The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  She turned her head away. “I am too tired,” she said. “You can come back when I am better.”

  I rose from my kneeling position by the bed and stepped backward. Kat Ashley jerked her head toward the door to send me from the room.

  “And you can tell those who have come to take her that she is near death!” she said bluntly. “You can’t threaten her with the scaffold, she is slipping away all on her own!” A half sob escaped her and I saw that she was drawn as tight as a lute string with anxiety for the princess.

  “No one is threatening her,” I said.

  She gave a little snort of disbelief. “They have come to take her, haven’t they?”

  “Yes,” I said unwillingly. “But they have no warrant, she is not under arrest.”

  “Then she shall not leave,” she said angrily.

  “I’ll tell them she is too ill to travel,” I said. “But the physicians will want to see her, whatever I say.”

  She made a little irritable puffing noise and stepped closer to the bed to straighten the quilt. I glimpsed a quick bright glance from beneath Elizabeth’s swollen eyelids, as I bowed again and let myself out of the room.

  Then we waited. Good God, how we waited. She was the absolute mistress of delay. When the physicians said she was well enough to leave she could not choose the gowns she would bring, then her ladies could not pack them in time for us to set off before dusk. Then everything had to be unpacked again since we were staying another day, and then Elizabeth was so exhausted she could see no one at all the next day, and the merry dance of Elizabeth’s waiting began again.

  During one of these mornings, when the big trunks were being laboriously loaded into the wagons, I went to the Lady Elizabeth to see if I could assist her. She was lying on a daybed, in an attitude of total exhaustion.

  “It is all packed,” she said. “And I am so tired I do not know if I can begin the journey.”

  The swelling of her body had reduced but she was clearly still unwell. She would have looked better if she had not powdered her cheeks with rice powder and, I swear, darkened the shadows under her eyes. She looked like a sick woman enacting the part of a sick woman.

  “The queen is determined that you shall go to London,” I warned her. “Her litter arrived for you yesterday, you can travel lying down if you will.”

  She bit her lip. “Do you know if she will accuse me when we get there?” she asked, her voice very low. “I am innocent of plotting against her, but there are many who would speak against me, slanderers and liars.”

  “She loves you,” I reassured her. “I think she would take you back into her favor and into her heart even now, if you would just accept her faith.”

  Elizabeth looked into my eyes, that straight honest Tudor look, like her father, like her sister. “Are you telling me the truth?” she asked. “Are you a holy fool or a trickster, Hannah Green?”

  “I am neither,” I said, meeting her gaze. “I was begged for a fool by Robert Dudley, against my wishes. I never wanted to be a fool. I have a gift of Sight which comes to me unbidden, and sometimes shows me things that I cannot even understand. And most of the time it doesn’t come at all.”

  “You saw an angel behind Robert Dudley,” she reminded me.

  I smiled. “I did.”

  “What was it like?”

  I giggled, I couldn’t help it. “Lady Elizabeth, I was so taken with Lord Robert that I hardly noticed the angel.”

  She sat up, quite forgetting her pose of illness, and laughed with me. “He is very… he is so… he is indeed a man you look at.”

  “And I only realized it was an angel afterwards,” I said to excuse myself. “At the time I was just overwhelmed by the three of them, Mr. Dee, Lord Robert, and the third.”

  “And do your visions come to pass?” she asked keenly. “You scried for Mr. Dee, didn’t you?”

  I hesitated with a sense of the ground opening into a chasm under my feet. “Who says so?” I asked cautiously.

  She smiled at me, a flash of small white teeth as if she were a bright fox. “Never mind what I know. I am asking what you know.”

  “Some things that I see have come to pass,” I said, honestly enough. “But sometimes the very things I need to know, the most important things in the world, I cannot tell. Then it is a useless gift. If it had warned me — just once—”

  “What warning?” she asked.

