Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
– from the smallest grain to the greatest planet. He has a most brilliant mind, I understand much better why you think so highly of him.
I was glad to get your letter and to know that you think that you will finish your service with the princess soon, I trust then you will ask the queen to release you. I am considering now whether we could live away from England for some years. Hannah, my love, Venice is such an exciting city to be in, and the weather so bright and fine, and the men and women so prosperous and the doctors so learned – you cannot blame me for wanting to stay here and for wanting you to share it with me. It is a city of tremendous wealth and beauty, there are no roads at all but canals and the lagoon everywhere, and everyone takes a boat to their doorstep. The study and the scholars here are quite extraordinary and anything can be asked and answered.
I keep your first letter in my doublet against my heart. Now I put your Christmas note beside it and wish you had written more. I think of you daily and dream of you every night.
This is a new world that we are making, with new understandings of the movements of the planets and of the tides. Of course it must be possible that a man and a wife could be married in a new way also. I do not want you as my servant, I want you as my love. I assure you that you shall have the freedom to be your own sweet self. Write to me again and tell me you will come to me soon. I am yours in thought and word and deed and even these studies of mine which fill me with such hope and excitement would mean nothing if I did not think that one day I could share them with you.
Daniel
Daniel’s second letter promising love to me went the way of the first, into the fire; but not until I had read it half a dozen times. It had to be destroyed, it was filled with heretical notions that would have trapped me into an inquiry if it had been read by anyone else. But I burned this second letter with regret. I thought that in it I heard the true voice of a young man growing into wisdom, of a betrothed man planning his marriage, of a passionate man looking towards his life with a woman of his choice, of a man I could trust.
It was a long and cold winter and Elizabeth grew no better. The news from the court that the queen was healthy and growing stout did not make her half-sister any merrier as she lay, wrapped in furs, her nose red from cold, looking out of a window of cracked glass over a garden blasted by icy winds and neglect.
We heard that the parliament had restored the Roman Catholic religion and the members had wept for joy to be received once more into the body of the church. There had been a service of thanksgiving that they should once again receive the papal rule that they had once thrown off. On that day Elizabeth looked very bleak as she saw her father’s inheritance and her brother’s greatest pride thrown away in her sister’s victory. From that day on, Elizabeth observed the Mass three times a day with her head obediently bowed. There was no more sliding away from observance. The stakes had gone up.
As the light grew brighter in the morning and the snow melted and drained away into standing puddles of cold water Elizabeth grew a little stronger and started to walk in the garden once more, me running alongside her in my thin-soled riding boots, wrapped against the cold in a blanket, blowing on my icy hands, complaining of the icy wind.
‘It would be colder in Hungary,’ she said shortly.
I did not remark that everyone seemed to know the queen’s private plans for her. ‘You would be an honoured guest in Hungary,’ I replied. ‘There would be a warm fire to come back to.’
‘There is only one fire the queen would build for me,’ Elizabeth said grimly. ‘And if I once went to Hungary you would see it would become such a home for me that I would never be allowed to see England again. I won’t go. I won’t ever leave England. You can tell her that, when she asks you. I will never leave England willingly, and English men and women will never let me be bundled away as a prisoner. I am not without friends even though I am without a sister.’
I nodded and kept diplomatically silent.
‘But if not Hungary, which she has never yet had the courage to propose to me direct, then what?’ she asked aloud. ‘And God – when?’
To everyone’s surprise the queen weakened first. As the bitter winter melted into a wet spring, Elizabeth was bidden to court, without having to confess, without even writing a word to her sister, and I was ordered to ride in her train, no explanation offered to me for the change of heart and none expected. For Elizabeth it was not the return she might have wanted; she was brought in almost as a prisoner, we travelled early in the morning and late in the afternoon so that we would not be noticed, there was no smiling and waving at any crowds. We skirted the city, the queen had ordered that Elizabeth should not ride down the great roads of London, but as we went through the little lanes I felt my heart skip a beat in terror and I pulled up my horse in the middle of the lane, and made the princess stop.
‘Go on, fool,’ she said ungraciously. ‘Kick him on.’
‘God help me, God help me,’ I babbled.
‘What is it?’
Sir Henry Bedingfield’s man saw me stock-still, turned his horse and came back. ‘Come on now,’ he said roughly. ‘Orders are to keep moving.’
‘My God,’ I said again, it was all I could say.
‘She’s a holy fool,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Perhaps she is having a vision.’
‘I’ll give her a vision,’ he said, and took the bridle and pulled my horse forward.
Elizabeth came up alongside. ‘Look, she’s white as a sheet and shaking,’ she said. ‘Hannah? What is it?’
I would have fallen from my horse but for her steadying hand on my shoulder. The soldier rode on the other side, dragging my horse onward, his knee pressed against mine, half-holding me in the saddle.
‘Hannah!’ Elizabeth’s voice came again as if from a long way away. ‘Are you ill?’
‘Smoke,’ was all I could say. ‘Fire.’
Elizabeth glanced towards the city, where I pointed. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ she said. ‘Are you giving a warning, Hannah? Is there going to be a fire?’
Dumbly, I shook my head. My sense of horror was so intense that I could say nothing but, as if from somewhere else, I heard a little mewing sound like that of a child crying from a deep unassuageable distress. ‘Fire,’ I said softly. ‘Fire.’
‘Oh, it’s the Smithfield fires,’ the soldier said. ‘That’s upset the lass. It’s that, isn’t it, bairn?’
At Elizabeth’s quick look of inquiry he explained. ‘New laws. Heretics are put to death by burning. They’re burning today in Smithfield. I can’t smell it but your little lass here can. It’s upset her.’ He clapped me on the shoulder with a heavy kindly hand. ‘Not surprising,’ he said. ‘It’s a bad business.’
‘Burning?’ Elizabeth demanded. ‘Burning heretics? You mean Protestants? In London? Today?’ Her eyes were blazing black with anger but she did not impress the soldier. As far as he was concerned we were little more value than each other. One girl dumb with horror, the other enraged.
‘Aye,’ he said briefly. ‘It’s a new world. A new queen on the throne, a new king at her side, and a new law to match. And everyone who was reformed has reformed back again and pretty smartly too. And good thing, I say, and God bless, I say. We’ve had nothing but foul weather and bad luck since King Henry broke with the Pope. But now the Pope’s rule is back and the Holy Father will bless England again and we can have a son and heir and decent weather.’
Elizabeth