A Column of Fire (31 page)

‘My sister is dying, and I am to be queen,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I feel a kind of defeated joy, gladness and sorrow equal in the balance.’

Ned thought she had probably prepared those words.

Feria said: ‘Queen Mary, despite her illness, was able to ratify her husband’s choice.’

Something had changed subtly in his manner, and Ned instinctively suspected that Feria was now lying.

Feria went on: ‘She designates you her heir, on condition that you promise to keep England Catholic.’

Ned’s spirits fell again. Elizabeth’s hands would be tied from the start of her reign if she agreed to this. Bishop Julius and Sir Reginald would continue to do anything they pleased in Kingsbridge.

Ned glanced at Cecil. He did not seem dismayed. Perhaps he, too, thought Feria was lying. Cecil’s expression showed faint amusement, and he was looking expectantly at Elizabeth.

There was a long silence. Feria broke it by saying: ‘May I tell the king and queen that you consent to their decision?’

When Elizabeth spoke at last, her voice was like the crack of a whip. ‘No, sir, you may not.’

Feria looked as if he had been slapped. ‘But . . .’

Elizabeth did not give him the chance to protest. ‘If I become queen, it will be because I have been chosen by God, not King Felipe,’ she said.

Ned wanted to cheer.

She went on: ‘If I rule, it will be by the consent of the English people, not of my dying sister.’

Feria was thunderstruck.

Elizabeth’s scorn became vitriolic. ‘And when I am crowned I will take the oath customary to an English sovereign – and will not add extra promises proposed to me by the count of Feria.’

For once Feria did not know what to say.

He had played his cards in the wrong order, Ned realized. Feria should have demanded a promise of Catholicism from Elizabeth
before
endorsing her to the Privy Council. Now it was too late. Ned guessed that at their first meeting Feria had been misled by Elizabeth’s alluring manner into thinking she was a weak female who could be manipulated by a strong-minded man. But she had played him, instead of the other way around.

Feria was not a fool, and he saw all this in a flash, Ned could tell. Suddenly Feria looked deflated, an empty wineskin. He made as if to speak then changed his mind, several times: Ned guessed he could think of nothing to say that would make any difference.

Elizabeth put him out of his misery. ‘Thank you for coming to visit us, Count,’ she said. ‘Please give our best greetings to King Felipe. And though hope is slender, we will pray for Queen Mary.’

Ned wondered whether she meant to include her staff in the good wishes, or was already using the royal ‘we’. Knowing her, he decided the ambiguity was probably intentional.

Feria took his dismissal as graciously as he could and backed out of the room.

Ned grinned happily. He thought of Earl Swithin and said quietly to Cecil: ‘Well, Count Feria isn’t the first man to suffer for underestimating Elizabeth.’

‘No,’ said Cecil, ‘and I don’t suppose he’ll be the last.’

*

W
HEN
M
ARGERY WAS
nine years old, she had announced that she was going to be a nun.

She was awestruck by the devout life led by her great-aunt, Sister Joan, living on the top floor of the house with her altar and her prayer beads. Joan had dignity and independence and a purpose in life.

All the nunneries had been abolished, along with the monasteries, by Henry VIII, and Queen Mary Tudor had failed to restore them; but that was not the reason Margery abandoned her ambition. The truth was that as soon as she reached puberty she knew that she could never live a life of celibacy. She loved boys, even when they acted stupid. She liked their boldness and their strength and their humour, and she was excited by the yearning stares they directed at her body. She even liked how blind they were to subtleties and hidden meanings: there was something attractive about their straightforwardness, and sometimes girls were so sly.

So she had given up on the plan of becoming a nun, but she was still drawn to the idea of a life devoted to a mission. She confessed this to Sister Joan, on the day she was to move to New Castle, while her clothes, books and jewellery were being loaded onto a four-wheeled cart for the journey. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sister Joan said, sitting on a wooden stool, straight-backed and alert despite her age. ‘God has a purpose for you. He has a purpose for all of us.’

‘But how can I find out what his purpose is for me?’

‘Why, you can’t find out!’ said Sister Joan. ‘You must just wait for him to reveal it. God won’t be hurried.’

