The Queen's Captive

by Barbara Kyle

  Honor managed a faint smile. She couldn’t begin to express her gratitude for her sister-in-law’s tender nursing since Geoffrey had brought her home from the Tower. Still, she felt sure that Joan, the capable governor of her own large household at Blackheath, must be eager to get back to Geoffrey, who had already returned to their family.

  Home. Joan’s words echoed: You’re safe. Yet Honor felt a twist of worry as she noticed three men walking back and forth outside the garden gate, each armed with a sword and dagger. Patrolling, obviously. Who had set them to this task? Watching the youngest one, who seemed almost too young to have a sword, she realized he was the gardener’s apprentice. Jeremy something. And wasn’t one of the others Peter, a new footman? It made her uneasy. This did not feel like home; more like being a prisoner inside her own grounds. She already felt like a prisoner inside her body—every muscle still felt frayed, stripped of strength. The wind, too, made her jumpy, a turbulent wind despite the heat. It tossed the boughs of the pear trees by the garden wall, setting the leaves to rustling as though whispering an urgent message. The wind was heavy with the scent of roses. It was a rose petal that had blown across Honor’s cheek as she had lurched out of the nightmare. It had fallen to her lap, and with her good arm she picked it up. A petal red as blood. She looked across the sand path at the mass of red roses climbing the trellis against the far wall. Nodding near them in the wind were tall yellow lilies and crimson poppies. Grenville’s face suddenly reared up, that hard white rib of the scar above his lip. She winced, closing her eyes.

  “Pain?” Joan asked.

  She quickly shook her head. “No, I’m fine.” It was true, the worst of the pain was behind her. But there was desolation in her heart, like ice at her core, as she gazed at her garden. In the Tower, stretched on the rack, she had tried to bear the agony by imagining her beloved flowers, but Grenville had almost broken her. Would she ever see roses and irises and lilies again without seeing that face, that bony white scar? Would she ever smell the scent of flowers without reliving the terror and the pain? She hated him for befouling a love.

  But that was just a surface hate. Far deeper, colder, flintier, was the hate she bore him for what he had done to Richard, chained for months in that coffin-sized cell. He had been so weak when Adam had brought him home, with gray skin and a wild, tangled beard. And so thin that his clothes hung from his shoulders as though from sticks. He had insisted on riding, refusing the humiliation of being brought in a wagon, but from her bedroom window where she’d had the bed moved, waiting for him to come home, she had seen, when the two of them rode through the gates, that he was barely able to hold himself upright in the saddle.

  Again, that twist of worry in her stomach. “Where’s Richard?”

  Joan plied her needle, studying her expert stitches. “Oh, you know—at work.”

  “But where, exactly?” Since his return she had been haunted by a need to know his whereabouts at all times, to satisfy herself that he was alive, and nearby. That John Grenville had not snatched him again. She was profoundly grateful for whatever had moved the Queen to let him go. The best explanation she and Richard could gather was that their lawyer’s petitions had finally convinced the Queen of the illegality of keeping him a prisoner. But she still imagined Grenville, like a wolf deprived of a kill, lying in wait for his next chance.

  “Well, there’s the new housing for the Flemish weavers,” Joan said. “Two of those roofs are still unfinished and the carpenters are at odds with the joiners, so he may be there, sorting things out. Or he may be down at the mill with the master fuller. I hear there’s a broken paddle wheel.”

  Honor felt sure Joan was hiding something from her. Absently, she shredded the rose petal, wondering, as always in these past weeks, where Richard went every day. And how did he find the strength? He had been sleeping in another room to let her recover, but he was barely recovered himself, his once sturdy body still weak, moving with a slight stoop, yet while she had kept to her bed all day he had pushed himself to go out, seeing to his workers, leaving early every morning, coming back late. Every day began the same. He came in to see her, bearing a single rose and a look of tense wonder, as though relieved to find her still alive. He would bend to kiss her, then tuck the rose into the already full vase by her bedside, then sit on the edge of the bed and take her good hand in his and ask how she felt, how she had slept, whether there was anything he could do for her, or have the servants fetch for her.

