“If Your Majesty desires me to speak plain, then I shall speak plain.”
“Well, Robin?”
He frowned and looked directly up at her. “It seems to me kinder to execute the Queen of Scots than leave her cooped up in and in doubt of her fate,” he said, confirming her opinion that like his father, Lord Hunsdon, her Lord Chamberlain and unofficial half-brother, he did not really understand politics.
“Kinder?” she repeated wonderingly. Nobody else in the entire vexed saga of the Queen of Scots had ever mentioned kindness.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Are Queens to be exempt from kindness?”
“I had always believed so,” she muttered.
Robin Carey shook his head, his face troubled. “But in this, as in anything else, I think Your Majesty should do what your conscience tells you is right.”
“My conscience has more for which to answer to God than mine own soul. If I decide wrongly, I wreck the realm.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “That is why neither I nor anyone else can tell you what you should do. God will guide Your Majesty to do what is right.”
If she had not been the Queen and he her nobly-born servant, she would have kissed him for his simplicity. Instead she sighed. “Give me your arm, Robin, and tell me where I can find your father, since it seems the household expenses are rising once more.”
Deftly he passed the tray round the back of her chair to the other gentleman, held his green-velveted arm at an angle so she could rest her hand on it and came smoothly to his feet, supporting her as she rose. He towered over her and she had always liked well-made graceful young men, especially those who knew how to dress and how to charm. This one had a good voice as well, she recalled, suppressing the knowledge that she had been godmother at his christening, damn him.
“Come and sing to me,” she said, enjoying the glower of envy he got from the other gentlemen. “Soothe my ruffled heart.”
He bowed and smiled.
“Your Majesty does me too much honour.”
XIII
IT WAS SIX MONTHS before that black Christmas, in the summer of the Babington plot, the summer of 1586, when the Jesuits first got wind of the Book of the Unicorn. That morning all London crawled with Walsingham’s pursuivants who broke into men’s houses and hunted priests like the deer.
It was a rare morning of sobriety for Mary, since she had been attending a whore in the night to lighten her of her babe, a poor blue little thing that conveniently died without help. Tired and sad, at last the witch had broken her fast in a boozing ken east of London Bridge. As she started to drink away her fee she noticed a poorly dressed man at the next table. He had folded fine soft hands and was whispering Latin over his bread. At first all she thought was that he must be a careless and stupid priest, to be so public in his devotion.
Then, when she rose and hobbled to the door, she saw four men in the street, two on either side of it, armed with the clubs and coshes and warrants of pursuivants. For a moment she hesitated, afraid of Walsingham’s men and also afraid of the priest. I stepped swiftly from my cloud into her heart and spoke to her, told her what to do. So she went back into the ken and sidled up to the priest.
By my small miracle she pulled together the rags of her Latin and told him in that tongue the pursuivants were waiting for him.
His square soldier’s face was drawn and weary with long hunting, and he sagged like the fox that finds his last earth stopped up.
“Are they coming in?” he asked.
Mary shrugged. “How should I know,” she said, still in Latin, “but the Blessed Virgin has ordered me to bring you away from here.”
The priest looked cautiously at her, for it must be said that even the saintliest man will doubt a toothless old woman when she talks of visions. “Perhaps it’s God’s will I should be taken,” he muttered, gulping the last of his beer.
Mary shook her head violently and pinched his shoulder. “If they take you, then to whom shall I make my confession?” she hissed. “What if I die unshriven and go to Hell? It will be your fault, Father.”
He smiled briefly at that, reassured by her selfishness.
“The Blessed Virgin, eh?” he said. “What do you know about her, Mother?”
“More than you do,” said Mary tartly. “And you should address me as Sister. Now come with me.”
