The Queen's Captive (30 page)

Dudley welcomed him now, and told the gathering, “For those of you who don’t know him, this is the man who took an arrow meant for Princess Elizabeth. Almost died.” He raised his goblet. “To Master Thornleigh.”

They all toasted him. “To Master Thornleigh.” They downed their wine.

Adam took a goblet offered him and knocked back some wine, but Honor thought he looked strangely uncomfortable. And the ambassador had not come into the room with him. Caution prickled her scalp. “Adam, where is Monsieur de Noailles?”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, hesitating, as though preparing to deliver bad news. “Not budging from his house.” He looked at Dudley. “He sends his deep regrets, sir. It seems that King Henri of France has just signed a truce with Philip of Spain.”

“What does that signify?” one of the younger men asked, looking around at his comrades. “France and Spain have been warring off and on forever. Their quarrels do not concern us.”

But Honor saw that the truce did. And that it spelled disaster.

Dudley saw it, too. His face darkened. “It means that, for the moment at least, King Henri does not wish to destabilize Philip’s position in England. He no longer wishes to involve himself with bringing down Philip’s wife. It means, my friends, there will be no money from France.”

There were groans of dismay. Then silence as the full, deadening impact sank in.

Throckmorton said flatly, “No money, no troops.”

Honor fought a clutch of panic. No hired troops meant no uprising. Queen Mary would stay in power. Richard would stay in prison. Or walk out to be hanged. She looked from face to face, hoping desperately to see in them a will to go on regardless.

“So,” said Dudley with grim acceptance, “if there is to be no money from France, we must find it in England.”

She could have hugged him. He was not giving up. “Sir Henry,” she said, “how much do you need?”

If her interruption startled him, he did not show it. “Twenty thousand pounds, at least.”

An enormous sum! The impossibility of it swamped her. No man here could raise a tenth of that, not without selling every acre he owned.

As if speaking her thoughts, Courtenay said, shaking his head, “I’ve already sunk as much as I dare into this. I cannot beggar my family.”

“No one expects that, William,” Dudley said.

“We need another prince to finance us,” said St. Loe, though there was little conviction in his voice. If there had been such a benefactor, Dudley would have recruited him by now.

Peckham said wryly, “Perhaps a loan from Her Majesty?”

No one could even muster a smile. The situation was too bleak.

Honor was frantically trying to think. There
had
to be a way. “I know a room that holds a hundred thousand pounds, and more,” she found herself saying.

They all looked at her as though her words made no sense.

Kingston said with some irritation, “Unfortunately, madam, the pope’s treasury does not lie within our reach.”

But,
she thought,
the Queen’s does.
The royal treasury was no more than the personal funds of the monarch. Much of it was kept under guard at the Tower, but not all. She knew this from her days as lady-in-waiting to Queen Catherine.

She looked at Nicholas Throckmorton. Four years ago, during the reign of the young King Edward, he had been a member of the privy chamber and under-treasurer of the mint.

“Sir,” she said, “you know the room I mean. You used to pass by it every day. In Westminster.”

18

Blood and Treasure

April 1556

W
estminster Palace was eerily quiet as Adam led four of his crew, men he’d handpicked from the
Elizabeth,
down the corridor toward the office of the Exchequer. He had chosen Palm Sunday. Most of London would be in church.

Holy Week had begun with a freakishly hot spell and they were all sweating under the heavy, loaded leather packs slung over their shoulders. Above the sound of their boots Adam could hear the clanging of church bells all across the city, calling the faithful to come in procession to the churches with their palms and crosses—sticks of willow or boxwood that the priests would bless to ward off evil. Was Elizabeth kneeling at mass among the worshippers in some royal chapel, dissembling for her sister who kept her in such a purgatory of fear? And Father—listening to the church bells, was he sunk in despair that he would never see the sky again? Adam hoped to help free them both with this day’s work.

His heart beat faster as he approached the two armed guards standing at the Exchequer door. He tightened his fingers around the shoulder strap of his load to keep himself from gripping the hilt of the dagger in his belt. Too nervous. The plan, so exhilarating when he had volunteered it and himself to Dudley, suddenly seemed impossible.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Sir.”

Adam handed over his papers, hoping he wouldn’t have to use the dagger if the man decided to inspect their loads and dig beneath the top layer of coins. “I warrant we’d both rather be fanning ourselves with palms than sweating here, eh, Captain?”

“Your name, sir?”

“Christopher Martin, assistant to Lord Paulet,” he said as the guard looked over the paper with its official stamp. It was Treasurer Paulet’s directive to deposit fifteen thousand pounds in silver transferred from the Tower treasury. An obsolete directive. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, one of Dudley’s confederates, had scrounged it from his own papers kept from his former tenure as under-treasurer. Adam had smudged the date with a drop of wine.

“My lord treasurer usually brings Her Majesty’s bullion himself,” the captain said, glancing at the four burly crewmen, then down the corridor to where Adam’s escort of a half dozen soldiers from the Tower guard stood waiting. Except they weren’t soldiers but Roger Mitford and his friends, dressed in breastplates and helmets. Adam hoped the palace guardsmen and those of the Tower didn’t know each other well.

