by Jeane Westin
The situation was almost amusing, he thought, his lips pursed in irony. The court would laugh. Like the Greek gods on Olympus, the God of England played great jests on his creations, offering beauty and then snatching it away.
He looked out again into the corridor. Frances was moving slowly toward him, sideslipping the pools of lantern light to stay in shadow, pausing every minute or so to determine whether she was being followed. By Jesu, she was a natural spy! He felt some pride, as if he had been the teacher of her skills, though he had not. She was a born intelligencer, and he wondered that Mr. Secretary had not seen it long ago. His sharp eyes usually saw everything, but his own daughter was too close, and he too farsighted where she was concerned. He had one idea for her and one alone: as wife to a famous man to bring honor to his name.
Robert had avoided the alcove farther down the corridor where he had told Frances to find him. Alcoves were too often used by midnight lovers. Tonight he had chosen to stand in a little-used exit from the kitchens below.
Cooks and their helpers had by now fallen exhausted onto their pallets. Robert knew he and Frances would be safer in this place than in any open alcove. As she passed him, he reached for her and pulled her into his arms, one hand across her mouth to stifle a scream that might bring guards running.
“Frances, have no fear,” he whispered into her ear.
He knew he should loose her immediately, but as he turned her about and against his body, by all the saints, he could not in an instant give up her warm flesh under his hands. Could a parched man push his ale away?
For an instant, perhaps more, she seemed to move into him, become a part of him. He felt himself losing what control he possessed. How quickly good intention fled. He pulled back from the brink of folly at the last possible moment.
“My lady,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, “this is a safer meeting place at this hour.” He stepped back and made a half bow to reestablish their natural distance and save himself from an act that could well end her regard and friendship.
Frances leaned against the rough stone wall, shaken by the sudden physical contact for which she had been completely unprepared. Her hand on her breast, she struggled for breath. “Don’t ever do that again!” Her whispered words sounded of anger, lest he think her response was more than fright, although, in truth, it was.
“Be still,” he urged. “I beg pardon for taking hold of you. You might have cried out.”
“I might have fainted.”
“A hundred apologies, my lady. Now let us to our purpose.” He pointed to the stone stairs leading to the kitchens below and sat down on the top step, motioning for her to sit beside him. “If anyone looks in, we will look like lovers….”
She complied without response to the words’ provocation, her hands held tight in front of her.
“Did you have success?” he asked.
“Aye,” she answered, lifting her gaze to his face, knowing they were too close, their shoulders touching. She had but to make a quarter turn….“Both messages,” she whispered.
Robert took a deep breath and held it a moment, wrenching himself back to duty. “So, Phelippes was right.”
“As he thought it might be, the message was a double encryption, but she used the same cipher for both.”
“Mary is not usually so hurried.”
Frances shivered. “This time that could prove fatal for her,” she whispered.
Putting his hand on hers, hard clasped in her lap, Robert said softly, “Frances, this is Mary Stuart’s doing, not your own. Remember in past years, Queen Elizabeth’s inquiry found that a casket of Mary’s own letters proved she schemed to murder her husband, Lord Darnley.”
“I know all that, yet to behead a queen…”
“Then she married her accomplice Lord Bothwell after she accused him of rape, raised an army against her people, left her throne behind, and has since plotted with Spain and France to murder and replace our queen. She would return this realm to the old faith and more Smithfield burnings. And she is probably many times a whore. I beg you to remember all that.”
Frances’s answer was a bit puffed-up. “What I do, I do for England and my sovereign.”
“Commendable.”
Her words had been meant to cover her unease at the weight of his warm hand, but they had been the wrong words, because she could not say the right ones; she could not ever think them. She nodded, inches from his face, wanting him to see through the dim light that she acknowledged the truth of what he said. “I will try to remember that the Scots queen is a scheming enemy, a friend of Catholic Europe, and not just an aging woman locked away with Sir Amyas, a bad-tempered keeper.” She did not pull back her hands, though his remained on hers.
Robert sensed that she might allow him a liberty. A man knew this when a woman trembled so slightly that she hoped it was not felt. Though in the end it was nothing she did; it was what she did not do: pull away quickly, show outrage at the advantage he’d taken.
He needed only reach out and embrace her. Would she allow it? And if she did…
Silently, he begged his wisdom to prevail. They had merely grown close with their common interest. Surely she did not return his deeper feelings. She was married to the poet all England loved. She was his master’s daughter. He stood abruptly.
Frances looked up at him and took sudden command of her face. Hastily, she stood, flushed, shaking out her skirt and shifts to cover her chagrin. “Our business is now complete, Master Pauley.”
“Yes,” he said, fearing to say more words that might break through his pretense completely and allow her a clear view of his heart.
“One more kindness,” she whispered. The words she spoke next had lately been growing in her mind, even confessed in prayer, and now she would have them out. “Robert Pauley,” she said, once again the mistress, “I alone must convey the Scots queen’s message to Thomas Phelippes. I will admit to my father that I deciphered it, and the first one, as well. It is far past time he knew the daughter he sired.”
