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Authors: Barbara Kyle

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“Your boy, ma’am?” the carpenter asked. “He was telling me about rubber trees.”

Nicolas wriggled free of Isabel’s embrace and dropped to his hands and knees to rescue his ball rolling under the table. “I told him they grow as tall as Lima Cathedral,” he said, proud of his knowledge. He popped back up with the ball. “Mama, can you believe it? This gentleman has never
seen
a rubber tree.”

“I’d like to, though, lad,” the man said. “That’s the bounciest ball I ever beheld.”

Without a thought, Nicolas offered it up to him with a smile. “Here. I have another.”

Isabel saw her son’s eyes shine with the gift of giving. Her heart swelled. She was glad she hadn’t boxed his ears.

The
San Juan Bautista
approached the customs quay and London loomed. Dozens of oceangoing ships of all nationalities were moored in the Pool, their progress limited by London Bridge. The hundreds of masts bobbed in the choppy water like an undulating forest. The overcast sky had hastened the dusk, and a few torches already flickered at the Southwark end of the bridge, the city’s only viaduct and one of its three great landmarks. The first candles glimmered in windows of the merchants’ houses and shops that crammed the bridge, some of the buildings rising three and four stories. Beyond the bridge, to the west, was the second great landmark, St. Paul’s, thrusting its spire, the tallest in Europe, into the leaden sky. On the north shore, just before the bridge, stood the third landmark, the centuries-old Tower. Once a royal palace, always a fort, and often a prison, it was a forbidding precinct of several stone towers behind stone walls. Church bells clanged from the far northern reaches of the city, and a homey smell of burning charcoal drifted above the reek of fish and dung.

Isabel’s heart beat faster as she took it in. The last time she had seen all this, five years ago, the city had been under attack by the small rebel army of Sir Thomas Wyatt, who had reached the walls of London at Ludgate. She had pledged herself to help Wyatt, yet in the end she had helped to close the gate against him. She had done it to save her father’s life, but at what cost! Wyatt’s men had been cut down. The awful moment haunted her still. Carlos had told her afterward that the rebels’ defeat had been inevitable whatever her actions, but Isabel was not convinced. Who could say what might have happened if the gate had been kept open?

She shook off the memory. That day was past, and London lay before her now in all its gritty glory. She felt a flicker of the awe she had felt as a young girl, coming here with her father from their home in Colchester, a day’s ride away, and being swept up in the excitement of the brash, brawling capital.

The rain had finally stopped, and in the dusk the customs wharf swarmed with every kind of Londoner out to make a penny or a pound. Lightermen shouted for passengers, offering to ferry them into the city in wherries and tilt boats. Pie sellers hawked mince pies and rabbit pastries. Merchants’ agents haggled. Pickpockets silently slipped among the prospects, and whores lounged, their lips rouged, their eyes keen. It startled Isabel to hear English again. Her Spanish was not the best, but speaking it had become second nature, its mellifluous sound a pleasure. These hard Anglo-Saxon voices on the quay jarred her. Not roughly, though. More like being jostled awake. The sound of home.

The customs agents took their time, but finally Isabel and Carlos were free to disembark. They left Pedro on the quay to watch their belongings, and made their way with their son through the crowd toward Thames Street, where, at the corner of Mark Lane, there were stalls with horses for hire. Their destination was Colchester, and Isabel wanted to get there quickly. Sickening though her task was, it would be agony to draw it out. She had to get to Colchester jail.

Carlos swung Nicolas up onto his shoulders, and Nicolas laughed, pointing at a dog that had snatched a pie from a man’s hand. It eased Isabel’s heart. Her son was seeing everything with a child’s happy innocence. And why not? He had never met his grandparents.

Ahead of them the elderly priest from the ship was making his way through the crowd when a well-dressed man who was passing spat at the priest’s back. His spittle missed, and the oblivious priest carried on, but Isabel was shocked. At their stopover in Seville she had heard about the changes in England since the death several months ago of the Catholic Queen Mary. Her half sister, Princess Elizabeth, who was Isabel’s age, had ascended the throne and immediately declared the realm Protestant. Isabel knew of the country’s anti-Catholic bent, but to spit at a harmless priest? After the urbanity of Spanish Peru, she found such behavior revolting.

