Just a Girl (15 page)

‘Nay, you must not say such things, Your Majesty. It is just what all women fear as they approach their time.' At this she sighed and ran her hand over her eyes.

‘Perhaps you are right. 'Tis a fearful thing that God asks his daughters to do.'

‘Aye, Your Majesty, all women know it.'

‘But we must not complain. It is God's judgement on us as tempters of men.'

‘And God will grant you the strength you need to undertake this trial. The whole of England will be praying for you in your time of trouble.'

‘Even you, Elizabeth?' Her eyes met mine and I looked down.

‘Of course, Your Majesty. A fine healthy son and a happy and content mother is what we all want.'

‘You may leave me now.' I rose and curtsied to the figure languishing by the fire, but her eyes were already closed.

‘God bless Your Majesty,' I said, as I left her and, just for that moment, I meant it.

All had been made ready for the birth of the baby even before I arrived at Hampton Court. We had been told to expect the child in the spring. A few days after my late night audience with the queen, a rumour tore through London that she had been delivered of a fine son with little trouble and no pain. Those of us at court knew this was not the case. The queen had retired to her apartments for her lying in, right enough. But morning after morning, when her attendants emerged to fetch her breakfast, they shook their heads and said nothing. All of us began to do our silent calculations. How long would this child cling to its womb? The rumour died away, and the populace waited with the courtiers and councillors on tenterhooks for the birth. We were all of us – king, great lords, shopkeepers, yeomen, householders, peasants and beggars in the street – as frozen in place as my sister's child. Nothing
could occur, no laws could be enacted or proclamations obeyed, no justice could be meted out while we waited to see in what direction our fortunes would lie and who would live, who would die, who would or would not be born and so who would rule. Such was the strangeness of our situation that my guards melted away, Sir Henry returned to his hunting lodge and I seemed to be quietly restored to my pre-eminence as heir to the throne. Given the peril a woman enters when her time arrives, it was not surprising that those at court saw it as suddenly more politic to treat me a little more gently than before.

Despite my new liberty I felt no more free than I had before my long incarceration began. The waiting felt the same. Indeed, my anxiety reached such a peak as each day passed, I could no longer simply sit and wait to see what might occur. To ease my own tension I sought the counsel of one whose reputation had long intrigued me.

His house was decorated with strange objects and many obscure books and manuscripts, but his business was obviously a healthy one, for the house was a substantial dwelling in Mortlake, a pleasant place near to the Thames. Blanche Parry and I had made our way there beneath voluminous cloaks, carrying baskets – we hoped, for all the world, like ladies going to market. It was marvellous to travel the streets anonymous and invisible, to observe but not be observed. Even the stench
of the back streets and the tricky business of how to avoid the emptying of the slops as housewives shouted, ‘Gardaloo!' seemed exciting rather than irksome. For almost two years, I had been locked up, hemmed in, supervised and watched. So even the unremarkable freedom to traverse the streets of London, stinking as they were on that summer's day, was exhilarating.

It was Blanche who had recommended I visit her cousin, Dr Dee, a scholar from Cambridge, who was much skilled in astrology and the natural sciences. ‘Perhaps he will be able to tell us what the future holds,' she had said to me quietly, as we wandered the gardens whiling away yet another utterly uneventful day. ‘He is much noted for his ability to read the stars.'

At first I dismissed her suggestion, aware that such an attempt to foretell my future strayed dangerously close to treason. But as time drifted by, I managed to convince myself that having my own horoscope drawn up was neither illegal nor treasonous. The fact that whatever
my
future held would be dramatically influenced by what it held for my sister was neither here nor there.

The man who answered our knock was not the bent and elderly wizard of my imagination. He was young and vigorous, with a long reddish beard, dressed richly in heavy black – despite the warmth of the weather. He greeted Blanche affectionately and me courteously, and without ceremony, turned and led us through his
well-furnished home to a large and sun-filled room. As Blanche acquainted him with the reason for our visit, I examined the handsome globe that stood in a far corner. Created from the maps of the famous cartographer Mercator of Brussels, I knew there were only two such globes in all England: both brought here by the famous mathematician now exchanging pleasantries with his kinswoman a few paces hither. I traced the great and mysterious continents of America and Africa with my finger and wondered how many new lands and strange peoples there might yet be outside Christendom. I also wondered whether Dr Dee would agree to the purpose of our visit, for in all likelihood, casting my nativity held more peril for him than it did for me.

