London. February 1599
Young Colin joined them on the quayside with all his gear, grinning all over his face with excitement. Trelawney squared up to him and the two young men circled each other like a pair of dogs. Even in his present state of mind, Nicholas had to smile as they took each other’s measure: they would have to shake down together as best they could. He would have no favourites.
As part-lessee of the Swan he had a small cabin to himself and kept to it. He used the time on the crossing to try and make sense of what had happened. Kate’s last words to him had been as ambiguous as the Queen’s. “It will be as always.” He had taken her to mean she would wait for him but now the words jostled in his head, juggled with the tone of her voice and the look in her eyes. Perhaps as with Hal this had been his last chance. He had a constant burning pain behind his eyes that kept him from food and sleep. “It will be as always.” In the end he wrote to Bess of Hardwick thanking her for offering hospitality to his son and his son’s mother, with a polite request for news of them, and explaining what had happened. He wrote also to his kinsmen at Court. He wrote to Jack and he saved the usual drawings for a little book of folded paper in which he pictured a lumbering knight who made all manner of comic mistakes and a wise young page who gave advice. He made other drawings, of ships and battles, places he had seen, strange animals. He did not write to Kate; he was still too shaken by her refusal to find words. Give her time, he thought. It was a shock – she is afraid, Toby said. No wonder, poor Kate. He needed time himself to know what to say; hit hard, he hardly knew his own feelings.
He had hardly slept and had not shaved or changed his clothes since the letters from Rokesby, and as Calais appeared on the horizon, he realised that he must now set an example to Hal – no, Henry. He assembled himself with care and sustained Trelawney’s anxious glance, feeling that to outward appearances he was the same. He was wrong. The eager young man who had left Plymouth in a blaze of happiness had gone. The cool reserved captain of the Rokesby enterprise was back, with tired eyes and a rasp to his voice.
The smart body of men in black and gold livery disembarked in the harbour of Calais, with a small train of mules and carts carrying their equipment, Nick’s armour and weapons, gifts for the King and his consort and a formidable amount of clothes. Nicholas meant to make the right impression. To travel, he wore his comfortable leather jack over a plain doublet, and the long soft boots from Spain. All of them had durable heavy cloaks, which was as well. The journey was abominable.
By this time the exceptional winter had relaxed its iron grip and Flanders was a deep morass of mud. Melting snow had swollen the Somme and it flowed high under the arches of the bridges, leaving little room for boats to pass. It was raining: hard, driving rain that penetrated their clothes and found its way down the backs of their necks.
The roads were a quagmire. Once they were forced into the ditch by a galloping troop of horse and again by the following cannon. The cart carrying their gear stuck and they abandoned it, distributing the load among themselves, and struggled on, desperate for shelter. The inns suggested by Tobias would have been passable but for those same troops going before. Disinclined for speech, Nicholas forced himself to talk and joke and sing to keep the men in good heart, and found that away from Court, Young Colin was not so much changed, still apt to explode in boisterous laughter and rough games and dirty jokes. The men took to him and Trelawney relaxed, in spite of the God-awful weather.
Several times Nick caught Colin’s eye on him. No doubt Tim had been talking. The two of them smoothed his way in small things; Henry rode with the men in sullen silence. As they drew near Paris, conditions underfoot improved slightly and Nicholas briefed his page and squires on what they might expect.
“We are emissaries for peace. We are not at war with France but we do not want her to join with the Netherlanders against Burgundy and Spain and add to her strength at this time, thus the present situation is uneasy. We are here to show goodwill; all I wish you to do is carry out your duties and keep your eyes and ears open. Without seeming to do so. On no account ask questions. The names Lennox, Bothwell and d’Aubigny are of special interest to me and to me alone. Understood?”
Tim Trelawney’s fresh, fine-skinned face was patched red and white with cold, the blue eyes pink-rimmed and bright. He nodded and sleet slid off his cap.
“Henry?”
“Yes. Sir.” The boy seemed to have perked up.
Young Colin swept a courtly bow and straightened up laughing. “When does the fighting start?”
