Please, dear Lord,
she prayed,
don’t let it be Robin who’s betrayed me from within. Don’t let him be another of those who want to give my power and people to Mary of Scots.
Years before, Elizabeth had considered having him wed Mary to control her, but the Scots queen had haughtily rejected him as the English queen’s rejected suitor—and as only her master of the
horse. Surely he didn’t have his hand in all this now, just to frighten her—or even to scare Drake away. No, not him, for there were numbers of others who—
Then it hit her.
“Drake, Cecil, what if these are just numbers?”
“What?” Drake said. “They are numbers.”
“But what if they signify a date on which something occurs? Mary knew of it, was looking forward to it, maybe the beginning of the rebellion.”
“Read out the numbers again, Your Grace,” Cecil prompted.
“Eight, two, six, six, nine, one, two.”
“The eighth month—August,” Cecil intoned. “Two, six could mean the second, the sixth, or—”
“Or the twenty-sixth,” Drake said, “which is today.”
“And the year, sixty-nine,” she said, “this year. Today—if we are correct, that signifies today! What about the one and the two?”
“The time the rebellion commences?” Cecil asked. “One or two of the clock—or twelve, as she may have combined those earlier numbers.”
Elizabeth stood. “Lord Sandys says the forbidden Catholic meetings sometimes start around midnight, ones held in the Church of the Holy Ghost on the edge of town. It may be all wrong—a long shot—but I’m getting desperate. I believe we should visit the church at midnight tonight.”
“You can remain here while Drake and I go with a full contingent of guards to arrest everyone in sight,” Cecil said, as he and Drake scrambled to their feet.
“But what if it is just envoys or representatives they send?” she demanded. “I want not the ones left holding the bag but the ones who made the bags—and the pillow. So here’s what we are going to do, and neither of you will gainsay me on this.”
T
he queen donned men’s garb again that night, but when he saw her, Cecil reacted as if she were a mere lad.
“Just send the troops, Your Grace, and wait here with me. I insist you stay safely here, or at least that I go with you.”
“We’ve argued this before, and I have said that I must go in person and you must stay here to oversee things. Desperate doings demand desperate measures. Just be grateful I have not decided to lead the army I may soon be sending north to stem a full-fledged rebellion. Besides, troops are noisy and could scatter and alert whoever appears—if anyone appears. We still are not certain we have read that pillow aright, so this, like all else we’ve tried lately, may be an exercise in futility.”
“If your purpose is to merely gather information, let Ned and Jenks go.”
“I am taking them with me. Dear Cecil, I shall be careful. I do not intend to go into the church to wait for the arrival of the plotters, for I could be trapped there. I shall stay outside by the woods until they are inside, then hide behind the effigies to eavesdrop.”
“But the woods have been so dangerous that—”
“All right. Another compromise. Wearing Drake’s armor, I shall not go into the woods but hide myself behind the stones in the old graveyard until our enemies enter. Then I shall go into the church via the tunnel,” she rushed on, perhaps now trying to
convince herself as well as him. “Drake will lead me in, since he knows where its entrance is. If the Naseby lads can pull off eavesdropping, the queen can, too.”
“So you could send Ned ahead of the conspirators into the church but stay behind yourself with Drake and two guards.”
“I’ll stay behind with Drake and Ned and send Clifford and Jenks inside. All will be armed. If I deem those assembled worth trapping rather than just following after we hear them speak their piece, we can simply seal their secret escape and have them caught like rats in a trap in that barred and locked church—and then I’ll send for a full troop of guards. All will be well, you’ll see.”
E
lizabeth used the servants’ stairs and plunged out into the dark night. She met her men beyond the gatehouse where Jenks held the horses.
“How are Ursala and Meg?” she asked them.
“Ursala is trying to keep up Meg’s spirits,” Ned reported, “but she’s just staring off into vacancy again.”
“We’ll find the boys,” Elizabeth promised, as Jenks gave her a boost up to ride astride. “If we don’t learn where they are from listening, we will seize one of the conspirators and force him to tell us.”
That’s
if
anyone comes tonight,
her inner voice taunted her,
and
if
the plotters know where the Naseby lads are and haven’t dispatched them one way or the other already.
Talk about playing fox and geese—this indeed might be a wild goose chase.
She had not reckoned on the full moon rising, but it suddenly rolled over the horizon like a ripe peach, bathing the scene with an eerie, pale red-gold light. At least her party was all in black. The armor of Drake’s she wore could catch the glint of moonshine, but she kept her inky cloak wrapped close about her.
