This autumn, my husband the earl and I will escort the queen to Scotland, and if she rewards him as richly as she should, we shall have Scottish lands and perhaps a Scottish dukedom. If she gives him the rights to the harbor dues of a port, or the taxes on the import of some restricted goods, or even the tolls of the border roads, we might make our fortune again from this painful vigil. If she plays us false and gives us nothing, then at the very least, we are rid of her, and that alone is worth a barony to me. And when we are rid of her there is no doubt in my mind that he will return to me in his heart. We did not marry for passion but for a mutual respect and affection, and our interests run together now, as they did then. I put my lands into his keeping, as I had to; he put his children and his honorable name into mine. Surely, when she is gone, and he has recovered from his foolish adoration of her, he will come back to me and we can be once more as we were before.
So I comfort myself, hoping for a better future, as I walk from the rose garden to the garden door. Then I pause, as I hear the worst sound in the world: the sound of galloping hooves, rapid like an anxious heartbeat, and I know at once, without a moment’s doubt, that something terrible has happened. Something truly terrible is happening again. Some terror is coming into my life carried by a galloping horse. She has brought some horror to our door and it is coming as fast as it can ride.
1571, SEPTEMBER,
SHEFFIELD CASTLE:
GEORGE
Iam in the mews, tending to my favorite hawk, when I hear Bess screaming my name at the same time as I hear the tolling of the castle bell.
The hawk bates off my wrist and tries to fly in terror at the noise, and there is a moment of flapping wings and confusion and me hollering for the falconer, as if the world is ending. He comes at the run and hoods the frightened bird, scoops her into his steady hands, and takes her from me as I unwind the leash and hand her over to him, and all the time the terrible bell is tolling and tolling, loud enough to wake the dead, too loud for the living.
“God save us, what is it?” he demands of me. “Have the Spanish landed? Is it the North up again?”
“I don’t know. Get the bird safe. I have to go,” I say, and I set off at a run for the front of the house.
I am not strong enough for these alarms. I cannot run, even though my heart is pounding in terror. I drop to a walk, cursing my lungs and my legs, and when I get to the front of the house I see Bess there, white as a sheet, and a man collapsed on the ground before her, with his head between his knees, having fainted from exhaustion.
She hands me the letter he has brought, without a word. It is Cecil’s handwriting, but scrawled as if he has lost his mind. My heart sinks as I see it is addressed to me, but on the outside he has written, “5th of September, 1571, at 9 of the night. Haste, post haste. Haste, haste, for life, life, life, life.”
“Open it! Open it! Where have you been?” Bess screams at me.
I break the seal. The man on the ground whoops for his breath and begs for water. No one attends to him.
“What is it?” Bess demands. “Is it the queen? Never say she is dead!”
“The Spanish are coming,” I say. I can hear my own voice tight and cold with fear. “Cecil writes that the Spanish are to land an army of six thousand men. Six thousand. Six thousand. They are coming here to free her.”
“What are we to do? Are we to go to Tutbury?”
The man raises his head. “No use,” he croaks.
Bess looks blankly at me. “Are we to ride south?”
“Are you in Cecil’s confidence?” I ask him.
He gives me a wry smile as if to say that no one is in that position. “It’s too late to get her away. I have my orders,” he says. “I am to discover all that she knows and get back to my lord. You are to stay here and wait for the invasion. You can’t outrun them.”
“Dear God,” Bess says. “What are we to do when they come?”
He says nothing, but I know the answer is “Kill her.”
“Is the queen safe?” I demand. “Our queen, Elizabeth?”
“When I left she was safe,” he says. “But my lord was sending guards to Audley End to bring her back to London.”
“They plan to capture Queen Elizabeth,” I say briefly to Bess. “It says here. They have a great plan. Kidnap the Queen of England, free the Queen of Scots, raise the people. The Spanish will march through us.” I turn to the man. “Was London ours when you left?”
He nods. “Please God, we are ahead of them by a matter of days. The Queen of Scots’ spy, a man called Ridolfi, blabbed the whole plan to an English merchant in Madrid. Thank the lord he knew what he was hearing and sent word to Cecil, as fast as his messenger could travel. Cecil sent me to you. We think the Spanish will be upon us in days. Their armada is launched, the Spanish Netherlands is armed, and the Pope is sending his wealth to arm traitors and calling out all the English Papists.”
I glance down the letter. “Cecil says that I am to interrogate the queen and prevail upon her to tell me all she knows.”
“I am to be with you,” he says. He staggers to his feet and brushes the dirt from his breeches.
I bristle at the suggestion that I cannot be trusted. He falls back against the portals of the front door from sheer exhaustion.
