The Queen's Fool

by Philippa Gregory

  Mrs. Oddingsell turned her head. “She wouldn’t demean herself to learn from you,” she said rudely. “She would only ever learn for him. And he does not trouble himself.”

  The messenger did not wait, but came home straightaway, and told her that his lordship had said he would come to us for a visit shortly and in the meantime to assure her ladyship that all was well with him.

  “I told you to wait for an answer,” she said irritably.

  “My lady, he said he would see you soon. And the princess…”

  Her head snapped up. “The princess? Which princess? Elizabeth?”

  “Yes, the Princess Elizabeth swore that he could not go while they were all waiting for the queen’s child to be born. She said they could not endure another confinement which might go on for years. She could not abide it without him. And my lord said yes, he would leave, even a lady such as her, for he had not seen you since he came to England, and you had bidden him to come to you.”

  She blushed a little at that, her vanity kindled like a flame. “And what more?” she asked.

  The messenger looked a little awkward. “Just some jesting between my lord and the princess,” he said.

  “What jesting?”

  “The princess was witty about him liking court better than the country,” he said, fumbling for words. “Witty about the charms of the court. Said he would not bury himself in the fields with wife.”

  The smile was quite wiped from her face. “And he said?”

  “More jests,” he said. “I cannot remember them, my lady. His lordship is a witty man, and he and the princess…” He broke off at the look on her face.

  “He and the princess: what?” she spat at him.

  The messenger shuffled his feet and turned his hat in his hands. “She is a witty woman,” he said doltishly. “The words flew so fast between them I could not make out what they said. Something about the country, something about promises. Some of the time they spoke another language so it was secret between themselves… Certainly, she likes him well. He is a very gallant man.”

  Amy Dudley jumped from her chair and strode to the bay window. “He is a very faithless man,” she said, very low. Then she turned to the messenger. “Very well, you can go. But next time when I order you to wait for him, I don’t want to see you back here without him.”

  He threw a look at me which said very plainly that a servant could hardly command his master to return to his wife in the middle of a flirtation with the Princess of England. I waited till he had left the room and then excused myself and hared down the gallery after him, Danny bouncing along on my hip, clinging to my shoulder, his little legs gripped around my waist, as I ran.

  “Stop! Stop!” I called. “Tell me about the court. Are all the physicians there for the queen? And the midwives? Is everything ready?”

  “Aye,” he said. “She is expected to have the child in the middle of March, next month, God willing.”

  “And do they say that she is well?”

  He shook his head. “They say she is sick to her heart at the loss of Calais and the absence of her husband,” he said. “The king has not said he will come to England for the birth of his son, so she has to face the travail of childbed all alone. And she is poorly served. All her fortune has been thrown away on her army and her servants have not even been paid and cannot buy food in the market. It is like a ghost court, and now she has gone into confinement there is no one to watch over the courtiers at all.”

  I felt a dreadful pang at the thought of her ill-served and me kicking my heels with Lady Amy Dudley, and doing nothing. “Who is with her?”

  “Only a handful of her ladies. No one wants to be at court now.”

  “And the Princess Elizabeth?”

  “She rode in looking very grand,” the messenger said. “Very taken with my lord.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Nobody needs to say so. It is known to everyone. She does not trouble to hide it. She shows it.”

  “How does she show it?”

  “Rides with him every morning, dines at his right hand, dances with him, her eyes fixed on his face, reads his letters at his elbow, smiles at him as if they had a secret jest, walks with him in the gallery and talks low, walks away from him, but always looks back over her shoulder, so that any man would want to chase her and catch her. You know.”

  I nodded. I had seen Elizabeth when she had someone’s husband marked down for her own. “I know well enough. And he?”

  “Very taken with her.”

  “Will he come here, d’you think?”

  The messenger chuckled. “Not until the princess lets him. He was at her beck and call. I don’t think he could force himself away from her.”

  “He’s not a greensick boy,” I said with sudden irritation. “He could decide for himself, I should hope.”

  “And she is not a greensick girl,” he said. “This is the next Queen of England and she cannot take her eyes from our lord. So what d’you think might come of that?”

  In the absence of any work to do in the household, I found that I spent all my time with the child, Danny, and all my thoughts were with his father. I decided to write to Daniel and address the letter to my father’s old shop in London. If Daniel came looking for me, or sent anyone to seek me, that would be one of the places he would visit first. I would send a copy of it to my lord and ask him to forward it to Calais. Surely there must be emissaries going to the city?

