Introduction

Summer 1566. A glittering royal progress approaches Oxford. A golden age of prosperity, scientific advances, exploration and artistic magnificence. Elizabeth I’s Protestant government has much to celebrate.

But one young Catholic courtier isn’t cheering.

Conflicting passions—patriotism and religion—wage war in his heart. On this day, religion wins. Sir Edward Latham throws away his title, kin, and country to serve Catholic monarchs abroad.

But his wandering doesn’t quiet his soul, and when Europe’s religious wars threaten his beloved England and his family, patriotism prevails. Latham switches sides and becomes a double agent for Queen Elizabeth. Life turns complicated and dangerous as he balances protecting country and queen, while entreating both sides for peace.

Intrigue, lust, and war combine in this thrilling debut historical novel from Loretta Goldberg.

Author Interview

How did you first become interested in Tudor history?

As a child, I thrilled to stories about Elizabethan sea dogs like Francis Drake. I imagined time-travelling my heroes and heroines to the present day. One of my fantasies was seeing Francis Drake’s astonishment at traffic jams! He was incredulous that we had invented a metal box that could go 100 mph, didn’t foul the asphalt, and yet we hadn’t made a road system that let us move fast when we needed to!

As an adult, I became deeply moved by the dilemma faced by people whose religious and patriotic loyalties were irreconcilable. In the papers of Anthony and Francis Bacon, I read letters from a spy whose heart and life were split in this way. He inspired me to create Edward Latham and to wander through his Tudor world, experiencing exotic travel, life-threatening adventures, transient loves, a litany of small betrayals, and, finally, a longing for home.

What is it that still fascinates people about Queen Elizabeth I?

Firstly, it is her long reign—nearly 45 years—and her transformation of England. It seems as if every person at the time picked up quill and ink to write about her life and it was as much a golden age for clerks, lawyers, and diplomats as it was for poets and playwrights. Secondly, Elizabeth is full of contradictions. She left no private diaries and confided in no one, so her inner life is a mystery, with scope for subjectivity. Thirdly, on a primal level, she was an attractive woman with strong passions and libido who died a virgin queen. That’s already dramatic. She was also the daughter of Henry VIII, which helps!

Did you discover anything new in your research for this Elizabethan novel?

How about locating an unpublished primary document? My main character, Sir Edward Latham, is loosely drawn from the adventurer, Sir Anthony Standen. Relation of Sir Anthony Standen. Memories of a Turkish Voyage, collected in Constantinople in the year of our Lord God 1578 is in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. I had seen it footnoted, but not excerpted, in articles on Standen, and was curious. I have just got it fully transcribed, and it’s of mixed quality, but Standen offers startling insights, ahead of his time. Some of his attitudes even resemble those of my character Latham, which I find amazing.

Can you tell us about the next book in the series?

It picks up where The Reversible Mask leaves off. Latham returns, along with other lovable rogues and a new character. I love moments when power shifts. The action will centre on the beginning of the end of the Hanseatic League’s influence, triggered by Francis Drake capturing an entire Hansa convoy carrying war materials to Spain.

Editorial Review

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 9

HUBRIS

Brussels, October 1576

Brussels was blazing with autumn yellows and reds when Latham finally clattered through the white stone archway of the Hotel Ravennais to begin Mary’s suit. In addition to rooms at Coudenberg Palace, Lady Barbara Blomberg maintained a suite in the elegant Burgundian manor. Close to the palace, Hotel Ravennais housed military officers, courtiers, and patricians with business at court. Built early in the century, the hotel consisted of two red brick buildings, gardens and stables.

Brussel’s Upper Town vibrated with the pomp of imperial life. But it was a façade, a brittle gaiety Latham marveled at because mayhem was not far away. A mutiny in July by Spanish troops in Holland had caused the loss of the province; the Dutch rebellion seemed entrenched, and elites loyal to Spain were deeply anxious. Nevertheless, Upper Town carried on as if God was blessing its every day.

Writing as Piso Prosperino, Latham had requested a meeting with Barbara Blomberg, saying he had an important private matter to unfold. Weeks later, she’d agreed. As he stabled his horse, he reviewed what he knew about her.

She’d been just eighteen when a jaded Emperor Charles V fell for her voice. It had begun accidentally: she was pretending to be a boy substituting for a famous chorister who had fallen sick just before a command performance. The solace the Emperor sought from repeated musical performances became sexual, resulting in the illegitimate Don John. Emperor Charles had married her off to an imperial knight, Hieronymus Kegel. This union was said to be unhappy, although they had three children, now grown and dispersed. Kegel had died in 1569. There were rumours that during her marriage Blomberg’s voice had sickened; if so, it had recovered with the freedom of widowhood. She lived on a modest pension from Philip, occasionally performing for guests. Her invitations were prized by those for whom probity wasn’t everything.

