by Barbara Kyle
“So many,” Isabel said, shocked by the huge number of broken men. But, as sorry as she was for these wretched survivors, her foremost concern was Martin. Tom knew him by name but not by sight, so he hadn’t been able to ease her mind.
“And Sir Henry?” Isabel asked him now.
“Hid all night in the forest like most of these men, so I heard, but nobody’s seen him come in. Someone said he caught a stray horse and lighted out to Maidstone. Someone said they saw him lying dead in a stream in the woods. But the poor fellow what reported that also says he saw Satan in the woods eating a dead man’s heart. Daft from the cold, he was.” Tom passed a hand helplessly over his forehead. “One thing’s for sure, m’lady. ‘Twas a night these poor devils will never forget.”
Isabel shivered. She was soaked and sore after her ride from London through the sleety rain, and she would have to face hours more of it on the return ride if she was to get back to Sydenham’s before nightfall. But the discomfort wasn’t what made her shiver. It was the creeping dread she felt as her eyes raked the crowded hall for Martin’s face. She could not see him anywhere.
A hobbling man supported by two soldiers passed in front of her. There were too many people in the way. Leaving Tom, she moved into the hall, stepping over the litter of wet boots, bloodied gauntlets and discarded helmets. A soldier on the floor groaned, and a doctor shook his head as he examined the man’s foot, already black from frostbite. Isabel turned away. She had almost reached the line of men waiting for soup when someone grabbed her elbow.
“Mistress Thornleigh.” It was Wyatt. “Come up to the solar,” he said. “I must hear your report.”
“In a moment,” she said, still searching the survivors’ faces, trying to move forward.
Wyatt held her back. “Now.”
“No, I must look for Martin.”
“Later. I need your report.”
“But he might be here. He might be hurt.”
“He hasn’t come back,” Wyatt said flatly. “Come.”
“Someone might have seen him. I must ask. Let me go.” She strained against his grip. “You don’t even care about him! Let me go!”
“Don’t care?” Wyatt twisted her around to him, anger flashing in his eyes. He spoke in a fierce whisper. “You mourn one man. I mourn three hundred and fifty!”
She stared at him in horror. “Three hundred and …?”
“Dead or wounded or lost,” he said. Isabel saw how deeply he was shaken. Wrotham Hill, the first armed clash of the uprising, had been a devastating setback.
But Wyatt had no time for despair. “Now come with me.” He tugged her toward the stairs. Sobered, she offered no resistance. He had not said Martin was dead, only that he hadn’t yet come back. That left room for hope.
“You’re soaked,” he said with a frown at her wet cloak as they reached the stairs. He stopped a soldier carrying an armload of dry clothes and grabbed a coarse, gray wool cape from the pile and handed it to Isabel. Gratefully, she whirled off her sodden cloak and gave it to the soldier in exchange. The cape was a man’s—too large, patched, and stinking of manure. But it was dry.
“Well?” Wyatt said as soon as they were alone upstairs.
“First, there’s a price on your head. The Queen is offering lands worth one hundred pounds a year to anyone who captures you, dead or alive.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Tell me of the French troop ships. Have they landed yet at Portsmouth?”
“Monsieur de Noailles believes they have sailed, but foul weather in the Channel is hampering their landing.”
Wyatt cursed under his breath.
“But there are encouraging reports from the south, sir. The Queen’s commander there, the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, cannot raise more than a handful of men against you.”
Wyatt looked far from encouraged. “We’ll have enough coming against us soon enough. After Wrotham Hill yesterday, Abergavenny will have made his rendezvous with Norfolk in Gravesend. Their combined force will be on their way here by now. Thirteen hundred of them.” Irritably, he slapped the back of a chair. “Damn it, I need to march! We’ve been here a bloody week. Where’s the blasted French army coming from, Scotland? What does de Noailles say?”
“He expects his courier to arrive with that news any moment. They must be on the march south already, he says.”
“But there’s no firm report of them?”
She shook her head.
He walked to the window. “And in London?”
