“Oh, sir!” she said through her tears, and flung her arms around his neck. “I will excel in the mission. And when I return to Will, nothing will ever come between us again!”
He chuckled. “I do not doubt it.”
“Pardon, your lordship.” Timothy, the footman, had come into the room. “A letter.”
Justine pulled away, embarrassed at her outburst of affection, but feeling so happy she didn’t really care who saw it.
“It is for Mistress Justine,” he said, offering her the letter.
“Ah, Will is eager,” said Lord Thornleigh with a wry smile.
But Justine saw the handwriting. Not Will’s.
“No, I’m wrong,” he added, eying the inscription. “That looks like my daughter’s hand.”
And so it was, she saw as she opened the letter and looked at the signature. Isabel had written from Yeavering Hall. Justine’s first thought was of Alice. She’d had a letter from her only last week, Alice saying how happy she was to be working for Lady Isabel, and thanking Justine for her help, and sharing a jest from the servants’ hall. Isabel’s note was brief, only a few lines. Justine read them quickly.
Her heart juddered. So very sorry . . . found dead . . .
“Justine?” Lord Thornleigh said.
She stared at the words that, even now, she knew would burn in her mind for as long as she lived . . . strangled . . . by whom we know not . . . no trace of the villain.
The room around her blurred. Inside her, a stillness like stone.
“Justine? What’s wrong?”
She looked up. Tried to speak, but horror clogged her throat. Alice . . . Alice . . . Alice.
6
In the Presence of the Scottish Queen
Covering the three hundred miles from London to Carlisle in England’s north had taken Justine and Lord Thornleigh and their party three weeks. They had journeyed hard, for Queen Elizabeth’s business required haste, and Justine felt the miles in every stiff muscle of her legs and back. The reins she held, brittle from her dried sweat, chafed her newly calloused palms. Her soul felt no less battered. Three weeks had not been enough to dim the horror of Alice’s death. Murdered. Strangled. What kind of devil would do that to lovely Alice? And why? Every mile Justine had ridden beat the merciless questions, like nails, deeper into her. She had no answers, only numbed disbelief.
It was a harsh land she and Lord Thornleigh had come into with their train of six men-at-arms, five servants, and the luggage packhorses. Carlisle lay in the rugged county of Cumbria at one of the most dangerous places in England: the border with Scotland. Centuries of intermittent warfare between the two countries had condemned the local people to endless poverty, misery, hunger, and death, and although there was now peace, tribal hatreds forged from time immemorial ensured that clans on both sides of the border continued to raid each other with great brutality. Thankfully, Justine’s party had completed their journey unmolested through this land of brigands. The weather had been fair, the roads and bridges clear, the inns, though often dirty, were welcome rest stops to such weary travelers, and they were now nearing their destination, Carlisle Castle. It was the seat of Henry, Lord Scrope, Warden of the West March, the Queen’s lieutenant in these parts. Lodged at his castle was his charge, Mary, Queen of Scots.
Justine gazed eastward across the stark moors toward Yeavering Hall, a hard day’s ride away. Yeavering Hall, once her home, where she and Alice had been such close friends as girls. It was near Yeavering that Alice had met her unspeakably violent death. Had she been the victim of a robber’s assault turned deadly? But what did poor Alice have worth stealing? Or had the killer been someone Alice knew? But Isabel had said in her letter that no one among the stunned household, when questioned, had any idea of who could have done such an evil thing. The murderer, they agreed, must have been a stranger, and after killing Alice had taken flight. Justine imagined the servants, Alice’s friends, grieving for her. She had always made friends easily. And what about her ailing parents? Their grief, Justine felt, could not be worse than her own. She had loved Alice. And I sent her there, to Yeavering Hall. Sent her to her death.
She dragged her thoughts back to her mission, for her party had reached Carlisle. The town hugged its castle, the bastion of English forces through centuries of war, whose primary defenses were its massive thirteenth-century walls enclosing the town. An artillery platform squatted on the roof of the keep, and three fortified watchtowers rose from the citadel. Justine anxiously eyed the watchtowers as she rode across the drawbridge that spanned the moat. The hooves of her weary horse clopped with an eerie echo as she passed under the ancient arched gatehouse.
