The Fugitive Queen

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  I showed her to my own room. She lay down on the bed and Dale came to help me loosen her stays and remove her shoes. She appeared to sleep and I left her with Fran Dale to watch over her. “I’ll bring the rest of your dinner up to you, Dale,” I said.

  I went back to the hall to finish my own meal. When it was over, Sir Francis and I exchanged glances and he said: “I had better see her. It will be the next scene in our pretty play.”

  I took him upstairs. We found Mary awake again, tossing restlessly in my four-poster and complaining to Dale that her pain was worse and that she felt feverish and could not face the long ride back to Bolton.

  Sir Francis stood by the bed, looking thoughtfully down at her. His face bore exactly the right expression of worry and responsibility. He had no mandate to allow Mary to spend a night away from Bolton, he said sternly. He had in fact allowed her far more latitude than he should. She must make an effort, for it was his duty to see that she returned to the castle that same night. Mary allowed a few tears to fall—I noticed with admiration that she could apparently cry at will—and obediently rose from the bed, only to stumble with her hand to her head, complaining that she felt giddy, that the whole room was going around and around . . . she was so very sorry; she was embarrassing good Sir Francis, but . . .

  “You have men enough with you,” I said helpfully. “Surely she can be as well guarded here as at Bolton. It will only be for one night, I trust. If Her Grace is still unwell tomorrow, we will fetch a physician.”

  Sir Francis appeared to hesitate. Mary lay down on the bed again and moaned artistically. “Well . . .” said Sir Francis slowly.

  “What else can you do?” I asked in reasonable tones. “What if she were to collapse altogether on the way back to Bolton? It’s a long way, even if she were carried in a litter, and we haven’t got a litter.”

  Leaving Dale to watch the invalid, he drew me outside and out of hearing. “I can’t keep this performance up for long. We must let her assume that you have talked me into it. We’ll go back presently and say so. Meanwhile, show me the room that Whitely wants her to have.”

  I did so. He examined the width of the window, and leaning out of the casement, he studied the surroundings and the moat below with a knowledgeable eye. “I think we’ve guessed right,” he said, drawing his head in again at last. “It could be done. We’ll take them in the act of doing it. You are sure you can impersonate Mary by standing at the window to encourage them to proceed?”

  “I’ll hide my hair. I’ve a hooded cloak that will shadow my face, too. I think I can look convincing.”

  “Very well. We’ll go back to her and tell her that she can stay the night—but not in the room she expects. She presumably knows the details of the plot. I hope she doesn’t make a great outcry.”

  “Even if she does, there’s no one in the house who might betray us,” I said. “The maidservants were the likeliest for that and we made them stay at home today.”

  • • •

  We returned to Mary, who was now lying on her back with her eyes closed. As I went to her bedside and looked at her, I thought that her claim of ill-health was probably not altogether false. She was much too pale and there were violet shadows beneath those lidded eyes.

  A surge of the old sympathy overtook me. She was still only in her mid-twenties, and she had been through experiences for which nothing in her petted, luxurious life as a princess and then a royal bride in France could have prepared her. She had not expected to find herself coping in person with the rough Scots nobility; still less had she expected to fall into the hands of a dissolute husband who arranged for a murder to take place virtually in front of her.

  I remembered David Riccio very well, as harmless a fellow as ever I saw. She had heard his terrified pleas for his life and his screams as they stabbed him. She had ridden headlong for safety although she was six months gone with child. Perhaps she had believed herself justified in leaving Darnley to the mercy of her nobles. God knew, she had suffered for it since; vilified and threatened by angry mobs, cast from her throne, imprisoned, hunted . . .

  Looking at those beautifully modeled features, already worn despite her youth, I wondered at the strangeness of blood relationship. Since I shared a father with Elizabeth, I realized suddenly, I also shared her cousinship with Mary. She was my kinswoman as well as Elizabeth’s. I lacked her beauty, but there was a trace of resemblance in our features. I thought of the wild rides she had made, after Riccio’s death and again after her escape from Lochleven, and after the loss of the battle that Bothwell had tried to fight for her. Like me, I thought, she had a love of adventure. She too, surely, had heard the call of the wild geese.

