Only the slight flaring of the countess's nostrils gave away her revulsion. "I cannot yet tell how much harm your actions caused our forces, but I do know you have been no help to us." She stood to signal the end of the audience. "Take her back to England with you, Lady Appleton. Turn her over to her cousin's grieving widower and let him decide what's to be done with her."

Chapter 41.

Walter found Nick Baldwin in the same small chamber at the George where they had met once before. One foot was propped up on a stool and an arm was swathed in bandages, but he looked in remarkable fine spirits.

"I understand it was Dr. Grant who set your broken arm and saw to it that you were transported safely back to York."

"A fair exchange," Baldwin said. "He found himself in need of a pardon."

It had been granted, too, reviving all Walter's questions about the source of Baldwin's influence.

"Is the guard necessary?" He nodded toward Baldwin's man.

"Toby feels I need one." Baldwin's voice was bland and uninflected. "I am less certain. You tell me, Pendennis. Did you intend to wish me well in my search for Susanna, or was that clap on the shoulder on the wall of Barnard Castle an attempt to kill me?"

A spurt of uncontrolled anger forced Walter to take a deep breath before he answered. "If I'd decided to kill you, Baldwin, you'd be dead."

"As I suspected." But the manservant continued to look skeptical and did not leave the chamber. "I sent a message asking you to come here to the George," Baldwin continued, "because I have received a message from Susanna. She is safe and well. More of her whereabouts anon. There is another matter we must discuss first."

"News of the rebels?" Typical of this entire campaign, the leaders of the queen's army had lost track of them. Only gradually had word filtered back to England that Northumberland was a prisoner of the Scots regent while his wife had been taken in by Sir Thomas Kerr at Ferniehurst. Westmorland was on the loose in the Debateable Land.

Baldwin held up two letters, one folded smaller than the other and still sealed. "This came addressed to you, Pendennis, enclosed in a note from the man I left behind in Hamburg."

Puzzled, Walter took the proffered parchment and broke the seal. He glanced first at the signature, which was that of his manservant, Jacob. "Impossible," he whispered as he read the message.

"The letter I received confirms what is written in yours." Baldwin's knowing expression made Walter's hackles rise.

"This is a trick."

"A trick of fate, mayhap, but none of my doing." He produced a third letter. "This is the note I spoke of earlier. From Susanna, sent when she pa.s.sed by York earlier today. In it she suggests we both come after her. Her destination is not far from here. Even I will be able to ride the distance. When we arrive, Pendennis, you will share with her the news Jacob Littleton sent."

"d.a.m.n you, Baldwin." Walter could only seethe with impotent fury.

"If you do not," the merchant said with a complacent smile, "I will."

Chapter 42.

Walter and Nick arrived at Wressel together, though scarce in charity with one another. Susanna ignored the tension between them. She had more important things on her mind.

"The countess's daughters were abandoned." The horror of her discoveries still made her voice shake. "Two little girls, unable to fend for themselves, were left to their own devices for a week or more. The castle had been ransacked. Not a bit of food was left. They were nearly frozen and half starved by the time we arrived. All the servants who did not flee had been executed. They'd been left hanging from trees by marauding troops. Their own or the queen's, I know not, nor do I care."

"Would you rather the raiders had carried the children off? Or murdered them as they did the servants?"

Shocked by Walter's callous comment, Susanna stared at him. As usual, an unrevealing expression kept his feelings secret.

"I will take them back to Leigh Abbey with me," she declared.

"I doubt Rosamond will be pleased by that arrangement," Nick said in a mild voice.

Walter's words were sharp. "The court of wards will deal with them, Susanna. I will arrange for them to be taken to York and turned over to the earl of Suss.e.x. This is his responsibility, not yours."

"I promised their mother I would make sure they were safe and well." Lady Northumberland had called her back, just before she'd left Ferniehurst and taken the old Roman road called Dere Street back to England, to ask that one last boon.

Walter said nothing, but his implacable manner convinced Susanna she would not get her way in this matter. She sighed. She would have to contact Lady Suss.e.x. With her help, she'd at least be able to keep the countess informed as to the health and whereabouts of her children.

There was something peculiar about Walter's demeanor, Susanna decided. He held himself stiffly, as if he were the one who had been injured at the siege of Barnard Castle. A quick, surrept.i.tious glance at Nick's arm and ankle rea.s.sured her that he was mending well. Later she would examine the damage more thoroughly.

"I understand now why you came here," Walter said, "but why send word to us to follow you?"

Susanna signaled to Jennet to fetch Fulke and Lionel and their prisoner. Catherine, who had revealed during the journey south that she believed she was expecting another child, had taken charge of the two little girls. "I have something to tell you, Walter."

"And he has something to tell you," Nick said in a low voice.

Before he could elaborate on this statement, Marion burst into the room. Fulke's firm grip on her arm did little to restrain her. "Which one of you is Sir Walter?" she demanded.

Nick indicated Walter.

