The Queen's Gamble (18 page)

She pulled herself together. “My lord, I will convey to Her Majesty your thanks.”

“Do. The thanks of all of Scotland.” He lowered his voice. “Now, where is the gold?”

The glint in his eyes put her in mind of a pirate. There was something of the cutthroat in this nobleman. “I will have my man bring it to you, my lord.”

“No, no. Not to me.” He gave a short bark of a laugh. “For my sins, madam, for my sins. No, have him hand it over to Master Knox.”

She was almost too astonished to speak. “But, my lord, Her Majesty requested—”

“Ah, but you are in Scotland now, not England, and there’s a world of difference. We’ve had to rely on a patchwork of funds to keep body and soul together in the hard days of our march here. Contributions that dribble in from supporters. Rents confiscated from greedy priests. On the way, well, some irregularities occurred. A shivering man may pull on a patchwork that’s not his, you understand, to get warm. So we decided there was only one man we all trust to hold the funds. That man is Master John Knox.”

“I see.” Clearly, there was nothing to be gained by arguing. “In that case . . .” She turned to speak to Knox. He was gone.

Knox took delivery of the gold in the churchyard. His sergeant and another man shouldered the satchels that Tom relinquished. Isabel requested a signed receipt from Knox. He replied that it would be sent to her lodging. The business was concluded.

Despite the rough-and-ready circumstances, Isabel was happily relieved to have it done. She felt cheerful as she walked back into the church to meet Glencairn, who was going to escort her to her lodging. After the weeks of worry about Nicolas, she could now return for him. Already, she could see his bright, smiling face as he ran into her arms. Her hopes for the rebel army ran just as high. Having seen for herself how strong their force was, she sensed that victory was within their grasp. This crisis that held her whole family in its thrall might soon be over.

She was passing soldiers in the church nave, looking for Glencairn, when Knox caught up with her. “I need to talk to you,” he said. With a glance at the throng of men, he added under his breath, “Not here.”

He took her up to the church belfry. Dusk was closing in, and Isabel shivered as they looked out over Edinburgh, where the first torches flared in the dim streets. Campfires dotted the fields that stretched beyond the city, looking like fireflies in the gloom. Again, she was heartened by the sight of so many Scottish soldiers. “It is wonderful,” she said, “how your army has taken the capital.”

He shook his head. “But not the castle.” He jerked his chin toward the end of the street, where mighty Edinburgh Castle was perched on its stone crag above the city. “Lord Erskine commands it. He will not allow us to enter. He has trained his cannons on the street.”

“Is he allied with the Queen Regent and her French troops?”

“No, he backs neither them nor us. He declares he will relinquish the castle only to Parliament. But Parliament broke apart in turmoil months ago. In the meantime, Erskine has said he will turn his guns on whichever side attempts to enter his stronghold.”

“Well, sir, your rebel army is so formidable, the French may quietly take to their boats and slip home.”

She had hoped to raise at least a smile from him. Instead, his gaze on her unnerved her. “We are not rebels,” he said. “We are reformers. We dispute not the Queen Regent’s authority, only her decrees to impose wicked idolatry.”

“Reform. Is that what you call the desecration of churches and the despoiling of monasteries?”

He surprised her with a smile, though a rueful one. “Looters. Early in our march I stopped them, but it went hard with the men. They felt a right to a small pinch of the riches the priests have reveled in for so long, with their concubines and palaces and barns packed with grain bought with rents of these very men whose children go hungry. So I turned a blind eye.” He was unapologetic, and Isabel got the impression of a skillful politician, a man as attuned to the popular will as Cecil was. She knew the two men corresponded.

“Why do you care about such things?” he asked with that disconcerting directness. “You come to us from Queen Elizabeth, yet your name is Spanish.”

The same suspicion again, she thought, annoyed. “My husband is Spanish.”

“You live in Spain?”

She was unwilling to tell this man that Carlos at that very moment was across the fields with the French in Leith. She answered simply, “No, in Peru.”

“Ah,” he said with a knowing disdain, “then you have Indian slaves. A lady of leisure.”

She did not care for his tone. However, nothing could dampen her high spirits that evening, for she was done here. “A lady, sir, who will set out for London tomorrow morning. If there is a message you wish me to convey to Sir William Cecil, I will be pleased to do so.”

“Aye, to Cecil and to Queen Elizabeth. It’s why I came back for you.”

“I will gladly inform them of the readiness of your army.”

