The Traitor's Daughter (22 page)

But now, with the pistol box in his hands, he felt strong again. Elated again. And a breathtaking new thought stole over him.
My pistol shot might prevent civil war.
Once Mary swiftly took the throne at Elizabeth's death the vast majority of Englishmen would accept her coronation—after all, the two were cousins, sharing royal Tudor blood—so an invasion might be unnecessary. Northumberland would still need to use his forces to stabilize the realm, but bloodshed would be minimal compared to the havoc of an invading army.
With my shot the grand goal can be peacefully achieved!

He opened the door of his bedchamber, the box cradled in his arm. The room was dark except for the candle he had left burning on the night table. He closed the door behind him and went to the bed to hide the box beneath it, and was about to go down on his knees.

“Enjoying the feast?”

He twisted around at the woman's voice. She stepped out of the shadows. Kate!

“Father certainly has made it a grand occasion,” she said. “The street is clogged with waiting carriages and footmen.”

“Kate, what a surprise!” He had thought she was banned from the house. “I didn't realize Father had invited you.”

“He didn't. I came through the stable courtyard and the scullery. I can't stay long.” She looked anxious, hollow-eyed. No wonder, Robert thought, with Father so set against her. So what was she doing here?

“What's that?” she asked, indicating the box.

His thoughts snagged. “This? A gift from Captain Lundy.” He set the box down on the night table. “A pistol, purely ornamental.”

“To welcome you home? That's kind of him.” She sounded strangely sad.

Footsteps scuffed in the corridor. Robert saw Kate flinch.

“Just the servants,” he said. “Kate, why have you come? Is something wrong?”

“I needed to see you. To ask you something.”

She seemed nervous, standing stiffly, hands clasped in front of her. What was troubling her so much that she would come like this, sneaking into the house late at night? A thought chilled him. Had she heard something about old Prowse?

“Robert, why did you go to Petworth?”

The chill turned to ice in his veins. “Where did you hear that?”

“From my husband. I told you, he is Northumberland's secretary. He said he saw you at Petworth House. Saw you talking to Northumberland.”

It took all his concentration to force a calm face. He picked up the pistol box. “I shouldn't leave this out in the open. It's rather valuable.” He went down on one knee by the bed and shoved the box underneath the bed frame. He was furiously trying to think. How much did Kate know? How much did her husband know?

“Robert? Answer me.”

Convince her.
He stood up and looked her in the eye. “I'm not sure I'm at liberty to say.”

She took a sharp breath. “Dear God. Don't tell me you've got yourself involved in something you shouldn't.”

“Well, I
am
involved. Whether I should be or not you would have to ask Father.”

She looked skeptical. “Father? What has he got to do with you being at Petworth?”

“Kate, can I trust you to keep this strictly between you and me?”

She did not soften. “Tell me!”

“All right. Father sent me. He'd heard a rumor that Northumberland might have some connection to a Spanish invasion plot. You know Father—nothing means more to him than defending Her Majesty. So he sent me to sound out Northumberland, surreptitiously of course, to see if I could detect any inkling of treason.”

Kate looked baffled. “Sent you . . . under what pretext? What reason did you give Northumberland?”

“That I was conveying Father's invitation to a court festivity. Her Majesty is hosting a banquet for the Swedish ambassador next week to honor the birth of King Johan's son, and Father will host a hunt the following day for the visiting dignitaries. I was delivering his invitation to His Lordship.”

Kate's face brightened as though the sun, breaking through clouds, now beamed on her. “Oh, Robin!” She rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck. “You don't know how happy I am to hear that.”

“Why, what did you think I was doing there?”

“I don't know. Owen said . . . oh, it doesn't matter.” She hugged him, laughing, but he felt the tension in her body and caught a stifled sob beneath the laugh. “All's well that ends well,” she said.

Relief coursed through Robert. He had convinced her. But what had prompted her to ask? Why was she so obviously upset? He pulled her away and held her at arm's length. “What's this? Tears?”

“Tears of happiness.” She smiled at him even as she wiped her wet cheeks.

“Kate, what's going on? You seem distraught.”

“No . . . no, I'm just glad we had this chance to talk before I leave.”

“Leave? Where are you going?”

She had pulled herself together. “To Roche Hall. I'm going to visit Aunt Isabel and Uncle Carlos.” She stroked his cheek with a motherly caress. “I'll give them your love, shall I?”

“Yes, do. Good heavens, it's been so long since I've seen them. I probably wouldn't recognize our cousins.”

“No, indeed. Nicolas is in Seville overseeing Uncle Carlos's Peruvian interests. Andrew is studying at Cambridge. Nell is betrothed to the son of a Yorkshire baron.”

