Catesby laid out the food on trenchers and in bowls the keeper had brought. It pained Jack to adulterate such a feast, but as Catesby dug into his food, telling stories between mouthfuls of meat and long pulls from the wineskin, Jack quietly tore Garnet’s letter into shreds and dropped the pieces into his bowl of stew. He took his time with the meal: had he not, such fat-laden fare would have come back up in any case. In the end Jack thought it a fine meal despite the parchment, and the two finished all the gaoler brought them, with Catesby eating and drinking perhaps thrice again Jack’s share.
Looking glassy-eyed and sated, Catesby sat back in his chair and belched. “So: where are you off to now? Home to your wife in London, or a nunnery first? I know some good ones.”
“My wife, of course.” The full weight of Garnet’s message did not sink in until Jack had said the words. He would not be going directly home to his wife and children, but to Coombe Abbey first. There he would warn Sir John Harrington of the plot to kidnap the Princess. Well, his stay at Coombe Abbey would be short—time enough only to convince Harrington of the danger.
But if the Princess was there, so was her tutor: Lucy Harrington Russell, Countess of Bedford.
Catesby shrugged. “Ah, well, whatever suits.” He wiped his beard with his sleeve. “I’m going the other way. But Garnet sent a purse for you. Your wife will want to see you arrive with some clean clothes on your back.” He reached for his satchel, pulled out a small, coin-filled purse, and tossed it to Jack. “I never counted it, but I trust it will serve.”
“I’m sure it will. Thank Father Garnet when you see him.”
Catesby sat back in his chair and was soon breathing heavily, on the verge of sleep. Jack thought about leaving without him, but he didn’t want to arouse Catesby’s suspicions.
After a few minutes the keeper halted his way down the stairs. He shuffled to the cell and held before him a large blacksmith’s rasp. “Strike me,” the old man said.
Catesby stirred from his torpor. “Eh? What’s that?”
Jack looked at the piece of ribbed steel in the keeper’s hand. “Strike you?”
“Strike me, one of you. Not hard enough to crack my pate, but hard enough to part the skin.”
“But why?” Jack asked.
“If anyone questions me, you knocked me down and escaped.”
Jack shrugged and said, “Hold steady.” He weighed the rasp in his hand, trying to decide just how much force to use. Only a little, surely.
By now Catesby was standing. He took the rasp from Jack’s hand and tossed it onto the stones at the foot of the stairs. Then he said to the gaoler, “I need no iron rod to open your head.”
The old man flinched a little, and Catesby gave him a backhanded swipe to the forehead. Catesby belched again. It looked to Jack as if the big man had merely waved away a fly, but the gaoler staggered and fell. Blood flowed freely from his forehead. Catesby strode over and retrieved the rasp, held it to the old man’s head until the steel was covered in blood, and tossed it back onto the floor. “There,” he said. “You’ll mend. Tell your tale as you will, but don’t go saying it was Robin Catesby who had to take a piece of metal to you. Say it was the poet here.”
Lady Bedford looked up from her book to smile as the Princess Royal primly said, “Checkmate.” The girl moved her knight to capture her opponent’s rook. Incredulous, the squat-bodied Earl of Bedford fingered his beard as he studied the board. Studying the board, like so much else pertaining to the intellect, took the Earl a long time. He scratched behind his ear, then wiped his broad, lumpy nose with his sleeve. “Luck,” he said. “Luck of the bairn.” The young Princess looked at him with her wide eyes in a good imitation of guilelessness. “Agh,” Lord Bedford said as he placed his hands on his thighs, “I’d best be on.” Turning to one of two gentlemen in waiting, he said, “Tell Throckman to saddle my roan.”
As her husband rose, Lady Bedford asked, “Does my father hunt with you?”
“Aye, that’s the plan.” He thumped out of the room.
Lady Bedford put her book in her lap and looked at the Princess. The child reminded her of herself at that age. “Nicely played,” she said. “Checkmating my husband does well. But you must never defeat your father.”
