His Last Letter

by Jeane Westin

  Anne drew in a great breath. “He is no better for it, either,” she said hastily, and put her hand on Elizabeth’s, an unbidden touch which would usually need pardon.

  The queen felt her own hand tighten on Anne’s. “How no better? He has that She-Wolf and she has him at last.”

  “Madam, if you’ll allow me . . .” Since Elizabeth did not object, her chin sunk to her chest, Anne closed her eyes as if in prayer and said in a voice scarcely above a whisper: “He is very ill with his old fever, Your Majesty. His doctors have called my husband, his brother, to his bedside. . . .” Her voice broke.

  Elizabeth clutched her hand in alarm. “Why did you not tell me?”

  Anne bowed her head.

  Because I have forbidden his name to be spoken in my hearing. Oh, what a fool . . .

  “Quickly,” Elizabeth said, swinging her legs over her bedside, “dress me, but say nothing to anyone. You will go with me.”

  “Lord Burghley, Sir Walsingham?”

  “Send one of my gentlemen pensioners to tell them I am going to the country to rest and will receive no messages.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  Elizabeth arrived at Wanstead as the next sun rose behind the morning ground fog, her white coach and four white horses mud-splattered, their flanks heaving, their hides rippling with weariness. She was handed to the ground by her coachman and stood on her jarred, bounced and stiffened legs for a moment until full life returned to them. Then with Anne at her side, she started for the wide front doors of the manor.

  The coachman knocked and rang the outer hanging bell until the doors opened, a servant standing there, half-dressed and blinking, with a candle held high.

  “Wait in the great hall,” Elizabeth told Anne, and brushed past the servant. Snatching up a many-branched candleholder, she ordered it lit and swept on up the stairs, past an old nurse in a stained gown who slept nearly falling off a chair in the hall. “Why are you not with Lord Robert?”

  The crone did not open her eyes. “Who asks?”

  “Get out at once, or by God and all His saints I will have you whipped!” Elizabeth cried, rushing past the woman, who smelled of strong ale but was now suddenly awake, scrambling to her knees and then as soon gone. The queen threw open the heavy oaken door.

  The candles had gone out, as well as the fire. “Robin,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Bess, is that you or . . . am I transported to heaven?”

  She parted his bed curtains. “Is this the care your servants give you?” she said, eyeing the damp, dirty sheets he lay on, white faced with feverish red cheeks.

  She rushed back to the door and shouted to the crowd of servants now standing in the hall, their eyes wide with fearful expectation. She would not disappoint.

  “Where is the Earl of Warwick?”

  “Majesty, he was called away yesterday noon to deal with thieves on my lord’s sheep runs.”

  “Call Lady Anne from the great hall. We need her at once. Send to the cook in the flesh kitchen to bring hot mutton broth, and from the bake house, fresh manchet bread. Now! And send a maid for clean sheets. The best. Haste, you all!”

  Several servants ran in as many directions.

  “Now you,” she said, pointing at a man in a heavy leather apron, “build up the fire. You,” she said to another man, “bring the best fresh ale from the cellar.”

  She hurried back to Robin’s side and took his hand, bending to him. “All will be put to rights. I am here.” She wrung a cloth from a basin of cool water and, sitting by his side, wiped his face and chest, while his fevered eyes glistened in the candlelight.

  “I see my gracious queen and hear her, but I think I am inside a dream.”

  She squeezed his hand. “No dream, Robin.”

  “Then it is sorcery. It cannot be you.”

  “Why? Am I not flesh and blood and . . . human?”

  “No, I see a goddess, a divine angel sent to snatch me from death’s grip.”

  She bent and kissed his hot, damp cheek.

  He groaned. “Now I know I dream. I feared never to feel your sweet lips again.”

  Pup! Pup! She ignored his dire meaning. “You have had your old fever many times and returned to good health. I will pray for you. God listens to the queen of England.”

  He produced a small smile with a trace of his old impishness.

  Maids came to put fresh linen on the bed, which the queen oversaw, allowing no slipshod service. “Put some fresh rose water in the washing basin,” she ordered, and it was quickly done.

