The Queen's Sorrow

by Suzannah Dunn

  ‘Troubled,’ she corrected. ‘Don’t try to make me talk about it.’ Not a plea but a warning, and he heeded it. She’d not denied what he’d dared to put to her, she’d not thrown it back at him, and that was enough, at least for now. He knew something about her – she was troubled. She’d let him know it. That much had changed. He had to say something, though, so he said, ‘I am your good friend.’ It didn’t sound right, though. There was something wrong with it, with having said it.

  ‘Good,’ though, she said, ‘good,’ but she said it absently – for the sake of form, he felt. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s go home,’ so they walked back up the hill and nothing more was said.

  The more he considered it, it seemed stupid: I am your good friend. It’d struck the wrong note. It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, although what that was – what he had wanted to say – he didn’t know. Not that it wasn’t true. If anything, it was too true. Obvious. Not worth saying. Of course he was her good friend. Why had he had to say it? To him, she’d said, I needed you here. Direct and trusting. Why couldn’t he have been like that, in return? Instead, he’d been awkward, and not just because of the language barrier. And in being awkward, he felt, he’d let her down.

  And then there they were, already back indoors, behind the closed door, and there was nothing for it but to say good-night. Bejewelled with chill – eyes and cheeks a-glow – she turned from him with a smile and was gone. He felt more awake than he’d felt in months, but this wakefulness wasn’t welcome, not at this time of night. A beer, he decided.

  The warmth in the kitchen was a whole day deep and many of the staff had already bedded down in it. Others lolled on sacks at the fireplace, and among them was Antonio. Rafael recoiled from Antonio’s amused look and resented his tracking of him – he could sense it – to the barrels.

  Up in his room, in bed, he was unable to sleep. He felt Antonio’s gaze on him still, he couldn’t shake it off; it rattled him. There’d been times when Rafael could have – should have – looked at him like that.

  Leonor had been Gil’s wife and she would always be his widow. She would always be that, first, before she was Rafael’s wife. But Rafael hadn’t seen it.

  He didn’t ask her to marry him until after her year of mourning and then a few more months. An interval that was more than respectable. Not that being respectable had been his concern – he’d just had no idea how she was feeling. She gave no clues. She remained composed.

  And anyway he didn’t know how to ask her. For a year and more, he went over and over it: how to tell her what he felt for her and to ask her to become his wife. He imagined various approaches, from the seemingly accidental – somehow letting it slip – to making a formal, written request for an interview. Her possible responses, too: he worked hard to imagine every possible variation. He kidded himself he was prepared.

  One day, Leonor was bemoaning being a widow, disparaging her status. Rafael didn’t dare raise the question of marriage for fear of seeming to pity her, but he knew this was his moment. He just said, ‘Leonor, I love you.’ Amazed himself by saying it, as blunt as that. More than a year of pondering, of thinking through strategies, and that, in the end, was what happened: he just said it. And that was how he said it, too: a statement of fact. No great declaration. If anything, it had sounded weary. Resigned. Which was a fair reflection of how he felt, after all that time. ‘Marry me,’ he then dared to ask, ‘please.’

  She blushed, having been caught unawares, which wasn’t what he’d intended. She was wrong-footed, and she didn’t appreciate it. And he wasn’t keen on being the subject of her displeasure. It’d had to be done, though: that, now, was his conviction. He’d been right to do it. Recovering herself, she acted dismissive: a brief, humourless laugh – not unkind – and she said his name in reproach. But he wasn’t having that. Rafael what? He’d done nothing wrong in telling her how he felt. In putting it to her. It made him vulnerable, not her. Surely she could see that. ‘I’m serious,’ he told her, in the hope that this was helpful.

  She raised her shoulders and turned away. There was something bleak in it: the stiffness, the turn, the distant gaze. She didn’t give him an answer; she said, ‘Give me time.’ So relieved was he that she hadn’t declined, he’d have given her anything she asked for. There would be no coming straight into his arms, but he’d known that would never happen. Only as they left the garden for the house did he wonder: How much time?

  After several weeks, he was wondering: How much more time? Eventually – three, four weeks later – he was forced into having to ask her, ‘Have you thought any more about my offer?’ Offer. More like plea; he should’ve said plea.

