Face Down Before Rebel Hooves Part 16

"You should have thought of them sooner! We've no time for sentiment now. The weather grows worse with every hour we delay." Outside the inn, the wind screamed like a woman in childbed.

Jennet, who with Bess Kelke had been told to disa.s.semble Lady Northumberland's traveling bed, caught Susanna's eye. This disagreement between the two countesses boded ill for her plan that Walter capture the rebel leaders at Wressel.

"It is not far out of our way," Lady Northumberland protested.

"We must go direct to Topcliffe, where you still have tenants loyal to you, and then to Brancepeth to gather our followers." Lady Westmorland's face was flushed, her eyes over-bright. "Meanwhile, the men who were to have met the duke at Hartlepool will strike at the queen's man in the North."

Lady Northumberland spoke in the choked voice of one fighting tears. "Oh, yes. I have heard what they intend. Petty vengeance of their own against Sir George Bowes. How does that help us?"

Susanna barely contained a sound of alarm.

"Would you put your daughters above your husband?" Lady Westmorland demanded, ignoring the countess of Northumberland's question. "You risk his freedom to dally near York. Keep him safe and you can always have more children. After all, those you are so concerned about are only girls."

Yet more vileness, Susanna thought. How could any woman, any mother, say such a thing? She thought of Rosamond and, when Lady Northumberland began to sob, was close to tears herself.

Nothing less than her fear of losing the earl could have swayed the countess of Northumberland, but she could not bear the thought of leading her husband into mortal danger, especially when she'd been the one to urge him to rebel in the first place. In the end, she agreed to do as Lady Westmorland wished, and the victorious countess swept out of the chamber.

"Well-bruised rue steeped in vinegar," Susanna muttered. She set about making a poultice with which to anoint her mistress's temples. Applied twice a day, it could relieve most headaches. She was about to fetch a red silk bag filled with crushed lavender flowers, bay, betony, red rose petals, marjoram, clove pinks, and nutmeg blossoms, soothing scents even if they did not do much to ease pain, when Cecily Carnaby burst into the chamber. She stopped short when she caught sight of Susanna and her face lost every bit of color the wild weather had given it.

"You are here! Then who . . . ?"

"What ails you, Cecily?" Joan Lascelles demanded.

"They've found a body. A woman. I thought . . . "

The need to take charge snapped Lady Northumberland out of the misery into which she had sunk. She issued a series of terse orders and within a quarter of an hour had the answers she sought.

The dead woman was Margaret Heron. She'd broken her neck in a fall from her horse while attempting to desert the rebel cause.

"A tragic accident," Guy Carnaby declared.

Jennet and Susanna exchanged a look.

Another accident, Susanna wondered, or another murder?

Chapter 33.

Barnard Castle November 29, 1569 "During the time you wasted in York," Pendennis said in a cold, uninflected voice, "the rebel force dwindled to the earls, their countesses, a few of their women, Susanna among them, and about forty other followers."

Nick said nothing. He knew now that it had been a mistake to go to the earl of Suss.e.x, but his distrust of Pendennis went deep. He'd thought to save time, York being so much closer to Wressel than Barnard Castle.

Instead, he'd been delayed by bad weather and detained by a suspicious lord president of the council in the North, whose inability to make a decision had not stopped him from locking Nick up while he considered the information he'd brought. Finally, Suss.e.x had decided to dispatch Nick here. In the interim, all chance to intercept the earls had been lost.

"Well?" Pendennis demanded.

"If you know so much, why did you fail to stop their retreat?"

Only the presence of Sir George Bowes kept the two men from going for each other's throats. "I do not see what difference it makes," Bowes complained. "They will be captured. It is only a matter of time. I'll wager they will end up at Brancepeth. We will lay siege to the castle."

"Even the earls are not such fools as to let themselves be trapped there," Pendennis snapped.

Nick was forced to agree with him. "They know their lives are at stake. They will continue northward and seek sanctuary in Scotland. I heard talk while I was with the rebel troops that Northumberland is owed a favor by a Scot named Hector Armstrong."

"You heard they meant to go to Wressel, too, and they did not."

Susanna had been wrong. The earl of Northumberland had abandoned his own children.

"Northumberland's tenants care only about saving their own skins," Pendennis added. "They ignored his efforts to rally them. I doubt Westmorland will have any better luck."

"What else did you observe while you were with the enemy?" Bowes asked.

Nick answered, then detailed his dealings with the earl of Suss.e.x. "You have the right of it, Pendennis." Although Nick begrudged the admission, he could no longer withhold it. "I should have ridden here as soon as I learned where you were, or at the least sent my man, but I believed I could persuade Suss.e.x to act."

"Hah!" Bowes exclaimed.

Pendennis's smile was derisive.

"There is another matter I would discuss with you," Nick added. "Privily, I think."

The smile became even more unpleasant. "Leave us, Sir George, if you will."

Bowes looked as if he wanted to protest, but something in Pendennis's expression warned him off. As soon as they were alone, Nick provided a second summary, this time including everything he knew about the attempts to kill Lady Pendennis.

