Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [34]
Frances did not even look up from her needlework. “Why do you blame me? Do you think she didn’t know about you and Graham already? Anyone with eyes could see you were in love with him.”
“Just be warned,” said Anne, her eyes flashing. “If either of you dares to take a lover, I will tell the queen and see that you suffer as I do!”
“Catherine is the one you ought to watch,” said Frances coolly. “She is often distracted, and I have heard her reciting poetry when she is alone. She must be thinking of a secret love.”
I felt my pulse quicken. Again I wondered what Frances knew about Sir Walter and me. But I would not bear her smug teasing.
“Don’t bother to watch Frances,” I said to Anne. “No man will ever fall in love with her.” I tossed aside my needlework and left the gallery.
Later I complained to Emme, “I am weary of these games we play with each other.”
“You could endure them before you fell in love with Sir Walter,” she said.
“Hush! I am not in love with him,” I lied. “He only helped me write some verses for the queen.”
Emme shook her head. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face, to a friend who knows you well.”
“Do Frances and Anne suspect?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” Emme said. “But you must be more discreet and hide your feelings. Sir Walter is the queen’s favorite, and she would be most angry to learn of your love.”
“But it is so unfair!” I burst out. “He is half her age. She will never marry him or anyone else. Why shouldn’t I be free to love whom I will? Why shouldn’t Anne marry Graham? Are you content to let the queen rule your feelings?”
Emme shrugged. “That is the way of our world.”
“When you are in love, you will not be so sanguine.”
“I have thought about this,” said Emme. “I will let the queen choose my husband, and then I will choose whom to love. It may be my husband, or it may be another. For once a woman is married, the queen can no longer rule her heart.”
I regarded Emme with astonishment. I wished I could be as practical and sure of myself. She was a sturdy bark navigating the rough waters of the queen’s court, while I was a shallow wherry, always in danger of capsizing.
That summer the queen was peevish, prone to outbursts and harsh accusations. Walsingham scurried through the halls, his beadlike eyes darting back and forth, and Robert Dudley was often in the queen’s privy chamber. When an ashen-faced Earl of Shrewsbury was called in, we knew the furtive business concerned the Scottish queen. Then Shrewsbury’s former page, one Anthony Babington, was arrested for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on her throne. After being hanged, Babington—still alive—was disemboweled, then quartered and beheaded. Balladeers sang the news of the gruesome death, which made me sick to think about. The damning piece of evidence against Mary was a letter written in her hand, approving the plot. The wily queen smuggled out her correspondence in a box hidden in a cask of beer, but the wilier Walsingham discovered it.
I ran to the chest where my own letters were hidden. They were still there, resting beside a pair of too-small shoes atop a hornbook from my childhood. Usually I placed the bundle beneath the hornbook. And the knot in the handkerchief seemed looser. Had I tied it carelessly? I undid the knot, thumbed through the letters, and assured myself nothing was missing. I folded the handkerchief and placed it in the toe of a shoe. I tied a ribbon around the letters and hid them inside my mattress. I determined to burn them at the earliest opportunity, for the Babington affair had frightened me.
The Scottish queen stood trial for her treason, which upset my royal mistress so much one would have thought she, not Mary, was to be judged. She could not eat. I set a platter of stew before her, but she pushed it away so violently it spilled all over my skirt before hitting the floor, where the dogs fell upon it.
“She sought every opportunity to betray me. She must die,” Elizabeth said to the dogs. “But she is my cousin, my own flesh and blood!” She slammed