Queen & Country (20 page)

He would not lie to her. ‘I did like her, yes. But she had a husband. Robert Wood was cruel to her.'

‘Oh. Did you pity her, then?'

He answered, ‘I suppose I did,' and did not understand why she let slip a sigh, sorrowful, deep, in the dark of the bed.

‘It is touching, I think, that Sir Andrew Wood cares for his dead brother's child. For tis clear that he loves her,' she said.

‘What?' he was listening, half; her words made an impression
somewhere in the shadows spilling in his mind. Some vague idea disturbed him; he did not know what it was.

‘It is good of him, Hew.'

‘It is not goodness. It is . . .' Before he could grasp what it was – whatever it was there that had escaped him, for he would not admit to goodness in that man – he heard, and understood the reason for her wistfulness, ‘He is not your uncle, my love. They are nothing alike.'

‘No.' Her voice was hollow in the darkness, and he reached across the chasm that had opened up between them, to comfort as he could. Her head rested light on his chest, where she could feel the steady beating of his heart.

‘I know you miss your family.'

Frances whispered, ‘It is not only that. My uncle took me in, when I was very small. I have betrayed his trust, and failed him, in my duty as a child.'

‘He failed in his, to you.'

A small shake of the head. He felt on his skin the ruffling of hair, and stroked it. He knew what she had lost, and felt the burden of his part in it. It was not regret. If they could lie forever in that bed, and keep the curtains closed against the rain and wind, if he could hold her in his arms to weather out that storm, then he could be content. He knew that he could not.

‘Dearest, you know that I must go to court. Tomorrow, if I can.'

She whispered, ‘So soon?'

‘The sooner am I gone, the sooner my return. Know that I would take you, if I could.'

Her skin was light and soft. Her pale hair smelt of camomile.

‘I have never yearned to come into the court. I never thought to meet a queen, or king. Besides,' she spoke bravely, a crack in her voice, ‘I have nothing to wear.'

She had nothing at all. He had seen her in the gowns lent to her by Meg, thinking little other than how bonny she had looked. He had seen her quite bare, and had liked her just as well. Now he understood, and saw what she had lost.

‘Meg will take you to the town. You shall have all that you want. Shoes. Gowns. Clothes. Buy something fine and fit, in popinjay or green.'

She was quiet a long while, and he did not know what she was thinking. Then she said, ‘Green is not becoming to a pale complexion. For your sister, perhaps.'

‘Sea-water, then. What you will think fit, for a wedding gown.'

‘Were we not married, Hew?' she asked him then, tentative and serious. So much he had taken from her, and taken her from.

‘Of course we were. An English marriage. But we will have a Scottish one, in a Scottish kirk. Then no man may say, twas not properly done.'

‘Will they say that?'

‘The kirkmen here are scrupulous, and will say almost anything, to damp down our hopes. We will not give them cause. But you know that we were married lawfully and in sight of God. Since you had no gown nor maiden at your side, and enjoyed no feast, you shall have them here.'

‘I do not care for those.'

‘Of course you do. You and Meg shall make schemes for it while I am gone. It will keep you amused. Women like such things.'

‘Ah, Do they now? I shall show to you what women like. Do not pretend that you know,' she teased. If words were kept light, a heart could not break.

‘What? And you were so innocent, so meek and mild last week. I blame it on Meg. What has she taught you, in that coven of her sisterhood, corrupting you, my sweet?' he teased her in his turn.

‘Ah, you should like to know! I shall put you to school, very strictly, when you return. Let the fear of it hurry you on, and the hope of it hurry you back.'

Their playfulness made light, and hid the deep disquiet there. When they had made love, and lay still and content, he said to her. ‘Take Robert Lachlan with you, when you go to town.'

‘Robert? He does not look like a man with an eye to choose a gown.'

‘He will keep you safe.'

‘Did you never see the leather markets held at Leadenhall? Are your market places ever quite so wild?'

‘I had not thought so, once. But these are troubling times.'

Frances drifted off, and woke up in the night to find him still awake. She felt for his hand, sensing his absence there, even before he had left. ‘What are you thinking?' she asked.

