The Queen's Bastard Read online

  Where once, in the early days after the revelation, had festered confusion and worry at the decision to have Robin Dudley’s child, one day in early summer, as she felt her son move within her, her mind grew suddenly calm. A plan had begun to take shape, as a complex strategy of battle might form in the dreams of a great general.

  Destiny, she realized, had timed the pregnancy for the months of her summer progress. Had it been otherwise, Elizabeth, wintering in the rigid confines of her court, would have found it impossible to conceal. As it was, her precisely delineated plan had worked brilliantly. Of course, it had required considerable help from the Fates and from her friends. But that had materialized unfailingly — if not always, in the latter case, altogether wholeheartedly. While Robin and the Sidneys — party to John Dee’s prophecy — had become willing participants in her scheme, Kat and William Cecil had fought tooth and claw against it. Elizabeth had been forced to bring all her queenly strength, even tyrannical powers, to bear.

  ’Twas after all a mad scheme, even Elizabeth had to admit. Hard enough to bring to full term a secret pregnancy during five months of grueling travel. But she then must spirit the child far from Court to sanctuary with her Boleyn relations to be raised quietly, and contrive to see the child as often as possible till the time when she felt strong enough to acknowledge him and proclaim him her successor.

  It was this last portion of the scheme that made Kat and Cecil most skeptical. Granted, Elizabeth might somehow conceal the pregnancy by use of proxies, feigned illnesses, and disappearances into the deep countryside. But to keep a royal bastard undiscovered for years? It would require profound and unerring loyalty from too many people for too long. Intentions might be good, but any number of things — a conversation overheard by a disgruntled servant, one of the Queen’s secret assignations with the child observed and questioned — might lead to exposure.

  Elizabeth’s trust in her plan was based, as Kat’s or Cecil’s could never be, on her belief in destiny. As her own birth had been foretold by the Maid of Kent, her child’s had been similarly prophesied by John Dee. The man nun had seen that Anne Boleyn’s “sun” should shine for two score years and four, and where once Elizabeth had doubted that she would reign so long, she now knew in her heart that it was so. She would live to be a powerful old woman who would rule a vast empire over the western sea, as John Dee had said, and in that time she would gain the power she needed to bring forward and proclaim this child of her body as heir. She would have the power. Of this she was certain.

  Elizabeth lay trembling with exaltation, hands upon her great belly. Suddenly her mind flew to thoughts of her sweet Robin, flew as swiftly as a London kite might fly to the safety of its nest atop a high castle tower. For only with Robin was her heart truly safe. In his presence alone was Elizabeth other than queen. She was, simply, a woman.

  She groaned inwardly to think her love, father of this child, willingly joined in her scheme in ignorance of the true nature of his role. He believed, for Elizabeth had sworn, that once their son was born and lived she would, in time, marry him, make him king, proclaiming to the world they had been wed in secret, as her father had wed her mother after Anne had become pregnant with herself. Yet Elizabeth would not marry Dudley. She could not. Her heart ached with guilt, and with the fear that he would for-sake her once the truth was known. How could she blame him? The one clear desire of his life — to marry her and be king of England — seemed finally within reach. Yet his sweet devotion to his wife-to-be and child all rested on an illusion, a bitter conjuring, a cruel deception at the hands of his beloved. ’Twas a cold plan forged in the mind of a hard, scheming queen, she thought ruefully. Hard and cruel, but necessary. For Elizabeth must rule alone. Nothing could move her in this conviction. Not pain, not guilt. Not love. She was one with England, and when she died her son Arthur, descended as he was from the great and legendary king, would rule gloriously after her. She must gather her strength and courage, for the road that was her destiny was long and hard and dangerous unto death.

  Nine

  It had been a nerve-fraying race against time, thought Kat Ashley as she ripped clean sheeting into wide strips — such devious maneuvering as she in her life had never before, and hoped never again, to perform. Seated outside the Queen’s bedchamber, where within Mary Sidney attended Elizabeth, Kat smiled to think how she had deceived them all, smart as they were — Elizabeth, Dudley, Mary and Henry Sidney. At any moment Cecil, her only ally in the plot, would be returning with the midwife, Agnes Hodgeson.

