The Queen's Gamble (37 page)

31

The Tower

H
oly Week ended with a foggy Easter Sunday. Monday morning dawned bright and clear. Carlos took heart at the sunshine, an omen, he hoped, as he crossed the north courtyard of Whitehall Palace. Everything was in place. Everyone was ready. This
had
to work. Today was the last the convicted traitors would see of the sun. Tomorrow morning they would hang.

The courtyard bustled with clerks, merchants, lawyers, servants, vendors. Carlos ignored them, but his pulse thumped as he passed a company of soldiers of the Palace Guard marching in under an archway. He forced a calm face, didn’t even rest his fighting hand on his sheathed sword. He made eye contact with no one and headed straight for the orangery, following the graveled path past the tennis courts. At the orangery he climbed the stairs and could not help hurrying now, taking two steps at a time.

The hallway was deserted except for a lone guard at the closed door. About age forty, Carlos guessed, with a beer gut. He was yawning. When he noticed Carlos striding toward him, he stifled the yawn.

Carlos didn’t slow down. He grabbed a fistful of the man’s hair and slammed the back of his head against the door. The man twitched, dazed. Carlos wrenched him around and rammed his face against the door. Blood gushed from his nose. Carlos let go. The man dropped to the floor and lay still.

Carlos stepped over the body and tried the door handle. It wasn’t locked. He pushed the door open, drawing his sword. Nicolas sat at a child’s desk, pencil in hand, eyes on the door in wonder at the commotion. When he saw Carlos his face lit up. “Papa!” He jumped off his chair and ran to him. Carlos took in the room, saw that Nicolas was alone. He sheathed his sword and scooped up his son in one arm, leaving his fighting hand free. “Hang on, Nico,” he said. Carrying him out, he took off down the stairs.

He forced himself to walk calmly past the tennis courts, passing two courtiers in a heated argument, a knot of gossiping ladies, a limping clerk. Nicolas hugged his neck. “Papa, are we going home?”

“Soon.” He held him tight as he crossed the courtyard. A toothless old servant carrying a basket of turnips smiled at Nicolas and waggled her fingers at him.

Carlos went down the wharf stairway to the palace landing. It was busy with courtiers and clerks, some milling, some stepping in or out of the wherries and tilt boats at the water stairs. A gentleman called out to a wherryman, “Oars, ho!” Carlos made for the far end of the landing where a tilt boat waited. Frances ducked out from under its awning.

Carlos set Nicolas down. “Go with your aunt Frances.” He straightened to glance behind him. No one coming. Yet.

Nicolas looked stricken and threw his arms around Carlos’s leg. “Where are you going? Aren’t we going home?”

“Not yet. I have some business first.” He couldn’t hide the ache in his voice. God only knew if he would ever see his son again.

Frances held out her arms to Nicolas, beckoning him into the boat. “Come, Nicolas, we’re going on a big Dutch ship to visit your grandfather’s house in Antwerp. Your baby cousin Katherine is already aboard.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t worry, Carlos.” She indicated her manservant in the shadows under the canopy. “We’ll take good care of him. Now go. And may God keep you and Adam safe.”

Nicolas did not move. Tears brimmed in his eyes, and his lower lip trembled. He asked Carlos, “Where’s Mama?”

“You’ll see her soon. Go on, now, into the boat with your aunt.”

But the boy would not let go of his leg.

Carlos went down on one knee so he could speak to him face-to-face. “You’ve been brave, Nico, being shut up all these months. That was hard, and you’ve been good. I’m proud of you.”

A shy smile broke through the boy’s tearful look.

“I need you to keep being brave now. It’s important.” He kissed his son’s forehead. “Go with your aunt.”

Isabel’s pen scratched another line of words. Her hand prickled, almost numb from writing. Her neck was cramped from bending over the paper. Her Tower cell had no desk, no chair, only the cot on which she sat. The few shilling coins she’d had with her when they brought her here had been enough to buy paper, pen, and ink from the jailer, but nothing more.

It was a struggle to keep the paper flat on the straw mattress. She had been writing since the feeble light of dawn had reached her through the small, high window. There was full morning sunshine now—she could tell from the sharp shadows it cast on the thin section she could see of the western wall—but, in here, still barely enough light to write by. The letters she had finished lay at her side. To her parents. To Adam and Frances. She was taking great care over this one to the Queen. The care needed with a tyrant. The next letter, to Carlos, would be the last . . . and the hardest. She dipped her quill in the inkpot on the mattress and bent her head to continue.

