The Traitor's Daughter (26 page)

She handed him the letters in her left hand. Four letters only.

Gregory set to examining the first seal. The others watched him, silent, fresh energy rippling through the group now that their work could begin.

No one looked at Kate as she turned to her cloak and slipped the fifth letter into the pocket.

“Everything all right?” Matthew stood in the doorway, watching her.

18

The Letter

K
ate entered Lady Thornleigh's great hall and was jarred by the sound of laughter. She found her grandmother and two guests—Lord Burghley and his wife—standing at the oriel window enjoying a private jest. They all turned to her, still chuckling. Kate's tense hands balled into fists at her sides. Burghley, her grandmother's longtime friend, was the Queen's closest adviser, the most powerful man in England. He was the last person Kate wanted to speak to now. The letter she had stolen from Matthew's lodging lay in the pocket of her cloak. In her troubled imagination it felt as conspicuous as a dagger dripping blood.

“Kate, my dear!” her grandmother exclaimed in surprise. “I didn't expect you back so soon. That was a brief visit.”

“There was talk of coming snow,” Kate said. “The roads were already bad so I thought it best to leave early.” She curtsied to Burghley and his wife. “My lord. My lady.”

Burghley gave her a nod and muttered a barely polite, “Mistress Lyon.” Kate was used to the cool tone, and not just from him. She was the wife of a felon.

“And how are they all at Roche Hall?” Lady Thornleigh asked eagerly.

“They are very well, your ladyship.”

“Glad I am to hear it.” She turned to her guests. “Kate has been north to visit Isabel and the girls.” Then, to Kate: “That is, I don't suppose Carlos and Nicolas are home yet from Spain?”

“Not yet. Aunt Isabel said they were on their way. Oh, and she sent you a botany book for your library. It's in my luggage.”

“Ah! The Otto Brunfels volume? The
Herbarum Vivae Icones
?”

“I believe so.” Kate was finding it hard to act normally. Nothing would settle her distraught mind until she could read the letter. Matthew, thank God, had not seen her pocket it. She had waited in a fever of anxiety until a copyist had completed one of the letters to Morgan, and then she had turned to Matthew, pleading exhaustion from her journey, and asked his permission to take the copy to her grandmother's house to work on decoding it there.

“Of course,” he had said, looking concerned. “Kate, are you sure you're all right?”

“I'll be fine. Just need some sleep.”

Both letters—the one addressed to Marion Forbes and the copy of the one to Morgan—now lay pressed together in her cloak pocket.

“Come join us, my dear,” said her grandmother. “I was just offering Lord and Lady Burghley some refreshment. They have brought a beautiful gift of venison for my anniversary supper. It is Her Majesty's favorite meat at this time of year.” She smiled at her guests, well pleased. “Most kind of you, Mildred.”

“As selfish as kind,” Lady Burghley said pleasantly, “since William and I shall enjoy it just as much as Her Majesty will.”

“Indeed, so shall we all,” Lady Thornleigh agreed. “We happy few.”

Kate tried to show interest. She knew the supper was to be a small, private affair with just the old friends who had held her late grandfather in the highest esteem. There would be Her Majesty—her presence a great honor, of course—plus Lord and Lady Burghley and Father and his wife. Her grandmother had marked the occasion this way annually since her husband's death fourteen years ago. Kate herself had attended last year, the year she had turned twenty-one. “It's next week, isn't it?” she asked.

“No, no,” her grandmother corrected with eager precision. “The day after tomorrow.”

But Kate could no longer feign attention. “Would you excuse me, my lady? I'm rather tired from the journey.”

“Yes, of course, my dear. I understand. Go and rest.” As Kate left the hall her grandmother called after her, “The musicians are going to rehearse their program. I hope they won't disturb you.”

On her way upstairs Kate asked the footman to light a fire in her bedchamber. He went to fetch a taper and she carried on up the steps. In her room she whirled off her cloak and took out the two letters: the copy to Morgan, neatly folded by the copyist, and the original to Marion Forbes, still sealed. Tossing her cloak on the bed, she took the letters to her dressing table at the window, where late afternoon sun bathed the room in golden light. The window looked out on the Thames. No one could see in, but a primeval need for privacy made Kate close the curtains. She left just a crack of light.

She sat down, her reflection in the looking glass skimming past her vision as she moved. Examining the letter's seal, she saw that it was rudimentary—a blob of brown wax pressed by what looked like a thumbprint. The seals on Mary's other letters were far more elegant. Her secretary used a silky red wax, and the image, whether a stamp pressed by Mary's own hand or simply approved by her, was of a crucifix. The crudeness of this brown seal was evidence that the letter had been sealed by someone other than Mary. It gave Kate a sickening mixture of relief and dread. Relief, because the seal would be easy to duplicate if she had to; she had watched Gregory do so often enough. Dread because the evidence confirmed her belief that the handwriting of the inscription was Robert's. And why would he have inscribed it unless he had also written the contents?

“Mistress?” said the young footman, coming in with a lit taper. “Shall I light the fire now?”

“Yes. Thank you.” Waiting, she pretended to fuss with the vase of flowers the maids had left beside the looking glass. Yellow roses, Michaelmas daisies, late purple asters. Gardening was her grandmother's passion, and a fresh bouquet in every room was the rule.

Once the fire in the grate was flickering the footman asked, “Anything else, mistress?”

“No. That will be all.”

