Chapter 17 #2
Other conspirators—such as Nicholas Throckmorton, who’d been in it up to his neck—were pardoned. James Colby had eluded capture, and no one named him, for which I was fervently thankful.
I held onto my hope through the long weeks we waited. On the dreadful April morning when Wyatt was executed, he declared on the scaffold that neither Elizabeth nor Courtenay had anything to do with the plots.
I knew this to be a lie, but Mary could do nothing about it. The condemned man’s last words did much to keep the council’s actions toward Elizabeth cautious ones.
It became clear that Elizabeth’s fortune had changed when Mary sent word that Elizabeth was to be moved to more agreeable accommodations, although the chambers were still within the Tower.
The change scarcely put Elizabeth in a better mood. She expected every day to be dragged to trial, for Mary to manufacture evidence, for a scaffold to be built for her. Elizabeth wavered between fear and anger, choosing the latter to relieve her feelings.
As we waited, the spring days lengthened and warmed, the chill dank of winter waning.
Elizabeth was eventually allowed to walk in the privy garden, supervised by Mary’s ladies, of course.
We strolled slowly, soaking up as much of the outdoor air as possible before we had to return to the rooms inside.
As the conspirators, one by one, were released or ignored, Elizabeth walked among the pruned hedges with a lighter step. Daffodils and crocuses burst through the soil, perhaps a promise of coming freedom?
One morning a small girl came to Elizabeth and handed her flowers. Elizabeth bent down to her and smiled sweetly, calling her a dear child. Mary’s ladies hovered behind Elizabeth in disapproval, and a guard strode over to monitor Elizabeth’s conversation with the mite.
This was an answer to a message I’d covertly sent elsewhere in the Tower. While the ladies and guards were thus distracted by the child, I strolled to the far end of the garden and out through a gate to a little walk between two walls.
On another side of this narrow passage lay a second gate, locked, behind which a dark-haired man waited.
“God grant you good health, Mistress Rousell,” Robert Dudley said to me. “And how is our princess this fine morning?”
“She is very well,” I answered. “How is your good wife?”
Robert laughed, sounding merry, as though he’d not been held prisoner here for many months. “I have not seen her, but she is often sickly, poor thing,” he answered. “Whereas our princess is robust.”
“She is, indeed.”
Robert beamed his smile at me. I recalled the passionate kiss he and Elizabeth had exchanged the night before his wedding, and wondered if he were thinking of it as well.
“The weather warms,” Robert remarked.
“Indeed.” I shifted from foot to foot, in a hurry to speak of something more interesting.
“A mutual friend praises you,” Robert said, a sly note to his voice.
Assuming he meant Colby, I kept silent. What was between Colby and me was none of his business.
Robert was far more informed than I at this time. I had directed a few messages out, but none had come in. Would there be a rescue, or another rebellion? Had Elizabeth’s followers abandoned her?
Robert read my expression. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, Mistress Rousell.”
“I dislike speaking in riddles, my lord,” I answered stiffly.
Robert laughed again. His dark hair was trimmed and neat, his small beard framing a good-humored mouth, his body lithe and well-built. I could not blame females for being captivated by his handsomeness, although his nose, in my opinion, was rather on the bulbous side.
I personally found his charm overblown. I preferred plain speaking and sense to extravagant compliments and clever witticisms.
Elizabeth, however, was no giddy girl. She would not like Robert so much if he hadn’t possessed an intelligence to match her own.
Still, I could not help being happy that Robert could have no husbandly domination over Elizabeth. A man in a flirtation might profess to be a woman’s humble servant, but in marriage, he was master.
The ironic glint in Robert’s eyes made me wonder if he knew in which direction my thoughts went. I realized I’d been assessing him most carefully, and I blinked to ease my scrutiny.
“I have nothing to speak of apart from the weather,” Robert said in an amused tone.
“No message for the princess?” I asked, voice low.
“None at all. Save to greet her, poor fellow prisoner, and to ponder what joyous days we will have when we are past this place.” Robert winked. “That is if we walk out our way, not Mary’s.”
I frowned in impatience. “That is nothing more than you have told me before.” We’d met in a similar way several times over the past weeks.
“What do you expect of me, Mistress Rousell? Would you have me deliver ten written messages that rescue is at hand, naming all those who will be involved? Perhaps a map our lady may follow as she flees before Mary’s army? Nay, my dear Mistress, look not to me for those.”
A lady of my station—a mere gentlewoman—could hardly admonish a duke’s son, but I wanted to scold Robert for his flippancy and perhaps tweak his nose to relieve my pique.
“I am a plain woman,” I said. “With plain understanding.”
“You are hardly that.” Robert dragged an impertinent gaze down my person.
“But if you insist, I will speak plainly. She is to do nothing. Sentiment changes, and she is liked. Our mutual friend has more ideas. You are to stay close to her.” Robert grinned once more, his haughty face lightening into the charm other ladies loved so well.
