The Queen’s Fool. Philippa Gregory
wondering where I might find safety.
I woke painfully early, at five in the morning, to find the kitchen lad clattering pails of water and sacks of logs past my head. Lady Mary heard Mass in John Huddlestone’s chapel, as if it were not a forbidden ceremony, broke her fast, and was back in the saddle by seven in the morning, riding in the highest of spirits away from Sawston Hall with John Huddlestone at her side to show her the way.
I was riding at the back, the dozen or so horses clattering ahead of me, my little pony too tired to keep pace, when I smelled an old terrible scent on the air. I smelled burning, I smelled smoke. Not the appetising smoke of the roast beef on the spit, not the innocent seasonal smell of burning leaves. I could smell the scent of heresy, a fire lit with ill-will, burning up someone’s happiness, burning up someone’s faith, burning up someone’s house … I turned in the saddle and saw the glow on the horizon where the house we had just left, Sawston Hall, was being torched.
‘My lady!’ I called out. She heard me, and turned her head and then reined in her horse, John Huddlestone beside her.
‘Your house!’ I said simply to him.
He looked beyond me, he squinted his eyes to see. He couldn’t tell for sure, he could not smell the smoke as I had done. Lady Mary looked at me. ‘Are you sure, Hannah?’
I nodded. ‘I can smell it. I can smell smoke.’ I heard the quaver of fear in my voice. My hand was at my cheek brushing my face as if the smuts were falling on me. ‘I can smell smoke. Your house is being burned out, sir.’
He turned his horse as if he would ride straight home, then he remembered the woman whose visit had cost him his home and his fortune. ‘Forgive me, Lady Mary. I must go home … My wife …’
‘Go,’ she said gently. ‘And be very well assured that when I come into my own, you shall come into yours. I will give you another house, a bigger and richer house than this one you have lost for your loyalty to me. I shall not forget.’
He nodded, half-deaf with worry, and then set his horse at a gallop to where the blaze of his house glowed on the horizon. His groom rode up beside Lady Mary. ‘D’you want me to guide you, my lady?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Can you take me to Bury St Edmunds?’
He put his cap back on his head. ‘Through Mildenhall and Thetford forest? Yes, m’lady.’
She gave the signal to move on and she rode without once looking back. I thought that she was a princess indeed, if she could see last night’s refuge burned to the ground and think only of the struggle ahead of her and not of the ruins left behind.
That night we stayed at Euston Hall near Thetford, and I lay on the floor of Lady Mary’s bedroom, wrapped in my cape, still fully dressed, waiting for the alarm that I was sure must come. All night my senses were on the alert for the tramp of muffled feet, for the glimpse of a dipping brand, for the smell of smoke from a torch. I did little more than doze, waiting all the night for a Protestant mob to come and tear down this safe house as they had done Sawston Hall. I had a great horror of being trapped inside the house when they torched the roof and the stairs. I could not close my eyes for fear that I would be wakened by the smell of smoke, so that it was almost a relief near dawn when I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves on cobbles and I was up at the window in a second, knowing that my sleepless watch was rewarded, my hand outstretched to her as she woke, cautioning her to be quiet.
‘What can you see?’ she demanded from the bed, as she pulled back the covers. ‘How many men?’
‘Only one horse, he looks weary.’
‘Go and see who it is.’
I hurried down the wooden stairs to the hall. The porter had the spy hole opened and was arguing with the traveller, who seemed to be demanding admission to stay the night. I touched the porter on the shoulder and he stood aside. I had to stretch up on tiptoes to see through the spy hole in the door.
‘And who are you?’ I demanded, my voice as gruff as I could make it, acting a confidence that I did not feel.
‘Who are you?’ he asked back. I heard at once the sharp cadence of London speech.
‘You’d better tell me what you want,’ I insisted.
He came closer to the spy hole and lowered his quiet voice to a whisper. ‘I have important news for a great lady. It is about her brother. D’you understand me?’
There was no way of knowing whether or not he was sent to entrap us. I took the risk, stepped back and nodded to the porter. ‘Let him in, and then bar the door behind him again.’
He came in. I wished to God that I could have made the Sight work for me when I demanded it. I would have given anything to know if there were a dozen men behind him, even now encircling the house and striking flints in the hay barns. But I could be sure of nothing except that he was weary and travel-stained and buoyed up by excitement.
‘What’s the message?’
‘I shall tell it to no-one but herself.’
There was a rustle of silken skirts and Lady Mary came down the stairs. ‘And you are?’ she asked.
It was his response to the sight of her that convinced me that he was on our side, and that the world had changed for us, overnight. Fast as a stooping falcon, he dropped down to one knee, pulled his hat from his head, and bowed to her, as to a queen.
God save her, she did not turn a hair. She extended her hand as if she had been Queen of England for all her life. He kissed it reverently, and then looked up into her face.
‘I am Robert Raynes, a goldsmith of London, sent by Sir Nicholas Throckmorton to bring you the news that your brother Edward is dead, Your Grace. You are Queen of England.’
‘God bless him,’ she said softly. ‘God save Edward’s precious soul.’
There was a short silence.
‘Did he die in faith?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘He died as a Protestant.’
She nodded. ‘And I am proclaimed queen?’ she demanded in a much sharper tone.
He shook his head. ‘Can I speak freely?’
‘You have ridden a long way to tell a riddle if you do not,’ she observed drily.
‘The king died in much pain on the night of the sixth,’ he said quietly.
‘The sixth?’ she interrupted.
‘Yes. Before his death he changed his father’s will.’
‘He had no legal right to do so. He cannot have changed the settlement.’
‘Nonetheless he did. You are denied the succession, the Lady Elizabeth also. Lady Jane Grey is named as his heir.’
‘He never did this willingly,’ she said, her face blanched.
The man shrugged. ‘It was done in his hand, and the council and the justices all agreed and signed to it.’
‘All the council?’ she asked.
‘To a man.’
‘And what about me?’
‘I am to warn you that you are named as a traitor to the throne. Lord Robert Dudley is on his way now to arrest you and take you to the Tower.’
‘Lord Robert is coming?’ I asked.
‘He will go to Hunsdon first,’ Lady Mary reassured me. ‘I wrote to his father that I was staying there. He won’t know where we are.’
I did not contradict her, but I knew that John Dee would send my note on to him this very day, and that thanks to me, he would know exactly where to look for us.
Her concern was all for her sister. ‘And Lady Elizabeth?’
He