The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  “Yes,” she answered. “Can you take me to Bury Saint 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 traveler, 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 dryly.

  “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 shrugged. “I don’t know. She may be arrested already. They were going to her home too.”

  “Where is Robert Dudley now?”

  “I don’t know that either. It has taken me the whole day to find you myself. I traced you from Sawston Hall because I heard of the fire and guessed you had been there. I am sorry, my l… Your Grace.”

  “And when was the king’s death announced? And Lady Jane falsely proclaimed?”

  “Not when I left.”

  She took a moment to understand, and then she was angry. “He has died, and it has not been announced? My brother is lying dead, unwatched? Without the rites of the church? Without any honors done to him at all?”

  “His death was still a secret when I left.”

  She nodded, her lips biting back anything she might have said, her eyes suddenly veiled and cautious. “I thank you for coming to me,” she said. “Thank Sir Nicholas for his services to me which I had no cause to anticipate.”

  The sarcasm in this was rather sharp, even for the man on his knees. “He told me you are the true queen now,” he volunteered. “And that he and all his household are to serve you.”

  “I am the true queen,” she said. “I always was the true princess. And I will have my kingdom. You can sleep here tonight. The porter will find you a bed. Go back to London in the morning and convey my thanks to him. He has done the right thing to inform me. I am queen, and I will have my throne.”

  She turned on her heel and swept up the stair. I hesitated for only one moment.

  “Did you say the sixth?” I asked the London man. “The sixth of July, that the king died?”

  “Yes.”

  I dropped him a curtsey and followed Lady Mary upstairs. As soon as we got into her room she closed the door behind us, and threw aside her regal dignity. “Get me the clothes of a serving girl, and wake John Huddlestone’s groom,” she said urgently. “Then go to the stables and get two horses ready, one with a pillion saddle for me and the groom, one for you.”

  “My lady?”

  “You call me Your Grace now,” she said grimly. “I am Queen of England. Now hurry.”

  “What am I to tell the groom?”

  “Tell him that we have to get to Kenninghall today. That I will ride behind him, we will leave the rest of them here. You come with me.”

  I nodded and hurried from the room. The serving maid who had waited on us last night was sleeping with half a dozen others in the attic bedrooms. I went up the stairs and peeped in the door. I found her in the half darkness and shook her awake, put my hand over her mouth and hissed in her ear: “I’ve had enough of this, I’m running away. I’ll give you a silver shilling for your clothes. You can say I stole them and no one will be the wiser.”

  �
�Two shillings,” she said instantly.

  “Agreed,” I said. “Give them me, and I’ll bring you the money.”

  She fumbled under her pillow for her shift and her smock. “Just the gown and cape,” I ordered, shrinking from the thought of putting the Queen of England in louse-ridden linen. She bundled them up for me with her cap and I went light-footed downstairs to Lady Mary’s room.

  “Here,” I said. “They cost me two shillings.”

  She found the coins in her purse. “No boots.”

  “Please wear your own boots,” I said fervently. “I’ve run away before, I know what it’s like. You’ll never get anywhere in borrowed boots.”

  She smiled at that. “Hurry,” was all she said.

  I ran back upstairs with the two shillings and then I found Tom, John Huddlestone’s groom, and sent him down to the stables to get the horses ready. I crept down to the bakery just outside the kitchen door, and found, as I had hoped, a batch of bread rolls baked in the warmth of the oven last night. I stuffed my breeches pockets and my jacket pockets with half a dozen of them so that I looked like a donkey with panniers, and then I went back to the hall.

  Lady Mary was there, dressed as a serving maid, her hood pulled over her face. The porter was arguing, reluctant to open the door to the stable yard for a maidservant. She turned with relief when she heard me approach light-footed on the stone flags.

  “Come on,” I said reasonably to the man. “She is a servant of John Huddlestone, his groom is waiting. He told us to leave at first light. We’re to go back to Sawston Hall and we shall be whipped if we are late.”

  He complained about visitors in the night disturbing a Christian household’s sleep, and then people leaving early; but he opened the door and Lady Mary and I slipped through. Tom was in the yard, holding one big hunter with a pillion saddle on its back and a smaller horse for me. I would have to leave my little pony behind, this was going to be a hard ride.

  He got into the saddle and took the hunter to the mounting block. I helped the Lady Mary scramble up behind him. She took a tight grip around his waist and kept her hood pulled forward to hide her face. I had to take my horse to the mounting block too, the stirrup was too high for me to mount without help. When I was up on him, the ground seemed a long way away. He sidestepped nervously and I jerked on the reins too tightly and made him toss his head and sidle. I had never ridden such a big horse before, and I was frightened of him; but no smaller animal could manage the hard ride we must make today.

  Tom turned his horse’s head and led the way out of the yard. I turned after him and heard my heart pounding and knew that I was on the run, once again, and afraid, once again, and that this time I was perhaps in a worse case than I had been when we had run from Spain, or when we had run from Portugal, even when we had run from France. Because this time I was running with the pretender to the throne of England, with Lord Robert Dudley and his army in pursuit, and I was his vassal sworn; her trusted servant, and a Jew; but a practicing Christian, serving a Papist princess in a country sworn to be Protestant. Little wonder that my heart was in my mouth and beating louder than the clopping of the hooves of the big horses as we went down the road to the east, pushing them into a canter toward the rising sun.

  When we reached Kenninghall at midday, I saw why we had ridden till the horses foundered to get here. The sun was high in the sky and it made the fortified manor house look squat and indomitable in the flat uncompromising landscape. It was a solid moated house, and as we drew closer I saw that it was no pretty play castle; this had a drawbridge that could be raised, and a portcullis above it that could be dropped down to seal the only entrance. It was built in warm red brick, a deceptively beautiful house that could nonetheless be held in a siege.

