Justine found she was holding her breath in excitement. She had found what she’d come for. Mary, writing to Bothwell. Was it genuine evidence of her guilt, or forged lies? Justine didn’t know, and right now the answer did not matter. Carefully, she scooped up the pages—it felt like about a dozen—and slid them into her schoolboy satchel.
Down the stairs she hurried, then out the front door. She headed for the spiked towers of York Minster. The city was bustling. Carts clattered in and out under the arch of Monk Bar. A farmer shouted to the cattle he walked behind, driving them in to market. Outside an alehouse, apprentices rolled barrels down a slide off a wagon. A gentleman on a tall gray horse walked his mount alongside a churchman all in black, the two of them arguing. Justine turned onto Minster Yard, passing a scatter of people coming to and from the great church. She went inside. The massive vaulted space was purpled by light filtered through the huge stained glass window in the shape of a rose. Like every great church, the Minster’s nave was a hub of business. Merchants met to trade information. Servingmen lounged, looking to be hired. Ladies met to gossip. An old woman hawked pastries from the basket on her hip. Justine went to the table where two scriveners available for hire by illiterate townsfolk sat at their portable desks amid their wares of papers, quills, and inkpots. A skinny young man wearing a leather apron crusted with dark dry blood, a butcher apparently, was dictating a letter to his mother.
Justine approached the other scrivener, a stooped man with ink-blacked fingertips and a face lined in furrows. He was sharpening his quill with a penknife. “How quickly can you copy these?” she asked, pulling the letters from her satchel.
He perused her fine clothes, gave a cursory look at the pages, mentioned an inflated price, and waited to see if she would accept.
“I didn’t ask the price, only the swiftness of your work. There’s half a crown more than you quoted if you can do it in an hour.”
His eyebrows shot up at his luck. “An hour it is, mistress.”
She didn’t want anyone to see her. The inquiry had drawn scores of men, and some might be in the church or its busy yard. Many would know Lord Thornleigh, and some might know her as his ward. It was safest to not loiter. Will’s house was near. She left the church feeling a glow of accomplishment and returned to his room to wait.
The room made her feel safe and content, surrounded by his things. She tidied the bed, a flush warming her face at the thought of what they had done. She was Will’s true wife now in all but ceremony. They would spend their lives together and would always love each other as they did today. She leaned against the window casement, arms folded, and watched a squirrel scamper along a beech bough. Something about the bare branch, smoke rising behind it from the landlord’s kitchen chimney, made her think of the bakehouse at Yeavering Hall. She had looked at it from her window as a child. Home. With a pang, she thought of her father, her meeting with him on the battlements, a meeting so brief she had scarcely had time to catch her breath at seeing him again, let alone sort her jumbled emotions before he had to leave her, hurrying away lest he be seen. Brief though her time with him had been, she had heard eight years’ worth of pain in his voice. How hard life must have been for him after he fled Yeavering Hall. Wandering French roads, ill and weak, penniless, cut off from all he had known at home and all he once possessed. And now, back in England, his life was no less hard, for he was a fugitive, risking his life to serve Mary. When he had embraced her Justine had been moved by his affection for her, but she was not sure she felt the same. He had been out of her life for so long, and for years she had thought of him as a traitor. Lord Thornleigh had taken her in and treated her like a fond father, and she loved him. But now her true father was back, and his tales of the Thornleighs’ crimes appalled her. She was no longer sure what to think of either of them, or their feud. One aspect of it, though, was clear: their immoveable loyalties. Her father was Mary’s champion, Lord Thornleigh was Elizabeth’s.
And I? she asked herself. The question bewildered and vexed her, for the choice seemed a false one. By helping Mary she would not be harming Elizabeth. Elizabeth had everything: a throne, faithful subjects, security. Mary had nothing. It gave Justine a chill to realize that the state of the two queens mirrored that of the two men: Lord Thornleigh had everything, her father nothing.
“Justine?”
