“Love…which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see…”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
Lammastide, August 1
ON THE ROAD TO CHARTLEY
The brewer and his apprentice had filled their ale barrels and loaded the dray at the Burton Brewery, where some of Walsingham’s Staffordshire men had taken charge. Frances’s shoulders ached from carrying the smaller kegs, including one with the cipher for Queen Mary, from the brewery to the dray, as any good apprentice would. A deeper ache came from sleeping on the cold stone floor.
For half the night she had wondered why she had ever thought a man’s life was easier in this world. In the morning, she had waked to find Robert’s doublet tucked about her shoulders and the man scent of him in her nostrils. When had he placed his doublet there? Had he watched her sleeping? She smiled at such a thought and knew the wondering would stay with her far longer than her aching shoulders.
She averted her eyes from the man beside her driving the dray, yet saw all of him, his image engraved on her mind, his strong hands grasping the reins in front of her. He began to sing as he had that first day on their way from Barn Elms to London.
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And turn her merry note
Unto the sweet bird’s throat…
He was teasing her. A man who was on a mission to fool the Scots queen, and almost surely to save the queen of England’s life and her realm from papist conquest, could yet sing a joyous song. She could sing one as well. So she did, lifting her voice to blend with his.
He turned his face to her, smiling, and despite the woodland’s shade, she saw that his eyes were bright with good humor.
“By my faith, lad, you are a daring woman,” he said, laughing at the absurdity of his words.
“Some would call me foolish, mad even.”
“Aye, that, too,” he said, opening his shirt to allow the cooler air under the trees to reach his skin. “And you should never wear the white mask again over your…lovely face. Why pretend youth when you own it?”
Frances turned her head from his sweet words, but not before she had allowed herself to look upon his broad, muscled chest with a swatch of dark hair disappearing lower under the linen.
Her life was not over, she thought, hugging the idea to her heart, not over before it began, as she had feared. Then with one special insight came another: She could not turn aside from him, from what she now saw so clearly as a great and deeply felt love for Robert, a love she had felt for no other man, nor ever thought she could. Aye, Lady Frances Sidney, the wife of the realm’s most admired poet of love, a lady of the queen’s presence, yearned for the arms of a bastard and landless commoner, a servant. She ached with a love that ravaged through her like a sweet plague.
She had not been able to accept her forbidden feelings at court, but here in the countryside atop this dray in disguise there were no distinctions of rank. In truth she had new sight to see what had ere now been so poorly lit.
Once, she had thought that being an intelligencer was all she wanted in this world, having given up hope of more.
Yet the hope had returned with Robert. She wanted more. It was not greed, but need that had grown in her since first she had looked on him. She had not known it at once, indeed had misnamed such shadowed feelings, and pushed them away when they first began to clear. How blind she had been. What months she had wasted.
She glanced beyond the dray horses as the sun broke through the clouds and rising dust on the road to Chartley Manor, wondering what this day would bring that no day before had brought. That was the part of being an intelligencer that she loved: No day was ever the same.
They had crossed the river Blythe and were surrounded by the green, rolling countryside of Staffordshire. Sunlight glinting through leafy old horse chestnut trees cast spun gold patterns across the road. She thought of Aunt Jennet’s beloved embroidery and was warmed by the memory. As a girl, she had not prized her stern aunt, though now she did. No letter had come from her old nurse in France. Letters were dangerous. Still, there had been word that she did well and was content in her exile. She had children to teach and her Catholic faith to live openly, a faith that condemned her to death in England, just as Frances’s own Protestant beliefs would condemn her in France. Where would these enmities end…with the death of queens? Not Elizabeth, pray God, not Her Majesty. Frances could not picture the realm without the last Tudor.
A line of carters passed them, taking their animals back toward Burton for market day, their milk goats tied to the tailboard, wooden cages full of squawking chickens and green cabbages. She pulled her cap down and looked straight ahead as Robert responded to hearty greetings and salutes, leaving the brim low to shade her face, lest she return to Greenwich berry-brown. How to explain, after rising from her sickbed, the complexion of a husbandman’s wife?
