The Queen's Fool Read online

  “And have you ever foretold the future and it came true?” he asked, suddenly serious.

  The question itself was dangerous in a country that was always alert for witchcraft. “I have no powers,” I said quickly.

  “But without exerting powers, can you see the future? It is given to some of us, as a holy gift, to know what might be. My friend here, Mr. Dee, believes that angels guide the course of mankind and may sometimes warn us against sin, just as the course of the stars can tell a man what his destiny might be.”

  I shook my head doltishly at this dangerous talk, determined not to respond to him.

  He looked thoughtful. “Can you dance or play an instrument? Learn a part in a masque and say your lines?”

  “Not very well,” I said unhelpfully.

  He laughed at my reluctance. “Well, we shall see, Mistress Boy. We shall see what you can do.”

  I gave my little boyish bow and took care to say nothing more.

  Next day, carrying a parcel of books and a carefully rolled scroll of manuscript, I walked across the town, past the Temple Bar and past the green fields of Covent Garden to Whitehall Palace. It was cold with a sleety rain which forced my head down and made me pull my cap low over my ears. The wind off the river was as icy as if it were coming straight from the Russias, it blew me up King’s Street to the very gates of Whitehall Palace.

  I had never been inside a royal palace before, and I had thought I would just give the books to the guards on the gate, but when I showed them the note that Lord Robert had scrawled, with the Dudley seal of the bear and staff at the bottom, they bowed me through as though I were a visiting prince, and ordered a man to guide me.

  Inside the gates, the palace was like a series of courtyards, each beautifully built, with a great garden in the middle set with apple trees and arbors and seats. The soldier from the gate led me across the first garden and gave me no time to stop and stare at the finely dressed lords and ladies who, wrapped in furs and velvets against the cold, were playing at bowls on the green. Inside the door, swung open by another pair of soldiers, there were more fine people in a great chamber, and behind that great room another, and then another. My guide led me through door after door until we came to a long gallery and Robert Dudley was at the far end of it, and I was so relieved to find him, the only man I knew in the whole palace, that I ran a few steps toward him and called out: “My lord!”

  The guard hesitated, as if he would block me from getting any closer, but Robert Dudley waved him aside. “Mistress Boy!” he exclaimed. He got to his feet and then I saw his companion. It was the young king, King Edward, fifteen years of age and beautifully dressed in plush blue velvet but with a face the color of skimmed milk and thinner than any lad I had ever seen before.

  I dropped to my knee, holding tight to my father’s books and trying to doff my cap at the same time, as Lord Robert remarked: “This is the girl-boy. Don’t you think she would be a wonderful player?”

  I did not look up but I heard the king’s voice, thinned with pain. “You take such fancies, Dudley. Why should she be a player?”

  “Her voice,” Dudley said. “Such a voice, very sweet, and that accent, part Spanish and part London, I could listen to her forever. And she holds herself like a princess in beggar’s clothes. Don’t you think she’s a delightful child?”

  I kept my head down so that he should not see my delighted beam. I hugged the words to my skinny chest: “a princess in beggar’s clothes,” “a sweet voice,” “delightful.”

  The young king returned me to the real world. “Why, what part should she play? A girl, playing a boy, playing a girl. Besides, it’s against Holy Writ for a girl to dress as a boy.” His voice tailed away into a cough which shook him like a bear might shake a dog.

  I looked up and saw Dudley make a little gesture toward the young man as if he would hold him. The king took his handkerchief from his mouth and I saw a glimpse of a dark stain, darker than blood. Quickly, he tucked it out of sight.

  “It’s no sin,” Dudley said soothingly. “She’s no sinner. The girl is a holy fool. She saw an angel walking in Fleet Street. Can you imagine it? I was there, she truly did.”

  The younger man turned to me at once, his face brightened with interest. “You can see angels?”

  I kept down on my knee and lowered my gaze. “My father says I am a fool,” I volunteered. “I am sorry, Your Grace.”

  “But did you see an angel in Fleet Street?”

  I nodded, my eyes downcast. I could not deny my gift. “Yes, sire. I am sorry. I was mistaken. I didn’t mean to give offense…”

  “What can you see for me?” he interrupted.

  I looked up. Anyone could have seen the shadow of death on his face, in his waxy skin, in his swollen eyes, in his bony thinness, even without the evidence of the stain on his handkerchief and the tremor of his lips. I tried to tell a lie but I could feel the words coming despite myself. “I see the gates of heaven opening.”

  Again, Robert Dudley made that little gesture, as if he would touch the boy, but his hand fell to his side.

  The young king was not angry. He smiled. “This child tells the truth when everyone else lies to me,” he said. “All the rest of you run around finding new ways to lie. But this little one…” He lost his breath and smiled at me.

  “Your Grace, the gates of heaven have been opened since your birth,” Dudley said soothingly. “As your mother ascended. The girl’s saying nothing more than that.” He shot me an angry look. “Aren’t you?”

  The young king gestured to me. “Stay at court. You shall be my fool.”

  “I have to go home to my father, Your Grace,” I said as quietly and as humbly as I could, ignoring Lord Robert’s glare. “I only came today to bring Lord Robert his books.”

  “You shall be my fool and wear my livery,” the young man ruled. “Robert, I am grateful to you for finding her for me. I shan’t forget it.”

  It was a dismissal. Robert Dudley bowed and snapped his fingers for me, turned on his heel and went from the room. I hesitated, wanting to refuse the king, but there was nothing to do but bow to him and run after Robert Dudley as he crossed the huge presence chamber, negligently brushing off the couple of men who tried to stop him and ask after the health of the king. “Not now,” he said.

  He went down a long gallery, toward double doors guarded by more soldiers with pikes, who flung them open as we approached. Dudley passed through to their salute and I went after him at a run, like some pet greyhound scampering at its master’s heels. Finally we came to a great pair of doors where the soldiers wore the Dudley livery and we went in.

  “Father,” Dudley said and dropped to one knee.

  There was a man at the fireplace of the great inner hall, looking down into the flames. He turned and made an unemotional blessing over his son’s head with two fingers. I dropped to my knee too, and stayed down even when I felt Robert Dudley rise up beside me.

  “How’s the king this morning?”

  “Worse,” Robert said flatly. “Cough bad, he brought up some black bile, breathless. Can’t last, Father.”

  “And this is the girl?”

  “This is the bookseller’s daughter, calls herself twelve, I’d guess older, dresses like a lad but certainly a girl. Has the Sight, according to John Dee. I took her into the king as you ordered, begged her for a fool. She told him that she saw the gates of heaven opened for him. He liked it. She is to be his fool.”

  “Good,” the duke said. “And have you told her of her duties?”

  “I brought her straight here.”

  “Stand, fool.”

  I rose to my feet and took my first look at Robert Dudley’s father, the Duke of Northumberland, the greatest man in the kingdom. I took him in: a long bony face like a horse, dark eyes, balding head half hidden by a rich velvet cap with a big silver brooch of his coat of arms: the bear and staff. A Spanish beard and moustache round a full mouth. I looked into his eyes and saw — nothing. This was a man