“This is a matter beyond pride,” he says, seeing that I want to refuse him admission to the queen. “I have to see her and search her room for papers. The Scots queen may know where the Spanish are landing. We have to muster our army and get ready to meet them. This is life or death for England, not just her.”
“I’ll speak to her.” I turn to Bess. “Where is she?”
“Walking in the garden,” she says, her face grave. “I’ll send a girl to fetch her.”
“We’ll go now,” the young man decides, but his legs buckle beneath him as he tries to walk.
“You can barely stand!” Bess exclaims.
He grabs on to the pommel of his saddle and hauls himself upright. The look he shoots at Bess is desperate. “I can’t rest,” he says. “I don’t dare rest. I have to hear what the queen will tell us and get it back to my lord. If she knows at which port the Spanish are landing, we might even be able to intercept the armada at sea and drive them off. Once they land, with six thousand, we won’t have a chance, but if we can hold them at sea…”
“Come then,” I say. “Walk with me.” I give him my arm, and the two of us, I weak with gout and he with exhaustion, hobble towards the gardens.
She is there, like a girl waiting for her lover, at the gate. “I heard the bell,” she says. Her face is bright with hope. She looks from the young man to me. “What is happening? Why did they ring the alarm?”
“Your Grace, I must ask you some questions, and this gentleman—”
“Sir Peter Brown.” He bows to her.
“This gentleman will listen. He has come from Lord Burghley with most disturbing news.”
Her gaze that meets my eyes is so honest and true that I am certain that she knows nothing of this. If the Spanish land, they will do so without her knowledge. If they come for her and take her from me, it will be without her consent. She gave her word to Lord Morton and to me that she would not plot with anyone anymore. She plans to get back to Scotland by Elizabeth’s treaty, not by destroying England. She gave her word there would be no more plots.
“Your Grace,” I begin trustingly, “you must tell Sir Peter all that you know.”
She droops a little, like a flower heavy-headed in a shower of rain. “But I know nothing,” she says gently. “You know that I am cut off from my friends and my family. You know yourself that you see every letter that comes for me and that I see no one without your consent.”
“I am afraid that you know more than I do,” I say. “I am afraid that you know more than you tell me.”
“You don’t trust me now?” Her dark eyes widen as if she cannot believe that I would betray the affection I have for her, as if she cannot imagine that I would accuse her of being
false, especially in front of a stranger and an adherent of her enemy.
“Your Grace, I dare not trust you,” I say clumsily. “Sir Peter here has brought me a message from Lord Burghley that commands me to question you. You are implicated in a plot. I have to ask you what you know.”
“Shall we sit?” she asks distantly, like the queen she is, and turns her back on us and leads us into the garden. There is a bench in an arbor with roses growing around the seat. She spreads out her gown and sits, like a girl interviewing suitors. I take the stool that her lady-in-waiting was using, and Sir Peter drops to the grass at her feet.
“Ask,” she invites me. “Please, ask me whatever you want. I should like to clear my name. I should like everything to be aboveboard with us.”
“Will you give me your word that you will tell me the truth?”
Queen Mary’s face is as open as a child’s. “I have never lied to you, Chowsbewwy,” she says sweetly. “You know I have always insisted that I be allowed to write privately to my friends and to my family. You know I have admitted that they are forced to write to me secretly and I to reply. But I have never plotted against the Queen of England, and I have never encouraged rebellion of her subjects. You can ask me what you wish. My conscience is clear.”
“Do you know a Florentine named Roberto Ridolfi?” Sir Peter says quietly.
“I have heard of him, but I have never met him nor had any correspondence with him.”
“How have you heard of him?”
“I have heard that he lent the Duke of Norfolk some money,” she says readily.
“D’you know what the money was for?”
“For his private use, I think,” she says. She turns to me. “My lord, you know I do not have letters from the duke anymore. You know he has abandoned our betrothal and sworn allegiance to the queen. He broke his betrothal to me and deserted me, on the command of his queen.”
I nod. “That’s true,” I say aside to Sir Peter.
“You have had no letters from him?”
“Not since he broke his promise to me. I would not receive a letter from him if he wrote it, not since he rejected me,” she says proudly.
“And when did you last hear from the Bishop of Ross?” Sir Peter asks her.
She frowns, trying to remember. “Lord Chowsbewwy would recall, perhaps. His letters are always delivered to me by Lord Chowsbewwy.” She turns to me. “He wrote to say he was safely back in London after visiting us at Chatsworth, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“And you have not heard from him since?”
Again she turns to me. “I don’t think so. Have we? No.”
Sir Peter gets to his feet and puts his hand against the warm stone wall as if to steady himself. “Have you had any letters from the Pope or from Philip of Spain or any of their servants?”
“Do you mean ever?” she asks, a little puzzled.
“I mean this summer. I mean in the past few months.”
