The Silver Skull by Mark Chadbourn

vigilant."

    "And now all our souls are at risk," Mayhew said. Upending the bottle he'd been steadily draining, he was disgusted to find it empty. "So that traitorous witch Mary was in the grip of the Enemy. Is no one safe from their sly control?" he added. "How much of the misery she caused was down to her, and how much to whatever rode her?"

    "We will never know," Walsingham replied. "The past matters little. We must now concern ourselves with the desperate situation that unfolds."

    "It is the nature of these things that the waiting seems to go on forever and then, suddenly, there is no time at all when the wave engulfs us," Dee added. "Yet fortune has given us a gift. The Enemy has lost the weapon almost as soon as it fell into their hands."

    "For now. But they will be scouring London, even as we do. If time has been bought for us, it will not be long." With one hand on the mantelpiece as he peered into the embers, Will turned over Walsingham's account of Mary's execution. "You said the thing in Mary's head spoke of two queens plucked in arrogance."

    "Elizabeth's father provided ample candidates," Mayhew said. "That is of little import. Of more concern are the actions of the Catholic sympathisers and our enemies across the water. Will Spain seize upon our distraction with this crisis to launch an attack upon England?"

    "Philip of Spain is determined to destroy us at all costs and will use any opportunity that arises," Walsingham replied. "He makes a great play of English heresy for turning away from his Catholic faith, but his hatred is as much about gold. He is heartily sick of our attacks on his ships, and our constant forays into the New World, the source of all his riches."

    "But war can still be averted?" Mayhew said hopefully.

    Walsingham gave a derisive snort. "The spineless fools at court who nag Elizabeth believe so. They encourage her in peace negotiations that drag on and on. In the face of all reason, our lord treasurer, Burghley, is convinced that peace will continue. He will still be advocating gentle negotiation when the Spanish are hammering on his door. Leicester opposes him as much as possible, but if Burghley wins the queen's ear, all is lost."

    "War was inevitable when Elizabeth signed the treaty to defend the Dutch against any further Spanish demands upon their territories. Philip saw it as a declaration of war on Spain,"
    Will noted.

    "Now the duke of Parma sits across the channel with seventeen thousand men, waiting for the moment to invade England. And in Spain, Philip amasses a great fleet, and plots and plans," Walsingham continued. "The invasion will come. It is only a matter of when. And the Enemy has chosen this moment to assail us from within. Destabilised, distracted, we are ripe for an attack."

    "Spain and the Catholic sympathisers are in league with the Enemy," Mayhew spat. "We will be torn apart by these threats coming from all directions."

    "No, this business is both greater and more cunning than that." Will turned back to the cluttered table. "In this room, we know there is a worse threat than Catholics and Spain. Our differences with them may seem great, but they are meagre compared to the gulf between us and the true Enemy, whose manipulations set brother against brother when we should be shoulder to shoulder. Religious arguments mean nothing in the face of the threat that stands before us."

    Will could see Dee agreed, but Mayhew cared little, and Walsingham was steadfast in the hatred of Catholics that had been embedded in him since his early days at the defiantly Protestant King's College at Cambridge.

    "There are threats and there are threats. Some greater and some lesser, but threats nonetheless, and we shall use whatever is at our disposal to defeat them." Walsingham's voice was stripped of all emotion and all the more chilling for it. "Barely a day passes without some Catholic plot on Elizabeth's life coming to light. We resist them resolutely. We listen. We