The House of Allerbrook

by Valerie Anand

  Within ten days they were in London. It was the twenty-seventh of August when at last the sturdy Exmoor ponies bore Jane’s litter into the city. Paul Snowe rode alongside with Alice on his pillion and Stephen led the way. He and Paul had changed mounts several times on the way, but the ponies seemed to be made of iron.

  “I must find an inn with good stabling,” Stephen said. “And I need to enquire where the court is. Walsingham will be with it. In such a time of crisis, the queen will probably be in London. I hope she is. Well, the landlord of any good inn will know. They always do.”

  The landlord of the Green Dragon in Bishopsgate did know. “In Whitehall,” he told them.

  “Can you hire me a sidesaddle?” Jane asked. “I am going to court. I’ll ride one of our horses and I wish to arrive with dignity.”

  The landlord, who had at first considered that this elderly woman with the country accent didn’t resemble a lady of consequence, met her eyes and changed his mind. “Reckon I can oblige you,” he said.

  The next morning, on horseback, Jane and Stephen presented themselves at Whitehall and the amber ring did its work. With very little delay they were ushered into the presence of Sir Francis Walsingham.

  Jane had expected that such a high court official would have more sumptuous surroundings, and Walsingham’s businesslike office surprised her. Walsingham himself, however, dark of complexion and gown and radiating power which was almost visible, stood out from his background. He rose as they were brought into the room, and politely handed Jane to a seat.

  “You are Mistress Allerbrook, I understand,” he said to Jane, “and Master Sweetwater here, with whom I am already acquainted, is I believe your nephew. How can I serve you?” The courteous air with which he had greeted them hardened. “Though from what I have heard, I am not sure if you have served me well, either of you. I wonder if any member of the Allerbrook family can be considered a trustworthy citizen.”

  “I provided you with what I hope was useful information, gleaned during the summer, sir,” Stephen said.

  “Yes, you did. It’s where your own family are concerned that you suffer from conflicting loyalties. I sent you out of the way, Master Sweetwater, to make sure you didn’t warn your foolish cousins—useless though such a warning would have been—but it seems that both you and this lady here, your aunt, lied to Captain Clayman and told him that Robert Allerbrook was not at home. I am well-informed, you see. He was found there and dragged from under a bed. Tobias Allerbrook has disappeared and so, I hear, has his wife. Perhaps I had better not enquire too deeply into how they got away.”

  There was a brief and awkward silence, until Jane, looking gravely and very directly at Walsingham, said, “Tobias is my son and Robert my grandson. If I had refused aid to them, Sir Francis, what kind of mother or grandmother would that make me?”

  “The safety of the queen is involved. This is a matter of treason. It is my business to bring traitors to justice.”

  “Of course,” Jane agreed. “That’s your duty. But mine is to love and to protect my own kinfolk, whatever they may do. It’s my business to try to prevent things like realms and queens and conspiracies from destroying the peace of my home and my family. We don’t all have the same duties in this world, Sir Francis.”

  There was a pause. Then Jane added, “I believe, in ancient Rome, there were stern matrons who would have put Rome before their own families and handed their own children over to justice if they broke the law. Perhaps that is admirable, in a way. But I can’t do it. I have come today to plead for my grandson’s life and to ask if I may see him. I doubt if he’s seen a kindly face since he was taken from his home.”

  “You think I am a heartless monster,” Walsingham said. “I am not, not quite. As an upholder of the law, I deplore what you have done. As a man with a family of his own, I understand your feelings, Mistress Allerbrook, and to some extent I understand yours, Master Sweetwater. If I didn’t, I would have you both arrested now, for hiding Robert Allerbrook and—probably—for spiriting his father away. Very well. I won’t pursue that subject. I will tell you something. Anthony Babington, a principal leader in this shocking conspiracy, is in the Tower, but at the last moment I weakened and tried to keep him out of it. By then we already had Mary Stuart in our trap and we could have snapped it shut without Babington. We could have kept up the correspondence in his name. He destroyed his own chances.”

