The Ringed Castle (18 page)

There was a silence, during which the blue pebble eyes of Henry Lord Darnley stared sagging at Philippa. Then he sneered.

It was a very juvenile sneer, starting round the nose and disappearing under the eaves of the cheeks. ‘I am afraid, Madam,’ said Lord Darnley in English, ‘your Latin is not of the same order as mine.’

Taking her time, Philippa measured him from head to foot with her eye. She grinned. ‘I should hope not!’ she said; and, smiling at Elder, followed the house steward to Lady Lennox’s chamber, where she behaved herself extremely well under rather trying circumstances. Only when she was about to leave did Lady Lennox introduce a new subject.

‘You have not heard, I suppose, from your husband?’

‘From Mr Crawford? No, Lady Lennox,’ Philippa said. ‘Nor do I expect any letters.’

Lady Lennox smiled, her back straight against a large walnut chair upholstered in ginger brocade, entwined with the arms of Stewart and Douglas. ‘This churlish bridegroom!’ she said. ‘However fleeting the marriage, he owes it to you, one would think, at least to assure himself that you are well, and in no need. Indeed, it is more urgent than that. I am told that the annulment will depend on his communicating with you. He must assure them, as you have done, that the marriage was on paper only; and that further, he is willing to release you.’ She smiled. ‘Do you think he is? Or is it not possible that seeing you now, a privileged lady of the Queen’s privy chamber, he might change his mind?’

A picture of Kiaya Khátún rose into Philippa’s head, superimposed on a lengthy tally of other ladies, all remarkable for their beauty, brains and general complaisance as the mistresses of Francis Crawford of Lymond. Lifting her eyebrows, Philippa transformed a giggle, gravely, into a cough. ‘No,’ she said with regret.

It sounded bald, but there were pitfalls in qualifying it. She could mention his age, but it was possible that Lady Lennox was even older than he was. And even Ruy Gomez, one remembered, had married a child-bride of twelve. Further, it would be impolitic, Philippa felt, to refer to Kiaya Khátún. Philippa opened wide, disingenuous eyes on the Countess of Lennox, and the Countess of Lennox smiled back.

‘And you?’ she said teasingly. ‘Are you so sure that this marriage was platonic? No man with his arts would give his name to someone he found distasteful, or would submit to a marriage service without a chaste embrace, at least, from the bride. Did you not find him pleasing?’

There was something between them
, Kate had said. And looking at those smiling, violent eyes, Philippa suddenly knew what it was. She said levelly, ‘I admire his cleverness. He, I think, admires my plain speaking. There is, I suppose, friendship between us. But, to answer your question, in all the years since I was a child of ten, there has never been a gesture of affection between us. There has been no occasion.’

The black eyes resting on her brown ones were calm. ‘And when he came to Flaw Valleys,’ Margaret Lennox said, ‘of course it was to visit your mother.’ She rose, and, pausing by Philippa’s chair, lifted her clear-skinned face as she might lift a doll’s, by the chin. ‘Charming,’ said Lady Lennox. ‘A good, kind-hearted girl. We must find a husband worthy of you, from among all those eager escorts at Court. But first, by some means, we must find Mr Crawford and have you set free. Do you and your family use every means to discover
him, and we shall also. He has obligations. He shall be reminded of them.’

Philippa began her letter to Kate in the palace that evening, and was found by Jane Dormer with her face swollen and her nose a brilliant red, in the first wave of homesickness she had felt since coming to London. Mistress Clarenceux, appealed to, made Philippa pack up her letter and belongings without further ado, and transferred her for four days of freedom to the Sidneys’ house at St Anthony’s, Broad Street, where she realized for the first time how tired she was. Nursed by the staff of Sir Henry, she slept for the better part of twenty-four hours, and then resumed both her usual acute interest in her fellow human beings, and her half-begun note to her mother.

 … in your rustic solitude, far from David’s timbrels and Aaron’s sweet sounding bells—how can you bear it? Outside Spain, there is nothing to touch us for living civilly, now gussets have reached us at last. True, our clothes are badly made, and our hair is dressed in the French style, instead of the way Spanish unmarried girls do it, which would suit us a great deal better. But our skins are good, and we are learning to dance properly, instead of all that prancing and trotting we used to do at Uncle Somerville’s. Of course, our skirts ought to be longer. We show our ankles when we sit in a way thoroughly shocking, not to mention what licence occurs after all this sugared wine. As you know, eating and drinking are our only distractions (we drink more beer than would fill the Valladolid river) as our conversation is exceedingly limited. Although, of course, there are no people on earth like the English for gossip
.

