by Barbara Kyle
She smiled slyly. “Do you imagine me tearing into Grenville Hall brandishing a sword and shrieking battle cries? Of course I’ll be prudent. You worry too much.”
“Someone has to,” he grumbled.
She laughed. Then she said with quiet hopefulness, “But we will stay?”
“If I agree to that, you must agree to something for me. If no rebellion happens after all, if it turns out that there is no hope of change in England, then you will come away.”
Her brow furrowed as she thought about this. “How long will you give me?”
He thought quickly. “Until the Queen’s marriage. They say the Prince is on his way, but Lent is coming and the Queen won’t be married in Lent. So that leaves three weeks. If there’s no rebellion by then, we go. Agreed?”
He saw the struggle going on inside her. But finally she nodded.
Thornleigh felt as though a chain had uncoiled from around his heart. There would be no rebellion; it would be suicide for anyone to try. In three weeks he could take her to safety.
“Good,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He brushed his cheek over her hair. Definitely lavender. “Isabel’s out for a while, the boy said?”
Honor drew back, but only far enough to smile up at him with understanding. “Apparently for the afternoon.”
“Even better.” He began to untie the ribbon lacing at her cuff. Dinner could wait. He had not felt so happy in months.
4
First Loyaltie
Isabel stood under lightly falling snow at Martin St. Leger’s front door on Bucklersbury Street and knocked. She held a linen pouch of sweetmeats she had just bought at the apothecary’s to forestall her parents’ suspicion when she returned to the Crane. The door swung open and Martin stood before her. His cheeks were flushed.
“Everything’s changed, Isabel! We’re leaving for Kent this afternoon!” He yanked her inside and slammed the door. In his eagerness he was pulling her by the wrist, almost dragging her into the great hall, and she dropped the pouch. “Martin, stop!” He let her go, apologizing, and snatched up the sweets for her. Isabel had never seen him so excited. He was like a boy about to gallop off on his first hunt. They were alone in the great hall, but Isabel could hear men’s agitated voices in the parlor at the far end where the door stood open. “What’s changed?” she asked. “Won’t Sir Thomas see me after all?”
“I don’t know,” Martin confessed, plowing a hand through his hair. “Everything’s different now.” He shot a glance toward the parlor. Isabel could see a man pacing at the open door, talking loudly, though his words were indistinct at this distance. His doublet had been thrown off, and he paced in his shirt. A fit man, she noted, perhaps in his early thirties, with a short brown beard and short straight hair. Was it Sir Thomas Wyatt? Someone inside kicked the door shut.
“Oh, Martin, tell me,” Isabel said. “What is going on?”
Martin took a deep breath and again raked at his hair. “It was supposed to happen in several places at once, in about six weeks. Sir Peter Carew was going to collect a force in Devon, and Sir James Crofts would do the same in Wales. The Duke of Suffolk was set to raise up the Midlands. And Sir Thomas,” he said, jerking his head toward the parlor, “would raise up Kent. But this afternoon"—his hands flew up in the wild gesture of an explosion—"we heard that Carew has bolted! Sold his cattle and grabbed the cash and fled in a fishing boat to France. And the foul weather has cut us off from Wales—made the roads impassable for our couriers to bring news. And the Duke of Suffolk, he’s gone. He was here in London, but this morning the Queen’s council sent for him, and he sent back word he was on his way to come to them, and then he tore away, last seen riding northwards out of London like he was fleeing the Devil. No one knows where to. So Sir Thomas says we must begin the uprising ourselves. Now!”
“But why? What went wrong?”
“Courtenay, the Earl of Devon.” Martin’s look was murderous. “When the Chancellor pressed him about the rumors, Courtenay blabbed. At least, that’s the opinion of Ambassador de Noailles.” In mentioning the French ambassador, Martin again jerked his head toward the door.
“But why would Lord Courtenay do such a thing?” Isabel was shocked by the betrayal. “I thought he was to be the figurehead for the uprising. That his royal blood would make the country rally.”
