The Traitor's Daughter (23 page)

“That he did! And may the same end come to any who endanger God's work.” He glanced at the door, still open. “You came alone, I trust?”

“I brought a manservant.”

“Naturally, there are highwaymen.” He added with a gallant bow of the head, “And I would hate any interference to befall such a fair messenger.” When he raised his eyes to hers his renewed intensity sent a heat of apprehension to Kate's cheeks.

“Well now,” he said, “to business, mistress. You have the packet?”

“I do, sir.”

She excused herself to fetch the letters from her horse. When she returned she found the two men deep in conversation, Timms's voice quiet but forceful, Harkness's eyes lowered as he listened. Were they talking about her? Noticing her, Harkness waved his hand dismissively at Timms. The big man, looking unsatisfied, lumbered away toward the shelves of knives. Kate tried to hide her alarm. Had she underestimated Timms? Did he have a higher standing in this nest of traitors than she had believed? Ignoring her, he scanned the blades as though looking for a particular one.

“Here, sir,” she said, handing Harkness the leather pouch.

“Ah! Thank you.” Eagerly, he tugged the drawstring and pulled out the packet, five letters bound with a green ribbon. He tossed the pouch and ribbon onto the worktable. Kate's heart thumped as she watched him shuffle the letters, carefully checking each seal.
He's no fool,
she thought.
He must suspect the letters might have been intercepted before reaching Castelnau.
She knew that Matthew and Walsingham expected that fate for some of their own letters to the Continent. It was why both sides in this spying war used codes. She held her breath as Harkness closely examined one of the seals, maroon wax on paper the color of onion skin. At Matthew's lodging Kate had watched Arthur Gregory open this very letter for the copyist. It was one he had not been able to open without marring the seal, so to reseal he had dribbled melted wax from his spoon and then engraved a facsimile of the original signet stamp.

Harkness shuffled the letter, moving on to the next one for the same inspection. Kate breathed again. But it was terrifying to have come so close to detection: Harkness was thorough. What was his background? Whom did he report to? Northumberland? Or did he deal directly with Paris, with Thomas Morgan and Westmorland? Or even the Duke of Guise?

“How will you do it?” she asked.

His eyes snapped to hers. “Do what?”

“Get the letters inside Sheffield Manor.”

Timms turned and growled, “That's no concern of yours!”

Kate flinched inside. But she answered stoutly, “In fact, it is. Our friend in London requested my report. He said he needs assurance that the flow of correspondence for which we are all risking our necks will reach its destination. In both directions.”

They both stared at her for her boldness. Timms's scowl deepened. Harkness's intensity was intimidating. Kate had surprised even herself by asking. Castelnau had given her no such order. But it was information Matthew would want and need.

“Tell him he can rest easy,” Harkness finally said.

She could push the issue no further. Besides, she needed to find out what mattered most. “May I ask, will there be a reply?”

“Almost certainly. I trust you can return to collect it?”

“Yes. I have arranged to visit relatives nearby. When you need me, send word to the Bull's Head Inn in Rotherham.”

He nodded. “Well then, I believe our present business is concluded. I would offer you refreshment, but Timms keeps a meager larder. And, in fact”—he glanced at the big man—“it's best if you do not tarry.”

She had no wish to! Relief washed over her that the meeting was over and she could go. Yet she felt a small swell of pride. She had managed this well. Really, the thing had been simple! She felt almost foolish at having been so frightened.

She was almost at the door when Timms stomped toward her. “Stop!”

Kate froze. He was coming at her with a long knife! In an impulse of terror she reached out for Harkness. “Sir!”

Timms lurched between them. “Take it!” he growled.

She gaped at him.

Harkness heaved an irritated sigh. “Forgive his rough ways, Mistress Durant. He thinks it is wrong for London to have sent a woman. He wants you to take this weapon as protection henceforth.”

Kate almost laughed in tickled relief. Timms—the gallant ogre!

