I remain, sir, in gratitude, your cousin and friend at court. Robert, Lord Dudley.
Robert sanded and sealed the letter, then walked to the door of his apartment to call for a page.
‘Boy!’
A young lad of around ten peeled himself from the wall and scampered towards Robert, making a courtly bow, hat in hand.
‘My Lord?’ The page gazed up at Robert wide-eyed, waiting for his instructions. Robert smiled slightly at the boy’s obvious eagerness to serve his master.
‘Do you know my steward, Thomas Blount?’ he asked, wondering if this child would be able to carry a message properly.
‘Y..Yes, my Lord,’ the boy nodded eagerly. ‘He is very tall and carries a fearsome dagger.’
Robert swallowed a smile. Thomas was around his own height, but the thought that the dagger was what the boy remembered amused him.
‘Tell him I have messages for him to deliver. You may find him in the kitchens, or stables.’ Robert took a small silver coin and flipped it to the child, who caught it easily.
‘Yes, my Lord. Thank you, my Lord.’ The child plonked his hat on his head and rushed away down the gallery, boots clattering on the wooden floor.
Robert returned to his chamber, swallowed the rest of his wine and poured another cup while he waited for the page to find Thomas. The thought crossed his mind that he ought to send the page to fetch him some bread and cheese when he returned. Robert felt himself becoming slightly light-headed and knew he must eat something before Elizabeth summoned him after her fitting for her robes of state.
A light knock came at his door and Robert gulped the remainder of his wine.
‘Come in,’ he called, standing and striding towards the door. ‘Boy. What is your name, boy?
‘Tom, my Lord. Tom Sadler.’
Robert tilted his head in curiosity. ‘Ralph Sadler’s lad?’ Tom nodded enthusiastically. ‘Tom, bring me some fresh bread, and some fruit and cheese from the kitchen. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Tom bobbed his head again, bowed hastily then crammed his hat back on his head and trotted off in the direction of the kitchen. Robert closed the door silently and walked into the room, taking the folded letters from the mantel.
‘My Lord.’ Thomas bowed his head briefly then stood impassively waiting for his instructions, hand on the hilt of the dagger which had so impressed young Tom.
‘Thomas, it seems we must make other arrangements for the residence of my wife. I have two letters for you to deliver, then I need you to escort Lady Dudley to Cumnor Place. As before, direct her to my letter if she questions you.’
‘My Lord.’ Thomas inclined his head again, and Robert brought him the letters, speaking in a low tone as if to clarify his own thoughts, rather than give instruction to the steward. Thomas waited silently.
‘I don’t know what else to do, Thomas. I have a duty to make sure she is cared for, but I cannot, I don’t even want to take care of her myself. We should never have married, Thomas. It would have been better if we had never met. Better for Amy; she could have married someone who would have loved her. Better for me, because I would be unencumbered. She has become an inconvenience, Thomas. An embarrassment. And I don’t know how to resolve the situation.’ Robert’s voice was soft and slurring slightly as he gazed at the letters still in his hands, as if he had forgotten what his intentions were for them.
‘My Lord?’ Thomas spoke quietly and Robert’s head rose sharply. ‘The letters, my Lord. I should take them, yes?’ Thomas held out his hand and Robert passed the folded pieces of parchment to his servant, who secured them inside his leather jerkin.
A knock came at the door and young Tom entered with Robert’s refreshments, placing them carefully on the side table by the window, then bowing and leaving the room.
Thomas dipped his head sharply in a bow towards Robert, ‘My Lord,’ then he turned on his heel and left the chamber as Robert cut himself a large slice of cheese in an effort to absorb some of the alcohol he had consumed before he was summoned to the Queen.
***
Cat watched as Elizabeth was fitted for her coronation robes. Loud gales of laughter from the knot of ladies in waiting, who were draping fabric over one another and parading in front of the glass drew a glower from Elizabeth and then made her anxiously chew at her lip.
