The Poison Bed

by Elizabeth Fremantle

  I had already wandered unwittingly into one of those pitfalls. ‘On reflection, I did encounter him once, after Overbury’s death. I don’t believe we exchanged words beyond a greeting.’

  ‘Ah. Your memory is jogged, then.’

  There was a slight smile on his lips. I realized, with a sinking feeling, that as I had already shown an inconsistency in my account, others would be teased from me without much persuasion, and he knew it. ‘Lieutenant Elwes had some very interesting details to divulge before he met his end.’

  It dawned on me then that Elwes, too, had been one of Northampton’s appointments. I said as much, but Coke rightly pointed out that it had been I who petitioned the Council to appoint Elwes. ‘But I did so on behalf of Northampton.’ I heard the unwitting shrillness in my voice, which made me sound desperate and guilty. ‘You must be able to see that Northampton was behind this whole sordid business.’

  ‘Is that so?’ He paused. My heart throbbed too fast. ‘I have found no firm evidence of that.’

  ‘But I have letters from him that prove I stopped, cursing myself inwardly for having had those letters destroyed. I’d thought they could only serve to make me seem guilty. It hadn’t occurred that the opposite might be true. I’d never really believed I would have to prove my innocence.

  ‘I should be interested to see them.’

  ‘They may be mislaid,’ was all I could think to say.

  ‘May be or are mislaid?’

  ‘Are,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Not burned then?’ I flailed for a response but could find none. ‘Sir Robert Cotton – he worked for you, I believe.’ Coke waited for me to indicate that this was the case. I nodded. The air in the room seemed suddenly thin and the walls close. ‘He told me you demanded he burn most of your correspondence. What was left is now in my possession.’

  I gripped my hands firmly together for fear he would see they were trembling. ‘Yes, I believe that is the case. But there are one or two letters from Overbury to me that will prove my innocence.’

  ‘We shall see.’ He said he would enquire about them, but clearly wasn’t convinced.

  ‘This fellow Franklin, of whom you claim to have no knowledge, said he hoped we would not make a net for all the little birds and let the great ones go. Rather a nice turn of phrase for a common apothecary, I thought. What do you think he meant by such a statement?’

  ‘I think it could be interpreted in many ways.’ I was pleased with my ambiguous response and felt slightly buoyed up.

  ‘I wonder whom he meant by “great ones”?’ He scrutinized me for what seemed an age, then stated, ‘Weston testified that you sent powders to Overbury.’

  I was completely unprepared for the change in tack, felt stunned as if I’d suffered a blow to the head, and denied all knowledge of any powders. Why I denied it, I don’t know, and the more emphatically I claimed no knowledge of those powders the more transparent I felt.

  ‘Elwes also testified that you sent powders.’

  I blurted: ‘He asked for them. Thomas requested powders to make him sicken enough to – to –’ I had begun to stammer. ‘Enough to raise the King’s sympathy so he would be released. It was done in good faith. It was only chalk powder.’ I was blathering.

  ‘Chalk powder!’ His eyebrows were raised, as if he thought I was having him on. ‘You must understand how this appears.’ He was serious again, deathly so. My last residue of hope leaked away. ‘It was in your interests that Overbury remain incarcerated until your wife’s nullity case was decided. In the light of that, it appears strange that you would go along with a plan to have him released.’

  ‘But it wasn’t how it seems.’ I sounded pathetic, like an infant begging its nurse to believe it hadn’t eaten a plum when the juice was dribbling down its chin.

  Her

  News of Franklin’s execution came as Frances went into labour. She had never experienced pain like it, as if her body was being torn in two, but she was determined not to succumb to it.

  ‘I’ve never known a mother so quiet during a birth,’ said the midwife, once it was over. ‘They usually screech loud enough to raise the devil.’

  Lizzie gave the woman a glare, as if in saying the word she had invited the devil in to possess the new arrival. She handed Frances the bundle, with the words ‘A little girl. Never mind, at least she’s healthy.’