They reached the horse stalls and Carlos swung Nicolas off his shoulders and began examining the mounts, running his hand over withers, inspecting hooves. As a former captain of cavalry, Carlos knew horses. Nicolas trotted after him as they moved among the animals. “Papa, look at this one. It’s got silver dots!”

“A bay silver dapple. An Arab.”

“Like in the desert!”

The two of them disappeared among the horses, Nico chattering on.

“Isabel?” a female voice asked.

She turned. A woman finely dressed in green and gold velvet was peering at her as though searching her face for clues. She was heavily pregnant, though not young, her hair touched with gray at the temples under a pearl-studded velvet hat. “Isabel Valverde?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes, I’m Isabel. May I ask—”

“I am Frances. Adam’s wife.”

Isabel was stunned. Her brother had said nothing in his letter about being married. But then, he had said nothing about
anything
except the dreadful news.

“You didn’t know?” Frances said. She seemed very nervous. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I don’t know how much Adam told you. About . . . the family.”

Isabel’s stomach tightened. Her throat seemed to close up. “My mother. Is she . . . ?” She couldn’t get the words out.
Alive or dead?
Suddenly, she didn’t want to ask. Wanted to keep on hoping. “How did you know?” she said instead. “About our arrival.”

“Oh, the ship’s boat came ahead with the passenger list. So we heard. We’ve been keeping a lookout for you for ages.”

“Have you?” It made sense. Adam’s letter, dated months before she had received it, had been slow on its long journey across the Atlantic to Panama, then on a packhorse train across to the Pacific, then onto another ship down to Lima. She and Carlos had taken passage from Lima as soon as she had read the news, but their journey here had taken months.

“Oh, dear, it’s so hard to know where to begin,” Frances said, her pale blue eyes blinking, her anxiety plain. “There is so much you don’t know.”

Isabel was certain now that her mother lay dead in her grave. She felt the strength sucked out of her. She didn’t trust her legs to hold her up.

“I’m sorry,” Frances said, offering her hand as though she saw how unsteady Isabel was. “This is a sad disappointment for you. You see, your parents . . . your mother. Well, she couldn’t be here to meet you.”

“She’s dead.”

“What?”

“They hanged her.”

“Hanged? Goodness, no!” she cried in horror. “Is that what you—? Oh dear, no, I assure you she is well. She and your father both hurried here, eager to meet you. We all stood right on this spot and watched your ship come in. But then, just half an hour ago, a message came from Whitehall Palace. They were both called away. Your mother and father are dining at the palace with the Queen.”

2

The House on Bishopsgate Street

T
he Thornleighs’ great hall rang with excited chatter. Footmen bustled in with the Valverdes’ trunks and baggage, calling out to other servants who were rushing in to help. Isabel, almost breathless from asking Frances questions on the way, greeted her old nursemaid, Meg, who burst into tears at seeing her. Carlos switched between Spanish and English as he gave instructions about the trunks to Pedro and to the Thornleighs’ chamberlain. Two wolfhounds romped about, barking, and Nicolas chased the dogs, shouting, trying to pet them. Everyone was making noise, human and canine, when Isabel’s father came striding in at the far end of the hall, arms outstretched, booming, “Isabel!”

She whirled around. “Father!”

Nicolas gasped.
“El diablo!”
The devil! He pointed at the frightening man and ran to Isabel and clutched her skirt and hid his face in it.

The servants burst into laughter, and Isabel, laughing, too, tugged herself free of her son and hurried to meet her father. When they reached each other a sudden shyness overtook her, for it had been five long years since she had seen him, and she bobbed a curtsy as if she were eight and aware of how to behave in front of her elders.

“What’s this nonsense?” he said. “Come here, Bel.” He drew her into his arms and hugged her tight, and she had the dizzying sense of feeling eight indeed, when she had been in awe of his apparent omnipotence.