  “Kept up the correspondence?” Stephen said as Walsingham paused. “Oh! Courtesy of one Gil Gifford?” He remembered that nightmare conference, and Babington, eyes shining, explaining that letters to and from Mary Stuart could be transported in an ale barrel, with the help of someone called Gifford.

  “Yes, Gifford is one of mine,” Walsingham said. “He led Babington on very well. Babington is a young man I could have liked in other circumstances. He has a wife and child whose hearts I am now obliged to break, and if you think I don’t regret that, you are wrong. Well before his arrest, I called him to my presence and reminded him of his duty to be faithful to our queen. I told him he could do so without fear, even if it meant confessing knowledge of a plot, that he could speak to me freely. I hoped to save him, and perhaps to learn the names of conspirators I hadn’t yet identified. But he denied all knowledge of any treachery—and then went away to continue with it. I am sorry, and I am sorry, too, for your grandson.”

  “You will do what you can for him?” Stephen asked.

  Walsingham shook his head. “It is out of my hands. Robert Allerbrook will be tried along with the rest of the traitors and cannot be given special treatment. You can see him, Mistress Allerbrook, but not until after the trial, which can only take place when we have finished interrogating the prisoners. They are allowed no contact with visitors while this is being done.”

  “Is Robert…has he been…racked?” Jane asked in a whisper.

  “No, Mistress Allerbrook. He has made a confession, in writing.”

  “When…?” Jane began.

  “I will have you informed. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Green Dragon. Bishopsgate,” said Stephen.

  “You should return there,” said Walsingham. “When the trial is over and the verdict and sentence pronounced on all the plotters, you will be sent for.” His dark eyes held something near to compassion. “You may well find you are visiting your grandson only to say goodbye. I have no power over the outcome of the trial and would not use it if I had. I will say this. Because Master Stephen Sweetwater here is in my employ and because he did not, in fact, betray my trust although he could have done, I am overlooking the way you both tried to deceive Captain Adam Clayman. As I once hinted that I might, I have recommended that the Allerbrook estate should not be confiscated. This recommendation has been accepted. I can offer you that much balm for your sorrow. But Robert Allerbrook cannot be saved.”

  “Thank you,” said Stephen. Jane said, “Could we not appeal to the queen for Robert’s sake?”

  “The amber ring would ensure you an audience,” said Walsingham. “But I don’t advise it. She is bitterly angry. She is a courageous lady but the last few months have been terrible for her. Until Mary Stuart’s guilt was fully certain, we had to leave the conspirators at large. Her Majesty was in danger for a long time and knew it and has suffered. She won’t forgive those months of fear. She’s in no mood for clemency. I counsel you to keep away from her. My secretary will see you out.”

  Three weeks later, in bed at the Green Dragon, listening to the even breathing of Alice in the truckle bed by the door, Jane lay wakeful, trying not to imagine where she would sleep tomorrow night. By then, she might well be in chains.

  Was it treachery against the realm to save a condemned man from death by disembowellment? And could she do it? Stephen probably could, but she must not put him in danger. Philippa needed her father now that her husband was to be taken from her. No, this was Jane’s lonely duty to her family, out of the love she felt for them.

  It’s like looking in
to a pit. Oh, God, help me.

  But God, of course, wasn’t going to do any such thing. God hadn’t kept that man Clayman from looking under Philippa’s bed. God didn’t answer prayers. Experience had cured her of any real belief.

  The moon was moving on. The night was going by. The passes had come at last and tomorrow they had permission to visit the Tower and see Robert. The day after that, the twentieth of September, Anthony Babington and six of his foremost coconspirators were to die. The rest, including Robert, would follow the day after. There would be only one chance.

  In the morning, as they set out for the Tower, nothing seemed real. She was a sixty-eight-year-old widowed lady, of good reputation. Such people simply did not go about with daggers hidden in their clothing and the intention of driving them into any human heart.

  At the Tower they were handed over from one guard to another and then to a turnkey, who led them to a low door in one of the towers that studded the massive outer walls. Taking a flambeau from a wall bracket just inside, he lit the way down some steep, dark steps. There was a dank smell, as of dirty river water.

