The Queen's Exiles Page 9

  His eyes narrowed and his voice was a warning growl. “Is your life not worth a ruby?”

  My life? The icy fear surged back. “He’s here, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question. She knew.

  Tyrone lifted his head with the satisfaction of a bargainer who knows he’s won. “The ruby.”

  Her hand trembled as she tugged the ring over her knuckle. He held out his hand and she set it on his calloused palm. “Tell me,” she said.

  He glanced around to make sure no one noticed as he pocketed the ring. “He’s in the country, sure enough. Don’t know how he managed to slip in, but a week ago he was in the village of Kloster ten miles out from Antwerp. Arrived with a woman and an old man.”

  Frances stiffened. “A woman?”

  “A red-haired beauty. With a scar, here.” He slashed his cheek with his fingertip. “Seemed quite fond of her.”

  Jealousy bit into Frances. She hated the feeling, almost hated herself. After the contempt Adam had shown her! Yet she craved to know. “You saw him with this woman?”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t there.”

  “What? Then how do you know it was him?”

  “Like I said, my lady, I’m a good tracker. I pay fellows here and there to keep an ear to the ground. One’s in Kloster, and last week he saw these three strangers in the village. The younger man bought three of the ostler’s horses and paid in gold. Bought spurs for himself, too, and my fellow heard him mutter to his mare as he mounted, ‘Sorry, girl, but we must gallop.’ Said it in English.”

  “What does that signify? English traders come to the Netherlands all the time.”

  “Not gentlemen sneaking about with gold aplenty. And my fellow in Kloster described him perfect. Tall and sturdy, about forty, dark hair swept straight back off his face. Quick dark eyes.”

  A pain squeezed her heart, so clear was the picture of Adam.

  Tyrone was eyeing the main doors like a man whose business was done. “And now, my lady, I must be going.”

  “Wait. Where is he now?”

  He shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s all I’ve heard.”

  She needed more. “If you’ve been working for him all this time you must have been in contact with him. Made reports.”

  “Aye, I have.”

  “And received orders.”

  He studied her as though weighing his options. “Give me that silver bracelet and I’ll tell you more.”

  “You’ll tell me now, you wretch, or I’ll have the governor’s marshal search your pockets and you’ll be hanged for a thief.”

  Anger flared in his bloodshot eyes. It died just as quickly, though, and he backed down with a shrug. “Worth a try.” He squared his shoulders. “Last report I sent His Lordship in England was at Lent.”

  “Telling him what?”

  “That I’d spotted you here in Brussels.” He added grimly, “My advice? Get away, my lady, while you can.”

  Dread shot through Frances. Adam was coming for her.

  “Ready, my dear?”

  She twisted around to see Jane smiling at her. “What?” Frances stammered. When she looked back, Tyrone was gone.

  “This is Secretary Albornoz,” Jane said, indicating the sallow-faced gentleman beside her. “The governor is ready to see us.”

  Frances struggled with the chaos in her mind. “Just . . . give me a moment.” She hastened toward the door, pushing past people, looking for the Irishman. Past the door she caught sight of him starting down the staircase. She hurried after him. “Master Tyrone!”

  He turned on the stair. She caught up with him and said, “How do you receive your orders?”

  He gave her a scoffing look. “Trade secret.”

  “Then you have a choice. Keep your secret, and explain to the hangman how you got the ruby. Or tell me, and collect a fee to act in my service from this day forward. Which would you prefer?”

  He blinked at her in surprise. Then a grin slowly grew. “Told you I could be of service, my lady.”

  “Good. Now answer me. How does my husband get his orders to you?”

  “At the Bourse. The House of Riegert. The banker’s head clerk takes his letters.”

  “So I can reach you there?”

  “You can.”

  “Go. You shall hear from me forthwith.”

  She rejoined Jane, who gave her a probing look and asked, “Something wrong?”

