by Barbara Kyle
Paulet said to the Queen, “The order requires your signature, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, curse this paperwork,” the Duke of Norfolk protested. He was pacing. “Let’s go round up these London soldiers. My own lieutenants stand ready to march ‘em. Let’s throw ‘em at Wyatt. Now!”
Paulet explained with a tactful, if strained, precision aimed not only at the old Duke but also, obliquely, at the Queen. “A royal order is necessary, Your Grace. Since the Freemen of London are exempt from impressment in the armed forces of the Crown, the city can refuse us these troops. The only exception is if London itself lies in immediate danger of attack. Clearly, that is the case. The difficulty …” Paulet hesitated like a messenger with bad news, then steeled himself. “We fear the city may not be firmly loyal to the Crown.”
There was an anxious hush. “Your Majesty,” Paulet concluded quietly, “you must sign the order.”
Gardiner grunted over the scroll. “Why, this muster is no more than the guilds’ quotas.” He read out with derision, “The Merchant Tailors, thirty. The Mercers, twenty-five. The Drapers, twenty-one. The Bakers, eight.” He snorted. “The Poulterers, three.”
Frances hoped the bishop saw the contempt on her face for his belittling of Lord Paulet’s efforts. She knew—everyone knew—that in his Southwark palace Bishop Gardiner went to sleep only after posting his own personal guard of a hundred men, and none of these had he offered to the Queen.
“With sixty guilds in all,” Paulet replied with some heat, “the total equals approximately six hundred men, well trained and well equipped. Can you do better, my lord Bishop?”
“None of us can!” Gardiner exploded. “That’s the point, it’s hopeless! Good God, six hundred against Wyatt’s thousands? Plus the French on their way to him with a hundred ships and God knows how many troops, if the rumors are true. None of us can match that. Your Majesty, you must retreat to Windsor!”
“The Emperor can match it.”
Frances turned to the man who had said this, the Imperial Ambassador, Simon Renard. Until he spoke, she had not noticed him in the room. Renard stood by the window, apart from the Queen’s councilors. A handsome young man with watchful eyes, he wore a trim, spade-shaped beard and was richly dressed in black. He stepped forward, moving between the Queen and her councilors, and turned his back on them. “Madame,” he said, “you know that the Emperor is your steadfast kinsman and friend. Only say the word and his ships and armies will be sailing here to defend you.”
“The Emperor’s armies?” Bishop Gardiner gasped. “On English soil? Your Majesty, you would make an enemy of every Englishman!”
“And have you joined them already, my lord Bishop?” Renard flared. “Madame,” he urged the Queen, “allow the Emperor’s might to crush your foes. They are the foes of God.”
“Do not, Your Majesty,” Gardiner said, composed for the first time, grimly calm now with certainty. “To enforce the marriage in that way would be nothing less than Imperial rape.”
Every other man in the room winced at the crudeness of this image used before the maiden Queen.
Mary herself blushed, but the stain on her cheeks spoke more of indignation than of tender sensibility. Her eyes darted between the men. Finally, she moved to Gardiner and snatched the parchment scroll. She went to the desk and sat. Frances hurried over and readied the ink and quill. Mary dipped the quill and moved her hand to the bottom where her list of official titles led to the place where she would sign, but her hand hovered over the spot. “Supreme Head of the Church in England,” she said with disgust, reading aloud the final title.
Frances understood the Queen’s revulsion. This was the title that King Henry had wrenched to himself from the Pope in order to divorce his Spanish-born queen, Mary’s mother. It had made Henry an excommunicate, and severed England from the Church of Rome. Mary loathed the title as the root of all apostasy. But it was attached to the sovereign, and only Parliament could expunge it. Parliament, hedging its bets, had not yet done so.
Queen Mary looked up at Renard as though to her only friend. “You see, my lord Ambassador, how every paper I sign in the governance of my own realm fouls me with this abhorred heresy. A queen’s titles should wreathe her like garlands, but ‘Supreme Head of the Church’ hangs on me like a bloodied butcher’s apron. I pray for the day that I may call His Holiness the Pope once again the spiritual head of this realm, and sign such trash no more.” She glared down at the writing. Her councilors waited. Frances felt their silent antagonism strain toward the Queen like a pack of chained dogs.
