by Barbara Kyle
The Queen seemed intrigued by the suggestion. “Think you so?”
“I do. Your courage will give them courage.”
“Thank you, sir, for this kind advice. I shall consider it.” Her eyes drifted to the prie-dieu’s crucifix gleaming in the candlelight. She stood and moved toward the prie-dieu and seemed about to kneel before it, but stopped. “There is a task I would ask of you, good sir,” she said.
Edward bowed. “Anything, Your Majesty.”
“The Constable of the Tower tells me the prison there is crowded with traitors. I want them moved to my prison of the Marshalsea, to await their trials. I ask you to take chargeof this business and oversee its completion. Room must be made in the Tower.”
Edward could almost feel the warmth of Frances’s smile. He understood; the Queen’s request did him great honor. “Room, Your Majesty?” he asked. “For what?”
“Heretics, sir. They breed like vermin. My people apprehend them every hour. They have become bold, seeing Satan arm the traitors against me. But once God brings me my deliverance the heretics shall be exterminated.” She smiled at Edward as though struck by the aptness of her own pronouncement. “Did you know, my mother’s mother, Isabella, once performed a similar act of piety in Spain? As Queen, she expelled the Jews from her realm in gratitude to God for her victory over the Moorish infidel. I shall emulate her. I shall cleanse my realm of our particularly English vermin. The heretics shall all be burnt, as my thanks to God.”
Edward’s blood turned cold.
“And now,” the Queen concluded, kneeling, “excuse me, sir, for I must pray.”
Frances quietly guided Edward to the door. He walked out in a kind of stupor, imagining the terrifying crackle of flames licking up at him around the stake. He had seen his father burn, had been forced by his mother to watch the horror. “We must bear witness,” she had commanded, but Edward had only wanted to run. Now, he was barely aware of Frances’s quick kiss on his cheek, and of her smile following him from the doorway as he passed through the antechamber where some of the Queen’s ladies sat, hushed and fearful, at the fire. A hand touched Edward’s elbow to stop him. Startled, he whipped around. He blinked at the slim, jeweled fingers gripping his arm. They belonged to Amy Hawtry. Her face was pale.
“Oh, sir, is it true?” she asked in a strained whisper. She placed both her hands on his chest and leaned close as if for protection. Her lips came almost to his mouth. Edward was dimly aware of Frances’s frigid stare at Amy from the door-way. “They say Wyatt is coming!” Amy said to him. “They say we are all to be murdered in our beds! Oh, Sir Edward, tell me it isn’t true!”
“You’re late, Valverde.” Lord Abergavenny sounded angry, wounded, glancing up from breakfast in his tent as Carlos walked in. Abergavenny flinched as his teeth hit a hard knob of gristle. He tossed down his eating knife in disgust beside his breakfast trencher. Three young officers standing at the back of the tent looked around, trenchers in their hands. Rain drummed on the tent. Abergavenny glanced again at Carlos. “Well?” he mumbled sourly around his mouthful. “Our company not good enough for you?”
Carlos clenched his jaw in silence. Since the victory at Wrotham Hill the commander had been treating him like a favorite son, always wanting him near, throwing an arm around him to share a jest or to pour out his worries, irritated whenever Carlos went off by himself. Carlos had no taste for such a sycophantic relationship. But neither could he afford an argument with the commander. So he said nothing.
Abergavenny spat out the gristle. “Cavendish, you call this mutton? Tastes like dog’s tail.”
A lieutenant mumbled, “Best we can do, my lord.”
“Take it away. Body of God, I’d rather starve.”
The lieutenant cleared away the commander’s trencher.
Carlos filled a cup from the ale keg. Before coming to the commander’s tent he had wolfed down breakfast outside over the cook’s cauldron, watching the rain from under the cook’s tarpaulin stretched over poles. Now, although he’d thought his stomach was impervious to soldiers’ rations, the rancid mutton sat in his gut like a rock. Decent food was proving difficult to forage from the hostile country people. The company, marching from their victory at Wrotham Hill to join Norfolk in Gravesend, had been forced by the foul weather to camp here, a few miles south of the rendezvous. And then word had come that Norfolk had prematurely advanced alone on Rochester, to disastrous results: all but a handful of his men had rushed over to the enemy. Abergavenny’s company had shivered in this camp all yesterday as the commander awaited orders from Whitehall. Orders that still had not come. Meanwhile, their scout had reported that Wyatt was moving out of Rochester toward London. Carlos shook his head. He had fought in many confused campaigns, but none as badly led as this. He downed the ale. Flat, and cold as ice.
