I want to tell her, “Because I would say anything to keep her under the same roof as me for another day.” But that would make no sense at all. So I remark, “The news from all around is that Westmorland and Northumberland are on the move and their army is more than two thousand strong. I don’t want to send them out into trouble. It does us no good at all if they go from here into an ambush.”
Bess nods, but she does not look convinced. “We don’t want her trapped here,” she says. “The army will swarm to her like wasps to a jam pot. Better she goes than they set siege to us here. Better that she goes sooner rather than later. We don’t want her here. We don’t want her army coming here for her.”
I nod. The newlywed husband and wife that we were only months ago did not want her here, interrupting our happiness. But us? Now we are divided in our wishes. Bess thinks only of how to get herself and her fortune safe through this dangerous time. And for some reason, I cannot think at all. I cannot plan at all. I think I must have a touch of the gout that I had before. I have never felt so light-headed and so weary and so sick. I seem to spend hours looking out the window across the courtyard to where her shutters are closed. I must beill. I can think of nothing but that I have only four days left with her under my roof, and I can’t even devise a reason to go across the courtyard and speak to her. Four days and I may spend them like a dog sitting outside a shut door, not knowing how to get in. I am howling inside my head.
1569, NOVEMBER,
TUTBURY CASTLE:
BESS
It is dawn when I hear the hammering on the great house gate. I am awake at once, certain that it is the Northern army come for her. George does not move; he lies like a stone, though I know he is wide awake; he never seems to sleep these days. He lies and listens with his eyes shut; he will not talk to me or give me any chance to talk to him. Even now, with the hammering at the door, he does not move—he is a man who has had someone else to open his door for all his life. I get crossly out of bed, pull a robe around my nakedness, tie the strings, and run to the door and down the stairs to where the gate-keeper is swinging open the gate and a mud-stained rider clatters into the courtyard, his face white in the dawn light. Thank God it is a messenger from London and not a force from the North. Thank God they have not come for her and no one here to face them but me in my nightgown and my husband left abed, lying like a gravestone.
“Name?” I demand.
“From Cecil.”
“What is it?”
“War,” he says shortly. “Finally it is war. The North is up; the lords Westmorland and Northumberland have declared against the queen, their men out, their banners unfurled. They are riding under the banner of the five wounds of Christ; every Papist in the country is flocking to join them. They have sworn to restore the true religion, to pay proper rates to working men, and”—he nods to the royal lodgings—“free her and put her back on her throne.”
I clutch the robe to my throat; the chill air is as icy as dread. The mist coming off the water meadows is as wet as rain. “They are coming here? You are sure?”
“For certainty. Here. Your orders,” he says, digging into his satchel and thrusting a crumpled letter at me. With a breath of relief, as if paper alone can save me, I recognize Cecil’s writing.
“How far are they? How strong the army?” I demand, as he swings down from the saddle.
“I didn’t see them, thank God, on my way here, but who knows?” he says tersely. “Some say they will take York first, others Durham. They could take York and restore the kingdom of the North. It will be the great wars all over again, but worse. Two queens, two faiths on crusade, two armies, and a fight to the death. If the Spanish land their army for her, which they can do within days from the Spanish Netherlands, it will be all over, and we will be dead.”
“Get what you want from the kitchen, but say nothing to them,” I tell him and go back to my bedroom at a run. George is sitting up in bed, his face grim.
“Wife?” he asks.
“Read this,” I say, thrusting it at him and climbing on the bed.
He takes the letter and breaks the seal. “What’s happening?”
“The messenger says that the lords of the North have their army and are on the march,” I say briefly. “They have declared war. They are coming here for her.”
He shoots a quick look at me and spreads the letter. “This is from Cecil. He says we are to get away south immediately. We have to take her to the castle at Coventry at once for safekeeping. He will command us from there. We have to get south before they rescue her. We must go at once.” He jumps from the bed. “Sound the alarm,” he says. “I shall have to rouse the guard and take her at once. And you go to her and tell her she has to make ready to leave at once.”
I pause at the doorway, struck by a bitter thought. “I wager she knows all about it,” I say suddenly. “They will have told her when they visited. When you let her talk with them in private. She will be in their confidence. She will have had secret letters. She has probably been waiting for them all this last week.”
“Just get her ready to leave.”
“What if she won’t go?”
“Then I will have to tie her to her horse,” he says. “An army of fifty could take this place in an hour. And half our servants would free her for love, and open the gates for her. If they set a siege we are lost.”
I am so glad to hear of his planned brutality to her that I am halfway out the door before the thought strikes me. “But wait, my lord. Wait! What if they win?”
He checks in his rapid dressing, the laces for his riding trousers in his hands. “If they win?”
“What if the army of the North takes and holds the North? What if Westmorland and Northumberland are victorious and march on London? What if the Spanish arrive to support them? What if Howard brings in the east of the country and the Cornish get up for the old religion, the Welsh too? What if they defeat Elizabeth, and we are imprisoning the future queen? What if you are tying the next Queen of England to her horse? Then we are traitors and will die in the Tower.”
