The King's Daughter (43 page)

“Then I talk with you?” the man said insistently to Abergavenny, even as the lieutenant came for him with sword drawn.

Abergavenny bristled at the man’s audacity. He had every intention of sounding him for information after the lieutenant had softened him up, but he was damned if he’d let the bastard tell him his job. “You’ll do as you’re bloody told!” he said. He was about to turn on his heel when the captive said, “Wait. I have papers.” He reached inside his jerkin, pulled out a folded wad and handed it over.

Suspicious but curious, Abergavenny unfolded the grubby, dog-eared papers and tilted them toward the firelight. They were letters of recommendation. Eight of them. He glanced over the writing, and his eyebrows lifted as he recognized several of the names as illustrious Continental commanders. He murmured, reading, “The Duke of Albuquerque. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Jean de Lyere"—he glanced up in admiration—"de Lyere, the Emperor’s muster-master, no less.” He handed back the papers, looking at the Spaniard with new interest. “Most impressive,” he said. He was itching now to sign up this valuable mercenary, worth ten of his green officers. But he did not want to show his hand. Without taking his eyes from the Spaniard, he motioned to the bullnecked lieutenant. “Disperse these men,” he ordered. “Then that will be all, Lieutenant.”

As the soldiers shuffled back to their bedrolls, Abergavenny said, “I can use an experienced captain, Valverde. I am delighted that you’ve come to offer yourself to the Queen.”

“What do you pay?”

Abergavenny smiled mirthlessly. “All the cold gruel you can eat.”

“My fee—”

“Come, come, Valverde,” Abergavenny interrupted with glacial geniality. “Let’s not pretend. With your background, and with testimonials like those—especially in this hour of national crisis—you could have marched into the Queen’s presence chamber at Whitehall and asked any price. Lord Howard himself would have thrown himself at your feet to get a veteran captain of cavalry like you. But instead you race down to Kent in the middle of the night and skulk into my little camp on a winded ladies’ horse, with no armor, no sword, no lance, no arquebus—not even a bow.”

He paused. “Just what are you running from?”

The mercenary scowled and looked away.

Abergavenny smiled, pleased to have knocked him off balance. “Come up to the castle,” he said agreeably. “Tell me more about Isley’s force. Then we’ll talk terms.”

Carlos and Abergavenny sat on stools before the hearth in the great hall, talking in low tones, while Carlos’s sheepskin, spread over the firedogs, hissed softly as it dried. Behind them, over a hundred men lay sprawled in sleep on the floor. The hall torches and rushlights were all snuffed, and the high expanse under the carved rafters was dim above the low-burning fire. Carlos’s head throbbed and his left ribs still ached from the blows of Sydenham’s men, but his muscles, tense from his bone-chilling ride from the Anchor, were finally beginning to relax before the fire’s soft waves of heat. The hot wine from the pewter goblet cupped between his hands was gradually warming his insides, too, along withthe bread and leftover beef he’d just wolfed down. And the martial smells—leather, tracked-in horse dung, and the pungency of crushed straw beneath so many soldiers’ bodies—were almost comforting in their familiarity. But there was a coldness deep inside him—in his very blood—that would not be thawed. Something that had been frozen by the hatred in Isabel’s eyes.

“So Isley has looted the armories around Tonbridge, too, eh?” Abergavenny mused bleakly. He and Carlos sat almost knee to knee, their eyes absently searching the low, red flames. Carlos had told the commander almost all he had seen and heard on the way about Isley’s troop of five hundred.

Carlos nodded in confirmation. “Penshurst was their last raid.”

“Ah, Sir Henry Sidney’s place. They’ll have got a fine haul there.” A shaggy deerhound bitch at Abergavenny’s feet snuffled in her sleep.

“Tomorrow Isley marches to Rochester,” Carlos said.

Abergavenny turned to him. “How do you know?”

“I followed two soldiers into an alehouse. They talked to the barkeep.”

Abergavenny groaned. “Good God, five hundred more recruits to swell Wyatt’s ranks.”

Carlos was aware of a movement in the shadows behind the commander. Abergavenny seemed to sense it too and twisted around, his hand ready on his dagger hilt. “Who’s there?” he demanded.

A wiry young man stepped forward tentatively. He was in stocking feet. “Pardon, my lord,” he apologized. “I couldn’t sleep. I only wanted a closer look at the Spaniard. I think I know him.”

