by Barbara Kyle
He looked at her with a frown, hesitating. Isabel recalled the heavy thudding of his heart when he had held her in the shadows, and she suddenly realized that he, too, had been afraid. No, not exactly fear; he seemed quite hardened to fear. It was more like a desperate will to survive. And why not? she asked herself. It’s what we’re all fighting for. The realization touched her. She felt a need to let him know she understood.
“Look,” she said, “I know you feared I would turn you over to that gentleman, but you really must trust me. You were quite right in what you told me at the jail.” She looked down, embarrassed again to recall what he had witnessed of her with Mosse. But she was determined to finish. “As you said, I do need you.” She looked up again. “And after all, what possible reason could I have to betray you?” She lifted the sheepskin coat, offering it. “We must trust each other if we are to succeed in this.”
She waited. He said nothing. He was looking hard at her, his gray eyes unreadable as fog.
“Besides,” she said, attempting a smile, “you’ll be warmer this way.”
He took the sheepskin, tugged it on over his leather jerkin, and quickly turned away. He mounted the horse in silence and pulled her up behind him.
They set off toward London as the sun crested above the barren treetops, reflecting prisms from a thousand icy branches.
13
The Clin
Edward Sydenham settled comfortably in the chair before the fire, glad of a few peaceful moments alone before his important audience with the Queen. He adjusted the pearl-encrusted collar of his yellow satin doublet embroidered with black silk, and stretched his legs out to the hearth’s gentle warmth. He looked around. Frances Grenville’s chamber at Whitehall Palace was somewhat drab, given her pious eschewing of the decorative arts as frivolous. His own elegant parlor was far more to his taste. But the room had status—its hearth was evidence of Frances’s high standing with the Queen; the other ladies-in-waiting rated only corner chambers with braziers—and it was snug and cozy. At the moment Edward’s happy state of mind required nothing more.
He was pleased with the way he had managed things. After his initial shock at Lord Grenville’s murderous madness three days ago, and the consequent appalling fright that Richard Thornleigh might be brought to trial to divulge all, Edward was satisfied that he had controlled the damage. At first, the idea of hiring the jailed Spanish mercenary to kill Thornleigh had seemed grotesque and distasteful, but it had also appeared the only solution to his crisis, so he had ordered the assassination. He had come to London immediately after but had left his steward behind to make the arrangements with the Spaniard. Edward rubbed his eyes before the fire’s glow, remembering how he had suffered two nights’ troubled sleep over that decision; he had never meant to harm anyone. However, the crisis was past. The Spaniard had had ample time to execute his commission; the fatal deed must by now have been done. And now that it was, Edward was forced to admit that he felt no excessive remorse. Sentimentality, after all, was for fools.
Honor Thornleigh, too, was apparently done for. His harbor spy had reported that the daughter had brought Honor to Maldon Harbor and taken her aboard a carrack belonging to one Master Grover, Honor on a litter, barely conscious, so fevered from her wound. The ship had sailed for Bruges, but the spy said he doubted Honor Thornleigh would survive even the passage across the Channel.
So, with Richard Thornleigh dead and Honor Thornleigh apparently at death’s door—at any rate, incapacitated and hundreds of miles away—there was no one left to implicate Edward in any crimes of the past. The future again looked rosy.
So did his farrier’s daughter, he thought with an inward smile. He had noticed her this morning for the first time, bringing breakfast out to her father in the farrier’s shed. Plump, cow-eyed, and surely not yet fifteen. He shifted in his chair, his blood quickening already at the image of that certain type of young girl that always aroused him: such a heady combination of docility and fear. Yes, he would have his chamberlain arrange it. The fellow was a prodigy of discretion. It could not be tonight, unfortunately. Tonight Edward must dine at the Venetian ambassador’s house with the Fugger banking representatives. The Queen’s financial business must come first. But tomorrow night the girl could be brought.
The Queen’s business, he thought with a flush of contentment. How quickly the rewards of his alliance with Frances were flowing to him!
“Edward.”
