The Queen's Secret

by Victoria Lamb

  ‘Your Majesty,’ someone said soothingly. She spun round to find Francis Walsingham bowing his head, neat in his customary black suit. ‘You are not well and must sit down. Pray take my arm, allow me to guide you to a seat.’ He turned his head and spoke softly to one of her young ladies-in-waiting. ‘Some wine for Her Majesty, and be quick about it.’

  ‘He is with her,’ Elizabeth muttered savagely.

  But Walsingham’s look silenced her, and she sat down heavily at the table.

  In truth, her legs were trembling so hard she could barely stand. Robert had been gone for hours and she knew, she knew, where he was. She knew she ought to control herself, that it was not the first nor the last time he would absent himself from her side without leave. Yet the restless fury inside her refused to abate.

  Suddenly, she saw the Moorish girl staring at her wide-eyed from a corner and remembered that she had come to sing. Robert’s absence had put all thought of entertainment out of her head.

  ‘Come hither, child,’ she demanded shrilly. Her eyes narrowed on the girl’s innocent face. ‘Are you still a virgin?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Lucy stammered in response, clearly terrified.

  ‘See you stay one, then, and never marry,’ she hissed, glancing contemptuously at the other unmarried women in the room. Not a virgin among them if rumour was to be believed. ‘For no man is to be trusted in affairs of the heart, not even the most loyal, the most loving—’

  Elizabeth broke off hoarsely and sank her head into her hands, only stirring when Walsingham touched her arm. He had pushed a glass of wine across the table, but she waved it away with a grimace.

  ‘You need to drink something,’ Walsingham told her frankly. He waited until she had taken several sips before continuing, his voice discreetly low. ‘Leicester is on his way. I have seen to it that he knows of your concern over his whereabouts. When he arrives, Your Majesty, for the sake of your reputation with the foreign ambassadors, you could perhaps attempt not to scream and throw things at him. At least, not until you can be private with the gentleman.’

  ‘Am I such a fishwife?’

  He hesitated. ‘You are a woman, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And your queen,’ she reminded him sharply, throwing him back the same stern look that had silenced her earlier.

  Nevertheless, she straightened her spine and glanced about the chamber, daring anyone to meet her gaze. Her ladies-in-waiting had scattered to the four corners of the room, some sewing feverishly with their heads lowered, others pretending to play at dice while covertly listening to the Queen’s conversation. Even Lucy had found a large, silver-tasselled cushion to lie on, and was staring up out of the closed window as though wishing herself far away from the stifling confines of the state apartments. Only Mary Sidney dared to watch without pretence, and she lowered her head to her book when she caught Elizabeth’s glance.

  ‘They mock me with these public absences,’ Elizabeth volunteered, turning back to her adviser, ‘flaunting their illicit affair before me.’

  ‘What do you intend, Your Majesty?’

  Elizabeth looked at him directly, biting her lip. She was still hopeful that something could be done to separate them, and swiftly. She could not pretend otherwise, even though she knew others to be listening. At that moment she would have listened to anyone who could promise her that Lettice would be gone and Robert’s affections restored.

  ‘What can I do?’

  Walsingham spread his hands sympathetically. ‘Nothing that will not earn you the disapproval of the people, Your Majesty,’ he murmured, careful not to be overheard by the others. He saw her look of dislike and shrugged. ‘You would be within your rights to send my lady Essex to the Tower for adultery. But there is not a man, woman or child in this kingdom who would not see a darker purpose behind that.’

  ‘What if I were to recall Essex from Ireland?’

  ‘You mean to tell him?’

  ‘Nothing so unsubtle.’ Elizabeth took another cautious sip of wine. She did not want to lose control again. Her ears were still ringing slightly and she felt faint. ‘Bring the earl home to England, and it must come to his ears sooner or later that his wife has been sleeping with another man. They have not been discreet.’

  ‘Then let us pray they have been careful, at least.’

  She stared, feeling her face go red, her hand suddenly trembling. She pushed the wine aside.

  ‘A child?’

