The Time Duchess (The Time Mistress Book 4)

by Georgina Young-Ellis

  “Thank you for all you have done to help me win my freedom, my lord.”

  “You have only one person to thank, and he is standing next to you,” Oxford replied.

  “He has thanked me more than will ever be necessary,” Shakespeare said. “Good sir, let me introduce to you my cousin, Ganymede…Shakespeare.”

  James’s face held a mixture of mirth and relief.

  “Brilliant to meet you, sir,” Cassandra said with a bow and a barely suppressed giggle.

  “You may call me James, Ganymede.”

  Did she imagine the roll of the eyes the housekeeper gave the head man and the maid?

  “Let us retire to the study,” Oxford said. “Bring us some refreshment,” he said to the maid, who voluptuous as she was, had become suspect number one in Cassandra’s mind as the female participant in the ménage a trois she’d witnessed the day before. “And otherwise, leave us to our privacy,” he said to the other servants.

  As soon as he’d closed the door behind them, Cassandra took James in her arms and hugged him hard.

  “Mother,” James said, pulling away after a moment. “Master Shakespeare regaled me with the tale of the gypsy warrior who overcame the Queen’s guards and abducted you, and how his people robbed you, brought you back to London, disguised you as a lad, and set you free. ‘Tis an extraordinary tale, worthy to be made into a play itself someday.” He looked into her face with eyebrows raised.

  Of course he knew the real story couldn’t possibly be so fanciful, but until they were alone, there was nothing she could say.

  “’Tis time for us to be gone,” she said to him. “I have imposed on Lord Oxford long enough and I dare not take further chance the Queen will come to know of my presence here. Night is falling soon. We must go.”

  “We will require Lord Oxford to lend us a carriage to take us back to my house. Then we can use my own carriage to take us away, and send Lord Oxford’s back to him.”

  “Yes, of course.” The wheels were spinning in Cassandra’s head. James had to go back to his house. He had no choice. He had to collect the letters of Elizabeth’s that he’d left there in the safe, as well as the futuristic medicines he couldn’t leave behind. And she was sure he’d want to pay his household staff, and pay them well. After all, he’d be leaving them again without a master. He’d already paid the rent on the house in advance for the whole year, so at least he didn’t have to worry about that.

  “But I cannot go with you to Dowgate,” Cassandra said. “Your servants will recognize me. They are good people, and I know you trust them,” except for Henry, she thought to herself, “but it is too dangerous.”

  “That is true. I shall have to go, collect my things, and finish my business there, then come back for you in mine own carriage, and have your coachman return yours to you, my lord.”

  Oxford reached to take Cassandra’s hand, his eyes full of tears.

  Shakespeare watched him do it. “Yet tarry a moment to partake of some food and drink before your journey, and while you do, let me tell you the tale of our audience with the Queen.”

  “It was extraordinary,” James said with a funny look on his face.

  Cassandra sat, and the men then each took a chair.

  “After Sir Robert and I arrived at the palace,” Shakespeare began, “we waited a good long time before the Queen agreed to receive us. When I entered her Privy Chamber, she was there waiting, with James.”

  “She had sent for me at the Tower. I had known, because of Sir Robert, that a plan was in the works for Shakespeare to write a play, which would buy my freedom. I was pleased and surprised he would do such a thing for me.”

  “You did not know I was doing it for your mother, in truth,” Shakespeare admitted. “Yet even I did not want you to suffer at Elizabeth’s hands.”

  James nodded and their eyes met. Perhaps he would feel differently about the writer now.

  “Tell us what happened when you gave her the play!” Oxford pressed.

  “Well,” Shakespeare said, “after making my greetings and obeisance, Her Majesty dismissed Sir Robert, and gave me permission to approach. I did so, manuscript in hand, and gave it to her. It was a very tense several minutes as she read the first part, then skimmed forward, stopping, reading, even laughing. I knew, the first time she smiled, we were going to have success. Finally she said, ‘You have pleased me, Master Shakespeare.’ I felt as if I had taken my first breath since the moment I’d entered the room.”

