The Queen's Gamble (22 page)

“And leave her here?”

“Cart her to the road. Highwaymen got her.”

Spiked by terror, Isabel gave the runt’s bony chest a furious push. He stumbled backward and she darted between the other two. She ran. Faster than she had ever run. She heard boots pounding after her. She was halfway up the alley when the two lunged in front and cut her off. They took a wide stance, hulking, their arms spread wide, ready for any move from her.

An oak tree rose above the wall and Isabel saw a scatter of windblown branches at the men’s feet. Among them, a stick with a sharp end and as thick as her wrist. She lunged for it. The one in Tom’s jerkin flinched as she straightened with the makeshift weapon tight in her hand. She held them at bay with it, and this pause gave her a jolt of power. The stick was sharp enough to gouge an eye, and they knew it.

The big one pulled a long knife from his side. He thwacked the stick with such brutal force, it shocked her hand to numbness and the stick flew from her grip.

She ran back the way she had fled. But ahead there was only the closed-off end of the alley, nowhere else to go. The runt watched her pass him. Pleased that her terror had made her lose her mind, he looked as satisfied as a cat torturing a mouse.

She made it all the way to the cart. She turned, panting, chilled with sweat. The fire beside her crackled. The three men watched her, their smiles returning. Three cats, with murder in their eyes. Isabel’s heart thumped so painfully she thought it would crack her ribs.

She turned to the cart and scooped up a bulging armful of things helter-skelter—breeches, boots, shirts. She stepped to the fire and flung her armload into the flames.

“No!” cried the runt. The other two looked horrified. The three of them came running to rescue their booty.

Isabel scooped up another armload. Hurled it into the fire. The men converged on the fire and set to kicking boots out of the flames and pawing out garments.

She bolted past them. Ran toward the street. She heard one pounding after her, but his moments of delay at the fire kept him too far behind. She reached the street and ran past a housewife chatting with a priest who watched her in surprise. Everything in her wanted to dash into the first side street or alley and keep running. Or else find some corner to hide in and curl up in a ball so the men would pass her. But her best chance lay in staying on the street where people were. She headed for the field with the training course and forced herself to slow down, walk normally, calm her heaving chest. And not look back.

The moment she reached the field, she saw Carlos at the far side and could not hold herself back. She rushed toward him.

He was galloping, sword drawn, toward a straw effigy that sat on a sawhorse, while five men on horseback watched from the sidelines. Carlos was about to slash the straw man’s neck when he spotted Isabel. His slash went wide of the mark. He hauled on the reins, stunned at seeing her. He turned his horse and cantered off the course toward her.

“Isabel!” He swung down from the saddle as he reached her.

She threw her arms around his neck, feeling her heart would burst with relief.

“Madre de Dios.”
He pulled her away to look at her, gripping her shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

Her rehearsed words spilled out without thought. “I came . . . to see you.”

“What?”

“Came north with Frances . . . to her brother’s, and then . . . here.”

He stared at her, still struggling with it, and she knew what he was seeing—her disheveled hair, her face pale from fear and exhaustion.

“Carlos, I . . . missed you so.”

It was no lie. And she saw the sincerity of it strike a chord in him, changing his stark astonishment to something softer—sheer wonder.

The love on his face was so welcome, his rough face itself so dear to her. And the bond of trust that held them both—it was all too much. She could no more hold back from telling him everything in her heart than she could hold back the ocean’s tide. She would tell it all—about Nicolas, and Knox, and why she was here. It would be such a relief to share her burden! But without warning, her elation at finding him ebbed and her sorrow over Tom flooded in, swamping her. “Oh, Carlos, it was awful . . . so awful.” She found herself sobbing.

“What was? What’s happened?” His hands on her shoulders tightened in a protective clench. “You’re all wet. Where’s your cloak? Where’s your horse?” He glanced behind her in dismay. “You came
alone?
”

“With Tom,” she wailed.

“Who?”

“Tom Yates. My father’s servant. He’s dead!” She could not dam her tears, nor stop her body shuddering. “My fault . . . my fault! Carlos, I held him as he died!”

She threw her arms around his neck again and clung to him, her cheek against his chest, and when he wrapped his arms around her she felt a rush of joy. She pressed against him so tightly, the top buckle on his leather jerkin dug into her cheekbone. He was her rock, her refuge in this storm of war, and she clung to him as if for life itself. She breathed in the familiar smell of him, a mix of his body’s earthy warmth, of leather, and of horse, and the comfort it brought drained her sorrow and her fear. The relief was so sudden it left her weak in the knees. She had to hang on to Carlos just to stay standing.

“Isabel, where did this happen? What did—” He stopped abruptly, and Isabel lifted her head to see why. The men on horseback who had been with him on the course had trotted over. Officers, clearly, by their superior mounts, their polished swords and tooled leather boots.

