A Perilous Alliance

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Elizabeth’s court was a highly mobile affair, moving regularly from one to another of her palaces along the Thames. Cecil always kept me informed of its whereabouts, and at present it was at Hampton Court. For the first time ever, though, I was not sure whether Elizabeth would see me. She would guess why I had come and perhaps she would not want to discuss the count – or his proposal – with me. She had given her orders and to her, that might well be that. I set out, accompanied by Brockley and Dale, and tried to talk cheerfully as we rode, but I knew that they too were anxious. They understood the situation.

  In fact, she did grant me an audience but my heart sank when I realized how public it was going to be, for I was shown into the main audience chamber, where I found her enthroned on her dais, huge brocade skirts spread round her, a vast open ruff at her neck, and a dozen ladies and courtiers standing round her.

  ‘I fancy I know why you are here,’ she said as I rose from my curtsey. ‘It concerns Count Renard, does it not? Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, your majesty,’ I said, nervously.

  She bit her lip. I studied her, recognizing, because blood does speak to blood, that beneath the shield of her pale pointed face was an uncertain, even a frightened woman. Her golden brown eyes were more expressive than her face and gave the secret away. I waited.

  ‘Some matters are private,’ she said at last, and rose to her feet to descend the three steps from her dais. ‘Follow me.’

  I did so, inwardly sighing with relief. We passed through a door behind the dais and entered a much smaller room, lit by a stained-glass window that cast a mingling of crimson, azure and gold over the black and white tiled floor. Here there was another dais but there was also a long settle against one wall. I was familiar with the place, for she and I had talked there before. She had similar arrangements in her other palaces. They allowed for a kind of intimacy. Elizabeth sat down on the settle and signalled to me to join her.

  ‘You have doubts about this marriage,’ she said without preamble. ‘Again, am I right?’

  ‘Yes, majesty.’

  ‘We can be sisters while we are alone. I knew you would not want this. I can only say that the service I ask of you is important. We need a close alliance with France. The French need it too. We must both defend ourselves against the growing might of Spain, and a strong bond between us would serve us both well. But we need an alliance that is truly strong; not just a matter of a treaty on parchment – though there is such a treaty, of course. It has been drawn up and is waiting to be signed, as soon as you and the count are declared man and wife. And that is the point, of course. Parchment on its own can be chopped up and cast into the fire but marriages are more resilient.’

  I waited, silently, and once more, my heart sank.

  ‘You have understood? We need a link of blood to back the treaty up,’ Elizabeth said, looking at me, I thought with both pleading and compassion. ‘You and the count are the best possibility that we have. It would help if there were children too. They couldn’t be my heirs, of course, but they would still be a living bond between England and France, and therefore valuable, part of the bulwark that both parties need to build against Spain.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said despairingly. ‘Yes, I see.’

  ‘Are you asking yourself, why am I not to be the bride? Ursula, I … I … have very good reasons for fearing to hazard myself in the dangerous lists of wedlock. That is why I have offered the French a substitute – my half-sister. Not legitimate but still, my half-sister. They in turn offered a substitute; not a legitimate prince of the house but still, the son of a king of France. It was the best compromise we could reach.’

  She gave me a wry smile. ‘Let me make a little play on words. I am asking you to play the queen! To be a pretend version of me. So that, as if in a game of cards, the English nation does not have to play the queen, and risk her life in the process.’

  I wanted to protest about the sacrifice she wanted from me, but I had no reason strong enough to outweigh her reasons for it. She was only asking me to exchange my life at Hawkswood for a life of luxury in France. I would still be able to visit Hawkswood. Most women would have thought it a good bargain.

  She gave me a small, rueful smile. ‘I am a woman, like you, Ursula. I am not without the natural desires of a woman. There are – there have been many – times when I have longed, yearned, for things that most women take for granted. But time and again, fear steps in the way. Ursula, I dare not offer myself. Children? My mother nearly died in bearing me. My first stepmother, Jane Seymour, died when she gave birth to my brother Edward. My last stepmother, good Catherine Parr, married Admiral Seymour after my father’s death and did not survive having his daughter. The daughter died too, a little later. Childbirth is perilous. And I am no longer young. If I die attempting to provide England’s heir, then where will England be, even if the baby is a son, and lives?’

