The Spymaster's Daughter

by Jeane Westin

  Frances took a deep breath and quoted the next line of Philip’s poem, which he’d probably last whispered into Lady Rich’s pink ear. “‘By just exchange one for the other given…’ Your gracious Majesty,” she said in a voice to carry across the inner chamber. If there was gossip about Phillip and Lady Rich in the court, Frances would step out in front of it, though that might be difficult. Lady Rich was the Earl of Essex’s sister and he was Elizabeth’s new favorite.

  Waved forward by the squinting queen, who everyone knew was shortsighted, Frances flawlessly performed three deep curtsies as ordained by court protocol, to her father’s obvious relief. She saw the lines of care briefly fall from his face, as he watched her with what she thought might have been pride were it not so carefully controlled.

  All the queen’s ladies looked on to see how well this new lady accomplished her introduction, ready to jest all about the court if she showed clumsiness.

  After a morning of practice, Frances knew her curtsies were the very best she had ever done, and the slight smile on her face allowed them all to see her satisfaction.

  The queen motioned her still closer and proved with her next words what everyone knew: She had not forgotten Philip’s unsolicited opinion regarding her plans to marry her French duke. “Lady Frances, I like Sir Philip’s poetry far better than his marital instructions.”

  Frances nodded, her lips puffed into a thoughtful moue. “Majesty, as his wife, I have good cause to agree.”

  The queen smiled up at her spymaster. “Ah, your daughter has wit, Walsingham. I like wit above all things…when rightly directed. Though I see she wears a gown of color, and I allow only white on my ladies of the presence.”

  “Most gracious queen,” her father said, bowing and, having no wit himself, relying on the etiquette of introduction, “this is my only child, Frances, the lady Sidney. I will call the seamstresses to her so that she can be properly fitted. Should she retire today?”

  “No, she is untutored in court etiquette and therefore forgiven…this once.” Elizabeth stared at her, squinting a bit as if to bring Frances’s face into better focus. Her gold spectacles lay, unused, to hand. “Marriage has suited you, Lady Frances,” the queen said. “You were yet a child when last at court, and now I see a woman grown…though some wives are with child thrice over at two years into the married state.”

  “I have not been so fortunate,” Frances murmured, feeling hot warmth creep up her cheeks, despite her best effort to prevent it.

  “My queen,” the Earl of Leicester said, interceding on behalf of his nephew, “our young poet, Sir Philip, is now gone ahead to the Low Countries to prepare the way for your Holland army.”

  The queen’s mouth tightened. “That same army that will ruin my treasury…and take you from my court.”

  Leicester bowed. “An army must be well armed and provisioned.”

  Frances’s father shifted to his better leg. “‘Before all else, be armed.’”

  The queen waved her quill. “I have read my Machiavelli, Mr. Secretary.”

  Walsingham nodded but was not deterred. “The Italian has written many times on this subject, Majesty. If you allow me: ‘For among other evils caused by being disarmed, it renders you contemptible; which is one of those disgraceful things which a prince must guard against.’”

  The queen’s dark eyes narrowed. “Walsingham, it is all well and good to think a purse bottomless when it is not your purse. Now cease all talk of war and my treasury. I would meet privily with my new-come lady of the presence.”

  Frances noted that her father and some others in the chamber immediately bowed and left the room, but not the earl or the queen’s ladies of the bedchamber, who were always near to answer Elizabeth’s every need. They quietly withdrew to stools and chairs, taking up books or embroidery hoops, although Frances had no doubt they listened as hard as ever they could for anything worth tittle-tattling about the court.

  “Sweet Bess,” Leicester said, bending close to the queen’s ear, “I beg you to grant me leave to depart the palace so that I may gather a troop of horse for the war. As your lieutenant general of the army, I should—”

  “I will decide the matter later after more thought,” the queen said, her lips tightening.

