“The queen and I agreed to part for her safety,” he said steadily. “That was true. As I told you. But she needs friends, Mary, you know that. I have come back to her side to be her friend. And we are friends, as I said we would be.”

She pulled away from his outstretched hand. “Oh, no, not another pack of lies, Robert; I won’t hear them. You are faithless to Amy, and you are dishonest with me. I told the ambassador that I knew for a fact that the queen and you were true friends and that she was a virgin, free to marry and a chaste princess. I swore on my immortal soul that there was nothing between you but friendship and a few kisses.”

“And there is not!”

“Don’t speak to me!” she cried passionately. “Don’t lie to me. I won’t hear another word.”

“Come with me to the tilt yard….”

“I shan’t watch you, I shan’t talk with you. I don’t even want to see you, Robert. There is nothing to you but ambition. God help your wife, and God help the queen.”

“Amen,” he said, smiling. “Amen to both, for they are both good women and innocent of any wrongdoing, and indeed God bless me and all Dudleys as we rise in the world.”

“And what has Amy done that she should be shamed before the world?” she demanded of him. “What sin has she ever done, for everyone in England to know that you have no liking for her? That you prefer another woman instead of her, your own true wife?”

“She has done nothing,” he said. “And I have done nothing. Really, Mary, you shouldn’t throw such accusations around.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me!” she swore again, quite beyond herself with rage. “I have nothing to say to you, and I will never have another word to say to you on this. You have played me as a fool and played the Spanish as fools and played your poor wife as a fool, and all along you have been lovers with the queen and you stay as lovers with the queen.”

In one swift stride Robert was at her side with her wrist in a hard grip. “Now that is enough,” he said. “You have said quite enough, and I have heard more than enough. The queen’s reputation is beyond comment. She is going to marry the right suitor as soon as he comes along. We all know that. Amy is my wife and I will hear nothing against her. I visited her in October, and I shall visit her again shortly. Cecil himself gets home no more frequently than that.”

“Cecil loves his wife and no one doubts his honor!” she flared up.

“And no one questions mine,” he said sharply. “You can keep your poisonous little tongue off my affairs or you will spoil more than you understand. Be warned, Mary.”

She was unafraid. “Are you mad, Robert?” she demanded. “Do you think you can fool the best spies in Europe as you fool your sister and your wife? In Madrid, in Paris, in Vienna, they know that you and the queen have adjoining rooms once more. What do you think they make of it? The Hapsburg archduke won’t come to England while you and the queen sleep behind locked doors, one panel of wood between you. Everyone but your poor wife believes that you are lovers; the whole country knows it. You have ruined the queen’s prospects with your lusts; you have ruined Amy’s love for you. Pray God you do not ruin the kingdom too.”


Mary’s warning came too late, and could not prevent the scandalous intimacy between the queen and her Master of Horse. With Robert at her side once more, Elizabeth’s color came back into her cheeks, her fingernails were buffed and shining and the cuticles smooth. She glowed in his company, her constant nervousness was quieted when he was near. It did not matter what anyone might say, they were clearly born for each other, and they could not conceal it. They rode together every day, they danced together every night, and Elizabeth had the courage to open her letters and listen to petitions once more.

In the absence of Cecil, Robert was her only trusted advisor. No one was seen by the queen except by Dudley’s introduction; she never spoke to anyone without him standing, discreetly, in the background. He was her only friend and her ally. She took no decision without him; they were inseparable. Duke John of Sweden danced around the court but hardly pressed his suit, William Pickering retired quietly to the country to try to economize on his massive debts, Caspar von Breuner came only rarely to court and everyone had forgotten the Earl of Arran.

Cecil, staying firmly on the outskirts of the young couple and their courtiers, remarked to Throckmorton that this was no way to rule a country on the brink of war and learned that she had just appointed Dudley as Lord Lieutenant and Constable of Windsor Castle, with fees to match.

“He will be the richest man in England if this goes on,” Cecil observed.

“Rich: nothing. He means to be king,” Sir Nicholas replied, saying the unsayable. “And then how d’you think the country will be run?”