“El diablo!”
Nicolas crowed again, but this time his face was bright with anticipation, for he had seen how he’d made people laugh and he wanted the same response.

“In English,” Carlos told him. “English in England.” He made this quiet command to his son as he came forward and offered his hand to his father-in-law, who grasped it and firmly shook it.

Isabel took a long, happy look at her father, thinking that Nico was not far wrong. If the devil had wanted to take a human form, Richard Thornleigh’s would be a clever choice. He was imposing, to say the least—tall, robust at sixty-one, with a sea-weathered face and a baritone voice that rang with authority. He wore a maroon leather patch over the eye he had lost before Isabel was born, while the other eye, blue and clear, watched the world with a sharp interest that missed nothing. A self-assured devil, made to beguile converts, she thought. “Papa is right, Nico, use English,” she told her son, relishing the moment, “and you must also add your grandpapa’s proper title. It is
your lordship,
the devil.”

“Ha! Quite right,” her father said, amused. “Though I’m not sure what that makes her
ladyship
. By heaven, I can’t wait to see her face when she sees you.”

“Aye, you’re a sight for sore eyes, Mistress Isabel, that’s for true,” Meg the nurse said, sniffling into her handkerchief. Isabel gave the old woman’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze, and her father added with warmth, “Isabel. Carlos. Welcome home.”

“And me,” Nicolas piped up.


This
is for you,” her father said, grappling the boy and tickling his ribs. Nico squealed and squirmed, and Isabel looked on, loving it. Two minutes after meeting one another, her father and son were fast friends.
Baron Thornleigh,
she thought, still amazed at how her parents’ lives had been transformed.
And Mother, now Lady Thornleigh, at this very moment at Whitehall Palace with the Queen
. Her father had always done well as a wool cloth merchant, but that success was mere chaff compared to the high rank he had been elevated to. Isabel felt almost giddy at what she had learned in the half hour it had taken for Frances to bring them here.

“I hardly know where to begin,” Frances had said, looking rather uncomfortable. They were walking up Cornhill Street with Carlos, while Pedro followed with Nicolas and three footmen Frances had brought to carry the luggage. The trunks had been sent ahead in a cart. “You see, the Queen . . . well, Princess Elizabeth back then . . . she befriended your mother and—”


Befriended
her?” Isabel said in wonder. “How? When?”

“Well, I suppose it started almost five years ago.”

Isabel shared a look with Carlos.
Just when we went to Peru
. “But what sparked this friendship?” she asked.

“The Princess was . . . out of favor, shall we say, with her sister, Queen Mary.” Frances paused, looking flustered. “Queen Mary was a misunderstood sovereign. I knew her well, and I will not slander her. Still, it is true that she was harsh with her sister, and that—”

“But what about my mother?” Isabel pressed. She cared nothing about the dead, old Queen Mary.

Carlos said, “Adam wrote that she was in prison in Colchester. Was he mistaken?”

“No.”

“And was she really charged with murder?” Isabel asked.

“Yes.”

“Who was she accused of killing?”

Frances looked away. “Not merely accused. Convicted.”

“But who
was
it?”

Frances continued to avoid her eyes. She said tightly, “I do wish your parents could have met you at the quay. It’s they who should tell you all this. I know they wrote to you, but I suppose the letter arrived after you had sailed.” She carried on quickly, as though Isabel’s question could not be answered, at least not by her. “The nub of the thing is that Queen Mary died, and Princess Elizabeth became queen, and she showed her gratitude for your mother’s loyalty by rewarding the whole family. She pardoned your mother of her crime and made your father a baron. And,” she added, raising her head with obvious pride in her husband, “she knighted Adam.”

