The Queen's Captive (27 page)

He scanned the faces for Kingston, Peckham, and the rest. “Are all the others here?”

Cecil pointed them out around the room, the seven men of their faction. Each was engaged in earnest talk with some MP.

“And the Speaker?”

Cecil nodded. “Pollard will support us.” He looked at Richard. “Ready, then?”

“Ready.”

They moved down to the floor and spent the next hour milling among the three hundred and seventeen other MPs, shoring up votes, urging others to join them. Just before ten o’clock Richard and Cecil and their seven friends stood near the closed chapel doors, set to enact their plan. Richard was nervous, but eager to make this happen.

Speaker Pollard caught his eye and Richard nudged Cecil to get his attention. Cecil turned and nodded to Pollard, and the Speaker nodded back. Richard felt a thud of hope. This was it.

“Order!” the Speaker called out. “This House will come to order! Order!”

It took a few minutes for all the MPs to hear him and calm down, but soon they began heading for their seats. Cecil, Peckham, Courtenay and Perrot did, too, as planned, while Richard stuck by the closed doors with Kingston, Chamborne, Young, and Roper. They all had their roles. The first four fanned out to steel the nerve of the suspected waverers, while the other five would stop anyone from slipping out the doors to avoid voting. Richard would call loudly for the vote the moment Cecil gave him the nod, and Kingston would second it.

The debate began. The Queen’s spokesman, Sir Matthew Aylesworth, got to his feet and delivered a diatribe against the exiles. Warming to his subject, he denounced them as “These wretches, these heretics, these traitorous, execrable villains!”

Richard looked around at the brooding faces in the choir stalls. Aylesworth either didn’t know or didn’t care how his invective was infuriating many of these men. Though every one of them outwardly conformed to the state religion, just as Richard and his family did, many sympathized with the Protestant cause. Aylesworth is pushing them into our arms, he thought. But he also sensed that others, even among those he had visited who had earnestly agreed that the bill was wrong, might now, at this penultimate moment, be too timid to ally themselves with the exiles.

Two members from the west shires rose from their seats in the far stalls and made their way as inconspicuously as possible toward the doors.
Cowards,
Richard thought. Just this morning on the wharf both had assured him they were with him. He stood with his back to the doors, ready to halt them if they got this far. But Peckham and Young stopped them first, engaging them in low, urgent talk.
Good,
he thought.
Keep them here. Make them vote.

Cecil was on his feet now, speaking to the House. “…which touches the rights of every Englishman, born into Her Majesty’s protection as well as her service. The rights of property are enshrined in the laws of this realm, both common law and statute.”

There was a scraping sound at the door. It opened, forcing Richard to move back. The sergeant-at-arms, Martin Rowland, stepped in and came to his side.

“What is it, Martin?” he asked quietly. He had befriended the man, promising his son a job as secretary to his trading agent in Antwerp. It never hurt to have muscle on your side.

“Some lords on their way, sir.”

Richard glanced back at Cecil, who was still speaking with energy as the members of the House listened. Richard stepped outside into the corridor, past the two guards who stood on either side of the doorway looking bored. Three men were striding down the corridor. The Duke of Suffolk, Cardinal Pole, and Baron John Grenville. The Queen’s men.

Richard ducked back into the chapel, his pulse thumping. The bastards were coming to stir things up. The cardinal could intervene in the proceedings with impunity, could request a postponement. His immense power could easily intimidate most of the MPs, and all of them would fall into their customary deference to the authority of a duke, even a baron. And then? Richard did not doubt that the lords would use bribes, threats, whatever it took to enact the Queen’s will.

He turned to the sergeant. “Lock the doors.”

Rowland looked surprised, and not exactly willing.

“Your orders are to guard the Commons, are they not?”

“Aye, sir.”

“And it is our right to debate in private. Those men have no business here.”

Rowland considered this, still hesitant.

“Speaker Pollard expects it, Martin,” Richard warned. The sergeant held his job at the pleasure of the Speaker.

