beginning to make sense. Suddenly, she understood why her young lady had taken to her bed.
The next news, picked up by Parry in the tavern at Hatfield, was even more alarming. Mary had not gone to London, nor had she been proclaimed queen; instead, she was in Norfolk, raising an army, if rumor were to be believed. Hearing this, Elizabeth immediately staged a relapse, resolved to keep to her bed until she knew more.
Her peace was disturbed by the arrival of a deputation from the council. Alarmed, she refused to receive them.
“I am not well!” she declared.
“But my lady, they are insisting,” a frightened Kat pleaded.
Knowing herself bested, Elizabeth shrank down beneath the covers, pinched her cheeks to give them a hectic, fevered appearance, and lay prone. The lords filed in respectfully, acclimatizing their eyes to the gloom. Kat stood by the bedhead, for propriety’s sake.
“We are sorry to find you so unwell, my lady,” Sir William Petre, the Secretary of State, said gently, peering at the bed. “I would that our business could wait, but I fear it is pressing.”
“I am listening,” Elizabeth said listlessly.
“My lord of Northumberland has been concerned about the succession. England does not want a Catholic queen. I speak of your sister, the Lady Mary, you understand. The question of bastardy was raised.” Petre gulped nervously. “I am to tell you that it was the late King’s will and desire that the Crown be left to his cousin, the Lady Jane Grey, who is trueborn and a stout Protestant.”
Elizabeth was outraged. Little Lady Jane to be queen? No one would allow it. The people would not want it. Jane herself would not want it, surely. The King must indeed have been deranged in his last illness—deranged or suborned by Northumberland.
“Parliament has settled the succession first on my sister and then on me,” Elizabeth reminded the lords, keeping her voice low for effect, and suppressing her fury. “The Lady Jane comes after us and her mother, my Lady Suffolk.”
“With respect, Your Grace,” Petre continued, “in law, the Lady Mary and yourself are bastards, and King Edward set aside your claims in a device he signed on his deathbed, which is soon to be enshrined in an Act of Parliament.”
“Then it has as yet no force in law,” Elizabeth pointed out.
“That is true,” chimed in Lord Paulet. “Which is why we are here. My lord Duke offers you a million crowns to renounce your claim.”
Elizabeth resisted the urge to sit up and scream at them. Scurvy knaves! she wanted to cry. You’ll not deprive King Harry’s daughters of their rights! But she curbed her temper.
“A bribe?” she asked drily.
“An inducement,” Paulet amended.
“Call it what you will, I cannot accept,” Elizabeth told them. “Has my sister been offered a similar bribe?”
“Not as yet.” Petre coughed nervously.
“Then you must first make this agreement with the Lady Mary, during whose lifetime I have no claim or title to resign.” Reaching for her kerchief, she made a great show of mopping her brow. The lords looked at one another uncertainly.
“Are you sure we cannot persuade you, madam?” Paulet persisted.
“Very sure,” Elizabeth said firmly. “And now, gentlemen, you have exhausted my strength. I must rest. I pray you leave me in peace, and bid you farewell.”
Shaking their heads, the lords left the chamber. After seeing them out, Kat returned.
“They’ve gone,” she said in a relieved voice.
“I’ll wager they’ll be back,” Elizabeth predicted. “They’ll pester me until I give in.”
“I’m not so sure,” Kat opined. “They seemed uncertain of their ground. I heard them saying something about dealing with the Lady Mary first. I didn’t like the sound of it.”
Elizabeth felt a stab of alarm. “Neither do I,” she said. “For when they have dealt with the Lady Mary, for certain they needs must deal with me. We must be on our guard. I think, Kat, that it is time for another relapse.”
That evening, there was an urgent knocking at Elizabeth’s door.
“It’s me, Master Parry, with important news!” a voice cried. Kat put down her sewing and hastened to admit him, as Elizabeth, who was sitting up in bed reading, clutched her shawl tighter about her.
“Lady Jane Grey is proclaimed queen in London!” Parry cried, breathless. “I had it from a merchant who stopped at the tavern on his way north. She has gone in state to the Tower to await her coronation.”
“How dare they!” cried Elizabeth, fiery with indignation. She found herself feeling fiercely protective of Jane, whom she was certain was