Dominic, surprisingly, hugged Elizabeth before he left. “I’ll stay with him,” he promised her. “Until he is better.”
And if he is never better? Elizabeth thought desolately. Will you stand by me if William dies?
13 December 1555
Hampton Court
It has been two days, and the news from Whitehall continues grim. Both Rochford and Dominic say as little as possible in their dispatches to minimize the danger of the country learning how very ill William is. But people know something is wrong. Anyone with eyes can see that Elizabeth is sleepless and desperately worried. Her headaches have been unrelenting since I arrived, and I am glad I can at least be useful to her. Between me and Kat Ashley and Francis Walsingham, we have kept up the pretense that she is overwrought from her temporary imprisonment by the Duke of Northumberland. Let people imagine her prostrate because of Robert’s treason—better that than panic.
I do not know what we will do if William…I cannot even write it. It is unthinkable. Whenever I have a moment to myself, I imagine him frightened and alone and I cannot help thinking that this is my fault. It is not logical, I know, but what if Dominic and I have brought this upon him? What if, somehow, William’s body knows what his mind does not and the force of our betrayal has destroyed him?
What have we done?
Whitehall Palace had become a crypt. Dominic felt it on the rare occasions he left the sickroom, as though the very walls were anticipating the worst. The corridors were hushed and conversations were conducted in whispers and sidelong glances. Rochford might be putting out daily updates on the king’s health, but everyone in the palace knew they were fictions. William was not “somewhat indisposed” or “suffering from an injury in battle.”
Plainly stated, Will was dying.
Dominic had seen it immediately, shocked speechless by William’s appearance. The pustules were bad enough, crowded thick and foul across the king’s chest and his limbs and especially his face. He did not look like William at all—the sharp features of his handsome face submerged in oozing sores. But worse even than that had been the limp body and sunken eyes. It was as though William had already given up.
Dominic set about changing that, sitting by the bedside and keeping up an almost constant stream of chatter to his friend. It was the most words he’d ever strung together at any one time in his life, and he wished William would wake up enough to say something sarcastic.Death makes you talkative?perhaps, orCan’t you speak of something interesting like women?
For endless hours Dominic ignored the many others in the bedchamber and talked about last year’s battle in France and their shared childhoods in the schoolroom and the tiltyard. He talked battle tactics and history and recalled pranks that William and Minuette had inflicted on the rest of them.
The physicians did whatever they could do—which was precious little—and Rochford was a constant presence as well, watching his nephew from beneath hooded eyes. Early in the hours of December 13, as William’s breath grew desperately shallow, Rochford tried to send him out.
“Go get some rest, Courtenay.” Rochford in private always called him by the name he’d used since Dominic’s childhood.
“I’m fine.”
“There’s nothing you can do. You heard the physicians—either he will recover or he won’t. We are all of us in God’s hands, and I cannot believe God is ready to take William just yet. Not when we need him.”
Dominic wished he could read God’s intentions as well as Rochford seemed to. In any case, he shook his head. “I’m staying.”
With a shrug, Rochford replied, “As you will. I’ll snatch an hour’s sleep myself, then.”
So in the darkest hours of the night, with only two physicians and a handful of men attending to William’s physical needs, Dominic finally was able to say what all his words had been leading up to.
He touched William’s swollen hand and leaned over the bed. “I don’t know if this is what you need to hear, William, but if it is, I say it gladly. About Renaud—about the choices you made in my name—”
Intended assassination, an arrow in the back, a wife taken in secret…“You are my king, but you are also my friend. And so I forgive you, Will. And I’m sorry.”
And please,he added silently,please live long enough for me to make things right. Don’t let my last act in your service have been a betrayal.
As dawn edged a chilly entrance into wintry morning, William opened his eyes.
INTERLUDE
26 December 1555
Robert Dudley was confined in Beauchamp Tower, a forbidding medieval square building that looked every bit the defensive wall for which it had been built three hundred years earlier. He wasn’t sure where his brothers and father were being held, for his guards were under orders to give nothing away. Not even his charm had any effect on their reticence.
When Dominic walked into his cell, Robert raised one very dramatic eyebrow. “Either I am about to be pardoned or about to be dead,” he remarked wryly. “Which is it?”
“I am here on my own account,” Dominic answered. “Not the king’s.”
“Ah. I had thought…So my messages are not getting through.”
“You’ve been sending messages?”
