The Virgin's Spy

by Laura Andersen

  “Why are you here, Englishman?” Her voice was as alluring as the rest of her, the kind of voice a siren might use to lure sailors to their deaths.

  “It was come with the priest or starve to death. I was left in the wilderness to die by my own people.”

  “Why?”

  With the touch of insolence that was part of his cover, Stephen replied, “For daring to have an opinion of my own, and the stupidity to voice it. There is nothing you can tell me about English contempt that I do not know for myself.”

  Nothing in her exquisite face revealed what she might be thinking. “Martin tells me you might be worth our while. I respect his opinion, but the final decisions are always mine. For your English blood alone I would cheerfully leave you to die, but if there is a possibility of you being useful? I am not vindictive enough to overlook any advantage fate offers.”

  Then she addressed the guards. “Take him to Father Byrne’s rooms. Untie his hands and lock him in.”

  Looking up at Stephen once more with eyes like violets—particularly sharp and predatory violets—she said, “Consider yourself a prisoner for now. Whether that changes will be up to you. Do you understand?”

  Suppressing the surprising lift of relief, Stephen said, “I understand. And I will give you no cause to regret it.”

  It was just the first of many lies he would be telling this woman in the months to come.

  DIARY OF MINUETTE COURTENAY

  27 May 1582

  El Escorial, Spain

  We have spent the last week at King Philip’s austerely beautiful compound that is half religious house, half royal palace. Like Hampton Court or Richmond, it is set just far enough from the capital city to be both healthful and relaxing. It has the stamp of Philip everywhere I look—I understand that he deliberately restricted the number of artists invited to participate so that there might be unity of theme and effect. It is when I consider such things that I know why Elizabeth married him. Yes, it was a political match. Yes, he offered her a necessary counterweight to stabilize England from within while not having to worry overmuch about threats from abroad.

  But the Elizabeth I know might still have found reason to refuse—if there had not been something in Philip that attracted both her heart and her head. I have long recognized her reasons for respecting him. As he now shows us his heart poured out into architecture and devotional worship, I begin to see what caught and held fast her own heart all these years.

  It frightens me. Enemies who respect one another are one thing. Enemies who resent having been made to love are far more dangerous.

  4 June 1582

  Toledo, Spain

  After the rarefied atmosphere of El Escorial, we have traveled to the more domestically mundane household of the young Spanish/Scots princes. It was the primary stated purpose of our journey, of course—to personally lay eyes on Charles and Alexander that we might provide an unbiased report of their apparent health. That is easy enough, for they both appear to be thriving. Despite the multiple purposes of our journey, it was easy to forget ourselves during the hour we spent in the princes’ nursery. The pleasures of fat babies are universal. Kit and Pippa presented their fellow twins with the wooden dolls Anabel sent for them; while Pippa held Prince Charles with natural ease, Kit and Prince Alexander regarded each other with similar wariness.

  Unfortunately, babies do not exist apart from their parents—in this case, their mother. Mary Stuart personally supervised our visit and, when it was over, asked me with gracious condescension to walk with her in the gardens. I was tempted to pull a face behind her back at Dominic, but was afraid Kit might laugh and give me away. So my family went one direction, and I went another, determined to hold my tongue for England’s sake.

  That resolve lasted not even a minute. For Mary opened with the worst possible statement. “Your children are quite charming. I remember that from your oldest son at Tutbury. Pity that charm can only go so far.”

  It went far enough on you, I thought uncharitably. Mary continued, either royally oblivious or cruelly pointed, “Though I believe our dear cousin Elizabeth is susceptible to charm from young and handsome men. Perhaps fatally susceptible. In such an atmosphere, no doubt your Stephen will rise high enough to satisfy even you.”

  “That my children live and are happy has always been the highest satisfaction I could hope for,” I told her. “If only Your Majesty could say the same, what an awful lot of trouble could be avoided.”

