The Queen's Fool Read online

  “Your Grace, there are wiser heads than mine to advise you,” I said with difficulty. In the brightness of the fire I could almost see the flame of the princess’s hair, the dazzle of her confident smile.

  “None I trust more. None who comes with your gift.”

  I hesitated. “Is she coming to court?”

  Mary shook her head. “She won’t come. She says she is ill. She says she is near death with sickness, a swelling of the belly and of her limbs. She is too ill to get out of bed. Too ill to be moved. It is an old illness of hers, a real one, I believe. But it always comes on at certain times.”

  “Certain times?”

  “When she is very afraid,” Mary said quietly, “and when she has been caught out. The first time she was sick like this was when they executed Thomas Seymour. Now I think she fears being accused of another plot. I am sending my doctors to see her, and I want you to go too.”

  “Of course.” I did not know what else I could say.

  “Sit with her, read to her, be her companion as you have been mine. If she is well enough to come to court, you can travel with her and keep her spirits up on the journey. If she is dying you can comfort her, send for a priest and try to turn her thoughts to her salvation. It is not too late for her to be forgiven by God. Pray with her.”

  “Anything else?” My voice was a thread of sound. The queen had to lean forward to hear me.

  “Spy on her,” she said flatly. “Everything she does, everyone she sees, everyone in that household of hers who are all heretics and liars, every one. Every name you hear mentioned, every friend they hold dear. Write to me every day and tell me what you have learned. I have to know if she is plotting against me. I have to have evidence.”

  I clasped my hands tight around my knees and felt the tremble in my legs and the quiver in my fingers. “I cannot be a spy,” I breathed. “I cannot betray a young woman to her death.”

  “You have no other master now,” she reminded me gently. “Northumberland is dead and Robert Dudley in the Tower. What else can you do but my bidding?”

  “I am a fool, not a spy,” I said. “I am your fool, not your spy.”

  “You are my fool and you shall give me the gift of your counsel,” she ordered. “And I say, go to Elizabeth, serve her as you serve me, and report to me everything you see and hear, but more importantly wait for your gift to speak. I think you will see through her lies and be able to tell me what is in her heart.”

  “But if she is sick and dying…”

  For a moment the hard lines around her mouth and eyes softened. “If she dies then I will have lost my only sister,” she said bleakly. “I will have sent inquisitors to her when I should have gone myself and held her in my arms. I don’t forget that she was a baby when I first cared for her, I don’t forget that she learned to walk holding on to my fingers.” She paused for a moment, smiling at the thought of those fat little hands clutching at her for support, and then she shook her head, as if she would dismiss the love she had for that little red-headed toddler.

  “It comes too pat,” she said simply. “Tom Wyatt is arrested, his army fails, and Elizabeth takes to her bed too ill to write, too ill to reply to me, too ill to come to London. She is as ill as she was when Jane was put on the throne and I wanted her at my side. She is always ill when there is danger. She has been plotting against me and she has suffered nothing but a reverse; not a change of heart. I have to know if she and I can live together as queen and heir, as sisters; or that the worst has come to me and she is my enemy and will stop at nothing till my death.” She turned her dark honest gaze back to me. “You can tell me that,” she said. “It is no dishonor to warn me if she hates me and would have me dead. You can bring her to London, or write to me that she is indeed ill. You shall be my eyes and ears at her bedside and God will guide you.”

  I surrendered to her conviction. “When do I leave?”

  “Tomorrow at dawn,” the queen said. “You can visit your father tonight if you wish, you need not come to dinner.”

  I rose to my feet and gave her a little bow. She put out her hand to me. “Hannah,” she said quietly.

  “Yes, Your Grace?”

  “I wish you could see into her heart and see that she is able to love me, and able to turn to the true faith.”

  “I hope I see that too,” I said fervently.

  Her mouth was working, holding back tears. “But if she is faithless, you must tell me, even though it will break my heart.”

  “I will.”

  “If she can be saved then we could rule together. She could be my sister at my side, the first of my subjects, the girl who is to come after me.”

  “Please God.” “Amen,” she said quietly. “I miss her. I want her safe with me. Amen.”

  I sent a message to tell my father that I would come to visit him, and that I would bring our dinner. As I tapped on the door I saw that he was working late, the illuminated printing room was bright at the rear of the dark shop. The light poured into the shop when he opened the press room door and came out, holding his candle high.

  “Hannah! Mi querida!”

  In a moment he had the bolt shot aside and I tumbled in, setting down my basket of food to hug him and then kneeling before him for his blessing.

  “I brought you dinner from the palace,” I said.

  He chuckled. “A treat! I shall eat like a queen.”

  “She eats very badly,” I said. “She’s not a good doer at all. You should eat like a councillor if you want to grow fat.”

  He pushed the door shut behind me, turned his head and shouted toward the print room. “Daniel! She is here!”

  “Is Daniel here?” I asked nervously.

  “He came to help me set some text for a medical book, and when I said that you were coming, he stayed on,” my father said happily.

  “There isn’t enough for him,” I said ungraciously. I had not forgotten that we had parted on a quarrel.

  My father smiled at my petulance but said nothing as the door of the print room opened and Daniel came out, wearing an apron over his black breeches, the front bib stained with black ink, his hands dirty.

  “Good evening,” I said, unsmiling.

  “Good evening,” he replied.

  “Now!” my father said in pleasurable anticipation of his dinner. He drew three high stools up to the counter as Daniel went out to the yard to wash his hands. I unpacked the basket. A venison pasty, a loaf of manchet bread still warm from the oven, a couple of slices of beef carved from the spit and wrapped in muslin, and half a dozen slender roasted chops of lamb. Two bottles of good red wine had gone into my basket from the queen’s own cellar. I had brought no vegetables; but from the sweet kitchen I had stolen a bowl of syllabub. We put the syllabub with cream to one side to eat later, and spread the rest of the feast on the table. My father opened the wine as I fetched three tankards from the cupboard under the counter and a couple of horn-handled knives.

  “So, what news?” my father asked as we started to eat.

  “I am to go to Princess Elizabeth. She is said to be sick. The queen wants me to be her companion.”

  Daniel looked up, but said nothing.

  “Where is she?” my father asked.

  “At her house at Ashridge.”

  “Are you going alone?” he asked with concern.

  “No. The queen is sending her doctors and a couple of her councillors. I should think we might be as many as ten in the party.”

  He nodded. “I am glad. I don’t think the roads are safe. Many of the rebels got away and are heading back for their homes and they are angry men, and armed.”

  “I’ll be well guarded,” I said. I gnawed on a chop bone and glanced up to see Daniel watching me. I put it to one side, having quite lost my appetite.

  “When will you come back?” Daniel asked quietly.

  “When Princess Elizabeth is fit to travel,” I said.

  “Have you heard from Lord Robert?” my father asked.

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