by Jeane Westin
“Meg,” she called as she latched the door and turned the lock.
A sleepy Meg came into Frances’s bedchamber from her pallet in her small sleeping closet. Will followed closely.
So that was the way of it. It had not taken the minx long. “Dress yourself in livery, Will. I will have need of you soon.”
He nodded and disappeared toward the closet.
“Watch that your belly doesn’t betray you,” Frances warned Meg, who yet rubbed sleep from her eyes, her lips still swollen from Will’s kisses.
Meg hung her head for a moment, then lifted it and looked into her mistress’s face.
“We wish to marry, my lady.”
“I know you are of age, but does he have the lawful fourteen years?”
“Just, my lady, no more than three years my younger. I can teach him much.”
“I have no doubt you have already played the teacher. We will talk more of it later. Now I must haste to wash myself and dress for the presence chamber.”
Soon Frances was swathed in her usual kirtle, partlet, shifts, embroidered oversleeves, and a gown of shimmering white sarcenet that set her face and dark, sleepless eyes aglow.
Meg stood back from the polished-steel mirror. “Her Majesty will be jealous.”
“Aye,” Frances said, “and I would not have it. Bring my slippers without wooden heels so that I am not taller, and I will wear no pearls, and thus to the queen’s eye be not too richly dressed.”
Meg ducked her head, but not before Frances caught her knowing smile. The maid was too impudent for her station. She would either be damned for it or raised to a better one. Frances thought the latter more likely. She called toward the closet chamber, “Will, attend me!” and headed for the door, expecting him to reach it before her, and so he did. Perhaps he had already been well tutored in more than bed sport.
Joining the queen’s procession into the presence chamber, Frances nodded to Essex, who tried to communicate with his darting eyes, but she, smiling with a somewhat forced friendliness, moved on toward the dais.
The dreary business of ruling took less time this day, Elizabeth being eager to reach her garden’s fresh air, scented with spicy roses and small Spanish espaliered oranges to pick from her enclosed sun-warmed garden wall.
Frances congratulated herself for not wearing her pearls. Elizabeth appeared to wear every jewel in the royal jewel closet: triple strands of pearls swagged across her chest, table diamonds as large as thumbs lining her oversleeves, emeralds without number, and a large teardrop ruby pendant on her forehead.
When the procession to the royal apartments began, Frances moved to the queen. “Majesty, an urgent word for your ear alone.”
“Well…what is it this time, Lady Frances?”
“Your grace, there is a plot to kill you—”
“There is always a plot—”
Frances interrupted. “…in the garden as you walk this morn.”
“Traitors! They dare think to come against me in my own court! I do not fear them. I am King Henry’s spawn and have his valor.” She stomped to her hearth chair. Grabbing up her father’s sword with both hands, she slashed at an imaginary foe. Looking satisfied, she held the weapon up in front of her. “This sword my father carried in France on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, with my mother at his side. Let them try to threaten me and they will rue it for the rest of their short lives.”
Elizabeth straightened her back and drew herself to her full height. “Let us walk, Lady Frances. I have a desire for the fresh air of my garden. No traitor can keep the queen of this realm hiding in her bed!”
It was a sparkling morning, though the summer would soon come to an end, the rain of last night hanging like bright tears on the roses. It was not a morning for murder, and Frances vowed there would be none. She moved closer down the circling gravel path toward the queen, who was trailed by all her ladies. Her Majesty was on Essex’s arm, of course. He was cloaked and wearing silk hosen, a russet shirt open at the throat to show his broad chest, and a silver embroidered doublet as befitted his rank, but with no sign of a sword or any weapon.
“Come, Lady Sidney,” the queen said, “walk with your queen and my lord Essex the while.”
“Gladly, Majesty.” Frances moved up swiftly, her slippers not protecting her feet from the gravel.
Essex bowed. “Majesty, if it please you, let us stop here to admire your roses. I know you love the ones with the spicy scent.”
