Barbara Kyle - [Thornleigh 05]

by Blood Between Queens

  “Aha.” Mary beamed at Justine. “Très jolie.” Very pretty. “Mon seigneur, I . . . thank . . . you.”

  He gave a courtly bow. “The honor is mine, Your Grace.”

  Still on her knees, Justine looked up at Mary, who was close enough to touch. Mary winked at her, smiling, which brought amused murmurs of approval from Scrope and the two Scots and gave Justine an unexpected thrill. Jane’s sweet lute music lilted on. Justine stood and curtsied again to Mary, and as she resumed her position beside Lord Thornleigh she caught the two young ladies looking at her with friendly curiosity. At such affable goodwill from everyone, especially Mary, she felt a flush of confidence. This would not be so hard a posting after all.

  Mary’s exchange with Lord Thornleigh carried on, and Herries continued to translate, but Justine easily followed Mary’s French, despite her quickness of speech spurred by her excitement.

  “Shall I see my dear sister-cousin soon, my lord? I am ready to travel at a moment’s notice. Are you to escort me to her court? To London?”

  “Not yet, Your Grace. First, there is some business to settle.”

  “Business?”

  He explained that Elizabeth was grieved by the accusations that had been cast upon Mary. He assured her that Elizabeth was determined to end this purgatory of Mary’s, and that her ultimate desire was to restore Mary to her throne.

  Mary’s intense interest was obvious. “Restore me? She said that?”

  “She did.”

  “It is all I want! All I desire!”

  “And what she wishes. But she feels unable to do so while these accusations encumber you.” To that end, he explained, Elizabeth had authorized an inquiry into the causes of the rift between Mary and the government in Edinburgh.

  She blanched. “An inquiry? What does that mean, inquiry?”

  “Her Majesty has appointed commissioners to examine the matter. She has also asked the lords in Edinburgh to send their commissioners to account for their actions against you. Working together, along with you of course, a way ahead will be found.”

  Mary looked horrified. “To defame me!” she cried. “To ruin me!”

  At her outburst the Scottish lords tensed. The lute music stopped. Lord Thornleigh said with careful precision, “The aim, Your Grace, is merely to clear the air.”

  “Defend myself to disobedient subjects? Never! I will not be judged! I will not be put on trial!”

  “I assure you this is not a trial. Her Majesty seeks only peace and harmony in Scotland.”

  She came close to him, so close that Justine, astounded, thought she might actually lay hold of him, but instead she clasped her hands and lifted them in supplication. “Oh, let me see my cousin. To her will I state my case. To my fellow queen. But only to her. Take me to her. I demand that you take me to her!”

  He stiffened. “Please understand. Her Majesty cannot receive you at court while these serious charges hang over you. She has already compromised herself by standing by you. Now she asks that you stand by her and agree to this inquiry.”

  Fury flashed in Mary’s eyes. She swooped toward Herries and snatched the dagger at his belt. Everyone gasped.

  Mary thrust the blade out, clutched in both her hands, backing away from them all as if from attackers. “By God,” she cried in enraged French, “I will kill any man who would drag me off to be tried! Tried by the very villains who usurped my throne!”

  Herries stood mute in shock. Justine, dumbfounded, had understood Mary’s French, and Lord Thornleigh, it was clear, understood her action.

  “Madam!” Livingston lurched forward, consternation on his face, as though to disarm her for her own good.

  She gave a menacing jab with the dagger. Livingston halted. Everyone froze.

  Mary flipped the blade tip toward her own throat. Her eyes blazed fury at Lord Thornleigh. She spat in French, “Elizabeth will cancel this order, or I will kill myself.”

  Scrope cried out in alarm, “No!” The two Scots looked deathly afraid. Mary suddenly swayed on her feet. Her face was white. Her arm with the dagger drooped. The blade clattered to the floor. Scrope rushed to pull a chair toward her and she sank into it, moaning. Herries and Livingston hurried to her side. Scrope, too. He was bending to take her hand to comfort her when Lord Thornleigh grunted a stern warning to him. “My lord!”

