The Queen’s Fool. Philippa Gregory

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      It was a punishing ride. We did not check until it was fully night, when we paused at the home of a gentleman, John Huddlestone, at Sawston Hall. I begged a piece of paper and a pen from the housekeeper and wrote a letter, not to Lord Robert, whose address I did not dare to give, but to John Dee. ‘My dear tutor,’ I wrote, hoping this would mislead anyone who opened my letter, ‘this little riddle may amuse you.’ Then underneath I wrote the coded letters in the form of a serpentine circle, hoping to make it look like a game that a girl of my age might send to a kind scholar. It simply read, ‘She is going to Kenninghall.’ And then I wrote: ‘What am I to do?’

      The housekeeper promised to send it to Greenwich by the carter who would pass by tomorrow, and I had to hope that it would find its destination and be read by the right man. Then I stepped into a little truckle bed that they had pulled out beside the kitchen fire and despite my exhaustion I lay sleepless in the slowly dimming firelight, wondering where I might find safety.

      I woke painfully early, at five in the morning, to find the kitchen lad clattering pails of water and sacks of logs past my head. Lady Mary heard Mass in John Huddlestone’s chapel, as if it were not a forbidden ceremony, broke her fast, and was back in the saddle by seven in the morning, riding in the highest of spirits away from Sawston Hall with John Huddlestone at her side to show her the way.

      I was riding at the back, the dozen or so horses clattering ahead of me, my little pony too tired to keep pace, when I smelled an old terrible scent on the air. I smelled burning, I smelled smoke. Not the appetising smoke of the roast beef on the spit, not the innocent seasonal smell of burning leaves. I could smell the scent of heresy, a fire lit with ill-will, burning up someone’s happiness, burning up someone’s faith, burning up someone’s house … I turned in the saddle and saw the glow on the horizon where the house we had just left, Sawston Hall, was being torched.

      ‘My lady!’ I called out. She heard me, and turned her head and then reined in her horse, John Huddlestone beside her.

      ‘Your house!’ I said simply to him.

      He looked beyond me, he squinted his eyes to see. He couldn’t tell for sure, he could not smell the smoke as I had done. Lady Mary looked at me. ‘Are you sure, Hannah?’

      I nodded. ‘I can smell it. I can smell smoke.’ I heard the quaver of fear in my voice. My hand was at my cheek brushing my face as if the smuts were falling on me. ‘I can smell smoke. Your house is being burned out, sir.’

      He turned his horse as if he would ride straight home, then he remembered the woman whose visit had cost him his home and his fortune. ‘Forgive me, Lady Mary. I must go home … My wife …’

      ‘Go,’ she said gently. ‘And be very well assured that when I come into my own, you shall come into yours. I will give you another house, a bigger and richer house than this one you have lost for your loyalty to me. I shall not forget.’

      He nodded, half-deaf with worry, and then set his horse at a gallop to where the blaze of his house glowed on the horizon. His groom rode up beside Lady Mary. ‘D’you want me to guide you, my lady?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Can you take me to Bury St Edmunds?’

      He put his cap back on his head. ‘Through Mildenhall and Thetford forest? Yes, m’lady.’

      She gave the signal to move on and she rode without once looking back. I thought that she was a princess indeed, if she could see last night’s refuge burned to the ground and think only of the struggle ahead of her and not of the ruins left behind.

      That night we stayed at Euston Hall near Thetford, and I lay on the floor of Lady Mary’s bedroom, wrapped in my cape, still fully dressed, waiting for the alarm that I was sure must come. All night my senses were on the alert for the tramp of muffled feet, for the glimpse of a dipping brand, for the smell of smoke from a torch. I did little more than doze, waiting all the night for a Protestant mob to come and tear down this safe house as they had done Sawston Hall. I had a great horror of being trapped inside the house when they torched the roof and the stairs. I could not close my eyes for fear that I would be wakened by the smell of smoke, so that it was almost a relief near dawn when I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves on cobbles and I was up at the window in a second, knowing that my sleepless watch was rewarded, my hand outstretched to her as she woke, cautioning her to be quiet.

      ‘What can you see?’ she demanded from the bed, as she pulled back the covers. ‘How many men?’

      ‘Only one horse, he looks weary.’

      ‘Go and see who it is.’

      I hurried down the wooden stairs to the hall. The porter had the spy hole opened and was arguing with the traveller, who seemed to be demanding admission to stay the night. I touched the porter on the shoulder and he stood aside. I had to stretch up on tiptoes to see through the spy hole in the door.

      ‘And who are you?’ I demanded, my voice as gruff as I could make it, acting a confidence that I did not feel.

      ‘Who are you?’ he asked back. I heard at once the sharp cadence of London speech.

      ‘You’d СКАЧАТЬ