Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (379 page)

“You don’t think that they . . .” I mean to hint at a love affair. But Shrewsbury shakes his head before I need say more.

“It is not infidelity; it is worse than that,” he says sadly. “It is disloyalty. She sees the world as he sees it: as a battle between the English and everyone else, as a battle between the Protestants and the Papists. The reward for the English Protestants is power and wealth; that is all they care for. They think that God so loves them that He gives them the riches of the world. They think that their wealth is evidence that they are doing the right thing, beloved by God.” He breaks off and looks at me. “My confessor would have called them pagans,” he says bluntly. “My mother would have called them heretics.”

“You are of the true faith?” I whisper incredulously.

“No, not now, but like every Protestant in England today, I was raised in the old church, I was baptized as a Papist, I was brought up to say Mass, I acknowledged the authority of the Holy Father. And I cannot forget the teachings of my childhood. My mother lived and died in the old faith. I cannot think another way for the convenience of the queen. I cannot believe, as Bess does, as Cecil does, that we have a private insight into the mind of God. That we don’t need priests or the Pope. That we know everything, all by ourselves, and that the proof of this is the blessing of our own greed.”

“If I am ever Queen of England I will let men worship as they wish,” I promise.

He nods. “I know you will. I know you would be a most... a most gracious queen.”

“You would be my dearest friend and counselor,” I say with a little smile. “You would be my advisor. You would be my secretary of state and head of my Privy Council.” I name the titles that Cecil has usurped. I know how deeply Shrewsbury wants them.

“Get well quickly then,” he says, and I can hear the tenderness in his voice. “You must be well and strong before you can hope for anything. Rest and get well, my... Your Grace.”

1570, JANUARY, TUTBURY CASTLE: GEORGE

N
ews from London which changes everything. What a world we live in now! Everything is turned about again, without warning, almost without reason. My letter comes from Cecil, so there is every reason for me to mistrust it. But this is news that not even he could conceal or invent. It must be the case. The Scots queen’s luck has come good once more, and her star has shot into the ascendant. She is a queen whose fortune ebbs and flows like the tides, and suddenly she is in full flood. Her half brother, the usurper of her throne, her greatest enemy, Lord Moray, has been assassinated in Scotland and her country is once again without a leader. This leaves a gaping hole at the very head of the Scots government. They have no one who can take the throne. They must take her back. There is no other. Amazingly, just when she was thrust down lower than she has ever been in her life, her luck has turned again and she will be queen. They have to take her back. Indeed, they want her back as queen.

Instead of hurrying to Bess with the letter, as I would have done only months ago, I go straight across the courtyard to find the queen. She is better, thank God. I find her dressed in her beautiful black velvet, turning out the contents of some trunks, which have moved from house to house with her and never been unpacked. She is holding a red brocade against her face to look at herself in a looking glass, and laughing. I don’t think I have ever seen her more beautiful.

“My lord, will you look at this gown!” she starts, but then she sees my face and the letter in my hand, and she thrusts the gown at her friend Mary Seton and comes quickly towards me.

“George?”

“I am sorry to have to tell you that your half brother, Lord Moray, is dead,” I say.

“Dead?”

“Assassinated.”

I cannot mistake the joy that lights up her face. I know at once that she has been hoping for this, and I know also my familiar dread of dealing with people who love secrets. Perhaps it was her dark plan and her wicked assassin who struck the blow.

“And my son? My James? Do you have news of my son?”

This is a mother’s response. This is a true woman. I should not be so suspicious. “He is safe,” I assure her. “He is safe.”

“You are certain? He is safe for sure?”

“They say so.”

“How did you hear?”

“From Cecil. It must be true. He writes to tell me that shortly the queen will be writing to you. She will have some proposals to put before you that she hopes will resolve all. So he says.”

“Ah!” she breathes, taking my hands in her own and stepping close to me. She has grasped in an instant what this means. There is no woman in the world quicker than her. “Chowsbewwy,” she says, “this is the start of my new beginning. With Moray dead, the Scots will have to let me back to my throne. There is no one else who can take power. There is no other heir. Elizabeth will have to support me—now she has no choice; there is no one else. It is me, or no one. She will have to support me. I shall go back to Scotland and I shall be queen again.” She chokes on a little laugh. “After all!” she exults. “After all we have been through. They will have me back.”

“Please God,” I say.

“You will come with me?” she whispers. “Come as my advisor?”

“I don’t know if I can...”

“Come with me as my friend,” she suggests so quietly that I can only hear her by bending my head so that her lips are at my ear and I can feel her breath on my cheek. We are as close as lovers.

“I need a man at my side. One who can command an army, one who will use his fortune to pay my soldiers. A loyal Englishman to deal with Cecil and Elizabeth for me. I need an English nobleman who will keep the Scots lords’ confidence, who will reassure the English. I have lost my lord duke. I need you, Chowsbewwy.”

“I cannot leave England... I cannot leave the queen... or Bess...”