  “The death of my mother,” I said. I would have bitten back the words as soon as they were spoken. I did not want to tell my past to this sharp-minded princess.

  I glanced at her face but she was looking at me with intense sympathy. “I did not know,” she said gently. “Did she die in Spain? You came from Spain, did you not?”

  “In Spain,” I said. “Of the plague.” I felt a sharp twist of pain in my belly at lying about my mother, but I did not dare to think of the fires of the Inquisition with this young woman watching me. It was as if she could have seen the flicker of their reflected flames in my eyes.

  “I am sorry,” she said, very low. “It is hard for a young woman to grow up without a mother.”

  I knew she was thinking of herself for a moment, and of the mother who had died on the scaffold with the names of witch, adulteress and whore. She put away the thought. “But what made you come to England?”

  “We have kin here. And my father had arranged a marriage for me. We wanted to start again.”

  She smiled at my breeches. “Does your betrothed know that he will be getting a girl who is half boy?”

  I made a little pout. “He does not like me at court, he does not like me in livery, and he does not like me in breeches.”

  “But do you like him?”

  “Well enough as a cousin. Not enough for a husband.”

  “And do you have any choice in the matter?”

  “Not much,” I said shortly.

  She nodded. “It’s always the same for all women,” she said, a hint of resentment in her voice. “The only people who can choose their lives are those in breeches. You do right to wear them.”

  “I’ll have to put them aside soon,” I said. “I was allowed to wear them when I was little more than a child but I…” I checked myself. I did not want to confide in her. She had a gift, this princess, the Tudor gift, of opening confidences.

  “When I was your age, I thought I would never know how to be a young woman,” she said, echoing my thought. “All I wanted to do was to be a scholar, I could see how to do that. I had a wonderful tutor and he taught me Latin and Greek and all the spoken languages too. I wanted to please my father so much, I thought he would be proud of me if I could be as clever as Edward. I used to write to him in Greek — can you imagine? The greatest dread of my life was that I would be married and sent away from England. The greatest hope of my life was that I might be a great and learned lady and be allowed to stay at court. When my father died I thought I would be always at court: my brother’s favorite sister, and aunt to his many children, and together we would see my father’s work complete.”

  She shook her head. “Indeed, I should not want your gift of Sight,” she said. “If I had known that I would come to this, under the shadow of my sister’s displeasure, and my beloved brother dead, and my father’s legacy thrown away…”

  Elizabeth broke off and then turned to me, her dark eyes filled with tears. She stretched out her hand palm upward, and I could see that she was shaking slightly. “Can you see my future?” she asked. “Will Mary greet me as a sister and know that I have done no wrong? Will you tell her that I am innocent in my heart?”

  “If she can, she will.” I took her hand, but kept my eyes on the pale face which had so suddenly blanched. She leaned back against the richly embroidered pillows. “Truly, Princess, the queen would be your friend. I know this. She would be very happy to hear of your innocence.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Even if the Vatican named me a saint, she would not be happy,” she said. “And I will tell you why. It isn’t my a
bsence from court, it isn’t even my doubts about her religion. It is the rage that lives between sisters. She will never forgive me for what they did to her mother, and for what they did to her. She will never forgive me for being my father’s darling and the baby of the court. She will never forgive me for being the best beloved daughter. I remember her as a young woman, sitting at the foot of my bed and staring at me as if she would hold the pillow over my face, though she was singing me a lullaby all the time. She has loves and hates, all mixed up. And the last thing she wants at court is a younger sister to show her up.”

  I said nothing; it was too shrewd an assessment.

  “A younger sister who is prettier than her,” Elizabeth reminded me. “A younger sister who looks like a pure Tudor and not like a half-caste Spaniard.”

  I turned my head. “Have a care, Princess.”

