by Barbara Kyle
Now she was alone. Carefully, meticulously, she laid out on the bed her meager belongings fetched from the Anchor by Sir Edward’s servant. Her blue gown, still soiled from the Fleet prison … with Carlos. Stiffly, she laid the gown aside on a chair. Sir Edward’s housekeeper could see to its cleaning.
She carried the other few items to the carved cherrywood chest left open for her convenience by the maid. Kneeling at the chest, its lining fragrant with cedarwood, she set in her belongings. Her hairbrush. Her depleted purse. Her mother’s book, its two brass clasps securely fastened. These things were all she had left of home. The tunic she’d brought for herfather was gone, traded for the sheepskin … for Carlos. The shirt she had brought for her father was gone. Carlos was wearing it. She shut the chest.
She stood still in the middle of the room, forcing her mind ahead. Was there nothing more to do? No. Yes, she must sleep. That was important. She tugged off her clothes and finished her toilette. She needed rest, for tomorrow there was much to do.
Think only of sleep. Blow out the candle. Pull down the sheet. Climb into the bed. Think only of tomorrow: the Crane, to fetch Father. Then the Flemish ship, to send him away. Then off to Ambassador de Noailles. Receive his information to take to Sir Thomas Wyatt. Yesterday Wyatt had said, “Come again as soon as possible.” Much to do.
The goosedown pillow was plump and soft. The linen sheets were perfumed with the scent of roses. Everything here was elegant and restrained. Like Sir Edward himself, she thought. Everything the opposite of Carlos. The assassin.
Eyes closed. Think only of the challenges tomorrow. Challenges to face alone. She would make use of Sir Edward’s kindness and generosity, yes, but she knew she was alone.
“This man has used you in the hope of reaching your father, to murder him.”
And now he’d escaped custody.
Eyes open, she squinted in the bright moonlight that knifed its way through a crack between the shutters, a beam to spy on her privacy. On her misery. He had escaped. The man she had trusted. The man whose hands had touched all the secret places of her body. She hated him. Every part of her hated him—the man who was pledged to kill her father.
26
The Ambus
Early the next morning Isabel made her way along busy Thames Street toward the Crane Inn. Its brightly painted overhanging sign depicting one of the river’s three famous loading cranes glinted at her through the morning fog, as though beckoning her. She was full of hope that she would find her father there.
A troop of armed London Guildsmen marched by in their new uniforms of white coats bearing the cross of St. George on breast and back. Isabel watched them—"Whitecoats” the people called these soldiers—counting them as they passed, knowing she must soon report all that she saw to Wyatt. A flock of boys zigzagged after them chanting falsetto war cries and brandishing sticks as swords. If only the real troops readying to attack Wyatt had nothing more than sticks, Isabelthought. But, on the contrary, it seemed like the Queen’s nobles, finally committing themselves, were drawing more of their men as soldiers into the city every day and arming them formidably. Their cries of muster could be heard in all of London’s wards, and cannon blasted regularly in the fields beyond the city walls as artillery officers tested their guns. The faint odor of the burnt gunpowder drifted constantly in the air. It reminded Isabel of Lord Grenville’s gun flaring orange sparks as he’d shot her mother. A terrible memory, but it jolted her back to her purpose this morning. She hurried along to the inn.
The Crane’s common room hummed with guests and travelers busily eating breakfast despite the rebellion crisis. Isabel gave a servant boy her name and sent him to fetch Master Legge. She hardly had time to shake the snow from her hem before the landlord pushed through the kitchen door and came to her with an anxious look on his florid face. Holding a finger of warning to his lips, he jerked his chin toward the chattering guests. “Come” he whispered, turning.
Isabel followed him up a staircase to his counting room. It lay in gloom, with heavy curtains drawn across the window to mask the inn’s strongbox. Isabel could hardly wait as Legge looked out to check the stairwell, then closed the door. “He’s here, isn’t he?” she blurted.
Legge turned with a look of consternation. “Why are you still in England? What of your mother? My God, did she not survive the—”
“Sir, my mother is alive. And recovering, I pray.”
