Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (309 page)

It was like a game of chess; he saw her turn her head and puzzle how she could outwit him.

“But I will always be queen,” she said. “You will always be my courtier.”

“I would want nothing less,” he said, and then he whispered, so she had to lean forward to hear him, “but I long for so much more, Elizabeth.”

She could smell the clean male scent of him and he felt her hand tremble in his. It took an effort for her to make herself move away, sit back in her chair, and let him go. He knew what it cost her; he had known women before who could not bear to lose a moment of his touch. He smiled at her, his dark, saturnine, knowing smile, and then bowed low, and went toward the door.

“Whatever you command, you know you will always be queen of my heart.” He bowed again, his cloak swirled from his shoulders as he turned and he was gone.

*  *  *

Elizabeth let him go, but she could not settle without him. She called for her lute and she tried to play but she had no patience for it, and when a string broke she could not even be troubled to retune it. She stood at her writing table and read the memoranda that Cecil had sent her but his grave words of warning about Scotland made no sense. She knew that there was much that she should do, that the situation with the currency was desperate, and that the threat to Scotland and to England was a real and pressing one, the French king was on his deathbed and once he died then the safety of England died too; but she could not think. She put her hand to her head and cried: “I have a fever! A fever!”

At once they were all over her, the ladies fluttered around her, Kat Ashley was called and Blanche Parry. She was put to bed, she turned from their attentions, she could bear no one to touch her. “Close the shutters, the light burns my eyes!” she exclaimed.

They would send for physicians. “I will see no one,” she said.

They would prepare a cooling draught, a soothing draught, a sleeping draught. “I want nothing!” she almost screamed with her irritation. “Just go! I want no one to watch me. I don’t even want anyone outside my door. Wait in my presence chamber; I don’t even want anyone in my privy chamber. I shall sleep. I must not be disturbed.”

Like a troubled dovecote they fluttered out as they were bid, and went to the presence chamber to discuss her. In her bedchamber, through two closed doors, Elizabeth could still hear their concerned murmur and she turned her hot face to the pillow, wrapped her arms around her own slim body, and held herself tight.

*  *  *

Sir Robert, riding slowly up and down the line of the tilt yard, made his horse wheel at the bottom, and then took the line again. They had been doing the exercise for more than an hour. Everything depended on the horse’s willingness to ride a straight line, even though another horse, a warhorse, with a knight in full armor on its back, his lance down, was thundering from the other end, only a flimsy barrier between the two creatures. Sir Robert’s horse must not swerve, not even drift aside, it must hold its line even when Sir Robert, lowering his own lance, was one-handed on the reins, it must hold to the line even if he rocked in the saddle from a blow, and all but let it go.

Robert wheeled, turned, did the line at a trot, wheeled, did the line again at full gallop. His horse was blowing when he pulled it up, a dark patina of sweat marking its neck. He wheeled it round and raced down the line once more.

A ripple of clapping came from the entrance to the yard. A serving girl was standing at the entrance where the riders came in and out, a shawl around her shoulders, a mobcap becomingly perched on her head, a lock of red hair showing, her face pale, her eyes black.

“Elizabeth,” he said in quiet triumph, as he recognized her, and rode toward her. He pulled up the horse and dropped down from the saddle.

He waited.

She nipped her lip, she looked down, looked up again. He saw her gaze dart from his linen shirt where his sweat was darkening the cloth at his chest and on his back, to his tight riding breeches and his polished leather riding boots. He saw her nostrils flare as she took in the scent of him, her eyes narrow as she looked up at him again, at his dark head silhouetted against the bright morning sky.

“Robert,” she breathed.

“Yes, my love?”

“I have come to you. I can be away from my rooms for no more than an hour.”

“Then let us not waste one moment,” he said simply and tossed the reins of his warhorse to his squire. “Put your shawl over your head,” he said softly, and slid his arm around her waist, leading her, not to the palace, but to his private rooms over the stables. There was a small gated entrance from the garden; he opened the door and led her up the stairs.

