Philippa Gregory - The Queen's Fool

“Elizabeth!” I exclaimed, I was genuinely shocked.

“What?” Her eyes were blazing with temper. For a moment I believed that she did not know what she was saying. “What’s wrong with telling the truth? He is a young handsome man who will inherit half of Europe, she is a woman old before her time and old enough anyway. It is disgusting to think of them rutting together like a young piglet on an old sow. It is an abomination. And if she is like her mother she will bear nothing but dead babies.”

I put my hands over my ears. “You are offensive,” I said frankly.

Elizabeth whirled on me. “And you are unfaithful!” she shouted. “You should be my friend, and stand my friend whatever else happens, whatever I say. You were begged to me as a fool, you should be mine. And I say nothing but the truth. I would be ashamed to chase after a young man like her. I would rather die than court a man young enough to be my son. I would rather die now than get to her age and be an unwanted old maid, good for nothing, pleasing to nobody, useless!”

“I am not unfaithful,” I said steadily. “And I am your companion, she did not beg me as a fool to you. I would be your friend. But I cannot listen to you cursing her like a Billingsgate fishwife.”

She let out a wail at that and dropped to the ground, her face as white as apple blossom, her hair tumbled over her shoulders, her hands clamped over her mouth.

I knelt beside her and took her hands. They were icy, she looked near to collapse. “Lady Elizabeth,” I said soothingly. “Be calm. It is a marriage which is bound to take place and there is nothing you can do about it.”

“But not even invited…” She gave a little wail.

“Is hard. But she has been merciful to you.” I paused. “Remember, he would have had you beheaded.”

“And I am to be grateful for that?”

“You could be calm. And wait.”

The face she turned up to me was suddenly glacial. “If she bears him a son then I will have nothing to wait for but a forced marriage to some Papist prince, or death.”

“You said to me that any day you could stay alive was a victory,” I reminded her.

She did not smile in reply. She shook her head. “Staying alive is not important,” she said quietly. “It never was. I was staying alive for England. Staying alive to be England’s princess. Staying alive to inherit.”

I did not correct her, the words were true for her now, though I thought I knew Elizabeth too well to see her as a woman only staying alive for her country. But I did not want to launch her into one of her passionate tantrums. “You must do that,” I said soothingly. “Stay alive for England. Wait.”

She let me go the next day though her resentment was as powerful as that of a child excluded from a treat. I did not know what upset her more: the gravity of her situation as the only Protestant princess in Roman Catholic England, or not being invited to the greatest event in Christendom since the Field of the Cloth of Gold. When she waved me away without a word and with a sulky turn of her head I thought that missing the party was probably the worst thing for her that morning.

If Sir Henry’s men had not known the road to Winchester we could have found it by following the crowds. It seemed that every man, woman and child wanted to see the queen take her husband at last, and the roads were crowded with farmers bringing their produce into the greatest market in the country, entertainers setting up their pitches all along the way, whores and mountebanks and peddlers with cures, goose girls and washerwomen, carters and riders leading strings of spare horses. Then there was all the panoply and organization of the royal court on the move: the messengers coming and going, the men in livery, the men at arms, the outriders and those galloping desperately to catch up.

Sir Henry’s men carried reports of Elizabeth for the queen’s council, so we parted at the entrance of Wolvesey Palace, the bishop’s great house where the queen was staying. I went straight to the queen’s rooms and found a crowd of people at every doorway pushing their way forward with petitions that she might grant. I slid under elbows, between shoulders, sneaking between paneled walls and bulky squires till I reached the guards on the door and stood before their crossed halberds.

“The queen’s fool,” I announced myself. One man recognized me. He and his fellow stepped forward and let me dart in behind them and open the door while they held back the weight of the crowd.

Inside the presence chamber it was scarcely less crowded but the clothes were more silks and embroidered leather, and the altercations were taking place in French and Spanish as well as English. Here were the ambitious and rising men and women of the kingdom jockeying for a place and anxious to be seen by the new king who would be creating a court which must — surely to God! — include at least some true-born Englishmen as well as the hundreds of Spaniards he had insisted on bringing over as his personal retinue.

I skirted the perimeter of the hall, overhearing the snatches of conversation, which was mostly scandalous, often speculating on what the handsome young prince would make of the old queen, and I found that my cheeks were blazing with temper and my teeth gritted by the time I got to the door of her private rooms.

The guard let me through with a nod of recognition but even inside the queen’s privy chamber there was no peace. There were more ladies and attendants, musicians, singers, escorts and general hangers-on than I had ever seen with her before. I looked around for her, still she was not there, the chair which served as her throne by the fireside was empty. Jane Dormer was in the window seat sewing, looking as determinedly unimpressed as she had been on the day I had first met her when the queen had been a sick woman, in a court of shadows with no chance of the throne.

“I have come to the queen,” I said to her with a little bow.

“You’re among many,” she said dourly.

“I’ve seen them,” I said. “Has it been like this since you came from London?”

“Every day there are more people,” she said. “They must think her soft in the head as well as the heart. If she gave her kingdom away three times over she would not be able to satisfy their demands.”

“Shall I go in?”

“She’s praying,” she said. “But she’ll want to see you.”

She rose from the window seat and I saw that she had positioned herself so that no one could enter the queen’s narrow doorway without first going past Jane. She opened the door and peeped in, then she waved me through.

The queen had been praying before an exquisite gold and mother-of-pearl icon, but now she was sitting back on her heels, her face calm and shining. She radiated joy as she knelt there, so calm and sweet in her happiness that anyone looking at her would have known her for a bride on her wedding day; a woman preparing herself for love.

When she heard the door close behind me she slowly turned her head and smiled. “Ah, Hannah! How glad I am you have come, you are just in time.”

I crossed the room and knelt before her. “God bless Your Grace on this most fortunate day.”

She put her hand on my head in blessing in that affectionate familiar gesture. “It is a fortunate day, isn’t it?”

I looked up, the glow around her was shining as brightly as sunshine. “It is, Your Grace,” I said. I had no doubt of it at all. “I can see that it is a wonderful day for you.”

“This is the start of my new life,” she said gently. “The start of my life as a married woman, as a queen with a prince at my side, with my country at peace and the greatest nation in Christendom, my mother’s home, as our ally.”