He turned. Frances stood in the doorway. She was out of breath and her cheeks bore high splotches of color. Strands of her straw-colored hair had escaped her headband.
“I came as fast as I could the moment I heard you were here,” she said, wringing her hands. She gazed at him with that mixture of adoration and deference he’d become accustomed to in their two-month acquaintance. Her nervousness in his presence never varied. She seemed perpetually torn between an impulse to rush to him and an apprehension of being rejected. The plain woman’s dilemma, Edward surmised. And her face today, he thought, was plainer than ever. She looked quite distraught.
He stood to greet her, smiling. “My dear,” he said, holding out his hands. “Whatever is the matter?”
She rushed toward him, her shoulders slightly hunched in the way of a woman who feels herself too tall. He took her hands and she stood awkwardly while he lightly kissed her cheek. She seemed to be trembling. Tears welled in her eyes. At the corners, Edward noticed, tiny crow’s feet were beginning.
“Oh, Edward,” she said, her voice breaking, “I still cannot believe it.”
He was on the verge of asking what she meant when he recalled, just in time, that she was in grief over her father’s death. “Oh, my poor dear girl,” he said gently. He folded her in his arms and patted her back. She smelled unpleasantly of something camphorous. Probably one of her own mixtures, he thought, concocted to calm her nerves. She did have a talent at mixing herbal remedies. “There now,” he said soothingly."We must try to put this awful tragedy behind us. You especially, Frances, hard as it may seem. Her Majesty relies on you. You know she does. You must not fail her now by showing her a grieving face. She needs your strength.”
His words had an immediate effect on Frances. She straightened bravely and nodded and even managed a wobbly smile. “Yes, you are right, Edward.” She wiped her cheek where a tear had made a track down to her mouth. “And it is so noble of you to think of Her Majesty even in the midst of our sorrow.” But as she spoke, her grief surged again and her mouth twisted into a grimace as she fought to master it.
“That’s right, my dear,” he said encouragingly. “Be strong.” He glanced at the door. “Speaking of Her Majesty,” he went on, “isn’t it time we went? We must not be late for my audience.”
She nodded quickly, immediately contrite. “No, no, of course not. Come, I will take you.” She stopped, looking at his rich clothes. She flushed and smiled. “Oh, Edward, you do look splendid!”
He bowed graciously. Following her to the door he thought how unsplendid was her own apparel, and how mismatched. She wore a drab skirt of olive silk topped by a bodice of ornate turquoise-and-crimson brocade. The brocade was from a bolt made in Persia which he had given her himself, but it should have been paired with a skirt matching its jewel-like hues; this discord of color, especially on her angular body, was quirky and jarring. He recalled something the Emperor’s chancellor had told him once at a dinner in Brussels. It was a phrase the Imperial Ambassador, Renard, had used in a dispatch to the chancellor, reporting his first meeting with Queen Mary: “She is a perfect saint,” Renard wrote, “and dresses badly.” Edward shook his head. The Queen and Frances were two mottled peas in a pod.
He held the door for his betrothed and they walked together down the corridor toward the Queen’s audience chamber. A brachet hound nervously trotted by them, whining and sniffing at doorways as if in search of its master.
Edward and Frances passed several knots of people—courtiers, merchants, priests, ladies—but there was an
unnatural quiet. Edward had noticed it as soon as he had arrived at the palace. They passed four of the Queen’s ladies standing at an alcove window, deep in a hushed conversation from which Edward caught the words “Wyatt” and “France,” and heard a slight gasp from one of the ladies. From the far end of the corridor came a man’s muffled, angry shout. Edward wondered if it arose from a meeting of the Queen’s council behind closed doors; the crisis had reportedly set the unwieldy council to constant bickering.
“Is John here today?” he asked Frances as they walked.
“I wish he were,” she said of her brother. “But he is busy arranging billets for his archers in the city.” Her brow furrowed with worry. “Such a dreadful to-do over this traitor. Do you know, Edward, they sacked two churches in Kent? And yesterday, right here in St. Giles, the vicar was shot at while saying Mass.”
