The Queen's Captive (3 page)

“Honor, your tankard is empty. That will never do.”

She turned to the affable face of John Cheke, who filled her mug with ale, the twinkle in his eye belying his reputation as a distinguished Cambridge scholar. She shook off her melancholy and quaffed some ale, truly pleased to see these good friends who had come to bid Isabel and Carlos good-bye. All were exiles, many worse off than she and Richard were. With George’s coins she had sent her scullery boy to pay off her debts to the butcher, the fishmonger, the grocer, and the vintner, and with her credit good again—for a while, at least—she had set a hearty table of English fare for these fellow refugees from Queen Mary’s oppression. The roast beef and beer, eel pie and cider, baked apples and custard, were comforts to a homesick community. A queer little enclave they had created, she thought as she watched John Abel pass the hat. As usual, he was collecting for the Sustainers of the Refugees Fund. There were hundreds of exiles throughout the Low Countries, and for those here in Antwerp her house had become a meeting place, a home away from home for hard-up Protestant gentry and scholars. Erasmus, her late mentor, would have loved the constant chatter about books and the New Learning.

They liked to dance, too. Honor called on the trio of musicians to play, and Isabel and Carlos had just got up to start the first dance when the maid hurried in, wiping her hands on her apron, her eyes shining. “It’s Master Adam!”

Honor turned with a happy smile. Her stepson had made it, after all. Adam strode in with a burlap sack slung over his shoulder like Father Christmas, and looking as jovial, if not as old, his beard not long and white but trim and black. Isabel cried out with joy and rushed over to her brother and threw her arms around his neck, crying, “You came!” Carlos clapped a congratulatory hand on Adam’s shoulder, saying, “And in one piece.” Honor hugged him in delight and welcomed him home. Richard shook his son’s hand in heartfelt silence.

The guests hadn’t seen Adam since his return from Russia, and as everyone crowded round, welcoming him, Honor looked on with a swell of pride. She knew from his letter the story of the Merchant Adventurers’ voyage. They had endured terrible privation, he had written, losing ships and men, and were returning with little profit to show for it. Reading between the lines, though, Honor gathered that Adam had acquitted himself bravely, helping to lead the remnant of the expedition overland to Moscow. At the guests’ urging he was telling tales of the extraordinary court of Czar Ivan—of
caviar
and
saunas,
and harbors teeming with whales. She watched him gesture as he talked, thinking how, at twenty-nine, he looked so like his father at that age. Tall and sturdy, with the easy movements of a man comfortable in his own skin, and that watchful gleam in his eye, observing others with alertness but never with fear.

“Where to next, my boy?” old Anthony Cooke asked.

“Back to Moscow, sir, if the company can raise the funds. They’re refitting
Spendthrift.
I’ll be captain.”

Honor caught Richard’s dark look as he quietly left the room. Their son’s advancement was bittersweet. An expert navigator since he was twelve, Adam had been not just captain but master, too, aboard Richard’s ships for years, an equal alongside his father. But the storm off Cadiz four months ago that had sunk their two caravels with all their cargo—a massive, horrifying loss—had left them stranded on the brink of bankruptcy. Richard’s third, much older ship,
Speedwell,
lay moored in the estuary, derelict, for they could not afford to repair her. To bring in money, Adam had signed on with the Company of Merchant Adventurers. It pained Richard to see his son a mere hired seaman. It pained Honor to see their family breaking apart.

She slipped out of the room and found Richard starting up the stairs. To rifle through his account books again, she wondered, searching for phantom profits? Several nights she had gotten up and found him poring over the ledgers in candlelight. The futility of it—his obsession to ferret out some cash—tore at her heart.

“He’ll want to talk to you,” she said. “Richard, come back.”

He turned on the step. “He doesn’t need my advice. And words are all I can give him.”

“He’ll want to tell you everything. Let him give
you
that.”

He frowned. “Why don’t you wear the things I gave you?”

Instinctively, her hand went to her neck, betraying her.

“That’s right, your jewels. You never wear them anymore. Have you suddenly turned Calvinist? No more frippery?”

