Dearest Husband,Since it has pleased you to stay far from me in my illness and my sorrow, I write to you these words which I wish I might have said to your beloved face.You could not have had and never will have a more loving and faithful wife. The sight of you gladdened my heart every day that we were together, my only regret is that we spent so much time apart.It seems very hard to me that I should face death as I have faced life: alone and without the one I love. I pray that you will never know the loneliness that has walked step by step with me every day of my life. You still have a loving parent to advise you, you have a loving wife who wanted nothing more than to be at your side. No one will ever love you more.They will not tell me, but I know that I am near to death. This may be my last chance to bid you farewell and to send you my love. May we meet in heaven, though we could not be together on earth, praysYour wifeMary R.
The tears were running down my cheeks by the time I had written this to her dictation but she was calm.
“You will get better, Your Grace,” I assured her. “Jane told me that you are often ill with autumn sickness. When the first frosts come, you will be better and we will see in Christmas together.”
“No,” she said simply. There was not a trace of self-pity in her tone. It was as if she were weary of the world. “No. Not this time. I don’t think so.”
Winter 1558
Lord Robert came to court with the queen’s council to press her to sign her will and name her heir. Every man in the council had been at Hatfield the previous month, all their advice for Queen Mary had been dictated by the queen in waiting.
“She is too sick to see anyone,” Jane Dormer said truculently.
She and I stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway to the queen’s apartments. Lord Robert winked at me but I did not smile back.
“This is her duty,” said the Lord Chancellor gently. “She has to make a will.”
“She made one,” Jane said abruptly. “Before she went into confinement last time.”
He shook his head and looked embarrassed. “She named her child as heir, and the king as regent,” he said. “But there was no child. She has to name the Princess Elizabeth now, and no regent.”
Jane hesitated, but I stood firm. “She is too ill,” I maintained. It was true, the queen was coughing up black bile, unable to lie down as her mouth filled with the stuff. Also, I did not want them to see her on her sickbed, still weeping for her husband, for the ruin that Elizabeth had made of her hopes.
Lord Robert smiled at me, as if he understood all of this. “Mistress Carpenter,” he said. “You know. She is queen. She cannot have the peace and seclusion of a normal woman. She knows that, we know that. She has a duty to her country and you should not stand in her way.”
I wavered, and they saw it. “Stand aside,” said the duke, and Jane and I stood unwillingly back and let them walk in to the queen.
They did not take very long, and when they were gone I went in to see her. She was lying propped up on her pillows, a bowl at her side to catch the black bile which spewed from her mouth when she coughed, a jug of squeezed lemons and sugar to take the taste from her lips, a maid in attendance but no one else. She was as lonely as any beggar coughing out her life on a stranger’s doorstep.
“Your Grace, I sent your letter to your husband,” I said quietly. “Pray God he reads it and comes home to you and you have a merry Christmas with him after all.”
Queen Mary did not even smile at the picture I painted. “He will not,” she said dully. “And I would rather not see him ride past me to Hatfield.” She coughed and held a cloth to her mouth. The maid stepped forward and took it from her, offered her the bowl, and then took it away.
“I have another task for you,” she said when she could speak again. “I want you to go with Jane Dormer to Hatfield.”
I waited.
“Ask Elizabeth to swear on her immortal soul that if she inherits the kingdom she will keep the true faith,” she said, her voice a tiny thread but the conviction behind the words as strong as ever.
I hesitated. “She will not swear,” I said, knowing Elizabeth.
“Then I will not name her my heir,” she said flatly. “Mary Stuart in France would claim the throne with French blessing. Elizabeth has the choice. She can fight her way to the throne if she can find enough fools to follow her, or she can come to it with my blessing. But she has to swear to uphold the faith. And she has to mean it.”
“How will I know that she means it?” I asked.
She was too weary to turn her head to me. “Look at her with your gift, Hannah,” she said. “This is the last time I will ask you to see for me. Look at her with your gift and tell me what is the best thing for my England.”
I would have argued but simple pity for her made me hold my tongue. This was a woman clinging on to life by the thinnest thread. Only her desire to do her duty to God, to her mother’s God, and to her father’s country was keeping her alive. If she could secure Elizabeth’s promise then she could die knowing that she had done the best she could to keep England safe inside the Holy See.
I bowed and went from the room.
Jane Dormer, still recovering from her own fever and exhausted from nursing the queen, riding in a litter, and I, with Danny astride before me, made our way north to Hatfield and noted sourly the number of fine horses who were going in the same direction as us, from the ailing queen to the thriving heir.
The old palace was ablaze with lights. There was some sort of banquet in progress as we arrived. “I cannot break bread with her,” Jane said shortly. “Let us ask to see her, and leave.”
“Of course we can dine,” I said practically. “You must be starving, I am, and Danny needs to eat.”
She was white-faced and trembling with emotion. “I will not eat with that woman,” she hissed. “Who d’you think is in there? Half the nobility of England clamoring for a place, her greatest friends now, the very ones who sneered at her and despised her and named her as a bastard when our queen was in her power.”
