‘Lord Grey? Why . . . n-no . . .’
Essex snapped upright. ‘Good. Then we are in the nick.’ He switched his glance to the two guards. ‘Stand aside, fellows. Your commander commands.’
The two guards looked at each other, did not move. But their gazes snapped back at a growl from Captain St Lawrence, who stepped forward now, hand on hilt. As the huge Irishman loomed, both men scrambled aside. ‘Doors,’ Essex commanded the steward.
Despite his obvious terror, the man did not jump to them. He looked first at the menacing captain, then at the crowd behind, finally again at Robert Devereux. ‘My lord,’ he gasped. ‘So many men in the Queen’s bedroom. It would be’ – he closed his eyes, as if awaiting a sword stroke – ‘sacrilege!’
The word paused the ever-religious earl. John knew – all there knew – that the Queen was appointed by God to her throne. What they were about to do could be considered treason – or at the least a violation of holy sanctuary. Essex turned back, raised a hand, pinched the bridge of his nose between closed eyes. When he opened them again, John saw the same uncertainty that had gripped him in the courtyard below. He spoke, hesitantly. ‘I . . . I will proceed alone.’ At the chorus of protest that arose, he looked around the faces before him. ‘I must. I am the Queen’s champion and perhaps have some right to surprise her thus, but . . .’ He studied them again, his hesitation plain. ‘But . . . I am loath to go entirely unattended.’
His voice had risen in plea, a small boy suddenly afraid. Stronger voices rose in reply, all seeking to be selected. ‘Take me,’ cried the Earl of Southampton.
‘Me,’ shouted Sir Thomas Gerard.
‘Nay, me!’ yelled St Lawrence, his bellow rising above all others, as each fell to quarrelling over right and precedent. Only one man there said nothing. No, no, thought John Lawley, sliding behind the Irishman’s broad back. But the fellow stepped away, to argue with another. And, of course, Robert Devereux was looking straight at him.
‘Will you accompany me, Sir John?’ His voice halted the rest as the men turned to regard the man several paces to their rear. Essex continued. ‘You are the Queen’s messenger and brought me the news of this conspiracy. It is fitting you are beside me to bear me witness.’ He nodded. ‘And you have ever warded me in the darkest of days. Will you ward me now?’
A cockerel crowed somewhere in the garden beyond the windows. Like the apostle Peter, John thought, I have recently denied my lord at least twice. Yet here, under such scrutiny, he could not. Keeping his sigh to himself, he bowed. ‘Yours in the ranks of death, my lord.’
‘Well.’ Essex nodded. ‘Let us pray it does not come to that.’ As John moved to him, the earl turned to loom again above the cringing steward. ‘And now, fellow. Open!’ The man bowed even lower, turned to the two guards, shrugged. One handed his halberd to the other, then reached to the door handle. He twisted it, pushed . . .
And the Earl of Essex marched into the Queen’s apartments. While at his heels, like a forlorn hound, trailed John Lawley.
The first room was a large antechamber with a single chair at one end, facing the door. No doubt this was where the Queen would greet her first visitors of the day. There were two truckle beds and a maid lately risen from each, who clutched each other now, their faces as white as the shifts they wore. Behind them, a door was open and they did not try to stop the men striding towards it, only averted their eyes as if from some horror.
Noises came from beyond, urgent whisperings, a rustling of cloth, the sound of chests being slammed. The earl paused in the doorway, looked back. ‘Wish me fortune, Johnnie,’ he whispered; then, breathing deep, he stepped into the Queen’s bedchamber.
John followed . . . and bumped into Essex’s mud-spattered cloak, which had halted suddenly before him. Stepping slightly to the side so he could see, he did – and froze. There were six women in the room; not one was moving, each as still as if they posed for an artist – though no artist in the kingdom would have dared to depict ladies thus. Only in Italy perhaps could one be found to capture, in marble or in paint, the slight rise and fall of breasts against linen, the only sign that any there lived. Three were at the rear door, their hands raised as if beckoning, while two more were at centre and jointly held a dressing gown above the shoulders of the last woman, who stood between them.