Robert shook his head in wonder. “I was six when I last saw Nicolas. He was twelve. He could leap onto his horse like a knight. I was in awe of him.”

“I hear the young ladies are in awe of him now.”

They laughed.

The door opened, startling them. Father walked in. He stopped in surprise. “Kate!”

She lurched a step back from Robert. “Father . . .”

“What are you doing here?”

Robert felt the tension between the two. Then Father's eyes widened in hope. “Kate, have you come home?”

She looked taken aback. “Home?”

“Have you left your husband?”

“No . . . of course not! I just came to see Robert.”

There was a painful moment of silence. His father said awkwardly, “I see.” He turned to Robert and said in a brusque tone, an attempt to sound businesslike, “Fenella said you were talking to Captain Lundy. No trouble, I hope? If so, Lundy should bring it to me.”

“No, sir, there's no trouble.” Robert managed to keep his voice calm, hiding how much he wanted his father to leave. This conversation could only lead to danger.

“And you?” his father said to Kate. “What's so urgent you had to see your brother at this hour?”

“Nothing urgent,” she said. “Don't worry, Father, I won't disrupt your feast. I was just leaving.” She gave Robert a peck on the cheek and whispered, “Good-bye.”

“Where's your husband?” Father demanded. “He lets you come out late all alone?”

“He is in Sussex, sir,” she said tightly. “As I think you know.”

“Ah, yes. With Northumberland.” His voice was dark with suspicion.

“He must take what employment he can,” she snapped. “And if you are so eager for information about him you can send Robert again to spy.”

“Spy?”

“Wasn't that his instruction from you? To spy on Northumberland under the guise of delivering an invitation?”

Robert's heart was pounding. “Kate, you promised!”

“I'm sorry, Robin,” she said sadly. “I am not myself tonight. . . .”

“Quite right,” their father said. “I
did
send Robert. He has shown himself both loyal and clever. When I mentioned my concern about Northumberland's allegiance he suggested that he sound the man out, and I heartily agreed. Thankfully for the peace of the realm, he detected no hint of treason.” He added sternly, “I wish the same could be said for your husband.”

Kate looked incensed at the insult, and Robert quickly showed her out before the animosity between her and their father could erupt. He returned to the banquet with a calm face, but his unease ran deep about Kate. What had prompted her suspicion?

15

Rendezvous

F
our days of hard travel had brought Kate north to Sheffield. Four days of growing fear about this rendezvous to deliver the letters for Mary. Four days of torment about her ruptured marriage.

A cold gray fog cloaked the seven hills that shouldered the city as she and her grandmother's dour servant, Soames, rode in past gray stone houses, workshops, and warehouses. Not many people were out at this midday hour. They're supping in front of a warm fire, Kate thought. She felt chilled to the bone. Her weary mare clopped across the Lady's Bridge, whose five arches spanned the River Don. Cold mist hazed the river. Condensing moisture dripped from the bridge. It had once been called Our Lady's Bridge, named in a bygone Catholic reign for the nearby chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Now the chapel was a wool warehouse.

A line from Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales
cut through Kate's troubled mind:
A Sheffeld thwitel baar he in his hose.
A “thwitel” was a long knife, and the brute character in the Reeve's Tale always carried one. For centuries Sheffield had been famed for its cutlery: knives, scissors, scythes, and shears. The city's seven hills were rich with iron ore.

Knives,
Kate thought. Saddle-sore, she felt every step her mare took, as if a knife tip scraped her tailbone. Pins and needles prickled her right foot. Worst was the blade of fear cutting into her at the thought of the dangerous men she was about to meet. Ambassador Castelnau's instructions for making the rendezvous were clear. The place: a cutler's workshop at the ponds. Her contact: a man named Barnaby Harkness. What was terrifyingly
not
clear was how Harkness would receive her. Would he accept her as the follower of Mary Stuart she was pretending to be, or slit her throat as the agent of Elizabeth she actually was?

Yet just as painful was the cut in her heart from Owen.
A Sheffeld thwitel . . .
Chaucer's words seemed to mock her. She and Owen had quoted Chaucer to each other with smiles that night in her grandmother's library, had made love on the window seat in the moonlight. How long ago that sweet time seemed now. Their scathing argument about Robert had changed everything. Her own husband didn't trust her! He had virtually accused her of treason in standing up for her brother. He had written to Matthew about Robert behind her back, as though she was the enemy! The things he had said were so unforgivable, she wondered if she had ever really known him. They had spent most of their brief marriage apart, had lived together as man and wife for scarcely a month before he went to prison. Now, she felt she had seen the
real
Owen and it shocked her. What vile accusations—especially now that she had heard her brother's explanation.

