. He kept his account simple, stripped of the labyrinth of codes and corpses that had brought him to this moment. He spoke of intercepted letters, of a traitor’s ledger, of a plot to deliver Leicester’s transports into Spanish hands. He watched her face as he spoke, and saw the calculation behind her eyes.

When he finished, she was silent for a long moment. Then she set her hands flat on the table.

“You believe Leicester is a traitor?”

“No, Your Majesty. I believe Leicester is a target. Someone wishes to destroy him, and to destroy your army in the Netherlands. The ships are the means. The blame would fall on him, and you would lose both your general and your campaign in a single stroke.”

She studied him with an intensity that made him want to look away. “You are very certain of yourself for a man who claimed to want nothing more than his afternoon nap.”

“Your Majesty, I have had very few naps of late. It has done wonders for my clarity.”

A flicker of amusement crossed her face, there and gone. “Walsingham speaks highly of you. That is rare. He trusts few men, and fewer lords.”

“I am not sure ‘trust’ is the word he would use. Perhaps ‘tolerate’.”

“A man who understands the difference is a man I can use.” She rose, and came to stand before him. She was small, but she seemed to fill the room. “I will send word to Leicester. He will double the guard on his transports. But if you are wrong—if this list is a forgery, or a trick—then I will have you answer for it.”

“I am not wrong, Your Majesty.”

“And if you are right?” she asked, her voice dropping. “If there is a traitor in my court, one who sleeps beside me, as your ledger suggests—what then?”

Edmund’s blood ran cold. She knew. She knew of the ledger’s last line.

“Then we must find the door,” he said, “before it opens.”

She held his gaze for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, and turned away.

“Go, my lord. Find your door. And when you do, I trust you will knock before you enter.”

He bowed and withdrew, his heart hammering. As he reached the door, she called after him.

“Morland. One more thing.”

He turned.

“The Falcon. You have faced him twice and lived. That is either great fortune or great skill. I would know which.”

Edmund met her eyes. “So would I, Your Majesty. So would I.”

He left her standing in the morning light, and wondered if he would ever see the sun rise again without looking for shadows in it.