  Frances forced a smile. “Just a pesky bit of business.” They followed the Spaniard, Alba’s secretary, down the length of the gallery along the wall of windows. Frances was so distraught she felt almost sick. How long did she have until Adam found her? The sun through the windows beat down on her, raising a clammy sweat. She rooted in the sleeve of her gown for a handkerchief and dabbed it to her damp upper lip. Could she move him to mercy for the sake of the children? No, Adam would never, ever forgive her for trying to kill Elizabeth, that witch who held him in thrall. How can I escape him? Where else can I flee?

  The doors opened. An antechamber, smaller, quieter, but still crowded with petitioners, the air stuffy. They followed Albornoz straight through, all eyes on them, and he opened another door. The private suite of the governor. A high ceiling bright with pink cherubs in a cerulean sky. Gleaming Flemish tapestries on the walls. A long table spread with maps. A heavy oak desk cluttered with papers. Frances knew Alba instantly, for he looked just as Jane had described: the lean cheeks, the cropped gray hair and pointed gray beard, the somber clothing, all black. He sat behind the desk, lifting a spoonful of what looked like custard to his mouth. Albornoz placed a paper in front of him. Alba ignored it, swallowing the custard while looking up at the visitors. Frances curtsied, her legs shaky.

  “Ah, good ladies,” he said, setting the spoon down on a silver tray with a clatter, “you’ve caught me out. I snatch my meals as I can. Bad manners learned on the battlefield, I’m afraid.” He beckoned them. “Come in, come in.”

  Jane and Frances approached his desk, Jane smiling as she said, “Here, as there, sir, you are mightily engaged in His Majesty’s business. I am only sorry to interrupt you in it.”

  “Nonsense,” he said amiably, beckoning a footman to take the tray away. “Nothing could please me more, madam, than welcoming you to Brussels.” They spoke in Spanish and Frances knew enough of the language to follow, but her nervous state had her straining to catch the diplomatic subtleties. Alba lifted an ebony cane hooked on the table edge and with it he pried himself halfway to his feet. Wincing, he fell back as though defeated. “Forgive me, I beg you. I am a prisoner to the gout.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “More bad manners.”

  “Not at all, sir, please do not trouble yourself to stand. You are kindness itself in giving me and my friend this audience.” Jane indicated Frances. “May I present Lady Grenville?”

  Frances felt Alba’s gray eyes slide over her with flat indifference. “Charmed,” he said, then looked back at Jane. “I trust our friends in Seville are well? My wife writes that the Countess of Romero’s son has made the countess a grandmother.”

  “Indeed, and they are all very well, sir, I thank you for asking. But now you must forgive my bad manners in forestalling any further talk of trifles. Your time is too precious. Lady Grenville has brought important news. About England.”

  Alba looked at Frances with some curiosity. “Indeed?” He glanced at Albornoz, who stood patiently beside the desk. Alba took up a pen, dipped it in a silver inkwell, and signed the paper. His secretary took it, gave a perfunctory bow of the head to his master and then to the ladies, and left the room. They were alone with the governor.

  Jane wasted no time. She explained that the English Catholic exiles had been busy, raising funds and sending the money to the pro-Spanish faction in England in preparation for a strike against Elizabeth. She assured him that thousands of Catholics in England would follow a leader into battle against the heretic queen, a leader committed to returning England to the one true Church.

  Alba stroked his bear
d. “All this, dear lady, is known to His Majesty. He graciously maintains the pension he awarded the Countess of Northumberland, and welcomes all other refugees from England who are staunch in the defense of God’s will. But he has always held that the initiative for action must come from within England. You mention a leader. That element remains lacking.”

  Jane smiled, triumphant. When she spoke again it was in English. “That is why Lady Grenville is here.”

  He looked at Frances, intrigued now. He switched to English. “Is this the news the duchess referred to?”

  Frances’s mouth was so dry she had to swallow. “It is, Your Grace. I have—”

  “I should have mentioned,” Jane put in eagerly, “that Lady Grenville has proved her own loyalty to the Church with courageous action.” She explained the attempt on Elizabeth’s life at Frances’s house three years ago. “Though it ended in failure, it brought an unexpected happy result in a different quarter.” She looked to Frances to carry on.

  “I have received this letter, Your Grace,” Frances said, drawing the folded paper from her pocket. “It is written in the hand of Her Majesty Mary, Queen of the Scots.”

