went up for a toast for Jane and Guilford, I could see that it cost Lady Jane an effort to raise her golden goblet to her new husband. Her eyes were red and raw, and the shadows under her eyes were dark with fatigue; there were marks on either side of her neck that looked like thumbprints. It looked very much as if someone had shaken the bride by the neck till she agreed to take her vows. She barely touched the bridal ale with her lips, I did not see her swallow.
‘What d’you think, Hannah the Fool?’ the Duke of Northumberland shouted down the hall to me. ‘Shall she be a lucky bride?’
My neighbours turned to me, and I felt the old swimming sensation that was a sign of the Sight coming. I tried to fight it off, this court would be the worst place in the world to tell the truth. I could not stop the words coming. ‘Never more lucky than today,’ I said.
Lord Robert flashed a cautionary look at me but I could not take back the words. I had spoken as I felt, not with the skill of a courtier. My sense was that Jane’s luck, at a low ebb when she married with a bruise on her throat, would now run ever more swiftly downhill. But the duke took it as a compliment to his son and laughed at me, and raised his goblet. Guilford, little more than a dolt, beamed at his mother, while Lord Robert shook his head, and half-closed his eyes, as if he wished he was elsewhere.
There was dancing, and a bride had to dance at her own wedding, though Lady Jane sat in her chair, as stubborn as a white mule. Lord Robert led her gently to the dance floor. I saw him whisper to her and she found a wan little smile and put her hand in his. I wondered what he was saying to cheer her. In the moments when the dancers paused and awaited their turn in the circle his mouth was so close to her ear that I thought she must feel the warmth of his breath on her bare neck. I watched without envy. I did not long to be her, with his long fingers holding my hand, or his dark eyes on my face. I gazed on them as I might look on a pair of beautiful portraits, his face turned to her as sharp as a hawk’s beak in profile, her pallor warming under his kindness.
The court danced until late, as if there were great joy from such weddings, and then the three couples were taken to their bedrooms and put to bed with much throwing of rose petals and sprinkling of rose water. But it was all show, no more real than Will and I fighting with wooden swords. None of the marriages was to be consummated yet, and the next day Lady Jane went home with her parents to Suffolk Place, Guilford Dudley went home with his mother, complaining of stomach ache and bloating, and Lord Robert and the duke were up early to return to the king at Greenwich.
‘Why does your brother not make a house with his wife?’ I asked Lord Robert. I met him at the gateway of the stable-yard, and he waited beside me while they brought out his great horse.
‘Well, it is not unusual. I do not live with mine,’ he remarked.
I saw the roofs of Durham House tilt against the sky, as I staggered back and held on to the wall till the world steadied again. ‘You have a wife?’
‘Oho, did you not know that, my little seer? I thought you knew everything?’
‘I did not know …’ I began.
‘Oh yes, I have been married since I was a lad. And I thank God for it.’
‘Because you like her so much?’ I stammered, feeling an odd pain like sickness under my ribs.
‘Because if I had not been married already, it would have been me married to Jane Grey and dancing to my father’s bidding.’
‘Does your wife never come to court?’
‘Almost never. She will only live in the country, she has no liking for London, we cannot agree … and it is easier for me …’ He broke off and glanced towards his father, who was mounting a big black hunter and giving his grooms orders about the rest of the horses. I knew at once that it was easier for Lord Robert to move this way and that, his father’s spy, his father’s agent, if he was not accompanied by a wife whose face might betray them.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Amy,’ he said casually. ‘Why?’
I had no answer. Numbly, I shook my head. I could feel an intense discomfort in my belly. For a moment I thought I had taken Guilford Dudley’s bloat. It burned me like bile. ‘Do you have children?’
If he had said that he had children, if he had said that he had a girl, a beloved daughter, I think I would have doubled up and vomited on the cobbles at his feet.
But he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘You must tell me one day when I shall get a son and an heir. Can you do that?’
I looked up and tried to smile despite the burning in my throat. ‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Are you afraid of the mirror?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m not afraid, if you are there.’
He smiled at that. ‘You have all the cunning of a woman, never mind the skills of a holy fool. You seek me out, don’t you, Mistress Boy?’
I shook my head. ‘No, sir.’
‘You didn’t like the thought of me married.’
‘I was surprised, only.’
Lord Robert put his gloved hand under my chin and turned my face up to him so that I was forced to meet his dark eyes. ‘Don’t be a woman, a lying woman. Tell me the truth. Are you troubled with the desires of a maid, my little Mistress Boy?’
I was too young to hide it. I felt the tears come into my eyes and I stayed still, letting him hold me.
He saw the tears and knew what they meant. ‘Desire? And for me?’
Still I said nothing, looking at him dumbly through my blurred vision.
‘I promised your father that I would not let any harm come to you,’ he said gently.
‘It has come already,’ I said, speaking the inescapable truth.
He shook his head, his dark eyes warm. ‘Oh, this is nothing. This is young love, green-sickness. The mistake I made in my youth was to marry for such a slim cause. But you, you will survive this and go on to marry your betrothed and have a houseful of black-eyed children.’
I shook my head but my throat was too tight to speak.
‘It is not love that matters, Mistress Boy, it is what you choose to do with it. What d’you choose to do with yours?’
‘I could serve you.’
He took one of my cold hands and took it up to his lips. Entranced, I felt his mouth touch the tips of my fingers, a touch as intimate as any kiss on the lips. My own mouth softened, in a little pursed shape of longing, as if I would have him kiss me, there, in the courtyard before them all.
‘Yes,’ he said gently, not raising his head but whispering against my fingers. ‘You could serve me. A loving servant is a great gift for any man. Will you be mine, Mistress Boy? Heart and soul? And do whatever I ask of you?’
His moustache brushed against my hand, as soft as the breast feathers of his hawk.
‘Yes,’ I said, hardly grasping the enormity of my promise.
‘Whatever I ask of you?’
‘Yes.’
At once he straightened up, suddenly decisive. ‘Good. Then I have a new post for you, new work.’
‘Not at court?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘You begged me to the king,’ I reminded him. ‘I am his fool.’
His mouth twisted in a moment’s pity. ‘The poor lad won’t miss you,’ he said. ‘I shall tell you all of it. Come to Greenwich tomorrow, with the rest of them, and I’ll tell you then.’
He laughed at himself as if the future was an adventure that he wanted to start at once. ‘Come to Greenwich tomorrow,’ he threw over his