Lastly,
she wrote,
I humbly entreat Your Majesty to take pity on my innocent child, my son Nicolas, and release him into the care of his father
.

Wait. Would the tyrant allow that? Carlos, a Spaniard. Think! What would she allow?

Or,
she wrote quickly,
suffer him to go home with my lady mother, who is your devoted and loyal servant. She loves my son dearly and will bring him up in the ways of learning and charity.

Tears scalded her eyes. To never see Nico again . . .

She swiped the tears away.
Don’t.
She looked up at the barred window, trying to gauge the hour by the sun’s shadows. How many hours did she have left? It was so quiet today. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, London’s bells had clanged all morning and into the evening. It had shaken her to her core—the joyous pealing for life resurrected, while she was trying to ready herself for death. But this morning’s silence seemed worse. As though the city held its breath, awaiting tomorrow’s hangings.

She laid her hand on her stomach. The evening they had locked her in after the trial had been the first time she had felt her baby quicken. She had been sitting on the edge of the cot as the daylight faded, trying to hold in the scream that threatened in her throat, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap the knuckles were white, and that was when she had felt it—the faintest gentle wave in her belly. The joy that had leapt in her had lasted only a moment as horror beat it down: This child would never be born. She had curled up in the cold and wept until she retched.

Now, hand on her stomach, she realized that she had felt no further quickening since then. Seven days. Why? Was the baby suffering because she could not keep down the cold porridge they gave her? Because of the fear that made her nauseous? A new horror crept over her. Had she lost the child already? Was it a black husk, shriveled by the evil spirit of the tyrant Elizabeth? She shook her head with a fierce will to stay rational. Such savage thoughts would drive her mad!

Finish the letter. Write
. She jabbed her quill in the inkpot with such force she knocked it over. Ink poured onto the straw.
No! I have to write to Carlos!
She snatched the pot. Stuck in the pen. Empty! It filled her with fury.
She robs me of everything! My son! My last words! My life!
She hurled the inkpot across the cell. It crashed against the wall and fell, clattering on the stone floor.

She scrambled on hands and knees to salvage it. Even a few drops would yield a few words! What else was there to do but sit and quake in this torturing silence? She sank back on her heels, desperately cradling the inkwell in her palm, when she heard voices outside the door. A man . . . and a woman.

Mother’s voice?

She shut her eyes tight. A cruel hallucination—more torture.

The door opened with a clanking of keys. Isabel squinted up at the bright sunlight that shone on two figures at the doorway. She blinked in disbelief. “Mother?”

“Isabel!” Her mother rushed to her. “Darling,” she murmured as she helped her to her feet. Isabel wanted to fall into her mother’s arms, sobbing, but a man in a breastplate stood in the doorway, watching, and she held back. Held on to the last thread of determination to stay strong.

Her mother said loudly, officiously, “Isabel, this is Sir William St. Loe, captain of the Tower Guard. He is here—and I am here—to escort you to Whitehall. You are to have an audience with Her Majesty the Queen.”

She did not understand. Questions flailed in her head. No words came. Only a hoarse “What?”

“Sir William, may I have a moment with my daughter? She is amazed, as you can see, and your presence is somewhat fearful.” She guided Isabel to the cot and gently sat her down. “Please, sir, allow me a few moments to calm her. If she cannot speak sensibly, Her Majesty’s time will be wasted.”

“As will my time, Lady Thornleigh, if you tarry long. Be quick.” He moved away from the door. Isabel heard the footfalls of his boots become faint.

Alone with her mother, she felt her thread of willpower snap. “All for nothing!” she cried. She could not dam the flood of anguish. “I stayed with Grenville, all for nothing! Cecil had his spy there all the time. I did the work of a fool! A stupid, useless fool!”

“Shhh! Isabel, shhh!”

St. Loe was back in the doorway. “What’s amiss?”

“Nothing, sir, nothing at all. Just let me calm her. Leave us, please.”

He scowled, but he moved away again.

Despair and rage made Isabel sob, “All for nothing . . . nothing . . .”

“No, Bel. It was not.” Her mother went down on her knees and took hold of her hand. “We try. We do our best to do what’s right. Right outcomes do not always follow. But the trying is everything. My darling, the trying is life itself.”

