If I had always been allowed to ride in this manner, she thought, I should have enjoyed better health.
It was Jacques who, coming close to her, cried suddenly: “Your Majesty, there is a party of horsemen riding toward us.”
Then Mary saw them and her heart leaped with hope.
They had planned it. This was it. They had come to rescue her. This was one of the methods she had said they might use.
But it was not a large party. Would they be strong enough to hold back the guards?
Now that the two parties were coming to a halt, and Sir Amyas was riding forward, Mary saw that at the head of the horsemen was one in serge trimmed with green braid. He could not be one of her friends unless he was disguised in Tudor livery; he was talking confidentially to Sir Amyas.
She rode her horse forward and called imperiously: “Sir Amyas, who is this that hinders us in our journey?”
Sir Amyas turned his head to look at her, and there was something like loathing in his eyes as he said: “This is Sir Thomas Gorges, a servant of our Queen.”
Sir Thomas Gorges dismounted and came to stand by Mary’s horse. When he reached her he said in tones which could be heard by those who stood close by: “Madam, the Queen, my mistress, finds it very strange that you, against the agreement which you made together, have undertaken against her and her estate; and in consequence of the discovery of your share in a horrible conspiracy against her life, my orders are to conduct you to Tixall.”
Mary said coldly: “I do not understand you, sir. And I refuse to go with you to Tixall.”
“You have no choice, Madam, since you have conspired against Queen Elizabeth.”
“She has been wrongly informed.”
She was aware of Jacques and Gilbert, and she remembered the letter she had written to Anthony Babington. She must speak to them without delay. She must warn them, for it seemed certain that that letter had fallen into Elizabeth’s hands.
“I will return to Chartley,” she said. She looked quickly from Jacques to Gilbert. “Come, ride with me.”
“Nay, nay,” cried Sir Thomas Gorges. “Those two men must not be allowed to speak to the Queen.”
Jacques and Gilbert immediately attempted to bring their horses level with Mary’s, but as they did so they were intercepted by the guards and Gorges cried: “Arrest those two men. They are to be taken at once to London.”
“You cannot do this!” she cried.
“Madam, you are mistaken,” replied Paulet coldly.
“Oh, Jacques,” murmured Mary, “what means this? And you, Gilbert . . . ” She looked with dismay at the two young men who for so long had been her friends. She thought with anguish of Barbara who was so soon to give birth to her first baby; how would Barbara take the news that Gilbert was the Queen’s prisoner?
But it was useless to expect sympathy from these men. Already they had seized the two secretaries.
“Gilbert,” she called, “I will take care of Barbara.”
Sir Amyas had his hand on the bridle of her horse.
“Come, Madam,” he said, “we are riding to Tixall, where you will remain during the Queen’s pleasure.”
All the joy had gone out of that sunny morning, and there was terrible foreboding in her heart as Mary rode with her captors toward Tixall.
A SUBDUED SIR WALTER ASTON received Mary at Tixall Park. There was no hunt, as had been promised her, and she was conducted to two small rooms which, she was told, were all that could be put at her disposal.
Her servants were not allowed to visit her; she was to have no books, no pen nor paper; thus for days she was left alone in apprehensive solitude, Sir Amyas Paulet remaining at Tixall to guard her while he sent his officials back to Chartley to ransack her apartments for any shred of evidence which could be used against her.
Jacques and Gilbert were taken before Walsingham who, after questioning them without being able to make them utter a word against their mistress, kept them confined in separate rooms in his own lodgings in Westminster Palace. He did not doubt that in time he would get from them what he wanted.
He set his man, Aleyn, to watch over Jacques, and this man slept in the same chamber and was with Jacques night and day, engaging him in conversation, waiting for one word which would betray the Queen.
Jacques was very melancholy, and it was not easy to make him talk.
Aleyn tried to coax him. “Come,” he told him, “you cannot be blamed. My master is a very just man. He knows full well that as secretary to the Queen you must perforce do your duty. If she said to you, Write this, then you wrote. All my master wishes is to confirm what is already known was written.”
Jacques remained silent for some time and then he said: “I wonder how she is taking this.”
“She is fearful, my friend, doubt that not.”
“She will be wondering what has become of me. She is so young; it is hard that she should suffer so.”
“Young! She is no longer young and she will be too concerned with her own skin, friend, to think much of yours.”
“I see you have misunderstood. I was speaking of another.”
“Your mistress?”
“We will marry when it can be arranged.”
“Ah,” grunted Aleyn, disappointed.
But now Jacques had begun to speak of Bessie he could not stop; he told Aleyn of the way her eyes sparkled and how soft her hair was; and how quickly she grew angry, how defiant she was, how determined when she had set her heart on something—as she had set her heart on marrying him.
Aleyn listened halfheartedly. Strange, he thought, that when a man was in mortal danger he could think of nothing but a girl.
When Aleyn stood before his master and Walsingham asked if he had anything to report, the man replied: “It is not easy with this one, my lord. He seems unaware of the danger he’s in. He talks of nothing but his Bessie.”
“His Bessie?” mused Walsingham.
“Bessie Pierpont, my lord.”
“That would be Shrewsbury’s granddaughter—so there is love between these two.”
“He’ll talk of nothing else, my lord.”
Walsingham nodded. It was a pity. Still, no piece of information, however small, should be ignored. Long experience had taught him that one never knew when it might be useful.
WHEN MARY WAS ALLOWED to return to Chartley Castle her first thought was of Barbara Curle who she believed might already have given birth to the child.
Bessie greeted her—a frightened Bessie, whose eyes were red with weeping.
Mary embraced her affectionately, all rancor forgotten. It was sad that Bessie, at such an early age, had already come face-to-face with tragedy.
“And how fares Barbara?” Mary asked.
“Her child is born. She is in her bed now.”
Mary went at once to Barbara’s chamber and the young mother gave a cry of pleasure as the Queen hurried to her bed and embraced her.
“And the little one?”
“A girl, Your Majesty. She is very like Gilbert. Your Majesty, what news?”
“I know nothing, my dear. I have been a prisoner at Tixall Park all this time. But as my priest was with me, who has attended to the child’s baptism?”
“She has not been baptized, Your Majesty. There was no one to perform the ceremony.”
“Then this must be remedied without delay.” She lifted the baby from where it lay beside Barbara and, holding it in her arms, gently kissed its brow, and while she was doing this Sir Amyas Paulet burst unceremoniously into the chamber.
“I hope you will call her Mary after me,” she said.
“Your Majesty, that will be an honor she will remember all her life.”
Mary turned to Paulet. “Will you allow your minister to baptize this child?”