Authors: Susan Kay
Tags: #Nonfiction, #History
“Stop bawling, woman,” he said shortly, “or I’ll give you something
to bawl about! What the devil are you about coming here in the middle
of the night anyway?”
She took a shuddering breath and stepped back from him. She had
heard it said that he had a violent temper when roused and for the first
time she believed it.
“Well,” he demanded, “are you going to tell me what this is all about
or not?”
“Oh, Robert,” she whispered, “I’m pregnant!”
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He stared at her—the proud, the loudly virtuous young lady who had
once made it so plain where her ambitions lay. And he could not help
it—he began to rock with laughter.
“You stupid little harlot—the Queen will throw you out of the court
for a common whore!”
“You don’t understand.” Katherine was stung by his contempt, “It
wasn’t like that. We were married—”
“In that case,” he remarked heartlessly, “she’ll have your head—and
since it doesn’t appear to have been much use to you I don’t suppose
you’ll miss it greatly!”
Her mouth opened and shut again and she swayed where she stood; he
cursed and caught her, holding her against him for a moment and feeling
the sobs welling up in her. He was horribly reminded of Amy’s soft,
clinging hands as he pushed her helplessly into a chair.
“Treason,” he muttered. “You do realise that what you have done
is treason—or as near as makes no difference? In your position so close
to the throne how could you be fool enough to marry without the
Queen’s consent?”
“I loved him—I couldn’t go to him differently. And now he’s in
France—and I’m here—and I can’t keep it secret much longer. This
evening when she looked at me, I was almost sure she had guessed. And
she hates me, Robert—for all her sweet words I know she hates me—
she’s been waiting for some excuse to destroy me.”
“Very likely,” he said drily. “So why come to me with this fiasco?
What do you expect me to do, for God’s sake?”
Katherine caught his hot hands and covered them with kisses.
“Speak to her for me—put my case and beg for mercy. She’ll listen to
you, she likes to please you—everyone says that she—”
“You would have done better to have gone to Cecil if that’s what
you believe,” he said bitterly. “But, God knows, you could expect no
quarter from him. I hope you realise what a difficult position you’ve
placed me in—”
“But you
will
speak to her?”
“I haven’t got much choice, have I? If she hears of this visit from
anyone else but me I’ll be finished. Come—you had better tell me the
whole story—I’ll go to her first thing in the morning.”
It was a sorry tale of a secret wedding to the young Earl of Hertford
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and some of the details were so ludicrous that he would have laughed again
if the matter had not been so deadly serious. Hertford’s sister, who had been
the only witness to this hole-in-a-corner marriage, had died in March and
Katherine had mislaid the relevant legal documents. By the time she had
finished her tale, he was reasonably convinced her true destination should
be a madhouse; but at the same time he knew very well where she would
be going once he had broached the subject to the Queen. She had signed
her own death warrant, and he did not have the heart to tell her that the
only cause he would be pleading with the Queen was his own! He had
troubles enough without being sucked into this stupid quagmire.
When at last he managed to be rid of her, he went back to bed in
the steamy, mosquito-ridden heat and lay awake for the rest of the night
rehearsing his lines for the morning.
t t t
He had expected anger and Elizabeth did not disappoint him. His nervous
revelation of Katherine’s crime was greeted by a string of enlightening
oaths and the immediate despatch of that unfortunate girl on the first stage
of her journey to the Tower.
When the dust had settled and her women had been driven out of her
presence for a pack of clacking hens, Elizabeth sat down in her chair and
began to laugh.
“It’s safe now,” she said mockingly. “You can come out of the
shadows, Sir Galahad, and stop bleating about your integrity.”
Robin took a few uncertain steps towards her, unnerved by this
volte-face.
“I never knew you were so afraid of me,” she remarked calmly.
“Afraid?”
“Yes—flattening yourself against that wall and hoping I wouldn’t
notice you were still here. Come now—it wasn’t a very chivalrous
performance, was it? Pushing her out of your room and working yourself
into a muck sweat for fear of getting involved.”
“Mud sticks,” he pointed out coolly, “and I am smeared enough.”
She nodded.
“A sensible attitude—if not very noble. Sometimes I think it must be
the baseborn dog in you that attracts the bitch in me.”
“So I do attract you?” He took her hand and smiled.
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“Perhaps. You and I deserve each other. We are so passionately
devoted to ourselves.”
“And Katherine?”
“I was certain yesterday. I have been suspicious for some time.”
“Then—you are not truly angry?”
“Not in the least. It is remarkably obliging of her to remove herself
permanently from the scene.”
Permanently. He knew what that meant—or thought he did. Well—it
had been inevitable.
He said quietly, “You can’t execute a pregnant woman. You’ll have to
wait until the child is born.”
All the colour left the Queen’s face and she shivered in the hot sunlight.
“I shall not execute her at all,” she said faintly.
He was startled.
“You are actually going to leave her alive and let her raise a brood of
children to menace your throne?”
“Bastards are no threat to me.”
“But the child won’t be a bastard,” he said patiently. “She’s married.”
“She’ll have difficulty proving it with the relevant documents lost and
her only witness dead.”
He began to smile slowly with admiration. She was so quick, so clever.
Banished to the Tower as a slut, Katherine would lose all the puritanical
support of those who, until now, had been parading her virtue and her
legitimacy and comparing it so favourably with the Queen’s questionable
birth and even more questionable honour.
“So—”
“So I graciously commute her sentence—to life imprisonment.”
