The Queen's Captive (53 page)

He looked taken aback. “No good talking to his lordship.”

“I believe there may be. I am here to beg him to have mercy. As a Christian.”

He scowled at such a futility. “Go home, mistress. Say a prayer for your husband’s soul instead.”

“He’s dead?”

The guard shook his head, then added grimly, “But as good as.”

“Captain, if you were in an enemy’s hands and your wife came to beg for your life, would you want her to give up and go away?”

His smile was wry. “Beg for me? That’ll be the day.” He shook his head again, though not unkindly. “Sorry, mistress. Can’t let you disturb his lordship. Go home.”

She looked at the other guards. Uninterested in her, they had turned and were talking amongst themselves. A few shared a quiet laugh. Honor reached into her pocket. “Let me through,” she whispered to the captain. “Take this, and let me through.” She handed him the emerald.

His eyes went wide. The gem was worth many times more than he earned in a year. He glanced up at her. Glanced at his companions. None were looking. He slipped the emerald into his pocket. “A chat with the baron? Why not try.” He called over a young guard. Told him to run inside and tell his lordship the lady was coming. “Tell him I let her in from Christian charity.”

“Thank you, Captain. And, could you help me down?” It was hard with her useless right arm.

No one took notice of her as she walked across the grounds. Servants were going about their business, men unloading firewood from a wagon, women carrying baskets of bread from the bake house, others sweeping the cobbles outside the main door. She scanned the compound for any trace of Richard. Was he down beneath the main block, chained to a dungeon wall? Or up in that squat tower, slowly dying of thirst? Or inside the stables, roped and tethered like an animal?

She walked past the women sweeping and stepped inside the door. Out of the sun, she felt the darkness of the place. Her cloak was loose, unfastened, and she pulled its edges more tightly around her for warmth. A household officer, the chamberlain, perhaps told by the young guard of her coming, eyed her as she walked past him.

She reached the great hall. It was huge, with high windows of stained glass and long stone walls unadorned except for the heads of deer with branching antlers and dead eyes. The musicians’ gallery was vacant, and so was half the hall, but at the far end a small throng of people seemed about to sit down to supper. There were three tables, two abutting a head table, all set with white damask tablecloths. Men and women milled around them, chatting with the leisurely enjoyment of a family group. Honor recognized Baron Grenville’s young wife. There were children. A couple of old people. A dwarf was juggling plates before some of the children, making them laugh. Servants bustled, setting down platters of meats, bowls of fruit, pitchers of wine.

Honor saw Grenville. He stood behind the head table. She had not expected that. But he was expecting her. With a hand on the back of his chair, as if he’d been about to sit down, he was watching her walk in. He said loudly, making a cold, calm announcement, “A neighbor approaches.”

People turned. They had not noticed her come in.

Honor stopped. She had not yet reached the two tables ahead of her on either side. She made a deep, humble curtsy. “My lord.”

Voices buzzed as a few people realized who she was and passed it on.

Grenville said, “I would invite you to join my family’s modest feast, Mistress Thornleigh, but I fear you would not find the atmosphere to your liking. Now and then, disturbing sounds come from the criminals in my lockup. It is not conducive to digestion. Even my wife complains.”

“My good lord—”

“Ah, I have risen to
good.
An accolade, indeed.”

“I hope that all of us may rise to goodness, as our Savior taught. And I know such goodness must lie in your heart. My lord, you hold my husband’s life in your hands. Without him I have nothing left, no home, no hope. I am here to beg you to take mercy on him.” She knelt. “Let him go, I entreat you. I promise you we will leave England and live abroad and you will never hear from us again. Good my lord, on my knees I beg you. For the love of God, which I know fills your heart, spare my husband’s life.”

The people looked at her in wonder. Then all eyes turned to Grenville.

