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The Queen's Men: A Novel (Volume 2) (An Agents of the Crown Novel) - Hardcover

Buch 2 von 4: Agents of the Crown

Clements, Oliver

 
9781501154751: The Queen's Men: A Novel (Volume 2) (An Agents of the Crown Novel)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1501154753 ISBN 13: 9781501154751
Verlag: Atria/Leopoldo & Co., 2021

Inhaltsangabe

The unputdownable and “lively” (The New York Times) Agents of the Crown series continues with this riveting novel following the original MI6 agent as he is assigned a dangerous mission to recreate a weapon from antiquity.

As she travels through Waltham Forest, Queen Elizabeth I is ambushed by masked gunmen who leave her carriage riddled with holes before disappearing into the night. Knowing that the perpetrators have the Queen’s carriage route, her Private Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, must find the mystery assailants before they can strike again.

While Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council debates how to best secure the throne in the wake of the attack and Catholic Spain’s further intrusion into the Low Countries, the queen herself searches for the ultimate weapon to protect her country and throne: Greek fire, the recipe of which disappeared with the collapse of the Byzantine Empire.

She orders her friend John Dee—scientist, philosopher, and spy—to rediscover this vital secret, despite his misgivings. For he understands that in a world fraught with coded messages, ruthless adversaries, and deadly plot, his mission to secure his nation’s future may prove impossible, unless he deploys the most effective weapon of all: intelligence.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Oliver Clements is a novelist and screenwriter based in Mortlake, London.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One CHAPTER ONE
Whitehall Palace, London,

same evening, first week of November 1577

Sir William Cecil, First Baron Burghley, stands in the darkness, in the middle of the great courtyard of Whitehall Palace, next to Sir Christopher Hatton, whom the Queen has recently appointed member of the Privy Council purely because—Cecil coined the rumor—he is an uncommonly graceful dancer. They are looking up at the Great Comet in the night’s sky.

“There,” he says. “Do you not see, Sir Christopher? Its tail points to the Low Countries.”

Cecil is half joking, extending a hand of friendship to patch up what has been a bitter few months of rancorous factionalism in the Privy Council, with two parties opposed to each other on the matter of sending troops to help the Dutch Protestant armies against the Spanish and Catholic Dutch. Cecil had hoped the argument was ended, this last week, when the Queen at last made up her mind in favor of sending troops, deciding in favor of the faction led by Cecil and Walsingham, and against the faction led by Hatton. But Hatton is obviously not yet ready to accept defeat, nor the proffered hand.

“That might mean anything,” he scoffs.

“No,” Cecil tells him. “It means good Protestant Englishmen will soon be coming to the aid of their Dutch cousins, and that together we will drive Spain back within her own borders and, God willing, strike such a blow as will rid Christendom of popish superstition for all time.”

He, again, is only half joking.

“I still believe it is a grave mistake,” Hatton says, seriously. “We should not even be sending them money, let alone troops. It will deplete our treasury, and our numbers, and it will unite France and Spain against us. More than that, also, it gives succor to any subject who rises up against his rightful king. Her Majesty is sowing the wind, and she shall reap the whirlwind.”

Cecil sighs.

“We’ve been hearing that same old refrain for years now,” he reminds Hatton. “The simple fact is that if we let the Spanish crush the Dutch, they will. And then they will turn to us and crush us. There will be fighting, I know, and it will cost gold, and blood, but so much less if it is done now, and in the Low Countries, and mostly by Dutchmen. Spend now, save later. I am glad the Queen has finally seen sense.”

Hatton blows out air.

“Twenty thousand pounds? Ten thousand men? It is the thin end of the wedge, Lord Treasurer.”

Cecil knows Hatton hardly cares about the money. It is the old religion he hankers after. A return to Rome. And that is really why the Queen appointed him to the Privy Council: not because he has a well-turned calf, though he does that, but because she is naturally cautious in these affairs—or is too aware of the risks they involve—and Hatton is there to serve as a bulwark against Master Walsingham’s zeal.

“Well,” Cecil tells him, “it is done now in any event.”

“We shall see,” Hatton says. “There is many a slip between cup and lip.”

Cecil wheels on him, suddenly furious. This argument has been had! It has been lost and won and now there is nothing more to be said.

“What do you mean by that, Hatton?”

Hatton is taller and younger, and infinitely more agile, but Cecil is Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord Treasurer of England. And two Yeomen of the Guard are never more than ten paces from his side.

“Nothing,” Hatton says, backing away. “Nothing, I do assure you.”

Cecil growls and pulls his furs tight about his shoulders. He wonders at his sudden flare of anger. Perhaps because he knows Hatton is partly right? At the beginning, five years ago now, when the Protestant Dutch provinces first rose up against their Spanish Catholic king, the Dutch looked to the English for help—for money, or troops, or ships at least—but Her Majesty was too conscious of the divine right of a king over his subjects and was too afeared of offending the Spanish, and so she dithered, and it has taken Cecil and Walsingham five years to persuade her to help the Dutch, and though she now sees sense, there is no telling what she will feel next week. Or the week after that. And even if she stays her course, will the promise of money be enough to keep the fragile Dutch alliance together? The so-called Pacification of Ghent? If the northern Calvinists under William of Orange gain too much head, the southern Catholic states under Philippe de Croÿ will almost certainly revert to King Philip of Spain, and then England is back to where she was, only having spent twenty thousand pounds and lost ten thousand English lives.

Until then, though, Cecil is content, and is wondering about returning home, since there seems nothing afoot that cannot wait until the morrow, when he hears bells tolling in the city.

“What in Christ’s name is that? Fire?”

A moment later, Sir John Jeffers’s boy—filthy, stinking, and tearful—is marched into the courtyard and brought before them.

“How now, boy, what is this?”

At the news, they retire at once, utterly incredulous, utterly dismayed, to the Privy Chamber where they question the boy, who stands almost incoherent and hoarse from shouting out the news as he rode through the city that the Queen is dead.

“You did not see her wounds?” Hatton asks.

The boy shakes his head.

“Captain Jeffers sent me here straight off, soon as it happened. Tell them she has been shot, he said. In her belly. By a dozen men with guns, in Waltham Forest. I saw the carriage. Full of holes, it was, sir, like a strainer. And her women were weeping and pulling their hair, and Mistress Frommond was with blood all on her hands.”

He holds out his own to show them his leather-stained palms as if they were hers. His eyes are bright, as if he were mad, and he has lost his cap.

“But she was not dead when you left to ride here?” Hatton asks.

“I was not going to tarry till she was, was I?”

“Fair enough,” Cecil supposes. He thanks the boy and sends him to the kitchens.

“Only do not dismay the cooks,” he tells him. “We are in for a long night and shall have need of their services.”

Then he sends for the Queen’s surgeons and her physicians to be roused, and for messengers to ride for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and for Master Walsingham, also. He sends for more candles, and a fire to be lit. Finally, he sends for the casket to be brought up from the vaults below, and then he sits at the board and is still for a moment, save for his fingers that drum a rhythm from his childhood.

“Dear God,” he says, more to himself than Hatton. “Dear bloody God. What now?”

Hatton says nothing. He paces like a cat in the shadows. Cecil can imagine his tail twitching. A moment later, a steward returns to usher in two footmen, carrying between them the casket Cecil ordered. They place it on the table and step back and set about lighting the fire and the candles. Cecil remains staring at the casket for a long moment.

He knows he should fish out that key from his doublet and start summoning all the messengers he will need to promulgate the news, to send out the letters contained...

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Verlag
Atria/Leopoldo & Co.
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1501154753
ISBN 13 
9781501154751
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
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