O my most dread sovereign, my liege lady, I can barely endure the
passage of days that must elapse until the moment, when, face to face,
I meet you and deliver you into freedom.
He sighed. It was true. Every moment between now and then seemed
wasted, foolish, worthless.
Outside it was growing faintly light. The June nights were short. He
could hear the slightly different sounds that distinguished early
morning from the dead, still hours of night. There was a rustling, a
quickening.
Three houses away from his stood the dwelling of the ambassador
representing Frederick II of Denmark. Remembering that caused a shadow
to pass over his joy. Bothwell. Everything she touches seems to fail.
Or die.
But everything dies, he thought. To die in a noble cause is a
privilege. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.
Still, perhaps I should take the precaution of securing a passport for
leaving England. If the plot fails, it would certainly be nobler to
flee to safety and make other plots, than to be taken here like a
rabbit in a trap. Once the plot has failed, there is no point in dying
for it.
TWENTY-THREE
Walsingham walked slowly to his main office, the one where anyone could
walk in off the street and request a passport or import licence, or any
of the thousand and one legitimate concerns of Elizabeth's loyal
subjects. In this office, not far from his home, he had three
assistants, who were busy all the time. One entire room was devoted to
storing the records of these transactions; like everything Walsingham
touched, it was methodical and neat. He was most proud of it; after
all, Parliament had no permanent storage place for its records imagine!
he would think, when he saw Parliamentary clerks scurrying about with
the books tucked under their arms, looking for a place to stash them
safely.
Now, as he made his way through the London streets in high summer, he
prayed that no outbreak of plague would strike, as it often did at this
season. This was not the summer to be interrupted; no, not when they
were so close to success. The ingredients were curdling together now,
setting like a baked pudding. Only a little longer .. .
All around him, stenches rose from the garbage in the gutters. The hot
July sun seemed to draw the very humours of decay and rottenness out
into the air; no wonder the court left London in summer. Dead rats and
discarded offal lay in iridescent gleams, crawling with flies. He
turned his head away and walked faster, dodging a lumbering cart that
squashed all the refuse under its wooden wheels, releasing even more
odours.
He was grateful to reach his office, an island of cleanliness and
order. His three clerks were already at their desks, and looked up
respectfully. He nodded to them and retreated to his inner office.
He was reviewing the recent agreement with the Bordeaux shippers about
maximum tonnage when there was a knock at the door, and it opened
hesitantly.
"Yes?" said Walsingham, annoyed at having been interrupted. But the
annoyance faded as he saw who it was. He struggled to keep his
expression expressionless.
"Good morning, sir. I am Anthony Babington." A smooth, sculpted face
was smiling at him, a face framed by dark curls and a fashionable
hat.
"Yes?" Walsingham repeated. "What may I help you with?"
"Sir, I foresee a future need to travel abroad, and so I am applying
for a passport in advance. Your assistants insisted I petition you
directly."
"And this vague future need what does it concern? Pray sit." He
gestured toward his most comfortable chair.
"I often have business in France, sir, in Paris, as a matter of fact."
Babington was staring blandly at him.
"What sort of business?"
"I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it, sir." He hung his head
charmingly, and looked up from underneath his curls. His eyes were
blue as Aegean skies. "But I am often at court, and dress is important
to me. I also like to bring Her Majesty news of the fashions, and
little trinkets of the sort she likes."
"Like what?"
"Oh, gloves, perfume, leather books of poetry."
"So you make the voyage to France just to acquire such things? Is this
what the youth of England does now? Tell me why are you not in the
Netherlands, fighting with others of your generation? Sir Philip
Sidney is there, Christopher Marlowe, young Essex is that not a nobler
calling than remaining at court, passing back and forth to France to
procure womanish trinkets?" He surprised himself by his own outburst.
"You are nothing but a lapdog, like the kind the Queen of Scots keeps
under her skirts."
Babington shrugged. "It is not given to all men to be soldiers on the
actual battlefield. We can fight in other arenas. Surely you, sir,
are the best example of that." The blue eyes were looking directly
into Walsingham's,
"I strongly urge you to consider my words," said Walsingham. But in
this duel, of course I want you to disregard them. As you are
compelled to do, you proud young fool.
"Sir, I stand by my original request for a passport."
"For what time?"
"Oh" he looked around vaguely "for the rest of the summer, and
autumn."
"I see. Well, I am unable to grant your request at present. Reapply
in two or three weeks, to agent Robert Poley."
Babington shrugged. "I think you should reconsider. Perhaps I can
help you."
"In what way?"
"As you said, there are other battlefields. I could spy for you."
"In what way?"
"In any way you choose. I am Catholic, I am accepted there "
Walsingham was shocked, and was shocked at his own shock. No one had
surprised him in ten years.
