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FOUR

Lady Sidney gave a little squeal of delight and sat back in her chair, clasping her hands together. Walsingham continued to study me, his face grave. At length, he turned to his daughter.

‘You have your wish, Frances. Now you must leave this in my hands, the details are not for your ears. And make no mention of Bruno’s coming here in your letters to Philip, unless you want to compromise the whole business.’

‘I am not a fool, Father.’ Her lip curled with scorn as she pushed her chair back. ‘Do you forget I was born to double-dealing?’ She stood and turned to me, bobbing a brief curtsy. ‘Give you good night, Bruno. And thank you. I am more grateful than you can know.’

Born to double-dealing, I thought, as the door clicked shut behind her. It was a phrase I had heard before; Walsingham had used it of Charles Paget, whose father, Lord Paget, had been spymaster to Queen Elizabeth’s father, the last King Henry. What must it be, to grow up in a world where counterfeiting is a language you learn from childhood, and everyone you know wears at least two faces? I had developed a grudging respect for Paget in my encounters with him, though I knew he would have let me die without a second thought if it had suited him.

‘Bruno? Are you with us?’

I shook myself free of memories and focused on Walsingham at the other end of the table. I noticed again how thin his face had grown.

‘At your service, Your Honour. You need to know who killed Clara Poole. I suppose you assume it was this Babington or one of his associates?’

He rubbed a hand across his beard and paused before answering.

‘I need more than that. Clara was my most trusted source on the inside of that plot. She delivered intelligence reliably on their intentions – it was how I could be sure the business was not advancing beyond my ability to control it. You can imagine how carefully this must be balanced.’

I nodded. No wonder he looked as if he didn’t sleep. It was one thing to allow an assassination plot to unfold in order to entrap Mary Stuart in an act of treason; quite another if that plot should succeed because he failed to monitor it closely enough. ‘Does the Queen know of this Babington conspiracy?’

‘No.’ His face darkened. ‘And she will have no need to, until it is all set down on paper and her royal cousin on trial, if our skill and God’s Providence serve. I have one other reporting to me from among the conspirators, but lately I am not certain his loyalty is wholly mine. I need someone’ – he raised a forefinger and levelled it at me – ‘to join Babington and his friends. Find out why Clara was killed. I have no doubt that one among them suspected her – but I need to know if all were behind her murder, or one took it upon himself to act alone, and how much each one knows. If they think she betrayed their plot, they may change tactics, or put it off until a later date, and that we cannot afford. I don’t have that kind of time.’ He broke off and reached for his glass, coughing as he swallowed.

‘Your Honour –’ I leaned forward, alarmed – ‘are you ill? I hope you don’t mean—’

‘Look at me, Bruno.’ He slumped back in his chair, drained. ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. So damnably weak, and growing weaker by the day. If any apothecary could make me a philtre that would wind the clock back ten years, I would sell everything I own to buy it.’ A ghost of a smile flickered over his lips. He examined the backs of his hands and did not meet my eye. ‘I have given the best of my energies to keep this realm safe, free and Protestant, and I will do so until my last breath, but I can’t go on like this forever. I must and will see the Queen of Scots brought to the block as my last act of service to Elizabeth.’ One hand curled into a fist. ‘With her death, England’s enemies will be scattered. Then I could close my eyes with a degree of peace.’

They would soon regroup, I thought. Instead I said, ‘Your Honour, I hope and pray these fears are premature. You are only—’ I stopped to calculate his age. Barely old enough to be my father, though in some ways I had come to think of him in that role.

‘This is my fifty-sixth summer, Bruno.’ He sat up straighter, toying with the stem of his glass.

‘Well, then. Unless a physician has told you otherwise, there is no reason to think you will not go on serving the realm for another three decades.’ I tried to sound buoyant, but his eyes clouded.

‘I need no physician to tell me what I feel in here.’ He struck his chest. ‘But enough self-pity. I tell you only so that you understand the urgency. I must know why Clara Poole was killed, and what Babington will do next. This Jesuit priest Mendoza is sending to join the conspirators …’

‘What of him?’

‘You will be him.’

I had guessed this was where he was tending. I closed my eyes to escape his intense stare.