  She said, ‘You miss your friend.’

  It took him a moment, but then he understood her to mean that he was grieving for Gil and looking to her to be his consolation. ‘No,’ he urged, ‘no,’ impassioned, ‘I’ve always –’

  But he stopped in the face of her obvious alarm. He saw that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. This was what she definitely didn’t want to hear. He spread his hands – I’ve said it; I’m sorry, but I’ve said it – and allowed, ‘Of course I miss Gil.’ And he did, dizzyingly so, and all at once it came again, the disorientation, because Gil’s disappearance from their lives felt like an elaborate trick and for a heartbeat Leonor was part of it, she was privy to something that Rafael wasn’t.

  The hitch of her eyebrows was a kind of shrug, as if to say, Well, he’s not coming back.

  Yes, but where did that leave them?

  And then, ‘Rafael?’ No more than a puff of impatience. ‘Why not,’ she said, and there was that tilt of her chin, the hardness of her mouth, her eyes alight with challenge. Of all the possible responses, this was the one he hadn’t anticipated, but it was utterly characteristic of her. It made it impossible for him to go to her, to hold her as he’d imagined he might. He nodded, a sharp little nod, an acknowledgement.

  A done deal.

  And his heart bled.

  Oh, it had got better, over time. It had been all right. She’d thawed. Opened up to him. The first time her hand felt for his, gripped it – well, he couldn’t envisage a greater happiness. Only years later did he realise it had been nothing much to her, not anything like as much to her as it had been to him. For her, it was just a hand to grasp.

  Two evenings after their walk, Rafael was delighted to find Cecily in the kitchen, at the fireside, her son resting back against her knees with his eyes closed and the dog lolling in turn closed-eyed against him. Gazing into the flames, Cecily was rolling something in the fingers of one hand. Seeing Rafael, she remembered herself, stopped, and revealed what it was: a pebble. ‘Harry’s.’ The kitchen boy’s.

  ‘Oh.’ Harry: the oddness, again, of him being gone. Rafael couldn’t quite believe that he wouldn’t be turning up again – Hello, there! – now that the drama of his death was done. ‘What is it?’

  She shrugged. Nothing. A pebble. ‘It was in his pocket.’ She’d had the job of going through his clothes, his belongings. It was nothing much. Nothing at all, in fact: just a pebble. But it had been Harry’s. Rafael was glad she hadn’t thrown it away. She closed her hand over it again. Rafael sat down beside her and they looked together for a while into the fire.

  Then she asked him, ‘What d’you think people do in Heaven?’ She was being mischievous, he saw, but was also waiting for an answer – to that extent, it was a real question.

  Heaven. He felt the familiar clench of terror: it might’ve already happened.

  ‘Do?’ He’d never thought of it like that. If he ever got there, would he have to do anything? Seeing loved ones again was what Heaven was for, wasn’t it? Being back with those you loved. But quite what you then did, in their company, he didn’t know. He didn’t know, either, if he believed it. For her, though, he was happy to go along with it: ‘Why?’ He was curious, and amused: ‘What do you think people do?’

  ‘Music.’ She’d shrugged, but she’d spoken emphatically – it
was something she’d thought about, something about which she’d had an idea. ‘Learn music,’ she said. ‘Practise.’ And presumably get very good indeed. Eternity was a lot of practising. Just how good could you get? He liked the idea, was tickled by it.

  ‘Do you play an instrument?’ he asked her.

  She shot him that mischievous look. ‘Not yet,’ she said.

  Then, ‘Some people say the king’s still alive.’ She’d spoken emptily, carefully noncommittal, staring again into the hearth. He sensed she was testing him.

  But he was confused: ‘King?’ Still alive? Did she mean the Spanish prince? But he was alive, wasn’t he? Or had something happened? Something he’d missed?

  ‘The boy,’ she said, seeing his confusion. ‘The queen’s brother.’

  Oh, the dead king. He understood. But, ‘Still alive?’ How could that possibly be? He’d been dead for over a year. Why would he have disappeared?

  She shrugged. ‘It’s what some people are saying.’ That’s all I’m saying. ‘That he’s going to come back.’

