The Traitor's Daughter (16 page)

Adam looked at the councillors. “Well, Burghley?”

His old friend raised his hands in easy surrender. “I see no reason to detain the young gentleman.”

“Then it's settled,” Adam said, grinning. “You're coming with me, Robert. Coming home.”

Kate crossed the clock tower courtyard of Whitehall Palace, keeping her face down and the hood of her cloak up to avoid being recognized. If anyone she knew hailed her she would say she was seeking an interview with Sir Philip Sydney to entreat a tutoring post for her husband. But it would be hard to speak calmly, so agitated were her thoughts. She had watched Robert's interrogation. Matthew Buckland had allowed her access to the room behind the interrogation chamber, a small space from which Sir Francis Walsingham or his agents like Matthew could observe the proceedings through a peephole. Kate had been alone, watching, listening. Doubts now swarmed, stinging her with painful questions. Robert had lied to the councillors. Why?

She reached the clerk's chamber, a cramped, windowless room on the third floor. He was waiting for her.

“You must be quick,” he said, handing her a slim sheaf of papers. “This must be back on my lord's desk before he returns from dinner.”

“I understand, Master Henshaw. This will take but a moment.” She pressed a sovereign onto his palm. His fingers closed around the coin. “Thank you,” she said.

She turned, opening the docket. Several pages of the councillors' questions and Robert's answers were rendered in Henshaw's neat handwriting. He waited by the door, ready to retrieve the docket and go as soon as she was done.

She leafed through the pages, scanning Robert's testimony. Her fingers felt cold on the vellum. Cold, though at the beginning of Robert's interrogation she had watched and listened with a glad heart, warmed by the satisfaction of having reunited her brother and her father. That had been her hope: Robert, welcomed home where he belonged . . . her guilt at seeing him left behind as a child, absolved.

Until this one statement. His words, though vague, had made her skin prickle.

Here it was. She had found it.

 

 

 

She closed the docket, her heart beating painfully. The Earl of Westmorland. Thirteen years ago he had been a leader of the Northern Rebellion. Five thousand men had marched on Durham and taken the city, preparing to march on to London. But Elizabeth's forces had crushed the rebellion. Westmorland fled to the Netherlands, his property confiscated. Joining other English exiles, he now lived on a pension from the pope. All this was common knowledge.

What was not known was Kate's personal experience. The memory was still so clear. Her mother, all aflutter, curtsying to Westmorland at his house in Antwerp. The earl dabbing a napkin to his bushy moustache as he turned to her from his supper table with his guests. Kate and Robert curtsying and bowing as they were introduced to him, Kate ten, Robert eight. Robert mistakenly calling him, “Your Grace.” Westmorland had ignored the childish error of address, but Mother had glared at Robert, making him red-faced with puzzlement. Once home, Mother had severely drilled him in the proper forms of address—for a knight, an earl, a duke—while Kate, behind Mother's back to make Robert smile, mimicked the earl dabbing his moustache, and Robert stifled a giggle. For days afterward the two of them had taken turns playacting the moustachioed earl, making each other laugh. Despite the passing years, Robert would not have forgotten that.

Kate left the clerk's room, the question still stinging.
Why did Robert lie?

10

The Countess

A
rundel Castle, built in the eleventh century following the Norman conquest, overlooked the River Arun in West Sussex. The earldom of Arundel had descended to generations of d'Albi-nis and Fitzallans through female heiresses. By Elizabeth's reign it had passed to an ancient and powerful family: the Howards. Philip Howard, the twentieth earl of Arundel, was a friend of the Earl of Northumberland, whose Sussex stronghold, Petworth House, lay just sixty miles away.

The chapel of Arundel Castle had been a place of worship for centuries, but these days its windows were heavily curtained when the family gathered for mass, and access was guarded so that no hint of the Catholic rites within would come to the notice of the Queen's traveling officials, the pursuivants, who executed warrants drawn up by the royal council to investigate Catholic recusants throughout the realm.

Kneeling at mass, Owen Lyon glanced at the door to the sacristy.
That's where they lock up the pyx and chalice and the jeweled crucifix when mass is done,
he thought. He turned his attention back as the priest reached him, dispensing the host to the four supplicants. Owen took the wafer of bread on his tongue.
Where,
he wondered,
do they hide the priest?

Northumberland didn't keep a secret priest at Petworth House as far as Owen had been able to tell. Though he'd had little time to investigate. He'd been kept in Northumberland's lockup overnight after they'd drowned the double-dealing porter, Rankin. The following day, though, Northumberland's interrogation had been perfunctory, as if he harbored no real mistrust, and he had then set Owen to work on his correspondence on a trial basis. “Be quiet and quick,” he had ordered, “and maybe I'll keep you.” Owen sensed he'd been kept in detention only to placate Northumberland's suspicious wife, the countess Catherine. That was a week ago. She was kneeling beside Owen now, in Arundel's chapel.

