Another silence fell.
Then Cecil said: “Mary is said to have a beguiling nature, as well as a superb head of red-gold hair. I understand that she cut her hair when she escaped from Scotland and that when Herries first brought her to England, he tried to hide her identity, but her hair gave her away, even though it was short: that and her height.”
“They’re both striking,” I agreed. It was a long time since I had seen Mary, but I could remember well enough what she looked like.
“Herries took her to a friend’s home,” Cecil said. “Curwen, that was the friend’s name. Herries put it about that she was an heiress that he had kidnapped from Scotland and brought south to be married to Curwen’s son. But there was a man in Curwen’s household who had been to Scotland and seen her. He recognized her at once. She’s obviously a memorable woman. Which is another reason why I am determined that she mustn’t be allowed to come here to work her wiles. I doubt if she would beguile Elizabeth, but this court is full of men who are quite as susceptible to the charms of the opposite sex as your ward Penelope is, Ursula. It isn’t only the fact that she is suspected of husband-murder that convinces me she should be kept at a distance!”
He paused and then added: “As I mentioned just now, when we were with the queen, I have even worried about Sir Francis Knollys. I would have said that he was as impervious to the likes of Mary Stuart as a man can well be. He’s no callow stripling. He’s in his fifties! But in reports he has made to us, he expresses rather too much admiration for her. He calls her a notable woman, bold and pleasant. I’d replace him except that I can’t think of anyone less susceptible or more loyal than Knollys has always been! Elizabeth took the warning to heart. God! Why couldn’t the Scots keep hold of their prisoner? But all the same . . .”
Again he paused, with the anxious furrow between his eyes deepening to a fold. “I have to say,” he told us, “that I am myself not easy in my mind about the rightness of keeping Mary captive when it may well be that the inquiry either clears her or is inconclusive. The last is most likely. Moray has sent me some letters said to be love letters from Mary to Bothwell, but even if they are, they don’t actually order Bothwell to blow Lord Darnley up. They contain some suggestive phrases—very suggestive—but not an outright command to kill. I wish they did! I wish I knew the truth. It would clear my head. When you go to Yorkshire, Ursula, I have an errand of my own for you. This, too, is confidential—above all, nothing must reach the ears of Herries. Mary must not be put on her guard. I want you to talk to her, Ursula, as one woman to another, and try to reach the truth. Did she order Darnley’s murder or did she not? And even if she didn’t, if Both-well was the chief agent, as I suspect, did she realize that and if so, did she marry him of her own free will?”
“But what difference will it make whether you know or not?” I asked. “The inquiry . . .”
“Will be hampered by lies, protocol, and the fact that the chief witness mustn’t be allowed to speak,” said Cecil. “By the queen’s own wish, though I agree with her reasons and I haven’t tried to dissuade her from sending the message you are taking to Mary. It will undermine the chance of getting anything worthwhile from the inquiry, though. It won’t take place until October, so you have some time in hand for your tasks, but we need you to carry them out. Mary must be warned against unwise behavior, and as for me, well, frankly, I think we shall end up keeping her as a semi-prisoner for life and I’d feel a great deal happier if I knew for sure that she was as guilty as the devil.”
• • •
We sent Penelope out to walk in the garden with Dale and Brockley, who had strict instructions not to let her speak to any man other than Brockley: neither page boy nor dotard or anything in between. Left in private with Hugh, I gave vent to my feelings. “It’s outrageous! It’s insufferable! They were planning it all along! No wonder we were called to Richmond! No wonder the queen and Cecil didn’t feel equal to making Pen behave! She was the excuse to get us here and now she’s an excuse to send us north. And they’re taking it for granted that we’ll go! When you go, Cecil said, not if you go! You heard him!”
“My dear girl,” said Hugh calmly, “why such a to-do? It’s hardly a dangerous mission. You pass a perfectly respectable message by word of mouth, to Mary from Elizabeth, and get her to talk to you and see if anything emerges that might interest Cecil. You also have a good chance of getting Pen off your hands. It all seems quite reasonable to me.”
