“I’ll come with you.”
“No, Tobias, you’re too young. But you’re near in age to Blanche. Give her your company. She may be glad to have you to talk to. She’s lost her mother and been taken from her home. Tim Snowe will escort me. I’ll take Hazelnut—she’s steady—and he can ride Dusty as usual.”
“But, Mother…”
“Tobias, don’t argue.”
“If she insists on going, I’ll accompany your mother, as well,” said Spenlove wearily. “Don’t worry about her.”
“No, Dr. Spenlove.” Jane’s conscience troubled her. “I know you’re working on another set of illuminated Gospels and I remember that after your journey to London before Christmas, you were very tired. This will be a long ride in the cold. You must stay here.”
“The better your escort, the more weight your argument will carry,” said Spenlove gallantly. “I’m coming. The manuscript can wait awhile. I shall manage and so will Frosty.”
Spenlove, though he was a short man, declined to ride Exmoor ponies because he said they made him feel as though his feet were about to scrape the ground. When his old cob Podge died, he had bought another, a white gelding which he had named Frosty, over fifteen hands. Frosty had been an inexpensive purchase because like his master, he wasn’t young. But he was sound and willing enough. “I think we can face thirty miles in a good cause,” said Spenlove.
The rain was gone by morning, but it had left misty weather behind it. As Jane and her companions made their way over the moorland into Devon, they kept to the lower tracks where visibility was better. It was a longer route, but safer, Jane said, remembering how she had lost her way on the ride to North Molton.
The county of Devon, bedded down for the winter, looked as though it had never heard of warfare. The red ploughland, which had the consistency of thick cream cheese, lay peacefully under the mist. Cattle and sheep grazed quietly in the meadows, which retained some greenness though not yet the emerald shoots that would signal the approach of spring. Here and there, however, were snowdrops.
“Signs of hope,” Jane said, pointing to a cluster of them.
They paused for rest and food in Tiverton, to the south of the moor, and as they started out, the mists lifted. Fitful gleams of sunlight appeared. They were still several miles short of the Carew house in the district of Mohuns Ottery, however, when they saw four riders coming toward them. “They could be the queen’s men,” said Spenlove uneasily, reining in.
“Then we’d best ride on steady, looking innocent, like,” said Tim Snowe. He added, “They’m comin’ on fast.”
The horsemen, helmeted, breastplated and armed, were moving at a steady canter. Jane and her companions edged their mounts to the side of the track, which at this point passed through a belt of woodland. Jane glanced at it, wondering if they could get out of sight among the trees, but the riders had already seen them and were slowing down. It was too late.
The leader was on a black horse with a narrow white blaze, and Tim let out an exclamation. “I know that horse! Rubbed it down once, and it kicked me, the brute.”
The rider drew to a halt beside Jane, who looked at him and then laughed. His eyes widened in astonishment. “God’s teeth—Jane Allerbrook! Jane! What in the world brings you here?”
“Sir Peter! I came to warn you!” She tumbled the words out without preamble. “There’s a warrant out for your arrest. The queen’s soldiers are hunting for you now!”
“I know. We’ve dodged two sets of them already. A messenger reached me this morning. The government’s got hold of some of the letters that Wyatt and I wrote to various gentlemen, to raise arms and swordsmen. I’ve disbanded my men, except for these fellows, who’ve chosen to come with me, and a few others who’ve made for Kent to join Sir Thomas Wyatt. I hope they’ve got through. I had a summons to London but I didn’t go. I knew then that the finger of the law was pointing at me. I’m going to get out of the country if I can. While Spanish delegations, and in due time, no doubt, Prince Philip of Spain, can just come in at will!” His voice was suddenly savage. “If I see any Spaniards coming ashore when I embark for France, I swear I’ll throw every last man of them into the sea. You shouldn’t be here, Jane. It was brave of you to come, but you should go home at once, and quickly.”
“If you’re hoping to get away by sea, why are you coming this way?” Spenlove asked. “Exeter’s your nearest port.”
