by Susan Kay
“I wouldn’t give much for my chances on that score,” he said drily.
Their silence lasted a moment more and then exploded into laughter. She had raised the invisible barrier between them. He sat down on the stool at her feet and they began to talk unguardedly, like old friends. For nearly two hours, Mrs. Ashley paced the ante-room in annoyance and occasionally applied an eye to the keyhole. Then at last Elizabeth glanced regretfully at the clock on the chimney-piece and held out her hand.
“Robin, you must go. I’m sorry I can’t ask you to dine, but even now it wouldn’t be safe. You should not have come and I should not have received you. The Queen still has spies in my household.”
“The Queen is in no condition to listen to spies’ tales now.” His voice was serious suddenly, his glance urgent and compelling as he leaned forward to take her hand. “She’s very near to death, but if she fails to name you as her successor you may have to fight for your crown. Cardinal Pole could oppose you in his own right and rally the Catholics against you. Use that gold to arm yourself.”
“And you?” she asked quietly. “You will fight for me?”
“To the death if need be.”
She clasped both his hands between her own in the ancient symbol of allegiance.
“Till death us do part then.”
He bent his head swiftly and kissed the hands which covered his own, knowing that the dice were thrown, that she had sworn him for life into her service and that death alone would release him from her jealous possession. Where she led he must follow, but must he only follow? He dared to ask it and received an ambiguous little smile in return.
“Good friends should travel side by side, like parallel lines.”
“Parallel lines never meet,” he reminded her meaningfully. “Even in eternity.”
She looked up at him and there was no laughter in her eyes now. They were cool and clear as they rested on his face for a moment.
“You are the mathematician, Robin. If you tell me that is so I shall believe it. But surely you remember Roger Ascham saying you would never make a politician if you gave up Cicero to study Euclid’s ‘pricks and lines.’”
He was shrewd enough to know when he was being mocked and warned off. He would need to be a strategist to win her love; he would have to stalk her like prey. She was daring him to go to war, to enter a battle where all the odds were against his ultimate victory. She had flung down the gauntlet of challenge and he was too great an adventurer to resist taking it up, knowing the value of the prise at stake. And just to show her he was not daunted by the prospect, he told her that if she chose to play chess with him, he knew all the right moves.
“The right moves, yes,” she conceded mockingly, “but not necessarily the right order in which to make them.”
There was a glint of amusement in her eyes as she held out her hand and rather carelessly dismissed him. He was very glad then that he had not pushed his luck by attempting to kiss her; he saw with uncomfortable clarity what a crass blunder that would have been.
All through the long journey back to Norfolk, the memory of her pale, enigmatic face tormented him. It was always her delight to speak in riddles and that curious ability to obscure her real meaning had saved her from death on more than one occasion. He spurred his horse angrily and wondered why she should feel the need to exercise that talent on him! It gave him the uneasy feeling that she did not entirely trust him, and he knew instinctively that until he had that trust he would never gain his heart’s desire.
* * *
The new Spanish Ambassador, Feria, arrived in England in November and went at once through the rapidly emptying palace to the Queen’s bedside.
The great room was dark and the state bed resembled an elaborate mausoleum. He had brought a letter from Philip, but the little shrivelled figure in the bed was beyond reading it.
“Will he come?” she whispered, groping for the Spaniard’s hand.
Feria launched into what he had evidently prepared. His master was deeply grieved at the impossibility of returning to England, but pressing business detained him in Spain. The welfare of the state must come first. He sent his good wishes—The smooth voice continued to flow over her, glibly repeating the empty excuses, but Mary was no longer listening.
She lay on her deathbed, with her courtiers already flocking to Hatfield, and Philip sent—his good wishes.
She held up her withered hand and stayed the Spaniard’s eloquence.
“Peace, my friend. I am content.”
Feria’s eyes swivelled round to the few women who still hovered in the room. He seemed relieved as he bent closer over to the bed to convey his real message.
“His Majesty begs that as your last duty you will declare the Lady Elizabeth your sole successor.”
Yes, she had known he would ask that. And even now in this last moment of bitter disillusion she could deny him nothing.
“If Elizabeth will discharge my debts and maintain the True Faith, I will acknowledge her as my only heir.”
So, she had said it at last! Yet, strangely, this second betrayal of her conscience was not so clear in her mind as the first all those years ago when her father had forced her to sign that paper recognising his authority as Supreme Head of the Church in England. Oh, the strokes of her pen upon that evil document had gleamed newly wet in her memory ever since. And this was her final punishment—to hand her country over to a bastard heretic!
She lay very still with her eyes closed, lest the wretched tears of failure should steal down her cheeks.
Feria bowed himself out with very little further pretence at solicitude and the November afternoon darkened towards evening beyond the tall windows. She watched as her women built up the fire and her mind began to wander, flickering and bobbing as wildly as the dancing flames.
Fire.