Robert was worried for her, but he knew that he was also thinking of himself. Her confession would implicate him and Phelippes. Mr. Secretary’s temper was terrible when roused. Still, he would not beg her on his own account. “My lady, is this wise? Your father is unused to having his authority challenged. The message may be welcome, but the messenger may not.”
“We will see, Master Pauley, but I am finished with deceit.” She left him and walked with purpose toward her father’s office, descending stairs intermittently lit by lanterns and torches. Her father would be working late into the night, as would Phelippes.
She would not allow herself to turn back to ease Robert’s worry. Not even for him would she continue pretending to be nothing but a lady of the presence chamber, an unloved and childless wife, a nothing. Yet she knew she must protect Robert and Phelippes as well as she could.
The halberdiers crossed their pikes as she reached them, barring her way.
She held up the Scots queen’s message. “I have an urgent letter for my father,” she said in a commanding tone. “He will want to see this at once.”
They hesitated, looking perplexed.
“At once!” she repeated in a harsher voice that she realized sounded quite like her father’s not-to-be-denied tone.
The halberdiers hastily lifted their pikes and allowed Frances through the door. Lanterns and candles threw small pools of light on the stone floors and walls in the long room peopled with a few secretaries bent to their work.
She knew not what would happen. Her father’s anger she expected, but moreover, she could be banished from court by the queen. Her Majesty might be intrigued by a lady of the presence who deciphered messages. Yet if Elizabeth discovered that lady also wanted to be a spy outside the court, conduct far beyond the bounds of expected behavior, Her Majesty might find such spying activities entirely unamusing.
Another deep worry nagged at her, but she refused to allow it to deter her determination. Taking a deep b
reath to quiet her nerves, she walked straight to Thomas Phelippes, who was busy at a table scattered with quills, an ink pot, and papers, a pewter plate of cold goose resting in its own grease pushed to one side. He stood and bowed, while taking a quick look over his shoulder to Mr. Secretary’s room in the back.
“You were right, Master Phelippes,” Frances said before the man could whisk her aside. She did not lower her voice, determined to force recognition. She walked around his writing table and spread Queen Mary’s letter in front of him, placing her deciphered message beside it. “There is indeed a second message within.” She traced her decipher with a finger. “You should read this at once. It will require action.”
Phelippes raised her decipher to the candlelight.
“What goes here, Thomas? As well you know, my daughter is forbidden these offices.”
She jerked about, as did Phelippes. She had thought herself ready to confront her father. Now she trembled. Had she been witless?
It took not a tick of the clock for an answer. Yes, witless and uncaring of what trouble she brought to Phelippes…oh, Jesu, and to Robert, too.
She took a deep breath. “May I speak, Father?”
“Speak, then, though I doubt you have words to explain your disobedience.”
Thomas Phelippes spoke first. “The blame is mine, Mr. Secretary. You are well aware, sir, that Queen Mary—”
Her father’s eyes narrowed, his dark skin flushing, which turned it darker still. “That devilish woman again!”
Phelippes continued. “—has sent message after message lately to her contacts in London at the French embassy, near overwhelming your secretaries here.”
“I am aware of the increase….”
“Mr. Secretary, to my mind she may suspect we are intercepting them and so seeks to—”
“Yes, yes, I know all that. It’s a favorite trick, hoping we will miss one or tire of womanly nonsense.” He glowered at Phelippes. “What has that to do with my daughter, the queen’s lady, who is forbidden this office?”
Phelippes drew himself to his full insubstantial height, the pocks on his cheeks whiter against his skin. “Beg pardon, sir, but the lady Sidney has an intelligencer’s mind.”
Mr. Secretary’s mouth opened to speak, but Phelippes held up the cipher and the pages of Frances’s careful work. “The Scots queen double-ciphered this message, but Lady Frances was quick to see and decipher it.”
Walsingham took hold of the message and scanned it. “Nonsense. You did not break this cipher, Frances.” His dark eyes on her held hope that she would admit a lie.
“Yes, lord father, I did,” she answered, her tone proud.
“Against my wishes?” he said, unbelieving.
She stood as tall as she could, but did not fail to notice that Robert had entered and moved to stand nearby. Did he mean to give her support? By all the saints, had her desire to confront her father’s narrow mind entrapped Robert?
“Against my wishes?” he said again, louder, which caused a nearby secretary to hunch lower on his stool.
“Lord father,” she said, her tone placating, “I am but what you gave me of yourself. I can be no other than what I am. Would you have me not serve the queen’s good, when she needs all her loyal subjects? I could not so betray her…and you.”
Her father breathed heavily, looking almost defeated, but his next words proved he was far from it. “You are one of Her Majesty’s ladies, and I must have her permission to send you home to Barn Elms. I will seek that permission at once. Come along with me, daughter. Now!”
Frances grasped at some delay. “Won’t the queen be abed?”
“No, she sleeps ill and often calls me to her at an even later hour.” He picked up her decipher and scanned it quickly. “She’ll want to see this at once. We may have that devilish woman this time.”
“Thank you, lord father.”
He set his mouth to ignore her words, his dark eyebrows drawn together before he continued. “The queen cannot discount a direct threat to her person.” He looked toward Phelippes, who gripped the table. “What other meaning could Mary have sent with this last sentence? This means assassination!”
