TWO

       Richmond Palace, south-west London

       21st September, Year of Our Lord 1583

      ‘A violent death, the fellow said.’ Walsingham has to raise his voice over the rhythm of the oars as the servant doggedly ploughs the small craft westward against the tide. The wind blows the spray sideways into our faces. In daylight we could ride the distance from Barn Elms to Richmond Palace in half the time, covering the ground as the crow flies across the deer park, but in darkness the river is the surest way, though it loops its course lazily around the headland.

      ‘But of some special significance, for them to disturb your honour?’ The wind snatches my words away even as they leave my mouth.

      ‘One of Her Majesty’s maids of honour, apparently, killed within a stone’s throw of the queen’s own privy apartments, under the noses of the yeomen of the guard and the serjeants-at-arms – you may imagine the entire household is in an uproar. But it is the manner of this death that makes my lord Burghley summon me with such urgency. We will learn more anon.’

      He sits back and points up as the white stone façade of the palace looms ahead, a pale shadow under the moon, its chapel and great hall rising to an imposing height either side of the gatehouse with its warmly lit windows. From the range that flanks the river, a forest of slender turrets rises against the clouds, all topped with gilded minarets, onion-shaped, like the palace of an eastern sultan. A servant is waiting for us at the landing stage behind the palace where a row of wooden barques are tethered, the water slapping idly at their sides; he welcomes the Principal Secretary with a bow, but his face is strained. Here, where the royal apartments face the river, he shows us to a little postern gate set into the wall. By the door stand two men, each holding a pikestaff, who move aside to let the servant pass. He bangs hard on this door and calls out; a small grille is slid open and a series of brusque, whispered exchanges follow before the door is opened wide and a short, round-faced man with feathery white hair under a black skullcap strides through, his arms outstretched, his face creased in a harried frown. He embraces Walsingham briefly, then catches sight of me and the anxiety in his drooping eyes intensifies.

      ‘This is …?’

      Walsingham lays a hand on his arm to placate him.

      ‘Giordano Bruno. A most loyal servant of Her Majesty,’ he adds, with a meaningful nod.

      The older man considers me for a moment, then a light of recognition steals over his face.

      ‘Ah. Your Italian, Francis? The renegade monk?’

      I incline my head in acknowledgement; it is not a compliment, though it is a title I wear with some pride.

      ‘So the Roman Inquisition likes to call me.’

      ‘Doctor Bruno is a philosopher, William,’ Walsingham gently corrects.

      The older man reaches out a hand to me.

      ‘William Cecil, Lord Burghley. Francis has spoken highly of your talents, Doctor Bruno. You served Her Majesty well in Oxford this spring, I understand.’

      I feel my chest swell and my face flush at this; Walsingham is miserly with his praise to your face, which makes you strive for it all the more, yet he has talked about me favourably to Lord Burghley, the queen’s High Treasurer, one of her most influential advisors. You fool, I chide myself, smiling; you are thirty-five years of age, not a schoolboy praised for his penmanship, though this is exactly how I feel. I continue to beam to myself even as Burghley’s face turns sombre again.

      ‘This way, gentlemen. Let us not waste time.’

      Inside the palace, the air seems stiff with fear. Faces, half-hidden, peer anxiously out of doorways as our footsteps echo along wood-panelled corridors lit by candles whose flames waver in the disturbance we make, sending our shadows looming and shrinking along the walls as Walsingham and I follow Burghley’s purposeful strides.

      ‘I almost forgot, Francis,’ he says, over his shoulder, ‘how was the wedding?’

      ‘Well enough, I thank you. I have left the party in full spate. Heaven only knows what will be left of my house when Sidney’s young bloods have finished their roistering.’

      ‘I am sorry, truly, to draw you away,’ Burghley replies, lowering his voice. ‘If the circumstances were not so very … well, you shall see. Her Majesty asked for you in person, Francis.’ He hesitates. ‘Well – to be honest, she called first for Leicester. But I thought the earl, after a day at his nephew’s wedding feast …’

      Walsingham nods.

      ‘I thought you were the man to take charge, Francis. The queen is rightly afraid. This thing has happened within her own walls and its implications …’ The words die on his lips.

      ‘Understood. Show me this deed, William, then take me to the queen.’

      He brings us up two flights of stairs where the panels are painted in scarlet, green and gold tracery, then along a more richly furnished and considerably warmer corridor, hung with tapestries and damask cloths; I guess we are nearing the site of the queen’s private apartments. On the way we pass three more armed men in royal livery. Burghley pauses outside a low wooden door where a stout man stands guard, a sword at his belt. The Lord Treasurer nods to him, and he steps back; Burghley rests his hand on the latch and his shoulders twitch.

      ‘Your discretion, gentlemen.’

      The door swings open and I follow Walsingham through into a small chamber, well lit by good wax candles, where a body lies in repose on a bed whose curtains have been drawn back. At first I think it is a young man; the breeches and shirt are a man’s certainly, but as we step closer I see the long fair hair spread over the pillow, threads of gold glinting in the candlelight. Her motionless face is swollen and purple, with the popping eyes and bulging tongue that tell of strangulation. The white linen shirt she wears has been ripped down the front, though the two halves have been arranged to preserve her modesty, even in death. She looks young, no more than sixteen or seventeen; her slender neck is ringed with dark bruises and ugly welts and her breeches are torn, the silk stockings muddied and snagged. I glance from one to the other of my companions and understand with a jolt that I am flanked by the two highest officials of the queen’s Privy Council. This is no ordinary death.

      Walsingham pauses for a moment, perhaps out of respect, then walks around the bed, examining the body dispassionately, as if he were her physician.

      ‘Who is she?’

      ‘Cecily Ashe,’ Burghley says. He has closed the door behind us and stands by it, twisting his hands together; perhaps he feels we are committing an impropriety, three men gathered to stare at the barely cold body of a young woman. ‘One of Her Majesty’s maids of honour, under the care of Lady Seaton. Her Majesty’s Lady of the Bedchamber,’ he adds, for my benefit.

      ‘Ah.’ Walsingham nods, and clasps his hand across his chin, obscuring his mouth. I have noticed that he does this when he does not wish to betray any emotion. ‘Ashe … Then she would be the elder daughter of Sir Christopher Ashe of Nottingham, would she not? Poor child – she has not been at court even a year. The same age as my Frances.’

      We all stand silent for a moment, all our thoughts following Walsingham’s to his seventeen-year-old daughter, the new bride who, perhaps even now, is being led to the marital bed by Sir Philip Sidney, a man eleven years her senior and with notoriously vigorous appetites.

      ‘Almost the same age as my Elizabeth was when she died,’ Burghley adds softly. Walsingham glances at him; there is a moment of unspoken sympathy as their eyes meet and I sense that these two men share an understanding deeper than politics.

      ‘The