A Queen's Spy, - [best books under 200 pages .txt] 📗

do, is there?” Suffolk spoke bluntly, his words lacking in concern.

Northumberland crossed the room and took a seat opposite. If Edward died then it would be Suffolk who would hold the balance of power, the Duke knew it, and his patience with Grey’s ambition was wearing thin. “It seems I am thwarted at every turn.”

Suffolk sighed. “He will be well again, you need to have faith in that. He has been ill before, remember how unwell he was before Christmas and he recovered didn’t he?”

Northumberland nodded, for Suffolk was indeed right. He was now, in February, no worse than he had been then and the lad had recovered. “We are finally steering the country to a smoother path, Edward ill is the last thing I need.”

“You have Edward’s ear. Now that Somerset is gone, you are regent in all but name. Look at the success of Parliament’s measures to quell unrest. You’ve secured peace and that is an achievement,” Suffolk said.

“It’s an uneasy one though, Henry, and you know it,” Dudley replied.

“It was always going to be difficult, England has suffered such a run of bad harvests for the last three years, the sweating sickness has reduced her labourers and prices are spiralling ever higher. What else could you do? Somerset pressed Edward twice to debase the coinage and look where that got us?” Henry grumbled. Somerset’s fiscal measures had persuaded Parliament to debase the coinage twice, once in ’49 and then again in ’51, destroying faith in the currency.

“It’s left us with high prices and unrest, but these are minor toughs, they have to be. With a steady hand guiding England it can develop and grow, I know it can. But we need Edward to be strong and well,” Northumberland said. He knew he should have been happier. He had all he could want. The power was his; he had outwardly succeeded. However, the pivotal point of his power, the keystone upon which it relied was crumbling. Edward VI, King of England, was dying, and despite Suffolk’s reassurances he knew in his heart this was the truth. To be cheated of it all by death seemed such a cruel turn of fate. Northumberland needed Edward; without him his fall was sure. He had made too many enemies by his own hand as he rose toward his supreme goal.

The door opened quietly and Dudley was joined by Henry Sidney, his son-in-law and the King’s close friend. Edward feared the doctors who had yet again forced their ministrations on his shattered body and had wanted the comfort of his friend’s company.

“Well, Henry, what news?” Northumberland asked.

Henry Sidney shook his head. He did not meet the Duke’s enquiring gaze. Tired himself, he dropped into a chair by the fire, any propriety forgotten.

“Henry, tell me!” Northumberland demanded.

“He is dying.” Henry quietly supplied the information the Duke desperately wanted but feared to hear.

“By God, they don't know what they are talking about,” the Duke boomed.

Henry tried to grasp the Duke’s sleeve but the other had launched himself so rapidly at the door that he missed, catching instead a handful of the ermine-trimmed cloak. He pulled on it sharply. “No, no, you can’t.” Henry was drawn from his seat by the effort required to stop the Duke.

“Why?” Northumberland turned angrily on him, hauling the fabric from Henry’s hand.

“He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know! To tell him may… Please, spare him this. Wait until they emerge, but please…” Henry pleaded; he had a genuine love for Edward.

“Yes, yes… Sit down.” Northumberland moved to seat himself opposite Henry Sidney. “You are right, the boy is ill. There is no need to add to it with the lunatic ravings of these so-called medics. He needs peace and rest. This has always served him well before. The lad is exhausted. I have told them he needs to be left alone. Time and the Lord will see him well.” John Dudley spoke to himself, uttering the reassurances he needed to hear. Perhaps their vocalisation would lead to their reality, the worry for his own fortunes written plainly on his face.

For the first time, Henry experienced a bitter dislike of his father-in-law.

 

†

 

Since February, Edward had worsened and the Duke finally acknowledged what the doctors had told him. Edward, though, variously accepted and denied it. He had been ill so often during his life that he had come to expect recovery. As Edward’s life-force ebbed, all the power – all Northumberland had worked for – was slipping through his fingers. To John Dudley his own loss felt physical. Worse than that, he was being forced to bend to the will of Henry VIII. Every time he walked under the portraits of England’s largest monarch, he was sure they were laughing at him.

Dudley was desperate. And what he was doing bore this out. Under the Succession Act of 1544, Henry VIII had left a son as his heir. If Edward died childless, the throne would pass to Mary and then to Elizabeth. If this failed, the crown would go to the male descendants of Henry’s younger sister, Lady Frances Grey. This was the Duke’s key, and his plan was both simple and crude: Lady Frances was blessed with daughters only and as such there were no eligible male heirs. So, to generate one in whom the succession could be lodged, he married his son, Guildford Dudley, to the eldest daughter, Jane Grey. If Guildford could get the girl with child quickly, then he had another heir.

