The Queen's Fool Part 14

She took a breath and turned to the window. She rested her forehead against the thick pane of gla.s.s and I saw how the heat from her hair misted the gla.s.s. It was cold outside, the unbearable English winter, and the Thames was iron-gray beyond the stone-colored garden beneath the pewter sky. I could see the queen's reflected face in the thick gla.s.s like a cameo drowned in water, I could see the feverish energy pulsing through her body.

"I must be free of this hatred," she said quietly. "I must be free of the pain that her mother brought me. I must disown her."

"Your Grace..." I said again, more gently.

She turned back to me.

"She will come after me if I die without heir," she said flatly. "That lying wh.o.r.e. Anything I achieve will be overturned by her, will be spoiled by her. Everything in my life has always been despoiled by her. I was England's only princess and the great joy of my mother's heart. A moment, an eyelid blink, and I was serving in Elizabeth's nursery as her maid, and my mother was deserted and then dead. Elizabeth, the wh.o.r.e's daughter, is corruption itself. I have to have a child to put between her and the throne. It is the greatest duty I owe to this country, to my mother and to myself."

"You will have to marry Philip of Spain?"

She nodded. "He, as well as any other," she said. "I can make a treaty with him that will hold. He knows, his father knows, what this country is like. I can be queen and wife with a man like him. He has his own land, his own fortune, he does not need little England. And then I can be queen of my own country and wife to him, and a mother."

There was something in the way she said "mother" that alerted me. I had felt her touch on my head, I had seen her with the children that tumbled out from dirty cottages.

"Why, you long for a child for yourself," I exclaimed.

I saw the need in her eyes and then she turned away from me to the window and the view of the cold river again. "Oh yes," she said quietly to the cold garden outside. "I have longed for a child of my own for twenty years. That was why I loved my poor brother so much. In the hunger of my heart I even loved Elizabeth when she was a baby. Perhaps G.o.d in his goodness will give me a son of my own now." She looked at me. "You have the Sight. Will I have a child, Hannah? Will I have a child of my own, to hold in my arms and to love? A child who will grow and inherit my throne and make England a great country?"

I waited for a moment, in case anything came to me. All I had was a sense of great despair and hopelessness, nothing more. I dropped my gaze to the floor and I knelt before her. "I am sorry, Your Grace," I said. "The Sight cannot be commanded. I can't tell you the answer to that question, nor any other. My vision comes and goes as it wishes. I cannot say if you will have a child."

"Then I will predict for you," she said grimly. "I will tell you this. I will marry this Philip of Spain without love, without desire, but with a very true sense that it is what this country needs. He will bring us the wealth and the power of Spain, he will make this country a part of the empire, which we need so much. He will help me restore this country to the discipline of the true church, and he will give me a child to be a G.o.dly Christian heir to keep this country in the right ways." She paused. "You should say Amen," she prompted me.

"Amen." It was easily said. I was a Christian Jew, a girl dressed as a boy, a young woman in love with one man and betrothed to another. A girl grieving for her mother and never mentioning her name. I spent all my life in feigned agreement. "Amen," I said.

The door opened and Jane Dormer beckoned two porters into the room, carrying a frame between them, swathed in linen cloth. "Something for you, Your Grace!" she said with a roguish smile. "Something you will like to see."

The queen was slow to throw off her thoughtful mood. "What is it, Jane? I am weary now."

In answer, Mistress Dormer waited till the men had leaned their burden against the wall, and then took the hem of the cloth and turned to her royal mistress. "Are you ready?"

The queen was persuaded into smiling. "Is this the portrait of Philip?" she asked. "I won't be cozened by it. You forget, I am old enough to remember when my father married a portrait but divorced the sitter. He said that it was the worst trick that had ever been played upon a man. A portrait is always handsome. I won't be taken in by a portrait."

In answer, Jane Dormer swept the cloth aside. I heard the queen's indrawn breath, saw her color come and go in her pale cheeks, and then heard her little girlish giggle. "My G.o.d, Jane, this is a man!" she whispered.

Jane Dormer collapsed with laughter, dropped the cloth and dashed across the room to stand back to admire the portrait.

He was indeed a handsome man. He was young, he must have been in his midtwenties to the queen's forty years, brown-bearded with dark smiling eyes, a full sensual mouth, a good figure, broad shoulders and slim strong legs. He was wearing dark red with a dark red cap at a rakish angle on his curly brown hair. He looked like a man who would whisper lovemaking in a woman's ear until she was weak at the knees. He looked like a handsome rogue, but there was a firmness about his mouth and a set to his shoulders which suggested that he might nonetheless be capable of honest dealing.

"What d'you think, Your Grace?" Jane demanded.

The queen said nothing. I looked from the portrait back to her face again. She was gazing at him. For a moment I could not think what she reminded me of, then I knew it. It was my own face in the looking gla.s.s when I thought of Robert Dudley. It was that same awakening, widening of the eyes, the same unaware dawning of a smile.

"He's very... pleasing," she said.

Jane Dormer met my eyes and smiled at me.

I wanted to smile back but my head was ringing with a strange noise, a tingling noise like little bells.

"What dark eyes he has," Jane pointed out.

