Philippa Gregory: The Queen's Fool

“Well, I hope you lie alone weeping and unwatched one day,” Jane snapped at her, and the two of us went past them and into the queen’s bedchamber.

She had curled up in the bed like a little girl, her hair in a cloud around her face. She did not turn her head at the sound of the opening door, she was deep in her grief.

“Your Grace?” Jane Dormer said, her voice cracking.

The queen did not move, but we heard the quiet occasional sob go on, as regular as a heartbeat, as if weeping had become a sign of life, like a pulse.

“It is I,” Jane said. “And Hannah the Fool. We have come back from Princess Elizabeth.”

The queen sighed very deeply and turned her head wearily toward us.

“She took the oath,” Jane said. “She swore she would keep the country in the true faith.”

I stepped to the bedside and took Queen Mary’s hand. It was as small and as light as a child’s, there was nothing left of her. Sadness had worn her away to dust that could blow away on the wind. I thought of her riding into London in her shabby red costume, her face bright with hope, and her courage when she took on the great men of the kingdom and beat them at their own game. I thought of her joy in her husband and her longing for a child to love, a son for England. I thought of her absolute devotion to the memory of her mother and her love of God.

Her little hand fluttered in mine like a dying bird.

“I saw Elizabeth take the oath,” I started. I was about to tell her the kindest lie that I could form. But gently, irresistibly, I told her the truth, as if the Sight was speaking the truth through me. “Mary, she will not keep it. But she will do better than keep it, I hope you can understand that now. She will become a better queen than she is a woman. She will teach the people of this country that each man and woman must consider his or her own conscience, must find their own way to God. And she will bring this country to peace and prosperity. You did the very best that you could do for the people of this country, and you have a good successor. Elizabeth will never be the woman that you have been; but she will be a good queen to England, I know it.”

She raised her head a little and her eyelids fluttered open. She looked at me with her straight honest gaze once more, and then she closed her eyes and lay still.

I did not stay to watch the rush of servants to Hatfield. I packed my bag and took Danny by the hand and took a boat down the river to Gravesend. I had my lord’s letter to show to the ship’s captain and he promised me a berth as soon as they sailed. We waited a day or two and then Danny and I boarded the little ship and set sail for Calais.

Danny was delighted by the ship, the moving deck beneath his feet, the slap and rush of the waves, the creaking of the sails and the cry of the seagulls. “Sea!” he exclaimed, over and over again. He took my face in both of his little hands and gazed at me with his enormous dark eyes, desperate to tell me the significance of his delight. “Sea. Mamma! Sea!”

“What did you say?” I said, taken aback. He had never spoken my name before, I had expected him to call me Hannah. I had not thought, I suppose I should have thought, but I had never thought he would call me mother.

“Sea,” he repeated obediently, and wriggled to be put down.

Calais was a different place with the walls breached and the sides of the castle smeared with black oil from the siege, the stones darkened with smoke from the fire. The captain’s face was grim when we came into the harbor and saw the English ships, which had been fired where they were moored, at the harbor wall, like so many heretics at the stake. He tied up with military smartness and slapped down the gangplank like a challenge. I took Danny in my arms and walked down the gangplank into the town.

It was dreamlike, to go into the ruins of my old home. I saw streets and houses that I knew; but some of them were missing walls or roofs, and there had been a terrible toll paid by the thatched houses, they were all but destroyed.

I did not want to go down the street where my husband and I once lived, I was afraid of what I might find. If our house was still standing, and his mother and sisters were still there, I did not know how to reconcile with them. If I met his mother and she was angry with me and wanted to take Danny away from me I did not know what I would do or say. But if she was dead, and his house destroyed, it would be even worse.

Instead I went with the captain and the armed guard up to the castle under our white pennant of truce. We were expected; the commander came out civilly enough and spoke to the captain in rapid French. The captain bridled, understanding perhaps one word in three, and then leaned forward and said very loudly and slowly: “I have come for the English men, as has been agreed, as per the terms, and I expect them forthwith.”

When he had no response, he said it again, pitched a little higher.

“Captain, would you like me to speak for you, I can speak French?” I offered.

He turned to me with relief. “Can you? That might help. Why doesn’t the fool answer me?”

I stepped forward a little and said to the commander in French: “Captain Gatting offers his apologies but he cannot speak French. I can translate for you. I am Madame Carpenter. I have come for my husband who has been ransomed and the captain has come for the other men. We have a ship waiting in the harbor.”

He bowed slightly. “Madam, I am obliged to you. The men are mustered and ready. The civilians are to be released first and then the soldiers will march down to the harbor. Their weapons will not be returned. It is agreed?”

I translated for the captain and he scowled at me. “We ought to get the weapons back,” he said.

I shrugged. All I could think of was Daniel, waiting somewhere inside the castle for his release. “We can’t.”

“Tell him very well; but tell him that I’m not best pleased,” the captain said sourly.

“Captain Gatting agrees,” I said smoothly in French.

“Please come inside.” The commander led us over the drawbridge and into the inner courtyard. Another thick curtain wall with a portcullis doorway led to the central courtyard where about two hundred men were mustered, the soldiers in one block, the civilians in another. I raked the ranks for Daniel but I could not see him.

“Commandant, I am seeking my husband, Daniel Carpenter, a civilian,” I said. “I cannot see him, and I am afraid of missing him in the crowd.”

“Daniel Carpenter?” he asked. He turned and snapped an order at the man guarding the civilians.

“Daniel Carpenter!” the man bawled out.

In the middle of one of the ranks a man came forward. “Who asks for him?” said Daniel, my husband.

I closed my eyes for a moment as the world seemed to shift all around me.

“I am Daniel Carpenter,” Daniel said again, not a quaver in his voice, stepping forward on the very brink of freedom, greeting whatever new danger might threaten him without a moment’s hesitation.

The commander beckoned him to come forward and moved to one side so that I could see him. Daniel saw me for the first time and I saw him go very pale. He was older-looking, a little weary, he was thinner, but nothing worse than winter-pale and winter-thin. He was the same. He was my beloved Daniel with his dark curling hair and his dark eyes and his kissable mouth and that particular smile which was my smile; it only ever shone on me, it was at once desiring, steadfast, and amused.

“Daniel,” I whispered. “My Daniel!”

“Ah, Hannah,” he said quietly. “You.”

Behind us, the civilians were signing their names and marching out to freedom. I did not hear the shouted orders or the tramp of their feet. All I could see, all I could know, was Daniel.