The Queen's Man (35 page)

T
hey awoke with the light and she helped him on to his horse. No words passed between them. They began to ride, very slowly. He knew he must go faster, that they were losing valuable time, but every pace of the horse’s hoofs on the dusty highway jolted his head and increased the pain.

A little over five miles along the track, they came to a small wayside inn. The smell of woodsmoke belching from the chimney was a welcome promise of warmth and cooked food. They handed the horses over to an ostler and then Kat helped Shakespeare into the warmth of the inn where she ordered a chamber and asked for food and ale.

‘You are treating me like an invalid,’ he said as she insisted he lie down on the bed.

‘You
are
an invalid.’

‘It’s a scratch and I have a headache. It is nothing. We must ride on.’

‘We?’

‘You have followed me this far, Kat. We may as well ride on together.’

‘If I am to ride with you, then you will do as I say, for I am now your physician and you are my patient. And what I say is this: you will lie here for at least three hours, perhaps more, for you have not yet slept enough. You will eat heartily, the horses will be fed and shod – and then we will ride until nightfall. If the going is good, we will be at the Cutler’s Rest by then. If not, then we will sleep where we may. Is that clear enough for you, John? You are no use to anyone in your present state.’

He eased back into the pillows. Yes, indeed, she made perfect sense. Even if he could go now to the stables and ride non-stop to Sheffield, the horses most certainly could not. He yawned and closed his eyes.

T
he youth with the long red hair and red velvet suit shook Harry Slide by the hand. ‘They now know you are not Buchan Ord,’ he said quietly. ‘Word came from Scotland of a body, found by his horse, garrotted.’

‘And so I am no longer to be trusted?’

‘She assumes you to be a spy, sent by Lennox or the Protestant grouping in Edinburgh, a notion that has been reinforced by her secretaries. So well did you play your part, it has not occurred to them that you were English. Why, you might even have fooled me, Mr Slide.’

‘What of Leloup?’

‘Oh, she has complete faith in him. And why should she not, for he is what we believe him to be, the Duke of Guise’s man.’

Slide nodded. ‘Indeed, Mr McKyle, indeed.’ He did not bother to mention that François Leloup now lay dead in a tavern outhouse a hundred miles from Sheffield. For that would take some explaining. He moved the conversation on. ‘Has the carriage arrived from the French embassy?’

‘Aye, it has, and a wondrous thing it is to behold. Her Royal Majesty enjoyed her first excursion in it yesterday.’

‘And all went well, Mr McKyle?’

‘She was surrounded by guards. As secure as a prisoner in the Tower of London.’

‘Good. Then Shrewsbury will be happy with the arrangements and the guard will be less alert. And so will she. The question now is – will she go along with the plan? After the betrayal, as she must see it, by Buchan Ord, will she allow herself to be rescued?’

‘You have her ring?’ asked McKyle.

‘Yes, I have it.’

‘Then she will do everything required of her. She is desperate. This is her only hope of redemption.’

Slide dug the ring from his purse and handed it over to McKyle. ‘Give it to her tonight. Tell her that tomorrow is the day. Be sure to say that. She must beg leave of the earl to use the new carriage again. Tell her that her redemption – her salvation – is now certain if she does this.’

S
hakespeare and Kat arrived in Sheffield at noon the following day. They had endured a gruelling journey and had been forced to make an overnight stop within twenty miles of Sheffield.

He had wanted to go on, but realised that she was right; any further progress in the pitch darkness of a cloud-covered night was simply unfeasible. And so they ate well, drank a little too much, took leisurely pleasure in each other’s bodies and then talked in the soft quietness of their feather bed.

‘You are different, Kat,’ he said. ‘I was brought up to believe that a woman wanted a good home, an able husband and sons. It seems you have other ideas. Will the Cutler’s Rest be enough to hold you?’

‘I have a heroine, John, a woman I would emulate.’

‘The Queen of England?’

‘The Countess of Shrewsbury. She has come from nothing to a woman of riches and independence. That is what I will be one day. The Cutler’s Rest is my beginning.’

Shakespeare had to laugh. ‘But you say you don’t want a husband! The countess garnered her wealth through four advantageous marriages.’

