The Irish Princess (40 page)

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Authors: Karen Harper

Tags: #Ireland, #Clinton, #Historical, #Henry, #Edward Fiennes De, #General, #Literary, #Great Britain - History - Henry VIII, #Great Britain, #Elizabeth Fiennes De, #Historical Fiction, #Princesses, #Fiction, #1509-1547, #Princesses - Ireland, #Elizabeth

BOOK: The Irish Princess
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Queen Mary squinted to better see the rider. “An emissary from the council or a messenger with news of Northumberland’s approach?” she said. “Gera, you’re so tall—your eyes. Who is it?”
A cheer rose in my throat, then dissolved in the bile of stark fear. It was Edward, riding hell-bent straight for us. I almost fell at Mary’s feet, but I locked my knees and stood. “Your Grace, it is Lord High Admiral Clinton, come to your banners,” I cried, and prayed that was the truth.
Mary’s closest comrades cheered as Edward reined in at the outside ring of guards and approached on foot, extending his drawn sword, hilt first, toward the queen in the universal sign of surrender. Murmurs lifted from the crowd. Many recognized him and whispered his name. As word spread, hundreds of his own sailors and soldiers who had come to Mary shouted his name in a chant. I stood stock-still, too terrified to pray. His narrowed eyes met my gaze but briefly; I could not read the emotion there. He swept off his helmet and dropped immediately to one knee before the queen. He bowed his head—his hair was mussed—while the queen took his sword and passed it to the man behind her. So brave, so proud, my Edward.
“My gracious queen, I have come to cast myself upon your mercy for past errors of misplaced loyalty.” His strong voice rang out in the expectant hush. When she said nothing, he lifted his head to stare up into her stern face. I breathed for the first time when Mary thrust out her stiff hand and he bent over it in a brief kiss of homage.
“Is not your master Northumberland hard on your tail, then, Lord Clinton?” the royal voice challenged. I edged closer. Surely this move of abject loyalty would appease Mary Tudor.
“To tell true, Your Majesty, I hear he is near Cambridge, holed up there, his ranks riddled by desertions to your just cause.”
“Are you one of those deserters?”
“I come directly from the Tower in London, Your Majesty. I was ordered to secure it and protect the usurper Lady Jane Grey and her husband there, but I deserted that duty as soon as I heard you were here—and my beloved wife with you.”
My heart thudded in my throat when I saw Mary’s yet flinty expression. Why was she not relieved and ready to rejoice as I and the others close around her were? I knew she had been casting about to get a devoted Dudley man in her grasp to make an example of. Saint Brigid, no, not Edward! Not after what I had done for her, and yet I dared not argue with her before her people.
“Arrest this man for treason against the God-given queen of England!” Mary cried as guards leaped forward to take Edward’s arms. I gasped and threw myself at my husband, clinging to him as he dared to speak again.
“I was hoping you would have need of England’s Lord High Admiral for your God-given cause, Your Majesty,” he said calmly.
“Lord High Admiral no more! I must show no mercy to John Dudley and his minions!”
Finally I spoke. “Please, Your Majesty. Send me with him then—”
“Gera, no,” Edward muttered amidst the chaos as he was pulled away. “Stay with her; try to reason—”
“Very well then, your lady wife will go with you!” the queen cried. “My people must make their choices to whom they will be loyal. For England and Saint George!” she urged the common cry.
“For England and Saint George. Long live the queen!” a man’s voice behind us shouted, and the crowd roared as the shout spread. I clung hard to Edward’s hand as he was hustled toward the castle. Mary had made me choose between her and my husband, and so I had. I should have known to trust no one who held ultimate power, English power. “For England and long live the queen”? No, until the day I died, my cry must be for Ireland and the Geraldines!
 