There was a squabble of voices beyond the tent. Abergavenny stood, rubbing his stiff back, and walked to the open tent flap. “A brawl,” he muttered. “Cavendish, go see to it.” He jerked his thumb at the other lieutenants. “You two go as well. It looks ugly.”
They shuffled out. Carlos was left with Abergavenny who continued to watch the fight, rubbing his tailbone. The morning camp smells drifted into the tent—woodsmoke and horse dung and burning fat. A boy in the corner polishing the commander’s breastplate yawned.
Looking out, Abergavenny asked wearily, “What do you suppose it’s about this time, Valverde?”
“It is always the same. Money or women.”
Abergavenny grunted. “No women following us in this bloody weather.” He shook his head. “Candlemas,” he muttered, “and still I cannot pay these troops.”
Candlemas. The fact struck Carlos hard. Tonight he was to have collected his fee at the Blue Boar Tavern for delivering Thornleigh’s finger. A hundred pounds. Enough to get him out of this fog-brained island and get him on his feet again somewhere. A week ago it had seemed so clear-cut a mission. Then, everything had become complicated. She had complicated it. He had failed.
And now? Now she despised him. And the lawyer, Sydenham, had her in his house. Carlos felt a cold flame of hate in his belly at the recollection of Sydenham in the inn courtyard, murmuring into Isabel’s ear. Involuntarily, his hand balled into a fist. He had earned his pardon, yet what did he have? Nothing. He felt as powerless as if he were still in jail, felt like some cringing courtier hanging around Abergavenny, awaiting favor. It rankled. Everything rankled.
If all of his failure was to mean anything, he must make a success now. What he needed was land. Land would make up for everything. But for him to be rewarded with land, the Queen’s forces had to win. And this lame army was doing precious little to ensure that.
He knocked back another cup of ale. He had to think of something that would help force a victory.
“Amy, are you afraid?” Frances asked. She spoke quietly, and the other ladies-in-waiting in the Queen’s antechamber continued with their halfhearted games of cat’s cradle around the hearth.
Amy turned from the window. She had been using its rain-darkened surface as a looking glass, nervously smoothing back a lock of her blond hair, and Frances’s question had startled her. She shivered and hugged herself. “And you are not?” she asked sullenly.
“I suppose we all are,” Frances admitted. She looked around at the other young women and sighed. “But it does seem useless to just sit here and quake. Let’s you and I go and cheer ourselves with a game of primero, shall we?”
Amy frowned, uncertain or unwilling. “The Queen may want us,” she said.
“The Queen will be deep in her Candlemas devotions for some time, and after that she must meet with the council.”
Amy fidgeted with her necklace.
Frances said, “I am sorry if I’ve been short-tempered with you in the past. But now … well, we are both rather in need of some diversion, and …” She stopped herself. “Oh, never mind,” she sighed. She turned to go.
“No, wait, Frances.”
Frances
saw the fear in the girl’s eyes, the dread of being left prey to her own wild thoughts of the rebels’ barbarity. “Yes,” Amy said firmly. “Let’s play.”
“Damn you, Valverde, you nearly made me cut my own throat!” Abergavenny scowled over his shoulder as he stood shaving, his razor poised at his chin. The servant boy stood by him with a basin of water. “No,” Abergavenny insisted to Carlos, “absolutely not. It’s a foolhardy idea.”
“You need information about Wyatt,” Carlos said.
“I need a good cavalry captain more. No. I can’t risk you.”
“Can you risk letting the enemy pass?” Moments ago, just before noon, the scout had ridden in to report that Wyatt, marching to London, had stopped at Dartford, only seven miles away. Carlos had known at once that it was his chance, and had hurried into Abergavenny’s tent. He pushed on now: “Do nothing to discover his strength, his arms? Let him take London—while you shave?”
