Marbeck and the Privateers (28 page)

‘As I thought: you won't lie to me,' Cecil said at last. ‘There are few men of whom I can say that with any certainty. You lie in my service of course, as do others. Some loathe it, but do so because they must: like my steward at Salisbury House, whom you upset some months ago. Poor Langton's never forgotten it – I fear he'll never forgive you. Nor will my boatman, for ruining his arrangement with the trulls of Paris Garden. Regrettably I've had to let him go, and his son too.'

In silence, Marbeck looked away.

‘You see, there's nothing I don't know,' the spymaster added. ‘And if there is, I make certain that I learn of it sooner or later.'

Another silence followed, even longer. Then at last, mastering himself as best he could, Marbeck eyed him.

‘My suspicions were as you describe them, my lord,' he said. ‘Though I've kept them to myself, apart from that day in the Tower when I voiced them to Solomon Tye.'

‘I'm relieved to hear that,' Cecil replied. ‘It would be rash indeed to accuse a man of such high status of committing treason.'

‘I know it,' Marbeck said.

‘Good … but are you also aware that in assisting Tye despatch a man in cold blood as he did – against my orders, I might add – you are an accessory to murder?'

Marbeck swallowed; it could have been the heady vapour that was making his mouth dry, but he doubted it. In his mind's eye he saw the look on Tye's face, in the moment before he knocked Simon Jewkes on the head … and now all became clear. It was a considered act, with the intention not only of removing a man who could testify against one of high status, as Cecil had put it, but to implicate Marbeck in the deed too. Hence, Cecil had a cast-iron hold over him – and more, all traces of the Lord Admiral's indirect involvement in the affairs of the Sea Locusts could be suppressed. He turned to Cecil, but had no words.

‘Perhaps you should return to London now,' the Lord Secretary suggested, after a moment. ‘To Mistress Walden, I mean. And to whatever other tasks may come your way, in time.'

Whereupon the man put on a look Marbeck knew well – the same look he used to employ when ringing the little bell that stood on his desk. The audience was over. And as if by some design, a shadow appeared over the King's bath just then: a single cloud, blocking the sun.

Together they waited for it to pass. Marbeck kept his eyes on it: he had been summoned here for neither explanations nor thanks, but to receive a stark warning. When sunlight flooded down again he looked at Lord Cecil, but the man's eyes were closed, his face serene; the benign spymaster was back.

Without a word, Marbeck rose and waded towards the steps. He emerged dripping from the pool, and glanced round to see the Lord Secretary motionless, lying like a plucked chicken in the water.