by Barbara Kyle
It was Martin who had assured him that Isabel was an excellent horsewoman. “I’ve seen her jump a hedge that many a man would have gone ‘round, sir.”
And Wyatt had finally agreed. There had been a quick exchange between him and Ambassador de Noailles, who’d readily confirmed that he could work with Isabel. Then, Wyatt had simply said to her, “All right,” and headed for the door.
Only then had Isabel felt a stab of uncertainty. The men were about to ride down to Kent, full of purpose, but what exactly was expected of her? “What shall I do, Sir Thomas?” she said, following them through Martin’s great hall.
“Nothing. Not until we’ve raised the standard.”
“But how will I know that?”
“Oh, you’ll hear. You and all of England. Go then to Monsieur de Noailles. He’ll tell you what to do. After that, mistress,” he added pointedly, “we shall be counting on you.” He started to go. Brushing past Martin, he said, “Bid her goodbye, my friend,” and left.
Martin and Isabel stood looking at one another, both too full of feeling to speak. He took her face between his hands and kissed her forehead. Impulsively, she lifted her face and kissed his mouth. He gazed at her as if in awe, and whispered, “You’re wonderful!”
And then he, too, had gone.
No, Isabel thought as she paced in her room while the church bells clanged outside, she would not desert. Martin, Wyatt, Wyatt’s army—perhaps the whole bold venture—all might be hanging on her steadfastness. She would not be on her father’s ship to Antwerp.
Lord Anthony Grenville reached the dim top step of a winding stone staircase in his house near Colchester and paused. An unpleasant odor had snaked into his nostrils. He looked at the wand of candlelight glowing beneath the closed door before him and shook his head. He knew that odor too well. The sweet stench of rotting fruit. Again.
He tapped softly at the door. There was no answer. He had not expected one. He opened the door. Inside the window-less chamber the smell was worse: a rank blend of decomposing vegetable matter, ancient dust, and urine.
But wafting above the stench was the faint, fresh scent of new silk thread. Grenville took heart from that, as always. He closed the door behind him, creating a small gust that made the flames on several white wax candles flare in their wall sconces. He smiled at his sister, seated in her chair and swathed in the soft white wool habit of a Carmelite nun. “Ah, that’s a lovely piece you’re doing there, dear heart,” he said.
Eleanor Grenville made no response. She was bent in concentration over her lace-making table, her long, white fingers winding the white silk thread around the maze of silver pins. Eleanor was fifty-seven and her hands did not move quickly, but they did move expertly—winding, tying tiny knots, snipping the silk with a pair of silver scissors. The fabric taking shape among the pins looked like a fantastic dry snowflake, a variation of the hundreds of soft white creations around her. Eleanor’s handiwork filled the room.
Lace drooped from her work table. Lace hung from the four posts of her lace-draped bed. Lace lay scattered on the floor like drifts of snow. Lace hung from hooks in the rafters, and the candlelight shining through its myriad holes made spangled patterns on the walls, themselves covered with folds of lace. Lace had been worked into caps, gloves, collars, and stockings; into shawls, chemises, christening gowns, and petticoats—garments that seemed created for a race of ethereal spirits, for they certainly would not withstand the rigors of wear in human life. The room was a fairy cobweb of lace.
Grenville stooped over his sister and kissed her forehead. Her skin felt as soft as chalk powder on his lips. “There’s news, dear heart,” he said, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. “That Spanish mercenary upstart is finally out of the way for good. Edward routed him in court yesterday. Quite a victory it was—a stirring show from Edward, I can tell you. I wish you’d been there to see him. I was proud.”
As if he were not in the room, his sister lifted her head and examined the handiwork before her with the expert’s frown of scrutiny. Drifting in thought, she lifted one finger, as tapered and white as an ivory crucifix, and laid it against her pale, pursed lips. Then she set to work again, carefully winding her thread among the pins.