"Yes," the queen breathed.

"He wears his collar very high, that must be the fas.h.i.+on in Spain. He'll bring the newest fas.h.i.+ons to court."

The noise in my head was getting louder. I put my hands over my ears but the sound echoed louder inside my head, it was a jangling noise now.

"Yes," the queen said.

"And see? A gold cross on a chain," Jane cooed. "Thank G.o.d, there will be a Catholic Christian prince for England once more."

It was too much to bear now. It was like being in a bell tower at full peal. I bowed over and twisted round, trying to shake the terrible ringing out of my ears. Then I burst out, "Your Grace! Your heart will break!" and at once the noise was cut off short and there was silence, a silence somehow even louder than the ringing bells had been, and the queen was looking at me, and Jane Dormer was looking at me, and I realized I had spoken out of turn, shouted out as a fool.

"What did you say?" Jane Dormer challenged me to repeat my words, defying me to spoil the happy mood of the afternoon, of two women examining a portrait of a handsome man.

"I said, *Your Grace, your heart will break,'" I repeated. "But I can't say why."

"If you can't say why, you had better not have spoken at all," Jane Dormer flared up, always pa.s.sionately loyal to her mistress.

"I know," I said numbly. "I can't help it."

"Scant wisdom to tell a woman that her heart will break but not how or why!"

"I know," I said again. "I am sorry."

Jane turned to the queen. "Your Grace, pay no heed to the fool."

The queen's face, which had been so bright and so animated, suddenly turned sulky. "You can both leave," she said flatly. She hunched her shoulders and turned away. In that quintessential gesture of a stubborn woman I knew that she had made her choice and that no wise words would change her mind. No fool's words either. "You can go," she said. Jane made a move to shroud the portrait with its cloth. "You can leave that there," she said. "I might look at it again."

While the long negotiations about the marriage went on between the queen's council, sick with apprehension at the thought of a Spaniard on the throne of England, and the Spanish representatives, eager to add another kingdom to their sprawling empire, I found my way to the home of John Dee's father. It was a small house near the river in the city. I tapped on the door and for a moment no one answered. Then a window above the front door opened and someone shouted down: "Who is it?"

"I seek Roland Dee," I called up. The little roof over the front door concealed me; he could hear my voice, but not see me.

"He's not here," John Dee called back.

"Mr. Dee, it is me. Hannah the Fool," I called up. "I was looking for you."

"Hush," he said quickly and slammed the cas.e.m.e.nt window shut. I heard his feet echoing on the wooden stairs inside the house and the noise of the bolts being drawn, and then the door opened inward to a dark hall. "Come in quickly," he said.

I squeezed through the gap and he slammed the door shut and bolted it. We stood face to face inside the dark hallway in silence. I was about to speak but he put a hand on my arm to caution me to be silent. At once I froze. Outside I could hear the normal noises of the London street, people walking by, a few tradesmen calling out, street sellers offering their wares, the distant shout from someone unloading at the river.

"Did anyone follow you? Did you tell anyone you were looking for me?"

My heart thudded at the question. I felt my hand go to my cheek as if to rub off a s.m.u.t. "Why? What has happened?"

"Could anyone have followed you?"

I tried to think, but I was aware only of the thudding of my frightened heart. "No, sir. I don't think so."

John Dee nodded, and then he turned and went upstairs without a word to me. I hesitated, and then I followed him. For a groat I would have slipped out of the back door and run to my father's house and never seen him again.

At the top of the stairs the door was open and he beckoned me into his room. At the window was his desk with a beautiful strange bra.s.s instrument in pride of place. To the side was a big scrubbed oak table, spread with his papers, rulers, pencils, pens, ink pots and scrolls of paper covered with minute writing and many numbers.

I could not satisfy my curiosity until I knew that I was safe. "Are you a wanted man, Mr. Dee? Should I go?"

He smiled and shook his head. "I'm overcautious," he said frankly. "My father was taken up for questioning but he is a known member of a reading group - Protestant thinkers. No one has anything against me. I was just startled when I saw you."

"You are sure?" I pressed him.

He gave a little laugh. "Hannah, you are like a young doe on the edge of flight. Be calm. You are safe here."

I steadied myself and started to look around. He saw my gaze go back to the instrument at the window.

"What d'you think that is?" he asked.

I shook my head. It was a beautiful thing, not an instrument I could recognize. It was made in bra.s.s, a ball as big as a pigeon's egg in the center on a stalk, around it a bra.s.s ring cunningly supported by two other stalks which meant it could swing and move, a ball sliding around on it. Outside there was another ring and another ball, outside that, another. They were a series of rings and b.a.l.l.s and the furthest from the center was the smallest.

"This," he said softly, "is a model of the world. This is how the creator, the great master carpenter of the heavens, made the world and then set it in motion. This holds the secret of how G.o.d's mind works." He leaned forward and gently touched the first ring. As if by magic they all started to move slowly, each going at its own pace, each following its own orbit, sometimes pa.s.sing, sometimes overtaking each other. Only the little gold egg in the center did not move, everything else swung around it.

"Where is our world?" I asked.

