by Karen Harper
John hastened to open one of the double doors. Some winter light filtered in through the windowpanes to cast half shadows on the stone-flagged floor and bare altar holding a stone statue of the crucified Christ. A few effigies of knights and their ladies, frozen in perpetual prayer, stared heavenward above their tombs as we all started down the short aisle. Elizabeth stopped and said, without looking at us, “Robin and John, please stay back to keep others from coming in. Kat, with me.”
Our skirts and cloaks rustled, and our footfalls echoed as we walked the aisle to the altar, before which sat four plain wooden benches, for the Tower yeomen guards sometimes worshipped here. We sat on the front one, side by side, not speaking until she said, not turning her head but staring straight ahead, “I know her coffin—that arrow box—lies under the floor here. It has been twenty-two years since I have been this close to her—to her body, I mean—but I feel closer than ever to her in my head and heart. I yet cannot fathom how things have changed, the power and position that is mine. Have you had the nightmare of her since I’ve become queen?” she asked, turning to me at last.
“No, Your Grace. Not once.”
She jerked her gloved hand over to my lap to grasp mine. “I neither. She is finally at rest, but she will always be with me, just as you must be. To be on my side in all things, Kat.”
I nearly brought up her foolish favoring of her Robin, but I held my tongue for now.
She went on in a rush, “I’m going to take the Boleyn badge of the white falcon on the tree stump for my own to let them know my pride in my Boleyn heritage as well as Tudor. Of course, I honor her memory by appointing my Boleyn cousins, Catherine and Henry, to serve me and will advance them over the years.”
She was referring to the adult children of her deceased aunt Mary Boleyn, Anne’s sister, the woman who had dared to wed the man she loved and had been exiled from court for it before I came to London. Elizabeth’s sweet and charming cousin Catherine had been named one of her ladies I oversaw, and the queen greatly favored and relied upon her cousin Henry, who became Lord Hunsdon and served her well.
“That all pleases me, and it would have greatly pleased your mother,” I assured her.
“He’s buried here, too, Tom Seymour.”
“Yes. Jane Grey, your cousin Queen Catherine Howard—others who made mistakes trusting or being ruled by the wrong men.”
She let out a rush of breath like a huge sigh. She was squeezing my hand so hard I thought to protest, but she said, “It’s different with me and Robin, Kat, no matter what you are thinking. Next to you, he’s my dearest friend from the past, and he’s going with me into the future.”
“Of course, you will need many strong men around you, both men of rank and reputation. But—”
“Like Cecil and like John,” she interrupted. “But Robin too.”
“Perhaps you should let his wife come to court to stop wagging tongues,” I dared.
She sighed again and let my hand go. “She prefers the country. And besides, she’s been ill.”
I held my breath as my mind raced. “What kind of ill? Is it serious?”
“Of course, we hope not. Kat, we shall kneel and pray here for the parade and coronation.”
And for Amy Dudley’s good health, I thought, as I got down on my knees beside her on the hard, cold stone floor. Elizabeth had vowed to me over the years she would never wed, so was Robert more or less safe for her to love, since he was wed? If something would happen to Amy, could the Council and the people accept him as a possible marital candidate? His family was still hated for being so arrogant to take the earldom of Northumberland, the first time non-nobles attained the ducal rank, though that title had died with Robert’s sire.
My thoughts tumbled faster than did her whispered prayers. Privily, I knew she detested the idea of marriage, and, after Spanish Philip, England would have a hard time stomaching another foreign king. Still, Cecil and the Council were already adamant that Elizabeth consider royal suitors.
“Dearest Lord,” she whispered beside me, “please protect my people and the kingdom as I take the crown of my father—and my mother.”
She prayed in whispers for a long time as my knees went numb but my heart overflowed with love for and pride in her. At her orders, John had planned for her to wear the ornate coronation crown King Henry had fashioned for her mother, one that would fit her head perfectly. Perfectly, as I prayed Elizabeth Tudor would rule her realm.
