by Sandra Byrd
“Shall I ride with you?” Sofia had asked me.
I shook my head. “I heard that young Upjohn was organizing some tournaments inside at Wilton this afternoon with some other young people. I thought perhaps you’d like to attend.”
“Will there be nobility there?” she asked.
I held my face steady. “I am not sure; perhaps, if they are young as well.”
“Or their sons!” she added. She looked at me for a quick moment, her face so sincere. “Thank you, Helena, for allowing me to come to England to live with you. No one could have asked for a better cousin.”
I softened. Mayhap I had misjudged her; she was young, and far from home. “You’re welcome, Sofia.” I embraced her quickly. “Now, get on, and enjoy yourself.”
I changed into a riding suit that I had made after bearing Bridget. It was dark blue and I knew it suited my red hair, which was beginning to be threaded with a few silver ones as well. The white ruff made my fair skin appear even fairer, and I knew Thomas found that lovely.
We met at the stables, and Thomas was magnificently dressed, too. “New riding boots?” I asked. I had not seen them before, and they did not appear to be by the leatherworker he’d always used.
“Yes,” he said. His outfit was expensive, too. It was not proper for me to ask from where the money for this came, but it was unusually expensive for him. Perhaps because he was riding so much more often now, in service of Her Majesty? I looked at him, and the riding outfit, questioningly, but he did not answer my unspoken question, which made me even more ill at ease.
We rode side by side to Langford, and when we arrived, I endeavored to keep my face still. It was near the riverbank and the land approaching the property was beautiful, even in the bleak of winter, with ice shimmering like diamonds off the tips of barren branches. I could see that, in spring and summer, the land would be waving with grasses and flowers and humming with insects and birds. But the property itself was officially a ruin, and there was no better way to describe it.
He stopped his horse, dismounted, and then took my hand in his and helped me dismount, too. Once I was on the ground, he did not let go of my hand but tugged me along to see his treasure.
“I know it’s not much, after Wilton,” he said. “But it has real potential. The land is beautiful, the stones are there, and we could make this something of our own. For us. Something to pass along to our children, a country home of our own.”
By “our own,” I knew he meant not something that the queen had appointed to us, and could then withdraw at whim, should she so desire. But also I knew my man and he meant something we planned and built together.
“I would love for this to be our home,” I said softly.
He turned toward me. “Truly? It is so far from court.”
“Truly, Thomas.” What I did not say was that I could not see where we could ever come into the money required to take this from heap to house. It was beyond imaginable. He knew what I’d been thinking, though.
“Cost,” he said. It would take more fortune than our rents together could provide to restore other than a small portion of the ruins, in addition to caring for and educating our children.
I nodded and shivered; it was freezing out and now that we weren’t riding I began to feel the cold bleed through my riding habit.
He nodded, too. “As long as I know that it’s your desire as well.”
I squeezed his hand to show him that yes, it was, then stood on my toes to offer a kiss. He kissed me back, warmly. Our shared breath brought steam to the air around us, and it gave me hope.
A month later, at Sheen, we entertained the Pembrokes, and as young Upjohn had not yet returned to Wales, Mary Herbert brought him with her. Sofia was pretty and polite, but lukewarm, which I told myself was better than cold. The young man, however, was smitten.
“He seems more taken than she is,” I told Mary, who was younger, in actuality, than Sofia. However, she was already a mother to two and managed a large household and many estates.
“He’s a horseman,” she said with a grin. “He’d prefer someone with spirit to a tame mare.”
• • •
Shortly thereafter I met my husband in his chamber as he prepared for a trip. “Come with me,” Thomas said. “You shall see more of England, we will be together, and I should like your company.” Thomas was to leave London to travel to the courts round the realm on behalf of the queen, though he continued to take tariffs only from the Chancery.
I shook my head. “I cannot. The trip is too long. I’ve borne many children, and the queen has always given me leave for months at a time and I cannot presume upon that. Although she is always surrounded by courtiers, she has but few she truly depends upon and we, as you know, are dependent upon her goodwill.”
This was all true; it was unlikely that she would smile upon another leave. I was honest enough to admit, though, that I preferred in some ways a warm court to the cold, wet ride that lay ahead. In any case, I knew for certain that the queen would not look favorably upon my request. I was loath to lose her friendship, the perquisites and incomes that she sent our way and that we needed, her goodwill, and truthfully, also my high place at the foot of her train. And Thomas and I had just spent time together.
Thomas turned his back, unwilling to see that I had valid points, too, but that I would miss him.
“You’ll soon return and we’ll be together again,” I said.
He shook his head. “You needn’t see me off, then.”
“Please let me help you pack,” I said, but he would not have it. I tried to dissuade him, but he would not change his mind, nor his heart.
My husband went north without me and I watched him ride away, second-guessing whether or not I should have gone with him. It was too late, in any case. I returned to service.
EIGHTEEN
Year of Our Lord 1585
Windsor Castle
The Palace of Whitehall
I settled back into my responsibilities at court, taking charge over the queen’s extensive jewelry and wardrobe, and controlling the ingress and egress of visitors who wished a word with her or to present her with a request.
