The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ 1568, Winter, Hampton Court: George

      My queen, Elizabeth, is more generous and more just than anyone can imagine. With so much suspicion now raised and expressed against her cousin, she has ordered that the slanderous letters shall be kept secret forever, and she will restore her cousin to her kingdom. Elizabeth will not hear another word against her cousin, she will not have her name dragged through the mud. She is generous and just in this; we could never have reached a fair judgement without listening to the most terrible scandal, so Elizabeth has silenced both scandal and defence.

      But even though she is a monarch of such justice and wisdom I find I am a little perturbed that I am summoned to see her.

      She is not on her brown velvet throne embroidered with pearls and diamonds in the Paradise room, though there are, as ever, dozens of men waiting about, hoping to catch her attention when she comes out for company before dinner. The strangers to Hampton Court Palace examine the exquisite musical instruments that are scattered on tables around the room, or play draughts on the ebony boards. Those who are old hands at court idle in the window bays, concealing their boredom at the delay. I see Cecil, watchful as ever. Cecil, dressed in black like some poor clerk, is talking quietly with his brother-in-law Nicholas Bacon. Behind them hovers a man I don’t know, but who is now admitted into their councils, a man who wears his hat pulled down over his eyes as if he does not want to be recognised. And behind him, another new man, Francis Walsingham. I don’t know who these men are, nor where they belong, to which great families they are allied. To tell truth, most of them don’t have family – not as I understand such a thing. They are men without background. They have come from nowhere, they belong nowhere, they can be recruited by anyone.

      I turn away as the queen’s lady-in-waiting Lady Clinton comes out through the grand double doors from the queen’s inner chamber, and when she sees me, speaks to the guard, who stands aside and lets me in.

      There are more guards than usual, at every doorway and every gate to the castle. I have never seen the royal palace so heavily manned. These are bitterly troubled times, we have never needed such protection before. But these days there are many men – even Englishmen – who would carry a knife and strike down their own queen if they could. There are more of them than anyone could have dreamed. Now that the other queen, the one that they call the true heir, is actually in England, the choice between the Protestant princess and the Catholic rival is set before every man, and for every Protestant in the land today there are two secret Papists, probably more. How are we to live, when we are divided among ourselves, is a question I leave to Cecil, whose unending enmity to Catholics has done so much to bring this about, and to make a bad situation so much worse.

      ‘Is Her Grace in good spirits today?’ I ask in an undertone to her ladyship. ‘Happy?’

      She understands me well enough to give me a quick sideways smile. ‘She is,’ she says. She means that the famous Tudor temper is not unleashed. I have to admit I am relieved. The moment that she sent for me I was afraid I would be scolded for letting the inquiry reach no damning conclusion. But what could I do? The terrible murder of Darnley and her suspicious marriage to Bothwell, his probable killer, which appeared as such a vile crime, may not have been her fault at all. She may have been victim rather than criminal. But unless Bothwell confesses everything from his cell, or unless she testifies to his wickedness, no-one can know what took place between the two of them. Her ambassador will not even discuss it. Sometimes I feel that I am too frightened even to speculate. I am not a man for great sins of the flesh, for great drama. I love Bess with a quiet affection, there is nothing dark and doomed about either of us. I don’t know what the queen and Bothwell were to each other; and I would rather not imagine.

      Queen Elizabeth is seated in her chair by the fireside in her private chamber, under the golden cloth of estate, and I go towards her and sweep off my hat and bow low.

      ‘Ah, George Talbot, my dear old man,’ she says warmly, calling me by the nickname she has for me, and I know by this that she is in a sunny mood, and she gives me her hand to kiss.

      She is still a beautiful woman. Whether in a temper, whether scowling in a mood or white-faced in fear, she is still a beautiful woman, though thirty-five years of age. When she first came to the throne she was a young woman in her twenties and then she was a beauty, pale-skinned and red-haired with the colour flushing in her cheeks and lips at the sight of Robert Dudley, at the sight of gifts, at the sight of the crowd outside her window. Now her colour is steady, she has seen everything there is to see, nothing delights her very much any more. She paints on her blushes in the morning, and refreshes them at night. Her russet hair has faded with age. Her dark eyes, which have seen so much and learned to trust so little, have become hard. She is a woman who has known some passion but no kindness; and it shows in her face.

      The queen waves her hand and her women rise obediently and scatter out of earshot. ‘I have a task for you and for Bess, if you will serve me,’ she says.

      ‘Anything, Your Grace.’ My mind races. Can she want to come to stay with us this summer? Bess has been working on Chatsworth House ever since her former husband bought it, for this very purpose – to house the queen on her travels to the North. What an honour it will be, if she plans to come. What a triumph for me, and for Bess’s long-laid plan.

      ‘They tell me that your inquiry against the Scots queen, my cousin, failed to find anything to her discredit. I followed Cecil’s advice in pursuing the evidence till half my court was turning over the midden for letters, and hanging on the words of maids spying at bedroom doors. But there was nothing, I believe?’ She pauses for my confirmation.

      ‘Nothing but gossip, and some evidence that the Scots lords would not publicly show,’ I say tactfully. ‘I refused to see any secret slanders as evidence.’

      She nods. ‘You would not, eh? Why not? Do you think I want a dainty man in my service? Are you too nice to serve your queen? Do you think this is a pretty world we live in and you can tiptoe through dry-shod?’

      I swallow on a dry mouth. Pray God she is in a mood for justice and not for conspiracy. Sometimes her fears drive her to the wildest of beliefs. ‘Your Grace, they would not submit the letters as evidence for full scrutiny, they would not show them to the Queen Mary’s advisors. I would not see them secretly. It did not seem to be … just.’

      Her dark eyes are piercing. ‘There are those who say she does not deserve justice.’

      ‘But I was appointed judge, by you.’ It is a feeble response, but what else can I say? ‘I have to be just if I am representing you, Your Majesty. If I am representing the queen’s justice, I cannot listen to gossip.’

      Her face is as hard as a mask and then her smile breaks through. ‘You are an honourable man indeed,’ she says. ‘And I would be glad to see her name cleared of any shadow of suspicion. She is my cousin, she is a fellow queen, she should be my friend, not my prisoner.’

      I nod. Elizabeth is a woman whose own innocent mother was beheaded for wantonness. Surely, she must naturally side with a woman unjustly accused? ‘Your Grace, we should have cleared her name on the evidence that was submitted. But you stopped the inquiry before it reached its conclusions. Her name should be free of any slur. We should publish our opinions and say that she is innocent of any charge. She can be your friend now. She can be released.’

      ‘We will make no announcement of her innocence,’ she rules. ‘Where would be the advantage to me in that? But she should be returned to her country and her throne.’

      I bow. ‘Well, so I think, Your Grace. Your cousin Howard says she will need a good advisor and a small army at first to secure her safety.’

      ‘Oh, СКАЧАТЬ