The Other Queen Read online

  “This will ruin us,” I say urgently to her. “Ruin you, as well as me. D’you not think that Cecil has a spy in this very castle? D’you not think he knows that you write every day, and that people write to you? D’you not think he reads what you have written and all the letters that come for you? He is the spymaster of England; he will know far more than I do. And even I know that you are in constant correspondence with the French and with the Spanish and that men, whose names I don’t know, write in code to you all the time, asking you if you are safe, if you need anything, if you are going to be set free.”

  “I am a queen,” she says simply. “A princess of the blood. The King of Spain and the King of France, the Holy Roman Emperor are my kinsmen. It is only right and proper that the kings of Europe should write to me. And it is a sign of the criminal kidnap that I endure that any of their agents should think it better to send to me in secret. They should be free to write to me openly, but because I am imprisoned, for no reason, for no reason at all, they cannot. And as for the others—I cannot help that loyal hearts and reverent minds write to me. I cannot prevent their writing, nor should I. They wish to express their love and loyalty and I am glad to have it. There can be nothing wrong in that.”

  “Think,” I say urgently to her. “If Cecil believes that I cannot stop you plotting, he will take you away from me or replace me with another guardian.”

  “I should not even be here!” she exclaims with sudden bitterness. She draws herself up to her full height; her dark eyes fill with sudden tears. “I signed the document for Cecil, I agreed to everything. I promised to give up my son to Elizabeth: you were there, you saw me do it. Why then am I not returned to Scotland as agreed? Why does Cecil not honor his part of the bargain? Pointless to tell me, Don’t write to my friends. I should not have to write to them, I should be among them as a free woman. You think of that!”

  I am silenced by her temper and by the justice of what she says. “Please,” I say weakly. It is all I can say. “Please don’t endanger yourself. I have read some of these letters. They come from varlets and fools, some of the most desperate men in England, and none of them has a penny to rub together and none of them could plan an escape if his own life depended on it. They may be your friends but they are not dependable. Some of them are little more than children; some of them are so well known to Cecil that they are on his payroll already. He has turned them to his service. Cecil’s spies are everywhere, he knows everybody. Anyone who writes to you will be known to Cecil and most of them will be his men trying to entrap you. You must not trust these people.

  “You have to be patient. You must wait. As you say, you have an agreement with the queen herself. You have to wait for her to honor it.”

  “Elizabeth honor a promise to me?” she repeats bitterly. “She has never done so yet!”

  “She will,” I say valiantly. “I give you my own word she will.”

  1571, FEBRUARY,

  SHEFFIELD CASTLE:

  BESS

  My good friend William Cecil is to be Baron Burghley, and I am as glad of it as if I had been ennobled myself. This is nothing more than he deserves for years of loyal service to the queen, a lifetime of watching her and planning for England. God only knows what dangers we would be in now, what terrible perils we would face—even worse than those that now haunt us—if it had not been for Cecil’s wise advice and steady planning, ever since the queen came to her throne.

  That the danger is very real cannot be doubted. In his letter to announce his ennoblement Cecil adds a warning: that he is certain that the Queen of Scots is planning a new uprising.

  Dear Bess,

  Beware. It may be that you can detect the plot by watching her, though it has escaped us watching her associates in London. I know that Norfolk, while swearing utter loyalty to Her Grace the Queen, is selling his gold and silverware at a knockdown price to the London goldsmiths. He has even parted with his own father’s jewel of the Garter to raise cash. I cannot believe that he would sacrifice his father’s greatest honor for anything other than the opportunity of his life. I can think of nothing that would be worth such a sacrifice to him but some terrible rebellion. I fear very much that he is planning to finance another war.

  All my pride and joy in my new position is nothing if the peace of England is destroyed. I may be a baron now, and you may be a countess, but if the queen we serve is thrown down or murdered, then we are no better off than when we were children of landless fathers. Be watchful, Bess, and let me know all that you see, as always.

  Burghley

  I smile to see his new signature, but the smile drains from my face as I tear his letter into little pieces and feed it into the fire in my muniments room. I cannot believe that a sensible man such as Norfolk would risk everything again—not again!—for the Queen of Scots. But Cecil—Burghley, I should say—is seldom wrong. If he suspects another plot, then I should be on my guard. I will have to warn my husband the earl and watch her myself. I had hoped they would have taken her back to Scotland by now. God knows, I am at the point where I wish they would take her anywhere at all.

  1571, FEBRUARY,

  SHEFFIELD CASTLE:

  MARY

  I am hopeful, I am so hopeful. Weeks now, I think, and we will both be free.

  Marie

  I dress with particular care in black and white, sober colors, but I wear three diamond rings (one is my betrothal ring from Norfolk) and a band of rich bracelets just to demonstrate that though my crown has been taken from me and my rope of black pearls stolen by Elizabeth, I am still a queen. I can still look the part.

  Lord Morton is visiting me from Scotland and I want him to go back with the news that I am ready and fit to take my throne. He is due at midday but it is not till the midafternoon and it is growing dark and cold that he comes riding into the courtyard.

  Babington, my faithful page boy, comes dashing into my rooms, his nose red from the cold and his little hands frozen, to tell me that the nobleman from Scotland has finally arrived and his horses are being stabled.

  I seat myself in my chair, under my cloth of estate, and wait. Sure enough, there is a knock at the door and Shrewsbury is announced with Morton. I do not rise. I let him be presented to me, and when he bows low, I incline my head. He can learn to treat me as a queen again; I don’t forget that before he was as bad as any of them. He can start as I intend we shall go on. He greets me now as a prisoner; he will next see me on my throne in Edinburgh. He can learn deference.

  Bess comes in behind the two men and I smile at her as she curtsies. She dips the smallest of bows; there is little love left between us these days. I still sit with her on most afternoons, and I still give her hopes of her prospects when I am returned to the throne, but she is weary of attending on me and beggared by the expense of my court and the guards. I know it, and there is nothing I can or would do to help her. Let her apply to Elizabeth for money for my imprisonment. I am hardly going to pay my own jailers for incarcerating me.

  The worry has put lines on her face and a grimness about her that was not there when I first walked into her house more than two years ago. She was newly married then, and her happiness glowed in her face. Her pride in her husband and her position was fresh for her. Now she has lost her fortune in entertaining me, she may lose her house, and she knows she has lost her husband already.

  “Good day to you, my lady countess,” I say sweetly and watch her murmur a reply. Then the Shrewsburys take themselves off to the corner of the room, I nod to my lute player to play a tune, and to Mary Seton to see that wine and little cakes are served, and Morton sits on a stool beside me and mutters his news in my ear.

  “We are ready for your return, Your Grace,” he says. “We are even preparing your old rooms at Holyrood.”

  I bite my lip. For a moment I see again, in my mind, the dark red stain of Rizzio’s blood on the floor of my dining room. For a moment I think what a return to Scotland will mean to me. It will be no summer of French roses. The S