Elizabeth opened her blue eyes very wide. “Your Majesty cannot mean that!”

“I am not in the habit of saying what I do not mean. Now, sister, I know you well. Remember we have spent many years together. When there was trouble in your nursery, as I well remember, you had little difficulty in proving your innocence.”

“Your Majesty, it should be an easy matter for the innocent to prove their innocence. It is only the guilty who face an impossible task.”

The Queen waved a hand impatiently. “I have a husband for you.”

Elizabeth grew pale. She was tense, waiting.

“It is Philibert Emmanuel, the Duke of Savoy.”

“The Duke of Savoy!” echoed Elizabeth blankly.

She had expected death and had been offered a duke. To die would be the end of life, but to marry a foreign duke and leave England would mean abandoning all that she had hoped for. Only now did she fully realize how she had always longed to be the Queen of England. To resign her hopes would be as bad as death.

She said firmly: “Your Majesty, I could never agree to the match.”

“You could not agree!”

“I could not agree, Your Majesty.”

The Queen bent forward and said coldly: “What right have you to object to the husband I have chosen for you?”

Elizabeth was thinking of Robert Dudley as she had seen him through the bars of his cell—tall, dark, handsome … and those passionate daring eyes. If it were Robert … she thought. No, not for him would she abandon her dream. But she was not being offered Robert. She was offered a foreign prince whom the Queen favored because he was a vassal of Spain; and all things connected with Spain were good in the Queen’s eyes since she had taken a look at the picture of a short, trim young man who was destined to be her husband.

“There is only one reason why I could object to your choice, Your Majesty, and that is because I feel within myself that the married state is not for me.”

Mary looked cynically at her sister. “You … to be a spinster! When did you make up your mind to this?”

“I think, Your Majesty, that it is something I have always known.”

“I have not noticed that you have shown much maidenliness toward the opposite sex.”

“Your Majesty, it is because I have always felt thus that I have perhaps at times appeared to be unguarded.”

“Do you feel then that there is no need to guard that which you have determined at all costs to preserve?”

“Your Majesty, it is only necessary to put a guard on that which one is in danger of losing. My inclination for virginity being what it is, I had no need to restrain myself as have some maidens.”

“I would not have you come to me in frivolous mood.”

“Your Majesty, I was never more serious.”

“Then we shall contract you to the Duke of Savoy.”

Elizabeth folded her hands on her breast. “Your Majesty, I am of such mind that I prefer death to marriage.”

“I should not talk too readily of death. It could be reckless talk.”

“Your Majesty, I am reckless. I prefer death to betrothal to the Duke of Savoy.”

“We shall see,” said Mary.

She summoned the guard, and Elizabeth was taken back to her apartments, believing that her end was at hand.

She lay on her bed staring up at the tester. Her ladies were weeping quietly. She had come back from her interview with the Queen and had told them: “I think I am to die.”

Did she really prefer death to marriage with the Duke of Savoy?

For so many years she had dreamed that she would wear the crown. How many times had Kat Ashley read it in the cards? She could not give up that dream. But would she in truth rather die?

Once during the night she half rose. She thought: Tomorrow I will go to the Queen. I will accept Savoy. I am a fool to go meekly to death.

Wait, said her common sense. Has there not always been safety in waiting?

The next day she left the Palace, but not for the Tower. The Queen was undecided what to do with her sister, and finally she resorted to the old method. Elizabeth should go back to Woodstock, where she would remain a captive, although living in the state her rank demanded. The people would be appeased if the Princess was in one of her country houses; they had been restive while she was in the Tower. Elizabeth, sly and cunning, appeared to them young and pathetic; and she had the people on her side as always.

Even when she sailed up the river the people lined the banks to watch her pass. They called cheering words to her; they had gifts for her. At Wycombe cakes were brought to her, and so numerous were these that she could not accept them all. She thanked the people prettily, and all along the river their cries resounded: “God bless the Princess. God save Her Grace.”

She felt happy now. She had done the right thing in refusing Savoy. Time would always be her ally, for she was young and the Queen was old.

She arrived at Woodstock, yet even there she was not given the royal apartments but taken to the gatehouse. This was surrounded by guards, and Sir Henry Bedingfeld told her that his instructions were that she was to be kept under strict surveillance.

She wept a little. “Like a sheep to the slaughter I am led,” she said, as her ladies helped her to retire.

As she lay in her bed unable to sleep, the door of her room was quietly opened; the curtains of her bed were suddenly divided, and she found herself held tightly in a pair of loving arms.

“Kat!” she sobbed in relief. “How did you get here?”

“Hush, my love! Hush, my little lady! I am free once more. This prisoner is released, so what did she do? When she heard her lady was on the way she arrived before her. I reached the house before Master Bedingfeld and his merry men. And what do we care, sweetheart, since we are together!”

“What do we care!” said Elizabeth and began to laugh.

Kat lay beside her on the bed; and through the night they talked of what had happened.

Elizabeth said suddenly: “And, Kat, what do you think? I had an adventure when I was in the Tower. You remember Robert Dudley?”

“Remember him! Who could forget him! The loveliest man I ever saw … except one.”