Grenville unbuttoned his doublet and it took off, already uncomfortable in the eye-drying heat produced by three silver braziers in the room. With no windows, the space remained constantly hot. But that was the way Eleanor liked it, Grenville thought with a sigh. When she had first been brought to the house, he had given her one of the finest bedchambers with a large oriel window, hoping its charm would speed her recovery. But the view was of the neighboring Bradford Abbey’s stone tower, and seeing it, Eleanor had mewed out a strangled scream, then shrunk into a catatonic stupor that had lasted for weeks. After that, Grenville had brought her to this closed chamber where she would not be tormented by glimpses of the world.
“Yes,” he went on expansively, “Edward Sydenham is going to make a fine son-in-law. Frances has done well.”
He chatted on, moving about the room and performing tasks that had not been seen to in several days, for no one entered Eleanor’s room but him, or, in his absences from home, a quiet little maid; for two days now the maid had been lying ill with a flux. Grenville collected decayed apples from under a heaped lace tablecloth, making a mental note to tell the boy who left the food trays on the outside step to substitute preserved apricots for the apples. He added scoops of coal to the red embers in the braziers. He ladled fresh water from a barrel into a basin, which he set on a trivet over one of the braziers. He swished water into the garderobe shute, washing its slime of excrement down the outside of the tower. He swept some moldy crusts dotted with mouse droppings into the coal scoop, and scattered them onto one of the braziers where they hissed and shriveled.
“I do hope you’ll feel up to coming to Frances’s wedding, dear heart,” he said as he worked at these tasks. “The Queen is showing us great favor, you know, allowing Frances and Edward’s marriage to take place the very morning of the royal wedding. We are all just waiting now to hear what date that will be. But whenever it is, it will be a fine day for the House of Grenville. And Frances will want you to attend her, I know she will.” He did not expect a response. He knew his sister would not come to the wedding. She went nowhere. She had not been outside since the day she had come from the abbey, fifteen years ago.
Grenville picked up a silver-backed brush from a chest, and the warmed basin of water, and came up behind his sister and set the basin on the floor. Still at her work, she ignored him. He unfastened the white wimple that covered her head except for her face, and gently removed it. He began to brush her long hair. It was gray and dry, but in Grenville’s mind it would forever be the same lustrous, honey-colored mane that had been her glory when she was sixteen. That was the year their father had declared he was sending her to Bradford Abbey to take novice’s vows. She had run to her brother’s room in tears at the thought of leaving home, and he had comforted her in his bed, and told her that she was privileged to become a bride of Christ, and her beautiful hair had fallen across his chest and he had stroked her in his arms until her tears had stopped.
She had entered the abbey and discovered her vocation. Twenty years later, she had become the abbess, and was supremely happy in her work for God. Until that day came when Satan had goaded old King Henry to snatch up all the monastic lands for himself. The King had sent out his soldiers to do his unholy work. And that day, in the abbey, under the soldiers’ knives, Eleanor Grenville had discovered hell.
As Grenville brushed his sister’s hair, still chatting of family events and the household, Eleanor slowly leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, drifting in a dream of her own. Grenville came around in front of her and went down on his knees. He unfastened her habit. Gently, he undressed her. Candlelight glinted off the white folds of skin at the base of her throat, soft with age, and off the harder, whiter ridges of scar tissue forming the huge obscene X carved
between her sagging breasts. Grenville dipped a dry sponge into the basin of water. He lifted it dripping and squeezed it. Gently, he smoothed the damp sponge over his sister’s throat, her shoulders, her arms. She would be safe here, forever, in his home.
6
New
The chained bear in the center of the crowded banquet hall bellowed and swiped wildly at the smoky air. A young lady screamed. Gentlemen laughed. Frances Grenville joined the laughter and glanced along the head table to Queen Mary sitting under her golden cloth of state. The Queen was beaming. It thrilled Frances. Never had she seen her mistress so happy.
The banquet at Whitehall Palace was in honor of the Emperor’s envoys who had stayed on after finalizing the wedding treaty, and the Queen had ordered everything to perfection. The great hall was ablaze with torchlight and twinkling candelabra. Gold and silver platters of food covered the three long tables, two abutting the Queen’s to form a squared horseshoe. There were creations of sailing swans, baked and re-plumed; child-sized haunches of roasted, clove-starred venison; platters of mounded, succulent rabbits and quail. There were pyramids of Seville oranges, and sprays of sugared violet comfits, and castles of quivering rainbow jellies. Boys ran the lengths of the tables hoisting jugs of the finest French Bordeaux, German Rhenish wine, and malmsey from Candia. The musicians in the raised gallery were sweating, producing melodies, trills, and fanfares that had taken the banqueters through dancing, then a masque, and were now providing a robust martial accompaniment for the mimed drama with the bear. The tables were packed shoulder to shoulder with lords and ladies, gentlemen and dames, all agog at the spectacle.