  ‘Popular rumour has it she has already been brought to bed of one, though it was stillborn and the body disposed of before even a priest could be called.’ He frowned. ‘But you must have heard this nonsensical tale before, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Something,’ she agreed, breathless, struggling to keep her voice to a whisper. ‘This is not a new thing, then? They have been lovers a long while?’

  ‘Robert renewed his attentions early last year, or so I was told. While her husband was away and she was summoned to court without him.’

  ‘You think me cruel, separating two lovers?’

  ‘By no means,’ Walsingham asserted. ‘It is only judicious that we keep this affair from blowing up in our faces. A rift between noblemen at the heart of the English court could have dire consequences, as we have discovered in the past. Such a division must be avoided at all costs.’

  Elizabeth sighed, forcing herself to think like a prince and a statesman instead of a deceived woman. ‘I know you are right. But I still hate them.’

  The chamber door was thrown open with a crash. Robert, his face dark with fury, stood in the doorway with one fist on the hilt of his sword, clenching and unclenching his fingers as though he longed to pull it from its scabbard and use it against her. His furious gaze sought hers across the room. Elizabeth met it unflinchingly, and for one brief moment it was as though no one else was there, just her and Robert, his rage beating between them like a black tide.

  Several of the ladies giggled, then bent hurriedly to their work. Elizabeth rose from the table, her hands clasped tight in front of her skirts, her voice as icy and controlled as she could manage.

  ‘What is the meaning of this theatrical entrance, my lord?’

  ‘You summoned me, Your Majesty,’ he responded, quite unsmiling, and gave her a deep, exaggerated bow. ‘And I am here.’

  ‘So I see.’ Her voice rang throughout the chamber and beyond, delivering a deliberate and very public snub. ‘We missed you this afternoon and evening. Your duties as host at Kenilworth do not extend, it would appear, to keeping your queen company.’

  Robert straightened, and for a moment she saw genuine hurt and anger in his eyes. But he swallowed it, removing his hand from the hilt of his sword.

  ‘I most humbly beg your pardon, Your Majesty, if you have been left at a loose end during my absence. I was engaged with preparing your entertainment for this evening.’ He bowed. ‘If you would do me the honour of descending to the inner court, I shall be pleased to accompany you and your ladies to the water’s edge where a cushioned barge awaits your pleasure.’

  ‘Walsingham will accompany me,’ she declared coldly, glancing at her women. ‘Come, ladies, put aside your work. His lordship has prepared an entertainment for us this evening.’ She noticed the young Moorish girl hiding at the back and crooked her finger, summoning the child as well. ‘Lucy Morgan, you will walk behind me and carry my train.’

  She brushed past Robert in her dark red silk, her embroidered bodice seeded with tiny pearls, knowing how well her pale skin showed against such a gown. She had almost made her mind up to forgive him if he could show true penitence. But then, in passing, she caught a hint of female scent on his clothes, and her back stiffened.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Walsingham murmured, ‘you should wait for your bodyguards.’

  She remembered last night’s scare and frowned. ‘No one would dare come at me here, my Ears,’ she replied, lingering on Walsingham’s pet name so that Robert might dance in an even greater fever of uncertainty, ‘not in Leicester’s own s
tronghold.’

  ‘But last night—’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ She signalled Lucy to pick up the bulky train of her gown, and began to negotiate the stairs. ‘The whole episode was nothing more than Lord Robert’s over-wild imagination.’

  Robert made an angry noise under his breath but said nothing in his defence. He walked a few steps behind their awkward little party, Elizabeth leading, Walsingham attempting to keep up, and the Moorish girl fumbling with the train as though she had never carried such a thing in her life. Never before had Elizabeth missed her wise old friend and councillor William Cecil so much. He would have known how to advise her. She wished he had been able to stay the whole three weeks in Warwickshire, but it had seemed churlish to refuse her treasurer a few days’ leave when his wife was unwell.

  ‘When will Cecil return?’ she asked, her voice a little petulant even though she knew he had only just left. ‘I miss him when he is not at court.’

