The Queen's Christmas Summons. Amanda McCabe

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      ‘Aye, the poor, martyred Queen,’ Westmoreland said uncertainly.

      ‘She was the first of us to truly witness the great cruelty of the heretic Elizabeth,’ Percy said. ‘The tears of Catholic widows, the poor children torn from their families and raised to damnation in the false church. I know how they suffer; I have seen their words in my letters from England.’

      John wished he, too, could see those letters; the information they would contain about traitors to England, the aid they gave to the Queen’s enemies, would be invaluable. Who knew what their true plans were once they landed in England? But thus far, though Westmoreland was careless with his words and his correspondence, Percy was not.

      John laid a gentle hand on Percy’s tense shoulder. The gold ring that had once been his mother’s, the ring he never took off, gleamed. ‘You shall see your family again soon.’

      Percy glanced at John, a wild, desperate light in his eyes. ‘I pray so. You will help us, Master Kelsey. You understand and you shall be there when the ships land while we wait and pray here.’

      Aye, John thought, he did understand. Though not in the way poor Percy thought. He knew that England had to remain free of Spain at all costs, that the cruelty and bloodshed he had seen in the Low Countries could not be carried to English shores.

      ‘We should leave soon, gentlemen,’ Westmoreland said. ‘We must take our places in the cathedral to see the Duke take up the sacred standard.’

      A murmur went through the crowd, wine goblets were drained and everyone took up their fine cloaks and plumed caps.

      ‘I must join you later,’ John said. ‘I have an appointment first.’

      ‘With a fair lady of Lisbon, I dare say!’ Paget said with a hearty laugh.

      John did not deny it, only grinned and shook his head, and took their ribald teasing. A sacred day for them it might be, but they would never eschew gossip about pretty women. He made his way out of the house and through a winding maze of the steep, old streets with their uneven cobbles and close-packed white houses. The crowd had dispersed as the procession made its way to the cathedral and most of the houses were shuttered again, as if nothing had happened.

      He could hear the toll of the church bells in the distance, could smell the bitter whiff of smoke from the ships’ guns lingering in the air, but there were none to block his path. No one seemed to pay him any attention at all as he passed, despite the richness of his black-velvet mantel embroidered with gold and silver and his fine red-satin doublet.

      Nonetheless, he took a most circuitous path, careful to be sure he was not trailed. He had been trained to be most observant for many years, ever since his godfather introduced him to Walsingham and his shadowy world. He had learned code-breaking along with languages at Cambridge, along with swordplay, firearms and the surreptitious use of needle-thin Italian daggers. He had honed those skills fighting in the Low Countries, then making his way at the Spanish court under Westmoreland’s patronage. He was never followed—unless he meant to be.

      Now, all those years of work were coming to fruition. The danger England had long feared from Spain was imminent, ready to sail at any moment. He had to be doubly careful now.

      There was a sudden soft burst of laughter and his hand went automatically to the hilt of his dagger, but when he peered around the corner of a narrow alleyway he saw it was only a young couple, wrapped in each other’s arms, their heads bent close together. The girl whispered something that made the man smile and their lips met in a gentle kiss.

      John moved on, pushing down a most unwelcome feeling that rose up inside of him unbidden—a cold pang of loneliness. There was no time for such things in his life, no place for tenderness.

      After the Armada was defeated and England was safe, after his task was done—mayhap then there could be such moments...

      John gave a rueful laugh at himself. After that, if he even survived, which was unlikely, there would be another task, and another. Maybe one day he could restore Huntleyburg, even find a wife, but not for a long time. By then, he would be a veritable greybeard and beyond any mortal help from any lady. His father’s bitter ghost would have taken him over. But he could redeem his family’s honour, restore their good name and that had to be enough.

      He finally found his destination, a public house at the crest of a steep lane. Its doorway and grimy windows looked over the red-tile roofs to the forest of ships’ masts that crowded the river port. It was an impressive sight—or would be if anyone in the dim, low-ceilinged, smoke-stained public room looked outside. It was not crowded, but there were enough people at the scarred tables for the middle of a day and they mostly seemed slumped in drunken stupors on their benches. The room had the sour smell of cheap ale and the illness that came from drinking too much of such ale.

      John found his contact in a small private chamber beyond the main room, hidden behind a warren of narrow corridors. Its one window looked out on to an alleyway, perfect for an escape if needed. The man was small and nondescript, clad in plain brown wool with a black cap pulled over his wispy brown hair. He was someone that no one would look at twice on the street—his real strength. John hadn’t seen him since Antwerp.

      ‘The day draws nigh at last,’ he said as John drew up a stool and reached for the pitcher of ale.

      ‘’Tis not the best kept secret in Europe,’ John said. He had known this man for a long time and trusted him as much as he was able, which was not a great deal.

      ‘King Philip is not a man to make up his mind quickly. But now that he is ready to strike, even the Duke of Medina-Sidonia cannot warn him away.’

      John thought of the Duke’s well-known qualms, the way he had first tried to turn down the ‘honour’ of the command, his worries about the lack of supplies, the poor weather. ‘And the Queen? Is she ready to strike in return?’

      The man shrugged. ‘The English militias are woefully under-trained and lack arms, but the rumours of Spanish evils have spread quickly and they are ready to fight to the death if need be. If an army can be landed, that is.’

      ‘But England has greater defences than any land army.’

      The man looked surprised John knew such a thing. ‘How many ships does King Philip command now?’

      ‘It is hard to say precisely. Ten galleons from the Indian Guard, nine of the Portuguese navy, plus four galleasses and forty merchant ships. That is only of the first and second lines. Thirty-four pinnaces to serve as scouts. Perhaps one hundred and thirty in all.’

      ‘Her Majesty has thirty-four galleons in her fleet, but Captain Hawkins has overseen their redesign most admirably,’ the man said. John nodded. Everyone knew that Hawkins, as Treasurer of Marine Causes and an experienced mariner, had been most insistent over vociferous protests that the Queen’s navy had to be modernised. ‘They are longer in keel and narrower in beam, much sleeker now that the large fighting castles were removed. They’re fast and slower to take on water. They can come about and fire on the old Spanish ships four times before they can even turn once.’

      John absorbed this image as he sipped at the ale. ‘A ship of six hundred tons will carry as good ordnance as one of twelve hundred.’

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