Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘I think my heart is really broken,’ Amy said quietly. ‘I think it must be. The pain in my breast is so sharp and constant that I think it will be the death of me. It is truly heartbreak. I don’t think it will mend. It doesn’t matter whether he is worth it or not. It is done. Even if she were to marry the archduke and Robert were to come riding home to me and say that it was all a mistake, how could we be happy again? My heart is broken and it will always be broken from now on.’

  The queen’s ladies could do nothing to please her, she stalked about her rooms at Whitehall Palace like a vexed lioness. She sent for, and then dismissed, her musicians. She would not read. She could not rest. She was in a frenzy of worry and distress. She wanted to send for Cecil, she could not imagine how she would manage without him. She wanted to send for her uncle, but no-one knew where he was, and then she changed her mind and did not want to see him anyway. There were petitioners waiting to see her in her chamber but she would not go out to them, the dressmaker came with some furs from Russia but she would not even look at them. Prince Erik of Sweden had written her a twelve-page letter, pinned with a diamond; but she could not be troubled to read it.

  Nothing could free Elizabeth from the terror that rode her like a hag. She was a young woman in only the second year of her reign, and yet she had to decide whether or not to commit her kingdom to war against an unbeatable enemy, and the two men she trusted above all others had both left her.

  Sometimes she was certain that she was making a mistake from her own cowardice, at other moments she was certain she was protecting her country from disaster, all the time she was terrified that she was making a deep and grave error.

  ‘I’m going for Sir Robert,’ Laetitia Knollys whispered to her mother after watching Elizabeth’s frantic turning all morning from one unfinished activity to another.

  ‘Not without her order,’ Catherine replied.

  ‘Yes,’ Laetitia insisted. ‘He’s the only man who can comfort her, and if she goes on like this she will make herself ill and drive us all mad.’

  ‘Lettice!’ her mother said sharply but already the girl had slipped from the room and gone to Robert’s chambers.

  He was paying bills, a great money chest open before him, his steward presenting accounts and counting out coins for the huge costs of the stables.

  Laetitia tapped on the door and peeped into the room.

  ‘Mistress Knollys,’ Robert said levelly. ‘This is an improper honour indeed.’

  ‘It’s about the queen,’ she said.

  At once he leapt up, his quizzical look quite gone. ‘Is she safe?’

  Laetitia noted that his first thought was that Elizabeth might have been attacked. So her father was right, they were all in the greatest of danger, all the time.

  ‘She is safe, but much distressed.’

  ‘She sent for me?’

  ‘No. I came without being told. I thought you should come to her.’

  He gave her a slow smile. ‘You are a most extraordinary girl,’ he said. ‘Why did you take such a task on yourself?’

  ‘She’s beside herself,’ Laetitia confided. ‘It’s the war with Scotland. She can’t decide, and she has to decide. And now she has lost Cecil, and she seems to have lost you. She has no-one. Sometimes she thinks “yes”, sometimes she thinks “no”, but she’s not happy with either decision. She is as jumpy as a rabbit with a ferret on its scut.’

  Robert frowned at the impertinence of her language. ‘I’ll come,’ he said. ‘And I thank you for telling me.’

  She slid him a flirtatious smile under her dark eyelashes. ‘If I was the queen, I would want you at my side all the time,’ she said. ‘War or no war.’

  ‘And how are your wedding plans?’ he asked urbanely. ‘Dress made? Everything ready? Groom impatient?’

  ‘Thank you, yes,’ she said, quite composed. ‘And how is Lady Dudley? Not ill, I hope? Coming to court soon?’

  In the queen’s chambers, Elizabeth was at her seat by the fire, her ladies scattered around the room, tensely waiting for what she might next demand. Other courtiers stood about, hoping to be invited to speak with her, but Elizabeth would hear no petitions, would be distracted by no-one.

  Dudley came in, and at the sound of his step she turned at once. The leap of joy into her face could not be hidden. She rose to her feet: ‘Oh, Robert!’

  Without further invitation he went up to her and drew her with him into a window bay, away from the curious stares of her ladies. ‘I knew you were unhappy,’ he said. ‘I had to come. I could not stay away a moment longer.’