“Why mustn’t I?”
“Because, Your Highness, no nine-year-old girl—” Lady Bedford checked herself—“Because no one should best the King at chess. Even the Lord Cecil lets your father win.”
The Princess wrinkled her nose. “Does he? I have wondered. Lord Cecil can defeat me with ease, and yet he never defeats my father.” The girl pursed her lips. “So I am never to best my father.”
“Never, Your Highness.”
“Then answer me this. My father is a king. Is not the purpose of the game to defeat the king?”
Lady Bedford laughed. “That game, yes. But when he lets your father win at chess, Lord Cecil is playing a different sort of game.”
The Princess remained pensive for a time, then said, “I think I understand.”
Lady Bedford tipped her head toward the girl. “I think you do.”
The man who had left the room to arrange for the Earl’s horse returned with another gentleman, this one green-stockinged and cross-gartered. The man bowed to a point midway between the Princess and Lady Bedford as he said, “Begging Your Royal Highness’s pardon, but, Lady Bedford, a man waits without who craves an audience. He would give no name but insisted you would want to admit him. The man would not be put off.”
“Why would I admit a man without a name? What manner of man is he?”
“Dressed to please and fair of speech, but haggard of form: tall, pale, with a distracted eye, his beard and hair long and wild. Altogether he looks a very woodwose.”
“Well!” Lady Bedford said. “What did you tell him?”
“That you were like not to admit him, my lady,” the gentleman said. “Yet he importuned me in courtly terms that so misfit his form, I thought it best to inform you of his entreaties.”
“I thank you for your information. But a nameless man so crazed can have little to tell me, pretty of speech or no. Send him away.”
“Yes, my lady.” The green-stockinged gentleman bowed to the Princess and said, “Your Highness,” then straightened himself to leave the room.
As he reached the door the Princess said, “I should like to meet such a man.”
Lady Bedford said, “Oh, Your Highness, that were ill-advised. The man sounds far beneath your station, and he might be dangerous.”
At the word dangerous the Princess’s eyes grew larger. “He sounds like an eremite from the tales: a wise hermit with a prophecy we must heed. Or if he be a woodwose I should like to see him even more. Take me to him.”
The green-stockinged gentleman shook his head and said, “Be ruled, Your Highness; the man is not for you.”
The Princess narrowed her eyes and gave the gentleman such a look that he took a step back. The girl said, “I will not be ruled. It is your function to advise, mine to rule. I will see this man.”
The gentleman turned to Lady Bedford, who returned him an exasperated look as if to say, When this child turns peevish we have no choice. She asked the gentleman, “Has my father left for the hunt?”
“This morning, my lady, with Lord Hay. The Earl is to meet them. Perhaps he has yet to depart. Shall I send for him?”
Lady Bedford waved away the idea.
Turning to one of the men who stood waiting, the green-stockinged official said, “Post me some three or four of the guard in the chamber, and then admit Her Royal Highness.” To the other he said, “Alert the guard without the house. They are to watch for any mischance.”
When all the men had left the room, Lady Bedford turned to the Princess. “Did not His Majesty make it clear that while you remain here at Coombe Abbey under my father’s protection, you are to heed the counsel of your protectors?”
“He said I am to heed your father the Lord Harrington’s counsel. But your father l
eft this morning with the hunt.”
“So he did. Well, we shall see this eremite.”
CHAPTER 15
All knelt as the Princess entered the chamber. The child gazed happily upon the haggard stranger while Lady Bedford watched him closely. Never had she beheld a man whose grooming so mismatched the rest of his appearance. His clothes did credit to his thin but well-muscled form, and he bore himself as a man who could easily make his way among courtiers. But his dark eyes bore a look haunted, guarded, and wild. His tangled hair reached the middle of his back, and his beard bristled thick and untrimmed.
The Princess said, “Rise, woodwose. What do you crave?”
“Audience, Your Highness. Audience with the Lady Bedford.”