  Frances gazed at her baby. It was purple and angry-looking, with tight-squeezed eyes and mucus clinging to a slick of black hair. She felt suddenly overwhelmed at having brought a creature into the world that would always want something of her. It would want her to love it. The thought made her uncomfortable. It began to cry, a searing, desperate sound, like foxes at night. It became clear to her then that while the baby had been inside her she was protected, but that was no longer the case.

  The midwife took it, swaddling it into a tight bundle. ‘The wet-nurse will be here soon, but would you like to give her a feed in the meantime?’

  Frances felt unexpected revulsion at the idea of the infant sucking at her breast and wondered if other women felt so after giving birth. Resentment welled in her for the excruciating pain it had caused. Thoughts of all those executions seeped through to her, the violence of it all. It was creeping too close and the birth had made her weak.

  The wet-nurse arrived eventually, a great fat woman with pendulous breasts who sat in the rocker, feeding. Frances drifted off, but in her sleep she was on the gallows with Anne Turner, watching the naked bodies of Franklin and Weston slung on to a cart, like butchered livestock. She looked at Anne, her face a vast, open, howling mouth. A noose was put round her neck, the coarse hemp chafing. Her head spun. Anne was whimpering. Frances was silent but buffeted by nausea. Anne began to cry then, a persistent, desperate wailing. She felt the pressure of the rope on her throat, the surface shift beneath her feet. She looked towards the executioner. He turned. It was Thomas Overbury, mouth set in a snarl, eyes red with rage, the stench of bergamot hanging in the air. She woke with a jolt to the sound of the baby crying.

  The following day Harry came. He barely glanced at the infant as he dismissed the wet-nurse and took off his coat, flinging it on a chair. ‘God, Frances, how can you bear it in here? It’s hellishly dark.’ He threw a log on the fire, prodding it with the poker until it flared up. Then he pulled back the curtains. ‘You look exhausted.’

  ‘Hardly surprising. Come and sit a moment.’ He did as she asked and she leaned against his shoulder. He brought both arms tightly around her and they stayed like that without talking for some time. She hadn’t realized how she’d craved the contact of another human being, proper physical contact. Lizzie’s bird-like embraces were too brief and stuttering to offer real satisfaction. The thought struck her that she might never see Harry again, gouging her out. She held him more tightly.

  ‘I was at Franklin’s trial.’ His voice was muffled in her shoulder. ‘It’s not good.’

  She pulled out of the embrace. ‘Tell me!’

  Harry was pale, his eyes darting about and his voice tightly strung. ‘He claimed seven different types of poison had been administered to the prisoner over time.’

  ‘Well, he would have known, wouldn’t he, since he procured them all?’ She kept her tone light, though she felt leaden. ‘Did he mention they were all ordered by Uncle?’

  Harry nodded slowly. ‘But he said more.’ He stalled. ‘Oh, Francey.’ His voice cracked. ‘The bastard said that it was you who ordered the final dose – the dose that killed him.’ He looked at her, desperate for her to refute the accusation.

  ‘How low of him,’ she managed to hide the wobble in her voice, ‘lying to save his own skin.’ So, Franklin hadn’t been as easily manipulated as she’d believed. ‘But it didn’t work, did it? He hanged like the rest of them.’

  She managed a smile and smoothed a hand over his. ‘You mustn’t worry, Harry. The truth will come out in the end.’

  ‘They’re going to move you to the Tower, Francey.’ She’d never see
n Harry so upset. Harry was a Howard, not like Robert, who’d weep over a lost button. ‘I won’t be able to visit you there.’

  ‘When?’ She was falling, losing control.

  ‘Not yet. After Christmas, once you’ve recovered.’ She’d forgotten all about Christmas. They said nothing for a while, just sat with their thoughts. The Tower loomed in her mind and she was forced to accept that the outcome of her situation was at best uncertain.

  Harry broke the silence. ‘I hate to say this but I think Robert was involved in it all.’ With a sickened expression, he told her how sorry he was.

  ‘Nothing would surprise me any more.’ She had an image of her husband making his scaffold speech but couldn’t help also seeing herself there, facing her own end.

