The Queen's Fool Part 25

"What?" Her eyes were blazing with temper. For a moment I believed that she did not know what she was saying. "What's wrong with telling the truth? He is a young handsome man who will inherit half of Europe, she is a woman old before her time and old enough anyway. It is disgusting to think of them rutting together like a young piglet on an old sow. It is an abomination. And if she is like her mother she will bear nothing but dead babies."

I put my hands over my ears. "You are offensive," I said frankly.

Elizabeth whirled on me. "And you are unfaithful!" she shouted. "You should be my friend, and stand my friend whatever else happens, whatever I say. You were begged to me as a fool, you should be mine. And I say nothing but the truth. I would be ashamed to chase after a young man like her. I would rather die than court a man young enough to be my son. I would rather die now than get to her age and be an unwanted old maid, good for nothing, pleasing to n.o.body, useless!"

"I am not unfaithful," I said steadily. "And I am your companion, she did not beg me as a fool to you. I would be your friend. But I cannot listen to you cursing her like a Billingsgate fishwife."

She let out a wail at that and dropped to the ground, her face as white as apple blossom, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, her hands clamped over her mouth.

I knelt beside her and took her hands. They were icy, she looked near to collapse. "Lady Elizabeth," I said soothingly. "Be calm. It is a marriage which is bound to take place and there is nothing you can do about it."

"But not even invited..." She gave a little wail.

"Is hard. But she has been merciful to you." I paused. "Remember, he would have had you beheaded."

"And I am to be grateful for that?"

"You could be calm. And wait."

The face she turned up to me was suddenly glacial. "If she bears him a son then I will have nothing to wait for but a forced marriage to some Papist prince, or death."

"You said to me that any day you could stay alive was a victory," I reminded her.

She did not smile in reply. She shook her head. "Staying alive is not important," she said quietly. "It never was. I was staying alive for England. Staying alive to be England's princess. Staying alive to inherit."

I did not correct her, the words were true for her now, though I thought I knew Elizabeth too well to see her as a woman only staying alive for her country. But I did not want to launch her into one of her pa.s.sionate tantrums. "You must do that," I said soothingly. "Stay alive for England. Wait."

She let me go the next day though her resentment was as powerful as that of a child excluded from a treat. I did not know what upset her more: the gravity of her situation as the only Protestant princess in Roman Catholic England, or not being invited to the greatest event in Christendom since the Field of the Cloth of Gold. When she waved me away without a word and with a sulky turn of her head I thought that missing the party was probably the worst thing for her that morning.

If Sir Henry's men had not known the road to Winchester we could have found it by following the crowds. It seemed that every man, woman and child wanted to see the queen take her husband at last, and the roads were crowded with farmers bringing their produce into the greatest market in the country, entertainers setting up their pitches all along the way, wh.o.r.es and mountebanks and peddlers with cures, goose girls and washerwomen, carters and riders leading strings of spare horses. Then there was all the panoply and organization of the royal court on the move: the messengers coming and going, the men in livery, the men at arms, the outriders and those galloping desperately to catch up.

Sir Henry's men carried reports of Elizabeth for the queen's council, so we parted at the entrance of Wolvesey Palace, the bishop's great house where the queen was staying. I went straight to the queen's rooms and found a crowd of people at every doorway pushing their way forward with pet.i.tions that she might grant. I slid under elbows, between shoulders, sneaking between paneled walls and bulky squires till I reached the guards on the door and stood before their crossed halberds.

"The queen's fool," I announced myself. One man recognized me. He and his fellow stepped forward and let me dart in behind them and open the door while they held back the weight of the crowd.

Inside the presence chamber it was scarcely less crowded but the clothes were more silks and embroidered leather, and the altercations were taking place in French and Spanish as well as English. Here were the ambitious and rising men and women of the kingdom jockeying for a place and anxious to be seen by the new king who would be creating a court which must - surely to G.o.d! - include at least some true-born Englishmen as well as the hundreds of Spaniards he had insisted on bringing over as his personal retinue.