She decided to tell him the good news first. “Master Peckham’s clandestine resistance group of citizens is very strong, sir. Nine aldermen have secretly contacted either him or the Ambassador, offering support for you.”
“They’re good for men and arms?”
“Yes. Peckham represents at least ten score leading householders. They and all the apprentices and journeymen of their establishments will come forth when you require them. And the Ambassador says they have an extensive cache of weapons.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“However, sir"—now the bad news—"the Constable has installed new guns at the Tower.”
“Yes? What have they got?”
Isabel closed her eyes in concentration to summon up the statistics that de Noailles, nervous about committing anything to paper, had drilled into her yesterday. She had gone to his lodging immediately after she had seen Master Legge at the Crane. “In the Diveling Tower,” she said, “a new ninfoot culverin of four thousand pounds with a four-inch bore. On the roof of the Iron Gate Tower a battery of culverins and demicannon, three thousand pounds each. Fourteen lasts of gunpowder are stockpiled at the ordnance depot. Three six-foot falconets have been placed over the Water Gate. They are each five hundred pounds in weight, and of two-inch caliber. There are other pieces, mostly demicannon, mounted on the roofs of the White Tower, the Cradle Tower, and the St. Thomas Tower.”
Wyatt frowned. “Powerful,” he muttered.
“Also, the royalist defense force in London is growing.” She paused, reluctant to cumber him with the news of the lords’ burgeoning musters. But he had to be told. “The Queen’s councilors press more of their men into arms daily. Sir Edward Sydenham told me that the Earl of Arundel alone has provided the Queen with fifty horsemen and three hundred foot soldiers. And Monsieur de Noailles says that, altogether, the lords have now brought perhaps a thousand soldiers into the city.”
Wyatt looked at her sharply. “Did you say Sir Edward Sydenham? I understood him to be close to the Queen, one of her lieutenants under Lord Howard. How did you come to be speaking to him?”
She hesitated. There was no way around the truth. “I am a guest in his house.”
Wyatt’s eyebrows lifted. “Living with a royalist?”
“He is a kind gentleman, sir. He is helping me with … a private matter.” She had no desire to blurt out her family’s tragedy. There was nothing Wyatt could do about it; her father’s fate lay in her hands. And, she thought thankfully, in Sir Edward’s hands too. This morning, armed with her list of her father’s business associates, he had sent his agents out to investigate. It had given her the chance to come here. “But Iassure you,” she added quickly, “Sir Edward has no suspicion whatever of my involvement with you. I have been very careful.”
Wyatt was regarding her with new interest. “This situation is ideal, mistress. You can gather invaluable information in this royalist’s house. Maybe even details of the royal commanders’ strategies. Stay there. Spy on Sydenham.”
“Spy?”
His smile was wry. “Don’t look so shocked. What do you think you’ve been doing so far?”
“But, Sir Edward is a friend. He has shown me much kindness. It would be a … betrayal.”
“So you’ll report on royalist strangers but not on royalists you know and like, is that it?”
She flushed with indignation.
“Mistress Thornleigh, war is hard. Sometimes we must betray in order to be loyal.”
She swa
llowed. Of course he was right. The cause they were all fighting for was more important than one man. “I understand,” she said.
“Good. Now, about those Tower guns—”
But her attention was dragged away by a volley of men’s voices rising in the castle courtyard. More survivors of Wrotham Hill returning? “Sir Thomas, I’ve given you all the information the Ambassador told me. Please, let me go now to look for Martin.”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Good luck.”
In the courtyard she found she was right: a scatter of Isley’s bedraggled men had stumbled in more dead than alive and castle soldiers had run to them with blankets, calling out for news of other survivors. Isabel pushed among them in the misty rain. She questioned half a dozen men before a castle guard finally told her, “Aye, I saw St. Leger, mistress. Early this morning he came in. He was heading for St. Margaret’s.”
* * *
The nave of the church of St. Margaret’s lay in dim candlelight. Looking down this aisle at the lone man kneeling before the altar candles, Isabel could not be sure it was him. Then he raised his head to look up at the cross, and his damp brown curls glinted in the candles’ glow. Joy coursed through her. “Martin!”
