by Jane Feather
Rosamund lay awake for a long time. The impediments to her liaison with Will were still there, as large as life. He was still a penniless courtier with a future to make, and she was a dowerless, disgraced maid of honor, ruined by scandal. And even if she was not, she knew her family would never permit an alliance with Will, her brother had said as much on that first theatre outing, which now seemed to have happened to someone else in another lifetime. They might be short on fortune, but they were still Walsinghams, with a most powerful cousin and a connection however tenuous to the Boleyns.
But her spirit was too buoyant at present to dwell overlong on the difficulties. And they still had tomorrow to look forward to. If she had learned one thing in the last months, it was to take what was offered when it was offered. There was no telling in this troubled time when the offer would be rescinded. With a tiny smile she turned on her side and curled into sleep.
Chapter Twenty-four
PHELIPPES LOOKED UP from the paper in his hand and smiled the devil’s own smile. Silently he handed it to the watching Paulet, who read it and gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Good. Where is Creighton? He must leave at once.”
“He was strolling into the village when I saw him last.”
Sir Amyas went to the door and opened it, bellowing for a servant, who came running from the back regions of the house. “Find Master Creighton. It is a matter of the utmost urgency. He may be in the village.”
The servant tugged a forelock and ran off. He found Will on the ale bench outside the Devereux Arms nursing a cup of canary wine, tracing patterns in the dust with the toe of his boot. The exuberant joy of the previous evening had given way to despair as he racked his brain for a solution to an insoluble problem. He had toyed with the idea of an elopement, but that would make them both social pariahs and bring the queen’s vengeance down on their heads. They would have nothing to live on and no way to make a living. He had no skills, apart from a certain fluency in the courtly arts. Rosamund could draw, but no living was to be earned from that. His own impoverished family had given him all they had to set him up at court, with the clear expectation that with his charm and good looks he would marry a woman with a decent dowry and provide for them in their declining years.
He looked up with a jaundiced eye at the sound of his name. The servant breathlessly delivered his message and Will sighed and got to his feet. He drained his cup, tossed a coin onto the bench, and strode back to the house.
Sir Amyas was waiting for him in the hall. “You must ride at once to London and take this to Sir Francis Walsingham.” He held out a small leather satchel. “If you ride overnight, you should get there by late afternoon tomorrow.”
Will took the satchel, frowning. “I understood I was to leave tomorrow, after the exchange of kegs this evening.”
“The brewer was here earlier than usual. If you leave now, you will have another six hours of daylight. There must be no delay.”
Will felt only a crushing disappointment as he stared down at the satchel in his hand. He would not see Rosamund tonight. She would go to the buttery and wait for him, and he would not come. And God only knew when or even if they would see each other again.
“Hurry, man. Your horse is saddled, there is food in the panniers, you wait for nothing.” Paulet almost pushed Will to the door in his impatience.
There was nothing to be done about it and Will left at once, riding through the night. He exchanged his own horse for a fresh mount at dawn, instructing the groom at the inn to bring Sam in easy stages to Whitehall when the animal had rested, and set off again. It was early afternoon when he dismounted in Seething Lane, only to be informed that Master Secretary was at his house in Barn Elms. Wearily Will remounted his equally weary horse and took the road to Barn Elms.
Sir Francis was walking up from the river when he heard the sound of a horse galloping ventre à terre up the drive. He frowned, then strode towards the front of the house.
The dust-coated rider flung himself from a lathered horse. “A message, sir. From Master Phelippes.”
“Catch your breath, Master Creighton,” Sir Francis said calmly.
Will, his face scarlet in the heat, drew the satchel from inside his doublet. “It is of great urgency, Sir Francis. I was to ride night and day to bring it to you.” He handed it over, suddenly conscious of his legs quivering beneath him.
Francis took the satchel. “You did well, Master Creighton. Take your horse to the stables and then go into the house for refreshment.” Francis walked away to a wooden bench under a spreading copper beech on the lawn, unfastening the satchel as he did so.
