The Traitor's Daughter (28 page)

He seemed to sense the change in her, sensed that she understood. He ran a hand distractedly over his bristled head. “Come. We can't talk here.”

She walked with him through the great hall, then outside and down the alley to the stables. She forced herself to dam up the questions that thrashed inside her. Forced herself to quash the image of the woman's white buttocks . . . white thighs above white stockings gartered with yellow at her knees. Owen took her to the side of the stable block and up an outside staircase. At the top he opened the door to a small chamber and ushered her in. A narrow bed. A scuffed table with an earthenware jug. A spindly stool. Smells of horse and dank straw.

He closed the door. They were alone.

Kate turned to him. “So,” she said stiffly. “The countess.”

“Yes.” He watched her like a man facing a wounded lioness, gauging if she was subdued enough for him to approach.

Kate didn't know
what
she felt. Not subdued, no! Still angry. Wounded and smarting. But also, grudgingly, impressed. The countess could have invaluable private knowledge of her husband.

Still, it hurt to look at Owen. She glanced around at the cramped, fetid quarters. “This is where you live?”

He nodded.

Mortification pierced her again. She thought of the blue ribbon inside her cloak. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Has
she
been here?”

“Kate, I swear to you, she is only—”

“No!” She held up her hands to stop him. “Swear nothing.” She would not cry! She took a breath to steady herself and forced a calm tone. “Just tell me this. What have you learned from her?”

He let out a tight sigh, and she knew it was his relief at having pacified her. “Much,” he said. Words rushed from him as though to prove his point to her. “That Northumberland and Arundel are stockpiling arms at Arundel Castle. That Fortescue has received messages here from Thomas Morgan in Paris. That Morgan meets regularly with the Earl of Westmorland, and Westmorland was recently the guest of the Duke of Guise. And that Fortescue has now gone north to Sheffield.”

Much indeed! “I just came back from Sheffield,” she said.

His eyes went wide. “Castelnau gave you letters? You delivered them?”

“Yes.”

“To whom?”

She hesitated. She dare not tell the whole truth about Robert. “The rendezvous was complicated. But the passwords worked. And I was given Mary's letters in reply. I brought them back to Matthew. He had them copied, and this morning I delivered the originals to Castelnau.”

Owen gave a low whistle of admiration. “Good work, Kate.”

She bristled at his patronizing tone. “
Dangerous
work. I've put myself at risk while you've been—” She bit back the words. Bit back her anger. She turned away and moved to the window and looked out in misery at the stable courtyard. Matthew had told her Owen had a source. Did Matthew know it was the countess? Humiliation roiled through Kate. She loathed being forced into this tawdry role of the wronged woman, like in some tired comedy by one of Owen's hack playwright friends.

He came to her. Worry strained his voice. “That's what I meant. The danger. Kate, all I care about is that you're all right. I hate that Matthew sent you there.”

His sincerity rocked her. “I'm fine,” she said.

He laid his hands on her shoulders, gently this time, and turned her to face him. “Your coming here could be dangerous, too. If Northumberland finds out that you work for Matthew—” He stopped, his face creased with concern. “Why
have
you come?”

She did not know what to answer. Her carefully planned phrases deserted her. And yet, her reason for coming had not changed. Robert's fate lay in her hands. Whatever her own hurt feelings, her brother's situation was far more urgent. His
life
was at stake. To save him, she needed Owen's help. Her thought of a moment ago about playing a role came back to mock her. She needed to playact now. Needed to get his help while hiding her worst suspicions about Robert.

“I came to ask you something,” she said.

She moved to the bed—it was a mere two steps away—and sat down stiffly on the edge. The thin mattress of straw rustled as she sat. She stared at it, touching it with her fingertips as cautiously as if it were dusted with poison. She saw again the woman's white thighs. How often he had bedded her? Catherine, that was her name.

“Kate—” he stammered, coming to her.

She looked up at him in confusion. This much was not playacting. The disorder in her mind was real.