As, dearest Kate, you can see. Would you like me to marry a Spaniard and worship the buttock-bone of Pentecost and the great toe of the Trinity, once I am divorced? Not that there is any prospect of annulment at present: Mr Crawford has not deigned to write. But I have heard, in the most roundabout way, that he is well and active, and no doubt making Hell hotter somewhere. Perhaps Sybilla will wish to be reassured. And I can confirm that, whatever he has done, he cannot have married
.

I am at the Sidneys’ in St Anthony’s, very merry because their precious Russia Company is about to be granted its charter. The wool trade (did you know? do you care?) has declined in the last three or four years, and they want a new outlet. This lets them trade in any part of the world, and gives them a monopoly of Muscovy trade and all the north lands not before frequented by Englishmen. That is the practical element. The dream is to travel through to Bokhara, and open up a direct route to the Orient. They have their navigator in Diccon Chancellor. (You may commence worrying: he is a widower with two small sons.) And they have their genius in this old man Cabot, who can tell
you more about the ways of the sea, sitting at his desk than any man alive in the world.… Would you let me go overseas again, Kate dear?… I rather thought that you wouldn’t
.

I go back to Court in two days, and shall thereby miss Conception Day, and the Spanish procession round the Savoy. We are very stiff in our Poperies, but the Dormers are selflessly kind as well as devout. The Queen worships with a fervour which seems to disturb her nerves rather than calm them. But her outbursts of temper are quickly over: her intentions always good. She is afraid, more than anything, that King Philip will leave her before the baby is born
.

I have nothing of news or of levity to tell you of that, for it doesn’t bear speaking of But the Cardinal, as ever, is confident, and working hard, as he says, for two births. To the Queen a son, and to Christendom that peace which is desired
.

He may be right. They can’t fight for four months anyway. But they say France has plenty of money and isn’t interested in peace, except to buy a delay. And that the Emperor will never forgive what Henri did to his sister last year, hacking the trees and statues at Binche with his own sword, even though the Netherlands is exhausted with a tax (did you know?) bigger than all the Peruvian revenues
.

Everyone is afraid that if there is a resumption of war, Philip will drag us into it, even though the marriage contract said otherwise. At any rate, the Spaniards here are longing to have an excuse to leave court and would infinitely prefer, I rather think, to abandon us all safely behind them. It might please you to know that Master Ascham, on reflection, thinks the Sultan of Turkey to be a good, merciful, just and liberal prince, and thinks that if the Emperor Charles were as fair, he would have no trouble with his subjects. It remains to see what trouble his subjects are going to have with his son
.

Do you remember when all I did was make threatening gestures at greenfly? You have seen all this, and so had Gideon, and you chose distance and sanity, although there could have been little enough safety when Henry was King. Imagine what we have now, faced with the records of three different reigns in seven years, each with differing policies and attitudes to religion. And the statesmen from each reign still here among us (those who have survived), each struggling like an insect in gum with his history. Happy the clever, political animals, such as Cecil, or Sir Henry or even Winchester, I suppose, who hold only moderate prejudices, and can trim their sails lightly, man and boy, through three reigns, and gain in comfort and status and happiness
.

Perhaps, when rulers have short lives, the state profits best from devious men who can give it long service. A matter of common sense, brains and experience, and not of religion or ethics at all. Oh, Kate … your only error in life was to make me a girl, instead of a man
.

 … How is Kuzúm?

She completed the letter and sent it off later, with a servant of Austin’s. She did not add that the celebrations attending the last stages of the framing of the Muscovy charter had brought enough merchants to St Anthony’s to enable her to indulge her new interest in Russia. She met some of the company’s agents: Lane, Price, bearded Killingworth, and the big man Rob Best, who broke a tasselled stool wrestling with Chancellor. She met old Mr Cabot and some of his coterie of cosmographers: Richard Eden and Thomas Digges and Clement Adams and Dr Records and Mr Chancellor’s friend and instructor, John Dee. And she listened flatteringly to Sir George Barnes and Will Garrard, Lord Mayor elect, who had promoted Diccon’s first trip to Russia, and were now planning the second.

