“Will it be a shroud, do you think?”
“No, of course not,” I responded quickly. “It will be a grand ensemble, and all who see you will remark how splendid you are.”
Elizabeth knew I flattered her on purpose, but she seemed pleased by my assessment. “And they will see the skill of my beloved seamstress. Now, read to me.”
I opened the book I’d lifted with some dismay, the strange letters dancing before my eyes.
“I do not read Greek well, Your Grace.” I had told her this many times. “I can pronounce the words only with your guidance.”
Elizabeth’s mood shifted like lightning. “Then send me someone who can. I tire of this.”
She moved to throw back the bedcovers, and I lifted my hand. “But you are ill, my lady. Wretchedly, miserably ill and can bear to see no one but myself and Aunt Kat.”
I thought that Elizabeth would come at me with her fists. It would be my duty to bear her blows, to let her play out her fit of pique, but at the last minute, her eyes pinched in true pain.
“Yes, I am quite unwell. Most wretchedly and miserably, as you say.” Elizabeth put her hand to her forehead and sank back to the pillows with a dramatic moan.
I was nineteen years old, a woman in truth, yet still young enough to giggle. Elizabeth laughed softly with me, but our forced levity did not chase away the darkness.
I struggled through the Greek without the least idea of what I read, while we waited for news of Mary and to discover what the Duke of Northumberland would do next.
Most interestingly, the first person the new queen Jane summoned to court was me.
Riders came in the night, a hundred or so with lances and horses, making a great clatter around Hatfield. I was terrified they meant to cart the entire household off to the Tower, but Northumberland’s man seemed quite courteous when he asked to speak to the Lady Elizabeth.
Aunt Kat and I told him he could not—it was impossible, as she was at death’s door. We’d sent for a physician, and we had no way of knowing if she might live. Elizabeth would certainly not survive a journey, if she was being summoned to court. I, Aunt Kat, and her ladies of the bedchamber attested to this.
Why did the king want her? Aunt Kat asked the man ingenuously.
The gentleman smiled with false courtesy and said he came only with a message from Lady Elizabeth’s friend and former playmate, Lady Jane Grey, asking to borrow the little seamstress of whom they were both so fond.
No mention of the king’s death, no mention of Edward proclaiming Jane queen.
Aunt Kat and I retreated to Elizabeth’s chamber and held our council of three. Elizabeth was at first furious and refused to let me go to Jane, but her mercurial character changed before long.
“Yes, you shall go, my dear Eloise.” Elizabeth had risen, against our advice, and now she paced the room, her headache gone. “You shall sew and you shall listen and tell me every single thing Jane says and does. She and that blasted Northumberland and his cohort, the Duke of Suffolk, must be watched. Be my eyes and ears, Eloise.”
Eyes and ears are dangerous things, I thought to myself. But I could keep my eyes on my needlework and my ears wide open. Servants gossiped and few paid attention to a seamstress.
“And discover what you are able of my dear Robin,” Elizabeth went on. “Does he follow his father or counsel the man to prudence? The Robert Dudley I know is not much for prudence, but even so, tell me of him.”
“Shall I write to you?” I asked hesitantly. I had other ideas on how to send a message, ones I’d pondered when I’d been in London with Uncle John, awaiting news of Aunt Kat. I’d toyed with the theory since but hadn’t had reason to put it to the test until now.
“No.” Elizabeth did another turn about the chamber. “Keep your knowledge in your head, as I know you can, and tell me all when you return. I will find a way to send a messenger you will recognize. Do this for me, Eloise. Or do you love Jane better, whom you think so kind?”
Her eyes held fire, and I answered sincerely. “You are foremost in my heart, Your Grace. And ever will be.”
Elizabeth sent me a skeptical look but ceased pressing. She came to me, grasped my shoulders, and kissed my cheek. Her eyes softened, and she touched the place she’d kissed.
“God speed, my lamb,” she whispered.
The Tower of London was a paradox.
The original keep and its surrounding walls housed royal families in great state. Those who inherited the kingdom spent the night here before they progressed through London to be crowned at Westminster. Knights were dubbed in the great hall, and storage houses held gold and silver plate, and jewels worth the entire kingdom’s treasury.
On the other hand, the Tower was a royal jail from which there was little chance of escape.
A few prisoners did leave the Tower with their heads intact. The old Duke of Norfolk, uncle to Elizabeth’s mother, had been reprieved by the good luck of King Henry dropping dead the day Henry was to have signed the writ of execution. Aunt Kat and Thomas Parry had been released after being questioned about the Seymour affair, and various others had gone in and out as their fortunes changed.