Kneeling with them were two other worshippers. To Owen's left was Arundel's wife, the countess Anne. Like Catherine, she vastly outranked him. To the right of Catherine was a guest, Captain Fortescue, a tall, black-bearded man of about thirty in dandy's clothing: a cherry-red satin doublet laced with silver and a red velvet hat with silver buttons. Owen had not yet discovered Fortescue's connection here. Something about the fellow seemed odd. For a military man his hands looked as soft as a lady's.

Countess Catherine slightly turned her head to Owen and he felt her scrutinizing gaze. He closed his eyes, pretending piety. Her watchful disapproval had kept him on his guard every day at Petworth. Whether at table with the household, or privately taking the earl's dictation in his study, where Catherine sometimes came to speak to her husband, Owen had caught her watching him with a frown, as though waiting for him to prove her right. Yesterday she had come to Arundel Castle to visit the countess Anne, bringing a train of servants, including Owen, who had been ordered by the earl to accompany her. Owen had groaned silently—his mission was to watch Northumberland, who'd remained at Petworth—but he was on probation and had to obey.

The priest moved on to Catherine. Owen opened his eyes, relieved to see her concentration turn to taking the host on her tongue. He kept his gaze straight ahead on the altar's jewel-crusted gold crucifix, and felt his frustration rising. He was at the castle because of the pale-faced Countess Anne, mumbling her prayers to his left. Though only twenty-five, the same age as her husband, she was as dour as a dowager. She fancied herself a poet, so Catherine had told Northumberland that Owen would be useful to her friend. Probably because Anne's Latin was deplorable, Owen thought. What foul luck to be brought here as a dancing dog.

He needed to get back to Petworth. The letters he had written so far for Northumberland had been innocent enough: instructions to his eldest son traveling in Italy, orders to his steward about a tenant vacancy, a dialogue with the Viscount Montague about a proposed marriage between their children. But Owen was keenly interested in a meeting the two peers had arranged. Montague, one of the wealthiest men in Sussex, lived in Midhurst just five miles from Petworth and Owen suspected that he and Northumberland meant to discuss more than the marriage of their children. They'd both had past dealings with the exiled Earl of Westmorland, and Owen was eager to observe as much as he could of the proposed meeting to catch any word that might pass between them about a planned invasion. These three old families' pasts, he knew, were webbed with conspiracy. Montague had been implicated in the northern uprising twelve years ago, though he had not been charged. Arundel's father, the Duke of Norfolk, had subsequently been executed for conspiring to marry the deposed queen of Scots, Mary Stuart. And now, the daughter of the exiled Westmorland, living in North Yorkshire, was suspected of intriguing with radical priests. Westmorland—that was whom Owen was most concerned about. All the rumors he had heard in prison about invasion swirled around Westmorland's links to Philip of Spain.

Owen watched the priest finish dispensing the host to Countess Catherine. A stocky middle-aged man in need of a shave, he had weary but alert eyes. He
had
to be alert living here, no doubt scurrying to hide in the priest hole in the attic or an outbuilding whenever a pursuivant came near. That took courage, Owen granted. If caught, the priest would land in prison, and if strident in his doctrine he could hang. Owen could not muster the Puritans' hatred of Catholics. He had nothing against them, or even against their faith. What mattered was when they threatened the liberty of England since the pope demanded their allegiance to him above the Queen. Their fervor, stoked by Mary Stuart's claim to the throne, was leading many of them closer to treason. That's what Owen was after: evidence about a planned insurrection or invasion, or a coordinated preparation for both.

But this weary, fugitive priest? Small fry, in Owen's opinion. He would duly inform Matthew Buckland about him in a message via the owner of the Angel Inn in Petworth, who would forward it to London, but Owen knew that Matthew's response would be to leave the priest in place. They were after men higher up. And the biggest prize of all: Mary Stuart herself.

Mass was over. Catherine and her two friends were leaving the chapel. Its treasures would be hidden away again behind locked doors. Owen followed his betters toward the exit.

Catherine stopped, letting the others go on. She turned to Owen. She was an attractive woman, but the near-scowl with which she always regarded him marred her smooth features. “The countess Anne wants to see you,” she said brusquely. “She has penned some verse about her ancestor, the Duchess of Buckingham, and feels it requires your ear. Attend her in her solar after dinner.”

Owen bowed, cutting off her beam of scrutiny. “With pleasure, your ladyship.”

He spent the morning helping Arundel's butler in his pantry office write a long letter to the butler's brother in Hastings. It was better than pacing in angry frustration as he waited for his appointment to be Countess Anne's Latin dancing dog. He itched to be on the road back to Petworth House. Every hour he spent out of Northumberland's company was an hour in which he might miss some evidence of the man's treason. So far he had failed to coax any confidences out of Northumberland. None of his attempts, from flattery to grave comments about the state of the realm, had charmed a response in kind from the tight-lipped earl. His silence, of course, was partly the aristocrat's indifference to an inferior, but Owen sensed it also stemmed from the man's native caution, and he puzzled over how he might get Northumberland to lower that shield. Try he must. And he could not do so while stuck here at Arundel Castle. It was infuriating, all the more so because in his idle state he could not keep his thoughts from constantly turning to Kate. When busy, he could push his fears about her to the back of his mind, but with nothing to do he conjured torturing scenarios. Kate, discovered by Mary Stuart's people. Kate, cornered in a dark alley by murderers.

