The Queen's Lady

by Barbara Kyle

  “My grandchildren,” Mrs. Sydenham said, as if in answer. She spoke with neither pride nor displeasure, but she added with a rueful smile, “My elder son, my daughter, and their chicks have all come home to roost.”

  Honor did not have to ask why. As a heretic Humphrey Sydenham had died an excommunicate; his clan were outcasts. The Church forbade Christians all commercial dealings with excommunicated persons, and though the injunction did not officially extend to his dependents, cautious neighbors and business colleagues shunned a family tainted by heresy. Such consequence of error was a powerful incentive to ordinary folk not to stray from the paths of orthodoxy.

  “You mentioned only your elder son,” Honor said. “But what of Edward?”

  Bridget looked down as if ashamed. “In prison. Tried for heresy.”

  Honor thought of Humphrey Sydenham, whipped on the way to his burning. “Good God,” she breathed.

  “Oh, do not fret for Edward’s safety,” Bridget said. “Leastwise, the safety of his body. He recanted. His prison sentence is for dealing in banned books. A mere three years.”

  She sounded disappointed. Honor did not know how to respond. “Is there anything I can do?” she finally asked. “Anything you need?”

  Mrs. Sydenham let out a short, brusque laugh that was surprisingly free of bitterness. “Ha! Everything!”

  “But have you enough…to eat?”

  “We manage. My son sells these clothes.” She pointed a nobbled finger at the heaps of rags. “My daughter-in-law does washing and sewing. We manage.”

  Little Jane leaned on her elbows across her grandmother’s knee and happily sucked her sweet, staring with curiosity at the finely dressed lady who had come to call.

  “These be our riches,” said Mrs. Sydenham, nodding at Jane’s head as the child nudged her grandmother’s flat breast. Her tone was that of a clear-eyed businesswoman satisfied with the day’s receipts, but her hand absently smoothed the child’s dark curls in a gesture of infinite tenderness.

  “The children are being trained up in the paths of righteousness. The older ones read from the Bible to our family circle. Even the youngest sit amongst us to hear the word of God. It is small suffering to live on cabbage and our wits when the reward is Christ in our hearts. What should we be doing, in any case, hoarding up coins and cramming our mouths with rich stuff as the sinful priests do?”

  Jane stopped sucking her sweet and shot a guilty glance up at the stern face. Honor stifled a smile. Mrs. Sydenham continued talking to her guest, but Jane, taking no chances, flipped the candy under her tongue and smiled sweetly up at her grandmother, and Mrs. Sydenham went on in ignorance of the crime of gluttony being committed under her nose.

  “This be God’s will,” the matriarch concluded. “We are content.”

  Coughs rasped from the straw pallet in the corner. A gust of damp air swirled in through a high, broken window. Content? Honor thought. No, I am not content that this family should suffer so!

  It was midday. Holt and his men would be coming soon. “Mistress,” Honor said, “I have come with a warning. Again.”

  “For us?” Mrs. Sydenham’s arm wrapped protectively around her granddaughter’s shoulder.

  “Happily, no. But for one close to you. I have learned that my…that the Lord Chancellor means to search your house for Brother Frish. Is he here?”

  Mrs. Sydenham’s face closed in irritation. “Brother Frish is none of my kin. Why should they bother us about him?”

  “A man just arrested by Sir Thomas, a bookseller, has informed. Under duress, I fear. If Brother Frish is with you, he must be warned.” She searched Mrs. Sydenham’s face for confirmation, but none was given. “Unless,” Honor stammered, “he isn’t here after all. Perhaps the bookseller was mistaken. Babbling to save himself. Delirious, even.”

  A man’s voice across the room startled her. “No, Mistress Larke. Nicholson was not mistaken.”

  Honor jumped up. Jane scurried away. In the corner, Frish was getting to his feet beside the pallet. It was he who had been coughing in the dirty nest of blankets.

  Honor’s head snapped back to Mrs. Sydenham, accusing her with hurt eyes. “I thought you trusted me,” she cried.

  Mrs. Sydenham returned her gaze, unapologetic.

