The Virgin's Spy

by Laura Andersen

  From the first time she’d met him nearly thirty years ago now, Elizabeth had been struck by Walsingham’s refusal to be intimidated by her. Over the years, he had often teetered on the edge of honesty, without ever falling over into insubordination. For all that time, he had been one half of her most trusted duo: Burghley with his careful statesmanship, Walsingham with his intelligence and strong convictions.

  But this she could not forgive. He had used her personal name and had struck at her most vulnerable spot with unerring skill. Elizabeth’s voice trembled with the effort not to screech at him in her rage. “You are dismissed.”

  “Your Majesty, I am only telling you what others are too afraid—”

  “You are dismissed from my presence and from my court.”

  Walsingham had never been one to show his emotions. The corners of his dark eyes tightened, but he was otherwise impassive. “I apologize for my manner, Your Majesty.”

  “Noted. Now get out.”

  She turned her back, holding herself rigid while she waited. At last she heard the soft footsteps walking away. She knew that Burghley remained, weighing how to speak to her, judging the right approach.

  Elizabeth was tired of being handled. All she wanted was to give in to her passions—to throw something, to let Anjou tease her into flirtation, or simply to lay down her head and weep.

  —

  It took their disparate, discontented company weeks to make the trek across Ireland, the sea, and then England. By the time Stephen and the others rode into London, it was the end of September and the city was an assault on all the senses for men attuned to the quieter countryside of Ireland.

  Ormond took Dane with him, having pledged his word to the queen for the recalcitrant captain’s appearance at her bidding. Stephen followed Kit and Julien—not to court, but to a four-story brick house with high walls and open courtyard. There, he was met by the whole of his family and subjected to the sort of tactful, gentle conversation that ensured he did what they wanted—talk about Ireland.

  He’d had time to rehearse the essentials and he delivered them in unsparing and unemotional terms. When he finished, it was Lucie who spoke first, with the devastating frankness she had developed during the years of estrangement from their father. “I’d like to think the queen will be moved by the girl’s death, but she tends to be parochial in her empathies. Liadan Kavanaugh was not English. I fear that will limit Elizabeth’s human regrets.”

  “Then Elizabeth does not deserve her crown,” Stephen said curtly. “I can make her understand. I must.”

  He saw his parents exchange looks and imagined a shared exasperation with their son’s self-righteousness. Stephen didn’t care. He was righteous because he was right. Elizabeth might be hampered by political and religious tensions, but how could any woman, especially a mother, not be moved by the cruel murder of another woman’s daughter?

  The London household was rather cramped, but no one seemed prepared to leave until Stephen had his audience. The days dragged into weeks, and Stephen, forced to remain under a loose house arrest by royal command, began to go a little mad. Kit was preoccupied and serious, spending more hours in study and correspondence than he’d ever been known to do before. Pippa went daily between their leased house and Charterhouse, where Anabel set up residence a week after Stephen’s return.

  Twenty-two days after reaching London, the summons finally arrived. Stephen appeared, as commanded, at the public gatehouse at Whitehall and presented himself with only Kit in attendance. Another caveat of the queen’s. He knew it must be killing his parents to remain behind.

  They were escorted to a corridor Stephen knew well, where the familiar figures of Ormond and Dane waited. Ormond looked exasperated, Dane insolent.

  “Ready to grovel?” Dane asked Stephen.

  It was an effort of will to ignore him. Fortunately, the queen did not keep them waiting long. A page opened the door and they were ushered into her presence chamber. In the gilded, golden space, Elizabeth dominated on a throne set beneath her canopy of estate. She wore a delicate crown set with pearls and a gown so crusted with gold thread it almost had the look of decorative armor.

  Usually, her presence chamber would contain anywhere from twenty to fifty people, but today there were only two guards at the door and Lord Burghley standing to her side. It seemed the rumours of Walsingham’s disgrace were true—Stephen wasn’t sure whether the intelligencer’s absence would help or hurt his cause.

