The Virgin's War (4 page)

“I think they have already begun. With King Philip's letter asking you to receive the Jesuit Tomás Navarro. Navarro is an experienced diplomat. He is coming as an envoy.”

“Separate from Ambassador de Mendoza at my mother's court?” Anabel mused. “That is rather more than a mere approach. King Philip is well aware that the queen will take offense, considering that any Jesuit in this country is liable to be executed.”

“That is what the king wants. Not the execution of a priest, but to cause offense. To set you and the queen openly at odds. Your treasurer is right. Best to stay here this winter. Let them think you can be manipulated. Then perhaps we will learn something useful about Spain's future plans.”

Anabel sighed. “All of which means I must send another coded letter to my mother lest she suspect me of truly conspiring against her.” She meant it to sound teasing, but could see that her advisors picked up on her underlying nerves.

She met Pippa's eyes and wished they were alone. She tried to convey her question to her friend silently.
How long before the council begins to suspect what is really going on? And when do we take the risk of telling them?

There was really no need to ask. For now, the answers remained the same for both questions:
I don't know.

Philip II, King of Spain, moved through his palace of El Escorial followed by a sea of clerks and clerics. He listened as he walked. At the moment, it was his chief advisor, Cardinal Granvelle, who was speaking.

“The Pale has shrunk to little more than a protective boundary around Dublin itself,” Granvelle reported. The Pale was that area of Ireland under direct English control. Despite centuries of colonization, the English had never completely subdued the whole of the country. Now, with Spanish troops and money running things, they were well and truly on the run.

Or, more accurately, under siege. “We will keep the English penned in over the winter,” Philip said. “Use the time to consolidate control in the outer areas. Kilkenny continues to offer strong resistance under the Earl of Ormond.”

“And come spring?” Nearing seventy, the Burgundian nobleman turned churchman considered it his right to speak openly, even critically at times. Between his bald forehead sloping back to a ring of white hair and his curly beard, Granvelle looked ever disapproving.

Philip smiled thinly. “You have been speaking with my queen. I can hear her eagerness for blood in your words.”

“Her Majesty Queen Maria is truly committed to seeing Ireland freed of the taint of heresy.”

“Her Majesty,” Philip said frostily, “is truly committed to besting the English queen. I believe Maria will never be satisfied short of having Elizabeth in a prison of her own making.”

“And you do not share that view?”

“I do not think it likely to come to pass. Maria's ambitions are too often fueled by her emotions rather than reality.”

“And yours are not?”

Philip halted, and with practiced ease at reading their monarch, those attending his footsteps melted far enough away to give the two men at least an illusion of privacy.

“Say plainly what you mean,” Philip commanded.

“My king, I say only what is being said in Rome—that you do not embrace your position as Defender of the Faith as wholeheartedly as you might. Some say that your will has been corrupted by your affections as a man.”

“What do
you
say?”

Granvelle was not stupid. The cardinal had learned over long years how to balance on the edge of insult. “That one cannot separate the man from the king—or the woman from the queen. Queen Maria kindles a most human resentment against her cousin in England that ofttimes clouds her judgment. And Queen Elizabeth was not entirely a marriage of politics—for either of you. Even without your daughter binding you, I believe you would hesitate to destroy the English queen utterly.”

“Destroy the queen, and I lose my daughter. And Anne is our best hope for England's future. Which is why we are sending Tomás Navarro to her household. Anne has an independent mind, and I mean to cultivate it in our own interests. Do not underestimate what miracles might be wrought by affection.”

He turned away from Granvelle and continued pacing through the Courtyard of the King, startling into movement the hesitating flock of black-clad men. “As for Ireland,” Philip measured his words with care, “come next spring we shall see what our ships might do to harry Dublin's port. Let us see how England copes supplying an outlying colony under fire. And Monsignor Cardinal? Don't ever assume that you know all of my plans.”

Rather like his former wife in England, Philip excelled at playing the long game. Just now he was looking ahead, not merely to next summer, but to the next three or four summers. If all went well, by decade's end his daughter would rule England as a Catholic queen.

