Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (38 page)

hand to her head and removed the central pin which held her heavy hair

in place.

The next gust of wind brought a mass of loose curls tumbling wildly

about her face. She cursed loudly and reined to a halt; when Bedingfield

glanced round in alarm she gave him a helpless shrug and in that moment

the young man drew abreast of her horse.

“Your Grace! We had word you would pass this way today. May I

offer you the shelter of my own poor house in this abominable weather?”

She gave him that smile and held her hands out to be lifted from

the saddle.

“Sir,” she said gaily, “if you were to offer me the shelter of a pig-sty I

would be grateful.”

“Madam! I can’t possibly allow this!” Bedingfield had leaned over to

take her arm aggressively. Anxious, blustering, he was quite unable to

deal with the slightest change in plans and also most uncomfortably aware

that she was not to be trusted with any young man of unknown loyalty.

She rounded on him furiously.

“Why, in God’s name?”

“Madam—my instructions—”

“I
know
your instructions. I have them by heart if you remember, but

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I don’t recall any item that says I shall sit under a hedge to do up my hair

simply because you refuse to countenance a simple act of chivalry.”

“I repeat, madam—I cannot permit you to enter this gentleman’s house.”

She stared at him stonily. “You should be ashamed to call yourself

a knight!”

She jumped down from her horse without assistance and swept across the

road to sit down under the hedge in question. Two of her women hurried

over to her and began to do battle with her hair. Bedingfield was left holding

her horse’s bridle and staring at the young man in embarrassed silence.

Presently she came back, with the sable hood jammed on her head and

her green riding habit covered with mud.

“Well,” she demanded coldly, “are you satisfied now?”

Clumsily he lifted her into the saddle and groped for her gloved hand.

“Your Grace knows I bear you no ill will. To receive discharge from

this service without offence to the Queen would be the joyfullest tidings

that ever came to me, as our Lord Almighty knows.”

She laughed outright as she looked down on him.

“Oh yes, I know how dearly you would love to be rid of me, Sir

Henry. And, who knows, it may be sooner than you think, if I’ve misread

the reason for this summons, after all.”

As she slipped her reins out of his quivering hand, she was amused by

his horrified glance. Clearly he had not considered the possibility that he

might be taking her to her death.

She rather hoped that Mary had not considered it either.

When they arrived at Hampton Court she was hustled in the back way

so that none should see her and was packed off at once to the Gatehouse,

once more the disgraced prisoner, almost the poor relation. The doors were

locked upon her and for more than a fortnight she paced her rooms like a

caged lioness. Oh, what a fool she had been to raise her hopes; nothing was

changed. She had two heated confrontations with Gardiner and then the

dreadful silence closed in again, leaving her to imagine the worst.

She lost track of time and the days began to merge into each other in

endless tedium; even Woodstock had been better than this isolated limbo.

Outside her window she could hear the laughter of the courtiers who

came and went into the palace, but she had no part in their world. It was

as though she had ceased to exist.

And then, at ten o’clock on a cold spring evening when she had

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just begun to go to bed, the door opened to admit Susan Clarencieux,

Mary’s Mistress of the Robes. Behind her came Bedingfield, grey-faced

with fright.

“Madam, you are commanded to wait upon Her Majesty at once.”

Elizabeth stood up. Her women had removed her coif and brushed

out her hair which now hung to her waist.

“Now?” she whispered stupidly. “Now?”

Across the room her eyes met Bedingfield’s and saw them mirror

her thought.

Queens don’t give audiences at ten o’clock at night. I am going to my death

and he knows it.

Bedingfield shuffled across the room to take her cloak from the arms

of a trembling maid. Wordlessly he wrapped it around her shoulders,

fastened the clasp, and pulled the hood over her head exactly as though

she were a small child.

“Come, Your Grace.” His gruff voice was hoarse as he took her hand

and began to guide her forward. In the doorway she glanced back at her

terrified attendants and asked them to pray for her, since she could not

tell whether she would see any of them again. Bedingfield, she noticed,

made no protest to that, but his hand on hers tightened its pressure. She

was suddenly very glad of him.

It was pitch black and cold as she followed torch bearers over the

gardens to the foot of the staircase which led to the Queen’s lodgings. A

guard stepped forward and gestured to Sir Henry.

“You are to remain here, sir, with the rest of Her Grace’s attendants.”

So it was to be a dagger in the dark, after all! But why bring her all

the way to court to do it and how would they explain it to the people?

She glanced at Bedingfield’s face and saw there were tears glistening

in the eyes of that stern, upright figure. He feared the worst and so did

she, and hardship made odd allies. She reached out and squeezed his thick

arm, then turned and went alone into the darkness.

Breathlessly she mounted the stairway, spinning round at the sound of

footsteps behind her. Susan Clarencieux was mounting the steps in her

wake and motioning her through the door ahead, so perhaps after all she

was not to be murdered. But it was still a full minute before she found the

courage to step over the threshold into Mary’s bedchamber.

The Queen was hunched against her pillows and her distended figure

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was obvious beneath the coverlet. At the far end of the room stood a

tapestry screen and Elizabeth, who did not recall it, wondered whether

this interview would be heard by Mary’s ears alone. Where was Philip

after all this time? Why had he not chosen to show himself ? She glanced

again at the silent screen and wondered.

At the foot of the bed she fell on her knees and let the hood fall back

to reveal her loose hair.