  Lady Mary was not expected, and the few servants who lived at the house to keep it in order came tumbling out of the doors in a flurry of surprise and greeting. After a nod from Lady Mary I quickly told them of the astounding news from London as they took our horses into the stable yard. A ragged cheer went up at the news of her accession to the throne and they pulled me down from the saddle and clapped me on the back like the lad I appeared to be. I let out a yelp of pain. The inner part of my legs from my ankles to my thighs had been skinned raw from three days in the saddle, and my back and shoulders and wrists were locked tight from the jolting ride from Hunsdon to Hoddesdon, to Sawston to Thetford to here.

  Lady Mary must have been near-dead with exhaustion, sitting pillion for all that long time, a woman of nearly forty years and in poor health, but only I saw the grimace of pain as they lifted her down to the ground; everyone else saw the tilt of her chin as she heard them shout for her, and the charm of the Tudor smile as she welcomed them all into the great hall and bid them good cheer. She took a moment to pray for the soul of her dead brother and then she raised her head and promised them that just as she had been a fair landlord and mistress to them, she would be a good queen.

  That earned her another cheer and the hall started to fill with people, workers from the fields and woods and villagers from their homes, and the servants ran about with flagons of ale and cups of wine and loaves of bread and meat. The Lady Mary took her seat at the head of the hall and smiled on everyone as if she had never been ill in her life, then after an hour of good company, she laughed out loud and said she must get out of this cloak and this poor gown, and went to her rooms.

  The few house servants had flung themselves into getting her rooms ready and her bed was made with linen. It was only the second-best bedding, but if she was as weary as I then she would have slept on homespun. They brought in a bathtub, lined it with sheets to protect her from splinters, and filled it with hot water. And they found some old gowns, which she had left behind when she was last at this house, and laid them out on the bed for her to choose.

  “You can go,” she said to me, as she threw the servant girl’s cloak from her shoulders to the floor, and turned her back to the maid to be unlaced. “Find something to eat and go straight to bed. You must be tired out.”

  “Thank you,” I said, hobbling for the door with my painful bowlegged stride.

  “And, Hannah?”

  “Yes, lady… Yes, Your Grace?”

  “Whoever it is who has paid your wages while you have been in my household, and whatever they hoped to gain from that — you have been a good friend to me this day. I will not forget it.”

  I paused, thinking of the two letters I had written to Lord Robert that would bring him hard on our heels, thinking what would happen to this determined, ambitious woman when he caught us, thinking that he was certain to catch us here, since I had told him exactly where to come; and then it would be the Tower for her, and probably her death for treason. I had been a spy in her household and the falsest of friends. I had been a byword for dishonor and she had known some of it; but she could not have dreamed of the falseness that had become second nature to me.

  If I could have confessed to her then, I would have done. The words were on my tongue, I wanted to tell her that I had been put into her household to work against her; but that now that I knew her, and loved her, I would do anything to serve her. I wanted to tell her that Robert Dudley was my lord and I would always be bound to do anything he asked me. I wanted to tell her that everything I did seemed to be always full of contradictions: black and white, love and fear, all at once.

  But I could say nothing, and I had been brought up to hold secrets under my lying tongue, so I just dropped to one knee before her and bowed my head.

  She did not give me her hand to kiss, like a queen would have done. She put her hand on my head like my own mother used to do and she said, “God bless you, Hannah, and keep you safe from sin.”

  At that moment, at that particular tenderness, at the very touch of my mother’s hand, I felt the tears well up in my eyes; and I got myself out of the room and into my own small attic bedchamber and into my bed without bath or dinner, before anybody should see me cry like the little girl I stil
l was.

  We were at Kenninghall for three days on siege alert, but still Lord Robert and his company of cavalry did not come. The gentlemen from the country all around the manor came pouring in with their servants and their kinsmen, some of them armed, some of them bringing blacksmiths to hammer out spears and lances from the pruning hooks, spades and scythes that they brought with them. The Lady Mary proclaimed herself as queen in the great hall, despite the advice of more cautious men, and flying in the face of a pleading letter from the Spanish ambassador. He had written to tell her that her brother was dead, that Northumberland was unbeatable, and that she should set about negotiating with him while her uncle in Spain would do his best to save her from the trumped-up charge of treason and sentence of death which was certain to come. That part of his letter made her look grim, but there was worse.

  He warned her that Northumberland had sent warships into the French seas off Norfolk, specially to prevent the Spanish ships from rescuing her and taking her to safety. There could be no escape for her, the emperor could not even attempt to save her. She must surrender to the duke and give up her claim to the crown, and throw herself on his mercy.

  “What can you see, Hannah?” she asked me. It was early morning, and she had just come from Mass, her rosary beads still in her fingers, her forehead still damp with holy water. It was a bad morning for her, her face, sometimes so illuminated and merry with hope, was gray and tired. She looked sick of fear itself.

  I shook my head. “I have only seen for you once, Your Grace, and I was certain then that you would be queen. And now you are. I have seen nothing since.”

  “I am queen indeed now,” she said wryly. “I am proclaimed queen by myself at least. I wish you had told me how long it would last, and if anyone else would agree with me.”

  “I wish I could,” I said sincerely. “What are we going to do?”

  “They tell me to surrender,” she said simply. “The advisors I have trusted all my life, my Spanish kinsmen, my mother’s only friends. They all tell me that I will be executed if I continue with this course, that it’s a battle I can’t win. The duke has the Tower, he has London, he has the country, he has the warships at sea and an army of followers and the royal guard. He has all the coin of the realm at the Mint, he has all the weapons of the nation at the Tower. I have this one castle, this one village, these few loyal men and their pitchforks. And somewhere out there is Lord Robert and his troop coming toward us.”