"Last report?"

"Only after we make landfall will I have means of getting news of recent developments at home. Information that reached me in Augsburg is already more than two months old."

"Then it is possible the plan for rebellion has already been discovered. My impersonation of Eleanor may not be necessary."

"In the North, there are always more treasons to unearth."

She frowned. "On land, where there is no need to zigzag, why do men still choose the most roundabout route to a goal?"

Unable to think of an adequate response, Walter let that question pa.s.s unanswered. "Shall we adjourn to your cabin?" he asked instead. "If you are to succeed in your mission, it will be useful for you to understand the intricate relationships that bind the rebels together. For generations, the earls of Westmorland and Northumberland have ruled in their respective shires like petty kings. And in the North, more than anywhere else in England, both politics and religion take second place to the old feudal loyalties."

Chapter 6.

Engrossed in studying the notes she'd made two days earlier, following what she privately thought of as Walter's lesson in genealogy, Susanna did not realize he had entered her cabin until he made a sound low in his throat and s.n.a.t.c.hed a paper away from her.

"What is this? How could you be so foolish as to write down such incriminating information?"

"Calm yourself, Walter." She did not rise from the stool she'd drawn up to a small table. "You know it helps me organize my thoughts to make lists, and since fully half the conspirators you told me about have the same three or four surnames, I wish to avoid confusing them." She sent a bright smile in his direction. "Never fear. I will burn all these sc.r.a.ps of paper just as soon we sight land."

Too tall to stand upright in the cabin, he glowered at her from a stooped position before relinquishing her writing. She waved him toward the box bed, the only other place to sit.

"I understand your concern. Doc.u.ments have a nasty habit of coming back to haunt their creator. But would you rather I mix up the players?" In a gentle, teasing tone, she added, "Think what disastrous results might ensue from mistaking one of Westmorland's uncles for the other."

Walter would not be cajoled. "Better to destroy it now."

"Not yet. Rereading my notes has raised more questions. And writing them down helps occupy my mind."

She'd sought distraction to help her forget she was at sea, no easy task when every breath reminded her. This was a sweet-smelling ship compared to most, used to carry wine and spices, but the odor of tar permeated everything. The constant movement of the ship continued to make her queasy and she could never forget that the undulating waters of the North Sea lay just beyond her cabin's three small square windows. At that thought, Susanna reached for the infusion of ginger and rosewater she'd prepared earlier. Sipping the soothing liquid, she indicated the first name on her list.

"The earl of Northumberland. What more do you know of him, Walter?" That he was a ringleader of rebellion was no longer enough.

Given Walter's years in intelligence gathering, Susanna was certain he knew a great deal about everyone she would encounter in the course of her mission. For some reason, however, he had so far been reluctant to volunteer more than the most superficial information. Extracting a tooth from a mastiff would have been easier than persuading Sir Walter Pendennis to part with his secrets.

He reached for her goblet and sniffed. "Ginger?"

"It settles the stomach."

"Why do you smile?"

"I was remembering that Catherine cannot abide the taste, not even in sweets." Her sister-in-law was as dear to Susanna as anyone in the world. The two years she had lived at Leigh Abbey had been happy ones.

"Lady Glenelg is well?" Walter asked. He'd met Catherine at the same time he and Susanna first crossed paths. He had, she recalled, asked a favor of her on behalf of the queen on that occasion, too.

"She is not only well, but the mother of a young son. Gilbert managed a post in London shortly after you left England. I believe they are much happier there than in Edinburgh. But you are trying to distract me, Walter, and it will not work." She reached across the short distance between her stool and his perch and retrieved her posset. The feel of the goblet, cool and smooth beneath her hand, was soothing in itself. "I want information about Northumberland. If I am to join his household, I must know something of the man himself."

"I've never met him."

She waited.

"He was warden of the East and Middle Marches for a time but is no longer."

"Removed for improprieties?"

"For suspicion of having Catholic sympathies."

"And his wife?"

"She is said to be beautiful and spirited and by all accounts is devoted to her husband. I do not antic.i.p.ate you will experience any difficulty convincing him to let you join her household. Make of me as vile a husband as you will. Say I beat you. Better yet, tell them I returned to England to argue for the execution of the queen of Scots. That should win you sympathy."

"Deception does not come easily to me. It will be challenge enough to cross myself and manage a rosary." She'd been practicing with the beads Walter provided, but still felt fumble fingered and awkward. "Nor do I understand why I am to throw myself on the Northumberlands' mercy rather than go to Eleanor's kinsman."

"The packet you carry is meant for Northumberland."

"The two earls are allies. No doubt I will come in contact with Lady Westmorland at some point. What more can you tell me about her? All you've said to date is that she is the duke of Norfolk's sister. Which one? The duke, I recall, has three." Susanna ran one thumb over the length of her quill, finding it hard to resist the urge to make notes. "It seems most strange to me that any of them should be at the heart of a Catholic plot. They were raised and educated by ardent supporters of the New Religion."