She whirled around. Will! She hadn’t heard the door open. “What’s wrong?” she asked, tense as she glanced at the desk drawer, the ebony box. She had put everything back the way it was.
“I forgot the witness list.” He frowned. “Are you all right? You look pale.”
“I’m fine.”
He relaxed. He went to the desk and Justine held her breath. He grabbed a scroll and came to her, grinning. “I blame you. I’ll be lucky if can remember my own name today, for thinking about you.” He kissed her. Then looked puzzled. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“I wanted a little while longer here, amongst your things. You’re not the only one who can’t think of anything else.”
They kissed again. Then Will said he had to go, and for good this time, and so should she. There was nothing she could say to resist, so they went down the stairs together arm in arm, she nuzzling close, he murmuring again about meeting her for supper. Outside the front door, they stopped. “Off you go,” she said, smiling. “I won’t be responsible for making you late twice.”
He grinned and took a step to leave, but his eyes were still on her and he stopped and gazed at her as if longing to kiss her right here in the street with people all around.
“Mistress?”
Justine was startled to see the stooped old scrivener bustling toward her.
“I finished before an hour,” he said proudly. “If you feel you’d like to top up that half crown, I won’t complain.” He was presenting her the letters in two hands. “Originals,” he said lifting one hand. “Copies,” lifting the other.
Will stared at the papers. He didn’t move. For Justine the noise of the street had been sucked into a tortured silence. Later, she would remember the slowness of Will’s motions. His slow look at her. His slow breaths. As if weights in his mind were dragging every thought down to die. As if he didn’t want to think. Without looking at the scrivener, his eyes on her, he pulled coins from his pocket and offered them to the man. “I will take the papers for this lady.” His voice did not sound like Will’s. Even the scrivener seemed alarmed by its steeliness, and he handed Will the letters, took the money, and was gone.
“Will, before you—”
“Who are you taking these to? Please, tell me it’s my uncle.”
There was no point in lying. She had to make him understand. “No. To Mary.”
He looked as though she had struck him. “Why, in God’s name?”
“So she can fight back. The secrecy of this trial is a mockery of English justice. You should be ashamed to be part of it.”
“It is not a trial.”
“Mary’s life is on trial. I told her about the letters and she assured me that they are forgeries, and that if she could see them she could fight them.”
He blinked in disbelief. “Assured you . . .”
“Will, this is best for everyone. If the inquiry finds Mary innocent, she’ll be able to retire to France and live there in honorable privacy, and Her Majesty will never have to bother with her again. You see? It’s a conclusion tolerable to both queens. It’s best for everyone.”
He was staring at her as if he had never seen her before. A chill crawled over her skin.
“It’s tantamount to treason.” Stiffly, he still held the papers exactly as the scrivener had delivered them, in both hands, and Justine saw the pages quivering, his grip so shaky. He looked down at the writing as if hoping some answer lay there. He found none. His voice was raw. “I’ll have to tell my uncle. He’ll have to tell Elizabeth.”
She gasped. “No. I beg you—”
“I have to.” Tears glinted in his eyes. “How
can I . . . trust you?” He shook his head with an angry jerk to clear the tears.
She gripped his arm. She felt dizzy. “Will, don’t talk like that. Of course you can trust me. I love you, I would do anything for you. This is about other people.”
“My life is with those people. My uncle. Sir William. Elizabeth. Who are you with?”
“You! We are one, you and I. You said it yourself, man and wife in the eyes of God.”
“So we are. I cannot change that.” He shook off her hand. “But I will never trust you again.”
The world fractured, the air splintered. Frozen, she watched him turn and walk into the house. When he shut the door, the sound was an axe in her heart.
19
Elizabeth’s Command
Hoarfrost and cold fog kept the wintery gardens of Hampton Court Palace barren of people, but the palace courtyards, galleries, and public chambers bustled with courtiers, visiting dignitaries, merchants, clerks, pages, and servants. Queen Elizabeth was in residence.
