Chapter
II

Nora Becket came awake with a small squeak. It was the call of the watch that had roused her. She unwound herself from the protective curve of Christian de Rivers’s body and sat up straight on the horse. Two days of riding with him hadn’t made her any more comfortable in his arms.

She had decided it had been divinely ordained that she would be the victim of a robbery, only to be rescued by a young man whose reputation was worse than that of a highwayman. He behaved as if she’d purposely thwarted his plan to skewer that villain with the silly name. For the past two days Lord Montfort had exhibited the fury of a spurned courtesan, and he vented that fury with verbal floggings that made her cringe. Her only comfort lay in the realization that he could reduce even the most false hearted thief or callous dock hand to blancmange. Why did her rescuer have to come in the form of this violet-eyed cobra with the terrible smile? What ill fortune.

Nora comforted herself with the thought that she’d soon be rid of Lord Montfort and back safe in the palace. She might not be an ornament to the court, but Queen Mary was kind to her. And best of all, Nora had found at last a purpose to fill the weary emptiness of her life. Unfortunately, that purpose was likely to get her killed if it were ever discovered.

Her secret was well kept, however. Her current uneasiness rose from the violence of the man who now held her in his impersonal grip. He would have left her to the highwaymen; of this she was convinced. She knew a little of Christian de Rivers from court gossip. He and his father, the Earl of Vasterne, had been attacked by bandits when Christian was eight. The father had been left for dead and the boy taken. The Earl had recovered his son, but not until four years later, and then only by chance. Any young man who had spent that much time among the cut-purses, anglers, and bawds of England would have no qualms about feeding a girl to a pack of thieves. So in a sense, Nora supposed she’d been blessed by God’s protection when Edward Hext had insisted she be escorted back to court.

Sitting straight and stiff in front of Lord Montfort, Nora took stock of their surroundings. The sun was dipping below church steeples, and the putrid odor that rose from the muddy road told her they were in London at last. Trying to hold her eyes open against weariness, she did not speak until she noticed that they weren’t headed for Whitehall Palace.

“My lord, the palace …”

“Is locked tighter than a chastity belt,” he said. “We’re going to my house. And don’t fret. My father is in residence, so your honor is safe. Not that it wouldn’t be, considering the ride I had last night.”

Nora pressed her lips closed. She’d learned quickly not to respond to the wasp stings of his temper. It only made him more vicious. So she let pass his reference to the big-breasted tavern maid who had battled off three of her sisters to get to him the evening before. It had been disgusting. They’d fought a mock duel for him.

Letting out an inaudible sigh, Nora contemplated once more the disastrous meeting with Jack Midnight and Lord Montfort, whom the highwayman had called Kit. When her party was attacked, she had been a coward. The fierce strength of the men, the violence and the blood had frozen her wits. She had never been able to stomach cruelty. And when that boy had taken his knives to her, she’d wilted like a rose in a kiln. How mortifying.

If only it hadn’t been Lord Montfort who’d come upon them. He was one of the ornaments of the Queen’s court, declared so by Mary herself. And in fact, Lord Montfort held a court within the court, presiding over the raucous, quarrelsome, and dangerous aristocratic youths, who found little to attract them to a middle-aged, fanatically religious woman ruler. Christian de Rivers was unofficial crown prince of pleasure and earl marshal of as ruthless a band of noblemen as any who’d roamed England in the days of the old Plantagenet kings.

And the crown prince was bored with her. Nora knew what he thought of her. The mouse. That was her nickname, given to her by the dashing court ladies and taken up by the gentlemen. She could see him think “mouse” each time he looked at her. To her relief, he didn’t look at her often.

They were, riding along the Strand, that area of London beside the Thames that was beaded with the jeweled houses of dukes and bishops. Between the two men who rode with them was the boy called Blade, trussed to his horse as if he were a piglet ready for market. He’d tried to escape the first night of their journey. She didn’t know what Lord Montfort had done to him when he caught the youth, but Blade had come back pale and trembling, and had not bolted into the night again. Of course, if she’d been hauled back, hands bound and dragged on a tether fastened to Lord Montfort’s saddle, she would have been cowed, too.