“Where do we find Lord Scrope?” the captain of Lord Thornleigh’s guard was asking the soldier at the gatehouse.
“He is with the Queen of Scots, sir,” the soldier said with a bow to Lord Thornleigh. Though his lordship was a stranger in these parts, any man richly dressed, mounted on a fine horse, and followed by a retinue merited deference. “In the Warden’s Tower.” He pointed down a narrow street. “Southeast corner of the inner ward, sir. You’ll find stabling there.”
The party carried on down the street, and Justine, rousing herself from her sorrow over Alice, took comfort in seeing people going about their workaday business. Hammers clanged at a smithy. Pigs grunted from a pen by the castle wall. Laundry, strung on a clothesline between the crowded houses, fluttered in the warm afternoon breeze. A rank smell rose from a small window, unglazed and barred, at the base of the castle wall. The lockup, no doubt. Justine had heard from a traveler at their last inn stop that whenever Scottish border raiders were captured, they were held in the castle jail. A fierce desire for vengeance stabbed her: if only Alice’s murderer could be manacled and thrown into this lock-up to suffer for his sin. But he was likely far away by now.
Or was he? What if he had not fled but was hiding? Or even going about his business, undetected by the community? She felt an overwhelming urge to investigate the matter on her own. Alice, a poor servant, had no powerful kin to press for a thorough inquiry, so pertinent details could have been overlooked. Justine judged she would be with Mary for some weeks at the very least, and Yeavering was not far. A chilly excitement rushed over her. Yes, she would make her own inquiries there. Someone might have information, might even have seen the killer with Alice. If she could track him down, she would see justice done.
The resolution cleared her mind like a bracing spring breeze. She shook off her sorrow. She would do her duty here with Mary and find out what she could about how Alice had died.
Her duty here. She meant to succeed in this mission. For Elizabeth, for the Thornleighs, and most of all, for Will. To make things right with him, she was ready to do her all. And now that she had finally arrived, she had to admit she felt a deep curiosity. What would the Queen of Scots be like? Justine had learned the basic facts about her, but mystique swirled around this woman three times married and only twenty-five. Crowned queen of Scotland as a baby. Sent to France at five to grow up in pampered splendor at the French court. Married at sixteen to the adolescent French king. Widowed a year later and brought back to Scotland as its queen where she married the young English nobleman Lord Darnley. Widowed again by his murder. Carried off by the violent Lord Bothwell—a staged incident, people said, for he was her lover; raped by him, Mary claimed—but three months after her husband’s murder she married Bothwell. If the accusations are true, Justine thought, Mary is cunning. And wanton. And profane. Cunning enough to see through my posting here?
She felt a nip of panic. She had no training at being a spy. Lady Thornleigh had assured her that she needed none beyond her quick wits and her loyalty to Elizabeth. Justine wasn’t sure about the first, but had no doubt about the second. So loyalty must be my guide, she told herself. Yet her heartbeat quickened, for she was very nervous. Once Lord Thornleigh left to return to London she would have no ally here. Perhaps for months. The responsibility was daunting, knowing that, in some p
art at least, Elizabeth’s security rested on her shoulders. The Thornleighs’ honor certainly did. And, perhaps, her whole future with Will.
She took a deep breath to ready herself as her party reached the square stone tower that housed the Queen of Scots. Two steel-helmeted soldiers flanked its arched wooden doors. A half dozen soldiers patrolled each alley that ran alongside it. Three alert archers stood on the roof. Lord Scrope’s guest was well guarded. Justine was aware of the dual reasons: this level of security was normal to protect a royal personage—but also to contain a threat to England’s queen.
The comfortably furnished chamber into which Justine and Lord Thornleigh were ushered was large, lavishly hung with tapestries, quiet, and dimly lit. At the windows heavy gold brocade curtains were drawn against the sun. A hanging candelabra’s dozen small golden flames gave the only light. Justine caught the faint scent of a spicy perfume. It reminded her of incense. In fact, the atmosphere of the whole room put her in mind of a church, the old kind she had known as a child, a hushed dim place rich with Catholic splendor.