  “A new body would be nice,” she had said the other day. “Preferably one twenty years younger. And with fair hair this time.”

  “This one has served you well. And me,” he’d said, the glint of a smile in his eye.

  Gently, she ran her fingertips over the welts on his wrist gouged by the iron manacle, scabs that stretched in a band as wide as her hand. He was clean shaven, exposing how winter-pale his lower face still was from his prison beard. He wore a black doublet of thick, winter wool, needing its warmth even in the July sunshine. Tears pricked her eyes as she imagined what he had suffered, but she forced them back. She would not let him see how it wrenched her heart. He spoke to her of domestic things, and she was glad to go along—a servant’s wedding, a lame horse, Joan’s menu for dinner. Neither could bear to go deeper.

  Every morning ended the same. He would give her a long look in silence, turning very sober, as though a cloud had passed over his face, then push himself to his feet like a veteran soldier hearing the trumpet call to horse. “Must go.” If she asked where, he always muttered, “Business.” He would kiss her again. And then he was gone. Each day she worried that Grenville would be watching and waiting. That Richard would not come back.

  “I never see him from one morning to the next,” she said now to Joan, not a complaint so much as a plea. Tell me he’s safe.

  “Well, you know how it is with Richard. Always one task after another.”

  Honor knew the truth of this. He had always hated being idle. But in his weakened state, how could his body take the way he was pushing himself? And why would Joan not look her in the eye?

  “Why don’t you try it again, dear?” Joan said, changing the subject. She gave a nod to the writing materials on the bench—a quill pen, and paper tucked under an inkpot to keep it from blowing away.

  Better than tormenting myself with worry, Honor thought. She positioned the paper, then picked up the pen. She had been practicing writing with her left hand, a frustrating effort. Her right hand worked as well as ever, though stiffly, but her right shoulder was so damaged she could not move the arm, could only lift it with her other hand, as though it belonged to someone else, and awkwardly place the right hand where she wanted it. The doctor’s opinion was that shoulder ligaments were ripped, the damage permanent. She dipped the pen in the inkpot and tried writing a few more words of the letter she had begun to her wine purveyor—The shipment of burgundy arrived. She stopped and looked at it. Awful. A scrawl worse than a child’s.

  “Keep at it,” Joan coaxed. “It will come, in time.”

  Honor continued writing—and my clerk’s accounts show—but her clumsy left hand refused to do what she wanted. Disgusted, she tossed the pen on the bench.

  Joan had the wisdom to accept temporary defeat. “Oh,” she said, suddenly remembering, “Ned came while you were napping. This was delivered for you.” From the grass at her feet she picked up a burlap bag the size of a mop head and set it on the bench.

  “Delivered from whom?”

  “Ned didn’t know. And he said the gentleman who delivered it didn’t know either. But he arrived with an escort of three armed men. Must be worth something.”

  Honor opened the bag. Inside, a rope of pearls was coiled on top of a purse of crimson leather. She loosened the purse strings, revealing a mass of gold coins.

  “Good heavens,” said Joan, “the pearls alone are worth a small fortune! Who can it be from?”

  A paper was tucked beside the purse. Honor unfolded it and silently read the short note
.

  Madam,

  For your loyalty, a hundred pearls. For your pain, five hundred crowns of gold. For the love I bear you, a thousand years will not suffice to honor you.

  It was unsigned, but she knew that confident handwriting so well. “Princess Elizabeth,” she told Joan. It moved her. A gesture full of meaning, those crowns—one gold coin for every pound that Elizabeth had given her to take to Noailles for Dudley’s venture. A tragic, failed venture. She had been heartbroken to learn that Sir Henry Peckham and several others had been executed. Sir William Courtenay and Lord John Bray had been arrested, but with friends in high places they had been released after paying heavy fines. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton had escaped to France. Honor would be forever grateful that none of them, apparently, had implicated either her or Adam. She gazed at the crowns, thinking of Elizabeth’s gold confiscated by John Grenville, and again the image of him forced itself upon her, twisting the knot in her stomach.

