Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

“For sure, he has the temper of one,” Robert said. He and his brothers and sisters had been playmates in the royal nursery at Hatfield, and all the Dudley children had felt the ringing slap of the Tudor temper. “Doesn’t like the bridle, doesn’t like to be commanded, but can be gentled into almost anything.”

She gleamed at him. “If you are so wise with a dumb beast, let’s hope you don’t try to train me,” she said provocatively.

“Who could train a queen?” he replied. “All I could do would be to implore you to be kind to me.”

“Have I not been very kind already?” she said, thinking of the best post which she had given him, Master of Horse, with a massive annual income and the right to set up his own table at court and to take the best rooms in whichever palace the court might visit.

He shrugged as if it were next to nothing. “Ah, Elizabeth,” he said intimately. “That is not what I mean when I desire you to be kind to me.”

“You may not call me Elizabeth anymore,” she reminded him quietly, but he thought she was not displeased.

“I forgot,” he said, his voice very low. “I take such pleasure in your company that sometimes I think we are still just friends as we used to be. I forgot for a moment that you have risen to such greatness.”

“I was always a princess,” she said defensively. “I have risen to nothing but my birthright.”

“And I always loved you for nothing but yourself,” he replied cleverly.

He could see her hands loosen slightly on the reins and knew that he had struck the right note with her. He played her as every favorite plays every ruler; he had to know what charmed and what cooled her.

“Edward was always very fond of you,” she said softly, remembering her brother.

He nodded, looking grave. “God bless him. I miss him every day, as much as my own brothers.”

“But he was not so warm to your father,” she said rather pointedly.

Robert smiled down at Elizabeth as if nothing of their past lives could be counted against them: his family’s terrible treason against her family, her own betrayal of her half-sister. “Bad times,” he said generally. “And long ago. You and I have both been misjudged, and God knows, we have been punished enough. We have both served our time in the Tower, accused of treason. I used to think of you then; when I was allowed out to walk on the leads, I used to go to the very threshold of the gated door of your tower, and know that you were just on the other side. I’d have given much to be able to see you. I used to have news of you from Hannah the Fool. I can’t tell you what a comfort it was to know you were there. They were dark days for us both; but I am glad now that we shared them together. You on one side of that gate and me the other.”

“Nobody else can ever understand,” she said with suppressed energy. “Nobody can ever know unless you have been there: what it’s like to be in there! To know that below you, out of sight, is the green where the scaffold will be built, and not to know whether they are building it, sending to ask, and not trusting the answer, wondering if it will be today or tomorrow.”

“D’you dream of it?” he asked, his voice low. “Some nights I still wake up in terror.”

A glance from her dark eyes told him that she too was haunted. “I have a dream that I hear hammering,” she said quietly. “It was the sound I dreaded most in the world. To hear hammering and sawing and to know that they are building my own scaffold right underneath my window.”

“Thank God those days are done and we can bring justice to England, Elizabeth,” he said warmly.

This time she did not correct him for using her name.

“We should turn for home, sir,” one of the grooms rode up to remind him.

“It is your wish?” he asked the queen.

She gave him a little inviting sideways smile. “D’you know, I should like to ride out all day. I am sick of Whitehall and the people who come, and every one of them wanting something. And Cecil with all the business that needs doing.”

“Why don’t we ride early tomorrow?” he suggested. “Ride out by the river, we can cross over to the south bank and gallop out through Lambeth marshes and not come home till dinner time?”

“Why, what ever will they say?” she asked, instantly attracted.

“They will say that the queen is doing as she wishes, as she should do,” he said. “And I shall say that I am hers to command. And tomorrow evening I shall plan a great feast for you with dancing and players and a special masque.”

Her face lit up. “For what reason?”

“Because you are young, and beautiful, and you should not go from schoolroom to lawmaking without taking some pleasure. You are queen now, Elizabeth, you can do as you wish. And no one can refuse you.”

She laughed at the thought of it. “Shall I be a tyrant?”

“If you wish,” he said, denying the many forces of the kingdom, which inevitably would dominate her: a young woman alone amidst the most unscrupulous families in Christendom. “Why not? Who should say “no” to you? The French princess, your cousin Mary, takes her pleasures, why should you not take yours?”

“Oh, her,” Elizabeth said irritably, a scowl crossing her face at the mention of Mary, Queen of Scots, the sixteen-year-old princess of the French court. “She lives a life of nothing but pleasure.”

Robert hid a smile at the predictable jealousy of Elizabeth for a prettier, luckier princess. “You will have a court that will make her sick with envy,” he assured her. “A young, unmarried, beautiful queen, in a handsome, merry court? There’s no comparison with Queen Mary, who is burdened with a husband, the Dauphin, and ruled by the Guise family, and spends all her life doing as they wish.”

They turned their horses for home.

“I shall devote myself to bringing you amusements. This is your time, Elizabeth; this is your golden season.”

“I did not have a very merry girlhood,” she conceded.

“We must make up for that now,” he said. “You shall be the pearl at the center of a golden court. The French princess will hear every day of your happiness. The court will dance to your bidding, this summer will be filled with pleasure. They will call you the golden princess of all of Christendom! The most fortunate, the most beautiful, and the most loved.”

He saw the color rise in her cheeks. “Oh, yes,” she breathed.

“But how you will miss me when I am at Brussels!” he slyly predicted. “All these plans will have to wait.”

He saw her consider it. “You must come home quickly.”

“Why not send someone else? Anyone can tell Philip you are crowned; it does not need to be me. And if I am not here, who will organize your banquets and parties?”

“Cecil thought you should go,” she said. “He thought it a pleasant compliment to Philip, to send him a man who had served in his armies.”

Robert shrugged. “Who cares what the King of Spain thinks now? Who cares what Cecil thinks? What d’you think, Elizabeth? Shall I go away for a month to another court at Brussels, or shall you keep me here to ride and dance with you, and keep you merry?”

He saw her little white teeth nip her lips to hide her pleased smile. “You can stay,” she said carelessly. “I’ll tell Cecil he has to send someone else.”

It was the dreariest month of the year in the English countryside, and Norfolk one of the dreariest counties of England. The brief flurry of snow in January had melted, leaving the lane to Norwich impassable by cart and disagreeable on horseback, and besides, there was nothing at Norwich to be seen except the cathedral; and now that was a place of anxious silences, not peace. The candles had been extinguished under the statue of the Madonna, the crucifix was on the altar still but the tapestries and the paintings had been taken down. The little messages and prayers which had been pinned to the Virgin’s gown had disappeared. No one knew if they were allowed to pray to Her anymore.