It was only the attention that everyone else in the room was paying her that made John know this thin old lady at its centre. He had always known her age, though no one in England dared mention it. Perhaps he knew it better than most, he thought, given that his grandfather had killed this woman’s mother.
Elizabeth was sixty-three years old. The woman standing before them looked older.
Scant hair hung in grey tendrils across a wrinkled forehead. The whole trend to the face was downwards, sagging from brow to the wattles of her neck, all of it sallow. Her lips, about whose fullness scores of sonnets had been written, were thin and flaking. It was her eyes, though, that showed the years most, for the orbs which the poets had so praised were dull, glazed, dragged down by pouches of flesh. Yet it was what was in them that made John finally cease an appraisal that must have taken mere seconds; the many things within them. There was fear, certainly, at armed men violating her chamber; rage too, for she was still Gloriana. Though what turned him away finally was not his fear.
It was pity. Pity for the aloneness of someone whose being had been suddenly, violently exposed as a lie; the mask ripped aside, to display the saddest of truths: that Time had transformed even the Faerie Queene into a crone. Yet the worst of it John only realised after he’d looked down, and closed his eyes: the woman had been so brutally exposed to the man who had been her last, perhaps her greatest, love. Artifice had allowed her to pretend that handsome Robert Devereux loved her, desired her. In the horror that must have shown in his eyes, this fantasy shattered. And the ache that came to his stomach now was part for her and also part for Essex. There would be no forgiveness here, no redemption – for him. For his lord. For a love so suddenly betrayed could only turn, as suddenly, to hate. The handkerchief was so much ash.
Whatever his eyes betrayed, the courtier could not falter. Did not. ‘Majesty!’ Essex cried, breaking the binding spell that held everyone, transforming all stillness to sudden movement. As he strode across the room, sword slapping his thigh as he marched, the maids who held her gown dropped it on to her shoulders, having time to tie only one swift bow before Essex was upon them, his big body scattering them as he flung himself down before Elizabeth, seizing one hand, kissing it again and again.
‘My lady! My sovereign! My queen! Oh, my sweet, sweet Bess!’
The devastation in her eyes did not halt her words. ‘What means this outrage? Why have you burst so rudely upon our—’
But her words were halted by Essex’s sudden rising – and his equally sudden descent upon her neck. ‘Oh my soul’s delight!’ he blurted into it, covering it with kisses. ‘Do not chastise your sweet Robin. Forgive my intemperance, my rashness. You will forgive all when you hear why I have come. When you learn the threat I am here to deliver you from.’
He bent, seized both her hands, began kissing each finger separately. John could not help but look up again – and then wished he had not. For over the earl’s mud-flecked hair his eyes met Elizabeth’s. And he could see in their sudden narrowing both recognition and the fury of having these private intimacies revealed to others. Terrified she may have been. But she was still Queen.
‘Out!’ she roared, directly at him, and then turned it on all the others in the room. ‘Leave us alone!’
An elderly lady-in-waiting stepped forward. ‘Majesty, I should not leave you unattended. I will—’
A slap ceased her words. The Queen had freed one of her hands from Essex’s attentions to deliver it. ‘Out, I say. Everyone! Only my servant, the earl, will remain.’ Her gaze returned to John, who flinched under it. ‘That includes you, you . . . saucy knave. Out!’
Never had he been happier to obey a
sovereign’s command. While the maidservants fled through the rear door, he retreated the way he’d come. He did not wait for his commander’s dismissal. Essex could not have given one, lost as he was to his caresses and the tears now flowing freely over the Queen’s mottled hand.
XXIV
The Upshot
As soon as he stepped into the corridor, he was surrounded.
‘What news, fellow, what news?’ cried the Earl of Southampton.
‘Is my lord kindly received?’ asked Sir Thomas Gerard.
‘How did her majesty take his sudden coming?’ urged the Irishman, St Lawrence.
‘Lords, gentlemen, cry you mercy, please.’ The crowd gave back slightly from the door against which they pressed him. He passed through them, led them a little way down the corridor, spoke softly. ‘The earl has been received most graciously. Her majesty was startled, ’tis true, for she had only just arisen . . .’ He paused, knew he could not, must not dwell on his glimpse behind Elizabeth’s masks. ‘She has dismissed all save the earl himself. She will hear his plea in private.’