“De Noailles says—”
“St. Leger!” a voice called, and the parlor door flew open again. The man who had been pacing took a step out into the hall. “There you are. We need wine. I’m parched with all this jabbering.” Noticing Isabel, he dropped the belligerence in his voice. “Wine, Martin, if you please.” He stepped back inside and closed the door.
“Is that him?” Isabel asked Martin. “Wyatt?”
“Yes. Damn, there’s only a scullery maid back there,” he grumbled as he hurried off toward the kitchen. Isabel heard him call to the maid for wine. She looked around the hall, so eloquent with the evidence of family life: a mound of half-worked embroidery, a child’s straw doll facedown on a chair, a wooden horse with painted bells, a chess game left unfinished. She knew that Martin’s large family—his long-widowed mother, his three sisters and their husbands and children, his uncles and aunts here for Christmas—all had gone off to the bear garden with the rest of the servants.
Martin was back in the hall in a moment. “Look, Isabel, I’ve got to go back in. I’ll try to get him to see you, but the way things now stand …” He shrugged to indicate the unlikelihood. “But sit here and I’ll do my very best.” He took her hand and led her to the chair with the doll, shoving it off and sitting her down. He pressed her hand ardently against his chest. “Oh, Isabel, if we leave now God only knows when I’ll see you again.”
She leaned close to him and said with passionate conviction, “When you’ve beaten the Queen and saved the realm. Then, come back to me.”
He smiled, and his eyes spoke his feeling. He kissed her hand and then hurried into the parlor. The door closed after him.
Isabel sat still, straining to hear the drone of the men’s talk behind the door. Her eyes fell on the straw doll on thefloor. Its head was twisted askew. A memory flashed in her mind of a night in Seville, lurid with flames, and a young Spanish woman, a Jew, slumped in her bonds at the stake as the fire was lit around her. She had been garroted—an act of mercy at the final moment in return for her denouncing her religion. Isabel, six at the time, had caught the sight only fleetingly before her parents had whisked her away from the horrifying spectacle, and she had not understood until she was older that it had been part of an auto da fé, the huge public executions staged by the Spanish Inquisition in their quest to exterminate all infidels and heretics. Soon after, the Thornleighs had left Seville after only a year and returned to Antwerp. But to Isabel, the sight of the woman, as limp and lifeless as this doll, forever symbolized to her the continuing horrors of Spanish authority.
She sprang from the chair, ran to the door, and pressed her ear against it to hear the men’s talk. There were several voices, edgy, conflicting, interrupting one another:
“This afternoon’s impossible, Thomas. My sons are at Basingstoke.”
“Fine by me, Thomas, but I’ve got to have a day or two in Canterbury to round up the men that—”
“My brother and I can go right away,” Martin said.
“This afternoon?” a weary voice moaned. “Good Christ, I haven’t even got a decent mount.”
“It’s got to be this afternoon.” Isabel recognized this voice as the one that had called for wine—Wyatt. “Look, the royal council doesn’t know about us. Thank God we hadn’t yet taken Courtenay into our confidence. But it seems he’s blabbed enough to hand them the Duke of Suffolk’s scent. All right, that gives us a little time. While they’re chasing north after Suffolk we can get down to Kent. But it’s got to be now.”
“Fine,” the Canterbury man said resolutely. “My son and I are on our way. The moment word comes from you, Thomas, the men of Canterbury w
ill march.”
“Thank you, Walter. Ned, you too. God speed you both.”
There was a brusque chorus of, “God speed!” from other voices.
Isabel lurched out of the way just as the door swung open. The two men came out, father and son, and closed the door. Fastening their cloaks, tugging on their gloves, they did not notice her. They strode through the hall, turned the corner into the screened passage, and slammed out the front door.
In the parlor a man was saying, “Thomas, it’s not that I can’t go this afternoon, but—”
“This afternoon, tomorrow, what’s the difference?” This voice was gruff, older sounding. “Real question is, how in the name of Christ do we pay for this? Body of God, an army? Thomas, George—think of the expense, will you? You haven’t the cash. Neither has Norton there—have you? Or you, Culpepper? None of us has. And that’s all our men will want to know if we’re asking them to soldier.”