Their host, Lord Scrope, had brought them to this second floor suite of the tower, and he whispered, gesturing to the drawn window curtains, “Her Majesty suffers from headache.”
Justine was surprised by his solicitous tone. A large, fleshy man in his thirties, he was a powerful magnate with authority over the two thousand inhabitants of this town and other towns, and had command of hundreds of soldiers who would butcher and pillage at his order and had done so in the past, but his hushed voice and eager eyes were those of a suitor as he looked expectantly toward the narrow stone staircase curving to the upper floor, Mary’s private suite. The stairs were dark except for a wall-mounted rushlight flickering at the turning. Scrope beckoned the visitors to stand still, as though for an audience.
Lord Thornleigh frowned, looking impatient. “Has she been told we’re here?”
“Shh.” Scrope held a finger to his lips. “Loud noises,” he whispered, tapping the side of his head. “She cannot abide them.”
Footsteps sounded on the narrow staircase. Two well-dressed young ladies, treading lightly as they came down, emerged from its gloom. After a curtsy to the gentlemen, one went to the window to tug the edge of the curtains more tightly together, cutting out a stray beam of sunlight. The other, carrying a wine decanter, set it down on the gleaming oak sideboard where goblets stood. She did so gingerly, as though not to make a clatter.
Justine eyed the young ladies. She did not know them personally, but knew who they were. Margaret Currier, big-boned and broad-faced, and Jane de Vere, petite, with a washed-out pale complexion but bright eyes. They would be her sister ladies-in-waiting. In silent deference, they took up places at the far end of the room and stood still, waiting. As did the two lords. As did Justine, beside her guardian.
More footsteps sounded, descending the stairs, a heavier tread. Two men strode down, one gray-haired but erect as a soldier, the other younger, frailer of body, but with an arrogant aspect that branded him a noble. Scrope, indicating Lord Thornleigh, made introductions in a low voice. The men were Scots. The elder was John Maxwell, Lord Herries. The younger was William Livingston. Justine had been briefed about them. Loyal to Mary, they had fought for her in her battle against the Earl of Moray, her half brother, who had usurped her. When her forces were routed, these nobles rode with her for England. They, too, now looked toward the staircase.
Everyone waited. Outside, in the inner ward below, the voices and casual clatter of Scrope’s soldiers made a muffled hum.
A glitter at the turning of the stairs. Soft-slippered footfalls. In the stairwell’s gloom, Mary emerged. Gold embroidery on her black dress was the glitter, caught by the rushlight. Her face was still in shadow.
She was very tall. That was Justine’s first, startled thought. Taller than most men. As she reached the last step and moved toward the visitors, the light of the candelabra finally illumined her face. The candles’ golden glow showed skin as flawless as a child’s. A heart-shaped frame of pearls held back her smoothly coiffed, dark hair. There was a slight slope to her eyes; together with their alert gleam they put Justine in mind of a cat. Mary came straight toward Lord Thornleigh, her face alight with anticipation, and she caught up his hand and held it in both of hers. Justine almost gasped, so astonishingly intimate was the action.
He looked overwhelmed. He cleared his throat. He bowed.
Mary laughed lightly as though to excuse her impulsive action, and then let go his hand. “Ah, mon seigneur, pardonnez-moi. Votre visite me remplit de joie.” She added haltingly, “I . . . thank you . . . for to come.”
“Her Majesty says your visit fills her with joy, my lord,” said Lord Herries, stepping forward. “She has requested that I translate.” He added with a smile that softened his crusty, military bearing, “My father despaired of my wild youth in Paris, but my years there were worth something.” His English, though tinged with a Scots burr, was as elegant as any Whitehall courtier’s. “I hope you will accept this service?”
“Gladly, sir.” Lord Thornleigh looked relieved. “My French is but a poor relation to yours.”
Herries translated this for Mary and she laughed again, a soft, gentle laugh. Herries grinned. Lord Livingston smiled aristocratic approval. The beefy Scrope gazed at Mary, in thrall.