  I remained silent. I don’t want to marry again sounded like the whining of a spoilt child, compared to Elizabeth’s desperate need. And the fact that the count was hard on his horses didn’t necessarily prove that he would treat his wife badly.

  ‘There is no point in taking the risk,’ Elizabeth said. ‘England can’t be ruled by a babe in a cradle, and protectors turn into usurpers in the blink of an eye. Besides, I have other reasons to dread marriage, things I will not discuss.’

  Still I kept silent. When she was two years old, her father had had her mother beheaded and when she was eight, as though he meant her to understand fully what he had done to her mother, he executed his young fifth wife, Catherine Howard. To Elizabeth, marriage and death must be two sides of the same coin. There was no need for her to explain that, for I knew.

  ‘But you have married three times,’ she said, ‘and borne children safely. For you, it will be different. Ursula, the man is wealthy, now that his lands have been returned to him. He will give you as good a life as you could dream of, and England will be the safer even though – as some of the Council, especially Lord Sussex, keep saying – there is no direct heir. I must consider another way of providing for my country’s future. But you could well be very happy. I am not asking you to live in a hovel with a beggar! Ursula, there are matters in which I will not command you, cannot command you. I can’t send you to the Tower just because you don’t want to marry! I could cast you out of my favour, of course, but you want to live a private life anyway and I doubt, my dear sister, if you would suffer much because of that. But I ask you, dear sister – please!’

  It had been a cloudy day so far but the sun chose that moment to come out, and the colours that the stained glass splashed over the floor and over us blazed bright as heraldry. For a moment, Elizabeth was transformed; from a queen who was also a frightened woman into a celestial being of glittering colour and power, far beyond all human weaknesses, whose orders must be obeyed without question.

  What was I to say, or do? I went on being silent for so long that Elizabeth was finally the one to speak. ‘Is there someone else, Ursula? Do you have any other alliance in mind?’

  I shook my head. I still felt bonded to Hugh but Hugh was dead. And although my manservant Roger Brockley and I had a deep regard for one another and a unity that at times almost amounted to reading each other’s minds, it was not physical. Ours was a friendship that mirrored the queen’s own friendship with Robert Dudley, which was also deep but not physical. It was not the sort of thing to be put into words. To the world, to the queen, I was free to remarry. It was not a matter of did I want to do so, not now, not after hearing what Elizabeth had to say. It was more a matter of could I reasonably refuse?

  We rode home, Brockley and Dale and I, through a day which was now sunny and bright but there was no brightness in me. In my chest, my heart was as heavy as a stone. I had told the Brockleys what had transpired and they were silent, recognizing, as I did, that there was no escape. My quiet domestic life was over. I must become Gilbert Renard’s countess and pretend to like it. Oh Hugh, my dear, dear Hugh, wh
y did you have to die and leave me exposed like this? When the chimneys of Hawkswood came in sight, tears came to my eyes, as though I were facing bereavement. Which, in a way, I was.

  Dale at that point said hesitantly: ‘It may work out well, ma’am. You may be very pleased with your new life.’ But Brockley kept silent and I knew well enough that Dale did not believe what she had said. Brockley had no doubt told her all about the way the count mistreated his horse. She was trying to encourage me; that was all.

  Then silence fell again, until at length we clattered into the Hawkswood courtyard. Our approach had evidently been observed and it looked as though most of the household had gathered there to greet me, which was gratifying, until I realized how sombre all their faces were.

  ‘What is it?’ I demanded. ‘Is it Harry? Is something wrong with Harry?’ I don’t remember dismounting. I was simply out of the saddle and standing on the cobbles as if by sorcery.

  Then I saw that Ben Flood was crying. Through his tears, he said: ‘Harry is well, ma’am; he’s in his nursery with Tessie. It’s my Joan. She’s dead. She fell downstairs.’

  ‘Fell downstairs?’