  A bolt of lightning seared across the darkening afternoon sky, and Kat worried that the vagaries of weather might imperil her well-laid plans. An almost immediate crash of thunder announced the storm’s nearness.

  Kat remembered the moment just two weeks before when she had discovered how she could take control of this dreadful travesty in which Elizabeth had entangled herself, and save her misguided charge from tragedy.

  On that fine late-summer Wednesday Kat had ordered the coach and gone to the nearest village for some sweet plums which Elizabeth had requested. For Kat, accustomed to being always at the Queen’s side to do her bidding, it had been lovely out on her own, driving through the bustling market square with its shops and gaudy stalls, vendors hawking ripe country fruits and vegetables, live squawking poultry hung up in reed cages, piles of rough breads and manchettes, kegs of ale. Rowdy children pinched apples from a barrel, and a drunken shepherd drove a flock of black-faced sheep down the main thoroughfare, knocking over a dozen carts and stalls. Kat had gotten out and gone happily about on foot, her basket tucked beneath her arm like a country goodwife and not first lady to the Queen of England.

  There at a rude table outside the half-timbered apothecary’s house she overheard two women talking, and stopped nearby, pretending to examine some leather sandals. They were both midwives, so it seemed, the wizened older woman, Agnes, regaling the younger with some wisdom about the inducement of labor and its benefits.

  “If in the eighth month the choild be large and the mother small in her places, then she best be served by an early birthin’. Otherwise she can be torn so badly ye can do naught but watch her bleed and die. The babe might live, but what good is it without a mother?” said the crone.

  “And what be the potion, then,” asked the younger midwife, “and what amounts be given to bring on her labor?”

  As measures of strangely named herbs and concoctions which meant nothing to Kat’s untrained ear were exchanged, she found herself reflecting that Elizabeth was nearing the eighth month of her pregnancy. She was even now awaiting the next downpour, during which she would don her great leather cloak, bid Lord and Lady Clinton fare-thee-well, thanking them for their comfortable home in which she passed through the out-break of smallpox with, Jesus be praised, no ugly scarring, and be on her way to the final destination of Cumberland Manor. There some distant maternal relatives, Boleyns or Howards whom Elizabeth deemed loyal and trustworthy, would oversee her lying in and foster her bastard child.

  Kat had grown more certain with every passing day that once the babe was born and out of her hands, disaster was sure to follow. The Boleyns and Howards were anything but trustworthy. They were as ambitious and conniving as any family in England. Their womenfolk — Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard — had been queens to Henry VIII and both had died for acts of treason and adultery. Kat had always believed, secretly, that Elizabeth’s wild blood and tendency toward wantonness was her mother’s. If she could only take the child in her own hands, give it over to someone truly trustworthy, truly loyal, someone with no ambitions save a quiet and God-fearing life …

  The two midwives had risen from their table in the market square and bid each other good-day when Kat approached the older of the two with a friendly smile.

  “You’re just the woman I need to see,” she said, locking arms with Agnes congenially. “Is there a quiet place we might talk?”

  As Kat sat outside Elizabeth’s bedchamber now remembering that d
ay, she realized that the lightning and thunder had not abated but worsened. With the dark came a fierce wind. Hearing a commotion in the courtyard, she peered out the upstairs window to see that all members of the summer progress were being ushered hurriedly into Fulham House. The tents must have blown down in the wind, thought Kat. They’d all be entering with misgivings. Smallpox was a far more terrible threat than a good drenching. Still, they needed shelter. ’Twould be a foul hall with such a crush of bodies. Now behind the last of the servants Kat could see the horses being herded into the courtyard. It must be a more furious storm than she could discern from this protected place in the house.

  “God in heaven!” swore Kat under her breath. The entire court just below them during the birth. Elizabeth might cry and scream in pain, or the baby when it was born… . Sweet Jesu, would her own tampering with the Fates lead to the very outcome she had worked so assiduously to avoid? Where on earth were Cecil and the midwife!