They were twenty miles from Paris and it was late afternoon when the rain came on again, heavy and persistent. Nicholas looked round at his troop. The horses’ hooves were sticking and slipping in the mud, the men weary, and he called a halt at the next inn they came to. He would not arrive in Paris with his men in this bedraggled state. The inn looked a miserable affair with a long sway-backed barn clinging to one side, but it would have to do until the weather cleared. Glad to be out of the downpour, men and horses crowded into the barn. Except for a spreading puddle at one end and a rusting harrow, it was empty; that troop of horse had already scoured through. Young Colin had proved himself on this journey: the blood of reivers in his veins, if food and fodder and drink was to be found he found it. The inn keeper, no fool, had another tidy little barn hidden behind trees. Young Colin came back from his foraging with news of clean hay and straw, followed by a protesting inn keeper. At the sight of gold coin, he stopped complaining and struck a bargain, hurrying off to chivvy his cook.
Nicholas always saw to his animals himself and had just finished bedding them down when a soaked and panting courier, plastered with mud, galloped in with a bundle of dispatches.
“I was told to catch you before you reached the city, my lord.” Nicholas rewarded the man and told him to take his rest.
“There may be letters to take back. Tomorrow.” Trelawney had brought Nicholas out a cup of hot, spiced wine, and he drank some of it gratefully as he took the packet to the light of the lantern. He set the wine on a ledge and stuffed the official letters into his shirt to look at later. He peered at the two others, one with a crest he did not recognise. He broke the florid seal and opened it, the expensive vellum crackled as he flattened it out against the wall. It was written in a vile hand and worse language, short and brutal and took him like a knife under the ribs.
Nicholas Talbot, Knight, Scottish Order of Merit, Lord of Rokesby and Rookham, and Thane of Strathyre
I do myself the honour, my lord, to inform you at my lady’s behest, of my coming union with Mistress Shawcross, formerly Archer. She does me great honour. The one flaw in my happiness is the cuckoo in the nest. She of course says she wishes to keep the child, but as I tell her, there will be more to fill the cradle. At your leisure, my lord, I trust you will make suitable arrangements.
Your servant, John, Lord Westerbrook of Westerbrook and Darnley
Holding down nausea, he read it again, unbelieving. He felt frozen, the cold seemed to penetrate to his very soul. He reached for the wine and took two long swallows. It rose again sour at the back of his throat and he ran outside to vomit again and again into the pile of dirty straw.
“Are you ill, sir?” One of the troop had come across.
“No, no, not ill. Something…get yourself in out of the rain.”
“Sir, let me—”
“Get in, I tell you!” Nicholas straightened up and wiped his face on his sleeve. “Just going to finish up here…” He went blindly back into the barn and stood leaning his head on Shadow’s moist warm neck, his hands clenched in her mane. Sensing something of the black murderous rage that was building in Nick’s head and fracturing his thoughts, she shifted uneasily and turned liquid eyes to see and nudge him.
Nicholas could not tell if it was the content of the letter or the sheer devastating arrogance that so enraged him. If the author of it had been there he would surely have killed him. The fury boiled up again at the idea of Jack anywhere near this man. “Cuckoo in the nest?” he shouted. “My son!” Startled, the other horses threw up their heads and jostled. He was upsetting them. He made a great effort to calm himself, the churning in his gut settled a little and he stooped to pick up his soaked tunic and struggle into it. His first instinct, to fling himself on his horse and ride full tilt for England, would not do. The letter was still clutched in his hand and he stared at it. “At my lady’s behest…” Could she not have told him herself, given him some warning? “‘Frailty, thy name is woman,’” he muttered. Kit, did you foresee this? No, you couldn’t have…frail, yes, but not frail, anything but fragile… ‘God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.’ Oh God… He was shaking now and he slowly made his way across the inn’s yard, oblivious to the still pouring rain. He went in through the kitchen to avoid questions and reached his room shivering like a wet puppy.