  Dear Husband,It is strange that after all we have been through we should once more be separated, and once again I am in England and you in Calais, but this time I think you are in greater danger than me. I pray every night that you are safe and well.I had the good fortune to be offered a place on the English ship belonging to Lord Robert and in the hurry of battle I thought it best to take it. I wish now I had found my way to you, but Daniel, I did not know what to do. Also, I had another life to consider. The mother of your child was killed by a French horseman before me, and her last act was to put your son in my hands. I have him with me now and I am caring for him as my own. He is safe and well though he does not speak yet. If you can reply to me you might tell me what should I do? Did he used to talk? And what language does he know?He is eating well and growing well, and learning to walk more strongly. We are living at Chichester in Sussex with Lord Dudley’s wife until I can find myself a place. I am thinking of going to court or to the Princess Elizabeth, if she will have me.I wish very much that I could ask you what you think would be the best thing for me to do. I wish very much that you were with me here, or that I were with you. I pray that you are safe, Daniel, and I tell you now, as I should have told you before, that I never stopped loving you even when I left your home. I loved you then, I love you now. I wish we had stayed together then, I wish we were together now. If God ever grants me another chance with you, Daniel, I would want to be your wife once more.Your wife (if you will let me call myself that),Hannah Carpenter

  I sent the letter to my lord, with a covering note.

  My lord,Your wife has been very kind to me but I am trespassing on her hospitality here. Please give me permission to come to court or to see if the Princess Elizabeth will take me into her service.Hannah Green

  I heard nothing from Daniel, and I had hardly hoped for it, though I could not tell if it was the silence of distance or the silence of death. In his silence I did not know if I was a widow, an errant wife, or just lost to him. I also waited for a message from my lord and heard nothing.

  Waiting to hear from Lord Robert, I was able to recognize that his wife was waiting for him too. Both of us would look up eagerly when we heard a horseman cantering up the lane toward the house. Both of us would gaze out of the window when the early wintry evenings swept down around the castle and another day was gone with no word from him. As each day went by I saw her hopes of him die away. Amy Dudley was slowly but surely being forced to acknowledge that whatever love he had felt for her, when he was a young man and she a young woman, had been worn
out by his years of ambition when he had followed his father’s train and left her behind, and then eroded completely by his years in the Tower when his first thought had been to keep himself alive. In those years, when he had fought to keep his wits together and not go mad under the loneliness of imprisonment and the fear of his death sentence, his wife was the very last thing he considered.

  I was waiting for him, but not like a resentful woman in love. I was waiting for him as the man who could set me free from this sleeping daze of domestic boredom. I was accustomed to running my own shop, to paying my own way, to earning my own money. To live off another person’s reluctant charity was very galling to me. And I was used to living in the world; even the tiny dull world of English Calais was more exciting than life in this country house where nothing changed but the weather and the seasons and, God knew, they moved as slowly as years, as decades. And I wanted news of the queen, of her confinement, of the long-waited coming of her child. If she had a son now, the English people would forgive her the loss of Calais, the awful winter that England had suffered this year, even the illness which was plaguing the country in this season of cold weather and rain.

  At last a note came from court.

  I shall be with you next week. RD

  Amy Dudley reacted coolly, with great dignity. She did not ask them to turn the house upside down to prepare for his arrival, she did not summon tenants and neighbors for a feast. She saw that the silver plate and the pewter trenchers were given an extra polish, and that the best linen was laid out for her bed, but other than that, she made no special provision for the return of the lord. Only I saw that she was waiting like a dog waits for his master’s step on the threshold; no one else would have noticed the tension in her body every day, from daybreak, when he might come early, till dusk, when he might arrive late. She took to going to bed as soon as it grew dark, as if the days of waiting were so unbearable that she wanted to sleep through the hours when he was not likely to arrive.

  Finally, on Friday, when there was nothing to put before him but carp from the moat, we saw his train coming down the lane, his standard at the head of a trotting column of riders, smartly in step, two by two, all bright and smart in his livery, and Robert before them all, like a young king; and riding behind him — I squinted my eyes against the low winter sun shining toward me — was John Dee, the reverend and respected Catholic chaplain to Bishop Bonner.

  I stepped up to the window of the upper gallery where I had been playing with Danny, so that I could see Robert Dudley’s welcome. The front door of the house was torn open and Amy Dudley was on the top step, her hands clasped before her, the picture of demure self-control, but I knew she was raging to be with him. I could hear the rest of the household flinging themselves down the stairs and skidding on the polished floorboards to be in their places when the honored guest walked into the hall.

  Lord Robert pulled up his horse, jumped from the saddle, threw the reins to a waiting groom, tossed some remark over his shoulder to John Dee and bowed and kissed his wife’s hand as if he had been away for a couple of nights and not for most of their married life.

  She dropped a cool curtsey and then turned to Mr. Dee and nodded her head, wasting little politeness on the bishop’s curate. I smiled, I did not think Robert would like to see his friend slighted, she was a fool to snub him.

  I picked up Danny, who came to me eagerly with his beaming smile, but saying nothing, and made my way down the great stairs to the hall. The household was assembled, lined up as if they were an army for inspection, Sir John Philips and his lady at the head. My lord stood illuminated in the doorway, his broad shoulders brushing the doorframe, his smile confident.

  As always his sheer glamour amazed me. The years of imprisonment had scarred him with nothing worse than a deep groove on either side of his mouth and a hardness at the back of his eyes. He looked like a man who had taken a beating and learned to live with the knowledge of defeat. Apart from that shadow, he was the same young man whom I had seen walking with an angel in Fleet Street five years ago. His hair was still dark and thick and curling, his look still challenging and bright, his mouth ready to grin, and his whole bearing like that of the prince he might have been.

