The King's Daughter (53 page)

She pushed off and rowed out into the river. Her first fear was soon removed: the current was not strong. And she was thankful that the night was calm, for any strong wind fromthe west might also have swept the little boat toward the bridge. Even so, the smothered din of the water rushing through the canyons of the twenty-one stone arches was a constant reminder of the peril, and she kept well west of the bridge as she plied her way toward Southwark.

The going was hard. Not halfway across she had to rest, catching her breath. Despite the cold air, heat prickled her face and sweat slid over her ribs. Then, suddenly, she was aware that she was drifting with the current. It had deviously strengthened here in midriver, silently locking her into its fluid vise. It was carrying her closer to the stone arches of the bridge. She had to row with extra vigor just to break its hold. Her muscles strained, her feet ground against the bottom of the boat, seeking purchase. Finally, as she glanced over her left shoulder at her destination, the Winchester House wharf torches that had seemed mere candle flames when she set out, hove dead ahead in a lusty blaze. And men were moving on the wharf. Wyatt’s men.

Only a few minutes more of hard rowing and she would be there.

“But why must she be your guest?” Frances demanded through tight lips. “It seems perverse to favor her. Her family are heretics and traitors.”

“My dear,” Edward said, “I have just explained—”

“That you are using her to track down her father. Yes, I see that. It is a fine plan, Edward. But is it necessary to bring her into your house? To clothe her and protect her? To entertain her and pamper her? Is she really so attractive a strumpet?”

He looked at her in surprise.

“Oh, Edward,” she said, instantly contrite, “I did not mean that
you
… It is just that a man of your standing is a target for unscrupulous girls.”

“The reason for her presence in my house,” he said, beginning to lose patience, “is that she can lead me to the man who murdered your father. I would have thought that was your paramount concern. It is certainly mine. The Queen’s people cannot mount a proper hunt just now, not with all their energy focused on the rebels, you know that. Thornleigh could easily escape from England unless we work fast. Isabel Thornleigh knows her father’s friends, his haunts. She offers us our best hope of finding him in time, and of seeing justice done to your family’s name. Surely you can understand that.” He had stopped short of saying
even
you, but his tense tone betrayed him.

A tone not lost on Frances. “Oh, Edward, forgive me,” she said, rushing to him. “This crisis with the rebels has made me quite distraught. Her Majesty suffers so, you see? They are talking about her behind her back—her councilors. Saying such dreadful, disloyal things. And now, God forgive me, my worrying has made me strike out at you. When I know you are doing everything you can to bring my father’s murderer to justice. It is just that …” She hesitated, lowering her head. “Edward, I could not bear that any woman should—”

“Hush, my dear. Let us have no more of that.”

“No, of course not … I’m so sorry …”

Edward saw tears of relief brim in her eyes, already red and puffy. She clutched his sleeve. He stiffly stroked her hand and said dutifully, “No other woman will ever come between us.”

“Do you mean that, Edward?” she cried, smiling. Her tears spilled. Her smile wobbled. “But of course you do! Oh, was ever woman so blessed as I am blessed.” The tears rolled down her cheeks to the tiny lines that radiated from the corners of her mouth. Her nose dripped. Edward looked away, thinking of Isabel.

Southwark swarmed with Wyatt’s men. Tom, the guard, was leading Isabel from the Winchester House wharf toward the center of the town to see the commander. He held historch high as he guided her through the clusters of soldiers milling in muddy Long Lane. They were sorting out posts and billets and arms placement, all in a kind of disciplined chaos. “Like pigs in a sty,” Tom growled, pushing a mule’s rear blocking his way. “But the big guns are set right enough, m’lady, I’ll say that much,” he added with pride. “One over yonder to command Bermondsey Street,” he said pointing. “One down there at St. George’s. Another back at the Bishop’s wharf where you landed, so I warrant you saw that one. The last two are being brought up to the bridge. And I’ll have a shilling off Jack Peters if those guns blast the bridge gate open before we sleep tonight.”

Looking up, Isabel noticed a window above a tavern where an old couple in nightcaps watched the bustle below. “But has there been no resistance?” she asked Tom. “No fighting?”

“Not a blast nor a blow,” he said, grinning. “Folk hereabouts opened their arms as we marched in. No sign of the Bishop, either. I warrant he hied yonder across the bridge when he heard we were coming. And the scatter of the Queen’s men that was here? Why, they’ve come over to join us, just like t’other day with the daft old Duke’s men! The Commander says that’s how it’ll be all over London.”

