The Virgin's Lover Read online

  They feasted that night, and called for music, danced and were merry for the first time in many days. No one knew why Elizabeth and Robert should suddenly be so filled with joy, no one but Catherine and Francis Knollys; and they had withdrawn to their private rooms. Despite the good cheer Elizabeth said she wanted to go early to bed, and she giggled as she said it.

  Obediently, the court withdrew, the ladies escorted the queen to her privy chamber and the little traditions of the queen’s bedding began: the ritual thrusting of the sword into her bed, the warming of her nightgown, the mulling of her ale.

  There was a quiet tap at the door. Elizabeth nodded that Laetitia should open it.

  Cecil’s servant stood there. Mutely he showed a letter. When Laetitia reached for it he twitched it away from her hand. She raised her eyebrows in a fair mimicry of Elizabeth’s impatience and stepped back.

  Elizabeth came forward to take it. He bowed.

  “How long did it take you to get here?” Elizabeth asked. “How old is this news?”

  “Three days, Your Grace,” the man said with another bow. “We have horses waiting down the Great North Road, and my lord has us riding in relays for speed. We’ve got it down to three days. You won’t find anyone gets any news faster than you.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said and waved him away. Laetitia shut the door on him and went to stand at Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “You, step back,” Elizabeth said.

  Laetitia retreated as Elizabeth broke the seal and spread the letter on her writing table. She had the code locked in a drawer. She started to decode Cecil’s analysis of the use of assassination, then she sat back and smiled as she understood that he was telling her, in his oblique way, that the French were about to lose their outstanding political leader in Scotland.

  “Good news?” Laetitia Knollys asked.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said shortly. “I think so.” Bad news for the young Queen of Scots who will lose her mother, she thought. But some of us have had to live without a mother for all our lives. Let her know what it is like to be alone. Let her know that she has to fight for her kingdom as I have had to fight for mine. There will be no pity for the Queen of Scots from me.

  As soon as the women had withdrawn, and Elizabeth’s companion was asleep, she rose up from the bed, combed out her hair, and unlocked the secret door between the adjoining rooms. Robert was waiting for her, the table laid for supper, the fire lit. He was struck at once that the color was back in her cheeks, the smile on her lips, and took all the credit for himself.

  “You look better,” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. “Marriage suits you.”

  “I feel better.” She smiled. “I feel as if I am not alone anymore.”

  “You are not alone,” he promised her. “You have a husband to take the burden for you. You will never be alone again.”

  She gave a little sigh of relief and let him draw her to a seat before the fire, and accepted a glass of wine that he poured for her. I will not be alone, she thought. And Mary, Queen of Scots, will be an orphan.

  Cecil and Monsieur Randan could apparently agree on nothing, not even on the arrangements for their journey to Edinburgh from Newcastle. Thomas Howard demanded that Monsieur Randan’s train be reduced before he travel through the borders, but the French emissary bore himself like a man who knew he was negotiating a victory for his country, and would compromise on nothing.

  Although Mary of Guise was under siege in a largely hostile country, it was taking the might of the entire English army to hold her in Leith Castle, and the entire English navy was at anchor in the Firth of Forth supplying the troops. The French, however, had massive reserves and a massive treasury that could be deployed against England. The possibility of an attack on the southern ports while all the English manpower was tied up in Scotland woke Cecil most nights and sent him prowling around the battlements of Newcastle, certain that the siege must be ended, and ended soon.

  For all his urbane calm in front of the French emissary, Cecil knew that he was playing for the very survival of England against near-impossible odds.

  As soon as they were ready to leave for Edinburgh Monsieur Randan sent to Leith Castle to announce that they would call upon the regent for instructions within the week. The messenger reported back that Mary of Guise was ill with dropsy, but she would see the French commissioner, and she would give him his instructions as to the settlement.

  “I think you will find that you have a hard negotiator to deal with,” Monsieur Randan said, smiling at Cecil. “She is a Guise herself, you know, born and bred. She will not be disposed to hand over her daughter’s kingdom to invaders.”

  “All we require is an agreement that French troops will not occupy Scotland,” Cecil said levelly. “We are not the invaders here. On the contrary. We are defending the Scots against invasion.”

  Monsieur Randan shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, bah! What can I say? The Queen of Scotland is the Queen of France. I suppose she can send her servants wherever she wishes in her two kingdoms. France and Scotland are one and the same to our queen. Your queen commands her servants to do as she wishes, does she not?” He broke off with an affected laugh. “Oh! Except her Master of Horse, we hear, who seems to command her.”

  Cecil’s pleasant smile did not falter at the insult. “We have to secure an agreement that the French troops will leave Scotland,” he repeated quietly. “Or nothing can prevent the continuation of a war which will be damaging to both England and France.”

  “Whatever Her Majesty desires of me,” Monsieur Randan declared. “I am commanded to see her tomorrow when we reach Edinburgh and she will tell me what is to be done, and I think you will find that you have to do it.”

  Cecil bowed his agreement as a man forced into a position that he could not defend, by an enemy with the upper hand.

  But Monsieur Randan never met the regent, never received his instructions, never came back to Cecil with a refusal. For that night, Mary of Guise died.

  In the middle of June came the news from Scotland that Elizabeth had been expecting for a sennight. Every day she had dressed in an ornate gown, seated herself under the cloth of estate, and waited for someone to tell her that a travel-stained messenger from Cecil had just now ridden into court. Finally, it happened. Robert Dudley escorted the man into her presence through a buzz of courtiers.

  Elizabeth opened the letter and read it; casually, Dudley stood behind her, like a second monarch, and read it over her shoulder as of right.

  “Good God,” he said, when he reached the part where Cecil told the queen that Mary of Guise had suddenly died. “Good God, Elizabeth. You have the luck of the devil.”

  The color flooded into her face. She raised her head and smiled at her court. “See how we are blessed,” she announced. “Mary of Guise has died of dropsy; the French are in disarray. Cecil writes to me that he has started work on a treaty to bring peace between our two nations.”

  There was a little scream from one of the ladies whose brother was serving with Lord Grey, and a ripple of applause that spread through the court. Elizabeth rose to her feet. “We have defeated the French,” she announced. “God himself has struck down our enemy Mary of Guise. Let others be warned. God is on our side.”

  Aye, said Robert to himself, drawing close to the victorious queen and taking her hand so the two of them faced the court at this moment of triumph. But who would have thought that God’s chosen instrument would be a little weasel like William Cecil?

  Elizabeth turned to him, her eyes shining. “Is it not a miracle?” she whispered.

  “I see the hand of man, I see the hand of an assassin, more than the hand of God,” he said, narrowly watching her.

  She did not flicker, and in that moment he understood that she had known everything. She had been waiting for the news of the regent’s death, waiting with foreknowledge, probably since their wedding day when she had begun to look at peace again. And she could only have been prepared by Cecil.