by Jeane Westin
She could not help thinking, He saw your worth, but none of mine.
Robert withdrew his hand, stood, and bowed. “I am ever in his debt. You may ask of me…anything.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare,
Fond Fancy’s scum, and dregs of scatter’d thought…”
—Astrophel and Stella, Sir Philip Sidney
October
HAMPTON COURT
Frances hoped she could speak with Dr. Dee in the presence chamber today, and perhaps—oh, perhaps—he might appeal to her father to find some small place for her in his work. She dared not hope to be entrusted with a task of the highest importance, but something…something…to prove herself an intelligencer. Despite her tumbling thoughts, she mounted the dais, arranged her gown, and showed the pleasing face of a lady of the presence chamber. She searched for Dee, but did not see him. Perhaps he was on a mission for the queen. He was Her Majesty’s own private informant.
She stared about her, dazzled once again by this large stateroom in Hampton Court. Was it not the most magnificent of the queen’s palaces, sparkling with gilt and marble, bright with candlelight, the nobles and their ladies shining with jewels?
Whitehall had at last become unbearably noxious, and Queen Elizabeth, never able to bear foul odors, had spent her last days in the palace with her nose buried in a pomander. Then the court was plucked up and moved in more than four hundred carts, barges, and lighters to Hampton Court, ten miles upriver from London. Whitehall would be sweetened with fresh rushes mixed with herbs, the kitchens and jakes emptied and scrubbed and all made bearable for Christmas and Twelfth Night celebrations on their return.
A westerly storm rattled the long, elegant mullioned windows and howled around the corners of Cardinal Wolsey’s great redbrick palace, which he had wisely and unhesitatingly given to King Henry when the king wondered aloud how a subject could be better housed than his king.
In this weather there could be no riding out or walking in the queen’s walled garden, the charming private place that her father had made for her mother. Elizabeth loved all gardens, but this one was special, though she never mentioned its origins…or her mother’s name aloud.
Queen Anne had been gone for fifty years, her head and body buried under the stones of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower precincts. King Henry had so successfully blackened her name, the common people still called her the Great Whore…though not where a bellman, catchpole, or other queen’s officer could overhear, lest such outspoken opinion cost them their tongues.
Frances was shaken from her thinking by some hard-bitten words from Lady Stanley, standing in line next to her in the great state chamber. The lady had ignored Frances since the hunt.
“I near lost my post here because of you.”
“How am I the cause?” Frances whispered in return, as a warning to the lady to lower her voice.
“You seek to charm the queen with your learning.” The words, though soft in volume, were filled with malice.
“I seek nothing but to do my duty.”
“None of your haughty language, Mistress Poet. Everyone knows your husband does not love you, but loves the lady Rich. You are cuckolded before the court, indeed before all of London. My lord Essex feels sorry for you…. Expect nothing more than pity from him.”
It was plain that Lady Stanley tasted the words as if they were glazed in sugar by the confection kitchens. With a great effort, Frances kept her face calm, not looking at the woman whose deep bramble scratches were not quite healed, nor fully hidden by the white Mask of Youth.
Frustration in her manner, Lady Stanley deliberately bumped Frances as they stepped off the dais to wait for the queen’s departure.
As Frances stumbled, Essex was there to grasp her arm.
Lady Stanley controlled her face. “What a gallant knight of old you are, my lord,” she said. “We are so fortunate to have you to rescue us…first me and now this…gentle lady.”
The earl turned his back on Lady Stanley, whose face flushed red under the mask and therefore showed bright pink.
He had a firm grip on Frances’s shoulders with everyone in the presence watching. She shrugged against his hands. “I am quite steady now, my lord. Thank you.”
Frances moved on, knowing she had made an enemy and now understanding why. Lady Stanley was one of Essex’s conquests, and apparently unwilling to give him up, though Essex seemed eager to let her go. She felt some sorrow for Lady Stanley, knowing too well how deep the rejection of a woman’s love could hurt.
