The Lady Elizabeth (64 page)

It did not do to give your heart to a man so entirely, she thought. Men did not value what they came by easily. Once you loved, you laid yourself open to pain. She would not make the same mistake as her sister, that much was sure.

With Philip gone, the court was a gloomy place. It was as if it had gone into mourning. As if in reflection of the Queen’s desolation at being deprived of both her expected baby and her husband, its inhabitants had taken to wearing dark colors.

“I suppose I must go about looking like a crow in these weeds,” Elizabeth grumbled, holding up her black velvet gown. “You would think the King had died.”

“I mind there was a time when Your Grace liked to dress in black,” Blanche reminded her archly.

“That was in my brother’s reign,” Elizabeth said dismissively. “We are all good Catholics now, and must dress the part. But I must say I do not relish looking like a nun.”

“I do not think Your Grace would make a very good nun!” Blanche giggled.

“I would be a very rebellious nun!” Elizabeth laughed. “I should certainly eat too much!”

There was not much occasion for laughter these days. Occasionally, Mary would send for her, although clearly she did not delight in Elizabeth’s presence. She made it quite clear that she was extending her favor only because it was Philip’s desire that she should do so.

“His Majesty has written again of you,” she would say. “He constantly commends you to my care, and requests that I be a gracious prince to you.” Her tone always implied that, but for Philip’s exhortations, relations between them would be far less cordial.

And indeed, as Mary had feared, Elizabeth was proving a constant thorn in her side. Her youth and barely restrained vitality were in themselves enough to arouse the older woman’s resentment, but above all Mary could not bring herself to trust her sister, and must always think the worst of her. Then she would despise herself for it, and remind herself that Elizabeth was truly her own flesh and blood, to be loved as such. But she found that so hard, so very hard.

“She hates me,” Elizabeth told Blanche. “When we meet, we exchange mere courtesies and discuss the weather. I know she is jealous of me, if only because I enjoy the favor of the King. And because I am her heir. I can understand it, of course: What man loves his own winding sheet?”

“But Your Grace goes with her to Mass daily,” Blanche said. “That must please Her Majesty.”

“Oh, yes, and I even fasted for three days for the sake of saving my soul,” Elizabeth reminded her, wincing at the memory of how ravenous she had been at the end of it. “Yet it avails me little. The Queen remains suspicious, Cardinal Pole is unfriendly, and the courtiers shun my company. But I have one friend at court. Master Ascham was recently appointed Latin Secretary to the Queen, and she has agreed that he may spend some time each week in study with me. I have so longed for some intellectual stimulation!”

It was wonderful to see Master Ascham again, and it was clear, from the broad smile on his face when he rose from his bow, that he too was delighted at the prospect of resuming his tutelage of Elizabeth. But all too soon it became evident that their abilities were now evenly matched and that he could teach her little.

“I marvel at your learning!” he told her. “Your mind is so well stocked.”

“That is a miracle,” she told him, “since I was more than a year without the means to pursue my studies.”

“Your understanding of Greek is better than mine,” he enthused warmly. “And I am struck with astonishment at how you grasp the political conflicts in Demosthenes. I never understood them so well. I might teach you words, my lady, but you teach me things!”

Elizabeth beamed at him, drinking in his praise.

Their sessions together were not always so lighthearted.

“They have burned Bishops Latimer and Ridley,” Ascham told her in October, his face heavy with grief. “Two of the finest minds in the kingdom.”

“Take care, Roger,” Elizabeth warned. “Even the walls have ears here. Your sympathy might be misconstrued for heresy.”

He bent forward.

“That would not be far from the truth,” he murmured. “I conform outwardly, but my heart is still wedded to the reformed faith. And yours too, I’ll wager, madam.”

“Shhh!” Elizabeth hissed. “You’ll have us both fried! I am the Queen’s loyal subject, and I will not gainsay her on any matter.”

“An answer answerless,” he observed.

“I like your turn of phrase,” she smiled. “I will remember it for future use.”

Her smile faded.

“Did they suffer much? The bishops, I mean.”

“Latimer died quickly,” he told her. “I had it from one who was there. But Ridley—his agony was terrible. It took him three-quarters of an hour to burn.”

Elizabeth shuddered.

“Cranmer will be next,” she said. Cranmer, that zealous Protestant, who had helped her father to break with Rome, who had declared Mary’s mother’s marriage null and void and her daughter a bastard. There would be no mercy for Cranmer.

“In truth, I long to get away from the court,” Elizabeth confided nervously. “It is so treacherous and full of menace. The intrigue, the backbiting, I weary of it all. I feel too that I am here on sufferance, and I fear that, with an ill-chosen word or deed, I might quickly find myself in disgrace once more, or worse…” She was thinking, he knew, of the martyrs, the scores of brave men and women who had chosen a fiery death rather than recant their faith.

“Take heart,” he murmured. “The people love you. Openly they speak of you as their savior, the one who will call a halt to this brutal persecution and pack the Spaniards off home.”

“Me, with my little power?” Elizabeth asked with a sad smile.

“One day,” he mouthed.

