Recovering themselves, they bowed. Catherine laughed and said, “How well you know them! I was hoping that by joining them I could steer them in another direction—”
“Steer, woman?” said the admiral. “Now you speak as a helmsman, so what else shall we do?”
“Good Queen, the admiral envies the mission Hawkins and I are fitting ourselves for, with your generous patronage,” said Drake. “We would he could accompany us.”
“Drake, someone must remain here to guard us, while you cavort in the Caribbean.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Cavort? This is serious business! Dangerous business, to sail into the Spanish maw.”
“For you, danger is play,” I said. “If you are too long deprived of it, you wither in despair. Even with your lovely new wife at your side in Devon.” She did not seem to be at his side now, though. Perhaps she had stayed home.
He hung his head like a schoolboy caught out, then gave a roaring laugh.
But he was no schoolboy; his movements were slower and his figure stockier. He must be in his midfifties but looked older. Perhaps it was the sea air that had done it, weathering his face into hard lines. Beside him, his cousin John Hawkins, in his sixties, was thin and straight, but his years were upon him, no matter how lightly they sat. Was I foolish to let them embark on a treasure-hunting mission at their ages? They were the ablest seamen of the day, and Hawkins had designed the ships that gave England the victory in 1588, but they were ... old.
They were ... near my age. But dangerous voyages into inhospitable climes demanded more than my life at court, I assured myself.
“If I perish, I want to do so while firing at the Spanish,” said Hawkins. “And besides all the gold we have brought England, we leave our charities—the one for relief of sick and elderly sailors, the Chatham Chest, and the two hospitals.”
“Two?” I asked. “I knew of one, associated with the Chatham Chest.”
“Just this year, I opened the Sir John Hawkins Hospital,” he said proudly.
“Then I’ll have to open a Sir Francis Drake Warehouse for Spanish Booty,” Drake said. “But in all seriousness, our ships are being fitted, the supplies stored, and as soon as the Christmastide is over, we will set out.” He looked at me, as if reading my thoughts. “We will not fail. We are in our prime, John and I, and there’s not an enemy on land or sea that knows a trick we do not.”
“I am just as glad you are not going, Charles,” said Catherine to her husband, embarrassing him.
I left them still hugging the tapestries and turned to find Hunsdon waiting patiently for me.
He was beaming. “Did you like the play? Did you?”
“Indeed I did.” I did not have to pretend. “It was ... It is ... odd, but I find it still captivating me. It seems to invade the senses.”
“We were proud of it. Let me present William Kemp, the most important actor in the play.” The man playing the rustic who had sported an ass’s head bowed.
“Your performance charmed me,” I said. “I will look forward to seeing you in other productions.”
“I will never have another part like this one,” he said. “Perhaps just as well. It was difficult to breathe inside that head.” For emphasis, he brayed.
“I see you have met our ass,” said Southampton, hurrying up. He was, as always, fashionably attired, and the faint perfume he favored announced his presence.
“Only one among many in a chamber of this size,” said Hunsdon gruffly. “The court abounds with asses!”
Southampton smiled indulgently as if to signal, Grumpy old men, what a bore they are. “The ass in the play is a comic genius, and only an actor of your skill could have made him sympathetic as well as funny.”
“I thank you, my lord,” said Kemp.
“The man who wrote the play is to be congratulated. I am, you know, his patron,” he said proudly. “And tonight I was as nervous as a parent, hoping his talent would resonate with the audience.”
“I think, Southampton, you can relax now.” Beside him a dark-haired man spoke, who had come up so quietly in the dim light I had not seen him. “For, if I am not mistaken, Her Majesty smiled throughout the play.”
“May I present William Shakespeare, the man who gave us tonight’s entertainment?”
The man bowed, his gold earring flashing as he bent his head.
“I am pleased to receive you,” I told him. “And I am still emerging from the dream you created on the stage with your words. Pray, keep writing; give us more of your fantasies. What is next?”
