As they prepared to gallop away, Mary Elizabeth couldn’t resist the temptation. She pulled up next to one of the guards at the entrance and spoke. “Tell her Majesty that I will see her next on the battlefield. And that I am not a witch, but a force to be reckoned with, and there is no prison strong enough to keep me or my people.”
With that she spun her horse around and followed the others back to the camp, which, if all plans had followed as they should, would be packing up in haste for their departure north to meet up with the rest of the army.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“What do you mean, she escaped?” The queen stormed back and forth in front of the hearth in her private chambers. The fire that raged was no match for the anger that fueled her red-headed temper, even if her natural hair colour was no longer red, but white.
“Where are the guards that escorted them from my presence?” She stopped in front of the trembling boy —for that was all he was —who stood before his angry monarch.
“No one knows, your Majesty.” He spoke in little more than a whisper from his prone position on one knee, head still bent in recognition and due respect for the queen.
“Speak up, boy!” the queen bellowed. It was perhaps not seemly for a queen to bellow, but she had her father’s fiery temper and if the situation merited a bellow, she could, and would, let out a bellow. “Look at me!” She bent toward the boy, and lifted his chin with the tip of her finger. “Look at me!”
He struggled, tears slipping from his eyes, but he did manage to look at the queen. What he saw —the fire in her eyes, the temper flaring. It made him tremble all the more. “No one knows, your Majesty!” he repeated with as much volume as he could muster.
The queen dropped his chin and resumed her pacing. The boy remained where he was, as if frozen to the floor rushes.
“How can it be that a palace full of guards, my guards, saw nothing?” She stopped in front of Lord Dudley, who had barely kept his balance trying to stand during the queen’s tirade. “What happened? Did they just vanish?” Her hands raised in frustration.
Lord Dudley shrugged his shoulders. He knew well from past experience that there was nothing he could say or do to stop the rampage. The queen would have her say and he would just have to stand and listen to it all. It didn’t use to matter if he had to stand up all day while the queen raged, but now, with the body aches that plagued him daily, the swollen legs, and his lack of balance, he could barely stand a few minutes, let alone for hours at a time.
“Oh, sit down, Robbie.” The queen spoke in a soft voice, using her pet name for the man she had loved for so many years. “Sit down before you fall down, please.” She couldn’t be right, could she? That pretender princess. Was she right in predicting the quickly approaching end to Lord Dudley’s life? How would she survive without the one man she could always depend upon, even when she was angry?
The fire of anger simmered as concern etched across her face. “Sit down. Please. I command it.”
“Yes, your Majesty,” Lord Dudley answered with a slight bow of his head before he sank into the nearest chair with relief. “Thank you, your Majesty.”
“Apparently, that is what happened,” offered the guard at the door. He shuffled his feet nervously when the queen suddenly glared at him, the fire back in her eyes. “They just vanished and then the princess and her people reappeared outside, mounted their horses, and galloped off.”
“She spoke to me.” The boy struggled to compose his thoughts and speak loud and clear. He didn’t want to have to repeat what the princess had said, but he knew he had to say it. Only, when he tried, he choked on his own words and all that came out of his mouth was a sputtering of coughs and hiccups.
“Oh for heaven’s sake, speak up, boy,” the queen commanded. “I am not going to chop you to pieces.”
The boy cleared his throat and tried again. “She said, ‘Tell her Majesty that I will see her next on the battlefield. And that I am not a witch, but a force to be reckoned with, and there is no prison strong enough to keep me or my people.’ Those were her exact words, your Majesty. I have a good memory and those were her exact words.”
“She must be a witch,” Lord Dudley spoke up from his seat by the window. “Only a witch could conjure such spells and make people disappear.”
“She must be caught!” The queen stopped her pacing to stand before her guards with grim determination. “Catch her and bring her to me. I will reward the one who brings that witch to me!”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
NORTHERN ENGLAND, LATE SUMMER, YEAR OF OUR LORD 1587
“There is a price on my head,” Mary Elizabeth announced the next morning as she rode casually beside her grandmother, the armed group making its retreat, temporarily, to Northumberland where they would regroup with the rest of her army. “So, what do you think, Grandmother? Do I meet her on the battlefield? Or should I make a visit to my brother and then hide out in Scotland for the next decade or so?”
“The queen already thinks you are a witch,” Gran replied. “It might be best to hide out for a while. Visit your brother if you wish, but remember by the time you see him at Linlithgow or Holyrood, or wherever he is currently holding court, he will already know about your visit and demands of the Queen of England. He may not like what you suggested. He may want to imprison you himself, or hand you over to Elizabeth in good faith that she will name him her heir.”
“She will never name anyone her heir.” The princess gave Queenie a gentle nudge to make her walk a little faster. This marching pace was tiring. All she wanted to do was gallop across the wide expanse of green fields that bordered their path, up and down the graceful hills. “Perhaps I should just haunt her now and then and keep reminding her that I told her so.”
Gran pushed her horse forward to keep abreast of Queenie. “With care, Granddaughter. With care. Time travel does not always work exactly when and how you want it to work. It is not a fine-tuned science, like the snap of one’s fingers.”