“Ready they are, aye. And stout of heart, God knows. And yet . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck, and frowned as though he needed a moment to order his thoughts. He looked out over the flickering campfires of his men, and beyond to the French fortress of Leith. “I was once a prisoner of the French, you know. For two years I rowed in the bowels of a galley ship with my fellow captive Scots. Down the Seine, round the coast of Brittany to Nantes. Whenever the wind dropped, we rowed. Twenty-five oars, each forty feet long, six men to an oar. We were chained to our benches day and night, had no shoes, lived on biscuit and water, with soup three times a week. And we lived in fear of the whip.” He looked at Isabel. “They unchained us to go to mass, but we Scots refused to attend—refused, to a man. I told the captain’s mate that I would go to mass on condition that I could stab the priest, not otherwise.” Again, that rueful smile. “Slackness at the oars he punished mercilessly with the lash, but piety concerned him less. And there were many of us. We prevailed.”

She heard the steel in his voice. There was no doubt in her mind that he had organized the religious revolt of the galley prisoners. He did not look like a storybook leader, but she had a glimpse of why men followed him.

“Stout hearts can do much,” he went on, “but they cannot stop cannonballs. Nor can green farmers match trained and battle-hard veterans of Continental wars. We have pitchforks and knives where they have cannons and cavalry. Unless we get more aid—money, trained men, munitions—we are doomed.”

She could not have been more astonished. “But you have thousands of men. Surely you will prevail.”

He did not answer. His icy blue eyes seemed to bore into her. “You will not start for London tomorrow. I need you to stay. Before you return to Queen Elizabeth, you must understand the reality.”

14

The Garrison at Leith

C
arlos was finishing his report to Ambassador Quadra, but it was hard to concentrate, what with the din of Frenchmen eating and drinking and playing cards, even though he sat at the end of a table as far away from them as he could. He dipped his quill into the silver inkpot he’d borrowed from D’Oysel, the French commander, and scratched the final words. Usually the mess hall noise didn’t bother him. He had lived among soldiers all his life and could tune them out at will. It was the writing. Remembering how to form the letters always took his full attention. It had been only a few years since Isabel had taught him. When they’d begun he had cursed his slowness. He could clean, load, and prime an arquebus pistol faster than write a five-word sentence.

And today he wanted to be fast, to send Pedro off to London with the report. He didn’t much care about the report, or Quadra—what he wanted was for Pedro to bring back news of Isabel. Had she left for home with Nicolas as he’d told her? Had she convinced her parents to go with her? If she’d been quick she might be sailing right now out of Seville toward the warm waters of New Spain. It felt strange, this hoping she was gone. He hated them being separated. Besides, an ocean voyage always held the chance of peril. But if she had gone, he could at least rest easy that she and Nicolas wouldn’t be ground under by a French invasion of England.

Although he was beginning to wonder if he had misjudged the situation here in Scotland. The French weren’t looking as strong as he had believed before he arrived. A virulent sickness had put hundreds of men out of commission. Worse, the French fleet bringing thousands more troops had been intercepted by the English and scattered into the winter gales. He had told Quadra about it in his report. The locals said the English ships were renegades, pirates, but that was nonsense. One of the two French vessels that had made it into Leith reported seeing the flagship of Admiral Winter, although not flying its colors. Obviously, Queen Elizabeth had sent her seadogs on a covert mission. It had shaken Carlos when he’d heard that one of the English captains was Adam Thornleigh. He was said to have captured two French supply ships, a spectacular action. Carlos had not put that detail in his letter to Quadra. He didn’t need the ambassador fuming to him about his Thornleigh relations.

Damn Quadra, he thought, for sending me on this God-cursed mission. Damn the English admiral, too. This setback would only prolong the French standoff with the rebels, keeping him here longer. Damn them all, Scots and French and English and their God-cursed war. He wanted no part of it. Wanted only to get back to his
real
life, with his family, back to Peru.

“All alone?”

He looked up. The blond. D’Oysel’s woman.

“Letter to your sweetheart?” she asked with a smile.

He couldn’t remember her name. She was one of the locals, as poor as the other women who hung around the garrison. When he’d first arrived she had seemed glad to find that he could speak English. “The frogs’ jabbering hurts me head,” she had told him with a wink. Since then, she had come by to talk to him a few times.

He folded the letter, glad to be finished with it. “Just business,” he said.

“Ah, I warrant you’re keeping the juicy bits until you see her. Lucky lass.”

She was a good-looking woman, and he noticed several men watching her. He got up. “Must send this.” He scanned the crowd of Frenchmen.

“Looking for your heathen lad?” she asked.

He nodded. “Pedro.”

“He’s in the slop kitchen, chumming with Lieutenant Goncourt’s groom. Teaching him to juggle, it looked like.”

He looked at her, impressed. “You keep a watch on everyone around here?”

She smiled right at him. “Only on who I want to.”

