She felt very tired. Back in the chair she closed her eyes, listening to the new note that came into the voices outside as the news of Clontibret spread. At the top of Ludgate Hill she and Henry were bounced by their chair bumping to the ground. ‘Trouble, m’lady,’ said one of the chairmen.
She leaned out of the window, pushing Henry back. Coming up the hill was a running footman. By some unwritten but immutable law nearly all running footmen were Irish. Livery-suited, wiry-bodied, thick-accented men, they were the butt of Londoners’ jokes as they jogged through the crowds with their employers’ letters and their shouted ‘Shtand aside now. Will ye shtand aside dere.’
This one was really running. He’d outstripped the crowd pursuing him, but his legs were beginning to wobble while the mob was gathering fresh recruits as it came on. She could hear the yells: ‘Paddy bastard. Irish murderer. Death to O’Neill.’
She leaned further out and shouted to the chairmen: ‘Put me down near that door. Quick.’ And then, ‘Grab him, Winchard. Shove him in here.’
The chairmen were glad to veer out of the mob’s path. As the man staggered past, Winchard took hold of him by his crutch and his belt and threaded him neatly into the open offside door of the chair so that he slithered across Barbary’s knees. She shut the door and opened the near side. They were right across the entrance to the Black Bush. She pointed into it, pushing the footman off her. ‘Through that passage there and down the steps. There’s a back door.’ It was an escape route she’d used more than once.
The man squirmed an agonised face towards her. ‘Tank you, your ladyship, tank you.’
‘Try running.’
She got out. At her side Winchard was making growling noises. Some of the men were trying to enter the Black Bush but were getting entangled in the chair’s long handles. The footman had time to get away. She faced the mob, stallholders mostly, a butcher with a cleaver, women with broomsticks, the usual preacher – cause of all the trouble – still baying for Irish blood.
She couldn’t have made herself heard over the shouting so she didn’t try, just stood there, prepared to trade her soul, if she’d had one, for the confiscated Clampett. After a moment the chairmen joined her; they didn’t want to lose their fare. The mob stared at the four, the four stared back. If Barbary had known it, the look on her face, her red hair, was reminiscent of a younger, shorter Elizabeth.
‘Thinks herself a queen, don’t she?’ One of the women was trying to get her comrades forward. ‘Cut off our heads, eh?’
The fancy tickled the crowd, the mood changed. She was bowed ironically back into the chair and cheered all the way down to the City gate.
‘That was exciting, wasn’t it?’ asked Henry, not quite sure.
‘Yes.’
‘An adventure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you know that man?’
‘No. The crowd didn’t either.’
‘Why’d they want to beat him then?’
She rubbed her eyes. ‘He was a scapegoat. It means they’re blaming him for something somebody else did.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Let me sleep.’
‘You’re very brave, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I bloody well am.’
* * *
As he always was when she’d been out, Sylvestris was at the door to greet her. They looked at each other anxiously.
‘How have you got on with the new tutor?’ The previous tutor had been thrashing him regularly but the boy had never said a word. When at last she’d seen the marks, she’d gone after the man with a riding whip and Rob had been furious at her unladylike behaviour.
‘Very well, ma’am, I thank you.’
She said to him in Irish: ‘You prevaricating little anatomy of barebones, if I see a thrush’s ankle of a lie from you I’ll bate that skinny carcase of yours into frog’s jelly.’ He grinned and answered in the same tongue: ‘His breath smells, but he knows a lot and he’s kind.’
‘He’d better be.’
He’d been worrying on his own account. ‘There was trouble out on the streets and I was afraid. With you being Irish…’
‘Lord, boy, they wouldn’t dare. I’ll tell you about it later, but first I must see Sir Rob.’
‘He’s in the library. The Lord Chamberlain came and upset him, I think.’ Sylvestris picked up emotional undercurrents as a deer scented danger. Rob tried to be patient but considered the boy a milksop and said so. Barbary thought he was the bravest child she’d ever met; he’d kept quiet about the tutor’s over-enthusiastic cane because he’d been anxious that Barbary’s reaction would get her into trouble with Rob – as it had.