“My lord’s a pious man, Captain. Especially when Her Majesty commands her whole council to accompany her to mass.”

The guard handed back the papers. “Aye, sir. Easter is a blessed time.”

Adam touched his cap to him. Maybe they
were
blessed. No inspection.

He opened the door. They’d made it inside the Exchequer office.

The master teller, Peter Forbes, was alone, pacing in front of the long counting table. His sallow face and soft hands proclaimed him worlds apart from Adam’s sea-weathered crewmen. “You’re late,” Forbes said in a frightened whisper.

“No, sir,” Adam said. “Perhaps you were early.”

“Shhh, keep your voice down,” Forbes said, fumbling for keys on a ring at his belt. It seemed to Adam that whispering was a sure way to arouse suspicion.

Forbes unlocked a door and Adam and the crew followed him into a compact room with one small, barred window set high in the wall. There was a counting table, and behind it a wall with pigeonholes bristling with scrolls. Another wall was lined with shelves stocked with identical wooden, iron-banded coffers with domed lids. Each was about two feet square and a foot high, small enough for one man to lift. Each had a thick iron lock.

Forbes closed the door as Adam and his men slung their heavy loads off their shoulders. Forbes hurriedly unlocked several caskets. “Now be quick, for God’s sake,” he whispered. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead.

Adam’s men gaped at the massed silver bullion. “How much do you reckon is twenty thousand, sir?” Jack Curry asked him.

Adam said wryly, “Whatever we can carry, Jack.”

“Four coffers,” Forbes answered, wiping sweat from his upper lip. “Now hurry!”

Adam and his men emptied caskets, dumping the silver coins into heaps on the table. Then they upended the heavy leather packs over the empty caskets and poured out the contents of pebbles and sand. Adam scattered a layer of coins on top, then shut the lids and relocked them, and his men hefted the caskets back onto the shelves.

Adam counted out the teller’s cut of the bullion and shoveled it into a separate, smaller leather pack. Forbes greedily watched every single coin drop in, and then looked up, suspicious. “Let me count it,” he said.

Adam didn’t like Forbes’s inconsistency. A moment ago the man had been hell-bent to get this over with as fast as possible. He held out the pack to him. “Take it right now if you want to be sure.”

Forbes looked horrified. “Good God, no. They could find it on me.”

“Nobody’s going to be looking. Not if you sit tight.”

“No, you idiot. Stick to the plan. Send it to the address I gave you, in Amsterdam.”

Adam bit his tongue. He couldn’t waste time trading insults. “As you wish.”

He and his men set to work scooping the bullion from the table and filling the pouches hidden inside their clothes. They stuffed coins into the front pouches until they swelled like beer bellies, and into long narrow ones down their thighs, then helped each other fill the pouches at the small of their backs. When they were done and had rearranged their clothes, Adam took a few steps to test the weight. It was hard to walk like he wasn’t laden down with an anchor fore and aft. He caught the dismay in his men’s eyes as they, too, realized the challenge.

He gave Jack Curry’s arm an encouraging slap. “It’ll build muscle, Jack. Don’t worry, we’ll have this load halfway to France before they know it’s gone. Then you can buy your wife a fine new Easter gown.”

The men managed smiles.

“Come away now!” Forbes said in a fierce whisper. “It’s my neck if you’re caught.”

But ours first,
Adam thought. “Ready?” he asked the others.

“Aye, sir,” they said.

Forbes escorted them out through the antechamber, where he sat down at the counting table and set to looking busy at scribbling in his ledger. The plan, once they were gone, was for him to continue at his desk, then lock up a couple of hours earlier than usual and tell the guards he was going to church. Attending mass today was the law, after all. But instead of praying he would be leaving England this evening on a ship bound for Amsterdam.

Adam opened the outer door. The two guards were talking and stepped apart. Adam couldn’t let them get a good look at him and his crew. Wishing them a happy Easter, he beckoned to his counterfeit soldiers down the corridor. Roger Mitford immediately marched his men toward him, and Adam quickly ushered his crewmen out so that they were swallowed up by the soldiers. They all marched off together down the corridor.

Adam’s back muscles strained to counter the ballast around his stomach, and his legs were so heavily weighted that each step made him breathe harder. From the corner of his eye he saw the others’ tight-lipped efforts to manage their burdens, too. Their exertion seemed so obvious, he half expected to hear the captain yell after them, “Halt!”

But no shout came. They marched out of the palace and down the stone steps into the heat of the day. Adam led them into the shade beside the stairs, where a vine-covered trellis masked them. He turned to Roger’s friends. They were a motley mix of young gentlemen—a couple of goldsmiths like Roger, an Oxford don, two lawyers—but they had acted their military parts well. “Good fellows. Off with you now. Roger, you’re with us.”

“Godspeed, Master Thornleigh,” one said.

“And to you. When next we meet, we’ll drink a toast to our fair new queen.” They grinned, and as he watched them march away Adam allowed himself a stirring thought of Elizabeth, beaming as she thanked them all, and saving a special, warm smile for him.

