Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  ‘I warned you not to leave it too late,’ she said, her gesture taking in the waiting women, the lounging handsome men, the courtiers from London who saw me recognise them and looked a little abashed. A couple of members of the queen’s council stepped back from my scrutiny; with them was an envoy of France, and a minor prince or two.

  ‘I see your ladyship keeps a merry court,’ I said evenly. ‘As you should. And I cannot join you, even if you would condescend to have me. I have to serve your sister. She does not have a merry court, she has few friends. I would not leave her now.’

  ‘Then you must be the only person in England who has not deserted her,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I took on her cook last week. Does she get anything to eat at all?’

  ‘She manages,’ I said drily. ‘And even the Spanish ambassador, Count Feria, her greatest friend and trusted councillor, was missing from court when I left.’

  She shot a quick look at Robert Dudley and I saw him nod permission for her to speak.

  ‘I refused his request,’ she said gently. ‘I have no plans to marry anyone. You can assure the queen of that, for it is true.’

  I gave her a little curtsey. ‘I am glad not to have to take her any news which would make her yet more unhappy.’

  ‘I wish she would feel some distress for the people of the country,’ Elizabeth said sharply. ‘The burning of heretics goes on, Hannah, the agony of innocent people. You should tell the queen that her sadness at the loss of a child who never was is nothing compared with the grief of a woman who sees her son go to the stake. And there are hundreds of women who have been forced to watch that.’

  Robert Dudley came to my rescue. ‘Shall we dine?’ he asked lightly. ‘And there will be music after dinner. I demand a dance.’

  ‘Only one?’ she queried, her mood lifting at once.

  ‘Only one,’ he said.

  She made a little flirtatious pouting face.

  ‘The one that starts when the music starts after dinner and ends when the sun comes up and no-one can dance another step,’ he said. ‘That one.’

  ‘And what shall we do then, when we have danced ourselves to a standstill?’ she asked provocatively.

  I looked from her to him, I could hardly believe the intimacy of their tone. Anyone who heard them would have thought them to be lovers in the very first days of their desire.

  ‘We will do whatever you wish, of course,’ he said, his voice like silk. ‘But I know what I would wish.’

  ‘What?’ she breathed.

  ‘To lie with …’

  ‘With?’

  ‘The morning sun on my face,’ he finished.

  Elizabeth stepped a little closer to him and whispered a phrase in Latin. I kept my expression deliberately blank. I had understood the Latin as readily as Lord Robert, she had whispered that she wanted kisses in the morning … From the sun, of course.

  She turned to her court. ‘We will dine,’ she announced out loud. She walked alone, head up, towards the doors to the great hall. As she went into the dark interior she paused and threw a glance at Lord Robert over her shoulder. I saw the invitation in her look, and almost like a moment of dizziness, I recognised that look. I had seen that very same look before, to the queen’s husband King Philip. And I had seen that look before then, when she had been a girl and I had been a child: to Lord Thomas Seymour, her stepmother’s husband. It was the same look, it was the invitation of the same desire. Elizabeth liked to choose her lovers from the husbands of other women, she liked to arouse desire from a man whose hands were tied, she liked to triumph over a woman who could not keep her husband, and more than anything in the world, she liked to throw that look over her shoulder and see a man start forward to go to her side – as Lord Robert started now.

  Elizabeth’s court was a young merry optimistic court. It was the court of a young woman waiting for her fortune, waiting for her throne, certain, now, that it would come to her. It hardly mattered that the queen had not named her as heir; all the time-serving, self-serving men of the queen’s court and council had already pledged their allegiance to this rising star. Half of them had sons and daughters in her service already. The visit from Count Feria was nothing more than another straw in the wind which was blowing smoothly and sweetly towards Hatfield. It told everyone that the queen’s power, like her happiness, like her health, had waned. Even the queen’s husband had transferred to her rival.

  It was a merry, joyful summertime court and I spent the afternoon and night in that happy company. It left me sick and chilled to the bone. I slept in a little bed with my arms tight around my child, and the next day we rode back to the queen.

  I made sure I did not count how many great men and women we passed on the road to Hatfield, going in the opposite direction. I did not need to add to the sour taste of sickness in my mouth. Long before this day, I had seen the court move from a sick king to a waiting heir and I knew how light is the fidelity of courtiers. But even so, even though I had known it, there was something about the turn of this tide that felt more like the dishonourable turning of a coat.

  I found the queen walking by the river, no more than a handful of courtiers behind her. I marked who they were; half of them at least were the dourest most solid Catholics whose faith would never change whoever was on the throne, a couple of Spanish noblemen, hired by the king to stay at court and bear his wife company, and Will Somers, faithful Will Somers, who called himself a fool but had never, in my hearing, said a foolish word.

  ‘Your Grace,’ I said, and swept her my curtsey.

  The queen took in my appearance, the mud on my cloak, the child at my side.

  ‘You have come straight from Hatfield?’

  ‘As you commanded.’

  ‘Can someone take the child?’

  Will stepped forward and Danny beamed. I set him down and he gave his quiet little gurgle of pleasure and toddled towards Will.

  ‘I am sorry to bring him to Your Grace, I thought you might like to see him,’ I said awkwardly.

  She shook her head. ‘No, Hannah, I do not ever want to see him.’ She gestured for me to walk beside her. ‘Did you see Elizabeth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what did she say of the ambassador?’

  ‘I spoke to one of her women.’ I was anxious not to identify Lord Robert as the favourite at this treacherous alternative court. ‘She said that the ambassador had visited to pay his compliments.’

  ‘And what else?’

  I hesitated. My duty to be honest to the queen and my desire not to hurt her seemed to be in utter conflict. I had puzzled about this for all of the ride back to court and I had decided that I should be as faithless as the rest of them. I could not bring myself to tell her that her own husband was proposing marriage to her own sister.

  ‘He was pressing the suit of the Duke of Savoy,’ I said. ‘Elizabeth herself assured me that she would not marry him.’

  ‘The Duke of Savoy?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  The queen reached out her hand and I took it and waited, not knowing what she would say to me. ‘Hannah, you have been my friend for many years, and a true friend, I think.’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Hannah, sometimes I think I have run mad, quite mad, with jealousy and unhappiness.’

  Her dark eyes filled with tears. I held tightly to her hand. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I am doubting him. I am doubting my own husband. I am doubting our marriage vows. If I doubt this then my world will fall apart, and yet I do doubt.’

  I did not know what to say. Her grip on my hand was painful but I did not flinch. ‘Queen Mary?’

  ‘Hannah, answer me a question and then I will never think of this again. But answer me truly, and tell no-one.’

  I gulped, wondering what terror was opening up beneath my feet. ‘I will, Your Grace.’ Inwardly I promised myself that if the question endangered me, or Danny, or my lord; I would allow myself to lie. The famili