The Virgin’s Lover. Philippa Gregory

know, that she is King Philip’s lover?’

      ‘Not her,’ Dudley said with the certainty of a childhood playmate. ‘But she’ll keep him dancing to her tune because he guarantees her safety. Half the Privy Council would have her beheaded tomorrow if it were not for the king’s favour. She’s no lovesick fool. She’ll use him, not be had by him. She’s a formidable girl. I’d so like to see her if we can.’

      ‘She always had a tender heart for you,’ Henry grinned. ‘Shall you eclipse the king himself?’

      ‘Not while I have nothing to offer her,’ Robert said. ‘She’s a calculating wench, God bless her. Are they ready to load us?’

      ‘My horse is already aboard,’ Henry said. ‘I was coming for yours.’

      ‘I’ll walk him down with you,’ Robert said. The two men went through the stone archway to where the horse was stabled in the yard at the back of the inn.

      ‘When did you last see her? The princess?’ Henry asked his brother.

      ‘When I was in my pomp and she in hers,’ Robert smiled ruefully. ‘It must have been the last Christmas at court. When King Edward was failing, and Father was king in everything but name alone. She was the Protestant princess and the favourite sister. We were twins in the smugness of our triumph and Mary was nowhere to be seen. D’you remember?’

      Henry frowned. ‘Dimly. You know I was never very good at the shifts in favour.’

      ‘You would have learned,’ Robert said drily. ‘In a family such as ours was then, you would have had to.’

      ‘I remember she was imprisoned for treason in the Tower, while we were still in there,’ Henry recalled.

      ‘I was glad when I learned she was free,’ Robert said. ‘Elizabeth always had the luck of the devil.’

      The big black horse whinnied at the sight of Robert and Robert went forward and stroked his soft nose. ‘Come on then, my lovely,’ he said softly. ‘Come on, First Step.’

      ‘What d’you call him?’ Henry inquired.

      ‘First Step,’ Robert said. ‘When we were released from the Tower and I came home to Amy and found myself a pauper in her stepmother’s house, the woman told me that I could neither buy nor borrow a horse to ride on.’

      Henry gave a low whistle. ‘I thought they kept a good house at Stanfield?’

      ‘Not for a son-in-law who had just come home an undischarged traitor,’ Robert said ruefully. ‘I had no choice but to walk in my riding boots to a horse fair, and I won him in a bet. I called him First Step. He is my first step back to my rightful place.’

      ‘And this expedition will be our next step,’ Henry said gleefully.

      Robert nodded. ‘If we can rise in King Philip’s favour we can be returned to court,’ he said. ‘Anything will be forgiven the man who holds the Netherlands for Spain.’

      ‘Dudley! A Dudley!’ Henry shouted the family battle cry, and opened the door to the loosebox.

      The two of them led the nervous horse down the cobbled street to the quayside, and waited behind the other men leading their horses on board. The little waves lapped at the jetty and First Step flared his nostrils and shifted uneasily. When it was his turn to go up the gangplank he put his forefeet on the bridge and then froze in fear.

      One of the lumpers came behind with a whip raised to strike.

      ‘Stay your hand!’ Robert rapped out, loud above the noise.

      ‘I tell you, he won’t go on without,’ the man swore.

      Robert turned his back on the horse, dropped the reins and went ahead of him, into the darkness of the hold. The horse fretted, shifting from one foot to another, his ears flickering forward and back, his head up, looking for Robert. From the belly of the ship came Robert’s whistle and the horse turned his ears forward and went trustingly in.

      Robert came out, having petted and tethered his horse, and saw Amy with his bags on the quayside. ‘All loaded and shipshape,’ he said cheerfully to her. He took her cold little hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘Forgive me,’ he said quietly. ‘I was disturbed by my dream last night, and it made me short-tempered. Let us have no more wrangling, but part as friends.’

      The tears welled up in her brown eyes. ‘Oh, Robert, please don’t go,’ she breathed.

      ‘Now, Amy,’ he said firmly. ‘You know that I have to go. And when I am gone I shall send you all my pay and I expect you to invest it wisely, and look about for a farm for us to buy. We must rise, my wife, and I am counting on you to mind our fortune and help us rise.’

      She tried to smile. ‘You know I’ll never fail you. But it’s just …’

      ‘The royal barge!’ Henry exclaimed as every man along the quayside pulled off his hat and bowed his head.

      ‘Excuse us,’ Robert said swiftly to Amy, and he and Henry went up to the deck of the King of Spain’s ship so that he could look down on the royal barge as it came by. The queen was seated in the stern of the barge, under the canopy of state, but the twenty-two year-old Princess Elizabeth, radiant in the Tudor colours of green and white, was standing in the prow like a bold figurehead where everyone could see her, smiling and waving her hand at the people.

      The oarsmen held the barge steady, the ships were side by side, the two brothers looked down from the waist of the warship to the barge that rode lower in the water beside them.

      Elizabeth looked up. ‘A Dudley!’ Her voice rang out clearly and her smile gleamed up at Robert.

      He bowed his head. ‘Princess!’ He looked towards the queen, who did not acknowledge him. ‘Your Majesty.’

      Coldly, she raised her hand. She was draped in ropes of pearls, she had diamonds in her ears and a hood encrusted with emeralds, but her eyes were dull with grief, and the lines around her mouth made her look as if she had forgotten how to smile.

      Elizabeth stepped forward to the side rail of the royal barge. ‘Are you off to war, Robert?’ she called up to the ship. ‘Are you to be a hero?’

      ‘I hope so!’ he shouted back clearly. ‘I hope to serve the queen in her husband’s dominions and win her gracious favour again.’

      Elizabeth’s eyes danced. ‘I am sure she has no more loyal soldier than you!’ She was nearly laughing aloud.

      ‘And no sweeter subject than you!’ he returned.

      She gritted her teeth so that she did not burst out. He could see her struggling to control herself.

      ‘And are you well, Princess?’ he called more softly. She knew what he meant: — Are you in good health? — For he knew that when she was frightened she contracted a dropsy that swelled her fingers and ankles and forced her to her bed. — And are you safe? — For there she was, beside the queen in the royal barge, when proximity to the throne always meant proximity to the block, and her only ally on the Privy Council, King Philip, was sailing away to war. And most of all: — Are you waiting, as I am waiting, for better times, and praying they come soon? —

      ‘I am well,’ she shouted back. ‘As ever. Constant. And you?’

      He grinned down at her. ‘Constant too.’

      They needed to say no more. ‘God bless you and keep you, Robert Dudley,’ she said.

      ‘And you, Princess.’ — And God speed you to your own again that I may come to mine — was his unspoken reply. By the cheeky gleam in her eyes he knew that she knew what he was thinking. They had always known exactly what the other was thinking.