Chapter 25
Mary’s words dropped into silence. Elizabeth’s colorless lids slid over her eyes once, twice, while we all waited for her response.
“Savoy?” Elizabeth inquired in a voice like frost. “The dispossessed Prince of Piedmont, ruler of nothing?”
The temperature of Mary’s reply dipped as well. “Emmanuel Philibert is courteous and a man of chivalry. He is neither a boy nor an old man but ripe for marriage. I would think any young woman would be grateful for his offer.”
“Not too old, not too young. This is a recommendation?” Elizabeth scoffed. “The king your husband has him on a tight lead. Savoy is dependent on Philip for everything.”
“Philip thinks much of you,” Mary said in annoyance.
She lifted her goblet, found it empty and snapped her fingers at Jane, who hurried forward with fervent apologies to refill it.
“Marrying Savoy will strengthen your chances of remaining in the succession,” she told Elizabeth.
“After the fruit of my body with my husband, of course.”
“It seems I would owe much to Spain and the Empire then,” Elizabeth responded tartly.
Mary slammed down her cup, wine slopping over. “A woman needs a husband. You are young enough to find the married state pleasing, young enough to bear children.” Her voice broke over the last word.
“The unmarried state is the one that pleases me,” Elizabeth declared.
Mary drew a breath, as though forcing herself to cool her temper. “You have no idea what you mean. God has seen fit to bless you with this gift, as he blessed me with the king.”
“And I see what such a blessing has done,” Elizabeth returned. “You brought in a foreign prince to ruin the nation of England, and you wish me to follow in your footsteps? A fine example you have set—the people mock you and throw things at you in the streets, because your husband is a Hapsburg.”
Mary shrieked. She half-rose and backhanded Elizabeth across the face, knocking over her own goblet at the same time. Elizabeth’s head snapped back, and wine arced over her white dress to stain it like blood.
“How dare you,” Mary shouted at her. “You impudent, ungrateful daughter of a … Jezebel. Blood will tell. Get out of my sight and out of London. Ride back to your house and do not put one foot out of it until I give you leave. Go!”
Eyes blazing, jewels flashing, Mary flung out one arm, an imperious finger pointing at the door. She was breathing hard, her flushed face streaked with perspiration.
Mary’s ladies rushed to the queen at the same time Elizabeth’s ladies hurried to open the doors, all of us regarding one another with frightened eyes.
Elizabeth rose and swept from the room with dignity despite her wine-splotched gown, but I saw her mouth trembling.
I reflected as we raced to her rooms to pack what we’d unpacked only a day ago, that Mary’s words were nearly the same as the ones my stepfather had thrown at me.
Elizabeth retreated to Hatfield and remained there as ordered, but in a fury. She raged at Mary’s high-handedness and vowed to anyone who would listen that she’d never marry, least of all a Hapsburg courtier.
Curiously, Mary said nothing more about the matter, either in letters or messages, at least not that winter.
March of 1557 brought rains, as well as Philip of Spain back to England.
Mary was in transports of joy to see her husband again, but it turned out that Philip had not come for love of Mary. His purpose was twofold—one, to force the Savoy marriage upon Elizabeth, and more importantly, to persuade Mary to give him an army for his war against France.
The Savoy issue foundered, to Philip’s intense frustration. Philip greatly desired the match, but Mary, astonishingly, abruptly switched her stance to take Elizabeth’s side.
I thought I understood why. Philip wanted to marry Elizabeth to his cousin Savoy in order to keep England under his thumb when Elizabeth inherited the throne.
No matter what sins Elizabeth and her followers had committed, Philip assumed Elizabeth part of the succession and England’s potential queen.
Mary did not want Elizabeth in the succession at all, and so for the first time, she disobeyed her husband. The two sisters stood against Philip, to his exasperation, and eventually the matter was dropped.
But to Philip’s second request, aid for the war in France, Mary was compliance itself.
Despite her privy council’s fervent advice to the contrary, Mary gave Philip his army.
Philip departed at the end of 1557 to fight, taking Lord Robert Dudley and many other prominent gentlemen, including the spurned Duke of Savory, with him.
Philip and the English, with, it must be said, the talents of the Duke of Savoy, won a glorious victory at Saint Quentin in northern France.
Soon after that, disaster struck. Calais, the symbol of English glory for nearly two hundred years, fell in the cold of January 1558.
