by Jeane Westin
CHAPTER SIX
“To you, to you, all song of praise is due,
Only in you my song begins and endeth.”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
Early December
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON
In spite of the howling storm outside, Frances heard the door to her rooms open and close. How was it possible that Robert had completed her father’s task and returned so fast? Yet she heard him move about near his pallet, soon followed by the soft sounds of his guitar and his low voice singing a wishful song:
Now is the month of Maying
When merry lads are playing,
Each with his bonny lass
Upon the greeny grass.
She knew the popular madrigal and sang along in her softest voice so that she finished the last line alone, hoping Robert had not heard. Still, the words, the very thought of May, warmed her, as did Robert’s quick return. How had he become so indispensible to her in so short a time?
Robert heard her low, sweet voice, though he knew she had not meant him to hear. He understood that much, although nothing more of this madness that had come so hard upon him. Being this near to her again was worth the hard ride from the Essex coast, though it had nearly foundered two horses. He regretted never being able to tell her where he went or for how long. And it was just as well to spare her. Taking seizure orders from Walsingham to sheriffs about local Catholics was not work of which he was proud. Mr. Secretary demanded his quick return, although that was not the reason he had spurred through a night and day.
He tried not to dwell on the truth behind his haste. He did not dare, lest he betray himself and show a lover’s face to his mistress. He refused to allow such thoughts to grow and be seen by many in this court who could read them only too well. If his emotions were discovered, with luck he would be dismissed from his intelligencer post. It was the least punishment he could expect. Without luck, he would be publicly flogged and openly laughed at, then sent away into his own hell, never to see her again.
He gripped the edge of his pallet. He must control his imaginings. She needed him, needed his care. He would put aside all these other feelings that he must forswear. Lady Frances Sidney was his master’s daughter, married to a famous, if unworthy poet. Even now, she was probably in the next chamber writing to her faithless husband. Robert flung himself on his pallet and turned his face to the wall, hoping to sleep…demanding sleep of himself.
When Frances was certain that Robert had fallen into an exhausted sleep, she moved her writing table and chair nearer to the fireplace, its sparks rising into the night. She wore half gloves to keep the cold from her hands. Jennet, bless her, had placed a brazier behind her chair. Happily enveloped in warmth, Frances listened to the howling snowstorm outside the palace. No wonder Robert had returned so quickly.
This winter had grown cold enough to freeze the edges of the Thames; though watermen plied their boats midcurrent, they had to break the ice near the water steps on both the city and Southwark sides to discharge passengers. Merchants along Cheapside spoke happily of the possibility of a frost fair if the river froze solid, as it had in years past. Hopeful apprentice boys sharpened their bone skates in anticipation of the racing sport they might have.
Frances took up a quill and tried to turn her mind to writing the palace news to Philip.
The queen now suffered from a severe croup after her cold and foggy return downriver from Hampton Court to keep Christmastide at Whitehall. She longed loudly, between strangled breaths, for her well-loved and warmer palaces of Greenwich or Nonsuch, but they were too small to hold her holiday revels. Half the nobility of the realm, those not too old or infirm, had traveled with their retinues to Whitehall to deliver their Twelfth Night gifts to Elizabeth. The courtiers that Whitehall could not accommodate filled all the inns of London, Southwark, and the many noble houses along the Strand riverside.
Frances knew that Elizabeth would never forgo her Twelfth Night gifts, certainly not the jewels, nor the useful pearl-laden gowns and slippers made especially for her. If she was pleased, the giver might expect a rich wardship, or a high post in his county. Inferior gifts she would accept, but give to her faithful ladies and servants in the coming year. The queen wasted nothing.
Frances had asked Philip a month ago to send her black satin or damask or enough else for a new gown, but she had received no cloth.
