by Jeane Westin
“You gain attention in any way you can, Frances Sidney!”
Before Frances could respond, Lady Stanley spoke again. “I am widowed, my husband dying when he was cut for the kidney stone. I have come into my dower money and estates.” She lifted her proud head. “My lord Essex will soon turn his attention to me.”
Frances stopped, curtsied, and murmured, “I hope he does, Lady Stanley. I am most sorry to hear of your recent bereavement.”
Her father retook her arm, bowed to Lady Stanley, and they left.
Frances wondered how long it would take Lady Stanley to write to Philip about this most recent adventure. As fast, she suspected, as the swiftest courier could reach the fastest ship crossing the channel to the northern ports of Holland.
Casting furtive glances at her father, she walked with him to her apartment. They stopped and she bowed her head, hoping for his blessing but expecting far worse. “Father, I—”
“Daughter,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft, “there is no blame attached to you in this matter.”
What? She thought she must have heard him wrongly.
He almost smiled. “I was once young, daughter, and remember that young men are ever led by their jealous cods.”
“But Philip will hear.”
“I will write and explain that there is no fault in you. In one way, I am proud, Frances, that you protected your servant as any good mistress should, especially one so valuable to my service. You have the Walsingham courage.” He said the words somewhat reluctantly, and walked two steps toward his own chambers before turning back to her. “But don’t make it a habit, daughter, or I will have to send you to train at Blackfriars fencing schools, as the queen commands.” He did laugh then, a sound she rarely heard, and was still laughing as she entered her own apartment.
Her mind whirled. The queen’s response was always unexpected, but not her father’s. He never changed. She realized that she had seldom seen her father amused since her mother’s death. Her mind filled with possible explanations, but she quickly came to an answer for his strange behavior. Yes, that must be it: He was proud that an earl was attracted to his daughter. Her father longed for a baronetcy, wishing to be ennobled for his work. She wished with all her heart that his advancement had not cost her the high price of losing Robert’s service.
She opened her door onto a bower of spring blooms set in vases and pots and hanging from the walls.
Robert stood in the middle of her receiving chamber. He had turned late winter into spring for her. She was important to him, as she had not been to any other man. Her heart, which had been so empty for so long, was filled with his caring.
He had gathered his belongings to move from his corner pallet. His arms were full, his guitar slung over his shoulder; he was ready to quit her service. He bowed and gestured toward the flowers, his hand on his heart. “My lady, my hope is that you accept this poor offering for the trouble I caused…a better garden than the one you found earlier.”
She was overwhelmed by his gift. “I am grateful….”
“’Tis a trifle, my lady. I know the master of the hothouses and he gave them to me.”
She feared tears might come, but blinked them away. “You are leaving as the queen ordered. Perhaps this is the best outcome.” She did not mean the words, but she thought it best to say them with some sincerity.
He nodded and she walked past him and the bower he had made of her receiving chamber, her heart near to shattering.
As she passed him, his whisper was low, but went straight to her heart. “Since I cannot possibly be in more trouble than I already am, I would give you a last service. Be ready at nine of the clock and I will take you to the Tower.”
She turned to him, her gaze questioning. “Robert, how can I allow you to risk all?”
He moved swiftly toward the door. “Until the ninth hour, my dearest lady…nine of the clock after full dark.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Bliss, I will my bliss forbear,
Fearing, sweet, you to endanger.”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
Frances waited nervously, pacing in front of her windows and watching the moon rise in the rain-washed sky over the Thames running at ebb in front of Greenwich Palace. She waited and watched, knowing that she was putting Robert at risk for his livelihood, his freedom, perhaps even his life.
She longed to save Jennet, but at what price? Robert was no longer her servant; both the queen and her lord father had commanded that he work only as an intelligencer. And still she relied on his courage and friendship. She could not stop thinking about the warmth and comfort of his arms about her as he left her in her bower. Strange that in a few months she had come to think of him as a good, even…yes, her dearest friend.
Not more. Nevermore. That would be impossible. The corner that had once held him in her outer chamber seemed so dark now. No sweet songs would ever be heard from there again, and she knew her life would be the lesser for it. Yet in the night, she would remember his guitar and his low, clear voice as if both were yet there.
Still, she must close her mind to all such imaginings.
Frances swathed herself in a black, hooded cloak, silently counting as her case clock struck the ninth hour.
Her sleepy maid, Meg by name, appeared at the bedchamber door carrying a candle and rubbing her eyes. “It is late, my lady. Should you not wait until the morrow?”
“Back to your bed, Meg. I will return anon from my business.”
“Aye, my lady,” she said, bobbing a curtsy, gladly seeking her warm pallet once again, for she would be up before dawn, setting the fire, replacing candles, freshening bed linen, brushing gowns, and hoping to break her fast in the servants’ hall before all the food was eaten.
Not for the first time, Frances thought the girl too forward. Had she been sent by Mr. Secretary to report to him? Or by the queen? Or Essex?