"Three attempts to kill Susanna?" Pendennis did not show his emotions, but they might run all the deeper for being constrained. Nick was certain he heard a thread of concern in the other man's voice.

"The first two might have been accidents, but that arrow was deliberate."

"A warning, mayhap, rather than a true threat? You did say even the women are expert archers. If one of them wanted to kill Susanna, she would be dead."

"Warn her of what? Either they suspect she is not who she says she is, or they have some reason not to trust your wife. Either way, it cannot be wise to let Susanna remain with the rebels."

"Is any place safe now?"

Pendennis's att.i.tude annoyed Nick. Obtaining an incriminating letter from Mary of Scotland to Lady Westmorland apparently mattered more to him than Susanna's life. "There seems to be some confusion about your wife's recruitment to the rebel cause." In spite of his growing irritation with Pendennis, Nick chose his words with care. "You told Susanna that Lady Pendennis was approached by Dartnall. The rebels appear to believe she contacted him."

"My wife was no traitor, Baldwin." The voice was still uninflected, but Pendennis's eyes burned with such hatred that Nick took an involuntary step backward.

A sudden conviction made mincemeat of all Nick's previous speculations. If Pendennis had been given proof of his wife's betrayal, he would have strangled her with his bare hands. Devious as he might be when it came to planting spies and untangling conspiracies, he'd never have arranged a clumsy accident at second hand, an accident that might as easily have left his wife crippled as dead.

"What your wife did or did not do," Nick said, "is of no interest to me. All my concern is for Susanna. If the numbers with the earls are as depleted as you say, then let us take a troop of men from here and ride after them. Let us end this now. Seize any letters for yourself, before Lady Westmorland decides to destroy them."

To Nick's surprise, Pendennis nodded. "Yes. I believe you may be right. We will leave first thing in the morning."

Although Nick chafed at further delay, the advantages of waiting for dawn seemed obvious. It was already late afternoon. Tomorrow they would be able to set out with well-rested men and horses, and with fresh intelligence concerning the whereabouts of the earls.

He woke early, ready to ride, only to be faced with an unforeseen setback. Pendennis's spies had failed him. Under cover of night and inclement weather, a large band of rebels, motivated as much by their extreme hatred of Sir George Bowes as by any real hope their uprising could now succeed in overthrowing the queen, had laid siege to Barnard Castle. All those within, including Pendennis and Nick, were trapped for the duration.

Chapter 34.

Lucius Dartnall returned to Keswick on the last day of November. In his absence, although she'd chafed at the delay, Catherine had not been idle. She'd learned everything there was to know about Northumberland's connection to Haug and Company. She had also managed to question Robin Fletcher and John Grave without, she hoped, arousing any suspicions as to her motives. Both messengers had made journeys from Topcliffe to Augsburg at the beginning of September.

The timing struck Catherine as peculiar. Fletcher had left within a day of Grave, although the second message had not been delivered until more than a week after the first, due to the vagaries of travel. The second message must have been of vital importance to warrant sending a special courier, and yet Fletcher insisted that no fuss had been made over its dispatch. Indeed, it had not even been given to him by the earl's secretary, as was usually the case. That letter, and a generous bonus for leaving at once, had been delivered to him by of one of Topcliffe's many pages.

"Did the lad say he was sent by the earl?" Catherine had asked.

"He did not say otherwise," had been Fletcher's reply.

Master Dartnall, she now discovered, gave the same sort of answers. The present, unsatisfying inquisition had ensued when he arrived at the inn where she was staying, the Red Lion, to make the same case for investment in the mines that he'd carried to the county of Westmorland. Catherine longed to ask him what other business he'd had with Sir Roger Cholmeley, but she bit back the words and pretended to be fascinated by his discussion of ore production and the need for more charcoal burners.

"I am most intrigued by what you say," she a.s.sured him when he paused for breath, "but I have been in Keswick too long already. I am told you mean to travel in the direction of Penrith, where I am bound. Might we not journey together, that I may hear more of this?"

He fell in with her suggestion at once.

Two days later, her discussions with Dartnall en route having been most illuminating, they arrived together at Gillingham Place. Catherine had contrived to reach there just at dusk, when country custom demanded she be invited to spend the night. She hoped, through simple conversation, to solicit additional useful information. Since Dartnall had so recently paid a visit to Lady Gillingham's uncle, it seemed likely he'd speak of it. She'd not counted on their hostess's aversion to any mention of Roger Cholmeley.

"We are estranged," Eleanor's mother informed Dartnall, "and I have no desire to mend fences."

Lady Gillingham was an older, more brittle version of her daughter. Although she offered the travelers food and lodging, she was frugal with information. She admitted that her husband was not at home, but said no more about him.

Catherine abandoned subtle probing. "Does he ride with the rebels?"

"That is no business of yours, madam."

