“What if Mary has been using her access to the Spanish ambassador in order to plot?”
“Plot what—to end Philip’s courtship of Elizabeth before it’s signed? Why would Spain want to do that?”
“I’m not saying Mary is rational.”
“Spain is very rational,” Dominic pointed out curtly. “If they haven’t risen in the last twenty years to put Mary on the throne, why would they do it now?”
Robert shrugged. “I’m the messenger, not the intelligencer. No doubt Walsingham has more fears than he shares with me, and probably three-quarters of them are baseless. He wants you to be wary of Spain. That is all I know for certain. But I would guess that Mary Tudor is on very thin ice, and it might break beneath her at any moment.”
“Be wary of Spain. Be wary of French invasion. Be wary of Mary’s fanaticism. Is there anything in this country about which I do not need to be wary?”
With a wry smile, Robert said, “Now you’re beginning to sound like a Tudor courtier. Wariness will keep you alive, Dominic, far longer than loyalty will.”
After their argument, Elizabeth had wondered if Minuette would even bother to visit Hatfield. But she came, looking thoughtful but otherwise a good companion. For nearly three weeks now it had been much like earlier years, when the two of them had little more to concern themselves with than flirtatious courtiers and demanding tutors. For once, all talk of future marriage had to do with Elizabeth and Philip rather than William and Minuette, and Elizabeth wondered how she could have gone so long without her friend’s caustic and witty comments on everything from property settlements to Philip’s lack of interest in learning English. “All the better to manage him,” Minuette told Elizabeth. “You’ll be able to run your life in eight languages while he can only follow you in two.”
One particular evening, as Minuette made her laugh with an impression of the Spanish priests’ horrified reactions to their king marrying a heretic princess, Elizabeth had a piercing moment of pure pleasure and thought: Whatever sort of queen she makes, I shall be so glad to call Minuette my sister in truth.
The only topic they did not broach was Minuette’s visit to Blickling Hall. Whatever business her friend had conducted with Lord Rochford she did not carry into her days at Hatfield, unless the nostalgic streak of mischief and laughter resulted from whatever secrets Minuette harbored. If so, Elizabeth could not entirely regret them.
Robert joined them unexpectedly on July 24, just ten days before King Philip’s expected arrival, bringing with him dispatches from both William and Walsingham. William’s message was chillingly brief: Mary has been arrested and confined to the Tower for intriguing with Catholic rebels.
Minuette was openly shocked at the news; Elizabeth less so. Mary was clever and resourceful and not lacking in courage. Indeed, her only flaw—apart from an understandable animosity toward Anne Boleyn—was her unbending faith. That faith had led her at last to the evidence William’s government needed: a letter in Mary’s own hand to the Spanish ambassador admitting both sympathy and financial support for Bishop Thirlby of Norwich and his vanquished band of traitors. The missive had been ciphered, but not cleverly enough.
More damaging, it had been written in reply to a letter that never existed—a trap that Walsingham and Lord Burghley between them had sprung when they unlocked the cipher method the Spanish ambassador had been using to communicate with Mary.
According to Robert, who was among the arresting party, Mary had behaved well when the royal guards came for her. She had also been adamant in proclaiming her rights. As the leading Catholic of the realm, she’d insisted, she had a duty to the adherents of the True Faith. God would judge her if she sat idly by and let her people be martyrs. Lord Rochford had much to answer for in spreading heresy through England, and despite the personal abuses of his royally granted power, he remained untouched and uncharged. Where was the king’s justice in that matter? Mary protested. And how could any king presume to judge the case of an ordained bishop such as Thirlby?
That unsettling news delivered, Robert accepted Elizabeth’s invitation to remain at Hatfield for a day or two. He was no fool, he knew that Mary’s arrest might well spoil King Philip’s imminent visit. It might even be canceled, for no doubt William’s council was now scrambling to discover Spanish duplicity. If Spain had directly financed English rebels, then Elizabeth would have more freedom than she’d had in years as to the matter of her marriage. Not the French, not the Spanish—who was left? Elizabeth saw the calculation in Robert’s eyes even as he bent to kiss her hand. Rumours swirled that Amy Dudley was ill.