  “Do not chide her, my lady,” Frish said, shuffling towards them at the hearth as he hugged the blanket around his shoulders. “Loyalty sometimes demands evasion. Pray that your own friends, if pressed, maintain such closed mouths for your sake as this good lady does for mine.”

  Honor knew he was right. She accepted the reproof. And the warning. “Brother,” she said, “you must go. Now. Sir Thomas’s men are on their way.”

  “Go? Aye,” he said. He gave a despairing shrug. “But where?”

  “Have you not friends who will hide you?”

  Frish and Mrs. Sydenham exchanged bleak looks. She said, “Our friends’ charity has been stretched to the tearing point.”

  “The Lord Chancellor’s crackdown has squeezed every family of the Brethren,” said Frish. “His officers are so zealous, there are no safe houses left in London.”

  “But has there been no help from court as you once hoped?” Honor asked. “No support from Cromwell? Or the Lady Anne?”

  Frish shook his head glumly. “Cromwell waits for the Lady. The Lady waits for the King. The King waits for Rome. No one at court will openly reach out a hand to us. Under More’s vengeful eye none will risk it.”

  “Then you must go abroad,” Honor said.

  “How?” Frish dared her, his anger kindling. “Shall I swim to Flanders?”

  His face had reddened, but the pockmarks that flecked his forehead, cheeks and neck remained dead white. She had forgotten how ugly he was. He coughed again. Under the slack blanket and threadbare tunic his slight frame seemed as starved of muscle as an old man’s. His pale eyes were watery with exhaustion. It was clear that he was very ill.

  “How, mistress?” he asked again, but quietly this time, contrite after his outburst. Honor had not forgotten that rich voice; it absolved what her eyes saw, and gave him beauty. “Even if I evaded More’s hounds out of London,” he said, “his officers watch all the ports. They know me. They smack their lips for the reward my trussed body would bring.”

  “Many of the Brethren have been caught trying to take passage to Flanders or Calais,” Mrs. Sydenham said. “Pilots often turn them in.” She added harshly, “for profit.”

  Honor looked from one to the other. Frish was hugging himself and staring blankly into the fire. Mrs. Sydenham had clasped her hands in her lap with sullen acceptance. Both looked tired, hungry, beaten. Honor swallowed. Frish’s life, it seemed, lay in her hands.

  She began to pace, thinking. Profit, Mrs. Sydenham had said. The word sounded a chime in her memory. Men would do much for profit. She stopped and looked back at them. “Thornleigh,” she declared.

  Both of them looked up, puzzled. “What?” Frish asked.

  “Richard Thornleigh. A man with ships. A man who will use his ships for profit.”

  “Is he one of us?” Frish asked eagerly. “How is it we know nothing of him?”

  “No, not one of you,” Honor was quick to point out.

  Mrs. Sydenham’s eyes narrowed. “And you, mistress? Can you still not say, ‘one of us’?”

  “Madam, I am here to help,” Honor flared, “and I will not be treated with such suspicion! No, I am not one of you. I cannot believe that this misery is God’s will, as you do. I wish your good husband had abjured—yes, lied—and saved himself.” She reined in her anger. “But I hate the Church and Sir Thomas More as much as you do. I have good reason. You, of all people, should understand that. You must trust me. There is no one else you can trust.”

  Mrs. Sydenham looked away. Honor feared she had gone too far. How could she even think her provocation was as great as this starving widow’s?

  “What are you proposing?” Frish asked, eyes sharp with guarded hope.

  “The m
an I speak of is”—she chose the words carefully—“a mercenary in this struggle. If I can find him, I believe he will do our bidding. But for a price.”

  Frish groaned. He steadied himself against the mantel, the hope knocked out of him. “I cannot pay.”

  “But I can,” Honor said.

  Both heads turned to her.

  “Sir Thomas has always encouraged me to support certain charities—almshouses and the like. In making these donations I deal independently with the stewards of my father’s estates, so they’re accustomed to receiving my requests for cash.” She laughed bitterly. “Saving a heretic from Sir Thomas will be my new charity.”

  Feeling strong now that her mind was firmly set on action she held out her hands in solidarity to the wondering pair. “This man Thornleigh may demand a king’s ransom, but he is our best hope. Will you give me leave to seek him out?”

