The Twylight Tower

by Karen Harper

  “Oh, dear,” Katherine said, a little grin twisting her saucy lips. “Now Her Grace has you fetching and carrying for her too.”

  She was off like an arrow but not before Kat saw full well that Edward Seymour, whom Katherine had been told to steer clear of, waited down the hall. Not only did the queen keep an eye on who her ladies tarried with, but Katherine’s ties to royalty would eventually make her marriage an affair of state—or if forbidden, treason.

  “The only one worse than Edward Seymour she could be rushing to would be that Spanish ambassador so they could hatch a plot together,” Kat muttered as she managed to open Elizabeth’s bedchamber door without calling a guard. Most of the ladies were outside attending the queen on her morning stroll, thank God, so Elizabeth would never know the truth that Kat had forgotten to specify which pieces of wardrobe she wanted, then blamed the staff for it.

  Still fretting, Kat surveyed again the pieces of garments on the bed. The clothing was slightly mussed. Someone had dared not only to move them, but perhaps to try them on, or at the very least, to hold them up, mayhap in front of the mirror. Katherine, the snippet, surely it was she.

  As Kat laid the farthingale down and began to rearrange and smooth out the garments, she saw she still held Geoffrey’s death shirt. Tucking it up under her own voluminous skirts, she vowed to discuss it with Meg Milligrew later. Just like these garments waiting to be mixed and mated, the clues to Geoffrey’s death had endless possibilities.

  THOUGH ELIZABETH WAS ARRAYED TO OUTGLITTER ANY earthly queen, she awaited Robert’s arrival in a rustic setting, the apple orchard hard by the Thames. Amy Dudley liked uncomplicated country matters, did she? Elizabeth fumed. She would show Robin her version of that. And she wanted him to realize the gulf between them, for it frightened her how much thinking of him with Amy, especially in bed at night, had tormented her.

  So she sat on a pile of ivory silken cushions, eating an apple with only Kat and Mary Sidney in attendance, though her other ladies and guards were spread along the covered walkway Robert must traverse. Meg had strewn rose petals everywhere, and Franklin provided the music.

  Elizabeth Tudor’s heart beat hard and she almost choked on the fruit as Robin strode straight to her and went down on one knee, head bowed. Yet, devil take the man, he seemed not a bit awed or humbled. And despite her orders that he join her here forthwith, he had obviously bathed and changed his riding garb to jade green and sapphire garments that made him glitter like a rare gem.

  “My Lord Robert.”

  “Here I am,” he said, looking up boldly despite her intentional use of his formal name, “looking for the queen of England and queen of my heart, and I find Eve with an apple in the garden. And I would take that seducing bite should it cast me out of paradise forever—were it offered me.”

  Despite herself, she gaped at him, then as if mesmerized, extended the half-eaten apple to him. He smiled and stepped closer to kneel again, his knees nearly in her skirts. He reached for her wrist and turned it just so and took a huge chomp from the fruit.

  “I am glad you are back,” she admitted, not saying what she had intended. She had wanted to make him suffer a bit, to wait for her goodwill.

  Robin chewed and swallowed his bite of fruit with gusto. “Time drags into eternity when we are parted, but I have a gift for you, my queen, so you realize my thoughts were ever with you.”

  To her surprise, he turned to Franklin and flicked his wrist. The lutenist nodded and came closer, going down on one knee. “I am bid to tell you, Most Gracious Majesty,” Franklin’s high, melodious voice recited, “that the words to this song come from the heart of him who wrote it and sent it to me for you. I ne’er learned to write myself, you see, and concoct my own verses in my head—but I can read well enough to learn Sir Robert’s beauteous lines.”

  Franklin played and sang a song called “Chi Ama Crede,” He—or She—Who Loves Trusts. It was achingly beautiful and swept her defenses down and away. Surely, surely, of all the men that ever were, she could trust this one, her Robin.

  ELIZABETH AND ROBIN STROLLED THE CONVOLUTED, covered passages of Richmond, dined together, then stood in the huge oriel window of the royal rooms to watch the sun sink.

  “There is one thing that is business, my lord, I would speak of,” she murmured.