“Exeter’s been fortified against me and I hear there are royal soldiers in every coastal town for miles along the south coast. I’ve been wary. I’ve had scouts out and they’ve brought me reports. But from what they say, Weymouth may still be safe—it’s a good long way to the east. I’ve friends there. I’m making for Weymouth, by an inland route, going around the enemy, so to speak.”
“Sir Peter,” said Jane, “where’s Stephen Sweetwater?”
“Your Stephen? On his way to Kent. Oh, my dear Jane, did you come to rescue him? He’d never have let you. He’s a grand lad,” said Carew with enthusiasm. “Lionhearted and merry as a jester. You should have given him some training in arms, though. I’ve tried to drill him with a sword, but you can’t do in a month what normally takes years. I sent him off with a good, sharp-headed pike. He’ll do better with that.”
“Oh, Sir Peter!” said Jane, exasperated. “He should never have gone after you. I’d have stopped him if I could.”
“Except that I fancy you couldn’t. Not that lad,” said Carew heartily.
Spenlove said, “Your chances of getting through to Weymouth aren’t good. They’ll have thought of the inland roads, too.”
“They don’t know the area as well as I do. I’ve lived abroad and in Lincolnshire for a good few years, but as a boy I knew this corner of England as well as I know the lines on my own palm.”
Tim Snowe broke in. “You’d best get off that horse, Sir Peter. If I recognized it, so will others.”
“Good God, a strategist in homespun!” said Carew. “And right, maybe. You’re no fool, are you, fellow?”
He paused, frowning, glancing left and right as though mentally scanning alternative routes. And inside Jane, a terrifying idea had formed. It was turning itself into words and thrusting upward toward her mouth. She was going to say the words.
She daren’t.
She said them anyway. “Sir Peter, if you were on a less striking horse, and got rid of your helmet so that you resembled a groom, and if you separated from these friends and came along with me and Tim Snowe here and Dr. Spenlove, you’d look as if you were part of an escort for a respectable lady on her way to visit a sick relative somewhere…somewhere toward Weymouth.”
“Mistress Allerbrook, you can’t do that!” Spenlove gasped.
“He once helped me to escape from the court,” said Jane. “Now I’ll help him if he likes. I want to.”
It was as good an excuse as any. She could scarcely say out loud, I’ll do it because I love him.
“It’s treason!” said Spenlove, horrified. “If you’re caught…you could burn!”
“No,” said Carew. “I’d say I’d deceived her, that she didn’t know who I was, that she hired me really believing I was a groom. I’d invent a convincing story, never fear.”
“I believe you would!” Jane said.
Privately, she was marvelling at herself. So this is what love means. He’s married (I wonder what she’s like?). I can never marry him, never be with him as I want to be, never have his children. By helping him now, I put my life in danger. In such danger, at risk of such a hideous death…will he accept? Do I want him to accept?
Carew, however, was shaking his head. “It’s a splendid offer, and just for a moment—but no, I can’t agree to it, Mistress Allerbrook. Turn around and go home and pretend you never saw me.”
“Yes, indeed!” agreed Spenlove. “A woman can’t be caught up in this.”
“Several women already are, to the peril of their lives,” said Jane. The words still seemed to be coming out of her mouth by them
selves. “Queen Mary, the girl Lady Jane Grey in the Tower. The Princess Elizabeth—she’s been entangled. You wrote to her, you said, Sir Peter.”
“Wyatt wrote the letter. Yes. But…”
“But?”
“I have seen her,” Carew said, “occasionally, at court, before Queen Mary sent her away. I admire her greatly but I don’t know her, not personally. You, lady, are someone I know.”
One of Carew’s men said, “Excuse me, sir, but there are soldiers in the distance, coming toward us. The sun’s out over there. I saw it flash on helmets and pike heads.”
“What?” Carew transferred his gaze to the distance and then swore. “You’re right. Her soldiers—bound to be. If they find us, we’re all dead.”
Jane wheeled her pony to look back along the track over which she had ridden so recently. It led out of the woodland, vanished into a dip and reappeared beyond, a narrow red line slanting up a grassy hillside. A sizable troop of horsemen was riding down it.
Decisively Carew said, “I doubt they’ve seen us yet. We’re in shadow. But they’ll be face-to-face with us soon. We’ll be completely hidden from each other for a few moments while they’re in the dip, though. That’s our chance to get into the wood. Keep still till I give the word.”
