The Other Queen Read online

  This autumn, my husband the earl and I will escort the queen to Scotland, and if she rewards him as richly as she should, we shall have Scottish lands and perhaps a Scottish dukedom. If she gives him the rights to the harbor dues of a port, or the taxes on the import of some restricted goods, or even the tolls of the border roads, we might make our fortune again from this painful vigil. If she plays us false and gives us nothing, then at the very least, we are rid of her, and that alone is worth a barony to me. And when we are rid of her there is no doubt in my mind that he will return to me in his heart. We did not marry for passion but for a mutual respect and affection, and our interests run together now, as they did then. I put my lands into his keeping, as I had to; he put his children and his honorable name into mine. Surely, when she is gone, and he has recovered from his foolish adoration of her, he will come back to me and we can be once more as we were before.

  So I comfort myself, hoping for a better future, as I walk from the rose garden to the garden door. Then I pause, as I hear the worst sound in the world: the sound of galloping hooves, rapid like an anxious heartbeat, and I know at once, without a moment’s doubt, that something terrible has happened. Something truly terrible is happening again. Some terror is coming into my life carried by a galloping horse. She has brought some horror to our door and it is coming as fast as it can ride.

  1571, SEPTEMBER,

  SHEFFIELD CASTLE:

  GEORGE

  Iam in the mews, tending to my favorite hawk, when I hear Bess screaming my name at the same time as I hear the tolling of the castle bell.

  The hawk bates off my wrist and tries to fly in terror at the noise, and there is a moment of flapping wings and confusion and me hollering for the falconer, as if the world is ending. He comes at the run and hoods the frightened bird, scoops her into his steady hands, and takes her from me as I unwind the leash and hand her over to him, and all the time the terrible bell is tolling and tolling, loud enough to wake the dead, too loud for the living.

  “God save us, what is it?” he demands of me. “Have the Spanish landed? Is it the North up again?”

  “I don’t know. Get the bird safe. I have to go,” I say, and I set off at a run for the front of the house.

  I am not strong enough for these alarms. I cannot run, even though my heart is pounding in terror. I drop to a walk, cursing my lungs and my legs, and when I get to the front of the house I see Bess there, white as a sheet, and a man collapsed on the ground before her, with his head between his knees, having fainted from exhaustion.

  She hands me the letter he has brought, without a word. It is Cecil’s handwriting, but scrawled as if he has lost his mind. My heart sinks as I see it is addressed to me, but on the outside he has written, “5th of September, 1571, at 9 of the night. Haste, post haste. Haste, haste, for life, life, life, life.”

  “Open it! Open it! Where have you been?” Bess screams at me.

  I break the seal. The man on the ground whoops for his breath and begs for water. No one attends to him.

  “What is it?” Bess demands. “Is it the queen? Never say she is dead!”

  “The Spanish are coming,” I say. I can hear my own voice tight and cold with fear. “Cecil writes that the Spanish are to land an army of six thousand men. Six thousand. Six thousand. They are coming here to free her.”

  “What are we to do? Are we to go to Tutbury?”

  The man raises his head. “No use,” he croaks.

  Bess looks blankly at me. “Are we to ride south?”

  “Are you in Cecil’s confidence?” I ask him.

  He gives me a wry smile as if to say that no one is in that position. “It’s too late to get her away. I have my orders,” he says. “I am to discover all that she knows and get back to my lord. You are to stay here and wait for the invasion. You can’t outrun them.”

  “Dear God,” Bess says. “What are we to do when they come?”

  He says nothing, but I know the answer is “Kill her.”

  “Is the queen safe?” I demand. “Our queen, Elizabeth?”

  “When I left she was safe,” he says. “But my lord was sending guards to Audley End to bring her back to London.”

  “They plan to capture Queen Elizabeth,” I say briefly to Bess. “It says here. They have a great plan. Kidnap the Queen of England, free the Queen of Scots, raise the people. The Spanish will march through us.” I turn to the man. “Was London ours when you left?”

  He nods. “Please God, we are ahead of them by a matter of days. The Queen of Scots’ spy, a man called Ridolfi, blabbed the whole plan to an English merchant in Madrid. Thank the lord he knew what he was hearing and sent word to Cecil, as fast as his messenger could travel. Cecil sent me to you. We think the Spanish will be upon us in days. Their armada is launched, the Spanish Netherlands is armed, and the Pope is sending his wealth to arm traitors and calling out all the English Papists.”

  I glance down the letter. “Cecil says that I am to interrogate the queen and prevail upon her to tell me all she knows.”

  “I am to be with you,” he says. He staggers to his feet and brushes the dirt from his breeches.

  I bristle at the suggestion that I cannot be trusted. He falls back against the portals of the front door from sheer exhaustion.

  “This is a matter beyond pride,” he says, seeing that I want to refuse him admission to the queen. “I have to see her and search her room for papers. The Scots queen may know where the Spanish are landing. We have to muster our army and get ready to meet them. This is life or death for England, not just her.”

  “I’ll speak to her.” I turn to Bess. “Where is she?”

  “Walking in the garden,” she says, her face grave. “I’ll send a girl to fetch her.”

  “We’ll go now,” the young man decides, but his legs buckle beneath him as he tries to walk.

  “You can barely stand!” Bess exclaims.

  He grabs on to the pommel of his saddle and hauls himself upright. The look he shoots at Bess is desperate. “I can’t rest,” he says. “I don’t dare rest. I have to hear what the queen will tell us and get it back to my lord. If she knows at which port the Spanish are landing, we might even be able to intercept the armada at sea and drive them off. Once they land, with six thousand, we won’t have a chance, but if we can hold them at sea…”

  “Come then,” I say. “Walk with me.” I give him my arm, and the two of us, I weak with gout and he with exhaustion, hobble towards the gardens.

  She is there, like a girl waiting for her lover, at the gate. “I heard the bell,” she says. Her face is bright with hope. She looks from the young man to me. “What is happening? Why did they ring the alarm?”

  “Your Grace, I must ask you some questions, and this gentleman—”

  “Sir Peter Brown.” He bows to her.

  “This gentleman will listen. He has come from Lord Burghley with most disturbing news.”

  Her gaze that meets my eyes is so honest and true that I am certain that she knows nothing of this. If the Spanish land, they will do so without her knowledge. If they come for her and take her from me, it will be without her consent. She gave her word to Lord Morton and to me that she would not plot with anyone anymore. She plans to get back to Scotland by Elizabeth’s treaty, not by destroying England. She gave her word there would be no more plots.

  “Your Grace,” I begin trustingly, “you must tell Sir Peter all that you know.”

  She droops a little, like a flower heavy-headed in a shower of rain. “But I know nothing,” she says gently. “You know that I am cut off from my friends and my family. You know yourself that you see every letter that comes for me and that I see no one without your consent.”

  “I am afraid that you know more than I do,” I say. “I am afraid that you know more than you tell me.”

  “You don’t trust me now?” Her dark eyes widen as if she cannot believe that I would betray the affection I have for her, as if she cannot imagine that I would accuse her of being