The Virgin's War (31 page)

His smile was there and gone again like the flash of a fish on a pond's smooth surface. “Not likely, but I suppose stranger things have happened. You are going to Kenilworth?”

“To help your sister coordinate information, yes.”

“I wish…” But neither of them were sentimentalists, and wishes were for children.

That did not stop Maisie from rising on tiptoe and pulling her husband down so she could kiss him. “It will be all right in the end,” she whispered against his cheek. It was what she had said to him four years ago in Ireland. From the tightening of his hands on her waist, she knew he remembered.

Then, as quickly as they had come together, they separated. Maisie set her eyes forward and did not look back.

When Spain's mighty armada was sighted off the Dover coast, sailing inexorably north to the Channel, Elizabeth listened in silence to the report. They had hoped the Spanish would land at Dover itself, or along the southern coasts between there and Portsmouth. But that hope had always been a faint one, and Elizabeth—not to mention her commanders—were far too wary not to make every preparation possible. It had always been a distinct possibility that the Spanish would make a strike directly at London, and so the fort at Tilbury had been hastily reinforced with earthworks and a palisade designed to protect it from foreign troops attempting to land. The old blockhouse fort itself was nearly fifty years old, but it could still employ the deadly crossfire it had been designed for along with the defenses at Gravesend across the river. And to further delay enemy ships, a boom chain had been stretched across the Thames between the two forts.

For all those reasons, it had made sense to make Tilbury a mustering point for England's armies. The problem was, they couldn't be absolutely certain where Spain would land and so had to split their musters. In addition to Tilbury, Dominic Courtenay had a significant army at Southampton and had spared what men he could for the castles at Dover and Portsmouth. He himself rode between camps at an inhuman rate. Not because he did not trust the men who commanded beneath him, but because he took his responsibilities seriously. It was the primary reason Elizabeth had appointed him.

But whatever his gifts and title, Dominic was not the highest power in England. That rested with Elizabeth, and so she determined to travel from Whitehall to Tilbury and speak to the troops mustered there to protect London. Both Burghley and Walsingham protested, but she was unmoved.

“There are moments,” she told them quietly, “that every monarch must rise to. This is one of those moments.”

The camp at Tilbury showed bravely against the flat eastern sky. The neatly dug trenches and sharp palisades were a backdrop to the multicoloured tents of the nobles and gentlemen and the green booths to house the regiments, not yet bedraggled by time and boredom. The foot regiments were drawn up in matching coats, with troops of horsemen in armor behind. Not enough, Elizabeth knew, to defeat the Duke of Parma if he landed in force—but they would make Parma bleed for every foot of ground.

As with everything of significance in her life, Elizabeth had prepared meticulously. After disembarking at the Tilbury fort and making a brief tour of the D-shaped blockhouse built by her father, she changed into a gown of white velvet, a deliberate reference to the warrior goddess Athena, and wore a beautiful steel cuirass over the gown. She could not be a king in armor, prepared to lead his armies' charge, but nor could she be entirely a queen and hide behind her sex. Elizabeth knew that sometimes the best way to defuse criticism was to acknowledge it first. So she had crafted her speech knowing it must bind together the disparate parts of her person to create something new—a people's queen who would walk amongst them as a symbol of her willingness to lay down her own life in their protection.

Despite her bodyguards' protests, she left them behind at the fort. She would not insult her troops with any indication that she feared the strength of their loyalty. She rode a pale grey horse led by a young boy, and carried in her hand a gold and silver truncheon. The sword of state was borne before her by Brandon Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and a silver helmet rested upon a pillow as though simply waiting for her to put it on.

There were, perhaps, ten thousand men assembled at Tilbury, and she passed slowly through them, allowing each to see only her resolution and courage. But behind her controlled face she noted unpleasant truths: the men were poorly armed and even more poorly trained, mostly farmers and craftsmen who were underpaid and underfed. Dominic and Dudley had done their best—which was considerable—but even they could not make skilled soldiers from nothing. If the Spanish landed here in force, Tilbury might easily break. And if it did, then the way to London lay wide open.

