He released Essex’s lapels, stepped away. Southampton and the other lords swarmed in, countering his arguments. But though his ears were full of other earls’ words, Essex’s eyes were still on John Lawley. ‘Let be!’ he bellowed, loud enough to command a silence. He took a step towards his new knight, nodded once, then turned back. ‘Sir John is right. I will to the Queen, by the swiftest of routes and with only you, my choicest brothers in arms.’ He raised a hand against the clamour that came. ‘Should it be necessary, do you not believe that we alone will be swords enough for Cecil’s paltry crew? But I do not think such extremity will be necessary – for I will neither sleep nor rest till I am once again all alone with my sweet Bess. Then I will provide’ – he glanced at John, and smiled – ‘an antidote to poison.’ He turned back, raised his arms high. ‘Gentlemen,’ he cried, ‘we ride for London!’
XXIII
Nonsuch Palace
It was the cobbles that woke him, the sudden clatter of them under his mount’s shod hooves. He jerked upright in his saddle, looked around him, bleary eyes confirming what his ears had already told him – they had at long last left the unending countryside behind. They had reached the City.
Or at least Westminster. The abbey’s unmistakable spire was directly ahead of them. They were riding towards it.
The thought made him swivel. If they were heading towards the abbey, they were heading away from the palace. Away from the goal that had sustained them through the four days and nights of hard riding. Away from the Queen. Had they already failed? While he nodded on his horse’s neck, had Essex lost his gamble? And were they now making for Westminster to seek sanctuary in its cloisters from her majesty’s wrath?
‘She’s not there,’ came a voice from beside him. It had an Irish lilt to it, and John glanced sharp right. Captain Christopher St Lawrence, six foot six of Hibernian braggadocio, was riding stirrup to stirrup with him. He’d known him a little in the Netherlands. A good and loyal soldier, one of the few he’d at least been happy to see in Dublin. The man smiled. ‘I thought you might slip off. So I was here to catch you.’
‘Much obliged.’ Sleeping men had slipped off their horses in the hurly-burly dash across the realm. Most had survived with bruises. One knight had broken his arm and been abandoned on the roadside. There was to be barely a pause in their journey, only the briefest of halts to commandeer fresh horses at country inns, plunder their larders, sleep for a scant few hours in their barns and ride on. John thought he had made the journey to Dublin in a record time of five days. Essex’s return had taken only four.
He yawned widely, stared at the man beside him. Even the big Irishman, with all the vigour of youth on his side, was looking exhausted. What had he just said? Why were they making for Westminster?
His confused looks must have been question enough. An answer came. ‘She’s at Nonsuch Palace,’ the captain said. ‘We enquired for her at Whitehall and were told so.’
Nonsuch. John’s sigh melded into another vast yawn. It was ten miles south of the city, nothing when compared to all the miles they’d cantered – from the valleys of north Wales, through the vales of Evesham and the White Horse, over the hills of the Cotswolds and the Chilterns. However, like most journeys, the last part seemed endless. He remembered how interminable the Channel had appeared after two and a half years away with Drake.
For mercy’s sake, could he not just sleep?
The party clattered on to the dock at the Lambeth ferry. On the opposite bank, Lollards’ Tower thrust up from the Archbishop’s Palace. It had been but two weeks since he had been a prisoner within its black stones, had that audience with the Queen and her secretary. Now, perhaps, he was to see them both again.
Men were dismounting, and he did the same. There was an ordinary near the dock and its proprietors were being kicked awake and commanded to produce a meal of last night’s stew, stale bread and ale. The ferry was across on the Surrey shore but was even now under way, moving towards them. John leaned against his mount’s warm flank, and glanced downriver, east. It was lightening there, and though he could not see around the river’s bend, he knew that the rising sun would already be gilding the tower of St Mary Overies, Southwark. Close by beneath it, Tess and Ned would still be sleeping, ignoring the toll that came, as Lambeth’s now did, to summon them to another day’s endeavours. The thought of curling around either of them, feeling that horsehair mattress beneath him, inhaling the warm night sweetness of their forms? Ah! It was a vision of heaven and he found himself seeking a wherry at the dock. There were several fellows asleep in their craft, any one of whom would happily awaken at the jangle of the coins in John Lawley’s purse. He still had several that the Master Secretary had given him for his mission. He would have traded every one of them for a swift conveyance to his Bankside paradise.