The Earl of Leicester had at last made his escape to Holland with a splendid troop of horse, and even Elizabeth Tudor could not call him back from midchannel. Thus, she lay all unhappy in her privy bedchamber’s huge bed, under its feathered and jeweled canopy, coughing and complaining mightily, cursing a clumsy lady who, with shaking hands, spilled Her Majesty’s special sugary cough potion. When her physicians did not come to her or leave her fast enough, she threw whatever was at hand. Fortunately for them, whatever was at hand was usually an embroidered bright yellow or orange silk pillow, although once it was a bowl of lemons.
Dismissed with other ladies of the presence, Frances had sped from the stifling, overcrowded royal apartments back to her own chambers to work on her ciphering and, in truth, to wait for Robert.
Dr. Dee’s packet of letter-frequency tables for English, French, and Spanish ciphers lay open on her table.
She began to draw up a cipher grille to send to Philip, but she put it aside, unfinished. It was a game but no real test for her. She longed for a true message to decipher. How else would she discover whether an intelligencer’s head sat upon her shoulders?
In her outer chamber, she heard Robert Pauley leave his pallet and begin to softly strum his way through “Greensleeves,” embellishing the short melodic lines of the old tune and making them his own.
Frances sighed and closed her eyes. At least Essex had stopped waylaying her to beg for walks in the gardens, which were now all bare trees, empty limbs reaching toward a cold sun. Instead he was in a long, brooding sulk, striding along with his head thrust down until every beautiful lady at court, except Frances, spent time cajoling him to dance, play at cards, or to be his old dazzlingly merry self. The queen thought him in mourning for her lost company, and no one disputed her.
But Lady Stanley had a theory about the lady he mourned, and whispered it about. She hinted that the lady in question was married to a poet and would be unable to resist the handsome earl for long.
Naturally, the news immediately attached to the lady Sidney had sped along the corridors and through the clustered, gabbling groups of courtiers down to servants and eventually to Aunt Jennet’s ears.
Jennet had rushed to Frances one morning when she scarce had her eyes open from sleep. “You must do something,” she demanded. “Tell your father. Find out where this calumny began. If this tittle-tattle is not stopped, your reputation will be at the mercy of every woman’s mouth!”
Full of cold fury at Lady Stanley, Frances pushed words between her clenched teeth. “Aunt, I will not bother my lord father with this but will handle it myself. I know who says these things.” She dressed hastily, but yet took great care with her gown and hair. In service to the queen, she wore the wig and wove in a pearl headband.
Both Robert and Jennet tried to dissuade her, or at least to accompany her, but Frances walked out alone and through the palace into the great room to find Lady Stanley amidst a group of chattering, simpering ladies.
“My lady Stanley,” Frances called from a few paces away, “I would have private words with you…now.”
All the ladies turned to see who was speaking, and some even covered smiles in anticipation of something far more interesting than their present exchanges.
With a look of expectation, Lady Stanley took one step toward Frances. “Welcome, Lady Sidney. By pure happenstance we were not speaking of you at this time,” she said coyly. “Come join us; we have nothing to hide. Do we?” She looked about her as the other ladies smothered their nervous laughter.
Frances held her hands tight together before her, lest their shaking sh
ow her great anger and be seen as fear or guilt.
How best to answer? She must use the mind of a cipher expert to see where Lady Stanley was most vulnerable and strike where she least expected a hit.
“I come as a friend, Lady Stanley, with a caution. You have besmirched my lord Essex’s name before the court. When he hears what you have said, he will not be the friend to you that you desire him to be.”
Lady Stanley showed surprise at these words. They were obviously not the personal outrage she had expected. “My lord Essex? But you are…” She began twice, then seemed to lose her way. She no longer simpered, but looked from lady to lady for support. They were edging away, one pleading urgent business, others nodding hasty agreement, aware that they could not afford to offend the queen’s favorite.
With mounting satisfaction that she kept from her face and voice, Frances delivered a second blow. “My lord Essex has been charged by my husband, Sir Philip, to have a care for me while I am at court. As well, Her Majesty knows and approves.” Frances took a deep breath and, although her voice was low, she softened it yet again, since other courtiers had stopped and were looking on with interest. “Do you doubt the queen’s wisdom, Lady Stanley?”