  Whereas Elizabeth, to whom I felt much closer, had not, as far as I was aware. What I shared with Elizabeth was something very different and possibly less admirable than Mary’s capacity for dramatic gambles.

  Deep in Elizabeth was a core of ice. I believed that it had been made icier, less amenable to any kind of melting, by the fact that when she was small, her father, King Henry, had had her mother, Anne Boleyn, executed—and later on, as though determined that his daughter should fully understand what it meant, had executed her young stepmother Catherine Howard as well.

  All the same, I did not think that that was the whole story. That icy core had always been there in some degree, probably inherited from King Henry himself. One would need a cold heart, surely, to send to the block even one wife, someone with whom one had lain, and made love; with whom one had shared pet names and private jokes and breakfast times; had comforted or been comforted by after a bad dream.

  But Henry had condemned not one wife, but two. Oh, Mary Stuart had probably looked through her fingers at Darnley’s death, but she had not written her name at the foot of his death warrant or ignored his screams as Henry had ignored Catherine Howard’s. She was not Henry’s daughter and she did not possess that cold splinter. That was Elizabeth’s inheritance—and mine.

  Yes, mine as well. It had enabled me to carry out the ruthless duties of a spy; it had enabled me to send men to their death. I disapproved of the killing of Johnnie Grimsdale, but I had also accepted it. Perhaps Mary, foolish and vulnerable, was still the better woman.

  Sir Francis, puzzled by my silence, cleared his throat. Mary’s eyes opened. “Ursula! I am sorry to be a nuisance. But I feel dreadful.”

  “It’s all right, Lady Mary. Sir Francis realizes that you can’t ride back to Bolton like this. You must rest here overnight. You can have this room—it’s the best in the house.”

  At once, as I had feared, a shadow passed over her face. She hoisted herself higher on the pillows. Sir Francis saw the signs, too, and hastily declared that he was sorry he had disturbed her. “Try to go back to sleep, dear lady. Come, Mistress Stannard.”

  Anxious to be gone before the storm broke, he was out of the door before he had finished the sentence, and in response to a movement of my head, Dale followed him, but before I too had moved out of Mary’s reach, her hand shot out and closed on my wrist. “Ursula! This is the wrong room. It looks out to the front. The arrangement was that I should have a room at the back. Tobias told me. We planned it before he left Bolton.”

  Core of ice. Sometimes that core was like a second personality inside me, someone who now and then took over my body, my tongue. My feelings of sympathy didn’t vanish, but they were elbowed aside. Without warning, surprising me as much as Mary, that other Ursula spoke.

  “Did Tobias also tell you how he proposed to persuade me?” I drew my wrist out of her grasp. “I am a servant of Queen Elizabeth. Do you think I could be induced to take part in such a scheme as this simply for the asking?”

  Mary’s mouth dropped open. I saw that she had lost several teeth. “Did you know how he worked on me?” I persisted.

  There were tears in Mary’s eyes. “I asked Tobias if he was sure you would agree, and he said yes, because he would entice your ward Penelope away from Tyesdale and tell you that . . . that . . .”<
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  “That he would have her forcibly married to a man called Andrew Thwaite. She is rightly terrified of him. He is a criminal,” I said bluntly. “He is wild to have her but he never will if I have anything to do with it. That was the lever that Tobias and his cousin Magnus Whitely—a steward whom I dismissed from Tyesdale for milking the estate—employed to make me help them.”

  Mary, meeting my eyes, shrank against the pillows. “Tobias swore that no harm would come to Mistress Pen. He said that she is of a Catholic family. He said his threats were all pretense and that he would explain it all to Pen and that probably she would be thrilled at the chance to help me.”

  “And you believed him?” I asked.

  “Yes, why should I not?” The indignation was a little too righteous. I continued to stare at her steadily and she twisted as though my gaze were a spike. “Yes, I did! Why should Tobias want to harm Penelope? He told me that when we leave here, he will take me first to a friendly house where I can rest in hiding until the hunt subsides. And he said that I will find Pen there and talk to her myself. Besides, I have to get to France! I don’t believe my cousin Elizabeth will ever help me. I must get away. I must!”