‘A very great destiny awaits you,' he announced some hours later as he re-entered the chamber, clutching a sheaf of papers. Blanche and I had been served refreshments while we waited for the great doctor to finish calculating the orbits of sun and moon, planets and other heavenly bodies and their precise situations at the moment I had entered the world – a bitter disappointment to both mother and father. I had been unable to avoid contrasting my own anticipation of the birth of my sister's child and the similar apprehensions and hopes that must have accompanied my own.

How circular the world was. I spun the remarkable globe absentmindedly. How odd that the self-same
event could be viewed so differently, depending on where you happened to be standing when you looked at it. How must the world look to those who sat at the bottom end of it? I bent down and peered up at the globe from beneath, trying to imagine what it must be like to live at such an angle. Did it look as it did to us here, or upside down and back to front?

I sat up hastily as the doctor made his dramatic announcement, knocking the globe temporarily off balance, so I had to grasp the stand to stop it falling and perhaps shattering. His face fell as he watched the precious globe wobble on its axis and he made a futile leap across the room after it. Although I saved it right enough, he still took the object firmly in his own hands and put it carefully to one side, out of reach.

‘A great destiny, you say?'

‘Aye – and you will have a great many husbands, aye, and a great many wives too, and countless numbers of children – but no descendants.'

‘You speak in riddles, master magician.'

‘Not I, Your Grace. It is the stars that speak in riddles. They do not tell the future bluntly, like some gypsy in the marketplace. They hint and suggest, weave metaphor with symbol to make their patterns.'

‘And this great destiny, will it come to me sooner or later?'

‘You will not have to be patient much longer.' My
heart began to pound. Did this mean my sister was to die in childbirth as she herself had foretold? ‘What does “much longer” mean, Dr Dee? Are we talking human or celestial time frames?'

‘Your patience will be required for days, weeks, for months – aye, for years.' My shoulders fell, and my head felt too heavy for my neck. So my sister was not to die in childbirth, or if she were to, her child would live, but perhaps not survive for long. I seemed no better informed than when I first arrived. Why could I not get a straightforward answer? ‘Enough of this!' I barked, wishing suddenly that I had visited any blunt-spoken gypsy rather than this spinner of mysteries. ‘Will I be queen or no?'

‘The portents are favourable, Your Grace.'

‘And will I have a niece or nephew, or no?'

‘The portents are unfavourable, Your Grace.'

‘And will I be queen while still a young woman?'

‘And an old one, it would seem, Your Grace.'

‘No more riddles, Dr Dee. Will my long wait soon be over, will my time of peril soon be past?'

‘The portents are favourable, Your Grace.'

There were spies everywhere, it seemed. Within days of our visit, Dr Dee was arrested and accused of attempting to murder my poor sister by using black magic. They hauled Blanche away for interrogation, too. Dee and my servants were accused of conspiring
to calculate ‘the king's and queen's and my Lady Elizabeth's nativity'. Again, it seemed I was under suspicion, but the investigation was half-hearted at best. Perhaps all at court understood only too well what had motivated our quest and, as was no doubt pointed out to the investigators, we had been careful only to cast my own horoscope and no other. Indeed, the knowledge that we had consulted so famous a man seemed to draw people to us who had hitherto given us wide berth.

My brother-in-law was a small man and very fair. This was unusual in a Spaniard. There was something of the dandy about him. His beard – grown, no doubt, to disguise his heavy Hapsburg jaw – was a little too neatly trimmed, his clothes were a little too nicely cut and a little too carefully put together. There was about him a whiff of rather too much perfume. When he bowed he was both courtly and extravagant, and he made much of his well-shaped – if rather short – leg. He had the air of a man altogether pleased with himself. His eyes, however, were shrewd and steadily met my own. He was much younger than his wife, much nearer in years to my own age. I wished I had been at their wedding. They would have made an oddly matched pair – like so many other royal matings.

‘Lady Elizabeth.' His accent was light and, I admit it, quite attractive.

‘Your Majesty.' I curtsied low. ‘How does the queen?'

