The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(47)
It frightens me. Enemies who respect one another are one thing. Enemies who resent having been made to love are far more dangerous.
4 June 1582
Toledo, Spain
After the rarefied atmosphere of El Escorial, we have traveled to the more domestically mundane household of the young Spanish/Scots princes. It was the primary stated purpose of our journey, of course—to personally lay eyes on Charles and Alexander that we might provide an unbiased report of their apparent health. That is easy enough, for they both appear to be thriving. Despite the multiple purposes of our journey, it was easy to forget ourselves during the hour we spent in the princes’ nursery. The pleasures of fat babies are universal. Kit and Pippa presented their fellow twins with the wooden dolls Anabel sent for them; while Pippa held Prince Charles with natural ease, Kit and Prince Alexander regarded each other with similar wariness.
Unfortunately, babies do not exist apart from their parents—in this case, their mother. Mary Stuart personally supervised our visit and, when it was over, asked me with gracious condescension to walk with her in the gardens. I was tempted to pull a face behind her back at Dominic, but was afraid Kit might laugh and give me away. So my family went one direction, and I went another, determined to hold my tongue for England’s sake.
That resolve lasted not even a minute. For Mary opened with the worst possible statement. “Your children are quite charming. I remember that from your oldest son at Tutbury. Pity that charm can only go so far.”
It went far enough on you, I thought uncharitably. Mary continued, either royally oblivious or cruelly pointed, “Though I believe our dear cousin Elizabeth is susceptible to charm from young and handsome men. Perhaps fatally susceptible. In such an atmosphere, no doubt your Stephen will rise high enough to satisfy even you.”
“That my children live and are happy has always been the highest satisfaction I could hope for,” I told her. “If only Your Majesty could say the same, what an awful lot of trouble could be avoided.”
We were past politeness now. Mary’s eyes were steely with resolve and tainted with hatred. Of me, of Elizabeth, of England—she has an abundance of hate. “My children are royal. They have no need to rise, for they have been born to the highest positions. James may have usurped his position too early—I will not make those mistakes with my new sons. And England will long have cause to regret that I left its shores alive.”
I told no one of her words except Dominic. When we return to England, we shall pass on all we heard and observed and guessed to Elizabeth and her ministers. That is why we are here.
15 June 1582
Seville, Spain
Thankfully, after my last encounter with Mary Stuart, we left her and her children behind and traveled with Philip to Seville in the south. We will remain here until we sail in six weeks. As the only port city authorized to trade with the New World, Seville is at the center of the magnificent riches being brought from Spain’s overseas empire. No doubt Philip intends our stay here to impress us with the weight of Spanish gold and Spanish ships and Spanish resolve. For Seville is also the home of the Inquisition in Spain.
Pippa seems particularly struck by the city. With her fluent Spanish, honed in long years with Anabel, she has struck up friendships among the women who joined us in Madrid and, with appropriate guards, has been touring the city. With Kit, of course. He is almost more protective of her than Dominic is. And Spain has unsettled him in an entirely different way than the rest of us.
Because of Anabel.
And that is a puzzle beyond my skills to solve.
A week after their arrival in Seville, Kit and Pippa set out from the fantastical Royal Alcazar to pay a promised visit to the grandmother of Madalena Arias. It was Pippa’s errand, but she would never have been allowed out without one of the males of her family. The siblings were surrounded by royal guards—six of them with their red and gold badges—and Pippa had two women of the Spanish court as well. Philip had chosen older women to attend on the Courtenay females—frankly, they had not met very many young women and even fewer single women. Spain kept their females in closer hold than England.
Kit had thought himself prepared for Madalena’s grandmother. He knew that she was of pure Moorish blood—her family one of the conversos in the days of Ferdinand and Isabella—but still it was something of a shock when he and Pippa were introduced to Catalina Duran. Madalena was such a warm and generous woman, it was hard to connect her to this silver-haired, aristocratic woman who looked as though she had stepped straight out of a royal court of fifty years ago. A foreign royal court.
She remained seated as the twins bowed and curtsied. In a voice like molten iron, she said, “Do?a Philippa, my granddaughter has written much of you and the princess you both serve. It is kind of you to visit.”
Her tone was more one of “of course you would visit, but I shall be polite as long as I choose.”
Then Do?a Catalina turned a severe eye on Kit. “And this is Christopher, of whom also I have heard.”
Somewhat at a loss, Kit said, “We are very fond of Madalena.”
“Do not bother trying to impress me, young man. I am too old for such tricks. You may wait quietly in the corner. It is your sister I have agreed to speak with.”
What protest could he make? It wasn’t as though he could believe Pippa in any danger from a woman approaching eighty with royal guards within shouting distance. Kit made another, ironic, bow and withdrew to the far end of the chamber, where he leaned against the edge of a tiled windowsill and listened.