Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (73 page)

his audacity.

“You have said enough and I have listened. Now you will leave me.

My order stands unchanged. He goes to the Tower and he will leave it

only for the block.”

“Madam, I beseech you, be reasonable.”

“Reasonable?
Reasonable
? He commits bigamy with that whore and

you ask me to be reasonable—”

He caught and held both her hands; he was truly desperate now.

“For the love of God, madam, will you tell me how a man can commit

bigamy against a woman he has never married?”

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She hit him for that and turned away, sobbing bitterly.

“I won’t be mocked—I won’t, do you hear?”

“No one is mocking you, madam, except yourself. And you know I

speak the truth, not as Leicester’s friend but as yours. Whatever you feel

for him, he is
not
your husband. He was as free to marry in honour as any

other man in England and if you act now, in a moment of blind passion,

it will destroy everything you have worked for. The damage it will do to

your standing in Europe and with your own people will be beyond repair.”

She pulled away from him and sank into a chair before the empty

hearth in despair.

“Then I am helpless—tied hand and foot by my good name. There is

nothing I can do to punish him.”

“You can banish him, madam. In many ways that will be a worse

punishment for him than death. You have made him so much your

creature that if you cast him out now you destroy him utterly. He has no

place in this world but at your side, no protection but yours against the

enemies you have made for him.”

“Of which you are one,” she reminded him, now suddenly very quiet,

staring at the floor.

“Yes, madam,” he admitted bluntly. “My pleading for his freedom

does not alter my enmity for him. I would gladly see him driven from this

realm in ignominy and poverty. Leave him to his enemies and they will

grant you a better revenge than execution—should you really wish it.”

She looked up, sharply incredulous.

“You cannot mean that I might forgive him.”

“You have forgiven him many things before,” Sussex said quietly.

“But not this.” She buried her face in her hands. “Not this!”

He stood and watched her in pitying silence for a moment.

At last he said gently, “Is it still to be the Tower, madam?”

“No.” Defeated, humiliatingly close to tears, Elizabeth shook her head

slowly. “Let him go in peace to Wanstead. Let him go to Hell for all I

care. What does it matter that a traitor’s son has shown his true colours

after all? It’s finished—truly finished between us at last.”

“I’m glad, madam,” said Sussex simply. “He was never worthy of you.

You are well rid of him.”

“Yes,” she repeated mechanically, like a child learning a difficult lesson

by heart, “I am well rid of him.”

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Susan Kay

The hysteria had passed, leaving her to face the unpleasant physical

symptoms of reaction, and she found herself shaking uncontrollably. She

had to force herself to stand erect, to hold out her hand to him, and smile.

And when he saw that, and reckoned the immense effort it had cost her

to face him with grace and dignity, he suddenly knew why he had risked

his neck to come in here today.

“Thank you, my lord. I shall not forget your courage.”

Almost, to the word, precisely what she had said that day he took her

letter to Queen Mary. Her image blurred suddenly before his old eyes

and he blinked to clear it as he bowed low and went out, sending in her

most trusted woman, the Countess of Warwick. And if in that moment

he could have obtained access to the imprisoned man, he would have

killed Leicester with his bare hands and saved the executioner the trouble.

t t t

In tactful silence, Lady Warwick undressed her and put her to bed.

As she sank into the welcoming softness of the mattress Elizabeth felt

herself succumbing to the same numb stupor which had overwhelmed

her thirty years ago, after the Lord Admiral’s execution. Behind these

heavy curtains lay sanctuary from the sniggering world outside her door,

refuge from a shame and misery too great to be borne with sanity. She

had only to let go of reality and nothing would exist for her beyond this

bed, no grief, no pain. Already the sounds of the palace were fading,

the Countess of Warwick was dwindling before her eyes, and she was

slipping down, down into that melancholy state where nothing and no

one could matter to her and her only desire would be to sleep and never

wake again.

With the last vestige of consciousness she struck out and grasped the

anchor of sanity. This pain alone was sharp enough to pierce the great

dam of emotion which she had kept welled up for over forty years. Now

she turned her face to the pillow and wept for every tragedy that she had

suppressed since her childhood; for Katherine Howard and Katherine

Parr, for Thomas Seymour and her dead governess, Ashley. And last of all

for Robin, the ultimate traitor, who had betrayed her into finally admit-

ting she was a woman, with a woman’s heart—and a woman’s needs.

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Chapter 7

I
n his extravagantly furnished bedchamber at wanstead,

Leicester sat as he had done every day, week in week out, since his

banishment, in a low chair before the fire with his great white hound,

Boy, at his feet. He had not stirred from the room, nor visited his precious

horses, and he had seen no one but his servants. Fever and depression had

wasted a body which had already begun to grow stout and no amount

of soaking in a hot bath seemed to ease the rheumatic aches in his legs.

He was forty-six and he looked and felt every year of it, suddenly feeling

as though he had grown old overnight. His face was covered with an

unkempt beard and his thinning hair was ruffled by the despairing hands

which constantly thrust among it. Rising from his bath, he had not

troubled to dress, but sat for hours on end, hunched in his fur-collared

chamber robe, drinking a great deal and eating very little, contemplating

his stupidity and his ruin with abject misery.

It was over between them. She had cut him out of her life as surely

and effectively as if she had followed her original impulse and taken

his head—and he knew with grim certainty just how narrowly he had

escaped that penalty. There was nothing left to him now without her.