The main thoroughfare of London was awash with banners, pennants and brocade bunting on the new queen’s recognition day. Despite the cold, in a canopied open litter, Elizabeth Tudor rode the adulation of her people through the swirls of their hurrahs. Down Fleet Street to where crowds poured into the Strand, she glittered in her gown and mantle of cloth of gold trimmed with ermine and gold lace.
Like a great tide came her red-coated gentlemen pensioners with ceremonial battle-axes, then squires, footmen and men on a thousand prancing horses. Behind her rode Robert Dudley, mounted on a charger and leading her horse, which was covered with golden cloth. John came next, before her ladies, including me, in decorated chariots, then members of her Privy Council, swept along in her broad wake.
The royal progress took all day, for the queen bade her cavalcade halt when someone in the crowd tendered an herbal nosegay or held up a baby. At certain sites proud citizens enacted play scenes, presented pageants and recitations, or sang madrigals. We were proffered food and drink—and privy closets to relieve ourselves—from time to time. Despite the constant pealing of church bells, the Queen’s Majesty stood to make impromptu speeches. The crowd would hush to hear, then blast the wintry air with roars.
It was a wonderful day, although she and her Council faced the mess Mary had left—a devalued currency, the treasury bled dry, English towns full of vagrants and unpaid soldiers, and Catholic France and Spain covetous of her crown and country. [Prince Philip, the lecherous wretch, soon sent her an envoy asking for her hand in marriage, pledging to get her with child as he had not her sister!]
My favorite part was not even the lengthy coronation in the Abbey the next day, nor the fine banquet at which I sat at a front table with my John. Not even the moment when she was crowned and the bishop called out the traditional question to the great assemblage: “Do you, good people of this realm of England, desire this royal person, Elizabeth Tudor, for your lawful, God-given queen?”
As if from one throat, they shouted, “Aye! Aye!”
No, my favorite moment was when I realized—as she had come to learn too—the power of the common folk, the very backbone of England and how much they adored their new queen. For, in her short procession from Westminster Hall to the Abbey, wearing her coronation robes, to the joyous sound of drums and the bells of London’s churches, she trod a blue velvet carpet. I felt utter awe when I saw the crowd fall upon that carpet and tear off shreds for souvenirs, so great was their desire to have a memento of her, my Elizabeth, now crowned Queen of England.
CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
GREENWICH PALACE
Summer 1559
The first summer Elizabeth was queen we lost her to a midsummer’s madness. My thoughts assaulted by the romping music, watching couples turn and leap on the dance floor, I stood frowning in a corner of the great hall of Greenwich Palace.
My royal mistress screamed with delight each time Robert Dudley, her Robin, tossed her into the air and caught her again in the wild steps of the volta. Drums beat and sackbuts wailed the tune, one I knew her father had written years ago when his passion for Anne Boleyn was raging. But worse, I knew the words, and they boded ill like all else of late for the queen’s reputation as she ignored her duties and spent time in the company of the man courtiers were coming to call her favorite:
Pastime with good company
I love and shall until I die.
Grudge who likes, but none deny,
So God be pleased, thus live will I.
For my pastance:
Hunt
, sing, and dance.
My heart is set!
All goodly sport
For my comfort.
Who shall me let?
No words were sung now, but they haunted me nonetheless, just as dreams of the long-dead Anne had again. As Elizabeth’s parents had displayed in their mad desires years ago, I had seen all the signs of such hectic blood in her and Robert. No one dared deny them their “goodly sport,” though I knew, like her mother, Elizabeth still denied her body to the man she wanted. “Who shall me let?” indeed, for anyone who spoke out against Her Grace and Robert’s dalliance—riding, hunting, singing, dancing—was snubbed or sent away. King Henry, while wed, had lusted for the forbidden fruit of Anne Boleyn, and now their daughter wanted a wedded man.
