Blood Between Queens (43 page)

The murmuring around her rose to an excited hum.
A wedding?
people asked.
Now? A wedding!
others answered.
Yes, now!

Justine looked down at the coffin in the pit. It brought her no pain. Lord Thornleigh now was at peace.

She put her hand in Will’s. He clasped it.

 

Winter came roaring back with January. Freezing rain lashed the windows, and the men who tramped in all day with reports to Adam shook ice pellets off their hats. He was alone for the moment, standing over the map of England spread out on the desk at his father’s house on Bishopsgate Street.
My house,
he thought. Hard to get used to that. He didn’t think he would ever get used to the thought of his father lying dead in his grave. The sight of his gored body, when Justine had led him to it, had shaken Adam to his core.

“Begging your pardon, my lord.”

Adam looked up. Another agent, one he had sent to the north coast. “Yes? What word from Scarborough?”

“No sign of her, my lord. The harbormaster swore she did not take ship from his port. Leastways no woman with two children in tow.”

Adam shoved aside the map, galled by the failure.
My wife, the traitor
. He had agents searching for traces of Frances in every harbor from Newcastle to Norwich to Plymouth, but no one had seen her take ship. There was a possibility, of course, that she had gone to ground in England. If so he would find her. He had sent word to every mayor to declare a general lookout for the fugitive, and orders from Baron Thornleigh were obeyed. Every time he thought of Frances scheming behind his back to murder Elizabeth, lying to him while plotting with her brother, setting enough gunpowder to tear Elizabeth to pieces, rage surged through him. But deeper still ran his fury that she had stolen his children. It made him wild with desperation to think of Kate and Robin being wrenched from their homeland, confused and frightened, or worse, suffering harm. If Frances were brought before him he felt he might strangle her with his bare hands.

First, he had to find her. He called in his steward. “Get some men across to France. An Englishwoman with two children cannot hide long.”

The steward acknowledged the order, then urged him again to see the estate people who oversaw the Thornleigh mines, timber lands, glassworks, and weaving operations. Once his father’s, now Adam’s. “They have been waiting all morning, your lordship. They are eager to acquaint you with the details of your properties.”

Adam groaned inside. He had little interest in such matters. His father had managed all of this so well.
Father . . .
the thought weighed him down with sadness. He agreed to discuss the timber operation now, the rest later. Supplying oak masts to Elizabeth’s navy was a priority, and he would not let that slide. “And send some men to the Low Countries, too, to look for my wife. Amsterdam, Rotterdam. Antwerp.” He doubted that Frances would seek refuge in the Protestant German lands. She was a Catholic to her bones.

“My lord, news!” It was Curry, his longtime first mate, marching in with a man Adam had not seen before. Barrel-chested, with a lumbering gait and a face like aged oak, the fellow paid no mind to the ice crystals that clumped his beard. Adam knew an old salt when he saw one.

“This man captains a brigantine out of Cardiff,” Curry reported. “He gave passage ten days ago to a woman and two children.”

The seaman bowed. “M’lord.”

“Her name, man,” Adam demanded.

“She gave none, m’lord. Her silver was name enough for me.”

“A girl and boy with her?”

“Aye. And the name of the girl I did hear, from the lady’s own lips. Katherine, it was.”

My Kate.
“Where did you take them?”

“Waterford, m’lord.”

Ireland!

Adam rode all day and reached Portsmouth in the dark, his hands raw from the cold as he boarded the
Elizabeth
. Refitted and rerigged, with fresh caulking, a new bowsprit, new canvas, and eight big demi-cannons in the gun ports, she was in fighting shape. At dawn he set sail for Ireland, Curry at the helm. They were passing Milford Haven, heading into St. George’s Channel, when Adam spotted a pinnace racing toward them from the east. English flags. The pinnace hailed them. Adam ordered Curry to heave to, and they took on a messenger. He had come from the Admiralty, he said as he bowed to Adam. “Your lordship, Admiral Wynter sends his regards and condolences on the death of your father.”

“You haven’t tracked me out here to tell me that.”

“No, my lord. There is word of a fleet of Spanish men-of-war sailing for the Norfolk coast. Her Majesty has ordered Admiral Wynter to send ships to intercept them.” He handed Adam sealed papers. Adam broke the seal and read. He was to take on archers and handgunners immediately at Plymouth and rendezvous with Admiral Wynter off Dover.