 

Roche Hall was three stories of honey-hued stone rising into the blue Yorkshire sky. Lying near Rotherham on gently rolling terrain eight miles northwest of Sheffield, it belonged to Kate's uncle and aunt, her father's sister. They had bought the manor recently and this was Kate's first visit. The morning after her rendezvous in Sheffield she woke up in lavender-scented sheets to the liquid warbling of a wood thrush.

As a child she had loved visiting the family at their residence farther north, Yeavering Hall. That place had seemed immense to her then, an entire world of its own with acres of gardens and orchards and its busy outbuildings of bakery, brewery, dairy house, and barns. Later, at thirteen, she had been fascinated by the obvious conjugal bond between her lovely, cultured Aunt Isabel and Isabel's rugged, base-born Spanish husband, Carlos Valverde, who had once made his living as a mercenary cavalryman on the battlefields of Europe. Though theirs was an unlikely match, anyone could see the deep affection they shared. Kate had seen looks pass between them hinting at a carnal intimacy that had made her adolescent self blush with curiosity. Having spent her early years in the tense gloom of her own parents' marriage, she was enthralled by her aunt and uncle's happy union. It shone in her imagination as the ideal marriage.

Uncle Carlos had served Elizabeth with distinction, had even once saved her life, so Kate's aunt had told her with pride. Yet Her Majesty had not rewarded him with a knighthood, a slight that everyone in the family, even Kate's father, regarded with suppressed indignation. Elizabeth would never raise up a man of Carlos's unfortunate Spanish origins. Nevertheless, he had prospered, chiefly from his landholdings in the New World, that vast and mysterious swathe of the globe owned by Spain. At the beginning of their marriage the couple had spent five years in Peru, where Carlos had served the governor as captain of the guard, and thanks to his connections there his family now enjoyed the fruits of his rich Peruvian holdings, including a silver mine in the fabled city of Po-tosí.

Kate remembered Yeavering Hall ringing with the giggling voices, running feet, and high spirits of their boisterous children. Roche Hall was smaller and quieter. The three eldest children were grown and both sons lived elsewhere, Nicolas overseeing his father's Peruvian business interests in Seville and Andrew studying at Cambridge. Eighteen-year-old Nell would soon be marrying a Yorkshire baron's son and would leave the nest, too. Then, only nine-year-old Anne would remain.

Arriving from Sheffield, Kate had been disappointed to find that her uncle was away.

“He's been with Nicolas in Seville since August,” Isabel had said, hooking her arm in Kate's to lead her in from the front doorway. “We are a house of women. I hope you won't find us dull, my dear.”

Kate didn't mind in the least. The men she had been thrust among in the last months had demanded much of her and the turmoil had left her feeling tender as a bruise. Gentle female company seemed a godsend.

“They're on their way home, though,” chirped Anne, skipping alongside and holding Kate's hand. “So you'll see them!”

“Good, I'd like that.”

“They're coming by the Irish Sea,” Isabel said. “We expect them in a few days.”

“How long can you stay?” asked Anne.

“Long enough to chide cousin Nicolas for his scanty letters,” Kate teased her little cousin, tousling the girl's springy dark curls.

Anne's eyes went wide at such bold banter about her eldest brother, for she held him, a man of twenty-six, in as high esteem as her father.

“Kate!” cried Nell, scurrying down the staircase to greet her. “We've been looking out for you since yesterday. Oh, it's wonderful to see you.”

They embraced, and Kate smiled with almost a mother's pride at the pretty young woman her cousin had become.

“How is Lady Thornleigh?” Nell asked.

“Hale as ever. And mightily engrossed in building her library.”

“As ever,” Isabel echoed. “Which reminds me, I have found an antiquarian volume on botany she has been seeking. I'll send it back with you.”

The four of them chatted over a supper of game pie, plums, and custard, then spent the evening in the parlor, where Isabel plied her embroidery while conducting Anne's French lesson, a casual set of questions about what clothing a lady would don in dressing for the day. The child answered from her stool by the hearth. Kate and Nell played backgammon, quietly studying the board. A ginger cat padded past them, aloof.

“And what would the lady put on her feet?” was Isabel's next question in French.

