Elizabeth I (58 page)

“And you, Elizabeth? What can you tell us of court doings?” There ought to be a term for one's successor as a mistress. Perhaps “mistress once removed”?

“It has been quiet,” she said. “The Queen has been so distracted and challenged by the rumors of attacks, and by the riots and incidents in the countryside, that most of the usual activities have ceased.” She looked up at me, her velvety, dark eyes inviting me to speak more. It was the first time I truly understood what was meant about Anne Boleyn's eyes: They were said to “invite to conversation.” With such eyes, conversation was just the beginning.

“You must be bored, then,” I said.

“Anything but bored, for she gives me permission to leave, and that means I can spend more time with Henry.” It took me a second to realize she meant Southampton. Henry. I never thought of him as Henry. He better fitted the name “Adonis,” as in the poem dedicated to him. And here was his Venus. Soft, seductive, perfumed with youth. I blinked and bent over my needlework. There is a point at which no amount of experience can offset youth, no matter how unpracticed. The finest, crispest autumn cannot undercut the supremacy of spring. Deep crimson does not have the charm of delicate pink.

I willed the tears away and thanked the gods for the sewing that allowed me to avert my eyes without suspicion. When I raised them, I was myself again.

We were given a bedchamber in the west wing of the house, the part built for the Queen. It was tastefully, but not stylishly, furnished, a dowager of a room. A dark bed, its bulbous posts supporting a heavy canopy, squatted in one corner, with a writing table and two cushioned seats beneath a window. I noted that the lily pattern of the cushions matched the one I had worked on; Lady Bacon must be refurbishing all the rooms to match. A thick carpet, a surprising luxury, covered the floor between the window and the bed. A generous number of candles were set about. However much they were struggling for money, the Bacons did not wish to give the impression of cheapness.

Christopher opened the window and a blast of rainy wind blew in.

“Would you please close it?” I tried to sound pleasant. But I would rather be anywhere but here with him tonight. A nun's cell seemed more appealing.
Lettice, there are no more nuns in England,
I reminded myself.
Only Her Majesty
.

He slammed it loudly. He had kept drinking all through the supper, and now his clumsy movements and flushed face made me think he must be drunk. Well, let him sleep. Let him sleep and awake the good-natured Christopher I knew. I did not like this man here tonight.

“Did you enjoy yourself among the hens?” he said.

“Yes,” I answered. “It is always good to see Penelope.”

“The daughter most like her mother.” His voice was thick and sneering.

“I was never as pretty.”

“But your behavior was similar. Who will replace Charles, I wonder? My trusting cousin.”

“No one will replace him. They are devoted to each other.” Perhaps I should make an excuse and leave; when I returned, he would be asleep.

“As you are to me?” Instead of falling into bed, he came over to me and took my neck in his hands.

I stared back at him. His eyes were hard to read in this dim light. “Yes. As I am to you.”

“Would it were so.” He did not sound angry now, just tired.

“Why should you think otherwise?”

He let me go and made his way to the bed, pushing the heavy curtains aside, sitting on its edge with his legs dangling, like a little boy. “All the men at Cádiz wondered what their women were doing while they were away. The more lovely the wife, the greater the danger.”

Relief tingled through me. He was speaking only in general terms, not out of suspicion. “Since all the men were away fighting, I'd say there was little danger at home. What man of any note was here? Only the old, the infirm, the incapable remained. They made us long all the more for our absent men.” I walked over to him, almost dizzy with the sense of reprieve. He did not know. He must not know. I must never do that again. “I spent the nights with you, in my dreams and thoughts.” His very vulnerability made me wish to reassure him. I bent over and kissed him. For the first time since his return, I actually desired his kiss. For the first time, his lips were only his own, not a reminder of anyone else's.

He was a good man, a man to cherish. I would.
I do,
I vowed.
I do not deserve you, Christopher, but I will try to
.

That was my heartfelt promise. But what were my promises worth?

The next morning, as we prepared to leave, we had to step over the scattered forms of men sleeping all over the floor, their cloaks pulled over them, their legs sprawled out as they snored and muttered. I recognized some of them—there were the campaign veterans Sir Charles Danvers, a hotheaded, quarrelsome friend of Southampton's, Sir John Davies, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges; wild noblemen such as the spendthrift Roger Manners, Earl of Rutland, his spiky hair sticking up, and Edward Russell, the Earl of Bedford, sleeping like an angel; Thomas Radcliffe, the Earl of Sussex; William Lord Sandys; the Catholic-leaning William Parker, Lord Monteagle; and Robert's secretary, the Greek scholar Henry Cuffe, and Gelli Meyrick the Welshman.

Cuffe did not look very scholarly, and the noblemen did not look very noble.

T
he nastier the weather, the more I relished being outdoors. I licked the stinging mist hitting my lips as I sat on horseback in Greenwich Park, looking across the river to the desolate brown and gray of the Isle of Dogs. Ghostly ribbons of fog wove a pattern in the air above the water, floating down to the sea. It was the time when every Joan and Ned huddled indoors before the fire, and this year with meager food supplies to face the cold months ahead. I was here watching, as I had for weeks, wondering when the first beacon would flare across the river. In these dull days the bright flame would be easy to see.