Elizabeth let none of her concerns show. Instead, she focused on England's greatest strength—the loyalty of a people willing to defend their homes and way of life to the death. She was here to strengthen them, not give way to fear.

When she had passed through the army, she at last delivered the speech into which she had poured all her faith and hopes and courage.

“My loving people: we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear.”

A rousing cheer from the men, as though King Philip and his Papist soldiers could hear the force of their opposition.

“I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chief strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and goodwill of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.”

She meant every word, even as logic dictated her advisors would employ everything short of force to keep her away from the field. Logic also dictated that they were right—England was more than just land. England—at this hour, at this danger—lived in Elizabeth.

“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a King of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you on a word of a prince, they shall be duly paid.”

She could see in their faces that they believed her. More…she could see that they trusted her. She might be in body only a woman of advancing age, dressed for show in a cuirass that would not withstand a single sword blow, but she saw in the reflection of their gazes much more than that. She was Judith and Esther, she was Diana and Minerva, she was Gloriana.

She was Queen Elizabeth.

“In the meantime, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”

When the cheers and adulation had died down, Elizabeth retreated gracefully to the fort, where she changed into a riding dress more appropriate for long distances. From here she would leave the water and go south on horseback.

Dominic tried to talk her out of it. “You should not be heading any nearer to the coasts,” he argued. “You should be with your government, ready to retreat if needed for safety's sake.”

“If I retreat, I give my armies leave to do the same,” she retorted. “I wish to go to Canterbury to make a spiritual appeal. That should go over well. And it will give you an excuse to force Minuette out of Dover Castle. Make her come to Canterbury, and I will ensure I bring her back inland with me.”

It wasn't fair to shamelessly manipulate him—but Dominic always made it so easy. At least he had learned over the years to recognize it. “All of which is but to say that you will do as you choose.”

“But of course,” she agreed smoothly. “That can hardly be a surprise to you after more than fifty years.”

He threw up his hand. “Fine. We will go to Canterbury.”

“Not you. You are my lieutenant general and you are needed here, or wherever else the Spanish make their stand. I shall do very well with my guards. I will break my journey at Leeds Castle, and then on to Canterbury. As I have already written to Minuette asking her to meet me there the day after tomorrow, I have no time to waste arguing with you unless you wish your wife to be without my protection for long.”

“Elizabeth,” he said with all seriousness, “do not get yourself injured. I can control the army, but only you can control the people. Don't forget it.”

“I never do—not for a single moment.”
Which is why I am so very weary
.

She followed Dominic's order for a day and a half. And then, fifteen miles outside Canterbury—after all Elizabeth's years of surviving close calls—Francis Walsingham's worst fears were realized.

A Catholic assassin got lucky.

When Anabel emerged from her private conference with James, she looked subtly different. Kit's observational skills might have become dulled in the days since Pippa's death—as though he could not get used to seeing the world through only his own eyes—but he knew every aspect of Anabel's face and moods. The politeness was surface only. From the curve of her cheek to the elegance of her throat—even the set of her wrists and arms—her human warmth had been extinguished and replaced by the frozen lines of a statue.

Kit shot a suspicious glance at James Stuart, who had escorted her out. The king waited until Anabel was on horseback, then took her offered hand and kissed her fingers. “Until tomorrow,” he said.

Then he turned on Kit a look of almost unbearable smugness.
I win,
that look said. Did James think Kit didn't know every detail of the marriage treaty signed more than three years ago? James might have the diplomatic edge, but he would never have Anabel's heart.

Anabel did not speak a word until they had returned to Norham Castle. Then, abruptly dismissing those wanting her attention, she took Kit into the first empty chamber she came to. When she had shut the door on the two of them, she leaned against it with her hands behind her back as though supporting her.

