Chapter 80: The Gravesend Enquiry

The road to Gravesend ran flat and grey beneath a sky the colour of wet slate. Edmund rode with his hat pulled low and his thoughts lower still, the letter from his father—if the dead man who had written it could be called that—folded against his breast like a stone he had swallowed and could not digest.

Cecily matched his pace without speaking. She had learned, in the months of their strange partnership, when silence served better than questions. The river widened beside them, a broad brown ribbon carrying barges and wherries toward the sea, and gulls wheeled overhead crying out like lost souls.

They reached the town by midday, its wharves crowded with hoys and lighters, the air thick with tar and fish and the particular sourness of hemp. Edmund dismounted at an inn called the Ship and Compass, where a boy took their horses and a landlord with one eye and no curiosity took their coin.

“We need a man who knew Thomas Ashworth,” Edmund said, when they were seated in a corner with bowls of indifferent pottage. “Twenty years dead, or presumed so. A sailor, perhaps. Someone who was there when he drowned.”

Cecily tore a piece of bread. “Or when he did not drown.”

“Just so.”

“Your father wrote that he gave something of value before the Falcon killed him. What does a man give, who has spent twenty years as a Spanish creature?”

Edmund stared into his bowl. “Information. Names. Perhaps the very list that led us to Plymouth.”

“Or a lie.”

“Or a lie,” he agreed.

They spent the afternoon in the taverns along the waterfront, Edmund asking questions with the easy indolence of a man who had nothing better to do, Cecily watching faces, noting who flinched, who looked away, who leaned in too eagerly. By evening they had a name: Martin Crosse, a former master of a coastal trader, now retired to a cottage near the church, who had sailed with Thomas Ashworth in the old days and had been heard to speak of him only when deep in drink.

The cottage was small and neat, its garden overgrown with rosemary and rue. Martin Crosse was a big man gone to fat, his hands still calloused, his eyes clouded with cataracts but sharp enough when Edmund mentioned the name.

“Thomas Ashworth,” he said, and spat into the fire. “There’s a name I hoped never to hear again.”

“You knew him.”

“Knew him? I sailed with him for seven years. A better navigator never drew breath. And a worse traitor never drew the same.” He drank from a leather cup and wiped his mouth. “You’ll be the nephew, then. You have his look about the eyes.”

Edmund did not deny it. “Tell me what happened.”

Crosse stared into the flames. “It was the year of the Northern Rebellion. We were bound for Antwerp with a cargo of wool. Thomas had been… strange, for months. Meeting men in low places. Writing letters he burned. I thought it was a woman.” He laughed without humour. “It was a woman, in a manner of speaking. The Church of Rome, dressed in Spanish gold.”

“He was turned.”

“Turned, bought, whatever you like. He had a plan to deliver the ship to the Spanish. I found out. We fought. He went over the side in a squall off the Scheldt, and I let him drown.” Crosse’s voice was flat. “Or thought I did. Two years later, I heard a rumour in Dunkirk. A man answering his description, working for the Spanish intelligence. I drank myself blind for a week and never spoke of it again.”

“Until now.”

“You’re the first to ask.”

Edmund leaned forward. “He wrote to me before he died. He said he had given something of value. Do you know what that might be?”

Crosse was silent a long moment. Then he rose and went to a chest in the corner, lifting out a small iron box. “He left this with me, the night before he went over the side. Said if he did not return, I was to keep it. I never opened it. I did not want to know.”

He handed it to Edmund. The box was heavy, its lock rusted shut. Edmund drew his knife and forced it. Inside lay a folded paper, brittle with age, and a small silver medal of the Virgin.

He unfolded the paper. It was a list of names—English names, with sums of money beside them. And at the bottom, in his father’s hand: *For the deliverance of England from the heretic queen. The twentieth of August, 1586.*

“The same date,” Cecily said quietly.

Edmund nodded. “My father was not merely a traitor. He was the architect.” He looked at Crosse. “The man who killed him—the Falcon. Did you ever see him?”

Crosse’s face went grey. “Once. On the dock at Dunkirk. A tall man, scarred here.” He touched his cheek. “He asked me if I knew where Thomas Ashworth’s family lived. I told him I did not know. I lied.”

“He believed you?”

“He believed me enough not to cut my throat.” Crosse met Edmund’s eyes. “You should not be asking these questions, my lord. The Falcon is not a man. He is a plague.”

“So I have heard.”

They rode back to the inn in the dark, the river a black mirror beside them. In their chamber, Edmund spread the list on the table. Twenty-three names. Some were familiar—recusant families, Catholic gentry. Others he did not know. But one name at the bottom, written in a different hand, made his blood run cold.

*Blanche Courtenay.*

Cecily leaned over his shoulder. “The woman who sleeps beside the Queen.”

“Her name was on my father’s list. She was part of the plot from the beginning.” He stared at the paper. “And she is in the royal bedchamber, with a knife’s edge between her and the Queen’s throat.”

“Then we must return to London at once.”

“No.” Edmund folded the paper carefully. “First we go to the twentieth of August. The date my father wrote. If the Armada is to come, it must have a signal. A beacon. Something that will tell the Spanish fleet that England is ripe for the taking.”

“The Falcon’s ledger spoke of a signal.”

“And my father’s list gives us the names of those who will light it.” He looked at Cecily. “We cannot stop the Armada. But we can stop the signal. And if we stop the signal, we buy the Queen time.”

Cecily was silent. Then she said, “You are not the man I met in London.”

“No,” Edmund said. “I am his son.”

Outside, the wind had risen, blowing from the south. Toward Spain. Toward the twentieth of August. And somewhere in the dark, a hawk was flying, and the river carried its shadow toward the sea.