“Not a dangerous mission,” I said exasperatedly. “That’s what I’m told, every time. Just go to a Welsh castle, Ursula, and see if you can get the castellan to talk to you about his mysterious scheme for becoming wealthy: that was one splendid example of a safe errand for me. I hardly get there before I’m stubbing my toes on a corpse in the dark, and then I’m accused of murder and bundled into a dungeon myself!”
“Ursula . . .”
“You have only to deliver a private letter to the Queen of France: that was another one. The next I know, I’m escaping from a burning inn, and this time the poor soul who finds herself in the dungeon is my faithful, innocent Dale! That abominable priest Wilkins would have burned her alive if he had had his way. I’ll never forget having to leave her there, clinging to the bars and gazing after me. In bad dreams, sometimes, I still see the terror in her eyes.”
“Ursula . . .!”
“ . . . and you know what happened to me in Scotland, and what I had to do to escape. You know how often I have been used, by the queen and by Cecil, as a pawn. Even my daughter, Meg, has been used as a pawn! I want no more of it! Pen must manage without her dowry. She . . .”
I had been striding about the room, working myself into a fury. From the chest on which he had seated himself, Hugh said fiercely: “You are behaving like an angry lioness in the royal menagerie, pacing back and forth inside your cage! Sit down!”
Turning to him, I saw that he was angry. I had never before known his anger to be directed at me. The coldness in his eyes was frightening. I subsided onto the edge of the bed.
“I know all about your past adventures,” said Hugh. “You’ve told me. You’ve told me about Wilkins. Now listen. Dr. Ignatius Wilkins would have liked to see the Inquisition back in England. Well, Ignatius now is at the bottom of the North Sea. His rib cage is covered with sand and weed and small fish swim through the eyeholes of his skull. He’s dead. But what he represents is not. The Inquisition thrives in Spain and its tentacles will come coiling into England the moment a Catholic ruler sits upon our throne. And here, in Bolton, is Catholic Mary Stuart, who believes that the English crown belongs to her. That woman is as dangerous to England as the gunpowder in Kirk o’ Field was to Darnley.”
“I know! I know! And that’s another thing. I’ve met Mary. I can’t . . . I just can’t believe that she conspired to commit a murder like the one Cecil’s just described to us. But if she did . . . all right, however unreasonable you may think me, I just don’t want to know!”
“That won’t do. Hiding from the truth is never a good idea. Listen to me. Elizabeth is right. If Mary lets herself be questioned in public, it would set a perilous precedent. One foolish queen could drag another down. And one pretender to our throne, here in our midst, could be a focus for serious trouble. We need to know whether or not she’s guilty. The chances are that she is, and just knowing that would go a long way towards drawing her fangs.”
“Well, I don’t want to be the one who finds out!”
“Someone must, and who better than a lady she has met already, who can talk to her and lead her to talk in turn? And is used to working by stealth. It has to be done by stealth. Cecil can hardly write and ask her! Most honored lady, would you be kind enough to tell me whether you did or did not have gunpowder planted in the basement of Kirk o’ Field on the night of the ninth of February 1567? Can you imagine it? That’s better.” I had emitted a snort of laughter. “What are you afraid of?” Hugh asked me. “You might find out that she’s innocent, and by the sound of it,
that would please you, though I doubt if it would please the queen and Cecil. But if she’s guilty, well, as I said: hiding from the truth is foolish. And you’re not going into danger. Yorkshire isn’t a foreign land . . .”
“Isn’t it? Listen, Hugh. When I went to Scotland, I was nearly married off by force because in Scotland, these things happen. From what Cecil said today, they seem to be taken for granted in the north of England as well! He said someone in Curwen’s house recognized Mary, not that no one could believe in the story of a kidnapped heiress! The north is a foreign country and a barbarous one, as far as I’m concerned.”
“You are my wife now and in no danger of a forced marriage.”
“Quite. I’m your wife. Most men wouldn’t want their wives rushing the length of England to do the work of a spy. And it will be too hard on you. The ride will be so long . . .”
