I was shown into the chamber some time later I gasped at the sight of the young man lounging in the window seat. Adonis, I thought to myself, or Eros, the god of Love himself. That hair, like so many strands of the finest, palest gold, skin like lilies and roses, so fine and fair that the merest touch could leave a bruise. . . .
Sir Francis cleared his throat harshly and I swiveled my gaze to the man seated behind the table, a table littered with papers, pens, and broken wax. The man himself loomed even though he was not above middle-height, and seated besides. His gown was somber, but of the finest materials and set off by a narrow ruff of peerless lace. The face, with it’s Spaniard’s coloring, was sad, but the eyes! I had seen opaque eyes like that once before, turbid and blotched, in the face of a man pulled from the River Cam, two days drowned. I shuddered slightly in spite of myself and thought that I heard a faint chuckle from the direction of the window seat. After an hour or so of intense interrogation, I was dismissed from the Secretary’s presence. Adonis, who had been introduced as Walsingham’s nephew Tom, followed and laid his tapered and ring-laden fingers upon my arm as soon as we stepped outdoors.
“Come, I will buy you some dinner. Facing my uncle is hungry work, but it can pay well,” he said, smoothing the harebell-blue velvet of his doublet, a blue, I noted dazedly, that exactly matched those large, golden-fringed eyes. I was intensely conscious that this, my newest doublet, though of wine colored velvet with a cherry-red silk lining, was sadly worn. It was ill-fitting enough to show that it had been made for someone else and that I had acquired it at second hand. My trunkhose were a poor match and my hose clumsily mended. My boots were good, though. That was one advantage to having a cobbler in the family—you always went well shod. He led me to the courtyard where my own hired hack and a blood mare stood side by side.
Within an hour we were comfortably lodged in a private room dining on the richest fare I had ever seen. Wine in abundance, flesh, fish and fowl, all cooked to perfection and liberally spiced, set off with sweetmeats and fancy breads. After the plain food and small beer of the college buttery, this seemed like heaven. “The more like heaven for the company,” I thought, unable to tear my eyes from the wanton, wayward godling before me. In the light of his sudden smile I realized I had spoken the thought aloud.
“He wishes me to spy on my fellow students, then?” I asked quickly, to cover my confusion, and found my voice already beginning to slur from the unaccustomed strength of the wine.
“Spy? My sweet Kit—I may call you Kit, may I not? How dramatic you are! No, of course not, but if you should happen to hear anything that he should know—for the safety of the Queen and the realm, well, he would see that you did not lose by it. Why, he often employs me to deliver messages for him, between London and Paris. You must come with me to Paris, one day, sweet, sweet, Kit. My uncle said that you were . . . like me. . . .” the voice, grown husky, trailed off, and in the sinking light of the candles Tom leant towards me, shoving the table out of the way, reaching out his hand, but shyly, giving me every chance to pull back in the case that his uncle had been misinformed. But he had not been, the desire was there in my eyes, in my ragged breathing, unquestionably rising in my groin, and I saw Tom make his decision. I could read it in his eyes, in the slight nod of his head. He allowed our lips to brush, then turned his head, as if in shame, and all the while his shameless hand was threading its way into the intricacies of my clothing.
It was a fine line to draw, a knife’s edge to walk, but Tom was a practiced player, and a novice such as I stood no chance against him. Soon I had been teased into a state close to madness, as he provoked the dominance verging on violence that his own needs demanded. Later, sweat-soaked and sated, still entwined together, he developed