He looked astern, eastward across the gray, heaving seas. Spanish ships were carving those frigid waters. On their way to attack England? Attack Elizabeth? He looked westward across the gray, heaving channel he was bound for. Ireland was so near. Frances was there. Kate and Robin were there. Where would his children live?
How
would they live?

It was the hardest order he had ever given. “Hoist sail, Master Curry,” he said, crushing the admiral’s letter in his hand, “And set a course for Plymouth.”

The
Elizabeth
reared as she turned as though spoiling for the fight with Spain. Adam did not look back. But he made a silent vow that he would hunt down his wife, and soon. He would retrieve his son and daughter. And he would see that Frances paid the full, terrible penalty for her treason.

 

Their lovemaking was slow, gentle, careful, for Will’s wound was still painful. It wasn’t pain that Justine saw on his face, though, his eyes on hers as she caressed him, careful not to jostle his arm. She savored every moment of it. The slide of warm skin on skin, the sweetness of touched tongues, the caress of fingertips on cheeks, necks, arms, bellies. The fire inside her as she took him into her.
My husband. My love
.

After, they lay together, letting their breathing settle, their hearts return to a calm cadence. Rain clattered on the windows. A cold rain, Justine thought with a slight shiver, for winter was not quite done with them yet. A month from now it would be a soft spring rain. Justine imagined it pattering on Lady Thornleigh’s dormant rose garden below this very window. Would a month be long enough to heal the worst of her ladyship’s sorrow? Enough, at least, to draw her out one morning to smell the dew and notice the rosebuds?

“Sir William is looking out for a house for us,” Will said, stroking her hair as it fell across his chest.

“Ah, good,” she sighed. A house in London—
their
house. It gave her a small thrill. Her home had been with the Thornleighs since she was ten, and Rosethorn House was Will’s home, too, for a while at least. Neither wanted to live in his mother’s house. Justine nestled closer to him. Right now, there was no place she wanted to be except here.

They murmured on in the candlelight. Sir William Cecil wanted Will back at work as soon as possible. Elizabeth had terminated the inquiry at the end of January. What a strange moment that had been. No fanfare. No drama. And no verdict. Justine thought it very shrewd of Elizabeth, for a guilty verdict against Mary might have inflamed those Englishmen who supported her in their desire to restore the Catholic Church; it might even have incited the Catholic kings of France and Spain to move against Her Majesty. Yet the inquiry, in laying before public view the facts of Mary’s unsavory adventures in Scotland, had grievously undermined her reputation. Had that been Elizabeth’s intention all along? Justine wondered. She felt she was only beginning to understand this queen she had risked her life to save. She did know, however, that as Justine Croft of the house of Thornleigh she would now and forever be loyal to Elizabeth.

The one thing no one knew was whether Mary had abetted the assassination attempt. Many of Elizabeth’s people said she did, citing the letter signed by Mary that Justine’s father had brought Justine to arrange the abdication meeting. Mary, under questioning, swore with much weeping that she had no knowledge of the plot and that Justine’s father had forged the letter. Justine herself did not know the truth of it, but it gave her an odd chill to see how quickly Mary distanced herself from the man who had been her secret agent. Elizabeth, in any case, was taking no chances. She had moved Mary from Bolton farther south to Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire, a bleak old bastion of the Earl of Shrewsbury in whose custody she now was held, and her retinue of servants was reduced. The Scottish delegation led by the Earl of Moray had returned to Edinburgh. “The status quo is unchanged,” Will had commented to Justine, pleased with Elizabeth’s wise handling of the matter. “Scotland will remain our bulwark against France.”

Will’s breathing became slower, steadier as he drifted into sleep.

Sleep, nature’s nurse,
Justine thought, happy to have Will so nearly restored to full health. She lay close to him and listened to the rain spatter the windows like pebbles flung by an angry god. Will made a sound in his sleep, a faint grunt of pain. His shoulder? A nightmare? In Justine’s mind the two were one: Will’s brush with death was a nightmare that still troubled her sleep. How near she had come to losing him that night. She thought of it as the night she had killed both her fathers. One had caused so much misery, she hoped she would soon forget him. The other she knew she would mourn forever.

They were both asleep when the messenger arrived at the front gates.

“He is waiting in the long gallery, mistress,” the maid with her candle whispered to Justine from the bedchamber doorway. “From Sir William Cecil.”