“Qu’est ce qu’il dit?” This querulous voice, Isabel decided, must belong to the French ambassador, de Noailles. Martin had told her that de Noailles spoke no English. His presence in this gathering did not surprise her. The King of France was a notorious foe of Prince Philip’s father, the Emperor Charles. The two monarchs had been warring for decades over pieces of the Italian peninsula. The Emperor, as King of Spain and ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, was lord of half of Europe, and of the limitless New World as well. France was his only real adversary, so each was always angling for England’s allegiance, or to set England against the other. The prospect of the Emperor’s son virtually controlling the English throne by marrying the Queen had enraged the French. The marriage was an event they would naturally do their best to prevent.
“L’argent, Monsieur, ” Wyatt translated testily. “Il dit que nous n’avons pas assez d’argent.”
Isabel translated it in her mind: we have no money.
De Noailles was saying that his king guaranteed them money. Money and troops. Isabel was glad now that her mother had taught her French.
Again Wyatt translated the Ambassador’s words for the others, but his impatience with this apparently on-going chore was evident in his voice. “So never mind about money, Sir Henry,” Wyatt concluded. “France promises money, men, and ships. In fact, they are going to land a force in Scotland. The Ambassador has already outlined the plan to me, and he’ll keep us posted about these developments.”
“Money, Isley?” a cross voice asked. “We are setting about God’s business here, to keep England free from popery! Money cannot be our thought.”
“I tell you,” the weary voice groaned, “my best horse is lame.”
Listening, Isabel realized that there was no way Martin could suggest her participation to Wyatt, not amongst all these chaotic concerns. She had to act now. If the men were leaving immediately, there would not be another chance.
She ran to the kitchen and almost collided with the lone scullery maid ambling out carrying a tray with a pitcher and goblets. “I’ll take that,” Isabel said, and lifted the tray from the wondering girl’s hands. She hurried back through the hall and stopped at the parlor door, the tray balanced on one hand. She took a deep breath, turned the handle, and pushed open the door with her foot.
Fourteen faces turned to her. Fourteen impatient men. Their leftover bread and cold beef and empty pots of ale littered the table. Their bulky winter clothing permeated the room with the smells of leather, damp wool, and horses.
“Wine, Sir Thomas,” Isabel said as steadily as she could.
Eleven faces looked away, accepting the intrusion of a servant, and resumed their discussion. But Martin came to her side. And his brother—she was surprised to see Father Robert here—smiled his support from across the room. Wyatt, however, eyed her warily. Martin introduced Isabel to him, adding proudly, “My betrothed, sir.”
“I want her out of here,” Wyatt said.
Martin bristled. “Sir, I would trust this lady with my life.”
“Ours too, apparently,” Wyatt growled. “Out.”
Isabel swallowed. “Sir Thomas, I speak French. I can translate your discussion for the Ambassador.”
Wyatt looked startled.
“You can trust me, sir,” she urged. “I only want to help.”
Wyatt hesitated. He appeared to be considering.
“Sir Thomas,” Martin said, “Isabel already knows the worst about us. Give her a chance.”
Wyatt appraised Isabel. “Good French?”
“Le meilleur. Ma mère est une instructrice excellente.”
The best. My mother is an excellent teacher.
Wyatt thought for a moment. “All right.” He jerked his head toward a finely dressed older man at the fireplace—Ambassador de Noailles, Isabel gathered.
“Come on,” Martin whispered in her ear. She felt his hand squeeze her arm in encouragement as he guided her toward the Ambassador.
“Norton, we haven’t heard from you,” Wyatt called across the room. “Will your tenants come out on such short notice?” He shot a glance at Isabel. She immediately translated for Noailles. The Ambassador nodded, clearly pleased at this solution to his ignorance. Wyatt, looking satisfied, turned his attention back to the man he had addressed, Norton.
Norton was gnawing his lower lip. “Look, my house is practically next to Lord Abergavenny’s, and he’s one of the Queen’s most ferocious supporters. I wish you’d consider my position.”
“Your position is going to be prone on a French battlefield, dead,” a young man poking the fire said over his shoulder, “as fodder in the Emperor’s wars—and all the fighting men of your tenantry with you—if you don’t rally with us against the Spaniards.”