Any man breathing could read the invitation in her eyes. Fenella, that was her name.

He heard a shrill whistle. They both turned. Across the hall, Jorge Rodriguez was beckoning him. Carlos gave Fenella a mock salute with the letter. “Thanks,” he said, then set out across the crowded room to see what the Portuguese artilleryman wanted. Infantrymen lounged at the long communal tables over their food and card games. Melted snow was puddled on the stone floor under their boots. He reached Rodriguez, who got up, leaving his fellow card players, though he kept hold of his tankard of ale. He took Carlos aside.

“
Mãe do Deus,
didn’t you see me waving you off her?”

Carlos didn’t follow. “I heard your banshee whistle. Half the garrison did.”

“Banshee?”

Carlos wasn’t sure where he’d heard that word. Gaelic. From Fenella? “A fairy,” he said, his mind elsewhere. “Screams a warning about death.” He was looking toward the kitchens, wanting to find Pedro and get the letter sent.

“It’ll be
your
death they scream about, Valverde, if the commander sees you with her.”

Carlos looked at him. The only good thing about godforsaken Scotland had been coming across his old comrade-in-arms. They’d fought together in several campaigns. Eight years ago, for a German captain on a wooded battlefield near Augsburg, where Rodriguez had saved Carlos’s life by pointing out a sniper. Later, for a Polish prince-bishop on a boggy riverbank south of Prague, where Carlos had saved Rodriguez by yanking him out of the path of a cannonball. “You mean D’Oysel’s woman?” he asked.

“He is
louco
about her.
Insano.
”

Carlos chuckled. “Did you try to bed her, Jorge?”

“No laughing matter. Listen, I’ve been here five months, I know. A jackass arquebusier from Nantes spent a night with her, and what did D’Oysel do? Cut off the jackass’s ear. He posts his lieutenants to tell him who’s sniffing around her. Stay away from her,
meu amigo.
She’s bad for your health.”

This didn’t match Carlos’s own judgment of the French commander. “Doesn’t sound like D’Oysel. He’s a rational officer. Calm, unemotional.”

“Not about her.” Rodriguez knocked back a gulp of his ale and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “And not about the Scottish prisoners, either. He likes to carve a finger off them before he hangs them. Behind his back the men call him Monsieur Doigt Rouge.” Mister Redfinger.

A man hustled past them spattered with mud and sounding out of breath. He knocked Rodriguez’s arm, making him spill his ale. Rodriguez growled, clutching his crotch, “Eat this!” The man hurried on, taking no notice. Rodriguez gave Carlos a look that said, Who the hell was that?

Carlos recognized him. One of D’Oysel’s spies, a turncoat Scot. The fellow was heading for the staircase that led to the commander’s rooms. Carlos watched him rush up two stairs at a time. Urgent news? If so, he should check. There might be more for his report to Quadra. He tucked the letter in his jerkin, about to follow the Scot. “Check Picard’s sleeve,” he told Rodriguez with a nod at one of the card players. “He’s got a king.”

The Portuguese looked at the Frenchman, outraged. “Poxy frogs!”

As Carlos climbed the stairs he heard Rodriguez bark a barrage of threats at Picard, and had to smile at the inventive obscenities. He reached the upper corridor where officers and their body servants passed him, going about their business. From a window he could hear voices of the troops at ease down in the courtyard.

The door of D’Oysel’s room was open and he could see the Scottish spy bowing to the Queen Regent. Commander D’Oysel stood at her side, a short man but one with a reputation as a tough fighter. Carlos thought of him cutting off prisoners’ fingers, and his estimate of the man dropped a notch. He’d seen enough torture to know it was never about getting information. It was about taking pleasure in power. Something to keep in mind about D’Oysel. He knocked on the open door.

“What is it?” D’Oysel asked irritably in French. Then, seeing it was Carlos, he beckoned him in, saying more genially, “Yes, yes, come in, Valverde.”

Carlos made a bow to the Queen Regent, a courtly gesture, not servile like the spy. She had been kind to him in the few meetings he’d had with her. Marie de Guise was in her early forties, he guessed, and she was the face of French power here. When he had first presented his credentials with Ambassador Quadra’s reference, she had told him she was grateful that King Philip cared enough about her in her hour of need to send a military attaché, for she was beset with enemies, she said, and welcomed every friend. She had told him all this in French, of course, but Carlos had no trouble following it. No man could spend almost twenty years as a mercenary in Europe without knowing French.

