I ran my tongue around my teeth to find my mouth dry. ‘I had hoped to finish a new book in Wittenberg this summer,’ I said, and heard how feeble the excuse sounded. ‘Gentili has offered—’
‘He has offered you a place there, I know. You could still take it up in the autumn, if you would spend a few weeks here and do me this one favour. I will write to Gentili – he will understand.’
I took a long drink of Walsingham’s good wine, tilting the glass so that the liquid glowed ruby in the candlelight and the Murano crystal shimmered as if it were made of nothing but air. Finally I raised my head and met his eye. I had run out of excuses.
‘What would you have me do?’
Lady Sidney gave a little squeal of delight and sat back in her chair, clasping her hands together. Walsingham continued to study me, his face grave. At length, he turned to his daughter.
‘You have your wish, Frances. Now you must leave this in my hands, the details are not for your ears. And make no mention of Bruno’s coming here in your letters to Philip, unless you want to compromise the whole business.’
‘I am not a fool, Father.’ Her lip curled with scorn as she pushed her chair back. ‘Do you forget I was born to double-dealing?’ She stood and turned to me, bobbing a brief curtsy. ‘Give you good night, Bruno. And thank you. I am more grateful than you can know.’
Born to double-dealing, I thought, as the door clicked shut behind her. It was a phrase I had heard before; Walsingham had used it of Charles Paget, whose father, Lord Paget, had been spymaster to Queen Elizabeth’s father, the last King Henry. What must it be, to grow up in a world where counterfeiting is a language you learn from childhood, and everyone you know wears at least two faces? I had developed a grudging respect for Paget in my encounters with him, though I knew he would have let me die without a second thought if it had suited him.
‘Bruno? Are you with us?’
I shook myself free of memories and focused on Walsingham at the other end of the table. I noticed again how thin his face had grown.
‘At your service, Your Honour. You need to know who killed Clara Poole. I suppose you assume it was this Babington or one of his associates?’
He rubbed a hand across his beard and paused before answering.
‘I need more than that. Clara was my most trusted source on the inside of that plot. She delivered intelligence reliably on their intentions – it was how I could be sure the business was not advancing beyond my ability to control it. You can imagine how carefully this must be balanced.’
I nodded. No wonder he looked as if he didn’t sleep. It was one thing to allow an assassination plot to unfold in order to entrap Mary Stuart in an act of treason; quite another if that plot should succeed because he failed to monitor it closely enough. ‘Does the Queen know of this Babington conspiracy?’
‘No.’ His face darkened. ‘And she will have no need to, until it is all set down on paper and her royal cousin on trial, if our skill and God’s Providence serve. I have one other reporting to me from among the conspirators, but lately I am not certain his loyalty is wholly mine. I need someone’ – he raised a forefinger and levelled it at me – ‘to join Babington and his friends. Find out why Clara was killed. I have no doubt that one among them suspected her – but I need to know if all were behind her murder, or one took it upon himself to act alone, and how much each one knows. If they think she betrayed their plot, they may change tactics, or put it off until a later date, and that we cannot afford. I don’t have that kind of time.’ He broke off and reached for his glass, coughing as he swallowed.
‘Your Honour –’ I leaned forward, alarmed – ‘are you ill? I hope you don’t mean—’
‘Look at me, Bruno.’ He slumped back in his chair, drained. ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So damnably weak, and growing weaker by the day. If any apothecary could make me a philtre that would wind the clock back ten years, I would sell everything I own to buy it.’ A ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. He examined the backs of his hands and did not meet my eye. ‘I have given the best of my energies to keep this realm safe, free and Protestant, and I will do so until my last breath, but I can’t go on like this forever. I must and will see the Queen of Scots brought to the block as my last act of service to Elizabeth.’ One hand curled into a fist. ‘With her death, England’s enemies will be scattered. Then I could close my eyes with a degree of peace.’
They would soon regroup, I thought. Instead I said, ‘Your Honour, I hope and pray these fears are premature. You are only—’ I stopped to calculate his age. Barely old enough to be my father, though in some ways I had come to think of him in that role.
‘This is my fifty-sixth summer, Bruno.’ He sat up straighter, toying with the stem of his glass.
‘Well, then. Unless a physician has told you otherwise, there is no reason to think you will not go on serving the realm for another three decades.’ I tried to sound buoyant, but his eyes clouded.
‘I need no physician to tell me what I feel in here.’ He struck his chest. ‘But enough self-pity. I tell you only so that you understand the urgency. I must know why Clara Poole was killed, and what Babington will do next. This Jesuit priest Mendoza is sending to join the conspirators …’
‘What of him?’
‘You will be him.’
I had guessed this was where he was tending. I closed my eyes to escape his intense stare.
‘Your Honour, it’s impossible that I could pass myself off as this man without suspicion. I am known in London—’
‘Not as well as you think,’ he cut in. He had clearly anticipated this objection. ‘It is almost a year since you were last here. You were known at the French embassy when you lodged there, I grant, but since Ambassador Castelnau was recalled to Paris, his household staff returned with him and it’s not as if the new ambassador has your portrait hanging over the mantel. There are few Londoners who could identify you if they passed you in the street.’
‘I am known by some at court,’ I said feebly.
‘Your name is known in select circles, perhaps. But you will not be going by your own name, and it is no great work to change your appearance. Besides, you will be nowhere near the court – Babington’s group hide themselves in taverns and brothels, and meet in lodging houses. There is no reason anyone should connect this Spanish Jesuit with the Italian scholar Giordano Bruno, if you remember not to provoke arguments about Aristotle.’
I noted the glint of humour in his eye.
‘We don’t know anything about this Jesuit. He could be seventy years old. He could be famous for having one leg. Ballard might have met him already in Paris, for God’s sake – they would know I was an imposter the minute I walked through the door.’
Walsingham straightened, a knowing smile creasing his face. ‘I doubt Mendoza would send a man of seventy, or one hampered by the loss of a leg, but these are matters we can check. There’s no evidence from Paget’s letter that either he or Ballard have met this man. There is only one person among the conspirators who would know that you are an imposter.’
‘Then the plan is over before it is begun, if one of them knows me. Who?’
‘You’ll enjoy this. The only associate of the Babington group who will know you’re not the priest is Master Gilbert Gifford.’
‘Gifford?’ I stared at him, incredulous. I had encountered Gifford in Paris the previous autumn; a gawky, anxious youth whose father had been imprisoned