He laughed and bent over her chair to kiss her lips in a sort of salutation.
“You cunning cat—is there anything you can’t twist to your own
advantage?”
“Ask me that again,” she said softly, “when I have all my rivals safely
under lock and key. Both the Greys—and Lennox—”
“And the Queen of Scots?”
They laughed at the absurdity of his suggestion and at length Elizabeth
leaned back in her chair, studying him with amusement.
“Oh, Robin,” she said wistfully, “if I ever got the chance to turn the
key in
that
lock I should throw it into the Thames.”
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Chapter 2
I
n august, the french galley bearing mary stuart eluded
the English warships in the Channel in a thick fog and arrived at
Leith. There was no official welcome, her bastard brother James having
been under the impression that she would be making an unplanned
detour through England first. The dour Protestant preacher John Knox
screamed at his cowering congregation that the haar which shrouded
her entry was the devil’s work, an ill omen; but the Queen’s party were
inclined to thank God for its shelter, having lost to the English ships,
which had plainly been lying in wait for them, only the vessel carrying
the royal stable.
James arrived at last with his Scottish courtiers, sombrely dressed and
most apologetic, trying hard not to betray his surprise that she had arrived
at all. Mary entered her capital city on a clumsy, battered, old nag and her
heart sank as she rode through the winding streets to the bleak and unin-
viting edifice that was Holyrood Palace. A clumsy celebration followed,
reminding her of the forced gaiety of a funeral feast, and she recoiled
from the hulking, grubby figures of the Scottish lords, pounding their
tankards on the bare tables, scratching, belching, and spitting in the dirty
rushes. They were little better than savage chieftains, thought Mary. She
was privately appalled to find herself Queen of such barbarians and was
bitterly aware of the cynical glances among her lofty French attendants.
A huge fire roared in the stone hearth but it made no more impression
on the Great Hall than the flame of a candle. Mary shivered. The long,
elegant feet inside her satin slippers were like ice and the damp hung so
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heavily on the air that she fancied it to be solid. She could not believe this
was really happening to her; it was a distorted nightmare from which she
would surely awake.
The night dragged to an end with members of the Scottish kirk
droning tuneless Protestant dirges beneath her window. She was glad to
retire to the tiny stone-walled bedroom, where her women stood on the
hems of one another’s sweeping trains as they attended her.
“It won’t be for long,” she said cheerfully, and they tried to smile; they
had already seen their own sleeping-quarters.
It wouldn’t be for long, for Mary had no intention of staying; Scotland
was an uncomfortable resting place, not a destination. Lying back on the
hard bolster pillow she became aware of the spider busily spinning a large
web between the far post and the tester—she too could spin as fast and
furious on a web of intrigue.
Spain was her best hope. The Spanish heir was misshapen and mad, but
such things scarcely mattered when set against the advantages of a Spanish
match. A Catholic army at her back would certainly force Elizabeth to
acknowledge her as her successor. Invasion might not be necessary after
all. There were encouraging rumours that suggested Elizabeth’s health
was failing and doubt had been cast on her ability to bear children. Mary
glanced about her with a resigned sigh. With the candles lit and the
tapestries hung, the bleak little room was now moderately comfortable.
It would suffice for a time if she chose to wait a little longer for her prise.
Waiting would mean winning Scotland to her and courting the English
Queen’s favour; waiting would mean lies and pretence and pretty artifice.
But I am young and I have time on my side—
The fire died and the shadows on the stone wall grew longer. In the
twilight zone between waking and sleeping, Mary imagined Elizabeth’s
scream of rage at being presented with horses in place of a royal captive.
No doubt a few ears would be soundly boxed—they said the woman
had a spitfire temper and no qualms about making a disgusting exhibition
of it. No control, of course, lack of breeding; it always showed. Poor
Elizabeth—one could almost pity her unquestionable inferiority. So let
her enjoy the jewels and the fine dresses, the little group of fawning
lovers, and everything else that decorated her outrageous reign. Let her
have a few fond memories to take to an early grave, for one way or
another her dance would soon be ended.
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And then, thought Mary, as she turned her face into the lumpy goose-
feather pillow, it will be my turn.
t t t
October 1562 was a cold, squally month which seemed to echo the
distress of English soldiers fighting a lost battle in the French civil wars.
Plague had broken out among them, decimating their ranks to the point
where retirement from the venture now seemed inevitable; and since
Ambrose Dudley, Lord Warwick, was leading those forces in France, the
Dudleys had more cause than most to fear what was happening across the
Channel. Certainly the Queen had had her fill of war. Twice now she
had humoured Cecil’s military ambitions, once with success, once, it now
seemed, with failure. In future she would avoid war at any cost.
A fierce wind was buffeting the palace casements and driving showers
of dried leaves across the lawns at Hampton Court. Elizabeth stood at the
river’s edge, feeding a cluster of hungry swans, and occasionally leaning
against the balustrade, shaken by a dry, rasping cough.
“This wind is like a knife,” said Mary Sidney in an anxious whisper.
“She ought not to be out in it. Can’t you persuade her to go in, Robin?”
Robin did his best. Twice he remarked that it looked like rain; twice
he complained peevishly that he was cold. Finally he took to stamping
up and down beside the parapet, swinging his arms across his chest and
remarking rudely that no one in their right senses would have ventured
out of the palace on a day like this.
Elizabeth emptied the last crumbs from her hanging pocket and turned
to look at him with amusement.
“You’re growing soft with good living, Rob. Perhaps I should push you