“It has worked well so far,” Mary Elizabeth claimed. “You mean, it is not as dependable an escape route as it has been thus far?”
“No, it is not.” Gran rode alongside her granddaughter in silence for a few moments before speaking again. “I have known most of my life that I had the gift of jumping through time. There have been occasions when it was helpful, like the day I died. I had been sick for quite some time and knew that I had to escape into the future in order to survive. You see, I had dropsy. In the sixteenth century, people died of dropsy. My body was swelling, filling with fluids. I knew there was an underlying cause, but the doctors continued to bleed me with leeches. I had to get help before it was too late. One of my ladies was also suffering from dropsy. I had her lie next to me one night. While she slept, I escaped to the future. It was determined that I had an obstruction in the lymphatic system that prevented the fluids from draining. I was given treatment. It took time, but I did recover. When the sixteenth century doctors discovered my lady in my bed the next morning, she was so swollen and unrecognisable, they mistook her to be me. She was dead, of course, and the doctors proclaimed the Regent of Scotland dead.”
“So time travel did and can help.”
“Yes, but not always.” Gran allowed her eyes to gaze across the fields soberly. “It did not help me save my sons, James and Robert.”
“I did not know you had two sons,” Mary Elizabeth confessed. “I must have missed that in my history lessons.”
“I had no warning,” Gran continued. “James was almost a year old. Robert was only eight days. I thought they were both strong. I had no clue, or I would have taken them to the twenty-first century, as I did with you.”
“What happened?”
Gran shrugged her shoulders and fought to keep the tears from breaking loose. She still mourned her losses. Now she was totally childless, as her only surviving child, Mary, was also dead. “Perhaps it was just pre-ordained,” she spoke in quiet tones. “The wet nurse may have been the proble
m. Perhaps her milk was poisoning my boys. Perhaps they had an allergy to the milk, something no one would understand in the sixteenth century. It was so quick, like they both suffered an anaphylactic shock. Even if we had something like ibuprofen to inject in their tiny bodies, the anaphylaxis was so quick and sudden that, by the time I had been summoned to the nursery, both boys had died.”
“I am so sorry, Grandmother.” Mary Elizabeth reached across the gap between their horses and took hold of Gran’s hand. The old woman nodded in acknowledgement and took a deep breath, marred by a sniffle.
“And when your grandfather was killed on the battlefield, I could have saved him,” Gran continued. “At least, I like to think that I could. But I was not there and I had no idea he might not return to me. My jaunts into the future at that point had not allowed me time to read up on the history of Scotland in the sixteenth century. Had I done so, I might have been aware of the threat that lay on the battlefield before my husband headed out.” She shook her head, as if to clear the sad cobwebs from her head. “So, you see, Mary Elizabeth, time travel is not a crutch to use when the going gets tough. Sometimes we just have to weather the storm and let fate reveal itself. And, not being an exact science, we cannot predict with absolute accuracy where a time travel jump will take us.”
Changing the subject away from loss and grief, Mary Elizabeth asked, “When did you first learn that you could jump through time?”
Gran paused briefly before answering. “I think,” she said finally, “I must have been about ten at the time. I thought it was just a dream, like you thought your childhood visit to your father was just a dream. I was out riding my horse and suddenly I was riding alongside the boy who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York.”
“The Pretender,” Mary Elizabeth gasped. “How exciting!”
Gran nodded, a slight smile arched across her face as she returned to her memories. “Yes, it was. He was leading his army to face King Henry VII on the battlefield and contest the king’s right to the throne.”
“Was he the Duke of York?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“Well, we certainly thought so at the time.” Gran studied her granddaughter. “I had been studying English history and I just thought my studies had been overcrowded by my creative imagination. But it did seem real at the time. I even remember trying to warn Richard of the trap. He did not listen to me, of course, and history took its course. I woke up in my own time, feeling somewhat disappointed that the pretty prince was executed in the end.”
“But was he the Duke of York?” the princess asked again.
Gran shook her head. “I think history has answered that question. In the twentieth century, they discovered skeletons of two boys under a staircase in the Tower of London. Forensics determined they were both of the royal family of York. Thinking back to my childhood experience, I do not think there was a drop of royal blood in the pretty pretender’s body.”
They rode in silence again, both women deep in their own thoughts. Mary Elizabeth broke the silence. “So, what do I do, Grandmother?”
“First of all, do not go to your brother’s court.” Her answer was firm and adamant. “I believe he already knows about your visit to Greenwich and he has a trap waiting for you. He wants to remain in the English queen’s good graces, at least until she dies and leaves him the throne.”
“Do I just jump ahead in time and meet him after Queen Elizabeth’s death?” the princess asked.
“Perhaps you should do that, but not yet,” Gran advised. “Too many strange disappearances may spook your only allies, the Scottish people. Go north. Far north. Hide out on one of the northern islands and wait. Time is your best ally and your armies will rise again when you need them.”
The group came to a stop at a small rise of land that overlooked the great expanse leading toward Alnwick Castle. It appeared empty. Even the rows of windows that lined the many floors were dark and vacant. When they had travelled south a few weeks earlier, tents and campfires had surrounded the massive edifice, evidence of a large army of supporters. They had rallied to the princess’s call. And now they were gone.
