The Virgin's War (3 page)

“Keep an eye on the Netherlands,” Elizabeth reminded Walsingham unnecessarily. “If Philip begins removing troops from the Low Countries, then we can begin to worry about Dublin and our own shores. For now, he is stretched thin on the ground.”

Lord Burghley cleared his throat.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“Sir Walter Raleigh has been making quiet inquiries into the Somerset estates. Raleigh would be most willing to buy Farleigh Hungerford from the crown. If the crown has decided to sell, that is.”

“The crown has not so decided.”

A long silence. “As long as it remains in crown control, Your Majesty, there are those who expect Stephen Courtenay will be reinstated to his titles.”

“They can expect whatever they like. But I promise you one thing—as long as I live, Stephen Courtenay will never again be the Earl of Somerset. Spread that report, if you like.”

It hurt her to say it, but not because she had second thoughts. Stephen had committed treason. Any other man in her kingdom would have paid for those crimes with his head. But Stephen was Minuette's son. So Stephen lived—but without title or lands or even his home. He had been in France for nineteen months now. As far as she was concerned, he could stay there indefinitely.

And if he helped keep his brother, Kit, out of England as well? All the better.

Maisie Sinclair had never been to Yorkshire before. Indeed, save for a precious few days two years ago visiting Stephen Courtenay in the Tower of London, she had not spent time in England at all. Despite her birth and childhood in Edinburgh, so close to the border that there always seemed to be alarms about whether the English were coming, Maisie's travels had taken her seemingly everywhere save her nearest neighbor. After her short-lived Irish marriage, Maisie had turned to the Continent. Since 1582 she had spent time in the Low Countries, Germany, Italy, and France. Now, at last, she was on her way home. Three and a half years after sailing from Scotland as the fifteen-year-old bride of an Irishman she'd never met, Maisie was prepared to make her play in Edinburgh.

But first, this visit to Yorkshire. Amidst her voluminous business correspondents was the household treasurer for Her Royal Highness Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales. Maisie's small but successful business interests had profited the princess in her investments, and the treasurer had issued an invitation to meet with him in person in the cathedral city of York. Maisie had considered for ten seconds—six seconds longer than it usually took her to make a decision—before sailing to Hull and riding the remainder of the way north.

She had not anticipated feeling nervous.
We are Sinclairs,
her grandfather had often drummed into her.
Sinclairs do not grovel before anyone.
But when Maisie approached the Treasurer's House in the shadow of York Minster and saw the royal banner of the Princess of Wales flying from the roofline, she very nearly turned on her heel and ran away. She had not been told that the princess herself would be here.

But her training held—all of her training, from her grandfather's hardheaded business principles to the nuns' strict codes of conduct—and probably no one noted the slight stutter in her step. One advantage of enormous skirts. She had with her a Flemish secretary she had hired in Bruges on the recommendation of one of her bankers and who had proven himself a dozen times over to be both astute and loyal. His name was Pieter Andries, and though she thought of him as a boy, he was a good ten years older than her. But where Maisie viewed the world without illusions and with the cynicism of a Scots banker, Pieter had a boundless faith in humanity. His wide-eyed joy in the world made Maisie watch out for him as though he were a naïve spaniel.

Pieter looked up at the banner and grinned. “This should be interesting.”

So maybe he had learned her trick of cynical understatement during their time together.

They were met by pages and a soft-spoken, black-haired woman who introduced herself as Madalena Arias. She had the faintest of Spanish accents. “Mistress Sinclair,” she said, for Maisie had insisted on returning to her maiden name after her brief marriage, “if you will follow me, Matthew Harrington is waiting for you in the reception hall. I hope you do not mind if Her Highness joins the meeting?”

It was a disingenuous question, but Maisie thought it well-mannered of the woman to pretend to ask. “It will be an honour,” she replied truthfully.