Dartnall winced at Lady Gillingham's sharp tone. Catherine sipped from a plain gla.s.s beaker containing beer spiced with cinnamon, resin, gentian, and juniper. "I ask only because I know your daughter is now in Lady Northumberland's service." She felt a twinge of conscience that she could not tell Lady Gillingham the truth, that Eleanor was dead, but the older woman's att.i.tude soon relieved her of any sense of guilt.

"We will not speak of her, either."

How much, Catherine wondered, did Lady Gillingham know of recent events? She bided her time, waiting only until Dartnall left them to pursue the subject.

"A few weeks ago," she said, "Sir Walter Pendennis returned to England with his wife. May I ask, madam, when you last heard from her? You do know Eleanor wed Sir Walter, I presume?"

Lip curled in disdain, Eleanor's mother spat out her answer. "I know, but I have neither seen nor heard from that ungrateful harpy since I arranged for her to go and live with Lady Quarles."

Catherine's brows lifted at the bitterness that laced her words. She considered her own brief acquaintance with Eleanor. What she could recall of the woman did not generate any fond memories, and she'd thought at the time that Susanna was too trusting where Eleanor was concerned. Walter, in a manner quite out of character for him, had been blinded by love. "Is it Sir Roger Cholmeley who keeps you informed?" she inquired. "Did he also tell you she has a child?"

The news that she was a grandmother did nothing to warm Lady Gillingham's manner. Catherine wondered if Eleanor would have become as cold and aloof as her mother if she'd lived. She had a feeling the answer was yes, in which case Walter had been fortunate in his escape.

"This child is nearly seven years old," Catherine said. Lady Gillingham's thin lips pursed in disapproval. "Her father was my half brother, so you will understand that I have some interest in her welfare. That is connected to the uprising in Yorks.h.i.+re, for Eleanor is with the rebels. So, I understand, is her cousin, Marion Standbridge."

"You know more than I do, madam."

Not enough, Catherine thought, and set out to be even more provoking. "Why do you suppose Eleanor would write to her uncle and not to you?"

Lady Gillingham's sardonic expression gave Catherine chills. "I have no money. Uncle Roger's fortune is pledged to the female relative who makes the best marriage." Lady Gillingham looked as if she'd bitten down on a sour grape. "He disinherited me long ago. He did not approve of either of my husbands, or of certain other misadventures he learned of some years back. He will not change his mind. He never does."

"So Eleanor is his heir?"

A wicked gleam came into Lady Gillingham's eyes. "Only as long as she can conceal the existence of her b.a.s.t.a.r.d child.

"Your grandchild," Catherine reminded her.

Lady Gillingham paid her no mind. "He'll disown her when he knows. Serve her right. An eye for an eye. She played telltale t.i.t on me. Now 'tis my turn." She strode purposefully toward the door and bellowed for a servant to bring pen and ink and paper.

Stunned, Catherine gaped at her. "You mean to write to Sir Roger to tell him about Rosamond, hoping he'd disown Eleanor because of the child? But why? If I understood you correctly, Mistress Standbridge is the only one who can benefit from such a betrayal. You will not profit."

"No matter. My daughter set Uncle Roger against me. I do but return the favor."

Repulsed, Catherine left Lady Gillingham to her revenge. And what sort of man was Sir Roger, she wondered, to be so unforgiving? When she left here on the morrow, she decided, she would attempt to learn more about him from Dartnall . . . both before and after she informed the fellow he was her prisoner.

Her plan was simple. With Fulke and Lionel to guard him, she meant to take Dartnall to Walter, thus ensuring that Dartnall could not cause any problems for Susanna. And during their journey back to Barnard Castle, she would do her best to discover what role Sir Roger Cholmeley had played in the events leading up to Eleanor's death.

Chapter 35.

The second time the countess of Westmorland ordered Marion Standbridge to bring Lady Pendennis to her study at Brancepeth for a private interview, Susanna thought herself prepared for whatever the volatile n.o.blewoman might say to her.

She was not.

"Your husband is the queen's man," Lady Westmorland declared. "You will go to him now and take us with you."

The expression of shock and dismay on Marion's face gave ample proof that Eleanor's cousin had not expected this, either. Instead of leaving them, she remained in the room. Lady Westmorland did not appear to notice.

"Madam," Susanna said, "I am the last person Sir Walter will be inclined to help. It will do you no good to use me to get to him."

"You underestimate yourself, Lady Pendennis. Use your womanly wiles and he'll be glad enough to take you back. He has influence. He will convince the queen I had no part in this foolish rebellion."

Susanna felt her mouth drop open.

Lady Westmorland lowered her voice to a confiding tone. "He is an intelligence gatherer. A vile schemer who sends men throughout England, and other places, too, in order to find out what the queen's enemies do plot. Such a man has the power to keep me out of prison. We will leave here at dusk. Is he in York or in London?"

Susanna thought quickly. She had no idea where Walter was. Moreover, she had no desire to travel through a winter's night in the company of a mad countess. There was only once place she could think of that would deter Lady Westmorland. For all she knew, she might even be speaking the truth. "He is at Barnard Castle."