“Christ, Brooke,” Norton cried, “your own father won’t budge from his castle!”
Brooke threw down the poker. “He’s sent George and me.”
“But kept well clear himself!”
“How dare you—”
“All right, all right,” Wyatt said, restraining Norton. “Let’s fight the Queen’s men, not each other.” The two antagonists looked away, mollified.
A burly gentleman said, “I want to know what arms are available.” Several men answered about the stock of their armories. Isabel listened, then gave de Noailles the gist of the talk of swords, longbows, arquebuses, and breastplates.
“Norton’s right about Abergavenny.” This was the gruff-sounding man concerned about money, Sir Henry Isley. “He’s a problem. But he’s rich. I say we capture him. Hit him hard, first thing, and squeeze him for treasure. Then hand it out to our men-at-arms.”
“No.” Wyatt was emphatic. “Listen"—he addressed the whole group—"our declared aim is to keep out grasping foreigners. If we begin by robbing our own countrymen, they’ll surely turn against us. And who could blame them? No, I’ll not condone sack and plunder.”
There was murmured agreement throughout the room at this. Even Isley nodded grudgingly, and downed his wine.
For a while Wyatt fielded questions and Isabel kept up a constant murmur of translation into de Noailles’s ear: “Is there any word of support from Princess Elizabeth?” someone asked.
“I’ve sent a message to her country house. She hasn’t replied yet.”
“What of the Duke of Suffolk?” Martin asked.
“Lost contact. But he’ll be somewhere in Leicestershire mustering a force to join us.”
“Will our London friends stand firm?” Isley asked.
“Aye,” Wyatt said with a grin. “You saw the welcome Londoners gave the Spanish envoys yesterday.” There was a murmur of laughter. “And,” Wyatt added, clapping a friendly hand on Isley’s shoulder, “there’ll be plenty of gold once the Tower is in our army’s hands.”
“God will not suffer us to lack for anything,” another agreed jubilantly. “Our cause is holy!”
Isabel regarded the last speaker, a fiery young man. The look in his eyes reminded her of the Anabaptists in the Netherlands, the fanatical Protestants so hated by the Emperor�
��and massacred by him. As a child, Isabel had seen their heads on poles by the river, their eyes staring out with righteous wrath, even in death.
“Our cause at the moment, Master Vane, is to get ourselves down to Kent,” Wyatt said coolly.
“I stand ready, Thomas, and all the fighting men on my estates. Our sacred duty is to put down the papist idolaters.”
“Aye,” another man agreed, “let’s get the bloody Mass stamped out. I’ll bash the head of any man who tells me I’m eating a piece of Our Lord when I mouth a morsel of Communion bread.”
“Well said, Master Harper,” the fiery young man cried. “We’ll lead the whole kingdom against the whoreson papists among us!”
“That would be a mistake,” Isabel said.
The room quieted. Isabel felt all their eyes on her. Her heart pumped in her throat. She hardly knew where her voice—her thought—had come from. But once the declaration was out she felt its perfect rationality. And a surge of power at having said it. She knew she must go on. “Spaniards are the enemy, not Catholic Englishmen,” she said. “Tell the country that. Englishmen will fight to keep out Spaniards.”
A log in the fire crackled in a small explosion, cascading sparks onto the hearth. In the silence, de Noailles, looking confused, whispered to Isabel, “Qu’avez-vous dites?” She whispered back to him in French. No one else moved.
Wyatt was staring at her. “The lady is a strategist,” he said quietly. He turned to address the whole group. “She’s right. We must not make this a quarrel to divide Englishmen, but one to unite them against a common foe. Vane, Harper, all of you—leave your fulminations against the Mass at home. Bring only your sense of England’s rights against the foreigners. Bring that, and your courage, and we shall not fail.”
“Bring your weapons, too,” Isley added gruffly.
Wyatt laughed. “Aye, Sir Henry.” The others laughed as well, gladly shaking loose the tension of their hours of worry and indecision. “And bring every mother’s son you find idly toasting his toes at the fire. Let’s rouse ‘em up! Let’s go now, and be about it!”