“However,” Mary said with great bitterness, “it appears I have no choice but to wait. I will not break barbarous civil war upon my subjects.” Renard looked away to hide his frustration.
Still, Mary hesitated, as if unable to move. Then she said with sudden, high-voiced anger, “But neither will I abide this traitor longer!” She scribbled her signature. Paulet sighed his relief. Mary tossed down the quill. “My Lord Duke,” Mary said, addressing Norfolk and picking up the scroll, “deliver this order to Guildhall.”
The old Duke stepped forward and took the scroll.
“I command you to lead the trained London bands to Kent immediately,” the Queen said to him, “and to join with the troops there under my lord Abergavenny. I command you to advance on Rochester with your combined forces and smash this villain Wyatt once and for all.”
The Duke bowed deeply and left.
The Queen sat back. She rubbed her temples with her fingertips. Frances proffered the purple vial. Mary took it with a wan, distracted smile of thanks. “My lords,” she said, standing. “I am going to Mass, and from thence to confession.”
“But, your Majesty,” Gardiner broke in desperately, “will you go then to Windsor?”
“And after confession,” the Queen went on as if her Chancellor had not spoken, “I shall spend the day in solitary prayer. I do not wish to be disturbed. I shall entreat God’s guidance. I suggest you all do the same.” She walked outthrough a door to her private chapel. For a moment the councilors were too stunned to speak.
“Why in God’s name would she send Norfolk?” Pembroke finally sputtered. “The old goat’s in his dotage. He hasn’t commanded men in over forty years!”
“But, sir,” Paulet reminded Pembroke, who was an ally of the previous Protestant regime, “the Queen considers his loyalty unimpeachable. And his religion.”
“And my loyalty isn’t?” Pembroke shouted, red-faced.
“I only meant—”
“Your damned meddling will cost us dear,” Gardiner snapped at Ambassador Renard. “It may sink this island!”
“This island is well on the way to sinking itself,” the ambassador replied.
The bickering went on, long and loud.
And Frances Grenville had found no moment to speak to the Queen.
On Farringdon Street, a hand touched Isabel’s ankle. She gasped and backed into the mercenary, away from the stone wall of the Fleet prison. The hand was reaching out through a prisoner’s grill level with the street. “Alms,” a weak voice begged.
Isabel stepped away stiffly from the mercenary. Since leaving the Anchor on foot after a silent breakfast a half hour ago they had barely exchanged five words. And on the way neither had looked at the other.
She bent and placed a penny on the prisoner’s dirty palm. Behind the grill was a shadowy face. “God bless you, lady,” the voice said, and the hand was pulled in.
Isabel and Carlos entered the long, four-storied prison building after being checked through the gates by turnkeys. As they made their way into the porter’s lodge, passing visitors coming and going, Isabel sensed that some sort of celebration was in progress. The sounds of festivity beyond the porter’s lodge, though muffled, were plain. She paid the porter and asked if her father was being held within. The porter got up from his stool and offered to take her to the jailer’s chamber across the inner yard. “There’s a wedding,” he said as he opened the door for her with a
nod toward the crowd ahead.
The small yard was thronged with reveling men and women, but it was unlike any wedding party Isabel had ever seen—a dirty, tattered affair, for the guests were mostly prisoners, and the yard’s snow was a soup of slushy mud under the strengthening sun. But the merrymakers, along with several turnkeys, stood laughing and eating at tables laden with roasted meats, bread, and ale. They danced, solo and in couples, to the lively jig of an intent musician sawing on his rebeck. And more than one ale-besotted fellow was lurching through the melee with a glazed grin.
