His Last Letter

by Jeane Westin

  Elizabeth Regina

  In November, the first hard snow of winter fell outside Whitehall Palace when the queen, at work reading Walsingham’s latest stack of spy reports from France, Spain, Holland and Scotland, heard the words she had so longed to hear.

  “Majesty,” her gentleman pensioner announced, “the Earl of Leicester craves audience.”

  She pulled another warrant to her without looking up, though her hand shook so that she pressed it against the table. “Inform my lord Leicester that we are very busy, but will call for him within the hour. He is to wait in our antechamber.”

  “At once, Majesty.”

  As soon as the guard retreated, she regretted her words, but they were said and now must be kept. Always she must thrust her throne between herself and Rob. Though she longed to see him with her own eyes, to see for herself that he was as always her faithful Rob, she could not be seen to scurry down the halls of her palace to him like any milkmaid to her stable boy. She refused to allow herself to think how near she was to being that milkmaid, making herself a fool, to be run by her heart. No, not after all the years since Rycote that she had resisted such folly.

  “Anne,” she called, and her favorite lady of the bedchamber, the Countess of Warwick, appeared instantly from an antechamber. “I will change into my black-and-white gown, ermine trimmed with the gold embroidery.” She smiled to herself. “And I will have my ivory fan with the Earl of Leicester’s badge.”

  Anne nodded. “Majesty, the fan is very old and yellowed. It was one of the earl’s first gifts to you as queen.”

  Elizabeth shrugged. “I will have it, nonetheless. And wear my lord’s New Year’s gift. Have it brought from the jewel room at once.”

  “Majesty, the necklace is in the Tower wardrobe.”

  “Send a swift courier downriver at once to retrieve it. It will suit the gown well.”

  Anne nodded and smiled. “Majesty, in my eyes it would suit any gown.”

  Elizabeth returned her smile, her heart lighter than it had been for . . . She tried to think back to the time, but always came to the same place, the night that she and Rob had supped together before he had left for Holland.

  She was quickly dressed and perfumed with the special musky rose fragrance her perfumers made for her from a flower and herb garden grown for just that purpose at Hampton Court.

  Her face was freshened with new white powder. And still there was a half hour to wait. She settled into her fireplace chair with her treasured Latin copy of Plutarch’s Lives, but her eyes kept going to the big case clock where the hands crawled as if held back by Dr. Dee’s angel, reminding her that, though a queen, she could not command time. Returning to her book, she reread the words again and yet again because she immediately forgot them, if she had seen them at all. Finally, she put the book aside and began to pace her chamber to release a hurly-burly spirit that could be tamed only with exercise. She took a deep breath and whispered, “I fear I will have to walk to Norfolk—”

  Anne was next to her with her necklace and clasped it about her neck. “Majesty, I hope not so far.” She smiled her sweet understanding. “Shall I call for the Earl of Leicester, Your Grace?”

  Elizabeth held her temper, always angry when her thoughts could be so easily recognized. But of course Anne could read her mood. A beggar at the palace gate could read it.

  “Majesty?” Anne questioned.

  “Yes, yes, my lady, call him to me.”

  Anne curtsied and stepped to the door of the chamber where he waited, opened it and spoke quietly to the gentleman pensioner.

  After almost a year apart from him, Elizabeth prepared herself to see a change in him. She felt her heart beating against her bodice as she saw he entered still with the same proud stride of his youth, but with more effort and many more white hairs in his beard. As he knelt to her, he winced.

  That sign of pain propelled her to step quickly to him and signal him to rise. “You are most welcome here, my lord.”

  “Majesty, I thank you for your kind greeting to your old soldier.” He smiled, making a handsome bow, and again grimaced.

  “Rob, are you ill?”

  The queen noticed that her ladies were gathered at the door, watching the tableau with interest soon to be whispered throughout the court. “We have no need of you,” she announced. “Withdraw!” Realizing she was as shrill as an old shoe seller in a London alley, she added, “We pray you, my good ladies.”