  I found myself leaning against Jewel’s warm dark shoulder. I needed support. I couldn’t take this in. It was all getting beyond me. Gilbert Renard. The queen’s need; the queen’s command. My dread, my reluctance, Brockley’s warning … Spelton’s veiled hints!… And now this. I was like an army confronted with multiple enemies, all at once. ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  Gilbert Renard was there among the throng, along with Pierre Lestrange and Father Ignatius. The three of them now came forward, and even through my confusion, I noticed and resented that Renard’s manner suggested that in his mind, he was already my husband and the man in charge at Hawkswood. I had been addressing Ben, but it was Renard who answered.

  ‘She fell down the main stairs, from top to bottom,’ he said. ‘She slipped at the top and – just fell.’

  ‘I hadn’t had them polished!’ said Sybil earnestly. ‘We never do that, just because it could make them slippery. They were just as they always are!’

  ‘Yes, they were!’ That was Ambrosia, pale with horror.

  ‘Aye, just as always and none of us ever fell down them afore!’ declared Gladys. Whenever there was a crisis of any kind, Gladys had something to say, even if it was pointless.

  She and Sybil had a point this time, though. The main stairs were wide and shallow, running straight, with no bends in them, and a stout banister. Hugh had told me of his mother’s accident in the days when they were polished, and so I had made a point of seeing that they were not. I considered it important, for servants sometimes used them when carrying luggage or piles of linen up and down. The back stairs were steep and narrow and had an awkwardly sharp curve.

  Adam Wilder, stepping forward in turn and unobtrusively putting himself ahead of Renard, said gravely: ‘I was in the hall. I heard her cry out and I heard her fall. Gladys heard her too. I ran to see what had happened and Gladys came after me. We found her lying at the foot of the staircase. Her … her neck was broken. There was no doubt about that. She must have died at once.’

  Simon was waiting to take Jewel from me. I moved from the patient support of her shoulder and threw him my reins. ‘Where is Joan? Where has she been laid? I want to see her,’ I said.

  Renard said: ‘In your absence, madame, Master Wilder conferred with me and we decided to lay her in the small spare room that isn’t often used, the one at the top of the house. Master Wilder had it dusted.’

  ‘Let us go there,’ I said.

  It was an attic chamber under the roof. Its ceiling sloped almost to the floor at one side and there was little space for furniture. There was a clothes press – an old one with scratches on it where a cat had once sharpened its claws – and a single tester bed, not made up. The room had been dusted, as Renard had said. A sheet had been spread on the bed and Joan lay on it with an old linen coverlet over her. Wilder drew it down. She lay on her back, hands folded over her heart. She was still dressed although someone had removed her ruff and shoes.

  Despite the lack of space, Ben Flood, the Brockleys, Wilder, Renard, Father Ignatius and Lestrange had all crowded in with me. Sybil and Ambrosia were in the doorway and Gladys, who was lame nowadays and slow on stairs, had come last of all and was peering from behind them.

  Ben, wiping his eyes, said miserably: ‘It happened less than an hour ago. Master Wilder and Gladys got to her first, but from the kitchen we heard her fall; we were there only seconds later. She was lying in such a heap … she was dead!’ His voice went up, into a cry of grief.

  ‘It must have been quick,’ said Wilder comfortingly. ‘She can’t have suffered much pain.’

  ‘Turned a somersault, we reckon,’ said Gladys helpfully. And then added, without any noticeable change in her voice: ‘Funny, ain’t it, look you! Joan Flood gets into trouble, listening at doors, and next day she falls down the stairs and breaks her neck.’

  We all turned to gape at her. Ben let out an anguished sob. ‘What do you mean?’ I snapped. ‘And what do you know about Joan and her … her … eavesdropping?’

  ‘You shouted at her,’ said the count, sounding more amused than anything else. ‘Loud enough, I would think, that they must have heard you in Hawkswood village! And she shouted back.’

  ‘And she talked of it herself, down among the servants, after you’d done frightening her,’ said Ben angrily, to me. ‘Everyone knows, all of us.’

  ‘I gathered,’ said the count, ‘that the poor woman had been listening at my door and must have overheard me talking, in French, to Lestrange, on the subject of some clothes he thinks I should replace. As far as I’m concerned, she was welcome to listen at my door all day and all night. She’d hear nothing harmful, even if she could understand our tongue! From what Lestrange and I both overheard, when you caught her at it, it seems she saw Lestrange looking for you one morning, madame. He knocked at your bedchamber door, and when there was no answer, ventured to look inside, and she saw him. For some reason it made her suspicious of us.’