Adam crossed the noisy great hall where people milled around trestle tables laden with food, then marched straight into the great watching chamber where Yeomen of the Guard stood on duty. He gripped a scroll he had brought Elizabeth, his hand around it damp with sweat. Adam had taken many risks in his life, but none as hazardous as this. The chests of gold from the Nuestra Señora still lay hidden under tarps on his boat at Billingsgate next to scruffy fishing smacks and wherries. Having stolen a fortune, he now had to convince Elizabeth to take it. If he could not, the scroll he held might be his death warrant.
He found the watching chamber crowded with men and women in showy courtiers’ finery, all of them waiting to see Elizabeth. Some lounged on benches, some chatted and laughed by the hearth, some whispered in corners. The door to the presence chamber was closed and guards flanked it, but they had admitted Adam often, as they did all of Elizabeth’s councilors and close friends, and he made straight for the door. Nevertheless, a hush fell as he crossed the room and every face turned to him in astonished curiosity. They knew he had been banished from court in disgrace. He paid them no mind. But he did note a huddle of somberly dressed men glaring at him and hissing Spanish. Among them was Guerau de Spes, the crane-thin Spanish ambassador, his narrow face tight with resentment. It was Adam’s attack on this man’s cousin that had got him banished. De Spes stepped into his path, forcing him to halt. Their eyes locked. The Spaniard said in heavily accented English, “The brute returns.” His thin lip curled with contempt. “Like a dog to his vomit.”
Adam wanted to cut the man’s tongue out. But the guards would evict any brawler, friend of Elizabeth or not. He mimed a head butt and flicked his hands in de Spes’s face, not touching him, just looking comically fierce as one would to fright a child in jest. The Spaniard started, alarmed for a moment. Then his face flared red at the humiliating insult.
Adam was glad, a cheap satisfaction though it was. He sidestepped de Spes and told the guard at the door, “I come with news for Her Majesty.”
The guard looked unsure, as though worried he had not been told that Adam’s banishment had been lifted. “Sir, Her Majesty is about to meet with Ambassador de Spes.”
“It’s urgent.” Adam indicated the scroll. “She must hear this news without delay.” He didn’t wait for a reply but opened the door himself. As it closed behind him he heard the voices at his back crescendo, the courtiers gabbling in excitement at his boldness, the Spaniards protesting in anger. None of them mattered to Adam. Only the woman before him. Elizabeth.
She stood at the other end of the chamber with three of her ladies. This high-ceilinged, opulent room was where she gave audience to important persons, but there was no one else at the moment, and Adam felt the empty space between them like a chasm. She was dressed in a stiff, bejeweled gown of crimson and gold elaborately embroidered, so unlike the simple black velvet she often favored when he had seen her alone at her desk over paperwork, her gold-red hair a finer ornament than any jewels. She stood near the presence chair, her throne, above which hung a golden cloth of estate. No one but she was allowed to stand under it. Two of her young ladies were preparing her, one holding a jewel-rimmed mirror up to Elizabeth’s face while the other primped her rigid lace ruff, though Elizabeth had turned her head to see who had come in prematurely. Her eyes widened in surprise, and Adam read a flicker of joy in them as he crossed the room to her and bowed. But when he straightened, a stormy look swept her face.
“Leave us,” she told her ladies.
They curtsied and turned away in a swirl of silks and perfume and disappeared into Elizabeth’s private apartments.
“Was I not clear in conveying my pleasure to you, sir?” she asked with quiet iciness. “You were to confine yourself to the delights of your family at Chelsea.”
“You always make your pleasure clear,” he said, trying a smile, hoping the bond of their past intimacy was strong enough for what he was attempting. “But I could not stay home. I had urgent business to transact on your behalf.”
“My behalf?” she scoffed. “I sent you on no business.”
“No, you were remiss. I went anyway.” He handed her the scroll, his heart beating fast. “This will explain why.”
She took the scroll but did not look at it. Her dark eyes stayed on him, narrowing dangerously. “You take too much liberty, Adam.”