On this All Hallows’ Eve, Her Majesty did not sweep past the line of her ladies of the presence chamber on her way from her audiences, but stopped in front of Lady Sidney to raise her from a deep curtsy. Frances saw that this special attention from the queen was enough to attract many quick and wondering glances from the courtiers.
“Majesty?” Frances said.
“I see my lord Essex has a care for your safety, my lady, rescuing you from my tusker,” she said, as if the boar hunt had taken place but hours before instead of two weeks earlier. The queen’s steady dark blue, black-flecked eyes gave Frances no hint of her mood. “And now again, he has kept you from a hurt. He is very much a wandering troubadour of old, saving fair ladies from dragons and ogres…or in this case…wild boars.”
At the queen’s side, Leicester whispered in her ear, “Bess, my stepson is very young yet.”
Frances did not wait for an argument to commence between the two, as it often did. “Your grace,” she said, curtsying again, “I think your astounding crossbow shot was my Galahad. I thank you most humbly. Your great skill spared my life.” Knowing the queen disliked any female rivals for a favorite’s attention, Frances quickly added, “Sir Philip writes to me that he has asked my lord Essex to take special care of me at court.”
“My nephew is a loving husband,” the earl agreed, nodding.
“A most loving husband, your Sir Philip,” the queen said, expressionless, leaving her meaning for a court guessing game.
“Majesty.” Frances dipped another curtsy. She was unsure of the queen’s intention. If Her Majesty was not plain and loud, her mood could be anything.
“I have talked with Dr. Dee about your interest in mathematics and Trithemius,” the queen said. “Go to his quarters tomorrow at any time before the supper hour.” She walked on with her train of ladies and courtiers, leaving Frances to hastily dip a knee.
Had Frances’s mouth not been pursed in puzzlement at the queen’s sly talk of Philip, it would have dropped open at Her Majesty’s mention of Dr. Dee. Helping one of her ladies toward her ambition was rare in the queen. And she was not known for being a friend to women in the court.
Frances knew her father often brought Her Majesty most unpleasant news from his intelligencers and she was often vindictive. Could using his daughter to defy him be the queen’s way of evening the score with Walsingham?
Whatever the truth, Frances bowed her head to hide a victorious smile: The queen’s wishes must be obeyed.
Robert Pauley was waiting, as she had come to expect, just inside the hall outside the chamber. She looked forward to his being there each day, and felt a kind of anxiety if he were not, though she would never admit to such.
This morning he fell in behind her as they bowed and curtsied their way toward her rooms. She could hear his boots on the tiled floors…one firm step and one slower one. She wondered, not for the first time, what it cost him in strength and effort to walk with no more than a trace of stiffness. He limped only when he was very tired. Perhaps his natural dignity was why she heard no one except Essex mock him, though the Walsingham badge upon his sleeve was also protection against rude jests from the many young idlers at the court.
Frances spent hours after her noon meal writing a letter to Philip to be enclosed in the next diplomatic pouch going to Holland. She struggled to make it dutiful and interesting, mentioning the queen’s attention, though not what ha
d prompted it. If Frances knew anything of Philip, it was that he would not approve of her talking with Dr. Dee about ciphering.
Sweet Jesu, would this long day never end to allow the next one to begin, when she could go to Dee?
Frances was wrenched awake that night by her own terrified scream. Bolting upright in her bed, she clutched the bolster to her breasts. She tried to calm her ragged breathing before Jennet came rushing to her. She succeeded only in pressing her hands against her stomach to stop its roiling, though her stomach was not the part of her body that had been shaken by the vivid vision. Her night shift felt damp.
In the dream Essex had caught her in a dark corridor. Bright candlelight shone at both ends. There were people, music, even the queen dancing in the distance. But the earl did not care who saw him. “I cannot be denied now. I will have you. You know you want me,” he said, and his white teeth were long and pointed, like tusks.
