Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 2: The Queen’s Fool, The Virgin’s Lover, The Other Queen. Philippa Gregory
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again. While they had cords of wood and torches stacked in great stores at Smithfield, a girl with a past like mine should not be in a room of books such as these. But these were our fortune, my father had amassed them over his years in Spain, collected them during his time in England. They were the fruit of hundreds of years of study by learned men and I was not merely their owner, I was their custodian. I would be a poor guardian if I burned them to save my own skin.
There was a tap at the door and I gasped in fright; I was a very timid guardian. I went into the shop, closing the door of the printing room with the incriminating titles behind me, but it was only our neighbour.
‘I thought I saw you come in,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Father not back yet? France too good to him?’
‘Seems so,’ I said, trying to recover my breath.
‘I have a letter for you,’ he said. ‘Is it an order? Should you hand it on to me?’
I glanced at the paper. It bore the Dudley seal of the bear and staff. I kept my face blandly indifferent. ‘I’ll read it, sir,’ I said politely. ‘I’ll bring it to you if it is anything you would have in stock.’
‘Or I can get manuscripts, you know,’ he said eagerly. ‘As long as they are allowed. No theology, of course, no science, no astrology, no studies of the planets and planet rays, or the tides. Nothing of the new sciences, nothing that questions the Bible. But everything else.’
‘I wouldn’t think there was much else, after you have refused to stock all that,’ I said sourly, thinking of John Dee’s long years of inquiry which took in everything.
‘Entertaining books,’ he explained. ‘And the writings of the Holy Fathers as approved by the church. But only in Latin. I could take orders from the ladies and gentlemen of the court if you were to mention my name.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But they don’t ask a fool for the wisdom of books.’
‘No. But if they do …’
‘If they do, I will pass them on to you,’ I said, anxious for him to leave.
He nodded and went to the door. ‘Send my best wishes to your father when you see him,’ he said. ‘The landlord says he can go on storing the press here until he can find another tenant. Business is so poor still …’ He shook his head. ‘No-one has any money, no-one has the confidence to set up business while we wait for an heir and hope for better times. She’s well is she, God bless her? The queen? Looking well and carrying the baby high, is she?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And only a few months to go now.’
‘God preserve him, the little prince,’ our neighbour said and devoutly crossed himself. Immediately I followed suit and then held the door for him as he went out.
As soon as I had the door barred I opened my letter.
Dear Mistress Boy
If you can spare a moment for an old friend he would be very pleased to see you. I need some paper for drawing and some good pens and pencils, having turned to the consolation of poetry as the times are too troubled for anything but beauty. If you have such things in your shop please bring them, at your convenience, Robt. Dudley. (You will find me, at home to visitors, in the Tower, every day, there is no need to make an appointment.)
He was looking out of the window to the green, his desk drawn close to it to catch the light. His back was turned to me and I was across the room and beside him as he turned around. I was in his arms at once, he hugged me as a man would hug a child, a beloved little girl. But when I felt his arms come around me I longed for him as a woman desires a man.
He sensed it at once. He had been a philanderer for too many years not to know when he had a willing woman in his arms. At once he let me go and stepped back, as if he feared his own desire rising up to meet mine.
‘Mistress Boy, I am shocked! You have become a woman grown.’
‘I didn’t know it,’ I said. ‘I have been thinking of other things.’
He nodded, his quick mind chasing after any allusion. ‘World changing very fast,’ he observed.
‘Yes,’ I said. I glanced at the door which was safely closed.
‘New king, new laws, new head of the church. Is Elizabeth well?’
‘She’s been sick,’ I said. ‘But she’s better now. She’s at Hampton Court, with the queen. I just came with her from Woodstock.’
He nodded. ‘Has she seen Dee yet?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘I thought he was in Venice.’
‘He was, Mistress Boy. And he has sent a package from Venice to your father in Calais, which your father will send on to the shop in London for you to deliver to him, if you please.’
‘A package?’ I asked anxiously.
‘A book merely.’
I said nothing. We both knew that the wrong sort of book was enough to get me hanged.
‘Is Kat Ashley still with the princess?’
‘Of course.’
‘Tell Kat from me, in secret, that if she is offered some ribbons she should certainly buy them.’
I recoiled at once. ‘My lord …’
Robert Dudley stretched out a peremptory hand to me. ‘Have I ever led you into danger?’
I hesitated, thinking of the Wyatt plot when I had carried treasonous messages that I had not understood. ‘No, my lord.’
‘Then take this message but take no others from anyone else, and carry none for Kat, whatever she asks you. Once you have told her to buy her ribbons and once you have given John Dee his book, it is nothing more to do with you. The book is innocent and ribbons are ribbons.’
‘You are weaving a plot,’ I said unhappily. ‘And weaving me into it.’
‘Mistress Boy, I have to do something, I cannot write poetry all day.’
‘The queen will forgive you in time, and then you can go home …’
‘She will never forgive me,’ he said flatly. ‘I have to wait until there is a change, a deep sea change; and while I wait, I shall protect my interests. Elizabeth knows that she is not to go to Hungary, or anywhere else, does she?’
I nodded. ‘She is quite determined neither to leave nor marry.’
‘King Philip will keep her at court now, and make her his friend, I should think.’
‘Why?’
‘One baby, as yet unborn, is not enough to secure the throne,’ he pointed out. ‘And next in line is Elizabeth. If the queen were to die in childbirth he would be in a most dangerous position: trapped in England and the new queen and all her people his enemies.’
I nodded.
‘And if he were to disinherit Elizabeth then the next heir would be Mary, married to the Prince of France. D’you not think that our Spanish King Philip would rather see the devil incarnate on the English throne than the King of France’s son?’
‘Oh,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ he said with quiet satisfaction. ‘You can remind Elizabeth that she is in a stronger position now that Philip is on the queen’s council. There’s not many of them that can think straight there; but he certainly can. Is Gardiner still trying to persuade the queen to declare Elizabeth a bastard and disinherit her?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’
Robert