The Spymaster's Daughter

by Jeane Westin

  The next morning it was yet dark when she rose from bed to dress for riding in a green velvet habit with a peacock-feathered cap on which was mounted some modest blue sapphires.

  Her aunt Jennet brought out her new buskins. “You do look fine enough to ride with the queen, Frances,” she said wistfully. “You have grown in good qualities in the past month. The excellent ladies of the court have had more influence than I ever could. You will soon have no use for me.”

  “Aunt,” Frances said, embracing Jennet, fearing tears were about to start, “I will need you all my life. You have been mother and teacher to me. What little sense I have, you thrust upon me…and I bless you for it.”

  Jennet blinked back tears that had been ready to flow, and her face brightened. “Frances, you are a sweet liar.”

  “I speak only truth, Aunt.” And she did. Jennet had always been near, and though at her time of life she had become a little quarrelsome, Frances believed her aunt had only her good at heart. Although her aunt’s idea of good and her own were not always the same.

  Jennet pushed her playfully to the polished-steel mirror on the wall of the outer chamber. “See how fine a lady you look! Sir Philip should see his fair wife now; he would take the fastest ship home.”

  But not to me, Frances thought, though she realized with bitter comfort that whatever wound had once been in her heart was now healed, leaving only a scar that was growing fainter.

  Jennet fussed with Frances’s sleeves until she was satisfied with her image in the mirror and bent to brush her new-made buskins.

  “Thank you, sweet aunt,” Frances said, leaving a kiss on Jennet’s cheek before rushing next door to see her father.

  “I am better, daughter,” he announced, his voice slurred by a tincture of Paracelsus’s pain potion the doctors must have given him to bring healing sleep. “Your bull’s broth did strengthen me. I will be out of this intolerable bed tomorrow.”

  “Do your doctors agree?”

  “Never. They are loath to lose a patient! Still, I must be at my work.” A rare smile played upon his lips. “The queen sent me a bottle of her special herb physic, and she expects that it will work to my good…and quickly.”

  This was as close as her father came to a jest, and so Frances almost believed that he was indeed feeling less pain. Tomorrow, she knew, he would be in his offices until late at night, but it was his way and he would not be changed. Just as she would not be swayed from her purpose to make his work her own, by ’ods blood! She stopped short of blaspheming aloud. “I am riding to the hunt with the queen, her other ladies, and my lord Essex this morning. I will be with you as soon as the queen’s audience in the presence chamber is finished.”

  “Good, daughter. You need to take the air. Your fair skin is losing its bloom.”

  She put her hand to her face, vowing to get more exercise.

  “Now, Pauley, let us to my letters.”

  She hadn’t noticed the man sitting out of the candlelight across the room. Had he been there all night?

  He stood, walked forward, and bowed to her. “My lady, I will help you with your mount.”

  “There will be many grooms in the stable yard.”

  “True, Lady Frances, but I would make certain they have cinched your saddle and that you are properly seated.”

  Her father spoke approvingly. “Yes, see to my daughter, Pauley, and then we will to our work.”

  So it was decided for her by others, as everything seemed to be. For a moment she was truly envious of Pauley walking behind her toward the palace mews. Although he was in her service, he seemed to have a strange kind of independence. It was in his quiet manner and obvious self-regard. She realized at that moment that he was a man in no doubt of his qualities, in spite of his lower station and bad leg. She longed for that self-regard. Her father had it. The queen had it. Was such self-contentment not for the likes of her? She lifted her head, vowing that she would know more of such ease, and soon.

  They walked into the crisp morning air washed by an early shower and through the orchard, past Henry VIII’s tennis court, arriving at a mews crowded with snorting horses being led back and forth by grooms to exercise them. A stable hand came toward her with a sleek black mare. “My lord Essex ordered this mount for you, Lady Sidney.”

  Frances ran her hand over the neck of the fine horse. “A good choice, don’t you think, Pauley?”

  He was checking the cinch and the reins, even opening the horse’s mouth, as if searching for some hidden thing.