“Everything all right, Valverde?” one asked.

“My wife,” Carlos said. The men bowed to her from their saddles with grave respect. “She’s had a rough time getting here,” he added, and she heard how he was forcing steadiness into his voice, still shaken by her being here and bewildered about how and why—details to get when they were alone. He did it well, the forced steadiness. So well, it made Isabel realize, with a pang of caution, something that she had not considered. Carlos would not let her tormentors escape. No, I can’t allow that, she thought, her mind lurching ahead. The corpse robbers would tell how she had attacked the man in Tom’s jerkin. Carlos must not go after them.

“Gentlemen, pardon my woman’s tears,” she said, trying to find some of Carlos’s steadiness as she wiped her eyes. “They are for my servant. I lost him on the journey.” She invented it on the spot—not just for the officers’ sake, but for Carlos. A tale of setting out with Tom from the home of Frances’s brother, crossing the border, and, as they approached Edinburgh, being set upon by a highwayman. The villain had been wrenching off her cloak, she said, when Tom had pulled his dagger to defend her, and had been killed. The villain had snatched the cloak and fled with Tom’s horse.

The Frenchmen were full of indignation. One expressed his condolences, another suggested they ride immediately to retrieve her servant’s body. Isabel said nothing, knowing that the deep snow would make such a search fruitless. Another offered his assistance in organizing a hunt for the murderer, an offer more passionate than rational, for it was obvious to all that the highwayman would never be found. Another insisted that Carlos and Isabel take his billet, more comfortable than Carlos’s room, for the duration of her visit. She listened with dismay, for she saw that their concern was all because of Carlos. They considered him their comrade, their friend. They did not see him as a neutral Spanish observer. They saw him as one of them.

It chilled her. She felt she had come to her senses just in time. She now could not confide the truth to her husband. She
must
not. Though in spirit he was one with her, on the ground he was one with the enemy.

18

The Enemy Queen

T
hat evening the officers’ hall was festooned with flags for the banquet, some emblazoned with the elegant blue fleur-de-lis, some with the austere coat of arms of the Queen Regent. Servants scurried with jugs of wine while musicians sawed and piped from the gallery, though little of their music could be heard above the banter and laughter of the officers. They were milling about, enjoying the fine burgundy and freewheeling talk before the Queen Regent’s arrival, when formal decorum would be necessary. There was little enough at the moment. A captain was balancing a spoon on his nose to the raucous amusement of his friends, and a lieutenant was groping a girl in a doorway, a pretty girl with rouged lips, as though he was getting all he could before she was banished to the backstairs and the Queen Regent and her ladies welcomed in.

“To the valiant Señora Valverde!” Captain Lescarbot made the toast with panache, his glass held high. The dozen men around Isabel enthusiastically raised their glasses. “Señora Valverde!” they chorused, and drank to her.

Isabel forced a smile of thanks, overwhelmed at being the focus of such attention. The story of her ordeal on the road to Edinburgh had spread through the garrison, embellished every time it was retold, until when it reached her ears again she heard that ten barbarian Scots had attacked her and Tom, that she had killed two with her dagger, and that before galloping off they had cut out Tom’s tongue and hanged him from a tree. When she and Carlos had arrived in the hall, the men greeted her with an admiring “Huzzah!” as though she were some Amazonian heroine. She caught Carlos’s eye and he winked at her, enjoying himself now that he’d had time to get used to her turning up out of the blue.

But that had taken a great effort on her part. He had brought her to his billet above the hall, a small room that he shared with an officer, and the moment they were alone she knew a barrage of questions would be coming. Her best course was to try to control it herself, so she told him again how she had come north with Frances. “She’s staying with her brother at Yeavering, you see. From there Edinburgh is so close, I decided to come and see you.”

“Yeavering?” He seemed utterly baffled. “But why didn’t you go home like I told you?”

“I thought you understood. I promised Adam I would look after Frances.”

“That was two months ago. She’s had the baby. She has servants to help her.”

“She’s still not well, Carlos, not strong. I simply couldn’t leave her.”

He let out a puff of breath, struggling to take it in. “I wanted you to go. You and Nicolas. Away from all this.”

“I know. But Frances needed me.”

“Is he with her? In Yeavering?”

Nicolas
. “No. It’s a bitter journey north for a child. I left him in London.” She hoped he would assume she had left him in the care of her mother. She did not dare say more. “Carlos, please understand. I made a promise.”

He frowned. “I hope your brother appreciates it.”

“He’s not the only reason I stayed.”

“What else?”

“You know the answer, we’ve been through it. My parents won’t leave England, and I won’t abandon them.”

He shook his head, exasperated.

“Don’t be angry,” she said. “You would do no differently. You wouldn’t desert me and Nicolas.”

“Not the same.”

“It is. We can never forsake the people we love.”

She could see him making an effort to accept it. She moved closer to him. “Forgive me?”