“All right!” the commander snapped. “I agree it would be good to infiltrate his camp. I’ll send someone. Not you.”
“Who else can you trust to come back?”
Abergavenny whipped around, furious at this reference to the mounting desertions. He jerked up the razor in front of Carlos’s nose. “Careful, Valverde,” he threatened quietly. “I could just leave you behind, you know, in the clutches of these country folk. They’re not at all fond of Spaniards.”
Carlos’s eyes locked with the commander’s. “Or you can send me into Wyatt’s camp. And if I get back out, you can reward me.”
Amy giggled, remembering. “… but my sister came upon us in the dovecote, and when my cousin Simon heard her shriek—his hands were up under my skirt, the randy cur—he bolted and I don’t think he stopped running until he crossed the bridge to the village. Lord, what a coward!” She giggled again.
Amy and Frances were sitting at the card table in Frances’s bedchamber while the rain dribbled down the window. As Amy reminisced, Frances watched her.
Amy bent her elbow on the table and languidly laid her cheek on her hand. Her fair hair tumbled over her shoulder. She felt her muscles slacken in the heat from the fire in the hearth, and from the wine warming her veins—a sweet respite from the worry about Wyatt’s army. “But the next night,” she went on, smiling, “we did it, Simon and me. My first time.” She winked at Frances. “Lord, what a summer that was, the summer I turned fourteen. And he was all of seventeen.” She heaved a sigh of regret. “My, but he was a handsome dog.”
“Goodness,” Frances said. “Such an energetic childhood. More wine?”
Amy pushed her goblet across the table for more. Frances poured. Misty-eyed, Amy watched the red liquid swirl into the cup. She drank several deep gulps. Her fingers felt pleasantly tingly.
“Ah, those sweet summer days on the home farm seem a long time ago,” she sighed. “Daisy-chain making, and paddling in the pond, and merry tumbles in the hay.” She looked across at Frances who sat ramrod straight in her hard-backed chair. Amy wondered if she ever relaxed. She sighed again and drank some more, then idly trailed her finger through a small puddle of spilled wine on the table, drawing wet patterns. “I thought it was going to be merry here at court with the Queen, but it’s all just ‘fetch my missal,’ and ‘read me that prayer of St. Thomas Aquinas,’ and ‘hurry along to Mass now.’ Lord, I’ll be glad when she finally weds Prince Philip.” She winked again at Frances. “If she gets down on her knees once the Spanish prince is before her, I warrant it won’t be to pray!” She giggled so hard her elbow slipped off the table, and she lost her balance and almost fell off her chair.
Frances smiled. “Your cup is empty, Amy.” She poured another goblet full. Amy swallowed half of it. “Nice, this wine of yours,” she said. Her words were becoming slurred. “Sort of a … flowery taste. Did you put one of your funny tinctures in it?”
“Yes. For relaxing. Do you like it?”
Amy nodded. “Tastes like pears,” she started to say, but the words that slid out didn’t sound much like that. She looked at Frances sheepishly. She had not realized she had drunk quite so much. She opened her mouth to make a jest about it, but her tongue felt lodged in her throat. And when she tried to turn her head away from Frances’s relentless scrutiny, she found she could not move at all. Even her jaw would not move—her mouth remained open in a humiliating gape. Her brain pulsed with sudden fright. All of her muscles were frozen. The room was becoming dark around the edges. Only Frances’s face before her was clear and stark, the firelight jumping over its bony planes.
Amy’s body slumped onto the table, her cheek in the pool of spilled wine. Her eyes stared. Her heart pounded in fear. What was happening to her?
She heard the rustle of France’s brocade skirt. She felt the shiver of a touch on her neck, like a bird’s claw. “Come with me, Amy.”
She grappled a fistful of Amy’s hair and shoved her other hand under Amy’s armpit. “I heard about you accosting Edward on his doorstep the other day. Everyone on the street saw you. Drunk, they said you were. Oh, I know Edward spurned your repulsive advances. But this morning I witnessed for myself another of your wanton ploys with him. I really cannot tolerate this any longer.”
