The other queen

1569, NOVEMBER, TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS

It is dawn when I hear the hammering on the great house gate. I am awake at once, certain that it is the Northern army come for her. George does not move; he lies like a stone, though I know he is wide awake; he never seems to sleep these days. He lies and listens with his eyes shut; he will not talk to me or give me any chance to talk to him. Even now, with the hammering at the door, he does not move—he is a man who has had someone else to open his door for all his life. I get crossly out of bed, pull a robe around my nakedness, tie the strings, and run to the door and down the stairs to where the gate-keeper is swinging open the gate and a mud-stained rider clatters into the courtyard, his face white in the dawn light. Thank God it is a messenger from London and not a force from the North. Thank God they have not come for her and no one here to face them but me in my nightgown and my husband left abed, lying like a gravestone.

“Name?” I demand.

“From Cecil.”

“What is it?”

“War,” he says shortly. “Finally it is war. The North is up; the lords Westmorland and Northumberland have declared against the queen, their men out, their banners unfurled. They are riding under the banner of the five wounds of Christ; every Papist in the country is flocking to join them. They have sworn to restore the true religion, to pay proper rates to working men, and”—he nods to the royal lodgings—“free her and put her back on her throne.”

I clutch the robe to my throat; the chill air is as icy as dread. The mist coming off the water meadows is as wet as rain. “They are coming here? You are sure?”

“For certainty. Here. Your orders,” he says, digging into his satchel and thrusting a crumpled letter at me. With a breath of relief, as if paper alone can save me, I recognize Cecil’s writing.

“How far are they? How strong the army?” I demand, as he swings down from the saddle.

“I didn’t see them, thank God, on my way here, but who knows?” he says tersely. “Some say they will take York first, others Durham. They could take York and restore the kingdom of the North. It will be the great wars all over again, but worse. Two queens, two faiths on crusade, two armies, and a fight to the death. If the Spanish land their army for her, which they can do within days from the Spanish Netherlands, it will be all over, and we will be dead.”

“Get what you want from the kitchen, but say nothing to them,” I tell him and go back to my bedroom at a run. George is sitting up in bed, his face grim.

“Wife?” he asks.

“Read this,” I say, thrusting it at him and climbing on the bed.

He takes the letter and breaks the seal. “What’s happening?”

“The messenger says that the lords of the North have their army and are on the march,” I say briefly. “They have declared war. They are coming here for her.”

He shoots a quick look at me and spreads the letter. “This is from Cecil. He says we are to get away south immediately. We have to take her to the castle at Coventry at once for safekeeping. He will command us from there. We have to get south before they rescue her. We must go at once.” He jumps from the bed. “Sound the alarm,” he says. “I shall have to rouse the guard and take her at once. And you go to her and tell her she has to make ready to leave at once.”

I pause at the doorway, struck by a bitter thought. “I wager she knows all about it,” I say suddenly. “They will have told her when they visited. When you let her talk with them in private. She will be in their confidence. She will have had secret letters. She has probably been waiting for them all this last week.”

“Just get her ready to leave.”

“What if she won’t go?”

“Then I will have to tie her to her horse,” he says. “An army of fifty could take this place in an hour. And half our servants would free her for love, and open the gates for her. If they set a siege we are lost.”

I am so glad to hear of his planned brutality to her that I am halfway out the door before the thought strikes me. “But wait, my lord. Wait! What if they win?”

He checks in his rapid dressing, the laces for his riding trousers in his hands. “If they win?”

“What if the army of the North takes and holds the North? What if Westmorland and Northumberland are victorious and march on London? What if the Spanish arrive to support them? What if Howard brings in the east of the country and the Cornish get up for the old religion, the Welsh too? What if they defeat Elizabeth, and we are imprisoning the future queen? What if you are tying the next Queen of England to her horse? Then we are traitors and will die in the Tower.”

My husband shakes his head, baffled. “I serve the queen,” he says flatly. “I have given my word as a Talbot. I have to do as my king commands. I don’t serve the side that I guess might win. I serve the king. Whatever it costs me. If Mary Queen of Scots is victorious and becomes Mary Queen of England, then I will serve her. But till then, I serve the crowned queen, Elizabeth.”

He understands nothing but loyalty and honor. “Yes, yes, once she is crowned queen you change sides and then it is the honorable thing to do. But how will we and our children and our fortunes be secure. Now. In these dangerous days. While everything hangs in the balance. When we cannot tell which queen will be crowned in London.”

He shakes his head. “There is no safety,” he says. “There is no safety for anyone in England now. I just have to follow the crown.”

I go then, and order them to wake the castle and turn out the guard. The great bell starts tolling like a heart booming with fear. I send them running to the kitchen to get all the stores loaded on wagons, I shout for my steward of the household to pack the most valuable goods, as we will have to take them with us, and then I go to her quarters, to the other queen’s rooms, shaking with anger that she should bring such dire trouble upon us this day, and so much more trouble to come in the days that will follow.

And as I run I open the little piece of paper that came for me, scribbled with my name, in the package from London. It is from Cecil.

If you are in danger of being captured by the army of the North, she must be killed. Hastings will do it, or if he is dead you must command your husband in the queen’s name. Or anyone whose loyalty you trust, whose silence you can guarantee. If there is no one left alive but you women, you will have to do it yourself. Carry a knife. Burn this.