  “I too, was relieved beyond words,” James added.

  “The Queen then asked me when the play would be ready for the boards. I told her two weeks.”

  “Is it truly possible, Will?” Oxford wanted to know.

  “’Twill be difficult but we have no choice. I dared not ask for more time. I wanted not to displease her.”

  “A wise decision,” Oxford nodded in agreement.

  “She made me secure the date of April first for the opening. A Sunday. She then dismissed me,” Shakespeare said. “She told me she needed time alone with Master Gwynne. I waited outside the Privy Chamber for him. I did not want to return to you, madam, without him.”

  “What happened then, James?” Cassandra inquired.

  The corners of her son’s mouth twisted down. “She was most waspish. She told me, with a great deal of resentment, how lucky I was to have friends who would help me as these gentlemen had done. She also said she was not yet done with me, as she still awaited word from the man she had sent to Cornwall, but that she would release me into the custody of Sir Robert.”

  “What will she do to him when she finds James has fled London?” Cassandra asked Oxford, alarmed.

  Shakespeare jumped in to answer. “Sir Robert told her he needed to stay at the palace for the night to finish some business, and that he would send me with James to his home in Dowgate to watch over him there. I will report that when we returned there, James overpowered me and fled. No one will be held accountable.”

  “I hope she will believe it. Now, do go on with your story, my boy,” Oxford pressed.

  James hesitated. “She then told me how disappointed she was in me. That she had hoped I would be something…special to her.”

  “Something special?” Cassandra asked.

  “Listen, I’d rather not tell more.”

  “No, no,” Oxford said, a playful glint in his eye, “please do.”

  James gazed at his knees, the color in his face rising. “She then came to me and sat down upon my lap.”

  Cassandra’s hand went to her mouth.

  “And then?” Oxford said.

  “She kissed me.” James swallowed with a look of disgust.

  “Ho ho!” Oxford laughed. “That old vixen!”

  “It was horrible. Her breath was foul and her make up smelled…stale. She told me I reminded her of a young Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester.”

  “She admitted as much to you?” Oxford queried.

  “She said she had always been chaste with him.”

  “Bull excrement!” Oxford cried.

  “She told me perhaps the time had come for her to know physical love. She said she did not want to die a virgin.”

  “She’s as much a virgin as I am,” Oxford snickered. “Pardon me, madam,” he said to Cassandra.

  She waved his comment away.

  “Then, thankfully, she rose,” James went on, “and bade me go. She said she was a woman of her word and would not keep me since she had promised I could go upon her approval of the play. However, she said she would call for me when she heard from her messenger. She said if the result was pleasing to her, we would celebrate. Alone. If it was not, she would make me pay by doing whatever she wanted with me before she sentenced me to my ultimate punishment.”

  “Well, it is not a jot worse than how Elizabeth used to dally with me when I was a young man,” Oxford reported. “Yet I am sorry you had to experience that, my boy. At least when she used to kiss me, she was still fairly beautiful.”

&nb
sp; “Thank goodness I do not have to be at her mercy. I will be long gone before any such scene occurs again.”

  The maid came and brought some sliced meat and bread, and they ate quickly. When they were done, James made ready to leave in Oxford’s carriage. The others all rose to see him off.

  “It might take me an hour,” James told his mother, “to gather everything I want to take away, explain why I am leaving to Mistress Flint, lie though it may be, and to settle the money with all the servants.”

  “I will be ready when you return,” Cassandra said.

  Just as James was going out, Robert Cecil rushed into the Great Hall, out of breath, nearly running into him.

  “Forgive me, Master Gwynne,” Cecil said with difficulty.

  “Robin, what is it?” Oxford asked, stopping him with a hand on his arm.

  “Leave us!” Cecil commanded the maid. She skittered away like a mouse.

  “The messenger the Queen sent to Cornwall has returned,” Cecil said. “He said he found no trace of a James Gwynne having recently lived there, nor of a Cassandra Von Schell, neé Gwynne, having ever lived there. The name of Gwynne is indeed common in that region, but no one knew of James nor his Aunt Cassandra. Elizabeth is newly enraged and is sending men to apprehend him.”

