Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

He paused by the window; the cold glass under his fingers sent a deep shiver through him, though he did not remember why it should be such a dreadful sensation.

“Dear God,” he said aloud. “Much more of this and I shall be carving my crest into the chimney piece as I did with my brothers in the Tower. I have come so low again. So low, again.”

He leaned his forehead against the glass when a movement on the river caught his eye. He shaded his face against the thick glass to see more clearly. It was a barge with the drummer beating to keep the rowers in time. He squinted his eyes, he made out the flag, the royal standard. It was the royal barge.

“Oh, God, she has come!” he said. At once he could feel his heart pounding. I knew she would come. I knew she would never leave me, whatever it cost her, whatever the danger, we would face it down together. I knew she would be at my side, always. I knew she would be faithful. I knew she would love me. I never doubted her for a moment.

He tore open the door and ran from the room, through the river entrance and into the pretty orchard where he had given Elizabeth her May Day breakfast only sixteen months ago.

“Elizabeth!” he shouted, and ran through the orchard toward the landing stage.

It was the royal barge; but it was not Elizabeth getting out of the barge to the landing stage. Dudley halted, suddenly sick with disappointment.

“Oh, Cecil,” he said.

William Cecil came down the wooden steps toward him and held out his hand. “There,” he said kindly. “Never mind. She sent her best wishes.”

“You have not come to arrest me?”

“Good God, no,” Cecil said. “This is a courtesy visit, to bring you the queen’s best wishes.”

“Her best wishes?” Robert said brokenly. “Is that all?”

Cecil nodded. “She can’t say more; you know that.”

The two men turned and walked to the house.

“You are the only man to come to see me from the court,” Robert said as they entered the house, their boots ringing on the wooden floor in the silence. “Think of that! Of all my hundreds of friends and admirers that flocked around me every day when I was at the very center of the court, of all the thousands of them who were proud to call me their friend, who claimed my acquaintanceship even when I hardly knew them… and you are the only visitor I have had here.”

“It’s a fickle world,” Cecil agreed. “And true friends are few and far between.”

“Far between? Not for me, since I have no true friends at all, I see. You are my only friend, as it turns out,” Dudley said wryly. “And I would not have given you good odds a mere month ago.”

Cecil smiled. “Well, I am sorry to see you brought so low,” he said frankly. “And sorry to find you with such a heavy heart fitting your mourning clothes. Do you have any news from Abingdon?”

“I daresay you know more than me,” Robert said, conscious of Cecil’s formidable spy network. “But I have written to Amy’s halfbrother and asked him to go and make sure the jury do their best to discover the facts, and I have written to the foreman of the jury and begged him to name whoever did it, whoever it may be, without fear or favor. I want the truth to come out of this.”

“You insist on knowing?”

“Cecil, it is not me, so who? It’s easy enough for everyone else to think it murder and me with blood on my hands. But I know, as no one else can know, that I did not do it. So if I did not do it, who would do such a thing? Whose interest would be served by her death?”

“You don’t think it was an accident?” Cecil inquired.

Robert gave a brief laugh. “Good God, I wish I could think that, but how could it be? Such a short flight of stairs, and her sending everyone out for the day? My worst, my constant fear is that she harmed herself, that she took some poison or a sleeping draft and then threw herself down the stairs headfirst, to make it look like an accident.”

“Do you think she was so unhappy that she would have killed herself? I thought her more pious than that? Surely she would never imperil her immortal soul, even if she were heartbroken?”

Robert dropped his head. “God forgive me, it was I who broke her heart,” he said quietly. “And if she did herself to death then her love of me cost her a place in heaven as well as happiness in this life. I was unkind to her, Cecil, but before God I never thought it would end like this.”

“You really think you drove her to take her own life?”

“I can think of nothing else.”

Gently, Cecil touched the younger man’s shoulder. “It is a heavy burden you carry, Dudley,” he said. “I cannot think of a heavier burden of shame.”

Robert nodded. “It has brought me very low,” he said softly. “So low that I cannot think how to rise again. I think of her, and I remember her when I first met her, and first loved her, and I know I am the sort of fool who picks a flower to put in his buttonhole and then drops it and leaves it to die from mere wanton carelessness. I took her up like a primrose, as my mother called her, and then I tired of her, and I dropped her as if I was a selfish child; and now she is dead and I can never ask her forgiveness.”

There was a silence.

“And the worst thing,” Dudley said heavily, “is that I cannot ever tell her that I am sorry that I hurt her so badly. I was always thinking of myself; I was always thinking of the queen; I was chasing my own damned ambition and I did not think what I was doing to her. God forgive me, I put the thought of her away from me, and now she has taken me at my word, and gone away from me, and I will never see her again, and never touch her, and never see her smile. I told her I did not want her anymore, and now I do not have her.”

“I will leave you,” Cecil said quietly. “I did not come to intrude on your grief; but just to tell you that in all the world, at least you have one friend.”

Dudley raised his head and reached out his hand for Cecil.

The older man gripped it hard. “Courage,” he said.

“I cannot tell you how thankful I am that you came,” Robert said. “Will you remember me to the queen? Urge her to let me come back to court as soon as the verdict is known. I won’t be dancing for a while, God knows, but I am very lonely here, Cecil. It is exile as well as mourning.”

“I’ll speak to her for you,” Cecil assured him. “And I will pray for you, and for Amy’s soul. You know, I remember her on her wedding day. She just shone with happiness; she loved you so much. She thought you the finest man in the world.”

Dudley nodded. “God forgive me for teaching her differently.”

Windsor Castle

Memorandum to the queen

Saturday 14th September 1560

1. The jury has delivered a verdict of accidental death on Amy Dudley and so Sir Robert may return to court to his usual duties, if you wish.

2. The scandal of his wife’s death will always cling to his name; he knows this, and so do we all. You must never, by word or deed, indicate to him that this shame could ever be overcome.

3. And so you will be safe from any further proposals of marriage from him. If you must continue your love affair it must be with the utmost discretion. He will now understand this.

4. The matter of your marriage must be urgently addressed: without a son and heir we are all working for nothing.

5. I shall bring to you tomorrow a new proposal from the archduke that I think will be much to our advantage. Sir Robert cannot oppose such a marriage now.

Thomas Blount, Dudley’s man, stood at the back of the church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford and watched the Dudley standard of the ragged staff and bear ride past him at slow march, followed by the elaborate black-draped coffin that was all that was left of little Amy Robsart.