She tried to push him away, but she had no strength. Her dreaming arms seemed without bone or sinew. Was he right? Did she want him?
Then she felt him enter her, thrusting, grunting, and abruptly it was Philip above her, his eyes glazed and unseeing, as uncaring as ever he had been. The thrusts lasted forever until she screamed for him to stop, even if the queen should hear and see. But the queen had disappeared. The music had ceased. The dancers were gone. Full black descended about her, though she was aware of being carried to safety by Robert Pauley, her head tucked into his shoulder.
“My lady! Sssh, I am here.”
Robert had her shoulders in a firm grip. She realized she was fighting him from fear and gulping in sobs of breath. He held tight to her. Gradually she stopped shaking, though she clutched at him. His arms folded about her and drew her into his chest, and she felt a very small tremor race through him. She knew then that she should draw away from Robert, but she could not leave such comfort.
“It was only a dream, Frances,” he murmured so close to her ear his breath warmed her.
“It was so…” she said, unable to tell him more, having no words to explain what the dream meant even to herself.
“I know,” he said gently. “It was vivid. Such night dreams are. But it did not happen. Whatever frightened you was not real. This is real. You are in your own bed. You are safe. It is near morn.” His arms tightened about her with each clipped sentence.
You are here and safe in my arms. She knew Robert had not said such words, but she heard them nonetheless. Had he wanted to say them? Had she wanted to hear them?
Other, fiercer thoughts tumbled about her head. She did not want such desire…not from Essex…Philip…nor any man. She had learned to live without a man’s desire…even without her own desire. When such feelings came she pushed them away, knowing them to be as false as her marriage.
“I have my pallet in the antechamber,” Robert explained softly, his arms loosening, setting her free, adrift. “There is nothing to ever cause you such fright.”
Finally, she realized that she was losing his embrace, and more, that she was less comforted and safe without it. She did not want to leave such shelter, but she forced herself to withdraw, looking away, intensely aware that she wore only a thin night rail beneath his touch.
“Thank you. You may leave me now,” she said, trying for her normal distance when she did not want any distance. The thought frightened her and provoked a determination to cease her cowering and be the mistress again, to keep her voice low and steady. “Pauley, call my maid without disturbing Jennet.”
He nodded, stood and bowed, and withdrew.
She had never felt so alone.
When her maid came, Frances asked for her sponging bowl and sent her sleeping gown to her washerwoman before she remembered that Robert had called her by her Christian name. Then she couldn’t forget the sound of it next to her ear, or what she had seen in his eyes…even the dim light could not hide…what? Only concern for a mistress. She could not go further with what his gaze could have meant, and with a will she cut off such thoughts, determined never to think them again.
“Mr. Secretary is to be with the queen this afternoon,” Robert announced later when Frances once again emerged from her duties in the presence chamber. “Your hot dinner is waiting for you in your rooms, my lady.”
She laughed. Hot food was a jest in Tudor palaces. “There is always more food than I can eat. You must join me.” She was determined to act as if the comfort he had offered a mistress in distress was nothing out of the ordinary. Anything more would be unseemly and not to be considered.
She laughed again. “There will yet be enough left for humble pie to give the poor at the palace gate.” When he did not reply, she added, “I do not ask you in duty, but for more amusing company than my own this day.”
“As you wish, my lady.”
There, she had assured him that she did not seek his company for any reason but her own entertainment. On second thought, she explained further. “My aunt eats in the great dining hall with the other gentlewomen, and I do not like to eat alone.” Why did she need so many excuses? She could command him all day and he must obey. Yet could she command herself?
Robert did not reply for several minutes, until they turned into the corridor near her apartment. “Thank you, my lady,” he said as if he had just retrieved his voice. “I will try to amuse you.”