“I am working on several things,” he said. He had a soft voice that made me want to bend closer to him rather than asking him to speak up. “Another comedy set in Italy, a love story also set in Italy, and then good old English history.”
“You have done Richard III and Henry VI. Are you working your way up to our times?”
“I have a long way to go,” he said.
“Oh, but he works very fast,” Southampton said. “He can turn out several in a year, if he’s not distracted.”
Shakespeare shot him a glance. “What man lives who is not distracted? The trick is to write through the distractions. Or to incorporate them into the work, so all is one.”
“You are young,” I said. “At this rate, you will reach my coronation in only a few years. Mind that you portray me flatteringly.”
“In you, Ma’am, the truth needs no flattery, as it stands alone in its own glittering raiment.”
“Oh, my, you cloak your own flattery in such glittering words,” I replied. He was certainly nimble with them. I would have to read the Venus and Adonis more carefully to see what gems I had missed.
He and Southampton bowed and removed themselves.
“Poets! Playwrights!” snorted Hunsdon. “I’d hate to see either of them defending the marches up north.”
“Then I am fortunate that I don’t have to rely on them for anything but words,” I assured him. “After all, I have you to direct the northern defenses.”
Admiral Howard, having detached himself from the other seamen, came up behind Hunsdon. “I must salute you. Your acting company was superlative tonight. However, we are not beaten yet.”
“Ah, you are a man who likes to fight a war on two fronts—the sea and the theater,” I said. Howard was patron of the rival company the Admiral’s Men.
“You should surrender now,” said Hunsdon, “before you put on any more embarrassing spectacles like the last Marlowe revival.”
“The more plays presented, the more likelihood one might be substandard. But it keeps our name before the public and buys my wife her jewels.”
Catherine, who had followed her husband, fingered her ruby pendant. “Ah, what a hard choice it is, between the Lord Chamberlain’s and the Admiral’s Men, especially as one is my father’s and the other my husband’s.” The admiral put his arm around her and Hunsdon grunted.
“Admiral, you have Edward Alleyn as your chief actor, whereas you, Henry, have Richard Burbage.” I turned to Hunsdon. “It would be illuminating to have them play the same part in succession so I could compare them.”
Hunsdon grunted again, dismissing the idea. “We have Shakespeare, and your Marlowe is dead,” he taunted the admiral.
“But not his plays,” said the admiral. “We can continue performing Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine, Dido, The Massacre at Paris, and I need not remind you that The Jew of Malta has been revived, to great success.”
“Pity you can’t revive Marlowe himself, for his repertoire is so limited people will soon tire of it.”
“Your Shakespeare is still an unknown, as far as what he will be able to produce, and for how long.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, that is the glory of the theater—the suspense!” I wanted to bring this friendly squabbling to a close. I felt keenly the loss of Marlowe, both on the stage and in the shadows for the work Walsingham had trusted to him. I did not accept the story that he had died in a brawl, accidentally stabbed. His companions, all invo
lved in spy work for various masters, were not gathered by chance in Deptford, where he was killed. I was convinced they were given a mission to kill Marlowe. But by whom? Walsingham would have been able to ascertain the truth of it. But Walsingham was gone and his replacements poor shades of himself. I shuddered in remembering the debacle of the so-called Lopez Plot, exposed by inept and biased agents.
The slow music stopped, and the musicians began to play a coranto, a lively beat that required quick steps. By all the gods, I would dance tonight! No more conversation!
Where was Essex? He had yet to speak to me tonight. I had seen him down in front at the play, but now he hung back in the dim corner of the chamber, his back to everyone, but recognizable by the very way he stood, draping his tall frame in a graceful slight S curve of the spine. It made his short cloak hang provocatively over his right hip, thrust out.