“I do, my lord. Do you not like them as well, Lady Sidney?” Though she spoke normally, the queen’s eyes darted everywhere.
Frances was looking about her and forward to the fountain at the end of the walled garden and back to where the garden opened into a long yew-covered walk, darker than it should be. She knew her father would have guards well hidden, dressed in forest green up in the trees and within the maze. Then she saw their shadows as two guards stepped out onto the top of the wall holding crossbows cocked, quarrels in place, while still hidden under overhanging branches. The queen saw them, too.
“My lady,” the queen said in a voice that could reach to multitudes when she so desired, “you are not attentive!”
“Yes, Majesty,” Frances said, curtsying quickly. “I, too, love the spice-scented roses, and have some in our garden at Barn Elms.”
“Indeed,” the queen said, her gaze darting everywhere.
Frances was more admiring of her than ever. Elizabeth had the instincts of her father, the great Harry. This was a joust to her, and she expected to win the prize.
“Yes, your grace,” Frances said, “my father planted them for your enjoyment when you came upriver to honor us.”
“Mmm,” the queen said, a smile playing upon her mouth. “Let us move on to my oranges. I would break my fast with one while it is yet warm and juicy.”
They moved toward the sun-soaked brick wall at the rear of the garden.
A small, seldom-used gardener’s door was suddenly thrust open, and John Ballard stepped through, his face dark with purpose, a pistola in his hand swinging toward the queen.
Elizabeth halted to pull her sword from the scabbard hidden behind her gown. Without sound or thought, Frances stepped in front of the queen, only to be pushed away by Essex.
“Ballard,” Frances said, “stop or you will get no more ale from me!”
She saw Ballard’s eyes open wider in recognition of the maid of Seething Lane. Two shouts followed, both so close together that they were the same sound, spoken in the same breath.
“Majesty!” Essex yelled, lurching toward Ballard.
“My boy!” the queen cried.
In two loping strides the earl’s long legs carried him toward Ballard, his knightly sword immediately drawing blood.
At that moment two quarrels struck Ballard; one hit his leg, bringing him to one knee, and the other removed an ear. The priest held to his pistola and tried to jerk it back into a line with Elizabeth, a longing for death on his martyr’s face. “Dabit dues his quoque finem!” he groaned, as Essex planted a heavy boot on his chest.
Elizabeth was in a towering rage. “Traitor, God will bring an end to this. How dare you attack your queen…and quoting Virgil! To me…Elizabeth Tudor, who knew my Virgil by heart before you were born!”
Uncertain, Ballard seemed to slump into the earth at these words. This was an angry scholar before him rather than the hated Protestant queen. This moment of uncertainty was followed by another quarrel, this one shattering the arm that held the weapon.
Essex raised his sword to finish the assassin.
“Hold!” the queen said. She walked to Ballard and looked down. “My lord earl,” she said, and the words that followed were bitten from great outrage, “have my guards take this traitorous priest to the Tower to wait for death, which will not be swift, I promise.” At that she turned her back, took Frances’s arm, and stalked from the garden, ending her spoiled morning walk.
Essex quickly caught up with them, sheathing his weapon, gravel fly
ing from his boots. He offered his arm, and the queen grasped it lightly, as if she were strolling on an uneventful late-summer morn. “How will I reward you, my lord Essex?”
“Your life is my reward, Majesty.”
A smile hid from her mouth, but lit her eyes. “Oh, I think not, Essex. Surely you will grant me the pleasure of a lesser reward…an estate, perhaps?”
Essex bowed and wiped blood from his sword carelessly on his cloak. “As you wish, your grace.”
Walsingham came quickly from the yew path, with palace guards crowding in behind him.
The queen’s blue eyes grew darker. “Ah, my Moor, who spoiled my own attack!”
His dark eyes held hers; then Walsingham waved to where the trees, preparing for fall color, overhung the wall. “You were never in danger, your grace. My men surrounded you, though we could not loose our quarrels earlier, lest they hit the Earl of Essex, who seemed always to stand in the way…though we would have if our queen was in more danger.”
