The Virgin's Lover Read online

  “Father?” she said softly.

  “Tell it to God and then to me,” he said gently, and let her go in before him.

  He waited at the back of the church, busying himself quietly until she rose from her knees and sat in the pew seat, and only then did he go to her. “Trouble?” he asked.

  “I have angered my husband on another matter,” she said simply. “And so I failed to plead for our bishop.”

  He nodded. “Don’t reproach yourself for that,” he said. “I think there is nothing any of us can do. The queen is to be called supreme governor of the church. All the bishops have to bow down to her.”

  “Supreme governor?” Amy repeated. “But how can she?”

  “They say that she does no more than claim the title of her brother and her father,” he said. “They don’t say that she is a woman and filled with a woman’s frailties. They don’t say how a woman, bound by God to be the handmaiden to her husband, cursed by God for the first sin, can be supreme governor.”

  “What will happen?” Amy asked in a little thread of sound.

  “I am afraid she will burn the bishops,” he said steadily. “Already Bishop Bonner is arrested, and one by one, as they refuse to kneel to her, the others will be taken.”

  “And our bishop? Bishop Thomas?”

  “He will go like the others, like a lamb to the slaughter,” the priest said. “A great darkness is going to come over this country and you and I, daughter, can do nothing more than pray.”

  “If I can speak to Robert, I will,” she promised. She hesitated, remembering his rapid departure, and the rage in his voice. “He is a great man now, but he knows what it is to be a prisoner, in fear of your life. He is merciful. He will not advise the queen to destroy these holy men.”

  “God bless you,” the priest said. “There will be few who dare to speak.”

  “And what about you?” she asked. “Will you have to take an oath as well?”

  “Once they have finished with the bishops they will come for men like me,” he said certainly. “And I shall have to be ready. If I can stay, I will. I am sworn to serve these people, this is my parish, this is my flock. The good shepherd does not leave his sheep. But if they want me to take an oath which says that she is Pope then I don’t see how I can do it. The words would choke me. I will have to take my punishment as better men than me are doing now.”

  “They will murder you for your faith?”

  He spread out his hands. “If they must.” “Father, what will become of us all?” Amy asked. He shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

  Robert Dudley, storming into court in no very sweet temper, found the place strangely quiet. The presence chamber held only a sprinkling of ladies and gentlemen of the court, and a handful of lesser gentry.

  “Where is everyone?” he demanded of Laetitia Knollys, who was seated in a window bay ostentatiously reading a book of sermons.

  “I am here,” she said helpfully.

  He scowled at her. “I meant anyone of any importance.”

  “Still me,” she said, not at all dashed. “Still here.”

  Reluctantly, he laughed. “Mistress Knollys, do not try my patience, I have had a long hard ride from one damnably stubborn and stupid woman to another. Do not you make a third.”

  “Oh?” she said, opening her dark eyes very wide. “Who has been so unfortunate as to offend you, Sir Robert? Not your wife?”

  “No one that need concern you. Where is the queen?”

  “Out with Sir William Pickering. He has returned to England, did you know?”

  “Of course I knew. We are old friends.”

  “Don’t you adore him? I think he is the most handsome man I have ever seen in my life.”

  “Absolutely,” Dudley said. “Are they riding?”

  “No, walking. It’s more intimate, don’t you think?”

  “Why aren’t you with them?”

  “Nobody is with them.”

  “Her other ladies?”

  “No. Really, nobody. She and Sir William are quite alone today as they have been for the last three days. We all think it’s a certainty.”

  “It?”

  “Their betrothal. She cannot keep her eyes off him. He cannot keep his hands off her. It’s such a love story. Like a ballad. It is Guinevere and Arthur, it truly is!”

  “She will never marry him,” Dudley said, with more certainty than he was feeling.

  “Why should she not? He’s the best-looking man in Europe, he’s as rich as an emperor, he has no interest in politics or power so she can rule as she wants, and he has neither enemies in England nor a wife. I would have thought he was perfect.”

