The Queen’s Fool. Philippa Gregory

      I clattered into the courtyard of the palace at Greenwich riding astride one of the carthorses pulling the wagon with supplies. It was a beautiful spring day, the fields running down to the river were a sea of gold and silver daffodils, and they reminded me of Mr Dee’s desire to turn base metal to gold. As I paused, feeling the warmer breeze against my face, one of the Dudley servants shouted towards me: ‘Hannah the Fool?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘To go to Lord Robert and his father in their privy rooms at once. At once, lad!’

      I nodded and went into the palace at a run, past the royal chambers to the ones that were no less grand, guarded by soldiers in the Dudley livery. They swung open the double doors for me and I was in the presence room where the duke would hear the petitions of common people. I went through another set of doors, and another, the rooms getting smaller and more intimate, until the last double doors opened, and there was Lord Robert leaning over a desk with a manuscript scroll spread out before him, his father looking over his shoulder. I recognised at once that it was Mr Dee’s writing, and that it was a map that he had made partly from ancient maps of Britain borrowed from my father, and partly from calculations of his own based on the sailors’ charts of the coastline. Mr Dee had prepared the map because he believed that England’s greatest fortune were the seas around the coast; but the duke was using it for a different purpose.

      He had placed little counters in a crowd at London, and more in the painted blue sea. A set of counters of a different colour was in the north of the country, Scots, I thought, and another little group like Lord Robert’s chess pawns in the east of the country. I made a deep bow to Lord Robert and to his father.

      ‘It has to be done at speed,’ the duke remarked, scowling. ‘If it is done at once, before anyone has a chance to protest, then we can deal with the north, with the Spanish, and with those of her tenants who stay loyal, in our own time.’

      ‘And she?’ Lord Robert asked quietly.

      ‘She can do nothing,’ the duke said. ‘And if she tries to run, your little spy will warn us.’ He looked up at me on those words. ‘Hannah Green, I am sending you to wait upon the Lady Mary. You are to be her fool until I summon you back to court. My son assures me that you can keep your counsel. Is he right?’

      The skin on the back of my neck went cold. ‘I can keep a secret,’ I said unhelpfully. ‘But I don’t like to.’

      ‘And you will not go into a trance and speak of foretellings and smoke and crystals and betray everything?’

      ‘You hired me for my trances and foretellings,’ I reminded him. ‘I can’t order the Sight.’

      ‘Does she do it often?’ he demanded of his son.

      Lord Robert shook his head. ‘Rarely, and never out of turn. Her fear is greater than her gift. She is witty enough to turn anything. Besides, who would listen to a fool?’

      The duke gave his quick bark of a laugh. ‘Another fool,’ he suggested.

      Robert smiled. ‘Hannah will keep our secrets,’ he said gently. ‘She is mine, heart and soul.’

      The duke nodded. ‘Well, then. Tell her the rest.’

      I shook my head, wanting to block my ears; but Lord Robert came around the table and took my hand. He stood close to me and when I looked up from my study of the floor I met his dark gaze. ‘Mistress Boy, I need you to go to the Lady Mary and write to me and tell me what she thinks, and where she goes, and who she meets.’

      I blinked. ‘Spy on her?’

      He hesitated. ‘Befriend her.’

      ‘Spy on her. Exactly,’ his father said brusquely.

      ‘Will you do this for me?’ Lord Robert asked. ‘It would be a very great service to me. It is the service I ask of your love.’

      ‘Will I be in danger?’ I asked. In my head I could hear the knock of the Inquisition on the heavy wooden door and the trample of their feet over our threshold.

      ‘No,’ he promised me. ‘I have guaranteed your safety while you are mine. You will be my fool, under my protection. No-one can hurt you if you are a Dudley.’

      ‘What must I do?’

      ‘Watch the Lady Mary and report to me.’

      ‘You want me to write to you? Will I never see you?’

      He smiled. ‘You shall come to me when I send for you,’ he said. ‘And if anything happens …’

      ‘What?’

      He shrugged. ‘These are exciting times, Mistress Boy. Who knows what might happen? That’s why I need you to tell me what Lady Mary does. Will you do this for me? For love of me, Mistress Boy? To keep me safe?’

      I nodded. ‘Yes.’

      He put his hand into his jacket and brought out a letter. It was from my father to the duke, promising him the delivery of some manuscripts. ‘Here is a mystery for you,’ Lord Robert said gently. ‘See the first twenty-six letters of the first sentence?’

      I scanned them. ‘Yes.’

      ‘They are to be your alphabet. When you write to me I want you to use these. Where it says “My Lord”, that is your ABC. The M for “my” is your A. The Y is your B. And so on, do you understand? When you have a letter which occurs twice you only use it once. You use the first set for your first letter to me and your second set for your second letter, and so on. I have a copy of the letter and when your message comes to me I can translate it.’

      He saw my eyes run down the page. There was only one thing I was looking for and it was how long this system would last. There were enough sentences to translate as many as a dozen letters; he was sending me away for weeks.

      ‘I have to write in code?’ I asked nervously.

      His warm hand covered my cold fingers. ‘Only to prevent gossip,’ he said reassuringly. ‘So that we can write privately to one another.’

      ‘How long do I have to stay away?’ I whispered.

      ‘Oh, not for so very long.’

      ‘Will you reply to me?’

      He shook his head. ‘Only if I need to ask you something, and if I do, I will use this almanac also. My first letter will be the first twenty-six characters, my second the next set. Don’t keep my letters to you, burn them as soon as you have read them. And don’t make copies of yours to me.’

      I nodded.

      ‘If anyone finds this letter it is just something you brought from your father to me and forgot.’

      ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘Do you promise to do this exactly as I ask?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said miserably. ‘When do I have to go?’

      ‘Within three days,’ the duke said from his place behind the table. ‘There’s a cart going to the Lady Mary with some goods for her. You can ride alongside that. You shall have one of my ponies, girl, and you can keep her at Lady Mary’s house for your return. And if something should happen that you think threatens me or Lord Robert, something very grave indeed, you can ride to warn us at once. Will you do that?’

      ‘Why, what should threaten you?’ I asked the man who ruled England.

      ‘I shall be the one that wonders what might threaten me. You shall be the one to warn me if it does. You are to be Robert’s eyes and ears at the house of the Lady Mary. He tells me that he can trust you; make sure that