“Except none!” said Elizabeth.

And they pulled the bed coverings over their heads that they might gossip and laugh together without being overheard.

Elizabeth’s captivity at Woodstock passed merrily enough. Kat was with her, and Sir Henry Bedingfeld did not think it necessary to report this matter to the Queen. Perhaps he knew that if he did so Kat would be removed and that removal would mortally offend the Princess Elizabeth. He could see no harm in Kat’s being with her.

So they were together as they had been in the old days. There was laughter and gossip and talk which if overheard might have been called treason.

When they were alone Kat whispered: “Your Majesty!” and that was sweet music to Elizabeth. Kat read the cards with that flattering skill which provoked much laughter.

“Here is that dark, handsome man again! See how close he is to your little Majesty. We shall hear more of him, I doubt not.”

It was like the old days when Kat had seen another handsome man in the cards. They had recognized him as Thomas Seymour. Kat reminded Elizabeth that she had been wont to say there would never be one like him, never one so charming.

“But then,” said Elizabeth, “I did not really know Robert Dudley.”

FOUR

When the Princess Elizabeth was taken from the Tower, Robert fell into deep melancholy. There were times when he felt he would go mad if he were left much longer in his dismal cell. He would look through the bars at the grass on which she used to walk, and he would remember others who had spent a lifetime in the Tower. Shall I be here until I am old and gray? he would wonder. But he did not really believe that could happen to Robert Dudley.

There was nothing to do but brood. If Elizabeth were Queen … ah, if Elizabeth were Queen, she would not suffer him to stay long in the Tower.

But at length change came.

It was June, and he had heard from the jailers and his servants that preparations were going forward for the reception of the Prince of Spain, who was already on his way to England.

The Queen was not yet forty; she would marry Philip and if there were children of the marriage, there was small hope of Robert Dudley’s regaining his freedom.

“My lord,” said his jailer one day, “prepare to leave this cell. You are to be taken to the Bell Tower, there to share a room with your brother the Earl of Warwick.”

He felt elated. He might have known that Fortune would not allow him to continue gloomy. It would be good to be with brother John.

The brothers embraced warmly. Imprisonment had left a deeper mark on John, Earl of Warwick, than on Robert; John had had no charming adventure with which to while away the time. He brightened with the coming of Robert, although they were very sorrowful recalling their father and Guildford.

“It might have been you … or I,” they reminded each other. “Mere chance made it poor Guildford.”

“Yet,” said John, “how do we know we shall not meet a like fate?”

“Nay!” cried Robert. “If they intended that, the deed would have been done ere now. If we stay here quietly and nothing happens to call attention to us, we shall, ere long, be free.”

John smiled. “That is like you, Robert. You always believed that something miraculous was reserved for you.”

“How can you know that it is not!”

“What … for a poor prisoner in the Tower!”

“Other poor prisoners have survived and risen to greatness.”

“You are indeed a Dudley,” said John, not without a trace of sadness in his smile.

Fortune was turning in their favor. They were to be allowed to have visitors. Their wives might come and see them in their cells; their mother might also come.

Jane came first, and bravely she smiled at her two sons. John looked ill, she thought; Robert had scarcely changed at all.

“My darling,” she cried. “Why, John … how thin you are! And you … you are still my Robin, I see.”

“Still the same, dear Mother.”

“You keep your spirits up, my dearest son.”

“And mine too,” put in John. “He refuses to believe that we are unfortunate. We are certain of a great future, he says.”

“Come,” said Robert, “it is not the first time the Dudley fortunes have been in the dust.”

“Do not speak thus,” begged Jane. “That was how your father talked.”

“But Father was a great man. Think of all he did.”

Jane said bitterly: “All he did! He led his son to the scaffold, that with him he might shed his blood in the cause of ambition.”

But Robert laid his arm about her shoulders. “Dear Mother, that is the way of the world.”

“It shall not be your way, Robert.”

“Nay, do not fret. The axe is not for us. See how they keep us here. They leave us in peace. We are well fed, and now we may have visitors. Soon the day of our release will come.”

“I pray for it each night,” said Jane fervently.

She wished to know how they were fed, how their servants behaved.

“We are allowed more than two pounds each week for food,” said Robert, “and more for wood and candles. So you see, Mother, if we do not live like kings, we do not live like beggars.”

“I rejoice to hear it. But there is an evil odor here.”

“It comes from the river.”

“We dread the hot days,” said John.

“I will speak to the servants. They must take great care to keep the apartments sweet. This is not a good place to be in … especially during the summer.”

Robert was determined to drive away gloom. He was sure, he told her, that soon they would be free. He guessed it. He knew it. He had a way of knowing such things.

She could smile as she listened to Robert.

“How glad I am, dear John, that your brother is with you.”

“It has been merrier since he came,” said John.

And when Jane left them she felt happier than she had since she had lost them. That was due to her darling.

He can charm away even my miseries, she was thinking.

Amy came to see Robert. John asked that he should be taken to another cell, that husband and wife might be alone together.

Amy clung to Robert, covering his face with kisses. He returned her embrace and for a short while he was ready to make love to her. It was so long since they had met.