Connecticut Vampire in Queen Mary's Court

by Hall, Ian

  I knew I frowned, I couldn’t help it. “When do I bring her back?”

  “Only when I personally tell you.” She rose and presented me the back of her hand, which I moved forward to kiss.

  “Madam,” I said quietly. “My head will be on the block for this if you turn against me.”

  “Oh, I know.” She smiled again. “You will just have to trust me.”

  I kissed her fingers gently, and left the room.

  Fakenham would be expecting me, but I took a walk round the palace first. To do this next task, I’d be keeping details from my boss.

  It seemed I had a dilemma; in a pickle, so to speak.

  But Fakenham held his hands in the air between us. “I don’t want to know where you intend taking her.”

  I felt very relieved. “You don’t?”

  “Of course I do!” he roared. Then the scowl left his face. “But you can’t tell me, Richard. I simply can’t know. What the Queen has asked you to do is almost a poisoned chalice.”

  I nodded. “If things go badly for the Queen, I’ll be the bad guy.”

  He gave a forced chuckle. “Oh, if things go badly for the Queen, you’re putting your head firmly on the block, old son. That’s why you can’t tell me where you intend on taking her. I don’t want to know. If things do go badly, I’m going to have enough explaining to do without being involved in a plot to assassinate the head of the rebellion.”

  “But I’m not killing her, just taking her out of the picture for a few months.”

  “That’s not how the rebels will see it, trust me. Tread carefully on this one, Richard. It’s your toughest assignment yet. You risk your life on this one.”

  “I’ll have to stop the Jeanne Renard thing,” I said. “I can’t do both.”

  “Yes, yes, it seems the whole reason for doing it has diminished anyway. Take her to Ipswich, send her home. I simply don’t care.”

  I left Fakenham with a heavier heart than I’d entered with. And that hardly felt possible.

  When darkness fell, we rode to Ipswich, stuck Jeanne Renard on a boat bound for Brussels, instructed her to forget everything, sleep for three days, and left her.

  Getting rid of the woman proved a huge relief; the constant attention she required had stretched us considerably.

  Then I had to plan Elizabeth’s abduction, her flight from the city, and her destination. We chatted about it on the ride back to London.

  “Somewhere secluded, yet not too personal,” Steve summarized. “Yet very private, and not somewhere you’ve been before, Fallon would check those places first.”

  “Correct.”

  “Somewhere distant, but not too distant, because you might need to produce Elizabeth if the rebellion is a success.”

  I nodded, my thoughts churning with possibilities.

  Steve turned to me. “It has to be somewhere defensible, yet not looking so, somewhere with a staff, but not a big one, I mean we have to eat, and drink and stuff.”

  “And somewhere she’ll feel relatively free,” I took over, tired of the hour’s pointless machinations. “Somewhere unrestricted, because if she becomes Queen after this, I don’t want to be the bad guy.”

  “Not an easy one, is it?”

  “No, Steve, it’s really fucking not.”

  We rode for a while in silence.

  “You know,” Steve began. “You said Elizabeth is a sharp one?”

  “Oh, yeah, she’s sharp all right.”

  “Then why not bring her in on the whole thing?”

  I considered Steve’s plan. If we involved the Princess, she’d be far less of a flight-risk problem, and if the rebellion were to be a success, we’d be friends and allies, not abductor and jailer.

  Later, I knocked on her bedroom door, and she admitted me without delay.

  “Another visit, so close to your last, Sir Richard,” she said, her tone thick with ribald humor. “One might think you were after my virginity.”

  I think I blushed. “Your Grace, I am here on a hugely important matter.”

  Her face became immediately serious. “I’m sorry, I have been reading completely the wrong kind of material for this evening’s tryst. Some of the current literature in London is bawdy, to say the least.”

  I looked at her carefully. Here stood a twenty-year-old woman, who’d been in some form of imprisonment for most of her life, and I had arrived to offer a continuation.

  “Your Grace, the Queen is consumed with rumors of rebellion.”

