19
Mary
I
was on my knees in my private chapel at Hunsdon, praying for my brother, when Susan and Jane burst in to tell me that a messenger had arrived from court. Edward was dying, and begged me to come to him; he didn’t want to die with harsh words hanging between us.
Giving orders for horses to be saddled, and for a small retinue of four guards, a priest, and the more hardy Susan to accompany me, I raced up the stairs to don my riding clothes. As Jane helped me dress, while Susan went off to likewise prepare herself, I gave orders for her to follow with my trunks and a more suitable escort befitting my station. But right now I must travel light; speed was of the essence. Then down the stairs I ran, and out into the courtyard. Disdaining the proffered assistance of my groom, I sprang into the saddle astride—now was not the time to be ladylike—dug in my heels, plied my crop, and took off at a gallop, leaving the rest of my startled and amazed entourage to recover their wits and hasten after me.
I was frantic to reach Edward in time so that he could die in peace. And perhaps, on the threshold of death, between Heaven and Hell, he would listen to me and embrace the true faith with his dying breath; for this reason I had asked one of my priests to accompany me. As I galloped through the night toward London, my deep crimson skirts flapping up and down like red wings with the motion of my mount, my limp, thin hair slipping from its pins beneath my feathered cap, I prayed in time to the rhythm of the hoofbeats.
“Please don’t let it be too late, please don’t let it be too late . . .”
Suddenly I spied a dark figure standing in the road ahead, faintly lit by a lantern held in his left hand, while he extended his right to me, palm emphatically outward, fingers stiff and pointing up straight to the sky, in a gesture that screamed the word
halt!
I reined in my mount so sharply to avoid colliding with him that I nearly went flying over my horse’s head. My heart began to race and pound and my mind teemed with lurid and frightening tales of highwaymen who waylaid travelers and divested them of all their valuables and sometimes left them lying dead or dying in pools of blood in the dusty road while they galloped off with their ill-gotten gains.
As he came toward me, I saw he wore a dark hooded cloak and beneath it a scarf was wound so that it concealed the lower portions of his face, whilst the hood and a black mask hid the rest so there appeared to be only blackness where a face should have been.
“Who are you?” I demanded in a commanding tone, drawing myself up straight in the saddle. “How dare you waylay me like this? Do you know who I am?”
Silently, he came toward me and thrust a folded square of paper up at me. He wore no rings, I saw, so there was no signet ring bearing a family crest that I could identify him by, if he were indeed of a noble family as his commanding bearing seemed to suggest.
Puzzled, I bent my head and, in the orange glow of the lantern he held for me, I unfolded the paper and read:
The king is dead.
Turn back NOW!
You are riding into a trap.
Northumberland lies in wait for you.
His son Robert is leading an army to arrest you.
Prepare to fight for your throne.
Do NOT let them take you!
God save Queen Mary!
“Who are you?”
I demanded. “Is this . . . can this be true?”
He nodded his head once, most emphatically, and I knew the words written on that paper did not lie.
“Why do you not speak? Are you mute?” And then the truth suddenly dawned on me. “You don’t want me to recognize your voice!”
He stood before me in the road again and lifted his arm and jabbed his finger in an adamant point back in the direction I had come, over and over again, the gesture urgently screaming
“Go! Now!”
“Thank you,” I said falteringly, as the enormity of the words written on that piece of paper sank in. Edward, my poor dear little brother, was already dead—he had died a heretic instead of in the true faith—and Northumberland and his hell-bound lackeys were already moving to keep me from the throne that was my right by birth. I must not let them do it! “Whoever you are, I thank you.” And, fighting to hold back my tears, I turned my mount around, dug in my heels, and galloped back the way I had come, with my bewildered and mystified entourage following after.
Whoever the mysterious dark man who came out of the shadows to warn me was I never did discover.