  ‘Oh, God, I almost forgot!’ Harry thumped his head with the heel of his hand. ‘The King wants to see the baby. He asked me to arrange for him to come here. But no one must know. He can’t be seen to –’

  ‘Can’t be seen to associate with a whore like me?’ She laughed bitterly. ‘I’d never have believed him so sentimental.’

  But Frances wasn’t thinking about the King. She was thinking about Franklin and regretting not having dealt with him properly. She had always believed herself untouchable but now she was not so sure.

  Him

  My world was reduced to a circular chamber ten paces in diameter. I would walk from one window to the other as time eked away, taking in the small square of river on one side, watching the boats pass by. The water, the essential mutability of its liquid state, began to represent freedom in my mind. I watched the birds for hours, wheeling above it. But then it froze for a full month – skaters dashing across its surface – and I understood that its freedom was an illusion, that even the river was enslaved to the weather. Incarceration was making a philosopher of me.

  I had witnessed Elwes’s execution at Tower Hill from the opposite window. It was a brutal sight even at a distance – the visceral shock as he dropped, his body twitching sickeningly for endless moments and subsiding to stillness as the crowd roared, hungry for retribution. I hadn’t meant to look but found myself unable to drag my eyes away, casting myself in his place. His death seemed so profoundly unjust. As far as I knew, Elwes had done no more than obey Northampton’s orders. But obedience is not always moral, I have learned. We had all obeyed that monster one way or another.

  Since Elwes’s execution I had asked Copinger to help me move the tapestry so it covered that window. Living thereafter in the half-light, I waited in a grim state of ignorance for events to unfold, for more questions, for a trial, for something, anything to happen. I only felt grateful for the company of Copinger, who would try to distract me with games of cards and chess, or accompany me to plod those few paces back and forth, back and forth, along the walkway twice a day, no matter the weather.

  I tried to find comfort in my few books but found none there. The only book I wanted, Troilus and Criseyde, had not been among the things delivered to me at the Tower. I tried to remember its verses but my memory failed me and I resorted to the Bible, which made me certain I was headed for Hell.

  A moment of joy cut through my despair when Copinger told me Frances had safely given birth to a baby girl. I imagined my infant, a duplicate of her mother, wearing the look that all the Howards wore, of unquestioned belonging, of absolute dignity. The thought of my daughter with that look in her eyes made my heart soar, then crash to earth on the realization that I might never know my own child.

  I asked him for writing materials so I could send word to Frances. I was with Copinger so much I had learned to interpret all his little gestures, and his hesitation – the clearing of his throat – when he said he would try made it clear he was unsure. But he must have seen my desperation, for the next day he brought me a single sheet of paper, a small pot of ink and a quill, all concealed beneath his clothes.

  The paper was creased. I smoothed it carefully over the table and brought the ink to my nose, breathing in its cheap vinegar stench as if it were precious as myrrh. Dipping my quill, I sat holding it over the paper, unable to think of what to write. But once I’d made the first mark the words came in a torrent and I bared my soul, telling her that only she and no one else had given meaning to my existence; the mere awareness that she had borne my child gave me the strength to face what I must. I am profoundly sorry, my dearest, that you are suffering for my misdemeanours and I promise to right all those wrongs ... I scribbled on until both sides of the paper were dense with text.

  Her

  An idea began to form in Frances’s mind as she waited for the King’s visit. The wailing creature she’d produced had a new function. It had revealed a weakness she could exploit, was luring power to her door.

  By the time he arrived, via the back stairs and dressed in the kind of innocuous mud-coloured wool that the servants wore, Frances was sitting up with her baby in her arms, the picture of perfect motherhood.

  He swooped in for the child with a delighted beam, saying, ‘So like Robbie, don’t you think?’ He licked his lips as if about to eat it.

  She agreed, though it was not what she thought. The baby was hideous, nothing like her beautiful father. ‘You’re still fond of him,’ she said. ‘He thought he’d lost your love. It made him desperately sad.’

