The Silver Skull

CHAPTER 34

lizabeth's incandescent fury terrified the greying men gathered around the meeting room. "One man!" the queen raged. "All our futures are dependent upon one man!"

All eyes looked down. The queen turned her powdered white face from one to another of her circle of closest advisors, waiting for a response.

Walsingham understood their reluctance. Elizabeth was like a storm at sea, as quick to turn from coquettish flirtation to volcanic anger without the slightest warning. But who would tell her that her own indecisiveness had led the country into the desperate strait in which it now found itself?

"Will Swyfe is-" he began.

"Yes, yes! I know all about Master Swyfte's abilities!" she roared. "Now where are the bearers of good news?" The whip-crack in Elizabeth's voice kept all heads bowed. "Lord Walsingham," she pressed. "You still say the Armada will sail shortly?"

"That is the information I have, Your Majesty. There are conflicting reports-some say five hundred ships, some fewer, manned by a good eighty thousand men, perhaps fewer-but ships and men there are, in Lisbon, ready for the off."

Walsingham saw the blood drain from faces at the numbers he had presented. A fleet that large would destroy the English navy in no time.

"Why can you not get good intelligence?" snapped Lord Burghley, the queen's principal advisor. Though a master of statecraft, he was a grey man in both appearance and manner. Too weak by far, Walsingham felt.

"Good intelligence costs money," Walsingham replied sharply. He didn't need to mention that the Treasury was drained after years of slow-bubbling war with Spain. "How go the peace negotiations?"

"Your sarcasm is unwarranted," Burghley responded.

Lord Howard, a fierce but thoughtful man, commanded the English navy. His eyes flickered briefly towards Walsingham before he spoke. "When we received reports last month of Santa Cruz's death, you made the wise decision not to put our fleet to sea," he began.

Liar, Walsingham thought.

"But now Philip will have filled his vacancy and the Armada will have direction again," Howard continued. "More urgency is required in the defence of the realm, I feel."

Walsingham could see Elizabeth evaluating the potential cost.

"Drake calls for the fleet to be based at Plymouth," Howard continued. "From there, it will be better able to guard the full length of the south coast and to prevent any Spanish landing. And he argues most strongly for us to attack the Spanish first. He is a great strategist, as you know, Your Majesty, and he feels this is the best defence."

After a moment's thought, Elizabeth said, "Let us wait for more intelligence."

"If the prince of Parma lands his fierce troops upon England's shores, the battle is lost," Walsingham began cautiously. "We have no army save for the garrison at Berwick and the Yeoman of the Guard. Our fighting men are mainly raw and will be crushed by Parma's warriors. And those of ours who have been hardened by battle can scarcely be trusted. Many are Catholics, many Irish."

Elizabeth's anger drained away at his words. She knew the truth when she heard it.

"We are short of weapons and gunpowder supplies are dangerously low," Walsingham continued, gathering force. "The coastal defences are rudimentary, and in some places construction has not even begun. Once the invasion begins, there is a danger the Catholics within will rise up in force. That James, who lives in mortal fear of the Enemy, will invade from Scotland to gain control of Dee's defences. These are our most desperate times."

"And you work to rally good Englishmen behind us?" Elizabeth demanded.

"Of course. The pamphleteers publish the stories we require-that the Spanish ships are filled with instruments of torture to inflict torment upon all good people, and pox-ridden doxies to be loosed upon our men and kill them with disease. That Philip has ordered his men to put children to the pike and bash in the brains of babies. Others will be branded on the face so they know they have been conquered. They will have the fear of God in them if the Spanish land, but that will not be enough."

"So we must rely upon our warships," Elizabeth said quietly, "and they may not be enough either. And the part the Enemy will play with this Silver Skull?"

"Their plans are still lost in the fog that they draw around them so well." Walsingham was careful not to leave Elizabeth despairing; it would not help the cause. Bad enough the Spanish had an overwhelming force, but that they also had a weapon that could unleash plague across the land? That was too crushing to consider. "Will Swyfte leads three of my best men. They will not shirk the task ahead of them."

"And if they are caught?" Burghley enquired. "They will give Philip the reason he needs to invade."

He needs no reason! Walsingham kept his face calm. "If William Swyfte is captured, we will deny all knowledge of his mission. He has been driven half mad by grief over the loss of his close friend, Grace Seldon, and holds a personal grudge against Spain."