“It is inconceivable that she has done such a thing,” Elizabeth stormed when she heard this news.
“A war led by her damned husband—a man who had the gall before he left to gaze at me with desire in his eyes. As though I were a prized hart to snare. Philip knows his wife is a loss, and I have refused his cousin, so why should he not have me?”
“He would have to get special dispensation,” I pointed out as I sewed demurely. “As you are currently his sister.”
Elizabeth ignored my impertinence. “Mary has driven the last nail into her coffin. She hopes herself with child again, but it is a farce. She is very ill and will not acknowledge it. Serves her right for handing Calais back to France on a platter.”
With that unsympathetic remark, Elizabeth continued raging, vowing to restore Calais to England during her own reign.
The fall of Calais filled me with mixed feelings, because when Mary’s army returned, beaten, bedraggled, and ashamed, Robert Dudley brought James Colby with him.
I did not realize this until I beheld a tall gentleman with dark red hair under a rain-soaked hat, a thin beard on his chin, riding through Hatfield’s gates behind Lord Robert.
The man’s left arm hung slightly askew, as though it had been broken and hadn’t healed correctly, and a long scar marred one side of his face.
He dismounted and strode toward me as I stood in the courtyard, trying to decide who the stranger was. Lord Robert bathed me in a sudden grin, and then I realized.
Letting out a shrill scream, I abandoned all decorum and ran straight at James. I’d not seen him in nearly two years, and anything could have happened in that time—my death or his, or he finding a lady in France he liked better than me—but I did not care.
Colby swept me up and held me hard, his arms shaking with the effort of it. He kissed me right there in front of everybody, and I heard Dudley laughing.
“Such a display,” Elizabeth said later when the gentlemen were welcomed home with wine and entertainments. “I believe you were pleased to see your wife, Master Colby.”
Colby did not look in the least embarrassed. He’d worn a warm smile since his arrival, and he’d not moved far from my side.
I could not hold onto him for hours as I longed to, because I had to serve the princess. But I pushed aside all others to fill his wine cup, and he turned that wonderful smile to me each time.
“Devotion is touching,” Elizabeth said, and laughed. “Dear Robin, you must show such devotion to me, or I will think you have forgotten all about me.”
Robert gave her a devastating grin and a mock bow. For the rest of the evening, he served Elizabeth with exaggerated courtesy, and she giggled at him like a girl.
I feared Elizabeth would not allow me to leave her tonight, but she dismissed me without much interest early in the evening. I quickly retired to my chamber to wait for James.
He was not long behind me, and we had a reunion in truth.
He lay with me far into the night, the pair of us loving each other with increasing frenzy as we rejoiced in each other.
In the small hours of the morning, I curled up next to him, not sleeping, but simply enjoying the warmth of my husband’s body at my side.
Colby did not sleep either, contenting himself with touching and kissing me softly. I ran my hand along his twisted left arm, the skin on the inside of it mottled and smooth.
“It broke,” he said. “In the Tower.”
When he’d been racked. His arm had been gruesomely pulled apart and then clumsily healed.
“I was horribly afraid for you,” I said, then my voice hardened. “I hate Mary for doing this to you.”
Colby tapped the scar on his face, which curved from his cheekbone into his short, red beard. “This came from the fighting in France.”
I traced the scar as well. It marred his handsome face but helped disguise any resemblance to his true Tudor father. “Why did you fight for Philip?” I asked him. “Our enemy?”
“For a full pardon and a chance to come home,” Colby answered with ease. “Philip cares nothing for these petty uprisings to put Elizabeth on the throne. He wants Elizabeth to be queen and is taking a stern hand with his wife.”
“She should not have lost Calais,” I said with disapproval. Calais had been the last English stronghold on the Continent.
Colby rumbled a low laugh. “Mary did not lose it. The French took it with their canny attack, when those inside the fortresses least expected it. We marched to try to save it, but to no avail. Calais is French once more. But perhaps not for long. The agreement being floated is that France will return the city in five years or pay a large sum to England for it.”
I had not heard these details, but they scarcely mattered to me. “Elizabeth is furious with her.”
“Many are.” Colby touched my cheek. “As for myself, I am only happy to be home.”
I was happy as well, wanting to drown in the joy of his warmth. I did have to tell him about the child I’d lost, after which he held me tenderly, both of us sharing sorrow.