Читать книгу Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen - Philippa Gregory - Страница 14

I came to wish that I had warned her in that moment. The Duke of Norfolk took the apprentice boys from London and the queen’s own guard, and marched them down to Kent to meet Wyatt’s force in a set-piece battle, which should have routed the men from Kent in a day. But the moment the royal army faced Wyatt’s men and saw their honest faces and their determination, our forces, who had sworn to protect the queen, threw their caps in the air and shouted ‘We are all Englishmen!’

Not a shot was fired. They embraced each other as brothers and turned against their commander, united against the queen. The duke, desperate to escape with his life, hared back to London, having done nothing but add a trained force to Wyatt’s raggle-taggle army who came onward, even more quickly, even more determined than they were before, right up to the gates of London.

The sailors on the warships on the Medway, always a powerful bellwether of opinion, deserted to Wyatt in a body, abandoning the queen’s cause, united by their hatred of Spain, and determined to have a Protestant English queen. They took the small arms from the ships, the stores, and their skill as fighting men. I remembered how the arrival of the ships’ companies from Yarmouth had changed everything for us at Framlingham. We had known then, when the sailors had joined us to fight on land, that it was a battle by the people, and that the people united could not be defeated. Now they were united once more, but this time against us. When she heard the news from the Medway, I thought that the queen must realise she had lost.

She sat down with a much diminished council in a room filled with the acrid smell of fear.

‘Half of them have fled to their homes in the country,’ she told Jane Dormer as she looked at the empty seats around the table. ‘And they will be writing letters to Elizabeth now, trying to balance their scales, trying to join the winning side.’

She was harassed by advice. Those who had stayed at court were divided between men who said that she should cancel the marriage, and promise to choose a Protestant prince for a husband, and those who were begging her to call in the Spanish to help put down the rebellion with exemplary savagery.

‘And thus prove to everyone that I cannot rule alone!’ the queen exclaimed.

Thomas Wyatt’s army, swelled by recruits from every village on the London road, reached the south bank of the Thames on a wave of enthusiasm, and found London Bridge raised against them, and the guns of the Tower trained on the southern bank ready for them.

‘They are not to open fire,’ the queen ruled.

‘Your Grace, for the love of God …’

She shook her head. ‘You want me to open fire on Southwark, a village that greeted me so kindly as queen? I will not fire on the people of London.’

‘The rebels are encamped within range now. We could open fire and destroy them in one cannonade.’

‘They will have to stay there until we can raise an army to drive them away.’

‘Your Grace, you have no army. There are no men who will fight for you.’

She was pale but she did not waver for a moment. ‘I have no army yet,’ she emphasised. ‘But I will raise one from the good men of London.’

Against her council’s advice, and with the enemy force growing stronger every day that they camped, unchallenged, on the south bank of the city, the queen put on her great gown of state and went to the Guildhall to meet the Mayor and the people. Jane Dormer, her other ladies and I went in her train, dressed as grandly as we could and looking confident, though we knew we were proceeding to disaster.

‘I don’t know why you are coming,’ one of the old men of the council said pointedly to me. ‘There are fools enough in her train already.’

‘But I am a holy fool, an innocent fool,’ I said pertly. ‘And there are few enough innocent here. You would not be one, I reckon.’

‘I am a fool to be here at all,’ he said sourly.

Of all of the queen’s council and certainly of all of her ladies in waiting, only Jane and I had any hopes of getting out of London alive; but Jane and I had seen her at Framlingham, and we knew that this was a queen to back against all odds. We saw the sharpness in her dark eyes and the pride in her carriage. We had seen her put her crown on her small dark head and smile at herself in the looking glass. We had seen a queen, not filled with fear of an unbeatable enemy, but playing for her life as if it were a game of quoits. She was at her very best when she and her God stood against disaster; with an enemy at the very gates of London you would want no other queen.

But despite all this, I was afraid. I had seen men and women put to violent death, I had smelled the smoke from the burnings of heretics. I knew, as few of her ladies knew, what death meant.

‘Are you coming with me, Hannah?’ she asked pleasantly as she mounted the steps to the Guildhall.

‘Oh yes, Your Grace,’ I said through cold lips.

They had set up a throne for her in the Guildhall and half of London came from sheer curiosity, crowding to hear the queen argue for her life. When she stood, a small figure under the weighty golden crown, draped in the heavy robes of state, I thought for a moment that she would not be able to convince them to keep their faith with her. She looked too frail, she looked too much like a woman who would indeed be ruled by her husband. She looked like a woman you could not trust.

She opened her mouth to speak and there was no sound. ‘Dear God, let her speak.’ I thought she had lost her voice from fear itself, and Wyatt might as well march into the hall now and claim the throne for the Lady Elizabeth, for the queen could not defend herself. But then her voice boomed out, as loud as if she were shouting every word, but as clear and sweet as if she were singing like a chorister in the chapel on Christmas Day.

She told them everything, it was as simple as that. She told them the story of her inheritance: that she was a king’s daughter and she claimed her father’s power, and their fealty. She reminded them that she was a virgin without a child of her own and that she loved the people of the country as only a mother can love her child, that she loved them as a mistress, and that, loving them so intensely, she could not doubt but that they loved her in return.

She was seductive. Our Mary, whom we had seen ill, beleaguered, pitifully alone under virtual house arrest, and only once as a commander; stood before them and she blazed with passion until they caught her fire and were part of it. She swore to them that she was marrying for their benefit, solely to give them an heir, and if they did not think it was the best choice then she would live and die a virgin for them; that she was their queen – it meant nothing to her whether she had a man or not. What was important was the throne, which was hers, and the inheritance, which should come to her son. Nothing else mattered more. Nothing else could ever matter more. She would be guided by them in her marriage, as in everything else. She would rule them as a queen on her own, whether married or not. She was theirs, they were hers, there was nothing that could change it.

Looking around the hall I saw the people begin to smile, and then nod. These were men who wanted to love a queen, who wanted a sense that the world could be held fast, that a woman could hold her desires, that a country could be made safe, that change could be held back. She swore to them that if they would stay true to her, she would be true to them and then she smiled at them, as if it was all a game. I knew that smile and I knew that tone; it was the same as at Framlingham when she had demanded why should she not take an army out against tremendous odds? Why should she not fight for her throne? And now, once again, there were tremendous odds against her: a popular army encamped at Southwark, a popular princess on the move against her, the greatest power in Europe mobilising, and her allies nowhere to be seen. Mary tossed her head under the heavy crown and the rays from the diamonds shot around the room in arrows of light. She smiled at the huge crowd of Londoners as if every one of them adored her – and at that moment they did.

‘And now, good subjects, pluck up your hearts and like true men face up against these rebels and fear them not, for I assure you, I fear them nothing at all!’

She was tremendous. They threw their caps in the air, they cheered her as if she were the Virgin Mary herself. And they raced outside and took the news to all those who had not been able to get into the Guildhall, until the whole city was humming with the words of the queen who had sworn that she would be a mother to them, a mistress to them, and that she loved them so much she would marry or not as they pleased, as long as they would love her in return.

London went mad for Mary. The men volunteered to march against the rebels, the women tore up their best linen into bandages and baked bread for the volunteer soldiers to take in their knapsacks. In their hundreds, the men volunteered; in their thousands, and the battle was won; not when Wyatt’s army was cornered and defeated just a few days later, but in that single afternoon, by Mary, standing on her own two feet, head held high, blazing with courage and telling them that as a virgin queen she demanded their love for her as she gave them hers.

Once again the queen learned that holding the throne was harder than winning it. She spent the days after the uprising struggling with her conscience, faced with the agonising question of what should be done with the rebels who had come against her and been so dramatically defeated. Clearly, God would protect this Mary on her throne, but God was not to be mocked. Mary must also protect herself.

