The Queen's Gamble (27 page)

This was no defensive preparation for tenants. This was the groundwork for war.

She tried to impose order on her racing thoughts. Perhaps Grenville was organizing forces to join Queen Elizabeth’s army marching to Scotland. That would be perfectly legitimate, a patriotic duty of which he could be proud. But why, then, make no mention of it? Why this secretive, middle-of-the-night activity? No, he was stockpiling weapons for some other purpose. The Queen’s troops would be passing through Northumberland about now. Was he planning to attack them? It seemed too astonishing. Yet she felt sure there was some dangerous connection between Grenville, the Queen Regent, and the powerful Percy family.

Her thoughts flew back to London and St. Paul’s that day Adam had rescued her from the assault. In telling her about the crisis in Scotland he had said that Elizabeth had dismissed Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, as Warden of the East and Middle Marches, which was basically the whole Scottish frontier. “He’s a known Catholic,” Adam had said, “and she can’t trust him if it comes to choosing sides.” Had the earl chosen sides now, with the backing of the Queen Regent? Was Christopher Grenville his right-hand man? Were these men planning—the deadly word hovered in her mind:
treason?

Slow down, she told herself. Her fertile imagination might be linking things that had no link. The Percy family were Grenville’s near neighbors, and through him the Queen Regent was sending her friend a gift—all innocent enough. If there was a darker link to be found, she had to know more.

She whirled on a robe and went barefoot down the passageway. Though unfamiliar with the house, she did not have far to go. Frances’s bedchamber was next to hers. She tiptoed in and shook her sister-in-law by the shoulder to wake her.

“What is it?” Frances cried in alarm. She looked to the cradle at the far side of the bed. “Is it Katherine?”

“No, the baby’s fine,” Isabel assured her. “Frances, something’s going on outside. Something I don’t understand.” She explained about the weapons.

Frances looked astonished. “Really?” she said, sitting up. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I saw. What do you think your brother means by it?”

Frances was about to speak, then seemed to catch herself. A mask of wariness hardened her features. “I believe there is a simple explanation. Christopher and the other local gentry are banding together to fight the Scottish reivers.”

Isabel was skeptical. “All those arms to go after mere cattle raiders?”

“The brutes are a constant threat. Burning and looting and murdering throughout the borderlands. Christopher is organizing a counterattack. I have heard him say he intends to deal with the menace once and for all.”

“With cannons?”

Frances shrugged.

“Come, you know this is not logical,” Isabel said. “The government has deputies posted at garrisons along the border. It is their job to deal with the Scottish outlaws.” Though she did not say it, they both knew that the government would consider any Englishman who took such matters into his own hands to be equally an outlaw. So what could such a hoard of weapons be for except a purpose
beyond
the Queen’s laws? A queen that many northerners considered illegitimate, and a heretic. A queen that France wanted to supplant with their own queen. “Frances,” she said, “what do you
really
think is happening?”

Frances looked away. Her tone was frosty. “I do not think we should discuss this.”

Isabel felt a shiver of caution. Frances knew what her brother was up to and meant to keep it secret. It grieved her to be in conflict with Frances; she was Adam’s wife. But Grenville was her brother, and the Grenville family had always been devoutly Catholic. The tender ties of the heart could not match the iron bonds of blood and faith.

She said a dispirited good night. The next day she kept to her bed. Frances did not visit her. Isabel was not at all sure she had interpreted Grenville’s actions aright, but she was burning to know—and intended to find out. She waited all day in an agony of impatience. That evening, while the household sat at supper in the great hall, she left her room and went in search of answers. She did not know the house at all, and the rooms she looked into held nothing beyond the trappings of domestic life. A clerk’s messy office. A pantry where dried herbs hung. A children’s nursery. Clothes cupboards. A games room.

