Текст книги "Lion Triumphant"

Автор книги: Philippa Carr

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Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

I went to the hook on the wall. The key was not there. Someone had seen me enter this hut often. Someone had taken the key and locked me in.

But why? For what purpose?

Was there someone lurking outside now waiting to come in and kill me?

Jake?

Jake was away.

Who had locked me in? Romilly? Would she leave me here until Jake came back … say, at dusk … and open the door? Would Jake then creep in and kill me and then go away again? A man should not be at home when his wife was murdered. Felipe had not been home and I had been sent away.

If only someone would come. Anyone. It was the quiet that was so nerve-racking. No one was about. I was all alone. I banged on the door until my fists were bruised. I called. But who could hear me? It was because the hut was so far from the house that it had provided such a good hiding place for Roberto.

It was afternoon. I felt sick and frightened. But if my murderer had come I should tackle him, I would fight for my life. Anything was better than this waiting.

I called out. But who could hear my voice beyond the thick walls of the hut? I tried to climb up and look through that window. I could not do so. My hands were grazed and bleeding and I fell twice in the attempt.

The afternoon was passing. Soon it would be night.

Night! I said to myself. Of course they are waiting for the night.

Oh, God, I prayed, what is happening to me? What has gone wrong with my life? Why was I not content with it? I had Jake, who wanted me and loved me in his fashion—as I loved him in mine. I had my beloved children. What more could I ask?

And now I was going to lose everything I treasured. Someone was trying to kill me.

Dusk fell. No sound from outside. Nothing. Let someone come this way, I prayed. Linnet will be worried. I was to have been with her and Damask. They will come to look for me. Oh, God, let the door open and Linnet come for me.

I went to the door and beat on it with my fists. To my amazement it moved. I pushed. It was open and I was out in the fresh air.

I ran to the house.

Linnet cried out when she saw me. “Mother, what has happened? We have been so worried! Where have you been?”

We were in each other’s arms.

“I was locked in the hut,” I said.

“In the hut? Mother. You mean that old place… What were you doing there?”

I said: “I went in … and then the door was locked.”

“Who locked it?”

“I don’t know.”

“They have gone out searching for you. I sent two parties of men out. We had been so anxious. But you are exhausted, dearest Mother. I’m going to get you to bed. I’m going to bring you something warming to drink.”

What a ministering angel she was! How I loved her! How could I die when I had my beloved daughter Linnet?

I could not sleep. Nor did I wish to drink the hot herb drink she had brought for me. It stood on a table by my bed.

“Try to rest,” she said.

“I want to talk. Who could have locked me in the hut?”

Linnet stroked my hair; she was looking at me in a strange way as though she did not recognize me.

“Mother dear,” she said, “you were not locked in. The door was unlocked all the time.”

“What nonsense! It was locked. I couldn’t open it. And then suddenly it was open.”

“Perhaps it was jammed.”

“It couldn’t have been. I pushed and pushed and then it opened so easily. Someone unlocked it.”

“It doesn’t matter now. You must have thought it was locked. The key was there all the time.”

“Where was the key?”

“It was hanging on a hook inside the hut.”

“But it wasn’t. Someone locked me in and put the key back afterwards.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Linnet soothingly.

I was so tired that I thought it didn’t matter either. I was so exhausted and so glad to be back with Linnet sitting beside me.

It was only when I awoke later that I realized how much it did matter.

They were watching me. I saw their looks. My daughter, Edwina, Manuela, Romilly, the servants … everyone.

Something was happening to me. I had changed. I imagined that a shrouded figure was in my room. I had spent hours in the hut thinking I was locked in when the door was open and the key was on the hook all the time.

Devils were beginning to possess me, which meant that I was being robbed of my reason. This was what they believed, but I knew that some evil threatened me, that someone was trying to rob me of my reason—or to make it appear that I had lost it—before killing me. It did not seem impossible that my husband wished to be rid of me so that he might marry a young woman who could give him sons. Death was stalking me and with Death was a companion, Madness.

No one could ever have called me a weak woman. I had always been able to defend myself and I was going to defend myself now. I was not mad. I was certain that I had been locked in that hut and that the door had been suddenly opened and that the key had been put back after I had left. Someone had been lurking in the bushes outside the hut. The door had stealthily been unlocked and when I had run out and gone to the house the key had been replaced.