Every advisor that she consulted was insistent that the realm would never be at peace until the network of trouble-makers was arrested, tried with treason and executed. There could be no more mercy from a tender-hearted queen. Even those who in the past had praised the queen for holding Lady Jane and the Dudley brothers in the Tower for safe-keeping were now urging her to make an end to it, and send them to the block. It did not matter that Jane had not led this rebellion, just as it did not matter that she had not commanded the rebellion that had put her on the throne. Hers was the head that they would crown, and so hers was the head that must be struck off the body.

‘She would do the same to you, Your Grace,’ they murmured to her.

‘She is a girl of sixteen,’ the queen replied, her fingers pressed against her aching temples.

‘Her father joined the rebels for her cause. The others joined for the Princess Elizabeth. Both young women are your darkest shadows. Both young women were born to be your enemies. Their existence means that your life is in perpetual danger. Both of them must be destroyed.’

The queen took their hard-hearted advice to her prie-dieu. ‘Jane is guilty of nothing but her lineage,’ the queen whispered, looking up at the statue of the crucified Christ.

She waited, as if hoping for the miracle of a reply.

‘And You know, as I do, that Elizabeth is guilty indeed,’ she said, very low. ‘But how can I send my cousin and my sister to the scaffold?’

Jane Dormer shot me a look and the two of us moved our stools so as to block the view and the hearing of the other ladies in waiting. The queen on her knees should not be overheard. She was consulting the only advisor she truly trusted. She was bringing to the naked stabbed feet of her God the choices she had to make.

The council looked for evidence of Elizabeth’s conspiracy with the rebels and they found enough to hang her a dozen times over. She had met with both Thomas Wyatt and with Sir William Pickering, even as the rebellion had been launched. On my own account, I knew that she had taken a message from me with all the ease of a practised conspirator. There was no doubt in my mind, there was no doubt in the queen’s mind, that if the rebellion had succeeded – as it would have done but for the folly of Edward Courtenay – that it would now be Queen Elizabeth sitting at the head of the council and wondering whether she should sign the death warrant for her half-sister and her cousin. There was not a doubt in my mind that Queen Elizabeth too would spend hours on her knees. But Elizabeth would sign.

A guard tapped on the door, and looked into the quiet room.

‘What is it?’ Jane Dormer asked very softly.

‘Message for the fool, at the side gate,’ the young man said.

I nodded and crept from the room, crossed the great presence chamber where there was a flurry of interest in the small crowd as I opened the door from the queen’s private apartments, and came out. They were all petitioners, up from the country: from Wales and from Devon and from Kent, the places which had risen against the queen. They would be asking for mercy now, mercy from a queen that they would have destroyed. I saw their hopeful faces as the door opened for me, and did not wonder that she spent hours on her knees, trying to discover the will of God. The queen had been merciful to those who had taken the throne from her once; was she now to show mercy again? And what about the next time, and the time after that?

I did not have to show these traitors any courtly politeness. I scowled at them and elbowed my way through. I felt absolute uncompromising hatred of them, that they should have set themselves up to destroy the queen not once, but twice, and now came to court with their caps twisted in their hands and their heads bowed down to ask for the chance to go home and plot against her again.

I pushed past them and down the twisting stone stair to the gate. I found I was hoping that Daniel would be there, and so I was disappointed when I saw a pageboy, a lad I did not know, in homespun, wearing no livery and bearing no badge.

‘What d’you want with me?’ I asked, instantly alert.

‘I bring you these to take to Lord Robert,’ he said simply and thrust two books, one a book of prayers, one a testament, into my arms.

‘From who?’

He shook his head. ‘He wants them,’ he said. ‘I was told you would be glad to take them to him.’ Without waiting for my reply he faded away into the darkness, running half-stooped along the shelter of the wall, leaving me with the two books in my arms.

Before I went back into the palace I turned both books upside down, and checked the endpapers for any hidden messages. There was nothing. I could take them to him if I wished. All I did not know was whether or not I wanted to go.

I chose to go to the Tower in the morning, in broad daylight, as if I had nothing to hide. I showed the guard the books at the door and this time he riffled the pages and looked at the spine as if to make sure that there was nothing hidden. He stared at the print. ‘What’s this?’

‘Greek,’ I said. ‘And the other is Latin.’

He looked me up and down. ‘Show me the inside of your jacket. Turn out your pockets.’

I did as I was bid. ‘Are you a lad or a lass then, or something in between?’

‘I am the queen’s fool,’ I said. ‘And it would be better for you if you let me pass.’

‘God bless her Grace!’ he said with sudden enthusiasm. ‘And whatever oddities she chooses to amuse herself with!’ He led the way to a new building, walking across the green. I followed him, keeping my head turned from the place where they usually built the scaffold.

We went in a handsome double door and up the twisting stone stairs. The guard at the top stood to one side and unlocked the door to let me in.

Lord Robert was standing by the window, breathing the cold air which blew in from the river. He turned his head at the opening of the door and his pleasure at seeing me was obvious. ‘Mistress Boy!’ he said. ‘At last!’

This room was a bigger and better one than he had been in before. It looked out over the dark yard outside, the White Tower glowering against the sky. A big fireplace dominated the room, carved horribly with crests and initials and names of men who had been kept there so long that they had the time to put their names into stone with pocket knives. His own crest was there, carved by his brother and his father, who had worked the stone while waiting for their sentence, and had scratched their names while the scaffold was built outside their window.

The months in prison were starting to leave a mark on him. His skin was pallid, whiter even than winter-pale, he had not been allowed to walk in the garden since the rebellion. His eyes were set deeper in their sockets than when he had been the favoured son of the most powerful man in England. But his linen was clean and his cheeks were shaved and his hair was shiny and silky, and my heart still turned over at the sight of him, even while I hung back and tried to see him for what he was: a traitor and a man condemned to death, waiting for the day of his execution.

He read my face in one quick glance. ‘Displeased with me, Mistress Boy?’ he demanded. ‘Have I offended you?’

I shook my head. ‘No, my lord.’

He came closer and though I could smell the clean leather of his boots and the warm perfume of his velvet jacket, I leaned away from him.

He put his hand under my chin and turned my face up. ‘You’re unhappy,’ he remarked. ‘What is it? Not the betrothed, surely?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘What then? Missing Spain?’

‘No.’

‘Unhappy at court?’ he guessed. ‘Girls catfighting?’

I shook my head.

‘You don’t want to be here? You didn’t want to come?’ Then, quickly spotting the little flicker of emotion that went across my face, he said: ‘Oho! Faithless! You have been turned, Mistress Boy, as often spies are. You have been turned around and now you are spying on me.’

‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘Never. I would never spy on you.’

I would have moved away but he put his hands on either side of my face and held me so that I could not get away from him, and he could read my eyes as if I were a broken code.

‘You have despaired of my cause and despaired of me and become her servant and not mine,’ he accused me. ‘You love the queen.’

‘Nobody could help loving the queen,’ I said defensively. ‘She is a most beautiful woman. She is the bravest woman I have ever known and she struggles with her faith and with the world every day. She is halfway to being a saint.’

He smiled at that. ‘You’re such a girl,’ he said, laughing at me. ‘You’re always in love with somebody. And so you prefer this queen to me, your true lord.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘For here I am, doing your bidding. As I was told. Though it was a stranger who came to me and I did not know if I was safe.’

He shrugged at that. ‘And tell me, you did not betray me?’

‘When?’ I demanded, shocked.

‘When I asked you to take a message to Lady Elizabeth and to my tutor?’

He could see the horror in my face at the very thought of such a betrayal. ‘Good God, no, my lord. I did both errands and I told no-one.’

‘Then how did it all go wrong?’ He dropped his hands from my face and turned away. He paced to the window and back to the table that he used for a study desk. He turned at the desk and went to the fireplace. I thought this must be a regular path for him, four steps to his table, four steps to the fireplace, four steps back to the window; no further than this for a man who used to ride out on his horse before he broke his fast, and then hunt all day, and dance with the ladies of the court all night.

