Chapter 75: The Falcon's Nest at Plymouth

The *Swiftsure* came into Plymouth harbour on the evening tide, her sails furled and her decks scrubbed clean of the Channel's salt. Edmund stood at the rail, watching the town rise from the water like a grey beast shaking off sleep. The harbour bristled with masts—merchantmen, fisher boats, and the lean shapes of privateers waiting for letters of marque. Beyond them, the Hoe climbed toward the sky, and on its crest, the new fortifications cut dark lines against the fading light.

"Sir Francis's man will meet us at the Sign of the Anchor," Cecily said, coming to stand beside him. She had borrowed a sailor's cloak and wore her hair bound tight beneath a cap. In the dusk, she might have passed for a boy, save for the way she held herself—straight-backed, unafraid, as though she had walked into a hundred harbours and feared none of them.

"You memorised the instructions."

"I memorised everything Walsingham's clerk said. It is a useful habit." She glanced at him sideways. "You should try it."

"I memorise only what is pleasant. Lute melodies. The flavour of Gascon wine. The precise angle of a pillow beneath my head."

"And yet here you are, in Plymouth, with the Armada three weeks out and a traitor in the Queen's bedchamber."

Edmund sighed. "The world is determined to interrupt my leisure."

They descended the gangplank into the crowd of dockworkers, fishwives, and alehouse runners that thronged the quay. Edmund kept his hand near his sword, though he doubted he would use it well. He was a passable swordsman—laziness had never prevented him from learning what might one day preserve his skin—but he preferred puzzles to parries.

The Sign of the Anchor stood two streets back from the water, a low-beamed tavern that smelled of tar and old ale. Inside, a fire burned in the hearth despite the summer evening, and a handful of men sat at tables, speaking in the low voices of those who did not wish to be overheard.

A man in a brown doublet rose from a corner table as they entered. He was thin, with the pinched face of a clerk and the quick eyes of a man who had learned to read rooms before reading ledgers.

"Master Ashworth?"

"Lord Morland," Edmund said, with the mild reproach of a man who had been born to a title and never quite forgiven the world for it.

The clerk flushed. "My lord. I am Thomas Kyd, in the service of Sir Francis. I have rooms prepared for you near the citadel, and a report of all shipping movements these past three weeks."

"Later," Edmund said. "First, tell me what you know of a woman called Blanche."

Kyd's face went carefully blank. "Blanche, my lord?"

"You heard me."

"I know of no one by that name in Plymouth."

"Then you are either useless or lying," Edmund said pleasantly. "I have not yet decided which. But I am tired, and my patience is a finite resource."

Cecily touched his arm. "Let us sit. Master Kyd, some wine, if you please."

They took a table near the fire. Kyd brought wine and a platter of bread and cheese, and for a few minutes, Edmund ate in silence, watching the room. The men at the other tables had the look of sailors and merchants, but one—a broad-shouldered fellow in a dark coat—sat alone, nursing a single cup, his eyes fixed on the door.

"Master Kyd," Edmund said at last, "the woman I seek may not use the name Blanche here. She may be a maid, a laundress, a keeper of linens. She would be of an age with the Queen, or perhaps a little younger. She would have come to Plymouth recently, or perhaps she has been here for years, waiting."

Kyd's eyes flickered. "There is a woman at the citadel. A seamstress. She mends the officers' uniforms and the flags. Her name is Margaret, but the soldiers call her the Grey Lady, because she wears no colour."

"Why do they call her that?"

"Because she never smiles," Kyd said. "And because she has been here longer than anyone can remember. Some say she came with the first garrison, twenty years ago."

Edmund set down his cup. "Where does she lodge?"

"Above the smithy on Mill Street. But my lord—she is a harmless old woman. She mends shirts."

"Harmless old women do not interest me," Edmund said. "But women with twenty years of patience do."

He rose. Cecily rose with him, and Kyd scrambled to his feet.

"My lord, shall I summon an escort? The streets are not safe after dark."

"The streets are never safe," Edmund said. "That is why I brought a widow with a sharp tongue and a sharper knife."

Outside, the night had drawn in close, and the lanterns along the quay bobbed like fireflies. They walked up the hill toward Mill Street, past shuttered shops and houses where candlelight leaked through the cracks in the shutters. The air smelled of the sea and of smoke from the fort, where the garrison kept watch for Spanish sails.

"You think this Grey Lady is Blanche," Cecily said quietly.

"I think she is a thread. Whether she leads to the woman in the Queen's bedchamber or to the Falcon himself, I do not yet know." He paused. "But I mean to pull it."

Mill Street was narrow and dark, the smithy closed for the night. Above it, a single window showed a faint light. Edmund climbed the outer stair and knocked.

The door opened a crack. A woman's face appeared—old, weathered, with eyes like chips of flint. She looked at Edmund, then at Cecily, and something moved behind her gaze. Recognition. Or fear.

"My lord Morland," she said. "I wondered when you would come."

Edmund's blood went cold. "You know me."

"I know your uncle," she said. "Thomas Ashworth. He came here, years ago, with a message from the Spanish. He asked me to wait. To watch. To keep the Queen's secrets until the day came." She opened the door wider. "I have been waiting ever since."

Cecily's hand moved to her knife. "Waiting for what?"

The Grey Lady smiled, and it was the saddest smile Edmund had ever seen. "For the sign. The Falcon's sign. And now it has come."

She stepped back, and the light from within fell on a table covered with scraps of cloth—and among them, a letter sealed with a crest Edmund knew. The crest of the Earl of Essex.

"Come in," the Grey Lady said. "We have much to discuss before the dawn."