  ‘How did you know?’ she demanded, she could not stop herself leaning towards him. The very scent of his clothes, of his hair, was a deep comfort to her. ‘How did you ever know that I need you so badly?’

  ‘Because I cannot rest without being near you,’ he said. ‘Because I need you too. Has something upset you?’

  ‘Cecil has left me,’ she said brokenly. ‘I cannot manage without him.’

  ‘I knew he had gone, of course; but why?’ Robert asked, though he had received a full report from Thomas Blount on the day that Cecil left.

  ‘He said he would not stay with me unless we made war on the French and I don’t dare, Robert, I really don’t dare, and yet how can I rule without Cecil at my side?’

  ‘Good God, I thought he would never leave you. I thought you and he had sworn an oath.’

  Elizabeth’s mouth was working. ‘I thought he never would,’ she said. ‘I would have trusted him with my life. But he says he cannot serve me if I will not listen to him, and Robert … I am too afraid.’

  The last words were a little thread of sound, she glanced around the room as if her fear were a most shameful secret that she could only trust to him.

  — Ah, it’s not just the war — he thought. — Cecil is like a father to her. He’s the advisor she has trusted for years. And Cecil has a view of this country unlike any other. He really does think of it as a nation in its own right, not a motley crew of warring families which was my father’s view … mine too. Cecil’s love of England, his very belief in England, is a greater vision than mine or hers. He keeps her steady, he keeps her faithful, even if it’s nothing but a dream. —

  ‘I’m here now,’ he said, as if his presence would be enough to comfort her. ‘We’ll talk together after dinner, and we will decide what should be done. You’re not alone, my love. I am here to help you.’

  She leaned closer. ‘I can’t do it on my own,’ she whispered to him. ‘It’s too much. I can’t decide, I am too afraid. I don’t know how to decide. And I never see you now. I gave you up for Scotland, and now it has cost me Cecil too.’

  ‘I know,’ Robert said. ‘But I will be at your side again, I’ll stand your friend. No-one can blame us. The archduke has cooled of his own accord, and Arran is defeated, good for nothing. No-one can say that I’m standing between you and a good marriage. And I’ll get Cecil back for you. He shall advise us and we shall decide. You don’t have to be the judge of it on your own, my love, my dearest love. I shall be with you now. I shall stay with you.’

  ‘It can make no difference to us.’ She hesitated. ‘I can’t be your lover ever again. I shall have to marry someone. If not this year, then next.’

  ‘Just let me be at your side until then,’ he said simply. ‘Neither of us can bear our lives when we are apart.’

  That night at dinner the queen laughed at her fool for the first time in many weeks, and Sir Robert sat at her side once more and poured her wine.

  ‘This wet weather has got into the very timbers of the roof,’ he remarked as the servants took the meats and the puddings off the table and brought the sweetmeats and the sugared fruits. ‘My room is so damp, you can see the steam coming off my linen when Tamworth holds it before the fire in the morning.’

  ‘Tell them to change your rooms,’ she said lightly. ‘Tell the groom of the household to put you back in your old rooms beside mine.’

  He waited. He knew t
he way forward with Elizabeth was not to press her. He decided that he would do nothing more than wait for her.

  At midnight, the door between the two rooms slid open and she came quietly. She was wearing a dark blue robe over her white shift, her red hair was brushed and shining over her shoulders.

  ‘My Robert?’

  The table before the fire was laid with supper for two, the fire was lit, the bed was turned down, the door was locked and Tamworth, Sir Robert’s valet, was on guard outside.

  ‘My love,’ he said and took her in his arms.

  She nestled close. ‘I cannot live without you,’ she said. ‘We have to keep this secret, a most deep secret. But I cannot be queen without you, Robert.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I cannot live without you.’

  She looked up at him. ‘What will we do?’

  He shrugged his shoulders, his smile was almost rueful. ‘I think we have gone beyond choice. We will have to marry, Elizabeth.’

  She glanced towards the window where one of the shutters stood open. ‘Close the shutters,’ the queen said in sudden superstitious fear. ‘I don’t want even the moon to see us.’

