The Virgin's War (27 page)

Kit remembered his time with the two monarchs in Spain—haughty Mary Stuart and inscrutable Philip Hapsburg. Philip might not be in a hurry to get his wife back, now that she had fulfilled her primary function of providing him sons. As well as her secondary function—irritating Elizabeth.

“All we can do now is play out the game,” Kit concluded. “The list of things we can control is growing shorter by the day.”

T
wo days after leaving Berwick to return to Middleham, Anabel's party was intercepted by a courier from the Earl of Arundel. He had come north to Hull in the last month, bringing with him a significant number of armed men. Anabel met Kit's eyes, and sighed inwardly. Time to face the devil and hope she didn't get burned.

They arrived at Hull Castle with as little fanfare as could be managed. To her surprise—and displeasure—Tomás Navarro was already there.

“I was not aware that you had asked leave to come to Hull,” Anabel said frostily.

Navarro regarded her with an assurance bordering on arrogance that made her skin prickle. Something ugly was brewing. His words, though, were perfectly correct.

“Your Highness, the Earl of Arundel is waiting above for us.”

Perhaps not that correct. An earl waited upon a princess, not the other way round.

Fortunately, Anabel had learned from the best how to assert her position. “The earl asked to see me. It is not for him to decide who will join us. I will send for you when I am ready.”

“As you wish, Your Highness. You may find Lord Arundel less…amenable than in the past.”

She stared at the priest. “We shall see.”

Arundel was not nearly as rude as Navarro. The young earl was on his feet when she swept into the low-ceilinged chamber, and he made a proper bow. But he wasn't precisely deferential, either.

“Do you know what you are doing, Your Highness?” Arundel straightened, his light eyes piercing beneath that distinctive widow's peak.

“Meeting with you. Should I be doing something different?”

“You should be deciding which way you're going to jump when Spanish troops land on England's shores.”

Anabel inhaled sharply. She forced herself to be still, to take a moment before replying. “My decision is taken. Is yours?” Neither of them were speaking plainly. They were each free to take the other at the value of what they said—or listen deeper, to what they left unsaid.

Arundel shot a look at the closed door, kept his voice low and his words noncommittal. “Do we want to have this discussion now?”

“You're the one who asked me here.”

“My center of power, what remains of it, is far south of Hull.”

“But your influence amongst certain elements of the North is…not negligible.”

“Navarro suspects.”

“He can suspect all he likes. His influence
is
negligible.”

“Not if it's targeted properly.”

“If you have something to say, Lord Arundel, say it. Better yet, do something more useful than speak.”

Arundel narrowed his eyes. “I dislike Protestants, Your Highness. I dislike Protestant queens. I dislike being told how and whether I may practice the tenets of the True Faith.”

“And?”

“And…” He drew out the word slowly. “I dislike being manipulated because of my faith. Fortunately for your cause, Navarro has been even more egregious in his manipulation than you have. And beneath all the insults from this government, I am English. I have no wish to see Spanish troops holding London.”

“My immediate concern is not Spanish troops in London, but Spanish troops in Hull. Or Scarborough. Or York.”

“That
should
be your concern. I have had word from an…acquaintance in Scotland. The day before yesterday, Queen Mary was liberated from Blackness Castle by Lord Maxwell. She has been taken aboard one of the Spanish ships that sailed from Ireland weeks ago.”

“Those missing ships,” she said under her breath.

“Quite.”

“You're telling me the moment is at hand.”

“Very nearly so. Those Spanish ships expect you to welcome them—if not quite with open arms, at least without a serious show of defiance. After all, they have Mary Stuart with them. If
you
will not be reasonable, they have a Catholic queen quite prepared to take vengeance on the North.”

“Do you know where they will land?”

“I do not.”

He looked at her guilelessly, and she could not tell if he was lying. Certainly he seemed to be going to some trouble to warn her. “And if they land in Hull, Lord Arundel, what will you and your armed men do?”

“That,” he said with a faint smile, “will depend on your actions. Your Highness.”

He would not be drawn further. Anabel left him then, for she was afraid of losing her temper. She needed to get out of Hull, go somewhere she could think clearly without having to walk the line between truth and lie. Kit was waiting where she'd left him in an antechamber off the stairs.

“Let's go,” she said. “Now, before we can be stopped.”

“You think we'll be stopped?”

“I think Navarro might try.”

If he meant to stop her, Navarro didn't get the chance. They were out of the castle and beyond the city before most people had any idea she'd ever been there.

“Back to Middleham?” Kit asked.

“Too far. I need to be central, so I can move quickly when needed. We'll go to York. Send couriers out ahead to Middleham, let the council know to meet us there.”

But when they reached the safe streets of York, Anabel discovered that the couriers had not been needed. Her council and critical household members were waiting for her at the Treasurer's House inside the city walls.

She didn't have to look far to know why and how.

Pippa smiled serenely, the soft light almost hiding the hollows in her face. “I knew you'd come.”

Anabel let out a sigh between laughter and tears. “Let's get to work.”