  Elizabeth laughed, a wild little laugh. “She sent you here to see into my heart. Didn’t she? She has great faith in God working his purpose in her life. Telling her what is to be. But her God is very slow in bringing her joy, I think. That long long wait for the throne and then a rebellious kingdom at the end of it. And now a wedding but a bridegroom who is in no hurry to come, but instead stays at home with his mistress. What do you see for her, fool?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, Your Grace. I cannot see to command. And in any case, I am afraid to look.”

  “Mr. Dee believes that you could be a great seer, one who might help him unveil the mysteries of the heavens.”

  I turned my head, afraid that my face might show the sudden vivid image I had in my mind’s eye, the dark mirror, and the words spilling out of my mouth, telling of the two queens who would rule England. A child, but no child, a king but no king, a virgin queen all-forgotten, a queen but no virgin. I did not know who these might be. “I have not spoken with Mr. Dee for many months,” I said cautiously. “I hardly know him.”

  “You once spoke to me without my invitation, you mentioned his name, and others,” she said, her voice very low.

  I did not falter for a second. “I did not, your ladyship. If you remember, the heel of your shoe broke and I helped you to your room.”

  She half closed her eyes and smiled. “Not a fool at all then, Hannah.”

  “I can tell a hawk from a handsaw,” I said shortly.

  There was a silence between us, then she sat up and put her feet to the ground. “Help me up,” she said.

  I took her arm and she leaned her weight against me. She staggered slightly as she got to her feet, this was no pretense. She was a sick girl, and I felt her tremble and knew that she was sick with fear. She took a step toward the window and looked out over the cold garden, each leaf dripping a teardrop of ice.

  “I dare not go to London,” she said to me in a soft moan. “Help me, Hannah. I dare not go. Have you heard from Lord Robert? Have you truly nothing for me from John Dee? From any of the others? Is there no one there who will help me?”

  “Lady Elizabeth, I swear to you, it is over. There is no one who can rescue you, there is no force that can come against your sister. I have not seen Mr. Dee for months, and the last time I saw Lord Robert he was in the Tower awaiting execution. He did not expect to live long. He has released me from his service.” I heard the tiny shake in my voice, and I drew a breath and steadied myself. “His last words to me were to tell me to ask for mercy for Lady Jane.” I did not add that he had asked for mercy for Elizabeth too. She did not look as if she needed reminding that she was as close to the block as her cousin.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against the wooden shutters. “And did you plead for her? Will she be forgiven?”

  “The queen is always merciful,” I said.

  She looked at me with eyes that were filled with tears. “I hope so indeed,” Elizabeth said gravely. “For what about me?”

  The next day she could resist no longer. The wagons with her trunks, furniture and linens had already gone, swaying south down the great north road. The queen’s own litter with cushions and rugs of the warmest wool was standing at the door, four white mules harnessed to it, the muleteer at the ready. At the doorway Elizabeth staggered and seemed to faint but the doctors were at her side and they half lifted and half dragged her into the litter and bundled her in. She cried out as if in pain but I thought it was fear that was choking her. She was sick with fear. She knew she was going to her trial for treason, and then death.

  We traveled slowly. At every halt the princess delayed, asking for a longer rest, complaining of the jolting pace, unable to put a foot to the ground to step down from the litter, and then unable to climb back in again. Her face, the only part of her exposed to the wintry wind, grew pink from the cold and became more swollen. It was no weather for a journey at all, certainly no weather for an invalid, but the queen’s councillors would not be delayed. With Elizabeth’s own cousin urging them onward, their determination told Elizabeth as clearly as if they had the warrant in their hand that she was destined for death.

  No one would dare to offend the next heir to the throne as they were daring to treat her. No one would make the next monarch of England climb into a litter on a dark morning and jolt down a rutted frozen road before it was even light. Anyone who treated Elizabeth in this way must know for sure that she would never become queen.

  We were three days into a journey that seemed as if it would last forever as the princess rose later every morning, too pained with her aching joints to face the litter until midday. Whenever we stopped on the road to dine she sat late at the table and was reluctant to get back into the litter. By the time we got to the house where we were spending the night the councillors were swearing at their horses with frustration, and stamping to their chambers, kicking the rushes aside.

