The Lion Triumphant (49 page)

Then there was no doubt in her mind of Felipe’s guilt and mine. She brooded on the happy life she might have had; on the children of her union with Edmundo who had never been born. She was fierce and passionate; she could find no satisfaction in anything but revenge.

So she had decided I should suffer as Isabella had suffered. She did not wish to murder me outright. She wanted justice. Isabella had gone mad, so should I. She had suffered over a long period, so should I. And in due course I should be found at the bottom of a staircase, as Isabella had been.

She lived for this revenge. It was the only thing which could compensate her for the loss of Edmundo.

She had put poisonous plants into my food—not enough to kill me but only to impair my health; she had locked me in the hut and then unlocked the door and hung the key inside. She had made herself a shroud and tried to unnerve me. She had meant to drive me into madness and then, when those about me began to doubt my sanity, lure me to the top of the staircase—an easy victim, half drugged as she believed me to be—and throw me to the foot of it. People would say: “She was possessed by devils. Remember, how strange she became?”

“My poor Manuela!” I cried, and I assured her that I had never seen the cross until a short while before. I now remembered such an ornament’s being mentioned at the time of Edmundo’s execution, but I had not connected it with the gift which my second husband had given to me.

Oh, Jake, I thought, you took the cross when you came to the Hacienda. You took everything of value you could lay your hands on. And Felipe … you were guilty of the murder of Isabella, just as guilty as though you yourself had strangled her and thrown her down the stairs.

I was relieved that Manuela now knew that I was guiltless of participation in Isabella’s death.

“Take care of Roberto,” she said. “I loved him … dearly.”

I told her she had no need to ask his mother to do that.

I rode over to a family nearby who when the priests had come to Trewynd in Edward’s time had entertained them there and hidden them.

They had one there at that time. He was brought out of the priest’s hole in which they hid him whenever visitors called at the house and, disguised as one of the grooms, he rode back to Lyon Court with me.

I knew that I was doing a daring thing. If Jake had returned home at that time I cannot imagine what would have happened.

I told the priest of my fears and he answered that he was accustomed to taking risks and would not deny a dying woman her last solace on Earth.

I took him to her sickroom and he was there holding the cross before her eyes as she passed away.

She died peacefully, I think, for I had assured her of my forgiveness. She was glad that she had not succeeded in killing me and did not have to go before her Maker with murder on her conscience.

She died clasping the cross.

I felt alive again. What a fool I had been. As if Jake would murder me and if he did it would not be by such devious methods. He would have taken out his sword and run me through. I laughed. It was good to be alive. I was not menaced. Jake was an unfaithful husband. Had he not always been and had I ever expected anything else? I had sheltered two of his bastards under my roof already. Penn was but the third. They gave him satisfaction in the sons he could not get with me.

My vitality had returned. I could fight again.

Linnet had to know what had happened. I should have had to tell her the whole story some time or other—just as my mother had told me her strange story when I was about my daughter’s age. The whole household knew too that the mistress who was supposed to be going mad was not, but Manuela had been completely so because she had poisoned my food and tried to throw me down the stairs. There was no need for them to know the reasons why she had done these things. It was enough that they accepted the fact that devils had begun to possess her.

Manuela was buried in the Lyon section of the graveyard and we laid rosemary on her grave.

I at least would never forget her.

S
O DEEPLY IMMERSED HAD
I been in my own affairs that I had not been aware of what was happening in the outside world. Now I heard the excited talk about what was called the Babington Plot, which, said all loyal supporters of Our Gracious Lady Elizabeth, had by God’s grace been discovered. A young man named Anthony Babington had in his youth served as a page to Mary Stuart and, as men were wont to, fell in love with her. He had joined forces with a group of ardent Catholics and together they had made a plot to put the Queen of Scotland on the throne and bring back the Catholic religion to England. This plot had the blessing of Spain and the Pope.