The creditors would be lining up, his many enemies closing in with

gloating triumph on the best hated man in England. He had few illusions

about what lay ahead—persecution, obscurity, poverty—and all to be

faced alone, for he doubted that Lettice would follow him into exile.

Loyalty had never been one of her virtues. She followed where her

physical senses led, and in time they would lead her to a younger man,

Susan Kay

with a future to offer. He accepted that with quiet indifference, for he

had discovered that he did not greatly care what Lettice did. He cared

for nothing and no one but himself and the Queen and the life he had

thrown away to satisfy a petty spite.

The enormity of his crime had overwhelmed him at last and the depth

of Elizabeth’s resentment no longer shocked him; he had been mad to

think he could ever get away with it. And now that it was finished, he

found himself remembering only the good times, for in spite of their

many quarrels there
had
been good times, moments when he was truly

proud to be acknowledged as the man she cared for.

In the flickering firelight, memories leapt out at him, like sparks from

the burning logs, each one searing the sense of loss a little more deeply

into his soul. In every way, except the true one, he had been her husband,

and in his heart he knew her bitterness was justified, that she was right to

cast him away.

Across the years he chased the elusive images of their love, until at

last he came to Ricote—Ricote, in summer, at the height of a hectic

progress, home of Henry and Margery Norris, their mutual friends. Only

a skeleton train had followed them to Ricote and informality reigned,

shooting parties and candle-lit dinners, a time to laugh and love and be

themselves in good company, away from the inhibitions of the court. If

he could take her just once more to any place in England, it would be to

Ricote; and yet, even there, in the midst of their roistering quartet, the

shadow had intruded.

The night stood out in his memory as though it were yesterday—a

warm summer evening with the scent of roses and newly scythed grass

drifting in through the open windows. Dinner finished, the servants

dismissed, and Henry Norris serving increasingly large measures of his

very best claret. Leicester and the Norrises had been pleasantly intoxi-

cated for an hour or so, and the Queen, who had for once not watered

her wine, was as near to drunk as anyone had ever seen her. Norris’s

father had been one of those five executed with Anne Boleyn, and Henry

had a special claim to Elizabeth’s affection; she would not hurt his feelings

by committing sacrilege against his prise vintage.

They were boisterous and rowdy as school children, absurd as only

inebriated adults can be, and they had reached the point where any

remark was liable to send the listeners hysterical with amusement. A game

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of question and answer, so popular in court circles, hung in abeyance

because Henry was too sodden to think of a question to put to the Queen.

“Don’t belch like a pig in the Queen’s presence,” said his wife tartly.

“If you don’t think of something soon you must pay a forfeit.”

“A dip in the fountain might sober him up,” suggested Leicester

cheerfully.

Norris got to his feet with haste and asked the Queen to marry him.

Everyone laughed, except Margery, who kicked her husband under

the table.

“What’s amiss?” he grumbled amiably. “Is it not the most popular

question in Europe? Hasn’t everyone asked her except the Pope—and he

only needs a little more time.”

More irreverent laughter wafted out into the falling dusk, but the pros-

pect of Norris sitting in the fountain now appealed hugely to everyone

and even Elizabeth would not let him off the hook. He would have to

think of something good if he was to escape a soaking.

“All right—I have it—even Margery can’t fault this.” Norris bowed

solemnly to the Queen, who leaned her chin on her hands to listen. “I ask

Her Majesty, as the fount of all justice in this land—what is the greatest

crime a woman can commit?”

“To kill the man she loves,” said Elizabeth automatically, and looked

straight at Leicester as she said it.

There was a moment of quivering silence that sobered that cosy

candle-lit quartet like a douse of cold water. Norris arranged nutshells in

drunken formation along his plate, and his wife chewed her handkerchief,

aghast at what the game had suddenly precipitated.

Leicester stared at the Queen, but was the first to regain composure.

He laughed and slapped his host heartily on the back with a force which

sent him sprawling among the nutshells.

“Well—that rather rules me out—but if I were you, Norris, I’d watch

my step. Everyone knows how fond she is of you.”

There was more laughter, of a rather forced quality, until it was discov-

ered that one of the nutshells had nicked Norris’s lip. And at that point

some semblance of normality returned to the conversation, as everyone

got to their feet at once.

Derisive scorn from Margery.

“Oh, God’s blood, Henry, you’ll live!”

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Susan Kay

Profuse apologies from Leicester and excessive concern from the Queen.

“Take my handkerchief, Hal—Robin, what a brute you are—you

don’t know your own strength!”

Leicester caught her hand and swung her over to the empty hearth,

away from the other two.

“Do you know yours?” he demanded quietly.

Elizabeth did not answer. She smiled and released herself from his

hand and went back to the table. The evening ended, as convivially as

it had begun, but the Queen did not come down next morning; and

Leicester had never seen her even remotely intoxicated again.

It was late. The clock on the chimney-piece ticked on, the big dog

yawned by the hearth, and the door behind him opened with a soft click.

Staring moodily into the flickering flames he spoke without looking up.

“Take the food away—leave the wine.”

“I think you have drunk quite enough, don’t you, my lord?”

Incredulously, he turned his head and stared. She stood calmly just

inside the closed door, pushing the sable hood back from her bright hair

and unfastening the gold clasp at her throat. As she walked across the

room to the hearth, she let the heavy velvet cloak fall from her shoulders