And no wonder, Frances thought. What a brilliant entertainment the Master of Revels was providing: a troop of actors costumed as ancient warrior Britons in ox hides and woad-blue faces, bravely defending the Queen from the ravaging monster, the chained bear. The lordly Spanish guests of honor were entranced, their humiliation at the hands of the London mob a week ago now forgotten. Even the rival ambassadors were smiling—the Frenchman, Monsieur de Noailles, raising his goblet in delight; and wily Renard, the aptly named fox of an Imperial Ambassador, gazing at the bear like a child.
But the chair of the Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, was still vacant. Just before the mime began Frances had seen him hurry from the hall, called out by a mud-spattered messenger. What business could be so urgent? she wondered.
The mime concluded to loud applause. The actors left the hall. The bear was led out by its handlers. Frances turned to follow a twitter of excitement from some ladies near the Queen. Lord William Howard, a plain-talking old gentleman with a claret-colored face and heavy jowls, had leaned over to the lady and gentleman next to him and was asking very loudly and with a broad grin, “Would you like to hear what I told Her Majesty just now?”
“Hush, my lord!” the Queen said, smiling.
“I noticed Her Majesty lost in thought,” Lord Howard blustered on, “and so I said to her that I wished His Highness Prince Philip was seated there, right where you sit, my lord"—he pointed to where the visiting Count of Feria sat beside the Queen—"so that the Prince might banish thought and care!”
Mary blushed to match her crimson gown and scoffed mildly, “Fie, my lord, why should you say such a foolish thing?”
“Now, now, dear lady,” Lord Howard said saucily, his jowls quivering, “you know very well you are not angry with me. Are you, eh?”
Queen Mary laughed with great good humor, and so did all around her.
Yes, Frances thought, watching her friend the Queen, happiness brought out a lady’s real beauty. The surface sheen of prettiness so admired by the young courtiers could not hold a candle to such radiance from within. Frances shivered, recalling a comment she had overheard at a crowded dinner the day before in honor of the Queen’s betrothal. An insolent young puppy among the French Ambassador’s entourage had been jesting with his friends in a corner over goblets of wine. They had been discussing the arrival of the Prince and his retinue of lusty Spaniards eager to taste the pleasures of England. “Wait till they see this churchlike court with the pasty-faced Queen and her scarecrow lady-in-waiting,” the Frenchman had smirked. “The Spaniards will need stronger drink than this.”
Well, Frances thought, it was the Queen who was laughing now, displaying the beauty of nobility. Showing the whole world how God rewards the faithful, the resolute, the loyal. It warmed Frances inside. If only Edward could be sharing this moment with her. For she, too, had been resolute; her devotion to the Queen, though an act of love she in no way regretted, had kept her single all these years. Until now. Anticipating her own approaching wedding, Frances’s joy mirrored the Queen’s.
Edward Sydenham was pleased. His legal experience had taught him that for every apparent impasse there was an expedient, a settlement, an avenue, an instrument, if one only took the pains to search for it.
He stood looking out the oriel window of the comfortable solar in Grenville Hall. The sunset view over the Grenvilles’ ancestral demesne lands filled him with a deep sense of peace. Only the aristocracy, he told himself, could produce such order, such stability, such beauty. The snow-plumped fields and meadows, fringed with the tidy cottages of Lord Grenville’s tenants and the neighboring tower of the old abbey, were bathed in a golden, rosy light, and protecting the fields, the still, timeless forest was drawing birds home to settle for the night. Home. Edward had become wealthy in Brussels and had sat at the tables of the highest and mightiest. But all of that, he now knew, had been no more than a labor toward acceptance here at home. The hell into which his Protestant parents had once plunged him, and all the lonely years of exile that had followed, could finally be eradicated. He could never completely forget the suffering—especially that day, over twenty years ago, when he had reached his impoverished mother’s house after escaping the Bishop’s lockup, only to see his mother’s face harden at the sight of him. His “duty” in her eyes had been to die for the greater glory of Christ, as his father had, not to live and prosper. But this would be a vindication. In marrying Frances Grenville he would be setting roots deep down into the richest, the most permanent, the most traditional English soil. It would make up for everything.