  “I’ll dare say she is.”

  “She wishes you gone from London, both for your own safety…”

  “And to remove me from the public eye.” She suddenly became very subdued. “Are you my executioner, Sir Richard?”

  “No, Your Grace!” I rushed to her side, and took her hand, holding it gently. Her small delicate fingers felt cold in my grasp. “I am here to take you out of London, but not to a place of imprisonment, but to a place of safety and secrecy.”

  “I have been in many secret places, Sir Richard, and although the windows have been open, I have still seen bars at every turn.”

  I shook my head. “This time is different, Your Grace. The Queen has instructed me not to tell her where I intend to take you.”

  “But a prison is still a prison, by any means. She will have us followed, and our place will remain secret only for a moment.”

  I patted her hand, suddenly conscious of my proximity to her. It had been days since I fed, and even her slight perfume proved heady in my nostrils. “My Princess, I am here to plot with you, not against you.”

  I told her of our criteria, and she listened with interest. Then when I asked her for her own input, she perked up considerably.

  “It cannot be Hatfield, or indeed anywhere I have been before,” she said, her mind obviously working.

  “It cannot be anywhere associated with you whatsoever,” I emphasized.

  “And secret, private.”

  I nodded. “Unconnected.”

  “I think I have it.”

  “Don’t tell me yet! Wait. North or south of London?” I snapped. I didn’t continue until she’d nodded acknowledgement.

  “North.”

  “That fits with my plans.”

  A plan suddenly hatched in my head as she spoke. “A guard’s uniform.” I turned to her to see her face infused with animation, and smiling bigger than I’d ever seen before. “How do you feel wearing men’s clothes for a while?”

  “As long as it’s not forever, I don’t mind. Some of these dresses are so restrictive, wearing just a shirt and tunic would be a welcome change.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. Having carried captured women all over England, dressed as men, they made more compact bundles. “Then you leave as a guard.”

  “When?”

  I looked at her seriously. “Get your clothes off now, I’ll be back in a moment.”

  It took me five minutes to locate a guard near her height, and another five to get his tunic, trews, hat, and weapons. I left his unconscious body in the rose garden.

  But as I entered her room, the Princess surprised me. She’d been under her cover, lying in bed, but on producing the uniform, she got out of bed, almost naked before my eyes. Again those gossamer thin nightdresses; that seemed to be one thing HBO’s Tudors had gotten right.

  Perky breasts, hard nipples. I knew that I looked upon the perky tits of the most famous of English Queens, but I couldn’t look away.

  “Sir Richard?” She poked me, her hands outstretched for the uniform.

  My guess had been reasonable, but the fit still looked on the large side. Darkness would have to be our main cover.

  Once outside, I thumped the guard by the back gate on the neck, catching his heavy body, and letting him to the ground carefully. Once past the guard, we strode unchallenged to the riverside.

  “Poseidon?” I whispered over the wall to the boats below.

  “Here.”

  A few yards downstream I could see Stev
e’s silhouette against the moonlit water.

  In minutes, we were on the Thames, Steve and me rowing, Elizabeth perched low in the back. We soon caught a kind of rhythm, and made good headway upstream, landing on the north side a few miles away.

  “Okay, madam, for I will not use your title on the road, we have no need to draw attention to ourselves. Where do we go first?”

  “Hatfield House.”

  “What?” I almost shouted at her. “That’s exactly where they’ll look first.”

  “That’s where we pick up my ‘Kat’.”

  Oh fuck.

  Chapter 16

  October 11th, 1553

  In Hiding

  Nothing in Tudor England is what it seems, and when a Princess tells you she’s going to help you ‘hide’ her, but her one condition is she gets her favorite lady in waiting, you’d better just agree.

  I spent an hour in ‘heated’ conversation, just to come back to the same points.

  The ‘Kat’ in question turned out to be Catherine ‘Kat’ Ashley, a fifty-year-old woman who’d been with Elizabeth from an early age, and accompanied with Blanche Parry, had essentially taught her, and brought her up.