Dear Blanche also had complete access to the queen at all hours of the day, but she was growing old, had difficulty seeing and walking. She spent her days assisting with letter writing and teasingly telling fortunes of the maids sitting about waiting for something to do for Her Majesty.
It was Blanche who delivered the news that the representative from the Scots’ court had arrived, and also that there was, on his way and riding hard, a representative from Mary, Queen of Scots. I tended the queen’s songbirds and thought how very much like them she was, in a gilded, jeweled cage, pretty as could be, but free to fly only within feet all round her.
The queen saw the Scotsman immediately.
“Your Grace,” he said. “I come on behalf of my king, James. He wanted to ensure that you know that his mother, Mary, who is under your care, had written to him of late, seeking to quietly ally herself with him against Your Grace. He wrote to her that he would in no way go against yourself and told her that even if he had the will to, he’d be a fool to align himself with one who was, as he’d put it, a captive in the desert.”
“Come, come,” the queen said to the envoy. She indicated for me to bring him some mead, which she preferred, though she drank sparingly, some cheese, and spiced wafers. “You must have ridden hard.”
He nodded. “Indeed. My king instructed me to have a care to arrive as quickly as possible so you should not doubt his fidelity toward you.”
“You may return to him with full assurance of my trust and affections,” she said. “And now, I will have a chamber prepared for you to repose in for some hours.”
Within days came a letter from Mary herself that Cecil purported to read to her before her council. The queen had us gown her in a splendid outfit and place many jewels upon her neck, fingers, and ears though it were daytime, and then she went to meet her c
ouncilors in private.
With the chamber doors open, we could hear her shout from down the hallway.
“So she says she shall find enough of heirs who will have talons strong enough to grasp what I may put in their hand, will she? What has she put in his hand? The head of his father? The instructions of a murderess? Her head should have been separated from her shoulders long ago.”
Anne Dudley and I looked at one another. “Has Mary gone mad?” I asked.
“Yes, a long time since,” she replied.
Within a few more minutes we could hear the queen’s voice again; it rose high against the quiet rumble of her council.
“And yet she says that I need not fear for my life on her behalf, because”—there was a pause, perhaps so she could pick up the letter again—“ ‘as to any fear or apprehensions of such like accident, I would not take a single step, or say a single word more or less; for I had rather die and perish, with the honors such as it pleased God I was born to, than by pusillanimity to disgrace my life by prolonging it by anything unjust and unworthy of myself and my race.’ ”
Something hit the table, either the queen’s hand, the letter, or both. “Indeed, dear sister, we find it strange that you should make such a claim as you have already proven that you are not only capable of devising such a plot but in marshaling others to assist you in carrying it out!”
She slammed shut the chamber door at that, but we soon found out that Elizabeth had appointed a new caretaker for Mary, a fanatical Puritan named Amias Paulet, who was unlikely to be charmed by Mary’s pretty accent or winning manner.
And just like that, the queen turned that week from pain to pleasure at the knighting of Walter Raleigh. Afterward, the queen threw a banquet to celebrate his achievements, at home and abroad. The newly dubbed Sir Walter had insisted that Her Majesty need not open her purse strings for entertainment; he himself would provide them.
The queen, and we all, were intrigued. I took pity upon Sofia and brought her to court for the entertainment.
“Your chambers are so near the queen!” she exclaimed. We were at Windsor Castle; I do not think she had ever been there, an impressive and imposing structure high upon the hill. And ’twas true that my apartments were much closer to Her Majesty’s here than at Whitehall.
Clemence was still in attendance upon me, but I also had three other serving women who cared for my personal belongings, my horse, and my person while at court, plus my secretary. I assigned one of the serving women to Sofia, but Clemence asked me if she might serve Sofia instead.
“Of course, Clemence,” I said. I must have indicated my confusion.
“It’s not that I don’t want to serve you, ma’am. It’s just that, well, perhaps it’s better if I’m the one keeping an eye on Lady Sofia. I tend to do that when we’re at home at Sheen, too.”
I nodded. Sofia looked elegant and alluring in the dark green gown she’d selected to wear, and I loaned her an emerald necklace that William had given to me.
“Does Thomas mind?” she asked.
I looked at her in the reflection of my looking glass as my lady maid did my hair. “Does my husband mind what?”
“That he is so much more lowly placed, that you have more income, that you were once married to a man with much more money and of a higher rank?”
I gave her a stern, cold look for her impertinence, but I was not about to upbraid her in front of the servants, for their comfort, not hers.
We ate first; it was a longish affair with many courses, and included potatoes, which Sir Walter had provided from his journeys. When daubed with butter and salted they tasted strange, but not bad. I was seated near the queen and while she was taken with and focused on her new knight, she did glance up several times to see Sofia fairly chasing Essex.
Milde makter.
Some moments later, Lord Robert, who I am sure had grander plans for his stepson than my cousin, steered Essex toward another table. I looked at the queen and cast down my eyes in apology.
