by Jane Feather
Rosamund felt sick, clammy perspiration gathering on her forehead. She had known that this would happen in some form at some point, just as she knew the part she had played in it. But the abrupt violence of the last minutes shook her to her core. Mary’s little dog had wriggled out from beneath her skirts and now jumped whimpering onto the queen’s lap. Her ladies were gathered around her, their murmurs of fear and distress rising and falling as Rosamund stood immobile, not sure where to go or what to do. She could not bring herself to join the distressed women, to pretend to the same terrified dismay, such hypocrisy would make her feel even more despicable, and yet, until Sir Francis released her from her present servitude, she must continue to play her part.
“May I bring you wine, madam?” she asked softly, unable to think what else to do.
“If you please, Rosamund.” Mary sounded almost composed as she comforted the dog with gentle strokes.
Rosamund poured a cup of wine and brought it to the queen. Mary was still pale, but her composure was untouched, as if the abrupt violence of the last hour had simply washed over her. It was the way she had reacted to each and every indignity as if such corporeal events could not affect her true self in any way. Rosamund knew that her strength came from religious conviction, a conviction that nothing could erode, and Rosamund was aware that mingling with her own admiration was a sense of envy for that astounding spiritual strength.
After close to an hour, Sir Amyas came out of the inner chamber with his men carrying sheaves of paper, jewel caskets, and money bags. “There will be guards set outside the building around the clock, madam, until I receive further instructions from London.” He left with his men and the door clicked shut in the ensuing silence.
“Poor Master Babington,” Mary said softly, sipping her wine. “I fear he and his noble gentlemen will suffer most grievously.”
“And Monsieur de Nau, madam,” Charlotte said. “They have taken him for questioning too.”
“I trust my secretary will have the sense to save his skin if he can.” Mary gently pulled on the terrier’s ears. “He cannot in justice be accused of treachery simply because I conferred with him. He is a citizen of France.”
An hour later the summons came for Rosamund. “Mistress Fitzgerald, you are to come with me,” the guard intoned.
Mary looked anxiously at Rosamund. “They will question you, my dear. They will question all my ladies. Tell them what you know. I would not have you suffer needlessly.”
Rosamund’s smile was wan as she went with the guard into the house. He escorted her to Paulet’s office and left her at the door. She knocked. The door was opened instantly by her brother, and she couldn’t prevent a little cry of pleasure at seeing him.
Thomas’s warm embrace made it clear that all was now forgiven. “Come in, Rosamund.” He put an arm around her shoulders, urging her in.
Sir Amyas came out from behind his desk. Rosamund disliked this man almost as much as did the Scots queen. His expression constantly expressed disapproval, and he had the hard, judgmental gaze of a passionate Puritan.
She curtsied, meeting his gaze without expression. “You have questions for me, sir?”
“I shall question all the Lady Mary’s attendants in good time. It would look peculiar if you were absolved. But in fact not I but Sir Francis wishes to question you. You are to return now with your brother to London. If Sir Francis considers it necessary, you will return to the Lady Mary at some point. She will be told only that for reasons of our own we wished to examine you more extensively and you have been sent to London.”
Mary would accept that, Rosamund knew. Now that the conspiracy was blown open, anyone who could have been touched by it was vulnerable, and the queen’s inquisitors would spread the net as wide as they wished, pulling in innocent sprats with the plump trout. It was always the way. She could think only that she was to be free of her present prison, even if but temporarily.
“We will dine now,” Sir Amyas said, moving to the door. “You will sleep in the house tonight, Mistress Walsingham.”
It seemed wrong to be eating and drinking in freedom when her erstwhile companions languished in their dreary imprisonment across the courtyard. Rosamund couldn’t help the grim recollection that many folk were tonight suffering in dungeons and torture chambers for their loyalty to Mary Stuart. The reflection took away her appetite and she pushed her food around her plate, paying scant attention to the conversation around her.
