The Fugitive Queen (32 page)

The priest came hurrying down the stairs, carrying a candle. He looked old and exhausted.

“What is all this about a wedding?” I demanded. “The agreement was that Pen would be married by force only if I betrayed you and I haven't. I want to take her home!”

“Ah. Well.” Tobias managed a smile, which did nothing to reassure me. “Whitely and I practiced a small deception on you, too, I'm afraid, Mistress Stannard. There was never any question of Penelope returning home. You threw my cousin out of his employment without a character, after all. The Thwaites are his very good friends and are willing to pay commissions to him and to me if we can bring about a match between Andrew and Penelope. Pen, with the help of good Mistress Holme's chaplain and tutor, will marry Andrew Thwaite tomorrow—no, let me correct myself. It's this morning now, is it not? That was always intended, whether Mary Stuart escaped from her imprisonment or not.”

“Revenge,” I said bitterly. I had said that to Sir Francis. I had been right.

“Will you all just
go
!” wailed Adeliza.

“The Thwaites didn't want one of your girls, so it's no loss to you if Pen is married to Andrew,” I said to her, “and I suppose that to you, Pen is a rival that you want out of the way. Poor, poor Pen. Father Robinson . . .”

“Will do as he is told,” Adeliza informed me. “I feed, house, and clothe him. If he wishes that to continue, he will undertake this simple errand, which falls well within his natural duties as a priest. Father Robinson! Master Littleton and his companions are leaving to see to the marriage. You're to go with them and do their bidding. Get your horse. Master Tobias, the queen's cause is lost and I do not expect you to pay me for it, but with respect to Father Robinson . . .”

“I'm an honest man,” said Tobias outrageously. He undid his belt pouch and took out a handful of coins. I watched him count ten sovereigns into Adeliza's outstretched palm. “I am sure that
Magnus will want the marriage to proceed, so there you are—payment for the priest's services and something more, for being willing at least to help Her Majesty of Scotland. It'll add something worthwhile to your fund for the girls' dowries.”

“Thirty pieces of silver would have been even more appropriate,” I remarked. Tobias laughed and Father Robinson looked at me sadly.

“I'm too old to go out into a world where priests of my kind are treated as criminals. I'm past the age for seeking lodgings door-to-door and sleeping under a hedge if the doors are slammed in my face,” he said. He went out of the front door, shoulders bowed, and I heard his feet drag their way down the steps.

I looked at Tobias with hatred, and in return, he smiled unpleasantly. “I do seem to be making a career of deception,” he said. He sounded quite debonair. “Penelope, you, and even Queen Mary. It's the way of the world, alas.”

“If this marriage takes place, I'll see it's broken!” I said with fury.

Tobias's smile did not change. Swallowing my rage, I tried to speak reasonably. “Tobias, you have no quarrel with Pen. She thought you loved her. Surely you couldn't have pretended that so well if you hadn't at least liked her a little! She doesn't want to marry Andrew Thwaite. Why must you force her? Please let her go. You say she knows nothing of the plot concerning Queen Mary, so . . .”

“I offered Mistress Adeliza a good price to help me,” said Tobias, “but I'm still in profit. The Thwaites are paying both Magnus and me rather well. More than they can afford, I suspect. However, that isn't our problem. I fancy we shall still be going to France now, even without Queen Mary—though of course it depends on what Magnus says when I rejoin him. If we do go, we'll be glad of the money.”

“But why?
Why
are the Thwaites so mad to marry Pen? Tyesdale isn't that much of a dowry! We thought it was, before we came here, but when we saw it . . .”

“It's strange, isn't it? I think the answer,” said Tobias, “is that
Andrew has fallen in love.” The three miners burst out laughing and I was inclined to agree with them. I did not think that Andrew Thwaite was capable of any such thing.

Adeliza, who had been listening to us with mounting exasperation, now interrupted. “Will you stop talking and
go. Go!”

“We are upsetting Mistress Holme,” said Tobias reprovingly to me. “We'll be on our way at once. Come, Mistress Stannard!”

