Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set

41

For the next week, no news reached me at Winchester House. In some ways that was worse than hearing every frightening rumor that spread through London and its suburbs.

My servants had worked themselves into a state of panic even before I returned from the Tower of London. They knew Will and I had backed the wrong side and feared being clapped into prison for treason. Many of them ran away that first night and I was afraid to send one of the few who remained to discover what was going on, lest he, or she, not return.

“Drink a little of this posset, my lady,” Birdie Crane said, holding out a steaming goblet. “It will give you strength.”

I accepted the offering and sipped. The sweet, hot liquid warmed me from within, but I was no less worried when I’d drained the cup to the dregs. I handed it back and paused to consider my waiting gentlewoman. Birdie had joined the household shortly after my sojourn with the queen dowager at Chelsea. She fulfilled her duties and stayed in the background the rest of the time, having mastered the art of remaining so very still that her presence often went unnoticed. I’d never felt particularly close to her, but I was grateful she had elected to stay at Winchester House.

“Do you wish to return to your family?” I asked.

She had come from somewhere in Kent. I could send her back to her kinfolk. I could send all of my household away to safety. I had no illusions about what would happen once Queen Mary reached London. She would take this house, Will’s titles, and every source of income available to him. Even the manor he’d put in my name when we married would go, once the new queen’s men discovered its existence. They’d claim it for the Crown along with all the rest.

“I will stay with you as long as you need me, my lady,” Birdie said. “My parents died of the last epidemic of the sweat and I have no brothers or sisters.”

It said something about the events of the last few days that my first thought was to wonder if she’d been sent to our household as a spy. Studying her through narrowed and suspicious eyes I saw a slender woman four or five years younger than myself with blue eyes and light brown hair; a sharply defined nose; and a small, pointed chin. One eye had a slight droop at the corner and both were reddened with weeping.

“Do you cry for the marquess?” I asked.

Her laugh was bitter. “I cry for myself, and for a good gentleman who marched out with the Duke of Northumberland’s troops.”

“A lover?”

“You are surprised,” she said with a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “I know I am no beauty, nor am I an heiress, but I still can love.”

I covered her hand with mine. “I know what it is to love and be loved. I pray he will come back safe and sound.”

“What good will that do? He’ll be a prisoner.”

“Queen Mary will not punish everyone who supported the Lady Jane. She will imprison the leaders”—I had to stop and swallow hard—“and free the rest.” I hoped that would be the case, although it would do Will no good.

“That will not help me,” Birdie lamented. “My lover is married. He will never be mine.” Fresh tears sprang into her eyes. “And if I cannot stay with you, my lady, I have nowhere else to go.”

“Dry your eyes,” I said. “I will not send you away.”

But I did send her out into the city, to try to discover the fate of Northumberland’s army. Griggs, the groom who had accompanied Will to Cowling Castle so many years before, went with her. He was an old man now, bald as an egg and his broad red beard gone gray. He’d been in service to the Parrs since Will was a boy.

While they were gone, I sent the rest of the household away. It was no good pretending we could stay at Winchester House. One of Queen Mary’s first acts would be to release Bishop Gardiner from the Tower, and he would lose no time reclaiming both his bishopric and his house in Southwark. A few of the servants, who had been with Will almost as long as Griggs, did not want to leave but I insisted. The rest made haste to escape.

By the time Birdie and Griggs returned, the house felt as empty as an unused tomb. Their news was as bad as I’d feared. Northumberland had surrendered and declared for Mary. He’d been taken into custody along with his sons and Will and too many others to count. They were prisoners now, and would soon be incarcerated in the Tower of London, for that was where traitors to the Crown were always sent. But Will was alive. I took heart from that. So long as he lived, there might be some way to win his freedom.

On the day the Duke of Northumberland was escorted through London to the Tower, I ventured out for the first time since I’d fled the royal apartments. I disguised myself in plain clothing and a dark cloak and took Birdie with me.

The crowd shouted abuse and threw rotten produce when the duke came in sight, pelting him with cabbages and eggs. Jack and Ambrose, who rode just behind their father, were also targets.

“Death to the traitors!” shouted a man standing next to me.

“Hang, draw, and quarter them,” bellowed someone else.

I strained to see the other prisoners, hoping to find Will, and yet praying that somehow he had escaped. When I realized he was not there, a wave of panic hit me so hard and fast that it nearly brought me to my knees. I staggered, caught myself, and fought for control of legs that suddenly seemed weak. Did Will’s absence mean he was free . . . or that was he dead?