Days later, with the Queen’s blessing—given with more alacrity than was flattering, for it was obvious that Mary was glad to see the back of her—Elizabeth was on her way to Hatfield, happy to be riding northward to her own house. How the people came running to see her, crying her name and cheering from the roadside! So rapturous was their acclaim that she feared it would give great offense to the Queen and rebound on herself, so she sent her gentlemen among the crowds, with instructions to quiet and restrain them. Yet still the bells rang out in every parish to proclaim her coming, and she could not hide her delight.

“This is some hope of comfort to me—as if appearing out of a dark cloud,” she told Roger Ascham, who had been given leave to accompany her to Hatfield and was riding by her side.

But there were a few in her retinue who were not smiling. She knew who they were: servants who had been appointed by the council—spies, no less. She noted their set faces and leaned closer to Ascham.

“Rest assured, Roger, we need to be on our best behavior even in the privacy of Hatfield. No one will come or go, and nothing will be spoken or done, without the Queen’s knowledge.”

“You think so?” He frowned.

“I know it!” She smiled grimly, bending to receive a posy from a little girl who had darted out from the crowd. “I will be watched, so we had best make sure we attend confession and Mass regularly. Is that not so, William?” She looked at faithful Cecil, her surveyor, who had come to meet her on the road and was riding on her other side. She was glad to see him again, this trusted friend of hers, who had always given her such wise advice as well as unstinting loyalty.

“I should always counsel Your Grace to conform to the Queen’s wishes,” he said. “My constant prayer is for the preservation of Your Grace.”

“Mine too!” Elizabeth added, grinning and lightening the mood, and both men laughed.

Waiting for her at Hatfield was Kat, dear Kat, whom the Queen had now restored to her service. She flung herself into Kat’s waiting arms with scant regard for ceremony, and both women had tears on their cheeks when they drew apart. And Thomas Parry, brought back to his duties as her treasurer, was waiting also, bowing low until she raised him up and kissed him. There was so much to talk about—eighteen months of their lives to catch up on—and supper that night, which was served in the small parlor, was a private, merry occasion, attended only by Elizabeth and her closest friends. They were still there in the small hours, when the embers of the fire were dying and the room growing chill, although they were laughing so much that they did not notice.

That night, Blanche Parry willingly relinquished her customary duties to Kat, who had performed them for so many years.

“It is
so
good to have you back,” Elizabeth said for the hundredth time as Kat began brushing out her long hair. Kat had grown noticeably older and a little stouter. “I cannot tell you how much I missed you, and how I feared for you,” Kat confided. “There was a time…”

“I know,” Elizabeth interrupted with a shiver. “Don’t let’s speak of that. It is over and done with. All I have to do now is keep my wits about me and stay alive. God will take care of the rest. The future is in His hands.”

Elizabeth had not been at Hatfield three weeks when Thomas Parry came hastening to her, his face betraying fear.

“I am just returned from the market, my lady,” he panted. “There is talk…talk of a plot to assassinate the Queen and set Your Grace on the throne.”

“A plot?” Elizabeth went cold.

“Aye. More than one, if rumor is to be believed. But all has been uncovered by the council.”

Elizabeth started trembling. If she were to be implicated in these plots, she would not be given another chance, of that she was certain.

“The craven fools!” she cried. “How dare these traitors conspire in my name? Do they not realize that they place me in the most terrible danger?”

Any moment now, she realized, the Queen’s officers might come for her. She must preempt them: She must write and protest her innocence. She flew to her desk.

I am Your Majesty’s most loyal subject,
she protested passionately.
I had nothing to do with these treasonable conspiracies.

There was no reply. And after several agonized weeks of waiting, she realized there would never be. All she could conclude was that there was no evidence against her, or that no councillor was prepared to move against her.

CHAPTER
20

1556

E
lizabeth stared at the letter with its royal seal dangling.

“She cannot mean it!” she cried.

“What does Her Majesty say?” Cecil asked, looking up from his papers. He was rarely away from her these days—almost constantly in attendance as not only her surveyor but also her unofficial secretary and counselor.

“She wishes me to marry King Philip’s son, Don Carlos,” she told him, her face registering distaste. “He’s ten years old, for God’s sake, a hunchback, and mad to boot!”

“He is a good Catholic,” Cecil said wryly.

“Such a good Catholic that he tortures children, servants, and animals!” Elizabeth retorted. “I heard he had bitten the testicles off a dog.”

She began pacing up and down, so great was her indignation.

“This is the Queen’s revenge! She has been plotting this for a long time. She wants me out of the country and safely married in Spain, as she thinks that I will then pose no further threat to her. Well, I will not consent to it, and I shall write and tell her so. She cannot force me to marry a madman!”

“Well said!” Ascham smiled from the end of the table.

“She will not marry him,” Mary told Cardinal Pole. “She alleges he is mad.”

Pole considered awhile, deliberating, while the Queen waited. Good man that he was, his understanding of political affairs was not as acute as Gardiner’s had been. She missed Gardiner, dead these six months, and she missed Philip even more. He had been gone for far too long, and she ached for his presence.
He
would know what to do with Elizabeth, and whether to take her alleged involvement in these recent plots seriously. But Philip’s letters had become fewer and fewer, and at Christmas he had summoned the last members of his household from England. Mary saw that as ominous, but she dared not voice her fears in case they became reality. What if she never saw him again? She would pine away and die, she knew it.