Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  Cecil greets me with his usual equanimity, as if he never in all his life suspected me of plotting against him, as if he never begged me to befriend the Scots queen and save us all, as if he is not now engineering my downfall. He tells me that the queen is much absorbed with the damage of the uprising, and she will see me as soon as she can do so. He tells me that Norfolk, the Scots queen’s ambassador Bishop Lesley of Ross and the Spanish ambassador were hand in glove in planning and financing the uprising and that their guilt must be a guarantee of the complicity of the Scots queen.

  I say, stiffly, that I think it most unlikely that Norfolk, Queen Elizabeth’s own cousin and a man who has benefited from her rise to power, would do anything to bring his kinswoman down. He may have hoped to release his betrothed, but that is a long step from rebelling against his queen and cousin. Cecil asks me do I have any evidence? He would be most glad to see any letters or documents that I have so far failed to divulge. I can’t even bring myself to answer him.

  I go back to the lodgings they have given me at court. I could stay in our London house but I don’t have the heart to open it up for such a short stay, and besides, I find I am reluctant to advertise my presence in the City. My house has always been a proud centre for my family, it is where we come to advertise our greatness, and now I have no sense of greatness: I am ashamed. It is as simple as that. I have been brought so low between the plots of these two queens and their advisors that I don’t even want to sleep in my own bed with the carved coronet in the headboard. I don’t even want to walk through my own stone pillars with my crest emblazoned on every stone. I would give away all this outward show if I could just be at peace with myself once more. If I could just feel that I know my own self, my own wife and my own queen once more. This uprising has, in the end, overthrown nothing but my peace of mind.

  I see Bess’s son Henry and my own son Gilbert, but they are awkward in my presence and I suppose they have heard that I am suspected of betraying my wife with the Scots queen. They are both big favourites with Bess, it is natural that they should take her side against me. I dare not defend myself to them and, after asking them both for their health and if they are in debt, I let them go. They are both well, they both owe money, I suppose I should feel glad.

  On the third day of waiting, when they judge that I have suffered enough, one of the ladies-in-waiting comes and tells me that the queen will see me in her private rooms after dinner. I find I cannot eat. I sit in my usual place in the great hall at a table with my equals; but they do not speak to me and I keep my head down like a whipped page. As soon as I can, I leave the table, I go and wait in her presence room again. I feel like a child, hoping for a word of kindness; but certain of a beating.

  At least I can be assured that I am not to be arrested. I should take a little comfort from that. If she was going to arrest me for treason she would do it in the full council meeting, so that they could all witness my humiliation as a warning to other fools. They would strip me of my titles, they would accuse me of disloyalty and send me away with my cap torn from my head and guards on either side of me. No, this is to be a private shaming. She will accuse me of failing her and though I can point to my deeds and prove that I have never done anything that was not in her interests, or as I was ordered, she can reply by pointing to the leniency of my guardianship of the queen, and to the wide and growing belief that I am half in love with Mary Stuart. And, in truth, if I am accused of loving her, I cannot honestly deny it. I think that I won’t deny it. I don’t even wish to deny it. A part of me, a mad part of me, longs to proclaim it.

  As I thought, it is the gossip of that intimacy that upsets the queen more than anything else. When I am finally admitted into her privy chamber, with her women openly listening, and Cecil at her side, it is the first thing she raises.

  ‘I would have thought that you of all men, Shrewsbury, would not be such a fool for a pretty face,’ she spits out, almost as soon as I enter the room.

  ‘I am not,’ I say steadily.

  ‘Not a fool? Or does she not have a pretty face?’

  If she were a king, these sorts of questions would not be hurled out with such jealous energy. No man can answer such questions to the satisfaction of a woman of nearly forty years whose best looks are long behind her, about her rival: the most beautiful woman in the world and not yet thirty. ‘I am sure that I am a fool,’ I say quietly. ‘But I am not a fool for her.’

  ‘You let her do whatever she wanted.’

  ‘I let her do what I thought was right,’ I say wearily. ‘I let her ride out, as I was ordered to do, for the benefit to her health. She has grown sick under my care, and I regret it. I let her sit with my wife and sew together for the company. I know for a fact that they never talked of anything but empty chit-chat.’

  I see the gleam in her dark eyes at this. She has always prided herself in having the intelligence and education of a man.

  ‘Women’s chatter,’ I hint dismissively and see her approving nod. ‘And she dined with us most nights because she wanted the company. She is accustomed to having many people around her. She is used to a court and now she has no-one.’

  ‘Under her own cloth of state!’ she exclaims.

  ‘When you first put her into my keeping you ordered me to treat her as a reigning queen,’ I observe as mildly as I can. I must keep my temper, it would be death even to raise my voice. ‘I must have written to you and to Cecil a dozen times asking if I could reduce her household.’

  ‘But you never did so! She is served by hundreds!’

  ‘They always come back,’ I say. ‘I send them away and tell her she must have fewer servants and companions but they never leave. They wait for a few days and then come back.’

  ‘Oh? Do they love her so very much? Is she so beloved? Do her servants adore her, that they serve her for nothing?’

  This is another trap. ‘Perhaps they have nowhere else to go. Perhaps they are poor servants who cannot find another master. I don’t know.’

  She nods at that. ‘Very well. But why did you let her meet with the Northern lords?’

  ‘Your Grace, they came upon us by accident when we were out riding. I did not think any harm would come of it. They rode with us for a few moments, they did not meet with her in private. I had no idea what they were planning. You saw how I took her away from danger the minute that their army was raised. Every word I had from Cecil I obeyed to the letter. Even he will tell you that. I had her in Coventry within three days. I kept her away from them and I guarded her closely. They did not come for her, we were too quick for them. I kept her safe for you. If they had come for her, we would have been undone; but I took her away too quickly for them.’

  She nods. ‘And this ridiculous betrothal?’

  ‘Norfolk wrote of it to me, and I passed on his letter to the queen,’ I say honestly. ‘My wife warned Cecil at once.’ I do not say that she did so without telling me. That I would never have read a private letter and copied it. That I am as ashamed of Bess being Cecil’s spy as I am of the shadow of suspicion on me. Bess, as Cecil’s spy, will save me from the shadow of suspicion. But I am demeaned either way.

  ‘Cecil said nothing of it to me.’

  I look the liar straight in the face. His expression is one of urbane interest. He inclines forward as if to hear my reply the better.

  ‘We told him at once,’ I repeat smugly. ‘I don’t know why he would have kept it from you. I would have thought he would tell you.’

  Cecil nods as if the point is well made.

  ‘Did she think she would make a king of my cousin?’ Elizabeth demands fiercely. ‘Did she think he would rule Scotland and rival me here? Did Thomas Howard think to be King Thomas of Scotland?’

  ‘She did not take me into her confidence,’ I say, truly enough. ‘I only knew that lately she hoped that they would marry with your permission, and that he would help her with the Scots lords. Her greatest wish, as far as I know, has always been only to return to her kingdom. And t