‘Your Honour, it’s impossible that I could pass myself off as this man without suspicion. I am known in London—’

‘Not as well as you think,’ he cut in. He had clearly anticipated this objection. ‘It is almost a year since you were last here. You were known at the French embassy when you lodged there, I grant, but since Ambassador Castelnau was recalled to Paris, his household staff returned with him and it’s not as if the new ambassador has your portrait hanging over the mantel. There are few Londoners who could identify you if they passed you in the street.’

‘I am known by some at court,’ I said feebly.

‘Your name is known in select circles, perhaps. But you will not be going by your own name, and it is no great work to change your appearance. Besides, you will be nowhere near the court – Babington’s group hide themselves in taverns and brothels, and meet in lodging houses. There is no reason anyone should connect this Spanish Jesuit with the Italian scholar Giordano Bruno, if you remember not to provoke arguments about Aristotle.’

I noted the glint of humour in his eye.

‘We don’t know anything about this Jesuit. He could be seventy years old. He could be famous for having one leg. Ballard might have met him already in Paris, for God’s sake – they would know I was an imposter the minute I walked through the door.’

Walsingham straightened, a knowing smile creasing his face. ‘I doubt Mendoza would send a man of seventy, or one hampered by the loss of a leg, but these are matters we can check. There’s no evidence from Paget’s letter that either he or Ballard have met this man. There is only one person among the conspirators who would know that you are an imposter.’

‘Then the plan is over before it is begun, if one of them knows me. Who?’

‘You’ll enjoy this. The only associate of the Babington group who will know you’re not the priest is Master Gilbert Gifford.’

‘Gifford?’ I stared at him, incredulous. I had encountered Gifford in Paris the previous autumn; a gawky, anxious youth whose father had been imprisoned for refusing to recant his Catholic faith, and who harboured romantic notions of overthrowing Elizabeth and her government, like every other angry young Englishman who fetched up in France. ‘I warned you about him before Christmas. He was planning to return to England carrying secret letters for Mary Stuart from Paget and his circle in Paris.’

‘And thanks to your warning, he was intercepted by Richard Daniel in Rye,’ Walsingham said, looking pleased with himself. ‘Daniel rode to London to bring the boy to me in person. With a few judicious incentives, young Gifford was persuaded to see that his best interests lay with England’s cause and not Mary Stuart’s.’

‘You didn’t torture him?’ The thought of Walsingham’s methods of persuasion turned my gut cold; I had no great affection for Gilbert Gifford, but he had struck me as foolish and easily manipulated, rather than dangerous.

Walsingham gave me a reproving look. ‘Good God, no. I am not a monster, whatever my daughter may think. Torture a creature like Gifford? I had as well take a sword to a kitten. No – he had enough on him when he arrived in Rye for me to throw him in the Tower on the spot, and he knew it. Not only the letters to Mary promising foreign support for her claim to the throne, but – can you credit it – a copy of a new papal bull of excommunication against the Queen.’ He shook his head at the audacity. ‘And woefully badly concealed. Gifford was on his knees begging for a reprieve before I said a word, ready to promise anything. So I offered him his liberty if he would continue in his role as courier to Mary, but under my direction.’ He paused, allowing me to appreciate the achievement. ‘To sweeten the deal, I released his father from prison as well. The old man was in the Counter almost a year for recusancy. The family has lands and a manor house in Staffordshire, you see.’

I shook my head, failing to see the significance.

‘Mary has been transferred to Chartley Manor, nearby,’ he said, impatient. ‘So Gifford may take her correspondence while making visits to his family home, without arousing suspicion. It is the perfect cover, and the conspirators believe it is all down to their ingenuity. For the present, Mary Stuart thinks Gilbert Gifford is her saviour.’

‘And this Babington group – they trust him too?’

‘Implicitly. He came with personal letters of recommendation from Charles Paget in Paris, and Mary has vouched for him.’

‘Forgive me, Your Honour, but you have said yourself that these men are not stupid. They are in regular correspondence with Paget, who keeps a close eye on me. It will not take him long to notice I have left Paris. And what happens when the real Jesuit priest turns up?’

He chuckled. ‘He will not make it past the searchers, trust me. While you were resting, Thomas and I dispatched fast riders to all the southern ports giving them warning – the Jesuit must be expected any day now, posing as the son of a cloth merchant, according to Paget. The minute they have him, he will be brought safely to Barn Elms, where we can count his limbs and he can tell us everything we need to know to make your performance convincing. I assume you have Spanish among your languages, growing up in Naples?’