  Anne brought in hot mutton broth and a spoon. “Majesty, shall I feed my lord Robert?”

  “Nay, Anne, rest from our trip. We will feed the earl.”

  Anne’s eyes widened, but she curtsied and left them.

  “No, Majesty, I cannot allow you this menial service.” Robin tried to sit up, but fell back against the freshened bolster.

  “Open,” she ordered, and, after blowing to cool it, she spooned liquid into his mouth.

  “I am not hungry,” he said.

  “You will eat for strength, nonetheless.”

  Obediently, he opened his mouth again.

  After several spoonfuls, she whispered, “Why, Robin . . . why did you do it?”

  He stared straight ahead, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Lettice was with child and I was without an heir. All my brothers are dead except for Ambrose, and he has not sired a child on Anne all these years. All my line—”

  “Your legitimate line. Don’t forget the Douglass Sheffield whelp,” Elizabeth corrected bitterly. If I had married him, I would have two heirs, not Douglass nor Lettice.

  He nodded at her jab, looking at her with some understanding. “As you say, Majesty, all my legitimate line will be gone when I die.”

  She winced. “Don’t talk of such things. . . . This is only a fever.”

  “Fevers kill, my gracious queen.”

  “Not this one. I am here and my will is that you recover and soon. I shall speak with God.” He sank deeper into the bolster and she noticed a vein throbbing in his neck. She wanted to kiss it and so she did.

  “No, Bess, I could not bear it if I gave you this fever.”

  “You did that, Robin, long ago,” she whispered.

  His laugh turned to a cough and breathlessness.

  She put her hand lightly on his chest. “Quiet now. Rest. I will be here when you awake.”

  “Bess, that is all I ever wanted in this world, and you give it to me when I am too weak to take full advantage.” He smiled, tightened his hold on her hand and closed his eyes. “Do you mean to allow me back into your service?”

  She hesitated but knew she was no good at pretense with this man. All her emotions were on the surface with him. “Yes,” she said softly. “But not the She-Wolf. She will not come to my court as long as I live.”

  Robert’s eyelashes flickered, but he did not open his eyes. “No, Bess, she will not come to court. When I am with you, I want no other.”

  Elizabeth wanted to believe him and it was enough. It had to be enough.

  CHAPTER 20

  ON THE ROYAL BARGE TO GREENWICH PALACE

  ELIZABETH

  February 11, 1587

  On the Thames

  At first, Elizabeth heard only the river sounds, waves lapping against the Whitehall water steps as she climbed into the royal barge. Watermen seeking morning passengers shouted, “Eastward, ho!” as they ferried still-drunken men from the Bankside taverns and the Rose Theatre to the city piers. From the city side, other watermen shouted, “Westward, ho!” to encourage late revelers from the city to hire them for the Bankside. Wherries piled high with cargo goods took advantage of low tide to shoot under London Bridge, hurrying toward the merchant ships anchored downstream.

  The river, always the busiest highway in her capital, on this day had people lining the riverbanks, caps off, loudly cheering the royal barge as it passed, flags flying, drums beating, trumpets sounding, although they could not see the
ir queen or her ladies who had gone into the lower cabin. Bells were ringing in the city side and in Bankside.

  “The people seem in a festive mood and are in good sorts this morn,” Elizabeth muttered into her fur-hooded robe.

  “Aye, Your Grace,” agreed Lady Carey, keeping her head low in her collar.

  “Last week they were yelling for Mary’s head in the streets. Today they are cheering at sight of me. The people are so changeable.”

  No one responded. They were not in good sorts this morn.

  “Add more coal to the brazier,” Elizabeth ordered a servant. “All my ladies are cold.”