Margery vowed to use self-control, although she was beginning to feel that her life was an exercise in self-control. She had submitted to her parents in marrying Bart. With her new husband she had spent the last two weeks at a house on Leper Island owned by the earl, and during that time Bart had made it clear that he expected Margery to submit to him in the same way she had submitted to her parents. He decided on his own where they would go and what they would do and then simply issued instructions to her as he might have done to a steward. She had expected their marriage to be more of a partnership, but that thought seemed never to have crossed Bart’s mind. She hoped she might change him, gradually and subtly, but he was awfully like his father.

Her proud family came with her on the journey to New Castle: Sir Reginald, Lady Jane and Rollo. They were related to the earl, now, and revelling in their connection with the aristocracy.

Also, the men were eager to confer with Earl Swithin. Their trip to Brussels had failed. King Felipe had seemed to listen to them and agree with their point of view, but someone else must have got to him, for in the end he had thrown the weight of his support behind Elizabeth. Rollo was bitterly disappointed, Margery could see.

On the journey Reginald and Rollo discussed what to do next. The only recourse left to them was an armed uprising against Elizabeth immediately after the death of Mary Tudor. They needed to know how many men-at-arms Earl Swithin could muster, and who among the Catholic nobility could be relied upon to support Swithin.

Margery was troubled. She saw Protestantism as an arrogant heresy favoured by men who imagined they were clever enough to find fault with hundreds of years of Church teaching, but she also believed that Christians should not kill one another. However, as New Castle loomed up ahead, her mind was on more mundane worries. Earl Swithin was a widower, so Margery – now titled Viscountess Shiring – was going to be the lady of the house. She was only sixteen, and hardly knew what it took to manage a castle. She had talked it over at length with Lady Jane, and made some plans, but she was anxious about facing the reality.

Bart had gone ahead, and when the Fitzgerald party arrived, about twenty servants were waiting for them in the courtyard. They clapped and cheered when Margery rode in, and she felt welcomed. Perhaps they disliked working for an all-male family, and looked forward to a woman’s touch. She hoped so.

Swithin and Bart came out to greet them. Bart kissed her, then Swithin did the same, letting his lips linger on her cheek and pressing her body to his. Then Swithin introduced a voluptuous woman of about thirty. ‘Sal Brendon is my housekeeper, and she will help you with everything,’ he said. ‘Show the viscountess around, Sal. We men have a lot to talk about.’

As he turned away to usher Reginald and Rollo into the house, he gave Sal a pat on her ample bottom. Sal did not seem surprised or displeased. Both Margery and Lady Jane noticed this and looked at one another. Sal was obviously more than a housekeeper.

‘I’ll take you to your quarters,’ Sal said. ‘This way.’

Margery wanted more of a tour. She had been here before, most recently on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, but it was a big place and she needed to refamiliarize herself with the layout. She said: ‘We’ll look at the kitchen first.’

Sal hesitated, looking annoyed, then said: ‘As you wish.’

They entered the house and went to the kitchen. It was hot and steamy and not too clean. An older servant was sitting on a stool, watching the cook work and drinking from a tankard. When Margery entered, he got to his feet rather slowly.

Sal said: ‘This is the cook, Mave Brown.’

There was a cat sitting on the table picking delicately at the remains of a knuckle of ham. Margery lifted the cat up with a swift movement and dropped it on the floor.

Mave Brown said resentfully: ‘She’s a good mouser, that cat.’

Margery said: ‘She’ll be a better mouser if you don’t let her eat ham.’

The older manservant began to prepare a tray with a plate of cold beef, a jug of wine and some bread. Margery took a slice of the beef and ate it.

The man said: ‘That’s for the earl.’

‘And very good it is, too,’ Margery said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Colly Knight,’ he said. ‘Worked for Earl Swithin forty years, man and boy.’ He said it with an air of superiority, as if to let Margery know that she was a mere latecomer.

‘I am the viscountess,’ Margery said. ‘You should say “my lady” when you speak to me.’

There was a long pause, then at last Colly said: ‘Yes, my lady.’

‘Now we will go to the viscount’s quarters,’ Margery said.

Sal Brendon led the way. They passed through the great hall, where a girl of ten or eleven was sweeping the floor in a desultory way, holding the brush with one hand. ‘Get both your hands on that broom handle,’ Margery snapped at her as they passed. The girl looked startled but did as she was told.

