The King's Daughter (5 page)

When the late, falling sun had shrunk to a small hot red coin just above the horizon, and I was pacing the muddy gardens with Anne trotting after me, I heard hoof beats on the avenue.

If they had come to arrest me, I would be ready. I was waiting in dry petticoat and clean shoes, still a little breathless, when Lord Harington sent for me a short time later, to come to his study.

I was not mad, after all.

6

‘My neighbours had horses stolen from his stables last night.’ My guardian’s agitation was as great as my own. A moderate man of middling size, with a permanent air of mild anxiety, Lord Harington seemed swollen that evening with barely contained emotion. I watched his surprisingly luxuriant moustaches heaving as they framed his words. The peak of curling, greying hair that rose from his square forehead quivered like a torch flame. ‘It’s possible that one of our horses was taken also… one of yours, in fact. We fear some great rebellion.’

His brows collided ferociously above the fear in his eyes. ‘A groom is also missing,’ he said. ‘Perhaps dead, perhaps run off to join the rebels. No one can be trusted!’

Missing, I thought. Not yet caught. I felt guilt shouting from every muscle of my face.

I tried to listen to what my guardian was saying, but his words scrambled themselves into a confusion of devils and explosions, gunpowder, intended murder. Papists…

He paced as if running from his words, spilling them behind him in the air like a shower of live sparks.

Rebellion all around us. Murder and devastation in London. Thirty barrels of gunpowder… Opening of Parliament… another Papist plot to kill the king. Deaths beyond number…

My own agitation seized onto ‘Papist'. I was right. It was happening again.

He couldn’t know what had happened to me in the forest, I tried to tell myself.

‘… fires of hell to Westminster, and the death of all Members of Parliament,’ he was saying. The hem of his heavy long gown swung as he turned. ‘The king’s infinite wisdom… midnight arrests… questioning in the Tower. There was still a great fear of popular uprisings…’

‘Has my brother been harmed?’

Lord Harington looked startled by my interruption. ‘The prince is well, your grace,’ he assured me. ‘Though Prince Henry was to have accompanied His Majesty to the opening of Parliament yesterday, he is as safe as your father. Both of them have been spared.’ He looked relieved to have good news to give. ‘A warning letter was brought to Cecil,’ he went on. ‘Praise be to God!’

A warning letter?

‘Praise God,’ I echoed weakly.

My letter had been intercepted, I thought. Henry had never received it. Or… dear God… he had received it and betrayed me to Cecil. And Harington knew. Or Abel had been caught and had surrendered it.

‘Now, my dear…’ Harington stopped in front of me and looked down. ‘You must be brave, for the next news concerns you closely.’

Though my body seemed on fire, my fingertips made icy spots on the backs of my tightly folded hands. ‘Would you please tell me once more, just what happened? I don’t think I quite grasped…’

‘Forgive me, your grace. It is momentous news for anyone to take in, let alone someone so young and so close to the subject.’ He sat down opposite me and began again, more calmly.

‘There has been a Papist plot to set off an explosion of gunpowder under the hall where Parliament was to meet.’ His long square-edged face looked to see if I followed him.

I nodded, uncertain what to think. Surely, he would not be explaining with such mild patience if he believed me to be guilty of treasonable knowledge.

‘His majesty and the prince were to have been present. If the plot had succeeded, they would both have been killed along with most of the Members of Parliament. Happily, one of these devils was arrested on the spot, with his slow match ready in his pouch. He is being questioned even now at the Tower, along with several of his confederates who were also taken.’

‘But their plot has failed? No one was killed?’ I made myself unclasp my clenched hands. Why would he tell me all this if he thought I already knew? ‘But this is good news after all!’

‘Not entirely, your grace. I come now to the part that concerns you.’

I went very still.

‘These Papists traitors meant to kidnap you.’

I risked a small cry and widened my eyes in horrified surprise.

‘Don’t fear, your grace. Not to harm you, but, by means of civil uprisings, to make you queen of England.’ He paused. When I said nothing, he added, ‘After the deaths of your father and brother.’ He watched keenly, waiting for me to respond.

He has been asked to report how I took the news, I suddenly thought. I was suspected after all.

‘What sort of queen would I have been in those circumstances?’ I burst into absolutely genuine tears.

