by Karen Harper
Elizabeth liked this inn even less than the one they’d stayed in last night. She wasn’t certain but that she preferred being housed in comfort by courtiers she didn’t trust, for it also made her nervous when her party had to pitch their own tents or hire rooms in nearby farmhouses.
Other things preyed on her poise. The roof of this inn was thatch, and a few well-placed fire arrows could mean disaster. She’d been in an inn that had gone up in flames once, and that memory haunted her. Fire, like flying arrows, was a fearsome thing. Then, too, she’d risked keeping only half of her guards here and sent the others ahead on the road to see if they could overtake Norfolk or at least learn if he and two men on two fine horses had passed through. Drake had begged to go out also, partly because he was searching for word of his crewmen, Giles Creighton and Hugh Mason. She had not wanted to let Drake go, but she did, and he took two others with him. All her men were to return by nightfall, but none were back yet, and she felt undermanned.
She sighed as her thoughts snagged again on her treacherous cousin Norfolk. He was no doubt either heading north, home to Kenningham, his stronghold in Norfolk, or going to meet with other malcontents who favored Catholicism and a Catholic queen. Either way, he could be the firebrand that could ignite a seething rebellion.
A sharp rapping rattled the door to the hall. Here she did not even have two rooms adjoined but ones side by side, this privy chamber and her bedroom next door.’ S blood, but she was coming to hate furtive knocking on the door!
“Enter.”
She expected to see Clifford, but it was Jenks, whom she’d sent out at the head of one of the search parties. Her pulse pounded; she could read the excitement on his face.
“You have found word of our enemies!” she exulted, as he snatched off his cap and bowed.
“Yes, Your Grace, but not the ones you think. Far’s I can tell, Norfolk and his men are long gone, but I do have news of men on two horses came through here ahead of us.”
“Drake’s men who deserted?”
“No, but at a farmhouse’bout three miles from here, just off the main road, the Browne family took in two men on fine-looking, matched, blazed-forehead mounts four days ago. Heading north they were, too. And, Your Grace, one of them spoke mostly Spanish, but the other one turned it into English for him.”
“De Spes’s bowman and his interpreter!”
“They thought the foreign one was called Wan.”
“Juan, no doubt. I believe Cecil was recently informed that the archer’s name is Juan de Vila. Can it all be coincidence that Norfolk flees in the same direction at the same time as those Spanish hirelings? They could be hunkered down ahead, waiting to shoot at me again. But it might mean we are safer now with no more arrow attacks on the road. Did you question the farm family thoroughly?”
“Aye, and they didn’t overhear anything useful,’cause their guests mostly jabbered away in Spanish. And they didn’t out and out see a longbow or a crossbow, but both men had long leather bags along the side of their mounts,” he said, gesturing with outstretched arms. “You know,’stead of saddle sacks’cross the horses’ croups.”
“And those leather bags could have held bows. That is invaluable information, Jenks. Did you give the family a coin for their help?”
“Aye, Your Grace, and that reminds me of one more thing. When the master of the house put the coin away in a leather pouch, I saw he had a shiny sovereign—like the other two what’s turned up.”
“Damn the Spanish. Doing their dirty work on my mint’s money with my face on the coins. Then they could be the ones who bribed Sheriff Barnstable to dispatch Tom Naseby, but I can’t fathom what link they could have to Drake’s cousin John Hawkins. Still, I wouldn’t put it past anyone working for de Spes, and ultimately King Philip, to even use my image on that coin for target practice! Did farmer Browne say for certain those two gave him that coin?”
“He did. Oh, aye, he did overhear one thing. Seems this Juan is trying to learn a little English, and he asked the other one what time the meeting would be at the church.”
“A meeting at the church? That’s all they overheard?”
“I could fetch them in, Your Grace, if you want to talk to them yourselves, old man Browne and his wife.”