  He looked astonished. Then frowned, skeptical. Frances understood why. All of Europe knew that Mary, Queen of Scots, deposed in her own realm, was a virtual prisoner in England, kept under house arrest by order of Elizabeth. The Earl of Shrewsbury was Mary’s keeper at Tutbury Castle, where she was treated liberally, with her own household, but kept under close guard. “How did you come by such a letter?” Alba asked.

  “She addressed it to me.”

  He practically scoffed. Frances was quick to go on. “I assure Your Grace it is true. After I fled England and reached the safety of His Majesty’s realm I took the liberty of writing to Queen Mary. She was close to my brother Christopher, God rest his soul, when first she came into England. My letter was delivered by a young footman, one of ours, in the Earl of Shrewsbury’s household. This letter is her reply to me, smuggled out in the shoe of a loyal maid. Your Grace, you know that Mary once led her armies on the battlefield in Scotland. And you know that scores of valiant English noblemen call her our rightful queen, a good and pure Catholic. They are ready to follow her with an army that will smash Elizabeth. Mary is the leader we English crave.” She handed Alba the letter. “Read, sir. See how Mary says, in her own hand, that she is ready and willing to be that leader.”

  He took the paper, still looking skeptical. “If she could be freed.”

  “We are in touch with men who will hazard everything to do so.”

  He read the letter. Frances waited, trying not to show the hunger that roiled inside her. With Mary on the throne Frances could return to England, where talk of her past treason would be cut off as surely as Elizabeth’s head. Mary would reward her, elevate her at court, perhaps even ennoble her as a countess in her own right. Adam could not touch her!

  Alba set down the letter on the desk. Something in his face, a hardening, sent a shiver through Frances. “Spain, of course, wants to see England turn back from heresy,” he said, “and therefore would be glad to see a Catholic ruler on the throne. But His Majesty does not feel the Scottish queen is the right replacement. She is more French than English. Her overmighty de Guise family practically rules France. That is not an alignment to make His Majesty content.”

  Frances opened her mouth to speak, but Alba held up a hand to stop her and sternly carried on. “Furthermore, another failed strike against Elizabeth could injure Spain. We have no wish to antagonize England and jeopardize trade. Even if a strike were His Majesty’s wish, he could not easily bear the cost. You may have noticed, madam, that His Majesty has the expense of maintaining almost twenty thousand troops here in the Netherlands alone. No, I cannot allow war with England to stretch our resources further.” He turned back to Jane. “And now, dear lady, great though my pleasure is at seeing an old friend, the business of this fractious country awaits me.”

  Fear lurched in Frances. He was dismissing them.

  “Do allow Señor Albornoz to help you to some refreshment before you leave the palace,” he said. Almost immediately, as if his voice had carried to the anteroom, his secretary reappeared carrying in a sheaf of papers. Jane urged Alba to at least send Mary’s letter to His Majesty, but Alba pushed the paper back across the desk to Frances. Frances did not move. She knew she was expected to take the letter, but something in Alba’s rebuff told her there might yet be a chance to turn him to their cause. It was nothing he had said; his words had been plain. But she had caught an undertone, a slight reticence, and surely that was unusual in a man renowned for his iron will, his unfettered authority. Could it be that he did not share his king’s reluctance to antagonize England? She listened as Jane went staunchly on requesting that he at least keep the letter so he could consider the merit of their case, but Alba was smilingly firm. He tapped the letter. “It is yours, Lady Grenville. Please take it.”

  She did not move. “That is not my name, sir.”

  He frowned at her. “Pardon?”

  She saw his irritation, as though she were a trifling annoyance he wished to be rid of. Anger stiffened her courage. She would be heard! “I have used the name Grenville, my maiden name, to protect myself and my children from . . . reprisals from England.”

  He was barely listening. He nodded to Albornoz, who set the sheaf of papers before him. “More death warrants,” Alba said with a glance at Jane, an apologetic statement of the burden of his office, and muttered, “How these Dutch vermin breed.”