She had passed along that explanation to Matthew, sending him a message to neutralize Owen's report. She had assured Matthew that Robert was blameless in visiting Northumberland. So blameless, he had in fact gone to test Northumberland's loyalty, visiting him under the guise of extending Father's invitation to a hunt.

Poor Robert—his inept attempt to sound out Northumberland was touching. He was so naïve about such things he had not caught a whiff of the treason Northumberland was actually plotting.
My brother would make a terrible spy,
she thought wryly. She wished she could tell Owen that, throw in his face how utterly wrong he was about Robert. But he was so blindly obsessed by suspicion he would probably still fight her about it. In any case, God knew when she would see him again. Nothing was certain, including the rocky state of her marriage. She felt adrift. It had been hard enough to bear her father's antagonism for standing by her husband, and now Owen had set himself against her, too, for standing by her brother! It seemed that the only one of her male kin she could rely on was Robert. That bond, forged in childhood when they'd had only each other, felt like her lifeline.

“Turn east here, mistress,” said Soames.

They had stopped on the south side of the bridge, keeping to one side to let a carter with a load of firewood rumble past. “Are you sure?” Kate asked. Mist shrouded the way ahead. She didn't know the city. She had told Soames she had come to buy a gift of knives to take to her aunt.

He pointed down the street. “The barkeep said the ponds are just down this hill.” The landlord of the inn last night had been a Sheffield man.

“Very well.” She jigged the reins and turned her mare.

Their horses plodded down the muddy, sloping street. The houses thinned, looked poorer. A dirty little boy sat on a door stoop plucking a chicken. Two housewives harangued each other over a pail of fish. Then there were no more houses, just scrubland.

The ponds. Kate heard the water before she saw it: gurgles and a dull splash. She smelled it, too: the rankness of rotting vegetation. The ponds lay in the marshy area where the Porter Brook met the River Sheaf, the city's boundary. She heard the change in terrain as her mare's hooves sounded soft thuds on the spongy earth. No more knife-tip jabs at her tailbone. Yet the soft surroundings of marshland and mist felt somehow more foreboding, as though she was being swallowed up by an amorphous sink, a murky no-man's-land.

They turned onto a narrow track that skirted a pond. Bushes straggled close on one side. On the other, bulrushes crowded the shore. A frog leapt, escaping the horse's hoof. Kate heard a muffled thumping, a repeating rhythm. A mill, she realized. She could see its outline ahead in the distance, a vague block in the mist. Knives were not the city's only trade; another was wool cloth. Once woven, the cloth was fulled, pounded in a mixture of clay and water to clean and thicken it. Wooden hammers worked by watermills pounded the wool.
Thump . . . thump . . . thump.

Kate heard it like a warning drum, for the cutler's workshop had to be near. Never had she felt so alone.
I'm not trained for this,
she thought with a pulse of panic. How could Matthew believe she could manage it? She was good at decoding, that's all. Card games—he had found her clever with numbers and had recruited her. But this was different, this was no game! The closer she got to the rendezvous the more frightened she was that she would let something slip and betray herself. And die for it.

“I reckon that's the earl's hall, mistress,” Soames said, pointing.

She looked to the spot he indicated across the pond. On top of the far slope rose a handsome timber-framed building, its whitewashed checkerboard façade oddly bright in the vapory haze. The innkeeper had told them about the hall. It belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury, part of his estate. He used it as a banqueting hall for his parties hunting wildfowl in the ponds. That meant Sheffield Manor, his grand home, lay less than two miles away. That's where Mary Stuart was. During her fourteen-year confinement in England she had been moved between Shrewsbury's various castles and manor homes, his entire household moving periodically so the premises could be cleaned. Though Mary was a captive she enjoyed comfortable private accommodations and was served by a small personal retinue. She owed this kind treatment to Elizabeth, who insisted that her cousin be treated in accordance with her rank as a former queen. She was lucky. Many men on Elizabeth's council had called for Mary's head.

Seeing the hall, this tangible evidence of Mary's proximity, Kate felt freshly alert. Mary was so near, not two miles away across that mist-shrouded plain. At this very moment she might be dictating a letter to her secretary to be sent in secret to Philip of Spain, urging him to send his armies to invade England under Westmorland's command. Philip craved to conquer England, and Mary craved to be England's queen. So far she had been careful to keep her correspondence free of an outright call for Elizabeth's death, but many Englishmen, secret Catholics, were in her thrall and she encouraged their treason by not discouraging it. Elizabeth would never be safe as long as Mary promoted her downfall. Kate thought:
If only she would put it in writing. Then we'd catch her.