In May he held a ‘Devise for the succession’, signed by Edward, leaving his crown to the male heirs of Lady Frances Grey. Hopefully, the brat, Jane, could be brought to bed of one before Edward died. He closed his ears to the legality of the document. For him, the signature and seal of Edward were enough to carry its weight. Legally the document could not stand, flouting as it did the Succession Act of 1544, and also because it named non-existent persons as heirs. He relied on time: time for Jane to produce him an heir and then the document could be safely amended to name the child, and time hopefully for Edward VI to see it born.

 

Chapter Two

France – March 1553

 

†

The sea was stormy, which was bad, both for those who earned their living from its depths and those who wished to travel over its surface. Jack was in the latter category.

A storm, lasting three days so far, had kept the boat he was to take to England tied securely in the harbour, leaving Jack to loiter in the ale houses of Dieppe, trying to amuse himself with his scant supply of coins. Lodging at the Firkin, an English-owned inn, he waited with other travellers for the winds to die and the white-topped waves to lessen their furious pounding of the sea defences.

Thunder clouded the sky making it prematurely dark. Jack stared out to sea; somewhere out there was England, and between him and his home, the sea boiled. Jack got the distinct feeling that England didn’t want him back.

Opening the door, the inn welcomed him with smoky air bearing a heavy odour of dampened wool, stale food, and the sea coal that crackled in the fire. The room, with its low ceiling and haphazard arrangement of benches and tables, was warm and friendly; the contrast with the inhospitable evening outside was stark. Most customers sat in small groups, the benches pulled in a semi-circle around the fire. The seats that were vacant were those against the shadowed walls.

Jack, uncomfortably aware of the damp eking its way through his rain-sodden cloak, pulled it from his shoulders, shaking the water from it. Shabby from the years of being slept in, ridden in, and fought in, the splotched mud could detract little from it that time and use had not already claimed.

“Hey! Watch what you are doing,” complained a voice loudly in English with an accent from the Fens.

Lowering the cloak he found the source of the words; a red-faced priest he had splashed with mud and water.

Mumbling an automatic apology, sodden drapery over his arm, Jack made to leave.

“And what sort of apology do you call that?” The little man caught Jack’s sleeve in a wiry grasp.

“I said I was sorry,” Jack growled, his words not at all in accordance with his tone.

“Well, you don’t sound as if you mean it, words spoken without conviction are, as Saul taught us, a sin against the ears.”

“What do you want me to do?” Jack wrenched his arm free.

The priest observed him closely from under bushy eyebrows and an expansive forehead wrinkled like the leather of an ill-cured hide. Small black eyes narrowed as a thought seemed to occur to him. “Sit.” The priest’s voice was used to commanding from the pulpit.

“What for?” Jack snapped.

“Because I asked you to. Now, sit down.” A naked leg protruded from his robes, pushing a stool towards Jack.

Jack, grunting, took the offered seat, depositing his saturated cloak over the end of the bench.

“I’m guessing you weren’t off anywhere in particular?” the priest inquired further.

Jack shook his head in reply.

“Well, you don’t look much like good company, do you?”

“Should I be?” Jack’s annoyance had not completely subsided. A sinew toughened hand reached again for his cloak. Jack had no intention of being berated by an old cleric in dirty vestments with an attitude that matched the weather.

“Just hold your tongue, will you?” A look of long-suffering creased the priest’s face. “I’ll make a deal with you. Match that and we’ll spend a pleasant evening together. That is the least you can do for soaking a poor old man.” Three coins appeared on the table.

“Poor old man? There’s an ox beneath that robe. You’ll get no sympathy from me,” Jack scoffed, though he couldn’t keep an amused look from his face.

“I’m not asking you for sympathy, just to match that.” A bony forefinger, almost skeletal beneath papered skin, prodded the largest of the three coins.

Jack recognised them for what they were, enough to pay for half a pitcher of ale. He wondered if the priest habitually passed his evenings at the expense of others. He was well enough acquainted with the game to know that holy orders would not bar the cleric from guzzling his ale at twice his own rate. But then, he had little money left and it was an option preferable to returning to his room to wait and see if morning brought pleasant weather.

“I don’t know why, old man, but I’ll match you,” Jack conceded.

“Call me Jamie, my son.” The priest grinned, a little too triumphantly for Jack’s liking.

Jack scooped up the coins, added his own, and busied himself ordering ale. His appearance marked him out and he easily secured the attention of the serving staff. Jack’s blond hair, darkened by water, was as lustrous as a May dance maiden’s when dry. Anyone casting a glance towards him would see the brown leather jerkin, its stitching slightly frayed at one shoulder, the elbows and front smoothed and darkened with the dirt of wear. The only evidence of care was on the wide, polished sword belt and shining quillons below the hilt. Possibly once a soldier, they would conclude, and now probably for hire; recent times did not look as if they had been too kind.

Jack was surprised to find how easy a companion Jamie was, and he talked freely as they shared