“I am pleased to have helped, Father,” Frances said, and with these words she could not keep some triumph from her voice, though Robert lifted a warning hand.
“Come along, Frances, but I advise you to leave behind your willfulness.” Her father headed for the door, treading heavily. “I will deal with Phelippes when I return—Pauley, too, since I can see his part in this deception.”
She looked to Robert, but his face showed nothing except concern for her. She would have that much to remember and regret. Yet what could he do? What could anyone do against her father?
“Mr. Secretary,” Robert said as Walsingham passed him and paused, “the fault is mine. I, too, saw Lady Sidney’s ability and desired to aid—”
“You greatly exceeded my orders. As I said, I will deal with you later.” His tone allowed for no further response.
Robert bowed, and as Frances looked back at him, he smiled a troubled encouragement. I am sorry, she mouthed. She had been dutiful all her life; now her first misstep caused harm to those least deserving of it.
The stone corridors to the royal apartments echoed under their feet until they reached the doors guarded by Raleigh’s royal sentries in their shining silver cuirasses. They were announced, and Mr. Secretary bowed while Frances curtsied the required three times as they approached the long refectory table where the queen sat working.
“Walsingham…my Moor,” the queen said, turning from Dr. Dee’s star chart, “what of such great import brings you to me at this hour?”
“Majesty, the same Scots queen that brings me to you at all hours.”
She shifted in her high-backed chair, looking uneasy.
He bowed again to take any sting from his voice. “And a further request concerning my daughter, the lady Frances.”
Elizabeth sighed with a closed-lipped smile for Dee, seated across from her, and reached to receive the message her spymaster held out. She read it quickly, her face showing nothing through the white Mask of Youth. “So, Mary thinks the pope rules here.”
“She thinks the pope rules everywhere, madam. This is evidence enough of her treason.”
“Yes, yes, I know you want my cousin’s head, but the whole of Europe would condemn me for it….”
Walsingham shifted on his feet, though his face showed nothing.
“I do not see the words ‘assassinate Elizabeth in her bed’ here, and until I do…” She picked up Dee’s star chart again as if to dismiss them, then looked up. “Nonetheless, a fine piece of work. Take Thomas Phelippes the gratitude of his sovereign. Ah, you had another request.” She looked at Frances with interest. “What of my lady of the presence?”
“Phelippes does excellent work, Majesty, but not this time….” Walsingham’s face reddened, and he seemed reluctant to expose his daughter’s shame.
Frances curtsied, having no such shame or hesitation. There was no retreat possible. “I deciphered the message, Your Majesty,” Frances said in a voice she carefully controlled lest it quaver.
Dee looked up and chuckled, holding his finger on a planet’s arc. “Majesty, I knew this lady would make an intelligencer when she first came to me begging to learn the secrets of the grille.”
Walsingham looked more astonished.
The queen was guarded. “A secret intelligencer amongst my ladies?” She seemed to savor the words, then turned to Dee. “First my philosopher signs himself ‘Zero Zero Seven’ and now you, Lady Sidney. Should I name you Intelligencer Zero Zero Eight?”
She slapped one hand against the table, whether in disgust or delight Frances could not tell, because she dared not look into the queen’s face. She glanced at her father, but he was expressionless, as he could easily be, giving away little of what he was thinking, yet she could guess well enough.
Frances felt her heart would leap from her breast. She
could already smell the rank Thames as it flowed in ebb past her rose garden at Barn Elms.
“Walsingham, do I never know what is happening in the shadows of my own court?”
Her Majesty’s expression was most strange. Her eyes were narrowed, but her mouth was in better spirits, leaving Frances unsure whether the queen was jesting or ready to explode in one of her famous palace-stunning tirades.
“And, Lady Frances, you again, I vow. First, you challenge Lord Essex and now your father, who looks to be very angry with you. For so slender a figure, you do choose most worthy opponents.”
Having sat at cards with the queen, Frances was not unaware that there was one trump card to play in this game. If rightly played, it might not save her, but it would lessen the punishment she would suffer. She quietly thanked the Lord that the queen’s father, Henry VIII, had closed all the nunneries where disobedient daughters had once ended their lives. She drew herself even more erect. “Majesty, my worthy lord father does not believe women have the mind for intelligencer work. I sought to show him that we do.”
Her father was quick to explain himself. “It is well-known, Majesty. Women have flighty minds and cannot sustain mental work for long periods.”
“Oh, such is well-known, Sir Walsingham.” The “sir” had teeth in it, though all the queen’s words were precisely measured, as they often were in the presence chamber…the tone of absolute command.
Walsingham shifted his feet as the queen’s eyebrows rose and her black-flecked, dark blue gaze settled on him.
Dee hid his face behind the star chart, but that did not save him.
“What say you, Doctor?”
“Majesty, I have been so privileged in my life to learn that a woman’s mind is capable of almost anything.”
“Almost, Dr. Dee?”
“Beg pardon, your grace…any work of the mind, if she has even one small part of your abilities.” He struggled to lift his bulk to his feet and bowed.