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and affects a swain’s devotion to his maiden love, his Queen. So we must protect her without her knowledge.”
    “Protect her from what exactly?”
    “His dark desire. My lord of Essex would be king. And those around him—his family, his friends—would crown him. Arbella, though she does not know it, is the route, the conduit, to that crown.”
    “You have information?”
    Cecil paused. “Mr. Shakespeare, please,” he said evenly, “do not ask me to reveal the source of my intelligence. If I were to tell you such a thing, how would you ever trust me?”
    It was a good point. But Cecil clearly had an informant operating within the Essex circle. Shakespeare tried to recall all he knew of Arbella Stuart, the princess with England’s future weighing heavily on her tender young shoulders. Great-granddaughter of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret, she was the child of the scandalous marriage of the young Charles Stuart and Elizabeth Cavendish (he was nineteen, she twenty); the match was illicit because the Queen had not licensed it, and she erupted in one of her customary furies on hearing of it. For Charles was in line of succession to both the Scots and English thrones, and such a man might never marry without his sovereign’s consent.
    So Arbella was born into trouble, and it had followed her like a hungry dog ever since. Her father died of consumption within a year of her birth, and her mother died of a sudden illness fiveyears later, leaving the little girl an orphan. Her maternal grandmother, the Countess of Shrewsbury—better known as Bess of Hardwick—took on the care of the six-year-old. She brought her up a princess, insisting she be served by kneeling retainers and addressed as “Highness.”
    At the age of eleven came the moment to bring her to court, to meet the Queen and her dazzling array of courtiers here, in this house, Theobalds, during the summer progress of 1587. It was a triumph. Elizabeth took the girl under her wing and made much of her, almost—but not quite—seeming to proclaim her heiress to her own throne. Perhaps it all went to the sweet little girl’s head, however, for soon she was breeding resentment among senior courtiers with her haughty ways.
    What Arbella had not realized was that the Queen was not affectionate toward her without purpose. Elizabeth wielded smiles and favors to win obedience the way her father used an axe. This was politics on a grand scale, aimed at spiking the planned invasion by a great armada from Spain. Arbella had no way of knowing that behind the scenes of the great theatre of European politics, negotiations were under way for her to marry Rainuccio Farnese, son of the Duke of Parma, Spain’s all-powerful general in the Low Countries. The hope was that the marriage would cause a rift between Parma and his king, Philip II, and wreck the invasion plans.
    The marriage never happened and the invasion armada was swept to destruction by Drake. But now, so Cecil said, a new armada was being assembled. Where did that put Arbella? It was an open secret that in the past few months the Spanish wedding plans had been resuscitated. Hilliard the portraitist had painted miniatures of the girl to be carried to Parma and his son. Anyone who knew Elizabeth well realized it was all vanity, signifying nothing; she would rather have cut off her right hand and hurled it into the fire than allow a Spanish claimant to wed a possible successor to her throne.
    “Sir Robert, these are complex international affairs …” Shakespeare began. “What are you asking of me?”
    “Prevent this marriage between the Earl of Essex and Lady Arbella Stuart. Take on this Roanoke investigation and you will have cause to stay close to Essex and his household. Watch what he does, observe every move he makes, worm your way into his circle. Find evidence against him. You must work for him, but in truth you will be employed by me, on behalf of your Queen and country. There is something else,