Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

A message must be sent to Sir Robert. “What shall I say?” Mrs. Forster demanded of Lizzie Oddingsell. “What should I write? What can I tell him?”

“Just say she’s dead,” Lizzie said furiously. “He can come down himself if he wants to know why or how.”

Mrs. Forster wrote a brief note and sent it to Windsor by her servant John Bowes. “Make sure you give it to Sir Robert, into his own hand, and to no one else,” she cautioned him, uncomfortably aware that they all were in the very center of a massive breaking scandal. “And tell no one else of this business, and come straight home without talking to anyone but him.”

At nine o’clock on Monday morning Robert Dudley strode to the queen’s apartments and walked in without glancing to any of his friends and adherents who were talking and standing around.

He marched up to the throne and bowed. “I have to speak with you alone,” he said without any preamble. Laetitia Knollys noticed that his hand was gripping his hat so tightly that the knuckles were gleaming white.

Elizabeth took in the tension in his face, and got to her feet at once. “Of course,” she said. “Shall we walk?”

“In your chamber,” he said tautly.

Her eyes widened at the sharpness of his tone but she took his arm and the two of them went through the doors into her privy chamber.

“Well!” one of her ladies-in-waiting remarked softly. “He is more like a husband every day. Soon he will be ordering us as he orders her.”

“Something’s happened,” guessed Laetitia.

“Nonsense,” said Mary Sidney. “It will be a new horse or something. He rode to Oxfordshire to look at a horse only yesterday.”

As soon as the door was shut behind them, Robert thrust his hand into his doublet and pulled out a letter. “I’ve just had this,” he said shortly. “It is from Cumnor Place where Amy has been staying with my friends. Amy, my wife, is dead.”

“Dead?” Elizabeth said, too loud. She clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at Robert. “How dead?”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t say,” he said. “It is from Mrs. Forster and the damn fool of a woman just says that she is sorry to inform me that Amy died today. The letter is dated Sunday. My servant is on his way to find out what has happened.”

“Dead?” she repeated.

“Yes,” he said. “And so I am free.”

She gave a little gasp and staggered. “Free. Of course you are.”

“God knows I would not have had her die,” he said hastily. “But her death sets us free, Elizabeth. We can declare our betrothal. I shall be king.”

“I’m speechless,” she said. She could hardly take her breath.

“I too,” he said. “Such a sudden change, and so unexpected.”

She shook her head. “It’s unbelievable. I knew she was in poor health…”

“I thought she was well enough,” he said. “She never complained of anything more than a little pain. I don’t know what it can be. Perhaps she fell from her horse?”

“We had better go out,” Elizabeth said. “Someone will bring the news to court. We had better not hear it together. Everyone will look at us and wonder what we are thinking.”

“Yes,” he said. “But I had to tell you at once.”

“Of course, I understand. But we had better go out now.”

Suddenly he snatched her to him and took a deep, hungry kiss. “Soon they will all know that you are my wife,” he promised her. “We will rule England together. I am free; our life together starts right now!”

“Yes,” she said, pulling away from him. “But we had better go out.”

Again he checked her at the door. “It is as if it were God’s will,” he said wonderingly. “That she should die and set me free at this very moment, when we are ready to marry, when we have the country at peace, when we have so much to do. ‘This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.’”

Elizabeth recognized the words she had said at her own accession to the throne. “You think that this death will make you king,” she said, testing him. “As Mary’s death made me queen.”

Robert nodded, his face bright and glad. “We shall be King and Queen of England together,” he said. “And we will make an England as glorious as Camelot.”

“Yes,” she said, her lips cold. “But we should go out now.”

In the presence chamber Elizabeth looked around for Cecil and when he came in, she beckoned him to her. Sir Robert was in a window embrasure talking casually to Sir Francis Knollys about trade with the Spanish Netherlands.

“Sir Robert has just told me that his wife is dead,” she said, half covering her mouth with her hand.

“Indeed,” Cecil said steadily, his face a mask to the watching courtiers.

“He says he does not know the cause.”

Cecil nodded.

“Cecil, what the devil is happening? I told the Spanish ambassador that she was ill, as you told me to do. But this is so sudden. Has he murdered her? He will claim me as his own and I shall not be able to say no.”

“I should wait and see if I were you,” Cecil said.

“But what shall I do?” she demanded urgently. “He says that he will be King of England.”

“Do nothing for the time being,” Cecil said. “Wait and see.”

Abruptly she turned into the bay of the window and dragged him in beside her. “You shall tell me more,” she demanded fiercely.

Cecil put his mouth to her ear and whispered quietly. Elizabeth kept her face turned away from the court to look out of the window. “Very well,” she said to Cecil, and turned back to the court.

“Now,” she announced. “I see Sir Nielson there. Good day, Sir Nielson. And how is business in Somerset?”

Laetitia Knollys stood before Sir William Cecil’s desk while the rest of the court was waiting to be called to dinner.

“Yes?”

“They are saying that Robert Dudley is going to murder his wife and that the queen knows all about it.”

“Are they? And why are they saying such a slanderous lie?”

“Is it because you started it?”

Sir William smiled at her and thought again what a thorough Boleyn girl she was: the quickness of the Boleyn wit and the enchanting Howard indiscretion.

“I?”

“Someone overheard you telling the Spanish ambassador that the queen would be ruined if she marries Dudley and you can’t stop her, she’s determined.” Laetitia ticked off the first point on her slim fingers.

“And?”

“Then the queen tells the Spanish ambassador, in my own hearing, that Amy Dudley is dead.”

“Does she?” Cecil looked surprised.

“She said ‘dead or nearly so,’ ” Laetitia quoted. “So everyone thinks that we are being prepared for the news of her death by some mystery illness, that when it comes they will announce their marriage and the widower Robert Dudley will be the next king.”

“And what does everyone think will happen then?” Cecil asked politely.

“Now that, no one dare say very loud, but some men would give you a wager that her uncle will come marching down from Newcastle at the head of the English army and kill him.”

“Really?”

“And others think there will be an uprising which the French would pay for to put Mary, Queen of Scots, on the throne.”

“Indeed.”

“And others think there would be an uprising which the Spanish would pay for, to put Katherine Grey on the throne, and keep Mary out.”

“These are very wild predictions,” Cecil complained. “But they seem to cover all possibilities. And what do you think, my lady?”

“I think that you will have a plan up your sleeve which allows for these dangers to the realm,” she said and gave him a roguish little smile.

“We should hope I do,” he said. “For these are very grave dangers.”