Light-headed, I clung to my waiting gentlewoman for support, but she scarcely seemed to notice. Her attention was fixed on one of the young gentlemen being marched toward imprisonment in Northumberland’s wake. Her lover, I presumed. He looked vaguely familiar, but I could not focus my mind on anyone else’s troubles. Not when I had so many of my own.

“There will be more traitors brought in tomorrow,” someone in the crowd said.

A spark of optimism flared to life. I looked again at the prisoners and saw that others besides Will were missing. Only two of Northumberland’s sons were with him. I knew that Lord Guildford was in the Tower with the two Janes, his mother and his wife, but Lord Robin was unaccounted for and so was the youngest boy, the second Henry Dudley. It seemed a lifetime since the first brother with that name, the Harry Dudley I’d once thought to marry, had died of a fever on one of King Henry’s French campaigns. It had, in truth, been not quite nine years, but I was no longer an innocent girl of eighteen. At twenty-seven, five years Will’s legal wife, I was surely old enough and seasoned enough to think for myself and to find a way to save Will’s life.

I returned to the same spot near the Tower the next day. This time I did not have long to wait before I caught sight of Will’s familiar face and form. He was on horseback, clearly visible above the heads of the people lining the street. Determined to close the distance between us, I pushed my way to the front of the crowd.

Sunk in misery, pelted with rotten fruit as the duke and his sons had been the day before, Will kept his head down and looked neither left nor right. He did not know I was there. Robin Dudley, who rode next to him, was in even worse condition. A livid bruise covered one side of his face and his clothing was torn and stained.

As they rode past the place where I stood, I reached out and caught Will’s stirrup, jarring him out of his trancelike state. He looked down, straight into my eyes. For a long, agonizing moment he did not seem to recognize me. Then he gave a start.

“Bess,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Get away. You must not—”

A heavily callused hand clamped down on my arm and jerked me apart from my husband. “Begone, wench,” the soldier ordered. “The prisoner has no time for dalliance.”

He shoved me back into the crowd. A stranger cursed when I trod upon his foot and gave me a push that sent me sprawling. Two women helped me to unsteady feet. Blinded by tears, I staggered away.

A young girl stepped into my path and spat at me. “Traitor. You should be a prisoner with them.” She had no idea who I was, but she’d seen me consorting with the enemy.

By some miracle, Birdie Crane made her way through the surging mass of bodies to take my arm in a surprisingly firm grip and guide me back toward London Bridge. Once we reached it, we made better progress. The single street that ran between the towering houses on either side was nearly empty.

“I have to go to the queen,” I murmured. “To Queen Mary. If I can reach her, plead with her . . .”

My voice trailed off as I caught sight of the heads. They were such a permanent part of the Southwark side of London Bridge that no one paid much attention to them. Now I saw them for what they were—the rotting remains of traitors to the Crown. My stomach lurched. I would not allow Will to end up there. Not while there was breath left in my body.

My determination to save him from a traitor’s death, my conviction that I could manage it if only I could gain an audience with the queen, carried me the last few steps to the gates of Winchester House, only to find them barred.

In my absence, the palace had been overrun by former servants of the bishop of Winchester. Armed guards now stood in front of the gatehouse, questioning all who tried to enter. They did not know me in my plain attire, and although I would have liked to demand that I be allowed to fetch my personal clothing and jewelry, I did not dare risk revealing my identity. If I ended up in the Tower, too, I would lose any hope of saving Will.

Griggs hissed at us from the shadow of the nearby church of St. Mary Overy. I broke down and cried when I saw that he had managed to spirit three horses out of the Winchester House stables before the others were confiscated, Will’s black gelding, a dapple gray mare, and my own bay. I clung to Prancer’s neck and sobbed until all my tears were gone.

“What now, my lady?” Birdie asked when I had control of myself again. Her eyes were huge in her pale face.

With an effort, I subdued the last tendrils of panic. “I will seek an audience with Queen Mary. I have never done her any harm and she is known to have a kind heart. Perhaps she will be merciful in victory.”

We rode back across London Bridge, through the city, and out again, heading for Newhall in Essex, where the queen was reported to be staying until she made her official entrance into London. We had not gone far before we overtook Jane, Duchess of Northumberland. She had been allowed to leave the Tower when the duke was brought in, and now she, too, was bound for Newhall to plead for her husband’s life.

