Elizabeth rose, found her legs were steady again, walked across to the table where she took the quill and set it down again on its stand.
‘You know I put my signature to nothing that may be misconstrued. You could write treason here and have my name attached.’
Renard looked wounded. ‘My lady! Would I do such a thing?’
‘You would sell your mother to a whorehouse if the purse were heavy enough. And if you could discover her name.’
It was the noise like a suppressed sneeze that turned them both around. But Thomas Lawley’s face was as blank as ever, even if something twinkled in his eyes.
‘Well, lady.’ Renard’s tone had regained its former fury. ‘We shall see how this progresses. The Queen shall hear of your continual stubbornness, even if we will not yet reveal this part of it. She shall know how you still refuse to admit your treasonous plans and will not throw yourself on her mercy!’ He made for the door.
‘If I could but see my loving sister, she would quickly learn how innocent I am.’
Renard pivoted, snarling. ‘She will believe nothing good of you, daughter of the heretic-witch who ruined her life. The stars will fall before she will see you.’ He paused on a thought. ‘But you would see her, would you?’
‘It is my dearest wish!’
‘Then let us fulfil it. Come!’ He beckoned. ‘Come, do not fear! I shall take you to where you can observe your sister. But beware! She has forbidden you her society. Watch but do not try to force yourself into her presence or worse than further exile might await you!’
As the two antagonists swept from the room, each as determined as the other, Thomas sank gratefully onto the chair at the window. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept for more than an hour. The boat from Tuscany, probably. Since then it had been endless days on horses, his young companion setting a relentless pace, to the crossroads, beyond it. Sleep had become an impossible dream. They had arrived at the Tower near dawn and he had immediately to set out with the tide for Hampton, leaving Gianni to guard their prize. That was Renard’s order, to keep the relic safe in the strongest fortress in the land. At least he would not be able to return there until the evening tide, might have some chance of snatching a few hours of rest. He wouldn’t even need a bed. Just the back of this chair would do.
As his eyes closed, he smiled, thinking of the Princess’s rejoinder to Renard, her allusion to his bastardy. He felt sorry for her, so young, so beset with enemies. He himself was one, he supposed, and he was sorry for that in many ways. Yet she, as heir, represented a return to the land of the Protestant faith he abhorred, that his father had died trying to oppose. Renard’s ways might be devious but, like the Jesuits, he knew that the ends justified the means.
Such means, such ends. He shivered, tried to rise. Just one more second of rest, he thought as his head slipped onto the back of the chair. Just one mo…
The Ambassador knew passages around the palace that Elizabeth, in a hundred childhood explorations, had never discovered. His anger swept him forward at great pace and though she would have preferred a more dignified step, she was determined not to lose this chance. When he finally stopped before a painting of a lady, some unrecognizable ancestor in the Long Gallery, she was right behind him.
‘Wait here,’ he said curtly. ‘Listen and do not think to speak. This is not advice to serve my ends. You shall hear how the Queen thinks of you and discovering you spying here would not serve her temper, your purposes or mine.’
With that, he pressed a panel and a door swung open on a cramped chamber behind the painting. He gestured her inside and when she was reluctantly within, pressed the door upon her. At first, she thought he meant to suffocate her, for there was little air within her confines. But then she saw a chink of light and, moving a cloth aside, was able to place her eye against a hole the size of a farthing. She had a strange feeling that her own eye was within the eye of the painted lady. Shivering, she prayed she would not be kept waiting there long.
She was unused to prayers being answered at all, let alone with such rapidity. Voices carried from beyond the room, footsteps entered it, and to her eye, pressed to the hole, was revealed what looked like a procession. A series of servants were carrying what appeared, at first, to be large wooden boxes. When they set them down on the floor, however, Elizabeth saw that each rocked back and forth after the servant had moved away and she realized they were cradles, each beautifully carved in woods of varied hue. Then she heard a voice she recognized and had long yearned to hear again. The voice of a sister. The voice of a Queen.
