“This will ruin us,” I say urgently to her. “Ruin you, as well as me. D’you not think that Cecil has a spy in this very castle? D’you not think he knows that you write every day, and that people write to you? D’you not think he reads what you have written and all the letters that come for you? He is the spymaster of England; he will know far more than I do. And even I know that you are in constant correspondence with the French and with the Spanish and that men, whose names I don’t know, write in code to you all the time, asking you if you are safe, if you need anything, if you are going to be set free.”
“I am a queen,” she says simply. “A princess of the blood. The King of Spain and the King of France, the Holy Roman Emperor are my kinsmen. It is only right and proper that the kings of Europe should write to me. And it is a sign of the criminal kidnap that I endure that any of their agents should think it better to send to me in secret. They should be free to write to me openly, but because I am imprisoned, for no reason, for no reason at all, they cannot. And as for the others—I cannot help that loyal hearts and reverent minds write to me. I cannot prevent their writing, nor should I. They wish to express their love and loyalty and I am glad to have it. There can be nothing wrong in that.”
“Think,” I say urgently to her. “If Cecil believes that I cannot stop you plotting, he will take you away from me or replace me with another guardian.”
“I should not even be here!” she exclaims with sudden bitterness. She draws herself up to her full height; her dark eyes fill with sudden tears. “I signed the document for Cecil, I agreed to everything. I promised to give up my son to Elizabeth: you were there, you saw me do it. Why then am I not returned to Scotland as agreed? Why does Cecil not honor his part of the bargain? Pointless to tell me, Don’t write to my friends. I should not have to write to them, I should be among them as a free woman. You think of that!”
I am silenced by her temper and by the justice of what she says. “Please,” I say weakly. It is all I can say. “Please don’t endanger yourself. I have read some of these letters. They come from varlets and fools, some of the most desperate men in England, and none of them has a penny to rub together and none of them could plan an escape if his own life depended on it. They may be your friends but they are not dependable. Some of them are little more than children; some of them are so well known to Cecil that they are on his payroll already. He has turned them to his service. Cecil’s spies are everywhere, he knows everybody. Anyone who writes to you will be known to Cecil and most of them will be his men trying to entrap you. You must not trust these people.
“You have to be patient. You must wait. As you say, you have an agreement with the queen herself. You have to wait for her to honor it.”
“Elizabeth honor a promise to me?” she repeats bitterly. “She has never done so yet!”
“She will,” I say valiantly. “I give you my own word she will.”
1571, FEBRUARY,
SHEFFIELD CASTLE:
BESS
My good friend William Cecil is to be Baron Burghley, and I am as glad of it as if I had been ennobled myself. This is nothing more than he deserves for years of loyal service to the queen, a lifetime of watching her and planning for England. God only knows what dangers we would be in now, what terrible perils we would face—even worse than those that now haunt us—if it had not been for Cecil’s wise advice and steady planning, ever since the queen came to her throne.
That the danger is very real cannot be doubted. In his letter to announce his ennoblement Cecil adds a warning: that he is certain that the Queen of Scots is planning a new uprising.
Dear Bess,
Beware. It may be that you can detect the plot by watching her, though it has escaped us watching her associates in London. I know that Norfolk, while swearing utter loyalty to Her Grace the Queen, is selling his gold and silverware at a knockdown price to the London goldsmiths. He has even parted with his own father’s jewel of the Garter to raise cash. I cannot believe that he would sacrifice his father’s greatest honor for anything other than the opportunity of his life. I can think of nothing that would be worth such a sacrifice to him but some terrible rebellion. I fear very much that he is planning to finance another war.
All my pride and joy in my new position is nothing if the peace of England is destroyed. I may be a baron now, and you may be a countess, but if the queen we serve is thrown down or murdered, then we are no better off than when we were children of landless fathers. Be watchful, Bess, and let me know all that you see, as always.
Burghley
I smile to see his new signature, but the smile drains from my face as I tear his letter into little pieces and feed it into the fire in my muniments room. I cannot believe that a sensible man such as Norfolk would risk everything again—not again!—for the Queen of Scots. But Cecil—Burghley, I should say—is seldom wrong. If he suspects another plot, then I should be on my guard. I will have to warn my husband the earl and watch her myself. I had hoped they would have taken her back to Scotland by now. God knows, I am at the point where I wish they would take her anywhere at all.
1571, FEBRUARY,
SHEFFIELD CASTLE:
MARY
I am hopeful, I am so hopeful. Weeks now, I think, and we will both be free.
Marie
I dress with particular care in black and white, sober colors, but I wear three diamond rings (one is my betrothal ring from Norfolk) and a band of rich bracelets just to demonstrate that though my crown has been taken from me and my rope of black pearls stolen by Elizabeth, I am still a queen. I can still look the part.