  Frish nodded eagerly. After a moment Mrs. Sydenham said, “So be it.” Each took one of Honor’s hands. It was settled.

  Quickly, Honor gathered up her cloak and turned back to Frish. “Come with me now, Brother, in my barge. I’ll hide you in the outbuildings at Richmond somehow. It may take me a day or two to find Thornleigh.”

  Frish shook his head, smiling, and threw off his blanket. “I thank you, lady, but ‘somehow’ is not good enough.” He was moving across the hall, picking up a cloak and satchel here, a crust of bread there. “I’ll take my chances alone. When you’ve made the arrangements, send a message. Do you know the Blue Boar Inn, hard by London Bridge?” he asked as he reached the door. She nodded. “Good. Send word to me there. When it’s time, I’ll meet this Thornleigh wherever he says. God bless you!”

  He was gone.

  Mrs. Sydenham stood, her face grave. “You are wrong, Mistress Larke. I do trust you. I would I had trusted you sooner, that my husband might be with us still. I believe your heart to be true, and brave. But More’s men have ways of splitting open even the stoutest heart.”

  She reached out and took Honor’s hand firmly in hers. “This man, Thornleigh. He acts for money, you say? Take care the mercenary does not deliver you unto your enemy.”

  18

  The First Rescue

  Honor tracked down Thornleigh late that very evening. Her inquiries of him among clothiers at the Drapers Guild and the Merchant Adventurer’s Company had led her, following his trail, to the cockpits and taverns that barnacled the precincts around Greenwich Palace. A tapster told her he’d served Thornleigh at about noon and sent her on to a noisy alehouse yard where a ring of bystanders stood yelling and whistling around a wrestling match. The proprietor, busy scribbling wagers, barely glanced up as Honor shouted her question in his ear. “Thornleigh?” he bawled to her above the uproar. “Left hours ago.”

  “Do you know where he went?” she asked, showing him a shilling.

  The proprietor eyed her up and down, wiped his nose with his sleeve, and pocketed the coin. “You’ll find him down by the oaks.” He pointed toward the forest. “Taking money off the King’s gamekeeper.”

  In the gusty twilight she found the gamekeeper’s lodging, a three-storied gatehouse on the edge of the forested deer park. She climbed the spiral stairs to the top floor and stepped through a doorless arch into a room hazed with smoke from a crackling log fire. Under the low, beamed ceiling the air hung heavy with the reek of sweat and the smell of cheap tallow from wall candles that spilled in gluts onto antler holders. A half dozen men sat gambling at a round table but Honor saw that Thornleigh was not among them. Beneath their table empty wine bottles littered the filthy floor straw along with dismembered capon carcasses, flyblown evidence of the players’ long encampment. As Honor approached, the men looked up from their cards. Their bleary, unshaven faces formed a circle of scowls. A wolfhound bitch lying in front of the hearth lifted its head, too, and growled at her through bared teeth.

  Honor swallowed at the unwelcome reception. But she had come this far. She lifted her chin, pretending confidence. “Master Gamekeeper?” she asked.

  A hook-nosed man with fat lips grunted, “Aye. What d’you want?”

  “I was told I would find Master Thornleigh here.”

  The gamekeeper jabbed a thumb irritably in the direction of a closed door. “In there,” he said.

  Honor glanced at the door. She took it to be the entrance to a bedchamber. “It’s urgent that I see him. Could you please wake him?”

  The other men laughed. The gamekeeper did not. “No,” he growled.

  A man with a stringy beard snickered, “You’ll have to wait your turn, wench.”

  “Wait?” she asked, uneasy in this company. “How long?”

  The gamekeeper almost snarled. “Not bloody long, else he knows I’ll have his guts for garters.”

  And so Honor stood in the middle of the fetid room, feeling like a petitioner come to some vagabond baron’s court, waiting for him to emerge. The gamblers, ignoring her, went back to their cards. The greyhound yawned, stretched, and fell asleep.

  Honor paced. It was already dark, and she still had to find decent lodging for the night. After leaving Bridget Sydenham’s—and not knowing how long it would take to find Thornleigh and then get Frish safely away—she had sent a message to the Queen. There was sickness at Chelsea, she wrote; it was not serious, but the family needed her. Assuming the Queen’s kind permission, she wrote, she would stay for a day or two. The Queen’s communication with the world outside her chambers and chapel was so tenuous that Honor felt safe in the lie. With it she had bought herself a little time, but there was still so much to arrange. And Frish was wandering the streets of London, ill, hunted. She had to see Thornleigh now.

