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I remembered John Dee’s map spread out in the duke’s study and the little counters which signified soldiers and sailors on ships all around Norfolk, and Lady Mary trapped in the middle of them.
“Will you have to surrender?” I whispered.
I had thought she was frightened; but at my question the color rushed into her cheeks, and she smiled as if I had suggested a challenge, a great gamble. “You know, I’m damned if I will!” she swore. She laughed aloud as if it was a bet for a joust rather than her life on the table. “I have spent my life ru
I felt my own spirits leap up at her enthusiasm. “My la… Your Grace!” I stumbled.
She turned a brilliant smile on me. “Why not?” she said. “Why should I not, just once, fight like a man and defy them?”
“But can you win?” I asked blankly.
She shrugged, an absolutely Spanish gesture. “Oh! It’s not likely!” She smiled at me as if she were truly merry at the desperate choice before her. “Ah, but Ha
Lady Mary gathered her rosary beads in her short workmanlike fingers, tucked them into the pocket of her gown and strode toward the door of the great hall where her armies of gentlemen and soldiers were breaking their fast. She entered the head of the hall and mounted the dais. “Today we move out,” she a
There was a murmur of surprise and then approbation.
“Trust me!” she commanded them. “I will not fail you. I am your proclaimed queen and you will see me on the throne, and then I will remember who was here today. I will remember and you will be repaid many times over for doing your duty to the true Queen of England.”
There was a deep low roar, easily given from men who have just eaten well. I found my knees were shaking at the sight of her courage. She swept to the door at the back of the hall and I jumped unsteadily ahead of her and opened it for her.
“And where is he?” I asked. She did not have to be told who I was asking for.
“Oh, not far,” Lady Mary said grimly. “South of King’s Ly
“Will he guess that we are going to Framlingham?” I asked, thinking of the note that had gone to him, naming her destination here, its spiral on the paper like a curled snake.
She paused at the doorway and looked back at me. “There is bound to be one person in such a gathering who will slip away and tell him. There is always a spy in the camp. Don’t you think, Ha
For a moment I thought she had trapped me. I looked up at her, my lies very dry in my throat, my girl’s face growing pale.
“A spy?” I quavered. I put my hand to my cheek and rubbed it hard.
She nodded. “I never trust anyone. I always know that there are spies about me. And if you had been the girl I was, you would have learned the same. After my father sent my mother away from me there was no one near me who did not try to persuade me that A
“Then, all in a summer’s day, A
She broke off and looked at me. “My heart broke when I was a little more than twenty years old,” she said wonderingly. “And d’you know, only now do I begin to think that there might be a life for me.”
She smiled. “Oh, Ha
I smiled uncomfortably.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
I swallowed on my dry throat. “I am afraid,” I confessed. “I am sorry.”
She nodded. “We are all afraid,” she said frankly. “Me too. Go down and choose a horse from the stable and get a pair of riding boots. We are an army on the march today. God save us that we may make Framlingham without ru
Mary raised her standard at Framlingham Castle, a fortress to match any in England, and unbelievably half the world turned up on horseback and on foot to swear allegiance to her and death to the rebels. I walked beside her as she went down the massed ranks of the men and thanked them for coming to her and swore to be a true and honest queen to them.
We had news from London at last. The a
The country was launched into civil war, directed against us, the traitors. Lady Elizabeth had not replied to the Lady Mary’s warnings, nor come to join us at Framlingham. She had taken to her bed when she had heard the news of her brother’s death and was too sick even to read her letters. When Lady Mary learned of that, she turned away for a moment to hide the hurt in her face. She had counted on Elizabeth’s support, the two princesses together defending their father’s will, and she had promised herself that she would keep her young sister safe. To find that Elizabeth was hiding under the bedcovers rather than racing to be with her sister, was a blow to Mary’s heart as well as to her cause.