The door opened and Elizabeth’s chamberlain stepped in. He bowed, looking flustered. “Pardon, Your Majesty, but Ambassador de Spes is insistent in requesting that you honor his appointment.”
“Tell my good friend Señor de Spes that the pleasure of seeing him will be mine in just a moment.” She spoke calmly, but Adam knew her well and read the strain she was hiding. A look passed between them, and when the chamberlain left, she allowed Adam a dark half smile. “In truth, I would rather stick pins in my eyes. De Spes is a fanatic.” Her face turned sober. “However, some of us know our duty. Mine is to keep peace between our nations. Yours, at the moment, is to stay out of trouble. And you are courting vast trouble by flaunting yourself to that man after you killed his cousin.” She jerked the scroll toward him, unread, for him to take back.
He raised his hands. “Just read this and hear me—”
“No, I cannot afford your insolence.” She prodded his chest with the scroll, leaving him no choice but to take it. “De Spes is here to vent his outrage, and with cause. The Nuestra Señora, a Spanish ship carrying Philip’s gold, was attacked by pirates and the gold taken. Eighty-five thousand pounds! De Spes is livid and says the pirates were English. He will demand hard retribution from me, you can be sure.” She let out a frustrated puff of breath. “I cannot keep him waiting. Go home, Adam.” She let her fingertips brush his sleeve and she added quietly, sadly, “Go back to your wife.”
“My place is with you, Elizabeth. Protecting your rights. You need to stand up to these Spanish bastards. That’s why I’m here.”
She frowned in angry bemusement. “Do you willfully misunderstand? Do you really not know how dangerously relations between us and Spain have deteriorated?”
“I cuffed his cousin—whose weak heart killed him, by the way. I can hardly be blamed for that.”
“You poured oil on the flames! Which makes you the last person I would entrust to put out the fire.” She cast a sharp glance at the door behind which de Spes waited, and Adam saw her deep anxiety. “That Spanish bull is snorting to come at me.”
“Let him. We can outmaneuver him and his master. I have brought—”
“Stop!” She took a breath, collecting herself. “Philip has fifteen thousand battle-hardened soldiers stationed in the Netherlands under the Duke of Alva. That’s a mere hundred miles off my coast. They could invade us overnight, and I can raise no such army to defend us. War, Adam, turning our peaceful pastures red with English blood. No, I dare not openly defy Philip.”
It sent a stab of dread through him. Had he misjudged her? Had he made a fatal mistake? “Elizabeth, the Spaniards have
already massacred Englishmen. My men. Being timid with them only invites more assault. Philip responds only to strength. Show him you are a force to be reckoned with.”
“But I am not. I am weak. He is strong.”
“Not as strong as before his gold was taken from the Nuestra Señora.” The words were out, surprising even himself. But it was what he had come for, and he seized the risk. He had to make her see the way to help herself—and him. “Nine chests. Eighty-five thousand pounds’ worth of gold in ingots and coin.”
“Nine chests . . . ?” The shocked look on her face turned to suspicion. “How do you know that?”
“As I said, I have been seeing to your interests.”
She gaped at him. “You attacked that ship?”
“For you.” He gripped her arm to press upon her the urgency. The opulent fabric was stiff in his hand. “All I ask is a tenth part.” He added grimly, “The Spaniards owe it to me.”
She shook off his hand, then slapped him. “Damn your eyes! I told you I would send you to the Tower if you did this. Now, by God, I will.” She turned and called, “Guards!” She started for the door.
Adam caught her elbow and spun her around. His heart was in his mouth. “You said you’d send me to the Tower if I attacked their New World treasure fleet. I haven’t.”
Her eyes blazed fury. She said quietly, dangerously, “Do not underestimate me.”
The door burst open and four guards pounded in, swords drawn, followed by the chamberlain, who shouted at Adam, “Unhand Her Majesty!”
“Elizabeth,” Adam said under his breath to her, pleading, “I am the only one who does not underestimate you. Hear me out.”
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