"Lady Westmorland is Jane, the eldest. Do you know her? More to the point, does she know you?" Walter levered himself off the berth and braced his hands on the table. Concern escaped, for a moment, from behind the mask he wore to conceal his emotions.

"We've never met, but I've heard of her scholarship. My father was part of the same forward-thinking circle as her tutor. Both advocated educating daughters with the as much thoroughness as sons." Susanna stopped fiddling with her pen and set it aside. "Does it matter? Even if you have the right of it and the two earls raise the North, they'll doubtless follow tradition and leave their wives at home."

Walter ignored the question, distracted by another name on her list. "Leonard Dacre." He grimaced. "Avoid him if you can. I had dealings with him some years ago and found him most untrustworthy. He provides intelligence to the queen when it serves his purpose, but does not quibble at betrayal if there is profit in it."

"Tell me more about Eleanor's family," Susanna said. If there was any danger of being recognized as an imposter, it would come from them.

"We have been over this before," Walter complained. "You have it all writ down. Eleanor's mother was born Philippa Cholmeley. She married Sir Eustace Lowell, who died impoverished when Eleanor, their only child, was very young. Lady Lowell married second Sir Giles Gillingham. At that time she sent her daughter to be fostered by Lady Quarles, a distant connection of the Lowells."

Walter's clipped sentences increased Susanna's certainty that he did not wish to be pressed on the subject of his late wife. She wondered what lay at the core of his distress, but he allowed her no opening to probe.

"You do not need to worry about encountering Lady Quarles. She died two years ago."

"What about Lady Gillingham's side of the family?"

"There are Cholmeleys throughout the North. So many that no one would expect Eleanor to keep them all straight in her mind."

"She'd know her own mother. Where is Lady Gillingham now?"

"Nowhere near where you'll be, and she'll make no effort to contact you. Eleanor had naught to do with her after she went to Lady Quarles. She never forgave her mother for sending her into servitude."

"How sad to be estranged from her closest kin." And it troubled Susanna that Eleanor's mother could not be told of her child's death.

"She rarely spoke of her family, and never fondly. There was one cousin who plagued her as a girl. Mary? Marion?" He shrugged. "No matter. I doubt you'll encounter her in Northumberland's household. She lives on the bounty of an uncle who likes to keep her close to home." Walter rubbed the bridge of his nose, as if a headache threatened.

Susanna took up her quill to add the name Mary to her chart of Eleanor's kin.

Another low growl issued from Walter's throat. Before Susanna could prevent him, he seized her lists, opened the lantern hanging overhead, and thrust the papers into the candle flame.

Chapter 7.

Antwerp October 24, 1569 "A handful of Englishmen still reside here," Nick's companion informed him, "and others return from time to time to conduct business."

"The Merchant Adventurers have been expelled, their merchandise seized." Nick spoke quietly, in Low German.

"Those who profess to be Catholics may still prosper."

Nick grunted. The city was no longer friendly to heretics from across the German Ocean, as locals called the North Sea. That was why he'd taken the precaution of arriving in the guise of a Bavarian draper, hiding his true nationality.

Several hours earlier, when Nick and his manservant had walked into the mercer's shop, Warnaar Garartssonne van h.o.r.enbeeck had asked no questions. Instead, he'd invited both Nick and Toby to lodge with him for the duration of their visit. The two merchants now sat in a dark, quiet corner of the Sign of the Golden Angel, long a favorite haunt of Englishmen living in Antwerp. Nick was curious to see who among his countrymen remained in residence. So far he'd recognized no one, and no one knew him.

"Those who are cooperative with the current political and military leaders do well enough," h.o.r.enbeeck said.

Nick frowned. His old friend had used the word waicher. A more accurate translation than "cooperative" would be "pliant."

A look of concern creased h.o.r.enbeeck's broad, flat face. "Why did you risk coming here, Nick? You are no partisan of Spanish rule."

"To collect debts owed me."

"A bill of exchange could have been sent to you in Hamburg to settle those."

"Perhaps I am curious to see how Antwerp fares under the duke of Alba's control."

"Curiosity?" h.o.r.enbeeck sounded doubtful.

"I did live here for three years. I am interested in what has changed since I left."

Nick spoke the truth, as far as it went, but he'd had another, more personal reason for leaving Hamburg the day after Susanna sailed for England. Although he had lived there alone before her arrival, one night without her in the house they'd shared had convinced him he needed a change of scene. He'd chosen Antwerp because the overland journey would take at least two weeks and provide him with a goodly number of distractions. He'd been right about that. There had been Spanish troops everywhere. He'd been wrong, however, to think he could so easily put Susanna Appleton out of his mind.

"And have you found changes?" h.o.r.enbeeck sipped his beer and watched the door. They'd both taken stools that put their backs to the wall and gave them an un.o.bstructed view of new arrivals.