Carlos scowled at the lad without recognition. “My nephew,” Abergavenny explained curtly. “One of my lieutenants. Studying to be a lawyer.”

Having got closer, the young lawyer was peering at Carlos’s face. “By heaven, it
is
him.” He looked triumphantly to the commander. “My lord, did you know? This man is a hero.”

Abergavenny scowled in surprise. “What?”

“It was in Scotland, six years ago,” the lieutenant said eagerly. “The battle of Pinkie Cleugh. I was only twelve then, serving my lord Clinton as his page. But I saw it all. What a victory! Against such odds. And this is the very man!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, lad,” Abergavenny said. “Six years ago I was fighting in France.”

“Exactly,” the young man said. “The French!” Abruptly, he lowered his voice to keep from waking the men in the hall, but his excitement continued to shine in his face as he crouched beside his uncle and explained. “The French had entrenched themselves in Scotland all the way up the east coast to the Forth, my lord. With their help the Scots had amassed a huge army. It was a perilous threat to England, you may recall. So, with some sixteen thousand men under my lord Somerset, we marched north to meet them. We had a few hundred mercenaries from the Continent. This man was among their leaders. He’d brought over a company of his
swart reiters
—forty light horse. But even with these mercenaries our army was less than two thirds of the Scottish host.

“Well, my lord, the Scots devils and their French masters were waiting for us east of Edinburgh. Twenty-four thousand of them! They quickly broke our ranks. We thought the day was lost. Some of our troops were running for the beach, hoping for salvation from our ships. Then"—he looked at Carlos—"this Spaniard turned everything around. He rallied his light horsemen and they charged. The Scots froze in amazement. The Spaniard hauled back our artillery commander and got his guns on the rising ground behind our line. We tore the Scots apart with ball and hail shot. They broke and fled. We chased them and killed them for miles back to Edinburgh. A total rout!”

Abergavenny gave Carlos an appraising smile. “Better and better,” he murmured.

The young man was now gazing at Carlos with unabashed admiration. He stood up straight. “Sir,” he said sheepishly, “might I shake your hand?”

They shook. The young man grinned.

“All right, Arthur,” Abergavenny said. “Get some sleep now. Valverde and I have matters to discuss.”

When the lad had gone, Abergavenny poured more warm wine to refill Carlos’s goblet. “So,” he said, “you overheard Isley’s men talking of his plans, eh?” He spoke brusquely, as if their earlier conversation had not been interrupted, but Carlos heard in Abergavenny’s tone a new readiness to trust him, perhaps even to discuss tactics.

Carlos nodded. “They told the barkeep their commander will march around you to the west, then go on to Rochester.”

“Give us a wide berth, eh? To the west, you say? That will take them through Wrotham parish.” Wearily, Abergavenny rubbed his brow. “Well, I’m moving out in the morning too,” he said with grim satisfaction. “I’ve just had orders from Whitehall to march to Gravesend and rendezvous with the Duke of Norfolk. He’s arrived there with a force of eight hundred. Together, we are to strike Wyatt in his Rochester lair before he can advance to London.” He knocked back several mouthfuls of wine.

“Eight hundred of what?” Carlos asked. “Farmers?”

Abergavenny smiled with wry understanding. “No. Men of the London bands.”

Carlos nodded approval. He knew the trained London bands were the nearest thing to modern soldiers the Queen was likely to raise. “Good.”

“Aye,” Abergavenny agreed with relish. “Our first real chance to smash Wyatt.”

Carlos shook his head. “No. Your first chance is here.”

Abergavenny looked at him. “What?”

“Isley must pass you to get to Rochester.”

“You mean … attack Isley?”

Carlos nodded. “Stop him.”

The commander’s eyes brightened with interest. “Lord, I’d like to nab him!” He gnawed his lip and mumbled, “But, my orders …” He looked like a man torn between duty and desire. Duty won out. “Christ, Valverde, I’ve got less than six hundred men. They’re green and they’re dispirited, and more of them desert every day. To tell the truth, I can’t even be sure they’d stick to a fight.”

Carlos shrugged. “Must fight sometime.”

Abergavenny looked tempted. “But can I risk throwing them at Isley and having them break?” He shook his head vehemently. “No. I’ve got to keep this force together and deliver it to Gravesend. I can’t risk a defeat.”

“To let the enemy pass you, that is defeat. Your men will know it. And you will let two enemy forces unite. You should stop Isley here. Deliver his head to the Queen.”

