Philippa Carr - Lion Triumphant

Jake put his hands about my throat and laughed at me.

“All I would have to do is press a little.”

“Well, why don’t you?”

“Because shrew that you are, mother of daughters, I have decided I’ll not replace you yet.”

Then he kissed me with a rare tenderness which moved me somewhat. He pulled my hair as he did the boys’ now and then. I knew it to be a gesture of affection.

“I’m impatient, Cat,” he said. “Here I am kicking my heels … waiting … waiting for the Spaniard! We’ve got to be ready for him when he comes. God’s Death! It could be today. It could be tomorrow. Why does he delay? And now this traitor Babington. By God! He’ll suffer the traitor’s death and I hope they linger over it. He would have killed our Queen; he would have set the Scottish whore on the throne. It is time her head parted company with her shoulders. I would hang, draw and quarter any man who gave his sanction to such treachery.”

Oh, Roberto, I thought. Where are you, Roberto?

I said: “They have caught all the conspirators?”

“Who knows? There may be others. Walsingham’s sly. He knows when to pounce. He gives them a little license … the better to bring in more. We have to stamp them out, Cat. Every one of them … traitors to England, friends of our enemy Spain! I’d like to blow that country off the Earth.”

How fierce he was—his eyes blazing blue fire.

Oh, Roberto, I thought, where are you?

I knew he would come. It was a premonition perhaps. He would come at night and he would come to me as he had before. I was tense, waiting. Some maternal instinct was preparing me, so I must have slept lightly and I was ready when I heard the clod of earth thrown at the window.

I crept silently out of bed, terrified that I might awaken Jake.

I knew it of course, Roberto had come. How could he stay near London and the Court at such a time when Babington was captured and but for the ingenuity of Walsingham’s spy system, the Queen might have been assassinated and a Catholic Queen set up on the throne?

If Roberto’s name had been on the list found in Throckmorton’s house, Walsingham would have his spies watching him. Even if he had not been involved in the Babington Plot, and it seemed he had not, he might be formulating others.

I slipped out of bed and looked down. I saw him clearly in the moonlight. He was looking up at my window.

I looked back at the bed. Jake, I thanked God, was a heavy sleeper and he was fast asleep now. I signed to Roberto. He understood and pointed in the direction of the hut. I nodded and went back to bed. He would understand that Jake was with me.

I went back to bed, shivering.

The hut was not the safe place it had been. My adventure there had called attention to it. Jake had even said he might have some building done to it and make it into a dwelling place for some of the servants.

Bushes still grew around it, obscuring it from view to some extent, and I must make my way to it as soon as possible.

I was distraught.

Carlos, who had, like Jake, not gone far from Plymouth since the threats from the Armada had grown, came over to see Jake. I was waiting for a moment to slip away to the hut with food. But I must make certain that no one was aware of this. Linnet could have helped, but I was not going to allow my daughter to be involved.

Carlos was saying that he had heard Babington and Ballard had been executed. He described the agonies of those men—hanged in a field at the upper end of Holborn near the road to St. Giles’s where a scaffold had been set up. Ballard, the other main conspirator, had suffered first. He had been hung, cut down and disemboweled while he was still alive. Babington watched, then suffered like treatment.

“So perish all traitors,” cried Jake.

I felt sick.

Jake was looking at me strangely.

As soon as I could do so I took some food from the kitchens and went to the hut.

I took my son into my arms and held him against me.

“Oh, Roberto, tell me what has happened.”

“When they took Babington I knew it was unsafe for me to stay near London. I had to get away.”

“You were with the conspirators?”

“Not … not with Babington. If I had been…”

I understood. None who had been involved in that plot would have been allowed to go free.

“But Walsingham is determined to have more proof ready. Friends of mine have disappeared suddenly. I know that they are under arrest. If the Babington Plot does not bring the Queen of Scots to the scaffold, they will discover more plots. They are determined to. No Catholic, or any man who has ever joined in any scheme is safe. They are hunting us out, Madre.”

“And they are hunting you!”

“They came to my lodging. I was fortunate. I was warned. If I go back there I shall be taken. They are searching for me now.”

“The Captain is here,” I said.

“I saw his ship from the Hoe.”

“Oh, Roberto, we shall have to take the greatest care.”

“Manuela will help.”

“Manuela is dead.”

I told him briefly how she had tried to murder me and for what reason.

He was silent, deeply shocked.

“Madre, how cruel life is! And now it seems that everyone’s existence is governed by this hatred between Spain and England.”

“It is the shadow across our times. Religion—Catholic or Protestant. It has been so for many years. It darkened my mother’s life. I have not escaped. I brought a priest to Manuela when she died. She wanted it. I hope it was not discovered. One can never be sure.”

He kissed my hand.

“Madre, I love you. Always through my life I have looked to you, relied on you.”

“You can rely on me still, my son; not because I am Catholic or Protestant but because I am a mother. I know little of doctrines, nor do I care. But I do know of love, which seems to me of greater importance in the world.”

“You will let me stay here?”

“It must not be for long, Roberto. The hut is no longer safe as it once was. After I was locked in, the household seems to have become aware of it. Before, few people remembered it was here. Soon you must go away.”

“I have thought, Madre, that if I could get to Spain, I might find my own people. My father’s family would know of me and I must have estates there, must I not? Did not my father make me his heir?”

“He did, but that was long ago. Others would have taken your inheritance by now.”

“But I would be of their family. They would receive me.”

“Roberto, how could we get you to Spain?”

“I must get away from England. I am wanted and Walsingham will never let me go free. I shall be taken as Babington was…”

There was stark horror in his face and reflected in his eyes I seemed to see that fearsome plot of land near Holborn with the scaffold and Ballard and Babington undergoing excruciating torture.

Not for Roberto, I thought. Not the little boy who had lain in my arms, who had given such joy to Felipe and brought us together.

What a cruel world, where men could do such things to men. Not my son. I would do anything but allow that to happen.

I must save him. I must find some means of getting him out of the country. Who would help me? Carlos? Jacko? Jake? How ironical. If I said: Roberto is here. He is involved in plots, he must escape, what would they do, these haters of Spaniards? At best they would draw their swords and run him through; more likely they would hand him over to those who sought him that he might die the dreaded traitor’s death.

I said: “I must have time to think. I must find some way. One thing is certain. You cannot stay here long. I must find another hiding place for you.”

“Madre, you must not be involved. They call those traitors who give aid to Catholics.”