"I am falsely accused of murder. I have done nothing."

"Who are you?" Walter asked.

"Marion Standbridge."

"She sent the order for Eleanor's death," Susanna said.

Walter sighed. "Release her, Fulke. She did not kill anyone."

Susanna gasped. "Did you not hear me? She stole the earl of Northumberland's seal and sent Dartnall that second message. She also tried, three times, to murder me, thinking I was Eleanor. How can you-?"

"She did not kill Eleanor." This time it was Nick who spoke. He fixed Walter with a stern look. "Tell her the entire story now, or I will." He drew a piece of thrice-folded parchment from inside his doublet, as if to offer it to Susanna.

A letter? She glanced at Walter. He produced a similar missive, turning it over in his hands and staring at it with a bleak expression on his face. "Eleanor is not dead," he said at last.

Everyone asked questions at once-Marion, Jennet, Susanna, even Fulke and Lionel. Walter waited until the furor died down.

"I did believe she was." He met Susanna's puzzled gaze, torment etched into his face. "She was near death when last I saw her. I left my man Jacob with her, giving him instructions for her burial when she did pa.s.s on. But she refused to die. Soon after I left them, she recovered sufficient strength to insist that Jacob take her on to Hamburg, to Baldwin's house. This letter is from Jacob, written from that place."

"My man wrote at the same time," Nick put in, "to send on the same news."

"I do not understand," Susanna protested. But she was afraid she was beginning to.

"It is simple enough. I thought myself a widower. I did not know she was still alive. I did not lie to you, Susanna."

"Not about that, mayhap, but neither did you tell me the truth about Eleanor's involvement with the rebels. I know of it now, Walter. She wrote a letter to her uncle. Without mentioning it to you, I think."

He no longer seemed capable of keeping his expression blank. The torment writ upon his face confirmed her guess. Eleanor had contacted Dartnall, not the other way around.

Susanna's probing gaze shifted to Eleanor's cousin. Marion had realized she was not guilty of murdering "Nell," after all, and she'd never felt any sense of responsibility for the deaths of the wagon driver and the scullion. A calculating gleam came into Marion's almond-shaped eyes and she smiled.

Walter did not notice. He seized Susanna's arm and pulled her after him into a window embrasure. "I do not wish to be overheard by the others." His voice was low and pained.

When Nick would have followed, hobbling to her side on crutches, Susanna waved him away. She seated herself on the bench in front of the window and arranged her skirts with exaggerated care. She was not sure she wanted to hear any more confessions, but Walter had been her friend for a long time. She owed it to him to listen.

"Eleanor thought she was dying. She confessed she had betrayed England. She killed any love I might have had for her with those words. When I set out from Augsburg with her and my man and her maid, I expected the rough roads to finish her off. I felt no pity for her suffering, and when she was still alive two days later, I considered strangling her with my own hands, but I could not do it."

Although profoundly shocked by what he'd just revealed, Susanna put one hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort and forgiveness. "Certes, you could not. You loved her once."

He drew in a strengthening breath. "After we took the road north out of Frankfurt toward Hamburg, I found a place to hide her and left Jacob and the maidservant to care for her. I gave him enough money to support them in comfort, still certain it was only a matter of time before Eleanor succ.u.mbed to her injuries. When I told you she was dead, I believed she must be by then, for she was most horribly injured."

"But she did not die."

"No." He managed a wry smile. "Jacob writes that she began to regain her strength the moment I abandoned them. She remains disfigured and she will never walk again, but it appears she will live for many years yet."

"And you will be tied to her for the rest of her life." There was no possibility of divorce in the Church of England.

"Yes."

"Oh, my dear," Susanna murmured. "What a tragedy." She thought for a moment. "There is no need for anyone else to know the unfortunate details."

"Baldwin is aware of most of them."

"He will keep silent if I ask it of him." She ignored Walter's grimace. "But we cannot let Marion go free. Not only would she talk, but she deserves some punishment for all she's done. And what about Dartnall?"

"Dartnall has been dealt with." Walter's mask was back in place and his demeanor discouraged further questioning on that subject, but she could tell he saw the sense in silencing Marion. "A trial will serve no one's interests," he mused, "unless it is the trial of Mary of Scotland. Did you-?"

"No. There were no letters or doc.u.ments."

She lied without a qualm. When she had deciphered the messages from Queen Mary to Lady Westmorland, she had realized that, for all their wrongheadedness in seeking to overthrow the rightful queen of England, they were in truth only women like herself, who could be driven to desperate measures by circ.u.mstances beyond their control.

Mary of Scotland had not asked to be born with a claim to England's throne, or to be raised Catholic. The two countesses had done naught but attempt to right old wrongs, to restore their husbands' honors, denied them because of the way they chose to worship. Susanna did not condone treason, but neither could she allow herself to be the direct cause of Lady Northumberland's execution.

