The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  Robert nodded. “The men are to be released from Calais within a week,” he said. “They will be collected by a ship which will bring them into Gravesend.”

  I felt my heart beat a little faster.

  “You are blushing like a girl,” Lord Robert said, gently mocking.

  “Do you think he will have had my letter, that I sent when I first came home?” I asked.

  Lord Robert shrugged. “He may have done. But you can tell him yourself, soon enough.”

  I drew a little closer to him. “You see, if he did not receive it then he will not know that I escaped out of Calais. He might think I am dead. He might not come to England, he might go to Italy or somewhere.”

  “On the off-chance that you are dead?” Lord Robert asked critically. “With no one ever mentioning it to him? With no proof? And his son?”

  “In the confusion of the battle,” I said weakly.

  “Someone would have looked for you,” he said. “If you had been killed they would have found your body.”

  I shifted awkwardly. Daniel came to me and stretched out his arms. “Dan’l up!” he commanded.

  “Wait a moment,” I said absently. I turned back to Lord Robert. “You see, if someone told him that I left with you…”

  “Then he would know that you are alive, and where to find you,” he said logically. Then he checked and slapped his forehead. “Mistress Boy, you have played me for an idiot all along. You are estranged from him, aren’t you? And you fear that he will think you ran away with me? And he won’t come for you because he has cast you off? And now you don’t want me; but you’ve lost him, and all you’ve got is his son…” He broke off, struck with sudden doubt. “He is your husband’s son, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I said staunchly.

  “Is he yours?” he said, some sense warning him that there was a lie hidden away somewhere near.

  “Yes,” I said without wavering.

  Lord Robert laughed aloud. “My God, girl, you are a fool indeed. You did not love him till you lost him.”

  “Yes,” I admitted through gritted teeth.

  “Well, more a woman than a fool,” he said fairly. “I would say women love men most when they have lost them, or cannot get them. Well-a-day, my pretty fool. You had best get a ship and set sail for your Daniel as soon as you can. Otherwise he will be out of prison and free as a bird flying away, and you will never find him at all.”

  “Can I get a ship to Calais?” I asked blankly.

  He thought for a moment. “Not very readily; but you could go over with the ship that is going to fetch my soldiers home. I’ll write you a note.”

  He snapped his fingers to a stable boy and sent him running for a clerk with pen and paper. When the lad came he dictated three lines to give me a free pass on the boat for myself and my son.

  I curtseyed low to him in genuine gratitude. “Thank you, my lord,” I said. “I do thank you very deeply.”

  He smiled his heart-turning smile. “My pleasure, dearest little fool. But the ship sails within a week. Will you be able to leave the queen?”

  “She’s sinking fast,” I said slowly. “That’s why I was in such a hurry to leave at once. She was holding on for Elizabeth’s answer.”

  “Well, thank you for that information, which you denied me earlier,” he said.

  I bit my lip as I realized that to tell him, was to tell Elizabeth, and those planning her campaign, when she should be ready to call out her army to claim her throne.

  “No harm done,” he said. “Half of her doctors are paid by us to let us know how she is.”

  John Dee drew closer. “And could you see into the princess’s heart?” he asked gently. “Could you tell if she was sincere in her oath for keeping the true faith? Do you believe she will be a Catholic queen?”

  “I don’t know,” I said simply. “I shall pray for guidance on the way home.”

  Robert would have said something but John Dee put a hand on his arm. “Hannah will say the right thing to the queen,” he said. “She knows that it is not one queen or another that matters, it is not one name of God or another, what matters most is to bring peace to this country so that a man or woman in danger of cruelty or persecution can come here and be certain of a fair hearing.” He paused, and I thought of my father and I, coming to this England and hoping for a safe haven.

  “What matters is that a man or woman can believe what they wish, and worship how they wish, to a God whom they name as they wish. What matters is that we make a strong country here which can be a force for good in the world, where men and women can question and learn freely. This country’s destiny is to be a place where men and women can know that they are free.”

  He stopped. Lord Robert was smiling down at me.

  “I know what she will do,” Lord Robert said sweetly. “Because she is my tenderhearted Mistress Boy still. She will say whatever she has to say to comfort the queen in her final hours, God bless her, the poor lady. No queen ever came to the throne with higher hopes and died in such sadness.”

  I leaned down and scooped Daniel up into my arms. The grooms brought my horse from the stables and Jane Dormer came from the house and got into the litter without a word to either man.

  “Good luck in Calais,” Robert Dudley said, smiling. “Few women succeed in finding the love of their life. I hope you do, little Mistress Boy.”

  Then he waved and stepped back, and let me go.

  It was a cold long ride back to St. James’s palace but Danny’s little body was warm as he rode before me, and every now and then I could hear a delighted little carol of song from him.

  I rode in silence, thoughtful. The end of my journey when I would see the queen loomed very large ahead of me. I did not yet know what I would say to her. I did not yet know what I had seen, nor what to report. Elizabeth raised her right hand and took the oath she had been asked to do, her part was done. Now it was for me to judge whether or not she meant it.