‘Of course. It was the language of the nobility when I was educated at San Domenico. A Spaniard might detect a Neapolitan accent, though I am fluent enough to convince Englishmen. But—’

‘Excellent.’ The smile crept back. ‘Don’t worry about Paget. We will put the word out in Paris that you have taken a trip to Wittenberg.’

‘What will you do with this Jesuit while I am impersonating him? You will not kill him?’ I tried not to think about how the Spaniard would be persuaded to share his information. It was said that any prisoner suspected of possessing intelligence too sensitive to be heard even by the torturers at the Tower was taken under cover of darkness to Walsingham’s country house near Mortlake, where he would conduct the interrogations himself in his cellar.

‘The Jesuit will be my concern,’ he said, with a snap of finality. He folded his hands together and leaned closer. ‘But you must tell me now if the business makes you squeamish. Once it is begun, once you are in with them, you must see it through to the end. If you waver, if you hesitate even once and they suspect you, they will kill you. They have too much at stake. We have already seen what they will do to a woman.’ He held my gaze, unblinking. ‘And you have a tender conscience, Bruno – I have noted this in you before. As a man, it is a virtue that does you credit. As an agent, it could be your undoing. In this occupation, one is sometimes required to override conscience with duty, just as a soldier on the battlefield must.’

‘I have watched a man die a traitor’s death, Your Honour,’ I said quietly. ‘What you are asking of me – to befriend these men, eat with them, earn their trust, all to bring them to the scaffold – it is no small thing. Anyone with a conscience would think twice.’

‘I expect you to think twice. But remind yourself that these men want to kill an anointed queen.’

‘So do you.’

I saw his fingers flex, but his voice remained level. ‘I wish to convict a traitor who conspires against England on the side of foreign invaders. What title she claims is not at issue. These people do not deserve your sympathy, Bruno. But if you need further convincing, I am happy to oblige. Marston!’ He scraped back his chair and stood as he called out. The steward appeared with remarkable speed, leading me to suspect he had remained right outside the door. It was not my concern if Walsingham’s servants eavesdropped, I tried to tell myself, but there was no avoiding the knowledge that, if I accepted this commission, everything surrounding it could mean the thin sliver of difference between life and death. I had seen before what could happen when a man trusted his servants unquestioningly.

‘Prepare the carriage with no livery,’ Walsingham said. ‘Fetch my cloak too, and tell the servants to bring Bruno’s bags.’

Marston nodded and left the room. Walsingham turned to me. ‘You can stay with Thomas tonight in Leadenhall. Best you keep away from my house, in case you are seen. We will take you there on the way back.’

‘Back from where?’

‘You will see.’ He set his mouth in a grim line. ‘I want you to know the men you are dealing with, before you make your decision. I would also value your shrewd eye.’

I could barely keep my shrewd eyes open by this point, but I rose, gave a small bow and followed Phelippes along the corridor to a back door that gave on to a neat courtyard and kitchen garden. Cloaks and bags were brought, and we were led out to the tart chill of the summer night, the light almost gone, a fading scent of roses and woodsmoke on the air. I breathed in; I guessed at what Walsingham meant to show me, and I wanted to inhale the freshness of the night and hold it deep in my lungs against what was to come.

FIVE

‘There is one thing I do not understand,’ I said, bracing myself against the seat as the carriage jolted along a rutted track. Black cloth hung at the windows so I had no idea of where we were; only that we had been travelling for more than half an hour and had passed outside the city walls – we had made a brief stop while Phelippes descended and I had caught the exchange of voices before the scrape and creak of gates opening. But no one had offered any further information and we had bumped along in silence until now, Walsingham’s brooding expression forbidding unnecessary questions.

He raised his head from his thoughts and nodded for me to continue.

‘You’ve had Mary Stuart in custody for nearly twenty years. If you want so badly to be rid of her, why don’t you slip something into her food? She could die quietly of an unexplained illness, without all this need for elaborate trickery and conspiracies and the spectacle of a trial with all of Europe watching.’

His shoulders slumped as a sigh escaped him and I saw him exchange a glance with Phelippes.