Blinking and calculating, the priest allowed her to take his hand, lead him softly past the bar while the tapster was busy with the farthest barrel, and though to the brewing sheds behind. They climbed over a wall, Mary grunting and struggling until the Jesuit, who was powerfully built, though not tall, boosted her up with no regard for her dignity. They crept through a yard filled with pigs, over another wall and into a tiny hidden passage between two houses that wended down to the river. Just above the water-steps they tucked themselves into the lee of a garden wall that bordered the Thames.
“Sister?” asked the priest when he had caught his breath. “Were you a nun once?” His voice spoke volumes of how she was laid low and she winced at it.
“Sister Mary, Infirmerar and Mistress of Novices at the Convent of St Mary’s Clerkenwell,” she said to him, bowing as she would have once to the nunnery’s chaplain. And then the knowledge of all her sins caught round her throat like the devils of Hell and she blushed dark red with shame and looked away from him, down at the ground. “Once,” she whispered. “Long ago.”
The priest stared at her and shook his head. “I took you for a witch,” he said simply. “I am sorry. You may know me as Father Tom Hart.”
Mary’s heart was too low and her hearing too bad for it, but the next moment he tilted his head. “Listen,” he whispered.
It is hard to mistake when pursuivants enter a boozing ken to make an arrest, what with the bellowing of the Queen’s name and the cudgelling of any that try to escape and the banging of doors and the breaking of windows.
“How did you know?” he asked.
“I saw them waiting for you and Our Lady told me what to do.”
Father Hart crossed himself. “Praise be to her, merciful Queen,” he said, and I smiled at him. “Now where do we go?”
Mary considered. “There will be pursuivants on the bridge and no doubt they know your appearance to stop you there.” The priest nodded. “If we take a boat, the boatman will doubtless sell us to Walsingham as well. I think we should wait.”
“Here?” he asked, for they were perched on a ledge above the foul stinking mud of the Thames and attacked by flies also.
“Why not? If it is not God’s will that you die a martyr, then Our Lady will protect us, and if it is, you will be taken away.”
Father Hart nodded at this good logic. “And you, Sister? You had better leave me so as not to be interrogated if . . .”
“Pooh,” sniffed Mary, unwontedly brave, “what do I care for Walsingham and all his men. I’m too old to be frightened by a lot of pompous heretics. Besides, if I suffer a martyr’s death, then it wipes out all my sins.”
“Have you many sins to confess, Sister?”
Again the weight of them bowed her shoulders. “Too many,” she husked. “Too many to tell.”
Tom Hart’s face softened. Within his breast I heard him give hearty thanks to my Son that he was made the means of helping her, old and ragged and stinking as she was. He put his hand on her shoulder right gently. “It seems we have time,” he said. “If you want to wait with me, Sister, I can hear you now.”
I smiled on both of them as my daughter-in-law crossed herself and composed her mind and began to whisper all the many evils she had done. Once the dam was breached, they poured out of her like a black waterfall, incontinent, uncounted. And the young man listened with his eyes closed to give her privacy, full reverently and gently.
She and the priest were not seen. Am I not the Star of the Sea, the Dew of the Ocean? Pursuivants searched the garden behind the wall that sheltered them and even checked the tiny path to the river, but my mantle was over them and a mist of
insects came up and hid them. All the long afternoon while Mary unburdened herself, no once came near. By the time the river water lapped a couple of feet below them with the returning tide, Mary felt she had been cleansed to her soul.
The priest was all the wearier for what he had heard, but also exultant at having been given something he knew must be of vital importance to the cause of bringing England back to the Faith. Amongst the pelting rush of Mary’s wickedness had nestled a story the more strange for being unremarked by her. An old, old story, many years forgotten.
Blessing her, he said the Ego te absolvo and she felt all the crusting of wickedness break from her soul and fall into the river.
She did not like the penance he gave her, which was to avoid all booze but small beer in future. She would have found a pilgrimage to Jerusalem less difficult to contemplate. Never mind. She would think of it another time.
Then they said Vespers together and also the Salve Regina, which was Mary’s favourite prayer and Mary wept at the beauty of the rosy sun on the water and the violet-petalled clouds in the sky while I smiled at her.