“There was so much to organize, the food, the wine, I…I just forgot.”

He looked at her for a long, sad moment. “I hope you got a good price,” he said, and went on up the stairs.

She stood still a moment, shaken. Not just at being found out. It was the change in him that unnerved her. She had never before seen Richard despondent. During everything they had lived through, he had always faced the challenges head on, alchemizing dangers and turning them to his advantage, whether outsmarting the bishop of Norwich’s henchmen or bedeviling the Church’s murderous inquisitors. It almost seemed that he’d thrived on it. But this—being unable to provide for his family—had unmanned him. Honor did not know how to help him.

When she rejoined her guests, Adam was rummaging in his burlap sack and pulled out a sleek, black pelt. The women gasped at its opulence, and Dorothy Hales exclaimed, “A sable!”

Adam draped it around Isabel’s throat. “From the forests of Russia, Bel.” She beamed as she stroked the silken fur. “And what do you think of this?” he said. He lifted out a carved wooden figure the size of his hand, a Russian peasant woman so plump she was pear shaped, with clothes and a kerchief painted in bright red and yellow and green. He set it in Isabel’s hand, then winked at her. “Watch.”

He pulled off the top half of the figure. Nested inside was a surprise: another figure, identical but smaller, a baby replica of the original. The guests cried “Ahhh” in delight.

“They call it a
matroshka,
” Adam said.

“From the Latin root,
mater,
I should think—mother,” John Cheke said helpfully. “What a quaint fertility symbol.”

Isabel turned scarlet, tears springing to her eyes even as she kept smiling. She pressed her face against Carlos’s broad chest as though to hide her embarrassment. He wrapped a protective arm around her, his face beaming pride. “She was going to tell you later. Isabel is—”

“With child,” Honor blurted. She’d guessed it the moment she saw Isabel’s happy tears.

Isabel turned back, sniffling and smiling, and nodded to her.

“When?” someone asked.

“Wedding night,” Carlos said, grinning.

Isabel playfully swatted his shoulder. “April,” she said.

“A little April fool, just like its mother,” Adam said, and before she could snap a retort he kissed her cheek.

Honor nudged past the guests and enfolded her daughter in her arms. “Oh, my darling.” She held Isabel so tightly it sent a stab of pain through her tender rib.

Isabel saw her flinch and quickly let her go, whispering, “I’m sorry, Mother.” She knew how near death that bullet had left Honor. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, fine. And so very happy for you.”

The news of the baby sparked new life into the party and the guests threw themselves into eating and drinking with fresh gusto. Some bombarded Adam with questions about how the Russians lived, while others heatedly debated the Spaniards’ harsh rule in Peru, where Carlos was headed to captain the governor’s cavalry. And the dancing began. Honor wanted to hurry upstairs and give Richard the sweet news about the baby, but Henry Killigrew tugged her out to join the dance and was bowing to her to the strain of “Greensleeves” when Adam came to her side.

“Can I speak to you?”

His sober look was so at odds with his cheerful mood moments ago. What is wrong? Honor wondered. She excused herself to Henry and followed Adam to a deserted alcove behind the bowl of spiced wine.

“I’ve been round to the Kortewegs,” he said to her quietly. “It’s off. No betrothal. No wedding.”

Honor was shocked. “But, I thought you and Margriet had an understanding.”

“We did.”

“What changed her mind?”

“Not her. Her father.”

“Why? He found you suitable enough at Michaelmas.”

“That was before Cadiz.”

Honor felt it as a blow. Margriet Korteweg, daughter of a wealthy Antwerp burgher; Adam Thornleigh, son of a near-bankrupt. “He’s refused his consent?”

Adam nodded. He watched the dancing as though he was considering joining in, not for fun but for a diversion. He looked angry, Honor thought. And sounded angry. Not in an ominous way as though he meant to strike back, more like he had absorbed the deep insult and meant to move on, though the anger simmered. Did he love the girl? She was a catch, both pretty and rich, but Honor did not have the feeling that Adam’s heart was broken. His pride, yes. And his lively plans.

“Don’t tell your father. Not tonight.” She knew it would wound Richard almost as much as Adam, and for the same reason. The Thornleighs were suddenly not good enough for the Kortewegs.

