The King's Daughter (54 page)

She scrambled out of the skiff and across the wobbly barge, and ran up the stone steps. She could hear the soldiers’ shouts coming closer, and their feet pounding toward the landing place. She bolted across Thames Street and dashed up an alley, so dark it was almost black. She stopped, her heart pounding. Where to hide? She smelled fresh manure. A stable? She groped for the wall and found a half-rotten wooden door. She pushed it open. In the gloom she could make out a big dray horse and a donkey. The soldiers’ voices sounded down the street. She ducked inside the stable and pushed the door closed and leaned against it, trying not to make a sound. But she could not stop her breath sawing inher throat, and she almost feared the soldiers could hear the thudding of her heart. Between breaths she strained to listen for their approach. She slid down to the floor and sat, her back against the door, listening, waiting. Her wrist throbbed. With her teeth she made a tear in the hem of her skirt, then ripped off a strip. She wound it around the wound, using her teeth again to help tie the bandage. She closed her eyes and listened for the soldiers.

Thornleigh stood on the flat gatehouse roof and leaned against the parapet, catching his breath. The climb up from the lower, adjacent roof had left his calf muscles screaming and his pulse racing. He cursed his body, so weakened from the fever. And he wished he were thirty years younger.
Could have jumped the parapet like a cat back then,
he thought. But he couldn’t afford to dawdle. Information about the bridge was crucial, and since the gatehouse was bolted from the inside, this was the only way to find out. Besides, he had volunteered.

He pushed away from the parapet and looked out toward the bridge. He could hear the muffled hiss of the water swirling beneath the arches, but could see nothing of the bridge street itself from here, where the gabled roofs of houses stretched out on either side directly below him. Their overhanging top stories almost touched above the street, and also jutted out over the water. A faint glow of torch lights wavered beyond these rooftops. Thornleigh knew the torches belonged to the royalist troops down on the bridge, but he could see nothing of the troops from here. He would have to go down, past the gatehouse.

He moved to the side of the roof and looked down over its edge at the timbered wall sheer below him. It bore one window. Thornleigh saw that, although it had been hell getting up here, the next step was going to be worse. He would have to climb partway down and through the window into the gatehouse. It was the only way to get out to the bridge. The rough horizontal timbers would provide some foothold going down to the window. That was something. He took a deep breath and lowered himself over the roof edge.

The window was unglazed. Once his foot reached the sill he swung over it, kicked in the shutter and dropped inside, banging his hip on the sill. He struggled to his feet, rubbing his bruised hip, and found himself on a dark staircase landing. This must be the porter’s lodge. He listened. Nothing. The quarters apparently had been abandoned.

He went down the stairs and through the house until he reached a door at the northern end that he judged must lead to the street about midway along the width of the bridge. He opened the door and found he was right. He stepped out under the overhanging roofs that had obscured his view from atop the gatehouse. The sound of the swirling water reached him again, louder now. This patch of the street was dark, but not far to the north he could clearly see the Queen’s soldiers and their torches. He jumped sideways into the shadows to avoid being seen.

Scores of royalist soldiers were moving about, armed with longbows and arquebuses. Their breastplates and helmets gleamed under the torchlight. Their desultory voices rose above the water’s hiss. Their three small cannon, pointed in Thornleigh’s direction, glimmered. But there was no obvious barrier between the soldiers and him, nothing except a black expanse of street. What had made them stop there?

Slowly, quietly, he moved forward in the darkness, his eyes fixed on the soldiers. He found the answer as his right foot felt the edge. He stopped just in time. Before him yawned a black chasm. He realized what had happened. The drawbridge for boats at the seventh arch had been cut away. All that was left between the north and south sections of the bridge was this gorge, and the angry river frothing below.

“Suicide, Thomas!” Wyatt’s kinsman lieutenant, George Cobham, made his point by slicing an imaginary knifeacross his own throat. It was the concluding remark to a meeting between Wyatt and his officers, held in Wyatt’s chamber in Southwark’s dilapidated Tabard Inn. Armed with the information about London Bridge that Thornleigh had just reported, they had been discussing the feasibility of attacking. Wyatt had thanked them for their comments and dismissed them, but had asked Thornleigh to stay behind.