They waited, motionless, until the approaching enemy had vanished from sight. “Now!” said Carew, and spurred in among the trees.
The rest of them did the same. There were ditches to either side and Jane’s mare Hazelnut almost stumbled as she crossed it, but recovered herself in time and scrambled safely, snorting, into shelter. Once inside the wood, they followed Carew’s low call, guiding their mounts toward him. He led them away from the path. The trees were mostly bare of leaves but still provided cover, since there were many oaks with wide girths as well as tangled bushes overgrown with ivy. Fifty yards in, the ground sloped down toward a stream. Carew brought them to the water and then stopped.
“We’re well out of sight,” he said quietly. “Now, absolute silence. Don’t let any of the horses neigh.”
“I can hear hooves,” whispered Jane.
One of Carew’s men, slipping noiselessly out of his saddle, handed his reins to a colleague and crept up the slope to crouch behind a massive oak at the top. The hoofbeats came nearer, rapidly. As they drew level with the place where Carew had led his companions into the wood, Hazelnut stiffened, ears pricked, and Carew, leaning down, gripped her nostrils, stifling an imminent whinny.
The riders were past. The hoofbeats receded. Carew’s man slithered down and took back his horse’s bridle. “Yes. Queen’s soldiers,” he said briefly. “The land’s alive with them, I reckon. They’re like bedbugs in a cheap inn.”
“Sir Peter,” said Jane, and was surprised at the strength in her own voice. “What do you think of my offer now? Will you ever get through, looking as you do? Send your men off—to somewhere safe if you can—and tell them to shed their helmets and pikes. Then change onto a less outstanding horse yourself and make for Weymouth in my company, as my groom. Maybe then you’ll all live to escape.”
He considered her gravely and then nodded “This has changed things. I agree. But I will never see you charged with treason. If necessary, I’ll say I forced you to help me.”
Spenlove and Tim both began to protest, but Jane turned on them angrily. “If you are afraid, then go home. I will ride with one groom—Sir Peter. Dr. Spenlove, you mean well but you have no authority to give me orders. I am going to Weymouth.”
“And how far will that be?” asked Spenlove wearily.
“By the route we’ll have to take, fifty miles or so if you’re a bird and a good bit more on horseback,” Carew told him.
Looking back, long afterward, Jane thought that in those days of constant upheavals, of first one and then another monarch on the throne, of risings and plots and smashed statues and riots in the street, a kind of madness was in the air. It travelled on the wind, an infection of craziness, blown from one place to another, taking hold of people’s minds. The offer she had made was mad; Sir Peter Carew was just as insane to adopt it. Spenlove and Snowe, who might in calmer times have carried the day, might even have borne her off to safety by kindly but determined force, found themselves giving in.
Helmets, breastplates and pikes were abandoned in the wood. Fortunately Carew and his men were all wearing serviceable buff garments, and once he had shed his armour and weapons, Sir Peter made quite a convincing groom. He looked even more authentic when he had exchanged horses with one of his men, and mounted a ewe-necked brown mare. From his new saddle, he gave his friends their instructions. He had once said to Jane, I always make sure I understand the world I’m living in and how to get from here to there. You never know when it may come in useful. It was very clear that he knew Devon and Dorset as though they were his own home farm. He gave orders to his three men in brisk, staccato fashion.
“Join me in Weymouth if you can. I’ll take at least two days to get there myself…my friend there is Robert Harte and he has a ship called the Pretty Doe. Go well inland…you know a place called Crewkerne? Pass to the north of it…don’t go through any village or town…that means avoiding bridges…you’ll have to ford the Umborne Brook and the River Yarty…the best ford over Umborne…”
His instructions finished, he wished his friends well and sent them on their way. After that, riding politely behind Jane and Dr. Spenlove, and alongside Tim Snowe on his brown pony, he began his own escape to Weymouth.
“We can’t avoid villages,” he said. “Not if we’re escorting a respectable lady like Mistress Allerbrook. We must use inns and take a more southerly route than my men. That’ll look more natural. We’ll pick villages without gates and guards. We’ll be two nights on the road at least. It gets dark so early.”