Lord Morton is visiting me from Scotland and I want him to go back with the news that I am ready and fit to take my throne. He is due at midday but it is not till the midafternoon and it is growing dark and cold that he comes riding into the courtyard.
Babington, my faithful page boy, comes dashing into my rooms, his nose red from the cold and his little hands frozen, to tell me that the nobleman from Scotland has finally arrived and his horses are being stabled.
I seat myself in my chair, under my cloth of estate, and wait. Sure enough, there is a knock at the door and Shrewsbury is announced with Morton. I do not rise. I let him be presented to me, and when he bows low, I incline my head. He can learn to treat me as a queen again; I don’t forget that before he was as bad as any of them. He can start as I intend we shall go on. He greets me now as a prisoner; he will next see me on my throne in Edinburgh. He can learn deference.
Bess comes in behind the two men and I smile at her as she curtsies. She dips the smallest of bows; there is little love left between us these days. I still sit with her on most afternoons, and I still give her hopes of her prospects when I am returned to the throne, but she is weary of attending on me and beggared by the expense of my court and the guards. I know it, and there is nothing I can or would do to help her. Let her apply to Elizabeth for money for my imprisonment. I am hardly going to pay my own jailers for incarcerating me.
The worry has put lines on her face and a grimness about her that was not there when I first walked into her house more than two years ago. She was newly married then, and her happiness glowed in her face. Her pride in her husband and her position was fresh for her. Now she has lost her fortune in entertaining me, she may lose her house, and she knows she has lost her husband already.
“Good day to you, my lady countess,” I say sweetly and watch her murmur a reply. Then the Shrewsburys take themselves off to the corner of the room, I nod to my lute player to play a tune, and to Mary Seton to see that wine and little cakes are served, and Morton sits on a stool beside me and mutters his news in my ear.
“We are ready for your return, Your Grace,” he says. “We are even preparing your old rooms at Holyrood.”
I bite my lip. For a moment I see again, in my mind, the dark red stain of Rizzio’s blood on the floor of my dining room. For a moment I think what a return to Scotland will mean to me. It will be no summer of French roses. The S
cots were ill-suited to me before, and matters will not have improved. I shall have to live with a barbaric people and dine with a bloodstain on my floor. I shall have to rule them with my will and all my political skills. When Bothwell comes we can dominate them together, but until he arrives I will be in constant danger again of kidnap and rebellion.
“And the prince is being prepared for his journey,” he says. “He is looking forward to going to England; we have explained to him that this will be his home for the future, and he will be King of England one day.”
“He is well?”
“I have reports for you from his nurse and from his governor,” he says. “Also from his tutor. He is well and forward. He is growing strongly and learning his lessons.”
“He speaks clearly now?” Early reports had been of him drooling and failing to close his mouth in eating and in speech. A prince who is to command two kingdoms, perhaps three, has to be beautiful. It is harsh, but this is the way of the world.
“Much improved, as you will see.”
I take the package of reports and hand them to Mary Seton for reading later.
“But I have a request,” he says quietly.
I wait.
“We hear from the English ambassador that you are in correspondence with the King of Spain.”
I raise my eyebrows and say nothing. It is surely not Morton’s business who writes to me. Besides, I am not directly in touch with the King of Spain. He is meeting my emissary Ridolfi, who is traveling to the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, to the Pope himself, and then to Philip of Spain. The joke is that Elizabeth gave him a pass of safe conduct out of the kingdom, having no idea that he was my emissary, touring her enemies to raise a campaign against her.
“And also with the King of France.”
“And?” I ask frostily. “Et puis?”
“I have to ask you, while matters are so sensitive, that you don’t write to them,” he says awkwardly. His Scots accent, always rather thick to my ears, grows more impenetrable as he is embarrassed. “We are making an agreement with Baron Burghley on behalf of the English court—”
“Baron Burghley?”
“Lord William Cecil.”
I nod; the ennoblement of my enemy can only make things worse for me and the old aristocracy—my friends.
“We are making an agreement, but when Lord Cecil finds secret letters to and from enemies of the state and you, he does not trust you. He cannot trust you.”
“The French are my kin,” I point out. “He can hardly blame me for writing to my family when I am far from home and utterly alone.”
Morton smiles. He does not look overly concerned at my loneliness.
“And Philip of Spain? England’s greatest enemy? Even now he is building ships for an invasion. He calls it an armada, to destroy England.”
“I do not write to him,” I lie readily. “And I write nothing to my family which Cecil cannot read.”