Rewards indeed! was Isabel’s thought now as she watched Nicolas giggle at her father’s tickling. The family’s new status was astounding. And the wealth that had come with it! Not least, this huge house on fashionable Bishopsgate Street. From the front door you looked across the busy road at the grand edifice of the Merchant Taylors’ Hall. The house was three elegant stories rising above the great hall they stood in, with its long mahogany table and tall stained glass windows and wall tapestries that glowed with silk threads of scarlet and gold and sea green. The grounds contained an orchard and a walled garden with graveled walks and a fountain. And this was just their
town
house; the new Queen had also gifted them with lands and manors in Wiltshire and Kent. She had also appointed Baron Thornleigh to her royal council of advisers, an extraordinary mark of her trust. Isabel found it dizzying.

But so much still eluded her. Had her mother really been guilty of murder? And why had Frances been so reluctant to name the victim? Why did Frances stand quietly now to one side, smiling politely but not joining in the household’s high spirits? To be sure, the discomforts of late pregnancy could drain the fun out of any woman. And, of course, she must miss Adam. Frances had briefly explained that he was away on business with the Queen’s navy, but Isabel sensed there was more to it. Her father seemed to ignore Frances, seemed almost to snub her, and Isabel wondered why. Yet, as she watched him play with Nicolas, she decided to put aside these mysteries and embrace what was thrillingly clear—that instead of the misery in which she had expected to find her parents, they basked in a friendship with the Queen. They lived in luxury. They were hale. All was right with the world.

“Come, let’s sit down to eat,” her father said with a clap of his hands. “The moment we knew you were coming your mother ordered a feast.” He called to the chamberlain, who was overseeing the servants carrying in the luggage, “James, tell cook we’ll sup. And let’s have some music.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Mother?” Isabel asked.

“She’ll be home soon. And she made me promise to see that you are all fed without fail. I think she believes you haven’t eaten in five years.”

Everyone laughed, and James headed into the kitchen, calling, “Ho! Victuals!” Isabel was rounding up Nicolas, and Carlos was offering his arm to Frances to escort her to the table, when a man shouted, “Mistress Isabel!”

A wiry fellow loped in from the screened passage. Isabel’s hand went to her heart. “Tom! Is it really you?”

He reached her, out of breath, and tugged off his worn wool cap. “Ran all the way from the Spotted Grouse, my lady, soon’s I heard you was come.”

“Finished your grog first, I warrant,” Meg, the old nurse, jibed.

“Nay, that I did not,” he insisted to Isabel. “I swear it on my mother’s grave.”

“A grave she fell into from grog,” said Meg with a cackle as she left.

He winked at Isabel. “Can’t dispute that, my lady.”

She smiled, overjoyed at this familiar face. “Tom, I’m glad to see you.” She had grown up with Tom Yates. A clever jack-of-all-trades, he had been part of her father’s household for as long as she could remember. He had been a young man when she was a child, and his long, lank hair was now peppered with gray. He wore it swept back and tied in a queue with a grubby bit of leather, just as she had seen him do since she was little. He had always loved colorful clothes, and his jerkin now—what a fanciful affair! It was sheepskin, somewhat mangy, to which he had added an upright collar of red satin and gold tassels on each sleeve cuff that danced with his every move. She was glad that some things never changed.

“Is this your young ’un?” he asked, jerking a thumb at Nicolas.

“It is,” she said, bringing her son around, her hands on his shoulders. “This is Nicolas.” She saw that Pedro was watching Tom in awe at his forthright manner with her—indeed, the forthrightness of all the servants here. Pedro understood no English, but none was needed to see the absence of servility in the household folk. Isabel felt a twinge of pride at her heritage. English liberty.

Tom reached for Nicolas’s head and swiped a hand past his ear. “Is this farthing yours, Master Nicolas?” He held up a shiny coin.

Nicolas’s mouth fell open in surprise, his eyes huge.

Tom tossed him the farthing. “It’s yours now.” Nicolas caught it, and his hand went to his ear as if he hoped to feel another coin sprouting there. A bubble of laughter rose in Isabel. Tom had dazzled her with the same tricks when she was a little girl.

Maidservants were bringing platters of food from the kitchen, and Tom grabbed three empty plates from a passing girl. He tossed a plate in the air, then another, then the third, and juggled them. “Would you pass me another, Master Nicolas?”