A shout followed by laughter drew his eyes back. The Earl of Essex stood close to the water’s edge, in the forefront as ever. Someone had brought him a tankard and he held it aloft, beer foam frothing over its lip, pledging. John heard the familiar words: ‘A health to her majesty and damnation to the toad!’ It, and other such oaths, had sustained them in their journey. And when any flagged, they’d find Robert Devereux at their elbow, cheering them on, inspiring them with his fervour, the damn-near-holiness of their mission. No longer were they chasing Irish wraiths through the rain-sodden bogs, trying to close with an enemy who would not fight in any honourable manner. No longer were their shoulders hunched against the sudden ball and flung spear of ambuscado. They were riding unthreatened through England’s fair lanes, and on a mission they could understand: to free the Queen from her treasonous counsellors. To save the realm from disaster.
And they were riding for him. John shook his head, as Essex bellowed again and quaffed and men cheered. For all his mad arrogance, he was again a leader to inspire. The sorry fellow voiding his bowels in Dublin Castle’s jakes had gone. He was once more a commander of men, leading them to glory. No matter that what awaited could be a Queen’s cold fury, and a traitor’s cell for all of them. Each man there, as most did in the land, played at dice; each this day sought the hazard in the earl’s rash roll.
Essex, a head taller than all save for the hulking St Lawrence, espied him above the crowd. ‘Sir Knight,’ he shouted, ‘join us.’ As John came near, he continued, ‘Marry, Johnnie, I have never known a fellow could sleep so soundly on a horse’s back. You scarce woke up from Carnarvon to Slough. How do you do it?’
‘’Tis the purity of my life, good my lord. It gives me nothing but sweet dreams and easy rest.’
Hoots greeted this, the loudest coming from Essex. ‘It must have been your pure life that helped your bare arse pump up and down so vigorously in that Cadiz señora’s house,’ the earl countered, then thrust his leather tankard out. ‘Here, let’s drink to the ladies of Spain.’
‘The ladies of Spain!’ came the cry, and John pledged, drank, looking over the rim at the men around him. Each had sagged over their mount’s neck in the previous few days – Southampton, Wooton, Danvers and the rest – but all looked now as if they had been revived by their leader’s fire, eyes and cheeks glowing with it. They could see the destination ahead, believed certainly in their triumph. With such a captain, how could they fail? And even John, who knew him better than most, began to doubt his own doubt. After all, no one in recent years had had more sway over the ageing Queen than handsome young Essex. And if he was no longer quite the gilded youth of yore, if dissipation, the flux and Irish compromise had all taken a toll of him, he was still the Queen’s champion, Earl Marshal of England – and perhaps yet her sweet Robin?
John thought again of the handkerchief she’d entrusted to him, still folded within his doublet. In the four-day pell-mell ride, he’d found few solitary moments to pass it over. And when one brief one came . . . he’d hesitated, and the chance passed. He had not sought another. The Queen, after all, had forbidden Essex’s return unless he came wearing the laurel wreath of victory, this token w
oven into it. Besides, John knew the earl well. He could carry a day with his blood hot – as he had at Zutphen, at Cadiz. Righteous anger might keep it so – but not, John suspected, the uncertainties of a queen’s love.
John looked again downriver . . . and visions of a soft bed passed. He would see this through. For better or worse he was Essex’s man – at least on this day. And if the earl triumphed – well, Sir John Lawley might not be such a bad title to be taking back to Southwark. Especially with a certain fat knight still guarding a lonely beach in Erin.
The ferry bumped into the dock. The ferryman was calling something and the Irish captain went to talk with him. He returned, his black-browed face further darkened with a frown. ‘The Toad may be forewarned,’ he rasped. ‘The ferryman tells me he only just dropped a fellow on the south bank. ’Twas that scoundrel Grey.’
