The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  “Papa, we couldn’t save her,” I said, comforting him with the same words that he had used to me when I had cried that we should have stayed and died beside her.

  “Old times,” Mrs. Carpenter said briskly. “And they won’t come here. Not the Holy Inquisition, not in England.”

  “Oh yes, they will,” Daniel asserted.

  It was as if he had said a foul word. A silence fell at once; his mother and my father both turned to look at him.

  “A Spanish prince, a half-Spanish queen, she must be determined to restore the church. How better to do it than to bring in the Inquisition to root out heresy? And Prince Philip has long been an enthusiast for the Inquisition.”

  “She’s too merciful to do it,” I said. “She has not even executed Lady Jane, though all her advisors say that she should. Lady Elizabeth drags her feet to Mass and misses it whenever she can and no one says anything. If the Inquisition were to be called in to judge then Elizabeth would be found guilty a dozen times over. But the queen believes that the truth of Holy Writ will become apparent, of its own accord. She will never burn heretics. She knows what it is like to be afraid for her life. She knows what it is like to be wrongly accused.

  “She will marry Philip of Spain but she will not hand over the country to him. She will never be his cipher. She wants to be a good queen, as her mother was. I think she will restore this country to the true faith by gentle means; already, half the country is glad to return to the Mass, the others will follow later.”

  “I hope so,” Daniel said. “But I say again — we should be prepared. I don’t want to hear a knock on the door one night and know that we are too late to save ourselves. I won’t be taken unawares, I won’t go without a fight.”

  “Why, where would we go?” I asked. I could feel that old feeling of terror in the pit of my belly, the feeling that nowhere would ever be safe for me, that forever I would be waiting for the noise of feet on the stairs, and smelling smoke on the air.

  “First Amsterdam, and then Italy,” he said firmly. “You and I will marry as soon as we get to Amsterdam and then continue overland. We will travel all together. Your father and my mother and my sisters with us. I can complete my training as a physician in Italy and there are Italian cities that are tolerant of Jews, where we could live openly in our faith. Your father can sell his books, and my sisters could find work. We will live as a family.”

  “See how he plans ahead,” Mrs. Carpenter said in an approving whisper to my father. He too was smiling at Daniel as if this young man was the answer to every question.

  “We are not promised to marry till next year,” I said. “I’m not ready to marry yet.”

  “Oh, not again,” said my father.

  “All girls think that,” said Mrs. Carpenter.

  Daniel said nothing.

  I slid down from my stool. “May we talk privately?” I asked.

  “Go into the printing room,” my father recommended to Daniel. “Your mother and I will take a glass of wine out here.”

  He poured more wine for her and I caught her amused smile as Daniel and I went into the inside room where the big press stood.

  “Mr. Dee tells me that I will lose the Sight if I marry,” I said earnestly. “He believes it is a gift from God, I cannot throw it away.”

  “It is guesswork and waking dreams,” Daniel said roundly.

  It was so close to my own opinion that I could hardly argue. “It is beyond our understanding,” I said stoutly. “Mr. Dee wants me to be his scryer. He is an alchemist and he says…”

  “It sounds like witchcraft. When Prince Philip of Spain comes to England, John Dee will be tried for a witch.”

  “He won’t. It’s holy work. He prays before and after scrying. It’s a holy spiritual task.”

  “And what have you learned, so far?” he asked sarcastically.

  I thought of all the secrets I had known already, the child who would not be a child, the virgin but not queen, the queen but no virgin, and the safety and glory which would come to my lord. “There are secrets I cannot tell you,” I said, and then I added: “And that is another reason that I cannot be your wife. There should not be secrets between man and wife.”

  He turned away with an exclamation of irritation. “Don’t be clever with me,” he said. “You have insulted me before my mother and before your father by saying you don’t want to marry at all. Don’t come in here with me and try to be clever about going back on your word. You are so full of trickery that you will talk yourself out of happiness and into heartbreak.”

  “How should I be happy if I have to be a nothing?” I asked. “I am the favorite of Queen Mary, I am highly paid. I could take bribes and favors to the value of hundreds of pounds. I am trusted by the queen herself. The greatest philosopher in the land thinks I have a gift from God to foretell the future. And you think my happiness lies in walking away from all this to marry an apprentice physician!”

  He caught my hands, which were twisting together, and pulled me toward him. His breath was coming as quickly as my own. “Enough,” he said angrily. “You have insulted me enough, I think. You need not marry an apprentice physician. You can be Robert Dudley’s whore or his tutor’s adept. You can think yourself the queen’s companion but everyone knows you as the fool. You make yourself less than what I would offer you. You could be the wife of an honorable man who would love you and instead you throw yourself into the gutter for any passerby to pick up.”

  “I do not!” I gasped, trying to pull my hands away.

  Suddenly he pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around my waist. His dark head came down, his mouth close to mine. I could smell the pomade in his hair and the heat of the skin of his cheek. I shrank back even as I felt the desire to go forward.

  “Do you love another man?” he demanded urgently.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Do you swear, on all you believe, whatever that is, that you are free to marry me?”

