Roses Have Thorns: A Novel of Elizabeth I (13 page)

“We’ve ordered yellow silk dresses trimmed with green velvet and silver lace,” the queen said, “for your maids and ladies. They shall be delivered tomorrow.” She did not ask me if that met with my approval; I do not think the queen asked anyone for their approval.
However, she had impeccable taste and knew what I liked, the colors of herbs and gardens, and had planned accordingly.

“I’m very grateful, Majesty,” I said, hiding a smile at her competency in this, and every, area. “And I’m also grateful for the banquet you’re sponsoring for William and me afterward. I do not know how I can ever repay your kindness in this matter.” In truth, as the day approached and I truly began to allow myself to believe I would be a bride, at last I grew more excited. I was to be a wife! Mistress of many manors and, legally, rightly, dearest to William’s heart and person. I could not keep back my smiles.

The queen saw and smiled at me in return. “We are pleased for Northampton’s sake that this marriage, at long last, will come to pass, but we are also glad for our own sake,” she replied. “This one time, I do not so much feel that I am losing a lady as gaining one.”

I did not understand, just then, what she meant, but there were many details to attend to and well-wishers to respond to, so I let the comment pass.

“The king and queen of Sweden were present at my mother’s wedding,” I said. “So I am honored that you will attend my own. My mother also said it was luckiest to be married in the morning.”

“Then it’s a good omen that you will be married in the morn,” she said.

“You must arrange your own wedding for the morning, too,” I said, teasing her. She still held hope that she would marry, and her monthly courses were regular, so we hoped, too.

“Impertinence!” she said, but with a light wave of her gloves. “What should we present to you for a wedding gift?”

I stared at her. “Surely not. The gowns, the wedding dinner in the council chamber, the musicians—that is enough and more.”

She was pleased, I could tell, but pressed on. “Nothing at all, then, my lady?”

I thought for a moment. “There is one request, if I might be bold.”

“Go on.”

“In my family, when something of consequence occurs, we sisters would send one another off with a kiss on the temple, for affection and care, and concern. I have no sister to send me off on this journey, Majesty, but you are setting me off upon it. Would it be overbold of me to ask that you might kiss my temple in such sisterly fashion as I took my leave from your chamber to meet with William?”

For the first time in our acquaintance she appeared to know not how to respond; she opened her mouth to say something and then closed it, appearing to think upon the matter. I grew vexed that I had greatly overstepped my bounds, but instead of a sharp rebuke, which she was not afraid to regularly offer, her face and tone softened and she said, “Yes, Lady von Snakenborg, I willingly send you off thusly.”

I steadied myself so as not to let a sigh of relief escape my lips!

The next morning Her Majesty had her own ladies, in addition to Clemence, assist me with my wedding attire. I used my own cosmetics; I preferred to prepare them myself. And just before I was to meet William, the queen bent over and kissed me softly on the temple, leaving a lingering scent of the vanilla perfume I’d blended for her.

That evening there was a grand dinner and the queen danced many times more with Lord Robert than did William and I. William’s legs still pained him and I kept close to my new husband to attend to him whenever he needed me, and to shower him with
my affection and attention, which was his due, and gladly given. He left to receive the congratulations of some of his highborn friends. The queen came to stand near me with some of her other ladies, who looked at me in a new light. I was no longer simply Lady von Snakenborg; I was the Marchioness of Northampton. As the Duke of Norfolk had not yet remarried, after the queen, I was now the highest-ranking lady in England.

The men stood some feet away from us and I could not help but notice how splendidly attired they were. “They are as richly gowned as the women!” I said without thinking. But the group of women around me tittered an agreement and I smiled.

“ ’Tis your wedding night,” Mary Radcliffe said slyly. “It’s natural that you would be noticing the men and what they are wearing.”

There was an undercurrent there, and it didn’t take the queen, who loved a bawdy joke, long to pick up on it. “Perhaps there is a particular item of the men’s clothing that has drawn your attention, Marchioness?” She used my title with relish and affection, so I knew she jested with me, but she waved her fan about midwaist level toward the men. I knew what she was speaking of; like ruffs, which had started small and tasteful and had grown all out of proportion, men’s codpieces had become immodest and prominent.

“There are sometimes accessories made so overlarge that even the eye which would seek to avoid them cannot,” I said.

“Are ‘accessories’ not overlarge in Sweden?” one of the ladies asked unpleasantly. I suspected my new title did not warm her English ears, but the queen looked at me expectantly; not replying was not an option.

“In Sweden, the cobblers fashion the shoe to fit the foot, not several sizes too large,” I countered delicately.

The queen burst out in laughter, and even the lady who’d meant
to prod me responded with a genuine smile. Anne Dudley reached out and took my arm in hers and I gladly entwined elbows; she was a true friend and I hoped I could repay her in kind.

Her Majesty drew me aside before William and I left to tell me that she had settled some rents upon me as a wedding gift, the incomes befitting my new rank.

•   •   •

William and I left court that evening and returned to his London estate. He’d had the bedchamber prepared with new linens and though the fire was fresh and warm, the servants were not to be seen. I bathed in perfumed water and when I returned, he awaited. He looked younger, though I did not tell him that, and I was pleased to see him so joyous. I felt neither the fear that some women speak of on their wedding nights nor a burst of passion that could not be contained. I felt fondness, and affection, and satisfaction that what we had longed and planned for had finally, happily, come to pass. If anything, he, older and already twice married, seemed more hesitant than I.