  A queen did as it pleased her, and Frances was full of envy. She had already heard that Her Majesty was ever reluctant to allow her longtime favorite to depart, or, once letting him go, sent fast couriers to recall him within hours. Frances now saw the tension between them that she had heard whispered of all during her life. No matter their advanced age or the many years they had known each other, they were always on the edge of a clash, the earl wanting to break free of the royal reins and Elizabeth determined he should not, though she made favorites of every handsome, witty, and young courtier.

  And Frances thought she saw something more. There was sorrow, a look of loss in their faces that was so veiled it could not be easily detected. Yet she saw it; she had seen it before. In her own mirror.

  “Be comfortable, my lady,” the queen said, motioning to a chair alongside the table.

  “Thank you, Majesty.”

  The chair was not cushioned, and Frances tried to look at ease as she sat upon its unyielding surface. She had no doubt these chairs were reserved for the queen’s councilors to keep them from staying overlong while presenting their demands on her purse.

  The queen spoke in a commanding voice. After she’d spent nearly three decades as England’s ruler, whatever softer voice Elizabeth might once have had was now long departed. “Your good father tells me that you read in the Latin. Do you know your Greek?”

  “No, Majesty, I did not have a Greek tutor, although I did learn French and some Italian.” Frances took a deep breath and plunged ahead before she could think better of it. She even decided to plead her youth and inexperience at court if the queen was displeased. “It is ciphering that intrigues me most.”

  “Ciphering is no language, but the opposite of language, since it is not meant to be understood by many.”

  “Your grace, it is my father’s duty to see that you can read ciphering by your enemies…for your benefit and safety.”

  The queen looked close into Frances’s face. “A cipher has always been work for grown men.”

  It took all of Jennet’s long training in the benefits of silence to keep Frances from responding, It usually takes a man to rule a kingdom.

  She was thankful the queen spoke before such a self-destructive thought could find expression even in Frances’s face, and she had the sense to be glad of it.

  “Lady Frances, you seem young for such an interest. Your father made no mention of it.”

  Frances forced a ready grimace into a smile. “Alas, Majesty, he does not approve of such curiosity in a woman.”

  Elizabeth nodded, her painted mouth twisting with amusement. “No, my dark Moor would not.”

  Could the queen be an ally? Frances dared not even think so, and arranged her face into a pleasant repose that showed nothing of her swirling thoughts. Would a great queen, a scholar herself, be a friend to another woman’s hope? Frances had never heard so; the queen was reputed to be severe about her ladies’ conduct, lest it bring shame to her. But how could a scholarly pursuit be shameful to Elizabeth Tudor, who was rightly noted for her translations of difficult passages and study of the classics?

  Frances was closer to the queen than ever before, and allowed herself to look into the ruler’s face to see what hope she could find there. She saw none under the red wig that imitated youthful hair the queen had inherited from her father, or in the dark blue eyes that had come from her mother, Anne Boleyn.

  Elizabeth showed no emotion, only the radiating lines that betrayed age under the white ceruse face paint and red cochineal lips and cheeks, and in her almost invisible eyebrows, not darkened by kohl, to give her a perpetually alert look that she put to good use as she squinted about the chamber. Though the queen was soon to be fifty-two, her back was erect, her
eyes clear, and her movements quick. It was said she could walk and ride faster than men half her age. Unfortunately, there was no exercise to keep her face as young as her heart and body.

  Frances lowered her eyes, lest she appear to stare.

  The queen stood and her ladies rose as one. The drums began to beat outside in the hallway for the royal procession to the presence chamber. Trumpets sounded. She motioned for Frances to walk behind her, a distinct honor usually reserved for Anne, Countess of Warwick, the queen’s great friend and chief lady.

  “Thank you, Majesty,” Frances murmured as they moved ahead, through the corridors of kneeling and curtsying courtiers.

  “I show you favor, Lady Frances, to properly introduce you to my court. There are those who would use this kindness for their own benefit. Have a care. Rogues would seek to gain from your innocence.”

  “I will have a great care, Majesty,” she whispered, the queen already moving slowly ahead.