I skirted the perimeter of the hall, overhearing the s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation, which was mostly scandalous, often speculating on what the handsome young prince would make of the old queen, and I found that my cheeks were blazing with temper and my teeth gritted by the time I got to the door of her private rooms.

The guard let me through with a nod of recognition but even inside the queen's privy chamber there was no peace. There were more ladies and attendants, musicians, singers, escorts and general hangers-on than I had ever seen with her before. I looked around for her, still she was not there, the chair which served as her throne by the fireside was empty. Jane Dormer was in the window seat sewing, looking as determinedly unimpressed as she had been on the day I had first met her when the queen had been a sick woman, in a court of shadows with no chance of the throne.

"I have come to the queen," I said to her with a little bow.

"You're among many," she said dourly.

"I've seen them," I said. "Has it been like this since you came from London?"

"Every day there are more people," she said. "They must think her soft in the head as well as the heart. If she gave her kingdom away three times over she would not be able to satisfy their demands."

"Shall I go in?"

"She's praying," she said. "But she'll want to see you."

She rose from the window seat and I saw that she had positioned herself so that no one could enter the queen's narrow doorway without first going past Jane. She opened the door and peeped in, then she waved me through.

The queen had been praying before an exquisite gold and mother-of-pearl icon, but now she was sitting back on her heels, her face calm and shining. She radiated joy as she knelt there, so calm and sweet in her happiness that anyone looking at her would have known her for a bride on her wedding day; a woman preparing herself for love.

When she heard the door close behind me she slowly turned her head and smiled. "Ah, Hannah! How glad I am you have come, you are just in time."

I crossed the room and knelt before her. "G.o.d bless Your Grace on this most fortunate day."

She put her hand on my head in blessing in that affectionate familiar gesture. "It is a fortunate day, isn't it?"

I looked up, the glow around her was shining as brightly as sunshine. "It is, Your Grace," I said. I had no doubt of it at all. "I can see that it is a wonderful day for you."

"This is the start of my new life," she said gently. "The start of my life as a married woman, as a queen with a prince at my side, with my country at peace and the greatest nation in Christendom, my mother's home, as our ally."

I looked up smiling, I was still on my knees before her.

"And shall I have a child?" she asked in a soft whisper. "Can you see that for me, Hannah?"

"I am sure of it," I said in a voice as quiet as her own.

Joy leaped into her face. "From your heart or from your gift?" she asked me quickly.

"From both," I said simply. "I am sure of it, Your Grace."

She closed her eyes for a moment and I knew she was thanking G.o.d for my certainty and for the promise of a future for England where there would be peace and an end to religious faction.

"Now I must get ready," she said, rising to her feet. "Ask Jane to send my maids to me, Hannah. I want to get dressed."

I could not see much of the actual wedding service. I had a glimpse of Prince Philip as he stepped toward the blaze of gold of the altar of Winchester Cathedral but then the person standing before me, a corpulent squire from Somerset, shifted his position and blocked my view and I could only hear the soaring voices of the queen's choristers singing the Wedding Ma.s.s and then the soft gasp as Bishop Gardiner raised the couple's clasped hands to show that the wedding was completed and England's virgin queen was now a married woman.

I thought I would see the prince clearly at the wedding feast but as I was hurrying on my way to the hall, I heard the rattle of the weapons of the Spanish guard and I stepped back into a window embrasure as the men at arms marched down and then came the bustle of his court after them, the prince himself at the center. And then, amid all this hustle of excitement, something happened to me. It was caused by the flurry of silks and velvets, embroidery and diamonds, the dark full richness of the Spanish court. It was caused by the scent of the pomade they wore on their hair and beards, and the perfumed pomander that every man had pinned with a golden buckle to his belt. It was the clink of the priceless inlaid breastplates of the soldiery, the tap of the beautifully forged swords against the stone of the walls. It was the rapid interchange of the language, which was like the coo in a dovecote of home to me who had been a stranger in a strange land for so very long. I smelled the Spaniards and saw them and heard them and sensed them in a way that I had never apprehended anything before, and I stumbled back, feeling for the cold wall behind me to steady me, almost fainting, overwhelmed with a homesickness and a longing for Spain that was so strong that it was almost like a gripe in my belly. I think I even cried out, and one man heard me, one man turned dark familiar eyes and looked toward me.