That was how it must have happened. That was how I knew it had happened.

And I was going to prove it.

Strangely enough that incident in the hut had given me strength. I was going to throw off this lethargy which I knew now was the result of the evil herbs with which my food and drink had been laced.

I was going to fight this with all my strength and I was confident that I could win.

Oh, Romilly Girling, I assured myself, you will find you have a strong adversary in me. I shall not step aside so that you can marry my husband. And, Jake, you have not won the last battle yet.

Linnet had left now. “I will sleep,” I said. But I never felt less like sleep.

I picked up the drink by my bed and smelled it.

How could a drink brought to me by my loving daughter have become contaminated?

Still, I did not drink it. I left it there at my bedside.

I must think of a plan. I would watch what I ate. I must be alert. I must be ready at any hour of the night. The next time the shrouded visitor came to my room it should not escape. I was going to catch it, drag off the shroud and find out who it was who was playing these tricks on me.

I would stay in my room for a few days. I would feign illness. I would have food sent to me which I would not eat. I would preserve part of it and take it to the apothecary and when I had proof from him that my food was being laced with poison I would lay my evidence before … before … before whom? Before Jake! What if my suspicions were correct and he was my would-be-murderer? How he would laugh. Before Linnet? Could I say to her: “Someone is trying to kill me. Help me find who it is.” How could I? No matter. I would wait and see what I would do. In the meantime I would collect my evidence.

I took a piece of beef from the kitchen and with it a good cob loaf. These I concealed in my bedroom. I took also a flagon of muscadel wine with nuts, apples and marchpane.

Once I had pretended to have the sweat. I must have been rather good at pretense. I now feigned to a lethargy which I was far from feeling. I took my secret meals and ate nothing which came to my room, although I took several samples of what was brought to take to the apothecary.

My spirits were rising. I was at last taking an action which I felt suited my nature. I was going into the offensive.

I did not take even Linnet into my confidence, although I was on the point of doing so many times.

I wanted to be ready when my shrouded visitor appeared. And I was.

I had pretended to be very sleepy all day. I had become aware that most of the food which came up to me was laced with poppy juice, so the object was to dull me into a mood when my wits would desert me. Then instinct warned me some plan was about to be put into operation.

I was right. It was three o’clock in the morning of the third day when I was awakened by a presence in my room.

The bedclothes were being gently drawn from the bed.

I opened my eyes. Standing at the foot of the bed was the figure I had seen before—shrouded in gray. Over the head was a hood which covered the face; there were slits for the eyes to see through.

I lay still waiting. The figure moved not toward me but to the door. It stood there and I was ready to leap out of bed—tense waiting. As soon as it moved I would be after it. I would tear off that concealing cover. I would find out who was hiding beneath it.

And suddenly there came to my mind: What if it were indeed a ghost? What if the ghost of Isabella had come to haunt me? What part did I play in her sudden death? Was it murder? And if it was, was not I the motive for that murder?

And why should I think of Isabella at such a moment? How could I say except that there was something about that shrouded figure which had brought her to my mind?

Ghost or not I was going to find out. The figure moved backward. Then I saw a hand emerge. The finger was beckoning me.

I was about to leap out of my bed when my instincts warned me. If there was a murderer concealed behind that shroud it was the same person who had been dosing my food. I had feigned a lassitude I did not feel. I must behave like a person who was under the influence of poppy juice.

I rose slowly from my bed.

The hand disappeared; the figure had moved out into the corridor.

I went out. The figure was a few yards away. The finger beckoned me again.

Trying to act like a sleepwalker, I followed.

The figure had disappeared around a bend. I hurried after it. I came to rest at the top of the great staircase which led into the hall.

There was no sign of the shrouded figure.

I stood at the top of the staircase; and then I knew. Someone was behind me, hands stretched out, waiting to hurl me down those stairs.

I turned and grappled.

I heard someone shout: “I’m coming,” and there was my daughter Linnet. She seized the shroud. The three of us were huddled together for a moment. I felt myself lifted off my feet. Then suddenly there was a wild scream. I found myself clinging to a piece of gray cloth as a figure went crashing to the foot of the staircase.