That was her task here. Get Mary's letters. She straightened in the saddle, braced by new energy. Her mission was crucial. Frightened she might be, and inexperienced compared to Mary's veteran agents, but the danger she faced was nothing compared to the danger England faced. Her wounded marriage and the loss of her father's love—these were pinprick problems compared to the bloodshed and misery that invasion and civil war would bring. The thought sent a ripple of resolve through her. It gave her courage. She was on the side of Elizabeth and England. If she had to risk her life for them, she was ready. Untrained? No, her four years of exile had prepared her, because no one could love England more. One day Owen would realize that. One day, so would Father.

The path dwindled into a copse of spindly trees and rust-colored bracken. In its midst lay a squat building of rough stone. The cutler's workshop?

“This must be it,” Kate told Soames. Though she was not sure. There was no one in sight. The windows, three that she could see on this side, were filmed with dirt, obscuring what lay inside. Moss slimed the pond-side wall like a fungus. Water dripped from the thatched roof, making a muck of the earth beneath.

Kate told Soames to tether the horses and stay with them. She left Castelnau's packet in her saddlebag. The letters had to stay hidden until she could be sure.

She knocked on the door. Silence. Taking a steadying breath, she lifted the latch. The door creaked as she opened it. “Is anyone here?”

It was definitely a workshop. In this front room a whetstone on a wheel stood beside the broad fireplace. Spread on the hearth were the tools of a smith: blackened tongs, bellows, hammers, a barrel of water. A long dusty table was littered with scraps of metal and leather. A wall of shelves held blades of all kinds and sizes, from eating knives to shears and awls. An arch opened onto another workroom, but its interior was so dim Kate could make out nothing but the outline of a worktable. The building seemed deserted. She felt a deflating shudder of disappointment. Had she puffed up her courage for nothing? Should she come back tomorrow? But today was the appointed day. Was this not the right place after all? She regarded the shelves of knives, some filmed with dust.
A Sheffeld thwitel . . .

“Looking to buy?” a deep voice asked.

Kate whirled around. A man stood in the archway. He was large and flabby and wore a smith's scarred leather apron. Even paces away Kate could smell the charcoal smoke that permeated his homespun clothing. His forehead was furrowed, his head bald, and his cheeks had the spidery red threads of the drinker. His sharp eyes narrowed as he looked her over. Kate was glad Soames was nearby.

“No trade today,” he growled. “Been puking my insides out with a flux. Come back next week.” He turned to lumber back the way he'd come.

“Wait, please. I've come about another matter.” He turned, scowling. She paused to clear her throat, then spoke the password Castelnau had given her: “The sea is calm, the wind fair.”

His scowl deepened. He sucked his teeth, looking annoyed at trying to make sense of her words. “We're a long bloody way from the sea.”

Kate bristled under his scrutiny. She was becoming impatient. “Are you Master Barnaby Harkness?”

“Harkness?” he said warily.

“Never mind.” Clearly, she had come to the wrong place. “Forgive me for disturbing you. Good day.” She turned to leave.

“I'm Harkness.” A different voice.

Kate turned back. Another man had come through the arch. “Please, mistress, don't go. What was that you were saying about the sea?”

She hesitated. She had been told Harkness was a cutler and the big man fit that description, as did his workshop, but this new man was no laborer. He was slim and erect, and he spoke like a lord. Dressed like one, too, in fine wool and expensive riding boots. The sleeves of his marigold doublet were fashionably embroidered with blue silk. His velvet cap sported a blue feather. His blond moustache was neatly trimmed and his fair hair, curling under the cap, was so blond it shone.

“The sea?” he prompted her again. He looked keenly curious. “Perhaps you are on your way to the coast?”

“No, sir.” She felt unnerved, unready. But Harkness was her contact—she had to take the next step. “However, I have been told that the sea is calm, the wind fair.”

The faintest smile curved his thin lips. “Ah, that is good news. The stars will shine and the moon will light the way.”

A nervous thrill rippled through her. He had answered the password correctly.

“Thank you, sir.” She raised her hand to show him the ring on her finger. Its signet was a fleur-de-lis crowning a vine, the symbol of Castelnau's family from Touraine.

He looked at the ring, then intensely at her, as though fascinated the courier was a woman. “You are most welcome,” he said, and cocked his head with a look of expectation. “Mistress . . . ?”

“Agnes Durant,” she answered. This was the alias Castelnau had given her. The less anyone at Sheffield knew about her the better. She noticed that the big man was still frowning at her.

“It's all right,” Harkness told him, his eyes still on Kate, “this is the friend from London we've been expecting.” Then, to Kate: “You must forgive Timms, he didn't know the password.” Harkness had not broken his intense appraisal of her. “I must commend our London friend for sending such a lovely new messenger. Definitely an improvement over the last wretch.”

Kate felt a warning prickle. The last courier had been Griffith. Had Harkness been a party to his murder? She could not let him see how much the thought frightened her. She said with feigned zeal, “Wretch, indeed. He met the end he deserved.”