All the Queen's Players

by Jane Feather

  Rosamund on the other hand had never given heretics or martyrs a moment’s serious thought. And she had not given the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, much thought either. The lady had been a prisoner of her cousin Queen Elizabeth’s for almost eighteen years and her situation barely impinged on the daily life of an ordinary citizen. Besides, Mary had resided in the north of England throughout her captivity, and Rosamund was a southerner, born and bred.

  She tried to think now if she knew any Catholics, or at least any openly confessed Catholics. Anthony Babington, of course, but she was certain she had not knowingly met anyone of that faith during her years at Scadbury. Religious differences had never been a topic around the dinner table or even a subject of her sparse formal education.

  It seemed, Rosamund thought somewhat guiltily, that she was a woman of no particular religious conviction at all. She went to church on Sundays, dutifully listened to the long and generally boring sermons, and for the rest of the week never gave the subject another thought.

  So could she possibly do what was being asked of her? Could she be sufficiently convincing to be accepted? There would be no physical danger. Mary’s discovery of her deception was the worst that could happen. In that event, once useless, she would be taken away, a failure true, and the consequences of failure would be dreary, of that she had no doubt, but there was no danger to life or limb.

  “Do you have any other questions?” Sir Francis interrupted her reflections with sharp impatience, and she realized she had been silent for several minutes.

  “When do I go?” The simple question was clearly her only acceptable response.

  “Tomorrow. Thomas will escort you, together with one Frizer . . .” He caught her grimace. “Ah, you do not care for our man Frizer, I see. He is not much liked, but he has his uses. And he will keep you on a tight rein on the long ride north. He is Thomas’s choice, a degree of fraternal vengeance, I imagine. But I do not interfere.”

  Master Secretary unclasped his hands. “In general my agents . . . my eyes . . . operate according to their own lights. I am interested only in results. You, Rosamund, will bring me results . . . but you will need some preparation.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a book and an ivory rosary, sliding both across the desk. “Our Lady’s Psalter, and a rosary. Make sure you are familiar with both.”

  Rosamund took the book and the beads, saying doubtfully, “I am not sure how fluent I can pretend to be.”

  “That will be explained by the difficulties of practicing the true religion in the Protestant court,” Francis said. “The more anxious you are for religious instruction, the more you will endear yourself to Mary.” He gave her a nod of dismissal and, as she rose to her feet, said, “When your work is complete, then we shall discuss your future.”

  “I will do my best to serve you, Sir Francis.” She curtsied and left, running up to her chamber, closing the door at her back, leaning against it, her heart racing. It was a nightmare, yet it was reality.

  The next day Henny woke her before daybreak. “Master Walsingham is waiting downstairs, mistress. He says you’re to make haste as he wants to be well away from the city by sunup. There’s a bowl of bread and milk on the washstand.”

  Rosamund had hardly slept and staggered to her feet feeling groggy. She accepted Henny’s help to dress and ate the bread and milk standing up while Henny brushed her hair and tied it back so that it would be well covered by the hood of her cloak, protected from the dust of the summer roads.

  She went downstairs to where Thomas was waiting in the hall, pacing up and down, slashing at his boots with his riding whip. He turned as she came down. “Hurry. We’ve a long ride and I’ve no wish to linger on the road.”

  Rosamund had not expected a warm brotherly greeting, but this was curter than she’d expected. Thomas usually recovered his good humor fairly rapidly, but then her present offense had obviously caused him considerable inconvenience.

  She had made her farewells to Ursula the previous evening, so there was nothing to stay for. Without saying anything, she followed Thomas from the house.

  Their horses were in the street, pawing the cobbles in the darkness, Ingram Frizer at their heads. He was chewing a piece of stick between blackened teeth and tossed it to the ground as they came out. He gave Rosamund a laconic glance that nevertheless unnerved her, before handing the reins to Thomas and mounting his own horse.

  Thomas lifted his sister into Jenny’s saddle, still without speaking, and mounted himself. The little party set off northwards in the graying darkness.

