by Susan Kay
De Noailles, the French Ambassador, was equally smooth, polished, and ruthless and his immediate response to Spain’s suit was to gravitate ostentatiously to Elizabeth’s side at every available opportunity in public. To Renard’s suspicious eye, Elizabeth’s nebulous role at court had taken on a new and sinister significance. This unspoken Protestant heir presumptive was suddenly the greatest obstacle to Prince Philip’s path to England and Renard had already resolved to dispose of her at his earliest convenience.
Accordingly, he invited her to dance and tried his hand at a little subtle flattery. They manoeuvred delicately down the Hall, like two scorpions locked in mortal combat, but no matter how he tried, he could not get close enough to sting. And all the time as she smiled and parried his thrusts like a seasoned fencer, he was aware of men’s eyes following her. There was something indefinable about her that aroused intense male excitement—he himself was not entirely proof against the extraordinary promise of her smile. As for Courtenay, the lad was hopelessly lost, ready to jump through a hoop at a snap from her fingers—all the more so, it seemed, because she scarcely gave him a second glance. Oh yes, she was dangerous, there was no doubt of that. She had the power to seduce the loyalty of every man at court—all she needed was the inclination and the incentive to do it. And unless he was very much mistaken, de Noailles was already fostering that—the Queen must be made to see it.
“Madam, she is too prominent in the eyes of the court.”
“How can she be otherwise? I can hardly hide her behind screens at every court function—she is my sister!”
“Is she?” echoed the Spaniard softly. “I very much doubt it. Her mother was executed on grounds of adultery and incest. Madam, have you never wondered whether—”
“I have not,” retorted Mary, very defensive of a sudden. “What you suggest is unthinkable.”
Was it? He did not think so. In his experience women were always prickly and sanctimonious when you touched them on a raw nerve. Certainly he was on the right track; but it would be necessary to follow this particular path with some care.
“Grant that the relationship stands, madam, and you will still look in vain for sisterly affection on her part. Has she once attended Mass to please you?”
Mary averted her eyes hastily.
“I shouldn’t wish her to attend simply to please me. Whatever her creed, I could better brook her stubbornness than her hypocrisy.”
“The only creed she will ever hold is self-interest—madam, don’t you see that she mocks your tolerance daily? Is it likely that she would embrace the very faith which denies her legitimacy?”
“She was not responsible for the circumstances surrounding her birth,” said Mary uncomfortably.
“She is responsible for her own actions now, madam—both responsible and answerable! Test her loyalty and I assure you it will be found wanting.”
“Test?” Mary stared at him uncertainly and Renard shrugged his elegant shoulders.
“Your Majesty must offer an ultimatum. She must enter the true Church or suffer the consequences.”
Mary got out of her chair and began to pace the panelled room, chewing her lip. At last she said hoarsely, “In what form do you envisage these—these consequences?”
Renard gave her a smile bespeaking exquisite patience. In all his distinguished career it had never been his task to deal with anyone so naïve and guileless as Mary Tudor.
“In my country,” he remarked pleasantly, “the penalty for heresy has always been death at the stake.”
“But my brother’s laws expressly forbid the persecution of heretics!”
“Your brother is dead,” Renard reminded her pointedly. “And laws can be changed.”
* * *
Laws can be changed…Elizabeth leaned against the stone parapet and stared into the dark river swirling below her feet. She threw a stone into the water and watched it disappear so sharply, swiftly, that her eye was unable to record its descent. Death too could be like that, mercifully quick—but not by burning, never by burning. Laws could be changed; and she did not want to burn!
“Madam.”
She spun round wildly and sucked in a breath of relief.
“Cecil!”
“I must speak to you, madam, but not here in full view of the palace. A little further down the river we shall have the shelter of the trees.”
She turned without question and walked away; a few minutes later he joined her in the appointed place and knelt beside her where she sat on the river bank.
“Is it true you are to accompany the Queen to Mass tomorrow?” he demanded bluntly.
“It is!” Elizabeth sighed and stared bleakly across the river. “What does it matter, after all, now that Parliament is to endorse the validity of my father’s first marriage?”
“Whatever is settled in the matter of the Queen’s legitimacy no Parliament will bar you from the succession,” said Cecil. “If the Queen makes a stand on that issue she will be defeated—I give you my word on it.”
He reached out to take her hand and again she felt the affinity between them, a natural bonding of the spirit, utterly devoid of sex.
“If I go to Mass I shall alienate every Protestant in the realm. If I don’t go it may be I shall not live long enough to alienate anyone. I’m in a cleft stick, Cecil—advise me!”
He looked at her steadily, without a flicker of emotion on his pale face.
“I believe Your Grace will feel unwell tomorrow—so unwell that you can scarcely attend to the ritual. I believe your enemies will see that you conform, but your friends will be reassured you do not do so cheerfully.”
“I can’t perform like a shamming schoolboy at every service.”
“Once will be sufficient to make your point. Certainly after that there must be rigorous conformity. Avoid intrigue. De Noailles haunts you because Renard has the Queen’s ear, but he is not your friend, nor is his master. The King of France seeks only to advance the interests of the young Queen of Scots, that she may bring a united Britain in her marriage portion to the Dauphin. Fear France, madam, as greatly as you fear Spain, for both countries seek your death.”