My husband shakes his head, baffled. “I serve the queen,” he says flatly. “I have given my word as a Talbot. I have to do as my king commands. I don’t serve the side that I guess might win. I serve the king. Whatever it costs me. If Mary Queen of Scots is victorious and becomes Mary Queen of England, then I will serve her. But till then, I serve the crowned queen, Elizabeth.”
He understands nothing but loyalty and honor. “Yes, yes, once she is crowned queen you change sides and then it is the honorable thing to do. But how will we and our children and our fortunes be secure. Now. In these dangerous days. While everything hangs in the balance. When we cannot tell which queen will be crowned in London.”
He shakes his head. “There is no safety,” he says. “There is no safety for anyone in England now. I just have to follow the crown.”
I go then, and order them to wake the castle and turn out the guard. The great bell starts tolling like a heart booming with fear. I send them running to the kitchen to get all the stores loaded on wagons, I shout for my steward of the household to pack the most valuable goods, as we will have to take them with us, and then I go to her quarters, to the other queen’s rooms, shaking with anger that she should bring such dire trouble upon us this day, and so much more trouble to come in the days that will follow.
And as I run I open the little piece of paper that came for me, scribbled with my name, in the package from London. It is from Cecil.
If you are in danger of being captured by the army of the North, she must be killed. Hastings will do it, or if he is dead you must command your husband in the queen’s name. Or anyone whose loyalty you trust, whose silence you can guarantee. If there is no one left alive but you women, you will have to do it yourself. Carry a knife. Burn this.
1569, NOVEMBER,
TUTBURY CASTLE:
MARY
At last! I think, Good God! At last! as I hear the bell tolling, and know a
t once that the war has started. At last they have come for me, and only a day to spare before I would have been kidnapped by that brute Hastings. I wake and dress, as fast as I can, my hands trembling with laces, and start to pack the things I must take with me, burning the letters from my ambassador, from my betrothed, from the Spanish ambassador, from his agent Ridolfi, from Bothwell. I wait for the countess or for Shrewsbury to come and beg me to hurry, hurry to run away from this castle that they cannot defend. I shall travel with them. I shall obey their orders. I dare not defy them and risk Hastings’ snatching me from them. My only safety is to stay with Shrewsbury until my army catches us.
I won’t leave Shrewsbury until I am safe with my own army. I dare not. He has been my only friend in England; I have seen no other man that I can trust. And he has never been anything but kind to me. He has never been anything but honorable. A woman with a man like this at her side would be safe. God knows how much I long to be safe.
Westmorland has sworn to me he will come wherever I am. Only if they take the road to London and to the Tower must I make my escape. If Elizabeth, in her fear, tries to put me in the dungeon where she herself waited for her death sentence, I must get away.
I don’t need to resist them, for while this war is waging, it does not matter where they take me. The lords will demand my freedom as part of their settlement with Elizabeth, wherever I am hidden. They will demand the right to our religion and the right to my freedom, and with the North up in arms she will be forced to agree. The North has always been another kingdom; Elizabeth’s rule has never run north of the Trent. No Tudor has ever ventured farther than York. If the northerners defy her she will have to make an agreement with them, whatever her preferences.
Beyond all this is a greater plan, an ambitious plan that I do not sanction. I dare not sanction it. I will not make war against a queen on her throne. But of course they all think that if a battle is joined, and it goes their way, then they can march on London. They can take me to the very throne of England itself. This is what Philip of Spain and his ambassador want. This is why his banker Roberto Ridolfi has paid over a fortune in Spanish gold. To put me on the throne not only of Scotland, but of England too. This is nothing more than my right. Elizabeth is a disowned bastard of the late King Henry; I am the granddaughter of his sister. I am the true heir and I should have the throne. I was raised to claim it as my own. They call it the “great enterprise of England” and they swear it can be done. If the people of England rise to defend their faith, shall they consent to a settlement that leaves a heretic on the throne to rule them? What is the point of rising against Elizabeth unless we throw her down forever? The people of England want a queen of their faith, one pledged to tolerance and fairness who will restore the church and the old ways of England.
This is not my plan, I do not plot treason. I would never encourage rebellion against an anointed queen, however badly she has betrayed me, however false her claim. But I have lived long enough to know that all things are decided by God. When the tide is running strongly it will carry all the boats. If God gives us a great victory and the army of the North rides on to take London, then it is God who gives me the throne of England and I would be an ungrateful daughter to refuse it.
I think of Elizabeth, flying to Windsor Castle with double guards posted at the gates, the trained bands of London called to arms, scrambling to find their weapons, scouts racing up the north road, terrified that at any moment the army of the North will come marching south and demand her exile or her death, and I find myself hard-pressed not to laugh aloud at the thought of her fear.