A gang of soldiers with shovels trudged by. “The Commander’s ordered a trench dug between us and the bridge,” Tom explained. He grimaced as he looked back at the bridge a half mile behind, its jagged rooftops bristling in the night sky, and he added in a confiding tone of alarm, “No telling what mischief the Queen’s men have set up for us there.”

They came upon Wyatt in front of St. George’s. He was standing on the wide church steps in a huddle with a group of his officers. Two boys stood nearby with torches. In the street men marched past, wagon wheels rattled by, lieutenants shouted orders, cart horses balked.

Wyatt turned and caught Isabel’s eye. Surprise flooded his face. “Mistress Thornleigh!” His captains and lieutenants looked at her too. Isabel cast a quick glance over their faces, irrationally thinking she might see Martin. But of course he was not there.

Wyatt quickly came down the steps to her. He took her elbow. “Come, let’s talk.” He drew her to the mouth of a lane to be out of the bustle. “So,” he said brusquely. “What news?”

Isabel almost smiled. Sir Thomas never changed. No questions about how she had made it here, no inquiry about her well-being. Not even any mention of Martin’s desertion, although that was surely why he’d been surprised to see her. She looked down the lane, littered, after all the rain, with mere strips of snow like dirty bandages. Martin was gone. Gone from her life forever. She swallowed and turned back to Wyatt. “Much,” she answered evenly.

She started with the worst. “The courier that Ambassador de Noailles sent to Scotland was caught by the Queen’s men and taken into custody. The Ambassador dare not send another. However, he says the army from Scotland must be on its way.”

Wyatt turned away. He watched a detail of soldiers lugging a cannon carriage toward an ox, then abruptly turned back to her. “What else?”

She hesitated. More bad news. “The Duke of Suffolk, sir,” she began. Suffolk, in whom Wyatt had once placed so much hope of raising the rebellion throughout the Midlands, had finally been brought into London, in chains. “He was arrested in Leicestershire seven days ago. Apparently they found him hiding in a tree.”

Wyatt winced slightly, but it was clear to Isabel that he had long ago given up on Suffolk. Still, she understood the significance of this setback. All hope of any help from the Midlands was now crushed.

“What troops has the Queen raised since I saw you last?”

She explained that the Earl of Pembroke had been named the new commander of the Queen’s forces outside London, and that these soldiers—the nobles’ retainers and tenants—were grouping in St. James’s Park, while the city men under Lord Howard were gathering in Finsbury Field. From these musters, the Ambassador had made a tally of their strength: almost six thousand. “But they are very fearful, sir,” Isabel added eagerly, “for they suspect the French are coming, and they estimate your combined force at nearly ten thousand.”

Wyatt said nothing.

She went on to tell him all she had overheard at Sydenham’s house about his meetings with the Queen’s commanders—details of armaments and their placement. She also explained that a royal order had gone out to break down all the bridges for fifteen miles upriver from London. She ended with a report of the Queen’s rousing speech yesterday at Guildhall. Conscious of the weight of all this heavy news she had laid on Wyatt’s shoulders, she was eager to lighten the burden. “There is great dissent throughout the city, sir. Many of the Queen’s councilors are going about loudly and angrily disclaiming her statement, in her speech, that they were in favor of the Spanish marriage. The Ambassador told me that such talk has sowed great uncertainty and fear among the wealthy citizens. It is undoing much of the spirit of allegiance the Queen fostered yesterday. Meanwhile, Master Peckham’s secret group of your supporters gains strength every hour.” She outlined Peckham’s readiness to place his men to help Wyatt when the time came.

Wyatt nodded, reflecting on the implications. “Our help inside the city, that is what we must nurture. We’ve made a good start here in Southwark. I’ve given orders that I will brook no despoiling. Every crust of bread and every drop of ale taken shall be paid for. I have broken open no doors at the Marshalsea prison nor the Clink to let the prisoners run wild.” He smiled archly. “Polity, mistress. This course has reassured the people of Southwark, and they are now actively helping us. I am hoping their example will inspire the Londoners.” He looked at her earnestly. “Can you stay a while?”

“Here? Now?”

“Yes. I’ll have some information within about an hour that must be taken to de Noailles.”