  It had been almost unbearable waiting for word from Agnes Hodgeson that their machinations might begin to go forward, and, too, for the next rain. But in the late morning of this day, as soon as it was apparent that a storm was approaching, Kat had administered the potion to bring on Elizabeth’s labor. She had mixed the herbs into the gravy of the Queen’s favorite meat pie and watched her eat, holding her breath lest Elizabeth, whose appetite had become large but whose senses were nevertheless refined, might notice something amiss. She had always found strong smells and flavors repugnant. At her own coronation she had recoiled in disgust at the foetid odor of the holy oil with which she’d been anointed, and had insisted on bathing thoroughly before donning her gown for the feast. But Elizabeth had eaten her meat pie this day with great gusto, perhaps too busy barking out orders for immediate departure from Fulham to notice.

  Kat and Lady Mary were in the midst of packing the Queen’s trunks, Elizabeth hovering over them with endless annoying instructions on how her things should be arranged, when the labor pains had begun.

  “God’s death!” cried Elizabeth, choking back a sudden cry of pain and clutching the bedpost with one hand, her great belly with the other. She looked to her waiting women, her face a mask of terror. “But it is too soon.”

  “’Tis soon, Madame,” said Kat soothingly as she helped Elizabeth lie down, “but not dangerously so. Mary, go tell Cecil and your brother it has begun.”

  As Kat pulled a nightgown from a half-packed chest, Mary bent and whispered in her ear, “We are not prepared at this house, Kat. Who will — ?”

  “Have no worry, child. I have in fact prepared for this eventuality. There is a midwife in the village whom Cecil will fetch. Our queen has been so certain of her great plans, but not everything can be left to chance. Go quickly now!”

  “Yes, Kat.”

  “And scour the cabinets for clean linen sheets and bolts of muslin. If they are not here you will have to search the laundry.”

  Mary Sidney nodded and bustled out.

  “Kat,” moaned Elizabeth, “come hold my hand. I’m afraid.”

  “No need, my darling. Everything will be fine. The child will be smaller, ’tis true, but the birth will be easier for you.”

  “But he must live… .”

  “That is in God’s hands, Elizabeth, God’s hands alone.”

  Kat had smiled at the Queen with calm reassurance, but her smile had been one of secret pleasure as well. After so many years of service to Elizabeth, Kat Ashley was once again in charge.

  But as the storm grew in fury outside the window, the smile faded and only worry creased Kat’s face. What if Cecil could not find the mid-wife? What if the old woman had hidden in fear? Agnes knew she would be attending the Queen of England — there could be no hiding that. Mayhaps the payment for her services and yet more to keep her mouth shut were still not enough. Once the bargain had been struck — the mid-wife’s reward sufficient to keep her in comfort till the end of her days — Kat, with a coldness she had not known she possessed, had sealed the bargain with a threat. If word of this birth ever came to public knowledge, she swore, the midwife would know a terrible death indeed. Had the threat frightened the woman away? What if Elizabeth should … ? No, she must stop this senseless rumination at once. Elizabeth would not die, could not die!

  With a flash of lightning that lit the chamber bright as midday, and a crash of thunder that seemed to shake the very walls, the door opened. William Cecil, dripping wet, accompanying a figure enshrouded in one of the hooded leather rain cloaks, entered and shut the door behind them. Kat sagged with relief as Agnes Hodgeson pulled off the cape and revealed herself, scowling and cursing, carrying two large cloth satchels, one of which bulged and clanked with the fearsome tools of her trade.

  “Did anyone mark her arrival?” Kat demanded of Cecil.

  “In that stinking nightmare down below? There is such confusion and so little space ’tis difficult even to find a place to sit. One driver did recognize the cloak and bid greeting to yourself, but that was all.”

  “I’ll need hot water and clean linen torn in strips,” ordered the midwife to Kat. She was not one for pleasantries, thought the waiting lady with irritation. But neither was Mistress Ashley to be ruled by this bad-tempered old crone.

  “’Tis done and ready,” said Kat, nodding smartly to the pile of neatly folded bandages and a kettle boiling atop a brazier. She moved close and whispered in the midwife’s ear. “Have you brought —”

  “I have all that I need,” Agnes answered abruptly. “Set me up a screen over there near the door, with a table behind it, a basin, and another brazier. Lay a pile of the rags there too.”

