The Virgin's Lover ttc-4 Page 37

  They feasted that night, and called for music, danced and were merry for the first time in many days. No one knew why Elizabeth and Robert should suddenly be so filled with joy, no one but Catherine and Francis Knollys; and they had withdrawn to their private rooms. Despite the good cheer Elizabeth said she wanted to go early to bed, and she giggled as she said it.

  Obediently, the court withdrew, the ladies escorted the queen to her privy chamber and the little traditions of the queen’s bedding began: the ritual thrusting of the sword into her bed, the warming of her nightgown, the mulling of her ale.

  There was a quiet tap at the door. Elizabeth nodded that Laetitia should open it.

  Cecil’s servant stood there. Mutely he showed a letter. When Laetitia reached for it he twitched it away from her hand. She raised her eyebrows in a fair mimicry of Elizabeth’s impatience and stepped back.

  Elizabeth came forward to take it. He bowed.

  “How long did it take you to get here?” Elizabeth asked. “How old is this news?”

  “Three days, Your Grace,” the man said with another bow. “We have horses waiting down the Great North Road, and my lord has us riding in relays for speed. We’ve got it down to three days. You won’t find anyone gets any news faster than you.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said and waved him away. Laetitia shut the door on him and went to stand at Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “You, step back,” Elizabeth said.

  Laetitia retreated as Elizabeth broke the seal and spread the letter on her writing table. She had the code locked in a drawer. She started to decode Cecil’s analysis of the use of assassination, then she sat back and smiled as she understood that he was telling her, in his oblique way, that the French were about to lose their outstanding political leader in Scotland.

  “Good news?” Laetitia Knollys asked.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth said shortly. “I think so.” Bad news for the young Queen of Scots who will lose her mother, she thought. But some of us have had to live without a mother for all our lives. Let her know what it is like to be alone. Let her know that she has to fight for her kingdom as I have had to fight for mine. There will be no pity for the Queen of Scots from me.

  As soon as the women had withdrawn, and Elizabeth’s companion was asleep, she rose up from the bed, combed out her hair, and unlocked the secret door between the adjoining rooms. Robert was waiting for her, the table laid for supper, the fire lit. He was struck at once that the color was back in her cheeks, the smile on her lips, and took all the credit for himself.

  “You look better,” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. “Marriage suits you.”

  “I feel better.” She smiled. “I feel as if I am not alone anymore.”

  “You are not alone,” he promised her. “You have a husband to take the burden for you. You will never be alone again.”

  She gave a little sigh of relief and let him draw her to a seat before the fire, and accepted a glass of wine that he poured for her. I will not be alone, she thought. And Mary, Queen of Scots, will be an orphan.

  Cecil and Monsieur Randan could apparently agree on nothing, not even on the arrangements for their journey to Edinburgh from Newcastle. Thomas Howard demanded that Monsieur Randan’s train be reduced before he travel through the borders, but the French emissary bore himself like a man who knew he was negotiating a victory for his country, and would compromise on nothing.

  Although Mary of Guise was under siege in a largely hostile country, it was taking the might of the entire English army to hold her in Leith Castle, and the entire English navy was at anchor in the Firth of Forth supplying the troops. The French, however, had massive reserves and a massive treasury that could be deployed against England. The possibility of an attack on the southern ports while all the English manpower was tied up in Scotland woke Cecil most nights and sent him prowling around the battlements of Newcastle, certain that the siege must be ended, and ended soon.

  For all his urbane calm in front of the French emissary, Cecil knew that he was playing for the very survival of England against near-impossible odds.

  As soon as they were ready to leave for Edinburgh Monsieur Randan sent to Leith Castle to announce that they would call upon the regent for instructions within the week. The messenger reported back that Mary of Guise was ill with dropsy, but she would see the French commissioner, and she would give him his instructions as to the settlement.

  “I think you will find that you have a hard negotiator to deal with,” Monsieur Randan said, smiling at Cecil. “She is a Guise herself, you know, born and bred. She will not be disposed to hand over her daughter’s kingdom to invaders.”

  “All we require is an agreement that French troops will not occupy Scotland,” Cecil said levelly. “We are not the invaders here. On the contrary. We are defending the Scots against invasion.”

  Monsieur Randan shrugged his shoulders. “Ah, bah! What can I say? The Queen of Scotland is the Queen of France. I suppose she can send her servants wherever she wishes in her two kingdoms. France and Scotland are one and the same to our queen. Your queen commands her servants to do as she wishes, does she not?” He broke off with an affected laugh. “Oh! Except her Master of Horse, we hear, who seems to command her.”

  Cecil’s pleasant smile did not falter at the insult. “We have to secure an agreement that the French troops will leave Scotland,” he repeated quietly. “Or nothing can prevent the continuation of a war which will be damaging to both England and France.”

  “Whatever Her Majesty desires of me,” Monsieur Randan declared. “I am commanded to see her tomorrow when we reach Edinburgh and she will tell me what is to be done, and I think you will find that you have to do it.”

  Cecil bowed his agreement as a man forced into a position that he could not defend, by an enemy with the upper hand.