“I hoped you might do that task. Better than me.” There was a hint of a smile in his eyes, self-deprecating, as though to acknowledge that he lacked her finesse. But she sensed it was to mask the stinging humiliation he felt at his loss. “Money,” he said with quiet fierceness. “It’s all that really matters, isn’t it?” He gave her a determined smile. “Well, from now on, money shall be my guiding star.”

There was a flurry of sound through the room, voices abuzz with surprise. Honor realized the dancers had stopped. The music dwindled and died. She followed the gaze of her guests to the door. A lanky man stood there, bundled in a russet cloak against the cold autumn night. A draft of frosty air had rushed in with him, but it was not the cold that held the whole company frozen, including Honor. It was the extraordinary fact of his presence.

Everyone here knew Sir William Cecil, both for his eminence in England as a minister of the late, Protestant boy-king, Edward, and for his tireless support of the exile community. He was thirty-four, and several of the guests were his relations—Anthony Cooke was his father-in-law and John Cheke his first wife’s brother. Honor had known Sir William for years. But his home was London, where he carefully balanced a life of partial retirement under the strict, new Catholic reign of Queen Mary. He rarely left England. What had brought him all this way?

“You are welcome, sir,” Honor said, going to greet him. “Come in and warm yourself. And sit you down to some supper before these home-hungry souls devour you first.”

Cecil did not smile. “Honor, I must speak with you.”

“And what of the people? How did they take the Queen’s rough handling of her sister?” Honor asked Cecil when they were alone, sitting before the fire in her parlor. She had never met Princess Elizabeth, but hearing now of her plight she recalled how everyone, whenever they talked about the clever and striking young Princess, did so with affection. Elizabeth inspired people. It was a power that Queen Mary could not ignore.

“Widespread dismay,” Cecil said with feeling. “Indeed, they showed their love for Elizabeth when the Queen moved her under guard from the Tower and out of London, to Woodstock. That was in May. They traveled by water to attract as little notice as possible, but when the barge passed the Steelyard, the Hanse merchants had their gunners fire a salute to Elizabeth. It brought Londoners running out into the streets to see what the commotion was, and the event that the Queen had wanted to keep quiet turned into a noisy parade.” There was a flash of pride in his shrewd gray eyes. Five years ago, when Princess Elizabeth was fifteen, he had been named surveyor of her estates, an honorary post. He had been close to her ever since.

“It was the same when they turned inland,” he went on. “The Princess was carried in an open litter surrounded by guardsmen, and the country people rushed from their hayfields and cottages to see her. They thronged her on roadsides and bridges. They showered her with flowers and cakes at every village, even as the guards bristled around her with their pikes. At Aston Rowant some villagers rang the church bells as she passed.”

“Which must have put the Queen in a terrible fume?”

“It did. She arrested the bell ringers. But this love the people bear Elizabeth may be what saved her. The Queen faced much hostility after she executed Wyatt and so many scores of rebels. The people grew sickened by the hangings. They would not have tolerated Elizabeth’s death.”

Honor shuddered. Richard had been about to hang alongside those rebels. “You really think she was planning to execute the Princess?”

“I know it. The chancellor prepared the order, drawn up with instructions to the lieutenant of the Tower. But the Queen did not dare sign it.”

“For now,” Honor said, thinking it through.

“Exactly. The Princess is far from clear of danger.” Cecil edged forward in his chair, tension in his voice. “Honor, the Queen has lost no time wrenching the realm back to Catholicism, just as we expected, since she married Philip of Spain.”

The most Catholic prince in Europe, that was how Philip was known. “And the Pope’s legate? Has he arrived yet? We heard the Queen had invited him.”

“Cardinal Pole will be in London by next month.”

“Then the burnings will begin.”
All over again,
Honor thought, looking into the fire as it consumed the logs. Once, she had saved men from that fiery death. Once, she had been terrifyingly close to it herself. She thought that such barbarism in England had died with old King Henry. Not so, it seemed. How she pitied the hapless Protestants who crossed this new queen’s path.