‘And her own wit. Anyway, I might make an exception if a man was rich enough. Do you have a coffer full of gold?’

‘Whole galleons weighed down by diamonds and pearls, and a castle in every county. Is that what you want to hear?’

‘Kiss me again. Let me have no dreams.’

Some time in the middle of the night, there was nothing left for them but deep, untroubled sleep. When, at first light, he awoke, he felt his body was halfway healed. And then he remembered where he was going and why.

T
he Earl of Shrewsbury was in effusive mood. ‘Mr Shakespeare, sir, you are returned to us.’

‘With alarming news, my lord.’

‘I do not want to hear it. My enemy the papist is happier than she has been in years, and so I am happy too. What is more, my own dear sovereign has given me leave to attend court for a season. I cannot tell you, sir, how I long to meet old friends and be at the centre of the world once more. The Queen of Scots complains that this place is no better than a prison. Well, if it is a prison for her, I contend it is the same for me.’

Shakespeare stabbed the bubble of his good humour. ‘There is a plot to free her. I am certain the conspirators are here, now, in Sheffield and will act imminently.’

The earl produced one of his tired, resigned smiles. ‘Mr Shakespeare, you do not discomfit me so easily. There is a plot to free her every week of every year. She is closer guarded than the Queen of England.’

‘No, this is different. This time it is real, not imagined. This involves the Frenchman Leloup – Seguin as you knew him. He is now dead, shot through the face. It also involves the man you knew as Buchan Ord. Except that isn’t his name.’

Shrewsbury raised his hand to stop Shakespeare’s flow. ‘Please, sir, you do me a disservice. Have I not ensured this woman’s security for a dozen or more years? Give me some credit, sir. I know that Ord is not the man he claimed. News has reached us from his family in the Highlands of Scotland. The real Mr Ord is dead, choked to death with rope and flayed. His body had been lying undiscovered for two months or more. His family had been sick with worry, failing to understand why he did not write to them. It is assumed that he was killed by one of the Duke of Lennox’s spies, who took his place here.’

‘No. His place was taken by a man named Harry Slide, who claims to work for Mr Secretary, though I doubt that is true.’

Even this did not appear to disconcert Shrewsbury. He peered at his guest more closely. ‘Mr Shakespeare, you look wretched, sir. What has happened to your head? Shall I call for help to have a bandage applied? Perhaps a poultice?’

‘I fell foul of an unpleasant man named Badger Rench, and then I fell foul of a tree. But, my lord –’ Shakespeare struggled to remain calm – ‘we must take action to counter this plot! I swear it is real enough.’

‘Then tell me. How is it to be effected?’

‘We will find out soon enough. For the moment, keep her under lock and key. Double and re-double the guard.’

Shrewsbury laughed. ‘She is as heavily guarded as ever. Perhaps you would have me muster the county militia and surround her with culverins. I say you underestimate me, Mr Shakespeare. We have known from the day she arrived that she would not want to be held captive, and so we have lived with the threat of escape ever since. Unless you bring me details of something new and definite, there is nothing more I can do. You must see this, sir.’

‘Yes, I see it.’

‘Then take some cider with me and tell me everything you know. I confess I am sorry that the French doctor of medicine is dead. I found him most charming and entertaining.’

Something still wasn’t making sense. Whose side was Harry Slide really on? If he was on the side of Edward Arden, why would he have colluded in the murder of a young Catholic gentleman in Scotland? If he was on the side of Leicester and Sir Thomas Lucy, why was he assisting Edward Arden in his treacherous actions? Did the answer lie in the encrypted letter? No word had come from Walsingham. Perhaps the code-breaker Thomas Phelippes had failed to decipher it. Little made sense in this mission. And yet . . . he sensed that the solution was only a thought away. It was there, at the corner of his brain, like a butterfly in its chrysalis. He just needed to break the husk, let it fly – and then catch it. And then he would understand everything.

He shivered. Perhaps he did understand. Perhaps . . .

He had thought they were laying a trap, but they weren’t. They were laying a
trail
– and he had followed it, just as they wanted, like a hound with the scent of a royal hart in its nostrils. The question was
why
. He was no longer listening to Shrewsbury but thinking. His eyes stared at the earl’s moving lips. He was talking but it was difficult to take in what he actually said.