‘My Lord, come, help me choose, for I fear choice will be too hard for me alone among these riches.’
Elizabeth tried to peer around to the source of the voice, but Mary was just out of her sight to the left. Someone came into her vision though, she saw the back of the head, an edge of beard.
‘They are each miraculous, each worthy of our saviour himself.’ Renard bent out of her sight, straightened into it again.
‘Do you truly think so? Let me look closer.’
It was nearly two years since she’d heard her sister’s voice, yet Elizabeth could hear the change in it. But it was not preparation enough for the sight of Mary as she appeared, a lady-in-waiting supporting her under each arm. She gasped, saw Renard’s head flick toward her in irritation.
Mary had never been pretty, but her features had been small and delicate, her hair thick, her skin rosy. Now her pale cheeks were puffed, her face blotchy and bloated, her hair thin and unkempt. Her eyes, her best feature, were glazed, a darkness under each matching a greater one within. Though she seemed to be trying to put some light and life into them, to lighten them with a smile, the effect merely served to highlight the strain as she bent, with help, to rock one of the cradles back and forth.
If she is with child, all this could be explained. If Renard is right in his assumption … oh, how horrible! Elizabeth barely managed to restrain another sigh. She watched as Renard leaned in and whispered something into the Queen’s ear.
Mary said, ‘Affairs of State, Ambassador?’
‘I am sorry to burden your Majesty but …’
Mary raised a hand. ‘It is a burden that a queen must carry. You may put me in this chair and leave me now.’
The servants did her bidding, bowed their way out of the room. The Queen sat, facing the painting and Elizabeth’s hiding hole. For a moment, she felt almost as if their eyes met. She dared not look away, dared not let the cloth fall. Then Renard stepped in and Mary’s sad eyes raised to him.
‘It is to do, once again, with your sister, Majesty. She requests to be admitted to your presence.’
‘I will not see her.’
‘She has been told so, Majesty. Still, she entreats a reason.’
‘A reason? She demands a reason from me?’ Elizabeth saw her sister’s face set into bitter lines. ‘Tell her to look into a mirror. The reason is there.’
‘A mirror, Majesty?’
‘Her face will be there and on it her whore mother’s face is plain, conjoined with the man she bewitched, my poor father of blessed memory.’
‘Do you think that magick was truly practised upon him?’
‘How else could it be?’ Mary’s voice lost its strained quality, filled with passion. ‘He loved my noble mother, his poems, his songs to her still speak to that. He loved the Church – did he not write against Luther and was named “Defender of the Faith” for it? Yet he forsook them both – Virtuous Queen, Holy Church – for that … heretic Anne Boleyn! How else could she have prevailed upon such nobility except by witchcraft?’
Renard looked at the painting, at Elizabeth, turned back to murmur, ‘You do not think … you would not believe it possible that her daughter has inherited more than a face from her mother?’
It appeared that the two sisters both paused for breath, but it was Mary who regained hers first. In a lower voice she said, ‘Do you suspect that, Ambassador?’
‘I … I am not
certain. It was just that your husband seems so taken with her of late. I merely wondered if the daughter could have inherited some power from the mother, that was all.’
Mary tried to move in her chair, writhed, returned as uncomfortable to her former position, her hands clutching at her breast.
‘He says it is best to be her friend, to reconcile the kingdom, that is all there is between them; yet he takes her to hunt, to hawk. He spends more time outside with her than he does inside with me.’ The hurt within the words was clear to the listener, and Elizabeth instantly regretted her falcon’s flight.
‘I am sure my noble master intends no ill by it. Unless … no, it cannot be.’
‘What, man?’ Mary leaned forward impatiently. ‘Unless, what?’
‘Unless, your Majesty’s fears are well-founded. That the daughter has inherited the talent of the mother, as witches always pass on their skills. Skills of a dark allurement beyond her youth, the comeliness of her figure and face – which alone could not be enough to draw so noble, so religious, so dutiful a prince as your father … oh, excuse me, I meant your husband, away from your side.’