  They rode for three days, stopping each night to claim hospitality at the houses of acquaintances and family connections. It didn’t matter how loose the connection, how bare the acquaintanceship, hospitality was never refused. Each evening, Rosamund was escorted to a bedchamber and Ingram Frizer spent the night outside the door, while her brother enjoyed the company of his hosts at dinner. Rosamund had no idea what Thomas told their hosts of his sister’s disgrace, but it was sufficient to ensure that no one exchanged friendly words with her when Frizer escorted her to her horse in the morning.

  On the third day Thomas thawed a little, and that evening she was not immediately banished to a solitary chamber. Frizer still spent the night outside her door, but she joined the company for dinner, and no word was said of the scandal. By midmorning of the following day she judged her brother sufficiently softened to ask him what he knew of her task for Sir Francis.

  Everything, it seemed. More to the point, he would instruct her in great detail how she was to deliver her information, and he would remain at Chartley for several days after she had joined Mary’s retinue in case of some unforeseen difficulty. Rosamund was somewhat reassured by this and was beginning to regard her task with more equanimity when they finally rode into the village of Chartley that evening.

  Chartley Hall stood separate from the village surrounded by a moat. A pleasant timbered mansion, its mullioned windows glowed gold in the setting sun as the small party rode across the moat and up the gravel path to the main doors. The doors were opened before they had dismounted, and a man in severe black velvet stepped through the archway to greet them.

  “Sir Amyas, I give you good even.” Thomas drew off his glove, extending his hand. “This is my sister, Rosamund Walsingham. You know all you need to know about her circumstances, I trust.”

  “Sir Francis sent a courier with a full explanation of the situation, Master Walsingham.” Sir Amyas gave Rosamund a short bow. “You are welcome, Mistress Walsingham.”

  “My man Frizer you know.” Thomas gestured to the man, who merely nodded in response to Paulet’s curt glance of acknowledgment.

  “Come inside. You are sharp set, I’m sure. We will dine at once if it please you. Master Phelippes is here too. He manages the intercepts.” Sir Amyas led the way into the cool, gloomy interior.

  Rosamund glanced up and around at the heavily raftered ceiling and carved paneling of the central hall. A carved staircase rose from the rear to a galleried landing above with a small minstrel’s balcony jutting from the back wall. Two huge fireplaces, large enough to roast oxen, stood at each end of the hall, but they were fireless in the warmth of midsummer. All in all, it was a gloomy place, despite the warm and cheerful evening outdoors.

  “If you will go with my housekeeper, Mistress Walsingham, she will show you to a chamber where you will spend tonight. In the morning I will take you to the Lady Mary.”

  Lady Mary, not queen, Rosamund noted. It seemed that Paulet was as much the Scots queen’s implacable enemy as was the secretary of state.

  “You will wish to sup alone abovestairs, I am sure.”

  Rosamund was about to deny any such desire, having grown heartily sick of her own company in the last days, but caught her brother’s eye and prudently acceded. She went off with the housekeeper, a Mistress Tunston, who had an uncanny resemblance to Sir Amyas, the same sandy hair and severe cast of countenance.

  She was sho
wn to a pleasant enough chamber at the rear of Chartley Hall, overlooking a cobbled yard and a group of outbuildings. “The Lady Mary is housed over yonder,” Mistress Tunston said, indicating the outbuildings.

  “Why is she not housed in the Hall?” Rosamund was shocked. The outbuildings looked ramshackle, more like ill-built stables than a habitation, let alone the living quarters of a queen.

  “ ’Tis no business of mine.” The housekeeper closed her lips in a thin line, clearly meaning to imply that it was no business of Rosamund’s either. “I’ll send supper up to you. There’s fresh candles, flint, and tinder on the mantel. Water in the ewer on the dresser. Anything else you need, ring the bell.” She glanced around the chamber as if satisfying herself that all was in order, then left.