But their talk that evening, after Minuette had tactfully retired, was not of inconvenient wives or sisters or kings on the matrimonial horizon. They sat before the desultory fire that was more for light than warmth on this summer night and discussed John Dee’s latest discoveries in European libraries, the Portuguese colonies recently established in both China and the New World, and the Italian student, Pomponio Algerio, who had been sitting in a Roman prison for nearly a year waiting to be executed for his Lutheran beliefs. And before they separated for the night, Elizabeth allowed Robert to take her in his arms and whisper endearments while he kissed her thoroughly.
The next morning, they rode out together in the watery sunlight as they had hundreds of times before. The best horseman Elizabeth knew, Robert continued his impeccable behavior—witty in his observations and subtle in his flattery. When they returned to the house, laughing together over his description of the French ambassador too drunk to walk a straight line, Carrie was waiting for them near the front door and curtsied to Elizabeth without waiting to be acknowledged. “Your Highness.”
Elizabeth looked at the maid negligently, then more carefully as she noted the strain on her face. “What is it?”
“If I might speak with you alone?”
Robert took the cue and vanished gracefully, but even that didn’t seem privacy enough to Carrie. She set a rapid pace for the upstairs corridor where Minuette slept. Elizabeth felt the caress of old fear even before Carrie confirmed, “It’s her ladyship. She is ill.” Poisoned, like a year ago at court? Certainly not in Elizabeth’s home, where she knew every face of every servant and attendant. But her pace increased and Carrie must have read the question in her eyes. The maid hastened to add, “The illness is natural, but I’m beginning to grow worried. I don’t know if I can stop it myself.”
“Stop what?”
Carrie hesitated at the door to Minuette’s chamber, looking wretched. “She’s bleeding heavily.”
For one moment Elizabeth thought Minuette must have fallen from something, hit her head, perhaps. But the next moment, she knew that there was only one cause of bleeding that would make Carrie cautious in seeking help. In an instant all the pleasure of the last hours with Robert and the previous weeks with Minuette vanished and Elizabeth knew that they stood on the edge of disaster.
Elizabeth didn’t need to see the blood-soaked linen beneath Minuette to know she was right. She knew it the moment Minuette fixed her with panic-filled eyes. “Elizabeth, no one can know. Promise me, swear it, not even the servants, it will ruin us …”
Elizabeth hushed her and promised secrecy, with one exception. “We need Kat for this, Minuette. You know you can trust her. She’s known you almost as long as she’s known me—she will not speak.”
Perhaps if Minuette had been stronger she would have protested. But then, if she’d been stronger she would not have needed Kat Ashley’s help. Carrie was right, she’d lost a lot of blood. Obviously a midwife was out of the question, but Kat was both knowledgeable and discreet. She did not so much as raise an eyebrow when she was summoned, merely set to work.
It was several hours before Elizabeth drew a deep breath. Finally, the bleeding had slowed enough for Kat to pronounce herself satisfied, as long as Minuette heeded instructions and stayed in bed for at least a week. Minuette gave no sign that she’d heard her, just stared blankly at the wall. Between them, Kat and Carr
ie bundled the soiled linen and removed it. Elizabeth didn’t ask how they meant to get rid of it, for she had worries of her own.
The first was simply dealt with. “We must inflict some illness or injury upon you for public notice. If we said that you’d had a fall from a horse, that would serve to keep people away and explain your convalescence at Hatfield for some time. I’ll send Robert away first thing in the morning—he can carry the news with him to court.”
Minuette continued to stare at the painted stylized lilies above the waist-high paneling of the wall and Elizabeth’s throat ached at the untouchable nature of her friend’s sorrow. “Minuette, shall I send for William?”
“No!” Minuette gasped with pain as she struggled to sit up, and Elizabeth laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. “No, you mustn’t, please, Elizabeth. You can’t tell him.”