He sat down, too. Beside her, but not close. She held herself rigid. They stared ahead like strangers. She sensed the tension in his every muscle.

Begin,
she told herself.

“What are your orders from Matthew?” she said. “Must you stay to find out more?”

He shrugged. “She only talks when I—” He caught himself, did not finish.

“I see.”

He slumped forward, his body loosening like a man weary of a fight. He laid his forearms on his knees. He clasped his hands and stared at them. “You're cut out for this work, Kate. You know that? You care about it, care about what happens to the stubborn people of this island. You love England. It's in your blood. Me? I got into this work for just one reason. To get you.”

She looked at him. She had never heard him talk like this. No self-assurance. No swagger.

He went on staring at his hands. “I had nothing. And I wanted everything. Wanted it so that I could get you and keep you. I carried out every assignment Matthew gave me, and did them well, made myself invaluable to him, and to Walsingham. Did it so that one day they would reward me with a rich post and then I could give everything to you. Give you the life your father gave you. The life you deserve.” He looked sideways at her with a sad smile. “Strange, isn't it? You didn't want to get involved in this work beyond decoding, but now you fly with it as easily as a thrush through forest. I pitched into it to get rich, but I'm really just a journeyman. And now . . .” His head slumped lower. His voice was raw. “Now the job has brought me to this place, and what I've done here is turning you from me. Walsingham could pour the rubies of the Indies into my hands and it would be sand through my fingers if I lose you.”

She could not speak. Tears scalded her eyes. Her rage was spent, but in its place was a morass of confusion, resentment, and, in spite of everything, most bewilderingly, love.

“Fly with it?” she echoed. “No. I've botched some things. My brother for one. You were right and I was wrong. I came to tell you so. To apologize.”

He looked up at her, startled.

“Owen, Robert is not who he said he was.”

He straightened, alert. “What's happened?”

Her apology was from her heart. If she had listened to Owen earlier she might have turned Robert from his path. But now, having apologized, artfulness was needed. She could not tell him she had seen Robert in Sheffield. And she absolutely could not share her fear that he planned to kill the Queen. Of that she had no proof. She could be wrong. She prayed she was. But Owen, if he heard of it, would certainly tell Matthew and this time Matthew would have Robert arrested.

“He told a lie,” she began. “At his interrogation by Lord Burghley and the councillors. I observed it. Matthew gave me leave to watch through the peephole in the next room. Robert told the councillors that our mother did not know the Earl of Westmorland. The fact is, she did. She met Westmorland once, when we first arrived in Brussels. Robert and I were there. Just children, but we were there. His testimony disturbed me. So afterward I confronted him about it. And he made an extraordinary confession.”

She turned, leaned closer to Owen. He was listening, rapt.

She kept her voice low, as quiet as a conspirator. “He told me Mother sent him to England.” She repeated the story that Robert had told her in their grandmother's orchard. That Mother had for years spun a fantasy of helping powerful exiles like Westmorland plan an invasion to dethrone Elizabeth. That she, along with two wayward friends as foolish as herself, had sent Robert to England under the cover of his medical profession. His task was to reconnoiter the Sussex coast for landing places for invasion ships. “Mother,” Kate sighed with derision. “Her twisted dream. Robert said that as soon as he stepped back on his native soil he realized how wrong and pitiful Mother was. She and her two friends played at intrigue with no more effect than Bedlam inmates planning escape. He swore to me that he had cut himself off from Mother. And I believed him. Why would I not? Mother may be bitter, but she is powerless. And it seemed to me that Robert had done no harm. Besides, Father welcomed him back with joy. How could I object to my brother's return to his rightful home?”

She looked down, mortified indeed at remembering. “Then you told me you'd seen him here at Petworth and we argued, you and I. I defended Robert. But that night I confronted him again, this time at our father's house. He was offended by my suspicion. Father sent him, he protested. Sent him as his emissary to invite Northumberland to a hunting party. And Father corroborated this in my presence. So, once again, I accepted Robert's innocence. But now . . .” She looked away as though overwhelmed. “Now I have learned otherwise.”

