by E. H. Schutz
Looking down the length of the attic and at the multiple brick chimneys, Katharine realised that she actually had not the faintest idea which of them corresponded with Helena's hearth. She dismissed the largest of them as likely belonging to the kitchen or perhaps the dining room, and moved on to listen at the opening of the next one beyond that. Helena's room was somewhere in the middle of the house, but many of the chimneys were clustered together. She crouched next to the chimney and peered at the knee-high iron door which covered the opening. She felt a pang of melancholy as she ran her fingers over the small plate riveted to the door. Engraved upon it were her father's initials. She smiled sadly and pulled the door open. She listened carefully, but heard nothing other than silence. For the first time, it occurred to her that Helena might well be reading or sleeping, and that this entire exercise may be for naught.
Climbing down each chimney was certainly not an option, not only because there were so many, but because any given room might be inhabited by someone who was not Helena. She heaved a sigh, resigned to the possibility that she still might not see Helena this morning, closed the iron door, and made her way to the next chimney.
Three silent flues later, she heard several male voices talking over each other, and then they finally resolved into a single speaker who turned out to be the insufferable Weymouth. Out of curiosity, she remained at the vent and listened.
“...and I am unsure as to whether that would be a prudent course of action at this time, milord.”
The earl’s voice floated up to her ears, and Katharine had to repress the urge to growl aloud. “Fortune favours the bold, Weymouth. And when, pray tell, would be a better time? The country is going to wreck and ruin with that woman on the throne, and we need her off of it, and someone who will keep this kingdom righteous on it.”
A third voice, whom Katharine did not recognise, replied, “But Robert, do you not think it unseemly to murder your own niece? She is your flesh and blood. Perhaps if you revealed yourself to her as a Boleyn, you might exert some influence on her policies toward the Papists?”
The earl’s voice, angry and much louder, echoed in the brick chimney and Katharine had to withdraw her head. “She is no niece of mine! I have renounced all ties to the previous earl of this county and his daughter. The Queen is a woman born out of sin, and she shall certainly continue on this course if we allow it. I was created earl, not inherited, and I'll not have that surname uttered in this house again!”
The voices dissolved into indistinct chatter before the earl reasserted himself. “The Queen shall be dead within a fortnight, and anyone here to wishes to distance himself may do so now. If you remain, you remain through the whole business.”
After a silence, the voice from before spoke. “Very well, Robert. Good luck in your endeavours. I am going back to Northumberland. Good day, sir.”
Katharine heard a door open and close, and the voices—perhaps four of them—again began speaking all at once, indistinctly. She suddenly realised that she had been holding her breath. She sat back on her heels and closed the door to the chimney, eyes wide. Katharine did not have strong feelings one way or the other over Elizabeth Tudor, but she did appreciate the Queen's relatively moderate stance regarding religion in the kingdom, and furthermore admired her as a woman making her own way in the world. A successful plot on her life would be an utter disaster. But what could she, Katharine, a village blacksmith, do to prevent it? It was not as though she could appear at court and warn the Queen that her life was in peril. She would probably locked away as mad, if she managed to get anywhere near the Queen at all.
Katharine found herself at the next chimney, kneeling next to it and opening the door. Perhaps Helena could help her decide what to do. Katharine poked her head into the chimney and listened. At first, she heard only silence, but after a few moments, a soft humming floated up the flue and caressed her ears with a tone which was unmistakeably Helena's. As if taken by a spell, Katharine threw herself through the vent and grabbed at the iron rungs set into the masonry, barely noticing that she very nearly missed her footing. She descended the rungs with the speed of a hawk diving for her prey, her entire body suffused with warmth and her hands tingling with the anticipation of Helena's lips upon hers. In her haste, it did not occur to her to announce herself.
Katharine's boots hit the stone hearth at the bottom of her climb, and she had to duck slightly to clear the opening of the fireplace. The next thing she saw was an iron fire poker—she identified it as having been made by her grandfather—swinging toward her face. She threw herself to the ground, feeling the breeze and hearing the whistle of the poker as it cut through the air near her ear, and covered her head. No further blows, however, were forthcoming, and she dared look up at her assailant.
Helena stood above her, trembling, the fire poker dangling from her hand. Katharine stood up and dusted herself off, advancing on Helena for an embrace. She did not quite achieve her goal.
“What in Heaven's name were you thinking?” Helena's voice cracked. “I could have killed you!”
“But, my love, you did not, so all is well.” Katharine took one of her hands.
Helena stepped back, scowling. “You ought at least have said something as you were coming down. All I heard was a great thudding and someone appearing in my room out of the fireplace! I'd have expected the Queen before I expected you!”
Katharine eyed her. “So, you would have hit the Queen in the head with a fire poker?”
Helena glared at her.
Katharine winced. “You are quite right. I ought have announced myself.” She paused. “I am quite glad that you did not kill me with a fire poker.” She grinned at Helena with a hopeful expression on her face.
