The Queen's Fool Read online

  “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.”

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