‘My lord, that’s easily answered. It was Edward Courtenay who told Bishop Gardiner and the plot was discovered,’ I said very quietly. ‘The bishop brought the news to the queen.’

He whirled around. ‘They let that spineless puppy out of their sight for a moment?’

‘The bishop knew that something was being planned. Everyone knew that something was being planned.’

He nodded. ‘Tom Wyatt was always indiscreet.’

‘He will pay for it. They are questioning him now.’

‘To discover who else is in the plot?’

‘To get him to name the Princess Elizabeth.’

Lord Robert pushed his fists on either side of the window frame, as if he would stretch the stone wide and fly free. ‘They have evidence against her?’

‘Enough,’ I said acerbically. ‘The queen is on her knees right now, praying for guidance. If she decides that it is God’s will that she should sacrifice Elizabeth, she has more than enough evidence.’

‘And Jane?’

‘The queen is fighting to save her. She has asked Jane to be taught the true faith. She is hoping that she will recant and then she can be forgiven.’

He laughed shortly. ‘The true faith is it, Mistress Boy?’

I flushed scarlet. ‘My lord, it’s only how everyone talks at court now.’

‘And you with them, my little conversa, my nueva cristiana?’

‘Yes, my lord,’ I said steadily, meeting his eyes.

‘What a bargain to put before a sixteen-year-old girl,’ he said. ‘Poor Jane. Her faith or death. Does the queen want to make a martyr of her cousin?’

‘She wants to make converts,’ I said. ‘She wants to save Jane from death and from damnation.’

‘And me?’ he asked quietly. ‘Am I to be saved, or am I a brand for the burning, d’you think?’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, my lord. But if Queen Mary follows the advice she is given, then every man whose loyalty is questionable will be hanged. Already the soldiers who fought in the rebellion are on the scaffolds at every corner.’

‘Then I had better read these books quickly,’ he said drily. ‘Perhaps a light will dawn for me. What d’you think, Mistress Boy? Did a light dawn for you? You and the true faith, as you call it?’

There was a hammering on the door and the guard swung the door open. ‘Is the fool to leave?’

‘In a moment,’ Lord Robert said hastily. ‘I haven’t paid him yet. Give me a moment.’

The guard glared at us both suspiciously, shut the door and locked it again. There was a brief painful second of silence.

‘My lord,’ I burst out, ‘do not torment me. I am as I always was. I am yours.’

He took a breath. Then he managed to smile. ‘Mistress Boy, I am a dead man,’ he said simply. ‘You should mourn me and then forget me. Thank God you are not the poorer for knowing me. I have placed you as a favourite in the court of the winning side. I have done you a favour, my little lad. I am glad I did it.’

‘My lord,’ I whispered earnestly. ‘You cannot die. Your tutor and I looked in the mirror and saw your fortune. There was no doubt about it, it cannot end here. He said that you are to die safe in your bed, and that you will have a great love, the love of a queen.’

For a moment he frowned as he heard the words, then he gave a little sigh, as a man tempted by false hope. ‘A few days ago I would have begged to hear more. But it is too late now. The guard will come. You have to go. Hear this. I release you from your loyalty to me and to my cause. Your work for me is finished. You can earn a good living at court and then marry your young man. You can be the queen’s fool in very truth and forget me.’

I stepped a little closer. ‘My lord, I will never be able to forget you.’

Lord Robert smiled. ‘I thank you for that, and I will be glad of whatever prayers you offer up at the hour of my death. Unlike most of my countrymen, I don’t really mind what prayers they are. And I know that they will come from the heart, and yours is a loving heart.’

‘Shall I carry any message from you?’ I asked eagerly. ‘To Mr Dee? Or to the Lady Elizabeth?’

He shook his head. ‘No messages. It is over. I think that I will see all my fellows in heaven very soon. Or not, depending on which of us is right about the nature of God.’

‘You can’t die,’ I cried, anguished.

‘I don’t think they will leave me much choice,’ he said.

I could hardly bear his bitterness. ‘Lord Robert,’ I whispered. ‘Can I do nothing for you? Nothing at all?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘See if you can persuade the queen to forgive Jane and Elizabeth. Jane because she is innocent of everything, and Elizabeth because she is a woman who should live. A woman like her was not born to die young. If I thought I could leave you with that commission and you could succeed, I could die in some peace.’

‘And for you?’ I asked.

He put his hand under my chin again, bent his dark head and kissed me gently on the lips. ‘For me, nothing,’ he said softly. ‘I am a dead man. And that kiss, Mistress Boy, my dear little vassal, that kiss was the last I will ever give you. That was goodbye.’

He turned away from me and faced the window and shouted: ‘Guard!’ for the man to unlock the door. Then there was nothing for me to do but to leave him, in that cold room, looking out into the darkness, waiting for the news that his scaffold was built, the axeman was waiting, and that his life was over.

I went back to court in a dazed silence and when we went to Mass four times a day I dropped down to my knees and prayed in earnest that the God who had saved Mary should save my Lord Robert too.

My mood of exhausted pessimism suited the queen. We did not live like a victorious court in a victorious city. It was a court hanging on a thread of its own indecision, sick with worry. Every day, after Mass and breakfast, Queen Mary walked by the side of the river, her cold hands dug deep in her muff, her steps hastened by the cold wind blowing her skirts forward. I walked behind her with my black cape wrapped tightly around my shoulders and my face tucked into the collar. I was glad of the thick hose of my fool’s livery and glad of my warm jacket. I would not have dressed as a woman in those wintry days for all the Spanish princes in the empire.

I knew she was troubled and so I kept silent. I dogged her footsteps two steps behind her because I knew she liked the comfort of a companion’s tread on the frozen gravel at her back. She had spent so many years alone, she had taken so many lonely walks, that she liked to know that someone was keeping vigil with her.

The wind coming off the river was too cold for her to walk for long, even with a thick cape and a fur collar at her neck. She turned on her heel and I nearly bumped into her as I ploughed forward, my head down.

‘I beg pardon, Your Grace,’ I said, ducking a little bow and stepping out of her way.

‘You can walk beside me,’ she said.

I fell into step, saying nothing, but waiting for her to speak. She was silent till we came to the small garden door where the guard swung it open before her. Inside a maid was waiting to take her cloak and to offer her a pair of dry shoes. I swung my cloak over my arm and stamped my feet on the rushes to warm them.

‘Come with me,’ the queen said over her shoulder and led the way up the winding stone stairs to her apartments. I knew why she had chosen the garden stairs. If we had gone through the main building we would have found the hall, the stairs, and the presence chamber filled with petitioners, half of them come to beg for sons or brothers who were due to follow Tom Wyatt to a death sentence. Queen Mary had to pass through crowds of tearstained women every time she went to Mass, every time she went to dine. They held out their hands to her, palms clasped, they called out her name. Endlessly they begged her for mercy, constantly she had to refuse. No wonder that she preferred to walk alone in the garden and slip up the secret stairs.

The stairs emerged into a little lobby room, which led to the queen’s private chamber. Jane Dormer was sewing in the window-seat, half a dozen women working alongside her; one of the queen’s ladies was reading from the Book of Psalms. I saw the queen run her eye over the room like a school mistress observing an obedient class and give a little nod of pleasure. Philip of Spain, when he finally came, would find a sober and devout court.

‘Come, Hannah,’ she said, taking a seat at the fireside and gesturing to me to sit on a stool nearby.

I dropped down, folded my knees under my chin and looked up at her.

‘I want you to do me a service,’ she said abruptly.

‘Of course, Your Grace,’ I said. I was about to rise to my feet in case she was sending me on an errand but she put her hand on my shoulder.

‘I’m not sending you to run a message,’ she said. ‘I am sending you to look at something for me.’

‘Look at something?’

‘Look with your gift, with your inner eye.’

