The Spymaster's Daughter (27 page)

This message was certainly one that could have been sent in clear text, English or French, as the queen desired. Frances did not wonder that Phelippes was suspicious. It was all a bit too neatly construed to be as innocent as it first appeared.

First, Frances scanned the beginning letters of each word, looking for repetitions. She could find nothing unusual, and she suspected that Phelippes had already tried this and the next letters as well. Copying backward from the last letter of each word led down another false trail. She leaned against the cushioned back of her chair to think and drink some thistle-infused wine from a nearby decanter.

The door to her receiving chamber burst open and her maid ran in.

“My lady…” the girl said, her chest heaving.

“Where have you been, Meg?” Frances kept her tone from anger.

The girl hung her head, still trying to catch her breath.

Frances repeated in measured words, “Where have you been?”

“My lady…the lady Stanley wishes to speak with you…most urgently.”

“Are you in her pay?”

The girl looked up, flushed, but showed courage and did not retreat. “My lady, my mother has twelve children, many little ones. My father is a pikeman with the queen's army in the Low Countries
and there be no pay for months. He threatens to desert, but if caught he'll hang for sure.”

“Why did you not come to me instead of spying? Honesty is worth a shilling of good charity from me.”

Meg lowered her head, working her mouth before finding words. “I was afraid. Your father—”

“I will attend the lady Stanley later.”

“Mistress, she ails most miserably.” The girl twisted her gown, unable to keep her hands still.

“Are you saying she is in danger for her life?” How could Frances believe the girl? A spy could well be a liar.

“She has lost her power to speak!”

Frances remembered the lady's stumble from the presence room dais, the twisted face, and could not help but believe the maid. “Wait for me in my receiving room and take me to her.”

Frances quickly hid Phelippes's message and her worksheet in the cushion. With a quick look in her steel mirror, she tucked a stray curl under her silver-netted caul, smoothed her green satin gown, and joined the maid. Why had she been summoned? There were physicians aplenty in the court.

Meg led her down a series of corridors lit by torches and lanterns to a door with several women standing outside staring in. They stepped aside for Frances.

Someone whispered as she passed, “Lady Sidney has been struck with an apoplexy. Please, my lady, do what you can to ease her troubled mind before she goes to God.”

The room was shuttered and dark, hot from a blazing fire. Frances warily advanced to the woman's bedside, half expecting an elaborate trick for some devious purpose.

A woman bent toward the bed, pushing between two physicians applying leeches to the lady's neck. “Lady Frances is here, Catherine.”

A limp hand moved toward Frances and she came to the bedside. The physicians stepped away as she came closer. Lady Stanley's face, which had always carried such high color, was pale now and without a trace of ceruse applied. Bolsters were propped under her neck; her mouth was twisted and slack, drooling.

Trying hard, Frances kept the horror from her face. What had struck the woman down? “Catherine,” she said, leaning close, “it's Frances Sidney and I've come to—”

The lady's eyes opened, one lid drooping. Her mouth worked in a ghastly way, trying desperately to push out words that were locked inside.

Lady Stanley's hand groped toward her and Frances put out her hand to meet it. “Do not trouble yourself,” Frances began.

With a terrible effort, the woman croaked, “Must…must…no time…terrible wrongs.” Her gaze was pleading.

“All is forgiven and forgotten, my lady. Court rivalries mean nothing. Nothing. I most humbly beg your pardon for ever thinking they did. You must rest now.”

She raised herself a few inches and then fell back. “No…must confess.”

What was Lady Stanley saying? Did she want a popish priest?

“I…I inform…your aunt.”

Frances drew in a deep breath of surprise, as if she were breathing for them both. Lady Stanley had been so vindictive as to inform on Jennet to punish Frances? She almost pulled her hand away, but the woman's nails dug in.

“More…” The woman was gulping air as if what she took in did not reach her lungs. “The queen…I told of fight…in garden. My Essex…”

Her breath was coming in weaker gasps. Frances looked at the physicians, one of whom put his ear to her chest. He stepped back and shook his head.

Frances could not hold on to a useless anger against the dying woman…. Everything was trivial now in the dark face of eternal death. Even Jennet would not want it; nor would Robert.

“All forgiven, Catherine, and forgotten,” she said, whispering into the woman's ear.

“All?” was the slightest response.

“All, Catherine, I vow. I will pray for you.”

Her eyes closed and the barest sigh escaped her lips.

Frances, shaken at this quick turn of events, placed Lady Stanley's hand on her quiet heart and stepped back.

“What could have happened, master physicians? Just hours ago, this lady was in the presence chamber serving the queen. Now she is cruelly struck down.”

While one bent to remove the leeches and replace them in his jar, the other tugged on his beard. “When God calls, man—and woman—must answer.” He pulled on his beard again. “Galen taught us that a sudden attack on the brain results from an accumulation of dense humors blocking the animal spirit.”