Linnet and I did not speak. We ran down the staircase to that crumpled figure, which lay face downward. I lifted the hood and the mask that fitted over the face.

“’Tis Manuela,” I said.

She did not die until three days afterward. Poor tragic Manuela!

She was conscious and lucid for a while before death overtook her. I was at her bedside and she was aware that I was there. She had little time left, she said, and much to say.

To think that this Spanish woman should have lived in my household for so many years and I know so little of her! How strange that she should be so devoted to Roberto and yet plan to kill his mother.

It was vengeance. Just retribution, she called it.

“As soon as I saw the ruby cross I knew that I would kill you,” she said. “Before that I just wanted to make you suffer.”

“But you did not attempt to kill me until last night,” I reminded her. “You gave me small doses of poison and tried to rob me of my reason.”

“That was what happened to Isabella. She was ill; she was robbed of her reason; and then one day she was thrown down the staircase.”

Her story was told jerkily, far from lucidly and not at one sitting. I had to piece it together to make a coherent whole. She was very weak, but she wished to tell it. It was a kind of confession. She wanted extreme unction, and I was determined that she should have it if I could manage it. It would mean running some risk, but I had known of Catholic families in the neighborhood and I would ask if a priest might come to ease Manuela’s last hours.

He would have to come in secret, but I would defy Jake, if necessary, to bring her this last consolation.

I learned that Manuela was a half sister of Isabella—her mother having been a serving girl in the mansion which was Isabella’s home. Manuela had been given a place in that mansion as soon as she was old enough to take it and had been sent to Tenerife when Isabella went there to marry Don Felipe.

She had been present when Jake had stormed the mansion; she had successfully hidden herself from the marauders. She had assisted at the birth of Carlos and had loved the boy. It was only when he came to England and threw off all his Spanish ways that she turned to Roberto.

But the gist of her story was Edmundo. She had loved him and they were to have been married. She had greatly admired the ruby cross which Isabella wore frequently. She had even taken it once and worn it when she went to meet Edmundo in the garden—a sin for which she had done penance.

Edmundo had said: “I would I could give you a cross like that.”

Perhaps someone had heard him. In any case the cross was missing and Edmundo confessed that he had strangled Isabella, then thrown her down the stairs. He had done it, he admitted, because he had stolen the cross and been discovered in the act by Isabella, who had threatened to have him arrested for robbery.

Manuela had accepted this because she knew he loved her and the cross was missing—until she had seen me wearing it. She believed then that it had been in my possession ever since, that Don Felipe had given it to me and that therefore I must have known that Edmundo had not stolen it and only admitted to doing so under torture which few men could stand out against.

It seemed clear to her that Edmundo had killed Isabella on orders from his master. A servant belonged to his master and if certain deeds were demanded of him he performed them, but any sin incurred was not on his conscience.

When Edmundo was arrested Don Felipe should have saved him, but he had not done so. He did not want anyone to know that Edmundo had killed Isabella on orders from him. The situation was fraught with danger because Don Felipe wished to marry me and there were rumors in circulation that I was a witch and a heretic. Therefore, Don Felipe dared not make any move to save Edmundo because by doing so he could turn suspicion on himself and I was involved. The ruby cross provided a good reason why Edmundo should have committed the murder and so Don Felipe was content for this to be the accepted version of the affair, although the cross all the time was in his possession, while poor Edmundo, tortured until he admitted that he had stolen it, was condemned to death.

When Manuela saw me wearing the cross she believed that I had had it all those years. It had not occurred to her that it was one of the valuable objects which Jake had stolen when he raided the Hacienda, that it had been in his possession ever since and he had only recently given it to me.

She had always hated me. She had blamed me for what happened. But for me, she was sure that it never would. In her view, I was, therefore, responsible for Isabella’s death. It was she who had aroused Pilar’s venom against me; it was she who had made the image of Isabella and put it in my drawer. She had taken it to Pilar and it was to have been used as evidence that I was a witch.

