S. Parris - Sacrilege

I hesitated; Walsingham grew impatient.

‘Never mind the cathedral – what are we going to do about this ?’ He brandished the letter again, a shadow of irritation flitting across his face.

We were gathered in the Principal Secretary’s private office at his country home in Barn Elms, some miles along the Thames to the west of the city of London. Since Sidney had married Walsingham’s daughter the previous autumn, the young couple had lived at Barn Elms, Sidney’s finances being too precarious to support a household of his own at present. From my point of view, the situation was ideal – I could visit my friend and arrange meetings with Walsingham at the same time without arousing the French Ambassador’s suspicions unduly, though I know it chafed at Sidney to be living in such close quarters with his in-laws.

Behind the wide oak desk, Walsingham sat back and folded his hands together, his gaze focused on the empty fireplace as if deep in thought. Despite the warmth of the day, he wore his customary suit of plain black wool and the small black skullcap that always made him look a little severe. His was a strong face, with wisdom and sadness written into its lines and the pouches beneath his eyes; there were moments when those eyes seemed to contain the weight of all the kingdom’s strife. This was not far from the truth. Walsingham and the intelligence he gathered from his network of informers all over Europe were the Queen’s last defence against the myriad plots on her life and the security of England. At fifty-two, Walsingham’s hair and beard were almost entirely grey now; only his black eyebrows served as a reminder of how he must have looked in his youth. Over the past year I had grown to respect this rational, sober man above any other, though I also feared him a little.

The letter that had so infuriated him contained a grovelling apology from Castelnau on behalf of King Henri of France, who said he could not receive Sidney as a guest in Paris as he was unfortunately about to go on a pilgrimage to Lyon.

‘Her Majesty will be livid,’ Sidney remarked. ‘I’m quite piqued about it myself – I fancied a trip to Paris.’ He leaned back into the patch of sun that spilled through the diamond-paned glass and clasped his hands behind his head.

Walsingham frowned.

‘Henri of France is weak, though this is not news to us. He knew Her Majesty was not sending Sidney on a social call, but to persuade him to commit French troops to a joint intervention in the Netherlands. I suppose Castelnau thought we would be less likely to shout at you, Bruno?’

‘I believe that was his reasoning, your honour.’

‘Well, he can explain himself to the Queen face to face in due course. France cannot dither on the fence for much longer.’ He shook his head. ‘This war against the Spanish in the Netherlands has been a bloody mess for the last twenty years, but the Queen is now seriously considering an offer of troops to help the Protestant rebels. If Henri had any conscience he would do the same. Especially since it was his idiot brother who made the situation a hundred times worse,’ he added, regarding me darkly from under his brows as if I were somehow implicated.

‘My uncle the Earl of Leicester has long argued for an English military intervention to aid the Dutch rebels,’ Sidney said, sitting forward with sudden vigour and clenching his fists. ‘And I would go with him in an instant. Teach those Spanish curs a lesson they won’t forget.’

Walsingham looked up sharply. ‘Don’t be too hasty, Philip. That war could easily rumble on for another twenty years, with thousands more deaths on each side. In my opinion, it can’t be won, except with a concerted effort by united Protestant forces from all across Europe, and I see little prospect of that.’

Sidney sat back, chastened, and I wondered if Walsingham had interpreted his eagerness for a military adventure as a personal slight, a desire to escape his domestic life here at Barn Elms. Moments passed in silence, the only sound a persistent fly buzzing against the window. I watched the sunlight cast patterns on the wooden boards, broken by flickering shadows from the leaves of the trees outside, and waited for someone to speak.

‘God’s death!’ Walsingham cried suddenly, slamming his fist down on the desk so that his tortoiseshell inkwell rattled and Sidney and I started out of our private thoughts. ‘The Prince of Orange has just been shot on his own stairs as he left his dinner table. Can you imagine how this news has shaken Her Majesty? You will not see her show it in public, but she no longer sleeps. She knows Philip of Spain means her to be next.’ He took a deep breath and passed a hand over his head as if smoothing his thoughts, looking from me to Sidney like a schoolmaster. ‘The Catholic forces in Europe are gaining strength. If Spain regains control of the Netherlands, the Protestants there will be massacred. And then Spain will turn his attention to England. Who will France support when that day comes? King Henri must talk to us, he cannot hide his head in his rosary beads for ever.’ He pounded his fist on the table again and glared at me, as if he held me responsible for the French King’s havering. ‘Sidney and I saw Saint Bartholomew’s Day in Paris with our own eyes, you know,’ he added, more quietly. ‘Little children and their grandmothers cut down with swords in their own homes. A thousand lifetimes would not be enough to forget such sights.’ He closed his eyes, and his features seemed weighed down by sorrow.

Sidney and I glanced at one another; it was rare to see Walsingham ruffled by foreign affairs. Part of his incomparable value to Elizabeth was his faultless composure in any situation. Walsingham is frightened, I thought, and the realisation made me feel for a moment as if the ground had shifted beneath my feet, just as I felt as a child when I first saw my soldier father afraid. The murder of the Prince of Orange had struck at the English government in its tenderest spot. This thought brought me back to the other murder that had preoccupied my thoughts for most of the night.

‘I could meet him in Lyon, when his pilgrimage is finished,’ Sidney offered, resting his feet on the window seat and pulling his knees to his chest, the way a child would sit. ‘It would be no great trouble to journey to Lyon instead.’

Walsingham looked at him again with a sceptical frown. I was certain that he heard, as I did, the note of longing in Sidney’s voice. My friend itched for the life of travel and adventure he had known in his youth; the longer he stayed cooped up at Barn Elms and the court, the quicker he would be to volunteer for any mission that offered different horizons, even if it meant going to war.

Walsingham stood, making a show of sorting the papers on his desk into two piles and arranging them neatly side by side.

‘Well, we will put that to Castelnau when I summon him to an audience with the Queen. Tell him to give it some thought, Bruno. Meanwhile, I am intrigued to hear about your pilgrimage. What attraction can Canterbury hold for you, hmm?’

I hesitated again. There was a risk in telling Walsingham the truth; he might forbid me outright, for any number of reasons, and to make the journey against his express wishes would result in my being dismissed from his service, which I could not afford either in terms of income or patronage. But there was a greater risk in not telling him, since he would discover the truth anyway; no one kept secrets from Walsingham, not even the King of Spain or the Pope himself. So I stepped forward, as if taking my place on a stage, and gave them a brief précis of the story Sophia had told me, leaving out any details that I thought might compromise her. When I had finished, Sidney was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, staring at me with new admiration, while his father-in-law looked fiercer than ever.