They entered a stone courtyard through gates topped with rampant Montfort dragons. Before them wide white steps spread out in a graceful fan. Men in silver and crimson livery approached with torches. Lord Montfort snapped at one of them, and Blade was snatched from his horse and carried away.

Nora blinked at the flames of a torch, barely aware of the warm support at her back withdrawing. Looking down, she saw Lord Montfort standing beside the horse, reaching up to her. He said something, but she was too sleepy to make sense of it, and he laughed.

Abruptly she was sailing through the air to land in a cradle of satin and muscle. If he’d given her a chance, she would have told him she could walk. Instead, holding her tightly, he ran up the stairs and into the dimly lit entry way of his house. She glimpsed a black and white marble floor, gleaming oak walls, and another Christian de Rivers. Squinting, she studied the man who blocked their path. He was Lord Montfort’s twin.

The arm that supported her legs dropped, and she scrambled to get her feet under her. Lord Montfort kept hold of her arm until she steadied, then left her to kneel at the feet of the other man. Nora’s mouth almost fell open. In the last few days she’d seen men kneel to Lord Montfort, and almost every woman; she had yet to see him do more than incline his head in regal acceptance of homage. Now he submitted himself with grace, charm, and a cloak of childlike humility.

“My lord,” he said.

Nora’s eyes grew as big as pomander balls as she saw Lord Montfort kiss the man’s hand.

“What have you done, Chris?”

“Feats of chivalry, my lord father. I have rescued a baby crow named Eleanora Becket from highwaymen.”

The Earl of Vasterne, from whom Christian had obviously inherited his wide-set eyes and clarion voice, frowned. “You found Jack Midnight.”

“Never fear,” Christian said. He rose and jerked his dark head at Nora. “She foiled my murder. The only reason I didn’t kill her for it was that I’d have to take care of two puppies in a basket and decapitate her men-at-arms.”

At that point Nora wanted to melt into the cracks between the marble tiles, but a door burst open and three old men stumbled out. All wore the long robes and flat caps of which merchants and clerics were fond. Two were short and balding, but the third was tall, with a long, sparse beard, gray and wrinkled. His eyes burned at them with the virulence of a devil, then the three scurried into the dark recesses at the back of the house.

It was like watching rats race for cover, Nora thought. She looked back at Christian de Rivers, but he was staring at his father, excluding her completely from his attention. The older man moved his head in a gesture so slight, Nora wasn’t sure she’d seen it. Christian whirled in one of those abrupt, facile movements that reminded her of the hurtling acrobatics of a hawk. He strolled to the nearby stairs, rested a hand on the banister, and glanced back over his shoulder.

“Sire, I beg you to put the lady-child in a closet. She’s a rich sweetmeat, a sugared rose petal, pink-cheeked and ripe, but in need of a bed. Alas, it must be a solitary one.” With a smile of lurid purity, he began to ascend the stairs.

Nora’s cheeks burned. She was too full of Lord Montfort’s nastiness to remain silent. She said,

She bit her lip, aghast at her bravery. Lord Montfort had stopped with his back to her. Now he twisted around, impaling her with the violent eyes of an angel, and laughed.

“She quotes Catullus at me,” he said. “Lord, the girl is a cleric and feasts on my entrails while pretending to be a ewe-lamb.”

Launching himself up the stairs, Lord Montfort left her with her ears on fire and his laughter cascading down from on high.

Nora was left alone with the Earl of Vasterne. While a chamber was being prepared for her, he led her to a parlor where he plied her with wine and sweetbreads and inconvenient questions. Nora couldn’t help feeling he already knew too much about her, and the similarity between himself and his son made her expect the same callous treatment from the Earl. She was wrong. The Earl’s concern wrapped her in a down coverlet of safety. He worried over her health, her feelings, her possessions so much that in a short time she realized this man was as gentle and gracious as his son was violent and cavalier.

“Mistress Becket,” he asked as she sipped her wine, “how haps it that you were traveling from your father’s house with such a small escort?”

Nora studied the tips of her shoes where they peeped out from beneath her riding gown. “The sweating sickness took hold of many on our way, my lord, and we had to leave them behind.”