  “James, you must go, hurry!” Cassandra cried.

  “It will take the Queen’s Men longer to get to Dowgate than it will take you, James, but you must conclude your business there with great haste and return as quickly as you can,” Cecil said.

  “Wait,” Oxford said, “if you go by river, you will arrive there more swiftly. You will save many precious moments. Go out the back way and flag a wherry.”

  James ran from the room.

  “Go change into the theatre costume Will gave you,” Oxford said to Cassandra. “It is more suited to travel. You must be ready the moment James comes back for you. I wish, I wish I could…” But he stopped, perhaps knowing he couldn’t say more in front of Cecil.

  Suddenly a knock sounded on the outer door, echoing through the house with an ominous peal. Cassandra and the three men froze. They waited silently for the head man to answer and report.

  In a few minutes he was in the room. “The Earl of Essex wishes to speak with you, my lord.”

  “Essex!” cried Oxford. “No. Tell him I am not here. Get rid of him. He is the last thing we need right now.”

  The houseman left the room, but then footsteps pounded on the stone pavement of the Great Hall, getting louder as they approached.

  “Hide, Cassandra,” Oxford whispered. “He may recognize you.” He pointed at the heavy curtain covering one of the large windows.

  Cassandra ran to it and ducked behind, trying to make herself as small and still as possible, her heart about to leap through her chest. Light shone through a frayed spot in the curtain, and she used it to peek through.

  Essex strode into the room, tall and confident. Shakespeare placed his palm on the handle of the knife he kept in his belt, and Cecil steadied himself with a hand on a chair.

  The head man followed Essex, looking flustered. “I am sorry, my lord,” he began.

  His master waved him away, and he hurried back out again.

  “You take the liberty to enter my house uninvited, Lord Essex?” said Oxford stiffly. “What do you want?”

  “Lord Essex you call me?” the man said with a mocking smile. “You used to call me by my Christian name. Have things deteriorated so badly between us?”

  “I ask you again, what do you want?”

  “I want James Gwynne.”

  Cassandra almost gasped out loud.

  “He is not here, and why would he be?”

  Essex looked at Cecil, who met his eye unflinchingly. “I saw Robert Cecil leave the palace as soon as the messenger from Cornwall returned with news that Gwynne is not who he says he is. The word flew around the palace like lighting. I followed you here, Cecil. Something is up, and I want to know what it is. I perceived something amiss about him from the moment I met him, and the Queen told me the name of his aunt. I knew Duke Von Schell of Austria, and remembered no wife of his. I suggested Her Majesty look into the pedigree of the ‘duchess’ and her nephew, but did not tell the Queen my reasons for it until I realized she was falling for Gwynne. ‘Twas then I began to suspect a more serious reason for his aunt taking on a false persona: spying for Ireland. Now tell me, are you protecting the boy?”

  “Why would I? What he does now is the Queen’s business. I merely came here to tell Lord Oxford the news. He was friends with the boy’s aunt, and I thought he should know.”

  “Yet, what is Shakespeare doing here?” He gestured in his direction. “You were supposed to accompany Gwynne to his home and keep him there.”

  “I―” Shakespeare looked helplessly at Oxford and Cecil.

  “You are not the law of the land,” Cecil said, pulling himself up as tall as his small stature would allow. “He does not have to answer to you.”

  “I may not be the law of the land, but I can report back to the Queen that the young man is not under your care, as he was supposed to be, Master Shakespeare. This could go quite badly for you. Where is he? Here somewhere perhaps? Maybe you made a detour, and he now is being concealed.” He looked around the room, his eyes skimming past Cassandra’s hiding place.

  Shakespeare took a step forward.

  “No, Master Shakespeare,” Cecil said, putting up his hand. “This argument is not between you and Lord Essex, it is between me and him. Essex is jealous of James, just as he is of anyone who might garner more of the Queen’s favor than he does. I resent, sir,” he said to Essex with a look that radiated hatred, “that I was the one who was forced to lead the investigation while you were simply waiting to pounce with your so-called proof.”