‘Do you suppose this has not been considered?’ He sat back. ‘You tell him, Thomas – I am weary of making this argument. I have it with the Queen at least once a week. She favours your method, Bruno. If she could have Mary dead without sullying her own hands or her conscience, she would sleep easier than she has in two decades. So she claims.’

‘Then why does she not do it?’ I turned to Phelippes.

‘It is more complicated than that,’ he said. ‘Lord Burghley wants to remake the constitution of England.’

‘It has become a stand-off between the Queen and Burghley.’ Walsingham leaned in again. ‘You remember him, of course. England’s greatest statesman, stubborn as a donkey.’

Even in the dark of the carriage, I noted the faint gleam of his teeth, a smile of affection, not mockery. I had encountered William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the last time Walsingham had asked me to investigate the murder of a young woman at court, and knew something of his reputation. He was now Lord High Treasurer, and Elizabeth’s most senior and trusted advisor. He was also the man who had raised Master Secretary to his present position, and Walsingham’s loyalty to him was second only to that he showed the Queen. I would need to be careful of my response.

‘The very concept of the divine right of kings hangs on Mary Stuart’s fate, as Queen Elizabeth knows all too well,’ Walsingham continued. ‘Once precedent has been established that an anointed queen may be tried and condemned by a jury like any other private citizen, part of the monarch’s power will have been ceded to Parliament for good. This is Burghley’s goal.’ He tapped his thumbnail against his teeth. ‘Her Majesty the Queen would love nothing more than a silent assassin in the night to do the job for her. But we must ensure that Mary is shown publicly – before all the kings of Europe – to have been the architect of her own downfall, else her death will always be surrounded by the suspicion of foul play. The last thing we want is to make a martyr of her. The whole point is to prove that, when it comes to treason, no one can be above the law.’

‘The kings of Europe will need some convincing. Are you hoping for a letter in Mary’s hand ordering the death of Elizabeth? She is too canny to trap herself like that, surely?’

His mouth grew pinched. ‘Ideally, I had hoped for a letter from Babington spelling out the exact means by which it was to be done, and naming his co-conspirators, and a reply from Mary giving her explicit assent. She is desperate, and growing incautious – I think, if things had continued to unfold as they were, we might have brought her to it. But Clara’s death has thrown all that into confusion. The one letter we have from Mary to Babington hints at her approval of the plan, but in abstract terms only.’ He steepled his fingers together. ‘I am not happy about our chances of convicting her on that alone.’

‘It could be made more convincing,’ Phelippes said, impassive. Walsingham did not reply.

That hardly sounded like due process to me, but I had no chance to comment, as the carriage pulled to an abrupt halt. Phelippes slammed open the door and jumped down. Walsingham gestured for me to follow and I climbed out, peering through the darkness to discover that we were among fields, a few low dwellings and hedgerows standing out along the horizon. It must have been near midnight; overhead a milky moon shone through scraps of cloud, and ahead I could make out the shape of a small building with a pointed roof. The remote bleating of sheep and the drawn-out hoot of a hunting owl carried through the dark. Phelippes had taken a torch from the coachman and knocked on the door.

‘One of the old leper chapels,’ Walsingham remarked, beside me. His breath steamed in the night air and he stamped his feet against the cold. ‘Still has its uses.’

The door scraped open a crack, enough for a stocky figure in clerical robes to appear and demand our business. Phelippes held up his light and when the man realised who his visitors were, he bowed low and held the door wide for us.

‘Any trouble?’ Walsingham asked, moving briskly past him into the shadows of the chapel. Inside, a couple of tallow candles were burning low, and I saw a bed had been made up in a far corner. The air smelled of animal fat, with a reek of piss pots and something worse hovering beneath.

‘No one has been near the place,’ the man said, leading us to his straw pallet, which he pulled aside to reveal a hatch set into the floor. ‘Save a couple of vagrants looking for shelter. I gave them bread and threatened them with the constable if they returned. Otherwise quiet.’ He drew a key from his belt and unlocked an iron padlock that secured the opening, pulled back a bolt and lifted the hatch to reveal a set of steps. Cold air and the unmistakable stench of stale blood and dead flesh rose through the gap. I recoiled, stepping backwards into Walsingham.

‘Steady, Bruno.’ I felt his hand rest on my shoulder a moment longer than necessary, as if to impart courage. ‘Let Thomas go first with the light.’ He turned to the curate, or watchman, or whatever he was. ‘Fetch me a lantern and keep your eyes on the door.’