When he had gone she locked the door. She lit a candle from the fire and took it to the dressing table and sat. She picked up the slim silver letter knife beside the vase of flowers. Holding the blade above the flame, she warmed the metal. Then, gently, she slid the knife tip under the seal, careful to protect the paper from showing any sign of tampering. If she was wrong about the handwriting and the seal—if her fears were just the work of her overanxious imagination—she could reseal the letter and return it to Matthew with a story of having forgotten it in her saddlebag in her weary state.

Gradually, the warmed seal gave up its grip. She lifted the paper edge, then unfolded the paper. It was blank. But another letter slipped out onto the table. Tightly folded, it was more worn than the enclosing paper. It bore the same crude seal: brown wax impressed with a thumbprint. Kate picked it up and turned it over to read the inscription.

Her heart shot up her throat.
F
for Frances. Grenville, her maiden name.
Mother.

With chilled fingers she warmed the blade again over the flame. She slid it under this second seal and gently pried it off.

A half page of writing. Robert's handwriting. In code.

She felt suddenly sick. She dropped the paper on the table. Sweat prickled her forehead, slicked her palms. Her heart felt like it was thrashing in her chest. Even as she struggled for control she realized what Robert had done. Knowing that Mary's letters were going to Castelnau to be distributed abroad, he had slipped this letter to Mother inside the packet. The evidence was clear proof of Kate's suspicion: Mother was part of the cabal of Mary's supporters.

She laid her hands flat on the table, fighting to subdue her panic. She had seen this code before. A glance told her that. It was the same one Morgan had used in his letter to Fortescue, the one she had decoded two weeks ago at this very table. It had contained the symbol of an
L
inside a circle, signifying the Duke of Guise.

Lurching to her feet, she took one more moment to get control of herself. Short though the letter was, she needed her decrypting notes. She went to her bedside and went down on hands and knees. She lifted the loose floorboard under the bed and lifted out the metal box and unlocked it with the key she kept on a long ribbon around her neck. The box held the
Stenographia
volume and her notes. Leaving the book, she took the notes to the dressing table, got a pencil and paper from the drawer, and set to work.

Music jolted Kate. A wheezing sound of rebecs, flutes, and sackbuts tuning. The musicians' rehearsal. She bent again to her task.

Kate stared at the words. Her pulse thrummed in her ears. Her hand was cramped. The decrypting had taken over an hour. The candle had burned down an inch. She set down her pencil and looked sightlessly into the flame.
I am about to bring our enterprise to its sublime fulfilment.
What enterprise? She remembered his words when they had talked among the walls of sacks, their castle of grain, in Sheffield.

“Are you leaving?” she had asked.

He'd smiled. “Just to London. I have a new mission.”

St. Crispin's Day.
October twenty-fifth. Today was the twenty-third. Kate gasped. Grandmother's supper! The Queen would be here, in this house. Could Robert's mission be . . . assassination?

She locked the papers in the box, the key slippery in her damp palm, and replaced the box under the floorboard. She went downstairs, trying not to run. She crossed the great hall, passing under the gallery, where the musicians sawed noisily at their tune. At the hall's far end she reached the library, where she found her grandmother alone, seated at her desk, writing in her ledger.

“Have Lord and Lady Burghley gone?” Kate blurted.

Her grandmother looked up. “Yes. They are expecting guests. Why?”

“My lady,” Kate began, her mouth dry, “your anniversary supper, is it—”

“I wanted you to be there,” her grandmother interrupted. She set down her pen and regarded Kate sadly. “This remembrance of Richard should be for all his family. All in London, at any rate. Isabel is too far. But I wanted you.” A cross look tugged her eyebrows. “But Burghley will not have it. He says your presence would be an irritant to Elizabeth. I'm sorry.”

“I understand,” Kate said. The insult to her was the last thing on her mind. “So, Her Majesty will definitely attend?”

“Of course. She has for fourteen years. And I think Burghley underestimates her. I have known Elizabeth since she was a princess and I know her clear-eyed ways. She would not be troubled by your presence.” She stood up with a weary sigh. “But I want no discord, and so I have deferred to Burghley. He and Elizabeth have troubles enough steering the ship of state in these dangerous days.”

She came to Kate. Her voice was earnest. “Understand me, Kate. Your husband is no enemy of mine. I have stood all my life for rationality. This warring to the death over faith—worship with a mass, worship without a mass—it makes me despair of mankind. I dream of the day when we move beyond such lunacy, though I am sure it will not come in my lifetime. Meanwhile, we all must live in this world. You made your bed, Kate, and must lie in it.”

“I understand, my lady, truly. Tell me, will Her Majesty arrive with her usual guard?”

The question clearly surprised her. “Usual? No, rather
more,
I should say. There have been too many attempts against her life.” She turned back to her desk and moved papers as though looking for something. “Elizabeth shows a brave calmness about her safety, but the latest attempt frightened even her. That gunman your father cornered on the bridge. No, Burghley will not let Elizabeth stir from the palace without a doubling of her guard.”

Music swelled. Kate glanced through the open door to the great hall and across to the musicians' gallery, her thoughts tumbling. She looked back at her grandmother.

A doubled guard,
she thought.
Robert would be utterly mad to try.
He would never get past them. Even if he made it inside the house they would capture him. His fate would be sealed. Prison. Torture. Execution. And not a simple hanging as Kate had thought his end would be for mere connection with conspirators. For personally threatening the monarch he would suffer the full agony of a traitor's death decreed by law. He would hang with a short rope that would not mercifully snap the neck, but instead slowly strangle the victim. He would be cut down still living. Then castrated, screaming. Disemboweled while still breathing. His body butchered, hacked into quarters. His head speared on a pike to gape in death atop London Bridge.