The Virgin's Spy (9 page)

T
he very day after being carried unconscious into Kilkenny Castle, Stephen had risen from his bed and demanded to begin planning his return to England. When Kit's protests achieved nothing, Tom Butler had stepped in to reason with his fellow—if much younger—earl, but even he had gotten nowhere fast. Kit could see that his brother's mind was made up.
Damn my injuries,
Stephen seemed to shout with every grim line of his body. So Kit acquiesced in making plans to get the bodies of Harrington and Stephen's men home as soon as possible.

They sailed from Waterford. Kit left behind his written resignation for Ormond to give Brandon Dudley in case Brandon returned to Ireland before they could cross paths in England. Then, with Stephen's sergeant, he set everything in motion and reported almost each hour to his brother. It was a situation he had long feared, never wanting to be officially subordinate to the older brother he simultaneously admired and envied. But Stephen hardly seemed to even know him. They might as well have been strangers.

Only once did Kit try to break Stephen's silence about the ambush. “Were there any identifying features of the attackers you could make out? It would help Ormond track them down.”

“Gallowglass,” Stephen said abruptly. “I've told Ormond as much. If he can find which lord paid this particular mercenary force, more power to him.”

Encouraged by this slight responsiveness, Kit pressed, “Sergeant Lewis says you had mounted the women and boys because you were uneasy while crossing Munster. Did you have any sense that this might be coming?”

That was when Stephen turned on him a look more forbidding than even their father at his fiercest. “When you have spent weeks in hostile territory outside the luxury of castle walls, then you can ask me what mistakes I made in the field. Until then, I owe you nothing.”

It had been a relief to reach Bristol and pass over responsibility for Stephen to their father. And an even greater relief to return to Wynfield Mote and the sympathy of his mother and sisters. Surely Stephen would talk to one of them.

The day after their return they laid Harrington to rest. Dressed in black, the entire household followed behind the Courtenay banners that preceded Harrington's coffin. Carrie wept a little at the graveside, as she and Matthew tossed in sprigs of rosemary for remembrance. But otherwise she was composed and gracious, taking care to speak to all at the funeral feast afterward.

At dawn the following day, Stephen left Wynfield Mote. Despite his mother's entreaties and physician's warnings, he insisted on setting off for his Somerset lands. Dominic went with him, though Kit thought his brother would have flat-out refused their father's presence if possible. But force of will alone could only lend so much strength. Probably Stephen was husbanding what he had in order to cope.

Probably Stephen was also running away. At first Kit instinctively rejected the thought. Stephen was the good brother, the one who did everything right. On the face of it, returning to Somerset while still badly injured argued an honourable care for his men and his own responsibility as a landowner. But there was a skittishness to Stephen's behaviour—an edginess around everyone—that forced Kit to realize his brother may not be as perfect as he'd thought.

Being who she was, Pippa insisted on talking about it as they rode out the next day to visit Lucette. Compton Wynyates, Lucette and Julien's manor house, was less than fifteen miles away across gentle farming country. When they had left Stratford-upon-Avon and its people behind, Pippa launched into questions.

“What is wrong with Stephen?” she demanded.

“You know as much I do, Pippa. I would have thought more, considering your talents.”

She ignored Kit's hint at her intuitive abilities. “Of course you know more than I do, you were in Ireland with him.”

“And he was just like he was at home! Wouldn't talk about it, all I know is what his men told me about the attack. I can see it, in a way. Stephen's always been the golden child. He was going to have to fail at some point. But this failure? To come through a battle with all of his men intact and then to lose them unexpectedly? To lose Harrington?” Kit broke off. They were all missing the big man, who had been as much a part of their childhood as anyone.

Kit went on bitterly, “Stephen doesn't know how to cope with failure. He should have asked me! At least he has somewhere to retreat to. I don't know what I'm supposed to do next. Do you want to tell me?”

Pippa turned on him sharply. “How long are you going to continue drifting through your life waiting for whatever wind takes you? I am not your personal star-teller, Kit. What do you want from me? You are young and rich and healthy. You can go anywhere and do anything. So do it.”

Never in his life had his twin so thoroughly shot him down. They rode in uncomfortable silence for a long time, while Kit tried to distract himself with counting sheep. It was an impossible job, for they were everywhere, white shadows merging and blending against the green turf and those hardy flowers still blooming into this first week of October.

When in doubt, apologize. That was the first rule one learned dealing with royalty, so he supposed it would do for sisters. “Forgive me, Philippa,” he said finally, reverting to formality to cover the awkwardness. “I suppose we all do that to you, looking to you to sort our problems. You just do it so well…” he hesitated, then barked a brief laugh. “So much like Mother. Do you suppose she ever loses her temper when people expect her to know everything?”

That wrung a small smile from his twin. “Undoubtedly.”

“I suppose Anabel is anxious for you to return.” For the first time in his life, Kit considered that Pippa's life must be even more circumscribed than his own. He, as she had caustically noted, could at the very least take his sword and his body and offer them for the use of whoever might pay at home or abroad. His sisters had not even that option. Pippa served at the pleasure of a temperamental Tudor royal. Was that enough for her?