  Wishful thinking, he realised: that was what it was. There were people who wanted the dead king back instead of their queen, and wanted him so badly that they’d believe any old nonsense. That was how bad these times were, in some people’s eyes.

  He checked: ‘You …?’ You don’t think so, do you?

  She gave him a long, flat look. He’s dead, it said. Rafael saw that she’d resigned herself to it.

  So, she too hankered for the old days, the days before the reign of the queen. The days before people were burned. And perhaps, even, if she was like other people, the days before England was linked with Spain. It was understandable, but he wanted to say, You have a good queen; she’s a good woman and a good queen; she thinks only of what’s best for England; she’s hardworking and mindful of others, appointing that huge Council and listening to each and every man, and she’s merciful. The English forgot how merciful she’d been. She hadn’t even executed the girl who had been pretender to her throne, not until the second attempted coup, after which, of course she’d had no other option. He wanted to say, She has great dignity – which has survived intact despite years of assaults on it – but no airs and graces, none. And for England’s sake, she’d weathered great changes in her life in a mere year, changing herself from spinster noblewoman living a life devoted to God, to monarch, wife and expectant mother. She will see you through: he was certain of that. She’d need to stop the burnings, though, yes. The burnings were a mistake, of course. And she would stop them, he was sure.

  Or so he’d assumed. Later that week, coming into the kitchen, he was aware of a commotion in the back yard and ventured to the threshold. A lad whom Rafael didn’t recognise as from the household – backed by a further dozen or so strangers – was proclaiming something. Gathered around was an agitated crowd of household staff. Rafael spotted a window open, above: the Kitson boy who walked with the sticks was watching, listening. The proclaiming lad ushered someone forward – a woman – and she threw her hand into the air. There was something in it, something small.

  Cecily came to Rafael’s side. ‘Cecily?’ he asked. ‘What is this?’

  At that moment, the steward came barging into the yard, forcing Rafael and Cecily to step aside, to opposite sides of the doorway. He began clearing everyone from the courtyard: for the strangers, an emphatic sweep of an arm towards the gate; for his own staff, a clap-clapping, Back to work! Cecily obeyed immediately; she’d have gone if Rafael hadn’t stopped her. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Oh –’ She looked worried, shook her head, It doesn’t matter, don’t ask.

  But he was insistent. ‘Cecily?’

  She reconsidered and said that five people had been burned in Essex the day before, but had managed to make speeches and their words – their resistance – had been written down and had come to London. To be readily received, judging from what he’d just seen.

  ‘But what was in the woman’s hand?’ he asked her.

  She looked flat into his eyes and gave it to him: ‘Bone.’

  ‘Bone?’ Bone. Fragment, relic. From the ashes. The ashes had been combed, and those five people had been made martyrs.

  Francisco had once asked him, ‘Daddy, what’s inside people?’

  ‘Bones,’ Rafael said.

  Francisco had reeled in horror: ‘But dogs eat bones!’

  ‘Not your bones,’ Rafael had laughed, ‘not people’s bones. Animals’ bones – dead animals’ bones. Your bones, Poppet, are safe.’

  That evening, Antonio appeared in the queue for supper and, having expressed his voluble dismay at the English failure to observe Lent, said, ‘Guess what?’

  Rafael couldn’t even feign interest.

  ‘The new Pope has decided he loathes the English queen. Loathes us, of course – war mongers that we Spaniards are – but loathes her, too, now, because of the marriage. Going to excommunicate us all, did you know that? England and Spain. Poor cow, she can’t do right, can she. She hauls England kicking and screaming back to Rome, and Rome shuts the door in her face. She can burn as many people as she likes, but it’ll make no difference.’

  ‘She doesn’t “like”,’ Rafael objected. ‘She isn’t burning anyone.’

  ‘She signs the warrants,’ Antonio countered, chattily. ‘Fifteen-year-old blind girl, yesterday.’

  Rafael tried to steady his revulsion. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

  Antonio smirked at what he clearly regarded as Rafael’s naïvety. ‘You don’t believe it? – fifteen-year-old blind girl? Which bit don’t you believe? Fifteen? Blind? Girl?’

  Appalling though it was: ‘It’s Church business.’

