‘I’m just passing through from London to Rye,’ I said apologetically. ‘I didn’t know of you.’

The cart was creaking slowly past and I realised why the horses were labouring so hard. The cart held three newly cast cannon, gleaming in the sun. No wonder the carter would not stop. It would have taken immense effort to get the load rolling again.

‘Well, you won’t find better cannon nowhere,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Wealden iron stone and Wealden coal and Wealden charcoal and Wealden water to drive the machinery. And the skill of our founders, better’n any man.’

With that the cart turned into the road leading north, headed, I supposed, for London. I drew a little nearer the buildings and saw what looked like a scene from some vision of Hell. Outlined against the crimson flames of furnaces, half-naked men caked in sweat and soot manoeuvred machinery whose purpose I could not fathom. I saw a waterfall of molten metal, as dazzling to the eye as looking into the heart of the sun. Men like tiny ants moved around it, using long rods to move the throat of the machine which vomited this beautiful, terrible liquid. I backed away, my lungs filled with the choking heat and smell, my clothes already sprinkled with a fine black dust of sooty flakes.

I turned and walked away, back down the lane where cows grazed unconcerned on either side. So this was where the prosperity of Hawkhurst lay. And these were the cannon which must arm our ships and army against the foreign invader. What blighted lives those men must lead, to forge for us protection against our enemies.

We reached Rye the next day, a pretty town whose busy streets sloped down to the harbour, one of the famous Cinque Ports, a confederation established centuries ago to guard against invasion from France. Even earlier the Romans had built forts around this corner of England, which they called the Saxon Shore, to fend off the barbarian invasions. There was a sobering lesson to be read here, for the Romans had gone and the Saxons had invaded all too successfully. Was history to repeat itself? In the lands from which the Saxons had come, we were even now fighting against the Spanish in support of the Protestants of the Low Countries. Sir Francis’s son-in-law, Sir Philip Sidney, was there and so was the Earl of Essex. From words I had heard exchanged between Sir Francis and Phelippes, my lord of Essex – who saw himself as a great general – was a dangerous liability to our army. Sir Philip, himself a skilled soldier but obliged to defer to the Earl’s rank, was near despair with Essex’s arrogant blundering that had already cost men’s lives.

Looking out across the waters of the Channel from Rye, I thought what a narrow moat it was for the protection of England. A Spanish fleet sailing from the Low Countries or a French one sailing from the northeast coast of France had little more than twenty or thirty miles of sea to cross. Not much more than we had ridden that day from Hawkhurst.

I spoke my thoughts aloud to Phelippes as we stood looking over the town wall to the harbour below.

‘And that is why we must remain ever vigilant,’ he said. ‘It is one of the reasons Sir Francis sent you with me, so that you would understand just how vulnerable we are.’

‘Not as vulnerable as Portugal was to Spain,’ I said. ‘We had no Channel to protect us. When I was ten years old I stood and watched the Spanish army march into Coimbra. They had marched all the way from the Spanish border and not a finger was lifted to stop them. Our army just melted away.’

‘That will not happen in England,’ Phelippes said grimly. ‘Our army will stand and fight any who manage to break through the defences of our navy.’

I told him about the cannon foundry I had seen at Hawkhurst.

‘Aye, the Wealden forest is the heart of cannon casting. The iron masters are working at full stretch to arm the ships our shipwrights are building.’

‘Master Phelippes,’ I said hesitantly, as we headed back to our inn, ‘I have been thinking much about the matter of the Scottish queen.’

‘Yes?’

‘If, as you expect, she reveals that she is privy to this plot for invasion and assassination of the Queen, then she is guilty under the Act for the Surety of the Queen.’

‘Aye, she would be.’

‘And that is treason?’

‘It is treason.’

‘Punishable by death.’

‘Indeed. But only after a fair trial and the imposition of the death penalty, which means the Queen would have to sign the order.’

I looked at him. His shoulders were hunched and his mouth was turned down in disapproval. How he and Walsingham had laboured to protect the Queen and the country, yet I did not think she thanked them for it.

‘Well, supposing the Scottish queen were to be sentenced to death, and executed. What would France and Spain do then? I do not think they would walk away.’

‘They would not. I fear the threat of invasion would be even greater.’

‘But then . . .’ I wanted to say, ‘But what has it all been for?’ Yet I could not utter the words.

He stopped at the door of the inn. ‘You are wondering whether everything we have done has been pointless? You must remember, Mary covets the Queen’s throne. With her gone, there is no clear Catholic claimant, except, of course, Lord Strange, though I think he has no taste for monarchy himself.’

I looked at him blankly. ‘Lord Strange? The Earl of Derby’s son? I did not realise that he is somehow caught up in this complex web of royalty.’

‘He is descended from King Henry VII, and his mother the countess was named in Henry VIII’s will in the line of succession after our present Queen. If she dies before the Queen, which seems likely, Lord Strange would be next in line, although, as I say, I do not think he seeks the honour. However, the mostly feasible claimant with Mary gone would be Mary’s son, King James VI of Scotland. He is a Protestant and receives a pension from our Queen. No force sent by the Duke of Guise or King Philip would seek to put him on the throne. Therefore there is no figure around whom a conspiracy like this could be formed. Nevertheless, that does not rule out a revenge attack by either or both of them. Nothing would please them more – or indeed the Bishop of Rome – than to overrun England and force us to accept the rule of the papacy.’

This conversation, and all the impressions which had crowded in on me over the last three days, kept me awake that night. I tossed restlessly in my bed, even getting up and lighting my candle at one point. That merely made my wakefulness worse. I blew out my candle at last and lay staring at the ceiling in the faint light washing in from the window. Finally I slept, only to be woken, it seemed, at once, by the noise of the citizens of Rye going about their business in the streets.

After we had broken our fast, Phelippes bespoke a room where he could interview various of Walsingham’s men who worked in the area. I sat quietly in a corner, taking no part in the discussions, but listening attentively. First he interviewed the customs officials and searchers of Rye. Nothing and no one suspicious had come through the port that he did not already know about.

‘Traffic is down in Rye,’ the most senior port official said as he was leaving. ‘The silting up of the port grows worse every year. Landowners over in the Marsh keep trying to reclaim more land from the sea and it wreaks havoc on the shipping channels. As often as they do it, we keep taking them to court and getting an order for them to dredge the deep water channels that they’ve clogged up, but the minute our backs are turned, they’re at it again.’

The general advice from the Rye officials was that the port was so effectively policed now that no one would any longer try to smuggle men in through the town.

‘Anywhere between here and Hastings,’ they said. ‘There are half a dozen places with small fishing fleets and no proper supervision. That is where you want to be looking.’