“You do not know?”
She quickly explained how she’d sent her mother in the care of the nurse to Antwerp, where Adam would take care of her.
“But you stayed? In this dangerous time? Against your father’s express command?”
“To save his life!” she cried, and immediately regretted her outburst. But instead of making him angry it brought from him an odd, mournful smile. He came to her and folded her in his beefy arms. “Like your mother,” he murmured. “Just like your mother.”
For a moment Isabel drank in the familiarity of his fleshy warmth and oniony aroma. Then she pulled out of his embrace. “Master Legge, please tell me. Is my father here?”
“He was here, Bel. He’s gone.”
“Gone? When?”
“First light this morning.”
While she was rising from her soft bed at Sydenham’s house! If only she’d come last night, not sat at his sumptuous table, brooding and waiting for morning. She had missed her father by mere hours!
“He’s weak as a colt,” Legge went on anxiously. “He came here staggering with fever. I tucked him up and ladled broth into him, and he slept a sleep like death the whole long day and night. And then this morning …” He made a vague gesture of flight toward the door, and helplessly shook his head. “I could not stop him.”
“But where has he gone?”
Legge shrugged his ignorance. “Stubborn old bear. I told him he was in no condition to leave, but he was bound to walk out of here whether I said aye or nay, walk right out into the snow. So"—he threw up his hands with a sigh—"I gave him a horse and warm clothes and he lit out.”
“But where to?”
“Child, I know not.”
“Master Legge, I must find him. He is in terrible danger, from the Queen’s men no less!”
At this he looked even more alarmed, and Isabel sensed it was best not to mention that her father was now wanted as a traitor. “If you hear anything from him,” she entreated, “please let me know immediately. I am staying … with a friend.” She told him Sydenham’s address.
He nodded. But he was looking at her in a mournful, abstracted way. “It’s passing strange,” he said. “Years ago, yourfather and I searched across the Low Countries for your mother, searched through the bodies and the rubble of Münster, afraid that she was dead. Bad times, bad times. And now, here you are, searching for him.” He crooned sadly, “Poor little Isabel.”
She stiffened. No one had ever told her that, about searching Münster for her mother. She felt a stab of resentment. No one had ever told her anything.
A cannon boomed from Finsbury Field.
“I must go,” she said.
Legge laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Be careful, Bel. The renegade Wyatt is on his way. If he broaches the city walls, no Londoner will be safe in his bed. That rabble will fall to sack and pillage.” He glanced uneasily at the strongbox on his counting table, then added stoutly, “But the Queen’s forces gain strength every hour. And we Londoners with families and property to protect, we too will do our duty.”
Isabel felt a chill. How could she tell anymore who were friends and who were foes? People’s loyalties seemed to cross like outstretched hands in a mob. She could no longer see clearly. Only duty was keeping her on course.
And she had hers to perform, to Wyatt and to Martin. Sir Edward Sydenham must continue the search for her father, for his agents could cover far more territory, and far faster, than she could. Meanwhile, she must go to Ambassador de Noailles.
“Sir Henry!” Martin St. Leger shouted
. He kicked his horse’s flanks as he galloped along the road’s edge, passing the column of foot soldiers as they trudged through the morning fog. Martin cantered toward the rear of the column, his horse’s hooves flinging clots of mud that spattered the soldiers. One of them, wiping mud from his cheek, grumbled an oath after Martin, then darted a sheepish look at the priest marching beside him. Robert St. Leger let the man’s blasphemy pass, but without breaking his stride he looked over his shoulder to watch his brother gallop past.
“Sir Henry!” Martin called again. He could just make out the commander’s mist-shrouded figure near the end of the line.
Sir Henry Isley was sitting his horse and scratching out a dispatch with a quill, using his thigh to support the paper. Beside him a courier sat astride the fast pony that would carry him and the commander’s dispatch to Rochester ahead of the main body.
