The Secretary continued. “It would seem our hidden player has learned, as we all have, that to approach the Queen directly is less than productive; he more often acts through courtiers — or perhaps even her ladies. But there are times when I can think of no explanation save that he had secret conference with her Majesty, and persuaded her thus.”
“Within the last two years?”
Walsingham’s dark gaze met Deven’s again. “Yes.”
“Ralegh.”
“He is not the first courtier her Majesty has taken to her bosom without naming him to the council; indeed, I sometimes think she delights in confounding us by consulting others. But we know those individuals, and account for them. It is not Ralegh, nor any other we can see.”
Deven cast his mind over all those with the right of access to the presence and privy chambers, all those with whom he had seen the Queen walk in the gardens. Every name he suggested, Walsingham eliminated. “But your eye is a good one,” the Secretary said, with a wry smile. “There is a reason I took you into my service.”
He had been pondering this matter since Deven’s appearance at court? Since before then, from the sound of it; Deven should not be surprised to find himself a pawn in this game. Or, to switch metaphors, a hound, used to tease out the scent of prey. Yet a poor hound he was turning out to be. Deven let his breath out slowly. “Then, my lord, by your arguments, there are a number of people it cannot be, but a great many more who it might be. Those you can set aside are a few drops against an ocean of possibilities.”
“Were it not so,” Walsingham said, his voice flat once more, “I had found him out years ago.”
Accepting this rebuke, Deven hung his head.
“But,” the Secretary went on, “I am not defeated yet. If I cannot find this fellow by logic, I will track him to his lair — by seeing where he moves next.”
Now, at last, they were coming to the true reason Walsingham had picked up that first chess piece and asked about the Queen of Scots. Deven did not mind playing the role of the Secretary’s hound, when set to such a compelling task. And he even knew his quarry. “Ireland.”
“Ireland,” Walsingham agreed.
With these recent revelations in mind, Deven tried to see the hand of a hidden player in the events surrounding Perrot, Fitzwilliam, and Tyrone. Yet again the muddle defeated him.
“I do not think our player has chosen a course yet,” Walsingham said when he admitted this. “I had suspected him the author of the accusation against Perrot, but what you have uncovered makes me question it. There are oppositions to that accusation I did not expect, that might also be this unknown man’s doing.”
Deven weighed this. “Then perhaps he is playing a longer game. If, as you say, he manipulated events surrounding the Queen of Scots, he has no aversion to spending years in reaching his goal.”
“Indeed.” Walsingham passed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I suspect he is laying the foundations for some future move. Which is cautious of him, and wise, especially if he wishes his hand to remain unseen. But his caution also gives us time in which to track him.”
“I will keep listening,” Deven said, with more enthusiasm than he had felt when he said it before. Now that he knew what to listen for, the task was far more engaging. And he did not want to disappoint the trust Walsingham had shown him, revealing this unsolved riddle in the first place. “Your hidden player must be good, to have remained unseen for so long, but everyone makes mistakes eventually. And when he does, we will find him.”
MEMORY: December 1585
The man had hardly stepped onto the dock at Rye when he found two burly fellows on either side of him and a third in front, smiling broadly and without warmth. “You’re to come with us,” the smiler said. “By orders of the Principal Secretary.”
The two knaves took hold of the traveler’s elbows. Their captive seemed unassuming enough: a young man, either clean-shaven or the sort who cannot grow a beard under any circumstances, dressed well but not extravagantly. The ship had come from France, though, and in these perilous times that was almost reason enough on its own to suspect him. These men were not searchers, authorized to ransack incoming ships for contraband or Catholic propaganda; they had come for him.
He was one man against three. The captive shrugged and said, “I am at the Secretary’s disposal.”
“Too right you are,” one of the thugs muttered, and they marched him off the dock into the squalid streets of Rye.
With their captive in custody, the men rode north and west, under a gray and half-frozen sky. Three cold, miserable days brought them to a private house near the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, and the next day brought a knock at the door. The leader muttered, “Not before time, either,” and went to open it.
Sir Francis Walsingham stepped through, shaking out the folds of his dark cloak. Outside, two men-at-arms took up station on either side of the door. Walsingham did not look back to them, nor at the men he had hired, though he unpinned the cloak and handed it off to one of those men. His eyes were on the captive, who had risen and offered a bow. It was difficult to tell whether the bow was meant to be mocking, or whether the awkwardness of his bound hands led to that impression.
“Master Secretary,” the captive said. “I would offer you hospitality, but your men have taken all my possessions — and besides, the house isn’t mine.”
Walsingham ignored the sarcasm. He gestured for the two thugs to depart but their leader to remain, and when the three of them were alone in the room, he held up a letter taken from the captive, its seal carefully lifted. “Gilbert Gifford. You came here from France, bearing a letter from the Catholic conspirator Thomas Morgan to the dethroned Queen of Scots — a letter that recommends you to her as a trustworthy ally. I trust you recognize what the consequences for this might be.”
“I do,” Gifford said. “I also recognize that if those consequences were your intent, you would not have come here to speak privately with me. So shall we skip the threats and intimidation, and move on to the true matter at hand?”
The Principal Secretary studied him for a long moment. His dark eyes were unreadable in their nest of crow’s-feet. Then he sat in one of the room’s few chairs and gestured for Gifford to take the other, while Walsingham’s man came forward and unbound his hands.
When this was done, Walsingham said, “You speak like a man who intends to offer something.”
“And you speak like one who intends to negotiate for something.” Gifford flexed his hands and examined them, then laid them carefully along the arms of the chair. “In plain terms, my position is this: I come bearing that letter of recommendation, yes, and have every intention of putting it to use. What I have not yet determined is the use to which I will put it.”
“You offer your services.”
Gifford shrugged. “I have taken stock of the other side. No doubt you have a file somewhere detailing it all, Douai, Rome, Rheims—”
“You became a deacon of the Catholic church in April.”
“I would be disappointed if you did not know. Yes, I studied at their seminaries, and achieved some status therein. Had I not, Morgan would not now be recommending me to Mary Stewart. But if you know of those things, you also know of my conflicts with my supposed allies.”
“I am aware of them.” Walsingham sat quietly, with none of the fidgeting that marked lesser men. “You mean to say, then, that these conflicts of yours were a sign of true disaffection, and that your recent status was achieved in order to gain their trust.”