  Elizabeth did not waste time in pleasantries. “Tell me why I should refrain from locking both of you up for disturbing my peace in Ireland.” She spoke to the space between Stephen and Dane, who stood only an arm’s length apart before her. Ormond and Kit stood gratefully behind them.

  “Your Majesty,” Stephen said with all the grace he’d learned at his mother’s knee, “I most willingly submit to whatever punishment you deem fit. I know I have proved a disappointment to my family and to your government. But please trust that it was not done from malice, only from righteous anger.”

  Used to flattering speeches from men much better at making them, Elizabeth raised a single eyebrow. “It is not intentions that concern me, Lord Somerset, but actions. You appeared on the field in opposition to my own royal forces. Never mind locking you up—why should I not have you executed for that treason?”

  With a voice all honeyed satisfaction, Oliver Dane interrupted. “Well might you ask such, Your Majesty, for great damage has been done to your cause in Ireland by the flagrant flouting of your authority by one so near to your throne. So public a betrayal should be punished just as publicly.”

  From the look she turned on Dane, it was clear that Elizabeth found him distasteful. “And for your own crime, of killing an Irish child?”

  His tone darkened, but he answered readily enough. “It was a regrettable incident. But the family has been compensated.”

  “By Blackcastle, yes. So you consider the matter closed?”

  “I do. Save for the matter of Lord Somerset’s involvement.”

  “That matter is not your concern. It is ours.” Elizabeth pondered Dane for a moment. “I understand from my dear cousin Ormond that you are eager to return to Ireland.”

  Stephen moved involuntarily, and felt Kit staring at him from behind, no doubt silently commanding him to hold his position and his tongue. With difficulty, he complied.

  “Ireland has been my home for twenty-five years, Your Majesty,” Dane offered. “I have no remaining ties to England, save that of a subject. A role I believe I fill most profitably in Ireland.”

  The queen wasn’t really going to listen to this, was she? Stephen shot a look at Burghley, who looked uncomfortable but resigned. The Lord Treasurer was a reasonable man—surely he would not allow Dane to return to the land and people he had ravaged and used for his own purposes all these years? How often had Stephen heard Dane in the field complaining about Elizabeth, using terms that she would have racked him for if she’d ever heard him? Dane didn’t care about Elizabeth’s rights—he wanted to be in Ireland for his own profit.

  Elizabeth waved a single hand in Dane’s direction. “You may return to Ireland to serve us, Captain Dane. For the immediate future, you will be under the close command of the Earl of Ormond. I do not care to hear of further…irregularities in your relationships with the Irish. Prove yourself faithful, and perhaps you will regain an independent command.”

  Stephen felt all the blood leave his face and nearly swayed on his feet as, next to him, Dane bowed low. “Thank you, Your Majesty. You are truly wise and gracious. I will endeavour to serve you well.”

  “See that you do.” Elizabeth turned those remote, penetrating eyes on Stephen. “As for you, Lord Somerset, you will return to Farleigh Hungerford and remain on your estates until recalled. We are displeased with your actions, but trust that you will serve us better in future.”

  He couldn’t speak, couldn’t move, could hardly even breathe. Stephen felt Kit touch him gently on the back of his
shoulder as though prodding him, and he managed to swallow. There was nothing else he could do. Stephen jerked his head in perfunctory acknowledgment. “As you say, Your Majesty.”

  Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at his obvious reluctance, but dismissed them all with an impatient gesture.

  This is not happening. Stephen felt as though he were sleepwalking. He had come prepared to be arrested, to be publicly chastised, to be stripped of all his honours and wealth…but he had not prepared for this. After everything, Oliver Dane had won.

  Kit knew better than to try and engage his brother, but the Earl of Ormond tried, speaking low and urgently at Stephen’s side. “She had no choice, boy, you must see that. With the latest victories by Desmond, our forces in Ireland are dangerously vulnerable. There are still a hundred Spanish soldiers on the ground and the threat of worse. Dane is despicable, but he is a key piece in keeping Ireland quiet.”

  “By sweeping away every last Irish man, woman, and child by whatever means possible? How is that English justice?”