  But Monsieur Randan never met the regent, never received his instructions, never came back to Cecil with a refusal. For that night, Mary of Guise died.

  In the middle of June came the news from Scotland that Elizabeth had been expecting for a sennight. Every day she had dressed in an ornate gown, seated herself under the cloth of estate, and waited for someone to tell her that a travel-stained messenger from Cecil had just now ridden into court. Finally, it happened. Robert Dudley escorted the man into her presence through a buzz of courtiers.

  Elizabeth opened the letter and read it; casually, Dudley stood behind her, like a second monarch, and read it over her shoulder as of right.

  “Good God,” he said, when he reached the part where Cecil told the queen that Mary of Guise had suddenly died. “Good God, Elizabeth. You have the luck of the devil.”

  The color flooded into her face. She raised her head and smiled at her court. “See how we are blessed,” she announced. “Mary of Guise has died of dropsy; the French are in disarray. Cecil writes to me that he has started work on a treaty to bring peace between our two nations.”

  There was a little scream from one of the ladies whose brother was serving with Lord Grey, and a ripple of applause that spread through the court. Elizabeth rose to her feet. “We have defeated the French,” she announced. “God himself has struck down our enemy Mary of Guise. Let others be warned. God is on our side.”

  Aye, said Robert to himself, drawing close to the victorious queen and taking her hand so the two of them faced the court at this moment of triumph. But who would have thought that God’s chosen instrument would be a little weasel like William Cecil?

  Elizabeth turned to him, her eyes shining. “Is it not a miracle?” she whispered.

  “I see the hand of man, I see the hand of an assassin, more than the hand of God,” he said, narrowly watching her.

  She did not flicker, and in that moment he understood that she had known everything. She had been waiting for the news of the regent’s death, waiting with foreknowledge, probably since their wedding day when she had begun to look at peace again. And she could only have been prepared by Cecil.
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br />   “No, Robert,” she said steadily. “Cecil writes to me that she died of her illness. It is a miracle indeed that her death should be so timely. God save her soul.”

  “Oh, amen,” he said.

  The warmer weather in July agreed with Amy and she made the effort to walk in the garden at Denchworth, every day. Still she did not hear from Robert as to where she should go next, still the puzzle as to what she should do continued to haunt her.

  One of Alice Hyde’s children had come back from the wet nurse and the toddler took a liking to her. He held up his little chubby arms to her to be lifted up, and shouted “Me-me!” whenever he saw her.

  “Amy,” she said with a little smile. “Can you say Amy?”

  “Me-me,” he repeated seriously.

  Amy, childless and lonely, responded to the warmth of the boy, carried him on her hip, sang into his warm little ear, told him stories, and let him sleep on her bed during the day.

  “She has taken to him,” Alice said approvingly to her husband. “She would have been such a good mother if she had been blessed with children; it does seem a shame that she will never have a child of her own.”

  “Aye,” he said dourly.

  “And little Thomas likes her,” she said. “He asks for her all the time. He prefers her to any other.”

  He nodded. “Then that child is the only person in England who does so.”

  “Now,” Robert said with pleasure, walking with Elizabeth in the cool of the July morning beside the river. “I have some news for you. Better news from Scotland than you have heard for a long time.”

  “What news?” At once she was on the alert. Cecil’s man said that no one could get news quicker than me. What news can Robert have that I do not know?

  “I keep a couple of servants in Newcastle and Edinburgh,” he said casually. “One of them came to my house this afternoon and told me that Cecil is confident of bringing the French to an agreement. His servant told my servant that Cecil wrote to his wife to expect him home in the middle of this month. Given that Cecil would never leave his work unfinished, we can be sure that he is confident of completing the treaty very soon.”

  “Why has he not written to me?” she demanded, instantly jealous.

  Robert shrugged. “Perhaps he wants to be sure before he speaks to you? But, Elizabeth…”

  “He wrote to his wife, before he wrote to me?”

  Her lover smiled. “Elizabeth, not all men are as devoted as me. But this is such good news, I thought you would be delighted.”

  “You think he has made a settlement?”

  “I am sure he has one in sight. My servant suggested that he will have it signed and sealed by the sixth.”

  “In three days’ time?” she gasped. “So soon?”

  “Why not? Once the queen was dead he had only servants to deal with.”

  “What d’you think he has achieved? He will not have settled for less than a French withdrawal.”

  “He must have a French withdrawal, and he should have gained the return of Calais.”

  She shook her head. “They will promise to talk about Calais; they would never return it just for the asking.”

  “I thought it was one of your demands?”

  “Oh, I demanded it,” she said. “But I didn’t expect to win it.”

  “We should have it back,” Robert said stubbornly. “I lost a brother at St. Quentin; I nearly lost my own life before the walls of Calais. The blood of good Englishmen went into that canal, the canal that we dug and fortified. It is as much an English town as Leicester. We should have it back.”

  “Oh, Robert…”

  “We should,” he insisted. “If he has settled for anything less, then he has done us a great disservice. And I shall tell him so. And, what is more, if we do not have Calais, then he has not secured a lasting peace, since we will have to go to war for it as soon as the men are home from Scotland.”