Edward nodded distractedly. He was thinking of Frances’s brother becoming the new head of the Grenville family. John and he got along well enough, and Edward felt sure that John would make no trouble about the agreed dowry; Frances would still be bringing impressive land holdings to Edward at their marriage.
“There are such terrible rumors, Edward,” Frances went on as they turned a corner. “Some say an army of six thousand rebels is marching from Wales to join Wyatt. And a courier arrived from Cornwall last night saying hundreds of gentlemen there, too, are up in arms against the Queen.”
Edward spotted the Imperial Ambassador coming up a staircase deep in conversation with Sir Richard Riche, and Edward nodded a greeting to the ambassador. But Renard, ferociously whispering some rebuke to Riche, seemed not to notice him.
“I’ve even heard that the Scots are massing an army on the border,” Frances said, “and that the King of France has sent ten thousand soldiers to join them. Can it be true?”
Edward shook his head. “Rumors, Frances. Do not heed them. The Queen will soon put down this rabble of trouble-makers. God is on her side.”
She smiled at him, her eyes full of faith. “Yes. And I am so proud you are helping her. But do you really think you can arrange this loan for Her Majesty on such short notice?”
“I’ll know tonight when I meet with the Fuggers’ representatives. But,” he added with a smile, “I feel confident. And I mean to assure Her Majesty of it today.”
A scream startled them. It had come from the direction of the Queen’s apartments, just beyond where they were heading. Men and women were rushing to investigate. Edward and Frances exchanged glances and hurried forward. Four of the Queen’s guards pounded past them with halberds raised, making people lurch out of their way. Edward and Frances reached the open door of the Queen’s apartments and entered the dark-paneled antechamber.
The crowded room was in a commotion. A lady had fallen to the floor, whimpering, and several gentlemen were on their knees assisting her. Another lady was sobbing in a corner. Lord Paulet shouted at a young guard, “Fetch the palace marshal!” People edged aside.
“Look!” Frances whispered in horror to Edward.
The crowd had parted and Edward saw. A dead spaniel lay stretched out on the floor, its tongue lolling. It wore a noose around its neck; apparently it had just been cut down. Its head had been shaved in the fashion of a priest’s tonsure. A note was scrawled beside it: No Spanish papists.
Edward looked around at the frightened faces. He felt a slight thrill. There was a great opportunity here. Someone with an outside understanding, like himself, could see that. He was glad the distraction about Thornleigh was out of the way. Now, he could concentrate solely on taking the initiative and forging an indestructible rapport with the Queen.
The people suddenly hushed. Queen Mary stood in the doorway and stared tight-lipped at the atrocity on her floor.
The people bowed nervously and Edward bowed with them. But he was smiling. The upstart rebels held no real threat, he was sure. The Queen only needed soldiers to destroy Wyatt. Edward had seen the Emperor’s hired armies time and again smash peasants’ revolts and greedy princes’ uprisings throughout his domains. Money was all that was needed. Money bought soldiers. And money was what Edward was about to arrange for the Queen.
The Clink. There had been a prison in the stone palace of the bishops of Winchester on the south bank of London since the twelfth century, and its evocative name had come to stand for all prisons in England.
Isabel and Carlos arrived at the riverside palace gate after a morning’s ride from Essex made tortuous by the necessity of taking secondary roads to avoid possible search parties, and by a piercing wind that had risen around noon. They tethered the mare and walked in among the visitors and the traders in food and fuel: farmers on donkeys, vintners and firewood vendors in ox carts, water carriers and market women on foot. The inner quadrangle of the palace was alive with commerce, and Isabel found its orderly bustle a respite after the struggle she and the mercenary had just made through Southwark where the noisome, narrow streets were crowded with the squabbling customers of the brothels, inns, and bear gardens for which the south bank was famous. The savagery of the bear gardens still seemed near, though, as the bear-baiting mastiffs’ barking from the kennels leapt over the lead roofs of the palace in the still air.