He smiled then, though the smile was still tinged with exasperation. “For your loyalty to your family? Well, it’s what brought you here, so it’s not hard to forgive.”

She felt the warmth in his voice, and it made her long to tell him that she was with child. But not now, when he already had so much to take in. Later, when they had time alone. It would make him happy, and she savored the promise of that.

He took her in his arms and kissed her—a hungry kiss that sent a spark racing through her. He held her so tightly she felt his hardness. She ached to give herself to his kiss, to him, but her lies somehow held her back. The words she had said were all true, but there was so much she was hiding—about Nicolas, the Queen, and Knox.

He broke off the kiss, looking as though doing so was a struggle. “After the feast,” he said in a low voice.
“Mi amor.”

“Feast?”

“Tonight. A banquet for the Queen Regent. Unless you’re too tired?”

She was, but she wanted very much to see Marie de Guise, the woman in whose name this army fought. “No, of course I’ll come.”

“Good.” He grinned. “I want to show you off to these Frenchmen.”

“But I have no gown.” She had not thought of such things when she had packed her satchel. “Certainly nothing suitable to meet royalty.”

“I’ll send Pedro to forage something.”

Pedro, another face from home. She longed to see him. “How is he?”

Carlos shrugged. “Hates winter. He curses the snow.”

She had to smile. Her docile Indian lad was developing a mind of his own.

“He’ll be glad to see you, Isabel. He was about to take Quadra my report the other day but a skirmish with the Scots kept him here and I sent it with a porter.”

She shuddered inside. That “skirmish” had killed so many Scots.

“More wine, señora?” Captain Lescarbot asked now amid the noise in the banquet hall. He snatched a jug from a passing servant and tipped it to fill Isabel’s goblet.

“No, no,” she said with a laugh, covering the goblet with her hand. “My head is light enough already, monsieur.” She was trying to act merry to match their high spirits, but it was hard. Her lies to Carlos made her feel tainted, as though she had swallowed wormwood. She hated deceiving him—it wasn’t
her
. Tonight she was even
dressed
like someone else, for Pedro had indeed found her a gown, one offered by a French lady in the Queen Regent’s entourage, another mark of how highly everyone here thought of Carlos. Isabel hated being obliged to the French for the clothes on her back, but she had no choice. In truth, she had to admit that the gown was lovely, of sapphire blue velvet, and she was pleasantly aware of how becoming was the fit. The men’s looks told her so, Carlos’s most of all. “After all,” she went on to the captain offering the wine, “I must keep what wits I have if I’m to speak sensibly to Her Grace. I am not the brave veteran of the bottle that you and your friends are.”

“Ah, but you
are
a veteran, madam. We’ve been skirmishing with the barbarians throughout Fife, and now you’ve done us the favor of chasing off a few. Huzzah, I say.”

They all laughed and toasted her again. She pasted on a smile, but felt a shiver down her backbone. They were not frightened of Knox’s men. Not even nervous. They felt confident. Arrogant. To them, the army under Knox and Glencairn and Arran and Lord James was merely an unpleasant bit of business, all in a day’s work. And she had seen the horrific results of their day’s work—the maimed men sprawled through the hall of Stirling Castle, moaning for water, for their wives, for God, for death. She was trying, for Carlos’s sake, not to hate these Frenchmen, but she wished with all her heart that Knox and his men had the power to fall on them and send them limping back across the Narrow Seas. But Knox was weak and the French were strong, and both sides knew it.

“Have the barbarians proven difficult to put down?” she asked Lescarbot.

“Easy as swatting flies, until a few weeks ago. They had no artillery. But now they’ve been supplied with arms brought by a rogue English admiral, Winter by name, and a gang of his captains, damn their heretic hearts. But never fear, madam, we’ve rounded up a good number. We’ll soon get them all.”

She remembered riding in through the fortress gates where corpses had been hung high on the walls to rot. Her thoughts flew to Adam, sailing with Admiral Winter. He could become a captive. They could hang him. It gave her a sharp pain at her heart.

“You’re mad to keep such a lovely wife alone in London, Valverde,” said a mustachioed captain. “Englishmen are rank sinners.”

Carlos let out a good-natured laugh. “My wife can take care of herself, Dupuis, I assure you.”

“Ha,” said Lescarbot, “Dupuis wishes he could say the same about his wife back in Marseilles.”

They all laughed. Dupuis and his wife seemed a familiar topic of merriment, and even Dupuis cracked a smile. He said with stoic forbearance, “She took such good care of herself, she left not a sou behind when she rowed off with the sail maker.”

“You’ll have her back yet, man,” Carlos said, and Isabel caught a gleam of thanks in Dupuis’s eyes for his support.

“Care to wager on that?” a lieutenant asked.