His leeches swollen with blood and safely returned to their jar, the other doctor nodded, apprehension on his face. “Humoral imbalance is to be avoided at all costs, my lady.”

“How do you avoid it?” Frances asked, a little alarmed that death could come so swiftly inside a palace guarded strongly against outside evil. To think she could carry death about in her head, all unknowing, was frightening.

“Do you wish to consult with me, Lady Sidney?”

She was not ready to pay large sums for foul-tasting potions with ingredients she feared to know. “Perhaps some other time, master doctor.”

The doctor bowed, but murmured, “At all costs, my lady.”

She left the room swiftly, Meg following close behind, and they headed for the Chapel Royal, which was empty at this time of day except for the most devout.

Frances's faith was not strong, but she walked toward the altar and knelt to pray, as she had promised Lady Stanley. They had not been friends in life, but Frances was determined to befriend her in death. Had her angry words caused Lady Stanley's death, or was it God's punishment for her treachery? Frances understood that she would never know, but she did know that she had learned to forever watch her tongue, however difficult that would prove to be.

Another troubling prayer reached her quietly moving lips:
Lord, help me to end hiding that I am an intelligencer born.
God knew that she was deceitful and she must end such cunning, no matter the cost to her.

When she finally stood, her knees aching, her faith was stronger than it had been.

Meg was waiting at the door, holding her hands in a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to still their shaking.

The maid did not speak until they had returned to Frances's chamber and been admitted by the halberdier on duty. When would the queen tire of her jest and remove the guards, which were unnecessary now for her safety?

Meg hesitated at the threshold, but Frances motioned her to come in and close the door.

“Such disloyalty—”

“Beggin' your pardon, m'lady. I deserve no mercy at your hands. Beat me if you will. But have pity on the little 'uns….” Tears began to flow, and Meg threw her apron over her face.

When Frances heard herself speak, there was no rancor in her voice. Instead she sounded like Jennet teaching right from wrong. “Once trust is lost, Meg, it can be recovered only with great difficulty…and diligence. Dismissal would be the least punishment.”

The girl sagged noticeably.

“Yet, Meg, I am strongly inclined to give you a chance to redeem yourself. I cannot have a dozen hungry children and an old
mother who must be well along in her thirties pressing on my conscience.”
My crowded conscience
, she thought.

The girl began to weep again with relief.

“Dry your tears, Meg, and send this to your mother….” Frances pulled two silver shillings from the pocket she carried inside her kirtle.

“My lady, you be an angel come down from…How can I…”

Meg tried to kiss her hand, but Frances stopped her. “There are clothes to store, Meg.”

The girl whirled about and almost ran to her duty.

Frances poured a glass of wine and went to her writing table. One good act a day would not make her saintly.

She removed the ciphered message from the cushion and sat down. She was tired almost to sleeping, anything to escape from the burden of this day's events.

She drew the ciphered message close and began methodically to use Mary Stuart's code, going through the message backward, letter by letter, and line by line. The scratching nib of her quill, the only sound in the room, echoed loud in her ears as she labored on through the ticking of the big case clock. At last, the third letter from the end yielded results. The same code twice in the same message! The Scots queen was growing lazy, or worse, overconfident.

Frances quickly folded the deciphered message and retied it and the original cipher with the green ribbon. She must hasten to
Robert waiting in the shadowy alcove. The pope had as much as ordered Elizabeth's assassination with his bull when he absolved Catholics from hell for her murder. Although Mary was too clever to directly order Her Majesty's assassination, these words were close enough to incriminate…and they demanded death for the Scots queen.

Snatching her shawl, Frances was out the door, pretending to the guard that she needed a stroll to hasten sleep. When she turned the corner, she raced for the alcove and Robert.

R
obert had spent some time staring into the dark corridor when he saw Frances's cloaked figure slipping toward him. He knew her tall, slender form as he knew his own in a mirror. He had not meant to be so early. Yet he could not stay in his chamber, so eager was he to see her again, unable to delay the pleasure of deciphering her gaze as it settled on him. Were those eyes saying what he wanted, or was he acting the fool?

The situation was almost amusing, he thought, his lips pursed in irony. The court would laugh. Like the Greek gods on Olympus, the God of England played great jests on his creations, offering beauty and then snatching it away.

He looked out again into the corridor. Frances was moving slowly toward him, sideslipping the pools of lantern light to stay in shadow, pausing every minute or so to determine whether she was
being followed. By Jesu, she was a natural spy! He felt some pride, as if he had been the teacher of her skills, though he had not. She was a born intelligencer, and he wondered that Mr. Secretary had not seen it long ago. His sharp eyes usually saw everything, but his own daughter was too close, and he too farsighted where she was concerned. He had one idea for her and one alone: as wife to a famous man to bring honor to his name.