  She was about to march over and bang on the door when it suddenly flew open. From the dark interior Thornleigh’s bare arm shot out to still the door against the wall. His other arm, culminating in a bottle, was wrapped around a young woman, a plump, peaches-and-cream beauty. Her yellow hair tumbled over a shoulder bare above her rumpled chemise. She clung to Thornleigh’s naked torso and together they staggered out a step or two, squinting at the light and laughing.

  Thornleigh stopped, cupped the woman’s chin, and bent to kiss her. Her hand slid down his backbone until it reached the waist of his breeches. Her fingers wriggled inside. He shivered. She went up on her toes to whisper something in his ear. Thornleigh threw back his head to laugh, and then he noticed Honor. He blinked in surprise. He shut his eyes and shook his head as if to toss off an hallucination. He looked at her again, raked fingers through his tangled hair, and let out a laugh of amazement. “A pilgrim is come among us!” he cried.

  Honor glared at him.

  Thornleigh turned to his companion with a look of mock piety. “No one told me this ground was hallowed. Why, Mistress Farquhar, have you some holy relic secreted away that pilgrims travel to touch? Some sacred treasure? Under your pillow, perhaps?” He chuckled and massaged her buttocks through her chemise with playful roughness. “Though God knows there’s treasure sweet enough right here.”

  The woman half-heartedly slapped his hand. “Pish!” she said with a giggle. Thornleigh nuzzled her neck, then looked out through the curtain of yellow hair at Honor’s stormy face. He straightened.

  “I won her,” he protested innocently. “At cards.” He nodded toward the gamekeeper who sat moodily engrossed in the gambling. Thornleigh grinned. “Her husband lost.” He tugged his warm winnings closer, and the gamekeeper’s wife gazed up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, obviously satisfied with her husband’s debt-paying arrangement.

  Honor considered leaving then and there, but Thornleigh leaned out to her, suddenly serious, and whispered behind his hand, “It’s not what you think, mistress. This is not a night of debauchery.”

  Honor looked at the woman nestling against his chest, then back at his face. Her eyebrows lifted in skepticism. “Oh?”

  Straight-faced, he assured her, “Far from it.” His stifled grin broke free. “The agreement with her husband was for one hou
r only.” He laughed loudly at his own joke.

  Honor turned on her heel.

  “Wait,” Thornleigh said, still chortling. “Do wait, Mistress Larke.”

  Honor kept walking. She was almost out of the room when Thornleigh called after her, “Come now, you’re not going to leave just like that, are you? After you’ve come all this way to find me?”

  She stopped. He was right. Infuriating though he was, it was pointless to go. Frish was depending on her. And who else could she approach?

  “Do forgive me,” Thornleigh said with exaggerated civility to her back. “Such bad manners.”

  She turned stiffly.

  “And I haven’t even offered you a glass of sack,” Thornleigh said. He loosed the gamekeeper’s wife and lifted the bottle he held towards Honor as if it were a peace offering. He brought it close to his eyes with a frown. “Empty,” he muttered. He tossed it on the floor and looked around for another and spotted one beside the hearth. He strode past Honor, but before he reached the bottle his bare toe stubbed against the handle of a poker left on the hearth. Its tip nosed up red-hot out of the flames. Thornleigh hopped back, the handle apparently so hot it had almost burned him. With a soft curse he shoved his hand into a leather hearth glove, grasped the poker handle and picked it up. He studied the glowing prong for several moments, apparently forgetting both the bottle and Honor. She watched his face darken.

  He looked back at her and said, as if their conversation had been unbroken, “That is, I assume it’s me you’ve come searching for. Or”—he flashed her a conspiratorial smile that crinkled the skin around his eyes—“is it that you’ve fallen into depravity since we last met? Stalking midnight revels now, are you? Well, mistress, you’ve found the right place.” He bent to pick up the bottle and held it toward her, then spread his arms as if offering himself as well. “Join me?”