The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ misjudge me. I do know, actually,’ he says. ‘I am not such an idiot as you think. Athalia is in the Old Testament. She was a queen of the Hebrews and she was accused of adultery and killed by the priests, so as to free her throne so that her son Joash could become king.’

      I can feel my indulgent smile freeze on my face. This is no matter for jokes. ‘They killed her?’

      ‘They did indeed. She was known to be unchaste, and unfit to rule. So they killed her and put her son in her place.’ He pauses. His dark eyes gleam at me. ‘There is a general view, I know vulgar, Mama, but a general view, that no woman is fit to rule. Women are by nature inferior to men and it goes against nature if they so much as try to command. Athalia was – tragically for her – only typical.’

      I raise a finger to him. ‘Are you sure of that? Do you want to say any more? Would you like to expound further on female inability?’

      ‘No! No!’ he laughs.‘I was expressing the vulgar view, the common error, that is all. I am no John Knox, I don’t think you are all a monstrous regiment of women, honestly, Mama, I do not. I am not likely to think that women are simple-minded. I have been brought up by a mother who is a tyrant and commander of her own lands. I am the last man in the world to think that a woman cannot command.’

      I try to smile with him but inwardly I am perturbed. If Cecil is naming the Scots queen as Athalia then he means me to understand that she will be forced to let her baby son take the throne. Perhaps he even means that she will die to make way for him. Clearly, Cecil does not believe that the inquiry cleared her of the murder of her husband and of adultery with his killer. Cecil wants her publicly shamed and sent away. Or worse. Surely he cannot dream that she could be executed? Not for the first time I am glad that Cecil is my friend; for he is certainly a dangerous enemy.

      I send my son Henry, and my dear stepson Gilbert Talbot, back to court and tell them that there is no point staying with me, for I have work to do; they might as well see in the Christmas season in comfort and merriment in London, for I can provide neither. They go willingly enough, revelling in each other’s company and in the adventure of the ride south. They are like a pair of handsome twins, alike in age – seventeen and fifteen – and in education, though my boy Henry, I must say, is far and away naughtier than my new husband’s son, and leads him into trouble whenever he can.

      Then I have to strip my beautiful house, Chatsworth, of hangings and tapestries and carpets, and ship linen by the cartload. This Queen of Scots is to come with a household of thirty persons and they will all have to sleep somewhere, and I know full well that Tutbury Castle has no furniture nor comfort of any kind. I command my Chatsworth chief steward of the household, the grooms of the servery and of the buttery and the master of horse at the stables to send food and trenchers, knives, table linen, flagons and glassware by the wagon-load to Tutbury Castle. I command the carpentry shop to start making beds and trestle tables and benches. My lord uses Tutbury no more than once a year, as a hunting lodge, and the place is barely furnished. Myself, I have not ever been there, and I am only sorry that I have to go there now.

      Then, when Chatsworth is in chaos from my orders and the wagons are stuffed with my goods, I have to climb on my own horse with my teeth gritted at the stupidity of this journey, and at the head of my own wagons I ride south-east for four hard days across inhospitable country on roads that are frosty in the morning and thick with mud by midday, through fords which are swollen with freezing floods, starting at wintry dawn and ending in the early dark. All this, so that we can get to Tutbury and try to put the place into some kind of order before this troublesome queen arrives to make us all unhappy.

      

       1568, Winter, Hampton Court: George

      ‘But why does the queen want her taken to Tutbury Castle?’ I ask William Cecil, who of all men in England always knows everything, he is a tradesman of secrets. He is the very monopolist of secrecy. ‘Chatsworth would be more fitting. Surely the queen wants us to house her at Chatsworth? To be honest, I have not been to Tutbury myself in years; but you know that Bess bought Chatsworth with her previous husband and brought it as her dowry to me, and she has made it very lovely.’

      ‘The Scots queen won’t be with you for long,’ Cecil says mildly. ‘And I would rather have her in a house with a single entrance by a guardhouse, which can be well-guarded, than have her gazing out of fifty windows over beautiful parkland and slipping out of half a dozen doors into the gardens.’

      ‘You don’t think we might be attacked?’ I am shocked at the very thought of it. Only later do I realise that he seems to know the grounds of Tutbury Castle, which is odd, since he has never visited. He sounds as if he knows it better than I do myself, and how could that be?

      ‘Who knows what might happen, or what a woman like her will take into her head to do, or what support she can attract? Who would have thought that a score of educated noblemen, clearly instructed and advised, with well-trained witnesses and perfect evidence, would sit down to inquire into her behaviour, see the most scandalous material ever written, and then rise up, having decided nothing? Who would have thought that I would convene a tribunal three times over, and still be unable to get a conviction? Are you all so besotted with her?’

      ‘A conviction?’ I repeat. ‘You make it sound like a trial. I thought it was a conference? You told me it was an inquiry.’

      ‘I fear our queen has been ill-served in this.’

      ‘But how?’ I ask. ‘I thought we did what she wanted. She stopped the inquiry herself, saying that it was unjust to the Queen of Scots? Surely she has cleared the Scots queen of any wrongdoing? Surely you should be glad? Surely our queen is glad that we held a thorough inquiry but could find nothing against her cousin? And that being so, why should our queen not invite Queen Mary to live with her at court? Why should she come to us at all? Why should they not live as cousins in harmony, queen and heir? Now that her name is cleared?’

      Cecil chokes on a laugh that he cannot silence, and claps me on the shoulder. ‘You know, you are the very man to keep her safe for us,’ he says warmly. ‘I think you are the most honourable man in England, indeed. Your wife is right to caution me that you are a man of utter honour. And the queen will be indebted to you for your good guardianship of her dear cousin. I am sure that all of us are as glad as you are that the inquiry cleared the Scots queen’s name, and now we know that she is innocent. You have proved her innocent, thank God. And we will all have to live with the consequences.’

      I am troubled, and I let him see it. ‘You did not want her cleared of blame?’ I say slowly. ‘And you want her at Tutbury, and not held with honour at Chatsworth?’ I have a sense of something amiss. ‘I have to warn you: I will only deal with her fairly, Master Secretary. I will have to beg an audience and ask our queen what she intends.’

      ‘Nothing but good,’ he says smoothly. ‘As I do. As you do. You know that the queen is going to invite you to become a member of the Privy Council?’

      I gasp. ‘Privy Council?’ This has been a long time coming. My family name commends me; but I have had to wait a long time for this moment, it is an honour that I have yearned for.

      ‘Oh yes,’ he says with a smile. ‘Her Majesty trusts you so well. Trusts you with this task, and others that will follow. Will you serve the queen without question?’

      ‘I always do,’ I say. ‘You know, I always do.’

      Cecil СКАЧАТЬ