“He’d want to be here. He wouldn’t want you grieving alone.” Even as she said it, Elizabeth wondered if that was true. William had no stomach for illness; when Minuette had been poisoned, he’d spent the night drinking alone rather than sit with her. Having had smallpox was not likely to have increased his patience for imperfect health. And no matter how inconvenient the timing of the pregnancy, he wouldn’t be happy that their first child had been lost so early.
With the air of a trapped bird, frantic in its desperation, Minuette continued to beg. “No, Will can’t know! He doesn’t know!”
Suspicion dawned in Elizabeth, and the ache in her throat spread to her chest. With gentle hands, she stroked Minuette’s hair, damp from pain and effort, away from her forehead. “He didn’t know you were pregnant?”
Minuette shook her head, her eyes clouding with tears. “Please, he can’t do anything about it. Don’t tell him. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why didn’t you tell him before?” Certainly William would have rejoiced. Her own mother had conceived Elizabeth two months before her marriage.
“I had to be sure. And I wanted it to be …” Minuette choked back a sob that seemed to come from the depths of her empty womb. “I wanted it to be special.” With obvious effort, she got her voice under control and said simply, “You must swear to me not to tell William.”
There was nothing else to say. “I swear it.”
28 July
1556 Hatfield
Kat and Carrie have finally allowed me to sit up in bed. I asked for my diary, but now find there is nothing I can write.
There is only sorrow.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MINUETTE WAS ALLOWED to leave her bed the first week of August. King Philip’s arrival had been delayed a week—officially because of inclement weather, less officially because of Mary’s arrest—and so Elizabeth remained with her friend for another few days. The bad weather that the Spanish were (perhaps) using as a diplomatic excuse manifested itself at Hatfield in gray, lowering skies that felt more like autumn than early August.
Elizabeth was deeply concerned for Minuette, who had emerged from her chamber a different woman. Still kind and lovely, still capable of behaving as everyone expected, but the spark had been burned out of her. The vivid, joyous girl was gone, bled away with the baby she had so clearly wanted.
William was naturally alarmed when he heard of Minuette’s false injury and wanted to send his own physician to see to her. Elizabeth only averted that by a flat-out lie—she wrote her brother that Minuette was recovering nicely but had threatened hysterics at the thought of a male physician. In response, William poured out letters to his beloved, sometimes two a day, which Minuette read privately. She did not, to Elizabeth’s knowledge, write back.
On August 7, the day before Elizabeth’s departure for Dover Castle, Dominic rode into Hatfield with a contingent of royal guards. Elizabeth had been expecting the guards—her escort to Dover—but had not expected Dominic to be in their company. “Did William send you?” she asked skeptically, wondering if her brother had asked his friend to spy out Minuette’s condition.
Dominic shook his head. “It was my idea. I thought you might like a friendly face along the way, since Minuette will not be traveling with you.”
Since when had Dominic ever gone out of his way for her? Elizabeth wondered. But she could hardly turn him away, although she felt a foreboding that she tried to smother in effusive greetings. She sent Carrie to give Minuette warning before dinner, and expected her to keep to her chamber until Dominic had left. But within thirty minutes of Dominic’s arrival, Minuette appeared, dressed in a lightweight gown of gray shading to blue on the skirt and sleeves. She would have made a fine model of a Madonna in that gown and Elizabeth hoped Dominic’s eyes were not as suspiciously keen as her own.
Minuette was very nearly herself at dinner: colour in her cheeks, laughter threaded through her voice. But Elizabeth was not a casual observer, nor was Dominic. Though he matched her conversation easily, there was a shadow of worry in his eyes. Colour hectic, laughter forced … Elizabeth’s foreboding increased. Dominic was too clever by half; if anyone could come near to guessing the truth, it would be him.
And why should that be disaster? she asked herself crossly. If they could not trust Dominic, then who could they trust?