  I fought tooth and nail, but by hook or crook, Elizabeth would have her ‘Kat’ with her.

  “Very well.” I finally nodded my head. “We’ll bring her. But wherever we’re going, we take you there first. I want to see what I’m getting myself into before I bring ladies in waiting.”

  “Very well, I agree.” She stuck her hand out to shake mine in a gentleman’s pact.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll keep it a secret, until we get close. I’ll tell you which roads to take.”

  “Well, it doesn’t really go like that,” I said.

  “Not travelling with us it doesn’t.” Steve added, smiling.

  “What’s the nearest town?” I asked, hoping my tone brooked no further argument.

  Elizabeth gave me a questioning look, but gave me the information anyway. “Hereford.”

  “And where from there?”

  “Perhaps twenty miles to the southeast. A little village called Walterston.”

  I gave a wry grin; I already knew the area around Hereford from my last trip to England. “And our final destination?”

  “Walterston House.”

  As I put Elizabeth to sleep, I could see her features struggling against the suggestion, but in the end, the vampire pheromones won, as usual, and her eyelids closed firmly.

  And off we set.

  The route to Hereford felt both familiar and well-travelled; I’d run it many times in 1501, and it hadn’t changed much. I knew the landmarks, and I knew the road, even in the dark. By morning we’d got to Hereford, and had put in the last few miles into a wilderness that seemed to have little to show for itself.

  Rolling hills, grassy fields, and hedgerows filled my view in every direction.

  Then I spotted the spire of a church.

  The priest gave me directions to Walterston House, but warned me it hadn’t been used in some time, belonging to the Cecil family. “As were all in London, see?”

  Walterston ‘House’, however, proved the perfect hideaway for the future Queen of England; it looked very simply, a house. A perfect hideaway

  Two floors, three rooms on the ground floor, four small bedrooms upstairs; it looked as nondescript as a simple country house could be.

  The front door pushed open easily enough, and at some point the place had been furnished to a very primitive degree. When I checked the beds upstairs, the bedding inside smelled rotten, and the house had a distinct odor of small animals.

  A simple house, and it sat, literally, in the middle of nowhere.

  Leaving Steve in charge of Elizabeth sleeping in one of the chairs, I ran back to the church, and got directions to the small hamlet of Longtown to the north, where I found two girls, Hannah and Rachel, who were willing to work for cash coin.

  When Elizabeth opened her eyes, she jumped to her feet. “Where am I?” Her tone sounded brusque, and I pulled her by the arm past the two apprehensive servants, cleaning out the fireplace.

  “Alright, Bess, don’t go off at me.” I dragged her out of the front door, fighting against her struggles all the way.

  “How dare you...” she started, but to her credit, she did shut up when I put my finger to my lips.

  “You’re in Walterston House.”

  Her brows furrowed, and she turned to look, then took in the countryside all around her. “How did we get here?”

  “It’s how we work, Bessy,” I said. “We have our ways, and they work, so don’t question us.”

  “But coaches and drivers…”

  I held up my hand. “Don’t question the method.”

  And again, she let up, looking around. “The maids inside?”

  “Girls from a nearby hamlet; they know you as Bessy, my uppity sister, and we’re just here for a few days, permission of the Cecil family. Right?”

  “Yes. How did you know? William Cecil, Baron Burleigh, knows me, and is known to my father. He is a good man.”

  “Good.”

  “Where’s Kat?”

  I sighed, shaking my head. “All in good time, my Princess, sorry, Bess,” I hissed her title softly. “I will bring her soon, but first I have to get you settled in. And safe.”

  “We have a deal, Sir Richard,” she said sternly.

  “I know we do, Bessy.”

  Princess Elizabeth gave me the sternest of looks, then broke into a wickedly enchanting grin.

  After a little chat with the girls, Hannah and Rachel, I found the nearest market town, and sent Steve on a food hunt. There were some pots in the pantry, but for the first few days, it’d be Spartan fare all round.