It took her a moment to realize that her brother was addressing her. “We will leave soon after daybreak tomorrow, Rosamund. Sir Francis wishes to speak at some length with you. I don’t know what plans he will have for you after that. He may send you back to Scadbury or keep you in Seething Lane. The one thing you may be sure of, you will not be returning to court.”
“I have no particular wish to, Brother,” she said with a spurt of annoyance. She was tired of playing the shamed and disgraced fallen woman. She’d paid the price. She pushed back her chair, her plate barely touched. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll seek my bed.”
“My housekeeper has prepared the bedchamber you used last time, Mistress Walsingham,” Paulet informed her, rising with punctilious formality as she murmured a good-night and left the room.
Outside in the square hall Rosamund hesitated. She was not yet ready for bed, the sense of freedom was too heady. She went to the front door, which stood open to the warm night breeze. It was a brilliant starlit night and she could hear the croaking of bullfrogs from the duck pond. She stepped out onto the driveway and walked across the lawn to the pond.
What was to become of her now? If Sir Francis had a use for her, then he would use her, she had no illusions about that. She was a pawn in his game, as were they all. But if he didn’t, what then? And where was Will right now? In London? Disporting himself at court? Or rushing around the countryside on some courier task for Master Secretary? He could even be somewhere across the English Channel, sent away for weeks on the secretary’s business.
She turned to go back to the house. There was no point worrying away at that question or any other. Her own future seemed to fade into insignificance in the light of the dreadful events breaking around them. How many people were waiting in desperate terror for the sound of booted feet in the alley, the bang at the door, the hard-faced arresting officers?
How many were already in prison, shrieking in agony, their limbs stretched and dislocated on the rack as they told their interrogators what they wanted to hear, whether it was the truth or not? How many innocent people would suffer untold misery as a result of what she had told Master Secretary?
And how many men would go to their deaths? That most dreadful of deaths, to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, their hearts beating until the moment when they were cut from their still-living, sentient bodies.
Rosamund had no idea what pieces of the information she had supplied that Walsingham had considered valuable, but she knew she bore some responsibility for the disaster that had befallen Mary Stuart.
They all did, those who played upon Walsingham’s stage.
Chapter Twenty-five
THE JUBILANT SOUND of church bells could be heard for miles as Thomas and Rosamund rode into London on a cloudy mid-August day three days after leaving Chartley. People thronged the streets, cheering, waving scarves and flags, drinking outside the taverns in riotous good humor.
“What’s happened . . . what are they celebrating?” Rosamund asked as Jenny sidled past a mangy dog urinating against a wall.
Thomas drew rein outside a tavern. “Find out, Frizer.”
The ubiquitous Frizer slid from his horse and vanished into the dark depths of the tavern. He reappeared in a few moments, remounted, and whispered to Thomas, leaving Rosamund impatiently awaiting enlightenment.
“They’ve run Babington and his fellows to earth,” Thomas told her finally, when Frizer had stopped whispering. “They scattered immediately after Ballard was arrested, just before I rode to Chartley to fetch you,
but they were discovered hiding in the country with a Catholic family. They brought them back to London, and the church bells are ringing in thanksgiving for the queen’s safe deliverance.”
“And what will happen to them now?”
“They are imprisoned in the Tower, where they’ll be put to the question, tried, and executed,” her brother said matter-of-factly. “The country will settle for nothing less.”
“And Mary of Scots?”
“That is for the queen to decide.”
Rosamund held her peace for the rest of the journey to Seething Lane. They were taken directly to Sir Francis’s office, where Master Secretary awaited them. He greeted Rosamund with a brisk nod.
“You have done your work well, Rosamund. I may need you to return to Mary’s side once it has been decided what is to be done with her, but for now, once you have answered my questions, it will be well for you to return to Scadbury for a while.”
