Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I Read Online Free PDF

happy to be marrying Lord Ambrose?”
    She nodded. “Yes, of course, he’s very kind.”
    “Do you . . . do you mind very much that he has been married before?”
    She didn’t rebuke me for my impertinence. I think she knew I was airing my concerns about my own potential situation with Lord Northampton.
    “No. I believe he loves me, as he loved the others.”
    I smiled at her and she smiled back, warmly. In spite of her odd and somewhat unresolved comments regarding the lady’s bedstraw and other herbs, she continued to kindly befriend me. In that, she was alone among the Englishwomen.
    Later, we gathered at the Queen’s Great Closet for the wedding of Lady Anne, whom her new husband had nicknamed Amys, to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, twenty years her senior. We ladies thought it romantic that her husband had a special name for her, and I hoped, for myself, that my own husband would lovingly do likewise. Lady Anne wore a kirtle of silver mixed with blue and a gown of purple embroidered with silver. Upon her fair hair she bore a golden caul, and her train was borne by little Catherine Knollys.
    Lord Northampton invited me and my friend Christina Abrahamsdotter to be his guests at his banqueting table, and we gladly agreed. I noted that he was served more quickly, more attentively, and with better dishes than the other guests. His benches were also cushioned. There were some long looks toward me from the others at the table, but soon enough talk reverted to the events of the day, and the week ahead.
    “Do you celebrate weddings in Sweden with banquets and jousting?” one woman asked politely.
    “We do banquet often,” I replied. “Vadstena Castle has a beautifuland ornate galley called the Wedding Hall. But we hunt and hawk perhaps more than joust.”
    “Which is a pity,” Christina said, “as your knights in their armor are compelling to look upon.”
    The others at the table laughed and began to speak of other tournaments they had witnessed, arguing the valor of one man over another. I smiled at Christina’s sentiments, heartily agreeing; the jousters were strong and fine-looking, and cast an air of manliness, but I said nothing. Lord Northampton’s gout prevented him from jousting.
    “You speak English well,” a young man sitting next to me said. “With a pretty accent.”
    “Thank you,” I said. “ Danke , or tack— thank you in German and Swedish, too,” I said with a wink.
    He grinned and struck me up in another conversation, but soon enough Lord Northampton stood behind my chair. “Would you and Lady Christina like to see the Royal Library?”
    “Oh, yes,” I said, and Princess Cecelia nodded her assent. We followed Lord Northampton from the banqueting hall through a long gallery and up a sweep of stairs. At the top of the stairs the gallery led either left or right. We took the right, and as we did, I caught sight of a couple out of the corner of my eye. The man, splendid in purple, was the queen’s handsome favorite and her lifelong love, the Earl of Leicester, also known as Robert Dudley, whom I recognized from the christening.
    What would it be like to have a lifelong love? Highborn women did not expect to marry for love, but one had only to read Greek or Roman mythology, or attend a masque or performance at court, to know we all wished we could.
    Lord Robert was accompanied by a heavily pregnant, beautifulwoman perhaps ten years younger than Her Majesty and looking remarkably like her. It was a tribute to the power of her charm, I supposed, that even while so pregnant she seemed able to enchant Lord Robert.
    “Who was that?” I asked Lord Northampton as he led to the library.
    “Lord Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester,” he answered.
    “Nay, the lady . . . accompanying . . . him.”
    “Lady Lettice Devereux,” he answered gruffly. “Sister to the little girl who bore the bride’s train this morn. Cousin to the queen.”
    •   •   •
    Two days later we were