  He held her hand tighter. “I would go to the far reaches of Araby or the frozen plains of Muscovy for you, business, pleasure, anything.”

  “Dear heart, this only entails seeking out Bishop de Quadra in London and telling him you think Katherine Grey would make a good heir for me.”

  He muttered a string of curses and turned to her so their shadows merged and shut out those who stood behind them. “You’re going to name her as your—”

  “Hardly,” she said, placing three fingers on his lips to still his protest. “Kat tells me she’s been not only flippant but perhaps lurking some places where she should not be of late, and I know she will do anything to vex me. I said merely tell him you favor Katherine. I want to see how readily he goes for that bait. The man bears watching.”

  “Of course, I’ll do it, though I’d rather be watching you.”

  Elizabeth smiled. If she did love and therefore must trust Robin, why did she still feel some dark, creeping unease? The sensation that someone was spying on her had been just as sharp when he was away as now. She squinted into the bloodred sun, balanced on the horizon like a ball on a table, before it was sucked into oblivion.

  IT WAS LATER THAT NIGHT, WHILE KAT WATCHED THE opening of the dancing with the stately processional of the pavan—her memory no doubt tweaked by the sway of the queen’s huge farthingale—that she recalled she wanted to scold Meg Milligrew. She rose unobtrusively, edged around the moving, shifting crowd, and went to locate the girl. She finally found her in her distilling room back by the kitchens, making rose water from plucked petals.

  Kat stood in the doorway of the room, watching Meg measure out a peck of salted petals, then one quart of water. Once the first boiling extracted the natural oil, the remaining water was siphoned off, then run through again to make the fragrant double distillation. As steam escaped the hissing pot behind Meg, she seemed some sort of bedraggled witch at a cauldron, for the room was hotter than the hinges of Hades.

  “Ouch,” the girl cried as she obviously brushed her knuckles against the still.

  “Best use some of your own healing salve,” Kat said, making Meg jump again.

  “Oh, Kat, is Her Grace all right? Has she sent for me?”

  “No, but I thought I could save you from that if I came myself.” Kat surprised Meg by ruffling up her petticoat, then reaching up under it to pull out Geoffrey’s wrinkled, stained shirt. The girl looked so glad to see it, Kat let her have it back.

  “Oh, I wondered where I’d lost that—surely not there.”

  “In your lavender basket in the wardrobe rooms,” Kat said. “But saved for a keepsake or a clue?”

  Meg sighed and leaned back on the table, dipping her scalded knuckles in the vat of saltwater. “Both, I guess. I just—we—can’t let Geoffrey’s death go the way the queen evidently can. Ned learned Geoffrey was having dizzy spells, or at least had one. He got that kitchen slut Sally to admit he nearly toppled over after he sneaked to her pallet and lay with her the other night.”

  “Ned or Geoffrey lay with her?” Kat asked, stepping into the room and closing the door.

  “Geoffrey, of course, though I don’t dupe myself that Ned probably hasn’t enjoyed her wares too, the lying churl.”

  “Meg,” Kat said, her anger ebbing when she saw again how the poor thing cherished the pompous Ned, “a man’s getting light-headed and nearly toppling over after enjoying a wench may not mean he’s prone to dizzy spells fierce enough to make him fall off a tower height—after putting his lute down.”

  “But it could mean something. It’s a clue, and if Her Grace would only help us, she could figure it out!” Meg wailed.

  “Don’t wager on our q
ueen solving mysteries ever again,” Kat warned. “She can’t even understand herself of late, and I’m afraid there’s no help for her.”

  Meg looked so frightened that Kat put her hands on her shoulders, wishing she could comfort Elizabeth like this. The two of them stood unmoving until the pressure in the still began to build and hiss, and Meg turned away to tend to it.

  “I AM IN DEEP DESPAIR ABOUT THE QUEEN,” WILLIAM Cecil admitted to his wife as they lay abed in their small country house at Wimbledon. Mildred snuggled closer to him, her bottom in his lap as if they were a pair of perfectly matched spoons. At least she had been happy to see him, disrobing sensuously and luring him to bed tonight as if they were new-wed. The queen could hardly abide him in the week Robert Dudley had been back at court, as if her Principal Secretary’s mere presence made her feel guilty.