  ‘She still signs.’

  ‘She probably doesn’t even look at what she’s signing.’ But even as he said it, he doubted that anything would get past her. In his mind’s eye, he saw her peering at the warrant and raising a query.

  ‘Oh, well, then,’ breezed Antonio, ‘that makes it all right, doesn’t it – don’t look, just sign.’

  ‘Someone probably signs for her. She’s not been well.’ Again, though, to his considerable unease, he doubted she’d ever delegate.

  Antonio half-laughed, relishing the sparring. ‘And did that someone sign the letter she wrote to the sheriff – wrote at length – to tick him off for letting a heretic down from the pyre? A heretic who’d recanted in the fire. Heretic no longer? Doesn’t matter. “Don’t do it again,” she said. “Don’t ever let anyone go, even if they repent. Burn them anyway.”’

  ‘All these stories’– Rafael blustered – ‘no one knows what’s what, any more.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ mused Antonio. ‘What the English are good at – the only thing they’re good at – is seeing straight to the point.’

  No word back from Pedro, but the Spanish office had informed Rafael that the prince’s long-promised loan had arrived and, in a matter of days, just as soon as they could balance their books, they’d be making him a payment. As to how much, they wouldn’t say. Couldn’t say, more like, until they’d seen what they’d been granted and had sifted through the hundreds of claims on it. Nor did they say whether the payment was intended to be compensatory or towards completion of the sundial. Rafael didn’t ask. He was determined to use the money, if at all possible, to get home.

  Then, though, the Spanish office moved away. On Good Friday, April the fourth, the queen and her husband and court moved upriver to Hampton Court Palace to prepare for the birth of her baby in just over a month’s time. Everyone had gone, including all the Spaniards who’d been resident at Whitehall. Antonio had seen them go, or some of them, on boats. He’d been at Whitehall, watching them embark on their five-hour river-journey, and now here he was, in Rafael’s room, with that news and more. ‘Not Windsor,’ he announced.

  ‘Windsor?’

  ‘Not Windsor.’ Antonio had made himself comfortable: he was lounging on the end of the bed. Rafael had sidled away to the head. Anton
io had got some comfits from somewhere: sugar-coated seeds and spices, held in a cone of paper. Neither of them had money spare for comfits, nor did anyone whom Rafael knew. Antonio had, of course, offered them; Rafael had, of course, declined. ‘Windsor’s where she was going.’ The crack of a seed between Antonio’s teeth. ‘But it’s too far away. Better protected if she’s closer, at Hampton Court.’

  Rafael frowned his incomprehension.

  ‘Well’– a delving into the cone – ‘they can get troops there, quickly, can’t they. Whereas getting them to Windsor …’

  ‘But who’s the threat?’

  Antonio paused, to make his own show of incomprehension that Rafael should have to ask. Then a shrug, a dismissal: anyone, the shrug said; everyone.

  But Rafael wasn’t having it. ‘You think they’d – what?’ Attack their queen? He’d heard talk of wishing her dead, but that was just talk. Attack their own pregnant or nursing queen?

  Antonio made a show of stifling a laugh: again, Rafael’s naïvety. ‘I tell you,’ he said, ‘they’re already on their way. There’s a lot more river-traffic than usual, all of it heading upriver.’

  ‘But they’ll be going there to wait for news of the birth.’

  More amusement. ‘With firearms?’

  ‘This is London,’ Rafael said; ‘everyone has firearms.’

  Another shrug: If you say so.

  Rafael pushed it: ‘And, anyway, aren’t those firearms for us?’ Spaniards. ‘Aren’t they going there for us?’ Not to threaten her, but to threaten all the Spaniards surrounding her.

  ‘No difference, now. She is one of us, as far as they’re concerned.’

  Rafael was about to take issue with that – was that really what the English believed? – but Antonio blew a sigh and said, ‘If she dies, how do we get out of here fast enough?’ If she dies: purely conversational. But she was nothing to Antonio. Nothing but the reason for him being stuck here. ‘They’ll forget us, probably. Leave us behind.’

  Our own people: flee, forgetting their few fellow countrymen back in the city. That hadn’t occurred to Rafael, and panic prickled in his stomach.