That was enough to convince him. He lifted the ring of keys that hung at his belt, fitted one in the lock, and twisted. The doors were locked.

Richard turned back. Aylesworth was holding forth again, suggesting that a nay vote could be considered disloyal, even treasonous. Cecil jumped up, furiously ready to rebut, for they could not let Aylesworth frighten even one of their hard-won allies.

A fist banged on the door. A few faces turned at the sound. The sergeant ignored it, standing wooden-faced with his arms firmly crossed.

Richard saw Aylesworth take a breath to continue his screed.
No time for this,
he thought.
If we don’t call the vote now, we’re lost.

“Gentlemen!” Richard called out. Hundreds of startled faces turned to him, for this was outside the rules of procedure. He should be in his seat. And he should let Aylesworth finish.

No time for that, either.
He stepped forward, just paces from the doors, and declared, “Three days ago members of this House pushed through a bill in defiance of many consciences. They must not do so again. The provisions of this bill are clean contrary to our rights and the rights of our good fellow countrymen who travel in foreign parts.”

The pounding on the doors got louder and many MPs looked anxious and began murmuring, questioning one another as to what was happening.

“I am a merchant trader,” Richard called out. “I own a home in Antwerp where much of my business lies. Would this House, by passing this bill, call me an exile, too, and seize my English property? Many of you likewise do business in the Low Countries, in France, and in the German lands. Would this House call
you
exiles and seize your English property?”

Behind the doors came a muffled shout of “Sergeant, open the doors!” amid more banging.

“This bill must not pass!” Richard cried. He looked to Cecil for help. Cecil looked perplexed, unsure what was happening. This was not the plan.

But two of their friends, Peckham and Courtenay, were closer and immediately left their seats and joined Richard at the doors. It gave Richard a jolt of hope. He threw his arms around their shoulders and declared, “These gentlemen stand with those of us who stand for the rights of Englishmen. Stand with us now, all of you,” he challenged the House. “Any man who loves his country, stand with us to fight this bill!”

Kingston, Chamborne and Young stood and cried, “Hear, hear!” and “Down with the bill!” and started for the doors, beckoning others to join them.

There was a hum of confusion. The pounding at the door became a furious hammering. A few more men left their seats, grinning like emboldened schoolboys, and hurried to the doors. Several others stood, looking uncertain but excited. Throughout the chapel, faces that moments ago had been brooding broke into bright looks of anticipation.

Richard shouted, “Mister Speaker, call the vote!”

Cecil finally took the cue. “Mister Speaker, I second the motion. Call the vote!”

Pollard seemed only too ready to do so. Despite the din from three hundred and nineteen excited MPs, he called on them one by one, and each quickly called back “Yay” or “Nay.” It went so fast, and Richard was so worked up, he found it hard to keep count.

Finally, amid the raucous babble of the members, and the lords’ loud banging at the doors, the Speaker called for silence. He was ready to declare the vote tally.

“Just the one trunk, mistress?” The carter kept his eye on his two adolescent apprentices who were hefting Honor’s belongings into his cart.

“Yes,” she said, rooting in her pouch for money. She was so distracted by worry she could barely count out the coins. Where was Adam? And Richard—was he at this very moment doing reckless battle in the House of Commons? No word from either of them.

An old man brushed past her, making for the door of the Crane Inn behind her. “Here,” she said, handing the carter the money. “Deliver it to the
Bona Esperanza
at Billingsgate Wharf.” She added another coin, a large tip. “Get it aboard ship before the bells of St. Paul’s ring compline and you’ll have another shilling.”

He happily pocketed the coins. “Consider it done, my lady.”

She felt a small, sharp coldness at her heart. Fleeing England. Again. The Spanish ship was bound for Bruges with the evening tide, the soonest passage she could get. From Bruges she could make her way to Antwerp. But alone, it seemed. Richard had not come back last night and their argument festered inside her like a canker. It made her feel almost ill to be leaving him like this, but her mind was made up. It was madness for them to stay here courting danger. He
must
realize that and follow her to Antwerp. She had written a note to him saying as much, and left it with the landlord.