Pieter trailed behind her, looking suitably clerkly, and Maisie was glad she had dressed with care. The shimmery mauve of her gown was a unique dye done in the Low Countries, trimmed in lace as fine as a spider's web at the collar and cuffs. Her hair was coiled in a pearled snood attached to a small velvet cap, and her earrings were tiny matching pearls. Perfectly correct and suitable for a wealthy merchant's granddaughter.

When they entered the two-story hall with its black and white checkered floor, Maisie's eyes went directly to the red-haired princess. She was unmistakable, not only from her well-known colouring and elaborate gown, but from the indefinable air of power draped around her. She was taller than Maisie—most everyone was—and beautiful beyond merely the trappings of her dress and position. If she had been a maid, she would still have been ravishing. But combined with her position, Anne Tudor would always command the breathless attention of all who met her.

And she was as charming as she was gorgeous. “Maisie—may I call you Maisie?—I hope you don't mind me sitting in. Matthew sings your praises to such a degree that I simply had to meet you myself.”

Maisie made a serviceable curtsey. “It is a great pleasure, Your Highness.”

An exceptionally tall man took a step forward. “Matthew Harrington,” he said unnecessarily. “It is good of you to go out of your way to come to York.”

He spoke as he wrote, with economy and quiet strength. He had the build to support his height, with dark brown eyes that assessed her steadily.

“And this,” Princess Anne said, drawing forward the other woman present, “is someone most eager to meet you for herself. Philippa—”

“Courtenay,” Maisie interrupted, then flushed. “I apologize, Your Highness. But she is very like her brother.”

“Stephen?” Philippa Courtenay asked quizzically.

“I meant your twin, Christopher. I met him once in Ireland, on the way to my wedding. But yes, you do have something of Stephen about you as well.”

The allure,
she meant, but would never say.
The trick of looking at me with such focus that the rest of the world fades around the edges.
Anne Tudor might be the center of her world, but the Courtenays took self-possession to an entirely new level.

“I had hoped,” Philippa Courtenay continued, “to have some talk with you of Stephen later. When you are finished with the business of high finance. He writes to you, I understand.”

“He does.”

“Why?”

This was not a woman to be parried with a soft answer. “Why me and not you, do you mean?” Maisie replied. “Because I was in Ireland. Those who have passed through trials together can understand one another in a manner others cannot.”

To her surprise, Philippa smiled, genuine and open. “You will not mind if I ask you how to better understand my brother?”

“No, my lady.”

Princess Anne had managed to subtly hold herself in the background, a skill Maisie imagined she didn't often employ, but now firmly took back the authority. “Let us sit and discuss my money. And when we are finished, I shall turn my dear Pippa loose on you. If you are as wise with words as you are with finance, that should be quite the conversation.”

Maisie drew a slightly shaky breath and took the seat Matthew offered her. Discussing money was simple. It was the thought of discussing Stephen that made her pulse flutter.

The hour that followed was more exhilarating than any Maisie had spent in a long time. Despite her polite protestations, the young Princess of Wales had an astute business mind. She and Matthew Harrington between them grilled her thoroughly, and by the end of the hour they had several new investments planned.

And then, with apparently artless ease, the princess took Matthew with her and left Maisie and Philippa Courtenay alone. Dressed in dove-grey damask, this youngest Courtenay daughter had her twin's good looks—sharp cheekbones and sharper eyes, hair like dark honey, save for a streak of glossy black that shone like Stephen's.

“Lady Philippa,” Maisie said warily.

“Call me Pippa. Everyone does.”

Since she couldn't quite bring herself to do that, Maisie simply nodded as though in agreement while silently vowing not to call her anything. And then she waited to be asked uncomfortable questions.

“Is Stephen ever going to recover from loving his Irish woman?”

Well, that was rather more uncomfortable than even she had bargained for. “It depends on how you define recovery.”

A flash of amused respect from Lady Philippa. “I define it as not needing to turn to hard drink or easy women to salve his pain.”

“Surely your twin can give you more accurate information than I can, seeing as how they are together in France.”