‘There, there. The devils haven’t succeeded there yet, either.’ My guardian stood up to lay an awkward hand on my shoulder. I imagined relief in his voice and absolutionin that rare touch. But the mention of a warning letter still made a cold lump in my gullet. I could trust no one. Not even my kindly guardian and his seeming relief at my protested innocence.

He removed his hand. ‘At least eight rebels have been arrested with their servants and families. Four more were killed resisting arrest at Holbeche. But we don’t know how much wider the Papist rebellion has spread. Nor how many rebels remain at large. I hear that the arrests continue. England is in arms between London and Wales, and as far north as Leicester. There are fears about the loyalty of the Catholic lords, both in London and on their northern estates. I’m told that Northumberland is already in the Tower.’ He began to pace again. I had never seen him so filled with vigour.

He looked out of the window. ‘I sent this morning to the Chief Secretary for instructions on your safety and have been waiting for his reply. But I can’t wait any longer. There was further trouble just now, this afternoon, not far away. I won’t risk keeping you here at Combe.’

‘Surely I’m safe enough here.’ My voice rang false as I spoke. Fortunately, Harington was wiping his face with his handkerchief and seemed not to notice. I decided not to speak again.

‘Alas, Combe is not a fortified house,’ he said. ‘And we seem to be at the centre of the troubles here. Still more horses were stolen at Warwick and Holbeche is too close for comfort. Other rebels were followed fleeing this way. Some may even now be hiding among our neighbours. You must move to more secure lodgings in Coventry.’

I nodded.

Before the dusk had fully turned to night, I was mounted on Wainscot, my right leg hooked tightly around the saddle head. I had been allowed to take only a single maid.

‘All will be well, your grace.’ Harington leaned closer fromhis own horse. ‘I’m certain of that.’ He sounded unsure. ‘The Lord will protect you.’

He’d be even less certain if he knew what had already happened, I thought.

‘All will be well, I’m sure,’ he repeated. He wore his sword, which he seldom did at Combe. ‘They will pray for us.’ He nodded back at the house.

Our little cavalcade clattered off with a jingling of harness and squeak of leather on leather. Unfamiliar men-at-arms rode close around me on all sides. Their swords, saddle maces and faces told me what they were, but in place of identifying livery or badges, they wore plain leather jerkins and padded vests. No standard identified our party.

Skulking through the early dark of autumn with the hood of my plain wool cape pulled forward to hide my face, I felt like a fleeing criminal.

‘Whose men are you?’ I asked the rider on my right.

‘We all serve the king, madam.’ He turned his head away suddenly towards the shadows of the trees beside our muddy track.

‘What do we fear?’ I asked.

‘Ambush.’ No title, to hide my identity from any prying ears.

I fell silent inside my hood, which smelt of damp sheep.

The other horses closed more tightly around me as we passed through the village of Stoke and did not open out again until the lights of the last outlying farm were far behind. I wondered which they feared more – attack, or that I might tighten my leg around the horn of my side saddle and race away to join the rebels.

With less on my conscience, I might have enjoyed the ride. The carefree girl who had entered the forest yesterday might have pretended that she fled through the night like an escaping highwayman, triumphant at an audacious raid. But I felt a demon thrashing around us in the darkness, laying waste tomy former life. In the dark gaps between trees, I saw the distorted face of the young man in the forest. His helpless rocking as I looked back. Twice I imagined that I heard hoof beats running beside us in the dark.

I had been to Coventry once before, the previous year. I remembered a bumpy carriage ride in the April sunlight, and the generosity of lengthening evenings. I had been accompanied by both Haringtons, and a troop of ladies from neighbouring estates. Lady Harington had sent one woman away for wearing her bodice cut too low. Then she had reshaped the wire of my standing collar and changed the order in which we were to travel.

On our tour of the streets, cheering crowds and ranks of waving livery men – cappers, mercers, tailors and drapers – stood to watch us pass. I remembered catching a thrown cap and placing it on my own head amid a burst of laughing cheers.

This time, we rode almost unseen through the dark streets. Two watchmen raised their lanterns curiously but quickly lowered them again at a sign from my escort. This time, in spite of the warm welcome given me by a Mr Hopkins of Earle Street, a close friend of Lord Harington, I felt like a prisoner. The two men-at-arms stationed outside my door seemed more like warders than guardians.