For several hours Rosamund answered his questions. Some of them seemed trivial and irrelevant, some of them merely repetitive. But when he started to question her about the women attendant on Mary, she forced her tired mind to focus. “How deeply are they in the queen’s confidence? The Lady Charlotte, for instance. She was with the queen from her arrival on these shores, they must be unusually close.”
Rosamund thought of the women whose lives she had shared so intimately. She thought of their loyalty and bravery. If Sir Francis wanted her to say something that would incriminate them along with their queen, he would not hear it. “They are devoted to Mary, Sir Francis, but I did not see or hear any discussion about the conspiracy or the conspirators. She shared one letter with us all, the letter from Anthony Babington, but other than that I was unaware of any open discussion about plots to rescue her.”
“There must have been secret conversations, though. You may not have overheard them, but you surely saw them go apart together sometimes,” he pressed, his eyes hard and searching fixed upon her.
“Obviously at times she is alone with one lady or another,” Rosamund said coolly. “They are her personal attendants and take care of her most personal needs. But I did not see any whispering or feel a sense of shared secrets. We were all open with each other, sharing the same imprisonment. Just dealing with day-to-day hardships was enough to occupy us.”
Francis’s thin mouth was set in a tight line. His eyes raked her face, as if he would see everything that she had left out. Rosamund met his gaze in steadfast silence. “And what of Claude de Nau? He must have been closely in the queen’s confidence.”
She could not deny that, her reports had included every visit of the secretary’s. Besides he was already under arrest and could well already have confessed. “He and the queen went apart quite often,” she conceded. “We were not party to their conversations.”
Silence fell again, then at last Walsingham nodded, although he did not look best pleased. “Well, no matter. The ladies themselves will be questioned in good time. You are tired and Lady Walsingham is waiting for you.”
She rose with a curtsy and went to the door, feeling overwhelmingly exhausted. After three days in the saddle and two hours of interrogation it was hardly surprising. She found Ursula in her parlor and almost fell into her embrace.
“You poor girl, you’re dead on your feet,” Ursula exclaimed. “I don’t know what Sir Francis was thinking of, keeping you answering questions before you’ve had a chance to rest from the journey.” She poured wine. “Drink this, my dear. It will hearten you. I don’t wish to hear anything about your time with Mary Stuart, so you need have no fear of further questions.”
Rosamund felt the tension slide from her. After weeks of having to watch her every word in case she gave herself away, of having to listen attentively even when appearing not to, of hating the lie she was living, it was an immense relief to let go at last, to come home. This house and this parlor were home to her, almost as much as Scadbury. And Ursula was more of a mother to her than her own mother, Dorothy, had ever been.
The following morning she and Thomas rode to Scadbury, and despite her feelings for Seething Lane her heart lifted as the familiar house came into view through the trees. Jenny raised her head, sniffed the wind, and whinnied in glad recognition of her home stable.
Rosamund dismounted at the front door and, gathering up her skirts, ran into the house. It had been May when she’d left here and now it was August, almost an entire summer had passed. Wandering through the downstairs rooms felt like a voyage of rediscovery. Everywhere was as dusty and ill cared for as before, and after the orderly comfort of Seething Lane it seemed even more noticeable. The servants, as untidy and lackadaisical as ever, nevertheless greeted her with warmth, although a remarkable lack of surprise. Rosamund, walking through the house, checking the rooms to see what if anything had changed, or was missing, felt the sweet relief of being her own mistress once more, no longer a guest or a prisoner. This was her house and she was to all intents and purposes its mistress. She could go where she pleased, do what she pleased.
She unpacked her clothes in her own bedchamber, and the sound of voices on the terrace below brought her to the open window. Kit Marlowe was sitting on the low wall of the terrace. Thomas had not told her Kit would be here, and there had been no sign of him when she’d walked through the house earlier. Now he sat on the wall, a tankard in hand, idly swinging a crossed leg as he squinted up at her brother, who stood over him.