The French sortie along the Milanese border was accomplished swiftly and efficiently. Stephen had learned to appreciate such brief, sharp campaigns that involved neither honour nor passion. At least not on his part. It was just a job to him, one he performed with precision and skill and without raising any of the ghosts who lurked behind the scars of earlier—more personal—campaigns.

Ironically enough, Queen Elizabeth had done him a favour when she'd banished him from England after five months in the Tower of London. Had Stephen remained at home, with all the reminders of failure, he might have lost himself in solitude and alcohol as he had once before. But imprisonment imposed a certain discipline. He'd left the Tower leaner and clearer and ready to put the past behind. He'd at first resisted his family's plan to send him to Renaud LeClerc—especially the part about Kit coming with him like some sort of nursemaid—but there were times when his parents combined forces and could not be gainsaid. So here they were, he and Kit, twenty-one months after sailing from Dover, riding back to Blanclair with Renaud LeClerc's handpicked men almost as though they belonged.

The first one to greet them, coming down the lane on a dappled grey horse meant for a much bigger rider, was Felix LeClerc, Renaud's grandson and heir. The twelve-year-old orphan had attached himself to Stephen as though in replacement not only for his dead father, but for his beloved Uncle Julien, who had married Stephen's sister and moved to England.

“We feared you were going to miss Christmas!” Felix called as he approached and expertly reined in the large horse. He had the height of a young man, but when he grinned he looked like a child still.

Stephen was glad every time the boy grinned, for there was an underlying solemnity often manifested in long periods of surly quietness. Not surprising, considering Felix's losses.

“Christmas in France?” Stephen called back. “Never would we miss the Christmas vigil and Yule log.”

“Just as well, because a load of letters and parcels have come for you both in the last week. If you hadn't returned, I should have had to open them all myself.”

Kit aimed a lighthearted slap at the boy's head as he rode up next to him. Felix laughed and then the two were racing down the lane. Stephen followed more slowly.

Once at the chateau, there was work to be done before anything else. Horses to be cared for and baggage and remaining supplies and weapons to be sorted. Stephen had had command of this particular sortie—his French had become both more fluent and more colloquial in the last two years—and he executed every duty to completion before thinking of rest. The last duty was to report to Renaud himself.

The official report was concise, and Renaud received it with only one or two pertinent questions. Then he leaned back in his chair and studied Stephen. Although Renaud was shorter and broader than Dominic Courtenay, both men carried themselves like soldiers in every setting. And both had a knack for going to the heart of the matter. “That will see us through the winter. The question is, will you be with us when campaigning season returns in the spring?”

“I cannot begin to thank you for what you have done for me,” Stephen said. “But after two years, it is time for me to decide what to do next. I cannot hide here forever.”

“Commanding my men is hiding?”

“You know what I mean.”

Renaud grunted. “I do. Frankly, I'm surprised you lasted this long. I thought your pride would have driven you away long before now.”

“I suppose you know something about Courtenay pride.”

“Pride—or stubbornness? Whatever you call it, you have coped well, Stephen. I think even your queen would be pleased.”

“Not pleased enough to allow me back to England.”

Only the French could manage that sardonic smile. “Probably not—at least not yet. But there is something freeing in being your own man. Where will that freedom take you next?”

“I had thought, perhaps, the Netherlands. Clearly they have need for soldiers.”

“They have need for talented military captains—of which you are a very good specimen. I am sure you would be made more than welcome.”

Stephen smiled a little. “You would not mind having trained a man just for him to go fight against Catholic soldiers?”

“Against
Spanish
soldiers,” Renaud corrected. “I give my blessing on that if you want it. Better that than being drawn into the interminable Huguenot conflicts here.”

“I thought you stayed out of matters of religion.” The LeClerc household certainly appeared orthodox enough in their Catholic worship, though Stephen knew some of the servants were Huguenots, whom Renaud's late wife had hired to protect them and their families from the violence of the last decade.

“As you and your queen know perfectly well, religion is never free of ambition and politics. I prefer not to have my decisions made by anyone else's narrow interpretation of whichever religion they hold to.”

“Well, I have no interest in throwing in my lot with the Huguenots. I've burned too many bridges with the doctrinaire Catholics already.”

Renaud narrowed his eyes. “Because of Julien and Nicolas and what happened in England?”