“Everyone fled from the Tower when you did, Bess,” Jane told me, “except the Lady Jane and her two women, myself, and poor Lady Throckmorton, who returned from that christening at just the wrong time. When she tried to leave again, she was told she could not go. Sir Edward Warner took it upon himself to make prisoners of all who remained in the royal apartments. I suppose he hoped in that way to retain his post under the new regime.”

“And Lady Jane is still there?”

Jane Northumberland nodded. “I had to leave my daughter-in-law behind in the Tower. And now John is there, too, along with all our sons. Not just Gil, but Jack and Ambrose and Robin and Henry.”

And Will, I added silently. My husband. The other half of myself.

Together, two desperate wives, we pushed on to Newhall, but we need not have hurried. We were turned away. The queen would not see either of us.

There was no lodging to be found nearby. Every house, every inn, overflowed with Queen Mary’s supporters. We began to wend our weary way back toward London, disconsolate and miserable.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“Survive,” Jane said.

“I know the choices. Accept the old religion or flee abroad. I imagine that the most dedicated of the evangelicals are already taking ship for the Continent.”

Jane sent me a pitying look. “I would not be so sure of that. Some will be willing to die for their faith, to become martyrs to rally the rest. And others will gladly abandon their religious beliefs in exchange for the opportunity to remain at court. We were betrayed, Bess. By men who swore to support Queen Jane.”

She rattled off the familiar names. The Earl of Pembroke, Will’s brother-in-law, widower of his sister Anne. Lord Clinton, Geraldine’s second husband. Even Lord Cobham, my own father. Although I could not condone their disloyalty, I hoped that Father and Pembroke’s sons, my nephews, would be safe from retaliation by Queen Mary. And my friend Geraldine, too.

“And the Duke of Suffolk!” Jane’s voice vibrated with contempt. “The Lady Jane’s own father. He was always a weakling, but this treachery surpasses understanding.”

“Perhaps,” I ventured, “if my father is forgiven, he will help us to reach the queen and appeal to her for mercy.”

I was struck with a sudden longing to be home at Cowling Castle. It had been years since I’d felt the need of my mother’s reassurance, but all at once I ached to be held in her arms. I wished I could be a little girl again, secure in the love of my family, protected and cosseted by everyone around me.

“We would do better to approach Her Grace through her ladies, I think.” Jane had a determined look on her pale face. “We must discover what women are closest to Queen Mary and solicit their help. If I cannot speak to them, then I will write letters. I will never give up trying to win a pardon for my lord husband.”

“Nor will I.”

When we reached London, we separated. Jane went to her own house at Ely Place. I made my way to the Earl of Pembroke’s residence, Baynard’s Castle. Had Pembroke been there, he’d likely have turned me away, but Henry Herbert, his son and heir, had always been fond of his uncle Will and aunt Bess. He ordered the servants to admit me and my two servants. He even provided much needed food and drink.

As we ate, I questioned him, hoping for news of Will. Young Lord Herbert had inherited Anne Parr’s wide-spaced gray eyes and her open nature, but he had been brought up to obey his father. When I asked about his bride, Lady Catherine Grey, his face hardened.

“She is not my wife. The marriage is to be annulled and she’ll be sent back to her mother.”

I was not surprised. It would be difficult for Pembroke to advance at Queen Mary’s court while the Lady Jane’s sister was married to his son. “I suppose the Earl of Huntingdon will set aside his boy’s marriage to Northumberland’s daughter, Katherine Dudley, too,” I murmured.

“Oh, no. He’s going to keep her,” Henry said. “Father thinks Huntingdon’s a damned fool.”

An hour at Baynard’s Castle was sufficient to convince me that I’d get no help from the Earl of Pembroke, even if he was Will’s brother-in-law. I did not ask to stay, nor did I rejoin my close friend Jane Northumberland at Ely Place. I doubted the queen would allow her to remain there long. All the possessions of a traitor were forfeit to the Crown.

Griggs helped me to mount Prancer. “Do we ride to Cowling Castle, my lady?”

“No, Griggs. I need to stay close to the Tower and to Will.”

And I had remembered something Aunt Elizabeth had told me during one of our shared suppers in the Tower—Sir Edward Warner owned a house in Carter Lane. I would go there.