  Along the way Elizabeth motioned for some in her favor to rise, but left others on their knees in the herbs and rushes strewn to sweeten a palace of two thousand bodies and too few common jakes.

  Gradually, the ladies of the bedchamber moved up into their rightful places until Frances was in the hindmost, with the pillow bearer and rear guards. Nevertheless, she kept her head up and her shoulders back, as if she were a countess.

  As she passed the last corridor before the entrance to the presence chamber, she saw Robert Pauley in the shadows near a lamp. He placed a hand on his heart and bowed to her. What knavery was this? Had he come to explain himself, to wish her well, or had he just happened by on some errand for her father and stopped to spy on her? She was suddenly angry, now sure of his mission, though she knew her anger was as wrong as was his absence this morn without her permission.

  Before Frances could puzzle out more of an answer as to why Pauley would be watching for her, she composed her face as the doors to the presence chamber were opened by two helmed guards with upright needle-sharp pikes. A trumpet fanfare blared and Frances, her excitement building, found herself inside the huge presence chamber lit by large windows overlooking palace orchards and the Thames beyond. Many branched candelabra, illuminating rows of glittering courtiers in their finest clothes and best jewels, lined the way. Pillars decorated with fresh flowers and twining columbine yet to flower soared up to the paint-and-gilt ceiling. As the queen’s entourage passed between courtiers, foreign ambassadors, and lesser gentlemen, all knelt to the queen, some looking up, hoping for recognition or a moment to advance a petition.

  Elizabeth, avoiding their pleas, strode straight to her canopied throne and sat down, her ladies adjusting her skirts so that they swirled about her shining silver-slippered feet.

  Frances took her place to the side of the gold throne at the very end of the line of ladies and saw her father and Lord Burghley, the queen’s treasurer, both with their inevitable sheaf of documents, ready to come forward if summoned to answer the queen’s questions. Today Elizabeth seemed to look elsewhere, not wanting to hear the usually bad news her councilors brought her.

  Frances had been in the presence chamber before, but never on the dais, where she could look out on so many glittering nobles.

  Catherine, Lady Stanley, stood next to her and whispered breathlessly from behind her fan, “You have an admirer.”

  Frances looked at her. “What?”

  “Shhh…there…the Earl of Essex by the center pillar in front of the queen.”

  Frances did not turn her head. “As you must know, I am married, my lady Catherine, and have no interest in young courtiers.”

  The lady smiled…more than smiled; she scoffed. “Don’t be such a ninnyhammer, Lady Frances. The earl is a coming man, the queen being much taken with his youth, form, and face, as we all are and you soon will be. Look on him; he is an Adonis.”

  Frances tried to move away, but there was no more room on the end of the dais, so she stared straight ahead with what she thought was disinterest.

  That did not stop Lady Stanley’s amused insistence. “You are in a court where fortunes are made on receiving admiration from the right people, especially a noble and most handsome earl.” She caught her breath. “One who has vowed to bed all the queen’s ladies and is some way on toward that end.” She stifled a giggle with her hand.

  “Not this lady, madam,” Frances whispered. She heard another slight giggle from behind the fan.

  Still, she had to look so that she would stay well away from this earl, who wanted to despoil a lady’s reputation to increase his own manhood. He was easy to identify as she scanned the crowd. There in the front, leaning against a vine-entwined pillar, one very long leg crossed in front of the other, stood a tall young man scarce beyond her own years, and exceptionally handsome. He was glorious in satin, with velvet ribbons at his elbows and knees, the very model of a young courtier who was aware that his every move was watched. And yet there was something of innocence in his swagger, something in his eyes that struck Frances as curious. Though it was well hidden, he was very watchful. For what? she wondered. He wore no giant codpiece like some of the young cockerels parading about the presence chamber, although his tight hosen left little doubt that his manly gifts were abundant indeed.

  He was descended from Mary Boleyn, Henry VIII’s mistress, and carried a suggestion of Tudor red in his autumn-brown hair haloed about his beardless face. He had Henry’s height and swagger, which made his appearance even more a memory of the old king. It was no wonder to Frances that this youth had intrigued the queen, as had his well-favored appearance and knowing style.

