Watch the Lady (2 page)

“And James of Scotland is the strongest claimant to the English throne,” he says.

“Some say so.” Penelope closes the discussion firmly. Constable is not aware that this has been discussed endlessly with her brother—and their mother, for that matter, who understands diplomacy better than all of them put together. “I do it for Essex, not for myself. My brother is the one who needs powerful allies.” She hands him the letter, meeting his eyes briefly.

He runs his fingers over the paper as if it is a lover's skin. “But should it fall into the wrong hands . . .”

He is surely thinking of Robert Cecil, son of Lord Treasurer Burghley, the man who holds the reins of England. Cecil has a knife in every pie.

She meets his gaze with a half smile. “But this is merely a missive of friendship, an outstretched hand. And it comes from a woman.” She places her palm delicately to her breast and widens her eyes, as if to say a woman's words count for nothing. “Secret communication with a foreign monarch might see Essex in trouble, but from one such as I . . .” She tilts her head in mock humility. “Oh, I think I can get away with it.”

Constable laughs. “From a mere woman? No one would even notice.”

She hopes to God this is true. “You are sure you wish to accept this mission?”

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to serve you, my lady.”

She doesn't doubt it. Constable has penned near on a hundred poems for her, and he is not the only one. Essex is a magnet for poets and thinkers who cluster round him like iron filings, hoping for his patronage, prepared to go to any lengths to gain his favor. By flattering his sister they think they help their cause. She wonders at the irony that, for all those lines of poetry written in celebration of her beauty, repeating incessantly the same figures of speech—her black starry eyes, her spun-gold hair, her nightingale's voice, her marble skin—the man she is wed to has never got beyond his disgust of her. Beauty may make for pretty lines in a sonnet but it is eggshell thin, and as friable; it does not speak of what lies within.

“You will give it straight into the hands of King James.” She is aware of the danger she might visit on Constable with this secret mission, but so is he, and she can almost hear him panting with eagerness. Besides, he is no stranger to espionage.

“But,” he begins, then hesitates. “How can I be sure of admittance to the King?”

“You are a poet; use your velvet tongue. My seal will get you into the privy chamber.” She takes his hand and folds her signet ring into his palm. “After all, I am the sister of England's most favored earl, the Queen's great-niece; that counts for something, does it not?” Her tone is unintentionally sharp and he looks uncomfortable, as if admonished, so she offers him a smile.

“Keep the seal separate from the letter. And give him this, as further proof.” She opens a gilt box on the desk and takes out a limning, passing it to him. He inspects it a moment, his eyes swimming a little.

“Hilliard has not done you justice. Your beauty is greater than this.”

“Pah!” she says with a sweep of her arm. “Beauty is as beauty does. It looks like me enough to serve its purpose.” She watches as he caches the miniature carefully inside his doublet with the letter.

Her spaniel, Spero, begins to bark, scratching at the door to get out, and they hear the clang of the courtyard gate, then the din of urgent hooves on the cobbles below and a frenzied bout of shouting. They move swiftly to the window just as the door is flung open and her companion Jeanne rushes into the chamber flushed and breathless, crying out, “Come quickly, your brother is wounded.” Her French accent with its soft lisp delays the impact of her words.

“How?” Panic begins to rise in Penelope like milk in an unwatched pan, but she takes a deep breath to force it into submission.

“Meyrick said it was a duel.” Jeanne's face is ashen.

“How bad is it?” Jeanne simply shakes her head. Penelope takes the girl's elbow with one hand and, gathering her skirts with the other, calls to Constable, who is already halfway down the stairs, “Send for Doctor Lopez.”

“If he is wounded, then surely a surgeon is what's needed,” says Constable.

“I trust Lopez. He will know what to do.”

They get to the hall as Essex is brought in, supported by two of his men, the broad bulk of loyal Meyrick striding ahead, concern written over his freckled face, eyes darting about beneath invisible eyelashes. He wipes a hand through his hair; it has a smear of dried blood on it.