Amy was yanked off her seat by her arm and by her hair. Her paralyzed body was dragged across the room toward the hearth. Frances dropped her on her stomach. Amy’s head thudded onto the hearth, a foot away from the fire. Her eyes were open and she stared at the flames in terror. But she could not move.
Frances kneeled beside her. “I have only this to say, Amy. Keep away from Edward. I know you are a clever girl so I feel sure I need only say it once. However, some aid in remembering it may be helpful to you.” She fanned out Amy’s hair on the hearth so that it lay only an inch from the fire. She waited. Amy stared ahead in horror. She could feel nothing but her heart thudding. And then she smelled it—her hair burning. She heard Frances leave her side. She saw smoke. Unable to cough, her heart about to explode, she began to drool.
France said over her, “I trust this warning will douse your amorous instincts.” Wine sloshed over Amy’s head. She heard the hiss of the flames, dying. She smelled the sickly sweet odor of wine mixed with wet, burned hair. Wine dripped down her cheek to the hearth. She was aware only of overwhelming relief. And then she fainted.
29
Candlema
An elbow jabbed Isabel’s rib. She tried to ignore the crush of the crowd packed into the entrance of London’s Guildhall as she stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to catch a glimpse of Queen Mary on her dais in the Great Hall. The huge hall itself, almost as large as Westminster Hall, was crammed with citizens, all anxiously chattering. But the moment the Queen began to speak there was instant silence. Isabel held her breath. Was the Queen going to capitulate to Wyatt’s demands? Accept her people’s wishes?
“Loving subjects,” the Queen began formally, “I am come unto you in mine own person to tell you that which already you do know—that is, how traitorously and seditiously a number of rebels have assembled against both us and you. Their presence, as they said at first, was only to resist a marriage determined between us and the Prince of Spain. Butyou shall see that the marriage will be found to be the least of their quarrel. They have now betrayed the inward treason of their hearts, and soon we will see them demanding the possession of our person, and the keeping of our Tower, and the placing and displacing of our councilors.”
The Queen paused as if expecting some hearty response of solidarity from the crowd. But the citizens remained quiet. And Isabel knew this would be no capitulation. The Queen looked about as if unsure of how to proceed. The silence seemed to puzzle her; her entry here had been all glorious fanfare.
Isabel had heard it from Sydenham’s house on nearby Lombard Street. All morning she had been sunk in sleep, seeking its oblivion like a drug after the painful parting from Martin in Rochester, but the commotion outside had awoken her. Hurrying out Sydenham’s front door she had seen the Queen’s entourage pass by at the en
d of the street as it moved north from Cheapside. The Queen had ridden from Westminster with her lords and ladies, knights and gentlemen, heralds and bishops and continuously blaring trumpeters. What could it mean? Isabel had wondered. Driven by curiosity, she had fallen in with the crowd and followed the royal entourage to Guildhall.
Now, the Queen stood on the hustings—the platform at the end of the hall where the Lord Mayor’s court was held—and looked out at the crowd from under a golden cloth of state. She was almost surrounded by pale-faced aldermen. Thomas White, the Lord Mayor, stood on her right, and Lord William Howard, commander of the city’s defenses, stood on her left. Sir Edward Sydenham and John Grenville were crowded up beside Lord Howard, and a dozen prominent citizens were crammed in around the Lord Mayor. Ambassador de Noailles stood complacently studying his feet. Among the crowd Isabel caught sight of Master Legge of the Crane Inn anxiously whispering to a friend. It seemed that half of London was here. Bakers, goldsmiths, cordwainers, and housewives. Glovers, constables, haberdashers, and leathersellers. Some had been drawn by animosity, some by respect, most by curiosity. All were waiting for Queen Mary’s words. And none more intently than Isabel.
“Loving subjects,” the Queen began afresh, “at my coronation I was wedded to the realm and to the laws of the realm. I wear here on my finger the spousal ring, and it never was, nor ever hereafter shall be, left off.” She held up her right hand and displayed the ring. “At that coronation, you promised your allegiance and obedience unto me, and by your oath you may not suffer any rebel to usurp the governance of our person, or to occupy our estate. This traitor Wyatt is just such a rebel, who most certainly intends to subdue the laws to his will, and to make general havoc and spoil of your goods.”