And then because she knew that there had been suspicion in my mind, she had sought to make it grow. She wanted me to suspect my husband was planning to murder me. She had put the image among Jake’s clothes and waited for me to find it. Her revenge was slow and painstaking. She was in no hurry. She had infinite patience. All she wanted was my uneasiness—until she saw me wear the cross.

Then there was no doubt in her mind of Felipe’s guilt and mine. She brooded on the happy life she might have had; on the children of her union with Edmundo who had never been born. She was fierce and passionate; she could find no satisfaction in anything but revenge.

So she had decided I should suffer as Isabella had suffered. She did not wish to murder me outright. She wanted justice. Isabella had gone mad, so should I. She had suffered over a long period, so should I. And in due course I should be found at the bottom of a staircase, as Isabella had been.

She lived for this revenge. It was the only thing which could compensate her for the loss of Edmundo.

She had put poisonous plants into my food—not enough to kill me but only to impair my health; she had locked me in the hut and then unlocked the door and hung the key inside. She had made herself a shroud and tried to unnerve me. She had meant to drive me into madness and then, when those about me began to doubt my sanity, lure me to the top of the staircase—an easy victim, half drugged as she believed me to be—and throw me to the foot of it. People would say: “She was possessed by devils. Remember, how strange she became?”

“My poor Manuela!” I cried, and I assured her that I had never seen the cross until a short while before. I now remembered such an ornament’s being mentioned at the time of Edmundo’s execution, but I had not connected it with the gift which my second husband had given to me.

Oh, Jake, I thought, you took the cross when you came to the Hacienda. You took everything of value you could lay your hands on. And Felipe … you were guilty of the murder of Isabella, just as guilty as though you yourself had strangled her and thrown her down the stairs.

I was relieved that Manuela now knew that I was guiltless of participation in Isabella’s death.

“Take care of Roberto,” she said. “I loved him … dearly.”

I told her she had no need to ask his mother to do that.

I rode over to a family nearby who when the priests had come to Trewynd in Edward’s time had entertained them there and hidden them.

They had one there at that time. He was brought out of the priest’s hole in which they hid him whenever visitors called at the house and, disguised as one of the grooms, he rode back to Lyon Court with me.

I knew that I was doing a daring thing. If Jake had returned home at that time I cannot imagine what would have happened.

I told the priest of my fears and he answered that he was accustomed to taking risks and would not deny a dying woman her last solace on Earth.

I took him to her sickroom and he was there holding the cross before her eyes as she passed away.

She died peacefully, I think, for I had assured her of my forgiveness. She was glad that she had not succeeded in killing me and did not have to go before her Maker with murder on her conscience.

She died clasping the cross.

I felt alive again. What a fool I had been. As if Jake would murder me and if he did it would not be by such devious methods. He would have taken out his sword and run me through. I laughed. It was good to be alive. I was not menaced. Jake was an unfaithful husband. Had he not always been and had I ever expected anything else? I had sheltered two of his bastards under my roof already. Penn was but the third. They gave him satisfaction in the sons he could not get with me.

My vitality had returned. I could fight again.

Linnet had to know what had happened. I should have had to tell her the whole story some time or other—just as my mother had told me her strange story when I was about my daughter’s age. The whole household knew too that the mistress who was supposed to be going mad was not, but Manuela had been completely so because she had poisoned my food and tried to throw me down the stairs. There was no need for them to know the reasons why she had done these things. It was enough that they accepted the fact that devils had begun to possess her.

Manuela was buried in the Lyon section of the graveyard and we laid rosemary on her grave.

I at least would never forget her.

The Fugitive

SO DEEPLY IMMERSED HAD I been in my own affairs that I had not been aware of what was happening in the outside world. Now I heard the excited talk about what was called the Babington Plot, which, said all loyal supporters of Our Gracious Lady Elizabeth, had by God’s grace been discovered. A young man named Anthony Babington had in his youth served as a page to Mary Stuart and, as men were wont to, fell in love with her. He had joined forces with a group of ardent Catholics and together they had made a plot to put the Queen of Scotland on the throne and bring back the Catholic religion to England. This plot had the blessing of Spain and the Pope.

The conspirators met in taverns around St. Giles’ and in Babington’s house in Barbican and there worked out their conspiracy. Elizabeth was to be assassinated, Mary set free and set on the throne. Catholics throughout the country would rally to her help. The Pope gave his sanction and Philip of Spain would help—with his fast-growing Armada if necessary.