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
 
A
t first I could not fathom that we were actually being sent to the dungeon, but down we went on a twisting staircase into the depths of the old castle. It was dark and dank, much worse than Maynooth’s cellar. Our guards hurried us along a narrow stone hall lined with wooden doors with small, square iron grates. One man had a lantern, but I could hardly see down here and I stubbed my toe against rough paving stones. With a hard hand on my upper arm, Edward held me up.
“Are there lights for the cells?” I dared to ask. I could not tell whether Edward was not speaking because he was resigned or enraged—and at the queen or me?
“Not with straw on the floors, milady. Can’t have a fire here.”
Keys jingled as the man with the lantern took an interminable time unlocking the door while the two armed guards hovered. Edward gripped my hand harder than I had held to his and pulled me in after him. Before I could try to read his face, the door slammed behind us, plunging us into blackness. The men outside shuffled away; silence reigned.
To my relief, Edward clamped me to him, my head under his chin, his arms around me tight, grappled chest to breast. “Thank God you are all right,” he whispered, his breath hot in my ear. “Despite their show of leaving, we must whisper,” he added as he pulled me away from the door until we bumped into a stone wall.
“I came to the Tower to find you,” I explained in a rush, “but I overheard Dudley tell his son Robert that the king was dead and to arrest Mary and get rid of her in the process if he could.”
“I didn’t know the king was dead until I faced Dudley down at the Tower, after Robert left with his men. I was furious he would dare to keep that from me—from the kingdom. By then, Collum had come to find me to say you’d gone out the window. You could have broken your neck, and at that point, I wanted to break it for you.”
“I just didn’t want us to argue. I wanted us to work together to help Mary and protect ourselves. I guess I did the wrong thing.”
“You didn’t. We both should have followed Mary’s banners, but I thought I could reason with Dudley. He’s gone mad with power—and now, at last, I think he knows he’s going to pay for it.”
“Poor Jane Grey.”
“Queen Mary’s cousin or not, I warrant she’ll never leave the Tower alive, or her young husband either. They say her parents beat her until she agreed to wed him.”
I shuddered in his arms. “I believe that. I’ve seen the marks on her before and now whatev—”
In midword, his lips covered mine, a possessive, demanding kiss, full of pent-up anger but of passion too. He leaned against the damp wall, and we clung in our mutual embrace and hungry kisses. When we at last came up for air, breathing hard in unison, time flew as we told each other all that had happened since we’d been parted. Finally, exhausted, shivering, we slid down the wall and sat on the stone floor with me in his lap, still holding tight.
“I will beg her to just send us into exile,” I told him. “We’ll go to Ireland and hide out there.”
“Fugitives and rebels, my love? Put to the horn and hunted as your brothers once were? Never that. Our new queen used the word
treason
to me and obviously wants a scapegoat. I’m hoping when she gets her hands on Dudley, that will be enough for her. But if not, our lands and my life could be forfeit.”
“No! No, that cannot be, not more of this. Not after everything with my first family!”
He held me tight again, then whispered, “Is there a light in the hall?”
I turned to look and had to squint at the sudden brightness. Could the setting sun slant in like this so far below the ground?
Voices. Among the men’s, one commanding, low voice I knew.
“Down here—the queen!” I whispered, and we scrambled to our feet, dusting ourselves off, I shaking out my skirts and tugging back my loosened hair as if being in a dungeon did not give us some excuse for how we looked.
The key scraped in the lock. The queen’s stocky silhouette filled the doorway. Mary Tudor stepped in behind two men, each holding lanterns. Until I saw that she held a scented pomander to her nose, I had not realized the rank smell of mildew and worse down here.
We bowed and curtsied and stayed down. “Rise,” she said.
We faced her, holding hands.
“I perhaps owe my very life to your wife, Lord Clinton. And now you owe her yours too. The admiralty must go to someone I can truly trust, but I am not so vindictive—or foolish—that I will rid England of a brave sea captain. On the morrow, you will be given two horses and provisions and be sent home to Lincoln—is that your northern seat?”
“Near there, Your Majesty. Kyme and Sempringham.”
“Then there you will stay until I have need of your service. I expect you to shore up support for me there. I have been reminded by Lord Jerningham that you once helped put down the rebellion against the Tudors in the north.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I carried letters from your father commanding others to hold the area.”
As he said that, he gripped my hand so hard I flinched. Did he think I would not hold my tongue through this? Did he think I would tell her I tried to deface or ruin those orders?
“Though I intend to show humility and forgiveness,” the queen continued, “even as our Lord Christ did to those who betrayed him, your former master will meet his doom. And I will not see your face, my lord—or that of your wife, since she has chosen to share your fate—until and if I send for you for further loyal service. Do you understand?”
“I do with gratitude, Your Majesty,” he said, and bowed again, pulling me down with him.
“Gera, I have a boon for you too. Partly because John Dudley wanted to keep your brother Gerald under his thumb, I shall return his title of Earl of Kildare to him when I settle all else, and mayhap I shall send him home to Ireland to help keep the peace there.”
“Oh, Your gracious Majesty, that would be such . . . such a brilliant strategy!”
“I am going now and will send someone to see you are brought upstairs to be fed and properly clothed before you set out on the morrow. Do not go back to London and do not make a show of your leaving here.”
Still with our heads down, we did not see her depart but heard the swish of her skirts and the scrape of her booted heels, then her low-voiced orders to someone in the hall. Such bounty from a Tudor, for Edward, Gerald, and me! From the darkness of despair to the light of hope, despite the loss of Edward’s admiralty and his place on the Privy Council. Our lands and lives—our future—not only spared, but a brave new beginning bestowed.
“I can’t bear for the
Defiance
to go to someone else,” Edward muttered through gritted teeth, “but we’re both damned good at earning our way back. And you have ties not only to Mary but also to Elizabeth.”
As we started to climb the narrow dungeon stairs, I told him, forcing a cheerful tone, “After all, most of my life, there’s been nowhere to go but up.”
 
LONDON
 
January 1554
 
Despite our second honeymoon, we worked hard to, as Her Majesty had said, shore up support for her in Lincolnshire. And it had given us solid family time with the children. But we were, thank the Lord, recalled much sooner than we had expected, for London was under attack by a peasant and Protestant rebel group and the queen wanted every good military man she could find to aid her. Though this rebellion was a dry-land one, Edward was summoned to protect the palace, and I went with him. I was grateful for the excuse to return to some influence near the throne but was agonizing over several things.

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