And Less Than Kind

by Mercedes Lackey

  "You will not be warmly received," he said wryly. "I have a far better use for you, Adjoran. I know you hold no office in the Companies of the city, but you know most of the guildmasters and even the lord mayor. Do me the favor, if you will, of speaking to them and of going around the gates and making sure there are no traitors there ready to open to Wyatt if he finds a way across the river."

  "Very well, my lord, if that is the way I will be of most use, I will be happy to do it."

  "Yet would not Lady Elizabeth be glad to see Queen Mary in Wyatt's hands?"

  Denoriel was delighted that Clinton had come out and mentioned his doubts about Lord Denno's own loyalty. He shook his head vigorously.

  "Oh, no, my lord. Lady Elizabeth is no fool. Even setting aside the fact that Lady Elizabeth is a loving and loyal sister and remembers the queen's kindness and generosity to her when she had little herself, for purely selfish reasons she wants no part of Wyatt's rebellion. The last thing she desires is to have any harm at all come to Queen Mary. That would incriminate her—no matter that she is totally innocent—and be a cause of endless civil war."

  "I am glad to hear that Lady Elizabeth is so sensible."

  "She is, and I will do all in my power to see that this stupid rebellion is put down."

  There was, however, little to do. Seeing the drawbridge down so the bridge was impassable, Wyatt made no attempt to cross the river. He settled down in Southwark, exerting a tight control over the army that was with him, paying for the supplies his men needed and preventing looting. He was waiting, it seemed, for the Londoners to take the queen prisoner and invite him into the city.

  For that, he was a few hours too late. If Mary had tried to flee or had not come in person to appeal to the people of the city, Wyatt's friends in London might have had a more receptive audience. As it was, fired by Mary's courage and steadfastness and perhaps given hope that she would take warning and draw back from the Spanish marriage, London watched the invader on the south shore of the Thames armed and ready to resist.

  Nonetheless, Wyatt did have friends. At Ludgate, to which Denoriel had come after dark—he had stopped at the northern gates and eastern gates first—he saw the gate properly closed but a huddle of men standing together. To the mortals, it was full dark and they felt themselves to be invisible to anyone beyond the faint light of their dark lantern. To Denoriel, the dark lantern made it near as bright as daylight.

  Responsive as always to his desire, Miralys made no sound and moved into the deeper shadow at the side of the small guardhouse. Denoriel cocked his long ears forward.

  "Yes, she is a brave lady," one voice said, "and no one, most of all Sir Thomas Wyatt, wishes her any harm. It is to save her that he has come, to protect her from the evil counsel that has led her to offer herself—and England—to the Spaniards."

  "It is true," another voice answered, "that I do not want to see our sweet queen married to that sour Spaniard. I have heard that he wreaked dreadful havoc in the Low Countries, burning men and women and children, too, for defying the pope's rule."

  "And if he is Queen Mary's husband," the first voice said, "will he not force the pope upon us and burn us if we resist?"

  "The queen is Catholic," a third voice said. "But she has not forced the Catholic rite upon us."

  "Not yet," a fourth man said. "But the priest in my church is asking for money to buy chasubles and chalices and thuribles in which to burn incense. I do not like it. I do not wish to see our good, plain worship bedecked in a Catholic harlot's robes."

  "And it must be stopped," the first voice said. "The queen must have councilors who will tell her that she may have her Mass but that she may not force it upon us. When Sir Thomas is in control of the city, he will see the right kind of councilors appointed. They will reject this marriage to Spain. If he comes to the gate, will you not allow him entry to achieve this good?"

  There was a tight silence. Break it up now, Denoriel thought, before any of the men commit themselves and, with a clatter of seemingly shod hooves, Miralys appeared as if he had come out of an alley onto the main road. The group by the gate fragmented immediately, one man snatching up the dark lantern and darting away along the base of the wall, another hurrying toward the guard house and two coming a few steps toward Denoriel.