Letters had been smuggled into the prison of the Queen of Scots by a most ingenious method. Corked tubes had been fabricated in which letters could be concealed and these were inserted into the beer barrels which were carried into the Queen’s apartments. When the Queen had read the letters she could insert her answers into the tube and put them back into the empty barrels which would be returned to the brewer. It seemed foolproof and would have been if the brewer had not been in the pay of Walsingham as well as the Queen. Thus the letters which were inserted in the full barrels and the replies that went into the empty ones were all conveyed to Amyas Paulet—the Queen’s jailor at that time—and passed on to Walsingham. In this way Elizabeth’s Secretary of State knew every twist and turn of the Babington Plot as it was worked out.

He had not hastened to make an arrest as he wished to draw as many into the net as possible and his great desire was to incriminate the Queen of Scots so thoroughly that Elizabeth would have no alternative but to send her to the scaffold.

Now the arrests were being made and an excitement was running through the country because it was said that so deeply was the Queen of Scots implicated that this would be the plot to end all plots.

I was in a state of great tension as I always was when stories of plots came to light. My first thought was: Is Roberto involved in this?

We heard the names of men arrested. Roberto’s was not among them, but each day I expected to hear that he was taken.

Jake had come back. He was full of excitement because he said at any time now the Spaniard would strike.

He had heard of Manuela’s attack on my life and I was gratified to see that he was disturbed by it.

“Spaniards!” he cried. “I should never have taken them into my house.” Then he took me by the shoulders and looked at me intently.

I said: “Are you thinking that you might have rid yourself of me?”

He laughed. “’Tis true, I might. But I’ve a feeling not many would get the better of you.”

“Except you perhaps.”

“Of a certainty. Me of course!”

He laughed and held me against him.

I said: “At one time I thought you were planning to rid yourself of me and take a younger woman to wife.”

He nodded, pretending to consider the idea.

“Romilly, for instance. She has borne you one son. She is young enough to bear others.”

“Now you are putting temptation in my way.”

“That does not have to put it in your way. And men such as you do not give themselves time to be tempted. What is there they take and to the devil with the consequences.”

“It’s the way to live, Cat.”

“Is it? To bring your bastards to your lawful wife?”

“I brought none to you. You brought two to me and Penn was born here. Did I not allow you to bring yours?”

The thought of Roberto weakened me.

Jake put his hands about my throat and laughed at me.

“All I would have to do is press a little.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“Because shrew that you are, mother of daughters, I have decided I’ll not replace you yet.”

Then he kissed me with a rare tenderness which moved me somewhat. He pulled my hair as he did the boys’ now and then. I knew it to be a gesture of affection.

“I’m impatient, Cat,” he said. “Here I am kicking my heels … waiting … waiting for the Spaniard! We’ve got to be ready for him when he comes. God’s Death! It could be today. It could be tomorrow. Why does he delay? And now this traitor Babington. By God! He’ll suffer the traitor’s death and I hope they linger over it. He would have killed our Queen; he would have set the Scottish whore on the throne. It is time her head parted company with her shoulders. I would hang, draw and quarter any man who gave his sanction to such treachery.”

Oh, Roberto, I thought. Where are you, Roberto?

I said: “They have caught all the conspirators?”

“Who knows? There may be others. Walsingham’s sly. He knows when to pounce. He gives them a little license … the better to bring in more. We have to stamp them out, Cat. Every one of them … traitors to England, friends of our enemy Spain! I’d like to blow that country off the Earth.”

How fierce he was—his eyes blazing blue fire.

Oh, Roberto, I thought, where are you?

I knew he would come. It was a premonition perhaps. He would come at night and he would come to me as he had before. I was tense, waiting. Some maternal instinct was preparing me, so I must have slept lightly and I was ready when I heard the clod of earth thrown at the window.

I crept silently out of bed, terrified that I might awaken Jake.

I knew it of course, Roberto had come. How could he stay near London and the Court at such a time when Babington was captured and but for the ingenuity of Walsingham’s spy system, the Queen might have been assassinated and a Catholic Queen set up on the throne?

