The Virgin's War (Tudor Legacy #3)(9)
Anabel sighed. “All of which means I must send another coded letter to my mother lest she suspect me of truly conspiring against her.” She meant it to sound teasing, but could see that her advisors picked up on her underlying nerves.
She met Pippa’s eyes and wished they were alone. She tried to convey her question to her friend silently. How long before the council begins to suspect what is really going on? And when do we take the risk of telling them?
There was really no need to ask. For now, the answers remained the same for both questions: I don’t know.
—
Philip II, King of Spain, moved through his palace of El Escorial followed by a sea of clerks and clerics. He listened as he walked. At the moment, it was his chief advisor, Cardinal Granvelle, who was speaking.
“The Pale has shrunk to little more than a protective boundary around Dublin itself,” Granvelle reported. The Pale was that area of Ireland under direct English control. Despite centuries of colonization, the English had never completely subdued the whole of the country. Now, with Spanish troops and money running things, they were well and truly on the run.
Or, more accurately, under siege. “We will keep the English penned in over the winter,” Philip said. “Use the time to consolidate control in the outer areas. Kilkenny continues to offer strong resistance under the Earl of Ormond.”
“And come spring?” Nearing seventy, the Burgundian nobleman turned churchman considered it his right to speak openly, even critically at times. Between his bald forehead sloping back to a ring of white hair and his curly beard, Granvelle looked ever disapproving.
Philip smiled thinly. “You have been speaking with my queen. I can hear her eagerness for blood in your words.”
“Her Majesty Queen Maria is truly committed to seeing Ireland freed of the taint of heresy.”
“Her Majesty,” Philip said frostily, “is truly committed to besting the English queen. I believe Maria will never be satisfied short of having Elizabeth in a prison of her own making.”
“And you do not share that view?”
“I do not think it likely to come to pass. Maria’s ambitions are too often fueled by her emotions rather than reality.”
“And yours are not?”
Philip halted, and with practiced ease at reading their monarch, those attending his footsteps melted far enough away to give the two men at least an illusion of privacy.
“Say plainly what you mean,” Philip commanded.
“My king, I say only what is being said in Rome—that you do not embrace your position as Defender of the Faith as wholeheartedly as you might. Some say that your will has been corrupted by your affections as a man.”
“What do you say?”
Granvelle was not stupid. The cardinal had learned over long years how to balance on the edge of insult. “That one cannot separate the man from the king—or the woman from the queen. Queen Maria kindles a most human resentment against her cousin in England that ofttimes clouds her judgment. And Queen Elizabeth was not entirely a marriage of politics—for either of you. Even without your daughter binding you, I believe you would hesitate to destroy the English queen utterly.”
“Destroy the queen, and I lose my daughter. And Anne is our best hope for England’s future. Which is why we are sending Tomás Navarro to her household. Anne has an independent mind, and I mean to cultivate it in our own interests. Do not underestimate what miracles might be wrought by affection.”
He turned away from Granvelle and continued pacing through the Courtyard of the King, startling into movement the hesitating flock of black-clad men. “As for Ireland,” Philip measured his words with care, “come next spring we shall see what our ships might do to harry Dublin’s port. Let us see how England copes supplying an outlying colony under fire. And Monsignor Cardinal? Don’t ever assume that you know all of my plans.”
Rather like his former wife in England, Philip excelled at playing the long game. Just now he was looking ahead, not merely to next summer, but to the next three or four summers. If all went well, by decade’s end his daughter would rule England as a Catholic queen.
—
The French sortie along the Milanese border was accomplished swiftly and efficiently. Stephen had learned to appreciate such brief, sharp campaigns that involved neither honour nor passion. At least not on his part. It was just a job to him, one he performed with precision and skill and without raising any of the ghosts who lurked behind the scars of earlier—more personal—campaigns.
Ironically enough, Queen Elizabeth had done him a favour when she’d banished him from England after five months in the Tower of London. Had Stephen remained at home, with all the reminders of failure, he might have lost himself in solitude and alcohol as he had once before. But imprisonment imposed a certain discipline. He’d left the Tower leaner and clearer and ready to put the past behind. He’d at first resisted his family’s plan to send him to Renaud LeClerc—especially the part about Kit coming with him like some sort of nursemaid—but there were times when his parents combined forces and could not be gainsaid. So here they were, he and Kit, twenty-one months after sailing from Dover, riding back to Blanclair with Renaud LeClerc’s handpicked men almost as though they belonged.
The first one to greet them, coming down the lane on a dappled grey horse meant for a much bigger rider, was Felix LeClerc, Renaud’s grandson and heir. The twelve-year-old orphan had attached himself to Stephen as though in replacement not only for his dead father, but for his beloved Uncle Julien, who had married Stephen’s sister and moved to England.