  Robert turned from her, unable to speak for rage, and almost collided with Sir William Cecil. “Your pardon, Lord Secretary. I was just leaving.”

  “I thought you had just arrived.”

  “Leaving to go to my rooms,” Robert said, biting the inside of his mouth to contain his temper.

  “I am glad you are back,” Cecil said, walking beside him. “We have needed your counsel.”

  “I thought no work had been done at all.”

  “Your counsel with the queen,” Cecil said flatly. “This whirlwind courtship may suit Her Grace, but I am not sure if it is beneficial for the country.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  “Not I!” Cecil said with a little chuckle. “She is a young woman in love. I rather thought you might tell her.”

  “Why me?”

  “Well, not tell her. I thought you might distract her. Divert her. Remind her that there are many handsome men in the world. She does not have to marry the first one that comes free.”

  “I’m a married man,” Robert said bleakly. “In case you forgot. I can hardly compete with a bachelor dripping in gold.”

  “You are right to remind me,” Cecil said blandly, charging tack. “Because if he marries her both of us will be able to go home to our wives. He won’t want us advising her. He will put in his own favorites. Our work at court will be over. I can go home to Burghley at last, and you can go home to…” He broke off, if surprised to remember that Robert had no great family estate. “Wherever you choose, I suppose.”

  “I will hardly build a Burghley with my present savings,” Dudley said furiously.

  “No. Perhaps it would be better for both of us if Pickering were to have a rival. If he were to be troubled. If he were not to have everything quite his own way. Easy for him to be smiling and pleasant when he rides a straight road without competition.”

  Dudley sighed, as a man weary of nonsense. “I am going to my rooms.”

  “Shall I see you at dinner?”

  “Of course I shall come to dinner.”

  Cecil smiled. “I am very glad to see you back at court,” he said sweetly.

  The queen sent a dish of venison down the hall to Sir William Pickering’s table, and, even-handed, sent a very good game pie to Robert Dudley’s table. When the boards had been cleared and the musicians struck up she danced with one man and then the other. Sir William sulked after a little of this treatment; but Robert Dudley was at his most debonair, and the queen was radiant. Robert Dudley stood up for a dance with Laetitia Knollys and had the pleasure of hearing the Spanish ambassador remark to the queen what a handsome couple they were together. He watched the queen pale with anger. Shortly after, she called for a pack of cards and Dudley bet her the pearl in his hat that he would have won on points by midnight. The two went head to head as if there were no one else in the room, no one else in the world; and Sir William Pickering retired early to bed.

  July 1st 1559 Dear William,

  Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, ambassador to Paris, addressed Cecil in a coded letter, freshly delivered by a hard-pressed messenger. Incredible news. The king has, this very day, been wounded in a jousting tournament and the surgeons are with him now. The word I hear is that they are not hopeful; the blow may be fatal. If he dies, there is no doubt that the kingdom of France will be ruled in ev
erything but name by the Guise family, and no doubt but that they will immediately send forces to strengthen their kinswoman Mary of Guise in Scotland, and move on to conquer England for her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots. Given their wealth, power, and determination (and the justice of their claim in the eyes of all Roman Catholics), given the weakness, division, and uncertainty of our poor country, ruled by a young woman not long on the throne, with a debatable legitimacy, and without an heir, I think there can be no doubt of the outcome.

  For God’s sake, for all of our sakes, beg the queen to muster our troops and prepare to defend the borders or we are lost. If she does not fight this battle she will lose her kingdom without a struggle. As it is, I doubt that she can win. I shall send to you the moment that the king dies. Pray God that he rallies, for without him we are lost. I warn you that I do not expect it.

  Nicholas.