  “I’m very glad to be with you,” he said to them all. “And I thank you all for the good service you have done to me and mine while I have been away.” He paused. “You will be anxious for news of the queen,” he said. He glanced up the stairs and saw me dressed as a woman, for the first time ever. His amazed stare took in the cut-down gown which I had sewn with the help of Mrs. Oddingsell, my dark hair smoothed back under my hood, the dark-headed child on my hip. Comically, he looked and then looked again at the sight of me, recognized me despite the gown, and then shook a baffled head; but continued his speech.

  “The queen is in her confinement chamber and expecting to give birth to a son. The king will return to England when the baby is born; in the meantime he is protecting the borders of his Spanish lands in the Low Countries, and has sworn to retake Calais for England. The Princess Elizabeth has visited her sister and wished her well. The princess is in good health, good spirits and great beauty, praise God. She has told the queen that she will not marry any Spanish prince, nor anyone of the king’s choosing. She will remain a bride of England.”

  I thought it an odd way to give news of the queen, but the servants were glad to hear it and there was a murmur of interest at the princess’s name. Here, as in the rest of the country, the mood against the queen was very strong. Losing Calais was blamed on her, since she had taken us into war with the French against the tradition of her family, and against the advice of her council. They blamed her for the hunger in the country and for the bad weather, they blamed her for not having a child earlier, they blamed her for the deaths of the heretics.

  A healthy son was the only thing that would redeem her in their eyes, and some of them did not want even him. Some of them, perhaps most of them now, would have her die childless and the crown go straight to the Princess Elizabeth — another woman, and though they were sick of queens, this was a good Protestant princess and one who had already refused to marry a Spanish prince and who now swore that she had no inclination to marry at all.

  There was a little murmur at the news and they began to disperse. Robert shook John Philips warmly by the hand, kissed Lady Philips on her cheek and then turned to me.

  “Hannah? Is that really you?”

  I came down the stairs slowly, conscious of his wife behind him, still standing in the doorway.

  “My lord,” I said. I reached the bottom step and dropped him a curtsey.

  “I would never have known you,” he said incredulously. “You are more than a girl, Hannah. You are a woman grown, and out of your breeches at last! Did you have to learn how to walk all over again? Show me your shoes! Go on! Are you in high heels? And a babe in your arms? This is a transformation!”

  I smiled but I could feel Amy’s eyes boring into me. “This is my son,” I said. “I thank you for saving us from Calais.”

  His face clouded over for a moment. “I wish I could have saved them all.”

  “Have you any news from the town?” I asked him. “My husband and his family may still be there. Did you send my letter onward?”

  He shook his head. “I gave it to my pageboy and told him to give it to a fisherman who goes out deep into the French seas, and asked him to pass it to a French ship if he met with one, but I could do no more for you. We have heard nothing of the men who were captured. We have not even begun peace proposals. King Philip will keep us at war with France for as long as he can, and the queen is in no position to argue. There will be some exchange of prisoners, and men sent home, but God knows when.” He shook his head as if to dislodge the memories of the fall of the infallible castle. “You know, I have never seen you in a gown before. You are transformed!”

  I tried to laugh but I could see Amy coming to claim her husband.

  “You will want to wash and change
out of your riding clothes,” she said firmly.

  Robert bowed to her.

  “There is hot water in your bedchamber,” she said.

  “Then I’ll go up.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And someone must show Dee where he is to lodge.” I shrank back, but my lord did not notice. He called out: “Here, John — look at who we have here!”

  John Dee came forward and I saw that he was more changed than Robert. His hair was graying at the temples, his eyes were dark with fatigue. But his air of confidence and his inner peace were as strong as ever.

  “Who is this lady?” he asked.

  “I am Hannah Carpenter, Mr. Dee,” I said guardedly. I did not know whether he was going to acknowledge that we had last met in the most terrible place in England when I was on trial for my life and he was my judge. “I was Hannah Green. The queen’s fool.”

  He looked quickly at me again and then a slow sweet smile spread from his eyes to his lips. “Ah, Hannah, I would not have known you in your gown.”

  “And he is Dr. Dee now,” my lord said casually. “Bishop Bonner’s chaplain.”

  “Oh,” I said guardedly.

  “And is this your son?” John Dee asked.

  “Yes. This is Daniel Carpenter,” I said proudly, and John Dee reached forward and touched my little boy’s fingers with his own. Comically, Danny turned his head away and pressed his face into my shoulder.

  “How old is he?”

  “Nearly two.”

  “And his father?”

  I frowned. “I parted from my husband at Calais, I don’t know if he is safe,” I said.

  “You have no… sense of him?” John Dee asked me, his voice low.

  I shook my head.

  “Dr. Dee, Hannah will show you to your chamber,” Amy’s voice broke in abruptly, speaking of me as if I were her servant.