“Where are we going?” I asked as I was hustled out the door.

“You wanted to see Mistress Penelope, didn't you?” said Tobias. “Well, so you shall. We're going to her now. Magnus is with her.”

“But where is she?”

“You'll see when we get there. You're to ride behind me. Come along, quickly. Mistress Holme doesn't want us here.”

I did as I was told. I was beyond arguing by now, for a terrible longing for sleep had swept over me. It overcame almost everything else. In the courtyard, Father Robinson was already getting into his saddle and other horses were being led in. As I was pushed toward them, I noticed that there was a pillion behind the priest and also on two of the other horses. One was Tobias's animal, and I was now made to mount behind him. I wondered vaguely who the other two pillions were for but couldn't concentrate. My brain wasn't working properly.

The mist, which earlier in the night had been absent, was now swirling over the moor, and the moon, sinking westward, was a hazy circle in the sky. I wondered when, if ever, I would have a chance to sleep. How far away was this unknown place where Pen was being held? And what would happen when we got there?

I would die, I thought as we set off. Or fall asleep in the saddle
and simply slip off into the heather. The thought of lying curled up even in the damp heather was positively enticing. To lie down, to close my eyes, to let my consciousness go . . .

“Mistress Stannard?” said Tobias.

I roused myself, assisted by anger. “Yes? What is it?” I said coldly.

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “You think I am a heartless monster, do you not?” Tobias said.

I saw no point in denying it. “Yes. Heartless and a deceiver. What has Pen ever done to you that you should use her like this—and after professing to love her!”

“Love? Believe me,” said Tobias, “I am a man who loves strongly, with passion. I will do anything, anything at all, for those I love. But there are degrees of it. Pen is attractive to me; I like her intelligence. In other circumstances I might well have fallen deeply for her, but as things are, others stand in her way. Magnus, George Mason, and myself were all at school together. George was much the youngest, but we were all good friends and we shared a common devotion to Mary Stuart, whose claim to the English throne has been so roughly put aside. We always told each other that one day we would stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for her. Also, to me, Magnus was more like a brother than a cousin. I did not like to see him flung out of his employment at Tyesdale.”

“He'd been cheating his employer,” I said icily.

“Who took no interest in him and left him to run the estate without instructions. No, I understand Magnus's desire for revenge, and as for Pen, she is not being as badly treated as you think. What's wrong with the Thwaites? They're as good as anyone. If she's a sensible girl and looks after Andrew as a wife should, it'll work as well as any other marriage.”

I was too exhausted to embark on the reasons why Andrew Thwaite was a quite unsuitable match for any respectable young woman. “She doesn't like him! He repels her!”

“Female megrims. She'll soon get over those.”

“Which would rather seem to undermine Magnus's revenge!”

“The revenge is against you, mistress.
You
don't want this marriage. Now you must stomach it.”

I was silent.

“But above all,” said Tobias, “by using Pen and helping Magnus, I could also help Queen Mary and I love her far more, truth to tell, than I could ever love Pen or any other girl. Mistress Stannard, you have seen her—you know her! You have seen for yourself her grief at being abused and accused, at being cast out of her country and deprived of her power and dignity! She was once a princess in the gracious French court. She did not understand how to live among such rough men as the Scottish nobles mostly are. No wonder she lost her way! Will no one understand? Will no one pity her? Or help her?”

“I do pity her,” I said. “And I do understand. But I cannot accept what she did. Or what she wants to do here in England. She believes that the crown of England should be hers. I do not, and I would fight, personally, knife in hand, to keep it from her.”

“Poor Mary. She has been ill-used all the way, from the time she came to Scotland, from the moment she married that cretin Henry Darnley . . .”

“Who is actually related to Andrew Thwaite,” I remarked. “Andrew resembles him quite markedly. I wonder if he will make the same kind of husband?”

