GLORIANA'S TORCH

Patricia Finney

Orion, £17.99hbk

Reviewed by

This is a great, intricate, many-stranded tapestry of a book. It is a spy story, set at the time of the Spanish Armada. Because of its complexity, I suspect it wouldn’t be for everyone. It is Patricia Finney’s fifth book, and most of the main characters have experienced blood-curdling adventures before, so I felt this put me at a slight disadvantage – but I would certainly seek out the preceding volumes.

The story is told from the viewpoints of various characters, and from both sides of the Protestant English/Spanish Catholic divide, with a further dimension provided by the marrano Jewish refugees in London, who have fled from persecution in Spain. Only one speaks to us directly in the first person, and for me she is by far the most interesting participant. This is Merula, an African princess and sorceress, who has left her native land in search of her son, who has been taken by the slavers. She brings a lucid and dispassionate perspective on the appalling cruelties practised by the representatives of the two churches on one another.

It is the late spring of 1588, and England is awaiting the arrival of Philip II’s dreaded Armada. Rumours have reached FrancisWalsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s spymaster, of a crucial part of the Spanish master plan, referred to only as "The Miracle of Beauty". Simon Anriques, a Jew employed by Walsingham, has been sent to Portugal with his wife Rebecca, to find out what the Miracle of Beauty is. On a slaving ship they meet Merula, who nurses Rebecca through a dangerous fever. Rebecca becomes dependent upon her and retains her as a servant. When they arrive in Lisbon, Simon is arrested by the Inquisition, but through the quick wits of Merula, she and Rebecca escape on a ship to Holland.

A little later – I think – (the story moves backwards and forwards in time as well as from person to person), David Becket, one of Walsingham’s spies who has obviously been the main character in a previous book, has been commissioned by the Queen to find out what has happened to Simon, from whom nothing has been heard for some time. He is also to pursue the riddle of the Miracle of Beauty. Elizabeth sends with him Thomasina de Paris, her muliercula or midget, who is her most trusted spy. Thomasina really existed – another fascinating character. In Holland they meet up with Rebecca and Merula. Rebecca is determined to return to Portugal to rescue Simon, who in the meantime, unknown to Rebecca, has become a galley slave on one of the galleases in the Armada. He has escaped the stake because he is a Jew. Becket tries to persuade Rebecca, at the very least, to allow him and Merula to accompany her, but Rebecca tricks them and they are stranded in Holland. I’m giving nothing more away, other than to say that the grand climax is reached in one of the deciding sea battles of the war. I will tell you that in other sections of the book, printed in italics, both Becket and Queen Elizabeth have dreams of an alternative future in which the Armada is victorious. Curiously, in the dreams they reverse roles – Becket is the Queen and she is Becket.

There are lots of quirky little touches – walk-on appearances by Ben Jonson and John Donne as boys, for example. An original and absorbing book for lovers of the complicated and bizarre.