“A basin of hot water,” she barks at the servants, who have gathered to gawp. Jeanne is shaking, she cannot bear the sight of blood, so Penelope sends her to tear bandages in the laundry.

Essex, his teeth gritted, is heaved onto the table, where he half lies, half sits propped up on his elbows, refusing to succumb to repose.

“Just a scratch,” he says, pulling his cape away from his leg so Penelope can see the slash across his thigh and the blood that has stained his white silk stockings, right down into his boot.

“Meyrick, your knife,” she says to her brother's man.

Meyrick looks at her askance.

“To cut off his stockings. What did you think?” She checks the sharp tone that has appeared from nowhere. “Here, help me with his boots.” She gets both hands around a heel and gently prises one boot away, while Meyrick works on the other, then takes up the knife and, pinching the bloody silk between her fingers, gently peels his stocking away from the wound. It has stuck where the blood is congealing, which causes Essex to wince and turn away. She then touches the tip of the knife to the fabric, slitting it from thigh to knee, revealing the full extent of the damage.

“It is not as bad as I'd feared—not so deep. You will live.” She kisses him lightly on his cheek, only now understanding how relieved she is.

A maid places a basin of steaming water beside her and hands her a clean muslin cloth.

“That varlet Blount,” Essex spits.

“Who challenged whom?” she asks, knowing it will have been her brother's rash temper that provoked the spat. She dabs gently at the wound. The blood is surprisingly bright and still flowing, but she can see that no serious damage has been done. An inch farther towards his groin where the vessels cluster close to the surface and it might have been a different story.

“It was Blount's fault.” Her brother sounds surly. Penelope has seen Charles Blount at a distance once or twice at court. He gave the impression of being careful and measured. He is comely too, enough to give Essex some competition with the Queen's maids—and, most importantly, the Queen herself. She's heard that Blount has been attracting some favor and knows full well what her brother is like. He wants to be the only star in the Queen's firmament. “He started it!”

“You are twenty-three, not thirteen, Robin.” Her voice is tender now. “Your temper will get you into serious trouble.” Penelope is his senior by fewer than three years but she has always felt older by far. She can sense his indignation at having lost in this ill-advised duel, when he supposes himself the foremost swordsman in the country. She wants to point out he is lucky to have got off so lightly, but doesn't. “The Queen will hear of it. She will not be happy.”

“Who will tell her?”

She doesn't answer. They both know it is impossible to sneeze anywhere in the whole of Europe without Robert Cecil finding out, and informing the Queen, before you've a chance to take out your handkerchief.

“You will need to rest a day or two,” she says, rinsing the cloth in the basin where the blood billows out pink into the clean water. “And your amorous intrigues will be curtailed for a week or so.”

Their eyes meet in silent amusement as he takes a pipe from inside his doublet and begins to stuff its bowl with tobacco.

Doctor Lopez arrives and, after a brief exchange of formalities, gets to work, tipping a measure of white powder into the gash “to stem the blood flow,” he says, offering Essex a length of wood to bite down on.

Essex refuses it, asking for Meyrick to light his pipe and saying he would rather be distracted by listening to his sister sing, so Penelope begins to hum as Lopez threads a length of catgut onto a needle. Essex blows strands of smoke from his nostrils and appears unperturbed as the needle weaves in and out, pulling together the mouth of the wound.

“Your gifts of stitching rival the Queen's embroiderers,” says Penelope, admiring the tidy sutures.

“It is a gift I learned on the battlefield.” He places an avuncular hand on her back and steps with her to one side. There is something honest about the close crop of his hair and beard, steely with age, and the way his smile reaches up to crease his eyes. “Make sure he rests and keeps his leg up.”

“I will do my best,” she replies. “You know what he is like.” She pauses. “And . . .”

“It will go no further, my lady,” Lopez says, as if reading her mind.

“I am grateful to you, Doctor.” It is not the first time she has felt gratitude for Lopez. If it were not for him, she might have lost her first child.