  William Cecil read the letter through twice and then pushed it gently into the hottest part of the fire in his privy chamber. Then he sat with his head in his hands for a long time. It seemed to him that England’s future lay in the hands of the surgeons who were, at this very moment, struggling to keep King Henry II of France’s breath in his failing body. The safety of England had been guaranteed at the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis by this king. Without him, there was no guarantor, there was no guarantee, there was no safety. If he died then the avaricious ruling family of France would ride their merciless cavalry through Scotland and then through all of England.

  There was a knock at the door. “Yes?” Cecil said calmly, no trace of his fear in his voice.

  It was his steward. “A messenger,” he said shortly.

  “Send him in.”

  The man came in, travel-stained, and walking with the stiff bow-legged stride of a rider who has spent days in the saddle. Cecil recognized Sir James Croft’s most trusted servant and spy.

  “William! I am glad to see you. Take a seat.”

  The man nodded at the courtesy and lowered himself gingerly into the chair. “Blisters,” he said by way of an explanation. “Burst and bleeding. My lord said it was important.”

  Cecil nodded, waited.

  “He said to tell you that all hell broke lose at Perth, that the French queen regent could not overcome the spirit of the Protestant lords. He said his bet is that she will never be able to get her troops to stand against them. They don’t have the heart for it and the Protestant Scots are wild for a fight.”

  Cecil nodded.

  “The Protestants are tearing the abbeys down all the way on the road to Edinburgh. Word is that the captain of Edinburgh Castle won’t take sides; he’ll bar the castle gates against them both until law is returned. My lord’s own belief is that the queen regent will have to fall back on Leith Castle. He said if you are minded to take a gamble, he would put his fortune on Knox’s men; that they are unbeatable while their blood is up.”

  Cecil waited in case there was any more.

  “That’s all.”

  “I thank you,” Cecil said. “And what did you think of them yourself? Did you see much fighting?”

  “I thought they were savage beasts,” the man said bluntly. “And I would want them neither as allies nor as enemies.”

  Cecil smiled at him. “These are our noble allies,” he said firmly. “And we shall pray every day for their success in their noble battle.”

  “They are wanton destroyers; they are a plague of locusts,” the man said stoutly.

  “They will defeat the French for us,” Cecil prompted him, with more confidence than any sensible man would own. “If anyone asks you, they are on the side of the angels. Don’t forget it.”

  That night, with Cecil’s grave news beating a rhythm of fear into her very temples, Elizabeth refused to dance with either Sir William Pickering or Sir Robert Dudley, who eyed each other like two cats on a stable roof. What use was William Pickering or Robert Dudley when the French king was dying and his heirs were mustering an expedition to England, with the excuse of a war with the Scots to hand? What use was any Englishman, however charming, however desirable?

  Robert Dudley smiled at her; she could hardly see him through the haze of pain behind her eyes. Simply, she shook her head at him and turned away. She beckoned the Austrian ambassador to take a chair beside her throne and to talk to her of Archduke Ferdinand, who would come with all the power of Spain at his back and who was the only man who might bring with him a big enough army to keep England safe for her.

  “You know, I have no liking for the single state,” Elizabeth said softly to the ambassador, ignoring Sir William’s goggle-eyed glare at her. “I have only waited, as any sensible maid would do, for the right man.”

  Robert was planning a great tournament for when they returned to Greenwich, the last celebration before the court went on its summer progress. On his long refectory table in his pretty house at Kew, he had a scroll of paper unrolled, and his clerk was pairing the knights who would joust against each other. It was to be a tournament of roses, Robert had decided. There would be a bower of roses for the queen to sit in, with the red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York and the Galicia rose which combined both colors and resolved the ancient enmity between England’s greatest counties, as the Tudors themselves had done. There would be rose petals, scattered by children dressed in rose pink before the queen when she walked from the palace door at Greenwich down to the tilt yard. The yard itself was to be blazoned with roses and all the contenders had been told that they were to incorporate roses into their poetry, or into their arms, or armor.

