by Susan Kay
Throckmorton gnawed his lip uneasily.
“And if a storm should chance to throw you upon English shores, madam?”
Mary raised her slim shoulders with indifference.
“Then your Queen may make a sacrifice of me.” She gave him a slight smile. “And who knows, my friend, perhaps that would be for the best after all.”
He did not know how to answer that. It seemed the strangest thing for her to say and he wondered what she saw as she stared past him for a moment. Whatever it was, it made her shiver.
He bent to kiss her hand tenderly, with real regret. She was so vulnerable—beautiful, charming, full of those feminine frailties which appealed to a strong man; but, frankly, he would not hazard a week’s pay on her chance of surviving any serious confrontation with Elizabeth. His mistress had long claws and would have no compunction about using them on any cocksure kitten who strayed across her path.
There was nothing more he could do to help Mary; an ambassador must take care. He had given his advice and further argument would only compromise his position with Elizabeth.
He walked out of the room sadly, and left the Queen of Scots to make her own mistakes.
* * *
“Bitch!”
Elizabeth’s clenched fist crashed down on her desk and sent Throckmorton’s despatch spinning to the floor.
“Stupid, stupid little bitch! Who the devil has advised her in this madness?”
Cecil bent automatically and retrieved the scattered papers in silence. Privately he doubted that anyone was advising the Scottish Queen at the moment. Dictated to equally by pride and courage, she was plainly acting on a heated emotion which boded