John strode into the crowded, noisy hall in a huff, joined me in my corner and, raising his voice so I could hear him over the noise, blurted out, “When I came to our chambers, a messenger from Her Grace was waiting for me. I’ve been banished again, and by another Tudor queen.”
“What? To where?”
“Only to Enfield, thank God. Supposedly in service of her dear Robin to quarter forty extra head of horses there. She knows how much we love Enfield, and it’s not far, but she wants me out of her way just as she did Cecil, because we don’t approve of how she carries on with him and I told her so.”
“No one with a bit of sense approves. Even when I told her that ’tis said in the courts of Europe they are jesting that the Queen of England will wed her horse master, she didn’t see the error of her ways. ‘We are just good friends, Kat. We have so much in common, Kat. I am queen and deserve some happy times after all we have been through.’ But when are you to return, my love?” I asked him.
“She will send someone to let me know.”
“How dare she keep you away! She’s gone giddy. Are you sure she wasn’t just jesting or threatening?”
“Hardly. I rue the day I taught her how to ride like the wind. This morning, when she and that man were going ahorse again with no guards—in other words, no chaperones—I told her it was not safe, not any safer than her sullied reputation when she bestows all that bounty on him. The right to export wool without a license, be damned! She’s bending not only propriety for him but England’s laws!”
“A pox on him!” I blurted, before I clapped my hand over my mouth. The smallpox had been rampant in London of late, a dread disease that took the lives of one fourth of the people it struck down and disfigured many of the rest. It was one of the reasons the court had removed to more rural palaces. “I do not wish the pox, even on him,” I muttered, shaking my head, “but what are we to do?”
“You must talk to her again. I know you’ve tried before, but this is crucial. You, above all others, have always been able to comfort yet confront her. Poor Cecil’s no doubt at his wit’s end up in Scotland. I just heard that he tried to have the Council appoint Dudley as ambassador to foreign courts, but ‘someone’ removed his name from the list. More than once I’ve heard Cecil say Robert Dudley would be better off in paradise than here.”
“Poor Cecil, conveniently sent away to parley with the Scots for who knows how long. Him, you—I’ll be next, but you are right, my dear lord. My frowns and aside comments are not enough. I must pick my time, but I’ll set her straight. Heaven’s gates, you’d think our brilliant queen has forgotten the Seymour affair!”
Our gazes snared and held a moment, but he plunged on. “Freedom and power too long denied has knocked her silly. And then there is that Boleyn blood.”
“Tudor blood, more like, to pin her attentions on someone who belongs to another. When did that ever stop her sire with all his mistresses, wedded or not? It is an unfair world that what is good for the gander is forbidden for the goose, but that is the way of it.”
“What queen has ever ruled alone? She needs a husband, but not this one.” He tugged me toward the doorway, along the back wall of the chamber and out into the corridor. Several young couples were in each other’s arms there, leaning against the wainscoting or each other. I started to tell John that Elizabeth’s laxity of decorum was running rampant, but he just swore under his breath and pulled me close for a devouring kiss.
The feeling that coursed through me at his touch and taste, as always, swamped my senses. Yes, I understood Elizabeth’s heedless behavior to want a man so desperately that all caution—I prayed not a whole kingdom—could be cast to the winds.
That night, as usual, after the dancing and card playing and jesting, Elizabeth let Robert walk her through the presence chamber, then the privy chamber to the door of her bedchamber, where she always bid him good night, then went in with me and several of her ladies to be prepared for bed. Tonight, only I trailed them, for she had sent the others off a good hour ago and had sat in a window seat with him, washed by moonlight, giggling and whispering.
If I were to be alone with her tonight, it was, I told myself, the perfect time to talk to her. She’d expect me to remonstrate about her sending John away, but I would instead discuss her keeping Robert far too close.
At age fifty-three, my eyesight was not as sharp as it used to be, but my ears were still good, and so I heard their fervent whispers.
“Bess, my sweetling, let me put you in bed tonight,” Robert was saying, his voice silky smooth. “Kat won’t tell.”