  We were past politeness now. Mary’s eyes were steely with resolve and tainted with hatred. Of me, of Elizabeth, of England—she has an abundance of hate. “My children are royal. They have no need to rise, for they have been born to the highest positions. James may have usurped his position too early—I will not make those mistakes with my new sons. And England will long have cause to regret that I left its shores alive.”

  I told no one of her words except Dominic. When we return to England, we shall pass on all we heard and observed and guessed to Elizabeth and her ministers. That is why we are here.

  15 June 1582

  Seville, Spain

  Thankfully, after my last encounter with Mary Stuart, we left her and her children behind and traveled with Philip to Seville in the south. We will remain here until we sail in six weeks. As the only port city authorized to trade with the New World, Seville is at the center of the magnificent riches being brought from Spain’s overseas empire. No doubt Philip intends our stay here to impress us with the weight of Spanish gold and Spanish ships and Spanish resolve. For Seville is also the home of the Inquisition in Spain.

  Pippa seems particularly struck by the city. With her fluent Spanish, honed in long years with Anabel, she has struck up friendships among the women who joined us in Madrid and, with appropriate guards, has been touring the city. With Kit, of course. He is almost more protective of her than Dominic is. And Spain has unsettled him in an entirely different way than the rest of us.

  Because of Anabel.

  And that is a puzzle beyond my skills to solve.

  A week after their arrival in Seville, Kit and Pippa set out from the fantastical Royal Alcazar to pay a promised visit to the grandmother of Madalena Arias. It was Pippa’s errand, but she would never have been allowed out without one of the males of her family. The siblings were surrounded by royal guards—six of them with their red and gold badges—and Pippa had two women of the Spanish court as well. Philip had chosen older women to attend on the Courtenay females—frankly, they had not met very many young women and even fewer single women. Spain kept their females in closer hold than England.

  Kit had thought himself prepared for Madalena’s grandmother. He knew that she was of pure Moorish blood—her family one of the conversos in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella—but still it was something of a shock when he and Pippa were introduced to Catalina Duran. Madalena was such a warm and generous woman, it was hard to connect her to this silver-haired, aristocratic woman who looked as though she had stepped straight out of a royal court of fifty years ago. A foreign royal court.

  She remained seated as the twins bowed and curtsied. In a voice like molten iron, she said, “Doña Philippa, my granddaughter has written much of you and the princess you both serve. It is kind of you to visit.”

  Her tone was more one of “of course you would visit, but I shall be polite as long as I choose.”

  Then Doña Catalina turned a severe eye on Kit. “And this is Christopher, of whom also I have heard.”

  Somewhat at a loss, Kit said, “We are very fond of Madalena.”

  “Do not bother trying to impress me, young man. I am too old for such tricks. You may wait quietly in the corner. It is your sister I have agreed to speak with.”

  What protest could he make? It wasn’t as though he could believe Pippa in any danger from a woman approaching eighty with royal guards within shouting distance. Kit made another, ironic, bow and withdrew to the far end of the chamber, where he leaned against the edge of a tiled windowsill and lis
tened.

  Doña Catalina waved a long-fingered, gnarled hand, and Pippa perched on a priceless-looking chair embroidered with gold thread. Then the doña stared at her for a long time without speaking. Pippa did not move nor make any attempt to break the silence, and Kit tried to follow her example. Being still did not come naturally to him.

  “Do you know what Madalena wrote to me of you?” Doña Catalina finally asked.

  “I do not,” Pippa replied smoothly.

  “And yet you know so many things, that some would consider…unusual.”

  “Madalena said that you have some experience in unusual knowledge.”

  “And is that why you have come to see me, young Philippa? An interesting name for an English girl born in the time of an unwelcome Spanish consort in your country.”

  “I was not named for King Philip, but for my grandmother. She died shortly before my birth.”

