To Shield the Queen (26 page)

I rode round the field, demonstrating. A few of the men who were laying out the new garden drifted over to watch, but they were well away from the paddock gate, and were not a threat. Every nerve in my body was alert for things that might hinder us.

Dale took her turn and did well. Brockley didn’t deserve my disparaging remarks about his instruction. He was a good teacher and the brown mare was much more amenable than White Snail. However, I shook my head at him and told him he wasn’t making it
clear
how Dale should use her calves to tell the horse what to do, and then told Dale that now she had boots which would protect her calves from the stirrup leathers, she ought to be able to squeeze firmly.

We were three people practising horsemanship in a paddock, apparently with no thought in our heads beyond the technicality under discussion, but I was watching the ox-cart from the corner of my eye. I saw it move on at last, leaving the gatehouse tunnel clear. Brockley saw it too. “That’s enough for today,” he said, and we began to walk the horses towards the gate.

Another ox-cart, this one laden with timber, arrived, and blocked the gatehouse like a stopper in a bottle.

“Oh, no,” moaned Dale under her breath.

The second ox-cart had creaked into motion again. Brockley straightened up. “There we are. Just a little pebble.” He threw the imaginary pebble away and remounted his cob. The cart rumbled past the paddock and went off towards the new outhouses. There were no more carts behind it.

The porter had gone back into his little office. Brockley opened the paddock gate from the saddle and held it while Dale and I went decorously through. Then we were outside the paddock, on the track. Dale and I, as if to wait for Brockley, turned our horses to face him while he closed the paddock gate. We were now facing the gatehouse, too. It was only a few yards away. Brockley fastened the gate. Then he gathered his reins, spun the cob on its hindquarters to face the gatehouse as well and said,
“Now!”

With that, we went, all three of us, from a standstill into a canter and then a gallop within six strides, aiming for the gatehouse, the one way out through the encircling wall. At the sound of our hoofs, the porter ran out and tried to reach the gate but we were already tearing through the tunnel, shod hoofs echoing from the walls, and he jumped back as we clattered past. We were through. Bay Star stumbled once and for one appalling moment I thought I would go over her head, but she recovered and I kept my seat, and with scarcely a check, in a flurry of flying clods, we were making off along the track, turning westwards, towards Faldene and Westwater and, ultimately, the road to London.

• • •

“There’s a posting inn, two miles northwards from Westwater,” I said, addressing the others as we thundered along, three abreast. “That’s about ten miles altogether, from here.”

“Well, we can’t gallop all that way,” Brockley replied.

We would certainly be pursued, so we galloped for a good distance to open up the best possible lead before reining back to let the horses get their breath.

It was agony to go slowly, though, and we all kept glancing uneasily back as though expecting the pursuit to burst into sight behind us. The horses sensed our uneasiness, and fretted to be given their heads. Soon, we were galloping once more, and we went through Faldene village flat out. Women came to their doors as we hurtled past and poultry scattered from the road before us. A cat which was washing peacefully in the middle of the track fled for its life and several dogs chased us, barking, for some distance.

We settled, eventually, to a steady canter. The hoofs pounded steadily on the damp earth of the path through the valley, under the trees whose leaves were showing the first autumn tints, and along the side of a stream.

“We may be able to change horses but we can’t risk stopping to eat at the inn,” I said to the others. “There should be food waiting for us in Bridget’s cottage.”

“How did you arrange that, madam?” Brockley asked.

Dale, who had been in the room when despite my pounding headache I gave Bridget her instructions, said admiringly, “You were so brave, ma’am. So ill, yet you didn’t forget anything. Mr. Brockley, the mistress was wonderful.”

“Before I left Faldene,” I said, “I asked for Bridget to be brought there, to collect Meg, and I made up my mind to seize any chance I could of speaking to her without anyone else hearing, except Dale, of course. I was ill, yes, but I turned that to account.” My last glimpse of Matthew haunted my mind’s eye and I did not feel much like laughing, but the recollection of how I had managed my private word with Bridget did produce a faint amusement. “I moaned that I couldn’t speak loudly—which was true—so beckoned her close and said it all in an undertone. I’d been trying to think ahead. I’m sure that Matthew wouldn’t harm either of them, but I might arrive at court and find a message waiting to say that unless I held my tongue on what I know, Meg would be taken to France and I’d never see her again. Or else Uncle Herbert might snatch her for much the same purpose. No doubt he’ll soon hear what’s happened! I told Bridget, as soon as her escort had left her at the cottage, to take Meg on to Tom and Alice Juniper, and not let anyone know where they were going. They should be safe there. I also told her to leave some food, something that would keep, in her larder.”

“That was well thought of, madam.
Very
well thought of, if I may say so. Is that Westwater, up there?”

The path had veered away from the stream and now led uphill towards a cluster of thatched roofs. “Yes. You’ll recognise it in a moment,” I said. “There’s Bridget’s cottage.”

“West
water?
Where do they get their water from?”

Bridget had done as I told her. We found the place empty; even the poultry had gone. It was useful that the cottage stood somewhat apart from the rest; our visit was unobserved. I dismounted and went in, and found that Bridget had left us a ham, some apples, half a loaf of the black rye bread which keeps so well, a cask of ale and a couple of empty flasks. My orders must have puzzled her, but she had certainly obeyed them. I filled the flasks with ale, found a basket, piled my booty into it, hurried outside again and handed the basket up to Dale. Brockley got down to help me remount, and then stopped short, gazing back the way we had come. “Look down there!” he said.