They went up the stairs and along the corridor to the end. The bedchamber was a corner room with communicating doors to two side rooms. Margery immediately liked that arrangement: it meant that Bart could have a dressing room for his muddy boots, and Margery could have a boudoir where maids could help with her clothes and hair.

But all the rooms were filthy. The windows seemed not to have been washed for a year. There were two big dogs lying on a blanket, an old one and a young one. Margery saw dog shit on the floor – Bart obviously let his pets do as they pleased in his rooms. On the wall was a painting of a naked woman, but the room contained no flowers or greenery, no plates of fruit or raisins, no fragrant bowls of dried herbs and petals to scent the air. On a chair was a tangle of laundry, including a bloodstained shirt, that seemed to have been there a long time.

‘This is disgusting,’ Margery said to Sal Brendon. ‘We’re going to clean the place up before I open my trunks. Go and fetch brooms and a shovel. The first thing you’ll do is clean up the dog shit.’

Sal put her hand on her hip and looked mutinous. ‘Earl Swithin is my master,’ she said. ‘You’d better speak to him.’

Something in Margery snapped. She had been deferring to people too long: her parents, Bishop Julius, Bart. She was not going to defer to Sal Brendon. All the bottled fury of the past year boiled over inside her. She drew back her arm and gave Sal a terrific slap across the face. The crack of palm on cheek was so loud that one of the dogs jumped. Sal fell back with a cry of shock.

‘Don’t ever speak to me like that again,’ Margery said. ‘I know your type. Just because the earl gives you a fuck when he’s drunk you think you’re the countess.’ Margery saw a flare of recognition in Sal’s eyes that confirmed the truth of the accusation. ‘I am mistress of this house now, and you’ll obey me. And if you give trouble, you’ll be out of here so fast your feet won’t touch the ground until you land in the Kingsbridge whorehouse, which is probably where you belong.’

Sal was visibly tempted to defy her. Her face was suffused with rage and she might even have hit back. But she hesitated. She had to realize that if the earl’s new daughter-in-law were to ask him to get rid of an insolent servant, today of all days, he could not possibly refuse. Sal saw sense and her face changed. ‘I . . . I ask your pardon, my lady,’ she said humbly. ‘I’ll fetch the brooms right away.’

She left the room. Lady Jane said quietly to Margery: ‘Well done.’

Margery spotted a riding whip on a stool beside a pair of spurs, and picked it up. She crossed the room to where the dogs lay. ‘Get out, you filthy beasts,’ she said, and gave each of them a smart smack. More shocked than hurt, both dogs jumped up and scampered from the room, looking indignant.

‘And stay out,’ said Margery.

*

R
OLLO REFUSED TO
believe that the tide was turning against Mary Stuart. How could it, he asked himself indignantly, when England was a Catholic country and Mary had the support of the Pope? So that afternoon he wrote a letter for Earl Swithin to send to the archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole.

The letter asked for the archbishop’s blessing on an armed insurrection against Elizabeth Tudor.

Violence was now the only hope. King Felipe had turned against Mary Stuart and backed Elizabeth. That meant disaster for Rollo, the Fitzgerald family and the true Catholic Christian faith in England.

‘Is this treason?’ Swithin asked as he picked up the pen.

‘No,’ said Rollo. ‘Elizabeth is not queen yet, so no one is conspiring to rebel against the sovereign.’ Rollo knew that if they lost and Elizabeth won the crown, she would consider that a distinction without a difference. So they were all risking execution. But at moments such as this men had to take sides.

Swithin signed it – not without difficulty, for he found it easier to break in a wild horse than to write his name.

Pole was ill, but he could surely dictate a letter, Rollo thought. What would he say in reply to Swithin? Pole was the most hard-line Catholic of all the English bishops, and Rollo felt almost certain that he would support a revolt. Then the actions of Swithin and his supporters would be legitimized by the Church.

Two of Swithin’s trusted men were given the letter to carry to Lambeth Palace, the archbishop’s residence near London.

Meanwhile, Sir Reginald and Lady Jane returned to Kingsbridge. Rollo stayed with the earl. He wanted to make sure there was no backsliding.

While waiting for the archbishop’s reply, Swithin and Bart set about mustering a force of armed men. Other Catholic earls must be doing the same thing all over England, Rollo reckoned, and their combined forces would be irresistible.