Witchstruck (32 page)

Alejandro turned to stare at me. I could hear the frustration in his voice. ‘Meg, are you angry with me?’

I bent my head to my sampler again. ‘No,’ I muttered indistinctly. ‘Why should I be? You have already explained that you were at Father Vasco’s bedside for the past few weeks. And Hampton Court is a very
large
palace. It is not surprising you were unable to find the Lady Elizabeth’s apartment before today. I only hope you will find your way back to Spain more easily.’

The sharp irony in my voice seemed to have done the
trick
of bursting his dignified exterior. Alejandro came back towards me, his tread purposeful, and I looked up from my untidy embroidery in anticipation, half hoping he would seize me.

But Alejandro stopped before he reached me, his eyes very dark, his mouth a thin hard line. He stood a moment, crushing his fashionable velvet cap between his hands until it must have been quite mangled. Then he bowed, and replaced the cap on his head. Astonishingly, it still looked perfect.

‘Madam,’ he said stiffly, his gaze fixed on the carved legs of the high-backed, silk-covered seat on which I was sitting, ‘would you be so kind as to convey my greetings to the Lady Elizabeth on her return? I have today written to the Queen on behalf of my master, whose sickness prohibits him from making his report in person. In this letter, I have described the Lady Elizabeth’s most pious and fervent Catholicism over the past year, and her absence of contact with the outside world. I have explained to the Queen that there can be no doubting her sister’s faith, nor the chastity and honesty of her person. I have also described your service to her, and begged that some provision might be made for your upkeep at court.’

Alejandro paused, and his voice became colder and even more distant as he realized I was not going to reply.

‘I believe Her Majesty has not yet granted an audience to the Lady Elizabeth, nor set her free from this too-long
imprisonment
. Hopefully my letter will help to heal the breach between these two sisters.’

He muttered some farewell and then was gone, closing the door quietly behind him. I felt a sudden desperate urge to run after him and throw myself at his feet, to tell Alejandro I was sorry, that I had not meant to speak so coldly to him, that it had all been a terrible mistake.

But some tiny spark of pride still left in me refused to go out. I sat in awful silence instead, and stared at the closed door until my eyes ached.

Alejandro de Castillo’s letter of testimony would make it very difficult for anyone to prove Elizabeth either a traitor or a heretic. And I had repaid him for this loyalty by suggesting he got back on a boat to Spain as soon as possible.

That evening, as we were preparing the princess for bed, there was a knock at the door to the apartments. Blanche went to answer it, irritable and perplexed, and came back into the bedchamber with a tall, stately woman in tow. She was swathed in a cloak of soft dove-grey, her lined face partially concealed beneath her hood, but Elizabeth seemed to recognize her at once as one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting.

‘Mistress Clarencieux,’ she said faintly, and curtseyed. Her face was suddenly very pale. ‘Have you come from the Queen?’

The woman nodded. ‘Her Majesty wishes to see you.’

‘Now?’

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, though she sounded more alarmed than surprised. She was probably afraid they might take this chance to convey the princess to the Tower of London under cover of darkness. She was still so popular with the common people that I imagined the government must fear sparking a riot if they tried to take her to the Tower by daylight.

‘Are you ready?’ Mistress Clarencieux replied, a little haughtily, and I sensed that she did not like Elizabeth.

Elizabeth hesitated, then nodded. No doubt she felt this might be her only chance to clear her name.

Her face composed, Elizabeth allowed Blanche to fasten a cloak about her shoulders and bring her outdoor shoes. Then we set off down the stairs to the privy garden, with Mistress Clarencieux leading the way. Blanche and I followed the princess, both of us unwilling to let her face the Queen alone. Behind us came half a dozen of Elizabeth’s guards, their faces stern, and several gentlemen ushers with torches.

We crossed the privy garden in silence under a gentle moonlight, and came to the base of the Queen’s lodgings.

The door swung open on a narrow winding stair lit by flaming torches in brackets. My heart beating hard, I glanced at Blanche. She was trembling, her lips moving in a silent prayer. It seemed that neither of us expected this night to end well.

Indeed, it was hard not to be frightened when all the time we could hear the gentle lapping of the River Thames behind us. It was only a short barge trip along the river to the Tower of London, the grim prison where Elizabeth’s mother had been lodged before her execution.

