I am such a fool. That great heave was not birth but was quickening—but who knew that it felt so terrible? There’s nothing in the Bible to warn you that it feels as if you are about to die. But now it has happened to me, I know what it is. I am definitely with child, there is no denying it even to myself. Often now, I have this strange sensation of stomach-churning terror. The baby moves without my will, so sometimes I am lying in bed and my swollen belly gives a little jump and squirm and I can actually see the belly move as if I had a kitten hidden under my nightgown. But it is not a kitten—I would know what to do with a kitten, there would be no objection at all to a kitten—it is a baby and one that I am not allowed to conceive or grow or birth. But whether I am allowed or not, whether I want it or not, this child is coming, like a terrible unstoppable force, like a cloud of rain that rolls across open countryside, dark and forbidding and quite uncontrollable.
“Are you all right?” Mary asks me, with the frankness of a younger sister. “For you look as bloated as the queen when she is ill, and you are so bad-tempered these days.”
I long to tell her that I am in love with Ned but that I have heard no word from him. That he was supposed to go away for weeks but he has been gone for months. I long to tell her that we married, but he has deserted me and now I am with child and I can’t even complain of his treatment of me, since the marriage was a secret, and the baby an even more terrible secret, and I cannot bear to keep it secret any longer. And, in any case, sometime it must be born and then my secret is over and I am shamed as low as a strumpet whipped at the cart tail.
“I feel ill,” I say miserably. “I feel so very ill. Oh, Mary, I wish I could tell you how very ill I am.”
She hauls herself up to sit on the window seat beside me, her little feet sticking out. “You’ve not got a fever?”
“No, no, not an illness,” I contradict myself. “I just feel ill.”
“You are missing Ned?”
“Not at all.”
She frowns at me, her pretty face puckered as if she cannot understand me at all. “I have a friend, a secret friend, and I will not tell you his name; but I would never deny him.” She offers me her secret in return for my own. “He says that he loves me and I know that I love him. I won’t say more. This is just to show you that I can keep a secret, that I am a fully grown woman though very small. You can tell me that you love Ned and I can add it to my secret hoard. You can share your secret with me.”
I give a little moan of despair at the thought of my sister getting herself into the same terrible state that I am in. “Don’t speak of him,” I tell her. “Whoever he is, your secret friend. And don’t speak to him. Don’t keep him secret. Forget him. Don’t even dream of him. And if he wants to marry you, then tell him you can never marry without the queen’s permission.”
“She’s never going to let me marry.” Mary dismisses the suggestion with a sulky little shrug. “She’d be too afraid of me giving her a little heir to the throne. She doesn’t want a Tudor prince four feet tall.”
I am so horrified at the thought of this that I gasp at her. “But would you not have a child of normal size?”
“Who knows?” She shrugs her rounded shoulders again, a miniature coquette. “Who knows how these things happen? At any rate, I shall be sure to pick a tall lover to even things up.”
“Mary, you cannot have a lover! You cannot even joke about it. Swear to me that you will meet nobody. That you will put aside your secret.”
“Is this about Ned? Did you make a secret marriage?”
I clap my hand over her mouth and I glare at her. “Don’t say another word,” I say. “Really, Mary. Don’t say another thing. I have no secret and you must never have any.”
She pushes my hand away. “Hey-ho,” she says indifferently. “I’m not the flea in your bedding. No point pinching me. But I don’t gossip either. The secret that you don’t have is safe with me.” She wriggles to the edge of the window seat and makes a little jump to the floor. “But Henry Herbert is no match for you, mark my words. He’s a weathercock, that one: he goes wherever the wind blows. He does what his father tells him, and his father thinks of nothing but their family. Right now they think you will be named as heir by parliament, rather than Queen Mary, and take the throne when Elizabeth dies. That’s why they’re all round you as if they loved you. Don’t think that they do.”
“I don’t think anyone does,” I say bleakly.
Mary catches my hand and puts it to her cheek. “I do,” she says. “And I have a big heart. Bigger than Henry Herbert’s, anyway.”
“He’s my only hope,” I say bleakly.
“Are you really going to marry him?” she asks me incredulously. “Because, I warn you, he is showing a picture of you all round court, and saying that the two of you are betrothed. People ask me. I have denied it.”
My baby stirs as if to disagree. I give a little gasp. “I don’t dare refuse him.”
“Has he given you a ring?” Mary inquires.
“Yes. My old wedding ring from before. He kept it. And he has given me a bracelet and a purse of gold to prove his sincerity. His father has given me a brooch from his mother.”
“Ask the queen for permission to marry him while we’re on progress,” Mary advises. “She’s at her best when the court is out of London, and she and Dudley will be side by side all day—all night, too. Or why not ask Dudley to speak for you? He’s a lover himself this summer; he’s on the side of love against the world. He can’t argue caution, he’s rushing her into marriage as fast as he can. If it’s what you want. Though why you should want it, I can’t understand.”
I blink. “I’m not even packed,” I say irrelevantly. “I can’t find Mr. Nozzle’s traveling basket.”
“I’ll help you,” says my surprising little sister. “Stop crying. Ned’ll come home soon and reclaim you or you’ll marry Henry. Either way, you get a home and a husband. Somebody will love you for yourself. I do, anyway. What more do you want?”
ON PROGRESS: THE ROAD
TO WANSTEAD, SUMMER 1561
We ride out of London and stop the first night at the palace of Wanstead, where Lord Richard Rich, who abandoned Jane so promptly, welcomes us as the proud owner. Robert Dudley puts him to one side, lifts the queen down from her horse, and carries her over the threshold, as if it is his home and she is his bride. Elizabeth laughs in delight and Richard Rich manages a thin smile.
The servants have unpacked our clothes and jewelry, but everything at Wanstead is so fine that we will use their linen, and gold and silver plates. I see Elizabeth eyeing the rich parkland around the great house, and I know that the court will be hunting tomorrow. I will have to make an excuse; riding only ten miles has given me a stitch so painful that I can hardly stand when I am lifted down from the horse. I certainly can’t gallop behind hounds.
“Letter for you.” One of the Rich servants in livery bows and offers me a letter with my name on the front.
“A letter?”
For a moment, I don’t even take it. I stare at it with rising hope, then slowly, wonderingly, I put out my hand. I feel as if someone is handing me the key to escape from a prison of worry.