“Nothing left? Yes, so I have heard. A sad situation.” He let out a small breath that sounded like reluctant surrender. “Perhaps it is enough.” The edge of belligerence had gone from his voice. “Perhaps the enmity between our houses can now end.” He sat down and leaned back in his chair, his eyes on her as if reassessing. “You do well to invoke the love of God, mistress. However, just as we must first confess our sins before we ask His forgiveness, the first step here, for you, is to admit your family’s sins. Will you do that?”

“I will, my lord, right gladly.”

“Good. Admit that your husband murdered my father.”

She swallowed. Then nodded.

“Pardon?”

“Yes. He killed your father. I beg you to forgive him and have mercy.”

“Admit that your son seduced my sister and defiled her.”

She hesitated, trying to think. This was not working. She needed him closer. Close enough so he could see the despair in her eyes. He liked that, seeing suffering. But as a lowly petitioner she could not go to him. So she lowered her head contritely and murmured, “Yes, my family has done you much wrong. Forgive us.”

He made a face of annoyance. He could not hear her. “Speak up.”

Again, she mumbled her plea. Still unable to hear, he forged ahead with his inquisition. “Admit that you and your family have shown contempt for the one true faith, and blackened your hearts with blasphemy.”

Again, she made her repentant response, making it too quiet.

He got to his feet with an impatient grunt and brushed past the people, coming around the tables so that he could better hear her. He stopped, still a stone’s throw from Honor, still too far to really see her pain. She needed that.

“So you admit it all?” he said, frustration in his voice. He was not yet satisfied.

“Most humbly.” Still kneeling, she bent and placed her good hand on the floor. She crawled toward him, her useless hand dragging. She heard a child giggle at the sight and a woman said, “Hush.” Honor kept her head down, making her grovelling way to Grenville until she was just an arm’s length from him. “We have sinned grievously, my lord, against you and against God.”

She looked up to see him watching her with a cold glint of pleasure in his eyes.

“But I think you have overestimated my power, Mistress Thornleigh. Speaking for myself, I can forgive. But will the law? I am merely a subject of Her Majesty Queen Mary, and must obey the laws of the land like any other Englishman. Like your husband. You see, as a justice of the peace, I am merely holding him in custody. He will go to court and stand trial for the murder of my father. That is the law.”

Not true. Richard had a royal pardon. Grenville must know that his fantasy of revenge would not stand up in a court of law. This was some trick. So she held her tongue.

“The problem is, he is a wildly unruly prisoner and I have had to take harsh measures to restrain him. He is so unruly, in fact, it makes me fear he may never reach the courtroom, for such reckless criminals often try to escape. Should your husband attempt that, it will be my duty to deal with him in kind.”

Honor rose on her knees. She fixed her eyes on this man who had stretched her body on the rack until she had wept what felt like tears of blood. This man who now held Richard in some hellish hole and would never, ever, let him live.

He leaned down, bringing his face so close to hers that if she spit it would have landed on the white rib of scar above his lip. He finished with quiet menace, “I will cut him down like a mad dog.”

She jerked off her cloak and reached over her left shoulder with her left hand. She found the scabbard between her shoulder blades and gripped the handle of the knife. The long blade flashed as she whipped it out. She stabbed it up into his groin.

There was a scream from among the women. Grenville gaped in shock. Honor pulled the knife free. Blood oozed through Grenville’s breeches. He looked down and gripped the wound, blood dripping between his fingers. He thudded to his knees before her, his eyes bulging white, locked on hers. Both were kneeling, face to face, and she raised the knife with a cry of “Richard!” and plunged it into his chest. He gave a fierce gasp as if to suck back his life.

Women screamed. Men shouted. Blood poured down Grenville’s front. He clawed Honor’s shoulder. She slashed his throat, crying, “Richard!” Blood spurted.

He toppled toward her. His arm clipped her useless arm, knocking him sideways as he fell, and he crashed to the floor on his back. Wildly, she stabbed his stomach. “Richard!” She hacked at his shoulder, his chest, his throat. “Richard!…Richard!…Richard!”