  When we got to the palace the hall was subdued, the few guards playing cards, the firelight flickering, the torches burning low. Will Somers was in the queen’s presence chamber, with half a dozen others, mostly paid court officials and physicians. There were no friends or beloved kin waiting to see the queen, praying for her in her illness. She was not England’s darling any more, and the chamber rang with emptiness.

  Danny spotted Will and sprang toward him. “You go in,” Will said. “She has been asking for you.”

  “Is she any better?” I asked hopefully.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  Cautiously I opened the door to her privy chamber and went in. Two of her women were seated at the fireside, enjoying a gossip when they should have been watching her. They jumped up guiltily as we came in. “She did not want company,” one of them said defensively to Jane Dormer. “And she would not stop weeping.”

  “Well, I hope you lie alone weeping and unwatched one day,” Jane snapped at her, and the two of us went past them and into the queen’s bedchamber.

  She had curled up in the bed like a little girl, her hair in a cloud around her face. She did not turn her head at the sound of the opening door, she was deep in her grief.

  “Your Grace?” Jane Dormer said, her voice cracking.

  The queen did not move, but we heard the quiet occasional sob go on, as regular as a heartbeat, as if weeping had become a sign of life, like a pulse.

  “It is I,” Jane said. “And Hannah the Fool. We have come back from Princess Elizabeth.”

  The queen sighed very deeply and turned her head wearily toward us.

  “She took the oath,” Jane said. “She swore she would keep the country in the true faith.”

  I stepped to the bedside and took Queen Mary’s hand. It was as small and as light as a child’s, there was nothing left of her. Sadness had worn her away to dust that could blow away on the wind. I thought of her riding into London in her shabby red costume, her face bright with hope, and her courage when she took on the great men
of the kingdom and beat them at their own game. I thought of her joy in her husband and her longing for a child to love, a son for England. I thought of her absolute devotion to the memory of her mother and her love of God.

  Her little hand fluttered in mine like a dying bird.

  “I saw Elizabeth take the oath,” I started. I was about to tell her the kindest lie that I could form. But gently, irresistibly, I told her the truth, as if the Sight was speaking the truth through me. “Mary, she will not keep it. But she will do better than keep it, I hope you can understand that now. She will become a better queen than she is a woman. She will teach the people of this country that each man and woman must consider his or her own conscience, must find their own way to God. And she will bring this country to peace and prosperity. You did the very best that you could do for the people of this country, and you have a good successor. Elizabeth will never be the woman that you have been; but she will be a good queen to England, I know it.”

  She raised her head a little and her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at me with her straight honest gaze once more, and then she closed her eyes and lay still.

  I did not stay to watch the rush of servants to Hatfield. I packed my bag and took Danny by the hand and took a boat down the river to Gravesend. I had my lord’s letter to show to the ship’s captain and he promised me a berth as soon as they sailed. We waited a day or two and then Danny and I boarded the little ship and set sail for Calais.

  Danny was delighted by the ship, the moving deck beneath his feet, the slap and rush of the waves, the creaking of the sails and the cry of the seagulls. “Sea!” he exclaimed, over and over again. He took my face in both of his little hands and gazed at me with his enormous dark eyes, desperate to tell me the significance of his delight. “Sea. Mamma! Sea!”

  “What did you say?” I said, taken aback. He had never spoken my name before, I had expected him to call me Hannah. I had not thought, I suppose I should have thought, but I had never thought he would call me mother.

  “Sea,” he repeated obediently, and wriggled to be put down.

  Calais was a different place with the walls breached and the sides of the castle smeared with black oil from the siege, the stones darkened with smoke from the fire. The captain’s face was grim when we came into the harbor and saw the English ships, which had been fired where they were moored, at the harbor wall, like so many heretics at the stake. He tied up with military smartness and slapped down the gangplank like a challenge. I took Danny in my arms and walked down the gangplank into the town.

  It was dreamlike, to go into the ruins of my old home. I saw streets and houses that I knew; but some of them were missing walls or roofs, and there had been a terrible toll paid by the thatched houses, they were all but destroyed.

  I did not want to go down the street where my husband and I once lived, I was afraid of what I might find. If our house was still standing, and his mother and sisters were still there, I did not know how to reconcile with them. If I met his mother and she was angry with me and wanted to take Danny away from me I did not know what I would do or say. But if she was dead, and his house destroyed, it would be even worse.

  Instead I went with the captain and the armed guard up to the castle under our white pennant of truce. We were expected; the commander came out civilly enough and spoke to the captain in rapid French. The captain bridled, understanding perhaps one word in three, and then leaned forward and said very loudly and slowly: “I have come for the English men, as has been agreed, as per the terms, and I expect them forthwith.”

  When he had no response, he said it again, pitched a little higher.

  “Captain, would you like me to speak for you, I can speak French?” I offered.

  He turned to me with relief. “Can you? That might help. Why doesn’t the fool answer me?”

  I stepped forward a little and said to the commander in French: “Captain Gatting offers his apologies but he cannot speak French. I can translate for you. I am Madame Carpenter. I have come for my husband who has been ransomed and the captain has come for the other men. We have a ship waiting in the harbor.”

