"d.a.m.ned popinjay!"

"Interfering merchant!"

In one of the stables attached to the house called the King's Manor, headquarters of the queen's council in the North, two men stood glowering at each other. Nick Baldwin fair seethed with rage. He could feel the veins in his neck bulge as he controlled a desire to lay violent hands on the jacka.s.s who'd sent Susanna into mortal danger. The fact that Pendennis was taller might give him the advantage in a sword fight, but in a wrestling match or hand-to-hand combat- "Why are you here, Baldwin?"

"I must speak with Susanna."

"Impossible."

"Where is she?"

A Dutch bottom smuggling goods from Vlissingen had brought Nick as far as Hull, the port that had been Susanna's destination when she left Hamburg, but the Green Rose had already been and gone by the time he landed. He'd set off at once for York, a.s.suming Pendennis would make contact with the authorities before taking action. He still clung to the faint hope he'd arrived in time to stop Susanna from leaving the city.

If Pendennis had been a basilisk, his glare would have struck Nick dead. "We cannot speak of this here."

Nick's eyes narrowed. The only other person in sight was the stable boy leading a piebald mare out to be watered. Was this some trick to get rid of him? Nick's fingers itched to draw the knife sheathed in the top of his thigh-high riding boots.

Pendennis gestured toward the saddle room between the stable and the grooms' lodgings, where tack and tools were stored. "There we can be more private."

Still suspicious, Nick followed him. Their footsteps on the paved floor were the only sounds save the snufflings and rustlings of the horses. The moment Pendennis closed the saddle room door behind them, Nick went on the offensive. "I find it strange," he drawled, "that the earl of Suss.e.x knows nothing of your return to England with your wife."

"You talked to Suss.e.x?" All but choking on the question, Pendennis looked as if he'd like to follow it with a string of curses.

Nick had to admit that Thomas Radcliffe, 3rd earl of Suss.e.x, was not an imposing figure. His features-large ears, a receding hairline, a trailing brown mustache and small, wispy beard-were ordinary. But as lord president of the queen's council in the North, he was the supreme authority here, answerable only to Her Majesty. Pendennis ought to have reported to him immediately upon his arrival in Yorkshire.

"I told him nothing." There had been precious little he could say. "You do not trust him. Why?"

"I owe you no explanations, merchant."

"Not even if I tell you your wife was murdered?"

Pendennis's face revealed both surprise and disbelief before he could mask his initial reaction to Nick's blunt revelation.

"That was no accident in Augsburg. Lucius Dartnall made a deliberate attempt to kill Lady Pendennis on orders from England. To my mind, that means the conspirators will try again."

"You must be mistaken."

"Must I? Someone who knows your history warned the earl. Dartnall was told to stop her before she could betray their conspiracy to you."

Pendennis had gone pale, but in no other way did he reveal that he was shocked by what Nick told him.

"It is not safe to let Susanna meet with the conspirators."

"She is already at Topcliffe."

Nick felt his jaw tighten and his hands curl into fists. "Then we must get her out."

"Start at the beginning. Tell me all you know."

The last thing Nick wanted was to waste time talking. Tersely, he summarized his chance encounter with Dartnall in Antwerp. "He believed Lady Pendennis suffered naught but a few scratches," he said at the end of his account. "Since no manhunt or arrests followed her narrow escape, Dartnall concluded that no one suspects the mishap was planned, and further that she must have held her peace about what she knew. Even when he is not cup shot, the fellow lacks wit. He has talked himself into accepting that the earl made not one, but two errors in judgment. He is convinced Lady Pendennis is loyal to their cause, in spite of her connection to you."

"'Tis a logical conclusion."

"I see little logic in it, and less sense." If Dartnall represented the caliber of henchman the conspirators depended upon, Nick thought their rebellion doomed from the start, but that scarce made Susanna's position any less precarious.

"Dartnall's orders-were they written in code?" Pendennis's voice was uninflected.

Nick eyed a row of buckets, some wooden and some leathern, and wondered if he could provoke a reaction by throwing one at him. Where was the man's anger? His grief? He seemed to have no interest in avenging his wife's death. "I did not ask. Dartnall said the missive was sealed with Northumberland's ring."

"Why would the earl use a cipher to hide his ident.i.ty, then reveal it by using his own signet?" Pendennis displayed nothing more volatile than annoyance, with perhaps a bit of impatience thrown in.

"The more crucial question is who told Northumberland about your past? A conspirator aware of your activities as an intelligence gatherer might also know what the real Lady Pendennis looked like."

"There is no reason to think that. I am certain Susanna is safe. No doubt Northumberland will come to the same conclusion Dartnall did, that extreme measures were unnecessary. In arriving at Topcliffe, fleeing from me and bringing with her a certain packet, Susanna proved her loyalty to their cause." Pendennis's smile was very nearly a smirk. "And what that packet contains will put an end, once and for all, to infamous plots such as this one."

Nick seized the front of the bright-hued doublet near the neck ruff and jerked hard, pulling Pendennis's face level with his own. "What have you done?"

"Unhand me!"

"Answer me!" But he could guess. "You subst.i.tuted another message for the one Dartnall sent."

