The King's Daughter (6 page)

For the first time, he saw how much it meant to her.

She went on eagerly, “And consider how much we stand to gain by this rebellion. If it succeeds and Princess Elizabeth takes the throne, it will usher in a new age of tolerance and we’ll never have to fear again. And if it fails the Queen will be busy dealing with the known rebels. As long as I stay quiet, no one will even look my way. There could hardly be less risk to us.”

Thornleigh sighed heavily. He was far from convinced, but her arguments were beginning to make sense.

“Look, Richard,” she said, pressing her advantage, “we can send Isabel to Antwerp now. Adam’s there and she’ll be fine there with him. That way, if you’re right and we do see danger coming, they’ll be safe on the other side, and the two of us can slip onto a ship at the last moment and join them. If, on the other hand, everything turns out well here, as I think it will, we’ll bring them home—to a new, moderate regime. All right?”

Did she really not understand? “Honor, it’s
you
who will be in danger, not Adam and Isabel.”

“But in troubled times, innocents often pay for the acts of others. And Bel is a true innocent in this.”

Thornleigh knew what she meant. They had always kept their daughter ignorant of their former life, for her own safety.

“So let’s send her off immediately,” she said.

“Agreed,” Thornleigh said. This was a start, after all. “In fact, I have the
Curlew
set to sail for Antwerp with a cargo next week, so she can take passage on her.” Besides, he thought, Adam was already scouting prospects for expanding the business there. Thornleigh wasn’t worried about that end of things. He kept a small residence and warehouse in Antwerp for the twice-yearly international cloth fairs, and he could sell the Colchester property here through an agent. They’d be starting over, yes, but hardly poor.

“But
we
will stay,” Honor said.

Thornleigh turned away. He paced, rubbing the back of his neck, thinking.

“If we do …” he began, but he stopped as Honor’s face brightened. He held up a hand to check her enthusiasm.
“If
we do, we’ll do it my way. No getting involved with wild-eyed rebels. We’ll just wait and watch. Do you hear me?”

She smiled slyly. “Do you imagine me tearing into Grenville Hall brandishing a sword and shrieking battle cries? Of
course
I’ll be prudent. You worry too much.”

“Someone has to,” he grumbled.

She laughed. Then she said with quiet hopefulness, “But we
will
stay?”

“If I agree to that, you must agree to something for me. If no rebellion happens after all, if it turns out that there is no hope of change in England, then you will come away.”

Her brow furrowed as she thought about this. “How long will you give me?”

He thought quickly. “Until the Queen’s marriage. They say the Prince is on his way, but Lent is coming and the Queen won’t be married in Lent. So that leaves three weeks. If there’s no rebellion by then, we go. Agreed?”

He saw the struggle going on inside her. But finally she nodded.

Thornleigh felt as though a chain had uncoiled from around his heart. There would be no rebellion; it would be suicide for anyone to try. In three weeks he could take her to safety.

“Good,” he said, pulling her into his arms. He brushed his cheek over her hair. Definitely lavender. “Isabel’s out for a while, the boy said?”

Honor drew back, but only far enough to smile up at him with understanding. “Apparently for the afternoon.”

“Even better.” He began to untie the ribbon lacing at her cuff. Dinner could wait. He had not felt so happy in months.

4
First Loyaltie

I
sabel stood under lightly falling snow at Martin St. Leger’s front door on Bucklersbury Street and knocked. She held a linen pouch of sweetmeats she had just bought at the apothecary’s to forestall her parents’ suspicion when she returned to the Crane. The door swung open and Martin stood before her. His cheeks were flushed.

“Everything’s changed, Isabel! We’re leaving for Kent this afternoon!” He yanked her inside and slammed the door. In his eagerness he was pulling her by the wrist, almost dragging her into the great hall, and she dropped the pouch. “Martin, stop!” He let her go, apologizing, and snatched up the sweets for her. Isabel had never seen him so excited. He was like a boy about to gallop off on his first hunt. They were alone in the great hall, but Isabel could hear men’s agitated voices in the parlor at the far end where the door stood open.
“What’s
changed?” she asked. “Won’t Sir Thomas see me after all?”

