“On his way to Madrid with Don John,” I informed him. “He is Don John's secretary.”
“I will do nothing, then, until he arrives,” he said, and took his leave.
Oh, monstrous indiscretion! That dispatch from Rome so cunningly and secretly contrived in cipher had yet contained no warning that Escovedo's share in this should be concealed. There are none so imprudent as the sly. I sought the King at once, and told him all that I had learnt. He was aghast. Indeed, I never saw him more near to anger. For Philip of Spain was not the man to show wrath or any other emotion. He had a fish-like, cold, impenetrable inscrutability. True, his yellow skin grew yellower, his gaping mouth gaped wider, his goggle eyes goggled more than usual. Left to himself, I think he would have disgraced Don John and banished Escovedo there and then, as he did, indeed, suggest. And I have since had cause enough to wish to God that I had left him to himself.
“Who will replace Don John in Flanders?” I asked him quietly. He stared at me. “He is useful to you there. Use him, Sire, to your own ends.”
“But they will press this English business.”
“Acquiesce.”
“Acquiesce? Are you mad?”
“Seem to acquiesce. Temporize. Answer them, 'One thing at a time.' Say, 'When the Flanders business is happily concluded, we will think of England.' Give them hope that success in Flanders will dispose you to support the other project. Thus you offer Don John an incentive to succeed, yet commit yourself to nothing.”
“And this dog Escovedo?”
“Is a dog who betrays himself by his bark. We will listen for it.”