Her Highness, the Traitor (11 page)

“Of course not,” Guildford said huffily. He smiled, a gesture that revealed him to be easily the most handsome of the five Dudley sons. “She is naturally retiring, you know, and at affairs like this she becomes ill at ease and starts to babble, especially with my father not here. And the goose did upset her.”

“Such pastimes are foolish and idle,” Jane said. “Like hunting for pleasure.”

“I like hunting for pleasure,” admitted Guildford, who had suddenly acquired the look of a trapped deer himself. “It is good exercise, and it helps with the art of war. Of course, it might not help all that much, as the deer isn’t shooting a crossbow,” he acknowledged. “But I am sorry, my ladies, I must go. My brother is waving to me.”

“He seems a pleasant young man,” I commented after Guildford had left us.

“A ninny,” said Jane. “Deer not shooting a crossbow!”

“He was trying to be amusing, Jane.”

“And his Italian conversation is commonplace. Do you know what he said to me?”

I shook my head.

“He said that my dress was very pretty and that the color suited me. And then he asked me if I would dance with him later today!”

“Really, Jane, the poor young man was only trying to make gallant conversation. It can’t be as easy for men as women think it should be, in English or Italian.”

“He could have saved himself the trouble and not made such conversation at all.”

“I hope you did not refuse to dance with him. That would have been quite rude.”

“No, I agreed. Though I am not looking forward to it.” Jane gazed over to where Guildford was talking with his brothers. “Perhaps I could get sick, like the Earl of Warwick.”

***

When I wrote to Mary, asking to visit her on my way to Bradgate, I received a strangely noncommittal response, to my distress. Had I angered my cousin in some way? I wrote back to that effect and was told I had not offended in any way and to come as soon as I wanted.

“Perhaps she is ill,” I told Harry.

“Perhaps,” said Harry without a great deal of concern. “Don’t let her trap you into attending her Mass this time.” He winked at my guilty look. “Oh, you can’t fool me, my dear. I know she inveigled you into going the last time you visited her. Jane told me.”

***

Mary, it turned out, had moved for the summer to Woodham Walter in Essex, which was not on our way to Bradgate, so I sent the girls on to Leicestershire with a suitable entourage and went to Woodham Walter by myself. Jane, for one, put up no argument about being deprived of a visit to the lady Mary.

Woodham Walter, about two miles from the sea, was an attractive manor, but it was small for a person of Mary’s station—the sort of place one might use for a few days while en route to somewhere else. It seemed odd to be there for over a month, as Mary apparently had been, but as I drew closer to the manor, I found that the air that blew in from the sea felt good across my cheeks. Perhaps that was the appeal for Mary.

I was shown to Mary’s private chamber just moments after I came through the manor gates. To my surprise, she dismissed her ladies and servants as soon as I knelt to her. When they had all cleared the room, she said, “Rise. Why are you here?”

I started. Never had Mary greeted me so rudely. “To visit you, my lady.”

“You have not been sent here by my brother’s council?”

“The council? Why on earth would they send me to your ladyship?”

“Your husband is a member, and a favored one from what I hear.”

“My husband trusts me with the management of the household and the management of my younger daughters. Nothing more. He certainly would not send me on the council’s business. Nor would anyone else on the council.”

“You are truly not here at the council’s bidding?”

“Mary, what is this? Our mothers loved each other. We played together as children. As adults we have been friends—or so I thought until now. I came here only because I heard that you had refused to come to the weddings, and I thought you might be ill or troubled.”

Mary stared into my eyes. But I was as much a Tudor as she, and I met her gaze without flinching. Finally, she lowered her gaze. “Perhaps I am wrong. So you will swear that you have not been sent by the Earl of Warwick and his crew?”

“The Earl of Warwick?”

“You were at his sons’ weddings.”

“So was almost anyone else of any consequence. Mary, I should not have to swear to anything. When have I ever given you reason not to trust me? I came here solely out of friendship. No one sent me. No one so much as gave me a message for you. Except for Harry and our household, I doubt if anyone knows that I am here, or would care if he or she did.” I fiddled with the gloves I held in my hand. “I have overstayed my visit. With your permission, I shall be gone within the hour.”

