The Last Crusaders: Ivan the Terrible Read Online Free Page A

was guided firmly to an outer chamber. Seeing his expression as he went, Nicholas had to suppress a smile.
    The door shut again and Cecil talked with the precise rapidity of the highly intelligent and highly pragmatic.
    ‘Your report of your travels, which the Queen perceived might prove so useful to us.’ He glanced down at it on his desk. ‘Excellent. Valuable material. Only occasionally over-written.’
    ‘Over … ?’
    ‘Extraneous detail. We in government are not interested in Maltese flora or Cypriot fauna.’ He smiled bleakly. ‘But information on winds, tides, coasts, fortifications, armaments, all useful. The account of the flaying and murder of this Bragadino at Famagusta, before the Battle of Lepanto … shocking, shocking.’ He did not sound remotely shocked. ‘We will want you to work for us again.’
    ‘I, I … I am not a … I do not work for you, I am a simple Shropshire farmer.’
    ‘And baronet.’
    ‘And baronet, yes.’
    ‘Who travelled widely in the Mediterranean when younger – on some kind of idealistic pilgrimage or crusade in memory of his late father, Sir John Ingoldsby, former Knight of St John – and who ended up at both the Siege of Malta and the Battle of Lepanto.’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    ‘Who has seen much, therefore, of manners and men abroad, and whose knowledge and experience would be useful to us.’
    ‘Yes, but—’
    ‘And you are a Catholic, are you not?’
    Nicholas hesitated. ‘I am devoted to Her Majesty, and a loyal churchgoer in her church.’
    ‘You are a Catholic. You have even fought alongside Spaniards and Italians at Malta and Lepanto – Spaniards who are rapidly becoming our gravest enemies. Or do you deny Rome, deny Peter?’
    He froze. No, he could not.
    ‘You are a Catholic,’ repeated Cecil, voice like a scalpel. ‘Things can be difficult for Catholics. Increasingly so nowadays. Unless they demonstrate clear loyalty and service to our State.’
    His mind reeled. This he had not expected. Cecil wanted him to be a spy.
    ‘You have travelled widely, have fought well in the Turkish wars, you speak some languages – French, Italian, Spanish, passing Turkish – am I right?’
    He must be honest. Cecil would see through everything. ‘And a little Arabic, yes, and Greek. Traveller’s Greek, not scholar’s.’
    ‘You’ll not be translating Homer.’ Cecil switched abruptly, the seasoned interrogator. ‘Your two companions – they are safely lodged?’
    Be non-committal. ‘I believe so.’
    ‘In London?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You do not know where?’
    ‘I do not.’
    Cecil came round from behind his desk and very close to him: almost a head shorter, but radiating a kind of power. ‘You do not,’ he agreed softly. ‘But we do.’ He turned away. ‘We see their every move.’
    He ordered Nicholas to sit. He walked about, small neat hands clasped behind him. ‘A delicate matter has arisen. Unusual, to say the least. Unusual, too, for such a matter to be entrusted to a Catholic – of however wavering a sort,’ he added sarcastically. ‘But I know you have told the truth so far. There are a number of things in your account which the intelligence of this kingdom knew already. For example, you have merely corroborated for us the details of Nicosia’s defences in Cyprus.
    ‘We know very well you attend your church regularly, you foment no dissent, you talk no religion. Within your household there is still a Catholic missal on your bookshelf in your study, that belonged to your father – his name is on the flyleaf – but you do not look at it regularly, and you have no priest visiting in secret.’
    How Cecil loved such knowledge, and the look in this Ingoldsby’s eyes, the alarm and the helpless admiration! Intelligence was everything in this brave new world. Knowledge was power. ‘Yes, it pays to keep watch on one’s subjects – especially the more wandering sort.’
    He turned over Nicholas’s account on his desk and laid it face down, as