Frances turned quickly away from thoughts that seemed to run wildly in every direction from good judgment. She doused the candelabra on her writing table, throwing the room into deep gloom, then opened her door a crack. Thanks be to God that the guard promised by the queen had not taken up his post as yet. While she crossed her fingers against such calamity, thinking what to pray next, Robert came quickly around the corner. He wore a large cloak and a rain-battered, wide-brimmed hat that shadowed his face, though she would know that strong jaw and wide, expressive mouth under his dark mustache anywhere.
“Are you still for this adventure, my lady?” he asked quietly, looking down at her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I trust you to guide me.”
He nodded, and she thought she saw a slight smile as he took her hand, leading her quickly to back steps used by servants coming up from the kitchens below. His hand tightened on hers and they moved swiftly through the flesh kitchen, past a spit boy asleep on his crank at the fireplace.
They moved through an arch into another kitchen, where a baker preparing dough for tomorrow’s bread looked up and grinned at Robert.
“Ho, Master Pauley! A good tumble ahead this night, hey.”
Frances stiffened, then thought the man must be used to seeing gentlemen and ladies in search of dark spaces to hide their passions, perhaps even used to seeing Robert on other nights. How often and with what ladies? Some low maid, surely. She shrugged her uncaring, but her lungs felt too full and she realized she was holding her breath. Better the cook think whatever he pleased than that he know the true purpose of their night roaming.
“Are you known to this man?” Frances asked lightly when they reached the courtyard, as if she were hardly interested.
“Yes.”
“But you are unconcerned. You have come this way at night before, I vow.” She was prying into his life when she should not. And she did not even want to hear his true answer.
He denied nothing, and she took his silence as a confirmation. He was a man like any other, after all. Had she thought he was a monk? Or hoped
? Why would she want to believe in his purity? The thought was ridiculous, and she pinched her arm hard to encourage remembrance of her rank.
Robert’s hand tightened on hers as she tried to pull it away. “Do not forget our task, Lady Frances.”
She said nothing until they approached the water gate. “I forget nothing, Robert.” She had meant her tone to be uncaring, but it wavered. Since the Christmastide masque, her acting ability had declined, and this was no play about jealousy. It felt like truth. Yet why should she care what Robert did with his life?
“Stay here until I call you,” he said, his breath touching her cheek with warmth.
He approached the two guards. “Ho, John. I’m for a night in London. A silver shilling for a boat and a promise of bad memory.” He lowered his voice, but spoke with a bit of bravado. “The lady has a husband…unfortunately.”
The guards laughed and one said, “Have a care, sir, but for another silver shilling you could buy my sister.” He slapped Robert on the back. “Don’t you know you could hire a Bankside whore for a month with such coin, begging your lady’s pardon.”
The guards tried to look under Frances’s hood to determine her identity. Though her hand trembled, she held her hood tight about her head, half shielding her face.
Robert stepped in front of her. “Alas, no second shilling for your sweet sister, John.” He winked and lowered his voice. “Perhaps another night, eh?” Firmly holding Frances’s arm, he quickly helped her down slippery stone steps grown green with river slime to a boat tied to an iron ring. He handed her in and agreed on the waterman’s price, though it was exorbitant.
The man whined in a high voice, “’Tis full night, sir, and I be rowin’ against the tide.” His whine rose. “And there be danger in the river.”
“I’ll pay your price, man; just dig in your oars.”
Quickly, they moved into midstream, where the tide ran swift and cold air swept up from the channel.
Robert settled Frances, and when she shivered, he placed his arm and cloak tight about her shoulders. “To the Tower, waterman,” he told the oarsman, who sat midway between them and the prow.
“Good sir, know ye not that the gates be locked at this hour?”
“We have business, waterman, which is none of yours.”
“Beg pardon, sir.” The boatman dug his oars deeper into the murky Thames, and the small boat struggled ahead.
Frances shivered as gulls shrieked overhead and the cold, windblown spray hit her face. Robert tightened his hold.
“Don’t look out on the water, my lady. The river is a burial ground for those avoiding the cost of a churchyard, or to murderers hiding their crime to save them from a trip to Tyburn’s dreadful tree.”
Though his arm warmed her, she shivered violently again at the thought of ghastly dead bodies floating around her.
“You can yet change your mind,” he murmured, close to her cheek.
She dared not turn to look at him, lest her lips graze his mouth. “You know I cannot.”
“Yes, I do know that,” he said.
The tide was beginning to turn now as the moon rose, allowing the waterman to let the current take him. “Which water stairs do ye seek, sir?”
“To Galley Key below the Tower, and wait for us.”
“Aye, sir, but the waiting be costing ye another shilling.”
Frances was outraged. “Thames watermen’s prices are fixed by the lord mayor,” she protested.
Robert held a finger to his mouth for quiet. “We need him to be here when we come out. That is more important now than a poor man taking advantage where he can.”
“I will repay you all the coin you spend,” she whispered fiercely.
Now she was glad of the chill wind that swirled about her, since it blew away the stench of the river so that it did not linger in her nose or on her clothes. She felt Robert’s arm about her and knew she leaned too much into his yielding shoulder.