  In her old bedroom at Stanfield Hall Amy woke with a start and found that the covers had slid from her bed and that she was freezing cold. She reached down to her feet and grabbed the linen sheets, the woollen rugs, and pulled them up to her shivering shoulders. She had left one of the shutters open and the moon, a big, bold, creamy moon, was laying a path of light on her pillow. She lay down and looked out of the window to the moon.

  ‘The same moon that is shining on me is shining on my lord,’ she whispered. ‘Perhaps it will wake him too, and make him think of me. Perhaps God will waken his love for me in his heart once more. Even now, perhaps he is thinking of me.’

  ‘You played me as a fool!’ Mary Sidney raged at her brother, striding up to him in the Whitehall Palace stable yard. He and half a dozen other men were practising for a joust, his horse was already armed, his squire standing by with his beautifully polished breastplate, his helmet, his lance.

  Robert was distracted. He snapped his fingers for his pageboy with his gauntlets. ‘What is it, Mary? What have I done?’

  ‘You sent me on a fool’s errand to tell the ambassador that the queen would marry the archduke. You sent me knowing that since I believed you, since I was deeply, deeply grieving for you, that I would tell a convincing tale. I was the best person in court to send to him. D’you know I wept as I told him that you had given her up? And so of course, he believed me, and yet all along it was just a plot to throw dust in the eyes of the court.’

  ‘What dust?’ Robert was all innocence.

  ‘You and the queen are lovers,’ she spat at him. ‘You probably have been from the first day. You probably were lovers when I thought you were grieving for the loss of her. And you made me play pander to you.’

  ‘The queen and I agreed to part for her safety,’ he said steadily. ‘That was true. As I told you. But she needs friends, Mary, you know that. I have come back to her side to be her friend. And we are friends, as I said we would be.’

  She pulled away from his outstretched hand. ‘Oh, no, not another pack of lies, Robert, I won’t hear them. You are faithless to Amy, and you are dishonest with me. I told the ambassador that I knew for a fact that the queen and you were true friends and that she was a virgin, free to marry and a chaste princess. I swore on my immortal soul that there was nothing between you but friendship and a few kisses.’

  ‘And there is not!’

  ‘Don’t speak to me!’ she cried passionately. ‘Don’t lie to me. I won’t hear another word.’

  ‘Come with me to the tilt yard …’

  ‘I shan’t watch you, I shan’t talk with you. I don’t even want to see you, Robert. There is nothing to you but ambition. God help your wife, and God help the queen.’

  ‘Amen,’ he said, smiling. ‘Amen to both, for they are both good women and innocent of any wrongdoing, and indeed God bless me and all Dudleys as we rise in the world.’

  ‘And what has Amy done that she should be shamed before the world?’ she demanded of him. ‘What sin has she ever done, for everyone in England to know that you have no liking for her? That you prefer another woman instead of her, your own true wife?’

  ‘She has done nothing,’ he said. ‘And I have done nothing. Really, Mary, you shouldn’t throw such accusations around.’

  ‘Don’t you dare speak to me!’ she swore again, quite beyond herself with rage. ‘I have nothing to say to you, and I will never have another word to say to you on this. You have played me as a fool and played the Spanish as fools and played your poor wife as a fool, and all along you have been lovers with the queen and you stay as lovers with the queen.’

  In one swift stride Robert was at her side with her wrist in a hard grip. ‘Now that is enough,’ he said. ‘You have said quite enough, and I have heard more than enough. The queen’s reputation is beyond comment. She is going to marry the right suitor as soon as he comes along. We all know that. Amy is my wife and I will hear nothing against her. I visited her in the autumn, and I shall visit her again shortly. Cecil himself gets home no more frequently than that.’

  ‘Cecil loves his wife and no-one doubts his honour!’ she flared up.

  ‘And no-one questions mine,’ he said sharply. ‘You can keep your poisonous little tongue off my affairs or you will spoil more than you understand. Be warned, Mary.’

