by Susan Kay
At length he lay beside her on the coverlet, smoothing the hair back from her temples.
“About last night,” he began uneasily, “if I had known, then naturally—”
“You would not have behaved like a boring boy in search of his first whore?”
“I could have been more—reasonable.”
“Oh,” she said innocently, “were you being unreasonable?”
“You certainly appeared to think so.” He smiled cautiously, not quite sure of her mood even now. “You were in such a rage I half expected to find myself under guard this morning. It’s the first time we’ve quarrelled since we were children.”
She began to unfasten the silver buttons on his doublet.
“We’re not children now,” she said softly.
He smiled at her, suddenly sure of her invitation.
“Sometimes I think you never were,” he said and bent his head to kiss her deeply. Her arms closed around him. He loosened the ribbon at the neck of her nightdress and slipped his hand inside to cup the warm softness of her breast. Her body arched with desire beneath him, a sudden urgent arousal which told him that at last it would all happen. Everything.
Deft from years of practice was the hand which freed him from the cumbersome codpiece and then explored with knowledgeable skill, finding no need to delay the moment of their satisfaction. He lowered himself for the final act. In that same moment her eyes opened full on his face and every soft, seductive curve of her body went rigid in his embrace. He was strong enough and mad enough to have forced her on to the end, but she struggled free of his lips just long enough to cry out. One word, one anguished syllable made him release her as though she were suddenly white hot to his touch.
For the name she cried was not his!
He stared down at her, and she clawed away from him into the pillow. He was left kneeling beside her with his codpiece dangling absurdly, feeling, for all his sudden limpness, as though he had been turned to stone. He could not believe it had happened to him and he was too amazed, too demoralised even to feel anger. Not knowing what to do or say, he hung there, staring at her in a bemused stupor.
It was a full moment before he even realised that she was crying and then, in spite of everything, he was moved by a curious tenderness. He had thought her so hard, so clever, so invulnerable, and now her tears hurt him beyond belief.
He leaned over and laid a hand on her shoulder, touching her gently, without demand.
“Tell me about the Lord Admiral,” he said simply.
There was no sound except her tortured sobbing, a dreadful sound which knifed his senses. It affected him like the wild anguish of an animal in a trap. He tried to gather her up in his arms and hold her close.
“Tell me and have done with it,” he begged. “Tell me—how can I help you unless you do?”
It was a mistake—oh, he knew it the moment the words were out. He could not hold her now, she was like a wild animal in his arms, savage with fury. She sat upright, with the tears still running down her face, and he recoiled from her.
“You insolent bloody knave—I don’t want your help. Get out of here. Get out, God damn you!”
She reached out for the little silver bell and his hand went out to her in a hopeless gesture of bewilderment.
“Elizabeth—wait!”
The angry, imperious jangle cut across his protest and brought Mrs. Ashley sweeping back into the room with alacrity.
She paused on the threshold and took in the scene with one glance, the Queen’s face still wet with tears and Dudley, struggling with frantic, humiliated haste to fasten his codpiece. Her lined face settled itself into a mask of strict neutrality as she approached the bed, where Elizabeth, unable to meet her gaze, lay down and stared up at the tester.
“Your Majesty?”
“Show Lord Robert out,” said Elizabeth shakily, “and see to it that I am not disturbed again.”
Ashley curtsied and turned away in silence. From the opposite side of the bed, Robin caught Kat’s gaze with an urgent, questioning look that she ignored.
For the first time he was angry. As soon as they were alone in the Privy Chamber, he turned masterfully on the old lady and manoeuvred her to a window-seat.
“Well, my Lord?” She was looking at him with ill-concealed hostility. “What do you want?”
“Information,” he said bluntly. “You’ve been with the Queen since she was a child; she can have no secrets from you.”
Kat’s lips set into a thin line of pain.
“If she had, my lord, you can rest assured they would be safe with me.”
She got up abruptly and made to step past him, but he blocked her path.
“What holds her back from me—is it only the Admiral? Or is there something more—something I’ve not even begun to guess?”
Kat’s stubborn silence was infuriating, following so hard on the heels of his humiliating failure. He caught her wrists in a bruising grasp and his handsome face was suddenly savage with rage in the harsh sunlight.
“You damned old fool! If you know what ails her, then for Christ’s sake tell me!”
Kat’s eyes were stony. After a moment he released her and stepped back, ashamed and vaguely alarmed by his behaviour. She was the second woman he had bullied in the last hour, and all for desire of one on whom he dared not lay a hand in anger.
“There’s only one thing you need to know,” said Kat with icy dignity, “and I will tell it with pleasure. You will never be King of England while my lady lives. So—if that’s all she means to you, get out of her life. Take your wretched little wife and go abroad and don’t come back. Heed my advice, my lord—there’s nothing ahead for you but misery if you don’t.”