“Actually, Your Grace, you probably writenothing at all that he does not read,” he emphasizes. “He probably sees every letter that comes and goes, however clever you think you have been with your secret couriers and number codes and invisible ink.”
I turn my head away from him to indicate my irritation. “I have no state secrets,” I say flatly. “I must be allowed to write to my friends and family.”
“And Ridolfi?” he asks suddenly.
I hold my face quite still. I do not show the smallest flicker of recognition. He could stare at me as if I were a portrait and he still would not see my secret. “I know nothing of any…Ridolfi,” I say as if the name is strange to me. “I know nothing of any letters.”
“I beg of you,” Morton says awkwardly, all flushed with sincerity and embarrassment at being forced to call a lady and a queen a downright liar. “I will not quibble with you over who you know or who you write to. I am not a spy. I am not here to entrap you. Your Grace, I am your true friend and I am here to make the arrangements to return you to Scotland and to your throne. And so I beg of you not to set any plots in motion, not to write to any conspirators, not to trust anyone but myself and Lord Shrewsbury here, and the Queen of England herself. We are all determined to see you returned to your throne. You have to be patient; but if you will be patient and honorable as the great queen that you are, then we will see you restored this year, perhaps this Easter.”
“This Easter?”
“Yes.”
“You give me your word?”
“Yes,” he says, and I believe him. “But will you give me yours?”
“My word?” I repeat icily.
“Your word, as a queen, that you will not plot with the enemies of England.”
I pause. He looks hopeful, as if my safe return to Scotland and all his plans are hanging on this moment. “Very well. I promise,” I say solemnly.
“Your word as a queen?”
“I give you my word as a queen,” I say firmly.
“You will not receive or send secret letters? You will not engage in any conspiracy against the peace of England?”
“I give you my word that I will not.”
Morton sighs and glances over at Shrewsbury as if he is much relieved. Shrewsbury comes closer and smiles at me. “I told you she would promise,” he says. “The queen is determined to return to her throne. She will deal with you and with all your loyal countrymen with spotless honor.”
1571, MARCH,
SHEFFIELD CASTLE:
GEORGE
The queen and I ride home in the bright midday spring sunshine, a wagon following behind us with two roe deer for Bess’s flesh kitchen. The queen is in a lighthearted mood; she loves hunting and rides better than any woman I have ever met; she could outride most men.
When we come through the great gate for the stable yard my heart sinks to see Bess waiting for us, hands on her hips, the very portrait of an offended wife. The queen gives a little ripple of suppressed laughter and turns her head so Bess cannot see her amusement.
I dismount and lift the queen down from the saddle, and then the two of us turn to Bess like children waiting for a reprimand.
She gives an unwilling curtsy. “We are to go to Tutbury,” she says, without preamble.
“Tutbury?” the queen repeats. “I thought we were to stay here and then go to Scotland.”
“A letter from the court,” Bess says. “I have started packing again.”
She hands over the sealed letter to the queen, nods distantly at me, and strides off to where the traveling wagons are being made ready for another journey.
All the joy is wiped from the queen’s face as she hands the letter to me. “Tell me,” she says. “I cannot bear to read it.”
I break the seal and open the letter. It is from Cecil. “I don’t quite understand,” I say. “He writes that you are to go back to Tutbury for greater safety. He says there have been some incidents in London.”
“Incidents? What does he mean?”
“He doesn’t say. He says nothing more than he is watching the situation and he would feel happier for your safety if you were at Tutbury.”
“I would be safer if I were in Scotland,” she snaps. “Does he say when we are to go?”
“No,” I say. I pass the letter to her. “We will have to go as he bids. But I wish I knew what is in his mind.”
She slides a sideways glance at me. “Do you think Bess will know? Might he have written to her separately? Might he have told her what he fears?”
“He might have done.”
She slips off her red leather glove and puts her hand on my wrist. I wonder if she can feel my pulse speed at the touch of her fingers. “Ask her,” she whispers. “Find out from Bess what Cecil is thinking, and tell me.”
1571, MARCH, ON THE
ROAD FROM SHEFFIELD CASTLE TO TUTBURY:
BESS
As always, they ride ahead and I labor behind with the wagons laden with her luxuries. But once they are arrived at the castle and my lord has seen her safe into her usual
rooms, he leaves her and rides back to meet me. I see his surprise at the number of wagons, there are forty on this trip, and at my weariness and dustiness as I ride at their head.
“Bess,” he says awkwardly. “What a number, I did not—”
“Have you come to help them unload?” I ask acidly. “Did you want me, my lord?”
“I wondered if you had news from Gilbert, or Henry, or anyone else at court,” he says hesitantly. “Do you know why they have sent us back here?”
“Does she not tell you?” I ask sarcastically. “I would have thought she would have known.”