The Queen's Fool Read online

  “Papa, we couldn’t save her,” I said, comforting him with the same words that he had used to me when I had cried that we should have stayed and died beside her.

  “Old times,” Mrs. Carpenter said briskly. “And they won’t come here. Not the Holy Inquisition, not in England.”

  “Oh yes, they will,” Daniel asserted.

  It was as if he had said a foul word. A silence fell at once; his mother and my father both turned to look at him.

  “A Spanish prince, a half-Spanish queen, she must be determined to restore the church. How better to do it than to bring in the Inquisition to root out heresy? And Prince Philip has long been an enthusiast for the Inquisition.”

  “She’s too merciful to do it,” I said. “She has not even executed Lady Jane, though all her advisors say that she should. Lady Elizabeth drags her feet to Mass and misses it whenever she can and no one says anything. If the Inquisition were to be called in to judge then Elizabeth would be found guilty a dozen times over. But the queen believes that the truth of Holy Writ will become apparent, of its own accord. She will never burn heretics. She knows what it is like to be afraid for her life. She knows what it is like to be wrongly accused.

  “She will marry Philip of Spain but she will not hand over the country to him. She will never be his cipher. She wants to be a good queen, as her mother was. I think she will restore this country to the true faith by gentle means; already, half the country is glad to return to the Mass, the others will follow later.”

  “I hope so,” Daniel said. “But I say again — we should be prepared. I don’t want to hear a knock on the door one night and know that we are too late to save ourselves. I won’t be taken unawares, I won’t go without a fight.”

  “Why, where would we go?” I asked. I could feel that old feeling of terror in the pit of my belly, the feeling that nowhere would ever be safe for me, that forever I would be waiting for the noise of feet on the stairs, and smelling smoke on the air.

  “First Amsterdam, and then Italy,” he said firmly. “You and I will marry as soon as we get to Amsterdam and then continue overland. We will travel all together. Your father and my mother and my sisters with us. I can complete my training as a physician in Italy and there are Italian cities that are tolerant of Jews, where we could live openly in our faith. Your father can sell his books, and my sisters could find work. We will live as a family.”

  “See how he plans ahead,” Mrs. Carpenter said in an approving whisper to my father. He too was smiling at Daniel as if this young man was the answer to every question.

  “We are not promised to marry till next year,” I said. “I’m not ready to marry yet.”

  “Oh, not again,” said my father.

  “All girls think that,” said Mrs. Carpenter.

  Daniel said nothing.

  I slid down from my stool. “May we talk privately?” I asked.

  “Go into the printing room,” my father recommended to Daniel. “Your mother and I will take a glass of wine out here.”

  He poured more wine for her and I caught her amused smile as Daniel and I went into the inside room where the big press stood.

  “Mr. Dee tells me that I will lose the Sight if I marry,” I said earnestly. “He believes it is a gift from God, I cannot throw it away.”

  “It is guesswork and waking dreams,” Daniel said roundly.

  It was so close to my own opinion that I could hardly argue. “It is beyond our understanding,” I said stoutly. “Mr. Dee wants me to be his scryer. He is an alchemist and he says…”

  “It sounds like witchcraft. When Prince Philip of Spain comes to England, John Dee will be tried for a witch.”

  “He won’t. It’s holy work. He prays before and after scrying. It’s a holy spiritual task.”

  “And what have you learned, so far?” he asked sarcastically.

  I thought of all the secrets I had known already, the child who would not be a child, the virgin but not queen, the queen but no virgin, and the safety and glory which would come to my lord. “There are secrets I cannot tell you,” I said, and then I added: “And that is another reason that I cannot be your wife. There should not be secrets between man and wife.”

  He turned away with an exclamation of irritation. “Don’t be clever with me,” he said. “You have insulted me before my mother and before your father by saying you don’t want to marry at all. Don’t come in here with me and try to be clever about going back on your word. You are so full of trickery that you will talk yourself out of happiness and into heartbreak.”

  “How should I be happy if I have to be a nothing?” I asked. “I am the favorite of Queen Mary, I am highly paid. I could take bribes and favors to the value of hundreds of pounds. I am trusted by the queen herself. The greatest philosopher in the land thinks I have a gift from God to foretell the future. And you think my happiness lies in walking away from all this to marry an apprentice physician!”

  He caught my hands, which were twisting together, and pulled me toward him. His breath was coming as quickly as my own. “Enough,” he said angrily. “You have insulted me enough, I think. You need not marry an apprentice physician. You can be Robert Dudley’s whore or his tutor’s adept. You can think yourself the queen’s companion but everyone knows you as the fool. You make yourself less than what I would offer you. You could be the wife of an honorable man who would love you and instead you throw yourself into the gutter for any passerby to pick up.”

  “I do not!” I gasped, trying to pull my hands away.

  Suddenly he pulled me toward him and wrapped his arms around my waist. His dark head came down, his mouth close to mine. I could smell the pomade in his hair and the heat of the skin of his cheek. I shrank back even as I felt the desire to go forward.

  “Do you love another man?” he demanded urgently.

  “No,” I lied.

  “Do you swear, on all you believe, whatever that is, that you are free to marry me?”

  “I am free to marry you,” I said, honestly enough, for God knew as well as I did that no one else wanted me.

  “With honor,” he specified.

  I felt my lips part, I could have spat at him in my temper. “Of course, with honor,” I said. “Have I not told you that my gift is dependent on my virginity? Have I not said that I will not risk that?” I pulled away from him but his grip on me tightened. Despite myself, my body took in the sense of him: the strength of his arms, the power of his thighs which pressed against me, the scent of him, and for some odd reason, the feeling of absolute safety that he gave me. I had to pull away from him to stop myself from yielding. I realized that I wanted to mold myself around him, put my head on his shoulder, let him hold me against him and know that I was safe — if only I would let him love me, if only I would let myself love him.

  “If they bring in the Inquisition, we will have to leave, you know that.” His grip was as hard as ever, I felt his hips against my belly and had to stop myself rising on my toes to lean against him.

  “Yes, I know that,” I said, only half hearing him, feeling him with every inch of my body.

  “If we leave, you will have to come with me as my wife, I will take you and your father to safety under no other condition.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we are agreed?”

  “If we have to leave England then I will marry you,” I said.

  “And in any case we will marry when you are sixteen.”

  I nodded, my eyes closed. Then I felt his mouth come down on to mine and I felt his kiss melt every argument away.

  He released me and I leaned back against the printing press to steady myself. He smiled as if he knew that I was dizzy with desire. “As to Lord Robert, it is my request that you serve him no longer,” he said. “He is a convicted traitor, he is imprisoned, and you endanger yourself and us all by seeking his company.” His look darkened. “And he is not a man I would trust with my betrothed.”

  “He thinks of me as a child and a fool,” I correct