Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
Читать онлайн книгу.
I think. You need not marry an apprentice physician. You can be Robert Dudley’s whore or his tutor’s adept. You can think yourself the queen’s companion but everyone knows you as the fool. You make yourself less than what I would offer you. You could be the wife of an honourable man who would love you and instead you throw yourself into the gutter for any passerby to pick up.’
‘I do not!’ I gasped, trying to pull my hands away.
Suddenly he pulled me towards him and wrapped his arms around my waist. His dark head came down, his mouth close to mine. I could smell the pomade in his hair and the heat of the skin of his cheek. I shrank back even as I felt the desire to go forward.
‘Do you love another man?’ he demanded urgently.
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Do you swear, on all you believe, whatever that is, that you are free to marry me?’
‘I am free to marry you,’ I said, honestly enough, for God knew as well as I did that no-one else wanted me.
‘With honour,’ he specified.
I felt my lips part, I could have spat at him in my temper. ‘Of course, with honour,’ I said. ‘Have I not told you that my gift is dependent on my virginity? Have I not said that I will not risk that?’ I pulled away from him but his grip on me tightened. Despite myself, my body took in the sense of him: the strength of his arms, the power of his thighs which pressed against me, the scent of him, and for some odd reason, the feeling of absolute safety that he gave me. I had to pull away from him to stop myself from yielding. I realised that I wanted to mould myself around him, put my head on his shoulder, let him hold me against him and know that I was safe – if only I would let him love me, if only I would let myself love him.
‘If they bring in the Inquisition, we will have to leave, you know that.’ His grip was as hard as ever, I felt his hips against my belly and had to stop myself rising on my toes to lean against him.
‘Yes, I know that,’ I said, only half-hearing him, feeling him with every inch of my body.
‘If we leave, you will have to come with me as my wife, I will take you and your father to safety under no other condition.’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we are agreed?’
‘If we have to leave England then I will marry you,’ I said.
‘And in any case we will marry when you are sixteen.’
I nodded, my eyes closed. Then I felt his mouth come down on to mine and I felt his kiss melt every argument away.
He released me and I leaned back against the printing press to steady myself. He smiled as if he knew that I was dizzy with desire. ‘As to Lord Robert, it is my request that you serve him no longer,’ he said. ‘He is a convicted traitor, he is imprisoned, and you endanger yourself and us all by seeking his company.’ His look darkened. ‘And he is not a man I would trust with my betrothed.’
‘He thinks of me as a child and a fool,’ I corrected him.
‘You are neither,’ he said gently. ‘And neither am I. You are half in love with him, Hannah, and I won’t tolerate it.’
I hesitated, ready to argue, and then I felt the most curious sensation of my life: the desire to tell the truth to someone. I had never before felt the desire to be honest, I had spent all my life enmeshed in lies: a Jew in a Christian country, a girl in boy’s clothing, a passionate young woman dressed as a Holy Fool, and now a young woman betrothed to one man and in love with another.
‘If I tell you the truth about something, will you help me?’ I asked.
‘I will give you the best help I can,’ he said.
‘Daniel, talking with you is like bargaining with a Pharisee.’
‘Hannah, talking with you is like catching fish in the Sea of Galilee. What is it you would tell me?’
I would have turned away but he caught me and drew me back close to him. His body pressed against me, I felt his hardness and I suddenly understood – an older girl would have understood long before – that this was the currency of desire. He was my betrothed. He desired me. I desired him. All I had to do was to tell him the truth.
‘Daniel, this is the truth. I saw that the king would die, I named the day. I saw that Jane would be crowned queen. I saw that Queen Mary would be queen, and I have seen a glimpse of her future, which is heartbreak, and the future of England, which is unclear to me. John Dee says I have a gift of Sight. He tells me it comes in part from me being a virgin and I want to honour the gift. And I want to marry you. And I desire you. And I cannot help but love Lord Robert. All those things. All at once.’ I had my forehead pressed against his chest, I could feel the buttons of his jerkin against my forehead and I had the uncomfortable thought that when I looked up he would see the mark of his buttons printed on my skin and I would look, not desirable, but foolish. Nonetheless I stayed, holding him close, while he considered the rush of truths I had told him. Moments later he eased me back from him and looked into my eyes.
‘Is it an honourable love, as a servant to a master?’ he asked.
He saw my eyes shift away from his serious gaze and he put his hand under my chin to hold my face up to him. ‘Tell me, Hannah. You are to be my wife. I have a right to know. Is it an honourable love?’
I felt my lip quiver and the tears come to my eyes. ‘It’s all muddled up,’ I said weakly. ‘I love him for what he is …’ I was silenced by the impossibility of conveying to Daniel the desirability of Robert Dudley; his looks, his clothes, his wealth, his boots, his horses were all beyond my vocabulary. ‘He is … wonderful.’ I did not dare look into his eyes. ‘I love him for what he might become – he will be freed, he will be a great man, a great man, Daniel. He will be the maker of a Prince of England. And tonight he is in the Tower, waiting for the sentence of death, and I think of him, and I think of my mother waiting, like he is waiting, for the morning when they took her out …’ I lost my voice, I shook my head. ‘He is a prisoner as she was. He is on the edge of death, as she was. Of course I love him.’
He held me for a few more seconds and then he coldly put me from him. I could almost feel the icy air of the quiet printing room rush between us. ‘This is not your mother. He is not a prisoner of faith,’ he said quietly. ‘He is not being tried by the Inquisition but by a queen whom you assure me is merciful and wise. There is no reason to love a man who has plotted and intrigued his way to treason. He would have put Lady Jane on the throne and beheaded the mistress that you say you love: Queen Mary. He is not an honourable man.’
I opened my mouth to argue but there was nothing I could say.
‘And you are all mixed up with him, with his train, with his treasonous plans, and with your feeling for him. I won’t call it love because if I thought for one moment it was anything more than a girl’s fancy I would go out now to your father and break our betrothal. But I tell you this. You have to leave the service of Robert Dudley, whatever future you have seen for him. You have to avoid John Dee and you have to surrender your gift. You can serve the queen until you are sixteen but you have to be my betrothed in word and in every act you take. And in eighteen months’ time from now, when you are sixteen, we will marry and you will leave court.’
‘Eighteen months?’ I said, very low.
He took my hand to his mouth and he bit the fat mons veneris at the root of my thumb, where the plumpness of the flesh tells hucksters and fairground fortune-tellers that the woman is ready for love.
‘Eighteen months,’ he said flatly. ‘Or I swear I will take another girl to be my wife and throw you away to whatever future the soothsayer, the traitor, and the queen make up for you.’
It was a cold winter, and not even Christmas brought any joy to the people. Every day brought the queen news of more petty complainings and