The Queen's Fool Read online

  Mrs. Oddingsell turned her head. “She wouldn’t demean herself to learn from you,” she said rudely. “She would only ever learn for him. And he does not trouble himself.”

  The messenger did not wait, but came home straightaway, and told her that his lordship had said he would come to us for a visit shortly and in the meantime to assure her ladyship that all was well with him.

  “I told you to wait for an answer,” she said irritably.

  “My lady, he said he would see you soon. And the princess…”

  Her head snapped up. “The princess? Which princess? Elizabeth?”

  “Yes, the Princess Elizabeth swore that he could not go while they were all waiting for the queen’s child to be born. She said they could not endure another confinement which might go on for years. She could not abide it without him. And my lord said yes, he would leave, even a lady such as her, for he had not seen you since he came to England, and you had bidden him to come to you.”

  She blushed a little at that, her vanity kindled like a flame. “And what more?” she asked.

  The messenger looked a little awkward. “Just some jesting between my lord and the princess,” he said.

  “What jesting?”

  “The princess was witty about him liking court better than the country,” he said, fumbling for words. “Witty about the charms of the court. Said he would not bury himself in the fields with wife.”

  The smile was quite wiped from her face. “And he said?”

  “More jests,” he said. “I cannot remember them, my lady. His lordship is a witty man, and he and the princess…” He broke off at the look on her face.

  “He and the princess: what?” she spat at him.

  The messenger shuffled his feet and turned his hat in his hands. “She is a witty woman,” he said doltishly. “The words flew so fast between them I could not make out what they said. Something about the country, something about promises. Some of the time they spoke another language so it was secret between themselves… Certainly, she likes him well. He is a very gallant man.”

  Amy Dudley jumped from her chair and strode to the bay window. “He is a very faithless man,” she said, very low. Then she turned to the messenger. “Very well, you can go. But next time when I order you to wait for him, I don’t want to see you back here without him.”

  He threw a look at me which said very plainly that a servant could hardly command his master to return to his wife in the middle of a flirtation with the Princess of England. I waited till he had left the room and then excused myself and hared down the gallery after him, Danny bouncing along on my hip, clinging to my shoulder, his little legs gripped around my waist, as I ran.

  “Stop! Stop!” I called. “Tell me about the court. Are all the physicians there for the queen? And the midwives? Is everything ready?”

  “Aye,” he said. “She is expected to have the child in the middle of March, next month, God willing.”

  “And do they say that she is well?”

  He shook his head. “They say she is sick to her heart at the loss of Calais and the absence of her husband,” he said. “The king has not said he will come to England for the birth of his son, so she has to face the travail of childbed all alone. And she is poorly served. All her fortune has been thrown away on her army and her servants have not even been paid and cannot buy food in the market. It is like a ghost court, and now she has gone into confinement there is no one to watch over the courtiers at all.”

  I felt a dreadful pang at the thought of her ill-served and me kicking my heels with Lady Amy Dudley, and doing nothing. “Who is with her?”

  “Only a handful of her ladies. No one wants to be at court now.”

  “And the Princess Elizabeth?”

  “She rode in looking very grand,” the messenger said. “Very taken with my lord.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Nobody needs to say so. It is known to everyone. She does not trouble to hide it. She shows it.”

  “How does she show it?”

  “Rides with him every morning, dines at his right hand, dances with him, her eyes fixed on his face, reads his letters at his elbow, smiles at him as if they had a secret jest, walks with him in the gallery and talks low, walks away from him, but always looks back over her shoulder, so that any man would want to chase her and catch her. You know.”

  I nodded. I had seen Elizabeth when she had someone’s husband marked down for her own. “I know well enough. And he?”

  “Very taken with her.”

  “Will he come here, d’you think?”

  The messenger chuckled. “Not until the princess lets him. He was at her beck and call. I don’t think he could force himself away from her.”

  “He’s not a greensick boy,” I said with sudden irritation. “He could decide for himself, I should hope.”

  “And she is not a greensick girl,” he said. “This is the next Queen of England and she cannot take her eyes from our lord. So what d’you think might come of that?”

  In the absence of any work to do in the household, I found that I spent all my time with the child, Danny, and all my thoughts were with his father. I decided to write to Daniel and address the letter to my father’s old shop in London. If Daniel came looking for me, or sent anyone to seek me, that would be one of the places he would visit first. I would send a copy of it to my lord and ask him to forward it to Calais. Surely there must be emissaries going to the city?

  Dear Husband,It is strange that after all we have been through we should once more be separated, and once again I am in England and you in Calais, but this time I think you are in greater danger than me. I pray every night that you are safe and well.I had the good fortune to be offered a place on the English ship belonging to Lord Robert and in the hurry of battle I thought it best to take it. I wish now I had found my way to you, but Daniel, I did not know what to do. Also, I had another life to consider. The mother of your child was killed by a French horseman before me, and her last act was to put your son in my hands. I have him with me now and I am caring for him as my own. He is safe and well though he does not speak yet. If you can reply to me you might tell me what should I do? Did he used to talk? And what language does he know?He is eating well and growing well, and learning to walk more strongly. We are living at Chichester in Sussex with Lord Dudley’s wife until I can find myself a place. I am thinking of going to court or to the Princess Elizabeth, if she will have me.I wish very much that I could ask you what you think would be the best thing for me to do. I wish very much that you were with me here, or that I were with you. I pray that you are safe, Daniel, and I tell you now, as I should have told you before, that I never stopped loving you even when I left your home. I loved you then, I love you now. I wish we had stayed together then, I wish we were together now. If God ever grants me another chance with you, Daniel, I would want to be your wife once more.Your wife (if you will let me call myself that),Hannah Carpenter

  I sent the letter to my lord, with a covering note.

  My lord,Your wife has been very kind to me but I am trespassing on her hospitality here. Please give me permission to come to court or to see if the Princess Elizabeth will take me into her service.Hannah Green

  I heard nothing from Daniel, and I had hardly hoped for it, though I could not tell if it was the silence of distance or the silence of death. In his silence I did not know if I was a widow, an errant wife, or just lost to him. I also waited for a message from my lord and heard nothing.

  Waiting to hear from Lord Robert, I was able to recognize that his wife was waiting for him too. Both of us would look up eagerly when we heard a horseman cantering up the lane toward the house. Both of us would gaze out of the window when the early wintry evenings swept down around the castle and another day was gone with no word from him. As each day went by I saw her hopes of him die away. Amy Dudley was slowly but surely being forced to acknowledge that whatever love he had felt for her, when he was a young man and she a young woman, had been worn