She hesitated. She dared not be away too long if she was not to stir Sydenham’s suspicions. She must be back in his house before he returned from Whitehall.

“I see that you must go,” Wyatt said with the equanimity of a commander accustomed to making do. “Then let me explain now. You must be my link to our London support. You must explain my strategy to de Noailles and Peckham. It is this. My preference is to attack across the bridge come daylight. But it may be too well fortified. I have not yet been able to determine that, since the gatehouse has been closed and barred from the inside. To open it would require blasting with the guns. We’re getting them into position now, and we’ve sent a man up onto the gatehouse roof to reconnoiter. It is his report I’m waiting for. But here is the point. If it proves that London Bridge is too strongly fortified and cannot be taken, I may have to move to the next bridge upriver.”

“That would be at Kingston.”

“Yes. From there, we can double back on the city.”

“Through Charing Cross village,” Isabel said, calculating the quickest route. “Then along the Strand. That would bring you to Ludgate.”

“Exactly. So, if this plan becomes necessary, it is imperative that our friends inside London concentrate their forces at Ludgate. Peckham must see to it that Ludgate is opened to us when we arrive. It’s essential. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

Abruptly, he told her he must return to his officers’ meeting, and he beckoned Tom to escort Isabel back to her skiff. Without another word, Wyatt left her side. She pulled tight her hood, preparing for the journey back across the river.

The west wind had risen. The rowing was harder. The many lights winking ahead on the London shore—far morethan little Southwark had displayed—confused her. And there were so many docks, so dimly lit, it was difficult, in glances over her shoulder, to tell which murky stairs belonged to the Old Swan and which to other landing places: Fish Wharf nearest the bridge, then the Steelyard, Dowgate Dock, the Three Cranes, Queenhithe, Paul’s Wharf, Bay-nard’s Castle … so many wharves in a half a mile! She must not veer as far west as Baynard’s Castle. There would certainly be a security contingent there. Baynard’s belonged to the Earl of Pembroke, and if they should capture her …

Enough,
she told herself. It was pointless to let such fears unnerve her. Baynard’s was a full half mile west of the bridge, and with St. Paul’s looming behind it as a marker it should not be difficult to steer clear.

She reached the midriver current. As she lifted her shoulder to wipe sweat from her upper lip, her right oar skipped across the water instead of digging in. The instant lack of resistance threw her off balance and she fell backward. She held the oars tightly, but as her right hand plunged with her fall, the gunnel, acting as a fulcrum, wrenched the oar out of its socket. The wind caught the rising blade and knocked the handle out of her grasp. The oar splashed overboard. She flailed over the side for it, the icy water drenching her sleeve. She caught the oar by its blade tip just before it floated off. But by the time she righted herself with both oars again, the boat was pointed toward the bridge and drifting with the current at a dangerous speed. The sound of the water hissing under the arches became a muffled roar.

Frantically she pulled on her oar to turn the boat to face the London bank. She rowed with all her might. The bow lurched left, then right, but she kept hauling at the oars, desperately fighting the wind and the current that would suck her toward the black arches yawning to her left. Her heaving breaths steamed the air around her like a fog. Finally, a sharp glance over her shoulder assured her she was nearing shore. The steep stone edifice of the five-storied Coldharbour rose directly ahead. The Old Swan Stairs, though still shrouded in darkness, must be very close. She was almost there.

She heard a shout. She glanced up to the bridge. A soldier stood in a narrow break between two houses near the bridge entrance. He was pointing down at her. Isabel gasped. She had been seen! Another shout. Two soldiers ran to join the first one. The longbows slung over their backs pointed to the sky like skeletal fingers. Isabel rowed furiously, her heartbeats pounding in her ears. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her haven. The Old Swan Stairs. Only a few oar strokes more!

An arrow whirred over her head. Her oars froze in mid-stroke. Another arrow whizzed by her shoulder and thudded into the tip of her right oar. She lurched back into action. She pumped the oars so hard she thought she would wrench her shoulders from their sockets. An arrow speared the water by her stern. She felt a prick on the back of her wrist as another arrow thumped the gunnel by her hand, grazing her. But she had made it. Her bow crashed against a barge tethered to the water stairs. The impact jolted her backward again. She grappled the gunnel, scrambling to get to her feet. The gunnel was slippery. Not with water, with blood. She saw that her wrist was bleeding. But there was no time to stop. The soldiers on the bridge would be running toward her.