The futile burnings at Smithfield. For every heretic that burned, three sprang to take his place—the plague of heresy would never be contained in England now.
War.
Military defeat, financial disaster—and Calais! Calais was engraved upon her heart.
Marriage.
Two cruel and delusive mock pregnancies which had given false hope to the last stages of a fatal illness—no child, no love.
Fire; war; marriage; her mind, feverish and confused, revolved increasingly around those three words. They had brought her nothing and, worse, brought nothing to England but disaster, religious schisms, bankruptcy, and national shame. It was a poor, threadbare inheritance, but even now she need not will it to Elizabeth: she could bequeath her crown to the Queen of Scots. And if she did, there would be civil war.
I should have killed her when I had the chance, but I couldn’t do it. Why couldn’t I do it?
Now she could not do this thing either, could not disinherit her sister and leave a legacy of anarchy to crown her failures. What John Knox had denounced as the “monstrous regiment of women” must continue in England—but not in the safe, Catholic hands of a Scottish queen.
It was the last choice between the fate of her beloved religion and the fate of the realm. It was the only choice for a Tudor monarch.
Elizabeth would rule.
* * *
The Great North Road was swarming with excited figures, some on horseback, some on foot, all leaving the capital in a steady stream for Hatfield. Day after day the exodus went on and Elizabeth sat in the Great Hall, receiving those anxious to swear fealty to the Queen who was to be. Even Feria came and was suitably ingratiating, while reminding her of all she owed to Philip’s friendship. The days ticked away slowly in unbearable suspense, and the news came to her that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Pole, was now gravely ill and unlikely to outlive his mistress and cousin by many days. The crown will fall on your pretty head as surely as day follows night. If Pole died, there would be no one to lead the Catholics again
st her and for the present, at least, there would be no fight.
The 17th of November was as hot as any summer’s day, a freak of nature which caused some comment. She stood in the early morning sunshine watching the new arrivals flock through the gatehouse below. They couldn’t get here quick enough, or bow low enough when they arrived, and her cynical amusement was touched with faint disgust.
“Rats, deserting the ship of state,” she murmured with an unpleasant smile. “Poor Mary.”
“Poor Mary!” Mrs. Ashley rustled to the window and looked at her in indignant amazement. “Your Grace can say that after all we’ve gone through!”
“Why not? The same thing could happen to me one day. If this is what naming your successor does I’ll keep my mouth shut till they lay me in my coffin.”
She shivered in the hot sunlight and swung round to collect an armful of books.
“What are you doing?” Kat was alarmed.
“I’m going out—as far away from them as I can get. I’ll be in the park somewhere if the news should come.”
“You’d better wear your sun hat then.” Kat tossed her a red and white bonnet. “I don’t want you ascending the throne covered in freckles!”
Elizabeth put on the sun hat and ducked out of the crowded manor, avoiding the obsequious bows and curtsies which greeted her appearance, waving back the women who hurried forward to attend her. She wanted to be alone now in these last hours before her destiny closed in upon her, alone to think and remember the past.
She went out of the quadrangle through the central arch in the loggia at a stately pace, crossed the green before the palace, and took the archway that would gain her the park. Once through that gateway she began to run like a child, away from the very thing she had coveted for more than ten years.
When she could run no longer, she turned and faced the hateful sense of duty like an enemy.
“I will be Queen,” she screamed to the old house glowing rusty red in the distance. “I will do as I please.”
You will be Queen. And you will do what pleases England. She sank down beneath an oak tree and buried her face in her hands. She did not want her throne on terms, but she could not fight her own conscience. She knew what she owed; and she knew how to pay. She would rule England, rule it alone. And England alone should rule her.
The utter loneliness of splendid isolation closed in around her as she sat beneath the bare oak tree, a proud young tigress ready to stalk wild and free in the forests of Europe, unshackled by human bondage. There was a shout in the distance and she raised her head slowly in its direction. Across the broad sweep of grass a great crowd had begun to move.
So it had come. The long apprenticeship was over.
It had come and she was ready. She stood before them and heard Cecil’s voice above the rest crying that the Queen was dead.
“Long live the Queen!”
The roar of their acknowledgment died away and they were silent, waiting for her to speak.
There, in the strangest moment they ever experienced, they saw her kneel to them, like a Druid sacrifice beneath the ancient oak.
She said, very low, in Latin, “It is our Lord’s doing and it is marvellous in our eyes.”
The hot November sunshine blazed down on her bent head. No one else spoke.
And one by one the men who had sworn to serve her sank down on their knees around her and likewise bowed their heads.
Chapter 4
It was far into the night before Hatfield’s hive-like activity ceased, and the jostling bodies who had packed into the old manor house each found themselves an uncomfortable niche in which to spend the remaining hours of darkness.
Finally, the heavy doors of the new Queen’s private chamber were opened by the discreetly yawning figure of Mrs. Ashley, and the young man who had waited so patiently without for so many hours was admitted. The clock in the Great Hall struck two as he stepped into the room and went humbly down on one knee with his hat in his hand.