  “I am Lady Thornleigh,” Frances declared. “Baroness Thornleigh. You know my husband by reputation. He is Adam, Baron Thornleigh.”

  Alba looked up at her as though struck. Frances saw his intense, naked interest and she exulted. Ah, you’ll listen now.

  He said to Jane, suddenly cautious, “Is this true?” Jane nodded. Alba asked Frances, still wary, “But you live apart from your husband?”

  “Yes. I had to flee. His allegiance is to the heretic queen. Mine is to God.”

  “Where is he?”

  Alba’s eagerness almost made her smile. Now it was he who wanted something from her. “I do not know. But I may be able to find out.”

  A shadow passed over his face and she guessed why. He mistrusted a woman who would betray her husband. It raised her bile. What did he know of hiding like a ferret for three years? What did he know of the dread of being found by a husband who could take her home to hang? She stifled her outrage. Diplomacy, she told herself. That was the way to deal with this man whose power she needed on her side.

  “We all must do God’s work, Your Grace,” she said with a meek bow of her head. “As you do. My husband is doing the devil’s work. He sails alongside the so-called Sea Beggars, heretics all, attacking Spain’s shipping. England itself is ruled by a heretic queen who gives the Sea Beggars safe harbor. Your Grace, I know that in your heart you want Elizabeth swept from the throne and a pious Catholic raised in her place. How could you not, since His Holiness the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth and called on all good Catholics to fight her?” She thumped her finger on the letter on the desk. “Here is our chance. Here is the willing agreement of Mary herself. I beg you, sir, reconsider our cause. Recommend it to His Highness.”

  Alba’s shrewd eyes held her for several moments, and she could almost hear the gears of his mind calibrating.

  “The plan may have some merit,” he said, picking up the letter. He placed it carefully with his other papers. “However, before I could consider embarking on such a grave course, I would need a show of good faith from you, Lady Thornleigh. Bring me information of your husband’s whereabouts. Then, we can talk.”

  6

  The Mission

  “No, wrong box,” Sister Martha ordered Fenella. “This one’s for weapons. Food goes in that one.”

  “Sorry,” Fenella mumbled, taking out the burlap sack of sausages and cheese.

  It was hard to think straight. She’d had no sleep. Yesterday, jo
y had almost knocked her down at that first sight of Claes . . . alive. She still felt disoriented, off-balance. People around her were busy packing supplies for an undertaking she didn’t understand. They were in a hurry. She’d been put to work by Sister Martha and was following orders in a daze. She didn’t think it was much past dawn, but it was hard to be sure in this dank underground chamber. She repacked the burlap sack in the box Sister Martha indicated.

  She looked around for Claes. Where . . . ? He’d been here a moment ago, giving instructions to the others. It gave her a prick of panic . . . to have him back but now suddenly gone again. A hanging lantern creaked in the draft from the tunnel to the river. Men tramped past her taking boxes and packs of supplies down the tunnel to boats. She glimpsed Johan hustling down the passage with a leather pack slung over his shoulder. Yesterday Johan had been as stunned as she was to see Claes, but then he’d quickly, eagerly become one of the group—while she was still reeling over how she was to fit in with them . . . with Claes. They were going on some kind of mission, but no one had told her the details. Had Claes left? Her head swam with bizarre images: Claes drowning . . . swimming, but dead. “Has he gone already?” she said almost to herself. She wished she knew what was happening.

  “Gone? Who?”

  “Claes.”

  Sister Martha snatched her elbow in a grip that almost shook her. “Brother Domenic.”

  “Sorry . . . yes. Brother Domenic.”

  Sister Martha studied her, eyes narrowed, hands on hips. “Are you all right?” She didn’t trust Fenella; that much was clear. It’s all that was clear. Fenella had lain awake all night on the narrow mattress she’d shared with Claes in this underground warren of chambers dug into the riverbank. People had been stretched out around them asleep, snoring. Eleven men, two women, a young lad. The Brethren. Am I all right? How was she to answer?

  Yesterday, stunned at seeing Claes, she had blurted to him, “How? I saw you drown.”

  “You and Vos,” said Johan, gazing at his son in wonder. “Roped together.”