The King's Daughter (34 page)

“What, man?” Lord William Howard sputtered over Frances’s shoulder.
“All
of Captain Winter’s men?”

The messenger nodded, confirming the disaster. “All gone over to the traitor, my lord.”

“That means the ship’s guns, too,” Lord Pembroke growled.

There were gasps, murmurs of outrage, a barrage of questions. Frances tightened her grip on the Queen in reassurance and looked out at the alarmed faces. Bishop Gardiner snapped at a man tugging his sleeve. Lord Paulet shook his head gloomily. Sir Richard Riche pushed a priest out of the way to get closer to hear. The Earl of Arundel scowled from the foot of the stairs flanked by his armed retainers. Everyone else was talking at once.

“I ask my councilors present to meet with me in the gallery,” the Queen declared. She tried to step down but the way was solidly blocked. “Let me pass,” she said quietly.

But the commotion persisted. Frances looked imploringly at the men in front. “Please, my lords!”

“Let the Queen through!” Riche bellowed.

Others took up the cry. “Let the Queen pass!”

The crowd shuffled back to the banisters. Mary moved down the stairs and beckoned the Earl of Arundel to walk with her. Men crowded behind in their wake, their anxious voices almost as loud as before. Few of those present were members of the royal council, but no one left; everyone followed the Queen. Frances and Amy did too, for they had not been dismissed. The whole entourage moved swiftly down the corridor.

Frances saw Edward approaching with her brother, both looking in wonder at the noisy disturbance. Edward and John fell in and walked beside Frances and Amy. Gratefully, Frances felt for Edward’s hand.

Amy shook her head. “Lord, such a to-do over a few cowardly sailors,” she said, scoffing.

“Is it true?” John anxiously asked his sister above the hubbub.

“The messenger is a retainer of Lord Paulet’s,” she answered. “He is reliable.”

“But surely Mistress Hawtry has a point,” Edward said.

Frances shot him a look of surprise. Edward appeared unnerved, she thought. In fact, quite shaken.

“After all, why such panic over a handful of ships?” Edward went on. “The Emperor will have a
hundred
ships on their way by now, an armada. The Queen is his kinswoman. He will never let this rabble of Wyatt’s destroy the marriage he has planned for his son.”

“Thank you, Master Sydenham,” Amy said with a smile. “I am glad to see that not everyone at court has lost his head.”

The Queen had reached the doors of the gallery, but the crowd surged around her again, and around her councilors trying to get through. The whole mass jammed the way to the doors, still jabbering. No one could move. Frances caught sight of the Queen pressing her fingers to her temples.

“It is not the handful of ships that matters so much,” John said grimly.

Edward looked at him. “Then what?”

“It is—how shall I put it?—the symbolism. The treachery. Every Englishman who is turned by Wyatt cleaves wider the rift between the Queen and her people.” He added quietly, “It is a rift that could cost her her crown.”

Edward seemed to blanch. Frances suddenly felt anxious about him. “Edward, you look quite unwell,” she said.

“Do I?” He waved a hand dismissively. “It’s only these negotiations with the Fuggers for the loan. They dragged out so the other night.”

“But you must not ruin your health with this work.”

Amy laughed. “The negotiations were at the Venetian Ambassador’s supper, Frances. Did you consider that it might have been
pleasure
that kept him up? Not
everyone
fusses and frets all the time. Do they, Master Sydenham?” She gave Edward a sly look that infuriated Frances.

“Edward is working tirelessly in the service of Her Majesty, Amy,” she snapped. “If you think—”

“It’s all right, Frances,” Edward whispered, his eyes fixed on the Queen across the jostling crowd. “It’s not just the work. I’m rather worried about my steward. I sent him on an errand to Newgate last night and he has not yet reported back.”

Frances smiled. “Dear Edward, always so concerned for others.” She felt so proud of him. A girl like Amy would never understand the worth of such a man. A happy thought struck her: she knew the way to cheer him. She decided to do it immediately. She started to push toward the Queen, but could make little headway through the crush.

“Enough, my lords!” It was the Queen’s voice, strident with anger. There was instant silence, as though everyone was suddenly ashamed.

“Enough,” Mary repeated, controlling herself. “I will hear no more words of fear. God and right are on our side.”

“Yes, but are the soldiers?” a voice in the back muttered morosely.