In Robert’s apartments, Elizabeth dropped the shawl and looked around. His chamber was a big room with two tall windows, the walls of dark linenfold paneling. The plans for the next day’s tournament were spread out on the table; his desk was littered with business papers from the stables. She looked toward the door that was behind the desk, the door to his bedchamber.

“Yes, come,” he said, following her gaze, and led her through the door into his chamber.

A handsome four-poster bed took up most of the room, a priedieu in the corner, a shelf with a small collection of books, a lute. His plumed hat was on the bed, his cloak on the back of the door.

“No one will come in?” she asked him breathlessly.

“No one,” he assured her, and then shut the door and slid the heavy iron bolt.

He turned to her. She was trembling with anticipation, fear, and mounting desire.

“I cannot have a child,” she specified.

He nodded. “I know. I will take care of that.”

Still she looked anxious. “How can you be sure?”

He reached into the inner pocket of his doublet and drew out a prophylactic, made of sheep’s bladder sewn with tiny stitches and trimmed with ribbons. “This will keep you safe.”

Torn between nerves and curiosity, she giggled. “What is it? How does it work?”

“Like armor. You must be my squire and put it on me.”

“I cannot be bruised where my women might see.”

He smiled. “I will not leave so much as a print of my lips on you. But inside, Elizabeth, you will burn up, I promise.”

“I am a little afraid.”

“My Elizabeth,” he said softly, and stepped toward her, and took off the mobcap. “Come to me, my love.”

Her mass of red hair tumbled about her shoulders. Robert took a handful of the locks and kissed them, then, as she turned her entranced face toward him, kissed her full on the mouth. “My Elizabeth, at last,” he said again.

Within moments she was in a dream of sensuality. He had always imagined that she would be responsive but under his skilled hands she stretched like a cat, reveling in pleasure. She was wanton: no hint of shame as she stripped to her skin and laid on his bed and reached out her arms for him. As his chest pressed against her face he smiled to find her feverish with desire, but then lost his own awareness in the rise of his feelings. He wanted to touch every inch of her skin, to kiss every fingertip, every dimple, every crevice of her body. He moved her one way and then another, touching, tasting, licking, probing, until she cried out loud that she must, she must have him, and then at last he allowed himself to enter her and watched her eyelids flicker closed and her rosy lips smile.

*  *  *

It was Sunday. The Hyde family, Lizzie Oddingsell, Lady Dudley, and all the Hyde servants were seated in a block in the parish church, the Hyde family and their guests in their high-walled pew, the servants arranged in strict order of precedence behind them, the women first, the men behind.

Amy was on her knees, her eyes fixed on Father Wilson as he held the Host toward them, preparing the communion in full sight of the congregation, in obedience to the new directive, though no bishop in the country had agreed, and most of them were either in the Tower or the Fleet prison. Oxford’s own Bishop Thomas had escaped to Rome before they could arrest him, and the see was vacant. No one would come forward to fill it. Not one man of God would serve in Elizabeth’s heretical church.

Amy’s gaze was entranced, her lips silently moved as she watched him bless the Host, and then bid them come to take communion.

Like a sleeper in a dream she walked forward with the others and bent her head. The wafer was cloying on her tongue as she closed her eyes and knew that she was sharing in the very body of the living Christ, a miracle that no one could deny or explain. She returned to her pew and bent her head again. She whispered her prayer: “Lord God, send him back to me. Save him from the sin of ambition and from the sin that is that woman, and send him back to me.”

After the service was over Father Wilson bade farewell to his parishioners at the lych-gate. Amy took his hand and spoke quietly to him, for his ears only.

“Father, I would confess, and celebrate Mass in the proper way.”

He recoiled and glanced around at the Hydes. No one but him had heard Amy’s whispered request.

“You know it is forbidden now,” he said quietly. “I can hear your confession but I have to pray in English.”

“I cannot feel free from my sin without attending Mass in the old way,” Amy said.

He patted her hand. “Daughter, is this true to your heart?”

“Father, truly, I am most in need of grace.”

“Come to the church on Wednesday evening, at five o’clock,” he told her. “But tell no one else. Just say you are coming to pray on your own. Take care not to betray us by accident. This is a life-and-death matter now, Lady Dudley; not even your husband must know.”