He looked over his shoulder. He got to his feet and started toward her. He was limping. Isabel ran and met him halfway down the nave. They threw their arms around one another.
Martin was trembling. Isabel started to draw away, longing to look at him, but he held her tightly and would not let her go. She pulled back her head. She was shocked by his face. His eyes were haggard, his lips bloodless, his cheeks cross-hatched with red and black scratches of scabbed blood and grime, as if he had thrashed through nettles. “Oh, Martin,” she whispered.
He took hold of her shoulders and held on as if to steady himself. “Robert’s dead.”
The words struck her like a blow.
“I watched … watched him die. It took all night. Oh, Isabel, he suffered so …” His voice cracked. “The ground … was frozen … I had nothing … nothing that would dig …” His forehead dropped onto her shoulder. His body shuddered with sobs. “Dear God, I couldn’t even bury him!”
She took him in her arms, murmuring his name over and over in a helpless bid to comfort him. He held on to her and wept.
“Come,” she whispered. She led him to the side aisle and sat him down on the step of an earl’s marble tomb. She sat beside him. They were alone in the vaulted church.
Martin, abashed at weeping, swiped at his tears with the back of his hand, smudging the grime on his face. He gave a hollow laugh. “I’ve been asleep here. Imagine,” he muttered, as if wanting to talk of anything but Robert. “I got back this morning … and the priest let me in … and I fell asleep.” He glanced distractedly at the church’s closed door. “He’s up at the castle now with the wounded … last rites.” He lookedback at Isabel and tried to smile. “Lord, it’s wonderful to see you! Robert would have …” Breaking off, fighting for control, he grabbed hold of her hands. She saw that dried blood streaked his fingers, and his nails were cracked and packed with dirt. Had he tried to dig a grave in the frozen woods with his bare hands? Pity stabbed her heart. She folded him in her arms again. Martin held on to her tightly.
Isabel stroked his mud-clotted hair and tried to control her own dismay. She was appalled by Robert’s death—Robert St. Leger had been a good man, and a friend—yet she could not beat back the relief, the joy, at finding Martin alive. She was almost ashamed. Grief for Robert, she knew, would come in time but thankfulness overwhelmed her now.
Martin straightened, swallowing the last of his tears. “Isabel,” he murmured. He touched her cheek gently, looking at her with mild surprise as if for the first time. “You look so pale.”
“Oh, Martin,” she said, her own calamities surging to her mind. “You don’t know what’s happened!”
She told him everything. How her mother had been shot and wounded. How her father had killed Grenville and been arrested. She told him of her dismal search through London’s prisons, and her father’s escape from Newgate, with the Queen’s officers now on his trail for treason, and her hope that she would find him with Sir Edward Sydenham’s help before the Queen’s men did. She told him about it all. All except the jailer who had defiled her. That would remain her secret pain. And the mercenary who had betrayed her. That wound was still too fresh.
Martin shook his head, lost in horrified amazement at her story. “Your mother … dear God. I pray she will live.”
Isabel looked away. She dare not dwell on the possibility of her mother’s death. That way lay despair. She would think only of what could still be done for her father.
Martin murmured, as though still unable to grasp the awful facts, “Your mother … your father … Robert …”
They sat in silence on the cold marble step, engulfed by their misery. The rain swelled with a sudden drumming on the roof, rude and insistent. A cold draft swept through the nave. Isabel and Martin huddled closer, holding hands. The bare church, stripped of all Catholic ornament by Wyatt’s overzealous Protestant followers, hulked around them like a warehouse. Only the great altar and crucifix and its flanking candles remained.
The pounding rain ceased as suddenly as it had arisen. The church was silent again.
“And now,” Martin said bleakly, “you’ve come to report to Wyatt from Ambassador de Noailles?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “It’s hopeless, you know. Hopeless.”