Everyone heard it. The Queen’s face went pale. “Do any of you doubt that God will stand by me?”

The silence hung heavily.

“Perhaps,” the Queen went on tightly, “instead of importuning
me,
you could be stirring yourselves to help our cause.
Some
of my loyal servants are doing so. My Lord of Arundel has just told me that he is bringing me four hundred fighting men from his estates. That is heartening news indeed! And Master Edward Sydenham has just negotiated a great loan through the Lombard bankers of London to secure us many more troops. These two gentlemen are busy in the defense of the realm. I thank God for their loyalty and steadfastness. And I suggest that it be an example to you all.”

In the silence the Queen turned toward the gallery doors.

“Your Majesty!” Frances called. The Queen stopped and looked. Frances eagerly pushed through to her. “My lady, Master Sydenham is indeed your faithful servant. He has done more than you know. He has uncovered one of the plotters of the rebellion!”

Murmurs rumbled through the crowd.

“And the man is at this moment in London!” Frances declared.

“Who is it, Frances?” Queen Mary asked.

“Richard Thornleigh. My father’s murderer.”

“What? That family of heretics?”

“The same, my lady.” Since yesterday, the crisis over Wyatt had so claimed the Queen’s time that Frances had not had the opportunity to speak to her of this. It all poured out of her now. “For the murder, Thornleigh has been locked in Newgate prison. But Master Sydenham has discoveredmore. Compounded to Thornleigh’s crimes of heresy and murder, he has also committed treason. Interrogate Thornleigh, Your Majesty, and I warrant you will learn with what stratagems and devices the traitors plan to come against you.”

The Queen looked through the crowd in Edward’s direction. “Master Sydenham, have you indeed ferreted out this man’s treason?”

Edward stood openmouthed. His face was white as paper. It must be his awe at being called by the Queen, Frances thought. She beamed at him and answered for him. “He did, my lady.”

The Queen beckoned Edward to her. He stepped forward, stumbling over someone’s foot. Frances’s pride swelled in her breast as he came before the Queen. Blinking, he bowed.

“I am most grateful to you for marking this traitor,” Queen Mary said. She scanned the faces around her. “Is the Sergeant of the Guard present?”

A guard answered that the Sergeant was in the city, busy with martial preparations.

“Send him this command,” the Queen said. “He shall take his men to Newgate prison in the morning and bring forth Richard Thornleigh. He shall transport Thornleigh to my prison of the Tower to await his trial for treason—and my displeasure.”

Frances closed her eyes, savoring this vindication for her father.

“And to you, dear sir,” the Queen said, turning back to Edward, “I wish to give an earnest of my gratitude. It has long been a privilege of the monarch at a battle to bestow thanks to valiant warriors by knighting them at the scene of glory. The efforts you are making to secure the safety of this realm are no less valiant for being fought on a different battlefield. Today I make you a knight. And I appoint you as one of my lieutenants in the defense of the city of London. In this you shall work alongside Lord John Grenville and under the command of my Lord Howard. Kneel, sir.”

Shakily, Edward went to his knees. The Earl of Arundel passed the Queen his sword.

“This evil is God’s test of us, sir,” the Queen said to Edward. “Drive back the traitors and you shall have His thanks, as well as an even greater show of mine.”

Frances felt tears of pride sting her eyes as the flat of the sword tapped Edward’s shoulder. She caught the Queen glancing at her as she addressed Edward in a warm voice clearly meant for all to hear, “Rise, Sir Edward. Loyalty is a wondrous virtue. Glad I am that my dear friend Frances will be blessed with such a husband.”

20
Change of Pla

T
hornleigh coughed. It felt like claws ripping his gullet.
Throat’s swollen. Must be coming down with something … so cold here.

He sat watching a work party across the ward, a cellarman overseeing two prisoners toss bodies onto the charnel-house cart. “The corpse cart,” the prisoners called it. Though he’d been down here for only a day and night, he’d learned that much. The unchained ones had scuffled aside when the cart came, superstitious about being near it.

The cellarman had brought a torch, illuminating this patch of the ward, and Thornleigh could now see the filth that in the gloom he’d only smelled. Clumps of urine-spongy straw. Verminous nests of rags inhabited by equally verminous humans. And corpses. Watching the work party inthe twitching torchlight, he thought it looked like some macabre pantomime of Satan’s minions tidying up in hell.