“Much too long,” Hugh agreed. “Even the ride to court from Hawkswood has left me feeling I’ve got rigor mortis before I’m dead! I can’t come with you. But you could send Brockley to Hawkswood to fetch Meg and Mistress Jester, and then you could all travel to Yorkshire as a family party. It will look all the more innocent and Mistress Jester will help you keep an eye on Pen. You dislike being away from Meg, I know. Well, you need not be.”
“But I shall have to leave you behind!”
“I shan’t wither away because you’re absent for a while. How do you think I managed before we were married? I daresay your Gladys Morgan will make me up a potion if I fall ill.”
“Oh, Gladys!” I snorted.
Gladys was a terrible old crone whom I had once rescued from a charge of witchcraft and now kept about my household. She was gifted at making medicinal potions but she was a most ill-natured creature and liable to curse people she disliked and I lived in fear that her curses and her potions between them would one day bring another charge of witchcraft about her ears. I hoped I would be able to protect her until she died of natural causes but she was a constant worry to me.
“So,” said Hugh. “You will go north.”
“No,” I said obstinately. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to.”
“You sound like a spoiled child.”
“That’s not fair! Haven’t you listened to me? I said—I’ve been used as a pawn, over and over, and I’ve seen others used too, and I want no more of it. I don’t believe people when they say that it’s quite safe. They always say that and it’s never the truth. I don’t want it, I tell you! I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want to investigate Mary. Don’t make me go. Hugh, don’t say I must go!”
His eyes were still bleak. I began to cry helplessly, impaled on that implacable gaze like a moth on a pin, furious with him, yet hating the thought of leaving him, of traveling far away without him, to a place I feared, to perform tasks I resented.
At that moment I loathed Cecil and loathed the queen and Hugh himself bewildered me.
“I can’t understand you!” I said. “We’ve never quarreled before and now—to quarrel over this! Most husbands would be indignant if their wives went off without them, on secret missions for the queen and her Secretary of State! Most men would say it was unfitting, that a wife’s business was to look after her husband and her household. But you . . .!”
Hugh slipped stiffly off the chest and came over to me. He sat down beside me and put an arm over my shoulders.
“Hush, now. It is only a journey within your own land, to hold a few conversations with a woman you already know, and at the same time to settle Penelope into a marriage, if a suitable man can be found. There is no need for all these tears.”
“It’s such an incredible thing for a husband and wife to quarrel about!” I wailed.
“You are an unusual woman, Ursula, and I, perhaps, am an unusual man. Most of the time, for instance, I’m unusually tolerant of other people’s beliefs. But not when when they threaten the stability of the realm, and that could well be the case with this Mary Stuart. And when the realm needs to be protected, anyone who can help should do so. That is our duty.”
“My duty, you mean.”
“In this case, yes.”
“One of the reasons why I married you was to escape from being a pawn for Cecil and the queen, to escape from secret missions. Now you want to throw me back into the arena, into the teeth of danger!”
“What danger? Really, Ursula, don’t be so dramatic! I’m not Nero, throwing Christians to lions. You’re going to visit your ward’s dowry lands and pay a gracious call or two on a . . . a royal lady in Bolton Castle. That’s all!”
I stopped crying, but sat dejectedly on the bed, my gaze on the floor. He didn’t understand, or wouldn’t, and he wasn’t going to give in. I knew it.
“Ursula . . .” I looked up. His eyes were kinder now, but there was no yielding in them. “You have to go,” said Hugh. “How can you refuse? Both of these errands need to be completed. Cecil is relying on you and so is Elizabeth. And she is your sister.”
3
A Wild and Lawless Land
It was true, though few people knew it. From the start of our marriage, however, I had wished to have no secrets from Hugh and had sought the queen’s permission to tell him that my father, the lover my mother would not name, had been King Henry VIII.
