that she should give it a name. She couldn’t call him Edmund or William, because they were her own baby’s names. Perhaps she might call him Robert after her late father. Had it even been christened?
Rose lay back on the cushion with the child at her breast, letting these thoughts and questions wash over her until she began to get drowsy. She had almost drifted off when there was a soft knocking at her door. “It’s me. Amy. M’lady has asked that you bring the baby downstairs.”
The child straightway set to wailing once more. “Why would she want me to bring it down when she has guests?” Rose sighed. She owed a huge debt of gratitude to the Countess. Many employers would not have taken back a young widow with a child as she had done.
She arrived downstairs to find the dinner table cleared away and the guests sitting talking quietly and sipping wine. Rose stood in the doorway, cradling the swaddled baby in her arms. It was screaming at the top of its high- pitched voice now, an urgent monotone of noise that pierced her ears. The guests all turned to look at her. The Lady Tanahill stood up from her chair and walked over to her. She gently guided her across to the table. Smiling, she took the baby from Rose’s arms and held it out for all to see.
“This is Rose’s foundling child,” the Countess said, ignoring the incessant wailing. “Her own baby was stolen from her while she was at the market, and this baby was left in its place. I am afraid that the courts and the constable have done nothing to help her get back her own baby, William Edmund. But Rose has cared for this child with fortitude. In this she has shown true Godliness, for this also is one of His creatures, and she is to be commended.” She turned and smiled at Rose. “I hope I do not make light of your tribulations. It can be no easy thing to lose a child in this way. Many a woman would not have accepted the burden of feeding and taking care of someone else’s baby as you have done.” She held the baby’s head up for closer inspection by her guests. “As you can see, this child is not as other babies.”
The guests peered at the child with interest and sympathy. The women rose from their seats and crowded around to look closely at it and to touch its face. Rose Downie watched them, astonished. She had not thought this grotesque infant could elicit such interest and compassion from others.
“Father Cotton,” the Countess said at last, “will you bless this child?”
Cotton took the shrieking infant from the Countess’s arms. He stroked its face softly with one hand while cradling it in the other arm. Then he murmured some words in Latin and made the sign of the cross over its forehead. The baby ceased crying. Then he handed it back to Rose Downie. “ Pax vobiscum, my child,” he said to her. “Peace be with you. Truly you are blessed among women, for He has chosen you to care for this baby, as once our Holy Mother was chosen.”
Rose said nothing. She didn’t know what to say. They were all smiling at her and yet she also felt small and insignificant in the presence of these people, especially this holy man with his gift. If she hadn’t realized he was a Papist priest, she would have thought him a sorcerer for silencing the baby so. Uneasily, she bowed her head to the Countess, then backed out of the room. Outside she was met by Amy and Beatrice, who had been watching at the door.
“How did he do that then?” asked Beatrice. “That’s some trick, that is.”
“I confess it did seem almost like conjuring to me,” said Amy. “But if it gives you a night’s sleep…” She moved closer to Rose and whispered in her ear. “The good news is that he’ll be staying here, hidden away. But not a word, not a single word to anyone or we’ll all be in trouble. I know you do not share our faith, but I do know you for a good person, love. With a bit of luck, Father Cotton might keep that baby quiet for you when you need a rest.”
Rose felt sick inside, sick and ashamed for the terrible thoughts churning her mind. For she knew that this man Cotton, this saintly priest of the Romish church, was the man Richard Topcliffe was so desperate to find. And she believed that Topcliffe in his turn had the power to find William Edmund for her and return him safe to her arms. If it meant allowing him to occupy her body whenever he pleased and if it meant betraying not only Cotton, but her benefactress and this whole household, then so be it. What mother in the world would not do anything -at whatever cost to themselves or those around them-for their child?
The baby was still sleeping soundly and she went back upstairs to put it in its cot. Then she gathered her warm woolen cloak and hood about her before slipping silently down the back stairs. Outside, the high crenellated towers of Tanahill House blotted out the light of the moon, but there was enough candlelight through the leaded windows of the great houses along the Strand for her to make her way as she hurried westward the few hundred yards to Charing Cross, then down through Whitehall Palace toward Westminster.
Chapter 25
The iron fist of Topcliffe and his pursuivants came at first light, just as Cotton was saying Mass for the Countess, her two children, and her staff in a second-floor chamber. The manservant, a tall young man named Joe Fletcher, raced down the small flight of stone steps at the back of the hall, but by the time he reached the front door it had already been flattened by a battering log. Joe stopped dead in his tracks, confronted by a wall of dazzling blades, blazing pitch torches, solid leather chest armor bearing the Queen’s escutcheon, and heads encased in steel morions.
Topcliffe stood at the forefront of ten dark-clad men, casting a menacing, moving shadow from the light of the torches fanned out behind him. Those with him included London’s chief pursuivant, Newall. All but Topcliffe had their swords drawn and there was much shouting and stamping of boots. Acrid smoke streamed from their torches and from the sotweed pipe stuck hard between Topcliffe’s teeth.
Topcliffe took a step toward Fletcher so that their faces were no more than a foot apart. He was half a head shorter than the manservant, but exuded twice the power. “Where are they?” he growled, smoke billowing toward Fletcher. “Bring me straight to them or I will kill you where you stand.”
Upstairs, the Lady Tanahill’s hands shook with terror as she cleared away the sacred vessels. Cotton gathered up his vestments, ducked through into the stairwell, and climbed two steps at a time to the third floor. His heart pounding, he went through a great chamber into a garderobe tower, and up a few more steps into a cramped privy closet that housed the jakes. There was clearly something wrong with the pipework, for the stench of human waste was atrocious.
He flicked open a concealed hinge and lifted the jakes, revealing a hole in the floor. The Countess had shown him this place after the other dinner guests had gone. The hole was big enough for a man to slip through but no more. Cotton half-turned and sank to his haunches, then dropped into the hole, pulling the jakes back into place above him. Immediately he was enveloped by total darkness. He had no candle with him and even if he’d had one he could not have used it, for the smell of burning wax would give him away. He prayed that the Countess-the only other person in the house to know of this place-would remember to replace the concealed hinge.
Joe Fletcher was backing off from Topcliffe and the pursuivants, fearful for his life but saying nothing. Suddenly Beatrice appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She was not tall and it must have been obvious to all the men that she was merely a child. “Put down your swords,” she said in a firm voice that showed remarkable self- possession and courage. “Put them down, I say!”
“Who are you?” Topcliffe bellowed at Beatrice.
“I am Beatrice, maidservant to the Lady Tanahill,” she said boldly. “Who are you, sir?”
“Never mind who I am, girl. Where is your mistress?” Topcliffe saw the Countess framed in the doorway by the stairs. She looked slight and frail. “Ah, Lady Tanahill, what a pleasure to see you. Now, where is Southwell?”
“Southwell?” she said. Her voice was barely audible.
“Tell me now where he is or I will tear this house apart, board by board, panel by panel, brick by brick, for I know that the priest is here. And I will have him, however long it takes.”
The Countess could scarcely breathe. She had hidden the sacred vessels in a secret compartment in the paneling in the chamber above. Topcliffe had been to this house before, to taunt her over her husband’s imprisonment and to seek evidence against him in his papers. He had found nothing, though he had searched for a day and a half. It was after that visit that she’d had the hiding hole built beneath the jakes by a carpenter introduced to her by her friends in the Church of Rome. It was a construction of breathtaking complexity and ingenuity, so hidden within the fabric of the house as to be undetectable. To find it, a pursuivant would, indeed,