"What is it, lad?" he asked, seeing my golden pageboy suit.

"It's the queen's holy fool," one of his men remarked in Spanish. "Some toy that she affects. A boy-girl, a hermaphrodite."

"Good G.o.d, a wizened old maid served by no maid at all," someone quipped, his accent Castilian. The prince said "Hush," but absent-mindedly, as if he was not defending a new wife but reprimanding a familiar offense.

"Are you sick, child?" he asked me in Spanish.

One of his companions stepped forward and took my hand. "The prince asks are you sick?" he demanded in careful English.

I felt my hand tremble at his touch, the touch of a Spanish lord on my Spanish skin. I expected him to know me at once, to know that I understood every word he said, that my reply in Spanish was readier on my tongue than my English.

"I am not sick," I said in English, speaking very quietly and hoping that no one would hear the vestiges of my accent. "I was startled by the prince."

"You startled her only," he laughed, turning to the prince and speaking in Spanish. "G.o.d grant that you may startle her mistress."

The prince nodded, indifferent to me, as a servant beneath his notice, and walked on.

"She's more likely to startle him," someone remarked quietly from the back. "G.o.d save us, how are we to put our prince to bed with such an aged dame?"

"And a virgin," someone else replied. "Not even a warm and willing widow who knows what she's been missing. This queen will freeze our lord, he'll wilt at her bedside."

"And she's so dull," the first one persisted.

The prince heard that, he halted and looked back at his retinue. "Enough," he said clearly, speaking in Spanish, thinking that only they would understand. "It is done. I have wedded her, and I shall bed her, and if you hear that I cannot do it you can speculate then as to the cause. In the meantime let us have peace. It is not fair dealing to the English to come into the country and insult their queen."

"They don't deal fair to us..." someone started.

"A country of idiots..."

"Poor and bad-tempered..."

"And grasping!"

"Enough," he said.

I followed them down the gallery to the steps leading to the great chamber. I followed them as if drawn on a chain, I could not have parted from them if my life had depended on it. I was back with my own people, hearing them speak, even though every word they said was a slander against the only woman who had been kind to me, or against England, my second home.

It was Will Somers who caught me out of my trance. He took me by the arm as I was about to follow the Spaniards into the great hall and gave me a little shake. "How now, maid? In a dream?"

"Will," I said and grabbed on to his sleeve as if to steady myself. "Oh, Will!"

"There," he said, gently patting me on the back as if I were an over-wrought pageboy. "Silly little maid."

"Will, the Spanish..."

He drew me away from the main doors and put a warm arm around my shoulder.

"Take care, little fool," he warned me. "The very walls of Winchester have ears and you never know who you are offending."

"They're so..." I could not find the words. "They're so... handsome!" I burst out.

He laughed aloud, released me and clapped his hands. "Handsome, is it? You, besotted with the senors just like Her Grace, G.o.d bless her?"

"It's their..." I paused again. "It's their perfume," I said simply. "They smell so wonderful."

"Oh little maid, it is time you were wed," he said in mock seriousness. "If you are running after men and sniffing at their spoor like a little b.i.t.c.h on the hunt then one day you will make your kill and you'll be a holy fool no longer."

He paused for a moment, measuring me. "Ah, I had forgot. You were from Spain, weren't you?"

I nodded. There was no point in fooling a fool.

"They make you think of your home," he predicted. "Is that it?"

I nodded.

"Ah well," he said. "This is a better day for you than for those Englishmen who have spent their lives hating the Spanish. You will have a Spanish master once more. For the rest of us, it's like the end of the world."

He drew me a little closer. "And how is the Princess Elizabeth?" he asked softly.

"Angry," I said. "Anxious. She was ill in June, you'll have heard that she wanted the queen's physicians, and grieved when they did not come."

"G.o.d keep her," he said. "Who'd have thought that she would be there this day, and that we would be here? Who'd have thought that this day would come?"

"Tell me news in return," I started.

"Lord Robert?"

I nodded.

"Still imprisoned, and there's no one to speak for him at court, and no one to listen anyway."