I hesitated. ‘Your Grace, I will try, but you know it is not at my command.’

‘No, but you have seen the future twice with me; once you spoke of my becoming queen and once you spoke to warn me of heartbreak. Now I want you to warn me again.’

‘Warn you against what?’ My voice was as low as hers. No-one in the room could have heard us over the crackle of the logs in the fireplace.

‘Against Elizabeth,’ she breathed.

For a moment I said nothing, my gaze on the red ember caverns under the big applewood logs.

‘Your Grace, there are wiser heads than mine to advise you,’ I said with difficulty. In the brightness of the fire I could almost see the flame of the princess’s hair, the dazzle of her confident smile.

‘None I trust more. None who comes with your gift.’

I hesitated. ‘Is she coming to court?’

Mary shook her head. ‘She won’t come. She says she is ill. She says she is near death with sickness, a swelling of the belly and of her limbs. She is too ill to get out of bed. Too ill to be moved. It is an old illness of hers, a real one, I believe. But it always comes on at certain times.’

‘Certain times?’

‘When she is very afraid,’ Mary said quietly, ‘and when she has been caught out. The first time she was sick like this was when they executed Thomas Seymour. Now I think she fears being accused of another plot. I am sending my doctors to see her, and I want you to go too.’

‘Of course.’ I did not know what else I could say.

‘Sit with her, read to her, be her companion as you have been mine. If she is well enough to come to court, you can travel with her and keep her spirits up on the journey. If she is dying you can comfort her, send for a priest and try to turn her thoughts to her salvation. It is not too late for her to be forgiven by God. Pray with her.’

‘Anything else?’ My voice was a thread of sound. The queen had to lean forward to hear me.

‘Spy on her,’ she said flatly. ‘Everything she does, everyone she sees, everyone in that household of hers who are all heretics and liars, every one. Every name you hear mentioned, every friend they hold dear. Write to me every day and tell me what you have learned. I have to know if she is plotting against me. I have to have evidence.’

I clasped my hands tight around my knees and felt the tremble in my legs and the quiver in my fingers. ‘I cannot be a spy,’ I breathed. ‘I cannot betray a young woman to her death.’

‘You have no other master now,’ she reminded me gently. ‘Northumberland is dead and Robert Dudley in the Tower. What else can you do but my bidding?’

‘I am a fool, not a spy,’ I said. ‘I am your fool, not your spy.’

‘You are my fool and you shall give me the gift of your counsel,’ she ordered. ‘And I say, go to Elizabeth, serve her as you serve me, and report to me everything you see and hear, but more importantly wait for your gift to speak. I think you will see through her lies and be able to tell me what is in her heart.’

‘But if she is sick and dying …’

For a moment the hard lines around her mouth and eyes softened. ‘If she dies then I will have lost my only sister,’ she said bleakly. ‘I will have sent inquisitors to her when I should have gone myself and held her in my arms. I don’t forget that she was a baby when I first cared for her, I don’t forget that she learned to walk holding on to my fingers.’ She paused for a moment, smiling at the thought of those fat little hands clutching at her for support, and then she shook her head, as if she would dismiss the love she had for that little red-headed toddler.

‘It comes too pat,’ she said simply. ‘Tom Wyatt is arrested, his army fails, and Elizabeth takes to her bed too ill to write, too ill to reply to me, too ill to come to London. She is as ill as she was when Jane was put on the throne and I wanted her at my side. She is always ill when there is danger. She has been plotting against me and she has suffered nothing but a reverse; not a change of heart. I have to know if she and I can live together as queen and heir, as sisters; or that the worst has come to me and she is my enemy and will stop at nothing till my death.’ She turned her dark honest gaze back to me. ‘You can tell me that,’ she said. ‘It is no dishonour to warn me if she hates me and would have me dead. You can bring her to London, or write to me that she is indeed ill. You shall be my eyes and ears at her bedside and God will guide you.’

I surrendered to her conviction. ‘When do I leave?’

‘Tomorrow at dawn,’ the queen said. ‘You can visit your father tonight if you wish, you need not come to dinner.’

I rose to my feet and gave her a little bow. She put out her hand to me. ‘Hannah,’ she said quietly.

‘Yes, Your Grace?’

‘I wish you could see into her heart and see that she is able to love me, and able to turn to the true faith.’

‘I hope I see that too,’ I said fervently.

Her mouth was working, holding back tears. ‘But if she is faithless, you must tell me, even though it will break my heart.’

‘I will.’

‘If she can be saved then we could rule together. She could be my sister at my side, the first of my subjects, the girl who is to come after me.’

‘Please God.’

‘Amen,’ she said quietly. ‘I miss her. I want her safe with me. Amen.’

I sent a message to tell my father that I would come to visit him, and that I would bring our dinner. As I tapped on the door I saw that he was working late, the illuminated printing room was bright at the rear of the dark shop. The light poured into the shop when he opened the press room door and came out, holding his candle high.

‘Hannah! Mi querida!’

In a moment he had the bolt shot aside and I tumbled in, setting down my basket of food to hug him and then kneeling before him for his blessing.

‘I brought you dinner from the palace,’ I said.

He chuckled. ‘A treat! I shall eat like a queen.’

‘She eats very badly,’ I said. ‘She’s not a good doer at all. You should eat like a councillor if you want to grow fat.’

He pushed the door shut behind me, turned his head and shouted towards the print room. ‘Daniel! She is here!’

‘Is Daniel here?’ I asked nervously.

‘He came to help me set some text for a medical book, and when I said that you were coming, he stayed on,’ my father said happily.

‘There isn’t enough for him,’ I said ungraciously. I had not forgotten that we had parted on a quarrel.

My father smiled at my petulance but said nothing as the door of the print room opened and Daniel came out, wearing an apron over his black breeches, the front bib stained with black ink, his hands dirty.

‘Good evening,’ I said, unsmiling.

‘Good evening,’ he replied.

‘Now!’ my father said in pleasurable anticipation of his dinner. He drew three high stools up to the counter as Daniel went out to the yard to wash his hands. I unpacked the basket. A venison pasty, a loaf of manchet bread still warm from the oven, a couple of slices of beef carved from the spit and wrapped in muslin, and half a dozen slender roasted chops of lamb. Two bottles of good red wine had gone into my basket from the queen’s own cellar. I had brought no vegetables; but from the sweet kitchen I had stolen a bowl of syllabub. We put the syllabub with cream to one side to eat later, and spread the rest of the feast on the table. My father opened the wine as I fetched three tankards from the cupboard under the counter and a couple of horn-handled knives.

‘So, what news?’ my father asked as we started to eat.

‘I am to go to Princess Elizabeth. She is said to be sick. The queen wants me to be her companion.’

Daniel looked up, but said nothing.

‘Where is she?’ my father asked.

‘At her house at Ashridge.’

‘Are you going alone?’ he asked with concern.

‘No. The queen is sending her doctors and a couple of her councillors. I should think we might be as many as ten in the party.’

He nodded. ‘I am glad. I don’t think the roads are safe. Many of the rebels got away and are heading back for their homes and they are angry men, and armed.’

‘I’ll be well guarded,’ I said. I gnawed on a chop bone and glanced up to see Daniel watching me. I put it to one side, having quite lost my appetite.

‘When will you come back?’ Daniel asked quietly.

‘When Princess Elizabeth is fit to travel,’ I said.

‘Have you heard from Lord Robert?’ my father asked.

‘I am released from his service,’ I said stiffly. I kept my eyes on the counter top, I did not want either of them to see my pain. ‘He is preparing for his death.’

‘It must come,’ my father said simply. ‘Has the queen signed the warrant for the execution of his brother and Lady Jane?’

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘But it will be any day now.’

He nodded. ‘Hard times,’ he said. ‘And who would have thought that the queen could have raised the city and defeated the rebels?’

I shook my head.