She knew he didn’t believe her, but he nodded and asked more questions. “And you left court suddenly. Is there aught wrong with your father? May I offer assistance of some kind?”

“No, I thank you, my lord. My f-father sent for me to announce his coming marriage.”

The Earl expressed the customary good wishes, but all the time Nora suspected that he knew how she felt—that he knew how her spirits and her hopes had taken flight upon receiving her father’s summons. Perhaps, at last, she had thought, she’d earned his regard. She should have known better. All she had received was a browbeating for not having caught the eye of a suitable nobleman.

Christian’s father was looking at her. Nora glanced at him, but she couldn’t keep her gaze from falling to the floor again.

“I want to thank you, mistress, for coming between my son and Jack Midnight.”

At that, she lifted her eyes to the earl. He smiled at her, as if he sympathized with her plight at being the recipient of Christian’s displeasure.

“You are much the little wren, are you not?” he said. “But there must be something of the she-wolf in you to have survived Christian’s anger and not retreat into madness.”

She shook her head, but could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t insult the Earl’s only son.

“He doesn’t usually bait ladies quite so thoroughly as he has you,” the earl said. “I wonder what it is about you that set him off like a hawk teasing a hare.”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I, mistress, but I will give you some advice that has benefited me in my dealings with Christian. He is most vicious when he wants to hide something, or is afraid. When he fears, he attacks. Don’t back down from him. He won’t respect you.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Nora said. “But I doubt that I will be called upon to stand up to Lord Montfort at all after tonight. At least, I shall pray that I don’t have to.”

The next morning Nora returned to court happy to be out of Lord Montfort’s way. Upon arriving at Whitehall Palace, she spent a few hours in her small closet. She shared the room with another of the Queen’s gentlewomen, but the lady was on duty. Soon Nora would attend as well, and she must gird herself for the smirks and contemptuous looks that would come her way when the Queen wasn’t paying attention.

Divining why she was the object of such looks had taken her a few months. At first she’d thought it was because somehow the secret of her bastardy had gotten about, but her father kept the knowledge and the shame to himself. It was Queen Mary herself who offered Nora the reason for the ladies’ scorn—Nora’s dress. Not just her dress, but her manners as well.

“My dear Nora,” the Queen had said, “your gable headdress is charming. It reminds me of the ones my mother used to wear.”

The comment had made Nora’s heart thump. Mary’s mother had been Catherine of Aragon, persecuted first wife of King Henry VIII. Catherine had been set aside to make way for Princess Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, the one the people had called whore, the one for whom Henry had wrecked the Catholic Church in England and denied the Pope.

But the Queen was pleased with Nora. Mary liked her modesty, her quietness, her old-fashioned appearance that reminded the Queen of the golden days of her youth, before her father hounded her mother to death in order to marry his mistress. From the Queen’s comments and from looking around the glittering chambers filled with ladies in gowns with tight sleeves and wearing veiled French hoods, Nora perceived that her wardrobe was fashioned in a style twenty years old. That was what came of living most of her life in the backwater country estate where her father had banished her.

Nora left off her more ornate gabled headdresses in favor of the French hoods that only partially covered her hair, but she hadn’t the funds to redesign her whole wardrobe. Her father had made it clear that she was at court to catch a husband. He expected results, for Sir William Becket was a rich man, and he would pay a handsome dowry to get rid of her. Nora cracked a sour smile. Her father hadn’t counted on his daughter being thought an unfashionable mouse.

Her page, Arthur, broke into Nora’s reverie. The Queen requested Nora’s attendance in the presence chamber. The royal musicians were about to play, and Her Majesty knew how much Nora enjoyed music. Nora adjusted the bell sleeves of her over-gown, which made her hands seem even smaller than they were. She could do nothing about the high waistline of the overgown, dated as it was. And she wasn’t about to remove the yoke of fabric that covered her neck and the tops of her breasts. Even if she hadn’t sported a cut over one breast, she had no desire to prance about, jiggling and bouncing with diamonds or emeralds nestling in her cleavage the way some of the Queen’s women did.