The Thames ran swift and they soon came to Galley Key. Frances heard the watchman’s chant near the pier. She saw him approach holding his poled lantern: “Look well to your locks, fire, and your light, to the bane of thieves, and all will be well!”
From a nearby tavern, Frances heard the haunting notes of a hautbois, the city never sleeping.
The waterman tied his boat to the steps, and Robert helped Frances up and onto the constricted, muddy, and refuse-strewn street next to the Tower moat.
“Walk in the center channel, my lady. The rain has washed it clear and into the river.”
They came upon a narrow bridge leading to the Bulwark gate. Robert rang the bell.
“Who rings?”
“Robert Pauley from Mr. Secretary Walsingham’s office.”
The iron gate swung open, leaving room enough for them to pass inside.
“I expected you sooner, Master Pauley, and alone.”
Though Frances had trouble calming the tremors that raced through her, she stood straight, or hoped she did. She yet had reason enough to wonder why Robert had been expected. Perhaps he made regular trips here for her father, returning with whatever information had been gained by examination. At times, she knew, just the sight of the rack and pincers was enough to break down a prisoner’s resistance. She thought Jennet was made of more resolve, though almost everyone babbled in the end. Some recusants and most of the Catholic priests resisted, some until their bodies were so broken they had to be dragged on sleds to a traitor’s death at Tyburn.
Frances shook her head to rid it of such images. She would never watch the spectacle. No man deserved such a death.
Robert showed the guard, resplendent in the queen’s red livery, a parchment with Mr. Secretary’s red wax seal.
Frances held her breath until her throat ached. Had Robert used her father’s seal to gain unlawful entry into the Tower? It was a capital offense, and she was the cause of it. She pulled on his cloak. “We must turn back at once,” she whispered.
“Too late for regrets, my lady.”
They followed the guard into an underground corridor as cold as frost.
Frances held back a few steps. “Robert, what were you thinking? Do you not know what risk you take?”
“Did you think there was no peril when you asked me to save your aunt Jennet?”
His words, though not an accusation, hit her like so many stinging blows. She had not completely considered just how dangerous her request had been. Or had she, and ignored her own warnings? Was she so used to getting everything she wanted from servants that she thought of nothing but her own wishes? She could not be so selfish.
“Can we turn back?” She was willing to leave Jennet to her fate rather than risk Robert, who had no fault in this except trying to please a mistress.
“It is too late. I beg you, Frances, not to worry. All will be well.”
“How can you say that? Do you mean to take Jennet from this place?”
“Yes.”
“You will be caught and it will be my doing.”
“Calm yourself, my lady,” he said. “I will soon explain everything. You ask too many questions and will raise the guard’s suspicion. You must trust me. Lower your voice, I beg you.”
“I can lower it,” she said, showing that she could, “but nothing will save you when they learn you have counterfeited my father’s signature and seal to rescue a Catholic recusant. Hanging will be the best death you can hope for. I do not care about myself, or that I will be locked up in Barn Elms until my husband returns from Holland.” She lost breath before she could finish the lie. She cared very much about being locked up in a distant house with bitter memories.
She dared not even think the words that were really on her mind. And I will never see you again. But there was no beginning or finishing of that thought.
“Yet,” he said, glancing sideways, “you care about Jennet.”
“Of course, but…”
“Are you trying to say that you care more for me?”
She squared he
r shoulders, fearing the direction his words were taking.
“Robert, it is a mistress’s duty to care for her servants…all her servants.”
“But I am no longer your servant.”
“A former servant.” Would he never cease his endless probing?
They walked through a maze of stone-walled corridors embedded with centuries of chill, up and down stairs worn by ancient boots, until they came to a long corridor with small iron-gated doorways on both sides, scarce wide enough to pass through into tiny cells.
Though she blamed herself for this muddle, she thought Robert mad. Then she knew herself to be just as mad, or close to it. Screams and groans and the odors of indescribable agony reached her before she could cover her ears, or clamp a hand over her mouth as bitter bile rose.
Robert’s hand clasped her arm tighter still as he murmured, “If I did not know you to be brave, I would never have brought you here.”
She straightened, stepping as erect as she could, and her hand fell away. Frances wanted him to hold tight to her arm, for warmth and to comfort her, but she could not ask. If he were daring so much as his life, she would have to find her own courage. She knew she had valor bred into her. Her mother had suffered greatly in three stillbirths and had died without a groan. Her father ailed and yet kept to his work. She had to take hold of her own daring, if not for her own sake, then for Robert’s.
The guard stopped and turned to them, holding his lantern high. He pointed to a cell. “The prisoner you seek is in there.”
“Thank you, yeoman. I will commend you to Mr. Secretary,” Robert said, clapping him on the back and handing him a silver shilling.
Frances moved quickly to the barred cell door. “Jennet…Aunt…” she called, seeing no shape in the deep gloom.
A shadow moved in the dark. Rising from the straw, a filthy, bony woman, her gown in rags, crawled forward. “Frances?” she questioned. “Child…dear child, I thought never to see you again in this life.”