As the officers filed out of Wyatt’s room, Thornleigh waited, studying the commander’s face. It was the first time he’d been in Wyatt’s presence. It was to Cobham that he’d volunteered to scout the bridge.

Cobham’s voice had not been the only heated one during the officers’ discussion. “A frontal attack is impossible,” Thomas Culpepper had declared.

Henry Vane had agreed. “Even if we could carry up enough bridging material, we’d be mowed down by their guns.”

“That’s right, sir,” Anthony Norton had put in. “Guns bombarding us from the Tower. Guns in our face on the bridge.”

“And no possibility of an outflanking movement,” Culpepper had pointed out.

“Suicide, Thomas!”

Now, the anxious officers were gone. Wyatt moved thoughtfully to a table and poured two goblets of ale from an earthenware jug. He handed one to Thornleigh, then sat heavily on the edge of the bed, his face a mask. He stared ahead as if Thornleigh were not there. Thornleigh drank down his ale. In the next room, a baby cried. The sound seemed to effect a softening of Wyatt’s features. He gave Thornleigh a wry smile. “I married at seventeen. Five children, three girls and two boys.” He sipped his ale, then said quietly, “My son George is my heir.”

Thornleigh gazed into the dregs of his own goblet, thinking of his own children. Outside in the street, boots clomped by as soldiers made their way to the foot of the bridge to relieve the watch. When they’d passed, and there was silence again, a church bell tolled faintly from London.

“Hacked down the drawbridge, eh?” Wyatt said, musing. He sounded bitter with himself for not having anticipated it, but Thornleigh also heard the note of respect for an enemy’s clever stroke.

“They must have towed it away,” Thornleigh said.

Wyatt snorted. “Must be the first time in thirty years that damned drawbridge has even been budged.”

“More like forty-five years,” Thornleigh said. “When I was a boy it used to be raised to let ships pass through to Queenhithe. That was when Queenhithe was as busy as Billingsgate Wharf is now. But nothing bigger than barges and wherries has gone through for decades.” He felt a need to reassure the younger man. “Most people have forgotten the drawbridge is even there. Stands to reason you wouldn’t have thought of it.”

Wyatt stood and picked up the jug and poured himself more ale. “Know about ships, do you?” he asked as he refilled Thornleigh’s goblet.

“I own a few.”

Wyatt’s look at him showed a new esteem. “A man of substance, I see. I’d been wondering about Isabel’s family.”

Thornleigh was taken aback. “Isabel?”

“Yes, I congratulate you, Thornleigh. She’s doing fine work for us. You should be proud.” Wyatt lifted his goblet in a toast and drank.

“What? Look, how do you know Isabel?”

Wyatt blinked, puzzled. “Don’t you know?”

“Know what, for God’s sake? I haven’t seen my daughter in over a week.”

“But even before that … Good Lord, you really
don’t
know. Why, man, she’s been my eyes and ears in London. Carrying messages between me and the French Ambassador and reporting to me about our supporters inside London. Invaluable information, all of it.” His gaze traveled to the window. “In fact,” he said quietly, “I am relying on her now more than ever. Our London support, it turns out, may be all we have.” He walked to the window.

Thornleigh felt slightly dizzy.

Wyatt gazed out at the murky street where his troops had left a soup of mud. Snow was beginning to fall, and the flakes jerked in the erratic wind like tiny lost souls. When he spoke, his voice was bleak as the night. “I can’t wait much longer for French help. And I have no more than the three thousand men I began with at Rochester.” He took in a long breath as if to gather strength. “But London can still decide the day. If London gives the lead, the country will follow.”

Thornleigh had barely been listening. “When did you last see her?”

“What?”

“My daughter.”

“Oh, she was just here. Left about an hour ago.”

“How?”

“In a boat. She rowed.”

“Alone? And you let her go back?”

“Her chances are better alone than if she’s caught with soldiers of mine.”

“Her
chances?
Good God, she’s just a child!” Thornleigh thumped down his goblet and turned to go, adding under his breath, “Bastard.”

“Thornleigh,” Wyatt’s stern voice commanded, stopping him at the door. “You do not know your own flesh and blood. She’s a very brave girl.”

Thornleigh left with the words ringing in his ears. Carlos had told him virtually the same thing.