Satisfied that she was decently if unfashionably covered, Nora marched behind her page through the connecting rooms of the palace until she reached the presence chamber. As she entered, she kept her head erect and her gaze on the small, soap-scrubbed, and plain face of the Queen. Before she reached her mistress, though, she sank to her knee three times, as required. Around her, muted voices splashed and dripped in a gentle, mannered rain. Chimes filled the air as goblets of silver and gold touched. Nora could smell cinnamon comfits and cloves, and roses. As she knelt for the last time before the Queen, Mary spoke to her in that deep, almost-man’s voice that sat so oddly with her small frame.

“God has kept you safe, my good Nora. I hope you have thanked Him.”

“Every day, Your Majesty.”

The Queen’s hand, weighted down with rings on each of her stubby fingers, gestured for Nora to rise. When she got up, Nora was near enough for the short sighted Queen to see her clearly. Noting the Queen’s lucid gaze and steady hands, Nora was thankful that the poor woman was having one of her good days. On a bad one she wept ceaselessly, longed for her absent husband, cursed the French and all heretics, and looked under cupboards and beds for assassins. But this was a good day, and the Queen smiled. She gestured to someone behind Nora.

“Lord Montfort, come to us and tell the tale of your chivalry.”

Nora bit her lip and studied one of the velvet cushions on the floor beside the Queen’s chair. He was here, devil take him. Even if the Queen hadn’t called him, she would have known he’d entered the presence chamber by the sudden turmoil among the ladies in waiting.

He strode up to the Queen, planting his swordlike body beside Nora. To hide her anxiety, she bent her head as she made her curtsy. Christian bowed to her at the same time, and as they sank together, he whispered low, so that only she could hear.

“If you gainsay my tale, I’ll finish the work Blade started on your lovely breast.”

She jerked her gaze to his face, then blinked. He was wearing a ruby in his ear. It nestled, crimson and flagrant, amid the dark topaz of his hair. As they both straightened, he bestowed upon her one of his seraph’s smiles. With his threat rattling around in her head, she could do no more than make one-word replies to the Queen’s questions and nod her agreement to the man’s outrageous story. Lord Montfort soon had Mary guffawing at a tale in which he routed the thieves with a tree branch. And not once did he mention Jack Midnight.

“Such gallantry, even with a stick, deserves reward,” the Queen said. “I will have Mistress Clarencieux write to Lady Nora’s father.”

Nora was struck with shame. Lord Montfort’s help had been inadvertent and ungracious, but she was alive for all that. And she hadn’t thanked him. Not that he seemed to want her thanks. Her gratitude was likely to be the only reward he received anyway. No such sentiment would come from her father, and no token of gratitude either. If an acknowledgment was to be made, she would have to make it. And that meant braving the gauntlet of this man’s dislike at least once more.

Nervous anticipation of such an ordeal caused her to miss the Queen’s request. Abruptly she found her hand in Lord Montfort’s. He was leading her away from Mary.

“Wake up, my throstle,” he murmured, “or you’ll trip over your skirt.”

“What are you doing?”

“We’re to dance for the Queen.”

He deposited her at the head of a line of women, took his place in the row of gentlemen opposite, and bowed to her. She held out her hand to him, as required by the dance. He grasped it, and they turned and began a slow, measured walk down the chamber to the accompaniment of flute, virginals, and drum. Stopping, they faced each other and stepped close. Lord Montfort lifted her hand so that their arms formed an arch for their heads. He leaned close to her, so close she could see the violet flecks in his eyes. The ruby winked at her.

“Why do you cover up that magnificent chest?”

She froze, but Lord Montfort shoved her away, bowed over her hand, and knelt. His hand tugged at hers, and she began her circle around him. When she completed it and curtsied, he rose over her. Placing his palms against hers, he smiled at her.

“Your skin is like milk and strawberries. It’s stupid to cover it up.”

Now she was blushing in front of the whole court. Nora opened her mouth, but nothing would come out. To her relief, it was time for the ladies to skip away from the gentlemen. She skipped most enthusiastically. Lord Montfort laughed at her and joined the other men in marching toward the women. When he reached her, he caught both her hands and led her in a gliding movement between the other men and women.