For the second time that day, the other man's expression betrayed him. Nick's fist connected with his jaw in a blow powerful enough to snap Pendennis's head back. He staggered but did not fall. Lifting one expensively gloved hand to his mouth, he wiped away a trickle of blood.

"If you have a specific reason to be concerned about the content of the message, merchant, reveal it now."

"Cold-blooded b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Susanna-"

"Is safe, I tell you! She is a clever and resourceful woman. There is no reason to suppose that-"

"Dartnall is accustomed to the ways of merchants," Nick cut in.

"What of that?" Disdain dripped from the words.

"It is the practice of every merchant to send duplicate messages, to a.s.sure that at least one of them reaches its destination. It is common to make two, sometimes three copies. If one of those arrives and is compared to the letter Susanna brought, the conspirators will know she lied to them."

When Pendennis said nothing, Nick knew he'd been right to worry.

"Dartnall is no professional spy. He's a clerk employed by Haug and Company who discovered he could earn extra income by providing certain services to English Catholics and their allies abroad. Entries in the company books hide most transfers of information and money to the earl of Northumberland but this packet you are so concerned about has some special import. He had to recruit a courier who would be above suspicion to take the original. He entrusted it to your wife, but at his first opportunity, he set out himself with a duplicate." Nick reached inside his doublet and withdrew a small, oilskin-wrapped parcel, the twin of the one Pendennis had given Susanna.

Pendennis seized and opened it and read its contents.

"I offered to deliver this," Nick told him. "Dartnall, bemused by drink, thought that a fine plan, since it spared him the necessity of a journey to England."

"Excellent. I will prepare a second subst.i.tute message."

"If you can get another message in, then you can get Susanna out."

"No need. Once this arrives, she will be in an una.s.sailable position. She can continue her work for me without fear of exposure."

"She will be in an ideal position to be murdered. Spies are not popular, Pendennis. Do you think they will spare her because she is a woman?"

"She is in no danger, I tell you! Do you think I would risk her life?"

"Yes, if it served your purpose. You have already sacrificed your own wife."

"It can scarce benefit Susanna if we work at cross-purposes." Pendennis's voice contained a note of warning.

"And if there is a third copy of this message? What then? d.a.m.n you, Pendennis!" Nick had never begged for anything in his life, but he was close to it now. "Let me go to Topcliffe."

"I have my own agent ready."

"No one you send can protect her as I will."

Pendennis regarded Nick with calculating ice blue eyes. "You are untrained and unpredictable, merchant. I cannot take the risk of using you. By your very presence, you could increase the danger she faces."

Nick saw his point. His sudden appearance in England would startle Susanna. She might give herself away. But he did not like the contemptuous way Pendennis dismissed him. "I did you good service to deal with Dartnall in Antwerp. He was on the verge of bringing that letter to England. The moment he saw Susanna, he'd have realized she was an imposter."

"And how did you deal with him, after you offered to take his place as messenger?"

"Why, I saw him off to Augsburg before I left Antwerp."

"Then you have already made one grave mistake," Pendennis said. "You let Dartnall live."

Chapter 12.

"Lionel?" Susanna whispered. Just before dusk, gloomy shadows abounded in Topcliffe's small garden. "Lionel?" she called again, a bit louder this time. She had not had so much as a glimpse of her henchman since shortly after they'd arrived two days earlier, but they'd agreed, before reaching the earl of Northumberland's stronghold, to meet at this time and in this place-every country house had a garden-if they'd found no other opportunity to exchange information.

"Here, mistress." Lionel emerged from behind a scraggly yew, looking over his shoulder and moving with extreme caution.

"Were you followed?"

"I do not think so. Best to be certain."

She waited while he inspected the four corners of what had once been a pleasant little walled-in s.p.a.ce. Now it was much overgrown and had a desolate air about it.

"The earl has no gardener," Lionel informed her. "They say he is too impoverished to afford one."

"He seems able to purchase fine clothing." And his household at Topcliffe numbered at least sixty. She had been endeavoring to learn all their names and the connections that bound them together.

"All bought on credit. So is food and drink. He owes hundreds of pounds for Malvoisie and Muscadel and Rhenish wine sent from London through Newcastle and transported here by carriage."

Susanna drew Lionel with her into a sheltered corner where they could sit close together on a stone bench and talk without fear of being overheard. "What have you heard of rebellion?"

"A pursuivant from the earl of Suss.e.x arrived yesterday to summon Northumberland to York. I've seen no sign he means to obey. He may fear arrest. The duke of Norfolk is already in the Tower of London."

That was news to Susanna. Although she had done her best to listen and observe during her short tenure as Lady Northumberland's newest waiting gentlewoman, she'd heard not a single word to indicate there was a rebellion afoot. Nor had anything further said of the letter from the duke of Alba. Instead, Lady Northumberland had asked about the time Walter and Eleanor spent abroad. This had led to a few awkward moments, since Susanna had not traveled nearly as much on the Continent as the real Lady Pendennis. Fortunately, the countess was a gregarious, entertaining woman who enjoyed recounting her own adventures as much as she liked hearing about the exploits of others.