He lay silent still. But his breathing, measured, told her that he heard, and was not asleep.

‘I wish that you would tell me,' she said. ‘I am not afraid, when you speak the truth. When you are close, and secret, like Tom, it fills me with a kind of dread.'

For a moment, it seemed as though he would not answer her. Then he whispered, ‘Please do not say that.'

‘That you are like Tom? It is true, is it not? You have learned to lie, and to keep yourself close.'

He asked her, ‘When have I lied?' And knew it was, instead, the things that were not said.

‘I do not blame you for it. But if you cannot trust me now, then there is no hope for us. No hope for me,' she said, in a brittle voice, ‘who have followed to a place where I am a stranger, and perceived a foe, and am bereft of friends. Then cold earth could not shape a colder marriage bed, and it were my grave.'

Her words were cold indeed, and moved his heart to pity, passion and remorse. ‘Hush, you shall not be . . . Frances, all will be well, I will make it well.'

‘How will you do that?'

‘I do not know,' he said.

‘That,' Frances said, ‘is, at least, the truth. Talk to me, now. What is it that troubles you, Hew?'

And he found the courage, and the heart to answer her. ‘It is what Thomas did at Chartley.'

Something in him gave, something in his heart he felt there, tight and physical, and he reached for her. In the darkness of that place, he
understood what even Phelippes knew; a man could not place a lock upon conscience, and keep it always closed. And Hew, least of all, could be dark and distrustful, towards someone who had trusted him so far with her own life, and placed it in his hands. The thought of that filled him with the deepest kind of terror. And so he told her, all.

‘You heard that Gilbert Gifford carried letters for that queen. As I believe he did. But he was not of her party. Tom trained him for the task, and both of them were agents for Sir Francis Walsingham. Gifford was not willing, but they had some hold on him. For that is how they work. And I believe, they meant his part for me, but found they could not trust me to it. Tom was at Chartley to decipher the letters the queen had entrusted to Gifford. To ensnare and ensure her destruction. To bring the queen down. And, as I suspect she was lured into the plot, and a web was spun. Since they had the letters from the start, they could have wiped out the conspirators, before they ever reached her. They did not do that. Instead, they let it run, intending to entrap, and catch her at its heart.'

Frances was a long while quiet then. But Hew felt calm, and peaceful in the silence that they shared. And presently, she told to him her thoughts, falling into place, sensible and clear, and he understood that he was not alone.

‘They let her think it safe, to show her heart. She showed it, Hew, and it was black. What harm was there in that?'

‘If it was true, there was none. Perhaps it was true. They made sure that it was. I do not think that there was any kind of justice there. The evidence was skewed. And the letters that they showed, I think that Tom may have altered, in his own hand.'

‘Why would you think that?' she asked.

‘Some writing that I saw. It does not amount to evidence.' He knew, had always known, it would not stand as evidence in any kind of court. And yet he believed it was true. ‘Justice is a thing that we should fight for, is it not?' the queen of Scots had said.

‘What are you saying, then? That that queen was blameless of the fault they killed her for?'

‘Perhaps. Not even that. That guilty or not, they had determined that she would die for it. That it was prejudged, long before she ever put her name or mind to it. She was lost from the start, as the Calvinists might say. For her life was a threat to your queen, whether she meant it or not.

‘You asked me, what secret weighs so heavy on my heart. And now I have told you. I see Giles Locke, a man who has the strength to face a thousand deaths, dash away a tear at the falling of his queen, and I feel a stain upon my conscience, dark as though I were complicit in the act. If I cannot look my friend straight into the eye, how can I look on my king?'

‘You were not complicit, Hew, because you were a witness to it,' she said. ‘You cannot act on forces such as these. Suppose you told the king? Would he want to hear? If you spoke the truth to him, his hopes could not be reconciled. What would that mean? There might be a war. And that queen will be dead still, whatever the truth. You cannot tell him, now.'

He answered her, ‘I know. And I should not have burdened you.'

‘You should. For that I am your wife. Else what was this for? I will not allow it to tear us apart.'