  Scrope straightened, stiff, aware that, as Elizabeth’s lieutenant, he had gone too far. He stepped away from Mary.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. She rolled her head in misery. “A trial . . . never.” Tears ran down her cheeks. Her breaths were shudders as she wept. “Only God can judge me!” Herries pulled himself together to translate this.

  Lord Thornleigh, alone among the men, seemed unmoved. “As He shall judge us all, madam.”

  She shot him a sharp look. Ignoring her two loyal lords who hovered by her side, she kept her eyes locked on Lord Thornleigh as she wiped tears from her cheeks and went on in French. Herries translated. “Her Majesty meant, sir, that no man stands between a sovereign and God.”

  “Be that as it may, madam, the inquiry convenes at York as soon as the Scottish commissioners arrive. You are requested to appear.”

  Mary was utterly still. Justine marveled at her instant composure. When Mary spoke, her voice was steel. In English, Herries repeated her words. “Tell my cousin this. I will never plead my cause against the usurpers unless they stand before me in chains.”

  She got to her feet. Herries stood by her and translated. “Go, sir. Return to your royal mistress.” She threw Justine a glance of scorn. Her next French words stunned Justine. “And take this girl back with you. I require no such gift.”

  Justine paced on the sunlit terrace beneath Mary’s tower. Dismissed before she had even begun! Indignation coursed through her. To be treated so disdainfully by Mary was not just a slap to her, it was a gross insult to Lord Thornleigh—to Elizabeth! It sparked in Justine a sharp, fresh desire to fulfill her mission. Yet what was she to do? Mary had retired in anger to her private suite. Lord Thornleigh was in Scrope’s rooms in conference with Herries and Livingston, trying to beat out a settlement. Justine was alone on the terrace with her fear that this venture was stillborn, that she would be riding back to London to face Will with no evidence to prove herself a loyal Thornleigh, only a stark confession of her Grenville blood.

  Pacing, she reached the waist-high terrace wall and pressed her hands against it to steady her rising alarm. She had to stay. Had to somehow make them let her stay. But how? The men would be discussing only the inquiry, Lord Thornleigh urging his queen’s agenda while Herries pressed that of his queen. Perhaps, after long negotiation, they might come to terms, but what difference does it make to me? she thought anxiously. They won’t even be discussing me. She was a minor cog in these wheels of diplomacy, and much as Lord Thornleigh wanted her to stay and wait on Mary for any information she could supply to Elizabeth, he would almost surely sacrifice that point if he could get Mary to accept the far more urgent one of appearing before the inquiry. That was what he had been sent to do, if he could.

  Well, I’ve been sent to do something, too, she thought. And I will do it.

  The terrace overlooked the slope of the hill the castle stood on, and she gazed across the moors toward Yeavering Hall. It lay miles away, too far to see, but a memory surged back of that night she had seen her father for the last time.

  Excitement shot through her. Is that the way to stay? My Grenville blood?

  She hurried to the chamber she had been given, a small but cheerful room over the castle’s chapel. She found her maid, Ann, dozing on a chair by the open window, snoring softly in the afternoon heat. Justine passed her as quietly as she could so as not to wake her. She pulled a key from her underskirt pocket as she reached the cherrywood jewel case on the table. She unlocked it. Her necklaces and earrings, nestling in blue velvet, sparkled. Dumping them on the bed, with a glance at Ann to be sure she dozed on, she righted the casket and with her fingernail pried loose th
e velvet false bottom. Beneath it lay a hand-sized red leather pouch. She lifted it, its supple leather as soft as skin, and felt a shiver. It had been years since she had looked at it. The leather was pocked with black pinpricks, burned by cinders. Remembering, she could almost smell the smoke on her father’s breeches as he tossed this pouch to her from his horse. The day after he vanished she had looked inside the pouch—it held twenty-three coins, all gold sovereigns, and a jeweled pendant—then she had tugged tight its satin drawstring and never looked inside it again. Taken into Lord Thornleigh’s family, she had never needed the coins. She had buried the memory of her traitorous father and put aside the pouch. She wanted no part of his gift.

  Until now. Not the coins. The pendant.

  “Oui?” Mary half turned her head as she sat writing at her desk. “Qui est là?”

  “C’est moi, votre majesté. Justine.”

  Mary quickly turned. “Comment êtes-vous entré ici?” How did you get in here?

