CHAPTER 7

Leicester House

The lass in question was a tall redhead perched on a table, nonchalantly swinging her daintily shod feet. The room they had entered, Nick surmised, was the banqueting suite that had been converted into the nerve center of Essex’s spy network. The long dining table was strewn with papers, the dining chairs occupied by busily scribbling clerks. Several men stood around the room in low conversation, which instantly stopped as the three men entered. Essex made a beeline for the lady and gave a low courtly bow.

“Lady O’Neill, may I introduce the Honorable Nicholas Holt.”

“Call me Nick,” said Nick.

“I’m Annie,” the woman said, jumping down from the table and, instead of curtsying, giving Nick a firm, manly handshake. He looked into the wide-set green eyes and realized here was a woman as slender and honed as a rapier and just as dangerous. And her name proclaimed her a member of the powerful Ulster O’Neill clan, the head of which was Hugh O’Neill, Elizabeth’s favorite Irish vassal. The Queen had backed him in his bid to take over the territory of the rival Lord of Tyrone clan, an offshoot of the O’Neill family, long an enemy of English rule. This bloody internecine war was still raging, drawing the interest of Spain, which—correctly, as it happened—thought they could use it to distract the English from a possible Spanish invasion. So far Walsingham had not sent Nick to Ireland, but he thought it would only be a matter of time, especially if he became chums with an O’Neill.

Thus, Nick resolved to keep as much distance between himself and Annie as possible. He had no intention of getting embroiled in the “Irish balls-up,” as it was called by fellow agents unlucky enough to have been sent to that tumultuous and soggy island. To a man, everyone Nick had talked to about it had been of the opinion that the English, like the ancient Romans, should pack up and bugger off home.

“Annie is my best spy,” Essex said. Nick noted the use of the possessive pronoun and caught the brief look that passed between Annie and Essex. Immediately, Nick knew they were lovers. And from Edmund’s besotted expression, he was hopelessly smitten.

Then Essex turned to the room in general: “This is Nick Holt, an old friend of Edmund’s. I’ll leave you to make yourselves known to him. He joins us from Walsingham’s crew.” There was a mutinous rumble at this.

“No, no,” Essex said with mock severity, although his smile belied his words. “We’re all friends here.” And with that he slapped Nick on the back and strode out of the room calling for his secretary, Henry Savile.

Annie linked her arms through Nick’s and Edmund’s. “I’ll introduce you to the boys,” she said.

Despite what Essex had said about being among friends, the reaction of the room was standoffish, if not decidedly hostile. Francis Bacon was familiar to Nick, at least by sight. They shook hands.

Bacon, sandy-haired and plump, looked positively benign, although he was reputed to have the best legal mind in England and was said to be a veritable pit bull in the courts.

“How’s Walsingham treating you?” Bacon asked.

Remembering his brief to act the disgruntled agent, Nick said, “Same miserable bastard.”

That elicited a grin. “My brother says he is as stingy as ever.” Bacon’s brother, Anthony, was always grumbling about Walsingham’s notorious penny-pinching. As an agent of Walsingham’s stationed at the English embassy in France, he was forever moaning about how expensive it was to live in Paris and was always writing home for more money. This caused family problems, as both Bacon brothers were nephews of Baron Burghley, staunch ally of Walsingham, and cousins to Sir Robert Cecil.

Nick took Bacon’s comment to be an invitation to give him the scuttlebutt on his firing. He figured that, of all the men in the room, Francis Bacon would be the most sympathetic to Nick’s switching of loyalties from Walsingham to Essex, as his brother Anthony was always threatening to do. So Nick filled him in. While he was speaking, the others drifted over to listen.

“Who do you think is killing off Walsingham’s agents, then?” a short, wiry man with icy blue eyes asked Nick. “Us?” He grinned evilly. The others laughed.

“This is Henry Gavell,” Annie chimed in.

“Did you?” Nick asked. “Kill Winchelsea?”

The group of men laughed even louder.

All except Edmund, who said, “Of course not. We’re all on the same side, after all.”

“Edmund,” Annie said, reaching over and patting his cheek. “You really are too sweet.”

“Pah!” Gavell said, giving Edmund a withering look. “Same side, my arse!” His eyes slid back to Nick. “Maybe you’re still acting for Walsingham?” he said. “Maybe you’re spying on us? What do you think, Richie?”

A man who looked like a Wood Wharf stevedore nodded.

“Could be,” the man said, measuring Nick with his eyes as if sizing him for a coffin.

“This is Richard Stace,” Annie said.

Whereas Henry Gavell had the whippet build of concealed strength, Stace looked like a block of granite. He was the same height as his friend but wide, his head seeming to rest squarely on his shoulders without the benefit of a neck, his biceps and chest swelling like ship’s cables beneath a cambric shirt. Like Nick, he wore a leather vest; unlike Nick, his gut, which looked as solid and capacious as a brick oven, strained against his belt. Anyone foolish enough to punch it would end up with a broken hand. But Nick knew from experience that strong men were often slow, and that made them vulnerable; an elbow to the throat would probably put him down, one of several illegal wrestling moves Joseph had taught him. Nick looked forward to trying it out, but for now, his brief was to play nice, so he returned Stace’s stare and did not react to the implicit challenge in the man’s flat, opaque eyes. The last time Nick had been looked at like that was at the Billingsgate Fish Market when he had been buying his dinner. When he got no response, Stace looked about as impressed with Nick as the dead mackerel had been. These were the eyes of a killer, and Nick knew instantly that Stace was Essex’s resident assassin. Gavell, he thought, was the brains of the pair.