  “What do you think to find?”

  “A snaffle bit in a sore mouth might unseat you. The earl is fond of a jest, my lady.”

  This angered her. “I guide my mount with knees and seat, not by sawing on the reins. Surely you go too far in your protection of me. The earl would never wish me hurt.” Frances hoped she was correct.

  She barely heard his mumbled remark. “But he does like to rescue ladies in distress”—he stepped around to the other stirrup, shortening it with a grunt—“who would then show him their gratitude in ways to delight him.”

  “Pauley, you are always on the edge of forgetting your place. It is not for you to challenge an earl, or my judgment.”

  He didn’t answer her admonition. She remembered that he had given his opinion of Essex when first she met with the earl. Yet did he think her such a fool that she could not resist a man who was already notorious for his fondness for ladies of not much resistance?

  Pauley led the horse to the mounting block, and she was up and turning her mount toward the road to the west, but she heard what Pauley said.

  “I dare to say, Lady Frances, that your father is wrong this one time. No palace, nor years, could take the bloom from your cheeks.”

  She looked back and saw him bow, then walk away, his limp for once more pronounced. What a strange man, much like a Spanish orange: sweet if ripe, but bitter if plucked too early.

  As the queen and her party rode west toward the open heath and forest beyond, Frances stayed in the rear, as befitted the newest lady. She breathed deep of the birch and elm trees already dropping their leaves in response to the suddenly cooler nights. She loved best the ancient oaks that defiantly kept their canopy if the weather did not become too cold, giving up their acorns only reluctantly to rutting pigs or scavenging squirrels.

  The early morning air was cold on her face. She found herself enjoying the familiar movement of a horse’s flanks beneath her and this escape from her own isolation inside the palace.

  After some time and still at a fast trot, the queen threaded through the trees as her scent-seeking staghounds bounded ahead to flush roe deer from the birch stands and heavy brush. Essex carried her crossbow and a bag of quarrels. Her Majesty rode ahead, truly loving to best her younger men, as Frances had heard, delighting to hear their compliments on Gloriana’s eternal youth and vigor. Smiling to herself, Frances had no doubt that Essex and the other young lords were willing actors in this play.

  Lady Stanley, riding near the queen, dropped back next to Frances, eager as always to impart her superior knowledge of the occasion. “The queen’s huntsmen have carted roe deer in for her pleasure.”

  “I thought as much,” Frances said, swerving to avoid some thick brush. “The rut is long over.”

  “Of course.” Laughing, Lady Stanley twisted in her saddle and said, “When a queen wants to hunt, deer step in front of her quarrels….” Still laughing, the lady put spurs to her horse and leaped ahead.

  Frances yelled, “Look to your path!” But she was too late.

  A giant wild tusker had lumbered from the brush. It immediately charged Lady Stanley’s horse, which reared, screamed with fright, and tossed her from the saddle into the boar’s path before galloping away, back to the safety of the mews.

  Frances saw the lady struggle to rise. She was trapped in brambles, her eyes wide with fear, her mouth frozen open in a soundless shriek. Blood ran from deep scratches on her face and shoulders. Her torn gown exposed ample
breasts.

  Frances’s own horse shied abruptly, stiff legged, trembling, gathering its muscles to flee as the prey animal it was. She tightened her grip on the reins so that the mare would not get the bit between her teeth, then kicked the flanks to reach Lady Stanley before she was gored and dead.

  The queen’s men turning toward the sounds of struggle were too far ahead to arrive in time.

  Without thinking, Frances jumped from her saddle into the crackling leaves, stirring an earthy, decaying odor that rose to envelop her. At once her horse, nostrils flaring, scented the animal and fled.

  She snatched off her cloak, waved it at the boar, and shouted at the top of her voice. The tusker turned aside, confused by this strange new animal in its way. Seconds later it shook its head from side to side and focused its cruel, red-rimmed eyes on Frances. The boar resumed its charge.