  There would be a tableau greeting Elizabeth as the Queen of the Roses and she would be crowned with a chaplet of rosebuds. They would eat sugared rose comfits and there would be a water fight with rose water; the very air would be scented with the amorous perfume; the tilt yard would be carpeted with petals.

  The joust was to be the central event of the day. Dudley was painfully aware that Sir William Pickering was a powerful rival for the queen’s affections, a blond, well-made, rich bachelor, widely read, well traveled, and well educated. He had intense charm; a smile from his dark blue eyes sent most women into a flutter, and the queen was always vulnerable to a commanding man. He had all the confidence of a man wealthy from boyhood, who came from wealthy and powerful parents. He had never been as low as Robert; he did not even know that a man could sink so low, and his whole bearing, his easy charm, his sunny disposition all showed a man to whom life had been kind and who believed that the future would be as blessed as the past.

  Worst of all, from Dudley’s point of view, there was nothing to stop the queen marrying him tomorrow. She could drink a glass of wine too many, she could be teased a little too hard, she could be aroused and engaged and provoked—and Pickering was a master of subtle seduction—then he could offer her a priceless diamond ring, and his fortune, and the job would be done. The gambling men were putting odds on Sir William marrying the queen by autumn and her constant ripple of laughter in his presence, and her amused tolerance of his rising pride, gave everyone reason to believe that his big blond style was more to her taste than Dudley’s dark good looks.

  Robert had suffered many rivals for her attention since she had come to the throne. Elizabeth was a flirt and anyone with a valuable gift or a handsome smile could have her evanescent attention. But Sir William was a greater risk than these passing fancies. He was phenomenally rich and Elizabeth, with a purse full of lightweight coins and an empty treasury, found his wealth very attractive. He had been a friend of hers from the earliest days and she treasured fidelity, especially in men who had plotted to put her on the throne, however incompetent they had been. But more than anything else, he was handsome and new-come to court, and an English Protestant bachelor, so when she danced with him and they were the center of gossip and speculation, it was good-natured. The court smiled on the two of them. There was no one reminding her that he was a married man or a convicted traitor, or muttering that she must be mad to favor him. And although Dudley
’s rapid return to court had disturbed Sir William’s smooth rise to favor and power, it had not prevented it. The queen was shamelessly delighted to have the two most desirable men in England competing for her attention.

  Dudley was hoping to use the joust to unseat Sir William with one hard blow, preferably to his handsome face or thick head, and was drawing up the jousting list to ensure that Pickering and he would meet in the final round. He was absorbed in the work when suddenly his door banged open without a knock. Robert leapt up, his hand reaching for his dagger, heart thudding, knowing that at last the worst thing had happened: an uprising, an assassin.

  It was the queen, quite alone, without a single attendant, white as a rose herself, who flung herself into the room toward him and said three words: “Robert! Save me!”

  At once he snatched her to him and held her close. He could feel her gasping for breath; she had run all the way from the palace to the Dairy House, and run up the steps to his front door.

  “What is it, my love?” he asked urgently. “What is it?”

  “A man,” she gasped. “Following me.”

  With his arm still around her waist he took his sword from where it hung on the hook, and threw open the door. Two of his men were outside, aghast at the queen’s dashing past them.

  “Seen anyone?” Robert asked tersely.

  “No one, sir.”

  “Go and search.” He turned to the fainting woman. “What did he look like?”

  “Well dressed, brown suit, like a London merchant, but he dogged my feet while I was walking in my garden down to the river and when I went faster he came on, and when I ran he ran behind me, and I thought that he was a Papist, come to kill me…” She lost her breath for fear.

  Robert turned to his stunned clerk. “Go with them, call out the guard and the Queen’s Pensioners. Tell them to look for a man in a brown suit. Check the river first. If he is away in a boat, take a boat and follow him. I want him alive. I want him now.” Robert sent the men off, and then drew Elizabeth back into the house, into his drawing room, and slammed the door and bolted it.