The Virgin’s Lover. Philippa Gregory

of the night; anything rather than ennobled as the handsome favourite at another woman’s court. She knew from this that she was a jealous wife; and jealousy was a sin in the eyes of God.

      She put her head down and trudged on to the meadows where the cows grazed on the thin grass, churning up sepia earth and flints beneath their clumsy hooves.

      — How could we end up like this? — she whispered to the stormy sky piling up a brooding castle of clouds over Norfolk. — Since I love him so much, and since he loves me? Since there is no-one for us but each other? How could he leave me to struggle here, and dash off to her? How could it start so well, in such wealth and glory as it did, and end in hardship and loneliness like this? —

      

       One Year Earlier: Summer 1557

       In his dream he saw once again the rough floorboards of the empty room, the sandstone mantelpiece over the big fireplace with their names carved into it, and the leaded window, set high in the stone wall. By dragging the big refectory table over to the window, climbing up, and craning their necks to look downward, the five young men could see the green below where their father came slowly out to the scaffold and mounted the steps.

       He was accompanied by a priest of the newly restored Roman Catholic church, he had repented of his sins and recanted his principles. He had begged for forgiveness and slavishly apologised. He had thrown away all fidelity for the chance of forgiveness, and by the anxious turning of his head as he searched the faces of the small crowd, he was hoping for the arrival of his pardon at this late, this theatrical moment.

       He had every reason to hope. The new monarch was a Tudor and the Tudors knew the power of appearances. She was devout, and surely would not reject a contrite heart. But more than anything else; she was a woman, a soft-hearted, thick-headed woman. She would never have the courage to take the decision to execute such a great man, she would never have the stamina to hold to her decision.

      — Stand up, Father, — Robert urged him silently. — The pardon must come at any moment; don’t lower yourself by looking for it. —

       The door behind Robert opened, and a gaoler came in and laughed raucously to see the five young men up at the window, shading their eyes against the brilliant midsummer sun. ‘Don’t jump,’ he said. ‘Don’t rob the axeman, bonny lads. It’ll be you five next, and the pretty maid.’

       ‘I will remember you for this, after our pardons have come, and we are released,’ Robert promised him, and turned his attention back to the green. The gaoler checked the thick bars on the window and saw that the men had nothing that could break the glass, and then went out, still chuckling, and locked the door.

       Below on the scaffold, the priest stepped up to the condemned man, and read him prayers from his Latin bible. Robert noticed how the wind caught the rich vestments and made them billow like the sails of an invading Armada. Abruptly, the priest finished, held up a crucifix for the man to kiss, and stepped back.

       Robert found he was suddenly cold, chilled to ice by the glass of the window where he was resting his forehead and the palms of his hands, as if the warmth of his body was bleeding out of him, sucked out by the scene below. On the scaffold, his father knelt humbly before the block. The axeman stepped forward and tied the blindfold over his eyes, he spoke to him. The prisoner turned his bound head to reply. Then, dreadfully, it seemed as if that movement had disoriented him. He had taken his hands from the executioner’s block, and he could not find it again. He started to feel for it, hands outstretched. The executioner had turned to pick up his axe, and when he turned back, his prisoner was near to falling, scrabbling about.

       Alarmed, the hooded executioner shouted at the struggling prisoner, and the prisoner plucked at the bandage over his eyes, calling that he was not ready, that he could not find the block, that the axe must wait for him.

       ‘Be still!’ Robert hollered, hammering against the thick glass of the window. ‘Father, be still! For God’s sake, be still!’

       ‘Not yet!’ cried the little figure on the green to the axeman behind him. ‘I can’t find the block! I am not ready! I am not prepared! Not yet! Not yet!’

       He was crawling in the straw, one hand outstretched before him, trying to find the block, the other hand plucking at the tight bandage over his head. ‘Don’t touch me! She will pardon me! I’m not ready!’ he screamed, and was still screaming, as the axeman swung his blade and the axe thudded into the exposed neck. A gout of blood spurted upward, and the man was thrown to one side with the blow.

       ‘Father!’ Robert shouted. ‘My father!’

       The blood was pumping from the wound but the man still scrabbled like a dying pig in the straw, still trying to get to his feet with boots that could get no purchase, still searching blindly for the block, with hands that were growing numb. The executioner, cursing his own inaccuracy, raised the great axe again.

       ‘Father!’ Robert cried out in agony as the axe came down. ‘Father!’

      ‘Robert? My lord?’ A hand was gently shaking him. He opened his eyes and there was Amy before him, her brown hair plaited for sleep, her brown eyes wide, solidly real in the candlelight of the bedroom.

      ‘Good God! What a nightmare! What a dream. God keep me from it. God keep me from it!’

      ‘Was it the same dream?’ she asked. ‘The dream of your father’s death?’

      He could not even bear that she should mention it. ‘Just a dream,’ he said shortly, trying to recover his wits. ‘Just a terrible dream.’

      ‘But the same dream?’ she persisted.

      He shrugged. ‘It’s hardly surprising that it should come back to me. Do we have some ale?’

      Amy threw back the covers and rose from the bed, pulling her nightgown around her shoulders. But she was not to be diverted. ‘It’s an omen,’ she said flatly, as she poured him a mug of ale. ‘Shall I heat this up?’

      ‘I’ll take it cold,’ he said.

      She passed him the mug and he drank it down, feeling his night sweat cooling on his naked back, ashamed of his own terror.

      ‘It’s a warning,’ she said.

      He tried to find a careless smile, but the horror of his father’s death, and all the failure and sadness that had ridden at his heels since that black day, was too much for him. ‘Don’t,’ he said simply.

      ‘You should not go tomorrow.’

      Robert took a draught of ale, burying his face in the mug to avoid her accusing gaze.

      ‘A bad dream like that is a warning. You should not sail with King Philip.’

      ‘We’ve been through this a thousand times. You know I have to go.’

      ‘Not now! Not after you dreamed of your father’s death. What else could it mean but a warning to you: not to overreach yourself? He died a traitor’s death after trying to put his son on the throne of England. Now you ride out in your pride once more.’

      He tried to smile. ‘Not much pride,’ he said. ‘All I have is my horse and my brother. I could not even raise my own battalion.’

      ‘Your father himself is warning you from beyond the grave.’

      Wearily, he shook his head. ‘Amy, this is too painful. Don’t cite him to me. You don’t know what he was like. He would have wanted me to restore the Dudleys. He would never have discouraged me in anything I wanted to do. He always wanted us to rise.