Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
‘Better now? Swoony little maid?’
I straightened up.
‘Blushing now,’ Will observed. ‘Soon be out of breeches with the blood flowing this fast, my little maid.’
‘You are sure he is alive? I thought he was dead. They told me he was dead.’
‘He should be dead, God knows. He’s seen his father and his brother and his poor sister-in-law all taken out and executed underneath his window and yet he’s still there,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps his hair is white with shock but his head’s still on his shoulders.’
‘He’s alive?’ I could still hardly believe it. ‘You’re sure?’
‘For the moment.’
‘Could I visit him without trouble?’
He laughed. ‘The Dudleys always bring trouble,’ he said.
‘I mean without being suspected.’
He shook his head. ‘This is a court gone dark,’ he said sadly. ‘Nobody can do anything without being suspected. That is why I sleep. I cannot be accused of plotting in my sleep. I have an innocent sleep. I take care not to dream.’
‘I just want to see him,’ I said. I could not keep the longing from my voice. ‘Just to see him and know that he is alive and will stay alive.’
‘He is like any man,’ Will said fairly. ‘Mortal. I can assure you that he is alive today. But I can’t tell you for how long. That will have to satisfy you.’
In the days that followed I went between the queen’s apartments and Lady Elizabeth’s, but in neither place could I be comfortable. The queen was tight-lipped and determined. She knew that Elizabeth must die for treason, and yet she could not bear to send the girl to the Tower. The council examined the princess and were certain that she had known everything of the plot, that she had masterminded one half of it, that she would have held Ashridge to the north for the rebels while they took London from the south, and that – and this was the worst – that she had summoned help from France for the rebellion. It was thanks to the loyalty of London that the queen was on the throne and the princess under arrest and not the other way around.
Though everyone urged it on her, the queen was reluctant to try Elizabeth with a charge of treason, because of the uproar it would create in the country. She had been dismayed by the numbers who had come out for Elizabeth’s rebellion, no-one could predict how many might come out to save her life. A further thirty men were marched home to Kent to be hanged in their own towns and villages but there could be no doubt that there would be hundreds ready to take their place if they thought that the Protestant princess was to be sent to the scaffold.
And worse than that: Queen Mary could not force her own determination. She had hoped that Elizabeth would come to court a penitent, and they could have reconciled. She had hoped that Elizabeth would have learned that Mary was stronger than her, that she could command the city even if Elizabeth could summon half of Kent. But Elizabeth would not confess, would not beg her sister for mercy. Prideful and unyielding, she continued to swear that she was innocent of anything, and Mary could not bear to see her with the lies on her lips. Hour after hour the queen knelt before her prie-dieu, her chin on her hands, her eyes fixed on the crucifix, praying for guidance as to what she should do with her treacherous sister.
‘She would have beheaded you in minutes,’ Jane Dormer said bluntly when the queen rose from her knees and walked to the fireside, leaning her head against the stone chimney breast and looking into the flames. ‘She would have had your head off your shoulders the moment she put the crown on her own. She would not have cared if you were guilty of envy or rebellion. She would have killed you for simply being the heir.’
‘She is my sister,’ Mary replied. ‘I taught her to walk. I held her hands while she stumbled. Am I now to send her to hell?’
Jane Dormer shrugged her disagreement, and picked up her sewing.
‘I shall pray for guidance,’ the queen said quietly. ‘I must find a way to live with Elizabeth.’
The cold days turned warmer in March and the skies grew pale earlier in the mornings and later at night. The court stayed on tiptoe, watching to see what would happen to the princess. She was examined almost daily by the councillors but the queen would not see her face to face. ‘I cannot,’ she said shortly, and I knew then that she was nerving herself to send Elizabeth to trial, and from there it would be a short walk to the scaffold.
They had enough evidence to hang her three times over but still the queen waited. Just before Easter I was glad to get a letter from my father asking me if I could absent myself from court for a week and come to the shop. He said he was unwell and needed someone to open and close the shutters for him, but I was not to worry, it was just a passing fever and Daniel came every day.
I was a little irritated at the thought of Daniel in constant attendance, but I took the letter to the queen and when she gave me leave, packed a spare pair of breeches and a new clean linen shirt, and made my way to the princess’s apartment.
‘I have been given leave to go to my home, to my father,’ I said as I knelt before her.
There was a clatter from the room above. The royal cousin Lady Margaret Douglas’s kitchen had been moved over Elizabeth’s bedroom, and they had not been asked to work quietly. Judging from the noise, they had been given extra pans just to bang together. Lady Margaret, a sour-faced Tudor, would have a strong claim to the throne if Elizabeth were to die and she had every reason to drive the princess into irritable exhaustion.
Elizabeth flinched at the crash. ‘Going? When will you return?’ she asked.
‘Within the week, your ladyship.’
She nodded and to my surprise I saw that her mouth was working, as if she were about to cry. ‘Do you have to go, Hannah?’ she asked in a small voice.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘He is ill, he has a fever. I have to go to him.’
She turned away and brushed her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Good God, I am weak as a child losing a nursemaid!’
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. I had never seen her so low. I had seen her swollen and sick on her bed and yet even then I had seen her eyes gleam with bright cunning. ‘What is it?’
‘I am frozen to my very bones with fear,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I tell you, Hannah, if fear is cold and darkness I am living in the wastes of the Russias. No-one sees me but to interrogate me, no-one touches me but to position me for questioning. No-one smiles at me, they stare as if they would see my heart. My only friends in the whole world have been exiled, imprisoned or beheaded. I am only twenty years old and I am utterly alone. I am only a young woman and yet I have no-one’s love and care. No-one comes near me but Kat and you, and now you tell me you are leaving.’
‘I have to see my father,’ I said. ‘But I’ll come back as soon as he is well.’
The face she turned to me was not that of the defiant princess, the hated Protestant enemy at this passionately Catholic court. The face she turned to me was that of a young woman, alone with no mother or father, and no friends. A young woman trying to find the courage to face a death that must come soon. ‘You will come back to me, Hannah? I have become accustomed to you. And I have no-one about me but you and Kat. I ask it of you as a friend, not a princess. You will come back?’
‘Yes,’ I promised. I took her hand. She had not exaggerated about feeling cold, she was as icy as if she were dead already. ‘I swear I will come back.’
Her clammy fingers returned my grip. ‘You will think me a