All the way here his squires had been concerned to give him his privacy, sensing his troubled mind. Everyone else shared but he could always be sure of a place to himself. The room was dark, its squalor only faintly revealed by the light of a brazier of hot coals by the bed. A bottle of aquavit stood with his drinking cup and a good wax candle on the rickety table, a stool drawn up to it. This thought for his comfort was almost too much for him and he went to lean his hot forehead against the streaming window pane. A mouse scuttled in the wall, rain drummed on the roof and flung itself against the bottle glass as if it were trying to get in.
A ribald shout from the room below broke in on him. He was cold, he crossed the room and dragged the brazier closer to the table, burning his hand, and fumbled to light the candle and send away the dark. Time, he needed time and there was none. He must “make suitable arrangements.” He became aware of his state of body and dropped the letters on the table, dragged off his wet clothes and wrapped himself in one of the blankets from the bed. He sat on the stool, huddling near the brazier and pulled across the bottle. He splashed some brandy into the vine-leaved bronze goblet from Portugal. He could not remember why he had kept it with him, except perhaps it had become a talisman. He had not thought of his father since Portugal, and now he found himself wondering, not for the first time, what his mother had been like. Jack Talbot had never spoken of her. I killed her, thought Nicholas. He picked up his pouch and found her miniature. His father’s wife. A beauty, with the Melville colouring, his colouring, Jack’s. He had drawn a little picture of Jack and it lay on the other side of the locket with a curl of Kate’s hair. The twist of auburn fell to the floor and he let it lie. Nicholas had had wet-nurses and corporals and tutors and sergeants. Mistress Melville had been the mainstay for his own son. He had been told so and he had seen it for himself. More to fill the cradle, Westerbrook? I wish you joy. He hardly knew which pain was worse. His hand hurt and he dragged out his square of linen to wrap it. He poured more wine, his hand shook and drops of red fell on the letter from Westerbrook. The thing had to be dealt with.
After a long while, he rose and fetched pen and paper. The first note was simple. He wrote to his kinsman William Talbot, giving the present whereabouts of his son – the very place, in fact, that the admiral had arranged for his safety – and enclosing the spotted letter from Westerbrook. He asked him to see Jack brought to London with his nurse. To Kate he wrote: If this is your desire, I wish you joy. I will take our son with love and sorrow and rear him with pride. Nicholas
That done, he curled his fingers round his bronze cup and sat thinking, his thoughts turning again to his father. “I married for love, Nicholas,” he seemed to be saying. “At first sight. Now you are grown, you will know it when you find it. Stop whining and get on.”
The second letter lay accusingly on the table. Numb, he picked up his knife and broke the seal.
My Lord Rokesby, and my dear Nicholas.
So we are to meet again. I have followed your rise with interest and I am conscious that the Queen’s wishes may not be yours. My wishes are nothing to the purpose, but you should know that I am willing, should you bring yourself to it, for the sake of what passed between us. It was no idle whim, Nicholas, and you will see that you were not betrayed. I will obey you in this, my lord. What else is to be said must wait on your return.
Rosalyne
Rosalyne. That had been a coup de foudre, a beauty on a white horse, smiling at him, curling his fingers over her gift, inviting him to her bed. He had thought of it often. Marriage to Rosalyne, or the Tower? Not a hard choice. He had an abiding horror of the Tower and his torture there. Honourbound to Kate, he had been prepared to face it, but now? It came to him that perhaps Kate acted as she did for his safety. He shook his head. A nice thought, salve to the wound, but he had been taken behind the scenes now. He would believe it, however, for the sake of what they had shared.
It took him a long time, but in the end, this letter was as short as the others.
The Lady Rosalyne Sexton
You are right. What has to be said must wait. I am honoured that you welcome the proposal and I pray you will understand that at present I cannot know my mind. Much has happened since what passed between us. I can only say that it was never forgotten. May I hope to call on you when my task here is done.
Your servant, Nicholas Talbot
He sealed the letters with his ring and put them aside for the morning. The rest of that wretched night he spent huddled in his blanket by the dying brazier, readying himself to show a cheerful face for the last leg of the journey.