He turned from the window and strolled back to a rosewood table by the fire. On it lay an ebony box, a gift from Lord Grenville to Edward in recognition of his success in court last week against the Spanish mercenary. Edward lifted the box’s hinged lid. Resting in two red velvet, upholstered wells lay twin wheel-lock pistols. They were finely crafted, the barrels scrolled with leafy engraving, the butts rounded into carved balls of ivory. Pistols were still rare in England; only wealthy aficionados owned them, keeping them mostly for show. Edward grimaced slightly as he studied them. He appreciated the mastery of the German craftsmanship, but blood sports were not to his taste. Still, Lord Grenville’s gesture was a decent one; Edward knew the gift had been made in thanks for more than just his victory in court. Lord Grenville, though rich in land, had found himself strapped for cash in recent months, and Edward had advanced his future father-in-law a substantial personal loan. Edward closed the box thoughtfully, fingering its smooth black lid. It bothered him not at all that his wealth was the factor that had won him his suit for Frances. It seemed, in fact, a very comfortable bargain: his money for the Grenville name.
“Ah, there you are,” Lord Grenville said.
Edward looked up and smiled. Anthony Grenville, holding open the door for his wife who drifted in after him, had carried his goblet of wine up with him from supper in the hall. Both of them had come to the solar at Edward’s request.
“Well, what’s this about?” Lord Grenville asked, closing the door.
“Yes, why all the mystery, Edward?” Maud Grenville asked, picking up her embroidery hoop from her chair by the fire. An elegant, trim woman of sixty-eight whose smooth face belied her status as a great-grandmother, Lady Grenville sat and began plying her needle and silk as though unruffled by Edward’s summons. But her
shrewd eyes darted up at him, betraying her keen curiosity.
“No mystery, my lady,” Edward said pleasantly. “Rather, a remedy. A tool, as it were, to pluck a thorn from Lord Grenville’s side.”
“Which thorn is that?” Grenville asked, and added gruffly, “Seems we’re tramping through a whole thicket of ‘em these days, what with all these rumors of unrest. I need a scythe.”
“Anthony, don’t be ungrateful. Look how he got Prittlewell manor back for you. That was clever, Edward.” Lady Grenville bestowed a smile of approval she’d perfected on eager children and grandchildren.
Edward made a small, gallant bow. “Frances must be commended, too, my lady,” he said. “Her friendship with the Queen secured the royal writ of mandamus, an essential piece of the strategy.”
“But the cleverness was all yours,” Maud said, magnanimous.
“Ha! So it was!” Grenville said with relish. “That Spanish lout never knew what hit him. And now he’ll hang before he can figure it out. Ha!” He had moved toward the rosewood table and was eyeing one of the objects beside the pistol box, gifts that Edward had earlier presented to the family: an exquisite Florentine gold salt cellar in the shape of Apollo pursuing Daphne, and a rare illuminated manuscript of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly. It was the salt cellar that had caught Grenville’s eye, and he idly bumped his thick finger over the faintly erotic piece. The irony was not lost on Edward—in fact, it amused him to realize—that each man had given gifts he would like to have received himself.
Grenville suddenly gulped his wine, thumped down the goblet, and clapped his hands together, an impatient host. “Come now, let’s hear what’s on your mind, Edward. Family prayers in a quarter hour. I won’t have Father Roland waiting on us in chapel.”
Edward knew. The family chapel and the household chaplain were part of Lord Grenville’s rigid standard of piety. That was Edward’s problem. Any other father-in-law, were he to discover Edward’s past, might forgive and forget. But not Lord Anthony Grenville. He would burn down his own house with his daughter in it before he would allow a once-hunted heretic Protestant to befoul his family.