  ‘I believe Lord Burghley plans to return here soon with his son, whom you are knighting on Monday next,’ Walsingham murmured, smiling as they passed out of the shady arcade into the covered walkway along the top of the Privy Garden. ‘The Council will have to manage without him until then. It is not too difficult for us to reach decisions in his absence, I believe, Your Majesty. But I must applaud the skill of your gardeners, my lord Leicester. Such glorious scents! Such a harmony of colours!’

  Such unlikely compliments, Elizabeth thought cattily, but she paused to clap her hands as though in agreement.

  Two butterflies flew past her head in a flickering dance, and she stared longingly after them.

  ‘Robert, it is true. You have surpassed yourself here at Kenilworth. This is a garden of the senses indeed and I shall walk here with my ladies every morning at dawn.’

  They had reached the water’s edge, the walkway cool and shaded now as evening fell across the lake, her ladies trailing behind in a whispering rustle of taffeta and silk. A small, rugged-looking fellow with a thin moustache stepped forward, dragging off his cap and giving her a shaky bow.

  ‘Your barge awaits, Your Majesty, if it please you.’

  Elizabeth pulled her heavy skirts to her ankles and stepped into the rocking barge, shaking off Robert’s steadying hand at her elbow. ‘Lucy Morgan, you will travel with us and sing us across the water.’

  Leaning back in the barge and settling her skirts about her, Elizabeth patted the huge velvet cushions at her side. She saw one or two of her noblewomen shoot disgusted looks at Lucy from under their chaste white caps. Elizabeth almost smiled, knowing how much it must gall these lofty bitches to see a nobody, a mere court entertainer, granted such distinction by the Queen. But her sternest look was reserved for her favourite.

  ‘Help the girl aboard, Robert. And you may come too. For you will only get yourself into trouble if I leave you alone.’

  Twenty-six

  THE GREAT HALL had been decked with light for tonight’s feast, its dark corners illuminated by what seemed like a thousand table-top candles and torches thrust into high sconces. Their massed flames glittered between the tapestries, reflecting off the vast leaded windows as though Christmastide had come half a year early. Despite the lack of a fire, it was suffocatingly hot. So hot, indeed, that country dignitaries and their wives who had stupidly chosen fur-trimmed gowns and mantles for this grand occasion were now wilting at the lower tables, fanning their flushed faces in a sea of waving, ring-encrusted hands. Servants hovered among them, pouring sack and Rhenish wine and serving lavishly dressed dishes of wild boar, baked lark, partridge and quail. At the top table, two men were elaborately carving a roast swan for Queen Elizabeth’s own plate. Just as a page boy came to the Queen’s side, bearing a vast silver salt cellar shaped like a galleon in full sail, a parcel of live wrens was released from the swan and flew up into the rafters with a great flutter of wings, to deafening applause from the courtiers.

  Lucy Morgan was singing again, and everyone was supposed to be listening. But of course nobody was. They were watching the Queen instead, for all day a mischievous rumour had been making the rounds that Leicester had offered for the Queen and she had refused him, or else that the Queen was pregnant by the earl and still would not have him to husband.

  As delicately as possible, given her hunger, Lettice mopped up the last of the goose fat swimming on her platter with a fragrant wedge torn from the manchet bread. Then she too lifted her head to stare across at the Queen’s table.

  Robert had seated himself at Elizabeth’s right side, as was his custom at these public affairs. He still loved to push his suit as royal consort, despite a lack of any official status. Splendid in a jewelled doublet of red and gold, his broad sleeves puffed out like a peacock’s tail, Robert was watching the Queen pick at her food with spindly white fingers. Lettice thought she looked more like a spider than a woman, barely eating anything, her white-painted face a mask of disdain. Robert began to talk, his head bent to whisper in her ear. Elizabeth, however, made no indication that she was listening. Rather, her gaze was fixed on her new court favourite, whose high, soaring voice was beginning to make Lettice’s head hurt.

  This feast was supposed to be a celebration, not a wake, Lettice thought. Could they not have cheerful songs to accompany such an occasion, instead of all these dirges, laments and tedious madrigals?

  Elizabeth had turned her head at last, responding sharply to something Robert had said. It was clearly not what she had wished to hear. Robert sat back, a sulky look on his weathered face, and stabbed at the remains of his goose meat as though it were Elizabeth’s own heart.