  “I am free to marry you,” I said, honestly enough, for God knew as well as I did that no one else wanted me.

  “With honor,” he specified.

  I felt my lips part, I could have spat at him in my temper. “Of course, with honor,” I said. “Have I not told you that my gift is dependent on my virginity? Have I not said that I will not risk that?” I pulled away from him but his grip on me tightened. Despite myself, my body took in the sense of him: the strength of his arms, the power of his thighs which pressed against me, the scent of him, and for some odd reason, the feeling of absolute safety that he gave me. I had to pull away from him to stop myself from yielding. I realized that I wanted to mold myself around him, put my head on his shoulder, let him hold me against him and know that I was safe — if only I would let him love me, if only I would let myself love him.

  “If they bring in the Inquisition, we will have to leave, you know that.” His grip was as hard as ever, I felt his hips against my belly and had to stop myself rising on my toes to lean against him.

  “Yes, I know that,” I said, only half hearing him, feeling him with every inch of my body.

  “If we leave, you will have to come with me as my wife, I will take you and your father to safety under no other condition.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we are agreed?”

  “If we have to leave England then I will marry you,” I said.

  “And in any case we will marry when you are sixteen.”

  I nodded, my eyes closed. Then I felt his mouth come down on to mine and I felt his kiss melt every argument away.

  He released me and I leaned back against the printing press to steady myself. He smiled as if he knew that I was dizzy with desire. “As to Lord Robert, it is my request that you serve him no longer,” he said. “He is a convicted traitor, he is imprisoned, and you endanger yourself and us all by seeking his company.” His look darkened. “And he is not a man I would trust with my betrothed.”

  “He thinks of me as a child and a fool,” I correct
ed him.

  “You are neither,” he said gently. “And neither am I. You are half in love with him, Hannah, and I won’t tolerate it.”

  I hesitated, ready to argue, and then I felt the most curious sensation of my life: the desire to tell the truth to someone. I had never before felt the desire to be honest, I had spent all my life enmeshed in lies: a Jew in a Christian country, a girl in boy’s clothing, a passionate young woman dressed as a Holy Fool, and now a young woman betrothed to one man and in love with another.

  “If I tell you the truth about something, will you help me?” I asked.

  “I will give you the best help I can,” he said.

  “Daniel, talking with you is like bargaining with a Pharisee.”

  “Hannah, talking with you is like catching fish in the Sea of Galilee. What is it you would tell me?”

  I would have turned away but he caught me and drew me back close to him. His body pressed against me, I felt his hardness and I suddenly understood — an older girl would have understood long before — that this was the currency of desire. He was my betrothed. He desired me. I desired him. All I had to do was to tell him the truth.

  “Daniel, this is the truth. I saw that the king would die, I named the day. I saw that Jane would be crowned queen. I saw that Queen Mary would be queen, and I have seen a glimpse of her future, which is heartbreak, and the future of England, which is unclear to me. John Dee says I have a gift of Sight. He tells me it comes in part from me being a virgin and I want to honor the gift. And I want to marry you. And I desire you. And I cannot help but love Lord Robert. All those things. All at once.” I had my forehead pressed against his chest, I could feel the buttons of his jerkin against my forehead and I had the uncomfortable thought that when I looked up he would see the mark of his buttons printed on my skin and I would look, not desirable, but foolish. Nonetheless I stayed, holding him close, while he considered the rush of truths I had told him. Moments later he eased me back from him and looked into my eyes.

  “Is it an honorable love, as a servant to a master?” he asked.

  He saw my eyes shift away from his serious gaze and he put his hand under my chin to hold my face up to him. “Tell me, Hannah. You are to be my wife. I have a right to know. Is it an honorable love?”

  I felt my lip quiver and the tears come to my eyes. “It’s all muddled up,” I said weakly. “I love him for what he is…” I was silenced by the impossibility of conveying to Daniel the desirability of Robert Dudley; his looks, his clothes, his wealth, his boots, his horses were all beyond my vocabulary. “He is… wonderful.” I did not dare look into his eyes. “I love him for what he might become — he will be freed, he will be a great man, a great man, Daniel. He will be the maker of a Prince of England. And tonight he is in the Tower, waiting for the sentence of death, and I think of him, and I think of my mother waiting, like he is waiting, for the morning when they took her out…” I lost my voice, I shook my head. “He is a prisoner as she was. He is on the edge of death, as she was. Of course I love him.”

  He held me for a few more seconds and then he coldly put me from him. I could almost feel the icy air of the quiet printing room rush between us. “This is not your mother. He is not a prisoner of faith,” he said quietly. “He is not being tried by the Inquisition but by a queen whom you assure me is merciful and wise. There is no reason to love a man who has plotted and intrigued his way to treason. He would have put Lady Jane on the throne and beheaded the mistress that you say you love: Queen Mary. He is not an honorable man.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but there was nothing I could say.