Then she opened a door on the ground floor and paused. Grenville’s library. No one was there. She glanced back down the way to the hall where the diners’ laughter and chatter and clacking of knives on trenchers carried on. She went in and closed the door, instantly muffling the household sounds. She looked around at the two walls of books. Many had spines of beautifully tooled leather of green and burgundy, their titles stamped in gold. She thought of her mother, always a bookworm, getting happily lost in perusing these shelves. Or perhaps not; though books were neutral, Mother might consider these tainted by their Grenville home. The elegance of the room did not stop at the books. A gorgeous tapestry adorned a third wall. The fourth had three windows that looked out on the courtyard, and their colorful stained glass was worked with the heraldry of the house of Grenville. Candles burned in a hanging brass candelabra, burnishing the room with a soft glow, and herbs gave off their sweet scent from the fresh floor rushes. There was a solidly built oak desk where papers were spread. A globe stood on a waist-high pedestal. A table held maps.

Isabel went to the desk. She had no idea what she was looking for. Anything that would give her a clue to Grenville’s connection to the Queen Regent, Marie de Guise—whatever that might look like. She gingerly lifted papers and scanned them. A letter from a lawyer about Grenville’s son’s school. A bill from a wine merchant. A deed to a manor house in York. A list of accused men appearing at the Kirknewton assizes. Not a single thing connected with Scotland. She opened a drawer. Quills, a pot of ink, a pen knife, a letter opener that was a slender blade of ivory, a few loose farthings that clinked as she closed the drawer again. She opened a lower drawer. There it was—the silver rattle. The satin wrapping and lace bow were gone. This gift was staying with Grenville, at least for the time being.

She lifted the rattle out. It was superbly crafted with filigree, the work of a master silversmith. She held it by the handle and shook the bulb, and heard the predictable
whooshing
sound of tiny pebbles. She held it up to the light under the candelabra and examined it for an inscription. There was none. That seemed odd. A gift from one aristocratic lady to another should carry some floridly etched words, perhaps a biblical quote, a date—a name, at the very least. This was no gift, at least not for an innocent christening. It had some other purpose. Isabel tried to loosen the bulb by unscrewing it. It would not budge. She turned it over and looked at the base of the handle. Embedded in the end hole was a semiprecious stone of green malachite. She got out the letter opener and tried to pry the stone loose. The slender ivory tip did not seem strong enough to dislodge it, and she was looking around for something else to use, when the malachite stone dropped out. It fell to the floor with a faint clatter. Isabel dug her baby finger into the handle, the only finger small enough. She felt something—paper—and eased it out. It was a scroll no longer than her forefinger. Her heart beat faster as she unfurled it. Words. Lines of words. But in some language that made no sense. It was gibberish.

Pins and needles crawled over her skin as she realized—the message was in cipher. Only the person it was meant for could decipher it. Grenville. The scenario she had feared now loomed fully formed in her mind. Grenville was planning armed insurrection with the backing of the Queen Regent, and the mighty Earl of Northumberland was the power behind it. The timing was ideal, she realized. With the Queen’s commanders marching her troops north to Scotland, and her treasury too depleted to hire more, her defenses at home were weak. Isabel’s thoughts lurched ahead. When were these traitors preparing to strike?

A
clunk
startled her. It came from the passage outside the door. Quickly, she rolled up the paper, her fingers trembling. Footsteps sounded, coming this way. She slid the paper back up into the hollow handle. She was jamming the rattle back into the drawer when she realized—the malachite! She dropped to her knees and groped in the floor rushes, searching for the green stone. She found it! The door opened. She stood.

Grenville walked in. He stopped, startled to see her.

“Sir, we didn’t expect your return tonight.” She held the rattle behind her back, trying to jam the stone into the hole.

“How wonderful to see you restored to health,” he said, coming to her with a smile. “The bloom is back in your cheeks. And, if I may say, it puts the rose’s bloom to shame.”

They were standing face-to-face, and he tilted his head slightly to look behind her back. His smile vanished. “Have you found what you were looking for?”

22

Captives

T
he alarm bell clanged in the courtyard, a warning loud and frantic. Listening from the stable, Carlos felt a stab of dread.
Isabel. The French have caught her
.