“But Kit never met Ailis Kavanaugh. You were there. You watched it all happen. And before you tell me that you were far too simple and innocent to understand what was going on…don't bother. Your pose of childlike blandness does not fool me in the slightest.”

It had been a long time since Maisie had met an adult who bothered to look behind the masks she wore. Stephen had been the last, and that only briefly and in flashes between his obsession with Ailis. It was something of a relief to shrug her shoulders and answer bluntly. “Your brother is not a man to be broken by anything save his own conscience. Stephen loved Ailis very much. But any chance they might have had vanished the moment her daughter died. It wasn't his lies or their different religions or political aims that ruined them—it was Stephen himself. He will never forgive himself for young Liadan's death. I think he believed that walking away from Ailis was his penance for the child's murder.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“Stephen will not take refuge in alcohol.” Maisie didn't dare think about women. What did she know of how men eased their pain in that way? “He will not retreat from the path he has laid before himself—to serve where he can to the best of his ability. It is your queen's loss if it is not to be in England.”

“That sounds rather cold.”

“You asked for honesty, not comfort.”

Lady Philippa smiled, but there was something sad to it. And piercing. She seemed to be looking deep into Maisie's own cold comforts as she said, “You are not wrong, but I do not think you see the whole of my brother. There is more to Stephen than duty, and a heart with room for more than one love. I do not think passion has finished with him quite yet.”

In defiance of protocol, Maisie stood up first. She had no experience with passion and no desire to discuss it with this self-possessed young woman who also happened to be Stephen's sister. “My business is with numbers,” she said with finality. “I shall leave passion and penance to those better equipped to recognize it.”

Lady Philippa rose with a grace Maisie envied and her smile grew mischievous. “Thank you for your honesty, Mistress Sinclair. I will not forget it. Or you.”

A promise, or a threat? Maisie couldn't decide which.

17 November 1584

Kit,

What have you been writing to Anabel lately? She is entirely too cheerful. It's making the household nervous. When Anabel is cheerful, she is apt to be doing something reckless. I can only hope the recklessness is confined to her letters. And yes, I know, I sound like a fidgety old maid. It's because you're not here and Stephen's not here and Lucie and Julien have hardly stirred from Compton Wynyates in a year. Her last miscarriage was so far along that she had begun to hope. And when that hope was dashed yet again…I am so worried about her and yet I cannot do anything!

We did have an interesting visitor while in York. Matthew has been doing business on Anabel's behalf with Maisie Sinclair, the Scots widow who was in the Kavanaugh household with Stephen. Her brother nominally runs the Sinclair family's main concerns out of Edinburgh, but she, I suspect, is the true inheritor of her grandfather's genius. When she agreed to meet with Matthew on her way back to Scotland, I persuaded Anabel to go along because I wanted to ask the girl about Stephen.

Maisie Sinclair was very defensive—not on her own behalf, but on Stephen's. I find that intriguing. She seems to think he is choosing to lose himself in duty in order to bury his unrequited love for Ailis Kavanaugh. What do you think? Does he talk about Ireland? Does he talk about the letters he sends and receives from Maisie? Does he ever say anything at all beyond work?

Write to me soon, and rather more fully than you are wont. It is not fair that Anabel gets all your words and I so few.

Your rather disgruntled sister,

Pippa

Kit couldn't decide whether to grin or grimace while reading Pippa's latest letter. He had never spent such a long time away from England and the many women who had formed the backbone of his home life. Although he missed much of it, he could not deny that life here at Chateau Blanclair was a particular kind of restful.

It was a household of men—Renaud, nearly sixty, had been widowed for some years and showed no interest in remarrying. His only daughter was married well, with three daughters of her own, but spent most of her time in Paris or on her husband's estates. And since the death of Renaud's eldest son and the departure of his second son to marriage in England, the only other resident family member was twelve-year-old Felix. Felix was his grandfather's heir and, between intensive tutoring, spent time learning the fine art of war. All in all, Blanclair was run rather like a soldiers' camp. In that atmosphere, Pippa's letters occasionally jarred on Kit.