“I don’t know,” Martin confessed, plowing a hand through his hair. “Everything’s different now.” He shot a glance toward the parlor. Isabel could see a man pacing at the open door, talking loudly, though his words were indistinct at this distance. His doublet had been thrown off, and he paced in his shirt. A fit man, she noted, perhaps in his early thirties, with a short brown beard and short straight hair. Was it Sir Thomas Wyatt? Someone inside kicked the door shut.

“Oh, Martin, tell me,” Isabel said. “What is going on?”

Martin took a deep breath and again raked at his hair. “It was supposed to happen in several places at once, in about six weeks. Sir Peter Carew was going to collect a force in Devon, and Sir James Crofts would do the same in Wales. The Duke of Suffolk was set to raise up the Midlands. And Sir Thomas,” he said, jerking his head toward the parlor, “would raise up Kent. But this afternoon"—his hands flew up in the wild gesture of an explosion—"we heard that Carew has bolted! Sold his cattle and grabbed the cash and fled in a fishing boat to France. And the foul weather has cut us off from Wales—made the roads impassable for our couriers to bring news. And the Duke of Suffolk, he’s gone. He was here in London, but this morning the Queen’s council sent for him, and he sent back word he was on his way to come to them, and then he tore away, last seen riding northwards out of London like he was fleeing the Devil. No one knows where to. So Sir Thomas says we must begin the uprising ourselves. Now!”

“But why? What went wrong?”

“Courtenay, the Earl of Devon.” Martin’s look was murderous. “When the Chancellor pressed him about the rumors, Courtenay blabbed. At least, that’s the opinion of Ambassador de Noailles.” In mentioning the French ambassador, Martin again jerked his head toward the door.

“But why would Lord Courtenay do such a thing?” Isabel was shocked by the betrayal. “I thought he was to be the figurehead for the uprising. That his royal blood would make the country rally.”

“De Noailles says—”

“St. Leger!” a voice called, and the parlor door flew open again. The man who had been pacing took a step out into the hall. “There you are. We need wine. I’m parched with all this jabbering.” Noticing Isabel, he dropped the belligerence in his voice. “Wine, Martin, if you please.” He stepped back inside and closed the door.

“Is that him?” Isabel asked Martin. “Wyatt?”

“Yes. Damn, there’s only a scullery maid back there,” he grumbled as he hurried off toward the kitchen. Isabel heard him call to the maid for wine. She looked around the hall, so eloquent with the evidence of family life: a mound of half-worked embroidery, a child’s straw doll facedown on a chair, a wooden horse with painted bells, a chess game left unfinished. She knew that Martin’s large family—his long-widowed mother, his three sisters and their husbands and children, his uncles and aunts here for Christmas—all had gone off to the bear garden with the rest of the servants.

Martin was back in the hall in a moment. “Look, Isabel, I’ve got to go back in. I’ll try to get him to see you, but the way things now stand …” He shrugged to indicate the unlikelihood. “But sit here and I’ll do my very best.” He took her hand and led her to the chair with the doll, shoving it off and sitting her down. He pressed her hand ardently against his chest. “Oh, Isabel, if we leave now God only knows when I’ll see you again.”

She leaned close to him and said with passionate conviction, “When you’ve beaten the Queen and saved the realm. Then, come back to me.”

He smiled, and his eyes spoke his feeling. He kissed her hand and then hurried into the parlor. The door closed after him.

Isabel sat still, straining to hear the drone of the men’s talk behind the door. Her eyes fell on the straw doll on thefloor. Its head was twisted askew. A memory flashed in her mind of a night in Seville, lurid with flames, and a young Spanish woman, a Jew, slumped in her bonds at the stake as the fire was lit around her. She had been garroted—an act of mercy at the final moment in return for her denouncing her religion. Isabel, six at the time, had caught the sight only fleetingly before her parents had whisked her away from the horrifying spectacle, and she had not understood until she was older that it had been part of an
auto da fé,
the huge public executions staged by the Spanish Inquisition in their quest to exterminate all infidels and heretics. Soon after, the Thornleighs had left Seville after only a year and returned to Antwerp. But to Isabel, the sight of the woman, as limp and lifeless as this doll, forever symbolized to her the continuing horrors of Spanish authority.

She sprang from the chair, ran to the door, and pressed her ear against it to hear the men’s talk. There were several voices, edgy, conflicting, interrupting one another:

“This afternoon’s impossible, Thomas. My sons are at Basingstoke.”

