Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  I felt my heart thud with hope and fear but I did not step out until I was sure. Then the two other men came out, carrying a well-wrapped piece of the printing press. The man in front was our next-door neighbour, and the man carrying the other end was my betrothed, Daniel. At once I realised that they were packing up the shop and we were not yet discovered.

  ‘Father! My father!’ I cried out softly, and sprang from the dark doorway into the shadowy street.

  His head jerked up at the sound of my voice and his arms opened wide. I was in his embrace in a moment, feeling his warm strong arms wrapped around me, hugging me as if he would never let me go again.

  ‘Hannah, my daughter, my girl,’ he said, kissing the top of my head. ‘Hannah, my daughter, mi querida!’

  I looked up into his face, worn and older than I remembered, and saw him too tracing my features. We both spoke at once:

  ‘I got your letter, are you in danger?’

  ‘Father, are you well? I am so glad …’

  We laughed. ‘Tell me first,’ he said. ‘Are you in danger? We have come for you.’

  I shook my head. ‘Thank God,’ I said. ‘They arrested me for heresy, but I was released.’

  At my words, he glanced quickly around. I thought anyone in England would have known him for a Jew now, that furtive ever-guilty glance of the People with no home and no welcome among strangers.

  Daniel crossed the cobbled street, strode over the drain and came to an abrupt halt before us.

  ‘Hannah,’ he said awkwardly.

  I did not know what to reply. The last time we had met I had freed him from his betrothal to me with a burst of venom, and he had kissed me as if he wanted to bite me. Then he had written the most passionate letter imaginable and we were engaged to marry once more. I had summoned him to save me, by rights he should have something more from me than a down-turned face and a mumbled: ‘Hello, Daniel.’

  ‘Hello,’ he said, equally inadequate.

  ‘Let’s go into the shop,’ my father said, casting another cautious glance up and down the street. He led me over the threshold and shut the door behind us. ‘We were packing up here and then Daniel was going to fetch you. Why are you here?’

  ‘I was running away from court,’ I said. ‘I didn’t dare wait for you to come. I was coming to you.’

  ‘Why?’ Daniel asked. ‘What has happened?’

  ‘They are arresting men for plotting to overthrow the queen,’ I said. ‘Cardinal Pole is making the inquiry and I am afraid of him. I thought he would discover where I had come from, or …’ I broke off.

  Daniel’s glance at me was acute. ‘Were you involved in the plot?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really.’

  At his hard sceptical look I flushed red.

  ‘I was involved enough,’ I admitted.

  ‘Thank God we are here then,’ he said. ‘Have you dined?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ I said. ‘I can help to pack.’

  ‘Good, for we have a ship that leaves on the one o’clock tide.’

  I slipped off the printer’s stool and set to work with Daniel, my father, and our next-door neighbour, carrying the boxes and barrels and pieces of the press to the wagon. The horses stood still and quiet. One woman threw up her window and asked us what we were doing and our neighbour went and told her that at last the shop was to be let and the old bookseller’s rubbish was being cleared away.

  It was near ten o’clock at night by the time we had finished and a late spring moon, all warm and yellow, had risen and was lighting the street. My father swung himself into the back of the wagon, Daniel and I rode on the box. Our neighbour shook hands all round and bade us farewell. Daniel signalled for the horses to start and they leaned against the traces and the wagon eased forward.

  ‘This is like last time,’ Daniel remarked. ‘I hope you don’t jump ship again.’

  I shook my head. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘No outstanding promises?’ he smiled.

  ‘No,’ I said sadly. ‘The queen does not need my company, she does not want anyone but the king and I think he will never come home to her. And though the Princess Elizabeth’s household is charged with treason, she has the favour of the king. She might be imprisoned but she won’t be killed now. She is determined to survive and wait.’

  ‘She does not fear that the queen might pass her over and give the crown to another – Margaret Douglas or Mary Stuart, perhaps?’

  ‘She had her future foretold,’ I said to him in a tiny whisper. ‘And she was assured that she will be the heir. She does not know how long she will have to wait but she is confident.’

  ‘And who foretold her future?’ he asked acutely.

  At my guilty silence he nodded. ‘I should think you do indeed need to come with me this time,’ he said levelly.

  ‘I was accused of heresy,’ I said. ‘But released. I have done nothing wrong.’

  ‘You have done enough to be hanged for treason, strangled for a witch, and burned as a heretic three times over,’ he said without a glimmer of a smile. ‘By rights you should be on your knees to me, begging me to take you away.’

  I was half a moment from outraged exclamation when I saw that he was teasing me and I broke into an unwilling laugh. At once he gleamed and took my hand and brought it to his lips. The touch of his mouth on my fingers was warm, I could feel his breath on my skin, and for a moment I could see nothing and hear nothing and think of nothing but his touch.

  ‘You need not beg,’ he said softly. ‘I would have come for you anyway. I cannot go on living without you.’

  Our road took us past the Tower. I felt, rather than saw, Daniel stiffen as the lowering shadow of Robert Dudley’s prison fell on us.

  ‘You know, I could not help loving him,’ I said in a small voice. ‘When I first saw him I was a child, and he was the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life and the son of the greatest man in England.’

  ‘Well, now you are a woman and he is a traitor,’ Daniel said flatly. ‘And you are mine.’

  I shot a sideways smile at him. ‘As you say, husband,’ I said meekly. ‘Whatever you say.’

  The ship was waiting as Daniel had arranged and we had a few hours of hard work loading the pieces of the dismantled press and the barrels and boxes of books and papers before finally we were all aboard and the sailors cast off, the barges took us in tow, and the ship went slowly downriver, helped by the ebbing tide. My father had brought a hamper of food and we sat on the deck, sometimes shrinking from a passing sailor running to obey an order, and ate cold chicken and a strange strong-tasting cheese and a hard crunchy bread.

  ‘You’ll have to get used to this fare,’ Daniel laughed at me. ‘This is Calais food.’

  ‘Shall we stay in Calais?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘It’s not safe for us for ever,’ he said. ‘Soon Queen Mary will turn her attention there too. The place is riddled with runaway Protestants and Lutherans and Erastians and all sorts of heretics, anxious to have a quick exit to France, or Flanders or Germany. Plotters too. And the kingdom of France has its own battle with the Huguenots or anyone who is not an orthodox son of the church. Between the two powers I think that people like us will be squeezed out.’

  I felt the familiar sense of injustice. ‘Squeezed out to where now?’ I asked.

  Daniel smiled at me and put his hand over my own. ‘Peace, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I have found a home for us. We are going to go to Genoa.’

  ‘Genoa?’

  ‘They are making a community of Jews there,’ he said, his voice very low. ‘They are allowing the People to settle there. They want the trade contacts and the gold and trustworthy credit that the People bring with them. We’ll go there. A doctor can always find work, and a bookseller can always sell books to the Jews.’

  ‘And your mother and sisters?’ I asked. I was hoping he would tell me that they would stay in Calais, that they had found husbands and homes in the town and we could visi