The Queen's Christmas Summons. Amanda McCabe

Their black-and-brown robes were a sombre note, one lost in the waves of cheers from the Spanish crowds. The conquered Portuguese stayed behind their window shutters.

      Just out of sight, the ships moored in the Tagus River let off a deafening volley from their guns. The last time Spanish ships had sailed up that river, it had been to conquer and subjugate Portugal. Now they sailed out to overrun new lands, to make all the world Spanish.

      But John knew there was more, much more, behind this glittering display of power. The Armada had been delayed for so long, their supplies ran desperately short even now, before leaving port. Sailors had been deserting and Spanish gangs roamed the streets of Lisbon, pressing men to replace them.

      He had to find out more of the truth of the Armada’s situation, the certainty of her plans, so he could pass on the word before they sailed out of Lisbon. After that, unless they found a friendly port, he could send no more messages until he arrived in England, one way or another. All the long months of careful planning, all the puzzle pieces he had been painstakingly sliding into place, would have to be carried to their endgame now.

      England’s future, the lives of its people, were at stake.

      ‘What think you, Master Kelsey?’ Lord Westmoreland asked John, using the pseudonym that had been his for years, ever since he ‘deserted’ the Queen’s armies in Antwerp and carried information to the Spanish. It had followed him now to Lisbon and beyond. ‘Shall we regain our English estates and see the people returned to the true church before year’s end?’

      ‘I pray so, my lord,’ John answered. ‘With God’s will, we cannot be thwarted. I long for my own home again, as we all do, after the injustices the false Queen has inflicted on my family. My Spanish mother would rejoice if she could see this day.’

      ‘Well said, Master Kelsey,’ Lord Paget said. ‘We will bring honour and justice back to our homeland at last.’

      ‘And we shall avenge the sacrifice of Queen Mary of Scotland,’ Lord Percy said. He spoke softly, but everyone gathered around him looked at him in surprise. Percy obviously burned with zeal for his cause, praying in the church of the Ascension near his home for hours at a time, but he seldom spoke.

      ‘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?’