He let her pass and did not watch her leave the room. Beneath the narrow window where he sat, the brightly clad courtiers and ladies walked to and fro, like mechanical dolls, across the wooden terrace. But he neither saw nor heard them as he stared out through the little leaded panes. Only Kat’s voice walked slowly up and down his mind, like the doleful tolling of a death bell.
There’s nothing ahead for you but misery…
Somewhere, in the depths of unwilling consciousness he knew that he had heard an awful truth.
* * *
It was stiflingly hot in the curtained bed, but Elizabeth found she was shivering. She got up slowly, instinctively avoiding a sharp movement which would jar her throbbing temple, and groped her way blindly to her writing table. For a long time she sat in the faint stream of cooler air that blew in from the open window, with her head in her hands. Hot tears burned tracks down her fingers and soaked the tiny ruffles at her wrists.
The coils of her brain writhed with the conflict of opposing desires. For twenty-five years she had lived in peace with her shadow, her mirror image, her other self, unaware of its consuming malevolence, its need to destroy one man in the name of love. But she was aware of it now, terribly aware. And afraid of its power to hate.
One man. Only one. It was all that shade demanded as it looked from time to time out of her amber eyes, turning them to mirrors of black glass, waiting quietly, unobtrusively, for its ultimate revenge on manhood. The shadow slept, but how little it would take to wake it.
Death waited in a lost corridor of her mind, waited for Robin in the glittering guise of her love. She knew now what she feared, what held her back from taking the very thing she desired. She could not trust herself with his life.
For marriage would not content him. Men like Robin were never content, and men like Robin were all she would ever love, grasping, ambitious reflections of herself. Once he knew that the crown matrimonial would never be his, that she would not make him king in his own right, he would begin to plot and scheme behind her back, building up a court faction to force her hand. Robin was too like his father, neither men to be ruled by their wives. To emerge from that
final conflict as the victor, it would be necessary to kill him. And she knew she was capable of doing it—it was as simple as that. His company, his friendship, his passionate attachment were all that she dared to take from him; she loved him too much to let him pay the price of owning her, body and soul.
What woman could keep a man by her side for a lifetime on such terms? She had no choice but to let him go on hoping, hoping, till he saw that she had let him waste his life in a vain pursuit, and hated her for it; as she would hate herself.
She was alone with her secret, her dark legacy of the past; there was no one she could trust enough to tell, who would not think her mad. And yet she must tell it somehow and release a little of this caged anguish which seemed to rock her sanity.
She took up her silver pen and stared down at the blank sheet of paper before her. The words poured out of her agonised soul and spread themselves across the page like gleaming drops of black blood.
I grieve and dare not show my discontent
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate.
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute, yet inwardly do prate.
I am and not: I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself, my other self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, does what I have done.
When she came to her senses, the pen was still in her hand and the words were long dry. She had no conscious memory of writing them down. For a moment, she felt inclined to destroy the whole page, then found she could not bring herself to do it. She put the sheet of parchment in a drawer, locked it safely away, and then turned her guilty attention to the state papers which waited in a neatly reproachful stack.
Behind her back, the door clicked open and shut. Soft footsteps went across the room to Kat’s chair and became a quick rustle of silk that betokened a curtsey. Then there was pointed silence from the tapestry frame. The afternoon darkened with a threat of thunder and they sat and worked in the failing light without looking at each other or speaking a word.
There seemed to be nothing left to say.
Chapter 9
Cecil stood in the Queen’s room in icy, disbelieving silence, aghast and immobilised by the storm of invective that was raging in his ears. His tentative reference to the Archduke Charles, Spain’s current choice of suitor, had brought a hornet’s nest of ungrateful abuse upon his head.
Through narrowed eyes he watched her pace up and down the room, twisting a lace handkerchief between her trembling fingers. She looked pale and strained and there were dark circles beneath her eyes, as though she had not slept for many nights.
Her voice flayed him with spiteful and unreasonable hostility; nothing in his conduct of the Scottish treaty appeared to please her. She had been obliged to spend freely on the campaign, so why was there no financial recompense written into the terms of surrender? Why had he failed to get Calais back from the French? What had he been doing all these weeks idling in Scotland? She did not want to hear about the cost of his journey—if he had incurred expenses, he would have to foot the bill himself. She was not made of money!
The incredible injustice of her accusations stung him deeply; and if she carried out her threat and refused to pay him, he had no idea where he would find the money. But for a moment longer he valiantly put aside his personal considerations and tried to reason with her, to bring her back to the question of the Archduke.
The handkerchief ripped in two; she flung the two pieces in his face and stamped her foot savagely. Marriage, marriage—she was ill of the miserable word. Had he nothing else to say for himself?
“Only this, madam—that I see you are neglecting your business and half way to ruining the realm.”
She drew in a sharp breath; for a moment he was quite certain she was going to hit him.
Then abruptly, she turned her back on him so that he could not see her face.
“Get out! Quickly! And pray for my forgiveness, Cecil—pray very hard.”
He went with his mind made up at last. She was on the very edge of disaster. He knew he had no choice but to save her from herself and the evil influence of Lord Robert Dudley.