He tried to tell himself that no, the alarm couldn’t be about her.
It’s been three weeks. She’ll be near London by now, beyond their reach.
He went back to brushing his horse. It was late and he was alone in the stall with Noche, working under the lantern hooked on a post. Usually, brushing the horse calmed him, but not tonight. Three alarms in the last four days. No attack, though—just jittery Frenchmen jumping at the sound of the bell. With an English army on its way, every man in the garrison was as tense as a taut bowstring. Carlos, too. He could live with the prospect of battle. It was his lying wife that was killing him.

He took another pull on the bottle of brandy that was keeping him company. He’d been turning to the stuff a lot, though it did nothing to drown the wild nightmares. Isabel captured, writhing in chains on a French ship, bloodied from rape by the crew. Nicolas tumbling from a tower of the Queen’s prison, plunging into the Thames. Sometimes in the nightmare all three of them were in their house in Trujillo as it went up in flames, the King of Spain screaming orders to make ashes of Carlos and his family.

He wiped the brandy off his mouth with the back of his hand. The alarm in the courtyard kept on.
Gong! Gong! Gong!
What had set off the French this time? Yesterday, it was to close the gates against their own after an infantryman sank a knife into the gut of an officer and the search was on for the murderer. They’d found him and he would hang. Two days before, it was to open the gates for a scouting party returning the corpse of the garrison priest who’d visited a village inn outside Edinburgh in rebel territory; the landlady had pushed him into a washtub and held him under until he drowned. The third alarm had been a false one after some green recruit saw shadows in the moonlight and imagined English soldiers scaling the ramparts. Carlos thought the men in the barracks must be getting dangerously accustomed to the bell, like the villagers in the old tale of the boy who cried wolf. Would these troops be alert enough if the enemy mounted a surprise attack?

Do I care anymore? he wondered. A furious confusion had plagued him since Isabel had gone. Who was the enemy now, for him? The Scots with their new English muscle? Warfare was simple: fight or be killed. But now it was the French he had to fear, because if they found out about Isabel it would threaten her, threaten Nicolas, threaten the whole life Carlos had built for them. That felt worse than simple death. What she had done—he could not comprehend it with anything less than frustrated rage. He took another pull of brandy. A barrel of it wouldn’t be enough to make him forget his wife’s betrayal.

He tossed the brush aside and grabbed a hoof pick. He stroked the stallion’s rear leg from hock to cannon bone to signal his intention, then lifted the hoof and wedged it between his knees.
Gong! Gong! Gong!
from the courtyard. If it was something serious after all, he’d better go see. Yet he heard no commotion, just indistinct shouts. Another false alarm? Or could it be a courier with
good
news for the commander? He knew D’Oysel was hoping for reinforcements from the French king. But that was before they’d heard of the events that had recently stunned France.

“Huguenots,” D’Oysel had groaned to him the evening the report had arrived. “God-cursed Protestants.” They had been playing cards, although the commander’s concentration was barely on the game. Carlos knew that pockets of Protestants had been gaining strength all over France. Now, it seemed, a cabal of them had struck. “They tried to abduct the King,” D’Oysel had said, clearly shaken. “He was at Amboise, at the chateau, and the Huguenot forces stormed the place. Tried to arrest the King’s uncles, too, the Duc de Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. The King’s men cut down the heretics, of course. Hung the leaders’ corpses on the chateau walls. But, God in heaven, what a monstrous conspiracy was uncovered. They say it’s thousands strong.” Carlos knew why it meant so much to D’Oysel, and religion had little to do with it. It was because the extent of the conspiracy had forced the King and the Duc de Guise to concentrate their forces at home. That meant sacrificing their troops in Scotland. In war, Carlos thought grimly, timing is everything.

And so is knowing your enemy. His bitterness roared back as he cleaned Noche’s hoof. He had thought he knew Isabel. He’d been wrong. It made him sick to think how wrong. She had lied to him. Lie upon lie. She had agreed to a pact with Queen Elizabeth. Left their son as a surety, a hostage. Brought the Queen’s aid to the rebels, and then lived among their soldiers—that thought turned his stomach. And then she had spied for them, right here under his very nose. Had she been scouting the garrison before they’d made love, or after? Or both? A fist of sickness threatened deep in his throat. He would rather she had gone insane and shot him in the head than betrayed him.