  “You did such a brave thing, protecting the Princess,” Joan said warmly. “I’m sure she knows the true cost to you. This reward is a mere token.”

  Honor found that she could smile, knowing Elizabeth’s tightness with money. “Oh, no. For her, this is most generous.”

  “All I can say is, thank heaven the Queen saw fit to order your release.”

  “Thank her husband,” Honor said. They had all heard the rumor that Philip had ordered the Queen to drop her investigation of Elizabeth, and last week Honor had received confirmation of it in a letter from Sir William Cecil. “Or perhaps I should be thankful that the Queen, for all her ferocity against heretics, is such a timid wife. She jumps like a spaniel to do her husband’s bidding.”

  “Strange, isn’t it? A queen, yet so cowed. Geoffrey has never found me to be a spaniel.”

  Thinking of the lovesick Queen, Honor almost felt pity. Love, she thought. The power that commands us all. “Joan, where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “Richard. And don’t tell me at work.”

  Joan gravely plied her needle and thread. “All I can tell you is he’s busy.”

  “So you do know.”

  Silence.

  Honor pushed herself out of the soft armchair.

  “What are you doing? Sit down.”

  “I’m going to find him.” The jolt of standing so abruptly made a hammer start pounding in her head. She felt rocky, and groped the chair for balance.

  Joan jumped up and took her elbow to steady her. “Honor, stop. If you plague yourself about this you’ll make yourself sick again.”

  “About what? Good Lord, Joan, what’s happened? Tell me, or I will be sick indeed!”

  Joan’s face showed how torn she was. “He didn’t want you upset. He’s seeing…some men. He’s at the tithe barn.”

  It was a huge building, half stone, half wood, one story high but long enough that a horse, if sent from one end to the other, could trot for minutes. It had been the abbey’s collection depot and winnowing barn for the grain of its tenant farmers, who gave a portion of it as a tax to their church overlord. The farmers still used it as a barn, though a couple of added storerooms now held Richard’s raw wool. It stood in hulking isolation in a fallow field on a slight rise above the river, the highway that carried both the grain and wool to London’s markets.

  Honor hurried as fast as she could along the path that ran parallel to the river. Her legs were still shaky, but stronger than a week ago. As she approached the tithe barn she saw several horses tethered to the rails. The huge double oak doors were closed. It took all her store of strength to pull one of them open.

  It was as though she had walked in on a battle. Dozens of men, hacking at each other with swords, firing arrows, running, shouting war cries. Yet none seemed to be drawing blood. Before she could make sense of the mayhem, a beefy soldier in a breastplate stepped in front of her, clanking with weapons, barring her way. His face was made fierce by glowering, bloodshot eyes.

  “Turn around and walk out,” he said quietly. An order.

  Honor gaped at the knife he held, a brutish weapon as long as his forearm, and pitted from use. He had not raised it to threaten her but held it idly, familiarly, as though it was a part of him, which somehow made it more menacing. Beyond him she spotted Richard. He sat on a stool with his back to her, hunched over a table laden with weapons where men were milling. A man at the far side of the table saw her, and his look of consternation made Richard turn.

  The soldier with the knife scowled at her for not leaving and grabbed her arm to shove her out, but she dug in her heels, an almost panicked reflex at being manhandled as she had been by Grenville’s guards in the Tower. She sensed it was stupid and dangerous to stand up to this rough fighter, but what kept her rooted to the spot was that she recognized some of the men. They were completely unlike this soldier. They were farmers. Tenants.

  “Stand down, Captain,” Richard said, coming over to them. “This is my wife.”

  The soldier let go her arm. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Richard, what is all this?” Her eyes were on the man’s ugly knife as he sauntered away, lifting his arm over his shoulder to sheath the knife in a scabbard strapped to his back between his shoulder blades. He sheathed it with a single, practiced motion even as he called out to another soldier, “Lieutenant, show that man how to wield his pike or I’ll have your guts for garters.”

  “Go back to the house, Honor,” Richard said. “This is no place for you.”

