Hope flared in my heart. “He still lives? Will she release him?”
Elizabeth’s smile faded. “In truth, I do not know. I will do my best to discover what happened to him.” She leaned to me. “His loyalty will be rewarded, Eloise.”
I could not stifle a groan, and I turned my head away.
I wondered very much if Elizabeth would be so generous if she realized that Colby was her own half-brother. Or perhaps she already knew—perhaps Mary had found out the secret as well, and James would die for it.
I began to cry again, and Elizabeth called for Aunt Kat, some exasperation in her voice.
As I convalesced, I began each morning fearing to hear news of James’s death, and every night tried to sleep, no wiser than before.
Uncle John told us that the entire plot had been revealed. While Ashton, the leader, was safely in France, every other man had been rounded up and interrogated. Unlike two years ago, when Thomas Wyatt and others had been swiftly arrested and executed, time ticked on while Mary kept the men prisoners without release.
April dragged into May, which was tediously warm, and toward the end of May two men came to arrest Aunt Kat … and me.
“My niece is ill. She has lost a child and cannot travel,” Aunt Kat babbled as the two courtiers Mary had sent waited impatiently for us.
“No, I will go,” I said resolutely. I had recovered in body from my ordeal, although a grief lingered inside me that I knew would never vanish. “I want to go, Aunt Kat.”
We were forbidden to say goodbye to Elizabeth—Aunt Kat was not even allowed to speak to Uncle John. The gentlemen made us ride side-by-side, while their soldiers surrounded us and set a hard pace to London.
The metropolis was warming, mud from spring rains drying. The streets teemed with ordinary people on ordinary business, ignorant of plots and plotters, rival queens and princesses, prisons and tortures. No smoke drifted from Smithfield today, thankfully, as we passed southward through the City.
Mary’s guards took us not to the Tower, but to Fleet Prison.
Fleet Prison was dank and cold, despite the warm sun outside. It was also noisy and smelled of human waste and the Fleet River, which rushed below its grated windows.
Our jailer, a large, silent man, gave me a look up and down with his hard eyes, and Aunt Kat stepped protectively in front of me. He shrugged and took our money—we had to pay for our own keep—and gave us a cell to ourselves. The small chamber had a table, one stool, and a narrow bed we’d have to share, and that was all.
“I have failed her,” Aunt Kat said as she sank to the stool once the jailer had gone. “I have been her teacher since she was a tiny child. She liked to slap me when she was displeased, and I let her, because I knew she loved me as I loved her. I have tried to help her, to guide her, to raise her to where she belongs.” Aunt Kat’s head drooped in despair. “I have done nothing but make a mess of it.”
I laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, though the Lord knew I had little comfort to give. “You love her well, is all, Aunt Kat. Even if you are not always wise.”
Aunt Kat brayed a laugh. “I read too much in my youth and was happiest with my books—those classic tomes of ancient Rome. Small good it has done me.” She shook her head. “When I first joined Elizabeth’s household, she was a nobody, a cast-off bastard none knew what to do with. Her father’s council would not even send her clothing, and she went about in threadbare garments too small for her. I had to write and beg for decent gowns for her. At last, King Henry restored Elizabeth as she should be, but still she is deprived of her rightful place. I only want to see her achieve it—that is all I have ever wanted. But my husband is right. I am a fool.”
“Love can make one foolish.” I twined my arms around Aunt Kat and rested my cheek on her hair.
It had made a fool of me, I thought with heavy heart as I envisioned Colby in his cold cell. I had loved too hard, and now I paid a dire price.
Thus began some of the hardest days of my life. Aunt Kat and I were confined to Fleet Prison all through the summer of 1556, enduring the heat behind walls that sweated with damp.
Halfway through our incarceration, we were moved into slightly better accommodation, two rooms with a few more pieces of furniture. We were not allowed to write to Elizabeth or even Uncle John. I learned nothing of my husband, whether he was alive or dead, though no rumors ever came of executions.
Mary’s men interrogated us repeatedly. A search of Aunt Kat’s chambers at Somerset House had turned up her box of pamphlets—diatribes against Mary, Philip, and England’s return to Catholicism.
Aunt Kat feigned ignorance. “I know nothing about such papers,” she bleated, but it was clear our questioners did not believe her.
Even then our jailers did nothing but keep us confined, Aunt Kat and I waiting and wondering what would become of us.
It was easier to learn of Elizabeth’s fate than my husband’s, because Fleet Prison was a font of court gossip. Those coming in eagerly told stories to those who had been imprisoned for a time, and the jailers and guards readily talked together without worry about who might be listening.
Apparently, Elizabeth had been confined to Hatfield after Aunt Kat and I were arrested. Though Mary was in a fury, she’d done nothing to punish her sister, allowing her to live at home instead of dragging her back to the Tower.
Mary had informed Elizabeth that her servants—including Aunt Kat and me—had confessed to a conspiracy to overthrow Mary, though they claimed to have acted without Elizabeth’s knowledge or consent. Mary, incredibly, had told Elizabeth that she would not hold the actions of her ladies and gentlemen against her.
Aunt Kat and I had stared at one another in disbelief when we learned this.
“Has the queen run mad?” Aunt Kat wondered. “I cannot imagine her smiling sweetly and telling our Lady Elizabeth that she believes in her innocence.”
