Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
of your shoe broke and I helped you to your room.’
She half-closed her eyes and smiled. ‘Not a fool at all then, Hannah.’
‘I can tell a hawk from a handsaw,’ I said shortly.
There was a silence between us, then she sat up and put her feet to the ground. ‘Help me up,’ she said.
I took her arm and she leaned her weight against me. She staggered slightly as she got to her feet, this was no pretence. She was a sick girl, and I felt her tremble and knew that she was sick with fear. She took a step towards the window and looked out over the cold garden, each leaf dripping a teardrop of ice.
‘I dare not go to London,’ she said to me in a soft moan. ‘Help me, Hannah. I dare not go. Have you heard from Lord Robert? Have you truly nothing for me from John Dee? From any of the others? Is there no-one there who will help me?’
‘Lady Elizabeth, I swear to you, it is over. There is no-one who can rescue you, there is no force that can come against your sister. I have not seen Mr Dee for months, and the last time I saw Lord Robert he was in the Tower awaiting execution. He did not expect to live long. He has released me from his service.’ I heard the tiny shake in my voice, and I drew a breath and steadied myself. ‘His last words to me were to tell me to ask for mercy for Lady Jane.’ I did not add that he had asked for mercy for Elizabeth too. She did not look as if she needed reminding that she was as close to the block as her cousin.
She closed her eyes and leaned against the wooden shutters. ‘And did you plead for her? Will she be forgiven?’
‘The queen is always merciful,’ I said.
She looked at me with eyes that were filled with tears. ‘I hope so indeed,’ Elizabeth said gravely. ‘For what about me?’
The next day she could resist no longer. The wagons with her trunks, furniture, and linens had already gone, swaying south down the great north road. The queen’s own litter with cushions and rugs of the warmest wool was standing at the door, four white mules harnessed to it, the muleteer at the ready. At the doorway Elizabeth staggered and seemed to faint but the doctors were at her side and they half-lifted and half-dragged her into the litter and bundled her in. She cried out as if in pain but I thought it was fear that was choking her. She was sick with fear. She knew she was going to her trial for treason, and then death.
We travelled slowly. At every halt the princess delayed, asking for a longer rest, complaining of the jolting pace, unable to put a foot to the ground to step down from the litter, and then unable to climb back in again. Her face, the only part of her exposed to the wintry wind, grew pink from the cold and became more swollen. It was no weather for a journey at all, certainly no weather for an invalid, but the queen’s councillors would not be delayed. With Elizabeth’s own cousin urging them onward, their determination told Elizabeth as clearly as if they had the warrant in their hand that she was destined for death.
No-one would dare to offend the next heir to the throne as they were daring to treat her. No-one would make the next monarch of England climb into a litter on a dark morning and jolt down a rutted frozen road before it was even light. Anyone who treated Elizabeth in this way must know for sure that she would never become queen.
We were three days into a journey that seemed as if it would last forever as the princess rose later every morning, too pained with her aching joints to face the litter until midday. Whenever we stopped on the road to dine she sat late at the table and was reluctant to get back into the litter. By the time we got to the house where we were spending the night the councillors were swearing at their horses with frustration, and stamping to their chambers, kicking the rushes aside.
‘What do you think to gain from this delay, Princess?’ I asked her one morning when Lord Howard had sent me into her bedchamber for the tenth time to ask when she would be ready to come. ‘The queen is not more likely to forgive you if she is kept waiting.’
She was standing stock-still, while one of her ladies slowly wound a scarf around her throat. ‘I gain another day,’ she said.
‘But to do what?’
She smiled at me, though her eyes were dark with fear. ‘Ah, Hannah, you have never longed to live as I long to live if you do not know that another day is the most precious thing. I would do anything right now to gain another day, and tomorrow it will be the same. Every day we do not reach London is another day that I am alive. Every morning that I wake, every night that I sleep is a victory for me.’
On the fourth day into the journey a messenger met us on the road, carrying a letter for Lord William Howard. He read it and tucked it into the front of his doublet, his face suddenly grim. Elizabeth waited till he was looking away and then crooked her swollen finger at me. I drew up my horse beside the litter.
‘I would give a good deal to know what was in that letter,’ she said. ‘Go and listen for me. They won’t notice you.’
My opportunity came when we stopped to dine. Lord Howard and the other councillors were watching their horses being taken into the stalls. I saw him pull the letter from inside his doublet and I paused beside him to straighten my riding boot.
‘Lady Jane is dead,’ he announced baldly. ‘Executed two days ago. Guilford Dudley before her.’
‘And Robert?’ I demanded urgently, bobbing up, my voice cutting through the buzz of comment. ‘Robert Dudley?’
Much was always forgiven a fool. He nodded at my interest. ‘I have no news of him,’ he said. ‘I should think he was executed alongside his brother.’
I felt the world become blurred around me and I realised I was about to faint. I plumped down on to the cold step and put my head in my hands. ‘Lord Robert,’ I whispered into my knees. ‘My lord.’
It was impossible that he was dead, that bright dark-eyed vitality gone forever. It was impossible to think that the executioner could slice off his head as if he were an ordinary traitor, that his dark eyes and his sweet smile and his easy charm would not save him at the block. Who could bring themselves to kill bonny Robin? Who could sign such a warrant, what headsman could bear to do it? And it was all the more impossible since I had seen the prophecy in his favour. I had heard the words as they had come out of my mouth, I had smelled the candle smoke, I had seen the flickering bob of the flame and the mirrors which ran reflection into glimmer all the way back into Mr Dee’s darkness. I had known then that he would be beloved by a queen, that he would die in his bed. I had been shown it, the words had been told to me. If my Lord Robert was dead then not only was the great love of my life dead, but also I had been taught in the hardest way possible that my gift was a chimera and a delusion. Everything was over in one sweep of the axe.
I got to my feet and staggered back against the stone wall.
‘Are you sick, fool?’ came the cool voice of one of Lord Howard’s men. His Lordship glanced over indifferently.
I gulped down the lump that was in my throat. ‘May I tell Lady Elizabeth about Lady Jane?’ I asked him. ‘She will want to know.’
‘You can tell her,’ he said. ‘And I should think she would want to know. Everyone will know within a few days. Jane and the Dudleys died on the block before a crowd of hundreds. It’s public business.’
‘The charge?’ I asked, although I knew the answer.
‘Treason,’ he said flatly. ‘Tell her that. Treason. And pretending to the throne.’
Without another word being said, everyone turned to the litter where Lady Elizabeth, her hand outstretched to Mrs Ashley, the other holding to the side of the door, was laboriously descending.
‘So die all traitors,’ said her cousin, looking at the white-faced girl, his own kin, who had been a friend to every man who now swung on the gibbet.