Minuette retired straight to her chamber after dinner. It appeared Dominic might request a moment of her time, but he merely stood politely as she left the table, his dark green eyes tracking her until she was out of sight. Elizabeth braced herself for questions she could not answer honestly about Minuette’s health, but Dominic seemed lost in his own thoughts. At last he asked her leave to walk in the gardens.
Elizabeth spent an hour reading before the dark was too complete for candlelight to overcome. Even then she was too restless for sleep, so she wrapped herself against the unseasonable summer chill and went outdoors. Her steps took her to the white garden, which was always seen to best advantage in moonlight. She felt her nerves ease as she walked among the beds of fragrant pinks and carnations, snowdrop bellflowers and wide-eyed daisies, pale roses shedding both warmth and light.
She heard a low murmur of voices from the center of the garden, then saw them: Dominic and Minuette seated together on a curved bench beneath an arbor draped in honeysuckle vines. Elizabeth should have retreated at once. Instead, she stepped off the path into deep shadow.
It was Minuette she heard, her voice low and broken. “Dominic, why? I had thought it was a sign, a gift from God to assure us we are doing right. But now … I am lost.”
“Why did you not tell me?” Dominic’s gentleness was the tone one would have used with a skittish horse or a frightened child.
Or a woman whose heart had broken.
“I wanted to be sure,” Minuette choked. “And I wanted it—” She broke off.
To be special. Elizabeth completed the answer silently, remembering Minuette’s words when Elizabeth had asked her the same question.
No, not precisely the same question. Elizabeth had wanted to know why she had not told William.
Minuette shook with racking sobs. The tears she had choked back in front of Elizabeth, the tears unshed for days, were released in a storm of weeping. Elizabeth could see her leaning into Dominic, clutching his doublet as if he were the only thing keeping her anchored to this world. She watched Dominic’s arms curve around Minuette’s shaking shoulders and his lips press against her hair with infinite tenderness.
It was as though the earth shifted beneath Elizabeth’s feet and the foreboding of disaster she’d felt all day rearranged itself into an unexpected and yet inevitable certainty.
Minuette had spoken only the truth. William had not known about the baby—for the simplest of reasons.
He was not the father.
It was a long time before Minuette stopped weeping. Dominic held her tight, his own chest hurting in sympathy and muscles wound tight with his utter inability to help. Only when her breath at last settled into a slight hitch did he say, “You were right, little star. We need aid. I should have listened to you and gone to Rochford before this happened.
”
“I already have,” she said. She offered the revelation listlessly, as though nothing mattered any longer.
“That is why you warned him to confess,” Dominic said slowly, as understanding dawned. “You protected Rochford as best you could in exchange for his future help.”
“I went to Blickling Hall just before I came to Hatfield. Lord Rochford is preparing a way for us to take refuge in the Low Countries.” She shrugged. “I thought we were in something of a hurry.”
Dominic didn’t know how to feel at this unexpected disclosure of his wife’s plans. To leave England, to flee as a traitor and leave William utterly bereft of friends and love … but no. Will would have his sister. And his government and his armies and his Parliament. William had everything. Dominic had only Minuette.
And a lost child …
“Very well,” Dominic said. “How soon? I will take you from Hatfield this night if you wish it.” Even as he offered, he knew it wasn’t possible. He had little knowledge of the damage done to Minuette’s body, but it could not be light. It might be weeks before she could ride.
She shook her head. “No. You are needed for the Spanish.”
“To hell with the Spanish! To hell with everything—I will do whatever you need me to.”
“There is no hurry now.” The matter-of-fact words were belied by her shaky voice. “Let us finish our immediate duties. Bring King Philip and Elizabeth together, see them safely betrothed—if that is indeed the outcome—and then we will put ourselves in Rochford’s hands.”
“Do you think that entirely wise?” Dominic couldn’t help asking, long years of wariness not easily dismissed where Lord Rochford was concerned.
“He is eager to rid William of me. And if you leave England as well, then who will be left to guide the king? Rochford will use our flight to restore himself to power.”
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