‘No one but the Lady Elizabeth,’ the Queen’s lady-in-waiting told us, barring our way.

Elizabeth turned, and there was naked fear in her eyes. ‘I will not go up alone,’ she insisted, and a mulish look crept over her face. I thought she had never looked younger. ‘Mistress Parry must accompany me.’

But Mistress Clarencieux shook her head. ‘Not Blanche Parry,’ she said cruelly, then her gaze flicked contemptuously to me. ‘You may take the girl instead.’

Gathering my full skirts, I stepped into the base of the tower after Elizabeth. They did not want the princess to feel safe or comfortable with her old servants about her. That was why I had been chosen. But I saw relief in Elizabeth’s face and wondered if she was hoping my gift might help sway the Queen to forgive her.

My palms began to sweat as I followed Elizabeth up the winding stair. Did she expect me to influence the Queen herself? I could lose my head for such a dangerous act, and this time there would be no one to save me.

To my surprise, the Queen’s apartments lay in silence and almost complete darkness. I did not entirely know what I had expected, but this sombre, unlit maze of rooms seemed more
suited
to a mole under the earth than a queen. Certainly I could never envisage Elizabeth living in such humble conditions once she was on the throne. Mistress Clarencieux seemed unperturbed by the darkness, leading us without faltering down a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor that opened into a vast, palatial apartment dominated by a magnificent bed hung with heavy curtains in some dark material. This room was lit only by a small fire that burned fitfully in the enormous hearth, its light barely reaching the creeping shadows beside the bed.

Coming to the centre of this strange room, Elizabeth sank at once to her knees and appeared to be praying fervently. I followed her example, kneeling a few feet behind her. I too bowed my head over my clasped hands as if in prayer, though all my senses were alive, listening to each tiny sound in the room.

Then Elizabeth raised her head and spoke, seeming to address the deep shadows beside the drape-hung bed. I feared to stare too hard, but listened instead. Earnestness trembled behind every word, a slight catch to Elizabeth’s voice as though she was on the point of tears.

‘Your Majesty,’ she breathed, ‘please believe that I am your humble and most loyal subject. Whatever you may have heard to the contrary, I protest these to be lies and wicked falsehoods. This I swear by Almighty God. You know my heart, for it is unchanged. I have remained true to Your Majesty from the beginning and shall be for ever.’

There was a movement from the shadows, a pale hand raised to an even paler face. The fire flared behind me, and I saw the slumped figure of the Queen, seated on a high-backed chair near the bed.

‘Still you cling so stoutly to the same tale and refuse to confess your offence.’ A hoarse voice spoke out of the shadows near the bed. ‘Take caution, Elizabeth, that your immortal soul be not perjured in this.’

‘I cannot confess an offence of which I am innocent, Your Majesty.’

‘I pray to God it may fall out so.’

‘If it does not,’ Elizabeth said, her voice tremulous, her hands still clasped together, ‘I request neither Your Majesty’s favour nor your pardon.’

‘Be that as it may,’ the Queen replied sharply, and straightened in her chair. The heaped folds of her gown fell away to reveal a large, rounded belly. I remembered the horoscope John Dee had cast, and wondered if there was indeed a child growing in there, or whether my own reading of the chart had been right, that the child was nothing but a phantom conjured up by a Queen desperate for an heir. ‘I daresay you will claim now that you have been unjustly punished at my hands.’

‘I should never say so to you, Your Majesty.’

The Queen snorted. ‘To others, then. Once you are safely away from here.’

‘No indeed, Your Majesty,’ Elizabeth persisted, and her
voice
grew more gentle. ‘For my long imprisonment is a burden which only I must bear. I have borne it now for more than a year. What I have told you here is nothing but God’s own truth. I humbly beg and pray Your Majesty to have a good opinion of me and to consider me still your true subject.’

There was a long silence. I felt the heat of the fire at my back, sweat on my forehead, and heard the rustle of Queen Mary’s gown as she shifted heavily in her chair. She was breathing erratically now, as though torn between two equally painful courses of action. The princess had never stood in sharper danger, I realized.

