The Other Queen (36 page)

I wager you do, I think miserably; there are more spies than shepherds in England these days. The disloyalty of the people has become so intense that everyone keeps a servant to watch every other.

“Perhaps you could sell to another buyer. But you are my man and serve me only. Go back to this Rolleston and tell him that you need to know who is in the plot. Say that it isn’t safe to go ahead without knowing who is engaged. Tell him you will do it, and ask him for a keepsake to show to the queen. Then come back to me.”

“Lead them on?”

I nod.

“And you will entrap them?”

“If we have to. Perhaps they mean nothing. Perhaps it will all come to nothing.”

Husband Bothwell,

I will be safe. Cecil himself is coming here to Chatsworth to make the agreement with me. I am to be restored to my throne in Scotland. I will ensure your release the moment I am back, and then they shall see what a neighbor they have. They will reap the whirlwind and we two shall be the storm that breaks on them.

Marie

I spend my afternoons in the Chatsworth gardens, in a moated stone tower that stands alone, surrounded by a lake stocked with golden carp and dappled by overhanging willows. The stone steps lead down from my tower to the little stone bridge which reflects in the water beneath it, a dark green arch looking up at gray stone walls. Dragonflies hover over the water like blue arrowheads and swallows dip and drink.

Shrewsbury calls it my bower and says that it is my own kingdom till I have another. He has promised I shall spend my days here, quite undisturbed. He leaves a guard on the shore side of the bridge, not to keep me in, but to make sure no one troubles me in the afternoons when I laze on a day bed in the shade of an arch where the white Tudor roses are just in bud, slowly unfurling white petals.

I lie on my silk cushions, listening to my lute player who sings me the dreamy songs of the Languedoc, songs of love and longing, impossible romantic stories of poor men adoring cruel mistresses, the birds singing with him. There are skylarks in the parkland; I hear them caroling with each wingbeat as they climb their way heavenwards. I would not even know that they were named skylark but for Shrewsbury.

He showed me them in flight, pointed out the little bird on the ground, and then taught me to listen for their aspiring, soaring song. He told me that they sing as they fly upwards, each wingbeat bringing out another glorious burst of melody, and then they close their wings in silence and plummet to their nest.

There is nothing for me to do here at Chatsworth, this summer; nothing I can do. I need neither strive nor worry. I have only to wait for Elizabeth’s agreement, for Cecil’s permission, and at last I can be confident that their assent must come. They may not like it, but I have won, yet again, by simple inheritance. My half brother is dead and there is nobody else but me for the throne of Scotland. Soon Elizabeth will die and there will be nobody but me for the throne of England. I will have my thrones by right since I am a queen born and bred, a sacred being with inalienable rights. They have fought against this inexorable progress and I have fought for it, but in the end it is my destiny. It is God’s will that I shall be Queen of Scotland and Queen of England andvoilà ! His will be done.

I ride out in the morning in the beautiful woods, sometimes up to the hunting tower that clever Bess designed and built for its view all around this wildly beautiful countryside, and sometimes I ride out onto the moors. I am free to go where I please and I am accompanied only by a courtesy guard, and by Shrewsbury: my dearest companion and only friend. In the afternoon I lie in the sun and doze.

I dream. Not the nightmares that haunted me in Scotland but a dream that I am back in France, in the sunshine of my childhood. We are dancing in the gardens of Fontainebleau and the musicians—oh! there are fifty musicians to play for us four children!—the musicians are playing for us and we call for the same tune over and over again so that we can practice our dance.

We are rehearsing for the coming of the king, the King of France, the dazzling Henri II, my father-in-law, the only father I have ever known, the only man who ever loved me without exacting a price, the only man I can trust, have ever trusted.

He rides up and jumps from his horse, his bonnet aslant on his dark head, his chestnut beard and mustache sleek. He catches me in his arms—me before everyone, before his son and heir, before his daughters. “My precious girl,” he says in my ear. “Every day you are more beautiful, every day more exquisite. Say you will jilt little Francis and marry me.”