  Doña Catalina tipped her head, a youthful gesture that called to Kit’s mind the image of her elegant granddaughter. “A woman of troubled mind, was she not? Is that the fear that stalks you? For fear I see, like a stain on your soul. Do you fear the loss of your mind?”

  “I do not. I am not my grandmother.”

  With a smile that could only be called cynical, Doña Catalina said, “So proud to announce your independence…so it is fate that you fear. I cannot help you with that.”

  Kit felt Pippa’s instinctive resistance to being handled. “That is not why I came.”

  “So you did come for reasons other than politeness.”

  Had she? If Pippa wanted something from this woman, she hadn’t said as much to him. Intrigued, and a little annoyed, Kit sharpened his focus. Since they were little, he could access his twin’s emotions and thoughts if he tried hard to shut out everything else.

  Letting his awareness of the physical surroundings fade, Kit narrowed in on the intangible thread that bound him to his sister. It was as delicate as silk and as durable as diamonds, the finest, brightest part of him. Through it now, his senses were doubled and he felt Pippa’s inner trembling inside his own skin.

  If Doña Catalina could sense it, she gave no quarter. “Give me your hand, child,” she commanded.

  Kit raised his eyebrows as he felt Pippa’s shock magnify his own. Chiromancy, the art of palmistry, had been classified by the Roman Catholic Church as one of the seven forbidden arts of magic. Doña Catalina, who must always be viewed with some suspicion because of her converso status, could easily attract the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition for practicing chiromancy.

  She did not seem bothered by the possibility. Pippa extended her right hand, but Doña Catalina waved it away. “The left, if you please. It is your unrealized life that troubles you.”

  Kit clenched his own left hand as he fleetingly wondered if his palm would yield the same information as his twin’s.

  “A woman so severely in control of herself often runs riot in her own heart,” Doña Catalina said, running her fingertips across the lines on Pippa’s palm, and Kit felt a shiver of that touch himself. “Passion you have, no surprise for one young and lovely, but you submerge your own passions in serving others. Such service, though admirable, cannot compensate for your own desires. What is it you wish, Doña Philippa? Your body knows, for our bodies cannot lie as our thoughts can.”

  Kit felt on the edge of some revelation and then, suddenly, Pippa pushed back against their bond. Whatever had risen instinctively in her mind, she did not want Kit to know.

  “Child,” Doña Catalina continued, “you have been seeking an answer you already possess. Simply because you do not like the answer does not mean you can force someone to give you another. Your life is your life. Each hour given to you by God is to be lived as you yourself choose. Do not look to others—not even the stars—to make those choices for you.”

  “What if I choose wrong? What if my choices lead others to suffer?”

  With an impatient shake of her head, Doña Catalina answered, “You think too much, child. And you take too much on yourself. You will light the beacon, but your princess will command the flames. Those you love are stronger than you give them credit for. You must stop feeling superior.”

  “I don’t feel superior!” Pippa pulled her hand away, and behind her Kit felt the sting of the insult.

  But Doña Catalina gave her the sort of look that Carrie might give, when the children had been caught in an egregious act of mischief. “The first step to knowing yourself is knowing your faults. And that, child, is the best advice an old woman can give you. You may go now. Thank Madalena for sending you to me.”

  The doña looked across the length of the chamber to Kit. “As for you, Lord Christopher, pay attention to that princess of yours. You may not know her mind as well as you think you do. And royalty with minds of their own are unpredictable.”

  —

  Anabel spent early summer at Syon House, the former abbey turned into a gracious home by the late Duke of Northumberland. The gardens were the specialty of Syon House, and June sent them into spectacular bloom. From the upper floor windows, one could admire the intricacies of the parterres and knot gardens below. Lavender softened the outer brick walls and within the small square beds bloomed daisies and hollyhocks and herbs such as marjoram and mint.