  Rosamund stood at the window for a long time looking at the royal prison that she was soon to be sharing. Smoke curled from a chimney, otherwise there was no sign of life. What were the women doing in there at the moment?

  She turned back to the room as a servant entered with a laden tray. She set it down on a table, bobbed a curtsy, and disappeared. Rosamund examined the dishes on the tray. It was Friday and she expected the usual Friday offering of plain white fish, but was pleasantly surprised by a fish pudding and a dish of green peas. A flagon of wine, a thick slice of barley bread, and a strawberry tart completed the feast.

  She took the pudding and the horn spoon to the window seat and ate looking out as the setting sun cast long shadows over the fields beyond the outbuildings. If she wished to, she could walk in those fields this evening. But when would she next have that freedom?

  “You believe that your sister will manage to maintain this deception?” Sir Amyas reached across the table for the flagon of wine, refilling his guest’s cup.

  “It matters little what I believe, Paulet,” Thomas said, circling his hand around his cup. “Master Secretary has decreed that she will.” He shrugged. “I’ll say this for Rosamund, she does not lack for wit . . . if she keeps her somewhat wilder impulses in check,” he muttered.

  “She will need all the wit she has. Scots Mary is as wily as Reynard eluding the hounds. I’ve taken everything possible away from her, but still she won’t break.” Sir Amyas scowled into his wine cup.

  “And this beer-keg post?”

  “Working well.” It was Phelippes who answered. “Two deliveries so far. One came in from Mary’s agent in Scotland. It was extracted from the keg by the brewer, and I deciphered it before it was replaced in the neck of the keg and Mary’s maid retrieved it from the buttery when the kegs were stored. Mary’s reply was inserted by the maid, retrieved by the brewer outside the Hall, again deciphered by me, and then sent on its way.”

  Phelippes reached for a strawberry tartlet, saying through a mouthful of pastry crumbs, “It is a brilliant invention. So far nothing sufficiently incriminating has come or gone, but one day soon this post will yield the fruit that will loose the hangman.”

  “A finale devoutly to be hoped for.” Thomas too reached for a sweetmeat. “These are exceptionally good. Your cook is uncommonly skilled.”

  “Aye. A good table compensates for a somewhat dreary watch.” Paulet tapped the table with his fingers. “Six years I have been her jailer and I’ll be glad to be rid of the task, Walsingham.”

  Thomas could understand. Six years watching over the royal captive in various prisons in the north of England without so much as a visit to the court, with never a break for family or personal pleasure, would grow tedious. Mary was not an easy prisoner to watch. Over the eighteen years of her imprisonment, she had hatched countless plots, had had a finger in every plot against the queen and in every project for a foreign invasion from the Catholic monarchs of France and Spain. She had drawn many with her charm, her beauty, and her sorrowful tale into her devious schemes and had missed no opportunity to outwit her jailer. Now neither she nor her ladies were permitted to walk outside, except for one short walk a day in the orchard, and that only because the physician had said that without it the Scots queen’s health would suffer irreparable harm, and her cousin Elizabeth could not have it said that she had caused her cousin’s death by ill treatment.

  “Well, matters move apace now. Master Secretary spins his web ever tighter, and if all play their part well, we shall see its finish before year’s end.”

  Paulet raised his cup. “I will drink to that, Walsingham.”

  Thomas and Phelippes raised their cups and drank the silent toast.

  Rosamund was awoken by the housekeeper the next morning, soon after cockcrow. Mistress Tunston set a jug of hot water on the dresser. “Master Walsingham and Sir Amyas ask that you break your fast with them downstairs.”

  Rosamund dressed with care, trying to ensure that she looked suitably modest and devout. She let her hair fall loose to her shoulders, confined only by a black ribbon at her forehead, and selected a modest black lace partlet for the neck of her apple green gown. As a final touch she fastened the ivory rosary at her waist.

  She made her way downstairs and was shown into a paneled parlor where Thomas, Master Phelippes, and Sir Amyas were already at breakfast. Thomas looked her over with a faint glimmer of amusement. “A suitably virgin appearance, Sister.” The irony in his voice was not lost on Rosamund, who merely curtsied demurely and took a seat at the table.

