He should have known better. Mary’s hallmark had always been her dignity—that, and her faith. Both stood her in good stead on her last day. When she emerged from the Queen’s Lodging with two weeping attendants behind her, her own face was pale but perfectly composed. She was dressed as richly as Robert had ever seen her: cloth-of-gold gown, elaborately belled sleeves, all impeccably embroidered and finished until she looked rather like a stiff doll. She carried a rosary in her hands and Robert could see her fingers moving ceaselessly along the jet beads. It was the only sign of tension she betrayed.
The witnesses were nearly silent as Mary processed to the foot of the scaffold. There she stood waiting for someone to offer their hand. Lord Burghley complied and she thanked him when she stood on the scaffold beside the single priest William had allowed his sister. The executioner waited quietly to the side. Her ladies hovered at the foot of the steps while Lord Burghley courteously asked Mary if she would like to speak to the crowd.
She considered, seeming to rake each individual member with her sharp and unforgiving eyes. Robert nearly shuddered when she looked him over, but her expression never wavered: somewhere between righteousness and contempt.
“Those come for to see me die,” she spoke at last, in an even voice, “I wish you joy of it. If my death serves to restore but one lost soul to God’s true fold, I myself rejoice greatly. And for the king, my brother, I do thank God for granting England a king and with my last breath I pray for his salvation and that of all his people.”
Trust Mary to turn her final words into a tractate on religion, Robert thought. Mary’s ladies joined her on the scaffold now and helped their mistress remove the heavy, elaborate overgown (why ruin good fabric with blood? he thought cynically) so that she suddenly looked older and harmless, an aging woman in a kirtle that was less than flattering. Then they removed Mary’s stiff French hood, revealing that her abundant red hair had been severely coiled beneath a simple coif of white linen. Robert felt his stomach knot and wished it had occurred to him to drink heavily before this. For certain he would drink after.
Mary kissed her rosary and gave it to the priest who stood by and now offered his final murmured blessing. She allowed one of her ladies to blindfold her and then kissed them both and sent them off the scaffold. Robert felt each beat of his heart pressing hard against his chest, as though a drum were keeping count of the rising tension as Mary made the sign of the cross and then, only slightly less than graceful, knelt to the block, using her hands to position herself.
The executioner was quick and clean—before Robert could blink the ax had swung and Mary’s head dropped and rolled to the edge of the scaffold. There was a murmur from the crowd, but no outcry. Committed Protestants, all of them, and thus not too shattered to see the end of England’s royal Catholic figurehead. Robert squeezed his eyes shut and imagined he could taste the tang of the blood. Against the backdrop of his eyelids he saw the ax fall once more, only this time it was his father’s head that rolled …
He opened his eyes and watched while attendants gently carried Mary and her cloth-draped head into the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula for hasty interment. Time to report to Elizabeth. And ask her how in the name of Heaven and its angels she meant to stop her brother from destroying his own country.
Because there was another reason those watching today had been subdued, besides simple respect. Everyone in England knew that the young Duke of Norfolk was gathering an army in the North and East. All it needed for civil war to flare was a spark—like that caused by the execution of the woman who loyal Catholics were convinced had been England’s rightful ruler.
Not for the first time, Robert cursed Dominic Courtenay soundly and thoroughly. Without him, he didn’t think there was any man left in England able to talk sense into William. It was up to Elizabeth now to keep the country from tearing itself to pieces.
For a precious three weeks there was peace at Wynfield. Fragile and dearly bought, but Minuette soaked up every moment with her husband, knowing each day that brought them nearer to spring also brought them nearer to the edge of no return. They still did not discuss William freely, but the ice had been broken by Walsingham’s news and so they were able to talk about Elizabeth and Lord Burghley and Norfolk and the possibility of Continental involvement in any Catholic uprising.
She did not know what Dominic would do. She knew he received missives from Norfolk’s camp, nearly every day as time went on, and she knew he was deeply conflicted. She kept her own counsel, as her husband had always allowed her to do, and gave him her tacit approval to do whatever he felt he must. She would not make his choices for him.
But then two things happened on top of each other, within twenty-four hours in the first week of March. First, Harrington brought word from a visit to Stratford-upon-Avon that Mary Tudor had been executed inside the Tower of London. Minuette wept when she heard it, and not only for the lonely, bitter, royal woman whom Minuette had known and, if not liked, at least respected. Her tears were also for William, and for the nightmares he must be living through now without anyone to comfort him.
The very next morning, just two hours after dawn, Renaud LeClerc appeared at Wynfield Mote.
Carrie woke her to the news that Dominic and Renaud were speaking together in the hall. “Renaud LeClerc?” Minuette asked, disbelieving. “Are you sure?”
But of course Carrie was sure; she had met him during their stay in France. Minuette hastily dressed in a guest-appropriate gown of richly dyed green, like the starkness of evergreens in the frigid winter, and descended into the hall where Dominic and Renaud sat in two chairs before the enormous medieval fireplace, locked in intense conversation.