This trip had been unlike any she had known or, no doubt, would know again. She had never been seated in a brewer’s dray, nor dreamed of adventuring with a much-loved man. She was aware of Robert’s every move beside her, his voice urging on the horses, his shadow moving down the road as if leading her forward. She felt his shoulder and arm pressed against hers on the narrow seat, heating her almost to a sickness.
“‘Which breaks the clouds and opens forth…’”
After hearing herself speak Philip’s words, she took a deep and dusty breath, looking off to the side, away from Robert’s sight, tears starting suddenly for no reason. She tried to stop them, to hide them, but she could not.
Robert pulled to the side in the deep shade and turned to her. “Tell me what word I have spoken that brings you to tears, or…” He took a deep breath. “Or is it a memory of your husband’s words?”
Choking on the dust of the road, she said, “Neither.” She could manage just that one word.
He reached for her hand. “All will be well, Frances. Trust me in this. If this venture should become known, I will explain to your father that I thought a boy necessary and there was no other one to trust on such a charge. I will take the blame on myself and you will not be—”
She covered her face with her hands. “You would protect me from my own folly? Sweet Jesu, Robert, you have not an understanding of what is…and I cannot explain without betraying…”
He jerked toward her. “Betrayal? Who? What have you done?”
“I am a married woman….”
Robert was confused by her words, though his heart leaped against his shirt with what they might mean, what he wanted them to mean. There were words she was trying to say—or was she trying not to say them? Could she love him, or was she a lonely young wife left at court, seeking adventure while her husband was away? He could not believe it of her, but where was this leading? To the Tower for him? To adultery and hell for them both?
“Frances, I have known…since first I saw you…your deep unhappiness,” he said, his words broken. He was uncertain how far to go with them. “Is there naught I can do?” He paused again as she turned toward him, open to his words. Was she also open to his arms? How could he allow himself to think that she wanted him? He had lost his good judgment, his ability to know what secrets faces did not reveal. He forced his mind to stop all such imaginings.
He was aware that she was trying to form words, and sought to end her confusion. “Frances, sweet lady, do not say what you will regret and I will ne’er forget.”
She lifted her chin, as if determined not to make of herself fool enough to set him laughing.
Robert took his handkercher from his sleeve, poured out some ale from his flask, and, lifting her chin with one finger, wiped away the dusty tear streaks. “Apprentice boys do not allow their masters to see tears, Frances.”
“Did you never cry for what you lost when you became a brewer’s apprentice?”
Robert snapped the reins. “Ho, Quint! Claudius!” He turned the dray back onto the road. “I have no memory of boyhood tears, Frances. Bastard apprentices cannot wash away their station, though they cry tears enough to fill the river Thames.”
While he was apprenticed to the brewer, she had been the cosseted only child of the queen’s spymaster, living in the manor of Barn Elms with servants and all the luxuries allowed in a Puritan household. He understood little of her life, except her loneliness. That he understood full well. Sometimes, as now, his body ached for her, almost betraying him. Each time it was more difficult to calm himself to softness. He demanded much of his manhood for her sake.
They moved on at a good pace, though they now had a wagon heavier for the full casks and barrels.
“‘And give us sight to see,’” Robert said quite suddenly, finishing the couplet she’d begun at least two furlongs earlier, but his words came so softly she scarce knew whether she imagined them or heard him speak softly over the sounds of horses’ hooves and rumbling dray. Finally, she was unsure that he had actually spoken. And, if he had, how could she respond?
She cast a quick sidelong glance at him, trying again to read what he could be thinking. He looked ahead, though she saw his jaw tighten, as if he dared speak no further in an intimate manner. She was sore-tempted to ask him, but dared not. She wanted to know and was afraid to know. She was all mad confusion.
Robert had been a polite but silent partner on this trip after the first night. He had allowed her to cling to the seat beside him rather than amongst the barrels of the dray. She had thanked him politely, though he assured her that he was giving her only her apprentice’s due, since she had proved to be so willing.
He seemed to know Philip’s poems to Stella as well as any young man at court—better, perhaps. But she sensed that he was not thinking of Stella when he spoke Philip’s words. Not for the first time Frances wondered whether there was another woman he thought of, longed for. Her heart shrank from the possibility, but her mind would not give it up. A young and pretty lady’s maid, perhaps, or a lonely widow in a cottage by the road he visited on his travels? Or both a lady within and one without the court?