‘In private? Sure, that is when Robert is at his very best.’ Southampton’s smile was lascivious, and several other gentlemen giggled. ‘His victory is assured.’ He turned back to John. ‘Is that all, sir?’
‘All, my lord, for now. Like you, I will await developments in prayer and contemplation.’
Southampton stared at him, trying to sense if he was being mocked. But John had discovered in his short time back in the Essex camp that all followed their leader’s example and took their religion most seriously. Indeed, several captains now dropped to their knees while others opened their hands at their sides and stared to the heavens through the panelled ceiling. John used the chance the murmured prayers gave him to step away and lower himself on to a chair. His legs, jellied enough from four straight days in the saddle, had been further undone by the Queen’s hate-filled stare.
In the event, he could neither rest long, nor were many prayers uttered before the doors were flung open and Robert Devereux strode out. On his face was the same ecstasy that infused his words. ‘Her majesty has been most gracious, most royally loving!’ he cried. ‘She has greeted me with all kindnesses. And though I have suffered much trouble and storms abroad, I have found such a sweet calm at home.’
‘Does she dismiss the Toad?’ Southampton asked, stepping close. ‘All her kindnesses are naught compared to that.’
‘In good time. In good time,’ Essex replied cheerily, waving his hands. ‘She has asked for a postponement to our talk, that she may dress and I repair some of the ravages of our swift coming.’ He looked down at his road-smirched clothes, then sniffed. ‘Indeed, she says I have turned centaur, for I smell more of horse than of man.’
He laughed uproariously, all the party joining in, as if suddenly released by the Queen’s humour, eminent lords transformed to schoolboys, leaning on each other, knees weak with laughter. ‘Come, gentlemen,’ cried Essex, mastering himself, setting off down the corridor. ‘While her majesty dresses, I am to seek water, borrow a soldier’s cloak and return promptly. Help me all.’
Wearily John rose to follow . . . to be halted by a hiss. He turned – to see Sarah, his lover from just two weeks before, step from the Queen’s apartments. Her blonde tresses were caught up in a ribbon, and she had a gown over her shift. He had not noticed her among the ladies-in-waiting. Had not noticed much, truly, beyond the Queen’s fury.
Closing the door behind her, she came to him rapidly. ‘A word, sir,’ she said curtly.
‘And delightful to see you again too, my sweet.’
She pierced him with a look from eyes he now recalled, startlingly black in her fairness, then looked to the two guards at the door, their halberds at port, as if they now would hold it against all comers. ‘Here,’ she said, taking his arm, leading him a short way down the corridor to another door, which she opened, passing through ahead of him. He followed; she reached behind him, pulled the door to. Their bodies were close and he inhaled her. Not cloves this time, but something of the night and the morning too.
‘Maid,’ he said, smiling, ‘I am flattered that you wish to greet a returning warrior thus, but alas . . .’
She grunted, crossed to the far wall, where shutters were etched in light. She flung these open and he squinted against sudden sunshine. She turned back. ‘In sooth, keep your foolery to yourself, sir, and tell me what you are about here,’ she said, her voice harsh and low.
‘Foolery? Unless you can raise the dead, you’ll get no fooling with me.’ He stepped towards her. ‘Sarah, is it not?’
She held up a halting hand. ‘I say again – we have no time for games, John Lawley. Why you are here?’
‘Here?’ John glanced about the room, a small one for dressing, by the racks of clothes and table of face potions.
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I am not sure I do.’ He moved past her, fell heavily into a chair before a tall mirror. He looked at himself, his ragged beard, his heavy-lidded eyes, the dabs of mud. He sighed, pressed the palm of a hand into a socket. ‘Sarah, I have been four days in a saddle with almost no sleep. So all I am certain of is that I am not armed for a duel of wits with you. You wish no fooling, so let us be plain: when you ask what I do here, you ask about my lord of Essex, and his intentions, do you not?’
She stepped nearer. ‘I do.’
‘Good. And when you ask, you ask not for yourself but for the Queen?’ When she didn’t respond, he added, ‘Or perhaps for your other employer, the Master Secretary?’
She tipped her head to the side, considering. ‘In this case, I would say both.’
