The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(24)
The relief this time was not a breeze, but a deluge of icy joy that left Elizabeth shaken. “Thank you. Let us not waste time—summon Dominic and we’ll begin.”
In late April the Princess of Wales and her private household traveled the forty-five miles from Middleham Castle to York. Anabel enjoyed every moment of the processional from the medieval walls through the beautiful town as the population cheered her arrival. Their destination was the Treasurer’s House, once belonging to York Minster; now passed, since her grandfather’s death, into private hands. Only steps from the gorgeous church for which York was famed, the house made an ideal base to begin her consolidation of the power of the North.
Much of Anabel’s household and court would be quartered elsewhere in the city. Matthew Harrington had been inordinately busy in the preceding weeks making the physical arrangements. It was Anabel’s task now to charm those citizens disobliged by her presence so that they considered only the honour of it, and not the cost.
Thanks to Maisie Sinclair’s flair for business, Anabel’s household was solvent and she could afford to pay for much of what they required. That alone helped ease their welcome, as did the reputation she had begun to acquire for a willingness to listen to the discontented Catholic recusants. There were surely many watching her arrive who, for the first time in years, had hope for their own futures.
The first days passed in a procession of banquets and official visits from the guilds of York and the chief officers of the town. These were occasions Anabel could handle with ease, while allowing a tiny part of her mind to fret about the silence that had fallen from France. It had been two months since she’d heard from Kit, and Pippa’d had nothing from either of her brothers. As she suspected her own mother had always done, Anabel covered her worry with work.
One week after arriving in York, Anabel received Tomás Navarro in the wide reception room of the Treasurer’s House she used for official engagements. In the last year, she had forsaken using the royal coat of arms, with its white bordure denoting her as heir to England’s throne; today the canopy of estate stretched above her seat bore three white feathers rising through a golden crown. This emblem of the Prince of Wales included an azure ribbon with the motto Ich Dien. I serve.
Reminded of that fact, Anabel cloaked herself in the Spanish hauteur inherited from her father and accepted the credentials the Jesuit priest offered. The credentials themselves were problematic, implying as they did that Spain considered Navarro an official envoy. Difficult, to say the least, considering that there was already an ambassador to England at the queen’s court. Tomás Navarro did not look as though he were the slightest bit worried about causing difficulties. In his midthirties, the priest was slender and ascetic in his black robes, his clean-shaven face a picture of arrogant certainty. A man willing—and perhaps eager—to cause trouble.
Anabel did not falter. “You are most welcome, Father Navarro,” she said in her flawless Spanish. She handed the written credentials to Madalena, who stood to one side of her throne with Pippa. “I trust your journey was not too troublesome.”
The priest answered in Spanish, though no doubt he spoke acceptable English. He would want to highlight Anabel’s attachment to Spain, weighted as it always must be with powerful undertones. “It was no trouble, Your Highness, though any trouble would be worthwhile to be in your royal presence. Your father wishes only that the two of you could meet once more in person.”
She smiled politely. “That is a worthy wish for any father—or daughter, for that matter. I trust you will be a fond advocate for him, and for me as well.”
“I trust so, Your Highness.”
“There will be entertainment, of course, but also work. If you care to join us tomorrow, we are meeting with the Lord Mayor and the city’s guild leadership. Your counsel would be welcome.”
“It is to counsel that I have come.”
As if everyone here didn’t already know that. What did Navarro think, that the people of England were stupid? Everyone knew that Navarro’s presence at her court was a direct slap at the queen. It was up to her to use both his presence and the public’s expectations to her own advantage.
Anabel drew a deep breath of released tension once Navarro was gone and she could retreat with her nearest advisors. In the closest thing to a privy chamber that the Treasurer’s House could provide, she smiled wryly at Madalena, Pippa, Robert Cecil, and Matthew. Beneath her tightly laced pale blue bodice, she felt the flutters of her stomach absorbing the nerves she would not show.
“So it begins,” she pronounced. “There’s no drawing back now. From this day, the division between the queen’s court and my own begins to widen.”
“And next?” Pippa prompted. Her face had grown thinner over the last months, so that her jewel-green eyes looked very wide. That did not make it easier to interpret the expressions of said eyes.
“The Council of the North, attended by more Catholic nobles than have been gathered in one place for more than twenty years.”
It was not the answer Pippa was waiting for. She eyed Anabel narrowly, until the princess sighed. “And yes, I shall write to James Stuart and suggest a meeting between us at the border this autumn.”
“You needn’t sound so mordant about it.”
“And you needn’t be so quick to remind me of my duty, particularly when your own emotional life is hardly a sterling example of success, Pippa!” Even as the words left her mouth, Anabel wished to recall them.