“What happened?” he asked. “Did James refuse his army?” It was the only thing he could think of that would make her look like this—as though every hope of hers had been trampled by careless marauders.

When she didn't immediately answer, Kit rushed to reassure her. “We'll manage, Anabel. With Arundel's open support, and the growing outrage over Pippa—” He had to stop at that, his throat catching. Then he set his jaw and went on. “We may well be outnumbered without the Scots—”

“We won't be outnumbered,” she said tonelessly. “The king has agreed to lead his army to Berwick.”

“That's…Thank God for it.” He studied her more closely, then asked shrewdly, “What is his price?”

“There is only one price James will accept.”

“You.”

She nodded once. “He will lend his armies to his wife, and no one else.”

“We've always known that, Anabel. It's not as though it's a surprise.”

“We will be married tomorrow.”

The room spun around Kit, much as it had at Pippa's death, and when it settled he realized that it was, indeed, possible to feel worse. He tried, for her sake, to give Anabel hope. “I doubt the queen's privy council would approve. I know a marriage ceremony means much, but vows can be undone—”

“James has thought of that. He has thought of everything—a good deal more, in fact, than either of us would like. It will not be the vows only. Wedded at noon, and bedded at sunset…James Stuart means to make very sure of me.”

W
hen Kit had come to her after Pippa's death, Anabel thought she would never again see anything so terrible as his face in that raw grief. This was very nearly as bad. She watched the colour drain from his forehead downward, until the only thing she could see were his beautiful, bleak, hopeless eyes.

She wanted to go to him, wanted to wrap herself around him and tell him it made no difference, she would never love James, it would always be Kit…

But she was trained to self-control. And so, though his childhood had not always shown it, was Kit.

“I see.” His voice was new, one to break her heart. “Yes, I can…” He cleared his throat. “It will be here?”

“At the church in Ladykirk. I will stay here tonight.”

“You will need things—people—from Berwick. If you'd care to prepare a list?”

“I will.”

He could not leave while she stood against the door, though plainly he wanted to. Hesitantly, Anabel stepped toward him. “Kit—”

“It's all right. I do understand. Just…let me see to what needs to be done. Please.”

With all her considerable force of will, Anabel summoned detachment, or at least the nearest image of it she could manage. “Thank you.”

She closed her eyes as he passed her, near enough for her to smell the scent of him. Kit always smelled of clean air and open fields and the gardens of Wynfield Mote, where she had first felt the warmth of a family home. He did not linger, but she kept her eyes closed long after he'd gone, knowing that when she opened them, her chosen future would be upon her.

You told me once I might have a husband of my own choosing,
she had said to Pippa.

Choices may be made for many reasons,
had been the reply. True. If not at all comforting at the moment.

Anabel threw herself furiously into a whirlwind of letter writing the rest of that dreadfully drawn-out day. To Berwick Castle she sent not only a list of necessities for tomorrow but a matter-of-fact explanation of events to Lord Hunsdon. The fact of her marriage was glossed over quickly, in favor of the military situation. Knowing that every hour now counted, Anabel wrote,
King James and I will leave at first light the day after tomorrow to march his men to Berwick.

It would be none too soon, for when Kit returned he brought Robert Cecil, Matthew Harrington, and her chaplain, Littlefield. The news was dispiriting. Spanish scouts were already beginning to reach shore. Berwick might soon be surrounded.

As long as she had such matters to concentrate her mind upon, Anabel managed well enough. But after dinner, when the long twilight of a northern summer finally slipped into velvety night, all that was left to her were regrets.

No. There was one other thing left to her. One night to do as she wished.

When the castle had gone to bed, she sent Madalena to fetch Kit.

When he appeared, an unlaced jerkin thrown over his shirtsleeves, he had a distinctly bruised appearance about the eyes. Anabel felt much the same. And though she was no stranger to making imperious demands, she felt queer and uncertain. Because this was not a demand…and it mattered more to her at this moment than anything in the world.