There had been no word on the whereabouts of the Armada, although we believed it would head first for the Isle of Wight and then up the Thames to London. We increased the garrison at Wight and readied the ordnance of all the coastal defenses; a militia of twenty-four thousand from the southern counties was called up to defend the seacoast. The navy was fitted out and stationed along the Channel. Near London, ships were dispatched to guard the entrance of the Thames by Tilbury. Others were positioned as watch vessels from Sheerness to Chatham navy yard; the nearby Upnor Castle was strengthened with an extra contingent of soldiers. In case of a Spanish reprisal against our fleet in revenge for Cádiz, Admiral Howard ordered Raleigh to safeguard the fleet at anchor.

We had heard of the Armada's setting out, of the prayers said in Spanish churches for its success, singing the psalm “Contra Paganos”—“Against the Pagans”—in churches throughout the land. I looked up at the swirling, blustery sky. We would see, literally, which way the winds blew. Would they be Protestant winds or Catholic ones? Would they sweep the Armada onto our shores or wreck it as they had before?

At least we were safe from the homegrown insurrection. The Oxfordshire rising had never risen. Steer and his followers had been unable to convince enough people to join them, despite their busy recruiting in the countryside. On St. Hugh's Day, they had bungled their start and been easily rounded up and taken to London, where they were now being tried. In the end, although people griped and complained, they were not willing to risk their lives or to attack the landowners. Some said they were in it as long as it was property, not people, to be destroyed, but when the talk turned to murder they wanted no part of it. The men involved were mostly young, unemployed, and without families—in other words, with nothing to lose.

Nonetheless, my Accession Day, despite my putting on a brave outward show, was a sober one for me. Knowing that the day when people had rejoiced that I had come to the throne thirty-eight years ago had become the day chosen by malcontents to express themselves weighed on my spirits. For every person who had joined the rising, there must be thousands who sympathized with it. I knew we would have to address these deep-seated discontentments, so I called for a parliament to meet soon.

The clean, stinging wind was welcome after the stuffiness and forced phrases at court, and the roiling weather reminded me that our indoor tempests were small things. The mighty hand of God seemed to be raking his fingers through the sky.

My hands were numb inside my fur-lined gloves. Still I lingered on the hilltop, watching the great lazy bend of the river and the skyline of London beyond that, spread out along its banks.

Wait! Was that a flare? Did I see a flash of red from the distant hill? I held still and waited, but it did not come again. It must have been a reflection. As I turned to head back to Greenwich, I saw a rider approaching. He sat his horse squarely, neither hurrying nor dawdling, his flat hat pulled low.

“Francis!” It was my elusive counsel.

He swept off his hat and nodded, coming close. He had a fine bay horse. I wondered if he owned it, but more likely it was borrowed from Essex. “Your Majesty,” he said.

“This is unexpected company,” I said. Others would have cornered me at a banquet or Christmas festivity, but he found this private ground. He was always clever.

“I was out for a ride in the park and thought I saw you. Your carriage and the way you sit your saddle are unmistakable.”

Like all successful flatterers, he knew that the best flattery is to exaggerate what is true. I was a good rider, and I did have a straight back. “Thank you, Francis,” I said. “It has been a long time since I have seen you at court.”

“It has been a long time since you have called upon my talents, modest as they are, for your service.” He replaced his hat, pulling it down to cover his ears. The wind flapped the hem of his cloak.

“The things that have needed counsel, unfortunately, have not been in your area of knowledge.”

He smiled. “Are you sure? Did I not tell you I have taken all knowledge to be my province?”

“Yes, you did, and I know you are conquering new territory every day, a veritable Alexander the Great of the mind, you are. But the dreary, sad matters I have had to deal with—discontented subjects, another attack from my perennial foe Philip—did not require analysis but simple action.” Now I waited for him to recommend Essex, his employer, for the task. I had let Essex sulk and sit since his return from Cádiz and his fizzled hero's welcome. The people still sang of him, but it was dying down.

“I understand,” he said. “I am grateful that the danger inside the realm is over and hope that the same will soon be said of the one outside.” He looked toward the city. “Let this stand safe!”

“How are you, Francis?” I asked. He looked well but clearly had something on his mind. “And Anthony? I despair of ever seeing your brother. Sometimes I think he is a ghost—or an alias for you. Is there really an Anthony Bacon?”

Francis laughed. “He exists but is unwell. All of him, except his mind, is failing. He must protect the body in order to safeguard his mind. It is a jewel wrapped in weak flesh.”

“As in us all.” An unwelcome reminder. “What have you come for, my good man? For I know it was not to watch the river with me.”

“I confess I did wish to see you alone, and in a place that has no mementos of times past. You say you value my counsel, and so I present it to you in a form you can consult any time you fancy and have it to hand.” He opened his saddle pouch and drew out a book. “I have written down what I know.”

I took the slim volume. “In so small a space? That is not possible.”