‘She can hold this country,’ my father said. ‘While she can command the hearts of the people as she does, she can be queen. She might even be a great queen.’

‘Have you heard from John Dee?’ I asked.

‘He’s travelling,’ my father said. ‘Buying manuscripts by the barrel. He sends them back to me here for safe-keeping. He’s right to stay far from London, his name was mentioned. Most of the rebels have been his friends before now.’

‘They were all men of the court,’ I contradicted him. ‘They knew everyone. Queen Mary herself befriended Edward Courtenay. At one time they said she would marry him.’

‘I heard it was him who named the others?’ Daniel asked.

I nodded.

‘Neither a good subject nor a good friend,’ Daniel ruled.

‘A man with temptations we cannot imagine,’ I said smartly. Then I thought of the Edward Courtenay I knew: a weak mouth and a flushed complexion. A boy pretending to be a man, and not even a pleasant boy. A braggart hoping to leap higher by courting Queen Mary or Lady Elizabeth, or anyone who would help him rise.

‘Forgive me,’ I said to my betrothed. ‘You are right. He is neither a good subject nor a good friend, he’s not even much of a boy.’

His smile warmed his face, and warmed me. I took a piece of bread and felt a sense of ease. ‘How is your mother?’ I asked politely.

‘She has been ill in this cold wet weather, but she is well now.’

‘And your sisters?’

‘They are well. When you come back from Ashridge I should like you to come to my house to meet them.’

I nodded. I could not imagine meeting Daniel’s sisters.

‘There will soon come a time when we all live together,’ he said. ‘It would be better if you meet now, so that you can all become accustomed.’

I said nothing. We had not parted as a betrothed couple but clearly Daniel wanted to ignore that quarrel, as he had overlooked others. Our betrothal was still unbroken, then. I smiled at him. I could not imagine living in his house with his mother ordering things as they had always been done and his sisters fluttering around him as the favoured child: the son.

‘Do you think they will admire my breeches?’ I asked provocatively.

I saw him flush. ‘No, not particularly,’ he said shortly. He leaned back on the counter and took a sip of wine. He looked towards my father. ‘I think I’ll finish that page now,’ he said. He stepped down from the stool and reached for his printer’s apron.

‘Shall I bring your syllabub out later?’ I asked.

He looked at me, his eyes dark and hard. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I have no taste for things that are sweet and sour at the same time.’

Will Somers was in the stable-yard while they were saddling up the horses for our journey, cracking jokes with the men.

‘Will, are you coming with us?’ I asked hopefully.

He shook his head. ‘Not I! Too cold for me! I’d have thought it no job for you either, Hannah Green.’

I made a face. ‘The queen asked it of me. She asked me to look into Elizabeth’s heart.’

‘Into her heart?’ he repeated comically. ‘First find it!’

‘What else could I do?’ I demanded.

‘Nothing but obey.’

‘And what should I do now?’

‘The same.’

I drew a little closer. ‘Will, d’you think she was really plotting to throw down the queen and put herself on the throne?’

He smiled his little world-weary smile. ‘Fool, there is not a doubt of it. And you a fool even to question it.’

‘Then if I say she is pretending to be ill, if I report that she is a liar, I bring her to her death.’

He nodded.

‘Will, I cannot do that to a woman such as the princess. It would be like shooting a lark.’

‘Then miss your aim,’ he said.

‘I should lie to the queen and say that the princess is innocent?’

‘You have a gift of Sight, don’t you?’ he demanded.

‘I wish I did not.’

‘It is time to cultivate the gift of blindness. If you have no opinion, you cannot be asked to account for it. You are an innnocent fool, be more innocent than fool.’

I nodded, a little cheered. One of the men brought my horse out of the stable and Will cupped his hand to throw me up into the saddle.

‘Up you go,’ he said. ‘Higher and higher. Fool and now councillor. It must be a lonely queen indeed who turns to a fool for counsel.’

It took us three days to travel the thirty miles to Ashridge, struggling, heads bowed through a storm of sleet, always freezing cold. The councillors led by Lady Elizabeth’s own cousin, Lord William Howard, were afraid of rebels on the roads and we had to go at the marching pace of our guards while the wind whipped down the rutted track which was all there was of a road, and the sun peeped, a pale wintry yellow, through dark clouds.

We reached the house by noon and we were glad to see the curl of smoke from the tall chimneys. We clattered round to the stable-yard and found no grooms to take the horses, no-one ready to serve us. Lady Elizabeth kept only a small staff, one Master of Horse and half a dozen lads, and none of them was ready to greet a train such as ours. We left the soldiers to make themselves as comfortable as they could be, and trooped round to the front door of the house.

The princess’s own cousin hammered on the door and tried the handle. It was bolted and barred from the inside. He stepped back and looked around for the captain of the guard. It was at that moment that I realised his orders were very different from mine. I was here to look into her heart, to restore her to the affection of her sister. He was here to bring her to London, alive or dead.

‘Knock again,’ he said grimly. ‘And then break it down.’

At once the door yielded, swung open to our knock by an unenthusiastic pair of menservants who looked anxiously at the great men, the doctors in their furred coats and the men at arms behind them.

We marched into the great hall like enemies, without invitation. The place was in silence, extra rushes on the floor to muffle the sound of the servants’ feet, a strong smell of mint purifying the air. A redoubtable woman, Mrs Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s best servant and protector, was at the head of the hall, her hands clasped together under a solid bosom, her hair scraped back under an imposing hood. She looked the royal train up and down as if we were a pack of pirates.

The councillors delivered their letters of introduction, the physicians theirs. She took them without looking at them.

‘I shall tell my lady that you are here but she is too sick to see anyone,’ she said flatly. ‘I will see that you are served such dinner as we can lay before you; but we have not the rooms to accommodate such a great company as yourselves.’

‘We will stay at Hillham Hall, Mrs Ashley,’ Sir Thomas Cornwallis said helpfully.

She raised her eyebrow as if she did not think much of his choice and turned to the door at the head of the hall. I fell into step behind her. At once she rounded on me.

‘And where d’you think you’re going?’

I looked up at her, my face innocent. ‘With you, Mrs Ashley. To the Lady Elizabeth.’

‘She’ll see no-one,’ the woman ruled. ‘She is too ill.’

‘Then let me pray at the foot of her bed,’ I said quietly.

‘If she is so very ill she will want the fool’s prayers,’ someone said from the hall. ‘That child can see angels.’

Kat Ashley, caught out by her own story, nodded briefly and let me follow her out of the door, through the presence chamber and into Elizabeth’s private rooms.

There was a heavy damask curtain over the door to shut out the noise from the presence chamber. There were matching curtains at the window, drawn tight against light and air. Only candles illuminated the room with their flickering light and showed the princess, red hair spread like a haemorrhage on the pillow, her face white.

At once I could see she was ill indeed. Her belly was as swollen as if she were pregnant but her hands as they lay on the embroidered coverlet were swollen too, the fingers fat and thick as if she were a gross old lady and not a girl of twenty. Her lovely face was puffy, even her neck was thick.

‘What is the matter with her?’ I demanded.

‘Dropsy,’ Mrs Ashley replied. ‘Worse than she has ever had it before. She needs rest and peace.’

‘My lady,’ I breathed.

She raised her head and peered at me from under swollen eyelids. ‘Who?’

‘The queen’s fool,’ I said. ‘Hannah.’

She veiled her eyes. ‘A message?’ she asked, her voice a thread.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I am come to you from Queen Mary. She has sent me to be your companion.’

‘I thank her,’ she said, her voice a whisper. ‘You can tell her that I am sick indeed and need to be alone.’

‘She has sent doctors to make you better,’ I said. ‘They are waiting to see you.’

‘I am too sick to travel,’ Elizabeth said, speaking strongly for the first time.

I bit my lip to hide my smile. She was ill, no-one could manifest a swelling of the very knuckles of their fingers in order to escape a charge of treason. But she would play her illness as the trump card it was.