“Fine by me, Thomas, but I’ve got to have a day or two in Canterbury to round up the men that—”

“My brother and I can go right away,” Martin said.

“This afternoon?” a weary voice moaned. “Good Christ, I haven’t even got a decent mount.”

“It’s
got
to be this afternoon.” Isabel recognized this voice as the one that had called for wine—Wyatt. “Look, the royal council doesn’t know about us. Thank God we hadn’t yet taken Courtenay into our confidence. But it seems he’s blabbed enough to hand them the Duke of Suffolk’s scent. All right, that gives us a little time. While they’re chasing north after Suffolk we can get down to Kent. But it’s got to be now.”

“Fine,” the Canterbury man said resolutely. “My son and I are on our way. The moment word comes from you, Thomas, the men of Canterbury will march.”

“Thank you, Walter. Ned, you too. God speed you both.”

There was a brusque chorus of, “God speed!” from other voices.

Isabel lurched out of the way just as the door swung open. The two men came out, father and son, and closed the door. Fastening their cloaks, tugging on their gloves, they did not notice her. They strode through the hall, turned the corner into the screened passage, and slammed out the front door.

In the parlor a man was saying, “Thomas, it’s not that I can’t go this afternoon, but—”

“This afternoon, tomorrow, what’s the difference?” This voice was gruff, older sounding. “Real question is, how in the name of Christ do we
pay
for this? Body of God, an army? Thomas, George—think of the expense, will you? You haven’t the cash. Neither has Norton there—have you? Or you, Culpepper? None of us has. And that’s all our men will want to know if we’re asking them to soldier.”

“Qu’est ce qu’il dit?”
This querulous voice, Isabel decided, must belong to the French ambassador, de Noailles. Martin had told her that de Noailles spoke no English. His presence in this gathering did not surprise her. The King of France was a notorious foe of Prince Philip’s father, the Emperor Charles. The two monarchs had been warring for decades over pieces of the Italian peninsula. The Emperor, as King of Spain and ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, was lord of half of Europe, and of the limitless New World as well. France was his only real adversary, so each was always angling for England’s allegiance, or to set England against the other. The prospect of the Emperor’s son virtually controlling the English throne by marrying the Queen had enraged the French. The marriage was an event they would naturally do their best to prevent.

“L’argent, Monsieur, ”
Wyatt translated testily.
“Il dit que nous n’avons pas assez d’argent.”

Isabel translated it in her mind: we have no money.

De Noailles was saying that his king guaranteed them money. Money and troops. Isabel was glad now that her mother had taught her French.

Again Wyatt translated the Ambassador’s words for the others, but his impatience with this apparently on-going chore was evident in his voice. “So never mind about money, Sir Henry,” Wyatt concluded. “France promises money, men, and ships. In fact, they are going to land a force in Scotland. The Ambassador has already outlined the plan to me, and he’ll keep us posted about these developments.”

“Money, Isley?” a cross voice asked. “We are setting about God’s business here, to keep England free from popery! Money cannot be our thought.”

“I tell you,” the weary voice groaned, “my best horse is lame.”

Listening, Isabel realized that there was no way Martin could suggest her participation to Wyatt, not amongst all these chaotic concerns. She had to act now. If the men were leaving immediately, there would not be another chance.

She ran to the kitchen and almost collided with the lone scullery maid ambling out carrying a tray with a pitcher and goblets. “I’ll take that,” Isabel said, and lifted the tray from the wondering girl’s hands. She hurried back through the hall and stopped at the parlor door, the tray balanced on one hand. She took a deep breath, turned the handle, and pushed open the door with her foot.

Fourteen faces turned to her. Fourteen impatient men. Their leftover bread and cold beef and empty pots of ale littered the table. Their bulky winter clothing permeated the room with the smells of leather, damp wool, and horses.

“Wine, Sir Thomas,” Isabel said as steadily as she could.

Eleven faces looked away, accepting the intrusion of a servant, and resumed their discussion. But Martin came to her side. And his brother—she was surprised to see Father Robert here—smiled his support from across the room. Wyatt, however, eyed her warily. Martin introduced Isabel to him, adding proudly, “My betrothed, sir.”