and whenever he summoned her, she went to court splendidly attended, as the great magnate she was. Her only indulgence was her music, something she could not live without, and she never let a day go by without playing for hours on her instruments or welcoming musicians to her house.
Kat bustled in, an older Kat, a touch stiffer in the joints since her sojourn in the Tower, but very firmly in charge of the household again. After promising the council never again to speak of any marriage plans for her charge, Kat had been restored to Elizabeth at the end of that terrible summer, although by then Elizabeth and Lady Tyrwhit had developed a grudging respect for each other. It was Lady Tyrwhit who, fond of collecting proverbs, had reminded Elizabeth of Cicero’s saying Semper eadem, which she now took for her motto, remembering that long-ago conversation with her father, whose memory she so revered. But Lady Tyrwhit could never have replaced Kat. Elizabeth had not forgotten their blessed and joyful reunion, both of them weeping on each other’s shoulders, mindless of rank and etiquette…
“Is something wrong?” Kat asked, clearing away plates and cutlery from the table. Although the letter had arrived the night before, Elizabeth had told no one about it.
“I think I have one of my headaches coming on,” Elizabeth said, folding up the paper and putting it in her pocket. Her headaches—often so bad that she could not see to read—were a legacy of that other time. But this time she was feigning.
“Can I get you anything?” Kat was all concern. “A brew of feverfew?”
“No, thank you. I think I will rest awhile.” Elizabeth went into her bedchamber and lay down on her bed. Then she remembered that she always had to have the curtains closed when she suffered a megrim, so she got up and drew them before lying down and taking out the letter again. At this rate, her head would be aching for real.
The letter was from John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Lord President of the Council, the man who now ruled England in the name of the fifteen-year-old King. Northumberland had overthrown Somerset four years before, and sent him to the block some two years later.
“There’s a kind of justice to it,” Kat had said. “After all, Somerset had his own brother executed. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small.”
Kat rarely mentioned the Admiral, and when she did, it was with sadness. She had been smitten with the man, that much had become clear, but Elizabeth did not blame her. He had had a talent for making women respond to his charm. Her own feelings about him were still confused. She was sure now she had never truly loved him. Probably she had been merely infatuated, beguiled by the attentions of an older, attractive, and experienced seducer. Even now, remembering his dark good looks, she could still feel a thrill in her heart—a thrill that was tempered by sorrow and, yes, resentment, for Thomas Seymour had, through his foolish scheming, brought her nothing but trouble and pain. She had almost been brought down in his dramatic fall, her youthful folly threatening to implicate her in his rash grab for power. But he had paid for that, dearly, and she hoped he was at peace now.
She still shuddered when she thought of the precariousness of her situation back then. But now, it seemed, she might again be in peril. She did not like or trust Northumberland, a cold, ruthless man, unscrupulous and greedy for power. His dismissive manner toward her, on the rare occasions she visited the court, had led her to suspect that he held her to be of very little account. He controlled the young King, and through him the country; he had no time for the King’s bastard sisters. The only thing she could admire about Northumberland was his staunch Protestant faith. There was no doubt that he would defend it to the death.
The King her brother was another such. “The new Josiah,” they called him, and it was true. He was zealous in his faith, and he had been harsh to their sister Mary, constantly wrangling with her over her illegal celebration of the Mass in her household. Mary, it was rumored, had even tried to flee the realm. Were it not for the threats of her cousin the Emperor, the most powerful prince in Christendom, she would stand in the greatest peril indeed. Elizabeth