Justine woke Will. They both threw on robes and met the messenger in the gallery. He was bundled up against the rain and his garments glistened wet in the candlelight. Sir William had sent orders for Will. He was to leave in the morning and ride to Leicester to meet the Earl of Sussex, and from there proceed to Leeds to assist Sussex in investigating rumors of trouble brewing in the north. Rumors of an incipient rebellion.

“I’ll be the earl’s right hand man,” Will said when he and Justine were alone again. Though the message hinted at danger, he was far from displeased. “This could make our fortune, my love.”

She tried to see it that way. Certainly, the advancement for Will was thrilling, and she was proud that he had Sir William’s trust. But all she saw was separation.

He smiled at her. “Come with me.”

“To Leicester?”

“All the way north. It will be weeks. Maybe months. I want you with me.”

She thought of the northern moors. Of Yeavering Hall. Of Alice. It was a place that held no joy for her. But neither did she want to be apart from Will. “I cannot leave her ladyship, not right away. She needs me now.”

“So do I,” he said gently. “But you’re right. She will mend better with you nearby.”

“I’ll come later. As soon as I feel I can leave her.”

“Easter?”

Three weeks. She smiled. How easily she and Will settled things. How perfectly matched they were. “Yes,” she said.

The next morning the wind was a cold blade scything the courtyard, but the rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to shine through the clouds, and Justine took heart from Will’s cheerful face as she saw him to horse with his servant. He leaned down from the saddle to kiss her one last time, and she went up on her toes, and their lips met. “Easter,” he whispered.

“Easter,” she whispered in return.

She watched him trot away, her eyes on him until he and his servant were small figures taking the bend in the road northward. She tugged her shawl around her in the wind and turned and looked up at Rosethorn House, casting her mind to the gardening book that she would read to Lady Thornleigh. Roses. Spring was not so far away.

Fact and fiction are intertwined in
Blood Between Queens
. The characters in the two feuding families—the Thornleighs and the Grenvilles—are purely my creation, but their lives weave through actual historical events and around real historical personalities. Among the latter are Elizabeth I of England and Mary Queen of Scots, the cousins whose dramatic rivalry has enthralled the world for over four hundred years, generating plays, an opera, biographies, novels, and films.

Here are some of the real historical events, with notes on how I have sometimes shaped them for the dramatic purposes of my novel.

First is the inquiry that Elizabeth convened to examine the Scottish confederate lords’ charges that Mary was complicit in her husband’s murder. My general depiction of the inquiry is accurate: the composition of its commissioners on both sides; the fact that Mary refused to attend; the venues, first at York, then at Westminster; the introduction of the famous “casket letters”; and the withdrawal of Mary’s commissioners in protest. However, I have altered a detail about the ambassadors of Spain and France. Both were replaced in the middle of the inquiry. The Spanish Ambassador was Guzman da Silva for most of 1568, but he left on September 12 and was replaced by Guerau de Spes, while France’s ambassador Bodutel de la Forest was replaced by Bertrand de la Mothe Fenelon. For the sake of simplicity I have used the replacements’ names throughout.

Elizabeth adjourned the inquiry without delivering a verdict. She didn’t need to; the damage to Mary’s reputation was done, thanks to the casket letters. These letters, eight in all, have fueled passionate discussion for centuries and still do. The Earl of Moray, Mary’s half brother, delivered them in private to the inquiry panel led by the Duke of Norfolk, as is depicted in
Blood Between Queens,
though I have invented the details of the scene in which he did so. The letters showed that Mary had conspired in her husband’s murder with her alleged lover, the Earl of Bothwell, and this damning evidence shattered her reputation at the time and for posterity. Mary insisted to her dying day that the letters were forged by her enemies. Did she write them or not? Sadly, they were destroyed by her son, James VI of England, and with them was lost the chance to study their authenticity. Any reader interested in delving more deeply into the complexities of these events will enjoy Alison Weir’s splendid book
Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley
.

Adam Thornleigh’s adventure in pirating King Philip’s gold and delivering it to Elizabeth is my invention, but is based on a fascinating true event. In November 1568 French Huguenot rovers chased four small Spanish ships into port in southern England, where customs officers found that the ships carried treasure to pay the troops in the Spanish-occupied Low Countries—a staggering 85,000 pounds in gold (about 30 million dollars today). The Italian merchant banker Benedict Spinola, living in London, advised Elizabeth that the gold was his loan to the Spanish king, but assured her that he would consider a loan to the Queen of England just as advantageous as one to Philip of Spain. So Elizabeth worked out good terms with Spinola and borrowed the money, making herself richer and leaving her cold-war enemy, Spain, unable to pay its army. The Spanish were furious and ordered all English property in the Low Countries confiscated. Elizabeth retaliated by impounding Spanish assets in England, which were worth far more. It worked out well for Elizabeth.

