shall. I told you also lest someone who does not appreciate my attending you on this progress should report to you that I fled like one guilty.”
“Another thing we share then, Captain,” she said, carefully placing the arrow on the opposite leather seat, “is necessary devious thinking for our own personal protection and advancement.”
Their eyes met and held.
“Yes,” he admitted, then added, “and one more thing I must confess.”
She frowned. “Which is?”
“I have—Your Majesty, I have seen arrows like this, not with the same fletching, but the shafts are much the same. Look,” he said, gesturing toward it, “a pyramid point that tapers to a square base, cleverly carved.”
“But what’s this wrapped around it?”
“That’s quite characteristic and also gives it away,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “It’s wrapped tightly with a strip of soft leather so it rotates in flight and digs deep into its target—much more deadly. These were the very sort some of the Spanish bowmen shot at us at San Juan d’Ulua.”
She sucked in a quick breath. “Spanish! I knew it. I feared it. Then—your men, like you, perhaps, could have collected such arrows for keepsakes of your deliverance.”
His fine features seemed to clench around his narrowed eyes. “True,” he said. “I have a few yet in my captain’s cabin. Quadrellos, the Spanish call these arrows, Your Grace. They bored so deep into the bodies and bones of my men, we call them homicidal arrows.”
Chapter the Eighth
A s the afternoon wore on, the royal entourage, tired and distressed, pushed on through fields, villages, and a final forest. Never more than on this day had Elizabeth regretted England’s law that each local parish must maintain its own roads by spending but four days a year repairing them. That included cutting back brush and filling holes larger than pots with stones, neither of which had been done here. And if an obstacle was in the way, such as an ancient tree trunk or thicket, the road might take a sharp jog around it, so the queen’s progress must, too.
Yet Elizabeth was certain she could smell the sea, and that kept her spirits up a bit. She thought the horses pricked up their ears and pulled harder at the scent, too. As they burst from the shaded tunnel of the last deep woods, the sun-struck scene awaiting them before the town of Fareham startled them all.
It looked as if the entire population of the village, perhaps of the whole area, had turned out for a grand and glorious welcome. Cheering, waving people, six or seven deep, packed the rutted dirt road into the town. Banners, many improvised from tablecloths or petticoats, smacked smartly in the breeze as people waved them or held them aloft on poles. Some sort of low wooden scaffolding had been erected and was strewn with leafy boughs, evidently as a stage for a pageant. In the midst of it all, Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, and his wife,
Lady Mary, rode to greet them on flower-bedecked matching horses.
Elizabeth called to Cecil and Robin from the depths of her coach, “I was expecting hard looks and meager cheers. Perhaps I was in error to judge, though I know well enough the tricks of pretense and artifice.”
“But you had ordered,” Cecil said, bending down a bit to look in at her, “that we would ride straight for the shelter of Place House. Your Grace, after that possible attempt on your life today …”
“My people, Cecil, are awaiting, and in an area I had been fretting was not strong for a Protestant queen. I will not cower from terror, even in this open area with many about we do not know. Especially, their queen shall not sit, as if some guilty prisoner, in her coach to watch these festivities. But,” she went on to stay the further protest coming from him, “I am not disillusioned that those white-teethed smiles coming this way may not be the bared fangs of wolves. Boonen, halt here!” she shouted. Then she added
“Another thing we share then, Captain,” she said, carefully placing the arrow on the opposite leather seat, “is necessary devious thinking for our own personal protection and advancement.”
Their eyes met and held.
“Yes,” he admitted, then added, “and one more thing I must confess.”
She frowned. “Which is?”
“I have—Your Majesty, I have seen arrows like this, not with the same fletching, but the shafts are much the same. Look,” he said, gesturing toward it, “a pyramid point that tapers to a square base, cleverly carved.”
“But what’s this wrapped around it?”
“That’s quite characteristic and also gives it away,” he whispered, then cleared his throat. “It’s wrapped tightly with a strip of soft leather so it rotates in flight and digs deep into its target—much more deadly. These were the very sort some of the Spanish bowmen shot at us at San Juan d’Ulua.”
She sucked in a quick breath. “Spanish! I knew it. I feared it. Then—your men, like you, perhaps, could have collected such arrows for keepsakes of your deliverance.”
His fine features seemed to clench around his narrowed eyes. “True,” he said. “I have a few yet in my captain’s cabin. Quadrellos, the Spanish call these arrows, Your Grace. They bored so deep into the bodies and bones of my men, we call them homicidal arrows.”
Chapter the Eighth
A s the afternoon wore on, the royal entourage, tired and distressed, pushed on through fields, villages, and a final forest. Never more than on this day had Elizabeth regretted England’s law that each local parish must maintain its own roads by spending but four days a year repairing them. That included cutting back brush and filling holes larger than pots with stones, neither of which had been done here. And if an obstacle was in the way, such as an ancient tree trunk or thicket, the road might take a sharp jog around it, so the queen’s progress must, too.
Yet Elizabeth was certain she could smell the sea, and that kept her spirits up a bit. She thought the horses pricked up their ears and pulled harder at the scent, too. As they burst from the shaded tunnel of the last deep woods, the sun-struck scene awaiting them before the town of Fareham startled them all.
It looked as if the entire population of the village, perhaps of the whole area, had turned out for a grand and glorious welcome. Cheering, waving people, six or seven deep, packed the rutted dirt road into the town. Banners, many improvised from tablecloths or petticoats, smacked smartly in the breeze as people waved them or held them aloft on poles. Some sort of low wooden scaffolding had been erected and was strewn with leafy boughs, evidently as a stage for a pageant. In the midst of it all, Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, and his wife,
Lady Mary, rode to greet them on flower-bedecked matching horses.
Elizabeth called to Cecil and Robin from the depths of her coach, “I was expecting hard looks and meager cheers. Perhaps I was in error to judge, though I know well enough the tricks of pretense and artifice.”
“But you had ordered,” Cecil said, bending down a bit to look in at her, “that we would ride straight for the shelter of Place House. Your Grace, after that possible attempt on your life today …”
“My people, Cecil, are awaiting, and in an area I had been fretting was not strong for a Protestant queen. I will not cower from terror, even in this open area with many about we do not know. Especially, their queen shall not sit, as if some guilty prisoner, in her coach to watch these festivities. But,” she went on to stay the further protest coming from him, “I am not disillusioned that those white-teethed smiles coming this way may not be the bared fangs of wolves. Boonen, halt here!” she shouted. Then she added
Similar Books