  They were gone at once and she led Rob to her own chair, which he accepted gratefully. She poured him a cup of her watered wine, which he drank, though he wrinkled his nose at its weak nature, as he always had.

  “My queen, I am well enough. Do not be overconcerned. The channel was choppy and my poor stomach, my old complaint, is still uneasy from it. I came straight on to Whitehall without stopping.”

  She was pleased at that. He hadn’t gone first to his country house of Wanstead, or Leicester House on the Strand. He hadn’t seen that She-Wolf first.

  “Rob,” she said gently, “I will send for Dr. Dee to prescribe my potion for you and feed it to you with my own hand. Your old rooms next to mine are always made ready for you.”

  The earl attempted to rise from the chair, but she put her hand lightly on his chest and pushed him back. “Nay, Rob, I’ll have you well before you take up your old duties.”

  “Then I am still your Master of Horse and Revels, on your council and—”

  “Yes, Rob, you are still everything.” Her voice shook a little before she could bring it under her control, especially as his eyes misted. “Everything,” she emphasized, “and always will be. Why would you think otherwise? The Lowlands have done you ill. But I’ll soon have you to rights.”

  “You are my physick, Bess,” he said, looking full into her face. “You do your old Eyes too much honor.”

  “Nay, Rob, I but have a care for my own.” My own.

  He took her hand and, though she closed her eyes, she felt his kisses cover it, softly, softly, as they had that night that she could not forget.

  She looked down upon his head and thought she saw the Robin of old, his dark hair against a fancy purple-and-green peacock feather swirling about his black velvet cap. And for a moment or two, her stomach ached again as it had in those days, wanting him to bestride it, love her, ease her. It was as if she had two heads, one a woman’s and the other a queen’s. She had always denied the first and still must. Always she must deny her woman’s wants, a queen outside, a woman inside.

  She straightened her back and stepped away. No man, not even Rob, could ease a queen. There was no ease to be had. Only duties and troubles . . . one of which, Jesu help her, she was about to shift onto him.

  “When you are recovered, my lord, I will have a task for you, a task only you can accomplish for me. All my other lords have failed me, but they do not love me as you do.”

  “Anything, Bess. Give me one night of rest and I’ll lead an army against your enemies.”

  “Nay.” She laughed to see once more her eager young Robin looking at her. “It will not take an army . . . only you, and you will not fail me.”

  “Jesu, Bess, tell me what you would have of me. I am too old for suspense.”

  “Perhaps too old to serve me?” she taunted him, already uneasy about how much she must ask of him, how much she must reveal of herself.

  “Never, Bess. As long as I draw breath I will live to serve you. Tell me the task I must do.”

  “Later. Now you must rest. I will come to you as soon as Dr. Dee has given me word that you are at ease from your ills.”

  He bowed and swept his hand from his heart to hers and so left, stepping as firmly as ever. He had said she was his physick. Now, he would be hers and help to lift her burdens as he had always done. She smiled to think of it.

  Dee came to her later after her lone supper had been served with all royal formality, with which she would never dispense. Whether she was alone or at an official feast, the ceremony of her father
, King Henry, must preserve her royal dignity as if every foreign ambassador and English subject looked on. Regal dignity unobserved was no dignity at all.

  “Yes, my good Doctor, what news of the Earl of Leicester?”

  “Majesty, His Lordship suffers from a gripping of the stomach and fever, an old ailment of his. I bled him for the fever and reduced the meat in his diet, which brings heat to the stomach. He must have five grains of mastich every night at going to bed. I also left the earl a dram of galangal powder to take with his breakfast wine.”

  “And—”

  “Majesty, he is already much improved.”

  Elizabeth felt heavy anxiety take flight at his reassurance. “Thank you,” she said, giving Dr. Dee her hand for his kiss, an honor he had earned.