There was a blast of trumpets, the queen and the prince had entered the hall and taken their seats.

"Time to go," Will said. He adopted a broad smile and exaggerated his usual gangling gait. "You will be amazed, child, I have learned to juggle."

"Do you do it well?" I asked, trotting to keep up with him as he strode toward the great open doors. "Skillfully?"

"Very badly indeed," he said with quiet pleasure. "Very comical."

There was a roar as he entered the room and I fell back to let him go on.

"You'd not understand being a mere la.s.s," he said over his shoulder. "All women laugh very meanly."

I had not forgotten Daniel Carpenter and his letter to me for all that I had thrown it in the fire after one reading. I might as well have folded it and kept it inside my jerkin, close to my heart, for I remembered every word that he had written, as if I reread it like a lovesick girl every night.

I found that I was thinking of him more frequently since the arrival of the Spanish court. No one could have thought badly of marriage who could see the queen; from the morning that she rose from her married bed, she glowed with a warmth that no one had ever seen in her before. There was a confident serenity about her, she looked like a woman who has found a safe haven at last. She was a woman in love, she was a beloved wife, she had a councillor she could trust, a powerful man devoted to her well being. At last, after a childhood and womanhood filled with anxiety and fear, she could rest in the arms of a man who loved her. I watched her and thought that if a woman as fiercely virginal and as intensely spiritual as the queen could find love, then so perhaps could I. It might be that marriage was not the death of a woman and the end of her true self, but the unfolding of her. It might be that a woman could be a wife without having to cut the pride and the spirit out of herself. A woman might blossom into being a wife, not be trimmed down to fit. And this made me think that Daniel might be the man that I could turn to, that I could trust, Daniel, who loved me, who told me he could not sleep for thinking of me, and whose letter I had read once and then thrust into the fire, but never forgot - indeed, I could recite it word for word.

He also came to my mind for his fears and his cautions, even though I had scoffed at them at the time. Though the Spanish court drew me in like a lodestone swings north, I knew that it was my danger and my death. To be sure, Philip in England was not as he had been in Spain. Philip in England was conciliatory, anxious to bring peace, determined not to give offense to his new kingdom and not to stir up trouble about religion. But Philip nonetheless had been brought up in a land dominated equally by the rule of his father and the demands of the Inquisition. They were Philip's father's laws that had burned my mother at the stake and would have burned me and my father too, if they had caught us. Daniel had been right to be cautious, I even thought he had been right to take his family and my father out of the country. I could hide behind the ident.i.ty of the queen's fool, a holy child, a companion from her days in the shadows, but anyone who did not have such a provenance could expect to be examined at some time in the future. These were early days, but there were signs that the queen's fabled mercy - so generous to those who challenged her throne - might not extend to those who insulted her faith.

I took great care to go to Ma.s.s with the queen and her ladies every day, three times a day, and I was meticulous in those little details of observation that had betrayed so many of my kin in Spain, the turning to the altar at the right moment, the bowing of the head at the raising of the Host, the careful reciting of the prayers. It was not hard for me to do. My belief in the G.o.d of my people, the G.o.d of the desert and the burning bush, the G.o.d of exiles and the oppressed, never very fervent or very strong, was deeply hidden in my heart. I did not think He was forsworn by me performing a little nodding and amening. In truth, I thought that whatever His great purpose in making my people the most miserable outcasts of Christendom, He would forgive the bobbing of such a very unimportant head.

But the attention of the court to such matters made me grateful to Daniel for his caution. In the end, I thought I should write to him, and to my father, and send the letter by some of the many soldiers who were going to Calais to refortify the town against the French, now doubly our enemy since we had a Spanish king. The letter would take some composing: if it fell into the hands of the many spies, English, French, Spanish, Venetian, or even Swedish, it would have to pa.s.s as an innocent letter from a la.s.s to her lover. I would have to trust him to read between the lines.

Dear Daniel,

I did not reply to you earlier because I did not know what to say, besides I have been with the princess at Woodstock and could not have got a letter to you. I am now with the queen at Winchester and we will soon go to London when I can send you this letter.