The depth of her affection for Edmund Spenser’s son had taken her by surprise, as had his for her. He’d been too young when he left Spenser Castle to recall much about it consciously, but, perhaps because he’d been miserable at his aunt’s house in London, he attributed to the period when his mother was alive every possible happiness. Somewhere at the back of his memory existed a sun-drenched Irish paradise which, because she’d been part of it, bathed Barbary in gold. His father had somewhat shamefacedly told her the boy insisted on studying Irish alongside his Latin and Greek, ‘though it may be no bad thing for his inheritance that he comprehends what the serfs are saying’. But whereas, like most of the undertakers, Edmund loved the land and not the natives of Ireland, Sylvestris made no such distinction and pestered his sister to tell him stories about Rosh and her family, and what she could remember of Irish legend.
He was an unremarkable-looking child with his father’s straight, fairish hair, a weaker physique than Henry’s but a mind much older. His perception attributed a vulnerability to Barbary which she didn’t understand, but which made him constantly concerned for her, and because his sensitivity made him vulnerable, she was constantly concerned for him. She loved all her foster children but for Sylvestris the love was ferocious in its protectiveness. When he’d nearly died of the measles she never left his bedside, in a panic obeying every remedy the doctors suggested, wrapping and re-wrapping the feverish little body in new red flannel, praying. His recovery gave her more relief than she’d ever known, but worry for the child remained.
As she entered the library she was expecting to find Rob upset over Clontibret. She was wrong.
‘Margaret,’ he said, turning to her, ‘disaster. She wants to come to supper.’
She didn’t ask who; there was only one ‘she’. ‘Rob, all hell’s broken loose in Ireland, there’s mobs on the streets of London. It’s a disaster the queen wants to come to supper?’
‘Yes,’ he said coldly, ‘it is.’
She slumped down onto a chair, trying to concentrate on his problem. She supposed it was a disaster. Elizabeth ate frugally, but her court didn’t. The cost of feeding it was phenomenal and it was a cost Her Majesty frequently liked to put on somebody else. Her hosts were supposed to be flattered, but the favour could bankrupt the favoured.
‘At least she hasn’t asked to come and stay,’ she said, remembering Sir Henry Sidney’s sufferings during the royal visit to Penshurst.
‘It’s bad enough.’ It wasn’t just the horrendous price of the food, it was the pageantry to go with it. Elizabeth was easily bored, and more than one courtier had cracked his brain trying to think of magnificent novelties that would predispose the queen towards him so that he would get at least something, a barony, a remunerative position, as reward for his outlay.
‘Let’s fob her off with a picnic.’
Rob’s mouth tightened. ‘Since only Ireland seems to interest you,’ he said, ‘perhaps I can gain your attention by telling you there’s a chance I may be its next Lord Deputy.’
‘Rob!’
He couldn’t help smirking. ‘Cecil’s putting me forward.’
Cecil had put a lot of men forward for the post, so had Essex, and both had cancelled out each other’s. She couldn’t see it happening, and was glad not to. Rob responsible for the con
tinuing genocide was something she couldn’t face. ‘But are you—’ she was going to say ‘are you up to it?’ and amended it to ‘Are you sure?’ He was deluding himself; he was a sailor, not a general. Elizabeth would never send him. ‘It destroys everybody. Look at them – Grey, Sir Henry Sidney, Sir John. And now with the O’Neill…’
‘I know.’ He himself was awed by the prospect. ‘But I’m the man. I could do it. The curse is from political back-stabbing when one’s not at court to counteract it, but I should be freer of that than most.’