  "The gate is closed for the night," the man who had spoken against the Catholic rite said. "We are ordered not to open it without an order from Lord William Howard."

  "I do not want it opened," Denoriel said. "I am Lord Denno Adjoran, mercer, come from Lord Clinton to be sure the guards at the gates are doing their duty. Has there been any trouble here? I thought I saw someone skulking away down the wall."

  "There was one—" the man who had spoken third and defended Queen Mary began.

  But the man who had gone into the guardhouse had come out with a torch. Denoriel recognized him as a merchant tailor who had a shop on Watling Street and had bought cloth from Adjoran.

  "He was . . . ah . . . asking for news," he interrupted, and Denoriel recognized the voice as the one who had spoken second.

  "Very well, Master Harris," Denoriel said. "I bid you and your fellow guards remember that the queen said if the people and the Parliament were against the marriage she would not make it. Now see the gate stays closed no matter who knocks on it."

  But no one knocked on it. Wyatt wasted two more days sitting in Southwark and waiting for the Londoners to overpower the queen's guard and invite him to take Mary under his control. Lord William Howard begged the queen for permission to use the guns of the Tower against his encampment, but she would not allow it.

  "Think," she said, "of the many innocents in the houses of Southwark who would be killed or injured and the loss of their shelter in this bitter weather."

  Word of the queen's mercy was carried from the palace and some who had wondered if they should take the chance to be rid of the Catholic queen were reassured of her goodness. No one urged any welcome to Wyatt. Meanwhile over those three days, all the towns along the river that had bridges showed their loyalty to the queen by obeying Lord William Howard's order and broke them down so Wyatt could not cross.

  Wyatt reached Kingston at four o'clock in the afternoon. Only thirty feet of the bridge had been torn away, and the pilings remained. The bridge was repairable. It was then that the seamen who had joined the rebellion saved the situation. The sailors volunteered to swim across the river if Wyatt could disperse the guard set to protect the other end of the bridge.

  The guns that the seamen had brought from their ships drove away the guard. That news and the tale of Wyatt's progress came back to London with a man from that guard. Another came hours later, long after dark to say that Wyatt was across the river. The sailors who had swum across came back in barges and Wyatt returned with enough men to drive the remainder of the guard away and to protect the workers on the bridge.

  Denno had the news of Wyatt's progress from Lord Clinton to whom he had gone to report that Ludgate and Newgate were not safe and that one John Harris should be watched or warned that if Wyatt entered by Ludgate he would be held accountable. Clinton thanked him, assured him that the warning would be passed to Lord William Howard, and told him that all horse and foot were summoned to be outside the walls of St. James Palace by six the next morning. Denoriel promised he and his men would be there.

  He returned at once to Bucklersbury, then Gated to Ashridge and sent the air spirit he had bound to Elizabeth to bring her to her bedchamber. The air spirit could not speak to her or set a message into her mind, but it danced and gyrated and fluttered toward the bedchamber door repeating its performance when she did not respond. Elizabeth just sat, staring into the air over Eleanor Gage's head with as little expression as she could manage.

  Air spirits were not clever. Elizabeth feared its movements would brush someone. She wished she could shout, "I understand," but her ladies, and Mary's spies, would think she had run mad. The idea drew a brief hysterical gasp of a giggle from her; she felt as i
f she were going mad. What would she do if Wyatt won? All eyes turned to her and she shivered and then took advantage of the strangled giggle to bend over with a hand on her belly.

  "Are you ill, my lady?" Dorothy Stafford asked.

  "My stomach roils," Elizabeth gasped. She rose quickly to follow the air spirit and Elizabeth Marberry jumped up to accompany her. "I do not need any audience to watch by my close stool," Elizabeth snapped.