  It was done quickly, but still none met her gaze. They were hiding something. Some scandal? A belly where none should be? Jesu help the maid if it were true! A queen could not abide indecency in her court. A virgin queen must have a court without blemish. She determined to question all her ladies one by one after they reached Greenwich Palace and had finished setting up her royal apartments and she had returned from the council meeting, where she would be urged again to release Mary’s death warrant. Jesu Christo! A busy day faced her and her sleep had been poor in the last few nights and full of night terrors. She must rest a few hours before the banqueting hall tonight, though her confectioners would by now be busy below with their tarts, puddings and her favorite comfits. Her teeth ached from the thought. S’blood, she would soon have to call in the tooth drawer again.

  Past London Bridge and the looming Tower she looked to see if she could sight the carts that had gone ahead before first light with Robert, Earl of Leicester, in command. Rob sat so tall on his horse of over seventeen hands that she would not miss him as he headed the long royal train. And she needed to see him this morn, needed his special comfort.

  She frowned. He had been strangely absent from her presence in the past two days. He was hiding something from her because he could not look in her face without showing it. He knew his queen would have to recall the death warrant she had signed . . . too hastily, to please him and to stop the constant pleas of all her councilors, her Parliament, her people. Jesu on the cross! All the court had begged her for Mary’s head while both the French and Scots ambassadors had all but threatened her with war if she were to agree to such a severe action. And then there was her oath. She had sworn that she would never execute a God-anointed queen, though if Mary Stuart lived in this world another plot would form to put the Babington plot to shame, and another and another, each more desperate, until one would inevitably succeed.

  Elizabeth could hear her father laughing at her. He would have had Mary’s head off on the first suspicion years before, while the daughter of his blood had hesitated before all the world when she had evidence of Mary’s treason written by her own hand! Did God demand Elizabeth sacrifice her own royal self for another queen, a queen whose own people—indeed, her own son—did not want her back? No, never would she believe such a thing. She had served God and had seen to it that her realm served him, taking a moderate stand between Protestants and Catholics, only to see neither pleased. So much for moderation as an appeaser. Zealots were never appeased. Yet she would take no other course were she to start anew as young Elizabeth new-come to the throne of England. I regret nothing, my lord father. Nothing. Sovereigns did not have the luxury of second-guessing, or all future commands could be questioned. That could never be. God did not allow his anointed to be wrong.

  “Mulled cider, Majesty?” Anne, Countess of Warwick, held out a silver cup to her and she took a warming sip, returning her face quickly inside her fur hood.

  Despite her lady’s cold fingers, she ordered: “Play upon your lute, Anne. We are all many times too solemn this morn.”

  The music soothed her as music always did. When there was music, her mind could rest from worries and labors, the notes weaving in and out of her thoughts, acting like strong wine to calm her wits. Yet this day she could not turn her mind completely to pleasantries.

  Cecil, Walsingham, Raleigh and Rob, too, along with the rest of her council, would be confounded, but what she commanded must be. She had urged them to free her of the necessity to behead a queen, but they had refused. Even Robin, the last man in the world who she thought would deny her, had not helped rid her of Mary, the Scots menace, whose plots had threatened her throne and her person for almost twenty years. Now, they would have Mary dead, but they must learn that they could not force their queen to do anything against her sacred rights or her own reputation with the crowned heads of the Catholic countries.

  The river became very foggy the closer they rowed toward the channel, and Elizabeth was gladdened to disembark at the great Greenwich water gate and be assisted up the slimy steps.

  She hurried through the entry court past bowing servants with the barest of greetings, leaving the white gloom behind. Moving rapidly through teeming halls full of favor seekers toward the warmth of the chapel with its perpetual candles, she threw off her cloak and knelt to say a hasty prayer, begging God to protect England and England’s queen this day. This was her duty and one she never shirked.

  Minutes later, she moved swiftly on through the sweet-smelling palace, knowing it would stay that way a bare few days before the jakes and bodies unwashed in winter overwhelmed the herbs and flower-petal sweetening until even her perfumed pomander would not come to the aid of her nose. She stopped at the council chamber doors. Her ladies hurried to a halt near her, barely having breath to keep a proper distance.