Isabel blinked at her. She held tight to her mother’s hand, hungrily grateful for this absolution.

Her mother pulled out a handkerchief and busily wiped at the ink on Isabel’s palm. “Bel, there is so little time to tell you everything.” Her voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “Take heart, my darling. You are to be freed.”

Isabel flinched.

“No, do not move. Make no sound, lest St. Loe hear. But hear
me,
and take heart. Carlos has arranged it all. At his suggestion I begged the Queen to grant you this audience, and she relented for the sake of our friendship. It is a chance to defend yourself, to explain the truth, and entreat her to pardon you. If she does . . . well, nothing would be more wonderful. But if she does not—which, my darling, is the more likely—I tell you, do not despair, for we are prepared. All of us. We are going to free you.” She glanced over her shoulder. No sign of St. Loe.

Isabel was trembling, her hope so exquisite it felt like pain. She managed to ask, “We?”

Her mother turned back, lowering her voice even more. “First, let me assure you that Nicolas is safe. Carlos got him out of the palace this morning.”

Isabel gasped. “Out? How?”

“He simply took him, and no one stopped him. He delivered him to Frances, who was ready with a boat, and she will now have Nicolas aboard a Dutch ship bound for Bruges. They will go to our house in Antwerp. Bel, your boy is safe.”

She could not hold back the tears. Carlos. Was there anything he would not venture for her and their son? Hope flooded her. “What now? Where is Carlos?”

“Outside, masquerading as my manservant. He will come with us in the Tower barge as St. Loe and his yeoman guards escort you to Whitehall. At the palace wharf Adam stands ready with seven fighting men they hired. They are waiting at the tavern on the landing. If, after hearing you, Elizabeth will not relent and orders St. Loe to bring you back here, Carlos and Adam and their men will attack on the wharf, overcome your guards, take the barge, and carry you away. Your father has his ship
Gannet
ready at Billingsgate Wharf. He will sail you to Amsterdam.”

“With Carlos and Adam!”

“With Carlos and Adam.”

“And you?”

“I shall quietly leave the palace and make my own way across to the Low Countries. We shall all meet—the whole family—in Antwerp.”

Isabel felt such a flood of joy she threw her arms around her mother’s neck, trembling with excitement. They stood up together.

“Now, are you ready? Can you show a penitent’s face to St. Loe?”

Isabel nodded. “Yes. Ready.”

They left the cell, St. Loe leading them. When they stepped outside the sunlight was so strong Isabel had to shield her eyes, but its warmth on her face was like balm. Eight guards fell in, surrounding her. Her mother followed. Down the stairs they went, along a narrow, cobbled way through the Tower precincts to the western water gate. At the water stairs the open barge bobbed in the choppy waves. Its ten rowers sat waiting at their shipped oars. Water sloshed and ebbed over the landing’s stone edge.

She saw Carlos standing beside the barge. Dressed like her mother’s footman in a plain brown tunic with the Thornleigh emblem of a russet thornbush, he kept his eyes lowered in proper servility. Isabel was glad, for if he were to look at her she was afraid her joy would show. As she reached the barge she slipped on the wet stone landing. Carlos lurched to grab her, but a guard reached her first and caught her, then scowled at Carlos for overstepping his station.

They settled into the barge, Isabel seated in the middle, the guards standing fore and aft of the rowers, St. Loe taking a seat in the bow. Her mother sat in the stern, Carlos standing behind her. Once settled, Isabel did not dare turn to glance at them. It was hard enough to keep a calm face.

The barge nosed out into the water traffic, and Isabel gazed at the life of the river, feeling fresh delight at its vitality—the wherries and tilt boats carrying apprentices to work, merchants to their shops, a family to the south shore bear gardens, visitors to the quays from their arriving ships. She heard a child’s laugh. Heard the slap of a dirty sail on a fishing smack as it beat against the spring wind. Off the customs wharf the barge passed through the fleet of big merchant ships that rode at anchor, their flags snapping with the colors of Portugal, Sweden, Venice, Poland. Their rigging squeaked and sang like a choir of crickets. Off Billingsgate Wharf she caught sight of her father’s ship
Gannet
. Was that him, standing at the stern rail, watching the barge go by? She gripped the edge of the seat to ground her excitement, to beat back a smile.