From the moment Kit laid eyes on the newly defiant Navarro in Hull, he'd been aching to fight. He didn't mind battle—what he hated was the long run-up to it, the days or weeks of delay and indecision that left him too anxious to sleep properly and too distracted to concentrate. So while Anabel worked with her council, Kit spent most of his time out and about in the city. York was a pretty place, but it wasn't the splendour of York Minster or the appeal of its narrow medieval streets that kept his attention. Mostly, he was watching the citizens. They were a polite lot—but cautious. If a Spanish army turned up outside its walls, Kit could not predict if York would open its gates in order to keep the peace.

In the event, they didn't have to decide. The city watch had no instructions to keep out recognized members of Her Highness's household, and so, when faced with fifty men dressed as members of the Princess of Wales's personal guard, the watch allowed them to pass.

Once the men reached the Treasurer's House, it took precisely one minute for the threat to become clear. The men were Spanish, and they carried weapons. Not sufficient to take the city—but more than sufficient to take Anabel if they wished.

And they did so wish. The Spanish soldiers allowed Anabel the courtesy of withdrawing with her advisors to a windowless chamber with only a single door that was guarded from outside. His fists opening and closing at his sides until they cramped, Kit listened to Anabel read aloud the message the men had carried. It came from Tomás Navarro.

Hull has been taken,
Navarro wrote.
The city has acquiesced and thus far been spared violence. To ensure her continuing safety, we require the presence of Her Royal Highness the Infanta Anne Isabella to join Her Majesty Queen Mary aboard
La Santa Catalina
anchored at Hull until the city of York is also safely in our hands.

“At which point, presumably,” Kit said, “you are marched back into York to a glorious reception from the conquering Spanish troops and your Catholic subjects. Or, if you prove difficult, Mary Stuart does it for you.” He swore and shook his head. “It's mad.”

“Navarro is mad,” Anabel said slowly. “Just mad enough to think this would work. But not so mad as to be unprepared for the worst. If I don't agree, the Spanish will wreak violence on Hull.”

“They would never hurt you.”

“They won't have to. I will not let them hurt anyone else in my place.”

“You cannot possibly agree!” Kit yelled.

“It's not your decision.”

“The hell it isn't. And I will use force to stop you if I must.”

“I will not risk the destruction of Hull!”

Through their clash of temper, Pippa's cool voice intervened. “There will be no destruction tonight. The Infanta will present herself as requested at
La Santa Catalina
.”

It was difficult to say who understood her first—Anabel, Kit, or Matthew. But it was Anabel whose voice rose the loudest over the instinctive refusals. “Absolutely not. This is not the time for playacting.”

“What has all our playacting ever been but a prelude to this moment?”

“You think Navarro will be so charmed by your playacting that he will forgo his threats? Don't be a fool, Pippa. If you deliver yourself into Spanish hands in place of me, all you will have done is bought time for York to panic.”

“No. I will have bought time for you to escape and bring York an army to save it.”

Kit breathed out as he turned his full attention on his twin. “Stephen,” he said, voicing the words held silent in Pippa's mind, clear in his own now that he paid attention. “You have sent for Stephen's troops, haven't you?”

Pippa's smile was as bright as their childhood. “Stephen's troops are only twenty miles off.”

“We could send someone else to alert him!” Anabel snapped.

“Stephen needs you to be certain of what to do about the threat. He needs direction.”

“
You
could direct him,” Anabel pointed out to Pippa. “You could escape the city while I delay Navarro.”

Kit felt that his head—not to mention his heart—would split as he listened to the two women he loved best in the world debate which of them would risk her life this night. How, he wondered, did Matthew manage to stand there without protest as his wife offered herself in place of Anabel?

“If you deliver yourself to the Spanish,” Pippa said sternly to Anabel, “Navarro will hold a hostage whose worth is great enough to stop the English army in its tracks. Stephen would listen to me, but your other armies? Only you can command them, Your Highness. And only I can buy you the necessary time to do it.”

Pippa stepped closer, until the two women were only inches apart. “It will work, Anabel,” she whispered urgently. “I have seen it.”

There was a weight to those four words, as though Pippa were momentarily able to impress upon the minds of all those present her own peculiar knowledge of what was to come. Kit had no doubt everyone could feel it. For himself, there was something lurking behind that weight, glimpsed through a door left ajar, and he could sense a tumult of other words and other weights. But the moment he turned his attention in that direction, Pippa slammed the door shut against him.

“Who will go with you?” Anabel asked. And as simply as that, assented to this most dangerous plan. Leaving Kit's heart in pieces.

The trick was in the clothing and the bearing. Blessed by nature with a similar height and build, with a bone structure that spoke of blood ties both Boleyn and Plantagenet between them, Pippa and Anabel had some of the physical traits necessary to pass for one another. And those they did not possess—notably their hair—could be manufactured. Since a severe bout of scarlatina several years ago that had necessitated cutting her hair, Anabel had in her keeping several expensive wigs of vivid red-gold. Pippa produced one of them now and, surprisingly, another wig of dark blonde hair with the distinctive black streak that matched her own.

Anabel raised an eyebrow. “You've kept this all these years?”

“Why do you think I had it made?”

“I thought it was to tease the French ambassador eight years ago.” Anabel paused, then smiled bitterly. “But then, you always have four or five reasons for everything you do. Even when you were fifteen.”