“Because of Nightingale and Mary Stuart,” Stephen allowed. It was all of a piece.

In the summer of 1580, French and Spanish Catholics had joined forces in an elaborate—and ultimately successful—attempt to rescue Mary Stuart from her English prison. It had been known as the Nightingale Plot. It was that plot that had drawn his sister Lucette into the heart of the LeClerc family, entangling her with both of Renaud's sons. The affair ended with violence and death in England. No matter how much had been kept quiet in the aftermath, there were those in Europe who knew enough to direct their Catholic vengeance at both the LeClercs and Stephen himself.

And one Catholic above all.

You have made an enemy today,
Mary Stuart had said to Stephen as she left England's shores.

As though mentioning his sons had sent his mind in a specific direction, Renaud said abruptly, “It will be hard for Felix when you leave.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“The loss and sorrow is not of your making. And I understand why Julien cannot come to France. But, perhaps, when you leave in the spring, your brother might be willing to escort him to England for a time? I think Felix needs his uncle.”

“I am sure Kit would gladly do so.” And it would serve to ensure that Kit did not follow him into a war.

Renaud sighed, and Stephen could see the weight of the last years in his face. “We shall have you both for the winter, at least. I am glad. Charlotte is all that I could wish for in a daughter—but I confess that I miss both my sons.”

After all the emotionally laden undertones, Stephen could finally be alone. He knew he needed a bath and a meal, but he was so tired and relieved to be without immediate responsibilities that he shut his door, pulled off his boots, and threw himself into a thickly padded chair in front of the fire. The small table at hand held the letters that had arrived in his absence.

Six from his parents—they wrote once a week without fail, though sometimes they arrived together in batches—and three from Pippa. There was only one from Lucie, and it hurt Stephen just to look at her handwriting. Her string of miscarriages had wounded her in a place he didn't know how to reach, and her letters to him had become almost painfully dutiful.

He laid aside his family's letters in favour of the last, addressed to him in the distinctive mix of merchants' scrawl and convent copperplate that announced Maisie Sinclair as thoroughly as her tiny frame or enormous mind.

He couldn't say when her letters had become so important to him. They started a few weeks after he'd left the Tower. Maisie wrote as she spoke—as though constantly engaged in a free-flowing conversation that made leaps from the philosophy of Erasmus to the science of Galileo to the wars of the Italian city-states to the price of alum on the open market. In the last year and a half she had written to him from Bruges and from Amsterdam, from Cologne and Rheims and Bohemia. She had ventured as far east as Krakow and as far south as Florence.

And though she was in motion and Stephen hardly stirred from Blanclair save for campaigns, he had come to understand that they were both learning to cope with the traumas they'd passed through in Ireland. Communicating with the only other outsider who had been part of the deaths and hollow victories of the Kavanaugh clan was a method of healing. Not as quick at inducing painlessness as the bottle, but less messy in the long run.

He had not heard from her since Kit's report of her visit to York. Stephen broke Maisie's seal—a fox, symbol of ingenuity and wit. Shortly after leaving England, she had sent him its match: a ruby-set pin in the shape of a fox.
This will ensure you aid any time you may need it from any of my men in Europe.

He opened the letter and read with interest.

3 December 1584

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Stephen,

Why did you never tell me how terrifying your youngest sister is? One would think that in private audience with the Princess of Wales—daughter of the most fearsome monarchs of our age—that Princess Anne would dominate. But it is the quiet ones one has to watch out for, I have found. Because once they start talking…

Well, never mind. It was a productive interlude from a business perspective, so I must thank you for that. I would never have come to the attention of the princess if not for my acquaintance with you. My grandfather always told me that to be successful in business one needed not only financial assets but personal ones. I could hardly hope for a better asset than Princess Anne Isabella. With a significant degree of her business confided to my keeping, I at last have the position I have been waiting for to return to Edinburgh and challenge my brother.

An astute reader—and you are, if nothing else, astute—will notice that I am writing this from Newcastle more than two weeks after leaving York. If I am so ready for a challenge, you may ask, why have I not crossed the border yet?

I suppose if I knew that, I should not need to continue to write to you.

M. Sinclair