I stilled my own breathing to concentrate on the Queen’s instead. My fingers tingled with power, suddenly hot, almost unbearably so. If I could not influence her to show mercy, there was nothing to prevent Mary from sending her half-sister to the Tower, and from there to the block. After all, why not? Elizabeth, with her red-gold hair and flawless skin, must remind the ageing Mary of that wicked young beauty who had stolen King Henry away from her mother.

If Anne Boleyn could die a traitor’s death on the scaffold, so too could her daughter.

In, out. In, out. In, out
.

I raised my eyes to that shadowy face, just the faintest gleam of eyes in the firelight, and fought the Queen’s frantic and almost hysterical desire to condemn her sister to death. Sweat crept down my neck, my body ached, and my mind
warred
with hers in terrible silence. Never before had I attempted something so grindingly difficult, to use my gift without speaking, to influence someone’s will with just the power of my mind. Yet somehow I had to do it. I could not fail Elizabeth again.

The Queen’s breath caught in her throat. Mary was about to speak.

‘
Sí
,’ Mary whispered, her head turned aside. ‘
Sí, sí, entiendo
.’

My gaze widened on the Queen’s face. She had spoken under her breath in Spanish, but to whom?

Rapidly, I searched the room with my eyes whilst trying not to draw attention to myself, still on my knees behind the princess. Perhaps there, in the shadows behind the bed, where the curtains hung most darkly . . .

Queen Mary stirred. She gestured Elizabeth to rise and held out her hand.

‘Come, sister, let us be comfortable together and argue no longer. I had a most favourable report from the priests who were with you at Woodstock, and I know you have taken the Catholic faith to your heart.’

Elizabeth stepped forward and kissed Mary’s hand, then drew back, swaying slightly as though ill.

‘Perhaps I have been too harsh with you,’ the Queen muttered, seeming genuinely contrite. ‘Your cheeks seem very flushed. The palace at Woodstock was very damp, I am told. The air there does not seem to have agreed with you.’

‘I am not as well as Your Majesty,’ Elizabeth replied, lying smoothly. I saw her head turn as though her gaze was lingering on those deep shadows behind the curtained bed. ‘But now that I have come to court again, Your Majesty, perhaps my health will improve.’

Was it possible that Elizabeth knew who was hiding there, and was addressing that person – and not the Queen?

The two sisters spoke quietly together, mostly of the pleasures of country living compared to the smells and hardships of court. Then the Queen professed herself tired and dismissed us with a wave of her stubby-fingered hand. I followed Elizabeth out of the apartments, my head bowed discreetly. Had my magick arts had any effect on Queen Mary, or had she been influenced by whoever had been hiding in the shadows?

Whichever, the outcome was the same. All charges against the Lady Elizabeth had been dropped and she was not to be taken to the Tower again. I was overjoyed for the princess, and more than a little relieved for my own sake. If Marcus Dent had survived the hellish storm into which I had cast him, he had not yet sent word to the court that the Lady Elizabeth had a witch for a maidservant. So perhaps my spell that night had held true, binding the witchfinder’s tongue and hands against betraying us. It was an exhilarating thought.

Back in the safety of her private apartments, Elizabeth hid her face in her hands and stood speechless for a moment,
her
whole body shaking. I thought at first that she was weeping. Then she raised her reddish-gold head and burst out laughing, her eyes alight with it.

‘I am free!’ Elizabeth told Blanche Parry, clapping her hands in delight. ‘It is over. I am free!’

EPILOGUE

Promises, Promises

Following her late-night interview with the Queen, the door to Elizabeth’s apartments stood constantly open to a stream of well-wishers and courtiers curious to see the newly-pardoned princess. She kept discreetly to her rooms for a few more days, then began to venture out into the court itself. Then Elizabeth was invited to dine in the banqueting hall, and went thankfully, delighted with her new prominence. Even King Philip came to see her on several occasions, his blue eyes appreciative of her youth and beauty. His priests and Spanish courtiers often accompanied him, no less admiring, though I never saw Alejandro de Castillo among them.

Indeed, it was almost June before I saw Alejandro again. That morning, Elizabeth had insisted on a game of bowls in the privy garden, and was playing barefoot in the warm sunshine, surrounded by her newly gathered entourage.