He hugged himself more tightly, but nothing stopped the shivering. Late last night he had found this spot, an alcove matted with black straw, and he’d huddled here, a couple of red-eyed rats watching him from the corner. It offered a little warmth, but nothing stopped the shivering. All night he had drifted in and out of sleep, exhaustion dulling his brain into slumber until nightmare visions jolted him awake again. Cold as he was, his eyelids burned like hot sand, and his throat was as parched as a becalmed ship’s deck under a baking August sun. A pail of water had been brought to the door around noon and Thornleigh had gulped down several ladles full, but that was hours ago. Now, he dreamed of water even when awake.

Two nearby prisoners—new arrivals energetically arranging their meager belongings—had been quietly arguing in the corner, and now one of them raised his voice. “I tell you, it’s war! There’s a hundred thousand Spaniards let loose on our shores, and this fellow Wyatt’s out to stop ‘em!”

“What’s Spaniards to me?” the other groused. “Will Wyatt come to London town is all I want to know.”

“Good Christ, what care the likes of you if he come to London or if he battle the bastards on the beaches?”

“If he come to London mayhap he’ll burst down New-gate’s doors and set us free.”

“And why in Christ’s name would he be doing that with a hundred thousand Spaniards on his arse!”

Wyatt, Thornleigh thought, shaking his head. The rebels had taken their stand against the Queen five days ago, and yet, to him, what did it matter now if Wyatt won or lost?
I’ll be leaving this foul prison only to hang.

Yet Honor was for the rebels; he could not forget that. Honor, always so quick to bristle against tyranny, always ready to assist anyone suffering under that tyranny. So generous. So brave. Even her writings—the anonymously published pamphlets that absorbed her—even those words on paper, pleading for tolerance from Catholics and Protestants alike, glowed with her generosity of spirit.

He suddenly remembered her letter. He hadn’t been able to look at it before when the ward lay in gloom, but the cellarman’s torch now shed enough light to read. He felt a sharp longing, a hunger for this contact with her, if only through her words to someone else. As the work party heaved another corpse onto the cart, he pulled out the letter, steadied his elbows on his drawn-up knees and read:

Dear Edward,

Forgive my obtuseness when you visited me in London. You asked a serious favor and I gave you a frivolous reply. Let me now set your heart at rest. Of course I will keep your secret. How could I not, when I trust that you will do the same for me? After all, we heretics must stick together.

Pardon me. The gravity of the matter makes me jest, lacking proper words. For I confess that, for some years, I harbored anger for you, and though it is spent, its shadow continues to make the language of forgiveness elusive.

But I do forgive. I know what hell you have suffered, fleeing England as an outcast, plagued by guilt that others might have died because of you, fearful every day since your return that your criminal past would be uncovered. I suffered that same hell.

But, Edward, love brings peace. You tell me that you yearn for home, a family. And I tell you that, whatever your former errors, your longing for these genuine riches now absolves you.

Be good to Frances Grenville when she becomes your wife. Believe me, as one whose life was saved by love, there is no greater gift.

Your secret is safe with me.

Honor Thornleigh

Thornleigh lowered the letter. The backs of his eyelids burned with threatening tears. He would never see his wife again! Nor his son and daughter. He dropped his forehead to his arms bridged between his knees. Then instantly jerked his head back up. He must not weep. That way madness lay.

He looked around the ward. Bodies, living and dead, lay in the shadows where the floor met the walls, like refuse swept into a gutter. Some who could walk shuffled aimlessly. Most—living and dead alike—were emaciated. All were beyond hope.

He thought:
I’m going to die here.

Like them.

A flame of rage kindled inside him. Death held no terror, but to die like this? Impotent and unresisting? Something in him revolted at the indignity, the affront to his wife. Yes, he thought, to Honor. Had his furious vengeance at Grenville’s attack on her led him here only to succumb like these whimpering wretches dazed into passivity and despair? Passivity was something Honor had never suffered from. That very evening, before Grenville came, she’d been active, engaged, writing this letter to reassure Edward Sydenham. Looking at the letter now, Thornleigh crushed it to his chest and fancied that he could actually feel her strength, her love, emanating from it. She
would
recover. He felt it. And felt it empower him. He suddenly longed to throw off his fetters of inaction, for her sake.