  “Where is Robin?” cried Elizabeth weakly. “Why has he not come?”

  “I failed to find him, Majesty,” replied Mary Sidney, clutching the Queen’s hand. “Mayhaps he is helping secure the horses, for the storm is worsening and there is insufficient room in the stables.”

  “Find him, find him!”Elizabeth wailed hoarsely. Then just as she screamed again in pain, the bedchamber door flew open and Robin Dudley, followed by his brother-in-law, entered and strode to Elizabeth’s side. Her arms went round him, embracing him as though she meant never to release him.

  “Will ye for God’s sake get all these men out of here, and do it now!” Agnes ordered Kat with an impatient growl. “’Tis a birthin’, not a barn dance!” Her words were punctuated by the most frightening explosion of thunder yet.

  Robin could barely be torn away by Henry Sidney from embracing Elizabeth and kissing her face bathed in tears and sweat.

  “I’ll pray for you, my love, you and our son,” he cried.

  “Robin!”

  As the men exited the bedchamber, Cecil, the last to leave, exchanged a fraught look with Kat.

  “Be ready,” she whispered. “And pray that all goes well.”

  “Let her scream, why don’t ye? ’Twill do her good,” muttered Agnes to Kat, who, with jaws clenched determinedly, placed a clean roll of bandages between Elizabeth’s teeth to stifle her shrieks. She pressed a cool wet cloth to the Queen’s forehead. Her skin was nearly as white as the lawn sheets, and she moaned deliriously.

  “Just do your work, woman, and keep your opinions to yourself,” snapped Kat, wishing that she had found any other midwife in the wide world than this querulous hag who now toiled between Elizabeth’s outstretched thighs.

  “Aye, her parts are small,” said Agnes, pointedly ignoring Kat’s command for silence. The midwife knew she could afford a smart word or two, for in this room it was she and she alone who stood between life and death for the Queen and her child. “’Tis a good thing we —”

  Kat gave the woman a vicious pinch on the soft part of her upper arm to silence her, for although Elizabeth was beyond hearing, Mary Sidney hovered close by and must never know what Kat had conspired with this old woman to do.

  “There’s its crown. ’Tis comin’ now. O Jesus help us, I think a hemorrhage has begun!” Agnes glared at Kat and gestured with her eyes tow
ard Mary Sidney.

  “Mary,” said Kat urgently, “run down to the laundry for more sheets. And tell your brother to fetch that physician Lady Clinton spoke of. We may have need of him.”

  There was panic in Mary’s eyes, but she held herself bravely together. Before dashing away she grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and kissed it, then was gone.

  “Robin, Robin,” moaned Elizabeth, only half conscious.

  As the door closed and Kat locked it behind Mary, Agnes smiled a rotten-toothed smile. “Ye done yer part well, milady. Now she must do hers.” She peered at Elizabeth from between her angled knees. “Yer Majesty …” Elizabeth just groaned deliriously. To Kat the midwife said, “Ye must slap her face, bring her to. I need her to bear down, and I need it now.”

  Kat went to Elizabeth’s side, gritted her teeth, and gave the Queen a smart slap on each cheek. Her eyes fluttered open. They were dull with pain and exhaustion.

  “Elizabeth, ’tis time. The babe is coming, but you must bear down when Agnes tells you.” Then, lifting her skirts, Kat Ashley climbed upon the bedstead and squatted behind Elizabeth’s head. “Here, give me your hands.”

  Elizabeth obeyed, raising her arms above her head and clutching Kat’s with her own.

  “All righty,” said Agnes with fierce determination. “Let us bring this choild outta ye.”

  Whether because of Agnes’s skill, the smaller size of the premature babe, or simply the Fates cooperating once again, Elizabeth and Dudley’s son emerged with a lusty cry from the Queen’s body not five minutes after Mary Sidney’s departure for the laundry. While the hemorrhage had been a mere pretext to afford privacy, and Elizabeth had come through the birthing with little damage or tearing, she was nevertheless dead with fatigue and pain. She never questioned the midwife as she snipped and tied the umbilical cord and retreated with the bloodied creature behind the screen. Elizabeth managed a weak smile as Kat wiped her face with a cloth.