  “She ignores her duties,” he complained to Mildred, “romping with that man all day and half the night. She makes mockery of official visits by ambassadors.…”

  “And by her principal adviser who helped save her from her bloody sister during hard times and loves her dearly.”

  “It’s true,” he muttered, “I do love her, but not— never—the way that I do you.”

  “I know that. Family, duty, queen—that should be the motto emblazed on your escutcheon, my lord.”

  Cecil turned Mildred to face him in the twist of mussed sheets. “As of now, you are the wisest woman in the kingdom,” he told her solemnly. “You have stood by me even as I have stood by Elizabeth, and now I have a favor—a great boon—to ask you.”

  “You are thinking of resigning, are you not, and want me to understand?”

  “I—yes,” he said, amazed at her again. “I thought it would be a blow to you after how long and hard I’ve strived to reach this pinnacle. But I am praying my threat to resign will rattle her into ending this disastrous summer. I have intelligence that says de Quadra has actually been telling other high-placed ambassadors in London that the queen may lie down one night a queen and wake up with herself and her paramour in prison!”

  “Surely he does not imply rebellion? Will you tell her that?”

  He sat up in bed and put his head in his hands. “When I tried to tell her how dangerous the Mary, Queen of Scots, situation could become—and then there is the threat of others swarming around Katherine Grey—she lost her temper and would not heed me. But I have to try again, my love.”

  “Of course, you do. We’ve lived through down times before but—”

  “But only because I had great faith our Lord God had destined Elizabeth Tudor to rule and rule well. Only because I had hitched myself to her star and now she—she has tumbled from the sky.”

  “You’ll not take de Quadra with you to face her down?”

  “No. I go into the lioness’s den alone—if she will take the time to see me.”

  “My dearest, is there no way you can use Robert Dudley to your benefit, perhaps make some deal to work with him to bridle her?”

  “I’d rather die first,” he admitted, throwing the covers off and getting up to pace, “but then, indeed, it may come to that.”

  “Working with Dudley, you mean, not dying, my lord!”

  “At least the dungeons of the Tower are a good distance from Richmond,” he mused, going over to his desk to try to write down the points he must make to the queen tomorrow. “Though one of Her Grace’s musicians fell off a tower at Richmond to his death, and I warrant if I cross her the wrong way, she might give me the heave-ho off that very parapet.”

  He gave a little laugh but saw that Mildred had begun to cry quietly and went back to comfort her.

  IT TOOK CECIL MOST OF THE DAY TO GET TO RICHMOND BY horse and barge and most of the evening to get a privy meeting with the queen. He had decided to face her without his usual sheaf of letters, warrants, and writs, hoping that would convince her he was serious about leaving if she could not give the realm’s business her time and attention. But on his way into the presence chamber—he had heard she had pulled herself away from playing cards to receive him—he ran into his nemesis.

  “Lord Robert,” Cecil said with a mere inclination of his head.

  “Secretary Cecil. I can only hope you are not here to counsel Her Majesty to wed some foreigner again. I swear, anyone who urges such advice on her is as good as a traitor and—”

  “And you, Horse Master, certainly should be an expert on traitors—entire families of them,” Cecil replied, holding his ground when Dudley advanced several steps on him. “I warrant you were just playing cards with her and I tell you, my lord, you are showing your own hand and have wagered entirely too much to win in the end.”

  “You’re sounding desperate, Cecil,” Dudley responded with a smirk. “We could work together, you and I, on intelligence gathering, on counsel to Her Gr—”

  “Has she appointed you yet?” Cecil interrupted, his choler rising. “ ’S blood, man, if you truly cared one whit for her future, you would urge her to stop this midsummer night’s madness and get back to business.”

  “Ah,” Robert said, obviously enjoying this, “what are those lines from Proverbs Her Grace quoted to me but the other day? Oh, yes, I have it: For by wise counsel you will wage your own war, and in a multitude of counselors there is safety. In short, she needs more advisers than the one who always lectures and preaches to her that—”

  “Preaches? I believe it is you who just quoted Scripture to me. But,” Cecil countered, clenching his fists and hoping his fury did not betray his control, “Proverbs also says that the monarch’s heart must be in the hand of the Lord. The Lord God, Dudley, not some upstart blackguard who knows how to glitter, cajole, and seduce.…”

  They might have come to blows if the double doors had not been opened from within. Dudley stepped back into the shadows and was quickly on his way as Cecil turned to face the queen, seated far across the large, lighted room on the slightly raised dais under the swag of drapery emblazoned with the huge, ornate E R. He strode quickly to her chair, and as the guards closed the door behind him, he saw they were indeed alone in the chamber.