“Will you give me your Book of the Unicorn?” asked the priest carefully at last.
Mary shook her head. “I pawned it,” she said. “And I have not the money to rescue it.”
“Pawned it, where?”
For all her newly sinless state, she was canny enough to shrug. “I forget.” Well, lying is only a venial sin.
The long summer evening was coming down and Tom Hart was full of joy. God would not have given him such a weapon for the True Faith if he was to be a martyr immediately and therefore he knew he would escape the pursuivants this time. He had already thought how he could do it.
“If I can find the money to redeem your book, will you give it to me?” he asked.
Mary nodded and began thinking hard, for his eagerness betrayed him. She was thinking about her great-granddaughter Pentecost, who was helping out at the Falcon, and what she was thinking was that if Pentecost could have a dowry, she need not be a whore.
“I don’t know.”
“Sister Mary,” said Father Hart intently. “Do you know that God has His purpose in everything that befalls?”
She nodded, although she no longer believed it as she had once.
“Well, then, I see the means of a great good in all the sorrowful tale you have told me, a wonderful providence of God to rescue England from heresy.”
He had caught her age-spotted hand, gazed into her red-rimmed eyes, full of ardour for his Faith, so she was almost afraid.
“This tale of yours, if it were generally known, it would destroy the Queen’s power. It would break the false glamour of the spell she has woven over the people. Do you understand? Your tale could change the kingdom, if it were used right.”
Mary did not answer, for she was all of a maze between hope restored and doubts. The priest paused, for what he was asking was no light thing.
“Everything you have told me is under the seal of the confessional,” he said. “I will keep your secrets to death, if need be, with Christ’s help. But if I have your leave, I will go to the Duke of Parma in the Netherlands and have the Queen’s wickedness published abroad so all men may know what she truly is.”
“And all men will know I am a witch,” mumbled Mary.
“Your name I will never tell, but if I have your Book of the Unicorn, I can prove the truth of what you say. And besides, you are no longer a witch, for you have repudiated Satan once more and your repentance has saved you.”
Mary nodded, for she felt it to be true.
“I’ll get you the money for the pawnshop,” said the priest, feeling sure he could persuade her. “Do I have your leave to repeat your story.”
For a moment she hesitated, remembering. Father Hart recognised her scruples. “What do you owe Elizabeth the heretic? It was to clear her way to the throne that King Henry broke the nunneries.”
Mary scowled. “You have my leave,” she said. “Tell Parma what you like.”
He kissed her hand as if she were the Queen herself. She smiled at him and then her face puckered with anxiety once more. “But how will you escape . . .?”
He grinned at her like the daring knight he would have been, had my Son not called him to be His soldier.
“It’s a warm day and will be a warm night, I think. I’ll wait for the turn of the tide and then I’ll let the river take me down to Tilbury.”
“But the boatman . . .”
“Wherefore should I need a boat when I have my arms and legs still whole, thank God and thanks to you.”
It took her a while to understand him and then she was horrified.
“Swimming?”
“Ay, of course.”
“But your clothes . . .?”
“Will be bundled up on my head. And the river will throw the dogs off the scent and much puzzle the pursuivants.”
“You will catch your death, or the river will poison you.”
“Nonsense. Salmon swim in the Thames, why not I? Never fear, Sister, I feel sure this is God’s will. With the tide to bear me, I’ll have no trouble.”
“What about the book?”
“How much to redeem it?”
“Five shillings.”
Straight away he reached inside his shirt and brought out his purse, emptied it into her hand, to the amount of six shillings and eightpence. She blinked at such riches so casually dispensed and, newly shriven as she was, instantly fell into the sin of greed.
“Redeem it now and bring it to me here before the tide turns,” he ordered, knowing her to be a nun and thinking that this meant she would be biddable and obedient.