* * *
The plump, episcopal shadow of the Spanish Ambassador, Bishop de Quadra, hung on the panelled wall of Cecil’s study, quivering, like its owner, with intense interest. It was the most curious interview, held between a spy of His Most Catholic Majesty and the arch-heretic detested by Spain, and Quadra was sharp enough to see it was not being held by accident.
He knew the Secretary was in some kind of disgrace, having heard from various sources that Lord Robert Dudley was endeavouring to deprive him of his place. Cecil was evidently a man with a serious grievance, but even so his behaviour now seemed strangely out of character. Since Quadra had been in England he had never seen the Secretary display a flicker of emotion, or heard him speak a single word that had not been carefully weighed before hand. Was this really Cecil speaking now, speaking with the wildest indiscretion in an open disloyalty that bordered close to treason?
“What I am about to say must never be repeated, Bishop. Will you swear to absolute secrecy?”
Quadra smiled faintly in ironical disbelief.
“Men of my calling are not without discretion, Sir William. No one will hear of it, I assure you.”
No one except the whole of Spain and ultimately the rest of the world, thought Cecil calmly as he poured wine from a glass decanter. He deliberately slopped the wine into the tray and mopped at it in a gesture of distraction.
“I tell you this, sir, the Queen conducts herself so strangely that I am about to leave her service.”
“Indeed?” It was almost a purr. Quadra stroked his crucifix thoughtfully. “That, if I might say so, would be a grave loss to your country, Sir William.”
Cecil shrugged irritably and handed him a goblet.
“That’s as may be, but it’s a bad sailor who fails to make for a port when he sees a storm coming—though God knows I shall probably end in the Tower for it.”
“A storm?” Quadra blinked like an owl.
“The Queen is heading for utter ruin with Lord Robert Dudley.”
“Certainly there have been rumours—disquieting rumours.”
“I don’t traffic in rumours, Bishop, I deal with pure facts. And the facts are that the Queen is shutting herself up in the palace to the peril of her health. Dudley plans to marry her, of course, but the realm will never tolerate it. He’d better be dead, Quadra—better in Paradise.” Cecil paused and laid his hand on the bishop’s with an air of desperation. “Sir, I implore you, for the love of God, to use your influence with Her Majesty and persuade her not to throw herself away in this manner. Remind her what she owes to the people.”
“I am grieved by what you tell me.” Quadra shifted uneasily in his chair. He had no influence whatsoever with the Queen and he believed Cecil was perfectly aware of that fact. So where was this leading? “Deeply grieved,” he repeated solemnly. “I have, of course, always done my best to persuade your Queen to live quietly. If it is of any comfort to you, sir, I will naturally do what I can with her now.”
“I fear—it may be too late for that.” Cecil leaned forward to fill Quadra’s goblet again, meeting the steady gaze of those globular brown eyes. “I have heard it said that Lord Robert Dudley is thinking of destroying his wife.”
Quadra’s gaze flickered and held.
“Reliable sources, sir?”
“Oh yes,” said Cecil grimly, “most reliable. He has given out that she is ill, hoping, of course, that her death will cause no comment. But I happen to know that she is perfectly well and taking good care not to be poisoned. I trust God will never permit such a foul crime to be accomplished.”
Quadra cro
ssed himself and looked suitably shocked. Cecil sat with his head in his hands, a man in the dregs of despair who had unburdened himself of a dark confidence. After a moment he felt Quadra’s soft hand patting his arm.
“A bad business for you, Sir William. You have my sympathy.”
“Your most discreet sympathy, I trust.”
“Without question,” Quadra placed a fat finger to his lips and Cecil gave him a bleak smile. A moment later the bishop was reaching for his timepiece and sucking in his breath with feigned surprise. Was that really the time? Ah, these light nights—so deceptive. And he had work to attend to.
“Of course, Bishop—I must not keep you from state business.”
Thus, murmuring affable trivia, the two men parted, both knowing precisely what business would take Quadra to his ambassador’s pen.
And two days later, on Sunday the 8th of September, Amy Dudley’s household returned at dusk from Abingdon fair to find their mistress’s dead body at the foot of a shallow stone staircase.
* * *
“Dead, madam. Dead of a broken neck. And in what I’m afraid can only be called suspicious circumstances.”
Elizabeth sank into a chair and stared at Cecil’s immobile face.
“Suspicious?”
“She was alone in the house, madam. All her servants at the fair. No witness to say how she came to fall—if indeed she did fall.”
Elizabeth stood up abruptly.
“You think he killed her, don’t you?”
Cecil raised his shoulders in a noncommittal shrug.
“My opinion is immaterial, madam, it’s the opinion of the world that counts. Guilty or innocent, he will always be tainted by suspicion. Marry him now, or at any time in the future, and he’ll bring your throne down within a month.”
She turned away. Her fists were clenching slowly and unclenching, her face was pale and hard as marble, her eyes black pits of fury.
