“Is he back at court already?”
“Shamelessly. Closeted all night with her, playing tables and primero, paying her sweet compliments, dancing until dawn. He keeps her amused. The years roll off her shoulders and England is the better for it. But he knows he is found out and will forever be watched. His coven can stir their cauldron as they wish, but they are figures of jest. The She-wolf paces in lonely exile in the Midlands. Penelope cavorts with her amour in her black-draped chamber. As to Southampton and the others, they sleep at night with aching necks, thinking how close they came to the axe.”
Shakespeare took a sip of wine. “And what of Sir Walter?”
“He is back in the Tower. I am sure he would not be content to have the massacre of the Roanoke colony bruited about, for it would leave him in a yet more parlous state, his patent from the Queen turned to ashes.”
“Do you wish it advertised, Sir Robert?”
“You know me better than that, John.”
Indeed, Shakespeare had been reflecting on how like Sir Francis Walsingham his new employer was. Both men shared an extreme, almost cold level of caution. In their world of intelligencing, knowledge was all, and to be guarded jealously. Cecil would not want word of the Roanoke slaughter to see the light. Ralegh must be freed and his rivalry with Essex nurtured. That way both men would be weakened, leaving the course free for Cecil. To that end, Eleanor Dare must be silenced.
“She will stay in the North Country,” Shakespeare assured him. “She is living with my wife’s mother and contents herself with her inks and quills and parchments. I do believe she wishes naught but peace and solitude.”
“And we shall wink at the death of Mr. McGunn. What of the brother-in-law?”
“Foxley Dare continues to pursue a claim that his brother be declared dead so that he and the boy may inherit the property. He would not wish a counter-claim. Anyway, who would believe a man with a reputation for swiving geese?”
Cecil did not smile. “The important thing is that McGunn is dead. It is now clear how widespread and malign was his influence. In Mr. Secretary’s day, such an insect would have been squashed underfoot long since. You will ensure such men never hold sway in this realm again, John.”
Shakespeare had considered McGunn’s role. He had been the hub of an infernal wheel, whose spokes touched lives in terrible ways: the tragedy of the Roanoke colonists; his funding of the Essex treachery; the corruption of Christopher Morley; Winterberry and the Le Neves. All spokes led back to McGunn. But Shakespeare also found himself wondering about the event that lay behind it all-the pitiless killing of his wife at a small rocky outcrop of Ireland known as Smerwick. He asked Cecil about it-was there truth in the claim that Ralegh had blood on his hands?
“I do believe so,” Cecil said. “My father told me that Ralegh carried out the killings with grim efficiency, watching his soldiers hewing and punching six hundred unarmed and bound men, and hanging pregnant women. They were cruel days. Ralegh’s half-brother, Humphrey Gilbert, had a row of Irish heads lining the path to his tent. I heard also that when Ralegh caught an Irishman stealing willow branches from an English camp, he demanded to know what they were for. ‘To hang English churls,’ the man said. Ralegh had him strung up there and then, saying the branches would serve as well for an insolent Irishman. I cannot stomach such things, which is why I strive for peace, not war. That is what you sign up to, John, when you agree to assist me. You understand that?”
“We are as one, Sir Robert. Except…”
“Except my use of Mr. Topcliffe. I believe you had the same problem when you worked for Mr. Secretary Walsingham.”
The anger rose in Shakespeare’s gullet. “I have to speak plain, Sir Robert. The man tried to ensnare my wife. He takes pleasure in torture. He has raped the young Bellamy woman. He conspired with the poisonous Morley. I say that Topcliffe is worse than any of England’s enemies.”
“Sit down, John,” Cecil ordered. “Let me tell you that I share your feelings. And yet…”
“There is no ‘and yet,’ Sir Robert.”
“And yet I need Mr. Topcliffe, just as Mr. Secretary needed him. There is no doubting his loyalty to the crown or to England.”
“He is a man who does not balk at torture, rape, and murder.”
“Enough, John. Sit down.” The Privy Councillor’s voice became quieter. “Please, listen to me. These are desperate times. Spain will come with a yet more powerful fleet next spring or summer. And her agents continue to worm their way into the body of England-in secret ways which it is our task to stop. You are my longbow in this, John-but Topcliffe is the poison tip of my arrow.”
Cecil, small and precise and still, never lost his composure as he spoke. Their eyes met. At last Cecil smiled and reached out his hand in friendship. “Come, John, we need each other. Let us speak of pleasanter things. Let us speak of a bright future for England. I need you-and I believe you need me.”
Historical Note
Queen Elizabeth is a bit-part player in this novel, yet her relationship with twenty-four-year-old Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, stands at the heart of the story-and of the late Tudor age itself.
What did the fifty-eight-year-old sovereign want from this ambitious yet hopelessly inadequate young man? Yes, she loved his charm and good looks, but I believe she also enjoyed goading his beautiful mother, Lettice, the cousin she despised for marrying her own great love, Leicester. It was as if she were saying “You may have won Leicester, but I have your son.”
And what did Essex want from Elizabeth? He wanted money, because he was desperately short of the stuff, and he wanted power. Indeed, he wanted her job, as the world was to discover with his wretched coup attempt in 1601.
At his trial, Sir Robert Cecil accused him: “You would depose the Queen. You would be King of England.” The Earl of Northumberland asserted that Essex “wore the crown of England in his heart these many years.”
Essex’s “affair” with Elizabeth-and his deadly rivalry with both Cecil and Ralegh-dominated the Queen’s declining years. The Earl had become her favorite courtier in 1587, yet the cracks were immediately apparent. In the summer of that year, they had a furious and very public quarrel that set the scene for many rows to come.
That first fight was over the Queen’s snub of his sister Dorothy when she was barred from the royal presence for a perceived misdemeanor. In a rage, Essex accused Elizabeth of listening to gossip from his rival Sir Walter Ralegh. The more he insulted Ralegh (who had nothing to do with the snub), the more the Queen threw back insults against Essex’s mother, Lettice.
Essex stormed out in the middle of the night, taking Dorothy with him. The Queen sent a courtier after him to apologize and ask him back. And so the morbid, hot-and-cold affair of the aging Queen and the moody young swain began. He would walk out and sulk; she would beg him to come back.
Yet she never trusted him with the power he craved. He continually demanded promotion, but she invariably gave the best jobs to someone else and, in doing so, fed his paranoia.
He often defied her. During his 1591 military campaign in northern France, he knighted twenty-four officers against the express orders of the Queen. When she heard what he had done, she was livid. She would not normally knight half that number in a whole year, and he hadn’t even won a battle, let alone a war.
The year of Essex’s “cheap knights” was the beginning of his drive for the top. By giving knighthoods-as he was entitled to do when leading an expeditionary force-he was buying loyalty. The following year, Essex set about becoming a statesman. He took on the Bacon brothers, Francis and Anthony, and they advised him that intelligence-gathering was the way to make a political impact.