“And maybe you murdered Winchelsea?” Nick replied mildly.

Stace glanced at his friend, Gavell. “Did we, Henry? I can’t remember.”

“Probably.” Gavell stifled a yawn. “There’ve been so many. It’s hard to keep track.”

“Simon Winchelsea was tortured,” Nick said. It was all he could do to keep his voice even. “His eyes were put out.”

Annie put her hand to her mouth. Francis Bacon looked at the floor.

“Better watch out for yourself, Lordship,” Gavell said. “You might be next.”

“Is that a threat?”

Gavell shrugged. “Just friendly advice.”

“For your information, someone already tried,” Nick said. “And failed, thanks to Edmund here.”

Edmund mumbled something about it being nothing.

“Why, Edmund,” Gavell said, giving him a slap on the shoulder that made him stagger. “I didn’t know you had it in you. Hey, boys,” he said, “we’ve got a proper Achilles here.”

Everyone laughed.

Nick could see that Edmund played the part of the court jester in their midst. His naïvety and comparative innocence could not compete with their hard-edged cynicism. And like all schoolboy bullies everywhere, it hadn’t taken long for Henry Gavell and his mates to figure out Edmund’s weakness and exploit it for their merriment.

Annie came to his rescue. “Pack it in, you lot,” she said. Then, to Edmund, “Ignore them. They’re only jealous.”

During this exchange, Bacon had been regarding Nick with clever, assessing eyes. Besides Annie, Nick recognized him as by far the most intelligent person in Essex’s household. A lawyer as well as a Member of Parliament, Bacon was known to be a philosopher and a scientist, even though he was only twenty-five. Like his older brother, Anthony, he too had worked for Walsingham as an envoy carrying official state documents between France and England. His ties to Essex were not yet formalized, but the rumor was that he was growing more and more disenchanted with Walsingham’s painstaking way of conducting statecraft and craved more immediate results. He was said to be in favor of the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, even if it meant outright war with Spain.

“Shall we sit?” Bacon said. Indicating a group of chairs placed in front of the fire. He was polite and urbane, as befitted a diplomat and barrister. The men sat down while Annie again chose to perch, this time on the arm of Nick’s chair as if she had appointed herself his guardian angel.

Or bird of paradise, Nick thought, with her red hair, sea-colored eyes, and scarlet-and-blue dress. He could smell her perfume—sandalwood—and even, he fancied, hear the soft creak of her corset when she moved. So much for keeping his distance. Apparently enraptured by Hector, she was rubbing the dog behind his ears, a thing Hector adored, judging by the big silly grin and eyes half closed in ecstasy. Annie was murmuring Irish endearments in his ear, calling him “macushla,” which meant, as Nick had learned from a sailor describing his doxy, my darling. And “a stór.” My treasure.

“I grew up with Irish Wolfhounds,” she said when she caught Nick looking. “They are the dogs of the world.”

With difficulty, Nick focused his attention back on Bacon. He knew he must tread carefully; Bacon was an expert at cross-examining witnesses at trial and was known to be tricky. His calm, soft voice asking seemingly innocuous questions had led more than one perjurer to the Clink or the Tower.

And Nick felt as if he were in the dock with Bacon’s calm gaze upon him.

Bacon began by asking Nick what had happened on the London Road. Edmund shifted uncomfortably when Nick came to the part where the assassin had asked specifically for him by name.

Bacon turned to Edmund. “I thought you said he attacked both of you?”

Edmund indicated his shoulder. “I was the one who was wounded,” he said.

“Quite,” Bacon said.

Nick could tell Bacon had already dismissed Edmund as an unreliable witness. He turned his attention back to Nick.

“And you have no idea who this man was?” Bacon asked him.

“None.”

“English?”

Good question. Only Cecil and Bacon had thought to ask this.

“Yes.”

Nick looked thoughtfully at Stace and Gavell, who had settled into a game of dice at one end of the table with the others gathered round. The cheers and groans as well as loud advice provided a strange accompaniment to the calm reasonableness of Bacon’s questioning. The clerks were ignoring the hubbub, continuing to write furiously. It was an oddly disjointed scene, with the gentrified Bacon rubbing shoulders with riffraff like Gavell and Stace.

Not for the first time, Nick was struck by how contradictory Essex appeared—the loud, obnoxious Essex given to worldly pleasure, and the calm, ordinary man he had met earlier in his study. Having witnessed the way Essex had treated Edmund, Nick had been surprised at the contented look on Essex’s face when he had introduced Nick to his spy network, as if he were revealing a prized piece of machinery like a printing press. Nick wondered if lowlifes such as Gavell and Stace suspected that Essex regarded them as nothing but tools to be used to his own advantage.

“I assume, however, that Essex has sanctioned an investigation into the killer of Winchelsea and the attempted murder of yourself?”

“He has.”

Bacon smiled as if he had scored a point against opposing counsel. “Then I think that answers your question. It couldn’t have been one of us. Or the earl himself.”

Nick nodded as if he agreed. But he was fully aware, as undoubtedly Bacon was too, that there were wheels within wheels and that in a world of double and even triple agents, nothing was ever logical or straightforward.

“When you find your man,” Bacon said, getting up. “I will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law.” He looked at Nick thoughtfully. “Whoever he is.”