‘Dead?’
Frances stared at her husband. Thomas nodded.
‘Yesterday, at Marlborough. He had been to Bath, but the waters offered no cure this time.’
She sank onto a chair, her legs trembling. The idea that Cecil was gone seemed impossible. He had been a constant, menacing presence ever since her first arrival at court eight years before. Even the years she had spent at Tyringham had been blighted by the knowledge that he had set someone to watch her. He had superintended her torture as a suspected witch and had hounded Tom to his death. She had every reason to rejoice. Yet she felt only a creeping numbness.
Thomas came to kneel at her feet and took her icy hands in his. ‘I know it is an even greater shock to you than it was to me, given what you suffered at his hands.’ His expression darkened briefly. ‘Though it was obvious how ill he was, I thought he would outlive us all.’
‘Do you know the cause?’ she asked.
‘They say it was a tumour.’
Frances knew that such growths could return, even if they were cut out. Yet she could not quite push away the feeling of failure. ‘Then he must have died in torment,’ she said, remembering the hiss of his breath as she had examined that first growth with the gentlest of fingers.
Then she thought of Tom, his frail, bloodied body jerking over the cobbles as he was pulled on a hurdle to his execution. It is mine to revenge. I will repay. Frances felt shame that she had not placed greater faith in God’s words. She had read them often enough since Tom’s death, desperate to derive some comfort from them. But they had seemed like the empty promises with which a father pacifies a troublesome child. Now that she knew the truth of them, she should feel triumphant, at peace. But she experienced neither. Just a gnawing pity.
‘They say he died in as much pain of mind as of body,’ Thomas said, stroking her knuckles with his thumb.
Frances had supposed Cecil to be incapable of remorse. Certainly he had never shown any throughout the years she had known him. She had seen him dispatch opponents with unblinking efficiency. ‘Surely he was not troubled by his conscience at last.’
Her husband shrugged. ‘A man might set aside all of his former opinions when death is close at hand. Few can meet it with the same sanguinity that—’ He stopped.
‘Thomas?’
Frances could no longer see her husband’s face but something in the way he was holding himself worried her. When he remained silent, she placed her hand on his shoulder. He started at her touch. ‘What is it?’ she asked quietly, keeping her hand quite still.
Thomas’s shoulders sagged. When he turned to her, his eyes were filled with such pain that her heart contracted. He bent to kiss her fingers. ‘I have seen many men die, Frances, most on the field of battle, their life ripped from them by arquebus or sword. Though such a death is quick, the terror still showed in their eyes. How much greater the terror must be if a man knows the hour of his death many days or even weeks before. And if …’ he faltered ‘… and if it is brought upon him slowly, to draw out the terror, the agony.’
Frances’s hands fell slack in his. She knew with a sickening certainty of whom he had spoken.
‘I was there, Frances,’ he said suddenly. ‘I saw Tom die.’
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared down at him. She opened her mouth to speak but could form no words. For almost seven years she had closed her mind to what Tom must have suffered. Many times an image had shocked her – a rope being pulled tight, a knife slicing through flesh – but she had always pushed it away, busying herself with some task, fingers trembling. Only in her dreams had the full horror come rushing in and she had awoken screaming.
‘You were at Westminster?’ The words rasped in her throat.
Thomas inclined his head. ‘I promised that I would not forsake him, that he would turn his face to me, keep his eyes upon mine so that all those filled with hatred or anger or vengeance might fade away and he would see only the truth and comfort of our faith reflected back at him.’
His words were coming as rapidly as his breath now. Frances wanted to shut her ears but could not.
‘I would willingly have given my life for his, Frances,’ he continued, with sincerity. ‘I knew what you were to him – and he to you. All night as I waited by the scaffold, I prayed to God that He might put me in his place.’
Frances thought of how she, too, had spent that night in prayer as she paced the floorboards of that attic room, her words disappearing into the darkness.
‘Though He did not answer my prayers, He did at least give me courage to do as I had promised. But it was as nothing to the courage that Tom showed, Frances. He seemed impervious to the tortures they visited upon him. His gaze never faltered and his eyes were filled with such acceptance, such peace that it silenced the crowds who had bayed for blood just moments before.’
He stopped, as if the words were choking him, his chest heaving with silent grief.
‘Why did you not tell me before now?’ she murmured.
He raised his eyes to hers again. ‘I wanted to – many times. But whenever I mentioned him, it was as if I had scalded you. I feared that if I spoke to you of his death it would be more than you could bear.’ He bent to kiss her fingers. They were wet with his tears when he raised his head again. ‘I feared, too, that you would never forgive me for failing him.’
‘How did you fail him?’
Thomas could not meet her eyes. ‘I stood by the scaffold, so close that I could almost have reached out and touched him. Yet I did nothing to stop the horrors that were visited upon him.’ He was unable to continue.
Frances felt strangely peaceful as she looked down at him, as if something inside her had been set free at last. She touched his cheek, keeping her hand there as she spoke. ‘You did not fail him, Thomas,’ she said softly. ‘You honoured your promise to be with him at the end, though God knows it cost you dearly. Thanks to you, he did not die friendless and alone. You gave him the courage he lacked,’ she whispered, then knelt to hold him close.