  At sight of the animal thundering toward her, Frances tried to sidestep and tripped on a tree root under the leafy ground cover. She fell to her knees, the beast so close she could smell its hot, gamy breath. Its glittering eyes narrowed into mean slits so near to her that its bulk blocked out the forest. Her gaze locked on the boar’s eyes, her gasping breath whistling in her ears.

  The beast was about to charge again.

  She scrabbled frantically on the ground for a stick larger than a twig…only to grasp nothing.

  The boar was almost upon her when abruptly it stopped, reared slightly, then dropped to its knees, not an arm’s length distant. The huge beast slowly rolled over, the light of life leaving its eyes as blood streamed from a quarrel buried deep in its heart.

  Thundering hooves filled Frances’s ears as she gulped in a deep breath she must have been holding.

  Essex jumped from the saddle and lifted her up, showing surprising strength for a man so slender. For a moment, she clung to him…safe…alive.

  “Frances…lady…love…I am brainsick for you,” he breathed into her ear, holding her hard to his chest.

  She pushed against him as other gentlemen rode up, and she was embarrassed that they might hear the earl’s endearments. Essex had been quick to take advantage. Had the queen observed them?

  “Lady Stanley…injured…” She gasped, swallowing. “Go to her!”

  He put Frances on her feet and ran to the other woman, who was on her knees pulling briars from her gown. She immediately swayed and fainted against him.

  Her Majesty rode up, the huntsmen parting down the middle for her. She held her crossbow aloft in triumph and ordered men forward to lift the huge animal and take it to her flesh kitchen. “A perfect shot, my lords,” she announced, looking quite pleased with herself.

  Late that night, Frances sat at her writing table with a double-branched candelabra lighting a single sheet of vellum. Jennet, fussing to make their rooms as homelike as possible…and perhaps to discourage her niece’s scholarly interests…had decorated the table with a colorful turkey rug.

  Frances splayed her fingers on the woven surface to see whether they were steady now. She had been shaken by the boar’s charge and was not loath to admit to herself that it was probably the cause of her melancholy humor. What had Essex meant by saying he was brainsick for her? Were endearments his way of gaining access to her bed? Or worse, were they true? Her belly twisted at the thought. Was Essex the kind of lovelorn man who, the more he was rejected, the more he loved?

  It wasn’t her courses roiling in her belly. They had come and gone already. Philip had not left her with child.

  Her husband’s letter, just arrived with the rest of the dispatches to her father from Flushing in the Low Countries, lay on her writing table waiting for her answer. On a whim of quiet pleasure, Frances had removed with a hot knife the lump of red sealing wax imprinted with Philip’s signet. She had no reason to do so, but it pleased her to use her skill.

  Her husband was supervising the landing of supplies, troops, cannon, and horses. Though the English had come to save the northern Hollanders from being overrun by the prince of Parma’s Spanish troops, bringing all their Inquisition horrors made ready for Protestant heretics, the Dutch were charging high prices for horse fodder and fresh food for Philip’s troops. Many of the salted-fish barrels Philip had brought out of England had been made of green wood. The fish were rotten when the barrels were opened; thus he had no choice but to pay for supplies from his own purse, not daring to appeal to the queen’s treasury so soon.

  The letter said nothing directly to Frances until the very end.

  I have purchased some satin cloth of eight ells and some inches in width, enough for the finest court gown, as befits my wife. I will not have it said that Lady Sidney was not richly dressed for court. Expect the package by the next ship. My honor to your father, Sir Francis, and to my lord Essex for his written remembrance. I have replied to the earl and asked him to take kindly care of you.

  Your loving husband,

  Philip

  It was a short letter to a lady who no longer needed to be courted…or counted. She smiled ruefully, remembering the one hundred eight seemingly endless sonnets he had written to Stella.

  She picked up her quill, dipped it in the ink pot, and closed her eyes, thinking of what to tell him and what not to tell him about how diligently Essex was caring for her.