"You will abandon him?" Burghley said. "He will be tortured and executed."

"That is the price we must pay."

"If Swyfte does not reclaim the Skull, all is truly lost!" Elizabeth raged. Even with his caution, Walsingham could see that Elizabeth understood the true situation. "He cannot fail. He cannot!"

Without another word, she flounced from the chamber so her senior advisors could not see her tears of fear. Burghley made to take up the queen's words, but Walsingham cut him short. "William Swyfte will do whatever is necessary to retrieve the Skull, even at the cost of his own life," he said. He left the room before Burghley could question him further. The less he knew, the less he could bend information to underpin his own feeble prevarication when advising the queen.

Dee waited outside, his hood pulled up to hide his identity from unwelcome eyes.

"Any news?" Walsingham asked.

Dee shook his head. "The Enemy's true plans remain hidden. They move pieces here and there to distract us, but I can find no guiding principle."

"Except our destruction."

"Except that."

"You have heard all the prophecies circulating in Europe?"

"Of course. Things do not look well for any of us." Dee took a deep breath. Walsingham could see the strain in his features. "I have cast Elizabeth's horoscope," he continued. "The second eclipse of the moon this year arrives when her ruling sign is in the ascendant, twelve days before her birthday. That is a powerful portent. Momentous events lie ahead, and all that stands is at risk. The Enemy may finally destroy our defences and achieve their goal."

"Do not tell Elizabeth this."

"Why, I planned to tell her this very moment," Dee said tartly. "I cannot wait to have my head on a pole above the gates of London Bridge for such high treason. So we put our faith in Swyfte?"

"We do. Unless you have another plan?"

Dee said nothing.

Walsingham left him studying his astrological charts, and Walsingham made his way to the gardens to be alone with his thoughts. Deep in conversation on the bench beside the lavender were Marlowe and Nathaniel. Walsingham read the concern etched in the face of Will's assistant and recognised the cause immediately. It brought back a rush of memories and feelings still raw after all the years.

His mother telling him the circumstances of his father's death. "They haunted him until his heart failed him. They had noticed him, you see."

His dreams of following his father into the legal profession when he enrolled as a student at Gray's Inn, dashed by the thing that sat in the corner of his room and told him cruelly that his mother would be next.

At her graveside near thirty years ago, watching the figures hiding among the yews, sensing their jubilation at his mother's final suffering, at his own suffering.

We have long memories, and our punishment reaches down the years, down the generations. "

His mounting sense of injustice, tempered always by the hope that soon the misery would stop. His wedding to Anne. Her funeral just two years later. The coils of the Enemy drawing tighter and tighter around him.

His two stepsons, dying in a conflagration when a barrel of gunpowder blew up in the gatehouse where he had sent them to be safe.

So many deaths, so many tears, and all because of an act committed before he was even born. His father's crime? To help a young boy the Enemy were tormenting.

Over the years, through all the pain, they had driven him to be the man he was. And they would pay the price.

At Walsingham's curt summons, Marlowe came over, trying to hide his sheepish expression. Walsingham would have preferred him to stay out of sight-he had too many weaknesses, too many cracks for the Enemy to prise open-but more important matters pressed.

"He has been touched by the Enemy?" Walsingham said, nodding towards Nathaniel.

"Lightly." Marlowe was pleased Walsingham did not have stern words for him. "He still has many doubts, and searches for ways to dismiss what his heart knows to be true."

"Then help him in that task. Do not let him onto the path we walk. He deserves a better life."

"I will lead him down a garden path filled with sunshine and flowers."

"Good. We must never forget why we fight." He fixed an eye on Marlowe. "And why are you here?"

"Will has charged us both with keeping watch upon the Lantern Tower. The Enemy have shown how badly they require the Shield, and he fears they will attempt to steal it."

"The Lantern Tower has many, many defences. But still ... you do good work."

Marlowe beamed. It was a small act of kindness, but Walsingham felt pleased that he had done it; he was allowed little opportunity to be kind these days.

But as he moved away, the shadow fell over him quickly once again. He could see the Enemy's hand everywhere. No one was wholly trustworthy, not even those closest to him. He had made so many sacrifices, and it was all on the brink of being for naught. On any given day, Swyfte was the best man he had, but he was afraid the Enemy had found Will's weakness-the girl, Grace-and would use that to destroy him.