He was deep in conversation with two of my maids, both Elizabeths: Southwell and Vernon. One was tall and light haired, the other small, dark, and intense. I suddenly realized they could have perfectly filled the parts of tonight’s play, Southwell being the tall and stately Helena, Vernon the emotional Hermia, “a vixen when she went to school,” as she was described.
“Now there shall be three Elizabeths,” I said, startling Essex, who had not seen me approach. He whirled around.
“There is only one Elizabeth, ever,” he said, dropping to one knee and taking my hand to kiss.
“Nay, you insult these fair ladies, lovely and young Elizabeths,” I said, nodding to them.
Now they both bowed, but as they rose there were messages in their eyes: Southwell tried to avert her gaze, but Vernon’s was bold and direct, like the assertive perfume she wore. Her large eyes, which an unkind person might describe as bulging, were erotic, suggesting illicit pleasure to be found in her.
“May I borrow your company?” I asked them. “I would like to lead Lord Essex out in a dance.”
His face flushed with pleasure, as I liked to see it. He gave me his hand and together we went to the center of the room. All the others fell away, leaving us in a circle of our own making.
The music for the coranto was loud and thumping. I had not danced it for a long time, but tonight I longed to. Had the play infused me with hunger that I thought myself past? The merry lovers trooping through the moonlit woods, seeking their partners, made me feel more alone. The lines they spoke echoed in my head. “Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, brief as the lightning in the collied night” ... “So quick bright things come to confusion.” We must snatch what dangles before us, before it flies away.
Essex, my boy, here before me, a man now. A boy changed into a man, swift as a shadow, to be sure. Myself, once a maid as young as Southwell or Vernon, now “withering on the virgin thorn,” as the play would have it? No! I was a virgin, but not withered, not yet. I looked into his eyes, searching for recognition that I was a woman still, not a queenly nun. I saw that confirmation, that assurance, in them, in a gaze of such hunger it could not have been false.
I spun, I saw the winking lamps mimic stars all around me, I reveled in his adoration and the knowledge that I could still inspire unabashed passion in a man.
The dancing went on and on, until the musicians tired and the sky faintly lightened. I was determined not to show fatigue, and indeed, I did not feel any, for the excitement supplied all the stamina I needed. We drifted away to the royal apartments, and I led him through the ever-more-intimate chambers, from the large audience chamber to the presence chamber to the privy chamber and hence, finally, to the innermost one, where my bed and desk and private dining table were. We halted. He leaned forward to kiss me, as he had in dimly remembered dreams I had. But as in the dreams, I pulled away, lest he discover the pretend youth of my real flesh. I did not wish to reveal it. Let all be moonlight and artifice, as in the play, fantasies and fairies.
Thus it has been, and thus it must remain. Always I was Gloriana, the Faerie Queen, Imperial Votaress.
32
LETTICE
January 1595
Twelfth Night, and I had to spend it drearily sorting through my correspondence, although I did eat the traditional cake—or a piece of it. I did not find the bean, the token of license and good luck. I hoped that did not presage what the rest of the year held in store for me.
Twelfth Night, and soon my son would be returning from Hampton Court, where he had danced attendance on the Queen, literally. I hoped he had scored some successes there. I knew Southampton and he had gone in high spirits.
That had left me all alone here to rattle around in Essex House. Christopher had gone to inspect the shipyards for his commander, the admiral, who was also enjoying himself at Hampton Court. I was just as glad to have him gone. The two of us alone together was no longer the thrill it had been.
Was it marriage? Why, oh why, when I had panted to be with him when I was still married to Robert Dudley, was I so indifferent now? And the same for Dudley—when I was still married to Walter Devereux, I had rushed to Dudley’s bed in hot haste. All this cooled as quickly as a cake set out on the counter straight from the oven. Was it the everydayness of living together? Was it that the same hands, throat, lips, hips grew stale like the cake if it sat out too long? I did not know what it was, but it worried me that I preferred Christopher’s absence to his presence lately.