He let go the horse’s leg and upended the brandy bottle in his mouth, almost choking as the liquor poured down his throat.
Choking on her lies
. He swallowed, and spat, and took an unsteady step back. He had to flatten his shoulders against the wall for balance and focus on the lantern above him, its yellow light blurry. Too much liquor. He hadn’t realized he’d had so much. It was cheap stuff, a foul rotgut. Watching the lantern flame dance, he saw Isabel smiling as she lied to him, and he felt a lash of sorrow. Did their marriage mean nothing to her? Did intrigue and danger mean more than her life with him and Nicolas? After everything he had done to build a secure life for them?
I am done with her,
his rage had told him that day when she had ridden away.

He let the bottle slip from his fingers. Alongside his anger and sorrow was a squeeze of shame about Fenella. Brandy—that’s how it had started with her. A bottle of D’Oysel’s finest. It was the day after he had sent Isabel away. Just after dawn. He’d had no sleep, and Fenella had found him here, brushing Noche, channeling his fury into the task.
Or else I’ll hurt someone,
he had felt with a wild despair.

“Thought I might find you here,” she had said, strolling into the stall.

He threw her a glance, then went back to brushing. He was in no mood for talk.

She leaned back against the horse’s neck, throwing one arm along the ridge of its back. “Hard times with the wife, I hear.”

He glared at her. Did everyone in the place know he’d thrown Isabel out? Then a far worse worry hit him—had Fenella kept her word? He had paid her to keep quiet about Isabel’s link to the rebels, and she had given her promise, but there was still a risk. After all, she shared D’Oysel’s bed.

“Och, you’re well rid of her,” she said lightly. She held up a bottle, offering it. “Brandy? It’s the best,” she added with a wink. “From the private stores of my wee frog.”

Why not? “Thanks.”

As he drank, she toyed with the buckle on the sleeve of his leather jerkin. “Now that she’s gone, gives me a chance, I hope.” She eased herself between him and the horse.

There had never been any mistaking her broad invitations, and her interest in him gave Carlos some confidence now that she would do what he wanted and keep quiet about Isabel. Her breath smelled ripe with brandy. She was so close he could feel her body’s heat. The thought lingered:
She’ll do what I want.

Did
he want her? They were alone. No one to see. And his wife had just shown him how little he meant to her. He took another swallow of brandy and let his gaze range over Fenella’s tangle of yellow hair, carelessly bound up with a red ribbon as though she had just come from bed. A few long, loose strands hung down, touching her full breasts.

He read the gleam of excitement in her eyes. “Here, let me help you with this,” she said, taking the brush from him. She turned in the tight space between him and the stallion, and brushed the horse’s back. With every stroke her backside rubbed Carlos, her ass grinding against his groin.

“I warrant your beast likes the feel of this,” she said, brushing. “ ’Course I can’t do it hard like you do, strong fella that you are.” She glanced over her shoulder and winked. “Hard is best.”

She turned to face him, her breasts brushing his arm. She stroked a fingertip down his throat and into the V of his shirt. He let it happen, his body already there. “So, you do like me a little,” she said with a sly smile. Pressing her hips firmly against him, she chuckled. “Och, a lot!”

Why not?
he thought, desire and bitterness surging. He tossed the bottle onto a pile of horse blankets and pulled her close. “You’re an easy woman to like. You don’t lie.”

She smiled, tossing away the brush. “I can lie. Or stand. Or bend over. Whatever way you want it, lover.” She leaned in to kiss him.

But he didn’t want to kiss her. He only wanted to fuck her. He pulled her over to the manger, a hip-high trough for fodder where his saddle was slung over the edge. He bent her facedown over the saddle and shoved her skirts up over her buttocks and loosened his codpiece. She braced herself, gripping the saddle’s pommel and cantle. He grabbed her by the hips and rammed into her, driven by a fierce need to exorcise his fury and his sorrow.

When he was done, his fury, at least, was spent.

He stepped back, getting his breath, retying his codpiece. He had a bad feeling that he’d been too rough, might have hurt her. “Sorry,” he said.

“What for?” She had straightened up and was tugging her clothes back into place.