Martin reached Isley and reined in his mount. The horse heaved bellows breaths, making its leather cinch creak and crackle as it snorted steam into the cold air. Martin was panting, too, after his scouting foray. He’d ridden hard all the way back from Malling, a fast eight miles. “Sir! Lord Abergavenny left Malling two hours ago!”
“Good,” Isley grunted. He scrawled his signature and shoved the dispatch at the courier, who bounded off on his pony. Isley frowned at an overloaded wagon lumbering past, its cargo of arms clattering as the wheels sloshed through a muddy pothole. “St. Leger, go and organize that munitions detail. They’ll capsize at that rate, the fools.”
Martin hesitated. He was watching the courier gallop into the obscurity of the mist. Half the marching column had disappeared into it too. “Sir Henry,” he ventured, “may I speak?”
Isley turned to him. “What is it?”
Martin wiped flecks of mud from his lips, salty with his sweat. “I think Abergavenny means to engage us. On the road ahead.”
“What? Nonsense. He’s on his way to Gravesend to meet the Duke of Norfolk’s Whitecoats. He’ll be there by dark.” Isley was stuffing his hand back into his gauntlet.
“I know our man in his camp told us that, sir. But I saw signs of their departure that lead me to believe otherwise.”
“Signs? What d’ye mean, boy? What signs?”
“Their food wagons did not leave with them. The wagons were just starting out when I reached the town. Why would they split up unless the fighting force wanted to get away quickly—to meet us?”
Isley considered this. “Did you hear anything from the townspeople?”
Martin shook his head. “No one would say, of course. They’ve been cowed. Except—and this is another odd thing—a smith told me he’d been wakened before dawn to mend rivets on a slew of breastplates. Why prepare armor with such haste unless they thought a fight was imminent? There are smiths aplenty in Gravesend.”
“But you didn’t actually see Abergavenny’s army, did you? See him in our path?”
“No, sir. But I hurried back on the main road, knowing you’d want confirmation of his departure. The idea of his intercepting us only occurred to me on the way.”
“Well, don’t let it excite you, my boy. He doesn’t know we’re heading through Wrotham. How could he?” He grappled his reins, the matter concluded. “No, he’s well on his way to Gravesend by now, depend on it. Now go see to those munitions dolts before they—”
He broke off. Another scout was galloping furiously toward them down the Wrotham road. The scout’s face was ashen under its speckling of mud. “Sir Henry!” he cried.
Isley and Martin glanced at one another. The scout’s expression could only mean bad news.
It was a perfect spot for an ambush. No noise came from Abergavenny’s motionless army ranged out on either side of Barrow Green, nothing but the faint sounds of waiting: the soft clack of arrows joggled in a quiver, the jingle of a horse’s harness as it shook its head, the occasional cough. The road through Wrotham parish passed over Barrow Green, and with Carlos’s advice Abergavenny had expertly positioned his men just inside the woods that rimmed this field—the cavalry and half the infantry on one side of the road, the remainder of infantry on the other. Every eye was fixed on the road that led out of the close-packed trees to the south where the rising ground mist lay shredded among the jagged boughs. Abergavenny’s scout had reported back that Isley’s whole force was moving ahead quickly. Any moment now they would march into the trap.
Carlos sat his horse—a fine, mettlesome roan gelding borrowed from Abergavenny—and stretched his right knee in the stirrup to ease the pain that cold, damp weather like this always inflicted. His bruised side still ached, too. But his eyes were focused on the row of cavalry to his left, ranged just inside the trees. He was mentally checking their gear, their expressions, the nervousness they imparted to their mounts—calculating which men he could rely on, and which would freeze in action. There were forty-two horsemen in all. They were yeomen or gentlemen of Kent, some young, some middle-aged, all freshly recruited into this cobbled-together company, and all, except a handful of the older ones who’d seen service in France, untried in battle. Carlos had had only three hours in a torchlit predawn field outside Malling to train them.
A sound snapped the silence—a rook flapping up from a tall pine to the south, rattling the branch beneath it. Half the soldiers edging the field stiffened with fright. A horse shied and whinnied. Its rider had difficulty keeping it in line. Another horseman nervously crossed himself. Carlos shook his head.