He took out the single document it contained. It was sealed and he turned it over in his hands, knowing without opening it that this was what they had all been waiting for.
Phelippes, with a misplaced sense of ghoulish humor, had drawn a crude symbol of a gallows on the back. It was a triumphant and outrageously indiscreet declaration that the contents of the packet would lead its author to the gallows. Francis savored for a few moments the choice words he would deliver to his subordinate when next he saw him, then he slit the wafer and opened the sheet.
It was everything he could have hoped for. Mary had answered Babington’s letter in minute detail, giving her permission for every detail of the conspiracy to go forward in her name. It was certainly enough to bring her to the headsman. Francis squinted at the last paragraph, where Mary asked Babington for the names of the six noble gentlemen who were to remove Elizabeth. Francis thought he could detect Phelippes’s hand there, a postscript he had added to the original in the hope that it would elicit more information about the conspirators.
Walsingham folded the letter and tucked it into his doublet. Once it was copied, it would be resealed and sent on its way to Master Babington in his lodgings in Holborn. And then they could move. The conspirators would be arrested, confessions would be extracted, evidence that even Elizabeth could not deny. And they would die a traitor’s death. And when the country was up in arms at the narrowly averted threat to their beloved queen, they would go to work on Scots Mary.
Mary fretted herself to a shadow. Once the die had been cast, she could only wait, and waiting was torment. She lived for Fridays, but for several weeks nothing further came from Anthony Babington. There were letters from her agents in Paris and from the French embassy in London, but nothing was said in them of Master Babington’s conspiracy or of an impending invasion. It was as if she had dreamed it, and only Claude de Nau could confirm that the letter had been real and that she had answered it in full.
“Madam, perhaps Sir Amyas could be persuaded to permit you to walk a little more often in the grounds,” Rosamund suggested, when she could no longer bear the queen’s pacing. “Shall I send a message to ask him to wait upon you?”
“I will not plead with that man,” Mary said. “It will merely give him pleasure, and I would not give him pleasure for my life’s blood. Go again to the beer keg, Rosamund. Mayhap you missed something when you looked yesterday.”
Rosamund knew she had not, but she welcomed the excuse to escape from the outbuilding, which increasingly oppressed her. She felt sometimes that she could no longer breathe and had to force herself to take deep breaths. When she had first arrived at Chartley, she had seen her exile in this northern outpost simply as something that had to be endured. She had had no feelings for the Queen of Scots, no particular opinion as to the rights or wrongs of Mary’s captivity, but as the days passed and she saw Mary’s graceful acceptance of the indignities and deprivations heaped upon her, her admiration for the deposed queen grew stronger with the stifling sense of her own captivity.
She took her time going to the buttery, walking slowly across the yard, savoring the air, even though it was hot and still and far from fresh on this early August afternoon. When Will had failed to appear for their rendezvous in the buttery, she had been deeply disappointed, but she was also certain that only something he could not control had kept him away. A few discreet questions
to the maids, and she learned that the young man staying in the house had left in great haste to return to London.
It was not too hard to guess that Mary’s letter to Babington had been the cause for his hasty departure, but her disappointment had been difficult to shake. That illicit passionate interlude in the buttery was burned into her soul, and she had spent the whole of the next day hugging their secret, dwelling with exquisite pleasure on the prospect of a repetition. When she had finally abandoned hope and had left the buttery, it felt as if her world had shattered, as if she could never feel pleasure again. She’d indulged her misery in full measure until she fell asleep, and when she awoke to the freshness of a new day, it seemed impossible to imagine that they would not meet again. They moved in the same world, their paths were bound to intersect. And she clung to that conviction like the proverbial drowning man to driftwood.
No one was around on this sultry, overcast afternoon. Rosamund hesitated at the entrance to the buttery. Even if she was seen going farther afield, would anyone from the house come after her? She could think of something to excuse a longer-than-expected absence on her return.