The dart was well-placed and Elizabeth saw it hit the mark. Mary’s cheeks burned as she said, ‘Oh, get me the proof of that, Renard. Show me that she intends to replace me in my husband’s bed, beside him on my throne, using his seed to create another line of Royal bastards to make my realm Protestant for ever and I will …’
Mary gave a cry and suddenly leaned forward, hands clutched to her stomach. ‘My baby surges within me at the thought. Call my ladies, quick!’
‘Help, here, you there! The Queen is sick!’
Her attendants rushed into the room. ‘Take me to my bedchamber,’ Mary gasped as they lifted her from the chair. Passing Renard where he stood directly to the side of the painting, she stopped, whispered, ‘I want that proof, Renard. I would not execute her as a traitor, as you wished me to at the time of Wyatt’s rebellion. But I will burn her as a witch if she practises sorcery against my husband, my baby, myself.’
With that, bent in pain, the Queen allowed herself to be helped from the room. Elizabeth resisted the urge to burst from her hiding place and throw herself at her sister’s feet, cry for mercy. The hatred in Mary’s eyes held her there, sucked all breath away; the space was suddenly too small, as if the walls and roof pressed in upon her. Yet she couldn’t remove her eye from the hole, couldn’t stop looking at Renard, alone now, frozen in a deep bow as the Queen was carried from the gallery. When the door shut behind her he slowly straightened, then moved, his back still to Elizabeth, toward the cradles. One by one he nudged them with his feet, till all five were rocking. Only when the last one was moving did he look at the painting, at Elizabeth. She wanted so much to look down, away, anywhere; but she could not take her eyes from the room, from the only movement there. Up and down they went, back and forth; empty, like little wooden coffins. Up and down. Back and forth.
ELEVEN
REUNIONS
‘The Bridge! London Bridge! Anyone who’s goin’, for fuck’s sake, go!’
It would take more than the wherryman’s bawling to wake Jean. Anne wished she could have left him alone, wished too that she could have joined him in oblivion. Never had she felt more tired. The journey from the crossroads had been harder than the one to it. Days on an open boat, blown astray on the English Channel. Sway-backed nags hobbling from Dover to Gravesend. Then this boat ride upriver, the ripple of wind on the moonlit Thames a lulling torment. Her eyes had closed so many times and each time had sprung open to see a fellow passenger moving stealthily toward their bags.
She’d wanted to join Jean and sleep for ever. But they couldn’t.
‘Father? We are here. Father?’
Jean jerked awake, a hand flung out to ward the blow descending from the blue sky of his dream.
‘We are here.’
He managed to keep hold of his bag before the boatman flung it onto the docks and, helping each other, they clambered ashore. As the wherry pulled away, heading for the other side of the river, Anne’s eyes preceded it.
‘Is that it?’ she said softly, pointing through the mist.
Jean did not need Anne’s keen sight to know what she looked at. Lights floated there, dotted around squat shapes that loomed within the shadows.
‘Aye. The Tower of London.’
They went up the stairs, onto the wharf. Though it was late in the night, even shading to morning, there was a bustle there, reed torches lighting the goods unloaded onto waiting carts, drawn by horse or man. As soon as they appeared, three ragged boys ran at them, screeching.
‘’Ere, miss, master, ’ere, let me ’elp, I’ll carry ’em, no, I will. Leave off, Jackson, you whelp, I sees ’em first.’
Anne had learnt English from her mother, but Beck’s Yorkshire tongue had not sounded anything like the wailing of these youths. She recognized the word ‘Tavern’ amidst the torrent and, raising her hand, managed to get a degree of silence.
‘We need a tavern.’ Incomprehensible words burst forth again. Over them she shouted, ‘And we have no money.’