“ ‘Maidens’ acts belie their mock complaints,’ ” he whispered to her, “ ‘affecting aversion for what they most desire.’ You like Catullus’s poetry, don’t you? What debauched tutor gave you his poems?”

“I—”

“The mouse isn’t such a mouse as she pretends. Not with those juicy mounds and that quivering, inviting voice.”

Wanting to weep in the middle of the stately dance counted as one of the most humiliating experiences of her life. Nora clamped her teeth down on the inner surface of her mouth to keep the tears in her eyes from spilling. They reached the end of the row of dancers, and it was time for her to curtsy to him. He bent over her, and she spoke.

“I don’t know why you want to hurt me, but I wish you would stop.”

Their hands locked. Arms raised, they faced each other and paced in a circle. Nora couldn’t look at him, and she was thankful he was silent. She should have known he wouldn’t remain so for long.

“My poor little nuthatch, you haven’t a notion of how to play the game.”

He inclined his head, and she felt the down-soft brush of a curl, so near was his face. She frowned at him. For once he was looking at her without irritation or derision.

“I should give you a flail,” he said, “and bare my back so that you can chastise me. But alas, my guilt rarely lasts longer than an angel’s gasp, so you will no doubt have to forgo your vengeance. Take heart, Nora Becket, our dance is at an end.”

He trundled her back to the Queen and abandoned her for his pack of bejeweled and laced ruffians. Forgotten, Nora sank down on a cushion near the Queen and spent the rest of her time in attendance on Mary and in castigating herself for not having the courage to slap Lord Montfort’s face in the Queen’s presence chamber.

Out near the palace stables, in an open shed surrounded by a wicket, were Nora’s friends. It was the morning after the disastrous dance with Lord Montfort, and Nora was scurrying along the path behind the stables. Her little page, Arthur, trotted behind, carrying a basket. Nora carried a larger one that was too big for him to hold.

Although it was late April, the mornings were chill, and Nora wore an open fur-lined overgown. It was old, which suited her purpose. As she neared the shed, whimpers and yips joined in the chorus set up by robins and sparrows in the trees overhead. Nora opened the gate and slipped inside the enclosure. Arthur nipped in behind her and closed it. Immediately they were surrounded by squirming, fat puppies. A hound with three legs yelped happily at her, while a black and white mongrel chased its tale in ecstasy.

She left Arthur to feed the crew of orphans while she took a bowl containing a meat pasty to the shed. In a pile of straw slept the two mastiff puppies she’d been carrying with her when Jack Midnight had attacked. Setting the bowl before them, she laughed as their noses twitched. Soon their faces were buried in the bowl. When they were finished, she scooped them up and deposited them in the large basket that had contained kitchen scraps for her brood. Arthur covered them with a piece of old velvet. Tummies full, the two curled up with grunts and sighs.

Nora looked down at the wriggling velvet. “Arthur, I’m not sure about this.”

“Mastiffs are valuable, my lady. These two, when they’re big, will rest their forepaws on a man’s shoulders.”

Smiling at the boy’s enthusiasm, Nora gave one of his blond locks a tug. He was a sweet, lively boy, who’d been orphaned like her brood in the wicket. She’d met him one day two years ago, when she’d been home at the estate where her father had exiled her. Her bailiff had hauled Arthur before her, bruised and bleeding, and accused him of stealing bread from the kitchens and, even worse, a book. It had taken her hours to pry the story of his destitution from the boy. His parents were dead from the sweat. At only seven years, he was too young to be of use to anyone in the fields, so he survived in the scullery of her house, scrubbing pots and living on scraps. His empty stomach pained him so that he hadn’t been able to resist the bread. The book he was unable to read, but he longed to see what written words looked like. That day Arthur became her page, and Nora had someone besides herself to care for.

Leaving Arthur to tend the puppies, she went back to her closet alone. There she settled on a cushion to finish an important task that had to be done before she could leave the palace later that morning. From her sleeve she withdrew a scrap of paper and folded it small enough to fit beneath a gold clothing ornament. Taking up a perfumed glove of kid, she placed the paper beneath the ornament and rested both in place within the embroidered design on the cuff of the glove. She sewed the ornament to the leather, making sure the paper was invisible.