“It is his sin that I must atone for,” she said dully. “As well as my own in failing him.”

He checked at the pain in the young woman’s face. “Ah, Lady Dudley, you cannot have failed him,” he exclaimed, speaking more as a man than a priest, prompted by pity.

“I must have done,” she said sadly. “And many times. For he has gone from me, Father, and I don’t know how to live without him. Only God can restore him, only God can restore me, only God can restore us to each other, if he can forgive me for my failures as a wife.”

The priest bowed and kissed her hand, wishing that he could do more. He looked around. Mrs. Oddingsell was nearby; she came up and took Amy’s arm.

“Let’s walk home now,” she said cheerfully. “It will be too hot to go out later.”

*  *  *

It was the fifteenth of July, the day of the tournament, and all Elizabeth’s court could think of was the clothes they would wear, the arrangements for the jousting, the roses they would carry, the songs they would sing, the dances they would dance, the hearts they would break. All Cecil could think of was his latest letter from Throckmorton in Paris.

July 9th

He is failing fast, I expect to hear of his death any day. I will send to you the moment I hear. Francis II will be King of France, and it is certain that Mary will style herself Queen of France, Scotland, and England; my intelligencer has seen the announcement that the clerks are drawing up. With the wealth of France and the generalship of the Guise family, with Scotland as their Trojan horse, they will be unstoppable. God help England and God help you, old friend. I think you will be England’s last Secretary of State and all our hopes will lie in ruins.

Cecil translated the letter out of code, and sat with it for a few thoughtful minutes. Then he took the whole transcript to the queen in her privy chamber. She was laughing with her ladies as they prepared their costumes; Laetitia Knollys, in virginal white trimmed with the darkest rose red, was plaiting roses into a circlet for the queen to wear as a crown. Cecil thought that the news he had in the letter in his hand was like a summer storm which can blow up out of nowhere, and strip the petals from roses and destroy a garden in an afternoon.

Elizabeth was wearing a rose-pink gown with white silk slashings on the sleeves, trimmed with silver lace, and a white headdress trimmed with pink and white seed pearls in gorgeous contrast to her copper hair.

She beamed at Cecil’s surprised face and twirled before him. “How do I look?”

Like a bride,
Cecil thought in horror. “Like a beauty,” he said quickly. “A summertime queen.”

She spread her skirts and bobbed him a curtsy. “And who do you favor for the champion?”

“I don’t know,” Cecil said distractedly. “Your Grace, I know this is a day for pleasure but I have to speak with you, forgive me, but I have to speak with you urgently.”

For a moment she pouted and when she saw his face remained grave, she said: “Oh, very well, but not for long, Spirit, for they cannot start without me; and Sir Ro . . . and the riders will not want to wait in their heavy armor.”

“Why, who is Sir Ro . . . ?” Laetitia asked playfully, and the queen giggled and blushed.

Cecil ignored the young woman, and instead drew the queen into the window bay and gave her the letter. “It is from Throckmorton,” he said simply. “He warns of the French king’s death. Your Grace, the moment that he dies we are in mortal danger. We should be arming now. We should be ready now. We should have sent funds to the Scottish Protestants already. Give me leave to send money to them now and to start the muster for an English army.”

“You always say we have no funds,” she said willfully.

Carefully, Cecil did not look at the pearls in her ears and the thick rope of pearls at her throat. “Princess, we are in the gravest of danger,” he said.

Elizabeth twitched the letter from his hand and took it to the window to read. “When did you have this?” she asked, her interest sharpening.

“This very day. It came in code; I have just translated it.”

“She cannot call herself Queen of England; she agreed to give up her claim in the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis.”

“No, you see, she did not.
She
agreed nothing. It was the king who made that agreement and the king that signed that treaty is dying. Nothing will stop her ambition now, the new king and his family will only egg her on.”

Elizabeth swore under her breath and turned from the merry court so that no one could see the darkening of her face. “Am I never to be safe?” she demanded in a savage undertone. “Having fought all my life for this throne, do I have to go on fighting for it? Do I have to fear the knife in the shadows and the invasion of my enemies forever? Do I have to fear my own cousin? My own kin?”