Frances breathed deeply. She had meant to set a distance between them, but now that his reserve matched her own, she was regretful. Why did she so insistently send a flawed message to Robert Pauley? And why did he consistently misunderstand her? Even if her words had been meant in a friendly guise, he was unused to friendliness from his betters. He would be naturally suspicious. Bastards were never equals, or well treated, regardless of their merit. He had armored himself against disillusion just as she had shielded her heart against Philip’s blinding love for Stella.
Did Robert suffer as she did? He was a man and would never speak of a sore heart. How strange that servant and mistress might have so much in common.
A kitchen under-cook was waiting with her supper. He bowed and left, the food now cold, but then it always was, because the huge kitchens were so prone to fires that they were banished to many levels below the royal chambers in all royal palaces and great manors.
“May I warm your dinner, my lady?”
“How?”
Robert pulled leather gloves from the pocket about his waist, donned them, and held the bowls over the candelabra. “Not hot, my lady,” he said, “but not cold.”
He made so many things easier for her. Of course, that was what a servant was for…so why did Robert seem so special? “Are you hungry?” Frances asked, snatching at some idle talk.
“Aye, my lady, though I would eat even if I were not. I learned to eat when I could or go hungry ofttimes.”
“Then it is well you eat what you want of this meal. I have small appetite.”
He held her chair for her, then lifted the first cover from its pewter plate, exposing a small bread coffin, the aroma making a lie of her professed small appetite.
“Soused pig, my lady, stuffed with a moor cock and with some boiled, spiced meats on the side.” He lifted another cover, this time of pewter, and drew in a deep breath. “Baked capon pie,” he announced.
She wrinkled her nose. “No fish? I do love fish instead of so much game.”
“I will speak to the fish kitchen’s master cook when next I go to the tiring room for Mr. Secretary’s double ale. What would you like of this meal?”
“Capon, Robert, and thank you.” She picked at the capon crust to open it for its spicy sauce and took a little more than usual. The crust was white manchet, and excellent. She relaxed, feeling quite comfortable now that Robert had not mentioned the morning…or what he had thought since. Nevertheless, that did not stop her from wondering.
“Thank you for coming to my aid this morning,” she said, compelled for some reason to speak of it herself, but not looking directly at him, not wanting to read his fa
ce.
“You are most welcome, my lady,” he answered, busy with his dinner. “My apologies for not being entertaining, Lady Frances. Would you like me to play for you?”
“No, you should eat your dinner while it is warm. I would not be so thoughtless a mistress.”
He smiled. “You may ask anything of me, my lady,” he said, and went to his pallet for his guitar. Returning, he said: “This is a happy country tune.”
Heigh-ho, nobody home
Meat, nor drink, nor money have I none.
Still I will be merry…
Robert nodded to her, and Frances joined in the refrain:
Still I will be merry…
They both sang the next verse.
She laughed, thinking that she was merry, and grateful to him for lifting her mood. “Now I do insist you eat your dinner.”
He took a little of each dish and placed it on his bread, wiping his knife before he cut with it. He chewed with his mouth closed and did not talk, nor take a bite before he had swallowed the last. His manners were impeccable and must have been learned at his noble father’s table. She tried to imagine him as young and cared for in a fine manor. What hurt he had suffered to be turned out.
“You are quiet, Robert,” she said, hating his silence after the music.
“Beg pardon, my lady. I do not wish to burden you with my talk.” He took a drink of ale, wiped the rim politely, and set the glass in front of her again.
“Why would it burden me? Do you think my day so filled with interest, or riotous speech?” She realized her voice was too loud. “Now I beg your pardon, Robert.”
“I understand perfectly, Lady Frances,” he said, inclining his head toward a letter addressed to her husband but not sealed. “You must be concerned for Sir Philip’s safety, now that the Earl of Leicester will soon leave for the Low Countries to take command. You called your husband’s name in your sleep.”
Was he watching her face for a response? “Yes, of course I am,” Frances said, perhaps too quickly, glancing at his plate, from which he had eaten a little more than half. “But I am keeping you from your dinner.”