  ‘Of course I’m still fond of him. Robbie’s never lost my love, but this whole affair, it’s made a terrible mess of everything.’ He continued to gaze at the sleeping baby. ‘You understand I have no choice.’

  ‘He told me everything. I wish he hadn’t.’ She looked down and away, as if the burden of that knowledge was too much to bear. Robert didn’t understand the power of secrets, and to have shared such a weapon with her was the height of imprudence. But Robert was an innocent. She was the only person alive, apart from the two involved, who knew why the King so desperately wanted Overbury out of the way. His Majesty’s dirty little secret, volatile as gunpowder.

  ‘Everything?’ There was a long pause before he added, ‘What exactly?’

  She spoke very quietly and slowly, as if it was being teased from her. ‘Oh, the business at Royston and – and ...’ She still kept her eyes down but sensed him beginning to fret. She had played her card at exactly the right moment.

  ‘Royston?’ She watched the dismay spread over him as her words – her velvet-wrapped threat, made to look like nothing more than a distraught revelation – sank in.

  ‘Everything, and the rest of it after – with ...’ She wanted to laugh in his face and tell him it was love that had sapped his power.

  ‘With Overbury?’ His voice was high-pitched with shock. ‘His death?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He was appalled, the guts knocked out of him.

  ‘It’s not you who should be sorry.’ He looked at the baby again and back at Frances, suddenly seeming ancient and exhausted, and she knew, at last, his resistance was overcome and she had him in the palm of her hand. ‘What exactly?’ he asked again.

  But she didn’t answer, just said, ‘I think I can help you save him.’

  ‘Save Robbie?’ His exhausted eyes filled with hope.

  ‘If I make a confession and throw myself on your mercy, that should satisfy the investigators and those who seek justice.’ She rubbed tears into her eyes. ‘I know it would mean time spent under lock and key.’

  ‘You would do such a thing – make such a sacrifice?’

  ‘For him – and you, yes.’ Her words hung in the silence. ‘If, once it is all done with, you would award me a pardon. After a reasonable time, when the dust has settled and I have demonstrated my contrition, I could be released.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’ He placed his hand on his heart. ‘You have my solemn promise.’ She would have liked to persuade him to sit at the table, write it and stamp it with his seal as proof, but she knew that might raise his suspicion.

  He lifted the baby up to look at it again, his expression crumpling, and she felt omnipoten
t, reading his thoughts, where the seed of doubt she had sown about his beloved Robbie was rooting.

  Him

  Lieutenant More visited, accompanied by a man I didn’t know. He had a disconcerting trait, an eye that wandered independently of its twin. More announced that this man was to be Copinger’s replacement. He told me that my servant had contravened the rules of my incarceration, refusing to elucidate, but I knew it must have been the letter.

  The thought of More reading my most private intimacies, articulated in that thin ink for Frances’s eyes only, made me feel horribly violated and I hated him deeply for it, despite the obvious pity he felt for me. He informed me, with an apologetic shrug, that Copinger was under lock and key. I begged him not to punish my servant for my own transgression but he was impervious to my pleas, saying more than once: ‘The choice is not mine.’

  ‘Tell me at least how my wife fares. Is she still safe at the Knollys’?’ He shook his head minutely. ‘She is freed?’ A bubble of elation swelled in my heart. But he shook his head once more. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I’m not able to say.’ He was looking at the floor.

  ‘Is she here?’

  From his expression, his mouth pursed and his thick silence, I knew that she was. My elation burst.

  ‘You cannot prevent me from making an entreaty to the King.’ I stood as I said it, as if to show him I would not be cowed. More was a small man and I hoped to make him feel smaller. He seemed to hesitate, about to refuse me, I thought, so I added, ‘When I am proved innocent, the King will not be best pleased to know that you denied me such a request.’

  It was a small victory that brought little satisfaction. He sent my new cock-eyed man out for writing materials and stood over me as I wrote. I implored that Frances not be tried, that she be released to live quietly somewhere away from court with our daughter. She is the most innocent of us all.