Mary said nothing, only closed her fist on the money and sidled away. Tom Hart waited for her as long as he dared, but with the tide already running and Walsingham’s hounds, human and canine, still rousting out the City through the long soft evening, he dared not miss his chance. She had no faith that he could do what he said, but he did: clad only in his shirt for modesty’s sake and with his homespun suit tied up and balanced on his head, he slid into the water and struck out under the stars for Tilbury.
XIV
AFTER THE PRIVY COUNCIL Meeting, the Queen suffered an afternoon glazed with tedium: there had been once meeting after another; the worst was an unpleasant cold encounter with Walsingham.
She had noticed with inward dismay that it was not only grief which was making his face so drawn and yellow. She recognised the way he would pause sometimes and grip hard on whatever he held, and from the sheen on him he was running a fever as well. When she accused him of hiding his sickness so he could harass her over the Queen of Scots, his lips had thinned to invisibility and he had not looked at her. She had ordered him to his bed and he had gone saying that he left the matter in Davison’s capable hands.
Afterwards there had been another unsatisfactory passage of arms with the Scottish Embassy, sent to her Court by the Queen of Scots’ undutiful son King James, the Sixth of that name, ostensibly to talk her out of executing the mother he had had last seen when he was ten months old. They too wished her a Merry Christmastide.
She wanted the Scottish gentlemen – gentlemen, in God’s name, not even nobles! – to say that King James would break their alliance and declare war if she executed his mother. That would give her the excuse she needed. Obstinately they refused to say it and took refuge in flattery of her mercy and enquiries after the subject of the play to be shown and whether the famous Fool, Richard Tarlton, would be in it. She dismissed the infamous fools and retreated to her Bedchamber to rest before the evening’s festivities. Beyond many doors in the Presence Chamber they were laying the table with as much ceremonial as a Papist Mass for a meal she would eat in private. Great reverent mobs of petitioners were allowed to pay for the privilege of watching gentlemen serve an empty chair with delicate meats and complex sauces while the Queen munched winter herbs and faced goose and manchet and drank small beer at a table in her Bedchamber, and read more of the e
ndless papers kept locked in her silver filigree cabinet. She was in desperate need of a good day’s hunting to blow the megrims and cobwebs of deceit from her head, but with the weather so cold it was too dangerous to ride, even horses with studded shoes. The hunt planned for the Feast of Saint Stephen had been cancelled.
Still, she could dance. And the play in the Great Hall put her in an excellent humour, for all the heat from the candles and press of courtiers who roared delightedly as Tarlton poked his head from behind a tapestry and wriggled his eyebrows. When the mumming was done she gave Tarlton his bag of gold, and marked with a heavy heart the age-lines beneath his paint. At last she processed to her Privy Gallery and sat down on cushions with her women around her. There she talked to Lady Bedford about nothing whatever to do with the Queen of Scots while the musicians gathered in the far corner played quietly on their lutes and viols.
Later the gentlemen rolled back the rush-matting and the musicians changed their instruments and began playing dances. The youngsters danced a volta, the men prancing like stags in rut, and, grasping the women by waist and stomacher, they threw them straight up and around so they came down in a flurry of petticoats with their feet placed so. The floor-boards resounded with it.
A couple of times the Queen rose and danced a more stately pavane, although she was still perfectly capable of a volta if she wished. Tonight she did not wish; with the passing of Tarlton’s brief enchantment, she was in too dour a mood. Nor did the sight of the young people in the blaze of candles cheer her as they usually did, thanks to their dismal fashion of mourning for Sidney, which turned them all into an unkindness of ravens.
And then her women, who had been whispering among themselves, brought out their little plot to please her. They stood in a row and begged her in only slightly strained verse to guess which one of them was hiding a treasure. By the laws of the play she must find the truth by asking them questions and they could answer yea or nay but nothing else.
“Every one of the maidens is hiding a treasure under her skirts,” said a gentleman gallantly from the press of them down by the doors to the Privy Chamber. Some of the girls blushed.
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