The Queen’s Fool
A stunning novel set in the Tudor court, from the Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Philippa Gregory.I would have been a fool indeed to tell the truth in this court of liars…1553. King Edward is on his deathbed, and the future of the Tudor dynasty swings perilously.Forced out of Spain by the Inquisition, Hannah Green arrives in a volatile kingdom. She is identified as a seer and sworn into the service of Robert Dudley, the son of King Edward’s protector and a key player at court. Her task: to keep watch on Princess Mary, the forgotten heir.Mary’s grip on the Crown is fragile. Elizabeth, Mary’s half-sister, is ready to take England’s throne. Caught in the rivalry between the daughters of Henry VIII, Hannah must navigate her way through a treacherous court if she is to survive.
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Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2003
This edition published by Harper 2017
Copyright © Philippa Gregory Ltd 2003
Cover design and illustration: Holly Macdonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover image © Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy (portrait of Mary I of England, ca (1521-1525). Artist: Horenbout, Lucas 1490/95-1544).
Philippa Gregory asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007147298
Ebook Edition © December 2016 ISBN: 9780007370153
Version: 2017-01-23
For Anthony
The Family of Henry VIII, c. 1545, artist unknown. Reproduced courtesy of The Royal Collection © HM Queen Elizabeth II.
The girl, giggling and over-excited, was running in the sunlit garden, running away from her stepfather, but not so fast that he could not catch her. Her stepmother, seated in an arbour with Rosamund roses in bud all around her, caught sight of the fourteen-year-old girl and the handsome man chasing around the broad tree trunks on the smooth turf and smiled, determined to see only the best in both of them: the girl she was bringing up and the man she had adored for years.
He snatched at the hem of the girl’s swinging gown and caught her up to him for a moment. ‘A forfeit!’ he said, his dark face close to her flushed cheeks.
They both knew what the forfeit would be. Like quicksilver she slid from his grasp and dodged away, to the far side of an ornamental fountain with a broad circular bowl. Fat carp were swimming slowly in the water; Elizabeth’s excited face was reflected in the surface as she leaned forward to taunt him.
‘Can’t catch me!’
‘’Course I can.’
She leaned low so that he could see her small breasts at the top of the square-cut green gown. She felt his eyes on her and the colour in her cheeks deepened. He watched, amused and aroused, as her neck flushed rosy pink.
‘I can catch you any time I want to,’ he said, thinking of the chase of sex that ends in bed.
‘Come on then!’ she said, not knowing exactly what she was inviting, but knowing that she wanted to hear his feet pounding the grass behind her, sense his hands outstretched to grab at her; and, more than anything else, to feel his arms around her, pulling her against the fascinating contours of his body, the scratchy embroidery of his doublet against her cheek, the press of his thigh against her legs.
She gave a little scream and dashed away again down an allée of yew trees, where the Chelsea garden ran down to the river. The queen, smiling, looked up from her sewing and saw her beloved stepdaughter racing between the trees, her handsome husband a few easy strides behind. She looked down again at her sewing and did not see him catch Elizabeth, whirl her around, put her back to the red papery bark of the yew tree, and clamp his hand over her half-open mouth.
Elizabeth’s eyes blazed black with excitement, but she did not struggle. When he realised that she would not scream, he took his hand away and bent his dark head.
Elizabeth felt the smooth sweep of his moustache against her lips, smelled the heady scent of his hair, his skin. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head to offer her lips, her neck, her breasts to his mouth. When she felt his sharp teeth graze her skin, she was no longer a giggling child, she was a young woman in the heat of first desire.
Gently he loosened his grip on her waist, and his hand stole up the firmly boned stomacher to the neck of her gown, where he could slide a finger down inside her linen to touch her breasts. Her nipple was hard and aroused, when he rubbed it she gave a little mew of pleasure that made him laugh at the predictability of female desire, a deep chuckle in the back of his throat.