  Justine curtsied, her heart pounding. “L’escalier de terrace.” The terrace stairway.

  They continued in French. “Well?” Mary asked, the quill pen stilled in her hand. “What do you want?” She looked irritated, as if she felt a lowly servant had interrupted her though she knew she had to be civil to this relation of an English baron.

  “Only to be of assistance to you, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh?” Her tone was mildly sarcastic. “Not to your guardian?”

  “Yes, of course. My attending you is his lordship’s wish.”

  “Because it is his royal mistress’s wish?”

  “Yes, exactly.”

  Mary gave her a hard look. “Yes, exactly.” She winced, as though her headache had returned, and rubbed her brow, murmuring, “I would I knew Elizabeth’s mind.”

  “Your Majesty, if I have offended you in some way I entreat you to forgive me. I would not distress you for the world.”

  Mary cocked her head, vaguely intrigued. “Your French is excellent.”

  “Thank you. My mother was French. From Lille.”

  “But your father English?”

  “Yes. I was born not sixty miles from here.”

  Mary, losing interest, was tapping the feather end of her quill against the desk. “If you have been sent with instructions to pacify me, save your breath.” She turned back to her writing. “You may go.”

  “I have no such instructions. I have come on my own. Your Majesty, I hope you will accept a gift.”

  Mary turned. She eyed the red leather pouch that Justine held up. “A trinket from your guardian?”

  “No, Your Majesty. From me. And it is no trinket.”

  She came close and kneeled in front of Mary. Tugging loose the pouch’s satin drawstring, she slipped her fingers inside and slid out the pendant. It was a crucifix, two inches of pure gold. The cross had been wrought by a master craftsman to seem like rough, splintered wood, while the skin of the Christ, slumping in agony upon it, was as smooth as water. The wounds in his nailed, bleeding palms and at his nailed, crossed ankles were rubies.

  Justine looked up. Mary’s face had utterly changed. Boredom and irritation had fled. She looked enthralled. “Beautiful,” she whispered, and reached out to touch it.

  Justine whispered, too. “The people in these parts hid many such sacred objects. They are keeping them safe, waiting for the day when the one true church is reborn in England.”

  She waited, holding her breath, watching Mary. What she had just said was near blasphemy in Elizabeth’s Protestant realm. Enough to warrant a complaint against her in the church courts, if anyone cared to make it, and certainly enough to compromise Lord Thornleigh.

  Mary gave her a searching look. “Is that your wish?”

  Justine was committed now. “It is. And the wish of thousands of good people here in the north. But most of all, Your Majesty . . .” Her mouth was so dry she had to swallow to go on. “Most of all, my wish is to serve you. I hope you understand how these two wishes are one and the same.” She held out the pendant crucifix as an offering.

  Mary held her gaze for a long moment, her face grave, as though weighing a hard decision. Then she took the gift.

  Justine let out a puff of breath, too relieved to hide it. And encouraged. Now she dared go on. “Let me stay, Your Majesty? Please. Let me stay.”

  Mary looked mildly taken aback. “Subtlety is not your forte, is it?”

  “If you send me back, the Queen will only send someone else in my stead. And you could do worse than me.”

  “Really?” She seemed almost amused.

  “Really. The two young ladies who attend you now, do they speak French?”

  “Yes.” Her lips curved in a sly smile. “Badly.”

  Justine returned the smile, exulting.

  Abruptly, Mary stood. “Rise. What did you say your name was?”

  “Justine, Your Majesty.” She got to her feet.

  “Justine, fetch Lord Thornleigh. And would you kindly translate for us?”

  She hurried to tell him. She would have run along the corridor if servants at their tasks had not been watching. He was startled when she told him that she had managed to speak privately to Mary, had impressed her favorably, and now Mary was asking to see him.

  “Lead the way,” he said, clearly pleased.

  They assembled again in the tapestry-hung chamber, and this time Mary was waiting for them. Justine stood in pride of place beside Mary as her translator, as Herries had done before.

  Mary raised her chin proudly before Lord Thornleigh. “My lord, I have revised my decision concerning this inquiry my dear cousin has set in motion.”

  He bowed with respect. “Then Your Grace will attend?”