“Oh, yes!” I cry without a moment’s hesitation. I bury my face in the silky hair of his beard and inhale the scent of his clean linen and the smell of his cologne. “I would marry you tomorrow. Will you divorce Madame Serpent for me?”

This is very naughty of me but it makes him roar with laughter. “Tomorrow, my darling,ma chérie . At once! Tomorrow I will do it. Now show me your dance.”

I smile in my sleep and turn to the sun. Someone, one of my maids, moves a curtain of damask so that the sun shall not shine on my face. My skin must stay as pale as cream. My beauty must not be made ordinary by daylight. He said I must always be shielded from the sun, always dressed in the best silks that could be had, always wearing the finest jewels; nothing but the best of the very best for the little dauphine.

“You will be Queen of France when I am dead, my little princess,” he says to me earnestly. “I shall leave my kingdom in your care. You are the one with the wit and the will. I trust you.”

“Papa-Your-Grace, don’t talk of it,” I whisper.

“You will be Queen of Scotland,” he reminds me. “And when Mary Tudor dies you will be Queen of England.”

I nod. Mary Tudor is the last legitimate heir of Henry VIII, only daughter of his wife Katherine of Aragon. After her, since she has no child, comes me, the granddaughter of King Henry’s sister.

“And you must take your throne,” he says to me. “If I am gone, don’t forget this. If I am alive I shall put you on the throne of England, I swear it. But if I am dead you must remember this. You are Queen of Scotland, France, and England. You must claim your inheritance. I command it.”

“I will, Papa-King,” I say solemnly. “You can depend on me. I will not forget, and I will not fail.”

He puts his finger under my chin and turns up my face to him. He bends his head and kisses me on the lips. “Enchanting,” he says. His touch makes me feel faint and warm.

“You will be the finest queen the world has ever known. And you will win England and Scotland for France. You will create a kingdom greater than William of Normandy. You will be Queen of France, England, and Scotland. You will have the greatest kingdom the world has ever known and I have raised you to be the greatest queen. Never, ever forget this. It is your destiny, it is the destiny that God has laid on you. You are to be the greatest queen in Christendom, perhaps in the world. It is God’s will. Obey Him.”

Iam about to mount up to ride out with the queen when I hear the clatter of a small guard of horses and a man with a small group of companions rides up the drive under the big arching trees. He comes to the stable entrance, without hesitation, as if he has studied a map of my house and knows where everything is.

Warily, I hand over the reins of my horse to the stable lad and go to meet him. “Yes?”

He dismounts and pulls his hat from his head and bows low to me. Not very low, I notice. “My lord Shrewsbury?”

I nod. I recognize him as one of the men that I sometimes see at court, standing behind Francis Walsingham, when he, in turn, is standing behind William Cecil. So he is a spy, yet another spy. So he is an enemy to the freedom of the people of England, however plausible and charming he will try to be.

“I am Herbert Gracie. I serve Master Cecil.”

“You are welcome,” I say politely. I see by his clothes that he is a gentleman, this is one of the hidden men of Cecil’s affinity. God knows what he wants here with me. “Will you come into the house?”

“I won’t delay you,” he says, nodding to my horse. “Are you about to ride out with the queen?”

I smile and say nothing. I do not need to tell Cecil’s servants what I do in my own house.

“Forgive me,” he says. “I will not delay you. I wanted to speak with you for only a moment.”

“You have come a long way for only a moment,” I observe.

He has a rueful, merry smile. “When you serve my lord you soon get accustomed to long rides and scant results,” he says.

“Do you indeed?” The last thing I want to hear is the hardship of Cecil’s service and the rigors of life as a dirty spy.

“A word only,” he says. I go to the corner of the stable yard with him and wait.

“A servant of your wife has met with three conspirators and plotted to release the queen,” he says flatly.

“What?”

“He reported back to her, and she gave him two guineas and told him to go on with the conspiracy.”

“This isn’t possible.” I shake my head. “Truly. Bess would never free the queen.I am more likely to free her than Bess.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Bess dislikes her,” I say unguardedly. “Women’s jealousy…They are like the sea and the shore; they cannot help but beat against each other. Two strong women under the same roof, you cannot imagine…”

“Only too well! Does she dislike her so much she would try to get rid of her by helping her run away?”