‘She has sent her councillors to accompany you,’ I warned her.

‘Who?’

‘Your cousin, Lord William Howard, among others.’

I saw her swollen lips twist in a bitter smile. ‘She must be very determined against me if she sends my own kin to arrest me,’ she remarked.

‘May I be your companion during your illness?’ I suggested.

She turned her head away. ‘I am too tired,’ she said. ‘You can come back when I am better.’

I rose from my kneeling position by the bed and stepped backwards. Kat Ashley jerked her head towards the door to send me from the room.

‘And you can tell those who have come to take her that she is near death!’ she said bluntly. ‘You can’t threaten her with the scaffold, she is slipping away all on her own!’ A half-sob escaped her and I saw that she was drawn as tight as a lute string with anxiety for the princess.

‘No-one is threatening her,’ I said.

She gave a little snort of disbelief. ‘They have come to take her, haven’t they?’

‘Yes,’ I said unwillingly. ‘But they have no warrant, she is not under arrest.’

‘Then she shall not leave,’ she said angrily.

‘I’ll tell them she is too ill to travel,’ I said. ‘But the physicians will want to see her, whatever I say.’

She made a little irritable puffing noise and stepped closer to the bed to straighten the quilt. I glimpsed a quick bright glance from beneath Elizabeth’s swollen eyelids, as I bowed again and let myself out of the room.

Then we waited. Good God, how we waited. She was the absolute mistress of delay. When the physicians said she was well enough to leave she could not choose the gowns she would bring, then her ladies could not pack them in time for us to set off before dusk. Then everything had to be unpacked again since we were staying another day, and then Elizabeth was so exhausted she could see no-one at all the next day, and the merry dance of Elizabeth’s waiting began again.

During one of these mornings, when the big trunks were being laboriously loaded into the wagons, I went to the Lady Elizabeth to see if I could assist her. She was lying on a day bed, in an attitude of total exhaustion.

‘It is all packed,’ she said. ‘And I am so tired I do not know I can begin the journey.’

The swelling of her body had reduced but she was clearly still unwell. She would have looked better if she had not powdered her cheeks with rice powder and, I swear, darkened the shadows under her eyes. She looked like a sick woman enacting the part of a sick woman.

‘The queen is determined that you shall go to London,’ I warned her. ‘Her litter arrived for you yesterday, you can travel lying down if you will.’

She bit her lip. ‘Do you know if she will accuse me when we get there?’ she asked, her voice very low. ‘I am innocent of plotting against her, but there are many who would speak against me, slanderers and liars.’

‘She loves you,’ I reassured her. ‘I think she would take you back into her favour and into her heart even now, if you would just accept her faith.’

Elizabeth looked into my eyes, that straight honest Tudor look, like her father, like her sister. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’ she asked. ‘Are you a holy fool or a trickster, Hannah Green?’

‘I am neither,’ I said, meeting her gaze. ‘I was begged for a fool by Robert Dudley, against my wishes. I never wanted to be a fool. I have a gift of Sight which comes to me unbidden, and sometimes shows me things that I cannot even understand. And most of the time it doesn’t come at all.’

‘You saw an angel behind Robert Dudley,’ she reminded me.

I smiled. ‘I did.’

‘What was it like?’

I giggled, I couldn’t help it. ‘Lady Elizabeth, I was so taken with Lord Robert that I hardly noticed the angel.’

She sat up, quite forgetting her pose of illness, and laughed with me. ‘He is very … he is so … he is indeed a man you look at.’

‘And I only realised it was an angel afterwards,’ I said to excuse myself. ‘At the time I was just overwhelmed by the three of them, Mr Dee, Lord Robert, and the third.’

‘And do your visions come to pass?’ she asked keenly. ‘You scried for Mr Dee, didn’t you?’

I hesitated with a sense of the ground opening into a chasm under my feet. ‘Who says so?’ I asked cautiously.

She smiled at me, a flash of small white teeth as if she were a bright fox. ‘Never mind what I know. I am asking what you know.’

‘Some things that I see have come to pass,’ I said, honestly enough. ‘But sometimes the very things I need to know, the most important things in the world, I cannot tell. Then it is a useless gift. If it had warned me – just once –’

‘What warning?’ she asked.

‘The death of my mother,’ I said. I would have bitten back the words as soon as they were spoken. I did not want to tell my past to this sharp-minded princess.

I glanced at her face but she was looking at me with intense sympathy. ‘I did not know,’ she said gently. ‘Did she die in Spain? You came from Spain, did you not?’

‘In Spain,’ I said. ‘Of the plague.’ I felt a sharp twist of pain in my belly at lying about my mother, but I did not dare to think of the fires of the Inquisition with this young woman watching me. It was as if she could have seen the flicker of their reflected flames in my eyes.

‘I am sorry,’ she said, very low. ‘It is hard for a young woman to grow up without a mother.’

I knew she was thinking of herself for a moment, and of the mother who had died on the scaffold with the names of witch, adulteress and whore. She put away the thought. ‘But what made you come to England?’

‘We have kin here. And my father had arranged a marriage for me. We wanted to start again.’

She smiled at my breeches. ‘Does your betrothed know that he will be getting a girl who is half-boy?’

I made a little pout. ‘He does not like me at court, he does not like me in livery, and he does not like me in breeches.’

‘But do you like him?’

‘Well enough as a cousin. Not enough for a husband.’

‘And do you have any choice in the matter?’

‘Not much,’ I said shortly.

She nodded. ‘It’s always the same for all women,’ she said, a hint of resentment in her voice. ‘The only people who can choose their lives are those in breeches. You do right to wear them.’

‘I’ll have to put them aside soon,’ I said. ‘I was allowed to wear them when I was little more than a child but I …’ I checked myself. I did not want to confide in her. She had a gift, this princess, the Tudor gift, of opening confidences.

‘When I was your age, I thought I would never know how to be a young woman,’ she said, echoing my thought. ‘All I wanted to do was to be a scholar, I could see how to do that. I had a wonderful tutor and he taught me Latin and Greek and all the spoken languages too. I wanted to please my father so much, I thought he would be proud of me if I could be as clever as Edward. I used to write to him in Greek – can you imagine? The greatest dread of my life was that I would be married and sent away from England. The greatest hope of my life was that I might be a great and learned lady and be allowed to stay at court. When my father died I thought I would be always at court: my brother’s favourite sister, and aunt to his many children, and together we would see my father’s work complete.’

She shook her head. ‘Indeed, I should not want your gift of Sight,’ she said. ‘If I had known that I would come to this, under the shadow of my sister’s displeasure, and my beloved brother dead, and my father’s legacy thrown away …’

Elizabeth broke off and then turned to me, her dark eyes filled with tears. She stretched out her hand palm upwards, and I could see that she was shaking slightly. ‘Can you see my future?’ she asked. ‘Will Mary greet me as a sister and know that I have done no wrong? Will you tell her that I am innocent in my heart?’

‘If she can, she will.’ I took her hand, but kept my eyes on the pale face which had so suddenly blanched. She leaned back against the richly embroidered pillows. ‘Truly, Princess, the queen would be your friend. I know this. She would be very happy to hear of your innocence.’

She pulled her hand away. ‘Even if the Vatican named me a saint, she would not be happy,’ she said. ‘And I will tell you why. It isn’t my absence from court, it isn’t even my doubts about her religion. It is the rage that lives between sisters. She will never forgive me for what they did to her mother, and for what they did to her. She will never forgive me for being my father’s darling and the baby of the court. She will never forgive me for being the best beloved daughter. I remember her as a young woman, sitting at the foot of my bed and staring at me as if she would hold the pillow over my face, though she was singing me a lullaby all the time. She has loves and hates, all mixed up. And the last thing she wants at court is a younger sister to show her up.’

I said nothing; it was too shrewd an assessment.