Nick grinned. "Seventeen years have pa.s.sed since I first saw this city. I was a young sprig of twenty back then." He'd been sent by his father, who'd been in the business of exporting wool from England. "How could I not find differences?"

"This is still the greatest port and richest market in the world," h.o.r.enbeeck declared. "The Bourse remains a meeting place for merchants of all sorts, and the center for the distribution of spices, and the hub of an international money market."

"True. All true."

But where, at one time, more than a thousand foreign businesses had carried on transactions worth, by one calculation, two and a half million golden ducats a year, now Antwerp had as many enemies abroad as friends. English privateers had been given leave to prey on merchant ships trading here. In the countryside of the Netherlands, as in England, rebellion stirred.

"The streets, squares, and those homes built of stone are much as I remember them." Nick tried to sound casual. "And the two towers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame continue to dominate the skyline. But there has been an addition, a new structure incorporated into the southern wall of the city between the Kronenbourg and St. Joris gates." The pentagonal fortification had a bastion at each star point and was fronted by an expanse of open ground across which nothing could move without being seen from the ramparts.

"The Citadel." h.o.r.enbeeck looked grim. "Built on the orders of the duke of Alba. Is that why you've come? To study our defenses?"

"I can think of no reason why England should involve herself in a civil war in the Low Countries."

"Pray G.o.d it will not come to war."

"Amen to that." Nick signaled for more beer.

"Do you know that fellow?" h.o.r.enbeeck asked as the door opened to admit a young man in a dark blue cloak. "He is English."

The newcomer had the stoop-shouldered, slightly squint-eyed look of a clerk. "He is unknown to me."

"Name's Dartnall," h.o.r.enbeeck supplied. "Works for Haug and Company."

Nick's eyes narrowed. Here was a coincidence. The very man who'd approached Eleanor Pendennis in Augsburg was now in Antwerp. Haug and Company had branches in both cities, he remembered, and in many other places besides, but why was Dartnall here at just this moment? The most logical answer to that question alarmed him. Antwerp was some distance from the sea, but it was located on a large, easily navigable estuary of the Scheldt and was thus a logical point of embarkation for England. Even with the embargo, a quick crossing was possible. If Dartnall was bound for Yorkshire on business with the earl of Northumberland, he could wreck all Pendennis's carefully laid plans. Should Dartnall catch sight of Susanna, he'd recognize her at once as an imposter.

"Can you devise a way to let Dartnall know I am an Englishman in disguise?" Nick asked h.o.r.enbeeck. "And somehow make him think me a papist, as well?"

With an air of gloomy resignation, h.o.r.enbeeck a.s.sured Nick that he could.

The undertaking required the consumption of copious quant.i.ties of beer, both before and after h.o.r.enbeeck's departure. In the end it was Nick's commiseration on the subject of the unreasonable expectations of employers that won Dartnall's trust, that and the drink and Dartnall's delight at being able to speak English to a fellow countryman. Much of what he said concerned petty complaints against people whose names Nick did not know, but eventually he asked if Nick had ever heard of a fellow named Pendennis. Nick denied it.

"Cannot abide the idea of a Catholic on the throne," Dartnall declared. "Spoilt some fine plans over the years."

"There are many people in England who seem content with things as they are."

"And a great number who are not." Dartnall slung a companionable arm around Nick's shoulders and breathed beer fumes into his face.

They were the only Englishmen in the common room and no one else was near enough to overhear their conversation. In addition, although Dartnall's German showed no trace of an accent, his English had the flavor of Yorkshire. It grew more p.r.o.nounced with every swallow of beer. That alone, Nick suspected, would make the fellow's words difficult for an eavesdropper to translate.

"Powerful folks," Dartnall muttered. "Peers."

"What's this Pendennis to them?"

A smirk appeared on Dartnall's pale face. "A spelk toon frey hissen."

For a moment, Nick was unsure what language Dartnall spoke. "Spelk?"

"Splinter."

A splinter took from himself. Even translated, the Yorkshireman's statement made no sense. The fellow was cup shot, and no mistake. "What splinter?"

"Why his wife, friend. His rib." Dartnall chortled. "He daren't trouble her. I do think he be afeared of her. E'en the devil would not take her."

Dartnall's sputtering laughter had Nick tightening his grip on his tankard. a.s.suming a bit of the pattern of Yorkshire speech himself, the better to lull his drunken companion into further confidences, Nick wagged an admonishing finger at Dartnall. "Thou hast been up to summat."

Belatedly, a cautious look came into Dartnall's eyes. "I do not see how any can blame me. 'Twas their mistake." Worry replaced the wariness.

"A mistake about Lady Pendennis?" Nick had difficulty curbing his impatience. If Dartnall knew what had really befallen her and told the conspirators in England she was dead, Susanna would be in danger.