Rosamund moved sideways so that they wouldn’t see her if by chance they looked up. Thomas had his hand on Kit’s cheek, stroking with his forefinger, and Kit turned his face into the palm of the hand and nuzzled. She saw that Kit’s free hand was caressing her brother through his trunk hose, and she stepped hastily back away from the window. They might not care if they had an observer, but she had no desire to be that observer.
She made her way to the kitchen, intending to discuss dinner with Mistress Riley. She was no longer the young girl, the youngest of the family with no responsibilities and no authority. She felt different and realized from Mistress Riley’s expression of stunned amazement as Rosamund issued domestic instructions that she must in some indefinable way be different.
“Send Tabitha to dust the dining parlor, Mistress Riley, before we eat there this afternoon. And she should put fresh flowers in the grate in Master Walsingham’s study when she’s dusted it. Do we have any beeswax for the floors and the furniture?”
“Lord knows, miss.” The housekeeper stared at her, clearly not best pleased by this change in the youngest Walsingham. “If we do, it’ll be in the scullery. Your mother, God rest her soul, used to like it used in the old days, but then she began to ail and forgot about such things. And since she’s gone, we’ve few enough helping hands,” she grumbled irritably.
“Well, that must change.” Rosamund went into the scullery, looking through the stone jars. “There’s some beeswax here, I think. Tell Jethro and the girl who comes up from the village to help out, that they’re to polish the wooden floors and the flagstones tomorrow.”
“Aye, no doubt they’ll have nothing better to do.” Mistress Riley sniffed and returned to her pastry. “I’ll be making a Great Pie for your dinner. We’ve fresh-killed venison to go with the beef and chicken, and they slaughtered a pig last month.”
Scadbury had a thriving herd of deer, as well as the hogs and cattle on the home farm, and a Great Pie, which used every kind of meat and poultry available, was a much loved delicacy.
“That sounds wonderful, Mistress Riley,” Rosamund said with an appreciative smile that she hoped might sweeten the housekeeper somewhat, then went off to see what else she could put right in the ramshackle house.
Kit Marlowe was in the study, writing, when she passed the open door. There was no sign of her brother. She put her head around the door. “Good afternoon, Master Marlowe.”
He said absently, without looking up, “Ah, Thomas said you were back.”
“Are you still working on your play?”
“No,” she agreed, coming into the room. “But I am not alone in that.”
“I don’t suppose you are.” He leaned back in his chair and took a deep draft from his wine cup. His eyes had a faint glimmer of mischievous amusement as he asked, “How is that young sprig with a fondness for deliciously rounded pages?”
Rosamund to her annoyance felt herself blush. “I have not seen him in a while. And I would be grateful, Master Marlowe, if you would not mention that afternoon at the theatre to Thomas.”
He laughed, but a lascivious gleam was now in his eye. “Have no fear, your lovers’ tryst remains safe with me.”
“It was no tryst.”
Kit raised his eyebrows. “If you say so, but some young swain was responsible for whatever little indiscretion sent you into exile.” He raised a hand as she opened her mouth in protest. “Have no fear, Mistress Rosamund, I will keep my speculation to myself.”
“Do you love my brother?” The question came out of nowhere and seemed to ask itself, but Rosamund wished the words unspoken the moment they came out of her mouth.
Marlowe’s eyes narrowed. He took another gulp of wine. “What is love but a word for poets? Lust is what drives men. Did you, do you, love your Will, Rosamund? Or lust after him?”
Rosamund realized she should have expected nothing less from the man who had translated the scandalous and forbidden Ovid, but the question nevertheless interested her. “Both, I believe,” she said after a minute. “But please, Kit, do not mention Will in Thomas’s company.”
“Be assured I will not.” He picked up his quill again, dipping it into the inkstand.
Rosamund hesitated, then said, “Could you make love with a woman?”
At that he looked up again, his expression one of utter disgust.