‘You can sleep at ease tonight, your grace,’ Mr Hopkins told me. The citizens of Coventry had posted an army of guards around the house in case the Papist army attacked. No one, he said, could get in, or out.

Seeing my person secured, Lord Harington assured me one last time that all would be well. Free for the time of his great charge, he rode off in visible high spirits to confront the Popish army now rumoured to have gathered on Dunsmore Heath.

Again, I waited. Three days passed. I received no official visitors or delegations. I heard no news from Combe, Londonor anywhere else. I dined alone in my chamber. I tried to eavesdrop through my half-open door but heard nothing. I smiled at an endless string of different grooms and maids who found an excuse to have a look at me, but none could be induced to gossip. I read, I stitched, I walked in the small walled garden. I began to write a heroic poem but tore it up. I practised scales on my new lute though I could not find it in me to sing. At noon on the fourth day, I heard a disturbance in the stable yard, then men’s voices on the floor below. Footsteps climbed the stairs. I left the door and sat on a chair by the fire.

My maid opened the door to a strange man-at-arms. Like my escort to Coventry, he wore no identifying livery badge.

‘What news?’ I demanded.

He stepped aside to escort me from the room.

7

A small lop-sided shape waited for me below in Mr Hopkins’s great parlour. There was no mistaking him for anyone else. This was a far greater man than my temporary host.

‘My Lady Elizabeth.’ He sketched an off-kilter bow.

He should have been in London questioning traitors in the Tower.

Robert Cecil, now Lord Salisbury and the English Secretary of State. My father’s chief advisor. Here in Mr Hopkins’s large parlour, his sharp, intelligent eyes on my face. He cleared his throat.

If we were to stand side-by-side, he would reach no higher than the top of my ear. The fur collar of his loose gown did not quite disguise the uneven slope of his shoulders. Why then, did he cause such fear in me?

I struggled to hold his gaze.

Neither of us spoke. It was my part to speak. Unlike my conscience, my mind was blank.

‘Has something more happened?’ I asked at last.

‘More than…?’

‘About…?’ I tried to wipe my thoughts clean, leaving only what Lord Harington had told me. But I could notremember clearly. ‘About the fearful plot?’ I was certain at least that Lord Harington had told me about a plot.

‘And did your guardian tell you about the quick wit of the king, your father, in perceiving the threat?’

I could not remember.

‘My father?’ I echoed.

I had seen no attendants waiting in the hall. No secretary waited behind the little table below the window. Cecil was alone. I could think of no good reason why he had come here in apparent secrecy.

After another pause, Cecil pointed to a high-backed, unpadded chair-of-grace.

Flushed and angry with myself for needing his prompt, I sat. I noticed that he had slender, long-fingered hands, like a woman. Then I remembered to nod for him to sit as well.

‘Thank you, your grace.’ He perched at the front of a second chair-of-grace and smoothed the skirts of his robe over his knees. He cleared his throat again and spoke a little too loudly, as if I might be deaf. ‘The king, your father was the agent of his own salvation. Praise God.’

‘Praise God,’ I echoed.

‘A loyal subject had brought me an anonymous letter.’ He looked away.

‘A loyal subject?’ I echoed again. Thank God, Harington had prepared me for the letter. I laid my hands on the arms of the chair and closed my fingers carefully around the oak grape leaves carved on the ends.

He nodded. ‘A warning from a loyal Catholic lord.’ He met my eye with a half-smile. His words rolled on smoothly. ‘Which I showed to the king. His majesty saw at once what had escaped me – that it concerned the hidden intent to blow up the opening of Parliament.’ He paused. ‘The terrible plot was uncovered. Thanks be to God!’

I murmured an incoherent piety.

Not my letter after all! I felt my hands fly into the air like startled doves and quickly clasped them together in my lap.

His small lumpy bulk leaned forward. He braced his elbows on the chair arms, so that his long feminine fingers dangled from awkwardly suspended hands.

I looked away. I wished those eyes would stop looking at me and at my clasped hands. I wished the room were not so strange and close, nor hung with tapestries of bloody battle scenes. I ached to be back at tedious, familiar Combe. I had misplaced all my rehearsed lies. I was sick with waiting.