Hold! she ordered her runaway mind. She did not really want to know about Robert’s women. It never helped a woman’s heart to know a man’s secrets. She looked at his profile, hoping he would turn her way, but he did not. In spite of her better cautions, she yet wanted to know his mind. When would they ever be like this again? “What do you think of Philip’s sonnets? You have never said.”
“You have never asked.” He blinked rapidly but did not turn to her, keeping his eyes on the road. “Now that you do ask, I will tell you. I think Philip Sidney’s sonnets speak the heart of every man who cannot have the woman he loves.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, knowing the truth of what he said for herself. “Is there a woman you love and cannot have, Robert?”
His jaw tightened and he lifted his strong chin. “God’s grace, Frances, I have loved women.”
“You do not take my meaning.”
“I take it, Lady Frances, but I choose not to answer. Even a servant can have his own privy thoughts, his privy heart.” So saying, he pulled his wide hat down to shield his eyes from the sun, and perhaps from her, and tugged on the reins as the road turned toward Chartley Manor.
She had angered Robert. He had a dignity that she should recognize by now, since it matched so closely the conduct she tried to make her own. Yet she had to say what was true. “A servant is not allowed to choose his life. Neither can a wife.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Then we are much the same.” Robert grinned, though he shook his head in disagreement. “Yet we are far from the same in many things. But maybe in one thing…” Again, he slapped the reins sharply over the horses’ backs to stop his thoughts from becoming words that he would very likely repent.
They rode ahead with speed and in silence.
A torrent of wondering thoughts filled her now. She had admitted far too much without really saying unfaithful words. What would Robert have thought of her?
They mounted a hillock, the manor of Chartley and the castle ruins beside it coming slowly into view on the rise. Abandoned since the Battle of Bosworth a hundred years ago, the castle keep, towers, and crenellated battlements still stood guard beside the newly built, impressive timbered manor. “The castle and manor belong to the Earl of Essex,” she said, somewhat surprised that she voiced the thought aloud.
“Say nothing more, Frances. Apprentice boys do not comment.”
She nodded. “Aye, master brewer.”
They passed over the moat and into the outer bailey, the place strangely quiet for the hour after dinner. Were all the household out in the deer park hunting, or were they resting out of the heat inside the thick timber walls?
Robert hailed a passing groom. “Here be good Burton ale for Sir Amyas Paulet.”
“You are not the old brewer.”
“Nay, he went for the easy life with a sister in London.”
The groom laughed. “Aye, he was e’er complaining of his back.”
“While he rests his back, I have good ale here for the manor, and a special keg of double ale to deliver to the papist queen.”
“Hold there, brewer. No one passes but with Sir Paulet’s orders, and he allows no man to go to the Scots queen’s chambers. She has charmed better than you.”
Frances whispered to Robert, “Will they allow a boy?”
“I will hold here in the bailey,” Robert said. As soon as the groom left, Robert warned, “Frances, do not move or speak.”
Robert wrapped the reins about one of the stakes on the side of the dray that held the kegs in place. He jumped from the wagon and led the horses to a trough for water. “A groom here to brush the dust of Staffordshire from coats and manes,” he shouted, holding a silver penny aloft.
A boy ran from the stables, brush and cloth in hand, and soon the dust was flying and the horses’ gray coats began to shine again. The boy looked up at Frances: “Boy, ye be blessed in yer master. He pays others to do yer work.”
Frances held her breath at the stable boy’s puzzled look until he shrugged and walked back to the stables, clutching his penny between his teeth.
Robert busied himself beside the dray, his hands testing the ropes holding the larger barrels.
“When will Sir Paulet come?” she asked softly, looking toward the multistoried timbered manor. “He has seen me in the presence chamber alongside Her Majesty.”
“Do not fear. He will not expect a lady of the presence to be on a dray in his bailey. It is the unusual man who does not see what he expects.”
“Paulet is not the usual man,” Frances said, still worried.
“Then deny and grovel. All men of his rank believe a cringing lad.”
“I have learned how to shrink myself to nothing.”
He looked at her and nodded thoughtfully.