Roger stayed, pulling off his breastplate and helmet as planned and ditching them. He, too, was no soldier, but Adam was glad of such a committed lieutenant. They shared a dedication to Dudley’s rebellion. Roger had lost his father to the Queen’s cruel oppression. Adam was bent on saving his own father from her.

Now, he had to get his men to the palace wharf where the skiff would be waiting. Not everyone in Westminster’s sprawling precincts had gone to church yet, and he and Roger and the crewmen passed among the scattered courtiers and servants traversing the courtyard. For a moment Adam felt relieved to blend in, not be so exposed. But he realized that it was a false comfort. If an alarm were raised from the palace they would be surrounded, easy to capture.

He decided a detour would be wise. He turned down a narrow alley hemmed in by stone walls. It snaked around by the kitchens. The roundabout route would take them a little longer, but it was empty of people.

“Adam,” Roger said, “he’s coming after us.”

Adam turned. The teller, Forbes, was running toward them. He was whey-faced and out of breath when he reached them, and Adam feared the worst. “Trouble?” he asked.

Forbes shook his head between gulping frantic breaths. “No…no trouble.”

What nonsense was this? “Then go back. You’ll draw them after us.”

“I want my money. Now!” He looked wild-eyed with fear.

Adam saw that it was alarming his men. He had to satisfy the bastard. He tugged open his doublet and shirt and dug into the belly-pouch for two big handfuls of coins. “Here,” he said, handing over the money. “Now get back to your desk. Act like nothing’s amiss and we’ll all be fine.”

“That’s not enough. Not nearly what we agreed!”

Damn his eyes, it was probably far more. “We’ll settle accounts later, man. Now go.”

“You can’t cheat me!” Forbes lunged for Adam’s waist and pawed out handfuls of coins. They spilled out and fell clattering on the cobbles.

A window shutter above them banged open. A woman’s voice called, “Susan? Is that you?”

Adam shoved Forbes backward against the stone wall. Roger and the men shrank back beside them.

“Susan?”

Adam looked up at the window. He couldn’t see anyone. The window casement jutted out, so anyone up there couldn’t see him and his men, either, squeezed right up against the wall. He looked down at the bright coins scattered over the cobbles. He couldn’t leave the money there. It was clear evidence—and a trail. He lowered himself, awkward under his burden, and began to pick up coins.

“Mine!” Forbes cried. “Leave them! They’re mine!”

“Roger, shut him up.”

Roger clamped one hand over the man’s mouth. Bending his other arm against his chest he pushed him back, pinning him to the wall. They stood face-to-face, Forbes snorting breaths of fear and fury.

“Susan! You get up here with that cream or I’ll skin your worthless hide.”

Grabbing coins, Adam didn’t see the rapier flash out in Forbes’s hand. Even when he heard Roger’s surprised gasp he didn’t realize what had happened. Not until Roger clutched his side and Adam looked up to see blood seeping through Roger’s fingers. But he still pinned Forbes against the wall with his other arm.

Forbes raised his blood-smeared blade and slashed Roger’s face, slicing his cheek.

Adam jumped up, pulling his own dagger. Roger still hadn’t let the man go and Forbes lifted his rapier, ready to stab it into Roger’s heart.

Adam lunged. His dagger slashed Forbes’s throat. Blood pulsed out, spattering Roger. Adam jerked Roger clear.

Forbes gagged, clutching his throat. Eyes bulging, he slumped against the wall and slid down it. He collapsed on the ground, dead. Adam and the others stared at the blood pooling around the coins. Roger swayed in Adam’s grip. Blood trickled down his cheek.

“Hoy! What’s going on down there?” the woman called from above.

Adam fumbled his dagger back into his belt. “To the wharf,” he whispered to the others. He threw an arm around Roger and pulled him down the alley.

They all moved as fast as they could under the burdens strapped to them. Adam felt shaky, what with Forbes’s blood on his hand and his fear that soldiers would soon be after them. He told himself that brawls were common around here, and so were palace rats—robbers who infested the precincts. Whoever found Forbes’s corpse surrounded by coins would chalk it up to a fight over money. Just before they broke out of the alley he pulled off his doublet and threw it around Roger to mask the blood that soaked his side. One of the other men had a handkerchief and he cleaned the blood off Roger’s face as best he could.

They slowed down, panting, as they reached the palace wharf. A few gentlemen stood haggling with oarsmen whose wherries nudged the water stairs. Servants unloaded hogsheads of beer and crates of cabbages from a dirty barge. Adam and his men halted, catching their breath, trying to appear calm, though Adam was soaked with sweat and he could see it dripping down the faces of the others. Roger’s gashed face was gray. Adam held him close and scanned the boats, looking for John Daniels in the skiff from the
Elizabeth.
All he saw were wherries and lighters and barges and tilt boats. At the far end of the wharf was an alehouse where fishermen sat on benches in the sun, repairing a net. He scanned the boats again. Where in God’s name was Daniels? They had to make it to the
Elizabeth
before the two o’clock tide.