Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

De Quadra was an experienced ambassador, but he thought that no one had ever before been entrusted with such a wild mission as to tell a twenty-seven-year-old queen on the very morning of her birthday that her most senior advisor was in despair, and that everyone thought she would lose her throne if she did not give up her love affair.

Her birthday morning started with a stag hunt and Robert had all the huntsmen dressed in the Tudor colors of green and white and the entire court dressed in silver, white, and gold. Elizabeth’s own horse, a big white gelding, had a new saddle of red Spanish leather and new bridle, a gift from Dudley.

The Spanish ambassador held back as the queen and her lover rode at their usual breakneck speed, but when they had killed, and had drunk a glass of wine over the stag’s head to celebrate, and were riding home, he eased his horse beside hers and wished her a happy birthday.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth gleamed.

“I have a small gift for you from the emperor back at the castle,” the ambassador said. “But I could not contain my good wishes a moment longer. I have never seen you in such health and happiness.”

She turned her head and smiled at him.

“And Sir Robert looks so well. He is a happy man to have your favor,” he started carefully.

“Of all the men in the world he has earned it,” she said. “Whether in war or peace he is my most trusted and faithful advisor. And in days of pleasure he is the best of companions!”

“And he loves you so dearly,” de Quadra remarked.

She drew her horse a little closer to him. “May I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“Yes,” he swiftly assured her.

“Sir Robert will soon be a widower and free to marry,” she said, keeping her voice very low.

“No!”

She nodded. “His wife is dead of an illness, or very nearly so. But you must tell no one about it until we announce it.”

“I promise I shall keep your secret,” he stumbled. “Poor lady, has she been ill very long?”

“Oh, yes,” Elizabeth said carelessly. “So he assures me. Poor thing. Are you coming to the banquet tonight, sir?”

“I am,” he said, he tightened his grip on the horse’s reins and fell back from her side. As they rode up the winding road to the castle he saw Cecil, waiting for the return of the hunt, on the little battlements above the entrance. The ambassador shook his head toward Elizabeth’s advisor as if to say that he could make sense of nothing, that it was as if they were all trapped in a nightmare, that something very bad was happening, but no one could know quite what.

Elizabeth’s birthday celebrations, which had started with a roar of guns, ended in a blaze of fireworks that she viewed from a barge in the Thames, heaped with late roses, with her closest friends and her lover at her side. When the fireworks died down the barges rowed slowly up and then down the river so that the people of London, lining the banks to admire the show, could call out their blessings on the twenty-seven-year-old queen.

“She will have to marry soon,” Laetitia observed to her mother in a muted whisper. “Or she’ll have left it too late.”

Catherine glanced toward the profile of her friend and the darker shadow behind her which was Robert Dudley. “It would break her heart to marry another man,” she predicted. “And she’ll lose her throne if she marries him. What a dilemma for a woman to face. Pray God you never love unwisely, Lettice.”

“Well, you’ve seen to that,” Laetitia said smartly enough. “For being betrothed without love I am unlikely to find it now.”

“For most women it is better to marry well than to marry for love,” Catherine said, unruffled. “Love may follow.”

“It didn’t follow for Amy Dudley,” Laetitia observed.

“A man like Robert Dudley would bring trouble for his lover or his wife,” her mother told her. As they watched, the barge rocked and Elizabeth stumbled a little. At once Robert’s arm was around her waist and, careless of the watching crowds, she let him hold her, and leaned back against him so that she could feel the warmth of his body at her back.

“Come to my room tonight,” he whispered in her ear.

She turned to smile up at him. “You’ll break my heart,” she whispered. But I cannot. It is my time of the month. Next week I shall come back to you.”

He gave a little growl of disappointment. “It had better be soon,” he warned her. “Or I shall come to your bedchamber before the whole court.”

“Would you dare to do that?”

“Try me,” he recommended. “See how much I would dare.”

Amy dined with her hosts on Saturday night and ate a good dinner. They drank the health of the queen on this, her birthday night, as did every loyal household in the land, and Amy raised her glass and touched it to her lips without flinching.

“You are looking better, Lady Dudley,” Mr. Forster said kindly. “I am glad to see you well again.”

She smiled and he was struck with her prettiness, which he had forgotten while thinking of her as a burden.

“You have been a kind host indeed,” she said. “And I am sorry to come to your house and immediately take to my bed.”

“It was a hot day and a long ride,” he said. “I was out that day and I felt the heat myself.”

“Well, it will be cold soon enough,” Mrs. Forster said. “How quickly time passes. It’s Abingdon fair tomorrow, think of that already?”

“I am riding over to Didcot,” Mr. Forster said. “There’s some trouble with the tithes for the church. I said I would listen to the vicar’s sermon and then meet him and the churchwarden. I’ll dine with him and come home in the evening, my dear.”

“I’ll let the servants go to the fair then,” Mrs. Forster said. “They usually have a holiday on fair Sunday.”

“Will you go?” Amy asked with sudden interest.

“Not on the Sunday,” Mrs. Forster said. “All the common folk go on the Sunday. We could ride over on Monday if you wish to see it.”

“Oh, let’s go tomorrow,” Amy said, suddenly animated. “Please say we can. I like the fair all busy and filled with people. I like to see the servants all dressed up in their best and buying ribbons. It’s always best on the first day.”

“Oh, my dear, I don’t think so,” Mrs. Forster said doubtfully. “It can be very rough.”

“Oh, go,” her husband recommended. “A little bustle won’t hurt you. It’ll lift Lady Dudley’s spirits. And if you want any ribbons or anything you will know that they have not sold out.”

“What time shall we go?” Mrs. Oddingsell asked.

“We could leave at about midday,” Mrs. Forster suggested, “and take our dinner at Abingdon. There’s a good enough inn, if you wish to dine there.”

“Yes,” Amy said. “I should love to do that.”

“Well, I am glad to see you so restored to health that you want to go out,” Mr. Forster said kindly.

On Sunday morning, the day they were all to go to the fair, Amy came down to breakfast looking pale and ill again.

“I slept so badly, I am too ill to go,” she said.

“I am sorry,” Mrs. Forster said. “Do you need anything?”

“I think I will just rest,” Amy said. “If I could sleep I am sure I would be well again.”

“The servants have all gone to the fair already, so the house will be quiet,” Mrs. Forster promised. “And I will make you a tisane myself, and you shall take your dinner in your room, in your bed if you wish.”

“No,” Amy said. “You go to the fair as you planned. I wouldn’t want you to delay for me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mrs. Forster said. “We won’t leave you all on your own.”

“I insist,” Amy said. “You were looking forward to it, and as Mr. Forster said yesterday, if you want some ribbons or something, the first day is always best.”