“No, you’ve done very well, very well,” she said, gesturing somewhat absently that he might take his leave. “A meeting at a church,” she said to herself, as Jenks went out. It helped to reason aloud. She went on, “A beheaded vine, the sovereign’s head on coins, a flying dove within a strange wreath … Hell’s gates, I hate puzzles, but my life’s become one—with too many opponents and the prize at stake my kingdom and my life.”
For the second straight night, Elizabeth hardly slept one wink. Drake had not returned as had her other men, but he’d sent word with one of his companions that he was on the scent of his two men and would come straight to the Vyne to meet her.
Despite all her worries, her heart lifted the next afternoon to see the tall walls of the Vyne appear, just beyond the cheering crowds of the little town of Basingstoke. William Sandys and his wife, Catherine, met them with their family and retainers, as well as musicians and singers who broke into song as she alighted from her coach—her prison these last two days.
“Welcome to our home and hearth,” Baron Sandys greeted her with a prideful smile. Like Henry Wriothesley, William Sandys was a young man, but she knew instantly he had more sense. After all, he was a staunch Protestant and supporter of his English queen.
“I’d settle for a cool breeze through the windows, my lord,” she said, and dallied with each person, wishing all the while she could better stretch her cramped limbs with a brisk walk.
The Vyne was a grand home with a forecourt and a central gatehouse at the entrance. All structures were of rose-hued brick seemingly embroidered with black triangular patterns. But for the many tall, symmetrically set windows across the front façade, the place reminded her of Hampton Court. The Vyne could accommodate nearly four hundred guests in the bedrooms of its two long wings.
The queen had never seen the Vyne before, but years ago her father had visited here three times, twice with her mother. That made the Vyne instantly sweet and sentimental for her. The sites where her parents had spent time together as king and queen were few, and she treasured them.
“Those stands of oaks which surround the lawn are over a hundred years old, Your Grace,” Sandys told her, pointing, as she surveyed the deep blue-green of the forest, now lightly gilded with autumn colors. At least those woods lay beyond a meadow and a marsh and didn’t closely crowd the house, she thought. “A home on this site has welcomed travelers for centuries,” her host went on.
“I can see this house is quite new, so there must have been one on this site earlier,” she observed as he escorted her into the vast interior through the flower-bedecked central entrance.
“There are numerous Roman ruins in the gardens, Your Majesty. An important Roman villa or taverna stood here, hence the name the Vyne. Remains of the grape arbors are still visible if you dig round about. Since our little river, the Loddon, flows into the great Thames, we are nicely situated on a crossroads between east and west, south and north.”
Yes, she thought, the Vyne was near major roads and the great watery highway of the Thames that could take one straight to London, but it also linked this southern part of England to the north. Could the church meeting the Spanish archer mentioned be near this crossroads? And was it mere coincidence that the name of her sanctuary for the next few days was the Vyne when the pillow Mary of Scots sent Norfolk sported a twisted vine?
After all, this great house boasted a small church within, albeit, she’d heard, it was more of a chapel. Off to the side she saw entrances to many rooms. As if he had read her mind, Sandys pointed out the entrance to the chapel. Perhaps she should examine every inch of that, she thought, trying to keep a pleasant look on her face as her host led her up the grand staircase toward her suite of rooms.
Drake traced the two men who had deserted his command not only by their descriptions but by those of their horses. The fools had taken the three mounts the queen and her men had ridden to the Judith. Such fine horseflesh as well as their trappings—especially in comparison with how ragged the two men looked despite their sailor’s shirts—made them easy to follow. The only problem was, they had gotten a good head start, and he dare not go north of the Thames if he was to return to the queen at the Vyne yet today.
“Hey there, goodman,” he’d called to more farmers and carters than he could count. “Have you seen two men in sky blue caps and shirts riding two fine mounts and pulling a third?”
“Oh, aye,” the last man, a drover surrounded by cattle en route to London, had said. “Thought they was queen’s men, couriers like the one come through these parts asking questions, but these lads looked kinda ragged and peaked,’specially one slumped over his saddle.”