  “Justice?” The voice was Dane’s, smooth and amused. He came up on Stephen’s other side so that Stephen was flanked by these two men of Elizabeth’s Irish service. Ormond, born and bred generations back in Ireland, but still fundamentally English. And Dane, a cynic out for his own good no matter who he had to destroy to achieve it.

  “Don’t fret, English lordling,” Dane continued. “I doubt our paths will cross again. You have proved you cannot be trusted in Ireland—the queen will not risk you there a third time. And I have no plans to return to England. Give thanks to see the last of me and put Ireland out of your mind.”

  Stephen clenched his jaw. Ireland was the only thing on his mind, mostly the faces of those he’d come to know flickering behind his eyes in rapid succession: Father Byrne, upright and warm beneath the weight of his duties; Diarmid mac Briain, who led his men honourably and well; Liadan, all kinds of clever and loving, and in the end broken; Ailis, who had lost her childhood and then her daughter to this man now openly mocking the sins he’d committed.

  “Perhaps,” Dane mused, “I’ll see if that Scots widow is still available. The queen wouldn’t mind having her money available for England’s use. And though she is a little older than my usual preference, she looks young enough. I’d get a few good years of pleasure out of her. And I’ve heard the Scots are nearly as wild as the Irish. Maisie, wasn’t that her name?”

  Mariota, we have to go. Blood on her hands and dress, keening over a small body, weeping alone for a child who had been nothing but a friend…

  When Stephen moved, it was with the purpose and clarity of long-planned battle tactics. He saw every move a half second before he made it, his body in perfect alignment with his intentions. Ormond was to his left, his jewel-hilted ceremonial dagger affixed to his close-fitted velvet jerkin. One move for Stephen to swivel and snatch it with his right hand. The next move to plant his other foot and pivot back, then grab Dane’s coat with his left hand. For symmetry’s sake, Stephen would have preferred to cut his throat, but there wasn’t time. Instead, in the manner Julien had taught him, the dagger slid expertly up and under Dane’s ribs, to angle into the heart.

  There was a wash of blood over Stephen’s fingers and a froth of bloody spume from Dane’s mouth as he fell. Even as the guards lunged forward, Stephen raised his hands in surrender, the dagger still in Dane’s chest.

  The guards had one job—to ensure the Queen of England’s safety. They didn’t care who Stephen was. They forced him down with a kick to his knees and then they were on him, striking and kicking even though he made no move to fight back.

  He could hear Kit shouting at the guards to stop, trying to get to Stephen through them all. One of the guards struck Kit in the side of the head. “Leave it!” Stephen called. “It’s no matter, Kit. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  And he was. For the first time since Liadan’s murder—no, from before that, from the moment Roisin and the other prisoners had fallen near Kilkenny—Stephen felt as though he could breathe.

  The guards—brought to rough order by Ormond’s commanding presence, with more men pouring toward them and even Lord Burghley in the distance, hastening to see the commotion—jerked Stephen to his feet. As they twisted his arms behind in order to march him away, he sent a thought winging west to Ireland.

  He’s dead, Liadan. You can rest now, sweet lass.

  It was a full two weeks after Stephen’s shocking arrest for murder before Anabel saw any member of the Courtenay family. The princess hadn’t even seen her mother—the queen coped with emotional difficulty by flinging herself into intense political efforts, those things she could control. The firsthand account of what had happened came to Anabel from the Earl of Ormond, who courteously came to see her at Charterhouse when she sent him a message.

  She listened to Ormond’s story and asked only one question. “Did the man deserve it?”

  He was too experienced to fall for such simplicity. “The question of punishment was the queen’s to decide, not anyone else.”

  But Stephen Courtenay wasn’t just anyone else. Anabel sat isolated at Charterhouse, waiting, and wondered how much her mother’s harshness had to do with her earlier fury with and banishment of Walsingham.

  Pippa finally came the second week in November. Anabel took her straight through to her bedchamber and commanded her other women not to disturb them. Then she sat her friend down and demanded, “Tell me.”