Now, twenty minutes early, lute in hand and heart thumping, Latham walked across the courtyard. Squelching fallen chestnuts underfoot, he passed the lower building, glancing at the spired turret and white stone framing the upper floors. He opened the door to the main building and climbed to the first-floor landing. He was blocked from getting further by a knot of officers and townsmen. She was rehearsing; male voices and a solo soprano floating down, accompanied by a spinet. The uninvited locals were eavesdropping. It was the motet Grief hath besieged me. Basses and tenors interwove like hemp rope being plaited, while the silken soprano soared above, in phrases so long that they seemed to defy the gross need to breathe. The imperceptible change of texture when breath did occur imbued the sound with otherworldliness, arousing the listener’s profound yearning, a soul stretching to its Maker.

This is what Emperor Charles had to own, Latham realised. Too soon, the motet ended. The eavesdroppers exchanged glances, but didn’t move. The music began again, the soft sections more inward, an intimation of sound, yet fully present. Then swelling at Call, cease not to call, And I say, what shall I say? The soprano adopted a different hue for different characters, and the male voices finished with pelting affirmation: In thee, Lord, do I put my trust.

It was over. The door opened, and five men trooped out, chatting eagerly until they saw the listeners. “Get out knaves, or pay us!” Done with spirituality, they pushed the eavesdroppers downstairs. Latham waited until everyone had left, then returned to the landing, as a viol de gamba and cornet were tuning up.

Secular songs began: a troubadour love song; a sarcastic ditty on a miserable marriage; a martial ballad of Spain routing Moors. The soprano duetted with fast instrumental lines. Latham had never heard the style before; she must have invented it. Demanding great virtuosity, at one moment her voice was liquid gold pouring from high to low when following the cornet; a string of shimmering diamonds tossed in the air when imitating plucked spinet scales; low with urgency when improvising with the viol de gamba. She made the instruments sound all wood, brass and gut, compared with the vibrating resonance that was her body. Latham’s blood tingled, his own body travelling to very far places.

But she had pushed her accompanists too hard. Into this glorious cosmos, foul notes from the spinet, a staggering inability to keep up, a jagged tailing to silence.

“Turd-fingers, muse-murderer, dung-sucker! Get out of my sight. You’re dismissed! Out! Out! Out!” The voice down from the ether: violent, guttural. Pottery breaking, the clang and jangle of metal hitting a keyboard. The door banged open, and a man backed out, clutching his bleeding forehead. A sheepish cornetist and gamba player followed him.

Latham ran upstairs and walked in. He came face to face with a middle-aged woman bent over, face flushed, her chest heaving with incandescent fury.

“Lady Barbara, I am enchanted,” he cried, sweeping off his hat and bowing. Straightening up, he thought: I’m to conduct this suit with my most obliging manners. How do I begin?

Blomberg’s ferocity subsided as she, too, stood. Smoothing dishevelled hair, she said, “Ecstasy and rage vibrate as one string, don’t you think?” Flat-toned, as if her life-force had drained away.

“No, lady. Angels do not brush me, as they do you.”

She smiled slightly and rang for a servant to clean up the mess.

“Signor Piso Prosperino? You look Saxon, not Tuscan. A mystery. Well, we’re finished here. This private talk will have to be short because I must find a new spinet player for tomorrow.”

A homely lady-in-waiting embroidering cushions in the window recess bobbed a curtsy and left.

Alone, Latham and Blomberg appraised each other.

Latham looked down at a well-proportioned full-breasted woman of about fifty, with luxuriant, greying fair hair escaping a string net infused with malachite. Her eyes were intensely blue, her features classic and her skin pale. Petulance etched her mouth, and her eyes were framed by fine crows’ feet. She extended a large bare hand to be kissed. Latham felt calluses on her fingertips from lute strings. A musician in every piece of her body, he thought.

Her clothes were a cry of taste amidst constraint. Over a narrow farthingale, she was wearing a cream woollen dress fastened with malachite buttons, with an embroidered blue and green hem and matching bands all the way up. She had green velvet shoulder puffers and attached woollen sleeves. These malachites yearn to be emeralds, her dress said, wool deserves to be satin or summer velvet, except this world is cruel. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. With spies, betrayal is built into what they do. But many spies are idealistic, seeing themselves as risking their lives for a higher purpose. Some create an individual moral code, drawing red lines they won’t cross. Do you think Edward Latham has red lines?
2. Ottoman slave and high official, Ibrahim, has a passionate and deep relationship with Latham. Yet he refuses Latham’s offer to save his life. Why?
3. In Chapter 27, Elizabeth I and her Privy Councillors struggle over whether and/or how Mary, Queen of Scots is to be punished after being convicted of attempt to assassinate Elizabeth. How do you think Elizabeth handled the crisis? Do you think there was anything more to the conflict between Queen and Councillors than who was at the top of the power pyramid? If you were Elizabeth, what would you have done?
4. The tales of Edmund Campion and Edward Latham intersect through the first half of the novel. They’re both Catholics, but whenever they encounter each other, they are acting out their religious convictions in divergent ways. Who do you sympathize with more?

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