  He returned an hour later with some big cut of red meat and a huge hessian sack of vegetables. Hannah immediately set to making a stew, and soon the house smelled of a broth, which we all looked forward to.

  “Are you certain that Kat’s in Hatfield House?”

  “She has waited on me all her adult life.” She nodded. “She would wait for my summons, or my return.”

  In the end, I just left them to their stew. No goodbyes, nothing.

  I ran through most of a sun shining afternoon, and stood outside the huge redbrick sprawl of Hatfield House before sunset; thank goodness for vampire speed.

  Not really knowing how else to approach the task, I thought directness would prove no better than deception, so I went around to the servant’s quarters, and knocked on the door.

  “I seek Catherine Ashley,” I said to the real un-winsome wench who answered the door. “I have a message for her.”

  “Wait here, sire.”

  “Can I not come in? I’ve ridden a while; I could do with a seat.”

  “Of course, sire, come on in, sit here.” She indicated a wooden chair in the kitchen. “I’ll fetch Mistress Catherine.”

  I shook my head as she left, hissing. “Why is everyone called Catherine in this damn time?”

  Footsteps drew my attention to the doorway, and a rather stout woman pushed her way past the servant girl, into the kitchen. “I am Catherine Ashley. Who do I address?”

  “Madam, I have a message.” I indicated the servant, who Kat dismissed immediately.

  Man, I don’t like carrying women all over England, and I sure don’t like carrying them with those huge dresses. Add to that, her large frame, and I had a task on my hands.

  I sat her on the chair, put her to sleep, then began my search round Hatfield House for something to feed on.

  I felt like Goldilocks looking for the right porridge; even though I needed a shot of blood badly, the serving girl looked just too plain. The next servant that passed me had passed her prime many years ago, being in her sixties. Then, just as I went back for the first one, a willowy maid brushed past me, five or six logs in her grasp. I allowed her to feed the fire, then caught her on her return.

  I fed from her neck, leaving h
er sleeping in a pose on the floor like she’d fainted.

  Suitably refreshed, I gathered up the considerable bulk of a sleeping Catherine Ashley, and set off for Walterston again, hoping nothing had fallen remiss in my absence.

  I hate carrying old women; it always feels like my hands are in the wrong places. I hate carrying heavy women; I mean, they’re heavy. And I hate carrying women who have voluptuous dresses, I have a heck of a time keeping them out of my face while running.

  The next morning, the two embraced like long, lost friends, tears on both sides. I watched as Steve went into town again, a fair sized shopping list in his head.

  Outside, I took to the axe and split logs for the main fire. If we were to be ensconced here for any length of time, we’d need a good supply of firewood built up.

  Walterston House sat in a square of trees, maybe thirty feet high, with a fair amount of hedge at ground level. It provided shelter from wind and prying eyes, but also masked any traffic outside the perimeter. I did a scouting run each morning and night, but found nothing each time. It seemed we had indeed become ‘lost’.

  Leaving Hannah and Rachel under Kat’s driving supervision, I set off for Hereford, looking for some decent alcohol and information. I got back late in the afternoon, a case of brandy in my arms, and having heard no news of rebellion.

  And so the routine began. Steve would do the daily trip to market, and I would do my daily perimeter sweeps, and a weekly journey to Hereford.

  In a week, Kat had the girls in complete clean-up mode, and they’d gone through every room in the house, giving us all a bedroom, and a bit of privacy in the little house.

  November arrived with gales from the north, bringing cold stinging frosts, and keeping us all indoors. Kat set to Elizabeth’s studies, and the two embroidered as they conversed in Greek, Latin, and French. I joined in the language lessons, and encouraged Steve to do likewise.

  Then, just when I had begun to wonder the validity of the whole rebellion thing, I heard speakers in the streets in Hereford, urging men to flock to the Protestant Queen Elizabeth. The speakers were guarded by rough-looking men, whose eyes constantly swept the crowd, and I thought it better to leave well alone, cataloguing both their words and faces.

  “Soon!” the speakers urged, leaving no further details of a timeframe.