She smiled faintly. “And in what manner am I to pass safely through that formidable gauntlet of hostility?”
“Softly, madam, like a cat in the dark.”
She leaned over and laid her hand on his plain sleeve.
“It was you who warned me of Northumberland’s trap, wasn’t it?”
He inclined his head in silence.
“Why?” she demanded, with sudden passionate interest. “Why do you put yourself at risk for me?”
“You are the future,” he said gravely. “And you will survive. That is all I can tell you.”
She held out her hands and allowed him to pull her lightly to her feet.
“We both know how to survive,” she said softly. “And when the time comes we will know how to rule—you and I.”
* * *
When the little bell rang to announce the elevation of the Host, Mary bent her head over hands clasped rigidly together. For most of the service she had been forced to hold them in that same furious grip, tensing herself against the urgent desire to lean over and slap her sister’s face.
It was intolerable! The procession to Mass had been marred by Elizabeth’s persistent and remarkably loud complaints that her stomach ached, but once inside the chapel, the fuss and performance had been truly unbelievable. Even now, at this most sacred moment, one of her ladies was ostentatiously rubbing her back. And Mary was not a fool; she knew a public gesture when she saw one.
When the farce was over, they walked back through the gardens together in frosty silence. Elizabeth stole a glance at her sister’s stony face and knew she had gone too far.
“If it please Your Majesty,” she muttered uncomfortably, “I should like to retire to my own a
partments.”
“You will stay,” hissed the Queen in a desperately controlled undertone, “until I am satisfied as to your true belief in the Holy Sacrament.”
Elizabeth lowered her eyes hastily.
“Madam, I have attended Mass of my own free will, without fear, hypocrisy, or dissimulation.”
Suddenly Mary took her arm in a vicious nipping grasp and hastened her further along the path, well out of the hearing of the curious court.
“Don’t play the hypocrite with me!” snapped the Queen furiously. “What was the meaning of that disgraceful exhibition back there? Speak! Tell me what you truly think for once.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were suddenly fixed on Mary’s like gimlets. She said in a steely whisper, “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Shocked by the brazen threat of those shamelessly amoral black eyes, Mary released her hand. Threatened by the ultimate, unthinkable sacrilege to the Host, the very Body of Christ, there was nothing she could do for the moment but capitulate with some tangible token of appeasement, symbolic of her trust and approval. In icy silence, she unfastened a diamond and ruby brooch from her gown and pinned it to Elizabeth’s plain bodice, then handed over her personal rosary of white coral beads. Elizabeth curtsied demurely and made a show of fastening the beads to the stomacher of her gown. And under the eyes of the court, they returned to the palace with what passed for goodwill between them.
When Elizabeth entered her own room, whirling the coral beads carelessly, she found Kat waiting for her anxiously.
“What are you doing with that popish trinket?” inquired the governess with mild distaste.
“What a heretic you are, Kat!” mocked Elizabeth, slinging the beads carelessly across a table. “It was a present from Her Majesty—like this!” She flaunted the brooch at her breast and Kat’s eyes widened in astonishment at the size of the diamond.
“The Queen gave you that?” she echoed suspiciously.
“A small bribe, to help me to stomach the Mass in a rather literal sense.” Elizabeth sank down in the chair and fingered the beads slowly. Her cynical smile was suddenly strangely sad. “I hope Cecil was right about this, Kat. Because after today, she’s never going to trust me again.”
“My dear child,” said Kat drily, “it’s my belief she never has.”
* * *
“I could have killed her, Renard—I swear I could have killed her with my bare hands. But of course I should not have been surprised—her mother was a spleeny Lutheran.”
Renard discreetly placed his hands behind his back, controlling a sudden urge to rub them with glee. This response was rather better than he had hoped for.
“I did warn you, madam. The Lady Elizabeth is sly and clever, she will be plotting against you at the first opportunity.”
“No doubt,” said Mary shortly. “What do you suggest I do to prevent it?”
“What I have most respectfully suggested for some time now, madam—stabilise your position with a wise marriage.”
“By which you mean Prince Philip?” She frowned. “Gardiner will oppose it in Council, you know. He still favours Courtenay.”
“With respect,” remarked Renard smoothly, “the good bishop was many years imprisoned in the Tower during your late brother’s reign—he has lost touch with affairs in Europe and even here at home. Courtenay is a young fool who will bring you nothing but Plantagenet blood and trouble from court factions. Madam, you, a daughter of the royal house of Spain, cannot mate with a mere subject—and such a subject! A libertine, a profligate.”
The hot colour flared into Mary’s cheeks and he noted it with quiet amusement. “And as I’m sure Your Majesty must have noticed, he smiles very warmly on the Lady Elizabeth, herself, I fear, no stranger to scandal. Madam.” He sat down beside her uninvited, and presumed to pat her hand gently. “Look to your true friends in this matter.”