The conspirators met in taverns around St. Giles’ and in Babington’s house in Barbican and there worked out their conspiracy. Elizabeth was to be assassinated, Mary set free and set on the throne. Catholics throughout the country would rally to her help. The Pope gave his sanction and Philip of Spain would help—with his fast-growing Armada if necessary.

Letters had been smuggled into the prison of the Queen of Scots by a most ingenious method. Corked tubes had been fabricated in which letters could be concealed and these were inserted into the beer barrels which were carried into the Queen’s apartments. When the Queen had read the letters she could insert her answers into the tube and put them back into the empty barrels which would be returned to the brewer. It seemed foolproof and would have been if the brewer had not been in the pay of Walsingham as well as the Queen. Thus the letters which were inserted in the full barrels and the replies that went into the empty ones were all conveyed to Amyas Paulet—the Queen’s jailor at that time—and passed on to Walsingham. In this way Elizabeth’s Secretary of State knew every twist and turn of the Babington Plot as it was worked out.

He had not hastened to make an arrest as he wished to draw as many into the net as possible and his great desire was to incriminate the Queen of Scots so thoroughly that Elizabeth would have no alternative but to send her to the scaffold.

Now the arrests were being made and an excitement was running through the country because it was said that so deeply was the Queen of Scots implicated that this would be the plot to end all plots.

I was in a state of great tension as I always was when stories of plots came to light. My first thought was: Is Roberto involved in this?

We heard the names of men arrested. Roberto’s was not among them, but each day I expected to hear that he was taken.

Jake had come back. He was full of excitement because he said at any time now the Spaniard would strike.

He had heard of Manuela’s attack on my life and I was gratified to see that he was disturbed by it.

“Spaniards!” he cried. “I should never have taken them into my house.” Then he took me by the shoulders and looked at me intently.

I said: “Are you thinking that you might have rid yourself of me?”

He laughed. “’Tis true, I might. But I’ve a feeling not many would get the better of you.”

“Except you perhaps.”

“Of a certainty. Me of course!”

He laughed and held me against him.

I said: “At one time I thought you were planning to rid yourself of me and take a younger woman to wife.”

He nodded, pretending to consider the idea.

“Romilly, for instance. She has borne you one son. She is young enough to bear others.”

“Now you are putting temptation in my way.”

“That does not have to put it in your way. And men such as you do not give themselves time to be tempted. What is there they take and to the devil with the consequences.”

“It’s the way to live, Cat.”

“Is it? To bring your bastards to your lawful wife?”

“I brought none to you. You brought two to me and Penn was born here. Did I not allow you to bring yours?”

The thought of Roberto weakened me.

Jake put his hands about my throat and laughed at me.

“All I would have to do is press a little.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“Because shrew that you are, mother of daughters, I have decided I’ll not replace you yet.”

Then he kissed me with a rare tenderness which moved me somewhat. He pulled my hair as he did the boys’ now and then. I knew it to be a gesture of affection.

“I’m impatient, Cat,” he said. “Here I am kicking my heels … waiting … waiting for the Spaniard! We’ve got to be ready for him when he comes. God’s Death! It could be today. It could be tomorrow. Why does he delay? And now this traitor Babington. By God! He’ll suffer the traitor’s death and I hope they linger over it. He would have killed our Queen; he would have set the Scottish whore on the throne. It is time her head parted company with her shoulders. I would hang, draw and quarter any man who gave his sanction to such treachery.”

Oh, Roberto, I thought. Where are you, Roberto?

I said: “They have caught all the conspirators?”

“Who knows? There may be others. Walsingham’s sly. He knows when to pounce. He gives them a little license … the better to bring in more. We have to stamp them out, Cat. Every one of them … traitors to England, friends of our enemy Spain! I’d like to blow that country off the Earth.”

How fierce he was—his eyes blazing blue fire.

Oh, Roberto, I thought, where are you?