  “There are one or two things Master Phelippes here needs to explain to you.” Thomas cut a thick slice of ham from the joint in front of him. “Listen well.”

  Mary, Queen of Scots, stood close to the fire in her chamber, warming her chilled fingers. The damp again, rather than the cold, made her joints ache. Some days her fingers were so swollen with chilblain it was too painful to take up her needle. After a few minutes she went to the prie-dieu and knelt with her rosary, murmuring her prayers. Her ladies ceased their quiet conversation and continued with their sewing in silent respect for the queen’s devotions.

  The maid Barbara came in to clear away the breakfast dishes and add more fuel to the fire. Despite the bright sunshine outside, the room with its single window high in the wall was gloomy, candles providing the only illumination.

  Mary looked up from her prayers, turning her head towards the girl. “You’re quite certain there was nothing in the beer keg yesterday, Barbara?”

  “Quite certain, madam. I checked most carefully.” It was the fifth or sixth time Mary had asked the same question, and Barbara wished fervently that she could give a different answer.

  Mary sighed and rose to her feet. She looked forward to Fridays with an obsessive longing, and when the beer delivery day passed without a message, her spirits were lowered for days after. She began to pace the chamber, running the beads of her rosary through her fingers, her lips moving in silent prayer. In past prisons she had been able to ride whenever she chose, and the exercise had invigorated her. She had gone hawking across Hanbury Hill when she’d been kept at Tutbury Castle, and at Sheffield Castle she had ridden to hounds. She couldn’t remember when last she had been on the back of a horse, and for a woman who had always been energetic, had loved outdoor sport, this enforced inactivity was almost the hardest thing to bear.

  She paused in her perambulation at the sound of voices from the outer chamber. The little terrier pricked his ears and looked at the door. Her jailer’s familiar tones made her lip curl with distaste. What fresh humiliation was he about to deliver? She sat down by the fire and waited, her hands clasped lightly in her lap.

  The door opened and Sir Amyas entered with a young woman. “Madam, I have brought you a new attendant,” he announced without preamble. “The queen is pleased to send you Rosamund Fitzgerald, who was lately in her service. Her majesty thought you would find a fresh face and fresh companionship to your liking.”

  “I have no need of either, Sir Amyas,” Mary stated quietly. “And most particularly no need of someone sent directly from my cousin’s court. Surely you cannot imagine I would be such a fool?”

  Rosamund stepped forward, dropping to h
er knees. “Madam, I do most earnestly beg you to reconsider. I have long wished to serve you, and to practice the true religion. My family have abandoned the true faith, and I have been forbidden to pray as I choose. I have been cast out by my family, banished from court by the queen. I begged the queen to send me to you, and because she has some kindness for me despite my beliefs, she agreed, on condition that you were willing to accept me.”

  Mary regarded the kneeling girl with a flicker of interest. It was not inconceivable that Elizabeth would agree to grant such a wish. She would remember well enough her own religious persecution by her own sister, Queen Mary, who sought to compel Elizabeth, as a girl, to take instruction in the Catholic religion. Mary herself knew that Elizabeth had more tolerance for differing styles of worship as long as they were not blatantly practiced.

  “Rise,” she said. “You are called Rosamund?”

  “Yes, madam. Rosamund Fitzgerald.”

  “Our life here is dreary and uneventful.” Mary cast Sir Amyas a derisive glance as she spoke. “It is hard for someone as young as yourself to live day by day with so little diversion.”

  “Madam, my dearest wish was to enter a convent as a novice and to take my vows, but my family would not permit it. I have no other desire but to spend my days in prayer and service to God, and if in so doing I can be of service to you, then it is all I ask.”

  Rosamund was astonished at herself as the lies tripped off her tongue. They sounded so convincing she almost believed them herself. She kept her head lowered, her hands clasped against her skirt, and waited.