“Reluctantly?”
“The thing happened thirty-two years ago, the year I was born in fact.” To his unkind satisfaction he saw Lettice flinch slightly. “That’s how long poor Amy Dudley has been dead and buried. I know Her Majesty set someone on to look into it in 1566, but he got nowhere…
“Topcliffe certainly did get somewhere,” Lady Blount contradicted him. “He just never said what he found, only I think he’s been blackmailing the Queen about it very cleverly.”
“Oh?” Now that was very interesting. Was that why Topcliffe was mysteriously untouchable, no matter what he did? “Do you know what he found out?”
Lettice shrugged her powdered white shoulders and then looked cunning. “Maybe you should ask what he found, not what he found out. Just knowing something wouldn’t be enough, would it?”
Carey perched himself on a table and wished for wine, his throat was infernally dry again. “Sergeant Ross,” he called, “could you find me a boy to fetch us some wine…some more wine? Not spiced, please. And some breakfast for me.”
After last Saturday night, Carey doubted he would ever again be able to stomach spiced wine; just the thought of it made his gorge rise.
Lady Blount had clearly finished the first plate of sweetmeats and looked disappointed when the boy trotted in with a plate of bread and cheese alongside a jack of good rough red wine, then brightened when he produced another silver plate of wafers and comfits. Carey didn’t like sweetmeats and they pained one of his back teeth every time the Queen made him eat one. He soon felt full so he let Lettice munch on the other half of the penny loaf and only took a bit of cheese himself. However the wine was Italian and better than usual so he drank that.
“Do you know what thing Topcliffe found, Lady Blount?”
“No, of course not.” The kohl crusted eyelashes batted at him. “And I would tell you if I did, Robin, because nobody likes Richard Topcliffe despite the way he gets lands off the Papists.”
Carey suppressed a sigh. “So was it Topcliffe you wanted to talk to me about, my lady?”
She made a face. “Ugh no, he’s a horrible man. My son wanted me to tell you something my lord Leicester said to me once when he was drunk.”
She paused significantly. What would she want for the information?
“Yes?”
“Of course, you know this is secret. This is very, very secret. I’ve never told anybody this, not even my darling Robin until now.”
“Yes?”
“So you won’t tell Her Majesty who told you?”
“I can’t promise that, my lady. If she asks me the question direct, I will tell her of course.”
The pouchy rosebud lips tightened. Then she shook herself. “Well, I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, the scandalous old cat. Especially if she’s digging it all up again.”
“Hm?”
“My lord husband…” said Lettice drawing the words out slowly and Carey worked to keep the impatience off his face because it would only encourage her, “…my lord of Leicester said once after dinner that it was damned unfair, the whole thing had nearly been arranged, Amy would divorce him, and if he ever found out who murdered her before she could set him free, he would kill the man with his own hands, for taking his Eliza from him. There.”
She sat back and looked pleased with herself.
“A divorce?” Carey breathed. It was obvious, but he had only just started to wonder about it.
“Yes,” said Lettice. “Good King Henry did it twice of course, so much less upsetting than finding someone guilty of adultery and beheading them. It was before Bess of Hardwick divorced her husband and it would take an Act of Parliament but still…What couldn’t happen was my lord of Leicester doing the divorcing or the scandal would be too much and Convocation would block it. The Queen didn’t want any trouble like that, she was so hot for him. So the plan was for Amy to ask for an annulment on grounds of non-consummation.” Lettice nibbled a third wafer like a greedy squirrel and winked. It was a frightening sight.
Carey’s lips were parted at this brand new angle on the story. “But…” he began.
“Convocation would have granted it-they’d been plumped specially. Parliament would have granted it if Amy petitioned because they were desperate for Her Majesty to marry and get an heir even though they hated the Earl. She was getting old, after all, she was 27 in 1560. Amy would be given a nice pension and some property and be free to marry again while she could still have children and my lord of Leicester would become King.”
Now that made a lot of sense. A lot more sense than the notion of the Queen being so insane as to murder her lover’s wife.
“So perhaps Burghley did the…”
“Fooey,” said Lettice unexpectedly, “I don’t think Burghley did anything because he didn’t know. Nobody knew. Just the Queen, Amy, and Robert Dudley. Nobody else at all. They made sure the musicians played loudly when they were planning it and they didn’t speak in English and sometimes they wrote to each other but then they burnt the letters. It was a secret. Amy was still at Cumnor Place but she sent letters saying that she was willing to talk about bringing a petition for divorce. She was just dickering for more money and a nicer manor house and more land. She wouldn’t come to Court; she didn’t like it, said she didn’t want to be bullied out of her money.”
Lettice pursed her lips again and leaned forward confidingly. “She was a dreadful girl, dull, twitter-headed, greedy, obstinate. I never liked her and I certainly didn’t know anything about all this at the time. And she was so pious. Robert laughed about how worried she was about having to swear in court that they hadn’t consummated their marriage because they had, she just never quickened, no matter what she did, she was barren. But she was terrified about hell and damnation for swearing it falsely. That drove the Queen mad.”
Carey kept to himself his immediate thought that the Queen, whose indecisiveness drove every one of her servants crazy with impatience, had well-deserved to face the thing herself.
“And then…the stupid girl fell down the stairs or somebody pushed her and the whole thing fell apart. Poor Dudley was the one everybody thought did it so he couldn’t even marry the Queen though he was free.” Carey nodded and Lettice smiled smugly. “Of course, it was lucky for me because then I could marry him, not the Queen.” A shadow passed over her face. “I wish she would let me come back to Court now he’s dead. It’s not fair of her, is it?”
Carey shook his head sympathetically.
“I so love to see all the new fashions and hear the new music. My son tells me the news of course and I advise him and his wife. Poor Frances. She’s so brainy for a pretty girl. It’s terrible for her really. She’s pregnant again, you know?”
Lettice finished the last wafer and sat back as far as she could in the gaudy cage of her dress.
“Hmm. What did my Lady Essex think about the Cornish lands?”
“Oh, she has no idea. She wouldn’t let poor Robin so much as ride down to look at them, said her father taught her that anything that looked too good to be true probably wasn’t true, the boring old creep. So he missed out on them.”
Carey nodded again, thinking better of Lady Essex. He, too, had learned that maxim from Walsingham.
“She’ll be sorry when the gold starts to flow,” said Lettice brightly, nodding her head so her feather bobbed. “I’ll tell my lord son I’ve told you about the Queen’s divorce and he can tell you anything else he learned from his stepfather. You know, my lord of Leicester was a wonderful father, he taught Robin to hunt and ride-even after his own poor little boy died, he was kind to his stepson. I remember once when…”
Carey smiled and nodded at a very fond tale about the young Earl of Essex’s first pony. He had forgotten how boring Lettice Knollys could be but he now had to get rid of her urgently because Dr. Lopez’s potions were summoning him.
“My lady cousin,” he said with as much unctuous sincerity as he could ladle into his voice, “I am so grateful to you for coming all this way and telling me this extremely important secret. I am truly amazed at it.”