Abergavenny thudded his goblet down on the stone hearth. The deerhound looked up in alarm. “Christ on the cross, you think you know it all, eh Spaniard? Well this is England, not some God-cursed duchy of that mad Emperor’s where you fellows have been hacking and burning and raping your way through field and town for years. We English may be backward, but, damn it, we’re civilized!” He stared at Carlos belligerently. “Why the hell are you still in this country, Valverde? Why didn’t you go back home with your prize money after that bravura performance in Scotland?”

For a moment Carlos said nothing. He was desperate for a commission from Abergavenny. He was a marked felon, the authorities from Essex were hunting him to hang him, Sydenham wanted him dead, he had no money and no means of leaving the country. And behind him he had left a morass of failure and loss utterly foreign to him. Isabel’s hatred had struck him so unexpectedly, like a shot fired out of fog, and he felt the desolation of it like a ball of cold steel lodged in his chest. But he could not think about that. Surviving was the job now. His only hope was that Abergavenny would takehim on. But he sensed that this commander was tough, and would settle for nothing less than the truth.

“After Scotland I stayed on with a garrison in Norfolk,” he answered, staring deep into the flames. “Then I worked for the Duke of Northumberland. His bodyguard. The Duke did not like giving money, so he gave me land, a manor. The Queen came on the throne and executed Northumberland, and another man claimed my manor. His lawyer used tricks, legal tricks, to steal my land. I tried to stop him.” He paused. “They sent me to jail.”

“For trying to hold on to your land?”

“For murder, in the courtroom.”

“You killed the lawyer?”

“I should have,” Carlos said darkly. “No. A bailiff.”

He looked at Abergavenny. It was better to get it all over with quickly. “In jail I killed again.”

“A prisoner?”

“The jailer.”

Abergavenny whistled softly through his teeth. “So you’ve escaped, and you’re a wanted man,” he said, piecing it together. “And I can give you protection, is that it?”

Carlos looked the commander steadily in the eye. “This is my offer. I will fight for you, lead your cavalry. No payment. But in return you will arrange for me a …” The English word stubbornly eluded him. He frowned in annoyance. “From the Queen,” he said, looking to Abergavenny for help in finding the word, “a forgiving …”

“A pardon?” Abergavenny suggested with quiet relish.

“Si.
A pardon.”

Abergavenny took up his goblet and thoughtfully swirled the contents. He murmured, “A pardon is not impossible, of course.” He smiled. “You also need a decent trained horse and weapons, don’t you?” He lifted the goblet in the gesture of a toast and chuckled. “My, you’re going to be rather in my debt, aren’t you, Valverde?”

Abergavenny knocked back the last of his wine and stood. His voice turned cold. “So let’s first see if you’re worth it. Tomorrow, we’ll ride out to intercept Isley at Wrotham, just as you suggest. Bring me his head, and a few of his officers in chains. Then you’ll get your pardon.”

“And your father’s London associates in the wool trade?” Edward Sydenham asked amiably as he cut into a yielding fillet of poached bream. “What names shall I give my steward?” He brought a bite of the fish to his mouth. It was delicious, one of his cook’s best dishes, succulent yet flaky, bathed in a satiny sauce that was lemon-yellow with saffron and piquant with wine.

Isabel glanced up from her plate. With her knife tip she listlessly prodded the white flesh of the fish. She had barely touched her food, Edward noted. “Calthrop,” she answered tonelessly. “Master Andrew Calthrop is his London agent. And there are his friends at Blackwell Hall, the wool market …” Her voice drifted. She stared at the knife tip coated with the creamy sauce.

Above them five musicians in the gallery at the end of Edward’s great hall continued discreetly playing their gentle medley of ballads.

“A glass of malmsey, perhaps?” Edward suggested hopefully. She had taken no more than a sip of the Rhenish wine before her. “It’s a fine one, sent by the Venetian Ambassador.”

She blinked up at him. “Thank you, sir, but no.”

Edward waited. It would not do to pressure her.

“And at Blackwell Hall,” she resumed with sudden vigor, as though to pretend her reverie had not intervened, “you will find Master Lockhart, a wool merchant. He lives in Bishopsgate Street. I visited him there once with my parents …” Her eyes drifted toward a candle flame, and Edward was afraid he was again losing her to her melancholy. “But I believe, sir,” she said, staring at the flame, “there is another friend my father would seek out first, before these men. He—”