  “But who is that soldier? Captain of what?”

  “Go home,” he said to her, scowling at a knot of men who had stopped their fighting and turned to look at her.

  “Not until you tell me what—”

  “Not here,” he said tightly under his breath. He took her elbow and hustled her into a storeroom. He shut the door behind them and dropped the wooden bar into its iron bracket to lock it, then turned to her. “What are you doing out of bed? I told Joan to—”

  “To keep me in the dark? Why? What’s James Althorpe doing out there with a crossbow? And Arthur Heneage, thrusting a sword at his brother? What in heaven’s name is going on?”

  “Sit down. You’re too weak to be traipsing the fields.”

  “I wouldn’t have to if you’d told me where—”

  He held up his hands to forestall her, then beckoned her. “Come.” The room was crammed with canvas sacks stuffed with raw wool, plump oblongs as long as a man and wide as a bench, stacked up in rows that almost reached the ceiling. He guided her to an unfinished stack that reached just to his shoulders and pulled the top woolsack down to the floor. It landed in a thud of dust. “Sit,” he ordered. “You shouldn’t be up. It’s—” He didn’t finish. His face went suddenly pale, his eye glassy. Honor saw that the effort of pulling down the heavy woolsack had made him dizzy.

  “Here, sit down,” she said quickly, taking his arm and guiding him. He sank onto the sack. He leaned over, elbows on his spread knees, head down. Honor sat beside him and gently rubbed the back of his neck. She had to use her left arm, awkwardly reaching across her body. “What a pair we are, my love,” she said with a sad smile. “Damaged goods.”

  He glanced up, and seemed to wince at the way she was reduced to using one arm because of Grenville. He did not smile. His voice was a growl. “Damn his eyes.”

  “Richard, you’re not well. Come home. Let me take care of you.”

  He shook his head. “Can’t.”

  “You can and you must.” She longed to keep him indoors, by her side, away from their enemy.

  He straightened up and looked at her. “Don’t you see? I’ve got to fight him.”

  Terror gripped her. “Fight? You can barely stand.”

  “Not alone. I’m forming a home guard among the tenants. That’s what you saw out there. I hired Captain Boone to train them. He’s battle hard, a veteran of Scotland and France.”

  “A home guard? You can’t be serious. Farmers with battle-axes? The most dangerous weapon most of them have ever to
uched is a scythe.”

  “They’ll do. Boone handpicked them. The strong and the quick. A few are experienced fighters. And they’re loyal.”

  “As long as they’re paid.”

  “A necessary expense. I’ve extended our loan.”

  “I don’t care about the money. I care about you.”

  “Honor, I’m doing what has to be done. For our family.”

  “No. What you should be doing is nothing. You should be resting. Getting better. Not calling Grenville’s attention to us. Not giving him any reason to come against you.”

  “Just keep our heads down?”

  “Yes!”

  “Hide under the bed until the dragon goes back into his cave?”

  She glared at him. “Don’t mock me, Richard. He would have killed you if the Queen hadn’t signed your release. He will kill you if he can.”

  “I know.” He looked at her hard, as though gauging whether to go on. “I’m going to kill him first.”

  Silence cut between them like a sword. Beyond the door, men shouted their mock war cries.

  “No,” she said. Her mouth had gone dry. Her heart beat painfully. “Richard, you’ll hang.”

  He looked away. Gave a grim shrug. “I’m already a dead man. Have been since I killed his father.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t talk like that!”

  He looked at her. “Honor, we deluded ourselves from the start. The pardon Cecil wangled for me, it means nothing to Grenville. No, that’s wrong—it means everything. An injustice he can’t abide. It’s his license to take the law into his own hands.”

  “But there are laws.”

  “For law-abiding people.”

  “But, this is insane, this…fatalism. There’s got to be another way.”

  “Peace?” He shook his head. “Not possible. He’ll never stop. Not until I’m dead. Maybe not even then. He’ll go after you. And Adam. I will not let that happen.”

  “You cannot know what he’ll do. But you can be sure that if you kill him you will hang.”