When the last stitch was tied off, she summoned her maid and donned a black dress trimmed sparingly with silver lace from a gown she’d outgrown several years before. Fastening her best cloak about her shoulders, she set out alone for an abandoned privy garden in the palace grounds. Once there, she wandered aimlessly amid shrubs clipped into geometric shapes and rare flowers about to bloom, while playing with her glove,

At this time of day few courtiers were about to witness her passage, and not many servants. Nora strolled to a corner of the garden and perched on a crumbling stone bench. Her hand fell to her side, hidden by the thick billows of her skirt, and she dropped the newly sewn glove behind the bench. After gazing into the morning sky for a few moments, she rose and wandered over to a fountain where a naked cherub poured water from a shell. She listened to the gurgling waterfall for a while, then walked slowly back to the door to the palace.

As she opened the door she looked over her shoulder to see one of the gardeners kneel by the old bench and poke at a weed growing beneath it. He picked up the glove and stuffed it in his shirt. Nora nodded to herself in satisfaction and left the garden.

She hadn’t been a spy for long. Only since that day a few months ago when she’d witnessed a burning. The Queen burned heretics, and at Smithfield a crowd had gathered to witness the latest spectacle. The heretic was a girl. She couldn’t have been over fourteen, and Nora heard from someone in the crowd that she was an ignorant farm girl who hadn’t been able to answer the bishops’ questions about the meaning of the Mass.

Nora arrived in Smithfield as the flames were licking at the girl’s face. The gunpowder meant to explode before she suffered too greatly hadn’t ignited, and she was screaming through singed lips. The skin over her belly burst open, and her entrails spilled out. Nora, in a party of the nobility, fell to the ground in a faint with the sweet smell of burning flesh in her nostrils.

Until that day Nora had been a dutiful subject, loyal to the sovereign. Queen Mary was a Catholic and determined to bring England back to the old church. At least half the kingdom was still Catholic, but London and its environs were stuffed with Protestants. Mary was a good woman, but heresy was the ultimate sin to her. She punished it as did her husband, the King of Spain, by fire. All this Nora knew, but she hadn’t understood the horror of burning. That night, half-drunk on wine and in bed but unable to sleep, Nora changed.

Her life had been filled with atonement for her own birth, and with duty and obedience. Something within her rebelled that night. Her conscience sought answers from God, and when the sun rose, she had them. Whatever the church said, Christ would never condone the obscene cruelty of burning. The Queen was wrong. The Catholic kings of Spain and France were wrong.

But the Queen was the Queen. Hope lay with her sister, the tolerant and brilliant Elizabeth. Princess Elizabeth was a suspected heretic, but Mary couldn’t burn her for fear of inviting her own death. For years the fanatic Catholics at court had urged Mary to cut off her sister’s head. Elizabeth needed help.

As one of the Queen’s women, Nora often heard snips and bits of gossip, whispers of plots. Certain some of this news would be helpful to Elizabeth, she sought out the Princess’s friend Sir William Cecil on one of his rare visits to court. Brilliant and devious as his mistress, Cecil at first rejected Nora’s overtures. When she persisted in seeking him out clandestinely, he became convinced of her sincerity and told her he’d be glad for her help. So now, whenever she heard something, she put her information in a cipher, concealed it in her glove, and left it in the garden. Eventually the cipher got to Cecil, and the glove was returned.

Today her cipher contained news of a hunt for three heretics, writers of scurrilous ballads and pamphlets that lampooned the Queen, her foreign husband, and her burnings. One of them, Archibald Dymoke, had called the Queen Bloody Mary.

From the garden Nora returned to her room to collect Arthur, the puppies, and her maid. The three of them went down to the courtyard, where a coach awaited them. A groom handed Nora in, then boosted Arthur inside. Next came the basket and her maid. Nora pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders, then straightened her spine.

“I hope you’re right about mastiffs,” she said to Arthur. “I truly hope you’re right.”