That was true. It might happen, oh God, it might happen. Rob had shown wisdom in avoiding the court’s factions as far as it was possible. He’d attracted Elizabeth’s favour by his bravery against the Armada and, once at court, he kept his place not by trying to out-charm Essex, at which he would have failed, but by being the queen’s honest, reliable sea-dog. His admiration for Raleigh had given way to caution when he saw how extreme the rivalry between him and Essex had become. Rob disliked extremes and distanced himself from his old friend. Raleigh had been hurt, but Raleigh, who had the self-preservation of a lemming, had gone down, and Rob had stayed up. He’d carried out his embassy to the Low Countries with cunning – there were times when Barbary thought Rob owed more to his Order training than he’d admit – and won Cecil’s respect. Although the Elf manipulated him, it was done, like all the Elf’s manipulations, so nobody would suspect, least of all Rob, that he was Cecil’s man. It might happen.
‘You’re not as compromised as most,’ she said, ‘but—’
‘I am compromised. You have compromised me.’
‘How? For Jesus’ sake, I’ve worked my buttons off—’ He held up a calm and irritating hand. ‘I do not reproach you, Margaret, nor do I try to stop you doing what you doubtless consider your Christian duty, but your visits to the Tower have been a reproach to the queen. She is tender on the subject of Sir John…’
‘So she bloody well should be.’
‘…and Ireland, and the slightest tarnish can affect her decision on this matter. Which is why a successful supper is vital.’ He put his head in his hands, sententiousness gone. ‘Help me, Margaret. I don’t know how to do it.’
It was the first time he’d ever admitted powerlessness. She was shaken. ‘I don’t either. Can we afford it?’
‘No. And we can’t afford not to.’ He got up and began striding about. ‘Jesus, given time I could bring peace to that wretched country. I could. It isn’t the aggrandisement, not even the place in history. I should like to earn God’s grace as well as the queen’s before I die.’
He meant it. This Rob was a revelation, and she was amazed that she could have lived under the same roof with him without finding him out. And suppose he could do it? Suppose he was the man? She was light-headed with discovery. Dreams assembled themselves before her dazzled mind’s eye. Reasoned government under a reasonable mind, the assimilation of two peoples into one happy nation.
‘Rob, I must know. Do you really intend peace? And I mean peace for the Irish, not just for the English?’
‘My dear Margaret, the two are indivisible.’
Only Sir John Perrot had known that, or at least he had been the only one to demonstrate that he knew it.
‘Then we must have the queen to supper.’
* * *
The noble ladies’ gambling nights rotated between their houses, and tonight’s was at Essex house in the ‘small gaming chamber’, a room in which the Pudding-in-a-Cloth could have been accommodated comfortably, And felt at home here, thought Barbary. The only difference between the cheating and plotting which went on in both establishments was that the Pudding’s was professional.
She had been shocked the first time she realised Penelope Rich was palming cards. As did most of the lower orders, she’d assumed that high-born ladies led a life of uplift and good works. Then she’d sighed a comfortable sigh. Just like home, this was. If cheating was to be the order of the day, Barbary Clampett was their woman. So far it hadn’t been necessary, their usual game being cards, especially Post and Pair, which depended on bluff, what they called ‘vying’, and none of them could bluff their way out of a bucket. Rich’s eyes sparkled if she got a pair, Frances Essex looked tragic if she didn’t, Elizabeth Vernon bounced up and down if she drew a one or a two.
Barbary always played a catcher’s game, losing some, never winning too much, waiting for the stake to be worth versing for. And tonight was the night. In the hours since her conversation with Rob she’d been flexing her fingers.
She was shown in and went into a deep curtsey, peering against the blaze of candles that concentrated light on the tables, and left the rest of the room in a rich darkness. ‘Lady Essex. Lady Leicester. Lady Southampton. Lady Rich.’ It was always tricky getting the precedence right; she was never sure whether a dowager countess, like Lettice, who was Essex’s mother and now the widow of the Earl of Leicester, took priority over Essex’s wife, Frances, or not. Or whether Penelope Rich as Essex’s sister and daughter of the house should be above Essex’s mother. But since Frances Essex was her hostess, Barbary put her first. That was one of the few things they were touchy about, their titles. Curtseying over, kissing began. ‘Lady Betty. Welcome.’