  The turnkey was a scrawny individual of doubtful age. His teeth were brown but his smile seemed friendly and he had a pink, positively wholesome face. At the foot of the stairs he showed them through two more doors, which he unlocked and then locked behind them with a great clanking of keys, and then, at last, they were in Robert’s cell.

  It was a horrible place, of bare stone, the only light a gleam from a small grating high in the wall. The reek of the nearby river was very strong. So was the smell of human ordure, from the pail that stood beside the cot on which Robert was lying.

  He lay on his back, on a coarse blanket. He was staring into space as though at some nightmare vision. His wrists were manacled together and an ankle chain, long and heavy, was fastened to the wall. He had grown a beard, thick and black, obscuring half his pallid face, and his hair straggled greasily close to his shoulders. He wore only a filthy shirt and breeches.

  “We don’t treat ’em badly,” said the turnkey. “See, he can move about a bit, to the length of that there chain, and there’s blankets on ’is bed. They get food and water, too. That’s orders, that is. So as they don’t get sick and die afore the law deals with them. If you’ve brought any extra comforts, there’s no rule against it, long as you slip me a little something.” He beamed, and the grinning face was suddenly wholesome no longer, but sly and acquisitive.

  “Robert!” Jane made toward him, with Stephen following.

  Robert sat up, withdrawing his fixed gaze from whatever evil visions had filled it. “Better not touch me,” he said as he brought his feet to the floor with a clatter of chain links. “You’ll get lice. You’ve come to say goodbye?”

  “We’ve been waiting here over three weeks, for passes,” Stephen told him, evading the question. “Philippa is safe,” he added. “You have twins, a son and a daughter, Sybil and Robin.”

  “Have I? And Philippa came through! Thank God! I wish I could see them. I wish…”

  His voice cracked. He raised his chained hands and pressed them to his face, and began to lurch from side to side. Jane, ignoring the lice, put a hand on his shoulder.

  His voice came to her, muffled by his hands and his tears. “Do you know what the worst thing is? It’s not even the fear, though God knows the fear’s well nigh beyond bearing. I’ve not slept more than an hour at a time since I heard the sentence, nearly a week ago. But worse than that—yes, I mean it—is…I want to go home. I want to be at Allerbrook again. I want to hear the river in the combe. I want to see the gorse and the heather. I want Philippa.”

  He dropped his hands and looked up at her. His eyes were wet. The turnkey was standing back, by the door. Jane moved so that her wide skirts shielded Robert from him and pulled the dagger out of her sleeve. Stephen whispered, “What…Aunt Jane!”

  “Be quiet!” muttered Jane fiercely. Quick, quick, I must be quick. Don’t think about it. Just do it. It’s easy. One hand firm on his shoulder and thrust with the other. Pretend you’re driving the blade into a…a…pillow. Just do it! “Shut your eyes, dear Robert. Shut your eyes and go to sleep. Goodbye.”

  “Aunt Jane, you can’t—!” Stephen was gaping, unable to take in what he was seeing. Robert said, “Thank you,” and closed his eyes.

  And I can’t do it. Oh, my God, I CAN’T DO IT. I can’t kill anyone, least of all my own grandson, even to save him from…I can’t…I can’t…

  “Here now, none of that!” Suddenly there were footsteps behind her and a pair of strong hands had reached past her and clamped themselves on her wrists. The turnkey, who was much more powerful than his scraggy build suggested, removed the dagger from her grasp. “I’ve seen folk try that before,” he said reprovingly, “but we don’t allow it. You’d get into trouble, you would, if I let you get away with that.”

  Robert opened his eyes. “Thank you, Grandmother. Thank you for trying, at least.” He was shaking.

  “Aunt Jane!” Stephen was staring at her. “I never thought…I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. And I wish you’d moved faster or else asked me to do it!” He glowered at the turnkey.

  “It had to be me,” said Jane, weeping. “But I…couldn’t…do…it.”

  “So I’d hope, a lady like you,” said the turnkey, shaking a scandalized head. “Think you’d best say goodbye now. Give him your blessing, promise your prayers and then let this fellow take you away. This is no place for a lady, anyhow.”