A collective hiss. All knew that Lord Grey was the earl’s enemy, all the more bitter because he had once been his friend. Essex had knighted him on the Cadiz expedition. Grey had repaid him by siding with Cecil.
‘Traitorous dog! Would he pre-empt me with her majesty? God’s wounds!’
Amidst the hubbub, one voice rose. ‘Let me ride and overtake him,’ said one Sir Thomas Gerard. ‘We are related, through my wife, and he was wont to call me cousin. Let me persuade him to a pause at least.’
It was agreed. The Essex party crowded the gunnels of the ferry, all the more tight-packed for the one horse – Gerard’s. The rest of the mounts would be brought across on the next trip.
The ferryman heaved on the rope, aided no doubt by the leaning of the whole group, yearning for the Surrey side. As soon as the ferry ground into the dock there, Gerard mounted and took off at a gallop. The rest disembarked . . . and a shout came immediately. ‘Whose mounts are these?’ yelled Essex.
John looked to a copse of oak. Beneath their branches, fifteen horses stood. Two grooms attended them, staring open-mouthed at the new arrivals. When Essex strode forward, the lads fell to their knees. He repeated the question and one of the grooms stammered the reply. ‘They . . . they . . . they belongs to my ma-master, your worship. Squire Martyn of Cheam, come last night to do business in the t-town.’
Essex stared down. ‘Is he a true Englishman, lad, and loyal to the crown?’
The boy gaped. ‘I . . . I . . . I believes so, aye.’
The earl nodded. ‘Good. Then he will not mind us commandeering them, for our mission is entirely for her majesty’s safety. Saddle them.’ Without waiting to see if he was obeyed – he was, on the instant – Essex turned to his men. ‘Here’s a gift from the Almighty himself. He blesses us in our endeavour. Praise him and mount!’
One of the few things that Essex had taken time to do in his hurry was pray, to which he was much given. Amens and hallelujahs now echoed around the trunks as the party rushed forward to aid the overwhelmed grooms in their labours. Even the earl helped and, driven by desperation, the horses were saddled and bridled in moments. The men mounted. ‘To the Queen!’ yelled Essex, rising high in his stirrups.
The party took off at a gallop. Mud clods flew up, for this major route to London had been much chopped by hoof and wheel. Ducking his head, John felt the strikes of earth on hat brim and chest. He kicked his new mount and, finding it sprightly, moved through the ranks to ride beside his lord in the van, where less earth flew.
Yet they had travelled barely a mile when a horseman came the other way, halting them with his cries. ‘My lord,’ yelled Sir Thomas Gerard, and all reined in around him. ‘News, my lord,’ continued the knight breathlessly. ‘I caught up with Lord Grey and asked that he slow and await your coming. “I have business at court,” he declared and rode on. I followed, asking that he at least let you precede and announce yourself to her majesty.’
‘And what did he reply?’ asked Southampton.
‘He looked along his nose at me and wondered if the plea came from his cousin or his lordship himself. Either way, he would not be delayed,’ Sir Thomas growled.
‘Plea? The cur!’ Essex slapped the saddle before him, making his mount skitter. ‘He means to warn the Secretary whose creature he is.’
‘By the Devil and all his imps!’ yelled St Lawrence, drawing his sword. ‘I will ride now and skewer this traitorous dog. And then, begod, I’ll ride ahead and do the same to the Toad.’ He waved his sword above him, yelling, ‘Who is with me?’
Several. John was not one of them, and was trying to think of some way to halt an act which was both murder and treason – when he did not have to, for another did. ‘No, friends. No!’ The earl was once more up in his stirrups, despite Irish steel whirling close to his head. ‘We will deal with Grey and all traitors when we arrive. Once we have secured the Queen’s person and, again, her love. Many false friends will then learn the cost of their betrayals.’ He turned to St Lawrence. ‘Put up, good fellow. Your blade will find its just mark soon enough.’
‘By God,’ yelled the Irish knight, ‘and isn’t it my family motto: “Never put up a clean sword”? So . . . there!’ he continued, impaling his thumb on the tip, drawing blood. ‘There’s a drop for your thirst – and my lord’s promise that you will soon have a draught!’
