The Queen's Lady. Barbara Kyle

me still holds fast.”

      The door creaked open. Both women turned startled faces. Margery crept in wringing her hands. “Pardon, Your Grace,” she said. “My lord Ambassador…”

      The Spaniard stalked past her. Dripping wet, he bowed to the Queen. Honor had to smile, seeing this impeccable gentleman standing in a small pool of water.

      “Thank you, Margery,” Catherine said, her voice charged with surprise and pleasure at the sight of Mendoza. “Now, off to bed.”

      Margery cast Honor a worried glance, then bobbed a curtsy and hurried out. Honor was about to make her own curtsy, thinking that the Queen’s dismissal to Margery included her as well. But Mendoza, having peeled off his sodden cloak and hat, thrust them at her. She draped them on a high-backed chair, then was ready to go. Mendoza smoothed back his ruffled, silver hair with great dignity and eyed the decanter on the sideboard.

      “A glass of wine, Don Inigo?” Catherine asked.

      Frustrated though she was at more delay, Honor knew her duty. She crossed the room, poured wine, and brought it to Mendoza. He gulped it with uncharacteristic haste. “Madam,” he said, answering the question in Catherine’s eyes, “the Cardinal is ill. Some are whispering it is the deadly sweating sickness. He has hastened away from London’s diseased air, to Hampton Court. His household is riddled with the sickness, and his staff is in a chaos of confusion. It offered an opportunity—which I judged worth the risk—to try, one more time, to come to you.”

      “I pray the Cardinal is not in mortal danger,” Catherine said with a sincerity, Honor understood, that would astonish anyone who did not know her deeply pious character. “God keep him.”

      Mendoza grunted. “I am not sure my own Christian charity should be tested to stretch as far as Wolsey’s obese body. But I hear he has weathered the worst and is busy in his bed, sifting the rush of requests for dead men’s lands. Still,”—he jerked his head toward the door—“I dare not stay long lest I imperil you.” A violent lashing of rain at the window rekindled his urgency. “I must tell you of the perilous events at Rome. Madam, the tide may be turning against us.”

      Catherine’s flinch was almost imperceptible. She was staring at the Ambassador as if she had forgotten Honor’s presence. Honor groaned inwardly. She could not interrupt, yet neither could she leave without a dismissal.

      “His Holiness the Pope has returned from exile in Orvieto,” Mendoza went on. “He finds Rome a pitiable and mangled corpse, he says, but at least he is home.”

      A smile flickered on Catherine’s face. “From the moment the news arrived of Rome’s capture I knew it was a sign to me from God. Did it not happen the very month Wolsey hatched his plot to destroy me?”

      “God, of course, is on your side,” Mendoza replied with diplomatic smoothness. “Certainly, as long as the Emperor’s army was holding Rome the Pope has not dared to infuriate him by annulling your marriage. To do so would have been to sign his own death warrant.”

      Catherine nodded.

      “However, at Orvieto,” Mendoza continued, “His Holiness was desperate for help. I have been told he was camping under the dripping roof of the local bishop’s derelict palace, shedding tears like a woman at his fate. King Henry’s agents found him there. In his miserable condition he was looking anywhere for friends and money. And Wolsey was quick to supply him, you can be sure. Now that the Pope has returned to Rome, the King’s agents throng him daily with petitions, and they hardly bother to veil their insinuations that he owes his English benefactors that much at least. Madam, they are poisoning the Pope’s mind with tales of the Emperor’s treacherousness. They are telling him that your nephew’s ambition is to overrun all of Italy and swallow Rome whole. They sweeten these lies with offers to supply His Holiness with a handpicked English and French bodyguard to protect him against another assault. And now—”

      “And now, Cardinal Campeggio is on his way,” Catherine said grimly.

      Mendoza nodded. “The situation is most grave.”

      Catherine began pacing again. Swiftly, she came to a decision. “Don Inigo, we must prepare our final defense. Immediately.” She looked at him, one eyebrow raised in skepticism. “Have you heard who the government will allow me as council?”

      Mendoza hesitated as if unwilling to burden her with more bad news. He tried to sound hopeful. “I understand there is a distinguished array of lawyers…Archbishop Warham, Bishop Fisher of Rochester, Bishop Tunstall of London, Dr. Standish, Bishop Clerk—”

      Catherine held up her hand. “Distinguished these men may be, Don Inigo, but you know, as everyone knows, that they owe their livelihoods to the government. My lords Warham and Tunstall are good men, but timid and fearful. And Standish and Clerk are soft clay in Wolsey’s hands. I know he has warned them all not to meddle against the King in this. Small comfort there.” A trace of hope fluttered in her eyes. “Except, perhaps, for Fisher.”

      “The government, as you know, madam, will invoke Leviticus to show the marriage transgressed scriptural law. But we, too, have a good defense in scripture—in Deuteronomy. Besides our argument that the Pope did legally dispense with the injunction, we will rely heavily on the Deuteronomy passage. ‘When brethren dwell together, and one of them dieth without children, the wife of the deceased shall not marry to another—’”

      “‘But his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother,’” Catherine murmured, completing the scriptural quotation. She paused a moment and stared again at the fire. “No, Don Inigo.”

      “Pardon, madam?”

      She turned to him. “No. I will not put my faith solely in these legal and theological arguments. To me, the legality of the former Pope’s dispensation is irrelevant, for I mean to rest my defense on the truth.”

      Mendoza looked perplexed. “The truth?”

      “That I was never Arthur’s wife, except in name. That I came to my lord a virgin, and he knows it. When this is made clear, in public, I do not doubt that God will move my lord to awaken to his duty. And then this nightmare will be over.”

      Even Honor was surprised. Her eyes and the Ambassador’s met as if to ask one another if the Queen herself would awaken before it was too late.

      Mendoza cleared his throat. “Madam, may we speak privately?”

      “Of course.” Catherine laid a gentle hand on Honor’s shoulder. “Leave us, sweetheart,” she said. She kissed Honor’s forehead as if she were a favorite daughter. “You will be longing for your bed after these weary hours of toiling at my papers.”

      With relief, Honor curtsied and left the room. But after taking the letter to Dr. Vittoria, it was not to her bed she went, but out in the rain to Coleman Street.

      9

      The Brethren

      Honor banged her fist against the merchant’s door. Rain pummeled her head and shoulders and drenched her hooded cloak as she waited. A metal bolt scraped, the door swung open, and a young man stood before her. Behind his lantern, his narrow face glowed white against lank orange hair that hung to his shoulders.

      “Master Humphrey Sydenham?” she asked.

      He thrust the lantern out close to her face, examining her with fearful eyes. “No.”

      “I must see him.” Her voice emerged with more strength than she felt. “His life is in danger.”

      “What?” The man looked frightened. “What’s happened? Who are you?”

      “I’ll tell only Master Sydenham that. Is he here or not?”

      The man gnawed his lip, hesitating, then pulled her in and shut the door. “Follow me.”

      He led her down a corridor and past a fine-looking great hall to a snug room bright with a fire and candles, though deserted. “Wait