The Other Queen (16 page)

“He could have nothing on me,” I say staunchly.

Percy laughs. “When you refused to name the Scots queen as a whore at his inquiry?” he jeers. “You were his enemy from that moment. He will have a folder of papers with your name on it, gossip from the backstairs, rumors from bad tenants, envy from your debtors, and when the time suits him, or when he wants you humbled, he will take it to the queen and tell her she cannot trust you.”

“She would never…”

“He will have your personal servants in the Tower within the day, and a confession racked out of them that you are Queen Mary’s secret admirer.”

“No servant of mine…”

“No man in the world can resist the rack for long, nor the press, nor the iron maiden. Do you know that they tear out men’s fingernails now? They hang them from their wrists. There is not a man in the kingdom that can bear such pain. Every suspect says whatever he tells them to say within three days.”

“He would not use such things on honest men…”

“Shrewsbury, he does. You don’t know how it is in London now. There is no one can stop him. He uses what means he likes, and he tells the queen that these are such dangerous times as need dangerous measures. And she is so fearful and so persuaded by him that she lets him do his dirty business as he wishes. He has a whole army of secret men who do his bidding and know everything. Men are arrested in the night and taken to the Tower or to hidden houses and not a justice of the peace gives a warrant. It is all on Cecil’s say-so.

“Not even the Star Chamber orders these arrests; the queen does not sign for them; no one but Cecil authorizes them. It is all done in secret, on his word alone. The queen trusts him and his crew of informers and torturers, and the prisoners stumble out of the Tower sworn to report to Cecil for the rest of their lives. He is making a Spanish Inquisition on innocent Englishmen. Who can say that he won’t start to burn us? He is destroying our freedoms. He is the enemy of the lords and of the people alike and we must stop him. He will destroy us, he will destroy the queen. A man truly loyal to the queen must be Cecil’s enemy.”

The horses stretch their necks as we go up the hill to the manor, and I loosen my reins and say nothing.

“You know I am right,” he says.

I sigh.

“She will make him a baron.”

My horse flinches as I jerk on the reins. “Never.”

“She will. She pours wealth on him and she will pour honors too. You can expect him to ask for your stepdaughter’s hand in marriage for his son. Perhaps the queen will request that you marry your Elizabeth to the dwarf Robert Cecil with his humpback. Cecil will grow great. He will have a title to match your own. And we will none of us be safe to speak our minds in our own homes. He is making us a kingdom of spies and suspects commanded only by himself.”

I am so shocked that I cannot speak for a moment.

“He has to be stopped,” Percy says. “He is another Wolsey, another Cromwell. Another upstart who has come from nothing by slavish drudgery. He is a bad advisor; he is a dangerous voice in her counsels.

And like both of them he will be thrown down by us lords if we act together. He has to be thrown down before he becomes overmighty. I swear to you he is a danger to the commonwealth of England. We cannot allow him to be made a lord of the realm.”

“A baron? You are certain she is going to make him a baron?”

“She pays him a fortune. We have to stop him, before he becomes too great.”

“I know it,” I say heavily. “But a baron!”

The queen is already through the gateway. Someone else will have to help her down from the saddle, I cannot hurry to get there in time to be the one to lift her and hold her.

“You will dine with us?” I ask. I cannot see who is holding her horse and who is lifting her down. “Bess will be glad to see you.”

“Cecil will know we have been here,” he says. “Be warned.”

“Surely, I can invite a guest to dinner in my own house,” I exclaim. “The queen will dine apart from us in her own rooms. There is no danger. What business is it of Cecil’s?”

“Everything is his business in England today,” he replies. “Within four days he will know we have been here, and everything we say at dinner will be reported to him, word for word. We are prisoners just as much as she is, when he spies on us at our very table. Do you know the name of his spy in your household? He will have one, at least: he will probably have two or three.”

I think of my own wife and her affection for Cecil. “Bess trusts him,” I say. “He would not put spies on her. He would never put a spy in Bess’s household.”