And lately ... Oh, had it really happened? Had I actually gone to bed with Southampton, my son’s friend? For several days afterward I had pretended it never occurred; or rather, I refused to think about it. It was not the age gap—for, after all, Christopher is some sixteen years my junior—but the fact that it was my son’s companion. What if Southampton told him?
The thing with Southampton must end. It must not be repeated ... well, except for this next appointment. He was at Hampton Court and I could not cancel it, not without attracting attention to myself for writing to him. I would have to go through with the assignation. And then, no more.
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. I licked my lips in remembering some of his precocious techniques. He was a daring person and that translated into his physical actions. I laughed softly to myself that there were those who thought him girlish, or that he preferred men. This misconception allowed him unlimited access to women. Perhaps that was why he cultivated it.
He had of late taken up with one of the Queen’s maids, Elizabeth Vernon, whisking her to his apartments right under the Virgin Queen’s nose. Sometimes he and Robert entertained both ladies, the Southwell one and the Vernon one, together. I had tried to warn Robert off Southwell but in vain, although her pregnancy would send her away soon enough. As for Southampton, his involvement with Vernon served to mask whomever else he romped with.
So young, and yet so dissipated. Ah, well. One person’s dissipation is another’s opportunity, and in our last time together I would take every opportunity to extract such pleasure that I would long remember it. Then ... farewell, Southampton.
It was set for tomorrow night. Robert would linger at court for a few days after most had departed, hoping to have some quiet time with the Queen. Southampton would come to Essex House in the early evening on the pretext of finding Robert there, and affect surprise when he was not. I had already told the servants they were not needed for tomorrow night.
There was a soft knocking at the door. I let it repeat itself to make sure no doorkeeper was still on duty. All was in readiness. The candles were burning brightly in the hall and in all the rooms, and potpourri of sweet roses and marjoram was scattered about in silver bowls. I had set out several kinds of wines, including a selection of the ones Robert had the tax concession on—muscadines, malmseys, and vernages. The best cheeses from Staffordshire and dried fruit were arranged on platters on a polished table in the library.
I had chosen a red velvet gown with a low neckline. Those who think people with red hair should avoid red are dullards. The hair has an orange glow that is different from crimson. The Queen knows that well enou
gh—there is a famous portrait of her as a child wearing a red gown. Well, we are cousins and share the same coloring, and the same sense of style. Around my neck I had fastened a ruby necklace—more red. I was ready. I took a deep breath, ran my tongue over my lips to moisten them, parted them, and opened the door.
A stranger stood there.
I stared at him, momentarily speechless. I was both disappointed and nervous. What if Southampton arrived now, and this stranger spotted him?
“Yes?” I finally said.
He looked puzzled that I had opened the door myself. He could see something was amiss. His dark eyes seemed supremely intelligent, the sort that would miss nothing. Damn!
“Lady Leicester?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“It could have been no other,” he said. “Your beauty, for all that it is legendary, is singular and recognizable.”
Well. He knew how to give a compliment. But what did he want? I must get rid of him.
“I have a manuscript for the Earl of Southampton, my patron,” he said. “But the Earl of Essex wanted to read it first, so I promised to bring it here.”
Patron. Southampton. “You must be that Shakespeare fellow. The one who wrote”—let my memory not fail me—“the long poem Venus and Adonis?”
“The same.” He kept standing there, and did not hand over the package tucked under his arm.
“Won’t you come in?” I was forced to ask.
Quickly he stepped in, shaking a light dusting of snow off his shoulders. Now he presented the leather case. “It is only a first draft,” he said. “But he insisted on reading it.”
I led him in to the first chamber and put the manuscript down on the nearest table. What was the least amount of time I could politely spend before sending him on his way? Oh, Southampton, be slow in arriving!
“I came directly from court. I was to tell you that neither Southampton nor Essex can leave just yet. They have appointments that cannot be broken. But your son will be here day after tomorrow, and Southampton the day after that.”