The Queen’s Fool. Philippa Gregory

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Then there was nothing to do but to wait for news of the death of the king to come from London. Lady Mary had her own private messages coming and going. But every three days or so she received a letter from the duke to tell her that the fine weather was doing its business and the king was on the mend, that his fever had broken, that his chest pains were better, that a new doctor had been appointed who had high hopes that the king would be well by midsummer. I watched Lady Mary read these optimistic notes through once, saw her eyes narrow slightly in disbelief; and then she folded them and put them away in a drawer in her writing desk, and never looked at them again.

      Then, in the first days of July, one letter made her snatch her breath and put a hand to her heart.

      ‘How is the king, my Lady?’ I asked her. ‘Not worse?’

      Her colour burned in her cheeks. ‘The duke says that he is better, that he has rallied and that he wants to see me.’ She rose to her feet and paced to the window. ‘Please God he is indeed better,’ she said quietly to herself. ‘Better, and wanting to restore me to our old affection, better, and seeing through his false advisors. Perhaps God has given him strength to get well and to come to a right understanding at last. Or at least well enough to put a stop to this plot. Oh, Mother of God, guide me in what I should do.’

      ‘Shall we go?’ I asked. I was on my feet already at the thought of returning to London, to court, to see Lord Robert again, to see my father, and Daniel, back to the relative safety of the men who would protect me.

      I saw her shoulders straighten as she took the decision. ‘If he asks for me, of course I have to go. Tell them to get the horses ready. We’ll leave tomorrow.’

      She went from the room with a rustle of her thick skirts, and I heard her calling to her ladies to pack their clothes, we were all going to London. I heard her run up stairs, her feet pattering on the bare wooden treads like those of a young girl, and then her voice, light and excited, as she called back down to Jane Dormer to take especial care to pack her finest jewels for if the king was indeed well then there would be dancing and feasting at court.

      Next day we were on the road, Lady Mary’s pennant before us, her soldiers around us, and the country people tumbling out of their houses in the small villages to call out blessings on her name, and holding up their children for them to see her: a real princess, and a pretty smiling princess at that.

      Lady Mary on horseback was a different woman from the white-faced half-prisoner that I had first met at Hunsdon. Riding towards London with the people of England cheering her on, she looked like a true princess. She wore a deep red gown and jacket, which made her dark eyes shine. She rode well, one hand in a worn red glove on the bridle, the other waving to everyone who called out to her, the colour blazing in her cheeks, a stray lock of rich brown hair escaping from her hat, her head up, her courage high, her weariness all gone. She sat well in the saddle, proud as a queen, swaying with the pace of the horse as we made our way to the great road to London.

      I rode beside her for much of the way, the little bay pony that the duke had given me stepping out to keep pace with Lady Mary’s bigger horse. She commanded me to sing the songs of my Spanish childhood, and sometimes she recognised the words or the tune as something her mother had once sung to her, and she would sing with me, a little quaver in her voice at the memory of the mother who had loved her.

      We rode hard along the London road, splashing through the fords at their summertime low, cantering where the tracks were soft enough. She was desperate to get to court to discover what was happening. I remembered John Dee’s mirror and how I had guessed at the date of the king’s death, the sixth of July, but I did not dare to say anything. I had spoken the name of the next Queen of England, and it had not been Queen Mary. The sixth of July had been a guess to please my lord, and the name Jane had come to me from nowhere – both might mean nothing. But as Lady Mary rode to London, hoping that her fears would prove to be unfounded, I rode at her side hoping that my Sight was all the chicanery and nonsense that I thought it must be.

      Of all of the nervous train who rode with her I was the most anxious. For if I had seen true, she was riding not to a reconciliation with her brother the king, but to attend the coronation of Lady Jane. She was riding fast towards her own abdication, and we would all share her bad luck.

      We rode all the morning and came just after midday into the town of Hoddesdon, weary of the saddle and hoping for a good dinner and a rest before we continued the journey. Without warning, a man stepped out from a doorway and put his hand up to signal to her. Clearly, she recognised him. At once she waved him forward so he could speak to her privately. He stood close to her horse’s neck and took her rein familiarly in his arm and she leaned down towards him. He was very brief, and though I strained to hear, he kept his voice low. Then he stepped back and melted away into the mean streets of the little town and Lady Mary snapped an order to halt, and tumbled down from her saddle so fast that her Master of Horse could scarcely catch her. She went into the nearest inn at a run, shouting for paper and pen, and ordering everyone to drink, eat, see to their horses and be ready to leave again within the hour.

      ‘Mother of God, I really can’t,’ Lady Margaret said pitifully as her royal mistress strode past. ‘I’m too tired to go another step.’

      ‘Then stay behind,’ snapped Lady Mary, who never snapped. That sharpness of tone warned us that the hopeful ride to London, to visit the young, recovering king, had suddenly gone terribly wrong.

      I did not dare to write a note for Lord Robert. There was no easy way to get it to him and the whole mood of the journey had changed. Whatever the man had told her it was not that her brother was well and summoning her to dance at his court. When she came out of the parlour she was pale and her eyes were red, but she was not softened by grief. She was sharp with decision, and she was angry.

      She sent one messenger flying south down the road to London to find the Spanish ambassador, to beg for his advice and to alert the Spanish emperor that she would need his help to claim her throne. She took another messenger aside for a verbal message for Lady Elizabeth, she did not dare to write it down, she did not dare to give the impression that the sisters were plotting against their dying brother. ‘Speak only to her when you are alone,’ she emphasised. ‘Tell her not to go to London, it is a trap. Tell her to come at once to me for her own safety.’

      She sent a further message to the duke himself, swearing that she was too ill to ride to London, but that she would rest quietly at home at Hunsdon. Then she ordered the main group to stay behind. ‘I’ll take you, Lady Margaret, and you, Hannah,’ she said. She smiled at her favourite, Jane Dormer. ‘Follow us,’ she said, and she leaned forward to whisper our destination in her ear. ‘You must bring this company on behind us. We are going to travel too fast for everyone to keep pace.’

      She picked six men to escort us, gave СКАЧАТЬ