But only for a moment. Then he was swept by a rush of bitter longing so strong his eyes stung and he had to breathe against it. What he wouldn't give to be with Pippa at this moment—because if he was with his twin, he would also be with Anabel.

Longing was abruptly cut off by a slap on the arm. “What are you moping about?” Stephen asked.

Irritation made him sharp. “Why is it that everywhere I go I'm followed by questions about your love life?”

Since Ireland, Stephen wasn't as easy to rile as he had once been. “I have no love life, brother, so the answers cannot possibly take long to compose.”

“For a man with no love life, you have a multiplicity of women following your every move. Anabel went all the way to York to meet that Scots girl who has been writing to you since Ireland. And Pippa found her curiously unwilling to speak about you.”

“If Anabel wanted to meet Maisie, it was for her business acumen,” Stephen said evenly, the only sign of tension the slight twitch of his left eye. “And I highly doubt that anything in the letters we've exchanged is a tenth as inflammatory as what you've been writing to the Princess of Wales.”

Kit grinned despite himself. “If I could cipher as well as you or Lucie, I could make them even more inflammatory.”

Stephen rolled his eyes, but there was an affection behind the familiar gesture that Kit had never been aware of when he was young. Despite all he missed about England, he was glad to have spent this time in France with his brother.

“Come on,” Stephen said. “Renaud has orders for us. A small sortie in the direction of Turin. Shouldn't take more than a month. We'll be back here by Christmas. And when spring comes, you should go home.”

“We've talked about that.”

“You can't wait for me forever, Kit.”

“The queen will forgive you.”

“I don't know that I care.”

Kit narrowed his eyes. “You don't care if you're never allowed to go home again? Never to set foot on English soil? Of course you care. And of course Elizabeth will forgive you. It's not as though you killed anyone valuable.”

“It's not who I killed,” Stephen replied. “It's where and how. The queen can forgive much, but not insults to her authority. Even if I am allowed back to England, for what purpose? I have no interest in being decorative and useless.”

“Like a younger son?” Kit shot back. “It's not all bad.”

Kit forced his older brother to look at him, to acknowledge the hit, and finally Stephen let a smile ghost across his sharp-boned face. “We have the winter before us. Perhaps when spring comes I'll know what it is I want to do with my life.”

In mid-November the entirety of Anabel's household at Middleham were uneasily wondering if the Princess of Wales intended to spend a second winter in the frozen North or might finally venture to the milder South. They had been out of Yorkshire twice in the last two years, but only to go to the princess's chief holdings in Wales. In all that time, they had come no nearer the queen's court than a hundred miles.

Anabel hadn't meant to avoid her mother's company this long. When she had taken Pippa's advice to go north and establish a strong royal presence nearer the Scots border, she hadn't considered all it might mean. Nor had she imagined how much she would enjoy the hard work of slowly weaving a disparate populace into closer ties to her own interests. With some of the strongest enclaves of Catholic recusant families settled in the North, the region had always been somewhat tenuous in its ties to the throne. And the North had long memories—a hundred years ago the people of Yorkshire had mourned the death of the royal usurper Richard III, and they still looked askance at the Tudors who had left his body on a battlefield.

But Anabel was not only a Tudor—she was also a Hapsburg, daughter of His Most Catholic Majesty Philip II of Spain. That impeccable bloodline went far with the recusants. Combined with her mother's gift for charming those she cared to charm, the Princess of Wales now found herself a little bemusedly with her own center of power. Not in open opposition to the queen's—but not precisely in concert with it, either.

All of that came into play over this one, outwardly simple decision: remain at Middleham for Christmas and the deep winter months or go to Greenwich for the traditional royal festivities. The gravity of the decision was underlaid by the fact that the royal invitation was not sent directly from mother to daughter, but through the official auspices of England's Lord High Treasurer, Lord Burghley.