If Roberto’s name had been on the list found in Throckmorton’s house, Walsingham would have his spies watching him. Even if he had not been involved in the Babington Plot, and it seemed he had not, he might be formulating others.

I slipped out of bed and looked down. I saw him clearly in the moonlight. He was looking up at my window.

I looked back at the bed. Jake, I thanked God, was a heavy sleeper and he was fast asleep now. I signed to Roberto. He understood and pointed in the direction of the hut. I nodded and went back to bed. He would understand that Jake was with me.

I went back to bed, shivering.

The hut was not the safe place it had been. My adventure there had called attention to it. Jake had even said he might have some building done to it and make it into a dwelling place for some of the servants.

Bushes still grew around it, obscuring it from view to some extent, and I must make my way to it as soon as possible.

I was distraught.

Carlos, who had, like Jake, not gone far from Plymouth since the threats from the Armada had grown, came over to see Jake. I was waiting for a moment to slip away to the hut with food. But I must make certain that no one was aware of this. Linnet could have helped, but I was not going to allow my daughter to be involved.

Carlos was saying that he had heard Babington and Ballard had been executed. He described the agonies of those men—hanged in a field at the upper end of Holborn near the road to St. Giles’s where a scaffold had been set up. Ballard, the other main conspirator, had suffered first. He had been hung, cut down and disemboweled while he was still alive. Babington watched, then suffered like treatment.

“So perish all traitors,” cried Jake.

I felt sick.

Jake was looking at me strangely.

As soon as I could do so I took some food from the kitchens and went to the hut.

I took my son into my arms and held him against me.

“Oh, Roberto, tell me what has happened.”

“When they took Babington I knew it was unsafe for me to stay near London. I had to get away.”

“You were with the conspirators?”

“Not … not with Babington. If I had been…”

I understood. None who had been involved in that plot would have been allowed to go free.

“But Walsingham is determined to have more proof ready. Friends of mine have disappeared suddenly. I know that they are under arrest. If the Babington Plot does not bring the Queen of Scots to the scaffold, they will discover more plots. They are determined to. No Catholic, or any man who has ever joined in any scheme is safe. They are hunting us out, Madre.”

“And they are hunting you!”

“They came to my lodging. I was fortunate. I was warned. If I go back there I shall be taken. They are searching for me now.”

“The Captain is here,” I said.

“I saw his ship from the Hoe.”

“Oh, Roberto, we shall have to take the greatest care.”

“Manuela will help.”

“Manuela is dead.”

I told him briefly how she had tried to murder me and for what reason.

He was silent, deeply shocked.

“Madre, how cruel life is! And now it seems that everyone’s existence is governed by this hatred between Spain and England.”

“It is the shadow across our times. Religion—Catholic or Protestant. It has been so for many years. It darkened my mother’s life. I have not escaped. I brought a priest to Manuela when she died. She wanted it. I hope it was not discovered. One can never be sure.”

He kissed my hand.

“Madre, I love you. Always through my life I have looked to you, relied on you.”

“You can rely on me still, my son; not because I am Catholic or Protestant but because I am a mother. I know little of doctrines, nor do I care. But I do know of love, which seems to me of greater importance in the world.”

“You will let me stay here?”

“It must not be for long, Roberto. The hut is no longer safe as it once was. After I was locked in, the household seems to have become aware of it. Before, few people remembered it was here. Soon you must go away.”

“I have thought, Madre, that if I could get to Spain, I might find my own people. My father’s family would know of me and I must have estates there, must I not? Did not my father make me his heir?”

“He did, but that was long ago. Others would have taken your inheritance by now.”

“But I would be of their family. They would receive me.”

“Roberto, how could we get you to Spain?”

“I must get away from England. I am wanted and Walsingham will never let me go free. I shall be taken as Babington was…”

There was stark horror in his face and reflected in his eyes I seemed to see that fearsome plot of land near Holborn with the scaffold and Ballard and Babington undergoing excruciating torture.

Not for Roberto, I thought. Not the little boy who had lain in my arms, who had given such joy to Felipe and brought us together.

What a cruel world, where men could do such things to men. Not my son. I would do anything but allow that to happen.