When she knew she was pregnant, my mother had left her post as one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s ladies. She kept the secret of my paternity, I think out of loyalty to her mistress and to the king, wishing not to hurt the one or to cause scandal about the other. She had been sheltered, grumblingly, by her parents and later (just as grumblingly) by her brother and his wife, in our family home, Faldene, in Sussex. I had been brought up there.
While she lived, my mother did her best for me. She somehow succeeded in insisting that I should share my cousins’ tutor and therefore their education; she had taught me needlework and music herself. She died, though, while I was still a young girl. In the days before King Henry closed the abbeys, I would probably have been packed off to a convent, but as it was, I just stayed at Faldene on sufferance, used—as I had said to Pen—as a dogsbody, running errands for my aunt by marriage, doing accounts for my uncle.
Until my cousin Mary was betrothed to Gerald Blanchard, and I caught Gerald’s eye instead. We fell in love and fled together, to marry and to live in the Netherlands in the household of an English financier in the queen’s employ, a man named Sir Thomas Gresham. When Gerald died, Gresham helped me to get a place at court.
I did not know for many years that my path to the queen’s employment had been smoothed by something else as well—by the fact that although my mother had kept her secret, she had had a tirewoman who knew it too, and had made a memorandum that was found after her death many years later. Both the queen and Cecil knew what it contained. Eventually, when the time seemed right, they told me. I recognized at once that it was true. There had always been a curious rapport between myself and Elizabeth. I understood her, and now and then I caught myself behaving in ways that I had seen in her.
Such as, for instance, pacing up and down a room when I was in a temper, like an angry lioness in a cage.
The moment Hugh said she is your sister, I was defeated. That blood relationship made me the ideal choice to carry a message as private, as personal, as the one Elizabeth wished to pass to Mary. To Elizabeth, I owed the love of a sister as well as a subject. He was right. I would have to go to the north.
“Very well. I’ll write to Pen’s mother and tell her—well, that we’re going to Yorkshire. She needn’t know about Pen and Master Rowan! We’ll pretend that we have provided the dowry. I think Ann will be pleased and I’m sure she won’t object if I take Pen to see it. I’ll carry out my errands,” I said grimly. “If by then I’ve found a likely match for Pen, we’ll stay on to conclude it. If I haven’t, I’ll bring her back. We’ll leave as soon as possible. Let’s get this over.”
• • •
At least it promised to be an easier journey than the last northward ride I had un
dertaken, through the snow and fog of January. This was summer. The tracks were dry and fringed with cow parsley and meadowsweet, bramble and foxglove and wild dog roses. Bees murmured and grasshoppers creaked in the clover meadows, and the trees were heavy in leaf. Soft breezes whispered through them, which kept the days from being uncomfortably hot. Traveling was pleasant, except for the flies.
We were quite a large party. When Cecil summoned me to give me final instructions, I asked for a good escort.
“The north is lawless compared to the south,” I said. “When I last went, Dale and I had only Brockley for escort and it was risky. I think we were lucky to get as far as Scotland unmolested! This time I have two young girls in my charge. Pen I have to take, but although I don’t want to be parted from Meg, I’ll leave her behind unless I’m sure we’re well protected.”
Cecil understood and conferred with Hugh. Brockley went to Hawkswood to fetch Meg and came back with two young men from the estate, a young groom called Harry Hobson (his father was Hugh’s falconer) and a lad named Tom Smith, the son of one of Hugh’s tenants. Hobson was fair, placid, and burly, while Smith was a dark and gangling fellow with an eye for the wenches and a cheeky tongue, but both were sensible lads, who had been taught swordplay. Tom had a sword supplied by Hugh, but Harry brought one that his grandfather had owned, a rather splendid affair with an amethyst in the hilt, probably loot from some bygone battlefield.
In addition, Cecil contributed two of his own men, a fatherly individual called John Ryder and a sturdy, sandy man named Dick Dodd. I already knew them and had always liked them. Ryder was completely gray by now, but seemed as fit as ever and was pleased to meet Brockley again, for they were good friends. With these four men and Brockley, I reckoned that we had an adequate retinue.
The Fugitive Queen Page 4