More laughter, and within a moment the lieutenant was collecting bets. Carlos, smiling, shook his head at the foolery. “No, not me,” he said when the lieutenant asked him to wager.

“Oh, why not fleece us some more, Valverde?” Lescarbot said with mock indignation, and they all joined in jesting about some gambling adventure in which Carlos, apparently, had been the big winner. Isabel saw that Carlos had the admiration of these men, even their affection. His camaraderie with them was hard to stomach.

She heard a commotion at the far end of the hall. A trumpet sounded, announcing the arrival of the Queen Regent’s party. There followed a brisk flurry of officers setting down goblets, tugging doublets into shape, lining up as though forming ranks, all eyes on the doorway as the Queen Regent walked in followed by a half dozen of her French ladies-in-waiting. She was escorted by a short, bullnecked officer—the commander, Isabel assumed, a Monsieur D’Oysel. She had a clear view of the Queen Regent, a petite, trim woman who looked about the same age as Isabel’s mother, forty-five or so. She wore a moss green brocade gown with gold satin sleeves that were studded with pearls. Her dark hair was neatly coiffed, and a necklace of emeralds sparkled at her throat.

Isabel felt riveted. Here was the very face of the enemy. Marie de Guise, mother of the nominal monarch, sixteen-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots, who had married the teenage French King François. Marie de Guise governed Scotland in her daughter’s name, while in France the young King was ruled by the powerful men of the Guise family, this woman’s brothers, who were bent on enforcing their niece’s claim to the throne of England. Sir William Cecil had made it clear to Isabel that the French meant to use Scotland as a stepping stone to launch themselves into England, and Marie de Guise had brought in the troops to do it.

A proud woman, Isabel thought, studying her. And yet, despite her elegant bearing she looked tense, her face pinched and pale. Was she ill? The Queen Regent stopped to greet a visiting French dignitary and the priest with him, and Isabel turned her attention to the short, bullnecked gentleman escorting her. He looked impatient, as though he wanted to be anywhere but at a banquet.

“Is that Monsieur D’Oysel?” she whispered to Carlos.

He nodded, frowning as he, too, watched the commander.

“Is he always so stern?” she asked.

“No. It looks like something’s happened.”

Isabel stiffened. Was that why the Queen Regent was arriving late? Had she and D’Oysel been shut up together planning another assault on Knox’s men? Would they be marching out in force come morning to attack the Scots at Stirling?

The Queen Regent moved on past the dignitary, and Carlos whispered in Isabel’s ear, “Come. Time to meet her.”

She felt a flutter in her breast as she walked with him down the length of the hall. Officers stepped back to let them pass. When they came before the Queen Regent, she greeted Carlos with an affectionate nod. He bowed and introduced his wife. Isabel sank into a deep curtsy.

A smile flitted over the Queen’s face, softening her drawn features.
“Très jolie,”
she said. Very pretty. She beckoned Isabel to rise, and switched to speaking Spanish, clearly as a mark of distinction to Carlos. “I can see, señora, that you have made your husband happy by your visit. You are very welcome here with us.”

Isabel thought it only polite to answer in French, the lady’s mother tongue. “You honor me, Your Grace.”

Marie de Guise smiled at this touch of finesse. One of her ladies-in-waiting behind her whispered something in her ear. Her eyebrows lifted in mild surprise. She said to Isabel, continuing in French, “You were attacked during your journey? How dreadful. These brigands infest our realm. I hope you have recovered from your ordeal?”

“Completely, Your Grace, thanks to the kindness of your officers.”

“You and Señor Valverde have come a long way from the New World, and we do appreciate his counsel. Tell me, in what part of Spain does your family live?” Before Isabel could answer, the lady-in-waiting whispered again in her mistress’s ear. Listening, her face hardened almost imperceptibly. Fear gripped Isabel. Was the Queen Regent being told about her connection to the rebels?

“Forgive me.” A touch of frost in the Queen Regent’s voice. “You are English.”

Isabel relaxed a little. “Yes. My father is Lord Thornleigh,” she said with some pride.

Her tone did not please the Queen Regent.

Carlos intervened. “My wife has lived in several countries, madam, and from our home in Peru she came to visit her family in London. Like me, she is a loyal subject of His Majesty King Philip. And, like me, is honored to be your guest.” He said it cordially, as though to clear up a mild misunderstanding. Isabel was sure that she alone had heard the fiercely protective note in his voice. She longed to kiss him.

This took the edge off the Queen Regent’s mood. “London,” she mused to Isabel, sounding as though her interest was waning. “You have traveled a very long way. Are the roads even passable?” She glanced at the tables set with silver plates and crystal goblets on white tablecloths, looking bored as Isabel explained how she had broken her journey with relations. “They live not far from Alnwick.” That word caught the Queen Regent’s attention.

“Oh? You have family in Northumberland?”

“In Yeavering, yes. My sister-in-law and her brother.”