The Queen's Fool Part 51

The princess nodded. "Am I to swear on a Bible?" she asked.

"On your soul," Jane said. "On your immortal soul before G.o.d."

It was a solemn moment. Elizabeth glanced toward Lord Robert and he took a little step toward her, as if he would protect her.

"And does she swear to name me as heir in return?"

Jane Dormer nodded. "If you are of the true faith."

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "I will swear," she said.

She rose to her feet. Robert Dudley started forward as if he would stop her but she did not even look at him. I did not rise as I should have done, I stayed completely still, my eyes fixed on her pale face as if I would read her like a clean page of text, fresh off the press, with the ink still drying.

Elizabeth raised her hand. "I swear, on my immortal soul, that I shall keep this country in the true faith," she said. Her hand trembled slightly. She brought it down and clasped her hands together before her, and turned to Jane Dormer.

"Did she ask for anything more?"

"No more," Jane said, her voice very thin.

"So you can tell her I have done it?"

Jane's eyes slid toward me, and the princess was on to her at once.

"Ah, so that is what you are here for." She rounded on me. "My little seer-spy. You are to make a window into my soul and see into my heart and tell the queen what you think you know, what you imagine you saw."

I said nothing.

"You will tell her that I raised my hand and I swore her oath," she commanded me. "You will tell her that I am her true heir."

I rose to my feet, Danny's little head lolled sleepily against my shoulder. "If we may, we will stay here tonight, and return to the queen tomorrow," I said, avoiding answering.

"There was one other thing," Jane Dormer said. "Her Grace requires you to pay her debts and take care of her trusted servants."

Elizabeth nodded. "Of course. a.s.sure my sister that I will honor her wishes as any true heir would do."

I think only I could have heard the ripple of Elizabeth's joy under her grave voice. I did not condemn her for it. Like Mary she had waited all her life for the moment when she might hear the news that she was queen, and now she thought that it would come to her, without dissent, tomorrow, or the day after.

"We will leave at dawn," I said, thinking of the frailty of the queen's health. I knew she would be hanging on to hear that England was safe within the true faith, that whatever else was lost, she had restored England into grace.

"Then I will bid you goodnight and G.o.d speed now," Elizabeth said sweetly.

She let us get to the door and Jane Dormer to go through ahead of me, before she said, so quietly that only I, listening for her summons, could have heard it: "Hannah."

I turned.

"I know you are her loyal friend as well as mine," she said gently. "Do this last service for your mistress and take my word as true, and let her go to her G.o.d with some comfort. Give her peace, and give peace to our country."

I bowed to her and went out.

I thought we would leave Hatfield without another farewell but when I went for my horse on a frosty cold morning with the sun burning red like an ember on the white horizon, there was Lord Robert looking handsome and smiling, wrapped in a dark red velvet cloak with John Dee at his side.

"Is your boy warm enough for the journey?" he asked me. "It's been a hard frost and the air is bitter."

I pointed behind me. Danny was laboring along under an extra-thick jerkin of wool, carrying a shawl that I had insisted he bring. He peeped at me from under a heavy woolen cap. "The poor boy is half drowned in clothes," I said. "He will sweat rather than freeze."

Robert nodded. "The men are to be released from Calais within a week," he said. "They will be collected by a ship which will bring them into Gravesend."

I felt my heart beat a little faster.

"You are blushing like a girl," Lord Robert said, gently mocking.

"Do you think he will have had my letter, that I sent when I first came home?" I asked.

Lord Robert shrugged. "He may have done. But you can tell him yourself, soon enough."

I drew a little closer to him. "You see, if he did not receive it then he will not know that I escaped out of Calais. He might think I am dead. He might not come to England, he might go to Italy or somewhere."

"On the off-chance that you are dead?" Lord Robert asked critically. "With no one ever mentioning it to him? With no proof? And his son?"

"In the confusion of the battle," I said weakly.

"Someone would have looked for you," he said. "If you had been killed they would have found your body."

I shifted awkwardly. Daniel came to me and stretched out his arms. "Dan'l up!" he commanded.

"Wait a moment," I said absently. I turned back to Lord Robert. "You see, if someone told him that I left with you..."

"Then he would know that you are alive, and where to find you," he said logically. Then he checked and slapped his forehead. "Mistress Boy, you have played me for an idiot all along. You are estranged from him, aren't you? And you fear that he will think you ran away with me? And he won't come for you because he has cast you off? And now you don't want me; but you've lost him, and all you've got is his son..." He broke off, struck with sudden doubt. "He is your husband's son, isn't he?"

"Yes," I said staunchly.

"Is he yours?" he said, some sense warning him that there was a lie hidden away somewhere near.