Finding herself standing alone, that lady lifted her chin in a futile gesture of defiance that few saw, since all looked on Frances with some reluctant admiration. Frances turned her back and walked away toward her rooms, though she was sorely tempted to turn for one last look at Lady Stanley standing alone amid whispering courtiers.
Robert waited just inside the corridor, his dark eyes showing approval followed by concern. “You have not heard the last from that lady. She now has a double reason to slander your name.”
“I have no fear of such gossips; sooner or later they go too far and are caught up in a net of their own lies.” She smiled at him to remove any sting from her words. “Would you not accept a risk for the pleasure of seeing such a lady exposed?”
“I would be sorely tempted, but, if you allow me, mistress…the cornered creature is most to be feared because it acts blindly even against its own well-being.”
Frances walked faster, not really wanting to hear, though she suspected he was right. “My lord Essex will surely make his wishes known to her when he is recovered,” she said, insisting on the certainty she wanted to believe.
Robert did not reply.
That evening the wind swept in from the river Thames and howled around Whitehall’s towers, shaking its oriel windows, making Frances’s cold supper of whiting and cod from the fish kitchen feel even colder. Robert, true to his word, had talked to the master fish cook. As she held the dish over her candelabra, she thought to remember to thank him, not only for the fish but also for a way of warming cold food. Why hadn’t she considered using candles that were everywhere in her chambers? In the future, she would think for herself and not depend on the way things had always been done. A cipherer’s mind must be inventive.
Frances sat at her writing table, chin in hand, a much-used candle guttering low as she thought of a dozen more clever retorts for Lady Stanley. When she heard footsteps, she knew them to be Robert’s without looking up.
His low voice came close to her ear. “My lady, if you will quietly follow me, I will take you to your father’s offices.”
She leaped to her feet, nearly colliding with him. She had been denied access to her father’s offices for so long. This was her opportunity to question the cipherer Phelippes. “Do you speak true? Won’t you make trouble for yourself?”
“Your father has gone to Barn Elms to see to his hounds, my lady. They have not been hunting for hares these many months and are grown fat and lazy. Mr. Secretary will not return for several days.”
“But Father will surely learn of this…and…and censure you.”
“That is true and his right, Lady Frances, but it could be no worse censure than hearing your sighs and seeing the deep frown making lines between your eyes.”
She put a hand to the spot, but felt no lines. “You exaggerate.”
“To make a lasting point one must always craft it larger.”
She smiled. “Is that another of your truths?”
“It is now,” he said, a wry twist to his mouth. “Follow me.”
They walked past the lord treasurer William Cecil’s rooms, where light burned late into every night. Next they descended a narrow stone stair to the guarded door that had been such a barrier to her since she had arrived at Whitehall these four months gone. This time, Robert Pauley’s presence was her passkey, and the halberdiers opened the large oaken door, iron hinges creaking. They stood aside, their pikes raised in salute, lantern light glinting off the sharpened ax blades atop the weapons.
Frances stepped inside to a corridor of rooms marching back in succession, smelling of dust, vellum, ink pots, and a private jakes somewhere, fortunately out of sight. At least there was no sharp smell of smoke or tallow. Beeswax candles shone bright from a row of small writing tables, where the scratching quills of secretaries sounded like summer crickets calling their mates.
At a larger table in a corner of its own sat a man who held a paper sheet close to his eyes. Frances knew he must be Thomas Phelippes. Obviously shortsighted, he smiled on sight of her, rose, and bowed. He was a small man, his face pitted from the pox, his blond hair worn long, almost sweeping his shoulders. In spite of his commoner’s face, his wide blue eyes shone with intelligence and curiosity.
He bowed. “My lady Sidney, welcome. I have heard from Pauley and Dr. Dee that you have an interest in my work.”