It was somewhere near ten of the clock when they arrived and Jenks hid their horses, tethered far back in the thick stand of oaks. No lights emanated from the church, but she wasn’t certain they would show anyway with the thick ivy over the
window. Still, somehow Lord Sandys and others in town must have known when outsiders were meeting here at night.
“Jenks and Clifford, time for you two to get inside,” she ordered. “Go quietly and carefully, lest someone else has gone in before you, and remember, I said the wooden door leading up from the crypt into the church shrieks like the very devil.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Jenks said. “I have the kitchen grease right here for the hinges so’s you won’t make a sound when you open it later to hear what’s going on.”
“Good. Though we can use no lights, perhaps the full moon will help. Conceal yourselves behind Sandys’s parents’ effigies, the ones in the corner. Should our visitors hold some sort of service, it’s conceivable that they might use the lectern or baptismal font, however good listening posts those would be. Remember, voices echo in there, so you must keep silent, but I warrant their words will carry to you.”
Clifford and Jenks nodded. She had instructed them in all this before, but she wanted to make certain nothing could go wrong. She, Drake, and Ned watched the two of them disappear down the pitch-black tunnel, where they would have to feel their way along. Drake closed the door behind them.
“At least they won’t get lost in there,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s a straight shot.”
“I wish you hadn’t put it that way,” she countered, hoping her voice sounded brave, for her heart was thudding so that she kept thinking she heard hoofbeats already. She almost tripped over the dead tree trunk that Sandys had mentioned he was oft tempted to roll across the entryway. It would be useful if they did need to trap the conspirators inside.
The three of them hid in the graveyard behind the tallest, straightest headstones they could find. Drake was quite close, Ned a bit farther away. Elizabeth knelt so she could peer over, but her left calf muscle threatened to cramp, so instead she sat on the ground with her back against the stone.
She glanced at Ned, huddled with his arms around his bent knees and his head down. She knew he balanced on the edge of despair. How much he had meant to her over the years she’d been queen. Loquacious but loyal, too full of himself, but finally
able to admit he loved Meg so that he found domestic joy as well as accolades for court drama—and then to lose so much, his son, and for a time his wife. She prayed all would go well to recover Piers for them and Sim for Jenks. Jenks, too, had been with her from the first, her bodyguard once in bitter exile and now—
She jumped and strained to hear each time a new noise came to her ears. The hoot of an owl, the breeze in the branches, even the cry of a cuckoo in the oak trees. Four headstones away, Drake jolted at what sounded like the scream of a hawk, which sent shivers up her spine.
Time went by. Why didn’t someone come? If this plan went for naught, at least she was soon heading back toward her own protected palaces, but she could not bear to leave all of this unsolved and unpunished. And with that rebellion brewing …
A horse whinnied nearby. Could the sounds of their own mounts carry this far?
She twisted around and got back on her knees. Mounted men—she couldn’t tell how many—reined in near the woods. Just two of them? Then she heard more hoofbeats, coming from the direction of the town. Yes, at least three more. How long had she and her men been here waiting? It could indeed be just before midnight, for, as the moon had risen in the sable sky, it had shrunk and faded to palest, coldest silver.
She accidentally clunked the chest piece of her armor against the gravestone. She froze, but the men didn’t seem to hear it. The sibilant sounds of their whispers floated to her on the night breeze, but she could not pick out distinct words. Another man arrived, a lone rider in a cape and hood, who seemed to emerge from the woods.
“Ah, our hawk’s here, too,” someone said, as the lone man dismounted. Elizabeth sucked in a sharp breath; her eyes widened, trying to pierce the darkness. She saw he did not wear a cape but rather a doublet with padded shoulders and flowing sleeves so that it seemed he had wings—and he sported a hood, one that, like the ones her own stable of falcons wore, completely covered his head but must surely have slits or holes for his eyes and mouth. He was about Robin’s height and build and,
as he dismounted gracefully, his moon-silvered silhouette showed he carried some sort of bow and bore a quiver of arrows on his back.
The group of men—six of them—lit candles and quickly vanished into the mouth of the tunnel as if the graveyard had swallowed them.
M
eg couldn’t bear the waiting. Ned had said the men they went to find tonight could know something about Piers, like who had taken him, where he was held.