Renaud rose when he saw her, Dominic half a beat behind. “It is a great pleasure to meet you again,” the Frenchman said, kissing the hand she offered. “And especially to meet you as Madame Courtenay. I had not dared hope Dominic would be so fortunate.”
“Is he fortunate?” she asked tartly. “The price has been high.”
“No price is too high for love.”
“Thus speaks the Frenchman who is not estranged from his king.” No need to be coy; they all knew where they stood. And Minuette didn’t need to be told why Renaud was there.
He told her anyway. “I come, madame, with an offer of passage to France and a promise of safety in my country.”
“Did you not take a great risk in coming here? I thought the last time you were on this island you got an arrow in the back.”
“Last time I did not take care to disguise my coming. A single man with a good weapon arm can pass anywhere with relative ease.”
But to cross the Channel in winter was not a matter of relative ease. It argued Renaud’s deep seriousness of purpose. “Your king wants Dominic in his army,” she said bluntly.
Renaud shook his head. “This is my offer, not my king’s, and it is one of friendship, not calculation. There is no expectation on my part or that of my masters. Only safe haven and a place to be free.”
Minuette looked between Renaud and her husband. Dominic’s face was unreadable; an expression she was long familiar with. His eyes flicked to her for a moment and she froze, for he registered her with only the greatest detachment. She bit down on the inside of her cheek so as not to react, but before it could become unbearable there was a flare from Dominic and she knew that he had not retreated wholly.
“I need to speak to my wife,” Dominic said. “Do you mind waiting here?”
Renaud smiled and indicated the wine, bread, and cheese that Mistress Holly had provided. “I am comfortable. Take your time—but not too much.”
Minuette led Dominic into a ground-floor chamber at the back of the house that had been her father’s study. It still held his collection of books and Minuette had a few memories of playing on the floor while her father studied. What do we do? she offered up silently.
It was the question Dominic put to her with a single word. “Well?”
Minuette circled the room res
tlessly until she came to the window, where she paused and stared at her mother’s rose garden. The bare stems were black outlines against the soil, with no sign of the buds that would spring forth in a few months’ time. “My answer is simple: I go where you go.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I made my choice when I married you, Dominic. I do not promise that I will allow you to make all my choices for me,” she smiled at him briefly, “but on this matter, the choice is yours.” Because it is you who will be giving up the most, she thought. I am half French, but you are wholly English and wholly loyal.
“What if my choice is for you to go, and myself to stay?”
She whirled away from the window, shocked. “You would not ask that of me!”
“And if I did? Would you go?”
“Absolutely not, under any circumstances.”
“What if you were with child again?”
“I am not.”
“You could be, at any time now. And if you were—”
“Stop it! We could do this forever. What if William marches on Wynfield next month, what if Norfolk sweeps in and cuts down the king’s army, what if the Spanish land in retaliation for Mary, what if the sweating sickness sweeps through here and kills us both? I will not make decisions based on fears that may never come to pass or things that we cannot control.”
Dominic took her hands in his, studying her face with an expression that was not at all detached. “I cannot leave England, Minuette. Whatever happens, must happen here.”
“I agree.”
He wrapped her in his arms and she allowed herself to relax into him, marveling that she could feel happy at such a disastrous time. Dominic kissed her cheek, then allowed his mouth to trail down her jaw to the hollow of her throat. With reluctance, he pulled back and said, “We’ll see Renaud safely off.”
Like a good Frenchman, Renaud gave a shrug of apparent indifference when they declined his offer. But his words were more direct. “I hope you will not come to regret it, Dominic,” he warned. “You know what will be asked of you if you stay.”
“He’s already been asked,” Minuette retorted. “And we all must make the best choices for ourselves.”
With a sad little smile, Renaud lifted her hand and pressed it to his lips. “So we must, madame. To be honest, I did not have much hope of persuading him. But you both should know, the offer will never be rescinded. You will always have a friend across the sea ready to come to your aid.”
“Thank you.”
“Dominic,” Renaud turned to him, “would you tell your man to ready my horse? I will not stay.”
When Dominic had left, Renaud turned back to Minuette. Urgently, he said, “Take care of him, madame. Men of rigid honour can be so easily broken.”
“Like yourself?” she countered, though an icicle of fear poised at the base of her neck.
“I am by nature more … pliable. But Dominic—I fear for him in what is coming.”
“So do I fear, for all of us. I cannot undo the bonds of friendship and history that tie us to others, nor would I wish to. But as I also do not wish my marriage undone, I ask you, monsieur … what would you do in my place?”
“I cannot tell. But remember that my offer of sanctuary is not solely for your husband. If ever you require aid and must act alone, you have only to ask.”
The fear stabbed chilly through her at the word “alone” and Minuette wished Renaud had never said it. Not that the thoughts didn’t lurk in the shadows, but she did not want them acknowledged. She had Dominic; she must think of today and not, as she had said to him, worry about a future that they could not control.