  The interior of the house, left mostly untouched since the 1550s, was slowly being modernized, and Anabel enjoyed making design decisions, from fabric for the windows to which royal tapestries to borrow from her mother’s collection. Her grandfather, Henry VIII, had possessed perhaps the largest collection of tapestries in Europe during his day and there was no shortage of themes or styles to choose from.

  On this particular day, she was studying the ledger detailing various tapestries, trying to decide on a theme for her updated privy chamber. With her was Lucette Courtenay—no, Lucette LeClerc now—who had agreed to come to Syon House and continue on to court with Anabel during the French and Scots visits. The queen had encouraged Anabel’s request, since Lucette’s husband was French and might prove useful with the Duc d’Anjou. Though Julien had spent eight years secretly spying for Walsingham on his own countrymen, that fact was not widely known. Most people assumed that his move to England had been entirely for the love of Lucette—as indeed it had. Both Julien and Lucette had since declined further offers from Walsingham to aid in his intelligence work.

  But Lucette had been Anabel’s friend long before she was anything official at court, and with Pippa and Kit absent in Spain, she seemed to accept Anabel’s need to have someone familiar about her.

  “What do you think?” Anabel mused aloud. “The Labors of Hercules? Or Persephone and Demeter?”

  “The myth of the Queen of the Underworld and her mother? That could set quite the tone for visitors to your privy chamber.” Lucette had the trick of her mother and Kit, to infuse her words with an innocent mischief that inspired laughter.

  “As my father already thinks of England as on our way to hell, I might as well claim my place as queen forthwith. Persephone it is.” She shut the ledger decisively. “What next? We have Syon House’s reconstruction well under way—what is the program for reconstructing me to impress the Duc d’Anjou and Esmé Stewart?”

  “I am the wrong woman to ask about impressing men.”

  “With a husband that every single female in my household cannot stop talking about? I’d tell you to keep a close watch on him if it weren’t so obvious that he has eyes for no woman but you. If I thought all Frenchmen were built like Julien, I’d say yes to Francis right now.”

  Lucette rolled her eyes. “You are the least sentimental person I know, Anabel. And that includes your mother. You will never have your head turned by a handsome face.”

  Was that true? Perhaps. For all her sharp wits and cynical outlook, Elizabeth had her one great love in Robert Dudley. Not that her mother talked about him. But Minuette would, if you asked her, though Anabel had always wondered how accurate her image was. After all, Robert had died in
the cause of helping to save Minuette’s life from the last king.

  But Elizabeth had not been born to be a queen; not like Anabel. She’d had a little room for implausible dreams. Anabel did not.

  Except…

  As though she could read her wayward thoughts, Lucette asked, “What did Kit have to say in his last letter?”

  “He wrote to you as well.”

  “Three lines, scrawled in a hurry, that told me nothing except he likes the sunshine and the food. Kit is not one for writing—at least not to his older sister.”

  “He wrote little more than that to me,” Anabel said. “A bit more expansive about the quality of the wine, though.”

  Why did she lie to Lucette? In truth, Kit’s letter had been…what? Not intimate, for he wrote nothing that could not have been openly read by anyone. But it had felt intimate. It felt as though they were in Spain together, and that he was merely commenting on things as they went along, as though he were always engaged in conversation with her, whether she happened to be with him or not. It was how she often felt herself.

  “Well,” Anabel continued brightly, “they have their tasks in Spain, and I have mine here. If only I were certain which country my mother wants me to snare, I would have no qualms about the coming visits. But trying to balance France and Scotland without giving either one false hope? That will be a trick.”

  “But a trick these men will be prepared for. They know, Anabel, that the decisions will not be made by the two of you alone. If there is danger there, at least it is not personal.”

  Her words were flavoured with the faintest hint of bitterness and guilt, in a way that made Anabel vividly recall the days she and Lucette had spent imprisoned together in Wynfield Mote. Their captor had been Julien’s older brother, Nicolas, who for all his apparent political motivation had been obviously captivated by Lucette. And who had hated both her and his brother for ruining any hopes he might have had.