“He spies on everyone,” he insists. “You and Bess, as us. He must fall. We have to bring him down. Do you agree? Are you with us?”

“Yes,” I say slowly. “Yes. Let us have the Queen of England advised by her peers again, and not by a man born to be a servant, supported by spies.”

Slowly Percy puts out his hand. “You are with us,” he says. “You swear?”

“I am with you,” I say. “He cannot be a baron. I cannot see him ennobled, it is wrong. It goes against the very grain. I will bring Cecil down with you. We lords together. We will be lords of the realm again, together.”

They can’t dine here,” I say flatly.

My husband the earl raises his eyebrows at me and I realize that my anxiety has put the twang of Derbyshire back in my voice. “I am sorry, my lord,” I say rapidly, “but they cannot dine here. You should not have ridden with them. You should have told them to ride on by. You should have brought her straight home as soon as you saw them.”

He looks at me as I might look at a recalcitrant maid. “These are my friends,” he says carefully. “Fellow lords of England. Of course my door is open to them. I would be shamed not to welcome them to my home. My door is always open to them.”

“I don’t think that Cecil—”

His face darkens. “Cecil does not have the command of my house, of any of my houses,” he says. “I shall entertain my friends as I wish and my wife will show her good will to them.”

“It’s not a matter of good will,” I say. “It is not even a matter of my obedience. It is a matter of the safety of the Queen of Scots. What is to prevent their passing information to her? What is to prevent their plotting with her? What is to stop them riding off with her?”

“Because they are my guests,” he says carefully, as if I am too stupid to comprehend normal speech. “It is a matter of honor. If you can’t understand this, you understand nothing about me and my world. Bess, your third husband, St. Loe, was a gentleman even if the others were not. You must know that no gentleman would plot against another while breaking his bread.”

“They are probably besotted with her,” I say, irritably. “Like half the fools in England.”

“She is to marry the Duke of Norfolk,” he says, his voice very calm and measured in contrast to my sharp tone. “She is to marry him and return to her kingdom as queen. Her future is assured; there is no need for her to plot and escape.”

“Perhaps,” I say doubtfully.

“She will be restored. Percy told me himself. It has been agreed with the Protestant lords of Scotland.

She is to guarantee their safety and that of the Protestant faith. In turn she will take the Mass in private.

The Protestant lords of Scotland are prepared to have her back if she is a married woman, as a queen with a king consort of their own faith, of undeniable nobility, fortune, and strength. They believe that Thomas Howard will bring a safe alliance with England and will make a great king consort for Scotland.

They planned this with Howard last year at York. And they think he will keep her in order and get another son on her.”

I am silent, thinking quickly. “And has our queen agreed to all this?”

His hesitation tells me everything.

I knew it! I knew no one had dared to tell her. She hates weddings and marriage and anything that takes her court away from her. To tell the truth, she hates not to be the center of attention, and a bride on her wedding day must rival even the Queen of England. And I swear on my life that she would never agree to see her own cousin Thomas Howard jumped up to be a rival king! Howard has always been a difficulty for her; she has never loved him as a cousin; she has always envied him his pride and his lands. She will never want to see him raised up so high. She will begrudge him his throne. I would put money on it—she would rather see him dead at her feet than have a son of his inherit her throne. This is a jealous queen, she never wants anyone else to gain wealth or power. She has to be supreme. She would never let her cousin, her young cousin, overreach her. From the moment I saw Howard’s letter of proposal I knew she would forbid the marriage as soon as she learned of it.

“She will never allow it,” I say bluntly. “And Cecil will never support anything which will make Howard King of Scotland. Cecil and Howard have been rivals for power for years. Neither Cecil nor Elizabeth will let Howard leap up to greatness. Neither of them could stomach him as a king.”

“Cecil will not rule this kingdom forever,” my husband says, surprising me with his authority. “The days of the steward in the master’s chair are done.”

“You cannot say that.”

“Yes, Bess, I can.”

“Cecil is far more than a steward. He has planned every part of Elizabeth’s reign; he has guided everything she has done. He is more than a servant. He has made England as it is today. He is her guide.