Mary shook her head. “No, stay. I have wronged you.” She stared past me toward the window. “But I cannot help it. Everything has been poisoned for me. I trust almost no one in England now.”

“Why?”

“How can I? They have tried to deprive me of the one thing that matters most to me, my religion.”

I hesitated, then got up my courage. “Harry says that they have only asked you not to hear the Mass. Forgive me, but couldn’t you conform like so many others do, and make your life so much easier?”

“Conform?” Mary put her hands behind her back and began to pace around the room. “You and I are cousins, Frances, yet so different. You speak of conforming as easily as you might talk of replacing a French hood with an English one. As if these differences between my faith and the new one were mere trivialities.”

I dared not utter the thought I sometimes had, which was that they were. “Still, couldn’t you ease your conscience by saying you acted under duress, as you did when you agreed with King Henry that your mother’s marriage was unlawful?”

A look of pain crossed Mary’s face. “That is the most shameful thing I have done in all of my life. I still regret it.”

“You were young and dependent on your father. What else could you have done? It did bring you happiness, did it not?”

“No. It brought me security and wealth. They are poor substitutes when you know yourself to have once known something better.” Mary gripped the rosary she carried at her side as a man might grip a sword. “I dishonored my mother’s memory that day, and for very little purpose. I will die by my own hand before I do such a thing again.”

“Mary!”

“No, I lie. I would not do such a shameful act. I would do something else.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering me, Mary turned, bidding me with a motion to follow her. Stopping outside of the manor’s small chapel, she went inside, leaving me to stand self-consciously by its door. When she returned after some moments, her face was entirely at peace. “We may return to my chamber.”

I obeyed. When the door had closed upon us once again, Mary spoke. “I do trust you, Cousin, and I will tell you of my plan now that I have prayed for guidance. But you must promise—I will not make you swear an oath, but merely promise me, as my cousin and my friend—that you will tell no one of this.”

My heart thumped. What in the world had I gotten myself into? “I cannot promise if it involves anything that would bring harm to my husband or to anything that concerns him. Harry and I are not as close as some couples,” I admitted, “but he is kind in his own way, and he has the highest claim upon my loyalty.”

“It will not harm your husband. Indeed, he might welcome it. So do you promise?”

“I promise.”

“I believe it is no longer possible to marry out of England, so I plan to flee. The emperor has agreed to help me.”

My mouth fell open. “What on earth are you thinking? England is your home. Your brother and sister are here.”

“Elizabeth? Sometimes I doubt we even have the same father. In any case, she is the darling of the council, now that Thomas Seymour is safely gone, and can be no friend to me. As for the king, he is Warwick’s and the council’s creature now. They are turning him against me. It will only be worse for me as time goes on, I fear. I see no hope but to leave, and in secret.”

“I can’t believe the king or his council means you any harm.”

“You are naïve,” was the short answer.

“What did the king say when you saw him in February?”

“He was very loving, very friendly. Of course, Warwick was sick and not at his side.”

“He is quite often sick. He missed his own sons’ weddings. Perhaps he does not have the absolute hold over the king that you fear, since he is not constantly around him.”

“It does not matter. If he is not there, his creatures are, like his brother Andrew Dudley.” Mary looked at me stonily. “I believe I made a mistake in telling you this. You will go to the council.”

“No,” I snapped. “I promised, and I will not. But I cannot help but think you exaggerate the danger to yourself. If you confine the Mass to yourself and your women, how can that antagonize the council? It has conceded that much, hasn’t it?”

“For now.” Mary lifted her chin. “You think me mad, don’t you? But I tell you, the council means me ill.”

I was silent, for in a way, I did think Mary mad—or partly so. I could not believe the king, or the council for that matter, wished her harm. They might rail against Mary’s sharing Mass with any traveling stroller who happened to be in the neighborhood, as Harry put it, but most of these men had been servants of King Henry. Surely they would not want to see any harm come to his oldest daughter.