Cecil said nothing. Only the evening before a man whose face was hidden by his hat pulled down low on his brow had tapped at Cecil’s door and in a gruff voice asked him if he would join with three others in an attack on Dudley.

“Why come to me?” Cecil asked. “I take it you can bludgeon him to death on your own account without my permission.”

“Because the queen’s guards protect him and they follow your rule,” the stranger said. Cecil moved a branch of candles on his desk and caught a glimpse of the angry face of Thomas Howard half hidden under the concealing cap. “And when he is dead, she will ask you to discover his murderers. We don’t want your spies on us. We don’t want to hang for him any more than we would hang for killing vermin.”

“You must do as you think best,” Cecil said, choosing his words with care. “But I will not protect you after the murder.”

“Would you prevent us from doing it?”

“I am responsible for the safety of the queen. I daresay, sadly, I cannot prevent you.”

The man laughed. “In short you wouldn’t mind him dead but you won’t take a risk,” he taunted.

Cecil had nodded equably. “I think no one in England but the queen and his wife would mind at all,” he said frankly. “But I will not be party to a plot against him.”

“What’s amusing you?” Throckmorton asked, glancing round the court for the reason for Cecil’s smile.

“Thomas Howard,” Cecil answered. “He’s not exactly a master of subtlety, is he?”

Throckmorton glanced over. Thomas Howard had managed to enter the double open doors to the presence chamber just as Dudley was coming out. Everyone gave way to Dudley now, with the exception perhaps of Cecil, and Cecil would never have timed his entrance so that he was head to head with the royal favorite. Howard was standing his ground like an angry heifer.

In a moment, Cecil thought, he will paw the floor and bellow.

Dudley eyed him with the coolest of contempt, and then went to pass him.

At once Howard sidestepped and jostled him. “I beg your pardon but I am coming in,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I! A Howard! And the Queen’s uncle.”

“Oh, please, do not beg my pardon for I am leaving,” Dudley said, the laughter warm in his voice. “It is those hapless men that you are about to join who deserve your apology.”

Howard choked on his words. “You are offensive!” he spluttered.

Dudley went quietly by him, serene in his power.

“You are a damned upstart, from nowhere!” Thomas Howard shouted at his back.

“Will he let that go, d’you think?” Throckmorton asked Cecil, quite fascinated at the little drama before them. “Is he as cool as he seems? Will he ignore Thomas Howard?”

“Not him,” Cecil said. “And he probably knows that he is in real danger.”

“A plot?”

“One of dozens. I think we can expect to see young Thomas Howard as the next ambassador to the Turkish court. I think it will be the Ottoman empire for the Howards, and a long posting.”

Cecil was wrong only in the destination.

“I think Thomas Howard should strengthen our defenses in the north,” Dudley remarked to the queen that night when they were alone, a slight smile warming his glance. “He is so fierce and warlike.”

At once Elizabeth was alert, fearful for him. “Is he threatening you?”

“That puppy? Hardly,” Robert said proudly. “But you do need someone you can trust in the north, and since he is spoiling for a fight, let him fight the French rather than me.”

The queen laughed, as though Robert’s words were meant as a joke, but the next day she awarded her uncle a new title: he was to be Lieutenant General of the Scottish border.

He bowed as he accepted the commission. “I know why I am sent away, Your Grace,” he said with the prickly dignity of a young man. “But I will serve you faithfully. And I think you may find I am a better servant to you in Newcastle than some who hide behind your petticoats in London, far from danger.”

Elizabeth had the grace to look abashed. “I need someone I can trust,” she said. “We must hold the French north of Berwick. They cannot come into the heart of England.”

“I am honored with your trust,” he said sarcastically, and took his leave, ignoring the rumors that swirled around his departure, the gossip that said that Elizabeth had put her own family in the very front of the line, rather than embarrass her lover.

“Why not just behead him and get it over with?” Catherine Knollys asked.

Elizabeth giggled to her cousin, but faced a reprimand from her old governess as soon as they were alone together.

“Princess!” Kat Ashley exclaimed despairingly. “This is as bad as it ever was. What will everyone think? Everyone believes that you are as much in love with Sir Robert as ever. The archduke will never come to England now. No man would risk being so insulted.”