She shakes her head. “Nothing. Have they written to me and their letters gone astray? I think Lord Burghley spies upon me and steals my messages, and you can tell him from me that it is wrong to do so.”
Sir Peter bows to her. “Thank you for your courtesy in talking with me, Your Grace. I will leave you now.”
“I have a question for you,” she tells him.
“Yes?”
“I am a prisoner, but that does not guarantee my safety. I was alarmed when I heard the bell ringing, and your questions have not reassured me. Please tell me, Sir Peter, what is happening? Please reassure me that my cousin the queen is safe and well.”
“Do you think she might be in danger?”
She glances down as if the question is an embarrassment. “I know there are many who disagree with her rule,” she says, shamefaced. “I am afraid there are those who would plot against her. There may even be those who would plot against her in my name. But that does not mean that I have joined with them. I wish her nothing but good, and I always have done. I am here in her country, in her power, imprisoned by her, because I trusted to the love that she promised me. She failed that love; she failed the bond that should be between queens. But even so, I would never wish her anything but good health and safety and good fortune.”
“Her Grace is blessed with such a friendship,” Sir Peter says, and I wonder if he is being ironic. I look at him quickly, but I can tell nothing. He and the queen are equally bland. I cannot tell what either of them is truly thinking.
“So, is she safe?” she asks.
“When I left London the queen was on progress in the country and enjoying the warm weather,” he says. “My lord Burghley has uncovered a plot in time to destroy it. All those who were party to it will go to the scaffold. Every one of them. I am here only to ensure that you are safe also.”
“And where is she?” Queen Mary asks him.
“On progress,” he replies levelly.
“This plot concerns me?” she asks.
“I think many plots concern you,” he says. “But luckily my lord Burghley’s men are thorough. You are safe here.”
“Well, I thank you,” she says coolly.
“A word,” Sir Peter says to me as he turns away from her, and I follow him to the garden gate. “She is lying,” he says bluntly. “Lying like a trooper.”
“I dare swear she is not—”
“I know she is,” he says. “Ridolfi was carrying a letter of introduction from her to the Pope himself. He showed it to Cecil’s man. He boasted of her support. She told the Pope to trust Ridolfi as he would trust her own self. Ridolfi has a plan he calls ‘the Great Enterprise of England’ to destroy us all. It is this plot which is coming to us now. She has called down six thousand fanatical Papist Spaniards on us. And she knows where they are landing, and she has organized for their payment.”
I hold on to the gate to conceal the weakness in my knees.
“I can’t question her,” he goes on. “I cannot interrogate her as I would any ordinary suspect. If she was anyone else she would be in the Tower now and we would be piling rocks on her chest till her ribs broke and her lies were squeezed out with her last gasping breath. We can’t do that to her, and it is hard to tell what other pressure we can bring to bear. To tell truth, I can hardly bear to speak to her. I can hardly look into her false face.”
“There is no more beautiful woman in the world!” bursts from me.
“Oh aye, she’s lovely. But how can you admire a face which is two-faced?”
For a moment I am about to argue, and then I remember the sweetness of her inquiry after her cousin’s health and I think of her writing to Philip of Spain, bringing the Spaniards in on us, summoning the armada and the end of England. “Are you certain she knows of this plot?”
“Knows of it? She has made it!”
I shake my head. I cannot believe it. I will not believe it.
“I have asked her as much as I can. But she might be more honest with you or the countess,” the young man says earnestly. “Go back to her, see if you can find out any more. I shall eat and rest here tonight and leave at dawn.”
“Ridolfi could have forged his letter which said that she recommended him,” I suggest. “Or he could be lying about it.” Or, I think, in the mess we are in since I can be sure of nothing, you could be lying to me or Cecil lying to us all.
“Suppose we start with the presumption that it is she who is lying,” he says. “See if you can get anything out of her. The plans of the Spanish especially. We have to know what they are going to do. If she knows, she must tell you. If we had the slightest idea where they would land we could save hundreds of lives; we might save our country. I will see you before I leave. I am going to her rooms. My men will be turning them upside down right now.”
He sketches a little bow and walks away. I turn back to her. She is smiling at me as I walk across the grass and I know that heart-stopping mischievous gleam. I know it, I know her.
“How pale you are, dear Chowsbew
wy,” she remarks. “These alarms are bad for us both. I nearly fainted when I heard the bell.”
“You know, don’t you?” I ask wearily. I don’t sit down on the stool at her feet again, I remain standing, and she rises from the seat and comes beside me. I can smell the perfume in her hair; she stands so close that if I stretched out my hand I could touch her waist. I could draw her to me. She tilts back her head and smiles at me, a knowing smile, one that would be exchanged between warm familiar friends, a lovers’ smile.