The voice sounded familiar, and there was something about those eyes. . . . Lady Bedford took a step closer. “Donne!” she exclaimed. “Jack Donne!”
Jack nodded.
“But why did you not give my man your name? I almost turned you away.”
“I was afraid, my lady, you would not . . . recognize me. I have . . . fallen off somewhat, of late.”
“But how did this come about?”
“Prison,” he said. “A dungeon. Sickness of heart from living in a stone cage.”
“And my servant Timothy Burr? He was to remain with you, and I have had no word from him since midsummer. Was he in prison too?”
“No. Or not that I saw. We parted ways just before my arrest.”
The young Princess said, “Woodwose, you speak beside the point. What of this message? What have you to say to Lady Bedford that you would not say to me?”
“Your Highness,” Jack said, “I have sworn a vow to deliver some news to her and none other.”
The Princess’s tone changed from imperious to curious as she asked, “Did you break your chains and lay waste the dungeon? Did you kill all the guard?”
“No, Your Highness. I meant the guard no hurt.”
The child seemed disappointed. Then her eyes brightened as she asked, “This message: is it a prophecy?”
Jack paused. He appeared to be studying his reply. “It is,” he said. “And heavy will rain the ruin that falls upon us all if I utter it in the presence of any but the Lady Bedford. So it has been decreed.”
The child nodded; she seemed to know this story. “And good is to come of it if you speak with her?”
“Much good, yes.”
“And a happy marriage in the end?”
“Yes, most happy.”
“Is a dragon to be slain first?”
“No, Your Highness, no dragon. But a creature still more dire, one that beggars all description.”
Her eyes ardent, the Princess put her hand to her lips, then said, “More dire than a dragon. . . . Let us all leave the woodwose and Lady Bedford to their conference.”
Two or three gentlemen began at once to speak their objections. Lady Bedford interrupted them. “I know this man. He has no more harm in him than I have in myself. Do as Her Highness says.”
The green-stockinged gentleman opened his mouth to protest again, but Lady Bedford cut him off with a glare. After a sweeping gesture that ended with an upward flourish, he said, “Away.”
Alone with Jack, Lady Bedford pulled one chair to face another and said, “Sit. Please.” When they had sat she took his hands in hers. Sensing his discomfort, she asked, “Did others share your prison cell, or did you remain alone?”
“Alone. Purely and utterly.”
“How long since you have . . . touched another?”
“I know not. Month upon month.”
She gave his hands a little reassuring squeeze before saying, “I want to hear everything that has befallen you. It pains me to think what you must have endured. But first you had better tell me: who has sent this message for my ears alone?”
Lady Bedford felt a tinge of disappointment as he said, “In fact the message was for your father.” She tried to dispel her petty thoughts as Donne continued, “But the porter told me Lord Harrington had ridden out some three or four hours since. Your husband too was preparing to ride when I arrived, but I thought it best to say nothing to him and speak with you alone.”
Ah, there was that at least. “You did well to let my husband ride. Coombe Abbey is no more his house than mine. We stay but a time as guests of my father, at the Queen’s request, while the Princess resides here.”
“And why does she reside here?”
“Protection. The royal family must not all remain in one place, lest the Spanish or some other force attack.”
Donne nodded, then looked directly at her. To see in his eyes such intelligence conjoined with such suffering moved her more than she would have thought. He said, “The message concerns the safety of the Princess. One in a position to know—one whose name I cannot reveal—warns of an attempt to attack this house and capture her.”
“Capture her! Who means to attack? The Spanish?”
“I think not. English rebels, more like, perhaps in league with the Spanish.”
“To what end?”
“That I know not. Ransom, I should think.”
“But you must suspect something more. Is it gold they want?”
Jack shook his head. “Mayhap, but I would hazard they mean to use the child to bargain for some other gain. Maybe a favorable marriage to someone of the old faith. Or some such religious advantage.”
Lady Bedford gave him a mildly exasperated look and said, “All of which is to say we know nothing but that they are Catholic. How large a force?”