A loud cheer came. Spurs were dug into flanks and the gallop resumed. Eight miles left to Nonsuch, and despite the mudded track, they were taken at speed.
It was yet early, and the sun, as they crested the last rise, glittered brightly in the scores of windows, plain leaded or stained, that covered the palace. It was shaped like a castle, with towers at four corners, but it was never designed to be defended. And indeed, no guards manned its false battlements nor even stood with halberds raised at the gatehouse. As they slowed to ride in pairs over the bridge that crossed the waterless moat, all were aware of the silence. Only their mounts’ metal shoes echoed around the cobbled courtyard beyond, no alarms. Glancing up, John saw a shape move away from a thick-glassed window. They were noted, but not challenged.
A lone horse stood, loosely hitched to a post. ‘Grey’s,’ declared Sir Thomas, but of the rider there was no sign.
Everyone dismounted – save for Robert Devereux himself, who was looking up at the windows as if he expected Bess herself to open one and call to him. John watched apprehension war with hope on his broad, mud-smirched face. In the dash across the realm, his dreams could be sustained by frantic momentum. Here, in pause and the unnerving silence of the palace, John could see him falter. He was like a dice thrower with a huge stake before him. The next roll led to fortune or the fall.
It was the moment, he realised, for the earl looked like a man who needed a sign from Fortune herself. So, handing his reins to St Lawrence, John crossed to the earl’s stirrup. ‘My lord?’ he said, raising his hand. Essex took it, descended . . . and opened his to find the Queen’s handkerchief in it.
‘What’s this?’ Essex murmured.
‘The Queen’s favour. You are her champion still, and your sweet Bess awaits.’
‘Bess,’ replied Essex as softly, fingering the entwined tangerine Es. His eyes misted, as if he looked not at his newest knight, but at the Queen herself. When they cleared, bravado was in them again. ‘We go to her majesty!’ he called, tucking the silk into his doublet. ‘But let no man draw his sword – unless I do! Yet if he do’ – his eyes found the tall Irishman – ‘let him not put it up clean.’
The acclaiming shout propelled him to the steps and through the main doors of the palace. There were servants in the entrance hall beyond them, including a steward who bowed and wrung his hands and tried to interpose his body before the headlong rush. He was brushed aside as Essex led his party, taking the stairs two by two. At the top he did not hesitate, for he had obviously been there before, sweeping down a corridor that had portraits between doors on one side and tall windows on the other. John glanced through them, noted the garden below, the patterned parterres surrounded by hedges of box, the paths between made of different-coloured gravels. At one end stood a stone fountain. At the other a
raised mound with a table and chairs. The table was covered in bottles and candelabra. Perhaps the Queen had dined there late last night and so was still sleeping, unaware of what was striding to waken her in mud-caked boots.
The thought made him slow. Momentum and excitement had carried them to the Queen’s threshold; but did they truly mean to cross it? To surprise the Queen in her sanctum where, it was said, no man had ever passed?
The answer lay ahead, down a second corridor at right angles to the first. At the end of it were large oak doors, the approach to them lined with chairs on either side. Rising from these now, hastily snatching up their halberds, were two guards. Putting their backs to the doors, they held their weapons at port and nervously watched the approach of so many armed men.
‘Halt here!’ Essex flung up his arm.
This allowed the steward who had first tried to stop them in the entrance to catch up, slide through the group and place himself between the guards before the door. ‘My lord!’ he cried, his hands raised before him as if in prayer, though he rubbed them as if he had some itch. ‘Please do not proceed further. Her Majesty is wont to lie abed of a morning and not receive before noon. If it please you, return for an audience then.’
‘It does not please me.’ Robert Devereux drew himself up to his full height and glared down. ‘Tell me, sirrah, do you know me?’
‘In . . . indeed,’ quavered the man. ‘You are my lord of Essex.’
‘I am!’ came the bellowed reply. ‘More, I am Earl Marshal of England. And I come with tidings of treason. I come to save her majesty.’ He bent closer, as if examining a small insect. ‘Has a certain Lord Grey passed this way?’