Guards pounded in. She was still hacking at Grenville’s lifeless body when they hauled her to her feet and tore Boone’s knife from her bloodied grip.

33

Colchester Jail

November 1558

A
scatter of yellow-brown leaves drifted down from the oak tree. Only one ragged bough was visible through the high, barred window of Honor’s cell in Colchester jail, but she had been grateful for even that small view of the world. She had liked watching the leaves through their seasonal change. At first green and resilient, glossy in the sunshine; now, brown and dry and drifting to earth, their duty done. Poets sometimes spoke of autumn’s mournful mood, but Honor did not find it so. In fact, it cheered her, this eternal cycle: leaves fell to replenish the earth. True, in her garden she had always removed drifts of dead oak leaves, heaping them separately, for left in clumps oak leaves burned the soil. Eventually, they decomposed into an excellent nourishment for roses, but that took time. To grow things did take time. Like growing a hardy child. Another eternal cycle.

She turned to Richard. He stood leaning against the far wall, arms crossed, looking across the cell at the window. “Will you have more of this roast capon, my love?” she asked.

He slowly shook his head. Somewhere in the city, church bells were ringing.

“Adam?” she asked. He sat across the table from her, separated by dishes of food that both men had barely touched. Adam was crumbling a piece of bread as though lost in thought. He, too, shook his head.

“It’s quite delicious,” she said, and meant it. “Do thank Mildred Cecil for sending it.” She savored food as never before, now that so little of life was left to her. A few days at most. Every morsel tasted fresh and rich and fascinating. Precious. Especially such fine fare sent by friends. She was fortunate, she knew. Prisoners who could not pay the jailer for their lodging and food suffered in the crowded, foul, common wards and ate what they could barter or scrounge, but Richard had paid for her to have this comfortable cell, a room of her own with a feather bed and a brazier to warm the cold nights. He had paid for it all, and for three expensive London lawyers, too, until his cash had run out, including what he’d raised from selling his mine and the last of her jewels. All that was left was the land on which their burned house stood, and Adam’s ship. Honor had been deeply moved by the kindness of so many friends coming to their aid with money. Sir William and Mildred. Lord and Lady Powys. George Mitford’s sons. Most touchingly, Joan. Most generously, Elizabeth. And, most surprisingly, Frances Grenville. No, Frances Thornleigh, she reminded herself. That was hard to get used to.

The lawyers had earned their gold. They had stalled the trial for weeks and weeks by submitting briefs to argue self-defense, and demanding a change of venue, and gilding the palms of officers of the court to stall some more. But, in the end, Honor’s trial had been swift, all the witnesses in agreement, and the verdict inescapable. She would be hanged by the neck until she was dead.

Now, when Richard and Adam visited, it was a death watch. They were only waiting to be told by the jailer what day.

The bells of Colchester clanged on. A wedding? Honor wondered. Some young couple’s life about to bloom? The eternal cycle.

“They won’t do it on a Sunday,” Richard said. “So that gives us another two days to see if—”

“No,” Honor said, “enough.” She didn’t want to talk about it. She wanted to talk about Isabel. Her fingers smoothed over the letter that lay in her lap, the latest one from their daughter, in Peru. She had almost memorized it—happy chatter about little Nicolas, and the advancement Carlos was enjoying in the service of the Viceroy, and their flower filled house in sunny Trujillo. Isabel knew nothing of the calamity that had happened here at home. It took ages for letters to go to and from the New World. Two days ago, when Richard had delivered this latest letter, Honor had told him she wanted him to invite Isabel and Carlos to come home. He had promised to do so. That thought had cheered her, a needed diversion, and she’d spent the last days envisioning her daughter’s return. Now, she said to Richard, “Have you written to Isabel yet?”

He shook his head, morose.

“Richard, please. I…need to know that she’ll come.”

He looked away, as though it was too difficult to speak.

“I’ll do it,” Adam said.

“Good. And then, you must both go to greet them when their ship arrives.”