She could not think what to say. He’d never spoken like this before. She knew it was his grief. “It may seem so now, Martin. But the French are on their way. And once your army takes London, everything will change.” She clasped his hand between hers. “Robert will not have died in vain.”
He went on shaking his head. “No. Hopeless. I have seen the worst. Seen what war really is. It is barbarity. It is savagery.” His voice faltered. He glanced at the altar crucifix. “It is … unspeakable waste.”
“Martin, don’t say such—”
“Isabel,” he said suddenly, twisting back to her. “You’re all I …” His gaunt eyes searched her face. “Oh, Isabel, you’re all that’s left.” He took hold of her shoulders. His hands were trembling. “Marry me?”
“You know I will.”
“No, now. Here.”
“Now?”
“Please. Everything’s gone, destroyed. Everything except you. I don’t know when I’ll see my family again, or even if …” He blinked and shook his head as though he could not face his own thoughts. His fingers dug into her shoulders. “But we still have each other. Isabel, I know … death is all around us. But we … we can still live! Can’t we? Please, Isabel. Please say yes.”
She saw the desperation in his bloodshot eyes. The jolt of strength with which he’d grabbed her shoulders was already weakening. He was so exhausted, so spent.
“Yes,” she blurted. “Right now.”
He gave a huge sigh of relief. He grabbed her hands and kissed her fingers and whispered, “Thank God.” Shakily, he got to his feet. “I’ll fetch the priest.” He froze. “Robert"—an aching regret shot through his voice—"Robert was to have done this office.”
“I know,” she said, her heart breaking for him. She stood with him. Her own voice was shaky now. “And my mother was to have made my bridal bouquet.”
He clutched her hands in sympathy and held them to his chest. Isabel leaned against him. She, too, felt drained, beaten, weakened by so much death … and so grateful for Martin’s love. “Martin, we’ll say the vows in memory of Robert.”
His chin trembled. “Yes.”
They embraced, holding each other tightly. Martin drew back and forced a smile. And then he started off. He was limping badly. Isabel could see he was in pain. “Martin, are you wounded?”
He turned. “No. Frostbite. I’ll lose a couple of toes, I imagine.” He looked down, averting his eyes from hers. “Not the finest specimen of a bridegroom, am I?” He glanced up
at her and doubt flooded his face. “Isabel, are you sure about this?”
She came to him and kissed his cheek. “I’m sure.”
Tears sprang to his eyes. He stroked her cheek. “Wait here. I’ll come back with the priest. And witnesses.” He lowered his voice as if unwilling to be overheard. “And then we’ll get ourselves out of this blighted kingdom.” He hurried away.
Isabel was not sure she’d heard him right. She rushed after him. She reached him as he threw open the church door. A wet gust of wind plastered her skirt to her legs. “Martin, did you say … leave?”
He held up a finger to his lips. “Shhh. Yes,” he whispered. “As soon as the priest has married us we’ll board the first ship bound for France. I have an uncle in Bordeaux.” He grabbed her hand. His smile was eager and earnest. “We’ll make a new life, Isabel. Away from all this sorrow.” He kissed her fingers, then hurried out the door.
She ran after him, down the church steps to the street. “Martin, wait!” The rain had sharpened again to sleet that struck her face in wind-whipped needles. She had to squint to see him. She called to him, “I cannot leave England!”
He stopped in the street. “What?”
A woman in rags lugged a basket of firewood between them, struggling through the mud. Hammers from the armory clanged. A mounted soldier approached at a trot. “My father,” Isabel called to Martin above the noise. “I must find him. And … and there’s Sir Thomas, too. I cannot run away.”
“Run away?” He hurried back to her. “Isabel, what are you talking about? We have to save ourselves.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “You cannot have heard a word I said. Martin, my father is being hunted as a traitor! If they find him they’ll execute him!” As the soldier trotted by, his horse splashed mud onto Martin’s legs. Isabel asked, still dumbfounded, “And what about Sir Thomas? He’s relying on me. How can you ask me to betray him?” As soon as the words were out she realized the insult they implied: if anyone was betraying Sir Thomas, it was Martin.