  Marberry knew that Lady Elizabeth was supposed to be watched every moment, but she could not disobey a direct order and slowly sat down again. She herself did not like to be watched while she performed her natural functions and even less when those functions were disturbed. Also she was certain that no message had been delivered to Elizabeth. Not even a servant had approached her since they returned to her chambers from the evening meal. And, all alarmed as they were, they had been unnaturally silent. No message had passed to Elizabeth from her ladies.

  Possibly Lady Elizabeth was ill, Marberry thought. She was more drawn and pallid each day. She had noticed that the lady merely pushed food around in her plate, hardly eating. Heaven knew there was enough trouble to make Lady Elizabeth's stomach uneasy. And she certainly did not look eagerly excited by the news of Wyatt's rebellion which had come in letters from the Council.

  Elizabeth slammed the door of her bedchamber and spelled it locked. She would, of course, have to release the lock the moment she heard someone try the door, but she would at least have warning of an intruder. Then she hurried behind the screen that hid the close stool and with tears streaming down her face threw herself into Denno's arms.

  He held her tight and kissed her forehead, her eyes, and more lingeringly her lips. Elizabeth hugged Denoriel back, but did not respond to his kiss. She stiffened and anxiously felt his breast and shoulders.

  "You are armored," she whispered. "Will we be attacked?"

  "Not Ashridge," he murmured in reply. "London. I came only to tell you that I will not come tonight or perhaps the next few nights. I must be in the city if there is a call to arms."

  "Why should you fight for Mary?" Elizabeth hissed angrily. "What if you are hurt? What will become of me? Remember all those mortal soldiers use iron weapons."

  "I fight for Mary because too many know I am your favorite. I must show myself ardent in the queen's cause. Do not be ridiculous Elizabeth. I do not believe Wyatt can win with the force he has . . . unless the Londoners go over to him."

  "If he loses, what will happen to me?" Elizabeth sobbed.

  His grip around her shoulders tightened. "No worse than what you endured when they sought evidence against Thomas Seymour. And you have been much more careful this time. I hope—"

  The door latch clicked. Elizabeth turned her head and spat "Ekmochleuo" over her shoulder, releasing the spell. The latch lifted and the door opened a thread. Someone was looking in to see where she was and what she was doing. Behind the screen around the close stool, she was invisible. "Stickfoot," she hissed, and smiled the first smile in several days when she heard a cry as someone tried to take a step and fell on her face. When she turned back, Denno was gone.

  Tears ran down her cheeks again as she straightened her gown of the slight crumpling his embrace had caused. She dropped the top of the stool and sat down on it, taking her head in her hands. How she longed to be queen, to wrest the government from Mary's unsteady hands, to play the treacherous French against the greedy Spanish so that both would grant advantages in trade and policy to England. She could stabilize the currency, pay off much of the debt left by Somerset and Northumberland. England would blossom . . .

  "Lady Elizabeth." The anxious voice coming from the still-closed door was that of Agnes Fitzalan. "Are you ill? Do you need help?"

  "Ill . . . yes," Elizabeth answered; it being the best excuse for the swollen eyes and reddened nose. "My belly gripes. Come in, Agnes. Find Blanche. Where is Blanche? I need to go to bed."

  Chapter 25

  Denoriel looked in on Joseph after he Gated to Bucklersbury. Two men and a runner to bring a message to the house if there should be trouble remained at the warehouse. Five of the other men were lounging in the kitchen, with Cropper to keep an eye on them and Cropper's wife to feed them and dole out the ale. Since they were due to meet in front of St. James Palace at six of the morning, they would bed down on the kitchen floor.

  Joseph handed him a note from Lord William Howard saying he had left men at Newgate and made sure that gate would not open for Wyatt. He added that he, himself, would be at Ludgate because that faced the most direct road from Kingston. Denoriel was only a little surprised by Lord William's personal response. Lord William was great-uncle to Elizabeth—and very fond of her. Doubtless he had made note that Elizabeth's favorite was doing his best to ensure Wyatt's defeat.