"Are they all traitors here, madam?" Worry put grooves in Lionel's forehead and an earnest look in his eyes. "They do not seem evil. Everyone has been most welcoming."

"Everyone? Even Master Carnaby?" Remembering later how Carnaby had fondled his knife when he'd asked her about Walter, Susanna had begun to wonder if she'd misinterpreted the gesture. She'd seen it then as an attempt to intimidate her, but what if there was some old enmity between the two men?

"He's an odd one, right enough," Lionel agreed. "All the grooms dislike him and they say he takes liberties above his station."

"Find out more about Carnaby if you can, Lionel, and the priest, too, but have a care to arouse no suspicion."

Puffed with pride at being trusted with so delicate an a.s.signment, Lionel continued his report, including in it the curious story of a mule kept in the stables and treated like royalty by the grooms. "In a special stall, it is," he said.

Susanna frowned. Very few people in England had firsthand knowledge of mule breeding, which had become a lost art since the break with Rome, but she had once read a treatise on the subject and could not ignore the possibility that the beast in question might have been bred out of an Andalusan mare by a Catalan jacka.s.s specifically to be ridden by a high-ranking prelate. Was it there in the hope that the Church of Rome would soon be restored in these parts?

Lionel's somber expression came from pondering a different dilemma. "Since the pursuivant's departure, no other strangers have been allowed to enter Topcliffe. What if Sir Walter's man is not able to get in?"

Susanna sent a rea.s.suring smile his way. "If I need to contact Sir Walter I shall send you to him, Lionel. I have found the perfect excuse. Northumberland's young daughters live at Wressel, another of his Yorkshire estates, where they are looked after by nursemaids and tutors. What more natural than for me to ask that my child join them? To have Rosamond brought up with a n.o.bleman's children would be a great honor. Lady Northumberland can have no possible reason to deny such a reasonable request. Indeed, some here would deem it a golden opportunity to save a child's soul from heresy. On the pretext of traveling to Leigh Abbey to fetch her, you will be allowed to leave Topcliffe."

Lionel's countenance brightened. "But instead of going south, I will turn north at Topcliffe village and ride hard for Streatlam." Cheered by the prospect, he returned to his newly a.s.signed duties in the earl's stables.

Susanna remained a little longer in the gathering darkness, thinking about her situation and the task Walter had set for her. Was there any chance he was mistaken in his belief there was a plot to overthrow the queen? Susanna liked the countess, with her lively recollections of an energetic youth. To hear her tell it, Lady Northumberland had been as much a rumpscuttle as Rosamond was, always climbing trees to rescue cats and borrowing the fastest horse in the stable to race her male cousins across the countryside.

The countess's waiting gentlewomen, Joan Lascelles, Margaret Heron, and Cecily Carnaby, had enjoyed less adventurous girlhoods. Like their mistress, however, they'd made Susanna feel welcome here. Mistress Carnaby could not do enough for her. Although her vision remained impaired, she was grateful to Susanna for the greater comfort she now enjoyed.

At first Susanna had been careful around the two chamberers, Kelke and Lamplugh, concerned that they would resent the added burden of serving a fourth gentlewoman. Contrary to her expectations, they had not only been willing to clean every garment she'd brought with her, but Kelke had also offered to embellish the plainest of the sleeves. She'd added decorative crossbars and braiding in the latest fashion.

Jennet would get on well with Bess Kelke, Susanna decided, and wished her old friend was not so far away. She missed Jennet's company and could have done with her a.s.sistance.

The birth of three children had not done much to slow Jennet down. She might be a bit more plump than in their early years together, when she'd been Susanna's tiring maid, but she was just as adventuresome now that she was housekeeper at Leigh Abbey. She'd always been more than a servant, but it was in her role as a loyal family retainer that she'd acquired a number of useful skills. Jennet had a remarkable ability to make herself all but invisible in the presence of her betters, a talent that often allowed her to eavesdrop on private conversations.

Susanna wondered if her own position at Topcliffe, that of a simple waiting gentlewoman in the service of a n.o.blewoman, might not provide similar protective coloring. Servants were un.o.btrusive. Anonymous. Could she become equally inconspicuous? Certes, it was worth the attempt, for if she was able to blend in well enough to go unnoticed, she might even overhear talk of a conspiracy.

Chapter 13.

Leigh Abbey, Kent November 5, 1569 A housekeeper's keys were the symbol of her position. The more of them she wore suspended from her waist, the greater her responsibility. Jennet's keys unlocked everything from the manor's great oak door to the little casket Lady Appleton used to store her supply of ginger. They jangled and clashed as she paced the confines of her mistress's study, the sharp ring of metal against metal underscoring every word she read aloud from Master Baldwin's letter.

"This makes no sense at all!" she exclaimed, fixing Baldwin's man Toby with a formidable glower.

Toby said nothing. The lad was worn out, as well he should be after traveling all the way from Antwerp. But Lady Appleton was supposed to be in Hamburg. Jennet stopped in front of the mappa mundi on the wall. Those two cities were farther apart than London was from York, which was where Master Baldwin wanted Jennet to meet him. "Is Lady Appleton in Yorkshire?"