One of them bumped flat into Carlos. In an effort to keep from falling, the drunkard grappled at the mercenary’s sheepskin, wrenching it askew. In the tug of war between them, something fell out of the mercenary’s jerkin. Isabel saw it drop into the mud—a coil of thin, tightly braided leather. The mercenary flung the drunkard aside and quickly stooped to retrieve the coil. Isabel suddenly realized what it was—a garrote. She felt a pang of uncertainty. What brutality was he planning in order to accomplish her father’s escape? Could she really rely on his savage ways to be successful? “You know,” she said to him in a tense whisper, “it may not be necessary to strangle every person who crosses your path.”
He shot her a dark look, and stuffed the garrote back inside his jerkin.
“Come, my lady,” the porter called to Isabel. He was standing at the door of the jailer’s chamber across the yard. Isabel hurried over. There, she was met by a sight more surprising even than that of the dancing prisoners. The jailer who crossed the room to greet her was her own height, her own shape—in short, her own sex.
“Dorothy Leveland, at your service,” the woman said as her porter shuffled back outside. “Will you rest yourself, mistress?” The jailer—trim, tidy, and taut with the authority of middle age—gestured to a chair. “Tipton has my order to bring me any lady or gentleman asking assistance,” she said. “And if you don’t mind my saying so, mistress, you do look rather fagged.”
Isabel thanked her and sat. Carlos remained standing close to the door.
Mistress Leveland nodded toward the merrymaking. “Quite a day, isn’t it?” she asked Isabel. “Did Tipton tell you about it?”
Isabel shook her head.
“The groom was a prisoner here as a lad. Locked up for debt, he was.” Mistress Leveland took the seat behind her orderly desk. “The lad was begging at the grate on Farringdon street one day when a wealthy draper’s widow was walking past. I suppose he caught her fancy. She inquired about him and I explained to her that ten pounds would pay his debt. Well, the widow not only paid, she took the lad into her service as an apprentice. That was seven years ago. And today,” she said, smiling like a satisfied matchmaker, “they’ve come back to celebrate their marriage in my yard where they met. God bless them both, I say.” She lifted a goblet from her desk to toast the couple and swallowed a sip. “Will you take some refreshment, mistress? The widow—or, I should say, the bride—has been generous with the feast.”
Isabel declined. She explained her visit. Mistress Leveland shook her head.
“You mean, you’re sure he’s not here?” Isabel asked.
“I am sure of no such thing, mistress.” The jailer angrily thumped her palm down on a large open book. “There’s no way to decipher who’s come or who’s gone, thanks to my idiot clerk’s scrawl here. Drunk again. I’ve just sacked him.” She rose and said with a worldly sigh, “But these are my worries, mistress, not yours. Come. I’ll help you in your search myself.”
This did not at all fit Isabel’s plans. She wanted no one of authority about when she found her father. “Oh no,” she said, “there’s no need for you to trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” the woman said officiously as she opened the door. “This way, mistress.”
Out they went again to the yard and pushed their way through the merrymakers. Isabel caught sight of the plump, middle-aged bride and her boyish groom happily chatting with their guests. Among the dirty inmate guests was a sprinkling of well-heeled London citizens. It was an odd social stew. The merchant-class bride was pouring ale for a ragged but pretty, golden-haired prisoner girl of no more than fifteen who was slapping away the roving hands of a jowled gentleman in fine green velvet. The girl caught Isabel’s eye and made a long-suffering face, as if instinctively recognizing a sister, a fellow martyr to the lecher’s ways.
“This way,” the jailer said, claiming back Isabel’s attention.
They turned into a covered walk between two low prison outbuildings and emerged into another yard, one far different from that which held the wedding party. This was spacious and cobbled. Two of the walls were painted in an elaborately colored pastoral mural, and there were trees, winter-bare but lofty. Under the trees, comfortably dressed men and women, along with the ever-present turnkeys, were strolling and enjoying the pale sunshine.
“Are these your charges, too?” Isabel asked, uncertain.
“They are. Mr. Leveland, my late husband, made certain that the Painted Ground—that’s what we call this yard—was a pleasant place for the gentlemen to take exercise. He told me on his deathbed, Mr. Leveland did, ‘Do well unto your gentlemen, Dorothy, and your gentlemen will do well unto you.’ “ She was leading them through the yard toward the far wing of the building. “That was ten years ago, and I’m happy to say I’ve stuck to my husband’s advice. If your father is with us, I warrant you’ll not hear a complaining word from him about his stay.”
