“But he's not in the Tower?” she questioned swiftly. “No.”
Elizabeth began to walk to and fro in the narrow room. Their eyes followed her despairingly. She spoke as though meditating aloud to herself.
“Where Cecil is, I am sure he is alive … I am alive, too … and I shall stay alive. …”
She stopped before Verney.
“Does the Queen know I am ill?”
“She’s sending her own doctors to examine you,” he answered heavily and reluctantly.
“Do they come alone?”
Parry answered for him.
“No, madam, with a guard five hundred strong. And the Queen is sending you her own litter that you may be brought to her by any means.”
“Indeed!” Elizabeth resumed her pacing. “Well, there’s some good in the news at least! If I am given out to be too ill to sit a horse, and so must be in a litter, the procession must move slowly indeed… Mary has ever had a hot temper but she was always quick to cool. Time is my weapon. It may well serve me better than an army.”
Vemey fell to his knees, put out imploring hands to her.
“Mistress, your army is the people! They will line the roads as you pass by—give them but the word and they will spring to arms in your defense.”
“I am sure so, if they had arms to spring to!” Elizabeth came back. “But lacking arms—I will not have all England run with blood for me. No, there’s another way. She dares do nothing to me without trial. Wyatt has confessed; what did he say?”
“I—know not,” Verney muttered.
“Did he name me?” she persisted.
“They do say—he did,” Verney articulated.
Elizabeth flinched and drew breath sharply.
“And I do know how that was wrung from him. …”
Ashley gave a choking groan. And Parry turned away.
“They must do better than that,” Elizabeth said with decision. “Where is their proof? What documents have they— what letters—what words set down on paper?”
“None!” Verney said strongly. “Before God, we know that none were written.”
“I do not fear questioning…” Elizabeth was talking as though to herself again. “Mary’s no murderess! Jane Grey was set upon the throne itself, yet Mary’s had her in the Tower eight months and Jane still lives. If she’s not punished Jane, how can she punish me, who …”
The sentence died away, unfinished.
“Francis,” Elizabeth said in quite a different tone, “turn you around and let me see your face.”
Verney turned his head slowly but he could not meet her eyes.
“Jane Grey’s alive? Tell me! You can keep nothing from me, for I say I have a sense in me tonight can know an act done clear across the world.”
Still he could not speak. It was Elizabeth who spoke: “She’s dead… They’ve killed Jane Grey?”
“Yes, lady,” Verney whispered.
“When?”
“This morning—yesterday—”
“How?”
Verney breathed deeply. His next words sounded grotesquely irrelevant.
“On Sunday,” he stated, “Bishop Gardiner preached at Court.”
“So? He’s a quiet man,” Elizabeth commented, watching Verney’s face.
“Is he?” Verney burst out. “He did call upon God to witness to the mercy of the Queen, and charged her with too
much of it, to the hurt of her Kingdom and her church if she continued. He swore the health of her Kingdom could never be, unless, as he said, ‘the rotten and hurtful members thereof were cut off and consumed. . .
“On Monday, Jane Grey was dead.”
“How? How?”
Verney hesitated a moment before answering.
“Some say she and her Guildford were taken from their rooms in the Tower and secretly beheaded. Others swear they were set upon in the night, and murdered…”
Elizabeth stood perfectly still. Blindly, she reached out a hand. Ashley caught it and held it fast, speechless.
“Ashley! … Oh God, she knew Jane was not guilty. She knew she was only a tool of Northumberland’s. She’s had his head. Was that not enough?
“Why, we were children together. How could she forget? Jane was a sister to her—”
She stopped, frozen. The word smote her all in an instant with the realization of what she was saying.
She turned to Verney.
“Think you we can get to Donnington?”
All the sudden overwhelming recognition of her own peril was in the swift question.
Parry had stepped to the window and was peering out between the curtains.
“No, Bess, you cannot,” he said.
“What?” Elizabeth said.
“Come here,” Parry bade her and held the curtain aside.
Ashley bustled up and reeled backward.
“Oh God!”
“It is more than five hundred,” Parry said with the toneless calm of despair.
Verney rushed forward.
“We’ll fight them at the gate. Rouse what men we have— we’ll fight them—”
“Francis—” Elizabeth said.
“I’ll die here now,” Verney said frantically, “before I’ll see you taken.”
“That you will do, if you fight,” Parry told him with grimness.
“That you will not do now,” Elizabeth said in a rapid ringing voice. “I need you, Francis. Get you from this place, and quickly. I have more love for a man who lives than for a head on a spike. …”
“Lady—” he faltered.
“If you love me, go. And as I go to London, see that the people know it, and observe me as I pass — a prisoner—but alive.
… Above all, let them know this: Elizabeth lives!”
“Mistress, I swear—”
“Swear not,” she said, and smiled at him with white lips, “but act! Now—quickly—go!”
Verney caught her hand and kissed it with a rending sob, and was gone.
“Stand from the window, Thomas,” Elizabeth directed. “Let me see fully. … It is a goodly company of men!”
“She fears you, to guard you with all that,” he said, and Elizabeth nodded.
“Get you to bed, Bess,” Ashley urged. “They must find
you in bed. Remember, you are ill — and the doctors will be here to examine you.”
“And let them come,” Elizabeth answered. “For by God’s holy truth, I am ill enough, now…”
There was a thunder of knocking below.
“Quick—to bed,” Parry said, and Elizabeth and Ashley went quickly through the small, arched door.
A minute or two later there was a knocking at the larger door of the room.
“Who’s there?” Parry called.
The door opened; the figure of a guard stood there.
“Thomas Parry?”
“Aye.”
“Lord William Howard is below, with a company of the Queen’s men, in the Queen’s name, to fetch the Lady Elizabeth to the Tower…”
Under the stinging rain, the barge drew to the steps of the Traitors’ Gate.
Elizabeth stood without moving.
“This is no gate for me,” she announced, holding her head high and with her haggard young face colorless, sheathed in her dark hood. “Moreover,” she added disdainfully, “how may I land at these steps? They run with water. …”
One of her escorts unlatched his cloak and proffered it. She thrust it aside savagely, and set her foot on the streaming stone.
“Here lands as true a subject as ever landed at these stairs!” she announced, raising her voice. “I speak before God—having none other friend but Him only.”
“Why, then, it shall be the better for you, madam,” one of the men said with a well-meant attempt at comfort.
There was a certain baffled wonder in the faces which surrounded her. Even an uneasy apprehension. Her defiant courage was like a torch in the rain. She looked like a dead creature, her eyes dark pits in her white face; but she wasn’t yielding an inch … this Princess Elizabeth…
At the gate itself, various Tower wardens and servants stood waiting; and there was a sudden unlooked — for stir, as certain of them suddenly dropped to their knees and could be heard to say, “God preserve Your Grace…