Frances heard a low whispering from the other clerks until Phelippes turned to stare them into silence. “I do, Master Phelippes, a very great interest.” She took a steadying breath and told the truth, always the best course. Even if truth startled, it was still admired.
“I would be an intelligencer and decipher messages that threaten the queen’s peace.” She saw what an effort it required for the man not to laugh outright, and chose to ignore it. Sometimes winning admiration took time.
She would be pleasant with Phelippes, while keeping her back straight to remind him and all of the secretaries that she was born a Walsingham.
Robert saw her body stiffen with determination that would not be recognized by a chief cipherer, who had not watched her every mood and move as he had. And remembered each one, indeed was rarely free of remembering. Robert felt as if he had watched Frances all his life. His senses were all the sharper since he knew that he would spend the quiet times of his life with these memories and nothing else. What strange mood had she wrought on him? She was beautiful, but so were many women in this court. She had humor and intelligence, but so did many courtiers. Elizabeth tolerated no mirthless dolts. Yes, Frances was trapped in a loveless marriage, though she was far from the only such woman. Still, what was so special about this woman—her determination, defiance even—was part of the attraction. They were alike in yearning for their rightful place in life and in being denied it.
Robert shook off this mood that had been coming on him all the days he had been away. He had been wary of affection since a lad. Affection died or was betrayed. He would hold to that thought until he could grip it no longer; then he would ask Mr. Secretary to send him to France, Italy, Turkey…as far from these hopeless thoughts as possible.
“You are working on a message now,” Frances said, nodding at the writing table in front of Phelippes.
“Aye, my lady. I do not think this message of great importance, but the cipher is new and must be broken. It will surely be used again.”
Frances drew in a deep breath, gaining courage. “May I see it, Master Phelippes?”
“Well…ah…” He shrugged and looked about him, smiling, his eyebrows lifting in feigned helplessness. “I can see no harm in it. You are Dr. Dee’s pupil; is that not so?”
She had not thought of herself in that way, but it was true, at least in part.
Phelippes spread his hand on the message. “We are flattered by
your interest, my lady.”
She nodded, though she knew the words were flattery without meaning.
A chair was brought to the table and a candelabra, which brightened the space and drew other cipher clerks to gather near this interesting break in their dawn-to-moonrise workday. She smiled a greeting at them and sat down, eager to see the cipher. Phelippes had neatly recopied the original on fresh vellum and begun to mark repeated combinations.
Frances quickly saw other repetitions. “These numbers could be nulls,” she said, belatedly realizing that she had spoken her thought aloud. She hoped the man did not think her a know-all. “What language do you think, Master Phelippes?”
“Probably French, but it could be English. It’s from the Catholic queen to the French ambassador, addressed to his secretary.”
“Mary, queen of Scots,” Frances whispered, amazed that she held a cipher recently from the hand of that woman…whore, murderess, and traitor, but once queen of both France and Scotland.
“Aye, she will never be done with her plots,” Phelippes said, his lips drawn tight across his teeth, “but this time she may go too far, and even Her Majesty will no longer ignore her treason.” There was grim determination in Phelippes’s raised voice, as if he were tutoring her, and the secretaries moved in closer. “If not, we will—” He stopped abruptly, and Frances knew he had said more than he wished.
“The original will be resealed and sent on,” he explained in a lighter tone. “It is an obvious advantage to your father that he has full understanding of the Catholic queen’s plans, and that the traitors who plot with her do not know that we do.”
“Why don’t you arrest them before they can do actual harm?” Frances wondered aloud, although she suspected the answer.
“My lady, if the trap is sprung too soon, many will escape to plot again,” Phelippes said. “That mistake was made with the Duke of Norfolk. The queen’s leniency did not stop him, and he lost his head within a few years for plotting to rescue Queen Mary from the Earl of Shewsbury, who was guarding her. The duke then planned to lead an uprising to take England’s throne. He put himself forward one time too often.”