  “Even if Tobias is lying and really means to carry out his threat unless I help you? If it came to it, were you ready to sacrifice Pen?”

  “Why are you talking like this? I’m here. You let me come. I’m staying the night. It’s only that this can’t be the room I’m meant to have. Tobias said, a room at the back, and they would rescue me from . . .”

  “The window.” I felt no sympathy now. “We guessed.”

  “We?”

  “It’s time to be frank with you.” I heard the harshness in my voice. “You would have had to know at some point. I too have had to put Penelope at risk, though I will do what I can to save her. Sir Francis knows all about it. I got word to him . . .”

  “Oh, I see! You can put your ward in peril for your purposes, but if I do it . . .!”

  “You agreed to put Pen in danger in the first place. I have to deal with the situation you’ve created. And while you’re trying to start an invasion, I’m trying to prevent one. So is Sir Francis. You are here as bait. I shall impersonate you at that back window, to tempt your rescuers into advancing with their ladder. They will be seized in the act. You will stay locked in this room until it’s all over.”

  “No!” Mary was scrambling from the bed, clutching once more at my hands. “No, Ursula, please! I am sorry about Pen but I was sure—I am sure—that they mean her no ill! Let me go free! I can’t live as a prisoner; I shall die for lack of liberty, for lack of the wind in my face; for lack of my purpose in life! I was born to be a queen, and queens are appointed by God. I . . .”

  Her short hair was in a distracted tangle. Her face had crumpled into that of a frustrated and heartbroken child. She fell on her knees, staring up at me with eyes so desperate that for a moment that treacherous pity that she was so good at inspiring woke in me yet again.

  Then I remembered what Cecil had told me, of that depraved but pitiful young man Darnley, also scrambling out of bed, in such fear that he didn’t stop to put on a cloak against the February night, and his last plea for pity when his murderers caught him in the garden, just before they strangled him. And I thought of Pen, facing a nightmare wedding and wondering what had happened to the protection that I, her guardian, owed her. I wondered where Brockley was and what he was doing, and whether he had yet achieved anything toward saving her. With that, once more, and this time forever, my sympathy for Mary Stuart died.

  “What Sir Francis has planned will be carried out,” I said coldly. “There is nothing you can do about it. You will be back in Bolton tomorrow and your conspirators will be in custody. I shall rescue Pen if I can. Which is more than you undertook to do.”

  Her mouth stretched and she began to wail. Tearing myself free of her, though she tried to keep me by grabbing at my gown, I fled from the room. I found Sir Francis and Dale standing outside, their faces aghast.

  “We heard,” he said. He stepped forward and turned the key in the lock of the bedchamber, shutting her in. “Most of it. Oh, dear God!”

  The last exclamation was a comment on the pitiful howling that we could hear inside the room. The door handle rattled and the door shook as Mary beat on it with her fists. Dale, her hand to her mouth, rushed away downstairs. Sir Francis beckoned to me to follow.

  “Come away!” he said. “Just come away. Let her wear herself down until she’s calm again.”

  “Sir Francis,” I said, “I want to talk to you. She mentioned a friendly house where she would be taken first. Now, I have an idea . . .”

  21

  Scented Pebbles

  “It’s a mad idea,” said Sir Francis. “Unthinkable.”

  “But if it worked, if I could keep up the impersonation for long enough, it would take me straight to Penelope—and it would also lead your men to this friendly house that Lady Mary has mentioned, and maybe bring some extra conspirators into the net.”

  “They’ll be brought in anyway. Believe me. Once I get my hands on the so-called rescuers, they’ll tell everything they know, and name every fellow conspirator that they know.”

  “But it might take time,” I said. “They may be more obstinate than you expect—or less truthful. And meanwhile, those at the friendly house might realize that something had gone amiss. They could flee—and they might take Pen with them, as a hostage. She must be frightened to death! Sir Francis, she may not be your responsibility, but she is most certainly mine. I want to reach her. I should go, for her sake.”