“Why should he? It's not a close relationship. I know about it,” said Tobias dismissively. “Magnus told me—the Thwaites told him long ago. Mistress Stannard, if I were not so far below her that I know I must not think of such a thing, I would wed Mary Stuart tomorrow. As it is, I can only kneel at her feet and serve her in any way that I can find. She has enthralled me, like a sorceress in a castle, deep in a forest, spinning a spell on an enchanted wheel, to draw men into the shadows of the wood and through it to her fastness and her arms.”

“You are quite a poet, Master Littleton.”

“She has made me so. I think perhaps that that was the downfall of Henry Darnley; that she enchanted him too and yet would not quite give herself to him. I don't believe she ever gives herself completely. Enchantresses never do. Perhaps that was why Bothwell felt he must use force, to take what she would not ever willingly yield.”

“We are talking, Master Littleton, of a dissolute, drunken, and diseased man whose wife wished to be free of him, but instead of using legal means, left the matter to a pack of practiced murderers. And then married the chief of them afterwards.”

This time Tobias was the silent one, until he said: “We shall never agree. I am sorry. I am not a monster, Mistress Stannard, but I do not think as you do. As I see it, I have tried to serve those I care for most, as best I can. I cannot regret it,” said Tobias. “In time, even Penelope herself may come to thank us. The Thwaite match is as good as any, to my mind.”

 • • • 

It seemed an interminable journey, though when I worked it out later, we only went about three miles. I wondered if there were any chance that Sir Francis and his men were still riding about in the fog and prayed that they would suddenly loom up in front of us but they didn't. What loomed up instead, apparently solidifying from the vapors, was a wall of rock with a cave mouth in it. We halted before it and, peering at it, I saw that it was regular in shape, rounded at the top, and almost certainly man-made, a tunnel rather than a natural cavern. Tobias whistled softly.

There was an answering whistle and a figure appeared at the entrance, carrying a flambeau. Its light danced over his face and I recognized Magnus Whitely. “Tobias?” he said. “Is that you?”

Tobias jumped out of his saddle, threw his reins to the younger Grimsdale, and went forward. He seized Whitely's arm and steered him a few yards away. I heard Tobias talking rapidly and then Whitely's voice raised in question and exclamation. It went on for some time and at one point sounded like an argument. But the indignant tone subsided presently and they came back to us. Whitely approached me and stood looking up at me. I have rarely seen such hatred in anyone's face.

“
You!
I'm thrown out of my employment because of you and now Queen Mary has failed to take the chance we offered her and I wonder how much you had to do with that. Bad luck,
that's
what you are! For Tyesdale, for me, for the Queen of Scotland, and for your own damned ward as well. Get down!”

“Do as he says,” said Tobias. “He wants you to have the privilege of preparing Mistress Pen for her wedding. It's to be hurried on.”

“The idea,” said Whitely, “
was
that the Grimsdales should take Mistress Pen to Fernthorpe and that they would have the marriage performed some time today but we wouldn't be there. I was to hand Mistress Pen over to the Grimsdales and go at once to Lapwings, where Tobias was waiting with the queen. We would hide there all day and then, if it seemed safe, to travel on the next night. But
now,
there is no Queen Mary to look after, only you.”

“And ourselves,” said Tobias urgently. “We stopped Mistress Stannard from sending word to Knollys, but he was bound to come to Tyesdale with the queen. There always was a weak point there. It's my belief that he knows.”

“Maybe, but he hasn't
followed
her, you say.” Whitely jerked a discourteous thumb toward me as I slowly obeyed orders and clambered down from Tobias's pillion. Once down, I found myself face-to-face with Whitely, which was frightening. His rage was so very palpable. Combined with the crimson torchlight it made his features, usually so nondescript, look almost demonic.

“Knollys hasn't lost the queen, has he?” Whitely said. “She's still his captive. The only person missing from Tyesdale is Mistress Stannard here and maybe no one's noticed yet that she's gone. Maybe she really didn't dare to give us away. We'd still be wise to make for France, but I think we can spare just an hour or two. I want to see the knot tied between Andrew Thwaite and Mistress Pen, and I want Mistress Stannard to see it too; and I want to watch her seeing it.”

“It's wasting time!”

“Not much. It's not dawn yet. Come with me, mistress!”