I shake my head. “She would never plot against Queen Elizabeth, she would never go against Cecil…”

As I protest, a truly horrible thought strikes me as to what Bess might be capable of. Would she, overactive, businesslike, spiteful as she is, try to entrap Queen Mary in an unsuccessful escape attempt?

So that she would be taken from us? “I had better speak to her.”

“I’ll have to come too,” he says carefully.

I bristle at once. “You can trust me, I should hope.”

“We can trust no one,” he says simply. “Your wife has taken some part in a plot with Sir Thomas Gerard to free the queen. It is my task to find out how far the plot has gone. I shall have to question her.

It is a courtesy to you, my lord, and to Master Secretary Cecil’s friendship with you and with your wife, that I come to you first. That I speak to you privately and that there are no immediate arrests.”

I try to hide my shock. “There can be no need for arrests…,” I protest weakly.

“I have the warrants in my pocket.”

I take a breath. “Well, I shall see Bess with you,” I stipulate. “She is not to be put to question.”

Whatever she has done, I think to myself, they shall not see her without my protection. She is a determined woman, and when she thinks that something is the right course she will do it, and damn the consequences. Damn her, actually.

“She’ll be in the muniments room,” I say, and we are turning towards the house just as the queen comes through the garden door into the yard and calls gaily, “Chowsbewwy!”

Before Cecil’s man can say or do anything, I stride to her side. “This is a spy from London,” I say rapidly in a whisper. “Tell me quickly. Have you been plotting? Is there a plot for you to run away? Has a man called Gerard spoken to you? My life depends on this.”

She is so quick-witted, she sees at once the danger, the waiting man, my urgent tone. She replies at once, without prevarication, in a quick whisper. “No. I swear. I have never even heard of him.”

“Bess did not speak to you of a plot to free you?”

“Bess? On my life, no.”

I bow. “I shall have to delay our ride, if you will forgive me,” I say loudly.

“I shall walk him round the grounds until you are ready,” she says formally, and turns for her horse.

I wait till her horse is held steady before her and I can lift her into the saddle. Even with Cecil’s man waiting to question my wife, I cannot bear to let anyone else lift Queen Mary and hold her for that brief, spellbinding moment. She smiles down at me.

“Soyez brave,”she whispers. “I am innocent of this. Elizabeth has no evidence against me, and she dare do nothing against me. We just have to be brave and wait.”

I nod, and she turns her horse and rides out of the yard. As she passes Cecil’s spy she flicks him the most mischievous little smile and nods her head to his low bow. When he comes up she is gone, but his face is a picture.

“I didn’t know…,” he stammers. “Good God, she is beautiful. My God, her smile…”

“Exactly,” I say grimly. “And that is one of the reasons I pay for double guards, why I never cease watching, and why I can promise you that there are no plots in my household.”

We find Bess, as I knew we would, in the room which should be the muniments room, the room to store the records of the family, pedigrees, peerages, records of the joust and standards, and the like. Under Bess’s command all this history of honor has been discarded and the shelves and drawers are filled instead with records of the income and expenditure from Chatsworth, yields from the flocks of sheep, timber from the woods, lead from the mines, stone from the quarries, coal production, ship-building reports, and the traveling chest which she takes with her everywhere is filled with all the records of her other lands and estates. These are all mine now, they came to me on marriage. They are all in my name and ownership as her husband. But Bess was so perturbed at the thought that my stewards would manage the estates—though they would do it perfectly well—that she has gone on keeping the records of her old properties, while I merely collect the income. It makes no difference to me. I am not a tradesman whose pleasure is weighing his gold. But Bess likes to know how her lands are doing; she likes to be involved in the tedious business of shepherding, quarrying, mining, and shipping. She likes to see all the business letters and reply to them herself. She likes to add everything up and see her profit. She cannot help herself. It is her great pleasure, and I allow it to her. Though I cannot help but find it far beneath the behavior one would expect of a countess of England.