I bit my tongue to keep from scolding him.
“So, my Master of Horse would be master of my heart?” she parried, cleverly not answering his question.
“Master of your heart and beautiful body! I love and adore you, only you! If we were but country swain and milkmaid, we could openly love each other forever.”
I rolled my eyes. Such pretty words and a prettier face, I groused silently, as he seized her hand to lift it to his lips. I knew of his seductive ploy each night, though he always turned away from the queen’s ladies. Just before he put his lips to the back of Her Grace’s hand, as was proper, he smoothly turned it palm up and hotly, wetly kissed her there, his tongue darting back and forth to inflame her passions. The rogue must know how it affected her. She always left him dreamy-eyed and mooned about as we prepared her for bed, no doubt wishing that her Robin was divesting her of her garments and tucking her in and more.
Tonight, to my amazement, while the two yeomen guards at her door stood like stone statues, she said to him, “My beloved country swain, you may kiss your milkmaid good night inside her door.”
From his avid look, you would have thought he had been awarded yet another rich bestowal. Last week, she’d given him a house not far from Richmond Palace at Kew and a larger allowance with it, not to mention she’d honored him with the title of Garter Knight. This—all of it—had to stop. How dare she risk all she had suffered and hoped for, all John and I had gone through for her!
When the two of them slipped inside the bedroom door and dared to start to close it on me, I stuck my hip in and pushed back at them. “I am not leaving the queen unattended,” I said and bustled toward the bed so that they dared not follow that far. Robert frowned, but Elizabeth was so far gone she just ignored me. Recklessly, on she plunged to her destruction and—
He bent her back a bit, and the hot, open-mouthed kiss went on and on. I tried not to look, but the intensity of it shook me too. John and I used to kiss like that, and it always turned my bones to water and made me want him to just take me on the grass or floor or anywhere.
“I adore you, only you!” he told her again, evidently the theme of his song to her. It was one way, I thought, to set aside his wife without mentioning her. I wanted to scream at him to unhand the queen and get out, get back to his Amy. I recalled how I had witnessed the early morning romps when Tom Seymour invaded her bedchamber and teased and tickled her and how I was greatly held to blame for it later and what it cost us both.
I intentionally banged the lid of the coffer at the foot of her bed up and down—thud, bang. Startled, they looked at me as if I had shot off a firearm. Though dazed, Elizabeth glared at me,
but said, “Best you be off until the morrow, Robin. We shall go riding just after dawn.”
“I won’t sleep a wink this night but will dream of you,” he whispered in a raspy voice, and kissed her palm again, lingeringly—wetly.
After he went out, she leaned against the door and sighed.
“It’s one thing,” I said, opening the coffer again to pull out a night rail for her, “to go riding alone, but to be alone with him in your bedchamber . . .”
“I’ve told you a dozen times, I trust him.”
“Then do you trust others not to misunderstand and sully the reputation and character you worked years ago to rebuild after the Seymour catastrophe?”
“That was different.” She came over and turned her back to me so I could unlace her bodice.
“Oh, yes. That married rogue was named Tom and this one is Robin.”
She spun back to face me, hands on hips, her dreamy look replaced by her Tudor-temper countenance. Since she had become queen, she had shown a side of herself I had seldom seen. Even Robert had said she could go from goddess to guttersnipe in an instant and swear like a sailor—like both Tom Seymour and her royal father had.
“Hell’s gates, Kat,” she cried, “you are just upset I sent John away to cool his heels.”
“Robert Dudley is the one who needs to be sent away to cool another part of him besides his heels. Preferably sent to visit his wife once in a while.”
“They have naught in common. He is needed here as one of my advisers. A plague on it, I am not your girl but a woman grown, and queen here.”
“I have noticed. And how we have all yearned for that great gift from God. Now we must all protect that. Elizabeth—Your Majesty—I have lately had the dream about your mother again.”
Her eyes widened and her lower lip dropped. “I—I have not. Why should you? I am safe now.”