“Leave them for me,” she says simply, and the moment she speaks, it does all seem extraordinarily clear. Why not? Why should I not go with this most beautiful woman and keep her safe? Why should I not follow my heart? For a glorious moment I think that I could just go with her—as if Bess, and the queen, and England were of no importance. As if I had no children, no stepchildren, and no lands, as if I did not have a hundred kinsmen and -women, a thousand dependents, another thousand servants, and more tenants and workers than I can count. As if I could just run away like a boy might run to the girl he loves. For a moment I think that I should do this, that it is my duty to her, the woman I love. I think that a man of honor would go with her and not stay at home. An honorable man, a noble man, would go and defend her against her enemies.

“Leave them all for me,” she says again. “Come to Scotland with me and be my friend and advisor.” She pauses. She says the words I want to hear more than any other words in the world. “Oh, George. Love me.”

1570, FEBRUARY, TUTBURY CASTLE: BESS

T
his young woman, who it seems I must now endure as a rival for my husband as well as a constant drain on my accounts, has the cursed nine lives of a cat and the luck of the devil. She has survived the guardianship of Hastings, who rode off and left her to us, though he swore to me he would see her dead rather than alive to destroy the peace of England, she has survived the rising of the North, though better men and women than her will die on a scaffold for lesser crimes than she has joyfully committed, and she has survived the disgrace of a secret betrothal, though her betrothed is locked up in the Tower and his servants are on the rack. She sits in my great chamber, sewing with the finest silks, as well as I do myself, before a fire blazing with expensive timber, and all the while messages are going from her to her ambassador, from him to William Cecil, from him to the queen, from Scotland to each of them, all to forge an agreement that she will be returned in glory to her throne. After all she has done, all these great powers are determined that she shall regain her throne. Even Cecil says that, in the absence of any other royal Scot, she must be restored.

The logic of this escapes me, as it must do everyone whose handshake is their bond and who drives a straight bargain. Either she is not fit to be queen—as certainly the Scots once thought, and we agreed—or she is as fit now as she was when we held three inquiries into her conduct. The justice of this escapes me too. There is the Duke of Norfolk
waiting in the Tower for a trial for treason; there is the Earl of Northumberland executed for his part in the Northern rising; there is the Earl of Westmorland in exile forever, never to see his wife or lands again, all for seeking the restoration of this queen, who is now to be restored. Hundreds died under the charge of treason in January. But now in February, this same treason is policy.

She is a woman accursed, I swear it. No man has ever prospered in marriage to her; no champion has survived the doubtful honor of carrying her colors; no country has been the better for her queenship. She brings unhappiness to every house she enters, and I, for one, can attest to that. Why should a woman like this be forgiven? Why should she get off scot-free? Why should such a Jezebel be so damned lucky?

I have worked all my life to earn my place in the world. I have friends who love me and I have acquaintances who trust me. I live my life to a code which I learned as a young woman: my word is my bond, my faith is close to my heart, my queen has my loyalty, my house is everything to me, my children are my future, and I am trustworthy in all these things. In business I am honorable but sharp. If I see an advantage I take it, but I never steal and I never deceive. I will take money from a fool but not from an orphan. These are not the manners of the nobility, but they are the way that I live. How shall I ever respect a woman who lies, defrauds, conspires, seduces, and manipulates? How shall I see her as anything other than despicable?

Oh, I cannot resist her charm; I am as foolish as any of these men when she promises to invite me to Holyroodhouse or to Paris, but even when she enchants me I know that she is a bad woman. She is a bad woman through and through.

“My cousin has treated me with great cruelty and injustice,” she remarks after one of my ladies (my own ladies!) has the stupidity to say that we will miss her when she returns to Scotland. “Great cruelty, but at last she sees what everyone in the world saw two years ago: a queen cannot be thrown down. I must be restored. She has been both stupid and cruel but at last now she sees reason.”

“I would think she has been patient beyond belief,” I mutter irritably into my own sewing.

The Queen of Scots arches her dark eyebrows at dissent. “Do you mean to say that you believe she has been patient with me?” she inquires.

“Her court has been divided, her own cousin tempted into disloyalty, her lords have plotted against her, she has faced the greatest rebellion of her reign, and her Parliament calls for her to execute all those involved in the plot, including you.” I glare balefully at my own ladies, whose loyalty has been suspect ever since this glamorous young queen first appeared among us with her romantic stories of France and her so-called tragic life. “The queen could have followed the advice of her councillors and called in the hangman for every one of your friends. But she has not.”

“There is a gibbet at every crossroads,” Queen Mary observes. “There are not many in the North who would agree with you that Elizabeth’s mercy falls like the gentle rain.”

“There is a rebel at the end of each rope,” I say stoutly. “And the queen could have hanged a dozen more for each one.”

“Yes, indeed, she has lost all her support,” Mary agrees sweetly. “There was not a town or village in the North that declared for her. They all wanted the true religion and to see me freed. Even you had to run before the army of the North, Bess.
Tiens!
How you labored with your wagons and how you fretted for your goods! Even you knew that there was not a town or village in the North that was loyal to Elizabeth. You had to whip up your horses and get through them as quick as you could while your silver cups fell off the back.”

There is a ripple of sycophantic laughter from my ladies at the thought of me struggling along with my Papist candlesticks. I bend my head over my sewing and grit my teeth.