“Where is my army?” Mary Elizabeth’s eyes scanned the far reaches of the horizon, from one end of the castle grounds to the other, as far as she could see. “Where has everyone gone?”
Jamie galloped over to the women. “It does not look good,” he announced with great agitation. “It may well be a trap. We might be advised to circumnavigate the grounds and continue north.”
“But what if the entire north of England is blocking our progress?” the princess asked.
No answer came. Their discussion was halted abruptly by the appearance of a lone rider galloping at great speed toward them. The guards hustled closer around Mary Elizabeth and her grandmother, offering what protection they could with swords drawn at the ready. As the rider drew closer, Jamie held his hand high to signify that all was well. It was one of their scouts.
“Billy,” Jamie called out. “What brings you here and at such a gallop?”
Since they had left the Langley cottage, the boys had blended into the army life with ease. Billy, particularly, was an exceptional rider, as if he had been born in the saddle. His younger brother, Sammy, preferred to scout on foot, but they both learned the art of scouting quickly, as if they had inherited the talent. Jamie had instantly recognised their skill and set them to work, scouting the area around the camped army. When they had ventured south, Sammy had remained as one of the scouts at Northumberland, while Billy had come along to scout ahead of the princess and her armed escort.
“It is a trap, my lord,” he gasped as if he were out of air from running instead of his horse doing all the work. “The army was given false information to meet you to the east and they left a few days ago. I followed them and found my brother, injured, but alive. The army has suffered greatly, but it is still a strong force. The English have taken position in and around the castle, in places where no one will think to look. I know it looks deserted, but it is not.”
“Can we go around and make our way north?” Jamie asked the boy.
Billy shook his head. “You would be best to go far west, then north. Unless you want to stand and fight.”
“What if we surrounded them and reversed the trap?” Mary Elizabeth asked, insisting on having a say in the matter.
Billy didn’t know how to respond. Jamie just shook his head. The Duke of Northumberland joined them and said, “How many English soldiers do you figure?”
Billy just shrugged. “Lots.” He may be smart, but he had never had the opportunity to learn his letters and numbers.
Jamie recognised the challenge the boy faced. He reworded the Lord’s question. “Do they have as large an army as the one we left here?”
The boy shook his head. “I dunno. Perhaps as many as you have with you here.”
“Well, we cannot just stand where they can, and probably already do, see us,” Gran pointed out. Turning to the boy, she asked, “Are they all inside the castle awaiting our approach? Or are they hidden elsewhere to trap us?”
“Mostly in the castle. There are some scouts, but they would be easy enough to locate and take out.”
Jamie studied the duke. “You know the castle better than anyone, Lord Thomas. What would you suggest?”
“Weed out the scouts and surround the castle.” The duke gazed across the fields to the home that had been removed from his inheritance with a look of determination to defy the English crown that had taken it from his family. “I just hope my family is safe within. I do not trust these soldiers, even if they are English soldiers.”
“Are there ways to sneak inside and catch them unawares?” Mary Elizabeth asked. “Perhaps after dark?”
Lord Thomas nodded. “But first, we must take out the scouts and get into position, out of plain view.”
“Take Peter and Harry with you, Billy,” Jamie instructed the boy. He nodded in agreement. “Be as quiet as you can, like you always are. Only bows and arrows. Take c
are of the scouts.”
“Yes, my Lord.” Billy nudged his horse forward and motioned to two of the soldiers at the rear of the group. They joined Billy and, after some discussion, took off in different directions to take care of the English scouts.
Turning to the duke, Jamie asked, “Your advice, Lord Thomas. Where would we be best to set up our own blockade?”
“First, we wait until dark. Then we rescue my family, if they are still inside. Then we burn them out.”
Young Thomas pulled his horse alongside his father’s. “Do you think they are all right, Father?” Concern marked his brow.
Turning to his son, the duke matched his look of concern. “We can only hope, son,” he said. “We can only hope that they are gentlemen and will not harm a woman and her young children.”
“I must go in there,” young Thomas insisted. “I must make sure they are safe, that they are alive.”
“Not yet, son.” The duke reached over to grab his son’s arm before he could make a dash toward the castle in his haste to do what he believed was right and honorable. “We must do as the princess commands. We must plan our strategy well.”
“But it might be too late,” Thomas tried to argue.
“We can only hope.” The duke kept a firm grip on his son’s arm.
“Thomas,” Jamie addressed the duke’s son. “We need you to help navigate the halls and hidden passages within the castle. We will do our best to rescue your mother and your sisters, but we must make sure that the princess is safe.”
“I will go,” Mary Elizabeth interjected. “It is me they want. I will go into the lion’s den and once they let their guard down, once they believe they have me captured, you two can come to my rescue and the duke’s family's as well.” Noticing the argument both the duke and Jamie were ready to pronounce, she quickly carried on. “They would not dare harm me. The Queen of England wants me alive so she can watch me burn at the stake, something that will never happen. Jamie and Thomas can come to the rescue while my valiant armed men on the outside start the battle of flames and ignite the castle and all who remain within.”
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