‘Dear Frances,' he whispered. ‘Are you not sorry you came?'

‘Not for the world, now you tell me the truth. Are you sorry you brought me?'

His answer came soft, in a kiss.

Chapter 13

The Touchstone

He did not like to leave her, with no way of knowing when he might be back. He trusted Giles and Meg. Both of them were loved and respected in the town, the more so since the peste, and their protection would extenuate the feelings of the crowd. Yet he felt ashamed to leave his charge to them, and troubled by the conflict it had caused his friend. As a precaution, he left Robert Lachlan. He had found Robert Lachlan a house by the mill with a small plot of land. John Kintor had offered up three of the pigs, from the litter his brood-sow expected that month. To every hireling skrimmar there must come a time when he set down his sword. Yet Hew was under no illusion Robert would last long. His friend had entered an alliance with a rousie kitchen maid, that kept him, for the moment, busily content. But it would not be long before his restless bones would itch, and he would scrap again, until that fateful skirmish that would be his last.

‘What am I, now? A nursemaid for wives?' Robert had complained.

‘I cannot think to leave her in more careful hands.'

‘And though that may be so, there is a fly in your reasoning. While I look after her, who looks out for you, and saves your feeble bane-house fae the devil's claws? You never gang a pace, but you fall into a pit. Your puir lass has nae hopes, but those she puts in you.'

Hew was well aware of that. ‘If, for some reason, I do not come back, if, in that event, she will not stay here, can you take her home?'

‘Jesu,' Robert said. ‘I was jesting, Hew. Why in the name of God would you not come back? You are off to Edinburgh, not to the antipodes.'

Hew said, ‘Even so.'

He had time to think about it on his journey south. At Edinburgh, he would buy a ring, a symbol of his love. They would be betrothed, and married in the Scottish Kirk, as soon as he returned.

Coming into Edinburgh, Hew felt once again on old, familiar ground. Here, he had spent the first years of his life, with his family at the Cowgate, while his father practised law at the justice court. Here he went to school, remaining with the master when his father had retired, until he had matriculated at St Leonard's College. The High School, in those days, had been his second home. The mile down which he walked, from the castle on its rock through the Netherbow and down into the Canongate, he knew and loved as well as any place on earth. He could live there with Frances, perhaps.

At Holyrood, he learned the court was at Dalkeith, in mourning for the queen. There, he would call on the following day, if it should please the king's grace. He found stabling for his horse, and a bed for the night, at an inn by the West Bow, close to the Grassmarket. The horse was a sprightly young bay. Dun Scottis, stubborn still, remained at Kenly Green, living out his days in a peaceful indolence. He let no one ride him now apart from Matthew Locke, whose affections he tolerated with a stolid gloom.

For the rest of the day, Hew wandered by the castle and the high kirk of St Giles. From a Lawnmarket tailor, he bought mourning clothes, of a kind and quality that were fit for court, yet did not overshoot his status and his rank. He chose a woollen broadcloth in a midnight shade, with black silk for his hat and the lining of his cloak, plain white ruff and gloves, and little else of ornament to brighten his black coat. The strength of the dye bore the cost, offset by the cut and cloth, resulting in a balance of refined restraint. The prick-louse assured him his suit would be done by the end of day.

The people took their lead and licence from their king. His grieving gave them leave to put on a display. For some, it was the chance to show their old allegiance to the Catholic queen, and to mourn her openly. The little shops and stalls clustered at St Giles,
the luckenbuiths and krames, had filled their stands with doleful ribbons, brooches and black gloves. The hammermen had dulled their daggers; cold bright shards of metal darkened to a dusk were clad in velvet sheathes. Street sellers peddled their fruits, flowers and herbs. Rose
marie
, remember me, the bold among them cried, and the women bought sprigs of it, tied up in silks, to pin to their bonnets and shawls. Sad-coloured kerseys were whipped into cloaks, with which the willing poor could drape their workday clothes; grizzled greys and tans, melancholy bays, eclipsing greens and gold, washing out a landscape of yellow, pink and blue, as a north-east haar drains colour from a day.