She could see a large formal garden stretching beside and behind the manor. Essex’s mother, the Countess of Leicester, Lettice Knollys, was said to be fond of gardening when she was not at Leicester House in London. She had gardening in common with her cousin the queen, though Elizabeth hated her Knollys cousin for marrying the Earl of Leicester. Lettice’s eldest son, Essex, had spent his boyhood at Chartley with his sisters and returned as often as his court duties allowed.
Paulet suddenly came from around the stables. “Hold there, brewer!” The words came from a deep, rumbling voice in a chest too small to hold it.
Frances watched with some foreboding as Sir Amyas took manful steps forward on his short legs. She remembered him from the presence as a small man who made much of his bearing. A pack of hounds bounded and frolicked about him.
Frances coughed, preparing to speak as a boy if addressed, though she hoped a dusty-faced apprentice would not even gain Sir Amyas’s notice. She could not hear Robert’s words, though from Paulet’s face, he was questioning the new brewer with mistrust. Somehow Robert must gain entrance to the Scots queen’s quarters, or their mission would fail, and with it their chance to put an end to Mary’s scheming.
A pup broke loose and ran toward the horses, nipping at Marcus’s legs, barking furiously. The team shied, rearing in their traces, and jerked the dray forward into the trough.
“Whoa!” Frances yelled, and quickly grabbed the lines, hanging on.
Sir Amyas walked toward the cart, picked up a pebble, and threw it at the pup. It yelped and ran away, tail between its hinders.
“Brewer, control your team. Your boy is too lean to hold them.”
Robert reached the team as Sir Amyas gave the order. “Come down, lad.”
Frances quickly complied, remembering not to extend her hand to Robert for support.
Sir Amyas strode to the wagon with his big man’s style that had brought giggles from the ladies beside the queen. Frowning, he poked amongst the barrels and kegs. “Which one is for Her papist Majesty?”
Robert pointed to the small keg under the seat. “That be it, good sir.”
“Bring it down,” Sir Amyas ordered.
Frances held her breath as Queen Mary’s keeper inspected the keg, turning it this way and that, knocking on it in several places. “It has not a hollow sound,” he said, opening the bung and letting ale spill to the ground. He nodded, satisfied.
Robert reached to lift the keg to his shoulder.
“Nay, brewer, no man but me may see the Scots whore alone. Her wiles are well-known. The keg is not heavy,” he said, nudging Robert aside and hefting it. “You there, boy, take it upon your shoulder. I have other urgent duties.”
Robert’s face did not change, though his eyes held caution and more than a little fear.
Frances touched her forelock in salute to Sir Amyas before taking up the keg as she was bidden, though the weight sat hard on her shoulder. She dared not look to Robert, though he moved closer to gentle the horses. His whisper just reached her ears: “You know what to do?”
“Aye,” she breathed, grasping the keg tighter.
Sir Amyas called a liveried servant, who was wearing a helmet, plate-armor cuirass, buckler, and broadsword. “Take this brewer’s boy to the queen’s apartment; then return to me and guard this dray. I want no messages passed or words spoken.”
Frances followed the servant through the great hall, noticing the luxury of the graceful Flemish furnishings. A heavily carved refectory table, which must have come from the old castle, was set before a huge fireplace. Arras hangings hung on the walls in front of her. One she swore depicted a young Essex riding with hounds toward a stag. A second hanging on the far wall showed him dancing with a circle of pretty, graceful village maids. She stopped a smile before it reached her face; how like him to want to look at himself as he feasted.
They wound up a wide staircase to a balcony and to the very last door, where two heavily armed guards barred the way.
“This lad here delivers the Scots queen’s double ale.”
The guard scowled. “This ale should be for our throats, eh, and not the old whore inside.”
“Cease such poor talk,” commanded her escort. “You know Sir Amyas’s orders. Respect but do not trust. Now unlock the door and stand aside.”
Frances breathed easier.
“Can you find your way back to the bailey, lad?”
“Aye, sir,” Frances said, the words trembling.
“Do not be afrighted, boy,” her guard said, slapping her across the back. “She is a kindly woman, though her Catholic soul be damned to hell.”
“Not soon enough,” another guard at the door grumbled, removing a large key from his belt and unlocking the door.