“I love you,” she said, determined not to waste time on preliminaries. “I will never, in all my life, love anyone as I do you.”

“Anabel…I love you,
mi corazon,
and no number of Scottish husbands will ever change that.”

She was in his arms before she knew it, and when he would have gently disengaged, she kissed him all the fiercer.

“What are you doing?” he managed to ask, sounding as breathless as she felt.

She took a step back from the circle of his arms and he let her go. Reluctantly. And then she found the words that had been tumbling through her all day.

“Twelve hours from now,” she said, “I will wed James Stuart. It is not the marriage of my heart, but I make it as willingly as I am able. For England. And when we are married, I will be to him a faithful wife.

“But Kit?” She raised her chin, determined not to quail. “I am not his wife yet. Stay with me tonight. Please.”

He caught up her hands and pressed them to his lips. “You don't know what you're asking.”

“Is that really the argument you want to make with me?” Even at the peak of tension, they could not keep from teasing.

“Do you think I do not want to stay? But I love you too well to think only of myself. In your life to come, I would not have you regret anything.”

“Regrets? I do not think there is a soul alive who lives entirely without regret. Please, Kit. Tomorrow I marry a man I do not love. Let me take with me the memory that just once in my life I lay with the only man I will ever love.”

She saw his capitulation the moment before he pulled her to him and kissed her with an abandon she'd only dreamed of. She felt wildly, deliciously loved, and knew this would be the finest night of her life.

Princesses did not have experience of a sensual sort—at least, not wise princesses. But any insecurity she might have felt vanished almost at once, for how could she be nervous with Kit? It was the most natural thing in the world to slide her hands through the thick silk of his hair, to keep him pulled tightly to her while his own hands tangled in her red-gold waves. When he pulled away, she made an inarticulate protest and he gently laughed against her mouth.

“I'm not going anywhere,” he said. “Not unless you send me away.”

She trapped his mouth with her own in a promise that she would not send him away. Then, curious about his intentions, she allowed him to disengage. They were instantly obvious, as his hands let loose her hair and moved to the buttons that closed her robe from high neck to waist. Anabel had spent her lifetime being dressed and undressed by others, but Kit's hands—the graceful, long-fingered hands of his mother—were so erotic in their delicacy she feared her knees would not hold her up much longer.

When he had pushed the robe from her shoulders so it fell in a pool of silk around her feet, and then shrugged off his own unlaced jerkin, she reached impatiently for the cambric shirt that still covered him. Kit obliged her, and drew in a sharp breath as she ran her fingertips down his chest.

“Anabel…”

She drew him to her bed in response and arranged herself in what she hoped was a seductive pose.

Kit hesitated. “Are you quite sure?”

She pulled him down in reply, whispering, “Quite sure.”

Imagination could only take one so far, and Anabel rapidly passed beyond the limits of hers. How can I ever go from Kit to James after this? she wondered once, and then promptly forgot her future husband.

She learned now that it was possible to be both soft and hard, both gentle and urgent, to allow one's ferocious mind to be drowned by the demands of your own body—and another's.

When Kit eased her up to remove her shift, Anabel said softly, “You will have to teach me what to do.”

At that, his hands froze at her hips. “Me? Did you…I'm afraid, Anabel, that if you are expecting experience, then you have chosen the wrong man.”

She jerked her head back far enough to meet his eyes straight on. “You are never a virgin!”

“I am.”

“Why? How? Don't tell me you haven't had women throwing themselves at you since you were sixteen, if not before. I've watched most of them.”

“They were never the right woman,” he said carefully. “It's always been you, Anabel. Even before I was smart enough to know it. Once I did…How can you think any other woman could matter to me?”

She didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. She put her hands on his cheeks and leaned her forehead against his. “My dearest, darling Kit…then I suppose we shall learn together.”