  By ten of the clock the house was dark and silent, Mistress Cropper having locked the door to the pantry where the ale was kept and gone home. On the streets the watch called the hours, although instead of "All is well," the watchmen cried "Look to your defenses." Denoriel thought over the plans Clinton had laid out for the leaders of the various groups he comanded. Denoriel freely admitted that he knew nothing of battle strategy being of those commanded rather than commanding, but the plans sounded reasonable to him.

  Except that these plans did not even last until the first engagement. At four in the morning drums sounded throughout the city. A messenger had come with the news that Wyatt was already at Brentford and marching on. All defenders were to rise and arm.

  Denoriel brought his men to Charing Cross and left them under Joseph's care to join with some other groups of the lord mayor's militia. One of the other captains told him that Lord Pembroke and his mounted troops were on the hill above the new bridge near St. James'. They did not want Wyatt's men breaking up and running loose in the city so the lord mayor had set troops at each road intersection to hold them.

  "I am known to Lords Pembroke and Clinton," Denoriel said. "Shall I go and see what news I can pick up?"

  He wondered if the lord mayor's man thought he was seeking escape from the coming battle. He could see the man glance at Joseph and his burly and well-armed men, who had settled to the fore of the group. That seemed to reassure the lord mayor's man, and he nodded and agreed that obtaining news was good.

  However there was little information available. Pembroke and Clinton had no later news than what occasioned the early summons. Wyatt was still some distance out on the road. On his way back Denoriel arranged with the town tavern to bring bread and cheese and ale to the waiting men. There was no need, he said laughing, for them to face the rebels with empty bellies.

  After he had eaten with the men, Denoriel rode out again; he returned a little after nine. Now Clinton had news. Wyatt was still advancing on the city but would not be near them until nearly noon. By then the lord mayor's man was comfortable with Denoriel's coming and going and it was he, who hearing noise in the distance about eleven of the clock, asked Denoriel to go see what it was.

  Before the half hour, Denoriel was back, his cloak awry and his hat lost. "Wyatt is in the city," he said, dismounting. He called "Wait" to the lord mayor's man, who had started toward him and pretended to lead his horse into the Temple grounds. When he returned on foot he continued, loud enough for all to hear. "They came up Fleet Street and Lord Pembroke let them pass."

  "Is he turned traitor?" the lord mayor's man asked drawing a hard breath.

  "No, no, not at all," Denoriel assured him. "It was only a device so that most of Wyatt's army would fall into a trap. When the troops had advanced too far to scatter, Lord Clinton and Lord Pembroke charged from both sides. They broke the force in two. All the officers were in the forepart with only a few hundred men. The rest, without leaders, will be easy to disperse and drive away."

  "You rode with them?" the lord mayor's man asked, smiling slightly at Denoriel's disheveled appearance.

  "Wyatt was seen marching along the Fleet Road just as I was about to take my leave of
Lord Clinton. I could not very well ride away from that immediate threat."

  The lord mayor's man smiled as he shook his head. "I am very glad you were not in London when your hair was not white and your face lined with years. I cannot imagine what trouble you would have caused as a riotous youngster. What brought you back here to our quiet waiting?"

  Denoriel opened his eyes wide. "But this is my duty." Then he grinned. "Wyatt, his officers, and the mounted are gone for now. They will try Ludgate, where I think they had friends who had promised to open to them. They had no siege engines with them, so they cannot try to force the gate. When they are turned away, they will retreat. We will catch them then."

  "You are sure there will be no treachery at Ludgate?"

  "I am sure," Denoriel replied with a tight smile. "Lord William Howard himself is at Ludgate."

  "But the rest of the army is still in Fleet Street?"

  Denoriel snorted gently. "The rest is no army. They are no more than farmers and apprentices stirred up with fear of the Spanish. Now their officers are gone, they will yield readily." He paused and then added, "I do not think the entire army was with Wyatt."