The apprentices hopped onto the rear of the cart, their legs dangling over the back. The carter settled himself on the bench and flicked his horse’s reins, and the vehicle clattered off into the noonday traffic of Thames Street, a skinny dog running after it, barking. Honor watched it go, then pulled her cloak tighter against the damp chill and turned into the arched alley that led to the Crane’s stable. A beggar was hunkered beside the arch wearing the coat of a soldier, but tattered and torn. She dropped three pence into his grimy palm.

Ned had her mare saddled in the stable courtyard. She asked him, “Did you get a bite to eat?”

“Aye, my lady. Master Legge had some cold game pie left from breakfast. I thank you.”

He looked as though he’d gotten as little sleep as she had, and she felt bad for having made him travel back and forth to Colchester overnight in this bone-chilling weather. She had sent him home with a message for Adam, explaining that they needed to get away from England immediately. She had included another message for Geoffrey and Joan, warning them to be on their guard if the Queen’s agents came sniffing. But Ned had returned this morning to report that Adam was not home. “They said he’s come to London town, my lady.”

What was he doing here? Could she find him before the
Bona Esperanza
set sail?

Mounted, she and Ned left the stable at a walk, their horses clopping along the alley’s cobbles under the arch. They paused to let a well-dressed lady march past, her maid hustling at her heels with satchels of market shopping, then they set out along Thames Street, Honor trying to quash her fears about her family. Adam was used to facing danger, she told herself. During the most perilous voyages he had always managed to keep a clear head, for himself and others, and make it through. She would go to the Merchant Adventurers’ hall to look for him. If he was not there on business, perhaps someone might know where he was. But if there was no sign of him by five, she would sail alone on the
Bona Esperanza.

Alone.
It made her feel cold to her marrow. But she was doing the right thing and there was no use crying about it.

The traffic, both mounted and on foot, was thick and noisy, making her progress slow. She and Ned hadn’t gotten three blocks from the Crane when she had to nudge her horse to one side and wait for a farmer driving seven shaggy cattle in the opposite direction toward the Fleet Street slaughterhouses. The plodding beasts seemed to sense their destination, for they bawled and bellowed.

“My lady…” Ned was saying something, but Honor could not hear him above the cattle.

He turned in his saddle and pointed behind them.

She looked back over her shoulder. A man was hurrying down the street toward them, shouting something. Her name? She suddenly realized who it was.

“Sir William!” she called. She turned her horse to face him.

He caught up to her, panting. “Honor—” He took hold of her horse’s harness to steady himself as he tried to catch his breath.

“Sir William, what news?” It could only be about Parliament.

He looked up at her, his face pale as ash. “Richard—” He could not speak between tortured breaths.

Something has happened,
she thought.
Something terrible has happened.

The light was dazzling. That was Adam’s first thought as Thomas Parry, Princess Elizabeth’s steward, led him into the great hall at Somerset House. Not so much a house as a palace, Adam thought, and the construction so new he could smell fresh lumber and paint and marble dust. Everyone in London knew the story. The late Duke of Somerset had ordered it built as his grand new home on the Strand, to lord over the city alongside other riverfront mansions of the nobility. But three years ago, as building neared completion, the duke had fallen afoul of councilors of the boy-king, Edward. He went to the block, and his palatial house was confiscated by the young king, who gave it to his sister, Elizabeth, as her London residence. The final labors of the teams of carpenters, plasterers, and painters had taken until a few months ago.

Adam’s boot heels clicked over the marble floor laid out in bold diamonds of white and dolphin blue. Shiny, linenfold paneling the soft color of sand rose forty feet or more to a ceiling spangled with silver stars against a painted background of cerulean blue, breezy as a summer sky. But it was the light from the soaring lead-paned windows that defined the place. Even on this dreary winter afternoon it shone into the hall with the sparkle of spring. Suits her perfectly, he thought.