Isabel looked up. If her father was in this prison, could she somehow manage to get him scrambling over those same roofs and escape to safety? Was it a mad hope? Her quest to even find him in the teeming city of London with this grim-faced, silent mercenary seemed slightly mad. So be it, she told herself. She could accept the madness—had she any choice?—if only the quest was not hopeless.
The Clink was in the palace cellar, beneath the bishop’s great hall. Beyond the prison’s iron-studded door an elderly porter got up from his desk and asked Isabel for four pence, the fee charged any member of the public seeking entrance. Isabel gave it to him, along with her father’s name.
“Debtor or felon?” the porter asked, opening an admissions book to a grubby page.
Isabel swallowed. “Felon,” she said. “Is he here?”
The porter studied her with sudden sharp scrutiny and looked askance at the mercenary. “Can’t say.”
“But your ledger—”
“Ledger’s for visitors’ fees.” Abruptly, he called out, “Cellarman!”
A man with bushy black hair rose yawning from a stool and ambled toward them.
“Felons’ ward,” the porter instructed him.
The man nodded. “Tuppence,” he said, holding out his grimy hand to Isabel.
“But I just paid the porter.”
The porter sighed, and explained in the tone of a recitation, “No one goes among the felons unescorted. The fee for the escort is tuppence. Pay the cellarman or leave.”
Isabel paid. The porter turned back to enter the transaction in his ledger. As the cellarman pocketed the coins he eyed Isabel in a way so similar to Mosse’s leering that it made her skin crawl. He said quietly to her, “You can leave your man here.”
“No, I go with her,” the mercenary said.
The cellarman looked startled by this unequivocal statement from a servant, but he shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, and turned to lead the way. Isabel stole a glance at the mercenary, truly glad of his presence for the first time.
The cellarman led them through the porter’s lodge, then down a flight of dimly lit stone steps. He unlocked a door and took them into a low, stone-vaulted corridor where male prisoners were strolling. There were many other visitors, too. Isabel was not surprised. All prisons were open to anyone who wanted to conduct business with the inmates, or to drink and sport with them, or merely to gape. Prisoners lounged against the walls, eyeing the new arrivals as they passed.
The mercenary came up close behind Isabel and said in her ear, “Hide your money.”
Isabel quickly untied her purse from her waist and shoved it deep inside her wide sleeve. Yet she did not feel afraid of the prisoners. Though most looked sullen and shabby, they did not appear vicious.
“Debtors,” the cellarman said, as if responding to her thoughts. He sidestepped a mound of dog feces.
They turned a corner. The passage became darker; the only light came from the odd, sputtering cresset lamp. Mildew spotted the stone walls. They passed into a dank-smelling room. Isabel drew in a sudden, shocked breath. Men were pinned inside wooden stocks along both sides of the room. Their hands and naked feet protruded from holes in the stocks. Several of them lay slumped over the top, asleep or unconscious. One, sitting bolt upright, was weeping. A well-dressed young couple stood staring at him in morbid fascination. A sad-faced woman kneeled beside a prisoner at the far end and washed his feet with a rag.
“Suspect heretics,” the cellarman said, not looking right or left as he led the way through the room. They came out into a wider space, a dining hall. At long tables visitors sat with prisoners—male and female—eating, drinking, playing cards, tossing dice.
Isabel heard more female voices further down another corridor. The cellarman led them that way and the sounds became louder: chatter, laughter, jeers. Finally they came to its source: a women’s ward, though several men were lounging there as well. The room was crowded and very noisy. Straw pallets lay scattered around the floor. A baby bawled in a corner. A chicken flapped frantically as three women tried to catch it. A bare-bottomed little boy waddled past Isabel. The women prisoners wore gaudy, threadbare gowns on their wasted bodies, and garish paint on their lips andcheeks. Two of them whistled at the mercenary. One called out to him a suggestion so lewd that Isabel could not help glancing at him in astonishment. He stared ahead, ignoring the catcalls.