And so they did. Anabel had always been a quick study—in everything from logic to languages—and this was a lesson her body seemed half to know already. Instinct was an excellent teacher, and so was love. Whatever pain there was mattered little when set beside the overwhelming of her senses that proclaimed she and Kit had been meant for this all their lives.

Kit apologized after. “I'm sorry to have hurt you.”

“I don't think it's avoidable—and by far a small price to pay.”

With her head on his chest, he ran one hand down her spine. “I may have been a virgin, but that doesn't mean I am completely innocent. Men talk. I think, if you give me leave, I can do better by you in a little while.”

“You have all leave with me, Kit—you always have.”

In those last, stolen hours of her liberty, Anabel learned much of pleasure and more of joy. It seemed sacrilege to sleep, but they both dozed a little and came awake in the hushed hour before sunrise.

“In my life to come,” she whispered, “I will never regret this.”

“You have my heart, Anabel. And my loyal service. To fulfill that last, I must leave you now before the castle wakes.”

She clung to him as long as she could, but already the weight of the day was settling on her shoulders. If her heart urged her to steal away with Kit on horseback, to lose themselves in one another, her will made her release him and dress as though she had spent the night blamelessly alone.

Kit did not kiss her before he left. Perhaps he knew it would be beyond them both to stop. He simply stared at her, as though committing her face to memory before she appeared again as another man's bride. Then he slipped quietly away, leaving Anabel to count the hours until her wedding.

Be it known to citizens both of Scotland and England: on the twenty-third day of July, the Year of our Lord 1586, at eleven o'clock of the morning at the Church of Our Lady in Ladykirk, Scotland, were wed Her Royal Highness Anne Isabella, Princess of Wales, and James VI, King of Scotland.

Witnesses: Robert Cecil and Edwin Littlefield

Marriage solemnized by: Bishop David Bell

Only when Anabel and her witnesses had crossed the river into Scotland did Kit show his face in Norham. He did not want to make it any harder on her than it already was. Or on himself, for that matter. He did not—could never—regret the night, but he also couldn't guess whether it had made things harder or easier to bear.

He had to face her soon enough. There was a stir in Ladykirk and then Anabel and her party reappeared coming back to the river. They were not alone. Next to the princess rode James Stuart, sixth king of Scotland and Anabel's husband. Kit's instinct was to turn away, but why bother? He would have to see them together sooner rather than later, and better to begin now at maintaining a proper distance so as not to upset King James.

So Kit stayed where he was as they reached the riverbank directly across from him. James stepped his horse delicately close to Anabel's, said a few words, then kissed her hand. The Scottish king was dressed exquisitely and expensively in cloth of gold and gem-encrusted trim. Next to him, Anabel appeared much plainer in a riding gown of blue-green taffeta and dark navy velvet, hardly fit for a royal wedding. Observers might think it a deliberate insult to James and Scotland—but Kit knew better. Anabel could have made no more meaningful gesture, for the dress she wore had been Pippa's. The familiar blue gown of Kit's twin that Anabel had donned that desperate final night in York when the women parted, pretending to be the other.

Kit felt a surge of relief when he realized only the English were returning just now. As the guards led the princess's—or no, she was properly a queen now, wasn't she?—horse into the water, he felt the eyes of Anabel's husband linger on him.

If James meant to spy out impropriety, he was disappointed. Anabel did no more than nod to Kit as she rode past. But then, her back was to James, so he could not have seen the look she flashed Kit. A look worth any agony of his pride, for it mingled fierce love and the sweetest memories.

The remainder of that day was spent in council and conference. Norham had surely not seen such a concentration of royal power for a very long time, if ever. Kit could only hope the Scots were as busy. Just in case James decided to drag his feet in issuing orders, Kit sent word to his brother the moment Anabel returned that the Scots men of the western March would be ordered to fight with the Carlisle troops.