I took a deep breath and followed Phelippes into what must have once been a crude crypt beneath the chapel. The smell of death intensified and as my eyes adjusted, I saw a table had been constructed on two trestles, with a shape draped in a sheet lying on top. Phelippes approached it, his face contorted against the stink, twisting his features into a grotesque mask in the flickering light as he pulled the cloth back. It snagged in places where the body’s excretions had caused it to stick to the skin. I fought down bile and pressed my sleeve to my face as I willed myself to look at the sight he had uncovered.

Her face – what remained of it – was hideous; a gaping hole where one eye and the nose had been, now collapsed in on itself as the flesh around it had begun to blacken. The head had been crudely shaved and the ears sliced off. The girl was clothed, though her feet and arms were bare, the skin mottled; the bodice of her gown was stiff with dark stains. Her remaining eye, wide and bulging, seemed to stare upwards at horrors she would never divulge.

‘Dio porco,’ I breathed, through my sleeve.

‘I know.’ I felt Walsingham’s shoulder touch mine as he held up the lantern. ‘Thoughts?’

I shook my head; my only thought at present was to escape to the cool night outside, breathe deeply, run a mile from this obscenity and everything he was asking of me. Even a boat back to France and the wilful stupidity of my students seemed preferable to what he was proposing, now that the girl’s body was in front of me. Instead, I fought down my nausea and approached the table, steeling myself to examine her with a physician’s impartiality. It was hardly the first time I had been in the presence of violent death; somehow I never grew inured to it. I would have made a hopeless soldier, as my father had been fond of telling me.

‘She was found in a churchyard, you said?’

‘A graveyard,’ Walsingham corrected. ‘The Cross Bones, in Southwark. No church involved – it’s a scrap of wasteland, given over by the Bishop of Winchester for the burial of those who can’t be put in consecrated ground. Suicides, unbaptised infants, but mostly the criminals and prostitutes who turn up dead in the borough. Saves too many questions about what happened to them.’

‘The ward of Southwark is outside the legal jurisdiction of the City of London and instead falls under the governance of the Bishop of Winchester, which makes it effectively lawless,’ Phelippes put in, helpfully. ‘This is why it is full of bear pits, brothels and gaming houses – the Bishop turns a blind eye and the city authorities cannot intervene.’

‘I know. I am familiar with Southwark,’ I said, giving him a look which was lost in the dark. I turned back to Walsingham. ‘Do you suppose her killers meant to bury her there, to keep her from being found?’

‘I would say that was likely not their intention. She was discovered at first light by the night watchman – old fellow, getting on for seventy. If they had wanted to hide the body, there were easier ways to do it.’

‘Then she was supposed to be seen,’ I mused. ‘And in a whores’ graveyard. The face, too, and the hair – that would fit. A deliberate display, rather than merely cruel torture.’

‘What do you mean?’ He moved closer beside me, raising his light to illuminate that grisly mutilation. I fixed my eyes on Clara’s hand, cold and white at her side, slim fingers curling gently inwards. I noticed that her nails were neatly filed and well cared for; she was evidently a woman who had taken pride in the details of her appearance. That should not have affected the degree of horror I felt at what had been done to her, but somehow it seemed to make it worse. I swallowed.

‘In some ancient societies – Byzantium, for example – a woman who committed adultery was punished by having her head shaved and her nose and ears cut off.’ I spoke slowly, forming the thoughts even as I voiced them. ‘Though she was intended to survive the disfiguring. It was a way of marking her betrayal for life, and ensuring no other man would touch her.’

Walsingham clapped me on the shoulder. ‘You see, Thomas – this is why we have need of Bruno’s mind. I had supposed they meant to obscure her identity, so she could not be easily recognised, but I confess that made little sense, given that they left her clothes. I had not thought it might be symbolic.’

He fell silent and I knew his thoughts had flown back, as mine had, to the last time he and I had stood over the body of a girl whose killer had left symbols carved into her flesh.

‘Perhaps I am reading too much,’ I said quickly. ‘I only wondered if someone was making a point about betrayal. How was she identified?’

‘I have people among the night watch and the constables in every borough. Clara had gone out on the evening of the twenty-seventh and was expected back at Seething Lane later that night. When she had not appeared by the following morning, I put out word that I should be notified immediately if the body of a young woman turned up anywhere in the city. The Southwark watch sent word and I dispatched Thomas to identify her. I saw her later, after we had the body brought here.’