Isabel could not help being intrigued. “Your husband bequeathed you the keepership?”
“Aye, he did. It’s been in his family for—oh, nigh on five hundred years, and never once out of a Leveland’s hands.” She added proudly, “My son will have it once he’s grown.”
She opened the door to the masters’ wing. The turnkey posted there bowed to her. Isabel and Carlos followed her inside. The wing, the jailer explained, was divided into two wards, one for gentlemen debtors and one for gentlemen felons. They went to the latter.
The ward was spacious, more like a hall, well lit by windows and cozy with cushioned chairs and tables. Around its perimeter were well-appointed private chambers. As they passed some of these where the doors stood open, Isabel glanced inside hoping to catch a glimpse of her father. In one, she saw a child tossing a skein of wool for a kitten. In another, a bright fire crackled in the hearth before which a man and a woman sat at a table, eating. It was clear that some prisoners had their families living with them.
Several vendors, too, were carrying on trade in the ward room itself. A cobbler was fitting a gentleman for a pair of shoes. A stout lady was purchasing firewood from a stooped old man with a basket of faggots. Men stood talking in twos and threes, and as Isabel passed them she caught snippets of conversation that were undeniably businesslike in nature. One prisoner discussed a house sale with his agent, anxious about the rebellion. Another asked questions of his visiting partner about the fate of an overdue ship’s cargo of alum. Another, apparently a tailor, was perusing his apprentice’s display of worsted samples and giving instructions on the fabric’s sale. Isabel had not known that prisoners were allowed such freedom to conduct their business affairs, and said as much to Mistress Leveland.
“They must, in order to pay me,” the jailer pointed out reasonably. She walked purposefully on. Isabel followed, snatching looks into this room and that. A big-bellied gentleman bowed gallantly to her. The woman buying firewood gave her a long, appraising look. They had almost come to the end of the ward when the mercenary said, “Stop.”
Isabel and the jailer looked back at him in surprise.
He lowered his head to speak in Isabel’s ear. “She is useless,” he said. “She does not know if he is here. But some of these hagglers might. They come and go. We should ask them.”
The jailer’s face hardened. “May I suggest, mistress, that you send your manservant to the taproom while we continue our tour?”
“I will stay,” the mercenary said.
“Thank you,�
� Isabel said quickly to the jailer, “but I’ll keep him by me.” She glowered at him. “He’ll stay quiet.”
The jailer shrugged. “As you wish. Now, if you’ll just come along to the Tower Chambers—”
“Mistress Leveland!” an out-of-breath boy cried, running up behind them. “Master Tipton says you’re to come quick!”
“Why, what’s amiss?”
“It’s that clerk you sacked. He’s weeping and wailing, and he’s barged into your chamber and smashed a stool! And he’s crying out that he hopes Wyatt comes to London and burns down the Fleet! And now he’s tearing pages from your ledgers! Master Tipton cannot get him to stop!”
“Run and fetch the bailiff, lad. I’m on my way.” The boy dashed on. “Mistress Thornleigh,” the jailer said, “forgive me if I leave you for a bit. An emergency, as you see. But do take your time with your search. We’ll settle accounts later in my chamber.” She hurried off the way the boy had come.
The mercenary, unconcerned by the jailer’s crisis, was watching the stooped firewood vendor across the ward. He started toward him.
“No,” Isabel said, stopping him. “I’ll do it.” She approached the old man. “Pardon me, sir,” she said, “I am looking for a gentleman prisoner. His name is Richard Thornleigh. Do you know him?”
The man’s gnarled hands were gathering up the basket handles of his surplus firewood. “And if I do?”
“Perhaps if I describe—”
“Gray hair and one blind eye,” the mercenary broke in. “Tell what you know of him, and I will not tell your last customer that you stole back half her wood.”
The old man blanched. “One eye? I’ve seen no such person,” he mumbled, and hurried away.
“That was stupid,” Isabel said. “You only frightened him off.”