The hall was crowded with courtiers and officials when Frances and her husband arrived. The king sat under the canopy of state, Robert Carr at his side. They were in whispered conversation, their heads close together, and every now and then James let out a bark of laughter. She should have known better than to expect a sombre atmosphere, Frances reflected, even though the court had been summoned to be told the news that was already on everyone’s lips: the king’s chief minister was dead.
‘His blood ran black when the surgeons tried to cut out the tumour,’ Frances heard one woman mutter as they passed.
‘What do you expect from such a black-hearted villain?’ her companion retorted scornfully.
Their laughter still echoed in her ears as Frances moved through the throng, gripping Thomas’s hand ever more tightly. Ahead, she saw the unmistakable figure of her uncle. He was whispering something to a young woman, his mouth close to her ear. She giggled as his hand trailed over the plump flesh above her bodice. Frances swallowed her distaste. Clearly the earl saw no reason to desist from his usual habits, now that he was courting the princess. She changed direction but at that moment he turned and saw her.
‘Good day, niece,’ he called, as she curtsied. ‘Sir Thomas.’
‘I trust you are well, my lord?’
Frances detected frost in her husband’s tone, though she knew her uncle would not.
‘Exceedingly so, now that churl is dead at last,’ he replied, making no attempt to lower his voice. ‘The pickings will be all the richer for the rest of us.’
‘His Majesty has chosen a successor, then?’ Frances asked. She had grown used to the speed with which the spoils from one official were divided among the others, like carrion among crows.
Her uncle gave a scornful grunt. ‘There will be more than one, niece! The man was as rich as Croesus and had amassed enough titles and offices to sustain an entire court. I look forward to hearing which of them His Majesty has chosen to bestow upon me. After all,’ he added, a slow smile creeping across his face, ‘he will wish to enhance the status of his future son-in-law.’
Frances stifled a grimace. Even though she had done her best to further the match between her uncle and the princess for months now, she was no more reconciled to the idea than Elizabeth was. It felt like a betrayal of the affection and trust that had grown between them. She saw how the young woman recoiled every time another gift arrived from the earl, how she discarded each as soon as it had been opened.
‘Silence for the king!’ The lord chamberlain’s voice rang out across the hall, bringing the excited chatter to an abrupt end. James got to his feet and surveyed the expectant faces before him. ‘My lords,’ he began, his voice echoing around the vaulted hall, ‘it seems I have been nurturing a serpent in my breast these nine years.’
A frisson of excitement ran through the gathering. This was unexpected. Frances’s pulse quickened as she waited for James to continue.
‘You will have heard the tidings that the Earl of Salisbury is dead,’ he continued, clearly enjoying the suspense that he had created. ‘Ever since I inherited the Crown of this kingdom I have raised him up above all others. It has pleased me to shower him with titles, lands and offices. Never has so much power been vested in one man.’
Frances heard her uncle’s grunt of assent, but kept her eyes fixed on the dais.
‘And how did he repay me?’ he continued, leaving the question to echo into silence. ‘With lies and betrayal and heresy!’
The company descended into a din of animated chatter as everyone began to speculate what Cecil could have done to deserve such censure.
‘During the earl’s late absence from court, I received intelligence that he had fallen into the same heresy that he pretended to persecute on my behalf,’ James continued, the colour rising to his cheeks as he spoke. ‘I therefore ordered a search of his houses, wherein my officials found ample proof to confirm my suspicions. His private chapel at Hatfield was stuffed with relics, statuary and other tokens of popery.’
There was an audible gasp. Frances felt as if she had been dealt a blow to her stomach. Instinctively, she reached into her pocket and began working the beads of her rosary between her fingers. But it failed to calm her racing thoughts. Cecil a Catholic? It could not be. For as long as she had known him, he had pursued all those of her faith relentlessly, never flinching from meting out the severest penalties. That he had secretly shared the same faith was unthinkable. And yet …
Frances looked at her husband, whose eyes were still fixed upon the king. Had he not told her that Cecil had died tormented in mind as well as body? She had assumed that remorse had set in as the hour of death approached. How much greater his anguish must have been if it was caused by having betrayed his conscience all these years.
‘And so I have appointed my trusted servant Lord Carr as secretary of state …’
Frances had hardly been aware that the king had begun to speak again. She forced her attention back to the dais.
‘… with full powers to hunt down all those associated with his predecessor in this post and bring them to face the king’s justice.’
‘Carr?’ her uncle muttered under his breath.
‘Furthermore, I have instructed my Lord Chief Justice to introduce stricter penalties for any subject who fails to swear the oath of allegiance, or who is otherwise found to adhere to the Catholic faith. From henceforth, no mercy will be shown to those obstinate papists who, through their wicked and wilful disregard for God’s true word, seek the destruction of the king’s person and of his entire realm. All of their property and goods will be seized by the Crown, to be dispensed with at the king’s pleasure – along with their lives.’
Silence descended upon the hall. The only noise that Frances could hear was the pulse that throbbed in her ears.