They are all so earnestly pleasant, Justine thought. Even Lord Thornleigh, who moments ago had been soberly set on his duty here, looked lighter of heart. Mary had done it, she realized in awe. She had heard of the famous remark made by the Venetian ambassador in London, that Mary was the most beautiful woman in Europe, and now she saw why. She was as lovely of form as of face, but it was more than beauty that made people brighten in her presence. Liveliness sparkled in her eyes. Sensuality flowed in her every movement. Justine had a sense that Mary was wholly caught up with whomever she spoke to. At the moment, that person was Lord Thornleigh.
He said, “I hope, Your Grace, that your headache has cleared?”
When Herries translated this, irritation flickered on Mary’s face. Justine guessed it was because Lord Thornleigh had not addressed her specifically as a queen; Your Grace could apply to lesser royalty or a duchess. Though Mary had abdicated her throne over a year ago, she later declared that she had done so under threat of death and renounced the abdication.
She smiled, as though bent on ignoring such irritations, then charmingly brushed aside his concern for her health with a wave of her slender hand. “Il va et vient; ce n’est rien.” It comes and goes; it is nothing.
She gestured to Jane de Vere, who took up a lute and began to play soft chords, soothing and sweet. Mary then gestured to Margaret Currier, talking as she did so, and Herries told the visitors, “Her Majesty wishes you to refresh yourselves with wine after your long journey.”
Lord Thornleigh declined. He was ready for business.
“Pas de vin?” No wine? Mary asked, her hand on her heart in mock dismay. She went on, casting a disarming glance at Scrope, and Herries translated, “Not even the finest Burgundy from the cellar of our noble host?”
Scrope grinned and bowed, preening at Mary’s notice.
“I thank Your Grace,” Lord Thornleigh said, “but the best refreshment will be your satisfied acceptance of my news.”
“News?” she cried in delight. This English word she knew. She clapped her hands with the eagerness of a child. “De ma cousine?” From my cousin?
“From Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, yes.”
“Ah! I have . . . waited . . . hoped!” Keyed up, Mary went on hurriedly in French, and Herries translated, “Her Majesty longs to look on her dear cousin’s face. They have never met, she says, but she knows that when they do they will be as sisters. She says she longs to embrace her sister queen.”
“Sister!” Mary crooned. “Yes!”
“I assure you that Her Majesty feels no less love for Your Grace,” said Lord Thornleigh. “And to show you her love she has sent gifts.” He strode to the d
oor and beckoned his two servingmen, who came in with a carved cedar chest heavy enough to require both of them to carry it. They set it down near Mary, bowing, and then, eyes down, retreated backward.
She looked excited and gestured for Margaret Currier to open the chest.
Before Margaret could move Justine said quickly, “Permettez-moi, votre majesté.” She made a deep curtsy, then went down on her knees beside the large chest.
Mary blinked at her. Justine’s heart was beating hard—she should not have spoken until spoken to—but Mary seemed more intrigued than annoyed, though whether by Justine’s French or her forwardness, she could not tell. Quickly, she opened the chest, releasing a scent of cedar, to show Mary the contents: several folded, sumptuous gowns.
“Her Majesty,” Lord Thornleigh said, looking pleased with Justine’s quick action, “sympathizes with the unfortunate loss of your wardrobe.” It was common gossip that the Queen of Scots had arrived in England with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. The black dress she wore now was likely the best that Scrope’s wife could lend her, and though of fine wool and enlivened with gold embroidery it had no regal splendor. “She hopes these poor offerings will bring you some comfort until you may again wear the raiment befitting your state.”
The gowns were anything but poor. Mary scooped up one of emerald satin, the bodice encrusted with seed pearls. She pressed it to her body as lovingly as a mother would a child. Tears gleamed in her eyes as she answered him, and Herries translated, “Unfortunate in circumstance I am indeed, my lord. But blessed in the love of my dear sister-cousin.”
“To be sure. Furthermore, Her Majesty sends you my ward here, Mistress Justine Thornleigh, to remain in attendance upon you. If the girl has acted out of turn, do forgive her—it is only because she is eager to serve you.”
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