If that was so, why had she been left behind again? This time, not even to stand in the queen’s stead but to be shuffled aside when the one who needed her most in the entire world was out there, missing her—or, if worse had come to worse, she would be missing Piers, like her little baby Ned, forever.
She glanced across the small room at Jenks’s wife, Ursala. Holding her little Bessie on her lap, she’d fallen asleep from exhaustion, slumped over on the stool with her back against the wall. Meg could see her friend had been crying, but what good did that do? Meg had cried herself sick when little Ned died, but that did not help. Only action was worthwhile, even if that action was to follow her boy—her boys—in death.
After all, the queen always acted. She might fume and fuss, rant and rave, but she always acted. Nor did she do what men advised her. Despite the danger, she did not stay here when Cecil told her to. Though she was queen and Meg just an herb mistress, Elizabeth of England set the tone for all women, if they only heeded her ways. Yes, discretion could be good, but decisions and deeds were what got results, that was the lesson Meg had learned.
It wasn’t a long walk into town, she thought, trying to buck herself up even more, and she knew that the Church of the Holy Ghost was on this side of little Basingstoke.
Meg stood in one slow motion and took a step to see if Ursala would awaken. She and Bessie did not stir. Meg walked toward the door. Lifting her cloak off the hook on the wall, as a last thought, she took with her the bow and quiver of arrows by
the door that Ned had used in his Robin Hood play. They were no doubt just for the stage and show, and she’d never shot such a thing, but if she had to, she would.
E
lizabeth waited only a few minutes, lest someone else should come who could trap her between him and the others. She was anxious to go inside, to hear what was being said. Motioning to Drake and Ned to follow her, she stood and moved toward the mouth of the tunnel.
She was prepared for it to be absolutely black inside, but she was surprised to see that a candle had been wedged in the clay floor just inside the door and another farther on. Did that mean someone else was coming, or just that the men inside were used to lighting their way out? Should she leave Ned behind as a watchman? No, she wanted both Ned and Drake with her. Everyone had been so prompt here, she decided they were all inside.
Bending to avoid scraping the low, earthen ceiling—some of it with tree roots sticking through like gnarled fingers—they hurried down the length of the tunnel. Their good luck held! The men inside had not closed the door to the Sandys crypt but had left it wide open, as well as the door to the stairs. They were not whispering inside, either, but evidently talking full voice.
Were they speaking Spanish? she wondered, and stopped so quickly in her tracks at the bottom of the narrow steps up that Drake hit into her, then steadied her with his hands.
“Ave Maria, gratia plena,
”everyone was chanting in a dissonant, singsong melody she had not heard since her royal sister had forced her to attend Mass years ago. Not Spanish but Latin. Were they only here to have a Catholic service? They kept repeating that single phrase over and over.
Then a voice cut in, “Hail Mary, the next queen of England, too!”
Drake’s hands tightened on her shoulders before he evidently realized he should let go. She was regretful he did, because she was tempted to charge up the stairs, shouting at the traitors that
she
was their God-given queen, not their beloved Mary.
“Best we get down to business,” another man said.
Their voices carried well, though they echoed strangely. She knew she’d have trouble recognizing them with the reverberations in here, so she was going to creep up the stairs to look through the effigies to catch a glimpse of the men, especially that one garbed like a hooded hawk. She’d known he was no phantom, but who was he? Four candles flickered on the altar, but that hardly helped.
“Everything is set to go within a fortnight,” the same man continued. “High and low will rise to fight under her banner as we sweep south toward London. Unless, that is, the Hawk and his—ah, his owner can swoop in for the kill soon, to save us all the trouble.”
Several men laughed briefly, gruffly. She picked out one distinct snicker. How dare they jest about regicide—murdering their rightful queen!
She peered between the head of the male effigy and the stone pillow on which he stiffly lay. The conspirators stood in a circle before the altar, all dressed in black, like a coven of warlocks. From here, by glancing along the wall, she could also see Jenks and Clifford, crouched behind the next pair of effigies, ready to spring. Yet she could not see the speaker’s face. If she could, the few candles they’d brought in with them would do little to illumine his features, anyway. It had been dim during the day in here, but it was all deep shadows upon shadows now.
What she could see if she shifted slightly to the right was the Hooded Hawk figure, at least his mask, if that’s what it was. Could that be Norfolk himself, and he did not want to be identified even among these men? Surely—surely it was not Robin. If he would but speak, perhaps she could tell, or Drake could recognize his cousin Hawkins’s voice if that were he.