Helena frowned at her, unsure of whether to pursue her irritation, then softened. It was not as though Katharine had terrified her out of her wits on purpose. “Well. I suppose as we have not seen each other in ages, we ought not waste it now, even if you did shorten my life considerably.” She leaned in and pressed her lips to Katharine's, then pulled back and began nonchalantly walking toward her bed. Katharine hesitated for a moment before registering that Helena was no longer either swinging anything at her head or shouting at her, then remembered why she had come down the chimney in the first place, and followed her eagerly.
That afternoon, Katharine left the manor in much the same way she came, only in far higher spirits. Upon her return to Tisbury, she noted a great crowd in the vicinity of her house and pushed curiously through it. Once she made it through, she saw that the Earl of Wiltshire and the insufferable Squire Weymouth, as well as several other finely dressed men, stood in her front garden, speaking to each other earnestly, as yet another man tried unsuccessfully to disperse the crowd. Katharine chose to address him.
She approached him and demanded hotly, “Would you care to explain this ado in my garden?”
The man looked her up and down and replied dubiously, “This is your garden?”
Katharine nearly snarled at him. “Yes, damn you! My name is displayed quite prominently!” She pointed at the iron sign.
The man ignored her and turned toward the scrum of men a few feet away. “Milord, this woman here says she is the smith.”
The crowd of men dispersed, leaving nothing but empty space between Katharine and the earl. He glared at her. “Smith, you have shown yourself to be an enemy of the Godly and an obstruction to righteousness.” He gestured to two stout men near him. “Bind her and look to Weymouth for instruction.”
As the men advanced upon her, Katharine considered running, but realised that she would not make it far as the crowd pressed in from all directions, and an attempt might result in immediate injury. Instead, she raised her voice so that the whole crowd might hear her. “On whose authority do you detain me?”
“God's,” replied the earl, and he turned on his heel and walked away.
The men who had been charged with arresting her were kind enough to not handle her terribly roughly as they w
alked her toward a carriage, but Katharine would hardly have noticed any pain as her mind swam with confusion. Finally, she noticed John's kind face a few feet from her.
“Feed the kitten, John. I'll not be gone long, I hope.”
The baker nodded solemnly at her. “I will, Katharine, and I will see what might be done to right this.”
Katharine nodded at him in return as she was pushed into the carriage with more force than was truly necessary. Her last thought before the blow came to the back of her head was that she had forgotten to tell Helena about the plot against the Queen.
Five
Helena strode into the dining room for dinner still happily buzzing from her time with Katharine in the morning. Even dinner with her increasingly preoccupied husband barely dampened her mood. Robert already sat at the table, reading his correspondence.
“Good evening, Robert,” she said as she sat down. Looking down the table, she noticed no other places were set. Relieved that she would not be subjected to the self-righteous squire, but curious about his absence, she asked, “I thought Weymouth would be joining us this evening?”
“He had a more pressing matter to attend. Weymouth and I have determined it best for our respective counties if we begin dissuading those who do not understand the need for reform from conducting business under our jurisdictions. This afternoon, we made our first step in Tisbury. I suggested to the smith that she perhaps remove to a different county and she declined. Weymouth has her now.”
Helena forced herself to maintain a neutral expression but she felt her stomach clench with fear. She could think of no way in which this situation would not end badly. Robert and his friends were not above treating people in a manner which might have made the Spanish inquisitors proud in order to extract information or confessions from them. He and Weymouth had matter-of-factly discussed the goings-on in the dungeons of the latter's Sandsfoot Castle at dinner several nights previous—quite a departure from Robert's previous table manners—and the details had left her feeling ill for some time thereafter. The thought of Katharine undergoing such treatment gave her a feeling that 'ill' did not come close to properly describing. She took a breath.
“Ah, unfortunate indeed. When did this happen?”
“Only today. We did attempt to give her a chance to repent or leave, but she is far more stubborn than one might expect.”
Helena nodded. Robert changed the subject to some Parliamentary topic which only required that she look vaguely like she might be paying attention. As he spoke, her thoughts raced and she had to calm herself to get them into some semblance of order. If she could get to Weymouth quickly enough, she could prevent any harm coming to Katharine. It would not be difficult to convince the groom to saddle a horse and provision her, and a handful of silver would certainly buy his silence. Christopher was one of the few servants with whom she had always gotten on well. He never gave her the pitying looks to which the household servants were prone, and was of a gentle nature. Getting to Weymouth would be another issue since she had never before left Wiltshire, and had only the vaguest idea where the town actually was located.
Somehow, Helena managed to finish her meal. She did her best not to fidget as Robert droned on about some bill or other, and nodded politely at the proper places. At last, he announced that he would retire to his study for the evening. Helena rose from her seat, curtseyed to him, and bade him good night. She made haste for her room and quickly changed into the trousers that Katharine had given her for working and a shirt which she had left behind. As Helena pulled on the heavy boots that Katharine had gifted her, she felt tears slide down her face.
Thus dressed, she resolved not to cry until she had Katharine safely in her arms and at that moment realised that she would do well to arm herself. Robert kept a small armoury on the ground floor; she might find something suitable there. She left her room, closing the door as quietly as possible behind her, and crept down the corridor and the servants' stairs until she came to the iron door to the armoury, in a dark corner of the ground floor corridor.