Standing as it did on a slope, Westwater looked down over the tops of the trees in the valley. They were old, mossy of trunk and massive of bough and most of the path along which we had just raced was hidden beneath them, but in one or two places it widened out and was open to the sky for a little way. Brockley pointed, and I glimpsed movement: the glint of a bridle, the flash of a brightly coloured cap. Riders were on the path behind us, moving at speed. They were little more than a mile away.

“That was quick,” said Brockley grimly. “They must have had horses already saddled for some reason. Now what? Madam? You know the district well.”

I nodded. “Follow me,” I said.

I had lived all my life at Faldene and there wasn’t a track, dell or spring for miles that I didn’t know.

“This way!” I said.

“Hurry!” said Brockley. “They’ll be here in minutes.”

We pushed through in single file, to avoid damaging the alders more than we could help. Our ears were straining all the time for the sound of hoofbeats. Dale’s mare, picking up fear from her mistress, almost balked at the ford but with Dale urging her, Brockley cursing her, and Bay Star to give her a lead, we got her to splash across after only a few moments’ delay.

Once up the further bank and through another screen of alders, we were out of sight of the track, and a few yards further on, there was a little dell, surrounded by thick trees and undergrowth. Here I stopped. “We can’t be seen from here. We have only to wait. Brockley, hold Bay Star for me. I want to creep back and watch them go by. I have a reason.”

“But ma’am . . . !”

“Madam, I can’t allow . . . ”

“Be quiet, Dale, and yes you can, Brockley, and you will! I shan’t be seen, don’t worry.”

Brockley made an exasperated gesture, of which I took no notice. I slid from my saddle and scrambled out of the dell, going back towards the stream. I paused for a few moments, hopping first on one foot and then on the other, to pull off shoes and stockings, then, kilting my skirts, I waded quickly over, to crouch behind the tangle of alders on the side nearest the track.

“The child lives there with her nurse. I know the cottage; I took them back there! Maybe the nurse’ll know something!” That was the voice of one of the Withysham grooms, evidently the man who had escorted Bridget and Meg away from Faldene.

Well, the cottage was empty. They wouldn’t be able to frighten Bridget or Meg. I froze as the riders crossed my line of vision. There were six altogether. Withysham was full of grooms and manservants. Third in the line was Matthew. He was close enough to recognise although I couldn’t see his face plainly, but as he went past me, I saw him raise his left hand to brush at his left eye.

He could have been rubbing away a piece of grit thrown up by the hoofs but he wasn’t. When anyone rubs an eye to clear a speck of dirt away, they do so in a distinctive way, sometimes quite rough. When they brush away tears, it is a different movement, gentler.

I had wanted to see him, one last time. I wished I hadn’t. I had expected Matthew to ride after me in anger and fear. Now I saw that he was also riding after me in grief. I muffled my own tears against the ground and stayed like that until the riders were gone.

• • •

“That means the inn’s impossible even for a change of horses,” Brockley said. “Even if we wait until they come back, they might alert the innkeeper. God knows what they’ll say!”

“That I’m a runaway wife who has stolen her husband’s money, I expect,” I said acidly. “Unfortunately, I’m actually carrying some, though it’s mine, not his. But there is another possibility.” I must not think about Matthew, must not think of that hand, secretly brushing his eyes. “These woods,” I told them, “they extend some distance. We can get through them to the Chichester to London road,
south
of here. I doubt if the search will turn south. It’ll go north, towards London. Once across, there are ways round among the downs and there are a few remote farms. One of them might shelter us for the night. We can travel on next morning.”

I remounted, and we set off. As we did so, Brockley, who had been scanning my unhappy face with some anxiety, suddenly remarked, “We’ve done very well so far, madam. I think we made a most elegant escape.”

“Elegant?” I turned to him. He was now wearing his most expressionless face, with only a gleam in his eyes to tell me that he was laughing.

“Very,” he said. “At the start, much depended, did it not, on all of us putting our horses from a standstill into a gallop? The men setting out the gardens came to watch several times, not just today. I had Dale practising the art for three mornings, right under everyone’s noses!”

He was trying to make me feel better and to some degree he succeeded. Dale’s riding lessons
had
been a piece of most satisfactory cunning. I found that I could smile, just a little.

The farmer had two sons and a grown-up daughter, and they all clearly wondered why we were trying short cuts when the road was perfectly straight, and found our lack of saddlebags suspicious, but a couple of gold angels worked miracles. They invited us to share their supper and gave us pallets in a loft room. I didn’t sleep much. My reawakened body cried in the darkness for the company of Matthew’s body. But Matthew was not there and would never be there again.

In the morning we started off again. We avoided Guildford, in case the pursuit had gone on along the road in that direction. This meant making a detour and for a while we missed our way. It took all day to reach Windsor.

When we arrived there, Brockley and Dale were surprised that I would not let us present ourselves at the castle forthwith, insisting instead that we take rooms at an inn.

Puzzled, Brockley said, “Are you not not intending to report to her majesty, then, madam?”

“Not at once,” I said. “And when I do, I’ll begin, I think, with Sir William Cecil.”