“Are you ready?” Dominic asked from the door; Minuette wondered how long he’d been standing there and what he had heard.
“Farewell, madame,” Renaud told her, with a kiss for each cheek. “I hope we may meet again on a happier day.”
“So do I.”
She watched the two men walk away and felt that another bridge had been crossed and set ablaze behind them. Was there another bridge ahead, she wondered, or only a chasm?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
WITH MARY’S EXECUTION the murky path ahead that William had spent so long trying to divine miraculously cleared. He knew precisely what to do. No more waiting for Norfolk and the Catholics to decide when and where they would strike—it was time to take the battle to them. William made clear his orders in the first privy council meeting that followed Mary’s death.
“I expect an army ready to move by mid-March,” he announced to the grim-faced table. “Lord Sussex, you are in command. You have three weeks to muster troops to London to guard the city and a larger force to march.”
“In which direction will the troops march?” Lord Burghley asked delicately.
“In whichever direction I send them,” William bit off. “I will not wait for our enemies to encircle us. We will sweep up the traitors wherever we find them.”
If his uncle had been here, he would have pressed the issue. William did not expect that from anyone else, but Burghley was surprisingly persistent. “Does that include Lord Exeter?”
The time had passed for private fury, but William would not allow impudence, even if it was disguised as concern. “Do you see Dominic Courtenay at this table? Every man here knows his crimes. And every man here also knows his strengths. Would you have me leave the West Country vulnerable to his leadership?”
He wasn’t sure what expression crossed Burghley’s face—relief, perhaps, or sorrow. Or perhaps something of both. “No, Your Majesty. The threats to the Crown must be confronted.”
It didn’t answer the unasked questions about how and when and where William meant to confront Dominic. Some of those unasked questions were the king’s own. He could not ponder too long upon the subject without losing himself in a mire of rage and doubt. And he could not allow himself to doubt. Rochford was gone and Dominic was gone and Minuette was gone … William could rely on no one but himself.
Which is why he decided, “I will lead the army personally when we take to the field. I will not sit in safety while my kingdom is threatened.” Also, he could then make the decisions the moment they came to him.
If there was any doubt about his choice, no one on the council said a word. Perhaps they trusted him more than Dominic ever had, or perhaps they feared him more, so they dared not voice their honest opinions. Whatever the reason, William was savagely glad of his unopposed command.
“I will appoint a regent while I am in the field,” he continued. “To ensure the government in London does not languish for lack of immediate care.”
He knew what they expected to hear: surely it would be Elizabeth. Who else was left to him?
But he no longer trusted his sister as he once had. Elizabeth had been the one to talk Minuette away from the guards he’d set on her that disastrous day of confession; she had allowed Minuette to slip through his grasp. They had never spoken of it, but William would wager Elizabeth had simply been waiting to be punished. Here was her punishment, although she did not know it yet.
“Lord Burghley,” William announced. “You will act as regent in my name while I am in the field. Any actions that must be taken so quickly that I cannot be consulted will be in your hands.”
Burghley looked more unhappy than shocked. “The Princess of Wales—” he began.
“The Princess Elizabeth will be retiring to Hatfield for a season. The strain of this year has been too much for her.”
He wondered if anyone there believed him, for no matter how much strain she might be under, Elizabeth would never be less than poised and prepared and in control. Better if they didn’t believe him, for then they would all the better read in this action what he wanted them to: that no one, not even his full sister, was immune from the consequences of her actions.
No one protested, although Burghley looked both thoughtful and concerned as the council dispersed. William ignored him. The man would do as he was asked; Burghley was almost as consti
tutionally dependable as Dominic had once been.
William would break the news to Elizabeth later that night. First, he had a woman or two to see.
His aunt, the Duchess of Suffolk, was simple to locate. She had taken to hovering at court like a large, persistent dog, unwilling to miss the slightest chance at William. Truthfully, he had delayed the inevitable this long only to annoy her. That same desire led him to wave her off when he entered the chamber where she held a small court of her own and say abruptly, “I would speak privately with Jane.”
He didn’t miss the flash of jubilation from his aunt, nor the devouring eyes of those around her. When Jane hesitated, he beckoned her sharply. With a blush, she rose from her seat and made her way to his side. With several dozen pairs of eyes on them, William led Jane into a corridor. He ordered his guards to keep out anyone foolish enough to eavesdrop.
He might once have been kind. He might once have taken the trouble to speak softly, to offer compliments, to woo even a woman he did not love. For most of his life he had not expected to marry a woman he loved—but he had expected to be courteous.
That time had passed. “When the matter of the rebels is settled, the privy council will approve our marriage. We will marry this autumn.”
Jane did not flinch, did not smile, did not betray in any way that she had even heard him except for a unique quality to her stillness. With exquisite irony, William asked, “I assume you have no objections?”
Give her credit; Jane’s response held a hint of her own irony. “What possible objection could I make?”
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