It was not true, but it had the effect desired because each boy looked at the others, then two ran off to confront another passenger, a fat monk who had just made it up the steps and who began beating at them as if they were fleas. The third boy, the smallest and dirtiest of the three, stayed staring at Anne with huge eyes, the only bright thing in the grime of his face. One bare foot rested on top of the other, and his hands darted in and out of the rags he wore, scratching at skin that Anne could see was welted and sore.
‘No money, miss? Nobody ’as no money. I even ’ave a farthing.’ A tiny coin appeared for an instant in one hand, flashed in the half-light as he flicked it into the air. The other hand grabbed it, disappearing it once again into the rags.
‘A man of substance, Anne.’
She turned to him, catching the faint smile on his face, wondering how long it had been since she had seen one there.
The boy chirped, ‘That’s me, sumtance, lots of it. Can always do with more.’ He tipped his head to the side. ‘So ’ow much is no money? I can get ya straw for a farthing, but you wouldn’t like it much. ’A’penny will buy y’a bed and only five to share it with. Penny’ll get ya straw to yesself, though not really fresh, like. A groat – well, you could ’ave a room for that. ’An’ for a shilling …’
‘What would this buy me, friend.’
Jean had worked his fingers into the split in the seam of his doublet as the boy chattered. What emerged from it he palmed and then seemed to pull from behind the boy’s ear.
The flash of gold stunned the boy, but no more than Anne, for her father had taken not a single risk on this entire journey, maintaining that only under the guise of poverty was there protection. To produce one of their store of ten florins, on a ill-lit street in a strange city, to an urchin of a boy? She wondered if a fever had seized him.
The coin had come and gone, but the flash of it lingered in the boy’s wide eyes. His voice was almost sombre when it came.
‘Reckon ya could buy a palace for that, mister.’
Jean smiled again. ‘Not necessary. But an inn that has a small private room and food, yes.’
The boy seemed frightened of Jean now, as if he were some magician, but he took Anne’s hand and led them from the wharves, into the alleys behind, a honeycomb of little passageways, with no light to see by, treading on things that they could only choose not to guess at. Still, the boy progressed at a good pace, and soon they emerged into a wider street where a faint light shone from a lantern that dangled over a swinging sign. As they approached the door beneath it, a church bell began to toll close by, striking five times.
‘Southwark Minster,’ the boy said. ‘The Ram’s in its lee.’
He rapped on the door, and after a moment there was shuffling of steps within, a bolt drawn, a muttering.
‘Guests!’ said the boy proudly, pushing past a toothless old man in ni
ghtcap and gown. ‘I’ll take ’em.’
A corridor led to the main room of the inn, around whose hearth sprawled bodies, lying on every available table, chair and piece of floor. A large man with jet black hair and head slumped on his arms straddled the bare counter, a spilled pewter goblet at his side. He swatted at the boy when he tried to wake him, but when his eyes opened and he saw his visitors, he awoke instantly. Boy and suddenly friendly potman led them further into the dark recesses of the inn. A door was opened, there was an angry exchange, and a man was ejected from within.
The potman’s Irish accent was as thick as the boy’s London one. ‘Dere y’are, sorr, madam. Best da Ram can offer.’
It was tiny with a low ceiling and a cloth pinned over a window hole. But the straw on the raised dais looked reasonably fresh, and they would be the sole occupants. Food was promised, most of their English coins handed over in exchange. Jean kept two, a farthing and a groat, and waited till the innkeeper had closed the door behind him.
‘What’s your name, lad?’
‘Jackson, sir.’ He stared at Jean’s hands, each, he knew, containing one coin.
‘Well, Jackson. This’ – he handed the boy the farthing – ‘is match for the coin you have. This doubles your wealth, for your services so far. While this’ – he waved the groat above the boy’s head, his eyes following it back and forth in the pale lamplight – ‘this is for your silence and your future service. You know the city well, I trust? Good, then come back tomorrow – today – at noon. We will make use of your knowledge.’
As the boy left, too stunned to speak, Anne turned to Jean. ‘Was that wise, Father? This boy knows we have gold. Might he not share that knowledge?’