  “And you are all mixed up with him, with his train, with his treasonous plans, and with your feeling for him. I won’t call it love because if I thought for one moment it was anything more than a girl’s fancy I would go out now to your father and break our betrothal. But I tell you this. You have to leave the service of Robert Dudley, whatever future you have seen for him. You have to avoid John Dee and you have to surrender your gift. You can serve the queen until you are sixteen but you have to be my betrothed in word and in every act you take. And in eighteen months’ time from now, when you are sixteen, we will marry and you will leave court.”

  “Eighteen months?” I said, very low.

  He took my hand to his mouth and he bit the fat mons veneris at the root of my thumb, where the plumpness of the flesh tells hucksters and fairground fortune-tellers that the woman is ready for love.

  “Eighteen months,” he said flatly. “Or I swear I will take another girl to be my wife and throw you away to whatever future the soothsayer, the traitor, and the queen make up for you.”

  It was a cold winter, and not even Christmas brought any joy to the people. Every day brought the queen news of more petty complainings and uprisings in every county in the land. Every incident was small, hardly worth regarding, snowballs were thrown at the Spanish ambassador, a dead cat was slung into the aisle of a church, there were some insulting words scrawled on a wall, a woman prophesied doom in a churchyard — nothing to frighten the priests or the lords of the counties individually; but put together, they were unmistakable signs of widespread unease.

  The queen held Christmas at Whitehall and appointed a Lord of Misrule and demanded a merry court in the old ways, but it was no good. The missing places at the Christmas feast told their own story: Lady Elizabeth did not even visit her sister, but stayed at Ashridge, her house on the great north road, ideally placed to advance on London as soon as someone gave the word. Half a dozen of the queen’s council were unaccountably missing; the French ambassador was busier than any good Christian should be at Christmastide. It was clear that there was trouble brewing right up to the very throne, and the queen knew it, we all of us knew it.

  She was advised by her Lord Chancellor, Bishop Gardiner, and by the Spanish ambassador that she should move to the Tower and put the country on a war footing, or move right away from London and prepare Windsor Castle for a siege. But the grit I had seen in her in the days when she and I had ridden cross-country with only a stable groom to guide us came to her again, and she swore that she would not run from her palace in the very first Christmas of her reign. She had been England’s anointed queen for less than three months, was she to be another queen as Jane? Should she too lock herself and her dwindling court into the Tower, as another more popular princess gathered her army about her and prepared to march on London? Mary swore she would stay in Whitehall from Christmas until Easter and defy the rumors of her own defeat.

  “But it’s not very merry, is it, Hannah?” she asked me sadly. “I have waited for this Christmas all my life, and now it seems that people have forgotten how to be happy.”

  We were all but alone in her rooms. Jane Dormer was seated in the bay window to catch the last of the gray unhelpful afternoon light on her sewing. One lady was playing at a lute, a mournful wail of a song, and another was laying out embroidery threads and winding them off the skein. It was anything but merry. You would have thought that this was the court of a queen on the brink of death, not one about to marry.

  “Next year it will be better,” I said. “When you are married and Prince Philip is here.”

  At the very mention of his name the color rose up in her pale cheeks. “Hush,” she said, gleaming. “I would be wrong to expect it of him. He will have to be often in his other kingdoms. There is no greater empire in the world than the one he will inherit, you know.”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking of the fires of the auto-da-fé. “I know how powerful the Spanish empire is.”

  “Of course you do,” she said, recalling my nationality. “And we must speak Spanish all the time to improve my accent. We’ll speak Spanish now.”

  Jane Dormer looked up and laughed. “Ah, we must all speak Spanish soon.”

  “He won’t impose it,” the queen said quickly, always conscious of spies even here, in her private rooms. “He wants nothing but what is best for Englishmen.”

  “I know that,
” Jane said soothingly. “I was only joking, Your Grace.”

  The queen nodded, but the frown did not leave her face. “I have written to Lady Elizabeth to tell her to return to court,” she said. “She must come back for the Christmas feast, I should not have allowed her to leave.”

  “Well, it’s not as if she adds much to the merriment,” Jane remarked comfortably.

  “I do not require her presence for the merriment she brings me,” the queen said sharply, “but for the greater pleasure of knowing where she is.”

  “You may have to excuse her, if she is too ill to travel…” Jane remarked.

  “Yes,” said the queen. “If she is. But, if she is too ill to travel, then why would she move from Ashridge to Donnington Castle? Why would a sick girl, too ill to come to London where she might be cared for, instead plan a journey to a castle ideally placed for siege, at the very heart of England?”

  There was a diplomatic silence.

  “The country will come round to Prince Philip,” Jane Dormer said gently. “And all this worry will be forgotten.”

  Suddenly, there was a sharp knock from the guards outside and the double doors were thrown open. The noise startled me and I was on my feet in an instant, my heart pounding. A messenger stood in the doorway, the Lord Chancellor with him, and the veteran soldier Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk beside him, their faces grim.

  I fell back, as if I would hide behind her. I had an immediate certainty that they had come for me, they somehow had discovered who I was, and had a warrant for my arrest as a heretic Jew.