The temptation to walk a little was irresistible. Just for five minutes, she told herself, her feet taking her towards a path at the side of the house, away from the outbuildings.
At the end of the path she came to a charming knot garden, a sundial at its center. It was deserted and she walked slowly along the meandering redbrick paths bordered by low boxwood hedges, inhaling the delicate scents from the aromatic herbs and plants. At the center of the garden she sat down on a wooden bench and closed her eyes, absorbing the fragrant quiet around her.
“Mistress Rosamund?”
The voice startled her so that she jumped to her feet, wondering how she had not heard anyone approach. She looked blankly at the tall man regarding her gravely. He had a rather somber air, with serious gray eyes and an unsmiling mouth. His clothes were rich, although dark in hue, and the sword at his hip was sheathed in a plain silver scabbard. A businesslike weapon, she thought, in keeping with his soldierly posture.
For a moment she struggled with errant memory. Then it came to her. Sir Roger Askew, the man Thomas had told her Sir Francis intended her to marry. That was before her disgrace, of course. He certainly wouldn’t be interested in her now . . . which was one less thing for her to worry about.
She dropped a hasty curtsy, murmuring, “I shouldn’t be here. Excuse me.” She moved away quickly down the walkway.
“Don’t go, Mistress Rosamund. Not just yet.”
She stopped, repeated, “I am not supposed to be here, sir. I need to get back to the queen.”
“Then I will walk back with you.” He came up beside her. “I am on business here for your cousin, and Lady Walsingham entrusted me with some trifles, ribbons and lace I think she said, that she wished you to have.” He drew a slim packet out of the inner pocket of his doublet and handed it to her.
Rosamund took it with a sudden uplift of her spirits, slipping it into the pocket of her delicately embroidered apron. It meant a great deal that Lady Walsingham still thought of her with kindness. “I thank you, sir.” She smiled somewhat distractedly and tried to increase her pace.
He laid a hand on her arm. “Is my presence distressing you, Rosamund?”
Her light laugh sounded unconvincing even to her. “Of course not. How should it? You are entitled to be wherever you wish, I’m sure. It is I who am in the wrong place.”
“I don’t believe anyone will object if we walk around the garden a little.” He regarded her closely. “I was sorry not to see you again after that delightful evening in Seething Lane.”
Rosamund met his gaze squarely. “I am sure you have heard why I am no longer at court, Sir Roger.”
“Yes, I have.” A slight smile lightened the gravity of his countenance. “And now we have established that fact, may we walk a little? Sir Amyas knows you are here, you were spied from the house.”
“The queen will wonder where I am, however.”
“I suspect you have sufficient wit to find an excuse to satisfy her.” He frowned a little. “Is my company that distasteful, Rosamund?”
“No, no, of course not.” And it was true. There was nothing distasteful about Sir Roger Askew. In fact she had no feelings about him one way or the other, except for the uncomfortable knowledge that something had been expected of her that she had not been prepared to give.
“Then we shall walk for a few minutes.” Firmly he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and began to walk again. “I met an acquaintance of yours the other day. A playmaker, one Christopher Marlowe. He was with your brother at the play and was good enough to let me read some of his Tamburlaine.”
Rosamund was immediately diverted. “It is a fine play, I think. Did you not think so?”
“Unusual. The verse is resonant, the action bloody. I suspect it will go down well with the groundlings. Whether the queen will be pleased to have it played at court is another matter.”
“The subject is the corruption of power,” Rosamund said thoughtfully. “Do you think perhaps her majesty will see some insult?”
“It is the Earl of Leicester who must first be satisfied. As the master of the queen’s revels, he will decide whether to grant Master Marlowe a license, and he knows better than any man what will please the queen and what will not.”
“I hope he does grant a license. I would dearly like to see it performed.” Rosamund found herself now quite at her ease as they strolled back through the knot garden. Sir Roger was an undemanding companion. He talked of his work in the Low Countries, of his Shropshire estates, of the house he was building along the river in London. Only when Sir Amyas Paulet came into the garden did Rosamund realize how much time had passed.