  “They say,” Lady Catherine continued, near breathless with information and rumor, “that he looks much like Robert Dudley in his youth.”

  Well-done, Frances thought; how better to attract an aging queen than with memories of her legendary father and Dudley, now Earl of Leicester, the man she had loved as a young queen new-come to the throne? No wonder the queen treated his rutting disobedience as she would a spoiled child’s. As Frances watched, he raised a finger and smoothed his ruff, which only brought all eyes to its many starched pleats, each one toiled over by some washerwoman in the bowels of the palace.

  She bit her lower lip to keep from smiling at the man’s knowledge of his own appeal. What arrogance! Yet she couldn’t help but notice that he was looking at her in a hot way Philip never had, and he seemed to have no care that others saw, even the queen. It was beyond arrogance, to a dangerous degree of self-confidence. For a moment, fear for the young fool grabbed at Frances’s throat. Would his youth and looks keep him safe forever? She continued to guard against any awareness on her face, though he was looking full at her and smiling, clearly inviting recognition.

  She stared past him, but she doubted he was fooled. His obvious self-regard would not allow it.

  Frances heard little of the shire petitions, or the ambassadors from foreign lands with gifts and appeals from their rulers for aid against the Spanish, or more favorable trading terms for their country’s wares…a reduction of port taxes was desired by all. The crowded chamber grew hot and the air heavy with perfume. She was relieved when the queen stood suddenly and waved her ladies into line, motioning for the young earl to escort her to the royal apartments.

  “My lord Essex, you have busy eyes this morn. We can put them to better use.”

  “To my joy, Majesty,” he replied, his face as innocent as a babe’s.

  Elizabeth looked somewhat appeased and was soon laughing at his murmured jests spoken near her ear.

  As they reached the royal apartments, Frances could not wait to be dismissed and was happy to hear the queen say that she would play on her virginals for the earl before her private audiences. Essex looked delighted.

  Frances curtsied and left the chamber, only to have the Earl of Essex call to her.

  “Lady Frances,” he said, coming up quickly behind her. “I am sorry not to have welcomed you to court sooner.”

  “Are you not call
ed to attend the queen, my lord?”

  “Ah, I am in great need of a serious woman to remind me of my duty, yet the queen often has a sudden change of mind, and has just had another on receipt of a letter from the Scots king, James. And, as I said—”

  Frances curtsied. As she rose he yet towered over her, even though she, like the queen, was above middle height for a woman. “It would have been difficult to welcome me sooner, my lord Essex, since I arrived only late yesterday, and you surely do not meet every incoming lady’s carriage, though you might wish it.” She meant for him to see that she was not a fool, and to know her lack of interest in a handsome courtier from the beginning.

  He laughed. “Her Majesty remarked that her new lady had wit. Now I see the queen’s finding was not idle, though she did not say the wit had a sharp, cutting edge.”

  Frances tried to keep any pleasure at his civil recognition from her face; nonetheless, she was pleased not to be thought another empty head. “That is lavish praise, my lord, for so small a humor, and I do assure you, it was my best.”

  “Ah, modesty, too, and I suspect a superior intelligence behind those intimidating gray eyes.”

  Although Essex’s blue eyes were wide and his face guileless, Frances could not rid herself of the thought that he was cleverly waiting to pounce, like a ravenous dog at a bear baiting. Yet Lady Stanley could have been a gossip with evil intent, and the young earl not as she described him. Besides, he was dangerously good to look at, and Frances was not unmindful of male beauty.

  Courtiers with curious eyes were brushing past them. Essex held out his arm to her, and she was forced to take it or seem lacking decent manners, or worse, frightened, which would be catnip to such a man. He led her to a windowed alcove overlooking a walled garden and bowed her into a seat.

  “Her Majesty tells me that you are interested in your father’s work. Does Mr. Secretary know what a rare daughter he has? Tell me more, my lady. I am beyond fascinated.”