Half of what she thinks has been taught to her by him.”

“No, he is not. And soon he will not be even that.”

The lord of Westmorland gave me a bundle of messages from London as we rode out together and whispered the news as we rode home.

Thank God, I am saved; my future has never looked brighter. My marriage to Thomas Howard will go ahead. My ambassador, Bishop Lesley, is drawing up the agreement. The Scots lords will accept Thomas Howard as king and will restore me to my throne with him at my side. And he is a fertile man of only thirty years; he has children already. There is no doubt in my mind but we will have children together, another son for the throne of Scotland, a daughter for me to love. Howard has agreed to forward money from the Spanish to me. They will smuggle gold coin to him; he will send it on to me. I am glad of this, it is a good test of him. If he will handle Spanish gold for me, then it proves him, it proves his love for me. Also, once he receives letters in cipher from Spain and handles gold directed to me, then he has taken his first step in my cause and he will find that one step leads to another. He is no fool; he must have thought of this. He must be determined to be my husband, to be King of Scotland, and I am glad of this.

A woman once married to Bothwell could never tolerate a halfhearted man. Actually, a woman married to Bothwell will be spoiled for any other. God knows, I love his ambition. I love how he sees his opportunities. I love how he goes like an arrow to the heart of any matter. I have never known a man so brave: he would risk anything to achieve his goal. I remember the night that I ran from Edinburgh after Rizzio was killed. Darnley was with me, more like a frightened child than a husband, and we rode through the darkness, desperate to get away from the Scots lords who had killed Rizzio and would have killed me too. I remember the leap of terror I felt when we turned a corner and I saw four horsemen, blocking our way, huge across the dawn sky.

Darnley shouted, “Save yourselves!” and spurred off into the moorland. But I rode forward and then I recognized Bothwell, waiting for me, a safe castle behind him, a spare horse beside him, coming down the road to greet me, ready to fight anyone to take me to safety.

He, who was never gentle, lifted me gently down from my horse and carried me in his arms into the castle, up the stairs to a bedroom, and laid me on the bed. He, who was never tender, washed my face and my hands, and pulled off my riding boots. He, who was a known killer, untied the front of my gown and laid his ear to my rounded belly to listen for the heartbeat, smiled up at me, and said, “It is all right. I swear it. He is unhurt, I can hear him. I can feel him move. He is alive, a strong little king for Scotland.”

And I, who never loved him, put my hand down to touch the thick black curls of his hair and said,

“Thank God you are faithful.”

“Thank God you came to me,” he replied.

Better for me that I don’t think of him. Better for me that I never think of him at all.

But it is good that Howard is ambitious too.

Westmorland has other news to whisper on our ride. Philip of Spain stands my friend: he has declared that I must not be held any longer as a prisoner. My ambassador is in touch with the Spanish ambassador, who has a network of conspirators in England poised to free me if I do not go to Scotland this month. I will regain my Scottish throne by agreement, but Elizabeth should be warned. I have powerful friends, and half of England would rise for me if I summoned them, and Spain is building an armada of ships. Elizabeth dare not delay any longer. The Spanish will insist I am fairly treated. The Spanish intend that I shall be Queen of England and the heretic Elizabeth be thrown down altogether.

I wait till I am alone in my room to open my letters. The one from Bishop Lesley is in code, I shall work on it in the morning, but there is a note from Thomas Howard written in French, and a ring. The sweet man, the tenderhearted man! He has sent me a ring for our betrothal and I slip it on my hand and admire it. It is a diamond, a wonderful stone, cut square, and it shines with a fiery whiteness. It is good enough for a queen; it is good enough for me. I put it to my lips and kiss it for his sake. This man is going to save me, this man is going to restore me to my kingdom, this man is going to love me, and for the first time in my life I will have a lover who has the strength of a man and the breeding of an equal. Not a boy prince, not a half devil like Bothwell. I shall be loved by a husband who has spent his life at courts, who is kin to the monarchs of England, and who wants me and loves me as a woman as well as a queen.