“Yes,” I said flatly. “And the man you love, Count Feria, the Spanish ambassador, who once demanded her death, among them. Now he brings love letters from the queen’s own husband. Betrayal is no new thing in England. If you won’t break bread with men with false hearts you will starve to death, Jane.”
She shook her head. “You have no sense of what is right and wrong, Hannah. You are faithless.”
“I don’t think faith can be measured in what you eat,” I said, thinking of the bacon and shellfish I had eaten contrary to my people’s law. “I think faith is in your heart. And I love the queen and I admire the princess, and as for the rest, these false men and women, they will have to find their own ways to their own truths. You go and eat in the kitchen if it pleases you. I am going in to dine.”
I could have laughed at her astounded face. I lifted Danny up on to my hip and, braced against his weight, I walked into the dining hall at Hatfield.
Elizabeth had the trappings of queenship already, as if she were an actor practicing a part in the full costume. She had a gold canopy over a wooden chair so thickly carved and heavy that it might almost have been a throne. On her right hand she had the Spanish ambassador, as if to flaunt that connection; on her left hand was seated the most favored lord at this court, my Lord Robert. Beside him was the right-hand man of the Grand Inquisitor of London, the scourge of Protestantism, Dr. John Dee, on the other side of the Spanish ambassador was the princess’s cousin, who had once arrested her, now dearly beloved to his kin. Beyond him was a quietly ambitious man, a staunch Protestant: William Cecil. I looked at Elizabeth’s table and smiled. Nobody would be able to guess which way this cat might jump judging by those honored with seats beside her. She had put Spanish and English, Catholic and Protestant advisors side by side, who could deduce what was in her mind?
John Dee, looking down the hall, caught my smile and raised his hand to me in greeting. Lord Robert followed the direction of his gaze, saw me, and beckoned me
forward. I threaded my way through the court and dropped a curtsey to the princess, who shot me a gleaming smile from her eyes like a jet arrow.
“Ah, it is the girl who was so afraid of being a woman that she first became a fool, and then became a widow,” she said acidly.
“Princess Elizabeth,” I said, curtseying as the words hit home.
“Have you come to see me?”
“Yes, Princess.”
“Have you a message for me from the queen?”
“Yes, Princess.”
There was a little ripple of attention all along the table.
“Is Her Majesty in good health?” The Spanish ambassador, Count Feria, leaned forward, taking the heat from the exchange.
“You would surely know better than I,” I said with a sourness which came easily to me, seeing him at Elizabeth’s table. “Since she writes intimately to only one person, since she loves one man in all the world, and he is your master.”
Elizabeth and my lord exchanged a hidden smile at my rudeness. The count turned his head away.
“You may take a seat with my ladies and see me privately after dinner,” the princess ruled. “Did you come alone with your son?”
I shook my head. “Jane Dormer came with me, and we were escorted by two gentlemen from the queen’s household.”
The count turned quickly back. “Mistress Dormer is here?”
“She is dining alone,” I said, my face insolently blank. “She did not want to keep this company.”
Elizabeth bit her lip to hide another smile, and waved me to the table. “I see you are not so choosy,” she taunted me.
I met her bright black gaze without shrinking. “Dinner is dinner, Princess. And both of us have gone hungry in the past.”
She laughed at that and nodded at them to make a space for me. “She has become a witty fool,” she said to Lord Robert. “I am glad of it. I never had much faith in seeings and predictions.”
“Once she told me a pretty vision,” he said, his voice very low, his eyes on me but his smile for her.
“Oh?”
“She told me I would be adored by a queen.”
They both laughed, that low-voiced chuckle of conspiring lovers, and he smiled down the hall at me. I met his gaze with a face like flint.
“What is the matter with you?” Elizabeth demanded of me after dinner. We were standing in an alcove in the gallery at Hatfield. Elizabeth’s court was at a distance, our words hidden by the playing of a lute nearby.
“I don’t like Count Feria,” I said bluntly.
“You made that clear enough. Do you really think I will allow you to come into my dinner and insult my guests? You took off a fool’s livery, you will have to behave like a lady.”
I smiled. “Since I carry a message that you want to hear I think you will listen to it before you have me thrown out of the gates, whether I am a fool or a lady.”
She laughed at my impertinence.
“And I doubt that you like him either,” I said boldly. “First he was your enemy, now he is your friend. There are many such as him around you now, I should imagine.”
“Most of this court. And you among them.”
I shook my head. “I have always admired you both.”
“You love her more than you love me,” she insisted jealously.
I laughed aloud at her childishness; and Lord Robert, standing near, turned to look at me with a smile. “But Princess, she loves me, and you have never done anything but abuse me and accuse me of being her spy.”
Elizabeth laughed too. “Yes. But I don’t forget that you came to serve me in the Tower. And I don’t forget that you brought me a true vision. When you smelled the smoke from the burnings I knew then that I must become queen and bring peace to this country.”
“Well, amen to that,” I said.