  “No. It is beneath my honor to do so. However, I shall send commissioners to make my case. I alone, sir, will choose them.”

  Lord Thornleigh frowned. This was not what he had expected. Nor had Justine. But she felt, and sensed that he did, too, that it was Mary’s final answer. Justine hardly cared. She had won what she wanted. She was staying.

  He collected himself and gave another bow, stiffer than before. “I shall take this message to Her Majesty.”

  “Thank you.” She glanced at Justine. “And take your ward home, too.”

  Justine gasped. “But—”

  “Tell my cousin,” Mary said directly to Lord Thornleigh, “that as soon as she welcomes me to her court, I shall welcome her people to mine.”

  7

  The Crucifix

  Night was the only safe time for Christopher Grenville to move. Tonight, though, a full moon shone down mercilessly on Carlisle Castle. Christopher backed up against the recessed door of the castle chapel, shrouding himself in deeper shadows as a soldier on horseback trotted past. The clatter of the hooves faded and silence fell over the narrow, moonlit street. An owl hooted from the castle wall. Christopher let out a pent-up breath. He was taking a huge risk in coming here. The incident with the seamstress from Yeavering Hall three weeks ago haunted him like an ill omen. The price on his head for treason now included murder. Curse the girl for recognizing him! He hadn’t wanted to kill her, but what choice did he have? He could not let word of his return get out. Even more worrying was that figure he had seen running away through the churchyard. A witness?

  He clenched his teeth, cutting off the galling worries. The risks and dangers he faced would all pay off if his plans for Mary bore fruit. And that looked so hopeful now! He was itching to tell her. All evening he had waited in the castle’s cellar tavern, alone with his ale, watching the window until he saw the sun set. Earlier he had tethered his horse in the woods and trudged into the castle precincts where his homespun clothes and the satchel of trinkets he had slung over his shoulder gave him a certain invisibility—a harmless peddler, one of many country folk who constantly came and went with their produce and wares. Now, night was his other ally.

  He hoped that Mary had not changed her routine. She, too, liked the night.

  He s
lipped inside the chapel, closing the door quietly behind him. The dimly lit space seemed deserted—just five vacant rows of upholstered benches. The altar slumbered under a pale wash of moonlight crimsoned by a stained glass window. A faint light glowed from an alcove behind a pillar. He moved silently past the benches, past the pillar, and reached the alcove. A woman was kneeling in prayer before a bank of votive candles under a wall-mounted cross. Christopher’s nerves leapt to life. Mary.

  She raised her head suddenly at a sound. She looked over her shoulder, saw him, and gasped in fear.

  He moved so quickly he was behind her before she could rise. He clamped his hand over her mouth and pressed the back of her head against his thigh, his other hand pushing her shoulder down to force her to stay on her knees. She squirmed. “Be quiet,” he whispered in French. “Do not call for help.”

  He loosened his hold on her enough to let her twist around, still kneeling. She looked up at him and her eyes went wide, not with fear now but with surprise. “You!” she whispered.

  Power surged through him as he kept hold of her shoulder to keep her down. To have Mary Stuart on her knees before him. A queen!

  “Give me your hand,” he said. He felt her slight shiver at his command—a shiver of pleasure, like the old days. It made him shiver. Obeying, she offered her hand. He took it and brought it to his lips. “My lady.”

  Her wide-eyed gaze, and the way she stayed in a pose of submission when she could have risen—it fired his blood, made him bold. He turned her hand and slid his tongue across her palm. She trembled. He thrilled at her salty taste.

  A thud at the altar startled them both. Mary jumped to her feet. Christopher gripped the dagger handle at his belt.

  A cat leapt down from the altar, streaked across the chapel, and disappeared into the shadows.

  They turned to each other and she gave a small laugh of relief. He relaxed, too, letting go the dagger. Face-to-face with her now, she so tall, her regal bearing returning, Christopher felt the intimate spell dissolve. A good thing, he thought, getting control. He had been too near forgetting himself. That would be dangerous, for him and for her. He could hope for that reward later, the taste of her skin, as the crowning prize for their success. He wanted even more—she could restore his lands to him, raise him to greatness, even make him an earl. But only if the plan he had set in motion succeeded. For now, he had to keep his distance.