‘Diccon can do it,’ said Garrard. ‘Wyndham couldn’t do it, poor devil. I couldn’t do it. Don’t want to. Snug in Southfleet and Dorney, counting my money like George, not in Mombasa, dying of the bloody flux. We’ll fill the ships up with broadcloth, and maybe a little sugar to sweeten the Tsar. And send them off in the spring: April perhaps. The
Philip and Mary
. And Diccon will have the
Edward Bonaventure
again.’

‘Back,’ said Sir Henry, ‘to the inferior and exterior lights, Mistress Philippa. Richard Chancellor, you have a gleam in your eye. You complain when we send you sailing north to the ice floes but you know very well that you would pay from your pocket to go there. How long will it take you?’

‘From here to the Dwina? Two months by sea, I should reckon. The ships can land us and our cargo, and then sail back to England to winter. From the Dwina to Moscow I don’t know. There is the cargo to carry, and a thousand miles of Rusland to cover. Last time we did it by horse sleigh. This time,’ said Diccon casually, his spare frame supported on the upright of Philippa’s armchair, ‘this time, I thought I’d take Christopher.’

Philippa opened her mouth. ‘As an apprentice?’ Garrard said. ‘The lad’s surely too young.’

The black beard and clear charcoal eyes were both directed ominously upon Philippa. She shut her mouth. ‘Nothing hardens like sea water,’ said Chancellor.

‘You mean,’ said Philippa smartly, ‘nothing pickles like brine.’

‘I mean——’

‘Did you know,’ said Henry Sidney’s smooth voice, interrupting, ‘that Mr Garrard knows your Mr Bailey? I had forgotten to tell you.’

Her mind engaged in battle for the future of Diccon Chancellor’s son, Philippa did not, for the moment, recollect possessing a Mr Bailey. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

‘Leonard Bailey. God confound you, Philippa; you made an
eminent fuss about tracing him. The brother of Honoria Bailey, your husband’s grandmother. You will observe that whatever you have forgotten, the relationship is engraved in my memory.’

But she had already remembered. Covering a genuine shock with a great deal of discreet and well-mannered acting, she learned that Leonard Bailey, whose sister had married a Scot from Midculter, Lanarkshire, was indeed a neighbour of Garrard’s in Buckinghamshire.

‘That was it, Henry … Mistress Philippa,’ said Will Garrard cheerfully. ‘You’ll find old Lady Dormer knows him as well, shouldn’t wonder. Of her generation, although it’s a while now since all the tattle. A self-willed old gentleman, so I’m told, always complaining of poverty. And certainly, Gardington could do with some upkeep, although he must take quite a good sum in rents.… He’s a relative of your husband’s?’

‘He cut himself off from the family,’ Philippa said, her hesitation small but touching. ‘I thought, since I was here—I thought perhaps I might effect a reconciliation.’

‘Hum,’ said William Garrard. ‘More likely to find yourself lending him money. If you don’t mind my saying so. But perhaps he’s improved. Age can mellow, they say.’

‘They say wrong,’ said Diccon Chancellor. ‘I have known Mistress Philippa these two months, and I have aged while she has grown daily less mellow. Why else am I fleeing the country?’

As it proved, the distance between London and Gardington, Bucks., was greater than the sum of its miles, and certainly farther than anyone was prepared to let Philippa go, in spite of a certain amount of soliciting, before her presence was again required at court in the space of two days. Hog-tied in any case by her own experienced conscience, Philippa marched back in due course to her mistress, declaiming sourly, ‘Their willingness be the touchstone and trial of their fidelity,’ and proceeded to subvert the life-style and philosophy of Sir Thomas Cawerden, Master of the Revels, under the guise of advising him on the coming masque of Turkish magistrates and torchbearers for Shrovetide.

Since no one, barring a few seamen, one or two merchants, and a member of the staff of the French Ambassador had ever beheld a Turk in their lives, she was given a free hand in the revels storehouse at the old Blackfriars Monastery, and held a minor festival of her own with tailors, painters and joiners among the bales of gold damask and green sarsanet and tinsel tawny brocade: the old masks and buskins and kirtles, and the old hanging cloths of velvet, satin and dornicks, thickly wrought with bright gold embroidery. The masque was a success, and old Lady Dormer, whose two brothers had been Knights of St John, declared that her arm had itched to cut down the infidels, and all for forty-nine pounds, fourteen shillings and twopence. Commended for both taste and economy, Philippa’s stock rose higher at court. Diccon Chancellor called on her, and agreed to teach her some Russian, but refused point blank to take her to Moscow. The Queen was ill, and had to be blooded again.