“What good will that do? He’ll be a prisoner.”
“Queen Mary will not punish everyone who supported the Lady Jane. She will imprison the leaders”—I had to stop and swallow hard—“and free the rest.” I hoped that would be the case, although it would do Will no good.
“That will not help me,” Birdie lamented. “My lover is married. He will never be mine.” Fresh tears sprang into her eyes. “And if I cannot stay with you, my lady, I have nowhere else to go.”
“Dry your eyes,” I said. “I will not send you away.”
But I did send her out into the city, to try to discover the fate of Northumberland’s army. Griggs, the groom who had accompanied Will to Cowling Castle so many years before, went with her. He was an old man now, bald as an egg and his broad red beard gone gray. He’d been in service to the Parrs since Will was a boy.
While they were gone, I sent the rest of the household away. It was no good pretending we could stay at Winchester House. One of Queen Mary’s first acts would be to release Bishop Gardiner from the Tower, and he would lose no time reclaiming both his bishopric and his house in Southwark. A few of the servants, who had been with Will almost as long as Griggs, did not want to leave but I insisted. The rest made haste to escape.
By the time Birdie and Griggs returned, the house felt as empty as an unused tomb. Their news was as bad as I’d feared. Northumberland had surrendered and declared for Mary. He’d been taken into custody along with his sons and Will and too many others to count. They were prisoners now, and would soon be incarcerated in the Tower of London, for that was where traitors to the Crown were always sent. But Will was alive. I took heart from that. So long as he lived, there might be some way to win his freedom.
On the day the Duke of Northumberland was escorted through London to the Tower, I ventured out for the first time since I’d fled the royal apartments. I disguised myself in plain clothing and a dark cloak and took Birdie with me.
The crowd shouted abuse and threw rotten produce when the duke came in sight, pelting him with cabbages and eggs. Jack and Ambrose, who rode just behind their father, were also targets.
“Death to the traitors!” shouted a man standing next to me.
“Hang, draw, and quarter them,” bellowed someone else.
I strained to see the other prisoners, hoping to find Will, and yet praying that somehow he had escaped. When I realized he was not there, a wave of panic hit me so hard and fast that it nearly brought me to my knees. I staggered, caught myself, and fought for control of legs that suddenly seemed weak. Did Will’s absence mean he was free . . . or that was he dead?
Light-headed, I clung to my waiting gentlewoman for support, but she scarcely seemed to notice. Her attention was fixed on one of the young gentlemen being marched toward imprisonment in Northumberland’s wake. Her lover, I presumed. He looked vaguely familiar, but I could not focus my mind on anyone else’s troubles. Not when I had so many of my own.
“There will be more traitors brought in tomorrow,” someone in the crowd said.
A spark of optimism flared to life. I looked again at the prisoners and saw that others besides Will were missing. Only two of Northumberland’s sons were with him. I knew that Lord Guildford was in the Tower with the two Janes, his mother and his wife, but Lord Robin was unaccounted for and so was the youngest boy, the second Henry Dudley. It seemed a lifetime since the first brother with that name, the Harry Dudley I’d once thought to marry, had died of a fever on one of King Henry’s French campaigns. It had, in truth, been not quite nine years, but I was no longer an innocent girl of eighteen. At twenty-seven, five years Will’s legal wife, I was surely old enough and seasoned enough to think for myself and to find a way to save Will’s life.
I returned to the same spot near the Tower the next day. This time I did not have long to wait before I caught sight of Will’s familiar face and form. He was on horseback, clearly visible above the heads of the people lining the street. Determined to close the distance between us, I pushed my way to the front of the crowd.
Sunk in misery, pelted with rotten fruit as the duke and his sons had been the day before, Will kept his head down and looked neither left nor right. He did not know I was there. Robin Dudley, who rode next to him, was in even worse condition. A livid bruise covered one side of his face and his clothing was torn and stained.
As they rode past the place where I stood, I reached out and caught Will’s stirrup, jarring him out of his trancelike state. He looked down, straight into my eyes. For a long, agonizing moment he did not seem to recognize me. Then he gave a start.
“Bess,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Get away. You must not—”
A heavily callused hand clamped down on my arm and jerked me apart from my husband. “Begone, wench,” the soldier ordered. “The prisoner has no time for dalliance.”
He shoved me back into the crowd. A stranger cursed when I trod upon his foot and gave me a push that sent me sprawling. Two women helped me to unsteady feet. Blinded by tears, I staggered away.
A young girl stepped into my path and spat at me. “Traitor. You should be a prisoner with them.” She had no idea who I was, but she’d seen me consorting with the enemy.
By some miracle, Birdie Crane made her way through the surging mass of bodies to take my arm in a surprisingly firm grip and guide me back toward London Bridge. Once we reached it, we made better progress. The single street that ran between the towering houses on either side was nearly empty.
“I have to go to the queen,” I murmured. “To Queen Mary. If I can reach her, plead with her . . .”
My voice trailed off as I caught sight of the heads. They were such a permanent part of the Southwark side of London Bridge that no one paid much attention to them. Now I saw them for what they were—the rotting remains of traitors to the Crown. My stomach lurched. I would not allow Will to end up there. Not while there was breath left in my body.
My determination to save him from a traitor’s death, my conviction that I could manage it if only I could gain an audience with the queen, carried me the last few steps to the gates of Winchester House, only to find them barred.
In my absence, the palace had been overrun by former servants of the bishop of Winchester. Armed guards now stood in front of the gatehouse, questioning all who tried to enter. They did not know me in my plain attire, and although I would have liked to demand that I be allowed to fetch my personal clothing and jewelry, I did not dare risk revealing my identity. If I ended up in the Tower, too, I would lose any hope of saving Will.
Griggs hissed at us from the shadow of the nearby church of St. Mary Overy. I broke down and cried when I saw that he had managed to spirit three horses out of the Winchester House stables before the others were confiscated, Will’s black gelding, a dapple gray mare, and my own bay. I clung to Prancer’s neck and sobbed until all my tears were gone.
“What now, my lady?” Birdie asked when I had control of myself again. Her eyes were huge in her pale face.
With an effort, I subdued the last tendrils of panic. “I will seek an audience with Queen Mary. I have never done her any harm and she is known to have a kind heart. Perhaps she will be merciful in victory.”
We rode back across London Bridge, through the city, and out again, heading for Newhall in Essex, where the queen was reported to be staying until she made her official entrance into London. We had not gone far before we overtook Jane, Duchess of Northumberland. She had been allowed to leave the Tower when the duke was brought in, and now she, too, was bound for Newhall to plead for her husband’s life.
“Everyone fled from the Tower when you did, Bess,” Jane told me, “except the Lady Jane and her two women, myself, and poor Lady Throckmorton, who returned from that christening at just the wrong time. When she tried to leave again, she was told she could not go. Sir Edward Warner took it upon himself to make prisoners of all who remained in the royal apartments. I suppose he hoped in that way to retain his post under the new regime.”