Cat hauled her bulk from the chair by the window and went over to the giggling girls. Glaring at her daughter but addressing them as a group, she told them to lower their voices or receive a slap.
‘You might think you are all safe, because of my size,’ she smoothed her mantle over the bulge of her belly, ‘but upset the Princess again with your squeals and shouts, and you’ll be surprised how fast I can move. And how hard a slap from me will feel.’ She turned away and overheard Lettice telling the group they had better behave.
‘My Lady Mother doesn’t slap often, but you know you’ve been slapped when she does,’ her daughter whispered as the girls silently replaced the fabrics in the dressmaker’s basket and picked up their embroidery again, murmuring softly to one another.
Cat smiled grimly to herself and went back to the window to watch the dressmakers fuss over the cut and drape of Elizabeth’s coronation gown.
‘Oh, Majesty. You will look so beautiful.’ The senior seamstress stood back to admire the gold brocade cascading from Elizabeth’s slender form. The younger girl, on her knees pinning up the hem, looked up breathlessly and nodded agreement.
‘Yes, Majesty, and we will be able to save your measurements for your wedding gown.’
Elizabeth stiffened, and Cat saw the blood well up as Elizabeth’s teeth went into her lip. Cat swept her kerchief from her pocket and pressed it to Elizabeth’s damaged mouth.
‘Leave us. Everyone.’ Cat barked sharply, as she shielded the Queen from the surreptitious glances of the dressmakers and the ladies in the corner.
The dressmakers hurriedly packed up their fabrics and baskets of trimming, the younger girl’s face flaming as she tried to think of what she had said that had caused such offence. The Queen’s ladies put down their sewing and moved into the ante-room to practice with their lutes. Cat led Elizabeth to where Cat had been seated by the window and took her hand, settling her on the window seat beside her.
‘Don’t distress yourself in front of the others, Princess. Never let them see you upset.’
‘It’s the expectation that upsets me, Cat. As I told you, I shall never marry. Not even Robbie, if he were free.’ Elizabeth held Cat’s hands tightly and took a deep breath. ‘But I will have him with me, next to me in all things.’ She looked up into Cat’s face and met her gaze, ‘I will have him installed in the adjoining apartments, the Consort’s apartments, when I am crowned Queen and I can do as I choose.’
Cat gasped at the implication, ‘But an heir, Princess. If you don’t marry, then what about an heir?’
Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly, then swallowed and said softly, ‘I have told you before, Cat. There will be no heir from me,’ she lowered her voice further and whispered, ‘Tom Seymour ended that possibility.’
‘Princess!’ Cat was scandalised, realising that her mother’s worst fear might have had some justification. ‘Surely not? Surely he didn’t …..,’ her voice trailed away.
‘He did, Cat. Only once, and most cruelly. Then when I screamed he sliced at my night shift and pretended he was playing a game. But it was a game no longer.’ Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears and she shook her head as she remembered.
‘But Meg said …..’
‘Meg only saw what he wanted her to see, and then she had to look after Queen Kate. It was my nurse Kat Ashley who covered me and led me from the room,
and washed the blood and tissue and…. mess away.’ Elizabeth tightened her grip on Cat’s hands, pressing her rings into her already swollen fingers. Cat ignored the pain and returned the pressure.
‘Meg said Kat was angry.’ Cat tried to remember how Meg had described the events of that morning.
‘She was, Cat. But not with me. And what could we say? He told me I would not be believed, and I wouldn’t have been. But I was so young, Cat, I think he injured me high up inside.’ Tears rolled down her cheeks and Cat’s heart broke a little more for this poor damaged cousin that her mother had tried so hard to protect. ‘So I think there will be no heir for England, and no husband for me.’ She shrugged and tried to smile without hurting her damaged lip. ‘But I will keep Robbie by me for as long as I am able, and let my ministers continue to vie with each other and with foreign powers to broker an alliance.’
‘Oh my lovely, I am so very sorry.’