  For a moment, Lettice imagined herself there beside him – seated in Elizabeth’s high-backed and ornately carved seat, Robert adoring her as his wife and queen, the mistress of Kenilworth and England. At the daring of such a vision, the room began to spin. Yet still Lettice continued to stare, her mouth slightly open, the dripping bread forgotten in her hand. Branches of flickering candles on the tables dazzled her, like sunlight glimpsed at noon through a high window, until she had to squeeze her eyes shut.

  ‘Are you quite well, my lady Essex?’ a solicitous voice asked at her side. ‘You do not seem yourself.’

  Recovering her senses, Lettice turned and managed a curt nod. With no little effort, she forced herself to smile and unclench her fists. She must be careful, for it was Robert’s sister at her elbow. Sharp-eyed Lady Mary Sidney, who saw everything and said nothing. Poor bitch, marked for life by the pox that had struck her down while she nursed Elizabeth back from the brink of death, and for what? Barely a word of thanks from her royal mistress for the loss of her good looks. Yet still she served the Queen, and still she was faithful. These Dudleys, Lettice thought, suddenly angry, never knew when to stop begging and shivering like whipped curs at the foot of the throne.

  ‘A moment of dizziness, Lady Mary, that is all. I must have taken too much sun again today. It has been a hot summer.’

  ‘And a mercy we are not in London during this heat,’ Mary Sidney agreed smoothly, and signalled a servant to refill their wine cups.

  Lettice muttered some banal agreement, and turned back to her perusal of Robert and Elizabeth.

  Lucy Morgan had finished her song at last and everyone was applauding while the wretched girl attempted a curtsey, her black hair so coarse and unmanageable it looked like a wild pony’s. Lettice watched Lucy with a sudden dislike. The child was growing uncomfortably close to the Queen; it had been short-sighted of Robert to use her as a messenger the other night. If Lucy chose to tell the Queen that they were exchanging messages, even if most of them were in code, their lives could be in danger.

  She frowned, glancing at Mary. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, my brother is looking well this summer.’ Lady Mary was also watching the Queen’s table, an indulgent smile on her pockmarked face. ‘This heat suits him, and the outdoor life. He was always a tremendous horseman, even as a young boy. That is one of the interests he and Her Majesty hav
e always shared, of course, their love of hunting and riding.’ She sipped reflectively at her wine. ‘You do not care much for horses, I believe, my lady Essex?’

  ‘I cannot be blamed for that this summer. Not even the hardiest of our ladies have managed this progress entirely on horseback. I cannot even recall when we left London, it was so many weeks ago.’

  ‘This past week at Kenilworth has proved a comfortable rest from travelling,’ Mary agreed, though her eyes still searched Lettice’s face. The woman would find no incriminating evidence there, however closely she looked. Yet her careful voice continued to probe. ‘We move next to your own house at Chartley, is that not the case? You’ll be glad to be home again, I’m sure, among your own people.’

  ‘I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed,’ Lettice admitted grudgingly. ‘Though it will be hard, entertaining the Queen and court. Chartley is a fine country seat, but it cannot compare with the size and splendour of Kenilworth.’

  ‘Does Lord Essex plan to return from Ireland in time for the Queen’s visit?’

  ‘No,’ Lettice replied shortly. ‘My husband will not be home this summer.’

  ‘I see.’ Mary Sidney glanced again at her brother, who was still speaking to the Queen. There was a stubborn, passionate look on Robert’s face that Lettice recognized only too well, and the Queen’s head was turned away while her long white fingers drummed the table. It seemed today’s rumours might hold an element of truth, for Robert was clearly not in favour tonight. But Mary had not finished with her meddling. ‘The earl’s long absences must be difficult for you to bear. If I can be of any assistance, you have only to ask.’

  ‘Thank you, my lady.’ Lettice pretended a gratitude she did not feel. She only just managed not to bare her teeth at the woman’s patronizing interference. ‘You are very kind, but I have every confidence in my steward’s ability to manage the Queen’s visit, even without my husband.’