Now, though, she barely acknowledged him, just gave him a wan, distracted look. Something’s happened, he thought. The politics here were always shifting, but he knew the basic situation. Sister of the powerful Duc de Guise in France, she had married King James of Scotland twenty years ago. He’d died, leaving their infant daughter as queen—the people called her Mary, Queen of Scots. At age six she had been sent to the French court in preparation for marrying the French king’s young son. That king had died last summer, so the young couple, still in their teens, became the King and Queen of France. Here in Scotland, Marie de Guise was acting in her daughter’s place as Queen Regent, and Carlos had heard that she was fanatical about protecting her daughter’s Scottish throne. When the rebels took Edinburgh she had been forced to take refuge here with her troops, and he thought the strain was taking a toll on her. She looked tired, almost sickly.

“Well, what news?” D’Oysel asked his spy.

The Scot, still catching his breath, answered in English, “My lord, I was watching the Earl of Glencairn, like you asked. This afternoon he rode out with the Earl of Argyll and Lord Ruthven. Up Grouse Hill they went, south of the city. There they met a woman. They brought her into town, to St. Giles.”

D’Oysel frowned his annoyance at the man’s thick Scots accent. He and the Queen Regent spoke only serviceable English. He turned to Carlos and repeated in French what the spy had said and asked if he had understood correctly. Carlos confirmed that he’d got it right. This back-and-forth translating was going to take time, Carlos thought, so to speed things along he asked the spy the obvious next question. “Who was the woman?”

“I canno’ tell ye that, sir, for I know it not. A lady, though, the way they acted with her, though she were dressed poor. And by her saddle I’d say English. And she brought a heavy-laden packhorse.”

When Carlos translated this, the Queen Regent cried in horror, “An English emissary!” then vented her fury in a stream of French. “No doubt sent by that Jezebel, Elizabeth. She has sent succor to these rebel vermin, I am sure of it. And after she assured me in that fawning letter of hers, queen to queen, that she would
never
acquiesce to their pleas for aid. The Jezebel!”

“We do not know that, madam,” D’Oysel said to calm her, though Carlos could tell that he believed it was true. It had been a huge blow to the commander to lose those thousands of troops sent from France, chased by the English into the North Sea gales. He had told Carlos over wine last night that he was certain, as Carlos was, that Queen Elizabeth had sent them. Now he bottled up his anger at this further interference from England, and told Carlos in French the instruction he wanted given to the spy.

Carlos gave the man the order. “Find out the identity of the woman.”

The spy made his servile bows again, and when he had gone D’Oysel and the Queen Regent fell into a discussion. Mostly, it was her asking anxious questions. Should they request more troops from France? Could such troop ships make it here through the foul weather? Were the English so-called pirates still maintaining a blockade? Was there any chance the rebels could take Edinburgh Castle?

Carlos moved away to let them talk. He wanted no part in their deliberations, but that didn’t mean he had no opinion, and it was changing in light of the spy’s report. He stopped at a window and looked out at the water. The fortress commanded the estuary, the Firth of Forth, a long, narrow arm of the North Sea. Leith was a port, and a few local fishing boats bobbed in the choppy waves, looking like cockleshells beneath the fortress guns trained on the sea lane approaches.
This news could change everything,
he thought. The rebels were notoriously in need of funds, and if Queen Elizabeth had sent money, they could buy artillery, soldiers, powder and shot. That might put them in a strong enough position to attack. Over Marie de Guise’s dead body, he thought.

“Señor Valverde,” she said, startling him. He turned from the window to find her moving toward him. “I am going to attend mass,” she said. “Please send my respects to Ambassador Quadra.”

“I will, madam.”

“Tell him how much we value our Spanish friends. God has given me the task of preserving this kingdom for His anointed, my daughter. Your king knows it is her right, and knows, too, that a heretic horde usurping her would be an abomination, damning our subjects’ souls to hell.”

He nodded, uneasy at the desperation in her eyes.

When she had gone, D’Oysel beckoned him to a chair and poured them both a goblet of wine. They sat facing each other beside the commander’s desk, littered with maps and scrolls, the wine decanter, and a half-eaten bowl of cold mutton stew. D’Oysel stretched out his legs, relaxing now that he was in male company. Yet not really relaxed, Carlos could see.

“Roque did an inventory of our stores,” D’Oysel said. “We’re seriously depleted.”

“In victuals or ammunition?”

“Both. That captain who captured our supply ships—God help me, if I had him here I’d slice off his balls and make him eat them.”

Carlos studied his wine. That captain was Adam Thornleigh. “There’s food enough to be had from the country people,” he said. He looked up at the commander. “If this action doesn’t last too long.”

D’Oysel grunted. If he knew his king’s intentions, he was keeping them to himself. “It gets worse. Three of those English sea hornets have not sailed for home. The
Minion, Elizabeth,
and
Tiger.
They sting us still.”