“My lady, I wish I knew. All I can say is that the plan is afoot, and we would do well to heed the warning.”
“How soon do they come?”
“Nor do I know that. A matter of days, I think. The sender of this message says the Princess should be spirited away to some safer place.”
“But this house is well guarded. Few estates are better fortified. Were she not better off here? We could send for more troops.”
“Kenilworth Castle is hard by and might serve better.”
She had to agree. With its broad moat and thick walls, Kenilworth was all but unassailable. Something in her misgave, though. She did not know this Jack Donne well; he could be laying a trap. Watching closely for any hint of betrayal in his response, she said, “Perhaps these attackers mean to waylay her along the road, or perhaps conspirators already lie within the hold at Kenilworth.”
Donne shook his head. “The assailants know nothing of the message I received, or it would never have been sent. They think the Princess will remain here.”
“The message comes from some spy, then.”
“Not a spy, no. But . . . one, as I say, in a position to know. One who does not wish any harm to the royal family. I cannot say more.”
“So the sender of this message is a Catholic in a position to know of a conspiracy against the Crown. He is some conspirator whose conscience betrays him. Or a priest! He is a priest who has heard of this plan in a confession.”
“Lady Lucy, I have said too much.”
“A Jesuit?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Ah, so he is a Jesuit.” Lady Bedford had detected no sign of lying in his eyes—only discomfort at her guesses—and she was good at reading the heart’s expressions in the face. Even so, she had best try again to find any sign of dissimulation. If Donne were a member of some rebellious confederacy, or in league with the Spanish, he might try to lure the Princess into peril. “Kenilworth would serve,” she said, “but what of Warwick Castle?”
She was surprised at the suddenness of his response. His hands twitched in hers as a momentary shudder ran along his limbs. Such a reaction seemed triggered by something more than a mere desire to lie to her. “What is it?” she asked.
“It is in Warwick Castle that I have lain these last long months. In the dungeon.”
“The dungeon of Warwick Castle? I didn’t know it was still in use.”
“I think I was the sole prisoner.
Cecil must have wanted me alive but buried under stone.” He watched her closely, and she returned his gaze. His was not the face of a liar; anything but. She slowly lifted one of his hands and kissed the back of it. He let out a small, inarticulate sound, like a dying man’s last breath. His eyes brimmed.
They sat this way for a time. Then he pulled his hands from hers and said, “I hurried here, taking time only to buy these weeds I wear and try to bathe in a stream along the way. I fear I must look—and smell—the very woodwose the Princess believes me to be.”
Lady Bedford smiled, then put her face to the side of his neck and inhaled deeply. “I don’t care,” she said. Then, all business, she spoke briskly: “Yet you would no doubt enjoy a real bath. I will order water to be heated. In the meantime I will decide what to do about the Princess. Regardless, the first thing is to order greater numbers to defend the house.” She smiled at him again, then rose and left the room.
Jack had been given food: a whole roast capon, fresh bread, rich red wine, and a sweet-cake covered with berries and cream. He had eaten slowly, very slowly, while men bustled about the house to bolster the guard. Now a drowsy numbness settled along his limbs, and he rested his head on a cushion. Perhaps he dozed.
He was roused by a servant who came to lead him down a series of hallways, then let him into a large chamber with a great featherbed beneath a shuttered, east-facing window. Nearer the door stood the huge basin, presumably the one Lord Harrington used for bathing. It was the biggest brass vessel Jack had ever seen; he guessed it must be two and a half yards long. Lit only by candles on low stands around it, the polished brass danced with flickering light like something from a dream.
Soon three servants began to come and go with bucket after bucket of hot water. They must have a dozen fires blazing, Jack thought, to heat so much of it. When the tub was over halfway full, one of the servants entered with a fresh stoup of wine, set it beside the basin, and felt the water for temperature. “There: that is the way Lord Harrington likes it. I trust it will serve.”
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