‘No change, I am afraid, no change.' And a shadow passed across his features. ‘The child takes an unholy time about his coming.' ‘As did his father, if I recall correctly.' ‘Fair point, my lady. I have heard tell of your quick wit. So you think a reluctance to enter England is hereditary?'

‘Nay, Your Majesty. I jest only, and beg your pardon for it.'

‘No pardon required. I desire to be amused. I am dull and melancholy with waiting, as you must be, my lady.'

‘As are we all, my lord.'

‘The rain has stopped.' He had pulled back the covering from one of the windows. ‘What say you to a turn about the gardens? I need fresh air and I must stretch my legs.'

The ground was soft under our feet and the trees and bushes dripped warm summer rain into puddles. Short though Philip's legs were, he used them well, walking rapidly and decisively upon small and dainty feet. I felt large and ungainly beside him. I was some inches taller and, despite my slender frame, wider and bigger than the King of Spain in every dimension. I took one stride to each of his two, but it seemed not to bother him. Indeed, the eyes he rested upon me
were frankly admiring, as they paused at length on my waist and bosom. We walked ahead of our entourage, his Spanish gentlemen flirting with my ladies. We could hear their merry laughter behind us.

‘I understand you have had the temerity to consult the stars, my lady.'

‘You understand correctly.'

‘And what were you told?'

‘Nothing but riddles, Your Majesty, and broad generalities to suit any circumstance.'

‘Tell me some of the riddles. I love a riddle and pride myself on my ability to find a solution.'

‘You put me on the spot, my lord. I do not know if I can remember exactly the words he used.'

‘Will you be queen, my lady? If you be human, you must have asked him that.' I looked at the small man beside me. His eyes were frank, but solemn, and I smiled at his sudden seriousness. ‘Mere human, indeed I am, Your Majesty, and mere human it seems I am likely to stay, from what little I could make of his soothsaying – at least for the foreseeable future.'

‘Foreseeable by Master Dee, at least.'

‘Indeed, Your Majesty. Either he could not see or would not tell.'

‘Well, then, he deserves his spell in the Tower, if for no other reason than for taking your money under false pretences.'

‘I have heard he casts spells in his prison. They whisper that the man who informed on our visit now has two children who sicken and die.'

‘Did he frighten you, my lady?'

‘Not in the least. I believe Dr Dee to be a man of science and philosophy more than a magician. He practises the occult merely because he can attract more custom through astrology and fortune telling.'

‘I imagine you would be hard to frighten.'

‘You imagine wrong, then, sir. I have spent much of my life badly frightened.'

‘Well, you need fear no longer, fair lady, for, as your new brother, I shall be your protector.'

‘Thank you, Your Majesty. That is gracious. And 'tis true I have been long in need of male relatives.'

‘Perhaps, ere long, you may have another.'

‘Aye, my lord, let us pray to God it be so, and soon.'

I confess it, Philip and I were great comfort to each other in those long weeks at Hampton Court during the queen's lying in. We rode together and hunted daily. He proved to be as firm in the saddle as he was light on his feet. Frankly, I enjoyed his company. He made me feel attractive and desirable. He laughed at my jokes, applauded my songs, and whirled me about as we danced the Pavanne. If he was anxious about his wife and unborn child, he showed it not.

For those few weeks, it was as if we were on a holiday,
there was little work to be done and major decisions could not be made until we knew if the queen would survive and if there was to be an heir. Of course, as King of Spain and Princess of England, there was more to our friendship than mere liking. Both of us had lived long enough in the world of politics and intrigue to understand fully the fatal purpose behind the flowery compliments. As we danced to the court musicians, we also danced to the range of possibilities for the future that remained, ere yet, unsettled. If the queen died, Philip would lose his power in England completely, so it was in his interests to bind me to him, to gain my friendship and trust. If she lived, but the child died, both of our situations would remain unchanged. If she died and the child lived, he would rule England through his child, and my country risked becoming little more than a vassal of Spain. This possibility troubled the French so much that de Noailles could not resist attempting to fill my ears with poison about the king, whenever he had the opportunity. If both queen and child lived, Philip's power would be greatly enhanced, but England would remain at least a little independent. For me, each possibility was improved by keeping Philip an ally, either by using him to help mitigate my sister's hostility, or, if queen I became, a friendly Spain would be preferable to an unfriendly one.