‘A younger sister who is prettier than her,’ Elizabeth reminded me. ‘A younger sister who looks like a pure Tudor and not like a half-caste Spaniard.’

I turned my head. ‘Have a care, Princess.’

Elizabeth laughed, a wild little laugh. ‘She sent you here to see into my heart. Didn’t she? She has great faith in God working his purpose in her life. Telling her what is to be. But her God is very slow in bringing her joy, I think. That long long wait for the throne and then a rebellious kingdom at the end of it. And now a wedding but a bridegroom who is in no hurry to come, but instead stays at home with his mistress. What do you see for her, fool?’

I shook my head. ‘Nothing, Your Grace. I cannot see to command. And in any case, I am afraid to look.’

‘Mr Dee believes that you could be a great seer, one who might help him unveil the mysteries of the heavens.’

I turned my head, afraid that my face might show the sudden vivid image I had in my mind’s eye, the dark mirror, and the words spilling out of my mouth, telling of the two queens who would rule England. A child, but no child, a king but no king, a virgin queen all-forgotten, a queen but no virgin. I did not know who these might be. ‘I have not spoken with Mr Dee for many months,’ I said cautiously. ‘I hardly know him.’

‘You once spoke to me without my invitation, you mentioned his name, and others,’ she said, her voice very low.

I did not falter for a second. ‘I did not, your ladyship. If you remember, the heel of your shoe broke and I helped you to your room.’

She half-closed her eyes and smiled. ‘Not a fool at all then, Hannah.’

‘I can tell a hawk from a handsaw,’ I said shortly.

There was a silence between us, then she sat up and put her feet to the ground. ‘Help me up,’ she said.

I took her arm and she leaned her weight against me. She staggered slightly as she got to her feet, this was no pretence. She was a sick girl, and I felt her tremble and knew that she was sick with fear. She took a step towards the window and looked out over the cold garden, each leaf dripping a teardrop of ice.

‘I dare not go to London,’ she said to me in a soft moan. ‘Help me, Hannah. I dare not go. Have you heard from Lord Robert? Have you truly nothing for me from John Dee? From any of the others? Is there no-one there who will help me?’

‘Lady Elizabeth, I swear to you, it is over. There is no-one who can rescue you, there is no force that can come against your sister. I have not seen Mr Dee for months, and the last time I saw Lord Robert he was in the Tower awaiting execution. He did not expect to live long. He has released me from his service.’ I heard the tiny shake in my voice, and I drew a breath and steadied myself. ‘His last words to me were to tell me to ask for mercy for Lady Jane.’ I did not add that he had asked for mercy for Elizabeth too. She did not look as if she needed reminding that she was as close to the block as her cousin.

She closed her eyes and leaned against the wooden shutters. ‘And did you plead for her? Will she be forgiven?’

‘The queen is always merciful,’ I said.

She looked at me with eyes that were filled with tears. ‘I hope so indeed,’ Elizabeth said gravely. ‘For what about me?’

The next day she could resist no longer. The wagons with her trunks, furniture, and linens had already gone, swaying south down the great north road. The queen’s own litter with cushions and rugs of the warmest wool was standing at the door, four white mules harnessed to it, the muleteer at the ready. At the doorway Elizabeth staggered and seemed to faint but the doctors were at her side and they half-lifted and half-dragged her into the litter and bundled her in. She cried out as if in pain but I thought it was fear that was choking her. She was sick with fear. She knew she was going to her trial for treason, and then death.

We travelled slowly. At every halt the princess delayed, asking for a longer rest, complaining of the jolting pace, unable to put a foot to the ground to step down from the litter, and then unable to climb back in again. Her face, the only part of her exposed to the wintry wind, grew pink from the cold and became more swollen. It was no weather for a journey at all, certainly no weather for an invalid, but the queen’s councillors would not be delayed. With Elizabeth’s own cousin urging them onward, their determination told Elizabeth as clearly as if they had the warrant in their hand that she was destined for death.

No-one would dare to offend the next heir to the throne as they were daring to treat her. No-one would make the next monarch of England climb into a litter on a dark morning and jolt down a rutted frozen road before it was even light. Anyone who treated Elizabeth in this way must know for sure that she would never become queen.

We were three days into a journey that seemed as if it would last forever as the princess rose later every morning, too pained with her aching joints to face the litter until midday. Whenever we stopped on the road to dine she sat late at the table and was reluctant to get back into the litter. By the time we got to the house where we were spending the night the councillors were swearing at their horses with frustration, and stamping to their chambers, kicking the rushes aside.

‘What do you think to gain from this delay, Princess?’ I asked her one morning when Lord Howard had sent me into her bedchamber for the tenth time to ask when she would be ready to come. ‘The queen is not more likely to forgive you if she is kept waiting.’

She was standing stock-still, while one of her ladies slowly wound a scarf around her throat. ‘I gain another day,’ she said.

‘But to do what?’

She smiled at me, though her eyes were dark with fear. ‘Ah, Hannah, you have never longed to live as I long to live if you do not know that another day is the most precious thing. I would do anything right now to gain another day, and tomorrow it will be the same. Every day we do not reach London is another day that I am alive. Every morning that I wake, every night that I sleep is a victory for me.’

On the fourth day into the journey a messenger met us on the road, carrying a letter for Lord William Howard. He read it and tucked it into the front of his doublet, his face suddenly grim. Elizabeth waited till he was looking away and then crooked her swollen finger at me. I drew up my horse beside the litter.

‘I would give a good deal to know what was in that letter,’ she said. ‘Go and listen for me. They won’t notice you.’

My opportunity came when we stopped to dine. Lord Howard and the other councillors were watching their horses being taken into the stalls. I saw him pull the letter from inside his doublet and I paused beside him to straighten my riding boot.

‘Lady Jane is dead,’ he announced baldly. ‘Executed two days ago. Guilford Dudley before her.’

‘And Robert?’ I demanded urgently, bobbing up, my voice cutting through the buzz of comment. ‘Robert Dudley?’

Much was always forgiven a fool. He nodded at my interest. ‘I have no news of him,’ he said. ‘I should think he was executed alongside his brother.’

I felt the world become blurred around me and I realised I was about to faint. I plumped down on to the cold step and put my head in my hands. ‘Lord Robert,’ I whispered into my knees. ‘My lord.’

It was impossible that he was dead, that bright dark-eyed vitality gone forever. It was impossible to think that the executioner could slice off his head as if he were an ordinary traitor, that his dark eyes and his sweet smile and his easy charm would not save him at the block. Who could bring themselves to kill bonny Robin? Who could sign such a warrant, what headsman could bear to do it? And it was all the more impossible since I had seen the prophecy in his favour. I had heard the words as they had come out of my mouth, I had smelled the candle smoke, I had seen the flickering bob of the flame and the mirrors which ran reflection into glimmer all the way back into Mr Dee’s darkness. I had known then that he would be beloved by a queen, that he would die in his bed. I had been shown it, the words had been told to me. If my Lord Robert was dead then not only was the great love of my life dead, but also I had been taught in the hardest way possible that my gift was a chimera and a delusion. Everything was over in one sweep of the axe.

I got to my feet and staggered back against the stone wall.

‘Are you sick, fool?’ came the cool voice of one of Lord Howard’s men. His Lordship glanced over indifferently.

I gulped down the lump that was in my throat. ‘May I tell Lady Elizabeth about Lady Jane?’ I asked him. ‘She will want to know.’

‘You can tell her,’ he said. ‘And I should think she would want to know. Everyone will know within a few days. Jane and the Dudleys died on the block before a crowd of hundreds. It’s public business.’

‘The charge?’ I asked, although I knew the answer.

‘Treason,’ he said flatly. ‘Tell her that. Treason. And pretending to the throne.’

Without another word being said, everyone turned to the litter where Lady Elizabeth, her hand outstretched to Mrs Ashley, the other holding to the side of the door, was laboriously descending.