  ‘I should not have looked into your room, madame,’ said Lestrange contritely. ‘My master wished me to find you, and it sounded urgent, but I know I should not have done it. I apologize.’

  ‘I wanted to talk to you privately,’ the count said to me. ‘I expect that to Lestrange, I did sound as if the matter were urgent. But you were always so elusive – busy with your washday and then with Master Spelton.’ He smiled at me in a conspiratorial manner. Were you trying to evade my proposal? said his round blue eyes.

  Er … well … yes. Although if I remembered rightly, he had spent quite some time writing out poetry for Ambrosia. We had, perhaps, been shy of each other.

  At that moment, Gladys cleared her throat. We turned towards her and she said: ‘There’s something else funny, seems to me. I thought I saw it when we found her, all in a heap and her clothes all pulled about. When we got her ruff off, I saw it again. See here.’

  She moved to the bed and tugged at the neck of Joan’s dress. Adam Wilder, outraged, tried to pull her back, exclaiming: ‘Stop this, Gladys! You’re always making trouble …’ but I shook my head at him and went to Gladys’ side, the others crowding after me.

  What Gladys wanted to show us were three small bruises. They were dimly bluish, just where Joan’s neck joined her left shoulder.

  ‘That don’t look like what’d happen however many somersaults she turned falling down the stairs,’ said Gladys.

  ‘What are you saying, Gladys?’ demanded Brockley.

  ‘Ain’t they fingermarks? Don’t they look like that to you?’ Gladys sounded quite fierce.

  ‘Oh, really! Really!’ Adam was spluttering. ‘We can all guess what they are!’ His face had gone puce. ‘If a married lady can’t sport a love-bite or tw—’

  ‘Don’t talk like that! Don’t talk of such things! It’s not decent and it’s my Joan, my poor beloved Joan and those things are private
…!’ Ben was nearly hysterical.

  ‘Cover her up,’ I said. I glared at Gladys. ‘Stop this at once. You shouldn’t make foolish comments or pretend that … private, ordinary things … are sinister. There’s no point in creating trouble out of thin air.’

  ‘I’m sure she meant no harm,’ said Renard. ‘She’s a poor old soul and they do say things, you know.’ He tapped his forehead expressively.

  ‘Here, you needn’t talk about me like I wasn’t here! And I’m no poor old soul half out of my wits!’ said Gladys belligerently.

  ‘Gladys, be quiet!’ I said. ‘I have seen enough. Let us all go downstairs.’

  Most of the rest of the household was gathered at the foot of the staircase, staring and whispering. I said: ‘Best go back to your tasks,’ and they began unwillingly to disperse. I led the rest of us into the little parlour.

  It was normally such a pleasant place; well lit, its settles padded with bright-hued cushions, its rugs made of glossy furs, and since the day, though it was now sunny, was still not warm, there was a fire in its hearth. Now its cheerful air seemed unsuitable, out of tune. The room also seemed congested, with so many of us in it. We stood looking at each other and then Wilder rounded on Gladys.

  ‘I said it; the mistress said it. You create trouble, yes, out of thin air! Can you not hold your poisonous tongue? There was nothing to see that wasn’t natural enough but what you’ve said will get round; it will turn into gossip. Too many of us heard it and if we all swore to hold our tongues, I wouldn’t trust you to keep your word! I know you! Madam …’ he turned to me ‘… I am sorry. You have so much on your mind just now. But we must deal with this. There will be gossip and it must be scotched. There will have to be an enquiry.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Brockley with energy. ‘I am sure that madam will agree. We’re all ashamed of you, Gladys. Was there ever a bigger nuisance than you, on this earth?’

  ‘I’m not clear what Gladys here was talking about,’ said the count. ‘Gladys, were you suggesting that I or Lestrange seized hold of this unfortunate maidservant and thrust her down the stairs because she had overheard us talking about my wardrobe – in a language she couldn’t understand anyway?’