Essex did not seem happy to hear this information.
Elizabeth nodded to Walsingham. “Except for your marksmen, I would be in heaven, though even there you would no doubt still make outrageous calls on my purse.”
Walsingham bowed as the queen stalked down the gravel path toward her private entrance into Whitehall. Frances caught her father’s eye and winked. His mouth lifted on one side, as near a smile as he knew to make.
As soon as the queen was resting in the royal apartment, noticeably more shaken than she would ever admit, Essex offered his arm to Frances. “Allow me to accompany you to your chambers, my lady.”
She could not refuse after his gallant conduct and her father’s trust in his loyalty.
As they walked the long corridors, he made no attempt at the insinuating speech he had formerly used. He is changed, she thought, grown in caution and perhaps regretful of his past conduct. Yet how could the man change so completely?
At her door, he released her arm and bowed. “Rest now, my lady. You have been through an experience that would shake most men. You were admirably brave, but now you must to bed, lest a woman’s weaker humors cause you serious illness. I know this would be the counsel of my friend, your husband, if he could be here, as I am.” His face was almost gentle through his pride and male beauty, his curling auburn hair scarce disordered by his extravagant courage.
“No doubt it would be Philip’s wish,” she answered, meeting his gaze. “I thank you for your care.
“You have a cipher for me?” she asked, ever hopeful.
“Nay,” he said, grinning. “Since we have the traitors’ cipher, we just write it out in minutes and send it on. This one from the Scots queen at Chartley will not be delivered. Ballard and Babington and the rest will be taken and will suffer their sentence in a few days at Tyburn…as soon as Topcliffe has finished.”
Frances shivered at that. “What of the Scots queen?”
“She will be exceeding desperate,” he said, adjusting the light to better shine on the message. He tapped the vellum. “She may attempt to escape to France, or others could try, by some ruse, to gain access to Mary, perhaps by the plan Mary puts forward here in her last letter to Babington,” he said.
Phelippes looked up at Frances, his face shining with the sweat of concentration, though the stone-lined room was always cool. “Mary must die, or these plots will go on and on until one succeeds.” He pulled out another cipher. “Here the papist queen writes to the Spanish king asking him for troops to come against England, promising him that the north will rise in her support.”
“Double treason,” Frances said, breathing deeply, remembering the gentle-spoken queen with her little dog.
“My lady,” said Phelippes, “Mary has here written in great detail a plan for her rescue, including firing the stables to draw off her guards, after which Babington’s men could rescue the queen before they meet the army of the north and the Spanish troops.”
Her father hurried into the long room where all his secretaries were standing and stopped at Phelippes’s writing table. “Does she now call for our queen’s death?”
“Not in those words, sir, but very near to it.”
“Let me see.” Walsingham reached for the cipher, reading swiftly.
His face hardened. “My dear Thomas. This may not make her treason plain to Elizabeth’s eye! I had hoped for more.”
Phelippes bowed his head and her father walked away. “There is room at the bottom for another line or two, and in other places for added phrases.”
“But, Master Phelippes…” Frances got no further.
“I can write her hand as well as if born to it. If we are not rid of this women at last, our own dear queen, England, and the true Protestant faith are dead.” He dipped his quill into an ink pot and bent to his careful task. Frances had no doubt that he would produce sentences so like Mary’s that even she would be hard-put to deny them. Frances walked slowly toward the door, knowing that her life as an intelligencer would soon end. What of Robert Pauley? The gates of London were already crowded with royal guards to prevent Babington and his fellow conspirators from escaping. They would all be in the Tower before nightfall. Mr. Secretary was already making long lists of recusants, assigning them to various prisons.
Mary’s decades-long imprisonment was almost finished, but with a different release from the one she’d hoped for.
And Robert would return to Whitehall, his work almost done. She would see him soon. Perhaps even tonight.