“Ah yes,” said Mary, suddenly soft-eyed and reminiscent. “Your master has always given me his support. I was contracted in marriage to the Emperor as a child, did you know that? But I fear it came to nothing. You see, my dear father felt—”
Renard hastily intervened before the floodgates of past memories were opened to swamp him. He had made the mistake of listening once before and knew that such talk would wash away his political arguments like a burst dam. She dwelt too much on the past, brooding over the wrongs done to her mother at the hands of Anne Boleyn.
“Madam,” he said briskly, seeking to rally scattering forces, “the Emperor now offers you his beloved son and you would find the Prince of Spain a true gentleman in every sense of the word.”
“But he is so young!”
Renard coughed.
“Young in years only, his great sense, his judgement, his moderation and experience bespeak a man old in wisdom.” Mary shuddered from complex causes.
“You understand that as a maid I am quite ignorant of—of what men mean when they speak of love in the flesh. Is he indeed so—accomplished?”
Renard spread his hands in an expansive gesture and rolled his eyes to heaven dramatically.
“Madam, he is perfection itself.”
* * *
It was hot in the Abbey and the coronation seemed endless. The pews were densely packed. Elizabeth, dressed in pure white, sat wedged in uncomfortable proximity to de Noailles, who had plumped down beside her before she had a chance to avoid him. The coronet on her head was heavy and far too large; she was forced to sit like a ramrod to prevent it slipping down over her eyes.“I wish this wretched thing fitted me better,” she complained to him at last in a low voice. “It’s giving me a headache.”
He glanced up at her with amusement and replied in a tone which carried clearly into the aisle and beyond.
“Have patience, madam. It is only the preliminary to one which will fit you better.”
* * *
“It was only a chance remark,” said Kat doubtfully, as she removed the infamous coronet from her mistress’s head.
“Chance remarks like that,” muttered Elizabeth, “repeated in the right quarters could cost me my place at court—which is no doubt what de Noailles intended.” She leaned back against her chair and closed her eyes while Kat began to brush her hair. “Granted, I’d be glad to go, the way things are, with Renard’s dagger at my throat and de Noailles’ at my back—and Courtenay’s clumsy advances make me want to heave. He has about as much finesse as a bull trying to serve a cow!”
“Poor lad,” said Kat tolerantly, “with all his youth wasted in the Tower, what does your Grace expect?”
“I expect him to take a bath occasionally and drown a few of those Tower fleas.”
“But he’s so handsome, you must admit that he’s very attractive!”
“So is a pig I suppose—to another pig! Oh God, Kat, he stinks, haven’t you noticed?”
Kat sighed. Elizabeth’s fanatical fastidiousness was a great trial to her.
“No one’s good enough for you,” she grumbled. “You’d find fault with Adonis himself. There are times when I really despair of you.”
“Never mind,” Elizabeth patted her arm, “I’m not likely to plague you much longer. If Renard and de Noailles have their way my head will probably roll before the end of the year.”
Standing in front of the mirror, she laughed and circled her neck with her fingers.
“And I have such a little neck, don’t you think, Kat? Just like my mother’s.”
Kat met the steady black gaze of the reflection in the steel mirror, and crossed herself in the old, instinctive fashion of her childhood.
* * *
Small strands of greying red hair were escaping from the Queen’s head-dress as she paced feverishly up and down her room.
“Opposition,” she muttered, looking harassed. “Gardiner tells me I can expect opposition on all sides to Prince Philip’s suit
.”
“Opposition to the desires of a reigning sovereign should surely be overcome, madam.” Renard’s voice held just a touch of impatience. “Is it possible that the policy of the state can be satisfactorily left to the rabble?”
“Of course not!” said Mary testily, and swung away from him down the room once more. “But I’m not sure—not sure, do you understand?” She flung out her hand in a weary gesture of frustration. “Oh, if only I could see him before I commit myself.”
Renard restrained a strong impulse to tell her that the Prince of Spain was not to be inspected like a stud horse in the market place.
“Madam, you could not possibly find him wanting in any respect.”
“Then he is truly all you say?” She caught at his hand and he saw with acute discomfort that her faded eyes were full of tears. “Or do you speak purely as a subject,” she continued fretfully, “whose duty is to praise his master?”
Renard disentangled himself from her feverish grasp to say solemnly, “Your Majesty may take my life if you find him other than I have told you.”
“Pray with me,” she said suddenly, and he duly knelt. During the long silence he glanced up at a full-length portrait of Philip and thought peevishly: If I bring this thing to pass it’s small thanks I’ll get from you…
Mary rose stiffly from her knees and he came forward to take her outstretched hand.
“God has inspired me with this decision,” she said huskily. “I shall marry Prince Philip. I swear to you now that my mind is made up and will never change. I will love him perfectly and never give him cause for jealousy.”
Renard hid a smile as he bowed over her hand. That much he did not doubt, for one moment.
* * *
“So it is to be marriage with Spain,” purred de Noailles in a silky voice, drawing Elizabeth’s hand on to his arm as they strolled by the river. “I cannot think the country will approve. What is Your Grace’s opinion on that?”
“Oh, my opinion is of no importance, sir.”