  “He knows that Calais matters to us,” she said weakly. “But we would not go to war for it…”

  “Matters!” Robert slammed his fist on the river wall. “Calais matters as much as Leith Castle, perhaps more. And your coat of arms, Elizabeth! The Queen of France has to give up quartering our arms on her shield. And they should pay us.”

  “Pay?” she asked, suddenly attending.

  “Of course,” he said. “They have been the aggressor. They should pay us for forcing us to defend Scotland. We have emptied the treasury of England to defend against them. They should compensate us for that.”

  “They never would. Would they?”

  “Why not?” he demanded. “They know that they are in the wrong. Cecil is bringing them to a settlement. He has them on the run. This is the time to hit them hard, while we have them at a disadvantage. He must gain us Scotland, Calais, our arms, and a fine.”

  Elizabeth caught his mood of certainty. “We could do this!”

  “We must do this,” he confirmed. “Why go to war if not to win? Why make peace if not to gain the spoils of war? Nobody goes to war just to defend, they go to make things better. Your father knew that, he never came away from a peace without a profit. You must do the same.”

  “I shall write to him tomorrow,” she decided.

  “Write now,” Robert said. “He has to get the letter at once, before he signs away your rights.”

  For a moment she hesitated.

  “Write now,” he repeated. “It will take three days to get there at the fastest. You must get it to him before he completes the treaty. Write while it is fresh in our minds, and then the business of state is finished and we can be ourselves again.”

  “Ourselves?” she asked with a little smile.

  “We are newly wed,” he reminded her softly. “Write your proclamation, my queen, and then come to your husband.”

  She glowed with pleasure at his words and together they turned back to Whitehall Palace. He led her through the court to her rooms and stood behind her as she sat at her writing table, and raised her pen. “What should I write?”

  She waits to write to my dictation, Robert rejoiced silently to himself. The Queen of England writes my words, just as her brother took my father’s dictation. Thank God this day has come, and come through love.

  “Write in your own words, as you would usually write to him,” he recommended. The last thing I want is for him to hear my voice in her letter. “Just tell him that you demand that the French leave Scotland, you demand the return of Calais, the surrender of your coat of arms, and a fine.”

  She bowed her bronze head and wrote. “How much of a fine?”

  “Five hundred thousand crowns,” he said, picking the number at random.

  Elizabeth’s head jolted up. “They would never pay that!”

  “Of course they won’t. They will pay the first installment perhaps and then cheat on the rest. But it tells them the price we set on their interference with our kingdoms. It tells them that we value ourselves highly.”

  She nodded. “But what if they refuse?”

  “Then tell him he is to break the negotiations off and go to war,” Robert declared. “But they won’t refuse. Cecil will win them to this agreement if he knows you are determined. This is a signal to him to come home with a great prize, and a signal to the French that they dare not meddle with our affairs again.”

  She nodded and signed it with a flourish. “I will send it this afternoon,” she said.

  “Send it now,” he ordered. “Time is of the essence. He has to have this before he concedes any of our demands.”

  For a moment she hesitated. “As you wish.”

  She turned to Laetitia. “Send one of the maids for one of the Lord Secretary’s messengers,” she said. She turned back to Robert. “As soon as I have sent this, I should like to go riding.”

  “Is it not too hot for you?”

  “Not if we go straightaway. I feel as if I have been cooped up here in Whitehall for a lifetime.”

  “Shall I have them saddle the new mare?”r />
  “Oh, yes!” she said, pleased. “I shall meet you at the stables, as soon as I have sent this.”

  He watched her sign and seal it and only then did he bow, kiss her hand, and saunter to the door. The courtiers parted before him, doffing their caps, many bowed. Robert walked like a king from the room and Elizabeth watched him leave.

  The girl came down the gallery with the messenger following her, and brought him to Elizabeth, where she stood watching Robert stroll away. As he drew near, Elizabeth turned into a window bay, the sealed letter in her hand, and spoke to him so quietly that no one else could hear.

  “I want you to take this letter to your master in Edinburgh,” she said quietly. “But you are not to start today.”

  “No? Your Grace?”

  “Nor tomorrow. But take it the day after. I want the letter delayed by at least three days. Do you understand?”

  He bowed. “As you wish, Your Grace.”

  “You will tell everyone, very loudly and clearly, that you are setting off at once with a message for Sir William Cecil, and that he should have it the day after tomorrow since you can now get letters to Edinburgh within three days.”

  He nodded; he had been in Cecil’s service too long to be surprised at any double dealing. “Shall I leave London as if I were going at once, and hide on the road?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What day do you want him to have it?”

  The queen thought for a moment. “What is today? The third? Put it into his hands on July the ninth.”

  The servant tucked the letter in his doublet and bowed. “Shall I tell my master that it was delayed?”

  “You can do. It won’t matter by then. I don’t want him distracted from his work by this letter. His work will be completed by then, I hope.”

  Edinburgh

  July 4th 1560 To the queen The queen regent is dead but the siege is still holding, though the spirit has gone out of them.