  “And yet that is your lot in life, is it not? For that is all you are: the Queen’s minion, her obedient hound, sniffing out rats where they may hide.”

  Cecil pulled a knife out from under his cloak and lunged at him, but Essex was quicker and leapt out of the way. He pulled his own knife and came at Cecil poised to stab him in the chest. Oxford pushed Cecil out of the way and grabbed Essex’s arm, wrenching it around until he dropped the knife on the floor. Shakespeare dove for it, and came up holding it under Essex’s chin while Oxford held both his arms behind his back.

  “Leave us be, Lord Essex,” the earl said in a hushed voice. “Mind your own business, and we shall mind ours.”

  Cecil pulled a long runner from a nearby table and began to wrap it around Essex’s wrists. Oxford drew a handkerchief from his pocket, stuffed it in his enemy’s mouth, tying it around the back of his head. Then he hurried to the desk and grabbed a key out of a drawer. “Take him and lock him in the chapel,” Oxford said, handing the key to Shakespeare. “No one ever goes in there. Cecil, you know the back way, yes?”

  The small man nodded. They shoved Essex in front of them, knife at the ready, and escorted him out of the room.

  When they were gone, Cassandra emerged from her hiding place. “Lord Oxford, what will happen when you release him? He will go straight to the Queen and tell her of this.”

  “First of all, he has learned nothing about James and his whereabouts. We disclosed nothing to him. Second, he will not tell the Queen about this. Nothing could be more humiliating than being bested by an old man, a hunchback, and an actor. He will look for other means of retaliation, but it will not be through the Queen.”

  “You are sure of this?”

  “I know him well. He is vanity itself. When you and James are safely on your way out of town, I will release him and he can scurry back to whatever rock he dragged himself out from under. I fear this encounter will not bode well for the future of Will’s company, however.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I know Essex has been hounding him to restage Richard III. He loved it when it was first mounted, because it features a conniving hunchback whom he always took to represent Robin.”

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nbsp; “Master Shakespeare would never mean for as despicable a character as King Richard to represent Sir Robert. They are friends.”

  “Yes, I have always been puzzled about that,” Oxford mused. “I think it is obvious that the character being a hunchback is merely coincidental. But now that Essex sees Will as an enemy, surely he will not fund a re-mounting of the play.”

  “”Tis a pity.”

  “On the other hand…”

  “What is it?”

  “This episode might just spur him further yet to sponsor another staging of Richard III, after all. In the past, I think he thought it would be a vehicle to turn the people against Cecil, and hence against the Queen and her whole retinue of advisors. Now, he will want that more than ever.”

  “He would do something so underhanded?” she breathed.

  “He once told me he feels he should be the rightful heir to the throne―that there is no reason to look to the Stuart clan when he is the Queen’s cousin, and could be considered to be in the line of succession.”

  “Surely not.”

  “I think I will tell William to make amends with him. I will tell him to offer to mount Richard III at the theatre’s own cost, and let Essex stir the people up with it. Maybe it will even lead to a rebellion.”

  “Lord Oxford, this is treasonous,” she whispered. “You can not want this!”

  “No, I do not want this,” he said turning to look at her. “But Essex leading a plot against the Queen could only result in one thing…his beheading, and that little mutt Southampton can go down with him.”

  Cassandra’s blood ran cold. This is exactly what would happen. Essex would foment a rebellion, Southampton at his side; he would be caught, and lose his head. Southampton, however, would be spared and pardoned.

  Shakespeare and Cecil rushed back into the room. “He is secured,” Shakespeare reported.

  “You are heroes, all,” Cassandra exclaimed.

  “Think nothing of it,” Shakespeare replied with a pleased grin.

  “William,” Cecil said. “Perhaps you should go meet James at his house and escort him back here in his carriage. I do not like to think of him managing by himself. He needs a strong and sure helper. Will you do it?”