Nicolas looked up at Isabel with a question in his eyes, silently asking permission. She nodded. The maid had set the plates on the table and Nicolas grabbed one and then, shy but eager, offered it to Tom. Tom snatched it without disturbing the three plates he was already juggling and tossed the fourth one up, too, adding it to the mix. “And another,” he said.

“Hold on, Yates,” Isabel’s father said. “Last time you tried this the maids were sweeping up broken crockery all day.”

“Nay, your lordship, that were but practice. I’ve mastered ’er now.”

Nicolas was watching, enthralled by the flying plates. Isabel saw that Carlos, too, was enjoying the show, intrigued. “Can you do a fifth?” Carlos asked.

“Aye, sir. Try me!”

“Go on, Nico,” Carlos said. “Pass him another.”

“No, surely it’s not possible,” Isabel said.

Nicolas looked from her to his father, not sure whom to obey, but clearly wanting to see Tom take the fifth plate.

Isabel laughed. “All right.”

Nicolas grabbed a plate from the table. “Now?” he asked Tom.

“Hold your horses,” Tom said, his eyes on the four plates he was carefully juggling. Then: “All right. Now!”

Nicolas quickly handed it to him and Tom tossed it up. Servants had gathered to watch in a hush of suspense. James, the chamberlain, crossed his arms over his chest and eyed Tom with the cool interest of a gambler. Even old Meg had padded back in. Pedro seemed positively entranced.

“He can’t do it for long,” a young maid whispered to another.

“A shilling says I can,” Tom said. “To the count of a hundred? Any takers?”

“You’re on,” said James, which brought an appreciative “Ah” from the others, everyone now eager to see if Tom could accomplish the feat. “Would you count, my lady?” James asked Isabel.

Why not? she thought happily. She started, “One . . . two . . . three,” and soon the servants were counting in unison with her, their voices getting louder with expectation as the numbers climbed.

James good-naturedly goaded Tom, “You’ll never keep it up, man.”

“Said the whore to the bishop,” Tom replied.

The others sputtered laughter. Carlos chuckled, and so did Isabel’s father, and she shot Carlos a look that said,
For shame, in front of Nico,
but she was laughing inside.

“Thirty-seven,” they all chanted with her. “Thirty-eight . . . thirty-nine . . . forty . . .”

Tom’s plates flew in smooth loops. The counting accelerated. But beads of sweat glinted on his brow. Isabel thought,
Can
he keep it up?

“Seventy-one . . . seventy-two . . . seventy-three . . .”

A shout came from the kitchen. Everyone tensed. Would Tom drop the plates? A door somewhere slammed. Tom staggered a step. The plates kept flying, but their loops were now wobbly.

“Ninety-eight . . . ninety-nine . . .
one hundred!
” Isabel shouted it as exuberantly as the servants. Tom landed the plates with deft precision, one after another. A cheer went up. Nicolas jumped up and down with glee, crying, “He did it! He did it!” Carlos grinned at Isabel. Her father slapped Tom on the back. “Well done, Yates.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Tom looked a little wild-eyed after his exertion. He held out a hand, palm up, to James, who dug into his breeches pocket and handed over a shilling, which brought a round of applause.

Isabel’s father clapped his hands. “Now, let’s eat!”

The family took seats, and Isabel watched Tom guide Pedro into the kitchen, the lad looking as pleased as if he had made friends with a demigod. A manservant poured wine, and maidservants carried in platters of roasted goose, poached turbot, spiced cabbage, and baked apples, the aromas making Isabel’s mouth water. Across the table Carlos was helping Frances to a slice of goose, while her father, at the head, bounced Nico on his knee. Musicians had filed into the gallery above the hall and now launched into a gay galliard on their lutes and viols. A robust fire flared in the hearth, making the silk tapestries gleam. Isabel took it all in with a tingling contentment. She looked across at Carlos. He was sitting back, enjoying his wine, and smiling at her with a look that said: I’m happy that
you’re
happy. It gave her a little thrill, as if he had slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close.

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