Frances stepped inside to a large chamber and hesitated, her knees weakened with uncertainty. Should she go on or wait until she was ordered forward? Several ladies-in-waiting were at their occupations, folding clothes into chests, mixing kohl and cochineal, one reading aloud in Latin and another plucking softly at lute strings. At the far end nearest the windows high in the wall was a dais. Queen Mary sat in a large chair under a cloth of estate, neither gilt nor so fine as Elizabeth’s, but a clear reminder of her status as former queen of France and then of Scotland. Frances knew Mary would dispute the idea of her rule being past and done.
As her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she saw the words embroidered on the cloth of estate: En ma Fin gît mon Commencement. Frances translated: “In the end is my beginning.” She knows, Frances thought. She has always known.
A lady approached Frances. “Her Majesty wishes to greet you, boy. She sees few enough from the outside and has little news.”
Frances knew that Mary received much news from London and France, but this was no time to dispute the lady’s words. She followed the lady forward toward the throne, trying to control her fear of discovery.
With downcast eyes, she reached the dais, and found it impossible to kneel with the keg on her shoulder. She placed it in front of her, removed her cap, bowed her head, and knelt.
A soft voice spoke before her with both a Scottish burr and a French inflection, a combination she doubted she would e’er hear again or soon forget. “You may stand, young English lad, or sit if your sagging shoulders are a sign of your weariness.”
Frances stood. Though the queen’s damask gown was beautifully embroidered, the hem and sleeves were frayed, showing age and wear. She wore a triple pearl necklace of great worth, a crown centered with a large table diamond. Stroking a little dog in her lap, Mary smiled at her, a kindly smile that crinkled her hazel eyes. She had the perfect oval face so prized by Florentine painters, though her face had now grown old, with fine wrinkles despoiling its beauty. Atop that royal head, she wore a golden-red wig, very close in color to Elizabeth’s. Though Queen Mary was nearing her mid-forties and had grown fleshy over the nineteen years of her captivity, she had the distinct remains of the startling physical beauty that had been remarked of her since she was a girl even by her many enemies. She had attracted the Duke of Norfolk to offer her marriage, at the cost of his head. Frances thought Mary’s rumored attractiveness was one reason why Elizabeth had ever refused to meet with her. Her Majesty could tolerate no beauty contest.
Mary, though seated, was obviously tall, some said taller by much than her cousin, which had once provoked Elizabeth’s angry rejoinder: “If she is taller than me, she is too tall!”
Frances believed the tale and could see Elizabeth saying such words with great relish. The thought brought a smile to her face.
Mary motioned for her to sit. “Boy, are you so eager to serve me that you smile, or are you smiling to be relieved of your burden?”
“Both, Majesty.”
The queen looked amused. “We have here a truth-speaking lad.”
Frances held her cap against her doublet to hide any evidence of her breasts and sat at Mary’s feet, grateful for the relief, though yet wary of what would come next.
Mary looked down at her with kindly eyes. “We must all carry heavy burdens, if God so orders.” She crossed herself at her breast and her ladies followed suit.
Frances did the same, glad that her father would never know. She looked up at the high windows for somewhere to direct her gaze. Sunlight flooded across the ceiling, but did not reach so far below, leaving the lower chamber in dim light. Though the windows were high in the timbered wall, they were yet barred.
The Scots queen’s gaze followed hers. She smiled. “Sir Amyas is determined I will not escape him.”
A nearby lady laughed. “Her Majesty once let herself down the side of Hardwick Manor, almost escaping the Earl of Shrewsbury. She was close held after…though never so close as now with Sir Amyas.”
“The rope was too short,” Mary said wryly, “or I was.”
All Mary’s ladies smiled sadly at the memory, though the queen turned her attention back to Frances.
“You have traveled from Burton?”
Frances thought to keep her answers short. “Aye, Majesty.”
“Since the early hours?”
“Aye, Majesty.”
“You have not heard matins? I am sorry. They have taken away my priest.”
Frances did not look up.
“Then you will join us in our devotions.” It was not a question.
And be damned forever, Frances knew her father would think, if he ever heard of it.
She bent her head forward, for a confidence. “Majesty, I dare not stay so long as will arouse Sir Amyas’s interest.” Frances lowered her voice even further. “There is a new cipher for you in the keg. The men at Plough Inn fear…” Her voice trailed away; she was aware that she could say too much and expose herself as knowing more than an apprentice lad should.