  “You don’t resemble Mary! You’re not tall enough!”

  “They’ll bring a horse for me, surely. They won’t see me standing on my feet for long and it’ll be dark; they won’t see clearly. I’ve a pair of boots with quite high heels. I’ll use those.”

  “I suppose you might get away with it. If you can make yourself look tall and hide the fact that your hair isn’t ginger . . .”

  “I’m sure Mary wouldn’t like to hear her hair described as merely ginger.”

  “This isn’t the moment for pleasantries,” said Sir Francis disapprovingly. The term Puritan was not yet in common use but looking back, I see that it fitted him well. “Your eyes are much darker than hers,” he said, “but it will be night, as you say.” He studied my face. “Your chin is more pointed than Mary’s but the way your eyes are set is similar and your nose and cheekbones are similar, too. Surprising. You could almost be related.”

  “That’s a piece of luck,” I said carefully.

  “But . . .”

  “Sir Francis, once we reach this friendly house, wherever it is, your men can swoop at once. They have only to keep on our tracks.”

  “If I agree, my men will be as hard on your heels as they can be, as long as they avoid being seen,” said Sir Francis worriedly. He cocked his head. We had followed Dale down the stairs and were now in the hall, standing near the foot of the stairs. Above us, the wailing and hammering from my bedchamber had not abated. “She’s still hysterical. We shall have to put a stop to that or she might warn them yet, by making such a racket that they can hear it when you open your window.”

  “I have a sedative I can give her. She introduced me to it herself,” I said, “when I was in Scotland. When I paid a visit to London with Hugh, I found an apothecary who recognized it and now I always have some to hand. He said it was unsafe to use it often because it can gain a hold on one, like wine, if you drink it too much, but it’s useful now and then. If someone is ill or has toothache and can’t sleep, it can be a blessing. I’ll put some in a posset and I hope she’ll drink it willingly. If she doesn’t, well, I suppose we can use force.”

  “Very well.” He sighed. “I cannot forbid you, not with Mistress Pen at such risk, and with so much to gain. We should have a pretty haul of traitors by the end of the night, and no need to wring their names out of anyone, which is a disagreeable business anyway.”

&
nbsp; He frowned, as a new idea came to him. “I wish I had brought my hounds from Bolton! But you have dogs, have you not? They could help in following you.”

  “They’d be better than hounds,” I said. “Hounds give tongue. With Gambol and Grumble, you can follow a scent without making a noise. They’re good watchdogs, but they stop baying on command. Say quiet to them, when you first set out, and they won’t bark.”

  “If we use the dogs, my men could keep far enough back to be safely out of sight. Can we provide a good strong scent?” Sir Francis was becoming interested. “What about a sponge soaked in something pungent? If you can rub it over your horse’s hooves . . .”

  “That could be difficult,” I said. “I could only do it by pretending to inspect or polish my horse’s feet. Someone escaping from captivity, with a throne at stake, isn’t going to stop for that! It would seem very odd and might arouse suspicion.” I considered. “Suppose I were to carry a supply of small pebbles? Very small—gravel, really—not too heavy but soaked in something smelly beforehand. I could drop them along the way. Sparingly, because I don’t know how far we’ll be going, but they could act as markers to help the dogs along.”

  “Aye,” said Sir Francis, unexpectedly falling into the local accent in excitement. He saw me looking at him quizzically and smiled. “If I stay in Yorkshire much longer, I shall turn into a complete Yorkshireman. The smell mustn’t be so strong that anyone will notice, but dogs have sharper noses than people.”

  He paused. I looked at him. “What is it, Sir Francis?”

  “I shouldn’t allow this. It’s wrong.”

  “If all goes well, they won’t know I’m not Mary until I’m inside the house. When they find out, there’ll no doubt be uproar, but I can tell them that I’ve been followed and that harming me or Pen, if she’s there, as I pray she will be, will only make things worse for them. I think I can keep them paralyzed with panic for long enough for your men to arrive and rescue us. If Pen isn’t there, Sir Francis, I must ask you to see that they wring her whereabouts out of their captives, immediately. Will you promise me that?”