I patted the seat beside me to welcome him close. We talked for some time and drank some wine, and then afterward we tenderly, quietly consummated our marriage. As he had been toward me from the first moment he made my acquaintance, he was gentle and thoughtful and treated me with care bordering on adoration. I treated him with affection and respect, and prayed I would always do so.

Afterward, I lay next to him, noticing that the small hairs upon his skin were like tiny, curled wisps of smoke. I reached over and put my hand upon his chest, which seemed to please him.

“It has been a long time since I have had the touch of a woman
I love,” William said. “Perhaps until it is restored, one does not realize how one yearns for that touch.”

I drew the coverlet around me and looked upon him. “I felt warmed by your touch, too,” I said. “I have, of late, begun to think about that as regards Her Majesty.”

He looked at me. “What do you mean?”

“She is the queen, and it is nigh on impossible to touch her. The times I have reached out to her, for a quick embrace or to ask for the kiss of a sister, the ladies of the court seemed taken aback. And yet, she has no mother to embrace her, no sisters, no husband, no children. Does she, too, not crave human touch?”

“I would think that to be true,” he agreed. “I’d not thought of it.”

“It’s one reason why she dances so much, so often, I’ll wager,” I said. “Perhaps that’s also why she enjoys ointments, salves, and the ministrations of a caring hand.”

He reached over then and took my hands in his own caring ones and we fell asleep in harmony.

•   •   •

We stayed at his London home so I could attend to the queen, still, on a daily basis. When I was not waiting upon her we hawked, played chess, danced, and read Italian poetry and plays. As the summer grew hotter and the days longer, William’s energy level grew shorter and his gout more pronounced. It troubled me.

The first weeks of our marriage, the nights passed quietly as we shared a bed. But soon, William began to awaken in the middle of the night.

“What is it?” I asked, shivering in darkness lit only by the moon.

“It’s an ache in my feet, that’s all,” he said. But his face was white with pain.

“Can I help? I have some ointment that might assist.” I opened the lacquered case in which I kept my preparations and chose one with mint in it, which would speed the medicine through the skin. I rubbed it into his foot, but that seemed to cause him greater pain. “It feels both burning hot and as if my foot was held in cold water,” he said. He pulled his foot away, and I used a clean linen to wipe off what remained of the salve.

He lay back down in the bed and turned about like a bird on a spit. I could not sleep, knowing him to be in pain, so I spent much of the night trying to bring him relief. The next day he told me that he was having his manservant prepare another chamber. “I shan’t keep you awake all night,” he said. When I protested, he held up his hand and indicated that he was going to sleep elsewhere until he felt well.

He did not return to sleep with me all summer. In October came an invitation from Lord Robert to attend a week at Warwick in which he meant to entertain the queen and her closest courtiers.

“We can decline,” I told William, waving for a servant to bring more warm compresses to lay upon his legs. “The queen surely understands that you have been unwell.”

“No, we must attend,” he said. “I have spent so little time at court already.”

“But you can hardly walk,” I protested.

“I shall arrange for that.”

We packed several trunks, loaded upon litters, and William traveled in the litter rather than ride. I rode alongside him so his pride would not be wounded by my riding horseback. We took the journey slowly and arrived in late October. Although I was able to attend most of the festivities, including a play in which Lord Robert himself starred for the queen’s pleasure, William was
unable to leave his room and I returned to check on him at every free moment.

He grew steadily worse until the day came in which he was unable to respond to my questions or touch. I spoke to him soothingly, although I grew overwrought inside. Lord Robert sent his physician, but he could not help. And so, on October 28, my husband passed from my arms into the arms of God. We had been married but five months.

I did not leave his side until Anne Dudley quietly eased me away.

His body was prepared and laid out and I returned to him. I gently rubbed oil of rosemary, for remembrance, upon his face. “Thank you, William. You cared for me like a father, a teacher, and finally a husband. You found me as Elin, Wolf’s daughter, and left me as Helena, Marchioness of Northampton.” I bent down and kissed his cheek and then the coffin lid was closed, my girlhood carried away with him.

After the funeral, which by custom I did not attend, Her Majesty dismissed all but a few maids and pages and called me to her. “Are you well, Helena?” It was the first time she had ever used my first name.

“I am as well as can be expected, Your Majesty,” I said. “Thank you for your many kindnesses.”

“As William died with no issue, his estates reverted to the crown. Rest assured we shall ensure that you receive your portion and rents from Northampton’s properties and everything that is now due you.”

“Now due me, Majesty?”

“My good lady marquess, as the highest-ranking lady in the land you shall carry our train, you shall take precedence after
ourselves and enjoy a host of other duties and privileges, including attending upon our person more often.” At this she smiled, and for the first time in days I smiled back. I now understood why she was happy for herself as well as for William and me when we married, and it gladdened me; I was now of sufficient rank to be a close friend. It put me in mind of the evening when William told me that the queen had raised Lord Robert to earl so he was of a sufficiently marriageable rank. “Blanche can assist you in understanding,” the queen finished.

I curtseyed and thanked her again.

She stood up and said, “And now, I’ve promised Robin that I shall best him at chess.”

And then a thought crossed my mind and I reflected misery once more. A tear slipped down the side of my face and I wiped it away quickly and then curtseyed, face tilted downward, to hide my further sorrow.

“What is it?” the queen asked, bidding me rise.

“William and I often played chess. I shall miss that.”

She rested a hand on my shoulder, tarried for a moment more, and then took her leave.

I would return to court a marchioness, foreigner or not.

Years of Our Lord 1572, 1573

The Palace of Whitehall

On Progress

Kenilworth Castle

January: Year of Our Lord 1574