Elizabeth shrugged again and gave a low chuckle and a wry smile. ‘I wanted you to know, Cat. And I wanted to tell you myself about Robbie. So you know before my coronation that after I am Queen, his apartment will adjoin mine and you, and only you, will come into wake me. You will have a key to the outer door of my chamber, the one that opens into the rest of my apartments. And only you will use it. Promise me it will only ever be you.’
‘I promise Princess – I mean Majesty.’ Cat smiled back at Elizabeth and raised her brows at her mistake.
Elizabeth clasped Cat’s hand. ‘You have always called me Princess, even when you were directed to call me Lady Elizabeth.’ She snorted her derision at that title, forced upon her when her father had her declared illegitimate. ‘I don’t expect you to change now,’ she laughed, ‘and I quite like it, especially when you forget yourself completely and call me “my lovely”. It reminds me of your Lady Mother.’
Cat leaned forward and took Elizabeth in her arms, careful of the swell of her belly separating them. ‘You will always be my Princess, my lovely. Always.’
Elizabeth buried her head in Cat’s bosom and began to weep in real earnest. Cat wasn’t sure what was causing her Princess such grief; the lack of a child in her future, fear for the future of the Monarchy, or simple exhaustion from all the preparations. She lifted the sobbing girl away from her chest and settled her into the window seat, passing her a clean kerchief for her tears.
‘One moment, Princess,’ said Cat as she levered herself out of the chair and went to the outer door of the chamber. Looking into the room beyond, she saw her daughter playing her lute and beckoned urgently to the girl.
‘Do you know where Lord Robert’s apartments are?’
‘I’m sure I can find them, Mother.’ Lettice looked curiously up at her mother, waiting for an explanation.
‘Bring him here immediately. Ask Tom Sadler if you get lost. He is a page and he will be in the long gallery,’ Cat nodded towards the door, then looked again at her daughter. ‘Go quickly, Lettice. The Queen needs him.’
Lettice swiftly bobbed her curtsey and left the room. She saw Tom waiting in the gallery with another couple of boys, and asked him to take her to Robert’s suite. She knocked carefully on the door and gasped in surprise as it was suddenly snatched open.
Robert, clad only in his silk shirt and leather breeches was cramming the remnants of a piece of bread and cheese in his mouth, and it was some moments before he could speak. Lettice watched in wide-eyed fascination as his jaw flexed with the movement of his teeth and his throat bobbed as he swallowed. Finally, his mouth empty, he spoke.
‘Yes?’
‘My Lord,’ Lettice breathed, seemingly unable to take her eyes away from the column of his throat, ‘my Lord,’ she cleared her throat to make her voice a little stronger, ‘my Lady Mother requests that you attend the Queen immediately.’
Robert turned and snatched his doublet and dagger from the chair just inside the door and closed the door behind him. Slipping the dagger into the scabbard at his belt, and his delicate fingers snapping the clasps shut on his doublet, he strode down the gallery with Lettice struggling to keep pace with his long legs. He smiled as she quickened her steps and appeared at his shoulder.
‘You must be Lady Knollys’ daughter, come home from Salzburg?’
‘Oh yes, my Lord. I am to serve her Majesty and I am to be betrothed to Walter Deveraux.’
Robert slowed his pace slightly and offered Lettice his arm so she looked less like a child struggling to keep up with a parent. She rested her fingers lightly on his sleeve and smiled gratefully up at him through her lashes.
‘Deveraux is a lucky man. You are very lovely, my Lady. The image of your cousin.’ Robert smiled down at her, wishing he had had more time to eat his bread and cheese. His head still swam slightly and he knew that he would need all his wits about him when he reached the Queen.
‘Yes, my Lord,’ she sighed, ‘people keep saying that to me.’ Lettice’s head rose and she met Robert’s eyes with her own, ‘But I am younger, my Lord.’