‘My lord, you said something when I arrived. You said you were happier than you had been in years – and you said it was because the Queen of Scots was happy.’

‘That is so. I have great hopes that her ailments will vanish like the wind now that she has the fine caroche and six, courtesy of our own dear sovereign and the French embassy, that she has wanted for so long.’

‘A carriage and six horses? Why? Where will she go?’

‘She can take the air, see the countryside.’

‘And do you consider that safe?’

‘The paths they are taking have been scouted. And with her bad legs, there is no fear that she could run. Nothing can happen.’ The earl picked up a paper from the table. ‘Here is the ordinance from the Privy Council. It says that Mary is to be allowed to go up to three miles outside my parkland, provided there is no concourse of people to look on her. And she is, of course, heavily guarded, as always.’

‘How can you be certain? Your chief of guards Mr Wren inspired no confidence in me. And are these the same guards who failed to stop my man Mr Cooper entering this castle?’

‘I can be certain, Mr Shakespeare, because we have received two men from court whose credentials as sentries and fighting men could not be bettered anywhere in England. One of them, Mr Topcliffe, you already know. The other is Hungate, my lord of Leicester’s own best man. I do believe no papist renegades will get past them.’

‘And when do you plan to allow the Queen of Scots to venture out?’

‘Why, she is already taking the air, Mr Shakespeare. I believe they have been gone ten minutes or more.’

M
ary Stuart sat back on the sumptuous cream leather bench in her carriage and felt like a queen. She always made sure she looked like a queen and acted like one, but it was many years since she had
felt
like one. The years of captivity, silk-lined though it was, had taken their toll on her belief that she would ever reign again, either in Scotland or here in England, her birthright.

She had the leather blinds rolled up on all four windows and could not take her eyes off the earl’s rolling acres of parkland. As the horses drove on, the grey walls of the castle – her prison – receded behind her.

‘It is a holy day, Your Majesty.’

Mary removed her gaze momentarily and smiled at Mary Seton, her old friend and attendant, who sat on the bench opposite. ‘Indeed it is.’ She held up her hand to show the two rings she wore: her own phoenix, now restored to her by Mr McKyle, and the cross of Lorraine from the Duke of Guise. ‘All my ailments are gone. The pain has vanished. I truly believe I could dance.’

‘Your skin is glowing, ma’am. You look no older than you did the day you wed the Dauphin. I would swear you are not yet twenty.’

The Queen held a fan of peacock feathers. She tapped it on her companion’s knee. ‘You are foolish, Mary Seton. It is my birthday soon and I shall be forty.’ But the truth was, she liked the compliment. She held up the looking glass that hung from her waist on a slender silver chain and gazed at her face and hair. Mary Seton had busked her a beautiful new periwig using nun’s tresses sent from France. It was set with a dozen little pearls, all framed by a hooded cape of royal blue velvet for the coming journey. In her arms, she held her favourite little dog.

‘I slept last night, the first time in many weeks.’

‘I am certain it has done your health nothing but good.’

‘But I fear I am still a little fat and stooped.’

‘Ma’am, I promise you, there is none more comely in this land. No looking glass nor portrait can ever do justice to your beauty.’

‘I have often wondered if that is the reason my cousin will not receive me at court. She fears she will be outshone by me.’

‘Your Majesty, you are the sun to her moon. Your brightness would always eclipse her dull glow.’

‘But my legs and gut: they are sore swollen. Tell me true, Mary Seton, how will my beauty play in Paris?’

‘You will be loved and feted wherever you go.’

‘I have been so lonely and forgotten that I no longer know my standing in the world.’

‘That will be put to rights today with the ending of your confinement.’

‘Is this really the day, Mary?’

‘I am certain of it, ma’am. Mr McKyle said that all was ready, did he not? I am sure that Monsieur Seguin would not have sent the ring to you unless he was satisfied that all was well. All you need do is open the carriage door when the time is nigh.’

‘Then let us play our part. We have a long journey ahead. To think that in a few days we will be in France at the Hôtel de Guise . . .’

Mary Seton shook her head. ‘Not
we
, ma’am. You must go alone. I cannot accompany you, for I would slow you down.’