  “There isn’t much to tell. My parents have been allowed to see Stephen in the Tower. He has not been charged with any crime, and there is no indication that he will be in the immediate future. Lord Burghley thinks it likely the queen will simply leave him there for some time to let him think about what he has done. No one seems to believe there is any chance he will be tried and executed.”

  “What do you believe?”

  “I keep looking at my parents and seeing the shadows that have always been on the edges of their lives. There was a time, I expect, when no one thought there was any chance of the two of them falling from grace with the last king. Monarchs are capricious creatures.”

  She said it with a detached air that made Anabel grasp her hand. “Pippa, my mother is not the same as her brother or her father. She is furious, yes, at the insult to her pride and the assault made so near to her presence. But all she is doing is making a point. She would never harm Stephen.”

  Pippa closed her eyes, looking weary. “There is more than just Stephen. Two days after his arrest, Lucie miscarried a child. Nearly four months along…it was a girl.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Anabel whispered. “How is she recovering?”

  “She is in no danger. Just desperately grieving. As soon as she can travel, Julien will take her home. They have hardly been there since they were married. She doesn’t want to leave Stephen, but there is nothing she can do here that others cannot do as well.”

  “And the rest of you?”

  “My parents will remain in London as long as Stephen is in the Tower. Kit will have to oversee things at Tiverton and Wynfield Mote and Farleigh Hungerford—he will spend the winter on horseback bearing a responsibility he once craved. But not at this cost.”

  Anabel put Kit out of her mind. There would be time later for that. “And you?”

  Pippa smiled, swift and sad. “Do you not want me with you?”

  “Of course I do! I did not know if you would care to be associated with me.”

  “Oh, Anabel. You are not your mother. Where do you mean to spend the winter?”

  “Not London. They do not think it would be good for my health. Ludlow, perhaps?” She saw the queer expression on Pippa’s face and asked sharply, “What? Do you have a better idea?”

  “Have you ever thought,” Pippa said slowly, “of going north? It has been generations since an English royal has spent significant time in the North for other than military purposes. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the last royal to make his home in Yorkshire, and it was those ties that a
llowed him to take England’s throne, even if only for a short time.”

  “You want me to become a Yorkist?”

  “I want you to be an effective leader. Your mother’s example is brilliant, but she cannot be everywhere. Why not extend yourself in a less crowded arena?”

  “Why do you want me in the North, Pippa?”

  Her friend had that familiar, disconcerting, otherworldly look that had always half frightened and half intrigued Anabel. Pippa sounded like a prophetess when she said, “Because the North is going to need you—and you will need them. War is coming, and when it does, England will need to meet it in united fashion, Protestants and recusants together. The North will love you, Anabel. You will have the power to command them. And also…”

  Anabel finished that final thought. “And also, it is near to Scotland and James.”

  Pippa nodded.

  “You hinted once,” Anabel said, looking down at her clasped hands, “that I might have a husband of my choosing.”

  “Choices are made for many considerations, Your Highness.”

  Anabel closed her eyes and sighed, allowing herself one regretful memory of Kit’s caresses. Then she opened her eyes. Firmly, she said, “I will speak to Lord Burghley. He will know how best to broach the subject with the queen.”

  15 November 1582

  Dear Kit,

  I begin to regret not leaving London with you. It seems wrong to flee to Anabel every day, but in truth I’m not at all certain Mother and Father notice me when I am here. Father is as silent as the grave and Mother spends her days in a whirl of letter writing and making personal calls on anyone in London whom she might charm. There has been some debate as to whether that latter should include Francis Walsingham. It has been more than a month since Elizabeth sent him away in a temper—the longer she does not call for him, the more entrenched I fear she will become. If there is one thing our queen cannot bear, it is being forced to admit she is wrong.

  I can feel your continuing turmoil as easily while you are on the road as when you are in the next chamber. I shall do what I can with Anabel, but your guilt about stepping into Stephen’s shoes you will have to deal with on your own.