"Yes," I said without wavering.

Lord Robert laughed aloud. "My G.o.d, girl, you are a fool indeed. You did not love him till you lost him."

"Yes," I admitted through gritted teeth.

"Well, more a woman than a fool," he said fairly. "I would say women love men most when they have lost them, or cannot get them. Well-a-day, my pretty fool. You had best get a ship and set sail for your Daniel as soon as you can. Otherwise he will be out of prison and free as a bird flying away, and you will never find him at all."

"Can I get a ship to Calais?" I asked blankly.

He thought for a moment. "Not very readily; but you could go over with the ship that is going to fetch my soldiers home. I'll write you a note."

He snapped his fingers to a stable boy and sent him running for a clerk with pen and paper. When the lad came he dictated three lines to give me a free pa.s.s on the boat for myself and my son.

I curtseyed low to him in genuine grat.i.tude. "Thank you, my lord," I said. "I do thank you very deeply."

He smiled his heart-turning smile. "My pleasure, dearest little fool. But the ship sails within a week. Will you be able to leave the queen?"

"She's sinking fast," I said slowly. "That's why I was in such a hurry to leave at once. She was holding on for Elizabeth's answer."

"Well, thank you for that information, which you denied me earlier," he said.

I bit my lip as I realized that to tell him, was to tell Elizabeth, and those planning her campaign, when she should be ready to call out her army to claim her throne.

"No harm done," he said. "Half of her doctors are paid by us to let us know how she is."

John Dee drew closer. "And could you see into the princess's heart?" he asked gently. "Could you tell if she was sincere in her oath for keeping the true faith? Do you believe she will be a Catholic queen?"

"I don't know," I said simply. "I shall pray for guidance on the way home."

Robert would have said something but John Dee put a hand on his arm. "Hannah will say the right thing to the queen," he said. "She knows that it is not one queen or another that matters, it is not one name of G.o.d or another, what matters most is to bring peace to this country so that a man or woman in danger of cruelty or persecution can come here and be certain of a fair hearing." He paused, and I thought of my father and I, coming to this England and hoping for a safe haven.

"What matters is that a man or woman can believe what they wish, and worship how they wish, to a G.o.d whom they name as they wish. What matters is that we make a strong country here which can be a force for good in the world, where men and women can question and learn freely. This country's destiny is to be a place where men and women can know that they are free."

He stopped. Lord Robert was smiling down at me.

"I know what she will do," Lord Robert said sweetly. "Because she is my tenderhearted Mistress Boy still. She will say whatever she has to say to comfort the queen in her final hours, G.o.d bless her, the poor lady. No queen ever came to the throne with higher hopes and died in such sadness."

I leaned down and scooped Daniel up into my arms. The grooms brought my horse from the stables and Jane Dormer came from the house and got into the litter without a word to either man.

"Good luck in Calais," Robert Dudley said, smiling. "Few women succeed in finding the love of their life. I hope you do, little Mistress Boy."

Then he waved and stepped back, and let me go.

It was a cold long ride back to St. James's palace but Danny's little body was warm as he rode before me, and every now and then I could hear a delighted little carol of song from him.

I rode in silence, thoughtful. The end of my journey when I would see the queen loomed very large ahead of me. I did not yet know what I would say to her. I did not yet know what I had seen, nor what to report. Elizabeth raised her right hand and took the oath she had been asked to do, her part was done. Now it was for me to judge whether or not she meant it.

When we got to the palace the hall was subdued, the few guards playing cards, the firelight flickering, the torches burning low. Will Somers was in the queen's presence chamber, with half a dozen others, mostly paid court officials and physicians. There were no friends or beloved kin waiting to see the queen, praying for her in her illness. She was not England's darling any more, and the chamber rang with emptiness.

Danny spotted Will and sprang toward him. "You go in," Will said. "She has been asking for you."

"Is she any better?" I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. "No."

Cautiously I opened the door to her privy chamber and went in. Two of her women were seated at the fireside, enjoying a gossip when they should have been watching her. They jumped up guiltily as we came in. "She did not want company," one of them said defensively to Jane Dormer. "And she would not stop weeping."

"Well, I hope you lie alone weeping and unwatched one day," Jane snapped at her, and the two of us went past them and into the queen's bedchamber.

She had curled up in the bed like a little girl, her hair in a cloud around her face. She did not turn her head at the sound of the opening door, she was deep in her grief.

"Your Grace?" Jane Dormer said, her voice cracking.

The queen did not move, but we heard the quiet occasional sob go on, as regular as a heartbeat, as if weeping had become a sign of life, like a pulse.

