Isabella smoothed her habit, touched her neck as if to assure herself that it was still there, and nodded. “Show the ‘penitent’ in.”
If the young nun was surprised that the sister who was also the archduchess of the Spanish Lowlands was willing to receive a “penitent” in the unusually well-furnished room that had been set aside for her biweekly retreats, she gave no sign of it.
But when Sister Marie returned, she was decidedly flustered.
“Sister Isabella . . . this penitent . . . I am not sure. That is, I think . . . I fear I have—”
“Yes, he is a man. Do not be alarmed, child. None of the men I know bite. At least, they don’t bite nuns. Usually.”
Sister Marie first flushed very red, then blanched very white. She made a sound not unlike a whimpering squeak, then nodded herself out and the visitor in.
Isabella smiled as she turned. So which one of her many renegade charges had been resourceful enough to find her here—?
She stopped: a large figure draped in a cloak of gray worsted had already entered and sealed the room. The cloak was ragged at the edges, loosely cowled over the wearer’s face. Whatever else Isabella had expected, this rough apparel and stealthy approach was not merely discomfiting but downright—
Then the hood went back and she breathed out through tears that, at her age, came too readily and too quickly for her to stop. “Hugh.” And suddenly, in place of what the wool had revealed—a square chin, strong straight nose, and dark auburn hair—she saw:
—the cherubic face of her newest page, sparkling blue eyes taking in the wonders of her formal, or “high,” court for the first time. Sunbeams from the towering windows marked his approach with a path of luminous shafts, which, as he walked through each one, glanced back off his reddish-brown hair as flashes of harvest gold. When summoned, his final approach to the throne was composed, yet there was mischief hiding behind the tutored solemnity of his gaze.
Isabella had affected a scowling gravity with some difficulty. “Are you sure you are prepared to be a page in this court, young Conde O’Donnell?”
“Your Grace, I’m sure I’m not!” His voice was high, but strong for his age. “But I will grow into this honor, just as I grow into the clothes you and the good archduke always send me.” And then Albert had laughed, and so had she, and the little boy smiled, showing a wonderful row of—
His white teeth were still as bright now as then, she realized as she reached out and put two, veined, wrinkled hands on either side of Hugh’s face. “My dear boy. You have returned.”
“Dearest Godmother, I have.”
And the pause told her, in the language of people who have long known each others’ hearts, that he had not just returned from Grantville, but from the long, dark travail that had started when he had turned away from his young wife’s winter grave almost five months ago. There was light in those dark blue eyes once again.
“Tell me of your trip to Grantville.”
He did. She listened, nodded several times. “And so you have decided to leave Spanish service.”
He blinked. “You have your copy of the letter? Already?”
“Of course. And you most certainly make an eloquent appeal for the home rule of the Netherlands, and link it to your own cause most cleverly.”
“So you think well of this?”
“Of the letter? The writing is like music, the idea eminently sound, and sure to save thousands of lives. And, of course, Philip will not countenance it.”
“Perhaps not. But I must try. Even though Olivares is obstinate about retaking the United Provinces.”
“So now you have ears at Philip’s court, too?”
“No, but I see what’s happening to his treasury. Yet he remains dedicated to spending countless reales to retain lands that have already been, de facto, lost to the crown. Once Fernando declared himself ‘King in the Low Countries,’ no other political outcome was possible. But Olivares has no prudence in the matter of the Lowlands. He spends money like a drunken profligate to prop up the economy while slashing even basic provisioning for its tercios. His fine faculties no longer determine how he reacts to events here. He is driven by pride and obstinacy.”
She smiled. “I will make a prince of you yet, my dear Earl of Tyrconnell. You have a head for this game.”
“That is because I have a peerless tutoress. Whose many wiles still surprise me: how did you get hold of my letter weeks before my man was to deliver it?”
“Dear boy, do you not think that I know what confidential agents you employ, and that I keep them better paid than you can afford?”