  “Is there some uprising or rebellion that you demand to see your queen the moment you arrive and without summons?” Elizabeth began as soon as he bowed and stood facing her again.

  “Indeed, Your Gracious Majesty, a rebellion of sorts. Mine. I cannot serve you in such fashion where I must stand in line with the kingdom’s essential business in hand to await the whims of dancing, boating, or gambling at cards, while all the time you gamble with your own future. I honor and admire you far too much to see that happen.”

  She probably, he noted, would have cut him off, but she looked so shocked, she gasped for words. Good, he thought. He had her full attention at last.

  “You—you are resigning?” she choked out. “I’ll not allow it! You are but vexed I have for once taken some time to enjoy myself before my return to London.”

  “London, Your Grace, where people are muttering that you will wed Robert Dudley.”

  “I cannot wed Robert Dudley!” she shouted, and jumped up to come at him, then swerved to pace before the throne. “The man is married, for heaven’s sake, Cecil.”

  “Your father’s being married never stopped him when he desired to wed, that’s what your subjects are remembering. And rumors say Amy Dudley is ailing and—”

  “Rumors?” she cried, flinging out both arms. “I am indeed doomed if my chief adviser is making his decisions on rumors. Are you demented, my lord?”

  He nearly dared to ask her the same. “Your Grace,” he said, choosing each word carefully, though he couldn’t recall one of his well-rehearsed pleas, “you have said you wish to rule by the goodwill of your people. I am only asking that you hold personal affairs more at arm’s length and return to state affairs in London to assure the country and the watching world that you are the ruling queen of England, not only the reigning one.”

  “I could put you in the Tower for such insolence.” She leveled a stiff
arm and trembling index finger at him. “You are speaking sedition, if not treason, and I can hardly allow a man who knows so much of the state’s business to go about scot-free.”

  He thrust his wrists forward as if they were in shackles already. “I will gladly go to the Tower to rot there rather than see all my dreams rot here, Your Grace. I told Mildred I had almost feared you might have me cast off one of the towers here, but I just might do it myself.”

  “Do not jest with that,” she said, her voice quiet for the first time. “But no, you may not resign. I will return to London, my lord, but later, after a little while at Windsor. Yes, have you not heard? I’ve ordered the court to progress to Windsor on the morrow as this place does not please me now.”

  He saw her eyes dart around the room. He felt instantly protective of her, just as he had for years. “Because of the death of your musician?” he asked, his voice almost a whisper.

  She shrugged. “I know not. Something—I feel someone is watching me, wanting to harm me. It’s a foolish fancy.”

  “Or a guilty conscience,” he dared.

  She stared straight at him, nostrils flared and fists clenched. He was certain she would strike or banish or even order him imprisoned.

  “Be on my barge tomorrow and bring your—my—most important papers,”she said, and swept from the room.

  When he was alone, he realized his legs were shaking so hard he had to lean against the wall behind the throne until he felt steady enough to leave.

  BUT ON THE BARGE, DESPITE CECIL’S HIGH HOPES, THINGS weren’t much better. The queen signed papers without reading, half listening to Dudley’s chatter and her lutenist’s eternal repetition of some song entitled “Chi Ama Crede.” She kept up a running patter with her cousin, Lord Hunsdon, who—God bless him—understood Cecil’s dilemma and tried to steer Her Grace back to business. And besides seeming to hearken to everyone and everything but state papers, she kept squinting at the passing shoreline as if some enemy was hidden there. She had Gil Sharpe, her mute little lad of an artist, sketching faces and bringing them to her to comment on. More than once she sent Lord Hunsdon’s new young protégé—some handsome family cousin named Luke Morgan—on errands to order the bargemen to row faster or put in for a few moments. Cecil ground his teeth.