Jane had no idea what the village was called where they made their first stop. They presented themselves as Mistress Hudd from Somerset, making a hurried journey to an ailing cousin, escorted by her cousin’s chaplain, who had come from Weymouth to fetch her, and two grooms.
As Mistress Hudd, Jane adopted a marked accent and said it was lucky that she did not use the fashionable modern sidesaddle, but rode astride with leggings to protect her calves from the stirrup leathers. “I’m a countrywoman,” she told her companions. “Prosperous but rustic.”
She and Spenlove supped together in a small private chamber while Tim and Carew, having looked after the horses, ate in the kitchen. Just as Jane and Spenlove had finished and the innkeeper’s wife, candle in hand, was showing them where they would sleep, half a dozen soldiers arrived, wanting food and lodgings for the night. From the turn of the stairs, Spenlove glanced down at them.
“As well for you to keep out of the way, mistress,” he said. “I hope that Tim and Sir Peter do the same.”
Jane hoped so, too, and slept badly. Tim and Peter were sleeping in the loft over the stable, though. Only Spenlove was sharing accommodation with the soldiers. The chance of disaster should be small, but nevertheless, she was nervous. However, no raised voices, no clashing weapons or running feet disturbed her rest, and she woke in the morning to find the inn perfectly peaceful.
She breakfasted in her chamber, taking her time so that the soldiers would set off first, and was relieved when she heard them leaving. She put her belongings together, paid the landlord and found her companions in the stableyard. As they took the road again, Carew said, “The plan is changed. We’ll go north of Crewkerne after all. Snowe and I found a few things out last night, Mistress Hudd, when we were talking to the soldiers.”
“You…when you were doing what?” Jane, appalled, jerked in her saddle and almost jagged Hazelnut’s mouth
“We offered to give them a hand, rubbing down their horses,” Tim said cheerfully. “Sir Peter here can talk more rustic even than me. You should have heard him, sayin’ he was called Jem and whistlin’ while he picked out the hooves of the sergeant’s gelding.”
“Were you out of your minds? Sir Peter, they’re
looking for you!”
“Well, they didn’t find me,” said Carew, grinning. “And we got them talking. From what they said, there are more patrols out than I thought and the danger extends farther inland than I ever imagined. So we’ll take a detour to the north after all. The farther we keep from the coast, the better, until we’re well to the east.”
“You talked to them!” Jane gasped. “You…you…”
“May have saved our skins,” said Carew cheerfully.
“I pray it may be so,” said Spenlove fervently. “I helped the soldiers say prayers this morning,” he added. “We all prayed for your speedy capture, Sir Peter. But God hears the heart, not the voice. I hope!”
“If I’d known what was going on, I wouldn’t have slept for one single minute last night!” Jane declared. “And I didn’t sleep for many as it was!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Once, and Once Only
1554
The journey seemed long, but the weather stayed dry and they met no more soldiers until they reached Weymouth, where gate guards challenged them. However, Jane’s story of a visit to a gravely ill relative, told in a broad west country accent, was accepted. Her voice shook, but simple countrywomen were apt to be nervous when questioned by guards, who saw nothing odd about it.
Once they were past the guards, Carew took them straight to the harbour, said thankfully, “The Pretty Doe’s here, all right,” and hailed her, whereupon a big fair man with an immense beard appeared on her deck and came ashore to meet them.
At close quarters he was older than he seemed at first, for there was silver in the beard and in the untidy hair blowing around his ears, but his stride was vigorous. Carew, leaping out of his saddle, ran to hug him. “Robert Harte! Of all men, you’re the one I most wanted to find.”
“You’re in trouble, I hear.” Harte grinned at Jane. “He always was. We were at sea together when King Henry was at war with France. Carew had command of a ship called the Great Venetian. Seven hundred tons she was, and she’d have gone down like a stone if ever she sank and it’s a marvel she didn’t, the chances this man took. The French ships were trying to harry ours. He used to pick out a victim and sail straight at her. I was his first mate and he frightened the life out of me.”
The House of Allerbrook Page 26