Sir Amyas came up to them. “You should tell the Lady Mary that you were detained by me, if she questions the length of your absence. It will be well to say that I questioned you in some detail about her health, that the queen is concerned for her welfare and wished for a report.”
“And is she?” Rosamund asked directly.
Paulet frowned. “That is immaterial, Mistress Walsingham. I suggest you return without further delay.”
Rosamund curtsied in ironic acceptance. “I give you good day, Sir Roger. Sir Amyas.” She turned and walked away, her skirt swaying gently with the length of her stride.
Early on a morning two days later, Robin Poley awaited a visitor in the garden of a summer house in Bishopsgate. The man arrived, dressed in black, slipping through a gate at the bottom of the garden that gave access to a narrow alleyway. He greeted Robin with an unsmiling nod and took the tankard of ale he was offered.
“Where are the others?”
“They’ll be here soon, Father Ballard.” Robin drank from his own tankard and glanced once over his shoulder. His visitor caught the movement and seemed to stiffen. Then he saw the group of officers advancing across the lawn towards them and he looked at Robin with a harsh laugh.
“So, Robin, you have betrayed me . . . betrayed the one true religion. May your soul burn in hell’s fires for all eternity.” Ballard hurled the tankard and its contents to the grass and turned to face the approaching officers.
One man, the deputy alderman of the borough of Aldgate, stepped forward with a warrant, which he read in a loud and careful voice. Poley listened closely. It was vital that every part of this seizure be strictly according to the law, and no suspicion must attach itself to the secretary of state. The officers formed a guard around Ballard and escorted him from the garden. He went without a word of protest, or a move to escape, and Robin turned back to the summer house, his task thus far completed. Now for Babington, Gifford, Savage, and the rest.
It happened with shocking suddenness. The peaceful tedium of the prisoners’ afternoon was shattered as Walsingham’s men descended with brutal force upon Chartley.
Mary was conferring with her secretary, de Nau, and her ladies were sitting over their sewing, R
osamund for once busy with her needle as she sewed Lady Walsingham’s lace edging to the neckline of a gown. The outer door burst open without ceremony, and the little terrier yowled and wriggled beneath his mistress’s skirts. The ring of booted feet in the flagstone hall beyond sounded like an army. Mary’s hand went to her throat. Claude de Nau stood up.
The door to the inner chamber opened and Sir Amyas Paulet marched in, accompanied by a phalanx of guards. “Madam, I am come for your jewelry, your papers, and whatever money is in your possession. Monsieur de Nau, you are under arrest.” Paulet gestured to the guards to take hold of the trembling secretary. They grabbed his arms with such violence they lifted him off his feet.
“What outrage is this?” Mary’s face was paper white, but she was a commanding presence, every inch a queen as she stood ramrod straight in her rich black gown edged with silver lace. “Release my secretary. I demand an explanation, Sir Amyas.”
“Madam, your conspiracy is discovered, its perpetrators imprisoned.” Paulet’s voice was contemptuous as he extended an imperative hand. “The keys to your chests, if you please, madam.”
Claude de Nau struggled, trying to move towards the queen, but the guards on either side wrenched his arms behind his back. “By what right do you arrest me?” he demanded, his voice quavering. “I am the servant of the queen regnant, Mary of Scots. I answer to no one but my queen.”
“You will answer to her most sovereign majesty, Queen Elizabeth,” Paulet stated. “You will be taken to London for questioning. . . . And now, madam, your keys.”
De Nau was borne away, his feet dragging on the flagstones, his voice shrill with fear as he protested his innocence. After a moment’s hesitation Mary opened her netted purse and took out a key ring. She dropped it onto a table and resumed her seat by the fire, quietly taking up her embroidery.
Paulet looked momentarily nonplussed, as if he’d expected a more satisfying resistance, then with a gesture to his men to accompany him he walked into Mary’s inner chamber, where the chests containing her jewelry, money, and papers were kept.