"It is I," Jane said. "And Hannah the Fool. We have come back from Princess Elizabeth."

The queen sighed very deeply and turned her head wearily toward us.

"She took the oath," Jane said. "She swore she would keep the country in the true faith."

I stepped to the bedside and took Queen Mary's hand. It was as small and as light as a child's, there was nothing left of her. Sadness had worn her away to dust that could blow away on the wind. I thought of her riding into London in her shabby red costume, her face bright with hope, and her courage when she took on the great men of the kingdom and beat them at their own game. I thought of her joy in her husband and her longing for a child to love, a son for England. I thought of her absolute devotion to the memory of her mother and her love of G.o.d.

Her little hand fluttered in mine like a dying bird.

"I saw Elizabeth take the oath," I started. I was about to tell her the kindest lie that I could form. But gently, irresistibly, I told her the truth, as if the Sight was speaking the truth through me. "Mary, she will not keep it. But she will do better than keep it, I hope you can understand that now. She will become a better queen than she is a woman. She will teach the people of this country that each man and woman must consider his or her own conscience, must find their own way to G.o.d. And she will bring this country to peace and prosperity. You did the very best that you could do for the people of this country, and you have a good successor. Elizabeth will never be the woman that you have been; but she will be a good queen to England, I know it."

She raised her head a little and her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at me with her straight honest gaze once more, and then she closed her eyes and lay still.

I did not stay to watch the rush of servants to Hatfield. I packed my bag and took Danny by the hand and took a boat down the river to Gravesend. I had my lord's letter to show to the ship's captain and he promised me a berth as soon as they sailed. We waited a day or two and then Danny and I boarded the little ship and set sail for Calais.

Danny was delighted by the ship, the moving deck beneath his feet, the slap and rush of the waves, the creaking of the sails and the cry of the seagulls. "Sea!" he exclaimed, over and over again. He took my face in both of his little hands and gazed at me with his enormous dark eyes, desperate to tell me the significance of his delight. "Sea. Mamma! Sea!"

"What did you say?" I said, taken aback. He had never spoken my name before, I had expected him to call me Hannah. I had not thought, I suppose I should have thought, but I had never thought he would call me mother.

"Sea," he repeated obediently, and wriggled to be put down.

Calais was a different place with the walls breached and the sides of the castle smeared with black oil from the siege, the stones darkened with smoke from the fire. The captain's face was grim when we came into the harbor and saw the English ships, which had been fired where they were moored, at the harbor wall, like so many heretics at the stake. He tied up with military smartness and slapped down the gangplank like a challenge. I took Danny in my arms and walked down the gangplank into the town.

It was dreamlike, to go into the ruins of my old home. I saw streets and houses that I knew; but some of them were missing walls or roofs, and there had been a terrible toll paid by the thatched houses, they were all but destroyed.

I did not want to go down the street where my husband and I once lived, I was afraid of what I might find. If our house was still standing, and his mother and sisters were still there, I did not know how to reconcile with them. If I met his mother and she was angry with me and wanted to take Danny away from me I did not know what I would do or say. But if she was dead, and his house destroyed, it would be even worse.

Instead I went with the captain and the armed guard up to the castle under our white pennant of truce. We were expected; the commander came out civilly enough and spoke to the captain in rapid French. The captain bridled, understanding perhaps one word in three, and then leaned forward and said very loudly and slowly: "I have come for the English men, as has been agreed, as per the terms, and I expect them forthwith."

When he had no response, he said it again, pitched a little higher.

"Captain, would you like me to speak for you, I can speak French?" I offered.

He turned to me with relief. "Can you? That might help. Why doesn't the fool answer me?"

I stepped forward a little and said to the commander in French: "Captain Gatting offers his apologies but he cannot speak French. I can translate for you. I am Madame Carpenter. I have come for my husband who has been ransomed and the captain has come for the other men. We have a ship waiting in the harbor."

He bowed slightly. "Madam, I am obliged to you. The men are mustered and ready. The civilians are to be released first and then the soldiers will march down to the harbor. Their weapons will not be returned. It is agreed?"

I translated for the captain and he scowled at me. "We ought to get the weapons back," he said.

I shrugged. All I could think of was Daniel, waiting somewhere inside the castle for his release. "We can't."

"Tell him very well; but tell him that I'm not best pleased," the captain said sourly.

"Captain Gatting agrees," I said smoothly in French.

"Please come inside." The commander led us over the drawbridge and into the inner courtyard. Another thick curtain wall with a portcullis doorway led to the central courtyard where about two hundred men were mustered, the soldiers in one block, the civilians in another. I raked the ranks for Daniel but I could not see him.