The Queen's Fool Read online

  I led the way up the stairs to one of the small bedchambers on the first floor, John Dee following me. Lord Robert sprang up the stairs two at a time behind us, we heard the door bang as he went into his room.

  I had barely showed John Dee where he was to sleep, the cupboard where he could put his clothes, and poured hot water for him to wash, when the chamber door opened and Lord Robert came in.

  “Hannah, don’t go,” he said. “I want to hear your news.”

  “I have none,” I said coolly. “I have been here, as you know, all this long while, with your wife, doing nothing.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Have you been bored, Mistress Boy? It cannot be worse than married life, surely?”

  I smiled. I was not going to tell Lord Robert that I had parted from my husband within a year of our marriage.

  “And have you kept your gift?” John Dee asked quietly. “I always thought that the angels would only come to a virgin.”

  I thought for a moment, I could not forget that the last time I had seen him he had been advising Bishop Bonner. I remembered the woman who had cupped her torn fingers in her lap. I remembered the smell of urine in the little room and the wet warmth in my breeches, and my shame. “I don’t know, sir,” I said, my voice very small.

  Robert Dudley heard the constraint in my tone and looked quickly from me to his friend. “How now?” he asked sharply. “What’s this?”

  Dr. Dee and I exchanged an odd complicit glance: that of the secret torturer to his unproclaimed victim, that of a horror shared. He said nothing.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  “Odd sort of nothing,” Lord Robert said, his tone hardening. “You tell me, John.”

  “She was brought before Bonner,” John Dee said briefly. “Heresy. I was there. The charges were dismissed. She was released.”

  “My God, you must have pissed yourself, Hannah!” Robert exclaimed.

  He hit the mark so precisely that my cheeks burned red and I gripped Daniel’s son against me.

  John Dee shot a brief apologetic look at me. “We were all afraid,” he said. “But in this world, we all do what we have to do, Robert. We all do the best we can. Sometimes we wear masks, sometimes we can be ourselves, sometimes the masks are truer than the faces. Hannah betrayed no one and was clearly innocent herself. She was released. That’s all.”

  Lord Robert leaned over and gripped Bishop Bonner’s most orthodox, most rigorous chaplain by the hand. “That’s all indeed. I would not have wanted her racked, she knows much too much. I am glad you were there.”

  John Dee did not glow in return. “No one was there by choice,” he said. “There were more innocents than this one that went to be scourged and burned.”

  I looked from one man to the other, wondering where the allegiances truly lay. At least now I knew enough not to ask, and not to trust any answer.

  Lord Robert turned back to me. “And so do you have your gift still, even though you have lost your virginity?”

  “It comes so rarely that it is hard to tell. But I had a true seeing in Calais, after my wedding: I foresaw the horsemen riding through the streets.” I shut my eyes against the memory.

  “You saw the French coming into Calais?” Lord Robert asked incredulously. “Dear God, why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I would have done if I had known what it was,” I replied. “Don’t doubt me. I would have come at once if I could have understood what I was seeing. But it was so unclear. It was a woman being cut down as she ran from them and calling out…” I broke off. I would not tell even these trusted men that she called me to take her son. Danny was mine now. “God knows I would have warned that woman… even though… I would not want anyone to suffer that death.”

  Robert shook his head and turned to look out of the window. “I wish to God I had been warned,” he said moodily.

  “Will you scry for me again?” John Dee asked. “So that we can see if your gift remains true?”

  I looked at him in utter disbelief. “Are you seeking the advice of angels?” I asked the Inquisitor’s chaplain. “You? Of all men?”

  John Dee was not at all perturbed by the sharpness of my tone. “I do not change my beliefs. And we need guidance all the more, in these troubled times. But we must ask discreetly. There is always danger for those who seek knowledge. But if we could know that the queen will give birth to a healthy child we would be better able to plan for the future. If she is to be blessed with a son, then Princess Elizabeth should change her plans.”

  “And I should change mine,” Lord Robert remarked wryly.

  “Anyway, I don’t know if I can do it,” I said. “I have only seen the future just once, in all the time I was in Calais.”

  “Shall we try this evening?” Lord Robert asked. “Will you try and see if it comes easily, Hannah? For old times’ sake?”

  My gaze slid past him to John Dee. “No,” I said flatly.

  John Dee looked directly at me, his dark eyes meeting mine with honesty. “Hannah, I do not pretend that my ways are not dark and tortuous,” he said simply. “But you for one should be glad that I was there at St. Paul’s when you were arraigned to answer.”

  “I was glad that my innocence was recognized,” I said staunchly. “And I don’t want to go in there again.”

  “You will not,” he said simply. “My word on it.”

  “So will you scry for us?” my lord pressed me.

  I hesitated. “If you will ask a question for me,” I bargained with them.

  “What is it?” John Dee asked.

  “If my husband is alive or dead,” I said. “It’s all I want to know. I don’t even ask the future, if I shall see him again. I would be happy just to know that he is alive.”

  “You love him so much?” Lord Robert asked skeptically. “Your young man?”

  “I do,” I said simply. “I cannot rest until I know that he is safe.”

  “I shall ask the angels and you shall scry for me,” John Dee promised. “Tonight?”

  “When Danny is asleep,” I said. “I couldn’t do it while I was listening for him.”

  “At eight o’clock?” Lord Robert asked. “Here?”

  John Dee glanced around. “I will ask the men to bring up my table and my books.”

  Lord Robert noticed the smallness of the room and made an impatient noise. “She always does this,” he said irritably. “She never puts my friends in the best chambers. She is sick with envy of them, I shall tell her…”

  “There is plenty of room,” Dee said pacifically. “And she is bound to resent you coming with a great train when she will have wanted you to herself. Should you not go to her now?”

  Lord Robert went reluctantly to the door. “Come with me,” he said. “Come, both of you, and we’ll take a glass of ale to wash down the dust from the road.”

  I hung back. “I cannot come,” I said when he held the door for me.

  “What?”

  “She does not receive me,” I said awkwardly. “I am not invited to sit with her.”

  Robert’s dark eyebrows snapped together. “I told her that she was to keep you with her as her companion until we decided where you should live,” he said. “Where do you dine?”

  “At the table for the maids. I am not seated with your wife.”

  He took a rapid step toward the stairs and then he checked himself and came back. “Come,” he said, holding out his hand to me. “I am master here, I do not have to argue to see my wishes done. Just come, and you shall dine with me now. She is a stupid woman who does not reward her husband’s loyal servants. And a jealous woman who thinks that a pretty face is safer seen from afar.”

  I did not go to his outstretched hand. I smiled at him steadily, keeping my place in the window seat. “My lord,” I said. “I imagine you are going back to court within a few days?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What of it?”

  “Shall you take me with you?”

  He looked surprised. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thoug