A Traitor's Tears Read Online Free Page A

edging of her headdress and the glimmering bunches on the ends of her girdle – were highly elaborate. She smiled at me as I curtsied and, as I rose, I smiled back, but I was nervous.
    As the years went on, my royal half-sister had become increasingly royal and therefore increasingly intimidating. She was not yet forty and every now and then there was renewed talk of marriage plans for her. At present, it was rumoured that an alliance with a French prince was being discussed. Looking at her now, however, I could not imagine her joined in marriage to anyone. Her face was shield-shaped and she used it as a shield, hiding her thoughts behind it; the jewels and fine fabrics were armour too, holding her aloof from others. I couldn’t visualize a man ever finding his way past them.
    â€˜So, Ursula,’ she said. ‘What happened this morning?’
    I told her, briefly and also truthfully. She nodded. ‘So he tried, at the end, to excuse himself, to say he had never plotted treason with Ridolfi. I thought he would. But he died with dignity.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am. Yes, he did.’
    â€˜Of that, I am glad. He was my cousin. It is a sad burden, having to pass such a sentence on a member of one’s own family.’ She did not add,
And you helped to put me in that position
, but I heard the trace of resentment in her voice. It was only a trace, though, and it vanished as she said: ‘A burden, but inevitable if I and the realm are to stay safe. Thank you, Ursula. This morning must have been an ordeal for you, too. You are well? How is your small son? My little nephew!’
    â€˜He thrives, ma’am. A young Hawkswood maidservant, Tessie, has been appointed as his nurse and is caring for him while I’m away.’
    â€˜I hear you have called him Harry. After my father?’
    â€˜Partly that, ma’am. But it is of course a popular name.’
    â€˜So it is. And now, I take it, you will wish to return to your home at Hawkswood. What of your other house, Withysham, that I gave to you so many years ago?’
    â€˜That flourishes, too, ma’am. I visited it earlier this year.’
    â€˜I do hear a good deal about you,’ Elizabeth said. ‘As you know, I take an interest in your welfare. There are those who send word to Burghley now and then.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am,’ I said. I knew of Burghley’s discreet surveillance and tried not to be irritated by it, knowing that it was for my good.
    â€˜In places close to Hawkswood, I hear there has been unkind gossip about Harry,’ Elizabeth remarked. ‘It was to be expected. Withysham, being in Sussex, perhaps gave you a chance of escaping from it.’
    â€˜Yes, ma’am,’ I said, none too truthfully, for I had an uncle and aunt near Withysham, whose comments about Harry had been even more scathing than Jane Cobbold’s gossip, and for less reason. I had been frank with them, for from the start I had determined that Harry should grow up knowing who he was, and accepted as who he was, with no deception. I had hoped that since my uncle and aunt still held, though discreetly, by the Catholic faith, they of all people ought to have been understanding about Harry. I had been disappointed.
    But then, they had never liked me. They took my mother in when she came home from King Henry’s court, disgraced and with child and refusing to name its father, and when I was born, they had given me a home as well. But it hadn’t been a happy one. My mother died when I was sixteen, and when I was twenty, I ran away to marry my first husband, Gerald Blanchard, which had further enraged Uncle Herbert and Aunt Tabitha, since he was supposed to be betrothed to one of their daughters.
    My marital situation was an odd one. After Gerald’s death from smallpox, I had married Matthew de la Roche, who was half-French by blood and all French in his ways. I had lived with him in France for a time, though I left