“That's the dinner gong,” said the butler, folding the letter Owen had penned. “I'm much obliged for your help, Master Lyon.”

“No trouble at all, Master Pym. I hope your brother soon recovers.”

“Well, it's not the plague, so we thank God for small mercies.”

After dinner with the household in the great hall Owen made his way upstairs to the solar, the family's favorite private room. He knocked. A female voice answered, “Come in.”

He opened the door to find Countess Catherine sitting on a bench near a painting of a fierce-looking former earl of Arundel. The bench was wide enough for two to sit back-to-back to observe all the room's paintings. Owen saw that he had interrupted her reading a book. She appeared to be alone. No sign of Countess Anne.

“Perhaps I've come too early, your ladyship. I do not mean to disturb you. I'll come back later.”

“No, no, Master Lyon, come in.” She set the book down behind her. “Anne will not be joining us.”

“I hope Her Ladyship is not ill?”

She shrugged. “Who can tell, with that sour face?”

Owen was taken aback. He had thought the two women were friends. “But, Her Ladyship's poetry—”

“Is abominable. Anne is a good soul, but a frightful poet. No, she has no part in why I asked you here.”

Owen's guard sprang up. Was this to be an interrogation?

Catherine fixed her cool, green eyes on him. “I want to talk to you. Come closer. I am rather shortsighted.”

He came and stood before her. Despite her slender body and the rich blond hair beneath her voile coif, she looked as forbidding as a judge.

“I have had a report about your wife.”

Dread swarmed over him.
They've got Kate.

“She was seen in London leaving a laundry frequented by the French ambassador. What was she doing there?”

His mouth was dry. He pretended bewilderment. “Having some clothes washed perhaps, my lady?”

“Don't insult me. She resides with Lady Thornleigh, who has servants aplenty. Tell the truth. Is your wife a spy?”

His mind tripped over itself scrambling for an answer.

She laughed lightly, smoothing the folds of her rose silk skirt. “Oh, don't worry, I'm only having fun. We need it in this dour house.” She motioned to the spot on the bench beside her, patting its padded blue satin. “Sit down.”

Her word flummoxed him.
Fun?

“Sit down, man. I will not bite.” A playful smile curved her lips. “Yet.”

He trusted neither her reassurance nor her smile. But she had given an order. He sat down beside her.

“Now,” she said, slipping off her coif and shaking loose her hair as though preparing to retire, “is your wife acquainted with Ambassador Castelnau?”

Tread carefully,
Owen told himself. “Not to my knowledge, your ladyship.”

“No? Perhaps through her father, Lord Thornleigh?”

“It is possible. But she no longer moves in such high circles. Because of me, I'm afraid.”

“Yes, so you told my husband. Her father has banned her from his house. What a pity. You have not been married long, I understand?”

“Less than eight months, your ladyship. Six of those I spent in the Marshalsea.”

“Poor girl.” She touched his knee in sympathy. “To be so long deprived of your company.” Her hand lingered on his knee. “My guess is that your wife is one of us. Am I right?”

“Us, my lady?” What in hell did she mean? What did she know? He answered carefully, “By birth she is closer to your ladyship than to me, but—”

“One of the
faithful,
I mean,” she interrupted pointedly. “I know
you
are.” She reached up and smoothed her hand over his head. He stiffened at the liberty. “This bristly hair,” she murmured. “Was prison dreadful? I questioned Arthur about you and he told me how you helped him, shared your food with him. Arthur's an idiot, but he never lies.” She slid her hand down his cheek, then his neck. Her fingers toyed with the edge of his collar. “Tell me about it.”

Owen held his breath.
So that's what she wants.
It stunned him. He caught her hand to stop her, confusion somersaulting through him. “I thought—”

“Thought what?”

“That you hated me. The way you always glare at me.”

She smiled, enjoying his amazement. “I told you, I'm shortsighted.”

He couldn't think how to respond. Every instinct told him to beware—her interest in him spelled danger. But he had to find out how much she knew about Kate. Could he somehow turn this situation to his advantage? All he could think was:
Keep her talking.
If seduction was on her mind, he would feign delight. He looked into her eyes and squeezed her hand, a signal that he understood what she wanted.

She smiled, clearly pleased. She laid her fingertips on his mouth. He knew she was going to kiss him.

He spoke before her lips reached his. “Your ladyship, you speak truly. We, the faithful. It did my heart good to partake of mass this morning. The earl is brave to hide the priest. I did not catch his name.”

“Father Gregory,” she said, smoothing her hand along his chest.

“Has he come from Rheims?”

Her eyes met his with a hint of challenge. “You know about Rheims?”

“All the faithful do.” He knew that Oxford graduate William Allen had established a seminary at the French university specifically to train English priests. Working with the Jesuits and financed by the pope, Allen was sending his newly minted priests home as missionaries. “I wanted to attend the seminary myself, but my father had not the funds. So I turned to the theater.”