  “What do you think to gain from this delay, Princess?” I asked her one morning when Lord Howard had sent me into her bedchamber for the tenth time to ask when she would be ready to come. “The queen is not more likely to forgive you if she is kept waiting.”

  She was standing stock-still, while one of her ladies slowly wound a scarf around her throat. “I gain another day,” she said.

  “But to do what?”

  She smiled at me, though her eyes were dark with fear. “Ah, Hannah, you have never longed to live as I long to live if you do not know that another day is the most precious thing. I would do anything right now to gain another day, and tomorrow it will be the same. Every day we do not reach London is another day that I am alive. Every morning that I wake, every night that I sleep is a victory for me.”

  On the fourth day into the journey a messenger met us on the road, carrying a letter for Lord William Howard. He read it and tucked it into the front of his doublet, his face suddenly grim. Elizabeth waited till he was looking away and then crooked her swollen finger at me. I drew up my horse beside the litter.

  “I would give a good deal to know what was in that letter,” she said. “Go and listen for me. They won’t notice you.”

  My opportunity came when we stopped to dine. Lord Howard and the other councillors were watching their horses being taken into the stalls. I saw him pull the letter from inside his doublet and I paused beside him to straighten my riding boot.

  “Lady Jane is dead,” he announced baldly. “Executed two days ago. Guilford Dudley before her.”

  “And Robert?” I demanded urgently, bobbing up, my voice cutting through the buzz of comment. “Robert Dudley?”

  Much was always forgiven a fool. He nodded at my interest. “I have no news of him,” he said. “I should think he was executed alongside his brother.”

  I felt the world become blurred around me and I realized I was about to faint. I plumped down on to the cold step and put my head in my hands. “Lord Robert,” I whispered into my knees. “My lord.”

  It was impossible that he was dead, that bright dark-eyed vitality gone forever. It was impossible to think that the executioner could slice off his head as if he were an ordinary traitor, that his dark eyes and
his sweet smile and his easy charm would not save him at the block. Who could bring themselves to kill bonny Robin? Who could sign such a warrant, what headsman could bear to do it? And it was all the more impossible since I had seen the prophecy in his favor. I had heard the words as they had come out of my mouth, I had smelled the candle smoke, I had seen the flickering bob of the flame and the mirrors which ran reflection into glimmer all the way back into Mr. Dee’s darkness. I had known then that he would be beloved by a queen, that he would die in his bed. I had been shown it, the words had been told to me. If my Lord Robert was dead then not only was the great love of my life dead, but also I had been taught in the hardest way possible that my gift was a chimera and a delusion. Everything was over in one sweep of the ax.

  I got to my feet and staggered back against the stone wall.

  “Are you sick, fool?” came the cool voice of one of Lord Howard’s men. His Lordship glanced over indifferently.

  I gulped down the lump that was in my throat. “May I tell Lady Elizabeth about Lady Jane?” I asked him. “She will want to know.”

  “You can tell her,” he said. “And I should think she would want to know. Everyone will know within a few days. Jane and the Dudleys died on the block before a crowd of hundreds. It’s public business.”

  “The charge?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

  “Treason,” he said flatly. “Tell her that. Treason. And pretending to the throne.”

  Without another word being said, everyone turned to the litter where Lady Elizabeth, her hand outstretched to Mrs. Ashley, the other holding to the side of the door, was laboriously descending.

  “So die all traitors,” said her cousin, looking at the white-faced girl, his own kin, who had been a friend to every man who now swung on the gibbet. “So die all traitors.”

  “Amen,” said a voice from the back of the crowd.

  I waited till she had dined before I found my way to her side. She was dipping her fingers in the basin of water held out to her by the yeoman of the ewery and then holding them for a pageboy to pat dry.