We made our way to the grand hall; the musicians were already playing and Sofia was dancing, thankfully not with Essex. I sat next to Mary Radcliffe and we caught up on court gossip, of which she was fond, and the conversation turned, as it often did among her ladies, to the queen’s safety.
“I feel that perhaps her enemies will take a respite from advancing their evils,” Mary said with some relief.
“Why?” I asked.
“Paulet will not be simple to charm, and he is wise as a serpent. Getting correspondence through his hands will be like breaching Windsor.”
“I doubt not the ability of evil to find a path wherever it so desires,” I said.
“Other than Queen Mary’s letter to her son, which is, I suppose, understandable, there has been no other cause for concern since Throckmorton,” she said. “It has been relatively silent.”
“One swallow does not make a summer,” I said. “And perhaps the caged bird will take greater risks than he who may fly free.”
Soon thereafter the music drew to a close and Raleigh drew near to the queen’s throne. “Majesty!” he proclaimed. “You have seen the strange weed tabaco I bring back from the New World.”
“Indeed, we have.”
“I have, among my talents, the ability to weigh the smoke from this weed.”
“Begone!” She laughed. “I shall wager with you, Sir Walter. Twenty pounds if you can do so, and if you cannot, you owe me twice that amount as a penalty for the boast!”
Raleigh called forth one of his men, who handed over a leather pouch and a set of weighted scales. He tapped some tabaco onto the scales and weighed it. Then he withdrew his pipe and, after stuffing some of the tabaco into it, he lit it and smoked, curls of aroma swirling through the air. He wiped the withdrawing end of the pipe with a fresh linen, then handed it to Elizabeth to smoke. All held their breath, wondering, perhaps, if she would choke or otherwise be taken ill by it. We needn’t have worried. She drew in a smooth breath, and, with some relish, blew out the smoke in a thin, feminine stream before handing the pipe back to Sir Walter.
The court burst into applause.
After five minutes, Raleigh finished smoking and called forth the scales again. He tapped the ash onto the scales, subtracted it from the amount he’d put in, and then pronounced how much the smoke had weighed.
“And, Your Grace, I can, therefore, weigh smoke.”
She shrugged teasingly and said she owed him £20.
“May I suggest another forfeit?” he asked.
“Proceed,” she replied.
“I suggest that we name the land from which this delightful weed is harvested Virginia, in honor of history’s most beautiful, and virgin, queen. May I have your permission?”
She looked down, truly stunned, I think. All thought because she spoke and struck boldly that she could not be taken by surprise. Though she was used to and even courted well-mannered compliments, she was still surprised by displays of genuine affection for her person.
“Yes, Sir Walter, you have my permission.” Tears welled in her eyes. Few knew that retaining that virginity for the good of the realm had been charged to the account of her heart. It was a noble, apt gesture. She would not have a child named after her, but because she encouraged and launched her subjects in exploration, and not merely war as did many monarchs before and beside her, she would have new lands named for her.
He then presented some gifts to her from his journeys and travels, which she had encouraged and underwritten. Among them was a large basket of potatoes. “They are of an oblong shape, with a curious skin like burnt parchment, and truth be told, they smelled as such when baked and served,” he said. All nodded; we’d noticed that when they had been served that night. “When broken open and served,” he said, “they have a delicious soft flesh. And that is why”—he finished with a flourish—“they are said to encourage passion among those who partake of them.”
“Sir Walter!” The queen stood with feigned indignance. “And you have
instructed my cooks to prepare them for the whole court this eve?”
“Alas,” he said, his head hanging, an earring looped through one ear. “It is true. Though if I could have instructed them to be served only to the ladies present, without drawing undue attention, I would have!”
“Well, then,” she said, waving toward the musicians. “Play on. But we warn you—there shall be no immodest liberties taken at our court!” She bade us dance, and we did, with relish.
I did not dance as often as I usually did, missing Thomas, I supposed. Sir Walter, though he was the guest of honor, took a moment to come and speak with me. “Pining?” he asked.
“Mayhap,” I admitted. “Thomas will be sore vexed that he missed this evening’s entertainment. You are wonderful to watch and behold.”
“I am sorry he cannot be here with us, too,” he said. He bent and kissed my hand and, before leaving me to rejoin Bess Throckmorton, he pressed something into my hand.
I looked at it. It was a small potato he’d withdrawn from his leather pouch.
“A gift for you to share with your husband when he returns,” he said with a mischievous grin.
I blushed and stammered out a thanks, which made him laugh all the more. I could not let him best me. “Perhaps I shall plant this, so many potatoes may grow, rather than consume it in one eating!”
“Touché,” he said with a gallant bow.
That night, I dismissed the servants and called Sofia to my side. “I am well pleased to have you here,” I began. “I know you took a large risk in coming to England, and no one understands more than I how difficult that can be.”
She nodded. “I . . . I am a bit lonely,” she said.
And when I thought upon it, I understood that she was, perhaps, even lonelier than I had been, as she was so rarely at court and there were but few at my house to entertain her but the governesses and the children. “Do you want to marry?” I asked her.