  Gently, tearfully, Jane kissed Robert’s brow. Stephen patted his shoulder. They said words of blessing. They promised to pray.

  Once they were outside again, however, Jane’s tears ceased and she squared her shoulders.

  “I said nothing to Robert because I didn’t want to raise false hopes, but if you can get me into her presence with the help of that ring, I’m going to the queen. It’s the only thing that’s left. I’m a woman. She’s a woman. We must have some common ground somewhere!”

  So this, Jane thought as she sank into a very deep curtsy, was Elizabeth Regina of England. She didn’t know what she had expected, but the reality was overpowering. Elizabeth had not ruled England for nearly thirty years without acquiring an aura of power that reduced Walsingham’s aura almost to nothingness.

  She had received them in a small audience chamber at Whitehall. She was splendid in black-and-white brocade, with a huge farthingale and ruff, and ropes of pearls. She was seated on a throne, with arms and a pointed back and a canopy, and the throne itself was on a dais.

  Courtiers stood about, though not too close. Most of them had stared in surprise when Jane and Stephen were led into the room, but the red-jacketed gentleman pensioner who escorted them in had spoken to her quietly, and with a movement of her head she had signalled that she wished for some privacy with her visitors.

  Only when she had curtsied deeply and been bidden to rise did Jane dare to look closely at Elizabeth’s face. Then she saw what had not been apparent at first—that the enthroned person inside the magnificent black-and-white gown was a tired woman past fifty. Time, that destructive force, had erased all resemblance to the solemn, red-haired little girl Jane had glimpsed at the court of Queen Anna, long ago, or to the magical young princess whom Carew had once described as having hair like red-gold satin. This aging woman’s crimped red hair did not look real. “Madam,” Jane said, and then found her tongue refusing to form another word.

  “Mistress Allerbrook, we understand. And Master Sweetwater. You have one of Walsingham’s rings, we believe, Master Sweetwater, which gives you the right to enter our presence in emergency. May we take it that this is an emergency?”

  “To ourselves, ma’am.” Stephen had kept hold of his self-possession. “It is an emergency for us, but only you can help.”

  “Well, let us hear what you wish to ask.” The queen’s face, which was pale, was shaped like a shield, Jane thought. In fact, it was a shield. The lines of tiredness were plain to see, but there w
as no knowing what mood the owner of that face might be in. Her golden-brown eyes were unfathomable. “The name Allerbrook,” Elizabeth said, “is familiar to us. Is there not a man of that name in the Tower now, under sentence of death, to be carried out tomorrow? Are you related to him?”

  “Mistress Jane is his grandmother, ma’am,” said Stephen. “I am her nephew—he is therefore cousin to me. Aunt Jane…”

  “I have come,” said Jane, finding her voice at last but with difficulty and having even so to clear her throat before she could get any words out, “to ask…not for his life—I know I must not ask that—but for some mercy. For a quick death and not…not…”

  She couldn’t go on. Tears blinded her. If the answer was no, then there was nowhere else to go and Walsingham had said that Elizabeth was angry, too angry for clemency.

  “Don’t be so afraid of me,” said Elizabeth, abandoning the royal plural and sounding now as weary as she looked. “Babington and his principal plotters died today, and at my orders, the extreme of agony was their lot. It did not meet with the approval of the Londoners, I hear, and having been told of the details, I find that after all, it does not meet with mine, either. You need not have come to plead with us for this. Those who die tomorrow, and they include the man Allerbrook, will die quickly.” The formal plural had reappeared, but this time by way of an assurance that what she was saying was official. “We promise.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The Apologetic Visitor

  1586

  “I failed him. I’m sorry,” Jane said to Philippa. “Allerbrook itself is safe for your son, at least. But I hadn’t the courage to do what I meant to do. It was the queen who saved him from the knife. She kept her word and he did die quickly. That I can vouch for.”

  “We were both there,” said Stephen. “Robert had friendly faces in the crowd whether or not he knew it. He wasn’t alone at the end.”