“
Chasseurs,
” Anne answered. The others laughed at this, the French word for “hunters.”

“
Chasseurs,
” her mother gently corrected her.

Anne dutifully repeated it. Nell moved her backgammon piece with aggressive glee. Kate felt a tickle at her foot. The cat was weaving loving circles around her ankle. Isabel murmured on in French to Anne while tugging her needle and yarn. Kate smiled, enjoying the homey gathering. She had almost forgotten how restful an evening like this could be. She felt her tension about the Sheffield rendezvous drain away. The hardest part of her mission was over. She had succeeded. All that remained was to pick up Mary's letters of reply and take them back to London, first to Matthew for his copyists and then to Castelnau.

But her tranquil mood did not last long. About an hour after Anne was sent to bed yawning, Isabel put aside her embroidery hoop and began winding the silk yarn around its parent ball, finished for the night. Taking her cue the two young women also rose to retire. Nell left the parlor and Kate was about to follow her upstairs, but Isabel motioned her to stay, saying, “I would speak with you.” Kate stood before her, waiting, as Isabel wound yarn until Nell's footsteps could no longer be heard.

“You put on a brave face,” Isabel said finally. “But I know it is a struggle. You have said nothing about your husband.”

The statement startled Kate. Then she chided herself. Naturally, the family news had reached Roche Hall. “There is nothing to say, Aunt.”

“Is there not?” She set down the yarn in her lap. “Why did you not accompany him to Sussex when he went to serve the Earl of Northumberland?”

“My grandmother wrote you, I see.”

“So did your father. He is mightily troubled, Kate.”

“He need not be on my account. I am perfectly content.”

“Do not play false with me. I know he has barred you from his house. It grieves me. I know it must grieve you. So, please, I am trying to understand.” She let out a sigh. Concern softened her face. “I know you married for love. I cannot fault you for that—I did the same. Love is a fine thing when it nurtures. When two work as one to build a life together. But if one partner undermines the union, puts you in jeopardy—”

“Pardon me, but you have heard only Father's tales.”

“I have heard facts. Was your husband not in prison?”

“Yes, but—”

“Was he not convicted for attending an illegal gathering?”

“He made an error. Who can say they have not done that?”

“Oh, be careful, Kate. These are dangerous times. In London you may not feel the danger, raucous as the place is with overconfident Puritans. But here in the north people cling hard to the old ways. They are a multitude, each as stubbornly righteous as any Puritan, and bold withal. At Preston they will not take the sacrament in their hands, but only the old way, in their mouths. They hide priests and have them christen their children. Old women tell their beads at Communion. I confess I pity these people.”

Kate had listened with pretended innocence, well aware of the north's underground Catholic strength, but her aunt's last words surprised her. “Pity them?”

“Theirs is a lethal dilemma. If they hold to their faith they are punished by the state as traitors. If they conform they disobey their church and are cast out. A great many have chosen their church, and they protect one another, especially the gentry. When the Jesuit Campion came into Lancashire he was sheltered by long-landed families, traveling between them—the Houghtons, the Talbots, the Westbys. In Yorkshire, the Watertons and the Lil-burnes are high-ranking recusants. They pay the recusant fines rather than attend Communion. So, too, the Inglebys of Ripley. In the vale of York, the Markenfields.”

Kate knew of these, and thought of the men in the cutler's workshop. Harkness. Timms. And how many unknown others in their cabal?

Isabel shook her head. “They are strong hereabouts. Even magistrates are in their ranks. In the last quarter sessions not one recusant was presented. Oh, Her Majesty's government sent the pursuivants to try to search them out. Sir John Southworth was sent to prison. They say he disinherited his son for conforming. Sir Henry Towneley paid four thousand pounds in recusancy fines, an enormous sum. He is very rich. But many poor folk, too, are hazarding all for their religion. Their numbers grow every day. And the situation could turn deadly if the rumors are true.”

Kate asked with new keenness, “Rumors?”

“About their ties to the English exiles and Spain. About schemes for an invasion.”