Also, Kennedy had a pack and a riding cloak.
But by then Walsingham already knows. Ill luck—for Margaret and the boy—had sent them to the White Hart, where Mary Seton was well known enough to be trusted to hire a horse. They told the ostler the boy was bound for Doncaster, where he would leave the horse at the Seven Stars.
“After that, who knows?”
Margaret Formby and the boy had walked awhile together, talking, and then he had set off eastward, down the valley toward Doncaster.
Doncaster means the Great North Road, along which the boy will either ride south, toward London, or north, toward, well, God knows where.
Margaret Formby had returned to the castle.
“Not looking too happy,” Wilkins told them.
Beale laughs to see how quickly Walsingham’s plan has borne fruit: Queen Mary has received word that Quesada is not coming to her aid this season, and lashing out in disappointment, has contacted one of her allies to set some other plan in play. To discover the identity of this unknown ally, all they now need do is follow the boy.
It is genius, and Walsingham looks more hawkish than ever.
“Here we go,” he says, rubbing his hands. “Here we go.”
But their swift success leaves them with a dilemma: they have only enough men to keep watch on either the boy, or Queen Mary. Which is it to be?
“The queen’s not going anywhere, is she?” Wilkins suggests.
Walsingham agrees.
“Get after him, Robert,” Walsingham tells him. “Now. This instant. Leave word of which way he’s gone at the post station, and I will follow along this night with Wilkins and Gregory.”
They find Beale the best horse left in the White Hart’s stable and Beale is up in the saddle before the hour is out. Walsingham thrusts a pie in his hand.
“God speed, Robert.”
Beale thanks his master and sets off along the road to Doncaster. Twenty miles perhaps.
Francis Walsingham has much to do, much to think about. He must in all haste send word to Lord Burghley: tell him he is in need of more men. Until then he must pull Wilkins and Gregory from the tower and set off after Beale and the boy. Note must be made of where he goes, and of whom he meets, and Queen Mary will not have abandoned all precautions, however distressed she is, so the boy will have been instructed to see at least two decoys before he meets the person he has really come for. Or perhaps not. Either way, all eventualities must be covered, and that takes time, people, and money.
And meanwhile there is that little knot of silk to fret about: What was it? How did it get in to her rooms, and why was it swallowed?
Still there is no time. He will have to come back to that.
Wilkins and Gregory are delighted to be summoned from their tower. They have been incarcerated so long with the queen, and it is not good for a man to sit within all day. They borrow horses from Talbot and set off after Beale and the boy, leaving Sheffield Castle with some relief.
“Ha.”
It is not an expression of surprise, nor even of much pleasure. Queen Mary is back at the window. The panes are so thick and watered she cannot be sure, but there is a general rustling in the secret parts of the tower, as if the mice were on the move, as indeed they are.
She feels less hemmed in. The air is clearer, and this morning her breath comes more easily.
“Ha,” she says again. This time: slight pleasure.
Her own scheme is likewise beginning to bear fruit.
She will ask George Talbot if she may take a walk in the castle bailey.
The boy John Kennedy passes the night with his bag as a pillow on the floor of the hall of the Seven Stars in Doncaster and is up on his feet well before cockcrow. He drains his ale and finishes his soup while his horse is saddled and fettled and he is already on the dew-soaked road by the time its stones are visible.
Robert Beale watches him from behind the stables, where he spent the night. The boy turns north, toward the estates of all those northern lords who have been ever ready to rise up in favor of a Catholic majesty.
He leaves word of his direction with the innkeeper, climbs back up into his own saddle, and sets out after the boy again. Crows caw in the elms, and he feels the first onset of the autumn to come. Excitement too. The snare is tightening. If Walsingham is right, they will have Queen Mary and perhaps even someone like the assassin Hamilton in their bag by the end of it.
George Talbot wakes and thinks that he cannot see why he should deny Queen Mary her request for the pleasure of a walk within his castle bailey.
Francis Walsingham wakes with a start in the attic of the White Hart and listens to the rain. He thinks of Isobel Cochet, and of Dr. John Dee, and he thinks of Willem van Treslong. He thinks of his queen, Elizabeth, and James Hamilton.
Most of all he thinks of Mary, Queen of Scots.
He gets up very quickly and is at the stables before gray dawn.
Queen Mary is transported on a tide of seething pleasure.
Later, she dismisses Margaret Formby, and the rest of her servants, and Mary Seton, too, and sitting alone in her chamber, she lights a candle, even though it is day. She takes up her Bible, her pen, and the second of the small jars of face powder. She opens her Bible on the book of Lamentations. The date of the month and the day of the week matter. She dips the feathers of her pen into the blue-tinged face powder and strokes it across the face of a small piece of paper she has cut from Margaret Formby’s flimsy Bible, which she then covers with the piece of paper on