That was when Drake realized they could actually be ill. That might have slowed them down or even made them halt, so he pressed on. Perhaps Giles and Hugh had told the truth about having the flux that day in the woods.
With Mountjoy, the queen’s man he’d kept with him while he’d sent the other one back to her with a message, he finally saw the horses. They were unsaddled but tethered to a stone well behind an isolated cottage just off the road.
“Wonder why they didn’t just ride on, Captain,” the big, burly yeoman said. “And to leave those horses just tied there, where they could be taken—or seen.”
“The two of them are skilled sailors but hardly strategists, Mountjoy, or they would never have taken the queen’s property or disobeyed me in the first place. I’ll ask you to wait here with our horses and those we must return to Her Majesty.”
Drake dismounted and put his hand on his sword hilt. He made certain his dagger was still sheathed in his belt. Since Hugh and Giles had deserted, he wasn’t sure if they’d obey him now, either.
He intended to knock on the front door of the black-and-white-timbered and neatly thatched place, but the door stood slightly ajar, so he chanced a bold offensive. He pushed it open and walked in. A portly woman was bent over a table making piecrusts with a wooden rolling pin, her hands and gown all floury.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh!”
“Pardon the intrusion, mistress, but I must inquire about the two men whose horses are tied in back. Friends of mine …”
“Oh,” she said again, as if that were her entire vocabulary. Hoisting the rolling pin, evidently in case she needed to take him on, she said in a rush, “One took real sick, and my husband’s gone for the leech, said don’t go in, don’t let no one near them. Took pity on them, he did, the one near falling off his horse.”
Drake pondered if Giles and Hugh could be in league with the Duke of Norfolk, for he’d given out a story of being sick when he fled, too—but that meant Norfolk must have hired them just in the last few days, when Drake had feared they were working for his cousin Hawkins. No, he couldn’t see someone as clever as Norfolk hiring those two.
“In here?” he asked the woman, edging toward the door she’d glanced at more than once. “Just a word with them …”
He lifted the latch, drew his dagger, so she could not see it, and shoved the door inward. Hugh lay either asleep or unconscious on a low trundle bed in the tiny, sparsely furnished chamber.
To his surprise, the door slammed into him, rattling his teeth and his sword. When the door was ripped inward, he spun into the room. Giles lunged at him. Raising his dagger, Drake managed to sidestep, evading the first attack. He saw no weapon on Giles; the man meant to take him on with his fists.
“Halt!” he told Giles in his most strident captain’s voice. “Halt and stand to!”
The man hesitated, frozen like a statue for a moment. Drake glared at him and sheathed his dagger. “I’m here for the truth, and I will have it, Seaman Mason! Are you two riding to report to Captain Hawkins in London?”
“Cap’n, your cousin’s as like to string us up for this as you be.”
“For what, man?” Drake demanded, still poised to take him on should he lunge at him again. “For deserting your duty—or for shooting fire arrows from the woods at the ship, burning her mainsail and mast?”
“What? The Judith burnt? We set out’cause we was turned to no-’ counts, and we was sick.”
“Hugh perhaps, but you look hale and hearty to me.”
“I’ve had it, too, the flux, but not as bad. And what else I’ve had up to here,” he said, with a slashing motion of his hand across his forehead, “is being distrusted, then demoted to the scullery by my cap’n!”
“I’m no scullery maid napping!” came the woman’s shrill voice through the door. She was obviously eavesdropping but had misheard. She rapped hard but didn’t enter. “See here, now, is all well in there?”
“Is it well?” Drake asked Giles.
“Aye, Mistress Sarah! We’re just talking!” Giles shouted to her through the door.
That must have satisfied the woman, at least enough to make her go back to merely eavesdropping instead of shouting.
“You were saying,” Drake prompted, “that you felt demoted when I asked you to stay below for a few hours?”
“Aye, I did! The scullery, and when the queen’s aboard, like I was some low, no-account jackanapes. No, Cap’n, we aren’t going to Hawkins but out where we can start somewheres else—anywhere but on a ship.”