Now she knows how it feels when your people turn against you. Now she knows the terror that I felt when I heard that they would dare to wage war against their own anointed queen. She let my people rise up against me, without punishment. She let them know that they could rebel against me, their God-given ruler, and throw me from my throne, and now the people rise against her, and if they throw her down, who shall save her? She should have thought of that before now! I bet she is shaking in her shoes, looking out of her window at the river, straining her eyes for the first sign of the sails of the Spanish ships. She is prone to fear; by now she will be sick with terror. The French are sworn to support me, the Spanish are my loyal friends. The Holy Father himself prays for me by name and says I should be restored. But Elizabeth? Who is Elizabeth’s friend? A rabble of Huguenots in France, a couple of German princes, who else? None! She is alone. And now she is facing her own countrymen, alone.
I do everything I am bidden, packing my clothes, boxing my books and my jewels, giving my new tapestry to Mary to carry for me, and running down the stone stairs to the stable yard with the bell tolling out a warning, the maids screaming, and the dogs barking.
It is raining, a fine cold drizzle, which will mean the roads will churn into mud under our horses’ hooves and travel will be painfully slow. The soldiers are pale-faced in the dawn light, fearing the powder for their pistols will be damp and they will have to face the horsemen of the North without weapons. Everyone but me looks half-sick with terror.
Anthony Babington, Bess’s sweetest young page, comes to me as I am getting into my saddle and whispers to me the code word that tells me I can trust him: “Sunflower.”
It is theimpresa of my girlhood, my chosen badge, the sunflower, which turns to light and warmth and hope. “Send a message to them if you can, to tell them where I am going,” I whisper to him, hardly looking at him, as he tightens the girth on my horse and straightens the reins for me. “I don’t know where they are taking me. South, somewhere.”
His honest boy’s face beams up at me. Bless the child. His brown eyes are filled with adoration. “But I know,” he says joyfully. “I heard my lord talking. Coventry. I will tell them.”
“But you take care,” I warn him. “Take no risks. You are too young to put your head in a noose.”
He flushes. “I am eight,” he says stoutly, as if it were a great age. “And I have been in service since I was six.”
“You are a young man of courage,” I say to him, and see his boyish flush.
All the way along the road, as we ride as fast as we dare in the gray light of a wintry dawn, I see the men looking to the left and to the right, listening for the sound of drums and pipes, fearfully alert for the great army of the men of the North. They fear that they will round a bend in the road and find a wall of men, waiting to take me. They fear that even now the horsemen are closing on us, coming up on us from the rear, gaining on us however fast we ride. They know that coming down the road behind us are men who have sworn to restore the true religion and the true queen, an army on the march under the very banner of Christ, in His very name, riding to revenge sacrilege against their church, treason against their queen, sin against their country’s history. My captors know they are in the wrong, know they are outnumbered and defeated before they start. They march at speed, almost at a run, their heads down and their faces gray; they are men in abject terror.
Agnes and Mary and I ride three abreast in silence, a secret smile passing between us from time to time, hard put not to laugh out loud. I look ahead and there is poor Shrewsbury, his face stony with worry, his eyes raking the horizon. Beside him rides my lord Hastings, his face grim, a sword at his side, an assassin’s dagger hidden in his coat. He will not enjoy the experience of running before a greater force; he will hate the stink of panic that his men give off as they hurry along the road.
Bustling behind us, left far behind as usual, is the redoubtable countess Bess, organizing stores to follow us, no doubt sending messengers to London for news, desperate to end up on the right side, desperate to know what the right side will be. I shan’t have her in my household whatever side she decides to turn her coat. I don’t forget she would have handed me over to Hastings. I don’t forget she fears that I want her husband. I so despise a jealous wife and I have spent my life hounded by the fears of less beautiful women.
She was in the courtyard as we scrambl
ed into the saddle; she was at my side as her husband lifted me up to my horse, trust her not to give us a moment together. She was there even before the page boy Babington. She took my hand and raised her strained face to me. “I swear you will be safe,” she promised quietly. “If you are in danger I will come to you and set you free. If Cecil sends word that you are to be taken to the Tower, I shall get you safely away. I am on your side. I have always been on your side.”
I did not let her see my leap of joy.Non, vraiment! Of course, I have no expectation of her saving me, she is such a liar! This promise is nothing but her desperate bid to hold both sides at once. But what this tells me is that she thinks the Northern army will win. Whatever news she has from London, it warns her that things are going badly for Elizabeth’s men, so badly that Bess wants me to know that she is my friend. She has the news from London in her pocket and now she wants to be my ally. I am watching Bess, Countess of Shrewsbury, turn her back on everything she believes in, desperate to be on the winning side. I don’t laugh out loud, I don’t even let her see my amusement. I press her hand gently in mine. “You have been a good friend to me, Countess,” I say sweetly. “I shall not forget you or your husband when I come to my own again.”