Chapter 16
Our journey slowed to a crawl, much to my relief. We managed at best five or six miles a day, and even that, though she reclined in a litter, taxed most of Elizabeth’s strength.
She complained of aches throughout her body, and her arms and legs swelled as before. Her physician bled her, Aunt Kat and Mistress Sandes fed her herbs mixed in wine, and I tried to take down the swelling with warm cloths.
I’d had an intense conversation with Elizabeth the morning after I’d spoken to Colby. She’d lain in bed, pale and sweating, as I told her of Jane’s execution and Colby’s suggestion that we take as much time as possible arriving in London.
We should give Mary’s temper time to cool, I emphasized, and keep out of sight while Mary was signing execution orders.
“I did not need you to meet your dashing adventurer in the dark to tell me that,” Elizabeth snapped at me.
“I could not manage a faster pace even were I in a tearing hurry to reach Whitehall.” Her brows drew downward.
“Can you credit what Anthony Denny has told me, Eloise? That there is a rumor that I hide myself and will not come to court because I am great with child, probably made that way by one of the rebels.”
The usual accusation against a woman, I thought in irritation. If she walks openly with head high, she is a wanton, but if she remains discreetly at home, it is because she is shamefully belly-full.
“A servant of this house must have mistaken your illness,” I said. “And gossiped to Mary’s soldiers of it.”
“And if I discover who, they will be sorry they have a tongue.”
I placed a soothing hand on her arm, I being one of the few allowed to touch her person. “The day we ride into London, we ought to go in full daylight. I advise you to wear your white and silver gown and travel with the curtains of your litter open.”
“To show them how not pregnant I am?” Elizabeth flashed a sudden smile at me from her pillows. “It will not stop Mary doing as she pleases, but I’ll not let her tarnish my reputation. The people of England want the pure princess, and that is what I shall be.”
Her determination made me proud to be her lady, but still, I feared.
The slow journey at least gave Elizabeth time to heal and compose herself. By the time we reached London, she was much better and the strange swelling in her body had dissipated.
I carefully sewed a plain bodice to one of her white and silver brocade gowns and laced her into it.
As planned, Elizabeth rode through Smithfield toward the City, surrounded by her guardsmen. She wore shining white, her body slender and erect, every inch a Tudor princess.
London turned out to welcome her home. The road was lined with well-wishers who not only waved and shouted but thrust gifts at her, as they had when she’d ridden with Mary at her accession.
Elizabeth acknowledged her admirers with the stateliness of a monarch, smiling her thanks. They adored her, and she absorbed that fact as though she’d known and expected it.
We rode across Fleet Bridge and through Fleet Street to the Strand and so on to Whitehall. At the opposite end of London, in the Tower, the Duke of Suffolk, Jane’s father, went to his execution.
When we reached Whitehall, Elizabeth’s personal guards dispersed, not allowed into the palace itself. I accompanied Elizabeth and her ladies to chambers set aside for her, where she awaited Mary’s summons.
The summons never came. Elizabeth paced for several days, her health regained, her anger evident.
She demanded constantly to know what went on outside the walls. What of Wyatt—what had he said to his questioners? Had he named Elizabeth as a conspirator? What had happened to the others, and what were Mary’s plans for all of them?
Colby kept an eye on comings and goings and reported to me, and I in turn reported to Elizabeth.
“Wyatt has said nothing against her,” Colby told me when we met one morning in a cold passageway high in the palace.
“The men of the rebellion name each other, but not our lady. One of her gentlemen has been accused of delivering a message from Elizabeth to Wyatt, thanking him for his suggestion she remove to Donnington, but that has not been proved, as it was not a written message.”
“I remember when he sent her the letter,” I said, recalling the day I’d prevented Elizabeth from penning a reply. Verbal only, I’d warned.
“Please forget it, Eloise,” Colby said swiftly. “You do not want to be put to the question.”
“Why haven’t you been?” I asked curiously. Colby, who knew what was happening better than most, who’d been among the fighters in London, should have been arrested with the others. I thanked God he had not been, but I had to wonder why not.
A look of self-loathing crossed his face. “I am too careful. I abandon honor to keep myself alive.”
I had no idea what he meant by this. “I, for one, am happy you do. Elizabeth needs friends, needs information. She needs you.” I decided not to share with him that I did as well.
