Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ Sir Francis said, retreating as if in fear that he would be sent up a ladder.

  Robert grinned at him. ‘Aye. I’ll call you when the work is over,’ he said cheekily, and strode to the centre stage. ‘I imagine you will return in good time for the feast once all the hard work is done. Are you jousting?’

  ‘Good God, yes! I shall be a very noble gentil parfit knight! I shall be the very flower of chivalry. I am off now to polish my shield and my couplets,’ Sir Francis called mockingly from the stand. ‘Sing hey nonny nonny, sweet Robin!’

  ‘Hey nonny nonny!’ Robert shouted back, laughing.

  He returned to his work, smiling at the exchange, and then he had a sense of being watched. It was Elizabeth, standing alone on the platform that would be decked out as the royal box, looking down at the empty jousting rails and the sandy arena.

  Robert scrutinised her for a moment, noted her stillness, and the slight droop of her head. Then he picked up a flagpole as if still at work, and strolled past the royal box.

  ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed, as if he suddenly saw her. ‘Your Grace!’

  She smiled at him and came to the front of the box. ‘Hello, Robert.’

  ‘Thoughtful?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He wondered if she had overheard their conversation about the danger she walked through every day, if she had heard them name the dangers from every sort of person, from the lowest apprentices to her closest friends. How could a young woman bear to know that she was hated by her own people? That the greatest spiritual power in Christendom had declared her fit to die?

  He stuck the flagpole in its stand and came before the box and looked up. ‘Anything I can help you with, my princess?’

  Elizabeth gave him a shy little smile. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  He did not understand her. ‘Do? Do about what?’

  She leaned over the rail of the box so that she could speak softly. ‘I don’t know what to do at a tournament.’

  ‘You must have been to hundreds of tournaments.’

  ‘No, very few. I was not that often at court during my father’s reign, and Mary’s court was not merry and I was imprisoned for most of the time.’

  Again Robert was reminded that she had been in exile for most of her girlhood. She had educated herself with the passion of a scholar, but she had not prepared herself for the trivial entertainments of court life. She could not do so; there was no way to be at ease in the palaces or at the great events except through familiarity. He might relish the wit of thinking of a new theme to flavour a traditional event, but he knew the traditional event as one who had attended every joust since first coming to court, and indeed, had won most of them.

  Robert’s desire was to outdo the tournaments and entertainments that he knew only too well, Elizabeth’s desire was to get through them without betraying her lack of ease.

  ‘But you like jousting?’ he confirmed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘And I understand the rules but not how I should behave, and when to clap, and when to show favour, and all the rest of it.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Shall I make you out a plan?’ he asked gently. ‘Like I did for your coronation procession? So that it shows you where you should be and what you should do and say at each point?’

  At once she looked happier. ‘Yes. That would be good. Then I could enjoy the day instead of worrying about it.’

  He smiled. ‘And shall I make you a plan for the ceremony of the Order of the Garter?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said eagerly. ‘Thomas Howard told me what I should do but I couldn’t remember it all.’

  ‘How would he know?’ Dudley said dismissively. ‘He was hardly uppermost at court in the last three reigns.’

  She smiled at his habitual rivalry with the duke, her uncle, their contemporary in age, and Robert’s life-long rival.

  ‘Well, I will write it out for you,’ Robert said. ‘May I come to your room before dinner and go through it with you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. Impulsively she reached down her hand to him. He stretched up and could reach only her fingertips with his own, he kissed his hand and reached up to touch hers.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said sweetly, her fingertips lingering against his.

  ‘I’ll always tell you, I’ll always help you,’ he promised her. ‘Now that I know, I will draw you a table to show you where to go and what to do for every event. So that you always know. And when you have been to a dozen jousts you can tell me that you want it done differently, and you shall be the one that draws it up for me and shows me how you want everything changed.’

  Elizabeth smiled at that and then she turned and went from the royal box, leaving him with an odd sensation of tenderness towards her. Sometimes she was not like a queen come by luck and cunning to greatness. Sometimes she was more like a young girl with a task too difficult to manage alone. He was accustomed to desiring women, he was accustomed to using them. But for a moment in the half-prepared tilt yard he felt a new sensation for him – tenderness, of wanting her happiness more than his own.

  Lizzie Oddingsell wrote a letter to Amy’s dictation, and then Amy copied it herself, laboriously making the letters march straight along the ruled lines.

  Dear Husband,

  I hope this finds you in good health. I am happy and well, staying with our dear friends the Hydes. I think I have found us a house and land, as you asked me to do. I think you will be very pleased with it. Mr Hyde has spoken to the squire who is selling up owing to ill health and has no son to come after him, and he says that he is asking a fair price.

  I will go no further until I have your instructions, but perhaps you will come and see the house and land very soon. Mr and Mrs Hyde send you their good wishes and this basket of early salad leaves. Lady Robsart tells me we have eighty lambs born this year at Stanfield, our best ever year. I hope you will come soon.

  Your devoted wife

  Amy Dudley

  PS I do hope you will come soon, husband

  Amy walked to church across the park with Mrs Oddingsell, over the village green through the lych gate into the churchyard and then into the cool, changeless gloom of the parish church.

  Yet, it was not changeless, it was strangely changed. Amy looked around and saw a new great brass lectern at the head of the aisle and the Bible spread out on it, wide open as if anyone could be allowed to read it. The altar, where it was usually kept, was conspicuously empty. Amy and Lizzie Oddingsell exchanged one silent look and shut themselves into the Hyde family pew. The service proceeded in English, not the more familiar Latin, following King Edward’s prayer book rather than the beloved Mass. Amy bowed her head over the new words and tried to feel the presence of God, even though his church was changed, and the language was changed, and the Host was hidden.

  It came to the moment for the priest to pray for the queen, and he did so, his voice shaking only a little, but when it came for him to pray for their beloved bishop, Thomas Goldwell, the tears in his voice stopped him from speaking altogether and he fell silent. The clerk finished the prayer for him and the service went on, ending with the usual bidding prayer and blessing.

  ‘You go on,’ Amy whispered to her friend. ‘I want to pray for a moment.’

  She waited until the church was empty, and then she came from the Hyde pew. The priest was on his knees at the rood screen, Amy quietly went and knelt beside him.

  ‘Father?’

  He turned his head. ‘Daughter?’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  He nodded. His head bowed low as if he were ashamed. ‘They are saying that our Bishop Thomas is not our bishop at all.’

  ‘How is this?’ she asked.

  ‘They are saying that the queen has not appointed him to Oxford, and yet he is no longer Bishop of St Asaph. They are saying that he is betwixt and between, that he belongs nowhere, is bishop of nothing.’

  ‘Why would they say such a thing?’ she demanded. ‘The