“And what is your message?” she asked more soberly.
“Can we talk in your privy chamber? And can I bring Jane Dormer to you?”
“With Lord Robert,” she stipulated. “And John Dee.”
I bowed my head and followed her as she walked down the gallery to her chamber. The court billowed into bows as she went past as if she were queen already. I smiled, remembering a day when she had limped with her shoe in her hand and no one had offered her an arm. Now they would lay down their cloaks in the mud to keep her feet dry.
We went into her chamber and Elizabeth took a small wooden chair by the fireside. She gestured that I could pull up a stool and I took it to the other side of the fire, put Danny on my knee, and leaned back against the wooden paneling. I had a sense that I should be quiet and listen. The queen wanted me to advise her if Elizabeth would keep the true faith. I had to listen through the words to the meaning behind them. I had to look through the mask of her smiling face and into her heart.
The door opened, and Jane came into the room. She swept Elizabeth the scantest of curtseys and stood before her. Elizabeth gestured her to sit.
“I will stand, if it please you,” Jane said stiffly.
“You have business with me.” Elizabeth invited her to begin.
“The queen has asked Hannah and me to come to you and put a question to you. The queen requires you to make your answer in very truth. She would want you to swear on your soul that the answer you give is the truth and the whole truth.”
“And what is this question?”
Danny squirmed in my lap and I shifted him in a little closer, putting his small head against my cheek, so that I could look over him to the princess’s pale face.
“The queen bid me tell you that she will name you as her heir, her one true heir, and you will be queen on the throne of England without a word of dissent if you will promise her that you will cleave to the true faith,” Jane said quietly.
John Dee drew in a sharp breath, but the princess was absolutely still.
“And if I do not?”
“Then she will name another heir.”
“Mary Stuart?”
“I do not know and I will not speculate,” Jane replied.
The princess nodded. “Am I to swear on a Bible?” she asked.
“On your soul,” Jane said. “On your immortal soul before God.”
It was a solemn moment. Elizabeth glanced toward Lord Robert and he took a little step toward her, as if he would protect her.
“And does she swear to name me as heir in return?”
Jane Dormer nodded. “If you are of the true faith.”
Elizabeth took a deep breath. “I will swear,” she said.
She rose to her feet. Robert Dudley started forward as if he would stop her but she did not even look at him. I did not rise as I should have done, I stayed completely still, my eyes fixed on her pale face as if I would read her like a clean page of text, fresh off the press, with the ink still drying.
Elizabeth raised her hand. “I swear, on my immortal soul, that I shall keep this country in the true faith,” she said. Her hand trembled slightly. She brought it down and clasped her hands together before her, and turned to Jane Dormer.
“Did she ask for anything more?”
“No more,” Jane said, her voice very thin.
“So you can tell her I have done it?”
Jane’s eyes slid toward me, and the princess was on to her at once.
“Ah, so that is what you are here for.” She rounded on me. “My little seer-spy. You are to make a window into my soul and see into my heart and tell the queen what you think you know, what you imagine you saw.”
I said nothing.
“You will tell her that I raised my hand and I swore her oath,” she commanded me. “You will tell her that I am her true heir.”
I rose to my feet, Danny’s little head lolled sleepily against my shoulder. “If we may, we will stay here tonight, and return to the queen tomorrow,” I said, avoiding answering.
“There was one other thing,” Jane Dormer said. “Her Grace requires you to pay her debts and take care of her trusted servants.”
/> Elizabeth nodded. “Of course. Assure my sister that I will honor her wishes as any true heir would do.”
I think only I could have heard the ripple of Elizabeth’s joy under her grave voice. I did not condemn her for it. Like Mary she had waited all her life for the moment when she might hear the news that she was queen, and now she thought that it would come to her, without dissent, tomorrow, or the day after.
“We will leave at dawn,” I said, thinking of the frailty of the queen’s health. I knew she would be hanging on to hear that England was safe within the true faith, that whatever else was lost, she had restored England into grace.
“Then I will bid you goodnight and God speed now,” Elizabeth said sweetly.
She let us get to the door and Jane Dormer to go through ahead of me, before she said, so quietly that only I, listening for her summons, could have heard it: “Hannah.”
I turned.
“I know you are her loyal friend as well as mine,” she said gently. “Do this last service for your mistress and take my word as true, and let her go to her God with some comfort. Give her peace, and give peace to our country.”
I bowed to her and went out.
I thought we would leave Hatfield without another farewell but when I went for my horse on a frosty cold morning with the sun burning red like an ember on the white horizon, there was Lord Robert looking handsome and smiling, wrapped in a dark red velvet cloak with John Dee at his side.
“Is your boy warm enough for the journey?” he asked me. “It’s been a hard frost and the air is bitter.”
I pointed behind me. Danny was laboring along under an extra-thick jerkin of wool, carrying a shawl that I had insisted he bring. He peeped at me from under a heavy woolen cap. “The poor boy is half drowned in clothes,” I said. “He will sweat rather than freeze.”