Voices beside him commented softly:
“Are the rebels now mustering rooks?”
“That’s all they can attract, I warrant.”
These whispered jests had come from the two young men sitting their horses to Carlos’s right, his new lieutenants: Wentworth, a calm, flat-nosed farmer, and Swift, a lanky, thatch-haired yeoman’s son. Though farmers, both of them rode like they were born in the saddle, and both listened well and learned quickly. Carlos had handpicked them, passing over the haughty sons of the gentry. Surprisingly, the cavalrycaptain had stepped aside without protest when Abergavenny had installed Carlos in his place. Carlos suspected that the man, as untried as his recruits, had been secretly relieved.
The company waited for two hours. The mist cleared. The morning turned overcast and dull. There was no sign of Isley.
The men became restless. Carlos watched with mounting disgust as the infantry lines began to fray. Some men weary of standing squatted to rest their legs. A few archers had moved over to the fletcher’s cart, pretending their bow strings needed repair, and were lounging there. On either side of the field, among both infantry and cavalry, men quietly chattered.
Exasperated, Abergavenny trotted his high-stepping mount up beside Carlos. “Where the devil is Isley? Blast his eyes, what would make him stop his march so soon after leaving his camp?”
Carlos said nothing. His gaze had been drawn to a broad hill about two miles to the north, its bare crown just visible above the wooded fringe around Barrow Green. When they had arrived here, Abergavenny had told him that the road to Rochester followed that mound, called Wrotham Hill. Now, Carlos suggested quietly, “Send another scout.”
“Why?” Abergavenny snapped. “The last one hasn’t even come back yet.” His horse lowered its head to cough. Abergavenny tugged back the reins so fiercely that the horse grimaced at the pinching bit.
“Not south,” Carlos said. He pointed north toward the hill. “That way.”
Martin St. Leger threw back his head and laughed. The relief was exhilarating, like the breeze that eddied around him on the slope of Wrotham Hill, ruffling his hair as he watched his company of soldiers below him slowly move up the hill. He had pulled off his steel helmet to let the breeze chill his sweaty scalp. He admitted now that he’d been afraid; it had given him no satisfaction back there to have his suspicions about Abergavenny proved right. He only thanked God that the scout had reported the planned ambush in time, and that Isley had instantly recalled the courier bound for Wyatt. Nevertheless, this last hour had
been tense.
The march had been difficult as they’d made a wide arc around Barrow Green on a track little used even in summer, and tortuous in winter—half slippery muck, half iron-hard ruts. Martin had nervously watched the trees that had hemmed in the slow-moving company on either side, afraid every moment that Abergavenny’s soldiers would fall upon their rear. But they had reached the foot of Wrotham Hill unhindered, and had flowed smoothly back onto the road to Rochester leading up the hill, and Abergavenny was miles behind them now. Isley’s whole company—four hundred and sixty foot soldiers, twenty-five horsemen, munitions wagons and mule carts—was advancing confidently up the long slope. The tramp and jangle of their marching rang with fresh vigor.
In sheer delight Martin kicked his heels against his horse’s flanks and bounded down to join the company. As he trotted past Robert, Martin grinned at him. Robert smiled back and nodded his head in approval.
Martin sought out the commander, for he was longing to get Isley’s permission to let fly the company’s pennons now that they were in the clear. The breeze, he thought with a smile, had risen like a victory celebration, bidding them to rejoice in their success. They had given Abergavenny the slip.
Carlos sat his horse at the head of the stilled cavalry ranks, fuming. It had been a good half hour since the scout, sent north at Carlos’s urging, had galloped back to report that Isley had evaded the ambush. The scout had seen the churned up track in the woods where Isley’s company hadpassed Barrow Green. Now, Carlos itched to pursue the enemy. But, Madre de Dios, it was taking longer to kick this mess of farmers into marching order than to hustle drunk soldiers out of a whorehouse.