Legacy: The Acclaimed Novel of Elizabeth, England's Most Passionate Queen -- and the Three Men Who Loved Her (88 page)

no one moved and then the scene was transfigured by frantic activity. The

dog was carried upstairs to be washed of his mistress’s blood. The head and

body were borne away for embalming and while the block and Mary’s

clothing were carried outside to be burned, that no martyr’s relics might

remain, George Talbot spurred his horse out of Fotheringay courtyard,

riding through the night to bring news of the deed to Greenwich Palace.

Burghley said, “She is not to be told yet.”

Talbot gaped at him with absolute amazement and the Lord Treasurer

inclined his head with the first sign of nervousness. “It would be better to

break it cautiously to her by degrees,” he said huskily.

Talbot registered one thing with certainty from this incredible

command; the great Lord Burghley was evidently a very frightened man.

t t t

In London the celebration bells rang on for twenty-four hours while

the people lit bonfires and danced all night in the streets at the news.

It was the bells which finally betrayed the English councillors’ guilty

secret when the Queen inquired the cause of their ringing from one

of her ladies. What happened after that no one at the English court

cared to remember. By the end of forty-eight hours, when she had

stopped sobbing long enough to find her voice, Greenwich Palace was

like a spiritual battleground. Davison was in the Tower, waiting to be

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hanged for betraying her trust; Burghley was banished from court on the

understanding that his face was repugnant to her sight; Walsingham in

deepest disgrace and, with Hatton, forbidden to come into her presence.

Shocked and alarmed, they comforted themselves with the knowledge

that she would get over it; a month later they had begun to sense the real

possibility that she would not.

Burghley sat alone at Theobalds, that great country mansion which he

had erected as a monument to his Queen, and brooded on the calamity

which had overtaken him. Twice now in a long and very distinguished

career of practised mind-reading, he had grievously misread the desires

of his royal mistress—and twice a woman had died because of it. But this

time he had been so sure—so
certain—
that he was doing what she really

wanted; and the sudden, irrational vengeance which she had wreaked

upon him had left him dumbstruck.

He was finished—all his years of devoted service thrown back in his

withered face like so much trash, flung out of court like an old dog whose

tricks had tired at last. She no longer had any use for him. Only his age

had saved him from sharing Davison’s imprisonment in the Tower.

Mildred watched from the doorway in grim silence as the crippled old

figure hunched over his desk, day after day, scribbling frantic letters to

his royal mistress, each one returned to him unopened, so that he must

put it aside and endorse it methodically “Not received.” At first he had

said with forced cheerfulness, “I’ve weathered her storms before. You’ll

see—she’ll send for me again within a few days. She can’t do without

me—I know she can’t.”

A week later he said, “They say she’s ill—what can be expected if she

refuses to eat or sleep? But I tell you, Mildred, once she begins to feel

better it will all be forgotten.”

Two weeks later he banged his fist on the table and shouted, “I know

who’s behind this—it’s Leicester—pouring his poison into her ears—

playing on her mind when she’s vulnerable—he’s always done that. If

only I could speak to her, if only she would send for me and give me a

chance to explain—”

It was March before he got his chance to do that and Mildred thought

how pathetic it was to see a white-haired old man stumbling about his

room in his haste to obey the royal summons, like an elderly dog who has

heard his master’s whistle at last.

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He was back almost before his wife had time to accept that he was

gone, stumbling from his grey mule and staggering into the house,

leaning heavily on the arm of his steward. Mildred found him in the

library, crumpling his hat in his hands. He turned to look at her with tears

running down his parchment cheeks, losing themselves in the white, wiry

hairs of his beard.

“William!” She hurried across the room and helped him to a chair.

“What happened? Why are you back?”

He shook his head, unable to accept it, and his voice was broken.

“It was just the same—no—it was worse—she just stood there, leaning

on Leicester’s arm—she looked so different, almost old—still dressed in

mourning black, a black veil over her face. She wouldn’t give me her

hand to kiss—she made me stand through the whole interview.”

Mildred was silent for a moment, shocked by the significance of that

last detail.

“But the Queen never lets you stand,” she muttered at last. “Once she

even stopped a speech because she saw you had no chair.”

“She made me stand,” he repeated dully, almost as though it were the

final cruelty which had broken his spirit. “Her eyes were full of hatred,

Mildred. I tried to speak, I tried to reason with her, but she would not

hear me out. She called me false dissembler, traitor—wicked wretch—in

front of Leicester and Walsingham. And even Leicester looked away at

that. It’s not him, Mildred, it’s not him, as I thought—as I hoped. It’s

her—it’s all her. They say the wrath of the king is death—she means to

prove it in me.”

“William—you’re ill—you must not distress yourself like this.”

He looked up at his wife and smiled bitterly.

“My sickness is grounded on her ingratitude—it burns deeper than a

continual fever.”

Mildred knelt stiffly by his chair and laid her plain, homely face against

his hands.

“William—you have the children—the grandchildren—this beautiful

house and the life she never gave you time to enjoy. Take this as a

God-given chance to spend your remaining years in peace and tranquil-

lity. Forget her, my dearest—forget her! Let her go.”

He looked down at the grey head in his lap and gently touched the

peak of her cap. “When they lay me in my grave,” he said.

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t t t

Once the door had closed behind Burghley’s bent, defeated figure,

Walsingham had bowed and crept softly out of the room, exchanging a

quick, sympathetic glance with Leicester, who remained behind.