She opened the latch to the heavy iron door and pushed against it with all of her strength. The door swung open, hitting the wall behind it with a crash, and she stumbled through the doorway into the dimly lit room, barely stopping herself falling to the stone floor. She froze in her crouched position and listened for footsteps. She looked over her shoulder at the door in bewilderment. As near as she could tell in the relative darkness, it was the same door it had always been. Straining to hear if anyone was coming to investigate the noise, she peered around the room, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. The only light came from a small barred window set high in the wall and from the doorway.
Arrayed along the walls were a grand selection of pole-arms and longbows, all of which were longer than Helena stood tall, and she immediately discarded them as impractical for her need. In the centre of the room stood a large rack full of blades of different sizes and designs. Helena eyed the blades with some trepidation but summoned her fortitude and moved to inspect them. Several of them were as long as she was tall, but a few only came up to her ribs. While she considered them, she took a pair of scabbards from the rack and strapped them to her waist. She chose the sword with the shortest blade and put it in the scabbard which she could most easily reach, and chose another one for Katharine's use once she was released. There were also more than a dozen shorter knives and daggers resting in their sheaths. Helena was not entirely sure what the difference might be and resolved to ask Katharine. She took up several of the short blades and attached them to her belt in various places, and slid one into each boot. As she turned to leave, a glint of light caught her eye. Two short firearms lay on a cloth of Utrecht velvet, with bags of what presumably contained the supplies necessary for firing them alongside. Helena carefully picked up one of the firearms. It was heavy, but not so heavy that she could not heft it with one hand. She felt rather dubious about it, but ultimately elected to take them with her in case Katharine would know what to do with them. She tucked them both into her belt and picked up the two bags, which were far heavier than expected, and left the armoury.
Checking carefully for signs of life, she made haste down the corridor, keeping as much as possible to the shadows until she came to a narrow door which opened out of the back of the house and into a small yard in front of the stables. She broke into a run—or tried to—as she was so laden with weaponry that she was considerably slowed and the long swords kept threatening to trip her as she moved. Somehow, she managed to make the stable without falling on her face and called for the groom, trying to keep her voice low enough to not be heard outside of her immediate vicinity.
“Oh, Christopher. Are you about?”
The large, sandy-haired man emerged from a nearby stall, brush in hand and brows furrowed. “Are ye well, milady? What brings you here at this time of the night?”
“I am well, but I have an urgent errand I absolutely must run now, and no one may know I have left the house. I am sorry to involve you, but I know of no other way to get a horse. I have a good deal of silver here for your trouble.”
Christopher stared at her for a moment. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his temples. “I'm at your command, milady, and I'll not be taking your coin from you. Might I know how far you plan to go so's to know when to expect ye back?” He turned to remove Helena's saddle from its rack.
Helena frowned and looked speculatively at a pile of hay in the corner as if it might provide her with the answer. “I am actually not sure how far I am going. How far is Weymouth?”
Christopher stopped his movement and looked back at Helena. She felt his eyes resting on her various armaments, and he slowly leaned back up against the stable wall.
“Ye be going after the blacksmith, milady.” His expression was steady, not at all enquiring, and Helena elected to not lie to him.
“I am. How did you know about that?”
; “Word travels, milady. I don't think your saddle'll suit this ride, if ye don't mind me saying.”
Christopher reached for another saddle with a high pommel, obviously designed for riding astride. “I reckon ye'll find this more suited to your need, milady. Ye'll need provisions, eh?”
Helena nodded at him, suddenly hit with the enormity of what she was planning. Christopher either did not notice her discomfort or kindly ignored it. She watched him move round the stable, gathering tack and a pair of saddlebags. Into these he put dried meat and some vegetables which must have come from the kitchen garden, then he looked up at her.
“I'll put ye pistoles and balls in the bag, unless ye want to keep them loaded in your belt, milady. I can't say as I recommend that.”
Helena sheepishly handed him the firearms. “I actually have never fired one. I was hoping Katharine would be able to use one.”
Christopher nodded. “Aye, I'd think Palmer'd know how to use it. I saw her demonstrate a musket she made just last year. Just remember, milady, don't ye point one at anyone or anything you don't want to kill. That's the main thing of it. And don't fire it until you really must because it'll take you an age to reload.” He set the bags down on a table. “Would ye like your regular horse, milady?”
“Please.” Helena barely managed to get the word out. Contemplating the reality of killing someone made her nervous and she could feel herself beginning to sweat. When Christopher disappeared down the dark aisle between the horse stalls, she leaned against a post and closed her eyes. Perhaps her hasty decision to ride and rescue Katharine had been wrong. Perhaps someone more capable ought to do it. But who could she trust? Christopher was a good man, but ultimately in the employ of Robert, and she could not ask him to take such a risk. Furthermore, she could hardly ask a man she hardly knew, even if she got on well with him, to defy his employer and potentially be physically harmed on her behalf. No, she could do this. She had to do it, and she would.