He smiled at me. "Here," he said, pointing to the golden egg at the very center of all the others. He pointed to the next ring with the slowly circling ball. "This the moon." He pointed to the next. "This the sun." He pointed to the next few. "These are the planets, and beyond them, these are the stars, and this-" He gestured to a ring that was unlike all the others, a ring made of silver, which had moved at his first touch and made all the others move in time. "This is the primum mobile. It is G.o.d's touch on the world symbolized by this ring that started the movement of everything, that made the world begin. This is the Word. This is the manifestation of *Let there be light.'"

"Light," I repeated softly.

He nodded. "Let there be light." If I knew what made this move, I would know the secret of all the movement of the heavens," he said. "In this model I can play the part of G.o.d. But in the real heavens, what is the force that makes the planets swing around, that makes the sun circle the earth?"

He was waiting for me to answer, knowing that I could not, since n.o.body knew the answer. I shook my head, dizzied by the movement of the golden b.a.l.l.s on their golden rings.

He put a hand on it to steady it and I watched it slow and stop. "My friend, Gerard Mercator, made this for me when we were both students together. He will be a great mapmaker one day, I know it. And I-" He broke off. "I shall follow my path," he said. "Wherever it leads me. I have to be clear in my head and free from ambition and live in a country which is clear and free. I have to walk a clear path."

He paused for a moment and then, as if he suddenly remembered me, "And you? What did you come here for?" he asked in quite a different tone of voice. "Why did you call for my father?"

"I didn't want him. I was looking for you. I only wanted to ask him where you were," I said. "They told me at the court that you had gone home to your father. I was seeking you. I have a message."

He was suddenly alight with eagerness. "A message? From who?"

"From Lord Robert."

His face fell. "For a moment I thought an angel might have come to you with a message for me. What does Lord Robert want?"

"He wants to know what will come to pa.s.s. He gave me two tasks. One, to tell Lady Elizabeth to seek you out and ask you to be her tutor, and the other to tell you to meet with some men."

"What men?"

"Sir William Pickering, Tom Wyatt and James Croft," I recited. "And he said to tell you this: that they are engaged in an alchemical experiment to make gold from base metal and to refine silver back to ash and you should help them with this. Edward Courtenay can make a chemical wedding. And I am to go back to him and tell him what will come to pa.s.s."

Mr. Dee glanced at the window as if he feared eavesdroppers on the very sill outside. "These are not good times for me to serve a suspect princess and a man in the Tower for treason, and three others whose names I may already know, whose plans I may already doubt."

I gave him a steady look. "As you wish, sir."

"And you could be more safely employed, young woman," he said. "What is he thinking of, exposing you to such danger?"

"I am his to command," I said firmly. "I have given my word."

"He should release you," he said gently. "He cannot command anything from the Tower."

"He has released me. I am to see him only once more," I said. "When I go back and tell him what you have foreseen for England."

"Shall we look in the mirror and see now?" he asked.

I hesitated. I was afraid of the dark mirror and the darkened room, afraid of the things that might come through the darkness to haunt us. "Mr. Dee, last time I did not have a true seeing," I confessed awkwardly.

"When you said the date of the death of the king?"

I nodded.

"When you predicted that the next queen would be Jane?"

"Yes."

"Your answers were true," he observed.

"They were nothing more than guesses," I said. "I plucked them from the air. I am sorry."

He smiled. "Then just do that again," he said. "Just guess for me. Just guess for Lord Robert. Since he asks it?"

I was caught and I knew it. "Very well."

"We'll do it now," he said. "Sit down, close your eyes, try to think of nothing. I will get the room ready for you."

I did as he told me and sat on a stool. I could hear him moving quietly in the next room, the swish of a closing curtain, and the little spitting noise of flame as he carried a taper from a fire to light the candles. Then he said quietly: "It is ready. Come, and may the good angels guide us."

He took my hand and led me into a small box room. The same mirror we had used before was leaning against a wall, a table before it supported a wax tablet printed with strange signs. A candle was burning before the mirror and he had put another opposite, so that they seemed like innumerable candles disappearing into infinite distance, beyond the world, beyond the sun and the moon and the planets as he had showed them to me on his swinging circular model; not all the way to heaven but into absolute darkness where finally there would be more darkness than candle flame and it would be nothing but dark.

I drew a long breath to ward off my fear and seated myself before the mirror. I heard his muttered prayer and I repeated: "Amen." Then I gazed into the darkness of the mirror.

I could hear myself speaking but I could hardly make out the words. I could hear the scratching of his pen as he wrote down what I was saying. I could hear myself reciting a string of numbers, and then strange words, like a wild poetry which had a rhythm and a beauty of its own; but no meaning that I could tell. Then I heard my voice say very clearly in English: "There will be a child, but no child. There will be a king but no king. There will be a virgin queen all-forgotten. There will be a queen but no virgin."

"And Lord Robert Dudley?" he whispered.

"He will have the making of a prince who will change the history of the world," I whispered in reply. "And he will die, beloved by a queen, safe in his bed."

When I recovered my senses John Dee was standing by me with a drink which tasted of fruit with a tang behind it of metal.

"Are you all right?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Yes. A little sleepy."