‘Lady Betty.’
‘Lady Betty.’
‘Lady Boggart.’
That was Penelope. Barbary grinned at her. ‘And how’s the rich Lord Rich? Still up north?’
Penelope Rich put her beautiful hands into an attitude of prayer. ‘And long may he remain there.’
Barbary sniffed. ‘Fee fi fo fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman. Where’s Lord Mountjoy?’
Elizabeth Vernon squeaked with joy. She thought Barbary’s jokes funny. Barbary liked her. ‘The men are at bowls. How did you know?’
‘My father was a necromancer.’ Actually the smell of tobacco still in the air had told her he was visiting. Mountjoy was a chainsmoker. You could always tell when he and Penelope Rich had been consummating their illicit affair: she stank of Trinidado.
‘Last week you said your father was a highwayman.’
‘That’ll teach you to believe the lower classes.’ The moment she’d taken their measure she’d abandoned any pretence of being a lady. Rob had been horrified that she exalted not just her commonalty but her criminal commonalty. But she’d known what she was about. She couldn’t have fooled women like these for long in any case; better to make a virtue out of something like the truth. They weren’t sufficiently interested to investigate further; she was a novelty to them, and they loved novelty above everything. The two degrees, highest and lowest, were able to share a luxury not available to those in between – she remembered the rigid, watchful etiquette of colonial society in Ireland – the luxury of being what they were.
Actually, they reminded her of the bawds, though they were not so promiscuous. They didn’t have to be. But they showed the same defiant shamelessness which, as with the bawds, arose from being isolated into a society of their own by the peculiarity of their circumstances.
All of them were banned from Elizabeth’s presence; Lettice for having taken as her second husband the queen’s late favourite, the Earl of Leicester; Frances for having married the present favourite, the Earl of Essex; Elizabeth Vernon for marrying Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton; an absent Devereux sister, Dorothy, who’d married Sir John Perrot’s son without permission. It was said there was more blue feminine blood outside court than in it.
Well-educated, witty, afraid of nobody except the queen, they were forced to put their splendid energy into pranks, infuriating the Puritans by their fashions – their current rage was for men’s doublets – scandalising foreigners by kissing visitors, male or female. Preachers railed against the power they had over their husbands, because, with no other outlet, they channelled their considerable political ambition through their menfolk.
Penelope Rich was the only one of them still in Elizabeth’s favour, although she was openly carrying on with her brother’s friend,
Lord Mountjoy, and even she had been temporarily suspended from the Privy Chamber for being ‘naughty’ to the queen. ‘Well,’ she’d said in explanation, ‘what can you expect when I, an heir to the ancient aristocracy of England, have to put up with tantrums from a descendant of a Welsh butler?’
Barbary could see what it was that had enthralled Philip Sidney; her Devereux colouring was still lovely, but the ‘Stella’ of his poems had gone. Being sold off to the highest bidder against her will had coarsened her. She had a frenetic quality. Her indiscretions, like her cheating, were so blatant that they seemed designed to provoke challenge.
But she was a genius at gossip. ‘How are the Northumberlands?’ Barbary asked her, settling down. The atrocity stories about the Earl and Countess of Northumberland were as enjoyable as they were incredible. ‘Does she still threaten to eat his heart in salt?’
‘My dear,’ drawled Penelope Rich, ‘they made up. The earl wants an heir to spite his brothers whom he says, next to his wife, he hates above any. But I think it must be off again because he went to that ferret Cecil the other day and said his wife was plotting to have James on the throne and that it would be a good thing if Cecil told the queen, who would have her beheaded.’
‘What did Cecil say?’
‘He said he didn’t think it would enhance the earl’s reputation to be known as the man who had betrayed his own wife. The earl was puzzled; he couldn’t see anything wrong in it.’
The Pirate Queen Page 58