Mary’s eyes opened wide, a torrent of hope filling her face before it disappeared. “But the keg is full of ale.” Mary tapped the keg with her foot.
“Inside the bung, Majesty,” Frances murmured. “It has a hidey-hole.”
The queen looked about, alarmed. “Quietly, lad, these walls could hide spies’ ears.” She motioned to her ladies. “Empty the ale into our stone jars.”
When the keg was returned, Frances leaned in to hold it up to the queen, who eagerly removed the bung and with a long finger reached in and up to retrieve the tiny roll of tightly wound paper wrapped in sealskin.
“Boy, how often will my ale be replenished?”
“Twice weekly, Majesty.”
One of Mary’s women brought a candle. Before she read, Mary stopped to look at Frances. “Here we have a lad pretty as any lass and we do not see to his thirst.” She ordered another lady to pour Frances a cup.
“Many thanks, Your Majesty.” Mary had recognized in Frances a thirst that she herself had forgotten. Gratefully, she accepted the pewter cup.
It would be difficult for Frances to hate this queen, no matter her papist practice. She had been warned against the queen’s wiles, but she saw none, only kindness to a dirty-faced apprentice. Not for the first time, she had some regret for her part in this entrapment; nor would she ever forgive herself, at least never completely. Torn between two queens—perhaps the Plough Inn men had similar feelings.
Mary called for pen and paper and had no sooner secreted a response into the secret bunghole than the outer door banged open and Sir Amyas rushed in, through the chamber and to the dais. He did not kneel, or even bow.
“Boy, are you being kept here against your will?”
“Nay, Sir Am—”
“For shame. A lad seduced to popery by…”
Mary stood. “Sir Amyas, the boy was tired and thirsty. In Christian duty, I could not turn him back to the road with no rest or drink.”
“Madam, you have offended propriety!”
“Not a whit, Sir Amyas,” Mary said. “As a sinner I am truly conscious of having often offended my Creator, and I beg him to forgive me, but as a queen and sovereign, I am aware of no fault or offense for which I have to render account to anyone here below.”
“Madam, you twist words to suit your purpose. Make peace with your God. You will soon needs make peace with our Queen Elizabeth.”
Mary’s face lit with hope. “Will she see me? Is she coming? If only we sister queens could meet…”
Her keeper made a growling sound deep in his throat and yanked Frances toward the door. “Listen no more to the Scots witch, boy, lest you find yourself amidst the fires of hell.”
Just able to get out an agreement, she said, “Aye, sir.”
“Hold, Sir Amyas!” A lady came up fast with the keg. “Her Majesty will need this to be refilled.”
Sir Amyas scowled but took the keg and looked it over carefully, shaking, then smelling it. Satisfied that it was hollow, he handed it to Frances.
She tried to look back, offer with her eyes some small thanks to the proud woman on the dais who had touched her heart, but Sir Amyas pushed her through the open door and the guards slammed it shut on Mary’s lonely imprisonment.
“Boy, tell your master that I am off to Greenwich tomorrow with the tally for the Scots queen’s care. He will get his payment when I get mine.”
“Aye, Sir Paulet.”
In the great hall below, Frances followed the waiting guard out to the bailey. Her first sight was of Robert pacing beside the dray, his pronounced limp indicating his tiredness. He kept his face expressionless, but she could see the relief in his shoulders as they relaxed.
“Boy, is all accomplished?”
“Aye.”
“Let us away. We have long hours back to Burton.” He took the keg and placed it under the seat.
“Come, lad,” he said, loudly for other ears.
They drove through the gate and turned onto the main road before he removed the sealskin-wrapped message from the keg and put it safely in the pocket tied about his waist.
Frances looked ahead through the swirling dust. “The queen of Scots is well betrayed.”
He slapped the reins to speed the lead horses. “I sense your sympathy, but the fault is hers, not yours. Many before you have said she weaved a spell on them.” He slapped the reins again. “It is a hard business to be an intelligencer, Frances, and now you know it. I would have spared you, but you would not be spared.”
“Will she be spared?” Frances asked, looking up at him.
“No, she will not. There can be only one queen for England. Which would you have?”
She did not hesitate to name her, though speaking at all was difficult. “Elizabeth.”