‘So die all traitors,’ said her cousin, looking at the white-faced girl, his own kin, who had been a friend to every man who now swung on the gibbet. ‘So die all traitors.’

‘Amen,’ said a voice from the back of the crowd.

I waited till she had dined before I found my way to her side. She was dipping her fingers in the basin of water held out to her by the yeoman of the ewery and then holding them for a pageboy to pat dry.

‘The letter?’ she asked me, without turning her head.

‘It’ll be public news within the day,’ I said. ‘I am sorry to tell you, Lady Elizabeth, that your cousin Lady Jane Grey has been executed and her husband … and Lord Robert Dudley too.’

The hands she held out to the pageboy were perfectly steady, but I could see her eyes darken. ‘She has done it then,’ she observed quietly. ‘The queen. She has found the courage to execute her own kin, her own cousin, a young woman she knew from childhood.’ She looked at me, her hands as steady as the pageboy’s who patted at her fingers with the monogrammed linen. ‘The queen has found the power of the axe. No-one will be able to sleep. Thank God I am innocent of any wrongdoing.’

I nodded but I hardly heard the words. I was thinking of Lord Robert going out to his death with his dark head held high.

She took her hands from the towel and turned from the table. ‘I am very tired,’ she said to her cousin. ‘Too tired to travel any further today. I have to rest.’

‘Lady Elizabeth, we have to go on,’ he said.

She shook her head in absolute refusal. ‘I cannot,’ she said simply. ‘I will rest now and we will leave early tomorrow.’

‘As long as it is early,’ he conceded. ‘At dawn, Your Ladyship.’

She gave him a smile that went no further than her lips. ‘Of course,’ she said.

However she prolonged the journey it had to end, and ten days after we had first set off we arrived at the house of a private gentleman in Highgate, late in the evening.

I was housed with Lady Elizabeth’s ladies, and they were up at dawn preparing for her entry into London. As I saw the white linen and petticoats and the virginal white gown being brushed and pressed and carried into her chamber I remembered the day that she greeted her sister into the city of London, wearing the Tudor colours of white and green. Now she was driven snow, all in white, a martyr-bride. When the litter came to the door she was ready, there was no delaying when there was a crowd collecting to see her.

‘You’ll want the curtains closed,’ Lord Howard said gruffly to her.

‘Keep them back,’ she said at once. ‘The people can see me. They can see what condition I am in when I am forced out of my house for a fortnight’s journey in all weathers.’

‘Ten days,’ he said gruffly. ‘And could have been done in five.’

She did not deign to answer him, but lay back on her pillows and lifted her hand to indicate that he could go. I heard him swear briefly under his breath and then swing into the saddle of his horse. I pulled my horse up behind the litter and the little cavalcade turned out of the courtyard to the London road and into the city.

London was stinking of death. At every street corner there were gallows with a dreadful burden swinging from the cross-bar. If you peeped up you could see the dead man, face like a gargoyle, lips pulled back, eyes bulging, glaring down at you. When the wind blew, the stink from the corpses swept down the street and the bodies swayed back and forth, their coats flailing around them as if they were still alive and kicking for their life.

Elizabeth kept her eyes straight to the front and did not look left or right, but she sensed the dangling bodies at every corner; half of them were known to her, and all of them had died in a rebellion that they believed she had summoned. She was as pale as her white dress when she first got into the litter, but she was blanched like skimmed milk by the time we had ridden down King’s Street.

A few people called out to her: ‘God save Your Grace!’ and she was recalled to herself and raised a weak hand to them with a piteous face. She looked like a martyr being dragged to her death and, under this avenue of gallows, no-one could doubt her fear. This was Elizabeth’s rebellion and forty-five swinging corpses attested to the fact that it had failed. Now Elizabeth would have to face the justice that had executed them. No-one could doubt she would die too.

At Whitehall they rolled the great gates wide for us at the first sight of our cavalcade walking slowly towards the palace. Elizabeth straightened up in the litter and looked towards the great steps of the palace. Queen Mary was not there to greet her sister, and neither was anyone of the court. She arrived to silent disgrace. A single gentleman-server was on the steps and he spoke to Lord Howard, not to the princess, as if they were her gaolers.

Lord Howard came to the litter and put out his hand for her.

‘An apartment has been prepared for you,’ he said shortly. ‘You may choose two attendants to take with you.’

‘My ladies must come with me,’ she argued instantly. ‘I am not well.’

‘The orders are two attendants and no more,’ he said briefly. ‘Choose.’

The coldness of the voice that he had used with her on the journey was now barbed. We were in London, a hundred eyes and ears were on him. Lord Howard would be very certain that no-one would see him show any kindness to his traitor cousin. ‘Choose.’

‘Mrs Ashley and …’ Elizabeth looked around and her eye fell on me. I stepped back, as anxious as any other turncoat not to be linked with this doomed princess. But she knew through me she had a chance to reach the queen. ‘Mrs Ashley and Hannah the Fool,’ she said.

Lord Howard laughed. ‘Three fools together then,’ he said under his breath and waved the gentleman to go ahead of the three of us into Elizabeth’s apartments.

I did not wait to see Elizabeth settled in her rooms before I sought out my fellow fool Will Somers. He was dozing in the great hall on one of the benches. Someone had draped a cloak over him as he slept, everyone loved Will.

I sat on the bench beside him, wondering if I might wake him.

Without opening his eyes he remarked: ‘A pair of fools we must be; parted for weeks and we don’t even speak,’ and he sat bolt upright and hugged me around the shoulders.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ I said.

‘I was fooling,’ he said with dignity. ‘I have decided that a sleeping fool is funnier than one who is awake. Especially in this court.’

‘Why?’ I asked warily.

‘Nobody laughs at my jests,’ he said. ‘So I tried to see if they would laugh at my silence. And since they prefer a silent fool, they will love a sleeping fool. And if I am asleep I will not know if they are laughing or not. So I can comfort myself that I am very amusing. I dream of my wit and then I wake up laughing. It’s a witty thought, is it not?’

‘Very,’ I said.

He turned to me. ‘The princess has come, has she?’

I nodded.

‘Ill?’

‘Very. Truly ill, I think.’

‘The queen could offer her an instant cure for all pain. She has become a surgeon, she specialises in amputations.’

‘Please God it does not come to that,’ I said quickly. ‘But Will, tell me – did Robert Dudley make a good death? Was it quick?’

‘Still alive,’ he said. ‘Against all the odds.’

I felt my heart turn over. ‘Dear God, they told me he was beheaded.’

‘Steady,’ Will said. ‘Here, put your head between your knees.’

From a long way off I heard his voice ask me:

‘Better now? Swoony little maid?’

I straightened up.

‘Blushing now,’ Will observed. ‘Soon be out of breeches with the blood flowing this fast, my little maid.’

‘You are sure he is alive? I thought he was dead. They told me he was dead.’

‘He should be dead, God knows. He’s seen his father and his brother and his poor sister-in-law all taken out and executed underneath his window and yet he’s still there,’ Will said. ‘Perhaps his hair is white with shock but his head’s still on his shoulders.’

‘He’s alive?’ I could still hardly believe it. ‘You’re sure?’

‘For the moment.’

‘Could I visit him without trouble?’

He laughed. ‘The Dudleys always bring trouble,’ he said.

‘I mean without being suspected.’

He shook his head. ‘This is a court gone dark,’ he said sadly. ‘Nobody can do anything without being suspected. That is why I sleep. I cannot be accused of plotting in my sleep. I have an innocent sleep. I take care not to dream.’

‘I just want to see him,’ I said. I could not keep the longing from my voice. ‘Just to see him and know that he is alive and will stay alive.’

‘He is like any man,’ Will said fairly. ‘Mortal. I can assure you that he is alive today. But I can’t tell you for how long. That will have to satisfy you.’