Adam’s part in the expedition led by John Hawkins to the Spanish Caribbean is based on Hawkins’s true-life expedition. His six ships left Plymouth in October 1567, one of them, the
Judith
, captained by Francis Drake. In July 1568, near Veracruz, Mexico, they were attacked by the Spanish—the battle of San Juan de Ulúa—and some of Hawkins’s ships were sunk, including the
Jesus of Lubeck
carrying the expedition’s profit in treasure. Drake on the
Judith
got away, and so did Hawkins on the
Minion,
with two hundred men aboard but insufficient food. In January 1569 the
Judith
limped into Plymouth harbor with just fifteen survivors, and five days later Hawkins and his starving crew on the
Minion
reached port in Cornwall. I added Adam Thornleigh to this ill-fated expedition as captain of his ship, the
Elizabeth.

In
Blood Between Queens
Grenville’s plot to incite an uprising under the banner of the Earl of Northumberland is fiction but is based on truth, for in 1569, just months after the novel ends, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland raised the northern Catholics in a massive armed revolt. Leading five thousand men they took Durham Cathedral and were preparing to march on London to depose Elizabeth. She sent a force under the Earl of Sussex to put down the uprising, which he did with great brutality, hanging over six hundred rebels. Westmorland fled to the Netherlands. Elizabeth executed Northumberland.

The fate of Mary Queen of Scots following the inquiry is a sad and well-known tale. Of all the ill-judged decisions she made during her unstable seven-year reign in Scotland, her flight into England to escape her enemies was the worst. She asked Elizabeth to help her crush the Scottish confederate lords who had deposed her, and to restore her to her throne, and this put Elizabeth in an untenable situation. She sympathized, for Mary was her cousin, and Mary’s status as a fellow sovereign was something Elizabeth took very seriously. But she could not afford to antagonize England’s ally, the Scottish lords, by backing Mary. Yet neither could she allow Mary to move freely around England because Mary had a dangerous appeal to militant English Catholics who wanted her on the English throne. So Elizabeth kept Mary under house arrest—a captivity that lasted for nineteen years. It was a comfortable captivity as befitted Mary’s rank, but she never again gained her freedom.

During those nineteen years Mary plotted ceaselessly via smuggled letters to overthrow Elizabeth with the help of Catholic supporters both foreign and domestic. Elizabeth waited, uneasy but unwilling to act against her, until in 1586 the final plot, known as the Babington Plot, proved beyond doubt Mary’s guilt in conniving to bring about Elizabeth’s assassination. That winter, in the hardest decision Elizabeth ever made, she signed her cousin’s death warrant. Mary was executed on February 7, 1587, at Fotheringhay Castle.

One of the most surprising facts about these two queens is that they never met. All their communication was done through letters and representatives.

In researching the complex rivalry between them I am indebted to Jane Dunn’s masterly book
Elizabeth & Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens
and recommend it to any reader eager to understand what drove these two women.

Fact and fiction are intertwined in all my “Thornleigh” novels. The first,
The Queen’s Lady,
features young Honor Larke, a fictional ward of Sir Thomas More and lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife, and follows Honor’s stormy love affair with Richard Thornleigh as she works to rescue heretics from the Church’s fires.
The King’s Daughter
introduces their daughter Isabel, who joins the Wyatt rebellion, a true event, to oust Queen Mary and hires mercenary Carlos Valverde to help her rescue her father from prison.
The Queen’s Captive
brings Honor and Richard back from exile with their seafaring son Adam to help the young Princess Elizabeth, who has been imprisoned by her half sister, Queen Mary, another true event.
The Queen’s Gamble
is set during the fledgling reign of Elizabeth, who fears that the massive buildup of French troops on her Scottish border will lead to an invasion, so she entrusts Isabel Thornleigh to take money to aid the Scottish rebellion led by firebrand preacher John Knox, to oust the French.

Readers have sent me wonderfully astute comments and questions about the characters, real and invented, in my books and I always enjoy replying. This partnership with you, the reader, makes my work a joy. If you’d like to write to me, I’d love to hear from you. Contact me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @BKyleAuthor. And if you’d like to receive my occasional newsletters, just sign up via my website at
www.barabarakyle.com
.