•  •  •

Later they gather about the hearth, listening to Constable recite a new poem.

My Lady's presence makes the roses red,

Because to see her lips they blush for shame.

Penelope is thinking of the letter to King James tucked in the man's doublet, imagining him riding up the Great North Road to deliver it, feeling a shiver of fear-tinged excitement at the subterfuge.

The lily's leaves, for envy, pale became,

For her white hands in them this envy bred.

“But you change tense there, Constable,” says Essex, who is seated with his foot propped on a stool. “It should be ‘become' and ‘breed.' ”

“Don't tease him,” says Penelope. “He does it so the rhyme scans. It is lovely.” She winks the poet's way.

“It's charming,” adds Jeanne, looking up for a moment, needle held aloft, pinched between thumb and finger. Her hands are delicate, small as a child's, and she has a frame to match. The two women are embroidering a row of hollyhocks onto the border of a shift, had started one at each end and planned to meet in the middle, but Penelope's concentration has wandered off and her own needle hangs idly from its thread. Essex's teasing of the poet has silenced the poor fellow, who now stands awkwardly, not knowing whether to continue his recitation. Odd he has such thin skin, thinks Penelope, given he served as Walsingham's emissary for such a time. And to be part of that man's network of spies takes mettle.

“We'd love to hear the rest,” she says, distracted by Meyrick's entering the chamber and handing Essex a letter with what appears to be the royal seal attached.

Constable clears his throat and glances at Essex, who is ripping open the missive.

The marigold the leaves abroad doth spread,

Because the sun's and her power is the same.

Penelope has stopped listening and is watching a flush take hold in her brother's cheeks. He screws up the paper and hurls it into the fire, muttering under his breath, “I am banned from court. Disobedience. Huh! She thinks it is time someone taught me better manners.”

“A few weeks away from court is probably a good thing,” says Meyrick. “You wouldn't want to flaunt that wound. People might taunt you for it.”

How good Meyrick is with my brother, she thinks. But then they
have
been close since boyhood.

Essex expels a defeated sigh.

The violet of purple color came,

Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed.

A page has popped his head around the door, beckoning Meyrick, who approaches him, listening to something the boy says, before returning to Essex and passing the whispered message on.

“Blount!” exclaims Essex. “What the devil does he think he's doing turning up here?”

Penelope holds up a hand to silence Constable and turns to her brother. “I expect he has come to pay his compliments and see that you are recovered. It is only out of respect, I'm sure.”

“Respect? The man has none.”

Meyrick puts his large hand firmly on her brother's shoulder. “Leave Blount to me.” Penelope can see the tightly packed muscles of the man's neck tighten and a flash of brutality in those invisibly lashed eyes.

“You
ought
to see him, Robin,” she says. Essex brushes Meyrick's hand off his shoulder and begins to heave himself out of his chair. “What are you doing? You need to keep that leg up.”

“If I am to receive the miscreant, I will not give him the satisfaction of seeing me reposed like a milk-livered clotpole.” He limps over to stand beside the great memorial portrait of the Earl of Leicester, as if to gain strength from his illustrious stepfather. He positions himself, one hand aloft, fingers touching the gilded frame. His eyes are ablaze, which causes Penelope concern; she has seen that look before many times and it often signifies the onset of a bout of deep melancholy. That is Essex: wild fire or leaden heart but nothing in between. “Send the villain in, then.”

As Meyrick leaves the chamber to fetch Blount, Penelope sees he has not yet washed the smear of blood from his hand.

Blount enters, dropping immediately to his knee and removing his hat. “Forgive me, my lord, if I interrupt your peace but I come to salute you and to return your sword.”

“My sword?”

“It was left at the scene, my lord.”

“So where is it?”

“My man has it outside. I did not think it proper to enter your presence armed.”

“Feared it might provoke another spat?” says Essex, then adds grudgingly, “You did right, Blount.”

“Of the duel, my lord,” says Blount. “It was naught but fluke that my blade caught you. It was you who had the upper hand. It should have been I who took the cut.”