After the violent scene which had just taken place there was an uneasy

silence and the Queen, in her sweeping mourning gown, began to wander

aimlessly from room to room in her private apartments, driven by the

morbid restlessness which plagued her day and night. Leicester followed at

a distance, watching her, conducting a disjointed and fragmentary conver-

sation which, no matter what he said, seemed disturbingly one-sided. He

had begun to realise that his replies were not registering, that though she

appeared to be addressing him, she was in reality talking to herself.

“I never desired her death. Never!”

“But when you signed the warrant we all assumed—”

“No one believes me. No one will ever believe me. No one!”

“I believe you. For pity’s sake, my love, stop tormenting yourself

like this.”

“I look into their eyes and tell them I never meant it to be done and

their eyes look back and call me liar.
Murderess
. I’ve killed so many and

they all lie quietly in their graves, except
her—
but then she’s not buried

yet. Yes, that must be it—she has nowhere grand to rest. I will give her

a state funeral—all the pomp and ceremony due to a queen—whatever it

costs—perhaps then she’ll leave me alone.”

She walked into the bedroom and he hurried after her with an icy

tingling at the base of his spine. She was staring at her tapestry frame,

untouched now for many weeks, picking hopelessly at the stitches,

unravelling half a rose. This time he went right up to her and took her

hands in alarm.

“What do you mean—leave you alone?”

She looked up and there was fear in her eyes, the same wild, unrea-

soning terror that he had glimpsed occasionally when she woke from

nightmares; nightmares he had never prevailed upon her to describe. He

remembered the disorientation that would continue for endless minutes,

until the last mists of sleep were shaken from her confused mind; his own

relief when she finally sat up and laughed, while still shaking, apologised

for waking him so rudely yet again, suggested that perhaps she should

change his adjoining room for a more peaceful apartment.

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But now there was no hope that she would wake up and laugh,

however shakily; for she was wide awake.

She took his hand and pressed his fingers against her throat on the bare

patch of skin between her chin and the great cartwheel ruff.

“There,” she said. “You can feel it, can’t you?”

The fine network of hairline cracks across her mind was so clear

to Leicester, in that moment, that he might have been looking at

some ancient Greek vase, infinitely fragile, equally precious. He knew

instinctively that one false jar now would send the whole precarious

structure crumbling. He was going to have to choose his words with

the utmost care.

“Yes,” he said quietly, cautiously, “I can feel it. I think—you had

better tell me, how it came to be there.”

Her eyes widened on his face in an ecstasy of relief and suddenly words

were tumbling from her in a great breathless torrent. Some of them went

past his understanding, like the rapid pummelling of a mighty waterfall,

but he caught enough of her meaning to make his own senses reel with

horror. She spoke repeatedly of the chain of iron about her neck and of

queens, murdered queens,
his
victim—and hers. One owned what the

other now sought, a bridge back to life.

“…but
she
will not give me up—why should she? I was always hers.

So they fight, they fight when I sleep and their conflict consumes me. I

burn candles all night long in my room to prevent it—I fear sleep more

than I fear death.”

As he stood and listened to her ravings, his face contorted, as though

he were about to weep. She saw it and stiffened, stepped back from him

with one hand at her throat.

“Am I mad?” she whispered hollowly. “Is this what it feels like? Shall I

be shut away like Philip’s wretched grandmother?” She pressed her hands

against her temples in gathering panic. “I should not have told you—I

should not have told anyone—”

He caught her hands and kissed them furiously.

“I swear to you,” he said, in a curiously choked voice, “I swear to you, as

God is my witness, that I wil never speak of this or betray you to anyone.”

“I have been betrayed on all sides by those who are closest in my

counsel,” she said dully. “You are all that is left to me out of a pit of vipers.”

Whatever part he had played in that betrayal, she appeared to have

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forgotten. He alone had escaped the wrath she had visited on the rest of

the Council; and now he understood why.

“Help me, Robin,” she begged him suddenly, wild with despair.

“Help me to free myself while there’s still time. I can’t bear to be shut

away again—”

It was Mary she feared, and not her mother. He had gathered enough from

her rambling to deduce that, and now he thought desperately, praying for

inspiration—finding it suddenly and quite unexpectedly in her own words.

“A state funeral,” he said firmly. “She will rest when you have buried

her decently, with all the ceremony due to a reigning monarch. You will

be at peace when it’s done, I swear it.”

Elizabeth gazed at him doubtfully. “Westminster Abbey?”

He blinked—
Oh God, not that, not so close—
and led her cautiously

away from the idea.

“Not Westminster, the London mob would never stand for it. There

might be desecration of her tomb.”

The Queen shivered. “Where then?”

“Peterborough,” he said decidedly. Peterborough was far enough away.

She nodded dumbly and turned away; he saw that she was not convinced.

“Let me sit with you tonight,” he said quickly, “and every night—

until it is done.”

She smiled absently, lifting one hand to touch his cheek.

“And put you in a coffin, too? The day I do that, my love, my own

must be ready.”

After all these years, it was the closest she had ever come to saying

that she loved him, and he heard it with a curious sensation, as though

his heart had contracted into a ball of hot, heavy lead inside his chest, a

burning in the throat which made him swallow with difficulty.

Her restless wandering had taken her to her bedside table, where in

a large golden casket, she kept her most precious possessions under lock

and key; the casket of which he had once spoken so bitterly to Burghley.