I knew he would come. It was a premonition perhaps. He would come at night and he would come to me as he had before. I was tense, waiting. Some maternal instinct was preparing me, so I must have slept lightly and I was ready when I heard the clod of earth thrown at the window.

I crept silently out of bed, terrified that I might awaken Jake.

I knew it of course, Roberto had come. How could he stay near London and the Court at such a time when Babington was captured and but for the ingenuity of Walsingham’s spy system, the Queen might have been assassinated and a Catholic Queen set up on the throne?

If Roberto’s name had been on the list found in Throckmorton’s house, Walsingham would have his spies watching him. Even if he had not been involved in the Babington Plot, and it seemed he had not, he might be formulating others.

I slipped out of bed and looked down. I saw him clearly in the moonlight. He was looking up at my window.

I looked back at the bed. Jake, I thanked God, was a heavy sleeper and he was fast asleep now. I signed to Roberto. He understood and pointed in the direction of the hut. I nodded and went back to bed. He would understand that Jake was with me.

I went back to bed, shivering.

The hut was not the safe place it had been. My adventure there had called attention to it. Jake had even said he might have some building done to it and make it into a dwelling place for some of the servants.

Bushes still grew around it, obscuring it from view to some extent, and I must make my way to it as soon as possible.

I was distraught.

Carlos, who had, like Jake, not gone far from Plymouth since the threats from the Armada had grown, came over to see Jake. I was waiting for a moment to slip away to the hut with food. But I must make certain that no one was aware of this. Linnet could have helped, but I was not going to allow my daughter to be involved.

Carlos was saying that he had heard Babington and Ballard had been executed. He described the agonies of those men—hanged in a field at the upper end of Holborn near the road to St. Giles’s where a scaffold had been set up. Ballard, the other main conspirator, had suffered first. He had been hung, cut down and disemboweled while he was still alive. Babington watched, then suffered like treatment.

“So perish all traitors,” cried Jake.

I felt sick.

Jake was looking at me strangely.

As soon as I could do so I took some food from the kitchens and went to the hut.

I took my son into my arms and held him against me.

“Oh, Roberto, tell me what has happened.”

“When they took Babington I knew it was unsafe for me to stay near London. I had to get away.”

“You were with the conspirators?”

“Not … not with Babington. If I had been…”

I understood. None who had been involved in that plot would have been allowed to go free.

“But Walsingham is determined to have more proof ready. Friends of mine have disappeared suddenly. I know that they are under arrest. If the Babington Plot does not bring the Queen of Scots to the scaffold, they will discover more plots. They are determined to. No Catholic, or any man who has ever joined in any scheme is safe. They are hunting us out, Madre.”

“And they are hunting you!”

“They came to my lodging. I was fortunate. I was warned. If I go back there I shall be taken. They are searching for me now.”

“The Captain is here,” I said.

“I saw his ship from the Hoe.”

“Oh, Roberto, we shall have to take the greatest care.”

“Manuela will help.”

“Manuela is dead.”

I told him briefly how she had tried to murder me and for what reason.

He was silent, deeply shocked.

“Madre, how cruel life is! And now it seems that everyone’s existence is governed by this hatred between Spain and England.”

“It is the shadow across our times. Religion—Catholic or Protestant. It has been so for many years. It darkened my mother’s life. I have not escaped. I brought a priest to Manuela when she died. She wanted it. I hope it was not discovered. One can never be sure.”

He kissed my hand.

“Madre, I love you. Always through my life I have looked to you, relied on you.”

“You can rely on me still, my son; not because I am Catholic or Protestant but because I am a mother. I know little of doctrines, nor do I care. But I do know of love, which seems to me of greater importance in the world.”

“You will let me stay here?”

“It must not be for long, Roberto. The hut is no longer safe as it once was. After I was locked in, the household seems to have become aware of it. Before, few people remembered it was here. Soon you must go away.”

“I have thought, Madre, that if I could get to Spain, I might find my own people. My father’s family would know of me and I must have estates there, must I not? Did not my father make me his heir?”