Philippa Gregory - The Virgin's Lover

Amy was silent. Mrs. Oddingsell did not dare to say anything more.

“I will talk to Father Wilson,” Amy decided.

“Do so!” Mrs. Oddingsell said, relieved of some of the burden of caring for Amy. “Shall I send for him?”

“I’ll walk down to the church,” Amy decided. “I’ll walk down and see him tomorrow morning.”

The garden of the Hyde’s house backed on to the churchyard; it was a pleasant walk down the winding path through the daffodils to the lych-gate, set into the garden wall. Amy opened the gate and went up the path to the church.

Father Wilson was kneeling before the altar, but at the sound of the opening door, he rose to his feet and came down the aisle. When he saw Amy, he checked.

“Lady Dudley.”

“Father, I need to confess my sins and ask your advice.”

“I am not supposed to hear you,” he said. “You are ordered to pray directly to God.”

Blindly, she looked around the church. The beautiful stained-glass windows that had cost the parish so dear were gone, the rood screen pulled down. “What has happened?” she whispered.

“They have taken the stained glass from the window, and the candles, and the cup, and the rood screen.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “They called them Popish entrapments for the soul.”

“Can we talk here then?” Amy gestured to the pew.

“God will hear us here, as anywhere else,” the priest assured her. “Let us kneel down and ask him for his help.”

He rested his head in his hands and prayed for a moment very earnestly that he might find something to say which would comfort this young woman. Having heard some of the gossip from court he knew that the task was beyond his doing; she had been deserted. But God was merciful, perhaps something would come.

Amy knelt with her face buried in her hands and then spoke quietly through the shield of her fingers. “My husband, Sir Robert, proposes to marry the queen,” she said softly. “He tells me that it is her wish. He tells me that she can force a divorce upon me, that she is Pope in England today.”

The priest nodded. “And what did you say, my child?”

Amy sighed. “I am guilty of the sin of anger, and jealousy,” she said. “I was vile and vicious, and I am ashamed of what I said and did.”

“May God forgive you,” the priest said gently. “I am sure you were in great pain.”

She opened her eyes and shot him one dark look. “I am in such pain that I think I will die of it,” she said simply. “I pray to God that he will release me from this pain and take me into his mercy.”

“In his own time,” the priest supplemented.

“No; now,” she said. “Every day, Father, every day is such a misery for me. I keep my eyes shut in the morning in the hope that I have died in the night, but every morning I see daylight and know that it is another day I have to get through.”

“You must put aside thoughts of your own death,” he said firmly.

Surprisingly, Amy gave him the sweetest smile. “Father, it is my only comfort.”

He felt, as he had felt before, that he could not advise a woman confronted with such a dilemma. “God must be your comfort and your refuge,” he said, falling back on the familiar words.

She nodded, as if she were not much convinced. “Should I give my consent to a divorce?” she asked him. “Then he will be free to marry the queen, the scandal will die down in time, the country will be at peace, and I can be forgotten.”

“No,” the priest said decisively. He could not help himself; it was such a deep blasphemy against the church he still served in secret. “God joined you together, no man can put you asunder, even if he is your husband, even if she is the queen. She cannot pretend to be Pope.”

“Then I have to live forever in torment, keeping him as my husband but without his love?”

He paused for a moment. “Yes.”

“Even if it earns me his hatred and her enmity?”

“Yes.”

“Father, she is Queen of England; what might she do to me?”

“God will protect and keep you,” he said with a confidence he could not truly feel.

The queen had summoned Cecil to her privy chamber at Whitehall; Kat Ashley was in one window bay, Robert Dudley behind her desk, a few ladies-in-waiting seated at the fireside. Cecil bowed politely to them before approaching the queen.

“Your Majesty?” he said warily.

“Cecil, I have decided. I want you to sue for peace,” she said rapidly.

His glance flickered to Sir Robert, who smiled wearily but offered no comment.

“The French ambassador tells me that they are sending a special commissioner for peace,” she said. “I want you to meet with Monsieur Randan and find some way, some form of words that we can agree.”

“Your Majesty…”

“We cannot fight a long war in Scotland, the Scots lords will never maintain a long campaign, and Leith Castle is practically impregnable.”

“Your Majesty…”

“Our only hope would be for Mary of Guise to die, and though they say her health is poor, she is nowhere near death. And anyway, they say the same of me! They say that I am ground down by this war, and God knows, it is true!

Cecil heard the familiar tone of hysteria in Elizabeth’s voice and took a step back from her desk.

“Spirit, we must have peace. We cannot afford war, and we surely cannot afford defeat,” she pleaded.

“Certainly I can meet with Monsieur Randan, and see if we can agree,” he said smoothly. “I will draw up some terms and show them to you and then take them to him as he arrives.”

Elizabeth was breathless with her anxiety. “Yes, and arrange a cease-fire as soon as possible.”

“We have to have some sort of victory or they will think we are afraid,” Cecil said. “If they think we are afraid they will advance. I can negotiate with them while we maintain the siege, but we have to continue the siege while we talk, the navy must maintain the blockade.”

“No! Bring the men home!”

“Then we will have achieved nothing,” he pointed out. “And they will not need to make an agreement with us, since they will be able to do as they wish.”

She was out of her seat and striding round the room, restless with anxiety, rubbing at her fingernails. Robert Dudley went behind her and put his arm around her waist, drew her back to her chair, glanced at Cecil.

“The queen is much distressed at the risk to English life,” he said smoothly.

“We are all deeply concerned, but we have to maintain the siege,” Cecil said flatly.

“I am sure the queen would agree to maintain the siege if you were meeting with the French to discuss terms,” Robert said. “I am sure she would see that you need to negotiate from a position of strength. The French need to see that we are in earnest.”

Yes, Cecil thought. But where are you in all of this? Soothing her, I see that, and thank God that someone can do it though I would give a fortune for it not to be you. But what game do you seek to play? There will be a Dudley interest in here, if only I could see it.

“As long as the negotiations go speedily,” the queen said. “This cannot drag on. The sickness alone is killing my troops as they wait before Leith Castle.”

“If you were to go to Newcastle yourself,” Dudley suggested to Cecil. “Take the French emissary with you and negotiate from there, at Norfolk’s headquarters, so that we have them completely under our control.”

“And far away from the Spanish representative, who still seeks to meddle,” Cecil concurred.

“And close enough to Scotland so that they can take instruction from the queen regent, but be distanced from France,” Dudley remarked.

And I shall be far from the queen so she cannot countermand me all the time, Cecil supplemented. Then the thought hit him: Good God! He is sending me to Newcastle too! First her uncle, that he made commander of the Scottish border, and put in the front line of fighting, and now me. What does he think to do while I am gone? Supplant me? Appoint himself to the Privy Council and vote through his divorce? Murder me?