“I was afraid that Edward would be angry when he knew that I had told his parents what he was about, but when he came home, he just shrugged and said that he had expected them to guess, anyway, since he had used Faldene servants to carry messages back and forth,” she said. “He made his report—it was in the form of a list of families and what each family had offered—and waited for one or the other of your husband’s couriers to arrive. The peddler usually came back from Scotland in early August and the tooth-drawer perhaps a week or two later. But they didn’t come, and then a messenger brought word of your husband’s death to Withysham, and as a matter of family courtesy, the news was passed to us by your steward, Malton. Edward was upset. He didn’t know what to do. He had no idea who had replaced Matthew de la Roche, if indeed anyone had! But soon after that, another messenger, a stranger from London, came to tell us that the tooth-drawer and the peddler had both been seized on their way south and were in prison in London. And then … then …”
“Edward became so anxious about his new list,” said Aunt Tabitha. “De la Roche had intended the information eventually for Mary Stuart in Scotland—in Edinburghbut De la Roche was dead …”
“And Edward decided not to worry about the extra items of information that Matthew had collected and to take his own list to Scotland himself,” I said helpfully. “Am I right?”
“The man from London refused to carry it,” said my uncle. “He said it was too dangerous, that the arrest of the other two couriers showed that too much was known. But Edward left yesterday, despite all the pleading of his womenfolk.”
“Father-in-law, you yourself begged him not to go!” said Helene.
I glanced toward the tall windows that looked out to the front of the house. The sky beyond was iron gray, and the ride from Withysham had been bitter. “Why so much haste? If it’s as cold as this in Sussex, the snow in the north is probably six feet deep.”
“It wasn’t haste, precisely. He didn’t mean to travel ventre à terre,” said Helene. “He said that if the weather slowed him down, it couldn’t be helped, but go he would, just the same, simply to be done with it. He promised to take care, and to call on his friends in the north, as before, as though he were just making social visits …”
“Such a likely thing to do, in January!” snorted Aunt Tabitha.
“… and just make a brief visit across the border, deliver the list, and come back,” Helene finished. “But …”
“The valet,” said Aunt Tabitha, “and the two couriers who were arrested; all this has made us sure that Edwards is most likely being watched, has perhaps been followed. We did indeed argue against it, but he wouldn’t listen and set off yesterday, as your uncle says. We were up most of last night, fretting and worrying and in the end, we decided. Someone must go after him, catch him before he crosses the Scottish border if possible—and make him see that it’s too perilous; he must come back and—”
“Tear the list up,” I said. “That is my price. On that, I insist. If necessary, I’ll steal the list and tear it up myself. I’ll probably have to. If he won’t listen to you, why should he listen to me?”
“He knows what you did to me in the past, for Queen Elizabeth’s sake. You can threaten him,” said my uncle candidly. “None of us can because he knows we would never carry the threat out. You, on the other hand, might. You might also be better than any of us at such things as stealing lists. You’re our only chance, anyway. I can’t go. My gout won’t let me. My elder son, Francis, as Edward once did, is gaining experience of the world in an ambasssador’s entourage and is in Austria. I can’t even inform him, let alone call on him for help. Your aunt isn’t strong enough, and Helene has her children to care for.”
“One barely a year and a half old and little Catherine not yet three months!” said Helene. “If anything happens to Edward now, they won’t even be able to remember their father! Madame, he is not, as I told you, traveling in great haste, and he means to linger a day or two with more than one household in Northumberland. If you tried, we think you might be able to catch him up. Will you try? Will you?”
“It’s your kind of task, isn’t it, Ursula?” my uncle said. “I never thought I’d see the day when I had to ask you to use your curious and frankly, in my opinion, your dubious skills for us….”
“Herbert!” wailed Aunt Tabitha.
I looked out of the window. The winter dusk was already gathering. I said: “Today is nearly over. But I can leave at first light tomorrow morning.”
I had better reasons for agreeing than they knew. I knew a good deal about the current political situation. A young man called Henry Lord Darnley, a Tudor descendant and a cousin of both Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, was due at any moment to start out for Scotland, ostensibly to see his father, who was visiting the family estates there, but in reality to present himself to Queen Mary as a potential husband.
He was being allowed to go only because he was a slightly less lethal prospect than a marriage between Mary and some Catholic prince with armies at his command. Even so, a Mary Stuart reinforced by a Tudorbred consort could be very interested indeed in having up-to-date details of people who might help her to raise an army on English soil. It was my duty to get my hands on that list if I could and destroy it.
And I had another reason for agreeing. I didn’t say yes simply because it was my duty or even because Edward was family (though I did have a glow of satisfaction over my own good-heartedness).
It was the excitement that drew me. I did not have the kind of nature that could be satisfied forever with well—planned dinners and linen rooms full of faultlessly folded sheets interleaved with dried lavender. Plenty of people considered that wrong in a woman—there were times, indeed, when I thought so as well—but it was the way I was made. Queen Elizabeth and Cecil had recognized it and made use of it.
This particular opportunity had come to me in a time of grief and loneliness like a summons back to life. It was like the call of the wild geese in the cold, wide sky, a sound that I loved.
Or so it seemed when I was sitting by the hearth at Faldene. The mood didn’t last through the cold early start next morning. Then, as I rode reluctantly through the gatehouse arch of Withysham, I wondered at myself. On more than one occasion in the past, I had determined to give up my perilous way of life. Every time I made such a resolution, I seemed to break it five minutes later. A new task, a new set of challenges, would call to me, like the siren voices of the wild geese. It seemed that I would just never learn.
Queen of Ambition Page 30