‘So he is here, is he?’ On her slow nod, he continued, ‘Forewarned by my lord Grey who preceded us?’
‘I know nothing of that.’
‘No, you were with her majesty.’ He sucked his lip. ‘Keeping out of the way, is he?’
‘Would you not? You know the hatred the earl bears for him.’
‘Indeed. A hatred evenly returned.’ He smiled up at her. ‘Well then. How can I be of service to you . . . all, ma’am?’
She studied him a moment. ‘You mentioned the earl’s intentions. Do you know them?’
‘Some of them.’
‘And they are?’
He smiled. ‘Sweet, surely that is a matter for the two of them? Intentions he will make plain when he is admitted again into her presence.’ He frowned. ‘He will be, will he not? Be readmitted?’
‘He . . . will. Despite her rage.’ Her voice dropped a little. ‘You must have noticed, sir, how distraught she was. Only her closest ladies ever see her in . . . in that state. No man has for . . .’ She hesitated, continued, ‘For a very long time, it is said. If ever.’ She bent, to look into the mirror behind him, smoothed the skin of her face, went on in the same low voice. ‘And of all men to do so, how could it be he whom all her pretence was for? She will never forgive him. Never.’
Her body was close again, the shift and gown pushed away as she bent, her breasts free beneath. Od’s faith, he thought, exhausted though I am, I could have her now. Yet she was right – for all sorts of pressing reasons, in Southwark, closer to, the time for foolery was past. So he raised his eyes, asked, ‘Will she not?’
‘Not unless she is forced to.’
‘And what could force her?’
She whispered the words. ‘My lord of Essex’s army camped over the brow of yonder hill.’
So they are scared, all of them, John thought. They need to know if their worst fears are realised, if Essex comes in armed insurrection. Still, they would know soon enough. Skulking though he might be, Cecil would be active. Messengers and spies would be streaming from his quarters. It was a little enough thing to give to his interrogator. ‘So you wish to know if he returns with an army?’
‘If you please.’
‘Well then, lady . . . he does not.’ He continued over her sigh, ‘Yet I do not think he needs one.’
‘No?’ She turne
d back to the rack of clothes behind her. ‘I must return to my duties. Will you help me dress?’
‘It would be my delight.’
Sarah moved to the rack. ‘So you do not believe he needs an army to coerce her?’
Dropping the gown from her shoulders, she stood in a shift that ill concealed her voluptuous body. Giving a little sigh, she placed a finger in her mouth as she considered the clothes. The obviousness of the action made him smile. ‘No. If force was his choice, he’d be standing over her e’en now, sword drawn. The grey, I think. More in keeping with the solemnity of the day and, of course, it would suit with your eyes.’
She flashed them. ‘Oh sir,’ she said, before slipping a farthingale over her head, settling it on her hips, then unhooking the grey kirtle. It was of a piece, bodice already joined to skirt. She handed it to John, raised her hands over her head, looked up at him from under her thick lashes. She’d moistened her lips, preparing them. He bent . . . then dropped the heavy material over her, muffling the surprised gasp that came. While she was engulfed, he spun her fast, and by the time she emerged, his hands were already busy. John had helped many a boy player into woman’s wear in the tiring house, and his fingers were quick on the laces.
‘Then how will he persuade her, do you think?’ she asked.
John pulled the laces though the eyelets. ‘With love?’
Sarah snorted. ‘Love? After this morning, I do not think . . .’ She broke off, then pulled him over, still tying, towards the mirror. Before it, she began to brush and put up her hair, her reflected eyes finding his. ‘And yet? She may be Queen but she is also . . . a complicated woman. Capricious. She has forgiven him his behaviours time after time, and even this outrage . . .’ She laughed, addressing the mirror and her tangles. ‘Well, one of the ballads she so loves could be fashioned around this – his riding pell-mell from Ireland to fling himself, mud-caked and weeping, at her feet. Though she would be radiantly dressed to receive him, of course. Set to the lute by Cowper, who knows? It could work wonders. Hmm!’ She put down the brush, began to set tortoiseshell combs into her locks. ‘This needs considering. For if my lord of Essex’s gallantry were to triumph and he to rise again . . .’