Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2 Read online

  He was dismounting from his horse, he greeted her with a cursory kiss on the cheek.

  ‘My lord,’ Amy said in greeting. ‘Are you unwell?’

  ‘No,’ he said shortly. Amy wanted to cling to him, to treasure his touch, but gently he put her aside. ‘Let me go, Amy, I am dirty.’

  ‘I don’t mind!’

  ‘But I do.’ He turned, his friend John Hayes was coming down the front steps of the house.

  ‘Sir Robert! I thought I heard horses!’

  Robert clapped John on the back. ‘No need to ask how you are,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You’re putting on weight, John. Obviously not hunting enough.’

  ‘But you look dreadful.’ His friend was concerned. ‘Are you sick, sir?’

  Robert shrugged. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘Court life?’ John said, guessing quickly.

  ‘It would be easier to dance the volta in hell than survive in London,’ Robert said precisely. ‘Between Her Grace, and Sir William Cecil, and the women of the queen’s chamber, and the Privy Council, my head is spinning from dawn when I get up to check the stables, till midnight when I can finally leave the court and go to bed.’

  ‘Come and have a glass of ale,’ John offered. ‘Tell me all about it.’

  ‘I stink of horse,’ Robert said.

  ‘Oh, who cares for that?’

  The two men turned and went towards the house. Amy was about to follow them and then she dropped back and let them go on. She thought that perhaps her husband would be relieved if he could talk alone with his friend, and would perhaps be easier, not constrained by her presence. But she crept after them and sat on the wooden chair in the hall, outside the closed door, so that she should be there for him when he came out.

  The ale helped Robert’s bad temper, and then a wash in hot, scented water and a change of clothes. A good dinner completed the change; Mrs Minchin was a famously lavish housekeeper. By six in the evening when the four of them, Sir Robert, Amy, Lizzie Oddingsell and John Hayes, sat down to a game of cards, his lordship was restored to his usual sweet temper and his face was less drawn. By nightfall he was tipsy and Amy realised that she would get no sense from him that evening. They went to bed together, and she hoped that they would make love, but he merely turned away, heaved the covers high over his shoulders and fell into a deep sleep. Amy, lying awake in the darkness, did not think that she should wake him since he was tired, and in any case, she never initiated their lovemaking. She wanted him; but she did not know where to begin – his smooth unyielding back did not respond to her tentative touch. She turned away herself, and watched the moonlight coming through the slats of the shutters, listened to his heavy breathing, and remembered her duty before God to love her husband whatever the circumstances. She resolved to be a better wife to him in the morning.

  ‘Would you like to ride with me, Amy?’ Robert asked politely at breakfast. ‘I have to keep my hunter fit, but I shan’t go too far or too fast today.’

  ‘I should like to come,’ she said at once. ‘But don’t you think it will rain?’

  He was not listening, he had turned his head and ordered his manservant to get the horses ready.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I only said I was afraid it will rain,’ she repeated.

  ‘Then we will come home again.’

  Amy flushed, thinking that she had sounded like a fool.

  On the ride it was not much better. She could think of nothing to say but the most obvious banalities about the weather and the fields on either side of them, while he rode, his face dark, his eyes abstracted, his gaze fixed on the track ahead of them but seeing nothing.

  ‘Are you well, my lord?’ Amy asked quietly when they turned for home. ‘You do not seem yourself at all.’

  He looked at her as if he had forgotten that she was there. ‘Oh, Amy. Yes, I am well enough. A little troubled by events at court.’

  ‘What events?’

  He smiled as if he were being interrogated by a child. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘You can tell me,’ she assured him. ‘I am your wife, I want to know if something troubles you. Is it the queen?’

  ‘She is in great danger,’ he said. ‘Every day there is news of another plot against her. There never was a queen who was more loved by half the people and yet more hated by the others.’

  ‘So many people think she has no right to the throne,’ Amy remarked. ‘They say that since she was a bastard, it should have gone to Mary, Queen of Scots, and then the kingdoms would be united now, without a war, without the change to the church, without the trouble that Elizabeth brings.’

  Robert choked on his surprise. ‘Amy, whatever are you thinking? This is treason that you are speaking to me. Pray God you never say such a thing to anyone else. And you should never repeat it, even to me.’

  ‘It’s only the truth,’ Amy observed calmly.

  ‘She is the anointed Queen of England.’

  ‘Her own father declared her to be a bastard, and that was never revoked,’ Amy said reasonably enough. ‘She has not even revoked it herself.’

  ‘There is no doubt that she is his legitimate daughter,’ Robert said flatly.

  ‘Excuse me, husband, but there is every doubt,’ Amy said politely. ‘I don’t blame you for not wanting to see it, but facts are facts.’

  Robert was astounded by her confidence. ‘Good God, Amy, what has come over you? Who have you been talking to, who has filled your head with this nonsense?’

  ‘No-one, of course. Who do I ever see but your friends?’ she asked.

  For a moment, he thought she was being sarcastic and he looked sharply at her, but her face was serene, her smile as sweet as ever.

  ‘Amy, I am serious. There are men all round England with their tongues slit for less than you have said.’

  She nodded. ‘How cruel of her to torture innocent men for speaking nothing but the truth.’

  They rode for a moment in silence, Robert utterly baffled by the sudden uprising in his own household.

  ‘Have you always thought like this?’ he asked quietly. ‘Even though you have always known that I supported her? That I was proud to be her friend?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Always. I never thought her claim was the best.’

  ‘You have never said anything to me.’

  She shot him a little smile. ‘You never asked me.’

  ‘I would have been glad to know that I had a traitor in my household.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘There was a time when you were the traitor and I was right-thinking. It is the times that have changed, not us.’

  ‘Yes, but a man likes to know if his wife is plotting treason.’

  ‘I have always thought that she was not the true heir; but I thought she was the best choice for the country, until now.’

  ‘Why, what has happened now?’ he demanded.

  ‘She is turning against the true religion, and supporting the Protestant rebels in Scotland,’ Amy said levelly. ‘She has imprisoned all the bishops, except those that have been forced into exile. There is no church any more, just frightened priests not knowing what they should do. It is an open attack on the religion of our country. What does she hope for? To make England and Scotland and Wales and Ireland all Protestant? To rival the Holy Father himself? To make a Holy Empire of her own? Does she want to be a Pope in petticoats? No wonder she does not marry. Who could bear such a wife as she would be?’

  ‘True religion?’ Robert exclaimed. ‘Amy, you have been a Protestant all your life. We were married by King Edward’s service in his presence. Who have you been talking with to get such ideas in your head?’

  She looked at him with her usual mildness. ‘I have been talking with no-one, Robert. And our household was Papist for all of Queen Mary’s years. I do think, you know. In the long hours that I spend alone, I have nothing to do but to think. And I travel around the country, and I see what Elizabeth and her servants are doing. I see the destruction o