  After he left, she called her ladies and went to her chapel, where a priest in his long white alb, cinched at the waist, lit altar candles which were tended day and night, much to the anguish of her Puritan courtiers. So the practices came from the old religion, yet she found them comforting to think on. . . . When all the world was dark, God’s priest on earth kept these little lights always shining. Kneeling at her private altar, she thanked God that Rob was not seriously ill and again gave thanks to God for favoring England and keeping the Spanish at bay.

  She sent her ladies to their beds early. “We have no more need of you this night,” she announced.

  Anne delayed. “Majesty, do you want me to sleep on the trundle as before?”

  “Nay, Anne. Off with you! Take your rest.” Elizabeth put a gentle hand on her arm to take the sting out of her urgent words, and as soon as she was alone made her way with one yeoman guard to Leicester’s rooms. She was met in the hall by a few startled people, who were surprised to come upon the queen without her long entourage of lords, ladies and peers preceded by announcing drummers and trumpeters. She had thought to use her father Henry’s secret entrance as before. Then quickly, she had thought better of it. She was no heated young woman stealing through the night to a lover, but a queen showing particular care for her general and loyal subject. Nothing more.

  Tamworth opened the door to her yeoman’s knock. “Majesty,” he said, startled into a hasty bow.

  “Your master, John. How does he fare?”

  “Much better, thanks to Your Majesty’s care, since you are ever my lord’s best physick.”

  She smiled at Tamworth, faithful, silent Tamworth. “We will see for ourselves.”

  He crossed quickly to an adjoining chamber and opened its door, announced her and bowed her in.

  Rob struggled up from his bolster.

  She raised a hand. “Nay, my good lord, do not disturb yourself. Rest while we talk.”

  “But, Bess, it is not fitting for me to lie abed while you—”

  “We say what is fitting here, my lord!” She had not meant to be sharp, but her mood would brook no delay. “Rob,” she said quietly, covering his hand with hers, “I had to see for myself if Dee told me true.”

  “True indeed, Bess, but I would not have you worried for my sake.”

  His ruffled hair gave him an impossibly boyish look, like the Robin she’d first known as a young girl in her father’s time, when she had not been a merry child, but young Robin had shown her how to be merry. She bent and kissed his hand.

  “Bess.” He said her name in that somewhat broken way he had said it when she was first in this room. Was he thinking of that night during her first year on the throne?

  The fire still burned in the grate, though the chairs that they had sat in were replaced and the bed hangings were new and even finer. She wanted to lay her head alongside his again, feel her body covered by his. Was she mad? Enough! she commanded herself.

  He smiled up at her. “What troubles you so, Bess?”

  Elizabeth wondered if he could read her mind, their old mutual stars still at work in the heavens. “You must save me from a heavy duty,” she said.

  “Anything, Bess. You have only to ask. You know I will do all in my power. . . .”

  She stood, losing the heat of his hand deliberately, because she feared it could lead to the need for more . . . closeness. “Mary Stuart is condemned, Rob. My Parliament, councilors and even Londoners in the streets demand her head.”

  Leicester nodded. “Aye, and rightly. Those who plot the death of a sovereign are traitors and—”

  “Yes, yes, quite true, but not all the truth. Perhaps not even the most important truth.” She shivered as if the ghost of the king, her father, who had condemned two wives to the ax, had crossed her grave. “If she dies by my hand, I fear that her son, James, may be urged by some in his court, or in Europe’s courts, to come over the border and make war on England. I would not fight a war in the north with the Scots and in the south with the Spaniards.”

  Leicester sat up, healthier color rising to his face. “I am on good terms with His Majesty, King James. I will write to him and speak privily with his ambassador. You will be out of it. Believe me, Bess, James greatly desires to be your heir above all. He would not risk your enmity for a mother he does not even remember. A mother, as I recall, who conspired in the murder of his father and abandoned him for her paramour, Lord Bothwell, a mother whom Scotland refuses to take back as their queen now that her son reigns.”

