The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory

Author:Philippa Gregory
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Touchstone

All morning I wait in my room for the summons to Elizabeth. I am sick with fear. I have been sick in the morning for months from the baby; now I am sick with fear of the queen. I wonder if I am ever going to feel well again, if I am ever going to be happy again. I think of my poor sister and how she waited to hear from this queen’s sister whether she was to live or die, and I think that it is odd, and cruel, and incomprehensible that Jane should have died for her faith and that I should be scared to death for love, and that we will never be able to talk about this. I will give birth to her nephew, and he will never know her.

At midday one of the ladies, Peggy, puts her head round the door and says: “She’s asking for you. We’re going on the river. You picked a bad day to take off!”

“She wants me?” I am out of my chair and on my feet in a moment, ignoring the swimming sensation in my head.

“She just wants to know where you are. I said you had overslept. But you’d better show your face.”

I take a glance at myself in my little beaten-silver looking glass. The gentle tones of the reflection show me a beauty: creamy skin, golden hair, dark eyes.

“Come on,” says Peggy disagreeably. “They’re getting into the boats now.”

“She wants me to come out on the river?”

“Didn’t I just say?”

I hurry behind her and the two of us go to the quayside. I cannot believe that Elizabeth is going to interrogate me while sailing on the river. I thought she would send for me the moment that Robert Dudley spoke to her. I cannot understand what is happening. Elizabeth has been in a bad mood since her arrival in Ipswich. The town is passionately in favor of the reformed religion, and Elizabeth has a hankering for the old ways of the Church. The ministers here have wives, and Elizabeth longs for a celibate clergy dressed in the richest of robes. She is such a silly mix of reform and papistry; she is not serious about her faith like Jane. They have promised her a water masque of boats, to take her mind off her complaints, and we all have to take our places on one of the great trading ships, to dine and watch the display that has been prepared for Elizabeth’s amusement.

Robert Dudley is at her side and he meets my anxious inquiring look with an expression of complete blankness. Clearly, I am to seek no help from him. Elizabeth inclines her head to my curtsey but does not summon me to her side. She is neither angry nor sympathetic, she is like she always is—frosty. It is as if nothing has been said about my condition. For a moment I think that he cannot have told her anything, that his nerve failed him at the last moment.

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