The letters addressed to "beloved countess" might have been used against either n.o.blewoman. Susanna did not regret taking them from the countess's hands and throwing them into the fire. If the approaching riders had been the regent's men instead of Kerr's, they'd have imprisoned Lady Northumberland as they had her husband.

Walter stood staring out the window, lost in his own dark thoughts. He started when she addressed him.

"What became of Lady Westmorland?"

"She was captured."

"Will she be executed?"

"No. The queen has already decided on confinement for life." Walter grimaced. "Unlike her father, Queen Elizabeth appears to have an aversion to beheading n.o.blewomen."

Perhaps, Susanna thought, because one of the great ladies King Henry had decapitated had been Elizabeth's own mother, Anne Boleyn. Whatever her reason, Susanna was glad she had decided to be merciful. After all, Lady Westmorland had not killed anyone.

"I have a suggestion," she ventured. "I understand why Marion cannot to be held responsible for the deaths of the wagoneer and the scullion, but is there any reason she should not share her old mistress's imprisonment?"

Walter very nearly smiled. "If what I've heard about Lady Westmorland's temperament is true, that seems a most fitting punishment."

"Then we've only Eleanor's fate to decide."

"I will exile her to my manor in Cornwall."

"Nonsense. As soon as she is able to travel home from Hamburg, she must come to me at Leigh Abbey. I may not be able to heal her injuries, but if there are any medicines that can help, I will find them." And with Eleanor at Leigh Abbey, Rosamond would stay on there, too.

Reluctantly, Walter agreed. Susanna did not give him any choice. In time, she hoped he would find it in his heart to forgive Eleanor and reconcile with her. If he could not, he faced many long, unhappy years ahead.

When Walter went off to make arrangements for Marion's incarceration, Susanna turned her attention to Nick. He had been watching them, a worried look on his face.

A tender kiss rea.s.sured him.

"I have missed you," he said after a gratifying interlude.

"And I, you, my dearest."

She cared for Walter, but Nick was the man she loved. Even more important, he was the one person she could count on to have her best interests at heart.

To the Reader.

In Treason in Tudor England: Politics and Paranoia (Princeton University Press, 1986), Lacey Baldwin Smith argues that deficiencies in the sixteenth century Englishman's diet may have been responsible for the sheer stupidity of some of the treason plots concocted during that era. There were many of them, and, despite appearances, the uprising that is the foundation for this book was not the most harebrained of the lot. Whatever the reasons for their erratic behavior and love of intrigue, a number of Elizabeth Tudor's subjects attempted to topple her from her throne. The rebellion of the northern earls has always fascinated me because it should, by rights, have been called the rebellion of the northern countesses.

There is conflicting information in contemporary accounts concerning the movements of the rebels and the dates of various occurrences during the rising of 1569, but to the best of my ability I have created my fictional tale within the bounds of historical fact. When there were contradictions, I made what seemed to me the most sensible choice, although that, of course, may not have been the one made by the earls and their countesses. Many of their actions defy logic.

Scholars generally agree that the two countesses were "stouter" than their husbands, riding with the troops and urging them on when they faltered. Lady Westmorland's remarks about her brother and the comments she makes to the conspirators when they contemplate calling off the rebellion, are taken from contemporary sources. The earl of Northumberland was tricked into ringing the bells at Topcliffe to signal the start of the uprising. He was tricked again at its end by Hector Armstrong, who turned him over to the regent of Scotland.

After her rescue by Sir Thomas Kerr, Lady Northumberland fled to the Continent, hoping to raise enough money to ransom her husband. Another daughter, Mary, was born just nine months after the rebellion began. Meanwhile, Northumberland was held in Scotland for seventeen months, then returned to England, where he was executed. The countess of Northumberland remained an exile until her death of smallpox in a convent at Namur in 1591.

The earl of Westmorland also escaped. He lived in the Low Countries and collected a pension from the king of Spain until his death in 1601. It is not clear precisely when his countess abandoned him or where she went, but she does not seem to have gone to Scotland. She did pen frantic letters to the queen, begging permission to come to court and plead her case. "Innocency and the great desire I have had to do my humble duty to her Highness," she wrote, "emboldeneth me to continue this my suit." She was sent to one of her family's houses, Kenninghall, and lived there as a virtual prisoner until her death in 1593. Her brother, the duke of Norfolk, was executed for treason in 1572.

Hundreds of the common folk who rallied to the earls' cause were also executed, including that Christopher Norton who courted Mary Seton, Queen Mary's lady in waiting, in order to open communications with the queen of Scots. Leonard Dacre, as everyone suspected, had his own agenda. He turned traitor after the main uprising was over, seizing two castles. When his effort to hold them failed, he fled abroad and died in exile in 1573.

Pope Pius V finally got around to excommunicating Queen Elizabeth, thus absolving her subjects from their allegiance to her, in February of 1570. The papal bull was not published in England until that May, far too late to help the rebel cause. The duke of Alba never had any intention of invading England. He had troubles of his own in the Netherlands.