‘And you’re certain it’s her?’ I raised my head to look at Phelippes.

‘Quite certain,’ he said. ‘Clara Poole had a large birthmark down the right side of her neck and her collarbone.’

I held my breath and leaned closer. Though the skin was discoloured and the light poor, I could make out the shape of a port-wine stain on the girl’s neck, where the blood had been cleaned away.

‘The dress is hers too,’ Walsingham said, ‘though the sleeves had been removed, along with her shoes.’

‘How did she die?’

‘I was hoping you might tell me.’

‘She would have bled like a slaughtered pig,’ Phelippes remarked. I heard Walsingham softly click his tongue in disapproval.

‘Yes, but not enough to kill her,’ I pointed out, ‘not for a long time. If her attacker cut her and starting beating her, she would have been well able to scream and alert the watchman before she bled out. I would guess she was dead when she was mutilated.’

Walsingham exhaled slowly through his teeth. ‘Small mercies,’ he said, in a choked voice.

I steeled myself and parted the stiffened lace collar to look at the girl’s neck. ‘It’s difficult to see by this stage if there’s bruising. But the way that eye is protruding – I’d say she was strangled or smothered. No other injuries?’

‘None visible, beyond the obvious.’

We contemplated the body in silence. I looked again at the bloodied mess of her face, the lips pulled back over the teeth. It would have taken effort and strength to inflict that kind of damage; the force of the blows had splintered the bone of the eye socket. If she had been beaten like this even after she was dead, it argued a loss of control by the killer, a frenzy of rage and hate. But to shave her head and sever her ears suggested the opposite: an elaborate, planned disfigurement that would have taken time, when the murderer must have known there was a chance the watchman might hear and disturb him. Why run the risk of getting caught, unless the mutilations were meant to send a message?

‘Thomas had the body brought here immediately,’ Walsingham continued, ‘before talk could spread. The man upstairs is the curate of the local parish church, he keeps the key to this chapel and does me loyal service when I need to use it for such purposes. He knows how to keep his mouth shut.’

I wondered how many other corpses Walsingham had stowed here, in case their discovery should prove inconvenient. Bodies moved in the dead of night from the cellar at Barn Elms, perhaps.

‘So – her death is not made public?’

‘No. I wanted to see if anyone came asking after her, or said anything that implied a knowledge of her killing. The watchman who found her is being held in custody for the time being, to stop him gossiping, and the constables have been paid to keep quiet.’

‘Does her brother know?’

‘Yes.’ In the dim light I saw his face tighten. ‘He has taken it hard, as you would expect, especially as I will not let him see her. It is all I can do to hold him back from running Babington through with his dagger, bringing the whole edifice crashing down, and if Robin knew the detail of what had been done to his sister I would have no hope of restraining him. I have had a great deal of work to persuade him that my way of bringing her justice will serve her memory better.’ He sighed. ‘Robin is a solid, loyal man, but Clara was all the family he had. His desire for revenge burns hot, and I fear it may eclipse his commitment to the greater good. You will meet him – his knowledge of Babington’s group will be useful to you.’

He appeared to have forgotten – or was wilfully ignoring – the fact that I had not yet agreed to his mad scheme.

‘She must have been killed south of the river, either in the Cross Bones or close by,’ he continued, moving around to the other side of the body on the trestle and peering down, a sleeve pressed to his mouth, eyes narrowed as if trying to solve a cipher. ‘Babington and his friends were dining together in the City on the night of the twenty-seventh, but the party broke up before midnight, so any one of them could have gone to meet Clara in Southwark without the others knowing.’

‘Did she give any hint that she feared they suspected her?’ I asked, keeping my eyes fixed on the girl’s hands.

He glanced at the steps behind us. There was no trace of any movement, but he lowered his voice regardless. ‘No. But in her last communication with Thomas she had promised to bring us a list of English Catholic nobles and gentry around the country who had committed to providing money and men for an invasion, once the Queen was dead. One of Babington’s group had ridden out to gather support over the last fortnight, and was due back in London any day. It would have been invaluable in anticipating possible landing places for foreign troops. Not to mention having all those confirmed traitors by name.’