Anabel considered it in concert with the closest of her advisors: her chaplain, her secretary, her treasurer, her master of horse, and her two chief ladies—Pippa and Madalena Arias. They met in the council chamber Anabel herself had decorated, at a polished table with the princess at the head in order to see the faces of her councilors. There were carpets on the floor in shades of apricot and summer green and a multitude of lamps lit early against the dull November sky.

“Well?” Anabel opened the matter for discussion. “How anxious are you all to return to the greater comforts of the civilized South?”

Her treasurer spoke first. “It is for you to say, Your Highness.”

Trust Matthew Harrington to state the obvious without sounding obsequious.

“And it is for you all to advise me,” Anabel said sweetly. “So—advise.”

They spoke as their positions and characters demanded. The Spanish Madalena had been with Anabel since the princess was five, and provided a unique and Continental perspective on affairs. She spoke for the recusants. Would the Catholics who had begun to thaw toward Anabel be made openly hostile once again by her retreat to what some of them saw as the enemy's court?

“In that case, I should certainly go,” Anabel said sharply. “I will not have anyone speak of the queen as the enemy of any of her people.”

Madalena was not flustered. “Then your best choice is to continue acting as the intermediary. No one doubts your personal faith, Your Highness, but by very virtue of your birth you give the Catholics hope.”

“Hope that I will return England to Rome? That is a false hope that is best crushed at once.”

“Hope that you will allow those who respect Rome to have a voice in the larger community.”

The chaplain chimed in, a familiar refrain of disagreement with the Spanish lady. Edwin Littlefield had entered Anabel's service when she came north, having served before then in the household of the staunchly reformist Archbishop of York. “We cannot trust those whose allegiance to a foreign voice is stronger than their allegiance to their own queen.”

“And how much is it England herself who forces that conflict, and not Rome?” Madalena urged quietly.

“It is the queen's fault that assassins are sent to kill her? That the Princess of Wales is under constant threat of violence? You are disingenuous if you do not accept that Rome and Spain together are behind those threats!” The chaplain could be easily roused.

“Rome and Spain, perhaps,” Madalena acknowledged. “But not necessarily English Catholics. There are many who wish only to live in peace and be left to worship as their consciences dictate without disrupting the security of the state. They are the ones suffering under the queen's increasing punishments. Twenty pounds for not attending an Anglican service? None but the wealthiest can afford that.”

Anabel struck the table with one hand to stop the familiar arguments. “Enough. I am looking for counsel, not rhetoric. Harrington, what do you think?”

If her council often reflected Anabel's own mercurial temper, then Matthew Harrington was the rock-solid exception. Though only twenty-five, he had the presence and gravity of a much older man. Like his father, who had stood by Dominic Courtenay through all manner of pain, Matthew brought absolute loyalty without sacrificing his own integrity. In the last two years, Anabel had begun to suspect that Matthew Harrington might be to her future what Lord Burghley was to her mother.

And, ironically, that Robert Cecil—Burghley's own son—would serve her more in the manner of Francis Walsingham. Like her mother's spymaster, Robert always seemed to know what was happening in the quietest corners of the world.

Matthew rarely offered his opinion without being asked, but always answered directly. “It would be wise to begin to make concrete offers to a few of the Catholic lords most likely to listen. The Council of the North will meet this spring—I would suggest you preside in person and use the opportunity to publicly show your desire to conciliate.”

Christopher Hatton—her pragmatic secretary—leaned forward. “Won't that simply provide troublemakers with another wedge to drive between the queen and princess?”

It was the first time anyone had openly acknowledged the tension they had all felt; that the absence from her mother's court was beginning to be manipulated by those who wanted conflict.

Though Hatton had been addressing Matthew, it was Pippa who answered. “The troublemakers need an outlet, Your Highness. Better to be centered upon you, who can cope with it with grace and intelligence, than for us to have no entrée into that world. Would you rather they turn to young Anthony Babington or the Earl of Arundel?”

“No,” Anabel said softly. “I would prefer to know what is happening in this kingdom beforehand, rather than be caught unawares. You think more definite approaches will be made to me by the Catholics this winter?”