The Queen was dressed in a loose robe edged with sable and her hair fell freely down her back. She looked very young as she rose from her chair and gave him her hand to kiss.
“Robin!”
“My Queen.” He bent his head over her hand and the reverence of his voice and gesture amused her. She allowed him to hold her fingers a shade longer than the moment demanded before she took a step back from him.
“I saw you arrive this morning,” she said.
He was immediately disheartened. All these hours she had been aware of his presence, yet had not summoned him till now.
“I have been busy.”
Her eyes reproved him. It was as though she had answered his unspoken question.
“Of course, madam. It was gracious of you to receive me at this hour.”
She smiled and half turned her back on him.
“That white mare of yours is beautiful,” she continued thoughtfully. “May I have her?”
He inclined his head hastily. “Gladly, madam.”
“It will not break your heart to part with her then?”
“She was intended as a gift for Your Majesty. Indeed I would have presented her—” He hesitated.
“Had I not asked for her first.” She laughed and held out both hands to him. “Did you really think I had forgotten you?”
“It is Your Majesty’s privilege to keep me waiting.”
“Half the night?”
“All my life—if you choose.”
“You are offended.”
He smiled drily. “Madam, I am always offended when I go hungry.”
“Why, have they not fed you?” she asked in surprise.
“Not so that my stomach noticed. Do all your retainers subsist on these sparrow rations?”
“I was not prepared for such company,” she said demurely. “Kat, set that tray before the fire. And bring wine—two goblets. Half water in mine.”
She withdrew to the couch before the log fire and he followed in accordance with her gesture.
“Water?” he echoed questioningly.
“I don’t like wine.”
A word began to tumble round his mind, nudging him unwillingly along an uneasy train of thought.
Temperance.
A stupid, inappropriate nickname, he had never understood it, but now, face to face with this extraordinary frugality he could pause and wonder for one anxious moment how far these nun-like habits extended. Once, as a very small boy, he had been soundly cuffed for trying to touch a lighted altar candle. Now his family was Protestant and they no longer held with sacred candles. Yet, kneeling at the feet of his Queen, he experienced that same guilty, hopeless feeling of something beautiful just beyond his grimy reach.
“Eat,” she commanded lightly, and he obeyed. She watched him in the dancing firelight, turning the goblet stem slowly between her long fingers.
She said softly, “Cardinal Pole is dead.”
He looked up startled. “Madam, are you sure?”
“I have reliable sources.”
He shook his head slightly and bit into a chicken leg.
“I find it quite remarkable that two of your mortal enemies should drop dead on the same day. And this extraordinary weather—it’s almost like an omen.”
He drained his goblet and set it down with a slight frown.
“I suppose this means there’ll be no fight after all.”
“You would have preferred civil war?” she inquired ironically.
“A little healthy conflict—nothing serious, of course—”
“Just enough to distinguish yourself as my true knight!”
Unnerved by the ease with which she saw through him, he flushed and was silent for a moment.
“A man must prove his worth to his monarch,” he said slowly, “if not in battle, then perhaps—in other ways.”
The urgency of his glance was charged with meaning. She chose to ignore it and sat back on the couch, winding a tendril of hair around her finger.
“Tell me what is happening downstairs.”
He was silent a moment, regarding her steadily in the soft candlelight, completely at a loss as to how to reconcile the snub with that decidedly seductive gesture. He would have said he could read any woman like a book, but with Elizabeth there were too many pages missing. She was an elaborate code that he must crack.
“The palace,” he mused, “the palace is bursting at the seams, but it’s quiet now. The news of Pole’s death is not generally known yet—there will be great excitement tomorrow. For the present most of them are asleep on the floor like dead flies.”
“Flies,” she repeated, looking inwards. “Flies around a honey pot. Yes—I suppose that’s how it will be from now on.”
Now he was truly ill at ease. Hell—was that how she saw him—a parasite like the rest, hanging around in the hope of what he might get from her?
“Madam—” he began haltingly.
She leaned forward swiftly and poked him roughly in the ribs.
“Fool!” she said gently. “I didn’t mean you. We have been friends for many years. But I do have a position for you—something that will suit you very well. Guess!”
“Secretary of State?”
She frowned. He tried again.
“Lord Chancellor?”
She kicked him, furtively, so that her women should not see.
“Master of the Horse?”
“You knew all the time!”
“Madam, you don’t have a royal monopoly to tease. What other post could suit me half so well?”
“Then you don’t want to be Secretary,” she remarked thoughtfully. “That’s good.”
“Why?” He looked at her, suddenly suspicious. “Why is it good that I don’t want to be Secretary?”
“Because I intend to appoint Sir William Cecil.” There was a shade of coolness in her voice as she saw his face harden. “Yes—I can see you are delighted to hear of his elevation—indeed, as delighted as he will be to hear of yours.”