Pippa said soberly, “I do not plan to return to Anabel just now. I shall stay at Wynfield Mote, and then spend the winter with the family at Tiverton.”

“I'm sure Mother will appreciate having you home.”

“I'm not doing it for Mother.”

They locked eyes and, in that ineffable manner of twins, he felt a breath of words across his mind. He could never explain it—not so simple or straightforward as silent talking—but he knew now why she was staying.

For Matthew Harrington.

He should have guessed. Matthew had always been Pippa's friend, far more than either his or Stephen's. It wasn't that Matthew was awed or even much impressed by the Courtenay boys—Matthew was the one with the Oxford education, and birth would never be an impediment where Harrington and Carrie's son was concerned. It was simply that Pippa alone attracted him. In the manner of a magnet, as though he instinctively turned in whichever direction she did.

Kit had known Pippa cared about Matthew, but he hadn't guessed until this moment the nature and depth of that caring. The revelation left him feeling oddly lonely as they approached Compton Wynyates, the red-brick house as dark as raspberries, the castellated and turreted roofline jagged against the pale blue sky.

If he didn't have Pippa and couldn't have Anabel—what was left for him?

A week later he received a royal messenger commanding his presence in London as soon as possible to meet with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth.

In mid-October, Mary Stuart, Queen of Spain, retired to a lavishly appointed chamber in the Royal Alcazar of Madrid to await her confinement. Given her history, it was not an entire surprise when, just ten days later, she was delivered of twins. Not a stillborn boy and girl, as so long ago in Scotland, but two lusty boys.

Philip surveyed his sons with a pleased delight he had not expected to feel. An heir he needed, yes—and two sons was a luxury he had not looked for—but this marriage had been far more a political calculation than even his marriage to Elizabeth two decades ago. He had considered Mary's pregnancy in the light of a calculated risk. But what he felt now was more than the simple satisfaction of a risk paid off.

They were baptized two days later. Prince Charles, the elder by ten minutes, and Prince Alexander, a Scots name that gave the Spanish bishop difficulty. Afterward, Philip and Mary had a private interview.

“Are you well, Maria?” he asked with real solicitude. Her age, which had been such a real concern through the pregnancy, continued to keep the physicians watchful. Soon to be thirty-nine, but still with a luster to her fair skin and a light to her eyes. And a mind as dogged and certain as ever about what she wanted.

“I would be better without the slaughter wrought in Carrigafoyle. It haunts my dreams—the atrocities of the English to your soldiers.”

“You should not be considering such things now. Think rather on your sons.”

“I am thinking of my sons…of all my sons. And of your daughter, as well.”

Her stubbornness was that of a limited viewpoint and self-righteous certainty. Not like Elizabeth's stubbornness, but irritating. And often successful, if only to keep from being worn down one frustrating drop at a time.

“I am sure both James and Anne will be pleased to hear of their new siblings.”

“I am sure both James and Anne will be horrified. As will Elizabeth. They will guess what will follow from this.”

Philip rubbed his face, an unusual sign of agitation. “Not now, Maria.”

“You must avenge what was done to your soldiers in Ireland.”

“I will discuss it later. With my council, as I should.”

Her face flushed, not unattractively. “What more do you need from me to do what is right? You required a son—I have given you two. While you sit in your kingdom and count the earthly riches God has granted you, others of our faith are starving and dying beneath the hands of heretics!”

Philip had heard it all before. He knew the intensity of Mary's faith was equaled only by the intensity of her resentment of the English and Scots Protestants who had harried her from her kingdom and held her captive for years. But he also knew the practical realities of a fight in Ireland, details that Mary always brushed off.

So different from Elizabeth.

Despite Mary's complaints, Philip had not been idle since word of Carrigafoyle arrived. And he knew things his wife did not—for instance, the general location of the one hundred Spanish soldiers who had not been amidst the slaughter in Carrigafoyle.

But she did have a point. Who was he to refuse a crumb of comfort to a woman whose labours had brought such an abundance of joy this week? Philip raised her lovely, plump hand and kissed it. “I swear to you, I have not forgotten my responsibilities. And I will not forget what has been done to my men in Ireland. Trust me—because I hold my tongue does not mean that my mind is not ever working toward resolution of our political and religious splits. You cannot think I would so carelessly jeopardize my daughter's soul as to lightly consign her to hell.”

Mary seemed mollified, but sniffed at mention of Anabel. “I hope your daughter will do you greater credit than my Scots son. Children or not, our first devotion must be to the truth.”

Philip murmured what could be taken as agreement or mere comfort. There were times when Mary's resentments seemed likely to swallow up every other feeling she might have, affecting every decision. It was a mistake Elizabeth had never made.

It was early November before Christopher Courtenay answered Elizabeth's summons and presented himself to her at Whitehall Palace. She met him in a chamber with a high painted ceiling and linen-fold paneling to shoulder height. Above that ran a frieze of Tudor roses picked out in ruby red and gold.

Elizabeth had always had a special fondness for Kit. He had the looks and personality of his mother—innately charming, mischievous, and amusing, with a warmth of affection so often absent in royal circles. Today, though, as he straightened from his bow, he looked subdued. Tired and worn, as though he were much older than nineteen.