As Robert hoped, Frances had left her door off the latch and waited for him on the settle by her hearth. A low fire burned off the night’s chill, yet he could not cease his shivering.
“Have you heard about Philip?” she asked.
“Yes. I am sorry for him…and for you.” It was not the whole truth, but he tried to mean his words.
She stood and took his cold hands in hers, looking into his face. “I see more in your eyes. What disturbs you in truth?”
“I accompanied your father to Tyburn to witness…” He swallowed hard, unable to continue.
“The death of Babington? Ballard?”
His mouth tightened as he nodded. “God’s Son! It was…”
“You don’t have to tell me. I can imagine.”
“No! No, Frances, you cannot. It is beyond imagination except for a Bedlamite.”
She clasped his hand and held it to her breast. He could feel her heart beating. Life. Enough life to bring him back to the balance that he had almost lost this day.
“Robert, you must forget. What you saw was the punishment decreed for traitors and regicides. They knew and plotted nonetheless.”
“Aye,” he said. “I would not excuse them, but…” He paused, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Even the crowd, who called for their blood as they were cut down and quartered…was sickened at the slow butchery that followed. Some ran retching from the bloody scene.” He shivered fiercely, unable to find warmth in the fire, gulping lest his stomach betray him. “The queen got such reports of troubled crowds and ranting preachers at St. Paul’s churchyard that she ordered the rest of the traitors hanged tomorrow until quite dead.”
He felt Frances leave his side, stand, and reclaim his hands. She led him to her bed. There she removed his doublet, untied his shirt and trunk hose, and gently pushed him down. She drew the bed curtains and lay close to him. She warmed him.
Robert did not speak for a time, seeking to quiet himself. As the cold left his body, he clasped her closer. “Are you always this kind to your servants?”
“Only to those who perform great service.”
“Ahh…and am I one such, mistress?”
“I don’t know yet…how you will perform, Master Robert.”
“Don’t you?”
His blood rose quickly, and he thought he would give a good account this night. He would remember her. Nothing else.
Before dawn, he slipped from the warmth of her body. “My love,” he whispered, and quietly left.
Early October
“My lady, it is my sad duty to report to you that Sir Philip was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Zutphen a fortnight ago.”
“Wounded?” For a moment Frances could not grasp the word’s meaning, though Philip’s tall, slender form and pale face were instantly clear to her for the first time in months. “How woun…ded?” she asked, a tremor breaking the word in two.
Essex tightened his mouth. “He took a ball in the thigh, Lady Frances.”
“Is he calling for me?”
Essex paused, looked away, and did not answer.
Still, Frances knew her duty. Without hesitation, she said, “I must go to him.”
“Nay, my lady, Sir Philip forbade it, saying it was but a scratch and would be healed before you could take ship. It is an arduous journey to a country divided by war. Capturing Mr. Secretary’s daughter would be a Spanish prize, and they would use you to bargain for terms. I beg you take Philip’s word that you are better here, as he is better there.”
She knew not what to make of his words except to take them as they were. Philip did not want her to come for nursing. Perhaps he had called for Stella. She tried to dismiss the thought as unworthy and curtsied to Essex. “Thank you for your kindness, my lord.”
“My lady, I must return to Holland for a short while with private dispatches for my stepfather, the Earl of Leicester, from Her Majesty. If the channel winds are favorable, I will return before the winter storms begin, with news of Sir Philip and to be of any service you desire.” He opened her door wide to clear a way for her gown. He bowed and clasped her hand, kissed it, his lips barely touching her skin, then walked away without a look back. She watched him go, wondering how a youth could change so completely, though she did not doubt that he had. Such sincerity was not easily faked even by so skillful an actor.
When he was out of sight, she descended quickly to her father’s office. He had not returned, but Phelippes motioned her to his writing table. If she could be of no use to Philip, perhaps she could still be useful in some way here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“O fools, or over-wise, alas! The race