31
Threats

W
here have you been, Isabel?” Edward Sydenham had hurried to greet her the moment she’d opened the door to his great hall. Two dozen men standing in groups at the far end of the hall turned at her arrival, but then, seeing it was only a woman, went back to their talk. Their martial dress looked incongruous in Sydenham’s elegant hall with its exquisite Flemish tapestries and windows glazed with costly painted glass. Sydenham kept his voice low. “My servants tell me you’ve been out all morning. I was becoming quite distressed.”

“I remembered another of my father’s friends, an old seagoing man. I’ve been to see him.”

“And? Any news?”

She shook her head, afraid her face would betray her lie. She was in fact just returning from Ambassador de Noailles’lodging where she’d delivered Wyatt’s urgent appeal about Ludgate. It had been impossible to do so the night before. She had eluded the soldiers from the bridge by hiding for an hour in the stable, and then, dodging the citizens’ patrols all the way back, had barely made it into Sydenham’s house and hurried up to her room before she’d heard him arrive home from Whitehall. This morning he had left the house early.

“And what is this? My dear, you’ve hurt yourself.” He was helping her off with her cloak and she had not been quick enough to pull down her sleeve to hide the bandage on her wrist.

“Oh, it’s nothing, sir. I was too anxious getting the groom to saddle up this morning. I made the horse jumpy, and it nipped me.” She forced a light laugh. “Serves me right for rushing.”

He was gently holding her arm and examining the bandage with a look of concern. His fingers brushed up her forearm under her sleeve. She stiffened and pulled back. Sydenham looked hurt. Isabel instantly regretted her response, a purely reflexive shudder at his long, cool fingers touching her. It seemed petty when he was doing so much to find her father and making her so comfortable in his house. All while she was spying on him.

“Thank you for your concern, Sir Edward,” she said sincerely, “but really, the hurt is nothing.” Looking at the men across the hall she saw John Grenville, tall and haughty, his eyes narrowed on her in hatred, his father dead at the hands of her father. She ignored him and asked Sydenham, “Another meeting?”

He said in a confidential tone, “The Queen’s commanders, plus a good number of others. Come, let me escort you through. John Grenville is there, you see, and he and Frances find your presence here … difficult to understand.”

“Sir, you are kind.”

He slipped his arm around her waist and guided her through the hall. Isabel felt the men’s stern, impatient looks. She recognized Lord Howard’s jowled face from his previous visits here, and the fidgety Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas White, anxiously pacing. The others, a collection of middle-aged men who, by their hardness or craftiness or both, had safeguarded their lands and authority through three violent reigns, looked equally grim. She judged that the smoothfaced young man with the long blond locks was the Earl of Devon, Lord Courtenay. Dressed in yellow satin, out of place among these rough, soldierly lords, he had a reputation for foppery. She could only guess at the identity of the others, but she knew that among them must be the Earl of Pembroke, Lord Abergavenny, Lord Clinton, and Sir John Brydges, the Constable of the Tower, all of them powerful servants of the Queen.

Sydenham murmured in her ear as they walked, “Forgive the brusque looks. We’re waiting for a captain of Abergavenny’s who infiltrated Wyatt’s camp. The fellow is unconscionably late. The commanders are somewhat vexed.”

Isabel was glad to reach the end of the hall and leave behind the irritated stares. She was exhausted from her night’s terrors on the river and her morning with de Noailles, and longed for the peace of a few hours’ sleep upstairs. But rest must wait. Now, her task was to listen in on the commanders’ meeting from the squint hole behind the minstrels’ gallery.

A shuffle of heavy footsteps sounded at the other end of the hall. The door swung open.

“About time,” Abergavenny burst out. “Gentlemen, this is Valverde. He got into Wyatt’s camp at Dartford. He’ll report, then ask him whatever you like.”

Isabel twisted around. Carlos had stopped in the doorway, two young lieutenants behind him. Carlos’s eyes locked with Isabel’s.

Sydenham stiffened at her side. “That Spanish dog.”

Carlos suddenly shouted, “A traitor is here!”

The commanders looked astonished. “What’s that?” Lord Howard asked. “What traitor?”

Carlos pointed at Sydenham. “Him. He keeps in his house the daughter of a rebel.”

“This woman?” Abergavenny asked in bewilderment.