Mary read my thoughts. “You think the king will be bound by his love for me as his sister, but remember what happened with Thomas Seymour, and what almost happened to Somerset. Both of them the king’s uncles.”

“Thomas Seymour was courting disaster. It could not have ended otherwise for him. As for the Duke of Somerset, no permanent harm came to him.”

“For now. That could change.”

“And the emperor approves of this plan of yours to escape?”

“Yes. Not wholeheartedly, I think, but his sister has given her support, as well.” The Holy Roman Emperor, Mary’s first cousin, Charles V, had once been engaged to Mary when she was very young. The match had fallen through, as had all prospective matches for Mary, but Charles had continued to take an interest in Mary’s affairs, both for political and personal reasons. His sister, Mary of Hungary, the regent of the Low Countries, was said to be more vigorous than he these days. However misguided I might think Mary’s plan was, it certainly had supporters in the highest places.

But that was not enough to make me feel better about the plan. “You will never be able to come back to England if you accomplish this. You will be an exile, and what kind of life will that be? If you ask me, this is a foolish idea. I would abide here to see what happens.”

“I did not ask you, and I do not want to abide here to suffer more.”

I knew nothing else to say. Catherine of Aragon had been a legend for stubbornness in her time, and it was evident her daughter was no different. I did not even ask for details, half because I feared Mary would take this as evidence I was spying, half because I truly did not want to know.

“I don’t know why I told you this,” Mary mused. “You could hardly be of help even if you supported the idea. Your husband is too prominent for you to escape notice. Perhaps I want to be talked out of it. I don’t know. I was born in England. I love the English people, for they loved my own mother. And if I leave, those who stay behind will be left with no livelihood, no way of upholding the true religion. I will be deserting them. But I have told myself all of these things, and all of the things you told me, and in the end it makes no difference. I want to leave.”

“You have made definite plans, then, I gather?”

“Yes.”

I supposed the convenience to the sea was the reason Mary had chosen this manor as her residence, but I asked no more questions. “I hope that you will think upon this more and not act impulsively. You said just now you have doubts. I think you are wise to have them.”

“There is time yet to think, but I know I shall not change my mind. But we have done with this. Let us have a game of cards with my ladies.”

***

Back at Bradgate, I spent the days in a high state of restlessness—and guilt—waiting to hear news of Mary’s flight. I had not thought of it at the time, naturally, but what if the emperor had a sinister reason for wanting Mary out of England? Was he planning to send her back at the head of an invading army, to depose her young brother and establish herself as a Papist queen? I could not imagine Mary agreeing to such a scheme, but if her trusted cousin proposed it, and framed it as a matter of religious duty…

But I had made Mary a promise, and I kept it.

Then, toward the end of July, Harry came from London to Bradgate, all smiles. “It seems as if you missed some excitement when you visited the lady Mary.”

I managed to keep my voice level. “What do you mean?”

“The fool woman had plans to escape from England! Don’t ask me why—she’s got it into her fool head that she’s being persecuted. Actually, my dear, it’s rather embarrassing. She almost succeeded.”

I put a hand to my throat. “She is a prisoner?”

“No. She’s not in custody at all. From what the council can make out, she laid these plans to leave the country—and then, when men and ships from the emperor arrived to help her, she dithered. Kept coming up with excuses why she couldn’t leave immediately, why she had to pack every trinket she owned, why she couldn’t leave certain ladies behind. The locals were getting suspicious, with these foreign ships lurking about, and the emperor’s men couldn’t stay indefinitely, waiting for her to make up her mind. She kept wailing, ‘What shall I do? What is to become of me?’” Harry chuckled. “The emperor’s men had to keep inventing all sorts of stories to explain their presence—that one was a corn chandler, that another was looking for pirates—but the men of Essex were too intelligent to be duped. They told the council, and we sent Sir John Gates into the area to put a stop to any more of that nonsense. So now, the emperor’s men are heading back to Flanders where they belong, and the lady Mary is no doubt wishing that she’d acted sooner.”