“For the greater good,” Colby finished bitterly.
“Indeed. Do not flog yourself for not being tortured in the Tower with the others.”
Colby’s eyes flashed with recrimination at himself. “They have not named me. They truly believe they die for the betterment of England, but they wish to leave enough of us alive to try again.”
“Try again?” I echoed in renewed excitement.
“Good Lord, Eloise, you sound eager. Women should cringe in their chambers, not dash to be in the middle of things.”
“You do not know women well then,” I said. “We are far more ruthless than the gentlemen, when we see a need. I am willing to fight for Elizabeth. She is my lady. Why should this puzzle you?”
A smile crossed his lips. “Thinking of my mother, I well believe in the ruthlessness of women.”
Learning that Colby had something so human as a mother made my interest quicken. “Your mother? Have I seen her at court?”
“No, no. She died years ago. My father as well, the better for this business.” Colby shook his head. “If something happens to me, I cannot harm others connected to me, because I have no more connections.”
Colby had lost his wife, and he’d never spoken of brothers or sisters. A man alone in the world. Sorrow should hang heavy on him, but he was resilient.
“Is that why you are willing to risk your life for all?” I asked. “Because you have nothing to lose?”
He shrugged. “Not the only reason, but the fact that no one else will be punished for my crimes allows me to act more resolutely.”
“Well, I should be sorry if you were put to the block.” I strove to keep my tone light. “Even though you have dragged me into your plot—quite literally at times. But I should not like to see you suffer, so I am happy they have not named you.”
Colby studied me, his unruly hair framing a strong face, his chin dusted with golden-red stubble.
“I am sorry now that I did drag you into it.” Colby brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers, his hand warm despite the coolness of the passageway. “You ought to be creating famous costumes for queens, not mucking about in conspiracies.”
“Elizabeth’s downfall would likely be mine,” I said without hesitation. “I may as well help keep her safe.”
Colby let out a breath and removed his touch, my face growing colder without it. “Take care, Eloise.”
“I always take great care, Master Colby,” I returned with sincerity. I walked away from him then, feeling him watching me all the way.
We remained at Whitehall for three weeks without word from Mary, to Elizabeth’s growing frustration.
Thomas Wyatt went to his trial, was pronounced guilty, and condemned to die. Wyatt admitted to sending messages to Elizabeth but constantly declared she’d provided him with no answer or made no sign of condoning, or even knowing about, the rebellion.
Elizabeth’s gentleman who’d gave Wyatt her response admitted to it, but the council had nothing in writing and nothing could be proved. It began to seem as though Elizabeth might be spared.
I dared hope Mary would simply send Elizabeth back to Ashridge and ignore her again. As the days dragged by and nothing happened, my hopes increased.
But I had not calculated the influence that the Spanish ambassador Renard and Bishop Gardiner had on Mary.
“She brings evil to this realm,” they whispered into Mary’s ears. “Courtenay and Elizabeth should lose their heads,” Renard stressed. “It is the only way to keep peace.”
Bishop Gardiner had always been fond of Edward Courtenay, and it was likely that only his affection saved the young man. Gardiner had no affection for Elizabeth, however, and fed Mary malevolent thoughts.
A few days after Wyatt’s trial, I heard hurrying footsteps in the passageway outside the room where I sewed with Aunt Kat. A maid I’d asked to report to me what went on in the castle outside our chambers burst in upon us.
Out of breath, her hair straggling from its pins, she panted, “They are coming. They are coming for Her Grace. We are undone.”
She began to weep loudly until Aunt Kat shook her to be quiet.
I hurried to the inner chamber and found Elizabeth rising from her chair, the books she’d been reading falling to the floor in a flutter of pages.
“Quickly, Eloise, my gown.”
I knew what she wanted. I hurried to the wardrobe and gathered up a velvet and gold ensemble I’d finished after our arrival and hastily laced it on her.
I positioned her near the window, angling her body to catch the light on the fabric, her overskirts coyly revealing the glittering brocade of the underskirt.
Her ladies grouped themselves around her, not protectively, but in a little tableau that put Elizabeth in the middle as the sun and they the stars around her.
When the first man, the Earl of Sussex—who was a cousin to both Mary and Elizabeth—marched through the door, ramrod straight, no bowing, he found Elizabeth regal and haughty, as though awaiting an inferior.