“Madam, I am your true and loyal servant whatever reports have said

of me.”

Silence. Mary’s short-sighted eyes peered down at her, sliding over her

white face and away again. She did not offer her hand for the formal kiss

and her voice was grim.

“You will not confess your fault, I see. Pray God your tale is true.”

“If not I will look for neither favour nor pardon from Your

Majesty’s hands.”

That answer, though mildly made, seemed to anger Mary. As her face

creased into a frown and she twisted the bedclothes over the swollen

mound of her stomach, Elizabeth found her eyes drawn irresistibly to

that visible evidence of her own danger, the unborn child which was the

living symbol of her own destruction. Once that child was born her posi-

tion would be hopeless; she would be lucky even to be offered exile…

“So,” said the Queen darkly, “you have been wrongful y punished then.”

Elizabeth bowed her head hastily.

“I must not say so to Your Majesty.”

“But you will to others!” snapped the deadly little voice from the bed.

“Is that not so, sister?”

It was useless. This interview, like the last, was sliding away from her,

and every word she spoke increased the Queen’s hostility. She said at

last in a voice only just above a whisper, “I most humbly beseech Your

Majesty to have a good opinion of me.”

Oddly enough that childish request seemed to touch Mary in spite of

herself. She gestured irritably for the girl to get off her knees and waved

her hand as though dismissing the whole sordid business. She seemed

suddenly too weary to continue the conversation.

“You may be speaking the truth—God knows!” she muttered and

then repeated in Spanish, “
Dios sabe
!”

Elizabeth whirled round instinctively to look at the screen and a

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moment later a small, sombrely dressed young man stepped out and

stopped to look at her. He bowed and walked towards her, his pale eyes

fixed on hers. She knew who he was; she also knew that she should

curtsey, but she remained defiantly standing. For a moment he stood

gazing at her, as though he expected the sheer force of his presence to

force her to her knees; their bright, fair heads were exactly level. There

was a long, long moment of silence before he realised she would not

submit, and then he spoke for the first time.

“You are welcome to court, my sister.” He held out his hand and

drew her close to kiss her formally on the lips as befitted the greeting of

a sister-in-law.

And when he released her, having prolonged the moment just a

second or two longer than was strictly necessary, Mary saw that his eyes

were smiling at last.

t t t

Across the brilliant green English countryside they galloped ahead of

their attendants, hunting, hawking, spending the long spring days in idle

companionship. In the light evenings they danced and raised their wine

goblets to each other beneath smiling eyes and slowly, inexorably, relent-

lessly Philip found himself falling in love against his will and against all the

promptings of both conscience and common sense.

Years later, he reflected bitterly that it had been inevitable. He had

been as vulnerable as a puppy to her charm, miserable, disillusioned, frus-

trated. And she had set out to catch him like an angler with a fish, until

at last there he was, hooked and helpless on the end of her line, labouring

under the incredible delusion that their feelings were mutual.

He had never meant it to happen. He had intended to observe her

closely for treasonous intent, sound her religious beliefs, and finally

see her married safely to his vassal, the Duke of Savoy. He had tried to

prepare himself and be armed against her wiles, for Renard had warned

him darkly that “she has a spirit full of incantation.”

But no armour of Spanish dignity was proof against her; she cut

through his defences like a knife through butter, effortlessly, casually, as

though she were not even trying. He might have been any other hand-

some young man in her company, rather than the omnipotent heir to

half the world. When she spoke to him it was as an equal, occasionally,

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he suspected through her teasing, as a superior. Her speech was littered

with lies and insincerities; he tried to cling to his doubts and suspicions

of her, but she laughed them away. And no one—man or woman—had

ever laughed at Philip before. In all the dark formal years in Spain, years

of duty and discipline governed by a rigid code of etiquette, he had never

met a woman like Elizabeth. In all the hard cruel decades which followed

he never met her like again. A few brief weeks he was held fascinated,

like a wild animal dazzled by a bright light, weeks which later seemed

to exist in a vacuum and hung in his bitter memory like a locket, which

from time to time he would take out and examine with slow disbelief and

wonder—did it really happen? Sometimes it seemed to him that he spent

the rest of his life in penance for it.

They had told him she was clever; on close acquaintance, he found

her brilliant and was intimidated by the formidable list of her accomplish-

ments. He considered it a personal affront that any woman should be

fluent in six languages.

“Is there anything you cannot do?” he asked her at length, stung to a

jealous awareness of inferiority.

She smiled demurely.

“I can’t swim, Your Highness.”

“If you ever learn,” he said softly, “I shall
kill
you for it.”

His command of English was still uncertain. It was quite possible he

had misused the word. But as she stared into his steady eyes she knew

he meant exactly what he said and was amused by the knowledge. After

that, she went out of her way to flaunt her talents and her charm. And all

through that spring, while he deliberately engineered occasions on which

he might be alone with her, he was swept off his course like a helpless

twig on the restless tide of her energy.

“No, we shall not hunt today,” he said as he followed her to the

window one dark morning. “Can’t you see it’s raining?”

She looked out of the glass and laughed and said in her faultless Spanish,

“That’s not rain—it’s only a fine drizzle that will soon lift. In England

Your Highness must learn to call such weather fine and be glad of it.”

Must
!

He stared at her. It was more than twenty years since anyone of lesser