"I have access to Morgan in the Bastille, and Paget and Beaton in the
Queen of Scots' embassy in Paris. And Mendoza "
"I already have agents there. What can you do that they cannot?"
Babington's face registered confusion. "I thought you would be
delighted at my offer!"
"Come, come. All spies are not equal. Bumblers are worse than no
spies at all, for they betray their presence. I will consider your
offer, but you must write me a detailed plan of exactly how you would
perform your duties. "Many are called, but few are chosen." You do
not think my fifty-three agents throughout the world attained their
position and my confidence by walking in off the street?" He laughed
softly.
"Very well." Babington rose and clapped his hand to his sword. "You
shall see!"
After he left, Walsingham found himself so stunned he could not
concentrate on the tonnage report.
No, my friend, he thought. You shall see.
The day climbed toward its noon, the heat increased, and stillness
descended upon the streets of the city. At length Walsingham rose and
bid his secretaries good day; he was going to his other office. They
locked up and went to the White Hart, three doors down, to have their
midday meal; Walsingham went straight to his destination, ten minutes'
walk away.
As he walked, avoiding the refuse, and holding up a pomander to guard
his lungs from the repulsive odours, he was haunted by the strange
visit. Why had Babington come? Was he driven to guilt, ready to
confess? Or did he sense that his plot had been penetrated, and was
testing Walsingham?
Was I the observer, or the observed? he wondered.
Or has he lost his nerve, and stands ready to betray his fellow
plotters? Is he that unstable? Then we must work fast, before it all
falls apart. He must want a passport so he can flee.
Those eyes .. . such odd eyes ... so innocent looking ... so misleading
... Walsingham shook his head. If only my faith did not prevent my
completely embracing the philosophy of Machiavelli, he thought, it
would all be so much easier. I could fabricate evidence and not be
bothered with all this labour, nor in fathoming Babington's motives.
Sighing, he turned the key in his lock and entered his dark, quiet
quarters. Stepping aside, he examined the fine dusting of Alexandrian
sand he had sprinkled about the door to catch footprints. None. Then
he went to the next door and checked the strand of hair from a horse's
tail that he had affixed to the door and door jamb; it was unbroken. No
one had entered.
He now checked the third, inner door, bending down to see if there were
any handprints on the handle, which he had coated lightly with Arabian
gum. None. He wiped it off with a handkerchief and let himself into
his inner refuge.
All was awaiting him, and there was not an item in the entire room that
did not in some way reflect his personality. He felt more completely
himself in this room than in any other place on earth; at the same
time, sometimes he felt imprisoned by it, as if all these drawers and
their contents were his master, rather than the other way round, as if
somewhere there was a large drawer with his own name on it, and it was
within these dark and dreary confines that he operated.
He jerked open the window-covers to let in some light, then settled at
his desk.
I most likely have calluses on my buttocks, he thought. If a young man
came to me asking what is the most important trait to have for this
line of work, I would say a large, flat bottom accustomed to
immobility.
Babington ... he made that visit to disturb me. Why, then, does it? I
refuse to let the game pass from my hands to his ... A knock on the
door.
"Enter," said Walsingham.
Phelippes poked his head around the door, grinning like a death's head.
He waved a piece of paper like a handkerchief, then sauntered in.
Walsingham could not help thinking he looked like a poor imitation of a
coquette. "Here," he said, putting the paper on Walsingham's desk.
"Here it is."
Walsingham took the letter and read it. As he did so, all weariness
vanished and all nagging questions about the worth of his work
evaporated. It was a long letter from Babington to the Queen of Scots,
detailing the plans for the rescue of Mary and the assassination of
Elizabeth. Babington! Walsingham drew in his breath and closed his
eyes. "Yes. Here it is."
"Here is the original." Phelippes handed it reverently to Walsingham.
"I myself will take it to Chartley; I will entrust it to no other
messenger. The Honest Man is due to make his next beer delivery on
Saturday, July ninth. That night she shall hold this in her very
hands!"
"And, pray God, answer!"
"She will, never fear. Rashness is her leading personal trait. When
has she ever hesitated to embrace a dangerous enterprise? Her earliest
behaviour with Elizabeth was bold and insolent: sailing from France
without a passport and daring her to capture her. She delivered a
staged, emotional speech about it prior to boarding the ship. Do you
remember those words? "I am determined to adventure the matter,
whatsoever shall come of it; I trust the wind will be so favourable as
I shall not need to come on the coast of England; and if I do, the
Queen your mistress shall have me in her hands to do her will of me. If
she be so hardhearted as to desire my end, she may then do her pleasure
and make sacrifice of me; peradventure that casualty might be better
for me than to live." Well, now the winds did blow her to England, and
what she said so flippantly twenty-five years ago is to happen. We
should guard our words; they have a way of pursuing us."