“Is that plain enough? Or shall I write it in my blood?”
“Plain enough, my lord. I thank you.”
Robert’s smile faded abruptly, and he glanced behind him as though he’d heard a step. “Excellent. Now go back, Mistress Rousell, before you are missed.”
He turned and walked away, not bothering to say farewell.
Another reason I did not like Lord Robert—he expressed courtesy as it pleased him, only to those he wished to please. He made it clear that as much as he had looked me over with a gaze bordering on lascivious, it was not me he wanted, but her.
It was not until May that Fortune stepped in to aid us, and then in an odd way. One morning a man called Henry Bedingfield came to the Tower to take charge of Elizabeth.
Sir Henry Bedingfield had a large face, a long, wide nose that he tended to peer down, and close-set eyes. His long moustache drooped into his beard, giving him a perpetually woeful look.
Not that Bedingfield smiled much. He regarded Elizabeth in sorrow as he knelt before her, clearly wondering how a young woman could turn against her sister and her queen, and told her she would be his prisoner.
Elizabeth had measure of him before their first interview was finished.
“I noted that the Tower is being fortified,” Elizabeth declared, staring Bedingfield down. We had seen new soldiers marching in this morning. “Am I so dangerous a prisoner? All this for one weak woman?”
Bedingfield took her statement at face value. I had watched Elizabeth fence and win with Tyrwhitt over the Seymour affair, and Tyrwhitt had been a much worthier opponent than Bedingfield. This match would be ugly.
“You are too humble, Your Grace,” Bedingfield answered. “But no, the guards have nothing to do with you.”
His eyes flickered, and I knew he lied. Elizabeth, of course, discerned this as well.
From what I’d understood from the cryptic hints Robert gave me whenever I met him at the garden gate, Elizabeth’s prisoner’s status had changed.
I could not tell—and Robert seemed not to know—whether that change was for good or ill.
“I have asked Her Majesty my sister whether I might walk in the great hall,” Elizabeth said to Bedingfield. “Have you brought her answer?”
“I have not had word on this.” Bedingfield’s brows came down as though he were reading from a long list in his mind. “But she forbids you to speak with anyone in the gardens who are not your attendants.”
“That is no worry. I do not.”
Again, the eye flicker, as if reading from instructions inside his head. “You speak on occasion to a little girl named Alison, who is the porter’s daughter,” Bedingfield said.
Elizabeth’s brows climbed. “The child? Who kindly brings me wildflowers, because she thinks me beautiful?”
“Such an easy messenger to bring you news from the outside world.” Bedingfield nodded, certain he’d said something clever.
Elizabeth sent him a look of lively contempt.
“A little girl, a messenger? From whom? Thomas Wyatt? He is dead and can dream up no more plots. Edward Courtenay? He is watched most closely, I believe, by his beloved Bishop Gardiner, and even the queen herself. There is no one to send me messages, Sir Henry. I am alone.”
At the dramatic statement, Bedingfield cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, you must not speak to anyone again. The child’s mother has been warned to keep her close.”
“Dear God in heaven.” Elizabeth sent the pretty vase of crocuses on a table next to her crashing to the floor. Bedingfield, stuck on his knees, could not scramble out of the way of the water and flying porcelain that rained across his person.
“An innocent child of seven years as a conspirator,” Elizabeth raged. “It is scarce to be believed. Let me write a letter to my sister, I beg of you.”
Bedingfield wiped his beard, and shards of porcelain tinkled to the floor. “Out of the question, Your Grace.”
“Out of whose question? Mine? Or yours? Or hers?”
“It cannot be done, Your Grace. I have not leave to give you permission.”
Elizabeth glared at him. “You must ask her leave, then. And her permission to give you leave to give me permission.”
Bedingfield glanced heavenward as he tried to unravel this. Elizabeth sent him a smile that held no humor.
“I will inform Her Grace,” Bedingfield answered after a time, sounding relieved he could at least say that.
“See that you do.”
Bedingfield climbed painfully to his feet, made certain to give Elizabeth another low bow, and backed from the room. I fancied I heard him hurry frantically off after I closed the door.
Once he was gone, Elizabeth snatched up more breakable objects and flung them from her, we ladies dutifully cleaning up the mess.
Elizabeth’s anger pleased me, however, because it meant she hadn’t given way to despair.
Mary’s preoccupation with and suspicion of the innocent little girl pleased me as well, not because I had any desire for the child to be harmed, but because it meant nobody had noticed Eloise Rousell dashing away to whisper to Robert Dudley through a grill between the gardens.
Elizabeth’s walks continued. Mary’s guards watched Elizabeth closely, the little girl was kept away, and everyone ignored me. I continued to pass Dudley’s messages—helpful and otherwise—to Elizabeth, with none the wiser.