Owen sat motionless but alert. Kate felt it, felt his eyes on her, waiting. She had carefully led him to this point. She suffered a squirm of shame at manipulating him, and at the sin of the lie she was about to commit, but she quickly banished that weakness. She owed this to her brother. And, as she thought of the countess's white thighs, she felt that her husband owed
her.

She turned back to him. “This morning I delivered Mary's letters to a secret place known only to Castelnau and whatever underlings he trusts. It is in a church. I waited so I could observe whom he sent. Waited over an hour, hidden, on a bench behind a pillar. Someone finally came and retrieved the letters. It was Robert.”

Owen let out a soft groan. “So.”

There, she had told the lie. Now there was no going back.

“Yes. You suspected Robert and you were right. He is involved with the Queen's enemies. It seems they use him as a go-between. Like the scores of shiftless men that Matthew and Walsingham themselves hire from time to time. Listeners. Informants. Message carriers.”

Owen added grimly, challenging her, “And full-blown agents.”

“No. I know my brother. He has become involved with treacherous men, but he is not evil. He may be a fool, but he's harmless.”

“That's not for you to decide.”

“I
have
decided.”

“My God,” he said, a sudden realization. “You haven't told Matthew, have you.” It was a statement, not a question. And with it, a look of dismay. “Kate, don't be ridiculous. We have to report this.”

“No. That's exactly what I want to avoid.”

“Impossible.”

“He'll be arrested. He could hang.”

“He made that choice.”

“
Mother
made that choice.”

“He's a grown man. And you have no idea whom he may be working for.”

“For Castelnau. A tiny cog in greater men's wheels. He is young, Owen. His whole life has been Mother and medical studies and now a taste of minor intrigue. He is nothing compared to the men we need to fear. You said I love England. I do. You know I would never do anything that might bring harm to Her Majesty's realm.”

He frowned, unconvinced.

“Your brothers live happily in Wales,” she said. “But what if one of them made the terrible mistake my brother has and you held his life in your hands. Could you send him to die? Could you set the noose around your own brother's neck?”

She saw the tiniest crack in his armor, a glint of sympathy in his eyes. Yet still, suspicion darkened his face.

Kate had no more arguments to offer. Only the truth. “He is my brother, Owen. I love him.”

“You love the boy he was. Not the man he has become.”

“I cannot separate the two. It would be like separating my arm from my body. You were right to mistrust him, but I am right about his soul. He's gotten mixed up in something he shouldn't and if he hangs for that it would kill me. I want to save him.”

He looked astounded. “Save him? How?”

“I want to send him away. Someplace foreign, where he'll be far away from Mother.”

“How? You can't make him go.”

“No. But you can.”

“I?”

“Please, hear me out. You know people that I don't. Ship's captains who can be bought. A captain who will take a passenger, no questions asked, and slip out of England with a night-time tide. I have thought this through. I will tell Robert he's been betrayed and must flee on the ship we've arranged. If he balks, you have the strength to force him. There is no time to lose, Owen. It must be done tomorrow.” St. Crispin's Day. Grandmother's remembrance supper.

He looked pained. “I don't like it. I'm sorry, Kate, but we have to tell Matthew. It's our duty.”

“And what of my duty to my kin? I left Robert behind ten years ago in Brussels. If I had been able to bring him home he would never have become what he is.
He
is my duty. I cannot abandon him again.”

“You cannot blame yourself. He chose his way. And there you cannot follow.”

His intransigence rocked her. This was not what she had expected. But she could not give up. She could not forsake Robert—nor leave him free to kill the Queen.

She got up from the bed. “I am going to get my brother out of England. Tomorrow. I want your help. But if you refuse I will find someone else. Prisons make hard men, and any let out recently would jump at the purse I will offer.” She held his gaze, and found the courage to go on. “Don't make me resort to that, Owen. Help me, and I promise you we shall never wrangle again. If you will not, I swear I will never return to you. So choose. Right now. Your duty to Matthew, or me.”