Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory

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СКАЧАТЬ said that there will be a child but no child, I think that is the queen’s first baby which should have been born but still has not come. You said that there will be a king, but no king – I think that is this Philip of Spain whom we call king but who is not and never will be king of England. Then you said there will be a virgin queen all-forgotten, and a queen but no virgin.’

      ‘Is that Queen Jane, who was a virgin queen and now everyone has forgotten her, and now Mary who called herself a virgin and is now a married queen?’ I asked.

      He nodded. ‘Perhaps. I think the princess’s hour will come. There was more, but I cannot reveal it to you. Go now.’

      I nodded and went from the room. As I closed the door behind me I saw his dark absorbed face in the mirror as he leaned forward to blow out the candles and I wondered what else he had heard me say when I had been in my tranced sleep.

      ‘What did you see?’ Elizabeth demanded impatiently the moment I closed the door.

      ‘Nothing!’ I said. I could almost have laughed at the expression on her face. ‘You will have to ask Mr Dee. I saw nothing, it was just like falling asleep.’

      ‘But did you speak, or did he see anything?’

      ‘Princess, I cannot tell,’ I said, moving towards the door and pausing only to drop her a little bow. ‘I have to take my horse back to the stable or they will miss her, and start to look for me.’

      Elizabeth nodded my dismissal and just as I was about to open the door there was a knock on it from the outside, in the same rhythm that Kat Ashley had used earlier. In a moment Kat was at the door and had opened it. A man swung into the room and she shut the door smartly behind him. I shrank back as I recognised Sir William Pickering, Elizabeth’s friend of old, and fellow-conspirator from the time of the Wyatt rebellion. I had not even known that Sir William was forgiven and back at court – then I realised that he was probably neither forgiven, nor allowed at court. This was a secret visit.

      ‘My lady, I must go,’ I said firmly.

      Kat Ashley stopped me. ‘You will be asked to take some books to Mr Dee. He will have some papers for you to take to Sir William at a house I will tell you,’ she said. ‘Take a look at him now so that he remembers you again. Sir William, this is the queen’s fool, she will bring you the papers you need.’

      If it had not come from Kat Ashley, I might not have remembered Lord Robert’s warning; but my lord had been very clear with me, and his words confirmed my own sense of terror at whatever they were brewing here.

      ‘I am sorry,’ I said simply to Kat Ashley, avoiding even looking at Sir William, and wishing that he had never seen me. ‘But my Lord Robert told me to take no messages for anyone. It was his order. I was to tell you about the ribbons and to run no errands after that. You must excuse me, Princess, sir, Mrs Ashley, I cannot assist you.’

      I went quickly to the door and let myself out before they could protest. When I was safely away and down the corridor I drew breath and realised then that my heart was pounding as if I had run from some danger. When I saw that the door stayed shut and I heard the quiet shooting of the well-oiled bolt and the thud of Kat Ashley’s bottom on the wooden panels, I knew that there was danger there indeed.

      It was June and Queen Mary’s baby was more than a month overdue, a time when anyone might start to worry; and the petals falling from the hawthorn in the hedgerows blew across the roads like snow. The meadows were rich with flowers, their perfume heady in the warm air. Still we lingered at Hampton Court, though usually the royal court would have moved on by now to another palace. We waited though the roses came into bloom in the gardens, and every bird in England had a baby in the nest but the queen.

      The king went around with a face like thunder, exposed to sharp wit in the English court and to danger in the English countryside. He had guards posted night and day on the roads to the palace, and soldiers at every pier on the river. It was thought that if the queen died in childbirth there would be a thousand men at the gate of the palace to tear the Spanish apart. The only thing that could keep him safe then would be the goodwill of the new queen, Elizabeth. No wonder the princess swished around the court in her dark gown as if she were a black cat, the favoured resident of a dairy, over-fed on cream.

      The Spanish noblemen of the king’s court grew more irritable, as if their own manhood had been impugned by the slowness of this baby. They were frightened of the ill-will of the people of England. They were a small band under siege with no hope of relief. Only the arrival of the baby would have guaranteed their safety, and the baby was dangerously late in coming.

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