Carlos heard a scraping at the far wall that abutted the next stall. In the gloom he could make out a pair of dark eyes low down between the slats. The damn stable boy, watching. Carlos grabbed the horse brush and hurled it at the wall. “Get out, you little bastard!”

They listened as the boy scampered out of the stall and out the stable door. Fenella snorted a laugh. “Never mind him. Watching is the closest he’ll ever get his wee prick to me.”

Carlos sat down on the stacked horse blankets. He felt strangely lost. His fury was spent, but he had not expected how mercilessly his sorrow would surge back, stronger than before. He didn’t want this woman. He wanted Isabel. But she had stepped beyond the borders of his trust, had moved herself beyond the reach of his love. He was without her, alone.

Fenella picked up the brandy bottle from the blankets and sat down beside him, patting her hair into place. “Good,” she said. She sounded cheerful, as though they had finalized a mutually agreeable business deal.

He looked at her, surprised by her breezy mood, but relieved, too. She didn’t expect anything more than the base coupling they’d just done. She was a woman who did what she wanted. He admired that.

She took a long pull from the bottle, then handed it to him. “Drink?”

He took a swallow.

“The fellows around here say your job won’t keep you in Scotland much longer,” she said, brushing a bit of straw off his sleeve. “Good thing, eh? To get out of this stinking country?”

He had to agree. “When I do go, I won’t be sorry.” He handed her back the bottle. She drank. They listened to the morning sounds around them. Hooves clopped at the far end of the stable as someone led a horse out for exercise. Outside, a wagon rumbled by.

“Know of a place called Marseilles?” she asked.

Odd question. “French seaport,” he said.

“Close to Spain?”

“Not far. Why?”

She grinned. “We get along fine, you and me. When you leave here, how would you like to take me to Spain? No strings, I promise. If you patch things up with your wife later, I’ll clear out. Just take me with you when you go, that’s all I ask.”

He looked at her. He hadn’t expected this. “I’ll be going home to Peru.”

“And where in Spain is that? Anywhere near Marseilles?”

“It’s not in Spain. It’s across the Ocean Sea. In the New World.”

She gaped at him, her face blank with shock. “Across the . . . ?” Her body slumped, heavy with disappointment. “Bloody hell.”

It was suddenly clear to him. “That’s why you’ve been after me? To tag along to Spain?”

She heaved a weary sigh. “To France. That’s where I have to be. No chance of that with my wee frog. He’s stuck here.”

Carlos had to chuckle. “So you tried me instead.” So much for feeling bad at using her. Instead, he’d been her fool. His chuckle gave way to a full-blown belly laugh.

She glared at him, still smarting at her mistake. “What’s so funny?”

“Me. I thought you couldn’t resist me.”

She made a face, a good-natured sneer. “You’re a fine cock of a man, lover, but I promise you, you’re nothing new.”

“Quite the compliment.”

They looked at each other. He had almost made her smile.

“Why France?” he asked.

“What?”

“Why do you want to go to France?”

She took the bottle from him and drank, then handed it back to him. “My brother’s in Marseilles. He’s dying.” She wiped brandy off her mouth. “I want to go take care of him. I’m all he’s got.”

Carlos stared at her. He had never thought of her as anything more than D’Oysel’s woman, a good-looking woman, a flirt. Not someone with a life and problems like everyone else. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said. It struck him that they were both captives. He wanted out, but had to stay to win Quadra’s backing. She wanted out, but was too poor to go on her own.

“I hate this bloody country,” she said, staring at the cold lantern on the post. “What the hell are these frogs fighting for, anyway? What’s this godforsaken, sodden land to them?”

A stepping stone to England, Carlos thought. “But you didn’t want to join the rebels?” he asked.

“Christ, no. They’ll lose. A sorry lot of fools, dying for nothing. I’ll stick with the winners.”

“You’re not worried about the English?”

“Why should I be? If they win, I warrant an Englishman likes a soft body in his bed as much as a Frenchman does. But I will say this for the Scottish fools—at least they’re fighting for something they care about. This is their home. What do the bloody French care about?”