  “Remain here,” Elizabeth ordered, and motioned for the guard to open the council chamber door. She would not have Anne Warwick or Lady Carey accompany her to a contentious meeting touching so many great decisions. . . . Women were too emotional to deal with matters of execution and war. “Here, Anne, care for my little dog while I am in council,” she said, pulling the tiny sleeping creature from inside her ermine muff.

  Her councilors rose and bowed, avoiding her eyes. They were plotting something. Like little boys planning to raid the confectioner’s pantry, they could not hide their devious desire from their faces.

  “Sit you, my lords and gentlemen. Why so glum? The lack of winter sun has turned you all to pale faces and downcast eyes.” She sat in the chair Rob held for her and motioned them all to be seated.

  Not a man answered her jibe, not even Walsingham, who generally had some droll rejoinder to lighten her mood. Rob tried a weak smile as he returned to his seat beside her, though it did nothing for his eyes, darker yet with . . . what? . . . apprehension, triumph. . . . She could not divine his mood.

  “Come, what of import has happened? We are no weak, fainting woman to be protected from truth. Have the talks with Parma in Holland been quit by the Spaniards again?” No one spoke. “Out with it, my lord Burghley,” she said, her tone not to be ignored.

  Burghley stood, leaning against the table to support his gouty knee, which was always worse in the winter. “Majesty, the queen of Scots has been executed upon the findings of your court of lords and your own signed warrant of execution.”

  The screamed words that echoed in her own ears came from her soul, though she had not realized her mouth had opened to let them loose. “Treason! Betrayal!” She pulled in shivering breath after shivering breath and yet remained gasping, her lungs empty. She put her hands flat upon the table to hide their shaking. “You are all traitors! My orders were to hold the warrant until I released it.” She knew her face was red with fury. “How dare you disobey your queen!”

  Burghley bowed. “Majesty, the sentence had been passed and—”

  “What is that without your sovereign’s order?”

  Baron Burghley raised his head, his old eyes holding sadness but no fear. “We had your signed warrant, Your Grace.”

  “You deliberately disobeyed our spoken order to hold the warrant. Who did this? Who is responsible?” She turned to Rob, but he looked straight ahead, at one with them. He was against her. They were all against her.

  She almost hissed at them like one of the big cats in the Tower menageri
e when cornered. “What manner of deep disloyalty is this?” she asked, hearing her own voice rise to a shriek. “Do you all seek to suddenly grow a head shorter?”

  No man, not even Hatton, turned his face toward her, and none uttered a word.

  The queen’s voice fell now to a growl. “When we asked for your service to spare us this dishonor, you refused; your stomachs were too fragile. You each know who you are. Yet, when we would spare Mary to save our reputation in the world, you cut off her head. . . . God’s anointed queen! Do you not know that if one queen can be executed, then no queen is safe? You have put us in terrible danger. You can no longer call yourselves our councilors . . . our supporters . . . we will no longer believe your protests of loyalty and love.”

  Elizabeth fell back into her chair. “Who carried the order to Fotheringay?” she asked, regaining control of her body and her voice.

  Rob stood and looked at her with . . . what . . . compassion? How dared he pity her, or have a care for her when he, too, had not helped her when she had lowered herself to beg him for . . . one small favor?

  Rob spoke in a low, but penetrating voice. “Majesty, William Davison—”

  Elizabeth felt her face hot with anger. “If he carried the warrant, we order him to the Tower to await our pleasure.”

  “He carried the warrant on orders from your Lord Treasurer,” Burghley said, regaining his seat from apparent exhaustion, though his spirit was still strong in his face.

  The queen looked about the table. “And you, Mr. Secretary Walsingham?”

  “Your Grace, it is no secret from you that I agreed the Scots queen must die for her many treasons against you. And if not for that crime, for many others. She was a whore and a murderess. She was an adulteress who conspired with her paramour the Earl of Bothwell to blow up her own husband, Lord Darnley, your subject, Majesty. But that was not her only foul deed. She then married her husband’s murderer, and when her people rebelled against her for a witch, she fled to you and you gave her refuge, which she used to plot against your throne. I cannot—nay, my queen, will not weep for such an evil woman.”