  She had trouble opening her heavy eyelids again. Maybe she’d finish this letter in the morning, when she was more rested from her long, troubling day.

  Frances had spent the afternoon and evening nursing her father while his secretaries were busy with his unending correspondence. He had intelligencers in every part of the continent, even inside Pope Sixtus’s Vatican palace. She would never be an intelligencer there, but Frances could think of many other places where a lady intelligencer would not be suspect, while an ambassador’s retinue would be close-watched.

  She had not told her father of her encounter with the boar while hunting. She had not needed to inform him. News flowed to him in an endless stream of courtiers seeking his favor.

  When she saw him that afternoon, to her relief he had eaten solid food for his supper, boar meat from the spit stuffed with pigeons, plums, and spices. “I understand that Her Majesty felled the beast with one quarrel to the heart,” he said.

  “Yes, lord father.”

  “And you were there, facing the beast,” he added, shaking his head in wonder.

  Frances nodded.

  “Aye, I heard my lord Essex came for you just before the queen’s shot. If he would give his life for you, daughter, I must find some way to repay him.”

  “Father, he did so, though the boar was stricken before he got to me.”

  “Aye, and so he corrected the report to me, as any honorable man would.”

  Essex rose in her esteem at this account of his truthfulness, though Her Majesty would surely have set to rights a story that did not credit her magnificent shot with saving her lady’s life.

  A throat was cleared and a strong hand shook Frances awake.

  She saw Robert Pauley’s anxious face in the candelabra burning low and stretched her neck, shifting her weight to relieve the dull ache in her knees from her fall before the boar.

  “My lady, you will have a pained neck, sleeping in a chair as you do. No doubt you are overtired from your exertions this day.” He placed a goblet of warmed wine before her on her writing table. “My father used to bring me a hot drink when I had been at my books overlong.”

  His father? Would he speak freely of his birth? Did she dare ask?

  “May I be of further service, Lady Frances?”

  “Yes. I hear of your birth alluded to but never spoken aloud. My father seems to think I do you injustice not knowing your history…so I would know it.”

  He smiled slightly, though his eyebrows drew together. “I will have to beware my questions. You are ever outspoken, my lady.”

  “You have shown me that plain speaking is the best way.”

  “Have I? I am glad that even my unintended service has been useful
to so kind a mistress.”

  Frances watched his face. Was he silently laughing at her? She could not tell; his humor was always hidden just below the surface.

  Robert pulled up a chair, his boots brushing the edge of her gown. He looked down at his hands…and she did, too…his long and slender fingers, not like the calloused, sausage-fingered hands of a common toiling man.

  For several moments he sat in silence.

  “You are my mistress and have the right to know my birth.” He took a deep breath. “I am the bastard son of Baron John Huntington of Staffordshire and Margaret, his kitchen maid. My mother died when I was ten years old, and my father, a kind man to me always, sent me off to King’s College, Cambridge, to read for the church or prepare for Gray’s Inn and the law. I chose the latter.”

  Frances watched him closely. “My father’s path exactly.”

  He smiled. “Yes, I know.” He cleared his throat. “When I was fourteen and about to take my degrees and move on to my law studies, my father died and his son and heir, now my master, forced me from my college and apprenticed me to a brewer here in London.”

  Frances knew that this was but a bare outline of his life, and from the slight tremor in his voice she suspected that he carried much injury behind the words.

  Impulsively, she clasped his hands under hers. “How did you come to my father’s service?”

  He sat straighter, although he did not withdraw from her touch. “Your father bought my apprenticeship and took me into his service.”

  “How so?”

  “I delivered ale to his house on Seething Lane and warned him of Spaniards plotting to plant Greek fire in his basement.”

  “Jesu, how did you come to know it?”

  “I pretended to Catholic sympathies at the Elephant Inn, while strong drink from my own keg loosed their tongues.”

  “And—”

  “I knew I had to take a warning to Mr. Secretary.”

  She stared at him. “You were even then an intelligencer.”

  “It was two years before he thought me ready for work of importance.”