  She was unafraid. ‘Are you mad, Robert?’ she demanded. ‘Do you think you can fool the best spies in Europe as you fool your sister and your wife? In Madrid, in Paris, in Vienna, they know that you and the queen have adjoining rooms once more. What do you think they make of it? The Hapsburg archduke won’t come to England while you and the queen sleep behind locked doors, one panel of wood between you. Everyone but your poor wife believes that you are lovers, the whole country knows it. You have ruined the queen’s prospects with your lusts, you have ruined Amy’s love for you, pray God you do not ruin the kingdom too.’

  Mary’s warning came too late, and could not prevent the scandalous intimacy between the queen and her Master of Horse. With Robert at her side once more, Elizabeth’s colour came back into her cheeks, her fingernails were buffed and shining and the cuticles smooth. She glowed in his company, her constant nervousness was quieted when he was near. It did not matter what anyone might say, they were clearly born for each other, and they could not conceal it. They rode together every day, they danced together every night, and Elizabeth had the courage to open her letters and listen to petitions once more.

  In the absence of Cecil, Robert was her only trusted advisor. No-one was seen by the queen except by Dudley’s introduction, she never spoke to anyone without him standing, discreetly, in the background. He was her only friend and her ally. She took no decision without him, they were inseparable. Duke John of Sweden danced around the court but hardly pressed his suit, William Pickering retired quietly to the country to try to economise on his massive debts, Caspar von Breuner came only rarely to court and everyone had forgotten the Earl of Arran.

  Cecil, staying firmly on the outskirts of the young couple and their courtiers, remarked to Throckmorton that this was no way to rule a country on the brink of war and learned that she had just appointed Dudley as Lord Lieutenant and Constable of Windsor Castle, with fees to match.

  ‘He will be the richest man in England if this goes on,’ Cecil observed.

  ‘Rich: nothing. He means to be king,’ Sir Nicholas replied, saying the unsayable. ‘And then how d’you think the country will be run?’

  Cecil said nothing. Only the evening before a man whose face was hidden by his hat pulled down low on his brow had tapped at Cecil’s door and in a gruff voice asked him if he would join with three others in an attack on Dudley.

  ‘Why come to me?’ Cecil asked. ‘I take it you can bludgeon him to death on your own account without my permission.’

  ‘Because the queen’s
guards protect him and they follow your rule,’ the stranger said. Cecil moved a branch of candles on his desk and caught a glimpse of the angry face of Thomas Howard half-hidden under the concealing cap. ‘And when he is dead, she will ask you to discover his murderers. We don’t want your spies on us. We don’t want to hang for him any more than we would hang for killing vermin.’

  ‘You must do as you think best,’ Cecil said, choosing his words with care. ‘But I will not protect you after the murder.’

  ‘Would you prevent us from doing it?’

  ‘I am responsible for the safety of the queen. I daresay, sadly, I cannot prevent you.’

  The man laughed. ‘In short you wouldn’t mind him dead but you won’t take a risk,’ he taunted.

  Cecil had nodded equably. ‘I think no-one in England but the queen and his wife would mind at all,’ he said frankly. ‘But I will not be party to a plot against him.’

  ‘What’s amusing you?’ Throckmorton asked, glancing round the court for the reason for Cecil’s smile.

  ‘Thomas Howard,’ Cecil answered. ‘He’s not exactly a master of subtlety, is he?’

  Throckmorton glanced over. Thomas Howard had managed to enter the double open doors to the presence chamber just as Dudley was coming out. Everyone gave way to Dudley now, with the exception perhaps of Cecil, and Cecil would never have timed his entrance so that he was head to head with the royal favourite. Howard was standing his ground like an angry heifer.

  — In a moment — Cecil thought, — he will paw the floor and bellow. —

  Dudley eyed him with the coolest of contempt, and then went to pass him.

  At once Howard side-stepped and jostled him. ‘I beg your pardon but I am coming in,’ he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. ‘I! A Howard! And the Queen’s uncle.’

  ‘Oh, please, do not beg my pardon for I am leaving,’ Dudley said, the laughter warm in his voice. ‘It is those hapless men that you are about to join who deserve your apology.’