Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

“Amy…”

“So that in the night you say ‘I love you’ and everything you do tells me that you love me, and then in the day, the very next day, you ask me to release you.”

“Amy, please!”

She stopped at once. “Yes, my lord?”

“Whatever you think of her, she is the anointed Queen of England; the realm is in danger. The Queen of England needs me and I am asking you to release me.”

“You can command her armies,” she observed.

Robert nodded. “Yes, but there are other, more skilled soldiers.”

“You can advise her as to what she should do; she could appoint you to her Privy Council.”

“I advise her already.”

“Then what more can you do? And what more can you honorably ask for?” she burst out.

He gritted his teeth. “I want to be at her side, day and night. I want to be her husband and be with her all the time. I want to be her companion on the throne of England.”

He braced himself for tears and rage, but to his surprise she looked at him dry-eyed, and spoke very quietly. “Robert, do you know, if it was in my gift, I would give it to you. I have loved you so much and for so long that I would even give you this. But it is not in my gift. Our marriage is an act of God; we stood together in a church and swore we would not be parted. We cannot be parted now, just because the queen wants you, and you want her.”

“Other people in the world divorce!” he exclaimed.

“I don’t know how they will answer for it.”

“The Pope himself allows it, he says that they will not answer for it, there is no sin.”

“Oh, shall you go to the Pope?” she inquired with a sudden rush of malice. “Is the Pope to rule that our marriage, our Protestant marriage, is invalid? Is Elizabeth the Protestant princess going to bow her knee to the Pope again?”

He leapt up from his chair and faced her. “Of course not!”

“Then who?” she persisted. “The Archbishop of Canterbury? Her creature? Appointed despite his own misgivings, the single turncoat in the church while all her other bishops are thrown into prison or exile because they know she is a false claimant to be head of the church?”

“I don’t know the details,” he said sulkily. “But with goodwill it could be done.”

“It would have to be her, wouldn’t it?” Amy challenged him. “A woman of twenty-six years old, blinded by her own lust, wanting another woman’s husband and ruling that her desire is God’s will. That she knows that God wants him to be free.” She drew a breath and let out a wild, ringing laugh. “It is a nonsense, husband. You will make yourselves a laughingstock. It is a sin against God, it is a sin against man, and it is an insult to me.”

“It is no insult. If your father were alive…”

It was the worst thing he could have said. Amy’s family pride sprang up. “You dare say his name to me! My father would have horsewhipped you for even thinking of such a thing. He would have killed you for saying such a thing to me.”

“He would never have laid a finger on me!” Robert swore. “He would not have dared.”

“He said you were a braggart and I was worth ten of you,” she spat at him. “And he was right. You are a braggart and I am worth ten of you. And you did say you loved me last night; you are a liar.”

He could hardly see her for the mist that rose before his eyes with his blinding anger. His tight voice came out short, as if it were wrested from him. “Amy, no man in the world would abuse me as you have done and live.”

“Husband, I can promise you that thousands will call you worse. They will call you her boy, her plaything, a common little colt that she rides for lust.”

“They will call me King of England,” he shouted.

She whirled around and caught him by the collar of the linen shirt that she had darned so carefully for him, and shook him in her rage. “Never! You will have to murder me before she can have you.”

He snatched her hands from his neck and thrust her away from him, down into the chair. “Amy, I will never forgive you for this; you will turn me from your husband and lover to your enemy.”

She looked up at him and she collected spittle in her mouth and spat at him. At once, blind with rage, he rushed toward her and, quick as thought, she put her little feet up and kicked out, driving him back.

“I know that, ” she shouted at him. “Fool that you are! But what difference does your hatred make, when you lie like a swine with her and then lie with me and say ‘I love you’ to us both?”

“I never said it!” he yelled, quite beyond himself.

Behind him, Lady Robsart opened the door wide and stood in silence, looking at the two of them.

“Go away!” Amy shouted.

“No, come in,” Robert said quickly, turning from Amy and dabbing at the spittle on his shirt and pulling at his collar that she had wrenched. “For God’s sake, come in. Amy is distressed, Lady Robsart, help her to her room. I shall sleep in the guest room and leave tomorrow at first light.”

“No!” Amy screamed. “You will come to me, Robert. You know you will. Your lust, your filthy lust, will wake you and you will want me again, and you will say, ‘I love you. I love you.’ You liar. You wicked, wicked liar.”

“Take her away, for God’s sake, before I murder her,” he said to Lady Robsart, and brushed past her out of the room, avoiding Amy’s clutching hands.

“You will come to me or I will kill you,” she screamed.

Robert broke into a run up the narrow wooden stairs, and got away from his wife before she could shame them both anymore.

In the morning Amy was too sick to see him. Lady Robsart, her voice like ice, spoke of a night of hysterical weeping and told him that Amy had risen in the early hours of the morning and fallen to her knees and prayed for God to release her from this agony that was her life.

Robert’s escort was waiting outside. “You’ll know what it’s all about, I suppose,” he said shortly.

“Yes,” Lady Robsart replied. “I suppose so.”

“I rely on your discretion,” he said. “The queen would be much offended by any gossip.”

Her eyes flew to his face. “Then she should not give the gossips such rich pickings,” she said bluntly.

“Amy has to see reason,” he said. “She has to agree to a divorce. I don’t want to force her. I don’t want to send her out of the country to a convent against her will. I want a fair agreement and a good settlement for her. But she has to agree.”

He saw the shock in her face at his frankness. “It would be worth your while,” he said silkily. “I would stand your friend if you would advise her of her best interests. I have spoken to her brother-in-law, John Appleyard, and he agrees with me.”

“John agrees? My son-in-law thinks that she should give you a divorce?”

“And your son Arthur.”

Lady Robsart was silenced at this evidence of the unanimity of men. “I can’t say what her best interests would be in such a case,” she said with weak defiance.

“Just as I have said,” Robert said bluntly. “Just as we say: us men. She either consents to a divorce with a good settlement, or she is divorced anyway and sent out of the country to a convent with no fortune. She has no other choice.”

“I don’t know what her father would have made of this. She is crying and wishing for death.”

“I am sorry for it; but they will not be the first tears shed nor, I suppose, the last,” he said grimly, and went out of the door without another word.

Robert Dudley arrived at the queen’s apartments at Westminster during an impromptu recital of a new composition of some man’s song, and had to stand by, smiling politely, until the madrigal—with much fa-la-la-ing—was over. Sir William Cecil, observing him quietly from a corner, was amused by the scowl on the younger man’s face, and then surprised that even when he bowed to the queen his expression did not become any more pleasing.