  He bowed slightly. “Madam, I am obliged to you. The men are mustered and ready. The civilians are to be released first and then the soldiers will march down to the harbor. Their weapons will not be returned. It is agreed?”

  I translated for the captain and he scowled at me. “We ought to get the weapons back,” he said.

  I shrugged. All I could think of was Daniel, waiting somewhere inside the castle for his release. “We can’t.”

  “Tell him very well; but tell him that I’m not best pleased,” the captain said sourly.

  “Captain Gatting agrees,” I said smoothly in French.

  “Please come inside.” The commander led us over the drawbridge and into the inner courtyard. Another thick curtain wall with a portcullis doorway led to the central courtyard where about two hundred men were mustered, the soldiers in one block, the civilians in another. I raked the ranks for Daniel but I could not see him.

  “Commandant, I am seeking my husband, Daniel Carpenter, a civilian,” I said. “I cannot see him, and I am afraid of missing him in the crowd.”

  “Daniel Carpenter?” he asked. He turned and snapped an order at the man guarding the civilians.

  “Daniel Carpenter!” the man bawled out.

  In the middle of one of the ranks a man came forward. “Who asks for him?” said Daniel, my husband.

  I closed my eyes for a moment as the world seemed to shift all around me.

  “I am Daniel Carpenter,” Daniel said again, not a quaver in his voice, stepping forward on the very brink of freedom, greeting whatever new danger might threaten him without a moment’s hesitation.

  The commander beckoned him to come forward and moved to one side so that I could see him. Daniel saw me for the first time and I saw him go very pale. He was older-looking, a little weary, he was thinner, but nothing worse than winter-pale and winter-thin. He was the same. He was my beloved Daniel with his dark curling hair and his dark eyes and his kissable mouth and that particular smile which was my smile; it only ever shone on me, it was at once desiring, steadfast, and amused.

  “Daniel,” I whispered. “My Daniel!”

  “Ah, Hannah,” he said quietly. “You.”

  Behind us, the civilians were signing their names and marching out to freedom. I did not hear the shouted orders or the tramp of their feet. All I could see, all I could know, was Daniel.

  “I ran away,” I said. “I am sorry. I was afraid and I did not know what to do. Lord Robert gave me safe passage to England and I went back to Queen Mary. I wrote to you at once. I would not have gone without you if there had been any time to think.”

  Gently, he stepped forward and took my hand. “I have dreamed and dreamed of you,” he said quietly. “I thought you had left me for Lord Robert when you had the chance.”

  “No! Never. I knew at once that I wanted to be with you. I have been trying to get a letter to you. I have been trying to reach you. I swear it, Daniel. I have thought of nothing and no one but you, ever since I left.”

  “Have you come back to be my wife?” he asked simply.

  I nodded. At this most important moment I found I lost all my fluency. I could not speak. I could not argue my case, I could not persuade him in any one of my many languages. I could not even whisper. I just nodded emphatically, and Danny on my hip, his arms around my neck, gave a gurgle of laughter and nodded too, copying me.

  I had hoped Daniel would be glad and snatch me up into his arms, but he was somber. “I will take you back,” he said solemnly. “And I will not question you, and we will say no more about this time apart. You will never have a word of reproach from me, I swear it; and I will bring this boy up as my son.”

  For a moment, I did not understand what he meant, and then I gasped. “Daniel, he is your son! This is your son by your woman. This is her son. We were running from the French horsemen and she fell, she gave h
im to me as she went down. I am sorry, Daniel. She died at once. And this is your boy, I passed him off as mine. He is my boy now. He is my boy too.”

  “He is mine?” he asked wonderingly. He looked at the child for the first time and saw, as anyone would have to see, the dark eyes which were his own, and the brave little smile.

  “He is mine too,” I said jealously. “He knows that he is my boy.”

  Daniel gave a little half laugh, almost a sob, and put his arms out. Danny reached for his father and went confidingly to him, put his plump little arms around his neck, looked him in the face and leaned back so he could scrutinize him. Then he thumped his little fist on his own chest and said, by way of introduction: “Dan’l.”

  Daniel nodded, and pointed to his own chest. “Father,” he said. Danny’s little half-moon eyebrows raised in interest.

  “Your father,” Daniel said.

  He took my hand and tucked it firmly under his arm, as he held his son tightly with the other. He walked to the dispatching officer and gave his name and was ticked off their list. Then together we walked toward the open portcullis.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, although I did not care. As long as I was with him and Danny, we could go anywhere in the world, be it flat or round, be it the center of the heavens or wildly circling around the sun.

  “We are going to make a home,” he said firmly. “For you and me and Daniel. We are going to live as the People, you are going to be my wife, and his mother, and one of the Children of Israel.”

  “I agree,” I said, surprising him again.

  He stopped in his tracks. “You agree?” he repeated comically.

  I nodded.

  “And Daniel is to be brought up as one of the People?” he confirmed.

  I nodded. “He is one already,” I said. “I had him circumcised. You must instruct him, and when he is older he will learn from my father’s Hebrew Bible.”