  “Perhaps, perhaps,” Elizabeth muttered, “but that is not the worst of it. I cannot . . . cannot by my hand order the death of my cousin and an anointed queen. I, too, am an anointed queen. If one queen can be executed, any queen’s death can be so ordered. The pope has already absolved any English Catholic who takes my life. I need eyes behind me everywhere I go, even here in my castle and in my gardens.” Her voice lowered to a fearful whisper. “How many of my Catholic subjects would like to see me dead and still achieve heaven?” She came near to his bed again and sat down, shaking with dread. The dark cloud of assassination followed her like a swarm of angry bees.

  “Bess,” he said quietly, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His nightshirt did not cover his long shanks. She could not help but notice that those legs were thinner and corded with little muscle and outstanding veins, rather than the strong, shapely legs in purple hosen she remembered dancing with her at her masques.

  “How can I help you?” he pleaded. “If the Parliament demands her death and your people beg for it, you have but to allow her sentence to go forward. Let it happen.”

  She straightened at that. “We rule here, my lord, not the Parliament, nor the people.”

  “Then how is this festering sore to be lanced?”

  Her voice was low, but its intensity filled the room. “You could be my surgeon, Rob. Take her life for me and end this misery. My other faithful servants are too dainty for the job.”

  Leicester’s head sank into the hands he clasped before him. “And you think this is work for me, Bess? Ask of me anything . . . but not this.”

  “This is all I ask.”

  “I have faced brave men in battle . . . killed with sword and pike . . . but I cannot murder a woman.”

  “Sir Amyas Paulet, Mary’s keeper, will not do it, neither Burghley, nor Walsingham. I dare not ask Raleigh, for I do not fully trust him. Oh, that I had ruled in a better time!” Her face reddened and she hit one fist against the other. “How did Henry II get good Englishmen to step forward to rid him of that saintly troublemaker Becket? Are there no such brave and loyal men to serve me?”

  Rob stared at her as if he’d never seen her before, and did not speak or move.

  She had counted so on his understanding and desire to do her any service, to save her from awful necessity. Her last hope gone, she was enraged, feeling as betrayed as when young Robin had married his Amy. Before she could stop herself, if she had even thought to, her hand left her control and slapped his cheek hard.

  His head fell back.

  “Oh!” She looked with horror on the hand, but could not recall her cruelty or yet stay her righteous anger, which allowed her to say anything, even the unthinkable.
“What? So delicately formed are you now, my lord Leicester? You were not so when you thought I would marry you if you were only rid of your wife! And then miraculously . . . you were!”

  Jesu help me, she prayed silently. Could she have thought this monstrous thing deep inside herself all these years?

  He jerked as if she had struck him hard again, though her fist was only clenched in anger. “You know I am innocent of Amy’s untimely death.”

  Still unable to admit to fault, she lashed him again. “Oh, no, my lord, it was timely, very timely!”

  Finding his pride, never far away, he lifted his head. “I was proved innocent by two juries. You could accuse me of nothing to wound me more. I truly believe Amy wanted to die and killed herself not from the pain of the tumor, but from the pain of my love for you.”

  Her anger dropped from her body like a fallen cloak. “Rob, Rob,” she whispered, thinking to go out and reenter this room to start anew.

  He did not answer her, sliding back under the coverlet, twisting away from her.

  Tears came to her eyes, but she would not allow them to fall. She had nothing left to say. No appeal to make. Rob would hate her now and she would be truly alone, always. She moved slowly toward the door, trying to think of some words to salve his wound, but she could not and retain her dignity. Then she heard his strangled laugh.

  “Majesty, even after our life together under the same stars, I am still all amazed by the twists and turns of your mind. You want me to kill Mary, queen of Scots, when there was a time when you ordered me to marry her . . . ordered me to it and all my begging would not stay you.”

  She closed the door softly behind her, her thoughts racing back to the agony of that time. Always she had fought to keep England safe from invasion, and Rob was to have been her painful sacrifice upon that altar. But had she ever truly meant to give Robin as husband to Mary Stuart?

  CHAPTER 14

  “I am resolved to marry. If there be no foreigners agreeable to me . . . I shall then choose no other than the Earl of Leicester because of his merits and virtues which I know him to possess.”