Robert blinked at this pert answer, and suddenly they had reached the door to the Queen’s presence chambers. He saw Cat at the door to Elizabeth’s privy chamber and, letting Lettice’s hand fall away from his sleeve, he rushed to her side.
‘What is wrong, my Bess?’ Robert pulled Elizabeth up from the window seat into his arms and Cat closed the door quietly.
Chapter 21
alph’s eyes shone with love as he looked at Meg in her finery for the coronation, and he felt carefully behind him to silently turn the lock in the door.
‘You look beautiful, my love.’
Meg wrinkled her nose at him and laughed as she smoothed the heavy velvet over her stomach. Ralph thought how the laughter lines round her eyes were all that betrayed the fact that she wasn’t a young girl, and he tried to suppress a smile as he remembered Tom Wriothesley’s verdict on Meg, when they were together as clerks for Master Cromwell, was ‘nice teeth’.
‘What are you smiling at, husband? Do I look huge?’ Meg turned sideways and looked at her reflection in the glass, then shrugged and walked lightly toward Ralph, reaching up and putting her arms round his neck.
Ralph bent and rested his forehead against Meg’s, whispering ‘You are still as slender as you were when I first met you.’
Meg snorted her doubt at those words, ‘After six children and with another on the way? I think not, my Lord, and I thank you for the well-meant falsehood. But why the smile?’
‘Because Tom Wriothesley could only remember you by you having nice teeth. He was right.’
Meg swatted his shoulder with her hand and raised her brows. ‘Am I a horse then, to be admired for my teeth?’
‘A very nice filly you are, my Meg,’ he squeezed her to himself, ‘but I might need to examine your hide more closely to make sure,’ he pulled out the combs holding Meg’s hair up in an informal twist and her hair cascaded in curls down her back past her waist, ‘and feel your flanks…’ His fingers started unfastening the laces of her gown.
‘With me the size I am, Ralph Sadler?’ Meg was giggling as his hands opened the back of her gown and started tugging on the ties of her petticoats.
‘Whatever size you are, my love, I still want you. And you only get more beautiful when you are with child.’
Meg smiled at him and reached up to kiss him again as he managed to sweep her bodice away from her swollen bosom. ‘Let me put my gown over the chair, Ralph. I don’t want a crushed gown for the coronation.’
Ralph stooped and, putting his arm under her knees, he lifted her clear of the velvet garment which remained a bronze puddle on the floor of the chamber as he carried her to the large tester bed.
‘You will look wonderful by my side at the corona
tion,’ he growled in her ear, ‘and we can get the maid to steam the creases out. Later. When I unlock that door,’ and he began to gently kiss his way down her throat as Meg sighed and squirmed in delight.
***
The day of the coronation dawned bright and crisp, with blue skies and little wind. The whole court had been up since dawn, with the kitchen servants busily preparing the feast that would follow the ceremony and the musicians practising the music that had been especially composed for the great occasion.
The squires had spent days polishing the silver tack and the armour for the accompanying soldiery, and Robert had personally checked the horses that were to carry Elizabeth in her litter, as well as those that would carry Cat. Elizabeth insisted that Cat would be with her, and if Cat’s bulk was too great to ride a palfrey, then she would have her own litter. Robert had also had a white palfrey caparisoned in cloth of gold, over a huge side saddle in case Elizabeth chose to ride. His own chestnut stallion was already saddled with a fine tooled Italian leather saddle trimmed with silver studs and silver stirrups.
As Master of Horse he was responsible for the parade to the abbey, and he would lead the Queen’s horse, whether she rode or was carried. He had made sure the route was lined with troops capable of defending the Queen should anyone in the crowd start any trouble. They were also instructed to lead the cheers; Robert wanted Elizabeth to be surrounded by the love of her people on her way to the coronation. The soldiers in the parade would toss coins into the crowd and he had ensured that many of the onlookers would be supplied with flowers to throw towards the young Queen.
The Last Howard Girl (Tudor Chronicles Book 3) Page 13