“At the least, you’ve thieved the horses—royal horses. Damn your hide, man, you’ve ruined yourself.”
“Pardon my say-so, Cap’n, but you should understand that. You know, in a split second, panic or pride makes you do something witless. Like flee a battle with a ship. Something you later got to eat crow for, if not worse.”
Before Drake could stop himself, he slammed his fist into the man’s jaw. He went down like a house of cards. Drake’s fury ebbed as fast as he had struck out. The man was insubordinate and stupid but, on that last point, what Giles had accused him of was right. Did his entire crew see him as a man who had shirked his duty and besmirched his honor? Did they think that gave them the right not to stand and fight but to flee, at least until cornered? God willing, he would spend his entire life proving them all wrong!
Rueful now, Drake bent to sit the sailor up and lightly smacked his cheeks. To give up their trade, give up the sea, was a grievous penalty in itself and one, if he believed Giles, that would be self-imposed. He should have known he could trust them, but mistrust seemed to breed like flies on the queen’s progress. In the years to come, as her captain, he must strive to protect not only his own honor but the honor of his men. Elizabeth relied on and trusted those loyal to her, even servants.
Giles opened his eyes. When they looked focused, Drake told him, “Here’s the way it must be, man. You’re going to answer all my questions—God’s truth, straight out. Then I’m going to take the queen’s horses back to her but leave you some coin to pay these people and get yourselves to—to wherever you’re going, so you can start over as you said.”
Wide-eyed, gingerly fingering his jaw, Giles gaped up at him. “You—you’d do that, Cap’n, and not take us back to hang from a yardarm?”
“By my faith, no one else—except the queen—will ever know. She’s given me the chance to atone, and I’ll pass that on—if you answer my questions, each and every one.”
“I swear so, Cap’n. Don’t fret’bout us going near Cap’n Hawkins, neither. No way we would.”
“I didn’t mean to abase you in the kitchen that day,” Drake added, for the Lord had taught him to forgive—forgive everyone except the Spanish, that is. “Nor did I mean to shame Hugh by demoting him to the status of groom, holding horses. But I didn’t know if I could trust you after the two of you staggered out of the woods just after the queen—or I—was shot at. Prove to me I can trust you now before we part.”
During the next ten minutes, Drake’s nod and smile seemed to be enough to keep the mistres
s of the house at bay when, armed with a rolling pin, she pounded on the door and peeked in to ask if things were still all right. She evidently thought they were, for she gave Drake a hot partridge pie after he paid the old, stooped leech her husband fetched from the village to tend the sick man and dose the other, too.
“So you really was their friend,” the woman said, as he departed her front door.
“I was their captain, mistress,” Drake said, frowning, “and, sadly, that’s a far different thing.”
Elizabeth knew she surprised Baron Sandys when she asked him for a tour of the chapel even before the evening meal. With Cecil and Lady Rosie, she stepped into the exquisite little church from the back of it and said a silent prayer of thanks for her safety and deliverance—so far.
“Is this chapel ever used for aught besides holy services?” she asked. “Meetings or speeches or such?”
She felt she was dancing in the dark, but perhaps she could link the clues of the vine and a meeting in a church that Jenks had reported to her. How did the bird with the wreath-type hood around its head fit in? Was it another cryptic reference to a Hooded Hawk plot into which she must delve deeper?
The small Gothic chapel was exquisite with its crisply carved linen-fold paneling, Flemish stained glass her host proudly pointed out, and lovely choir stalls. Brightly colored tiles with flower designs were set in the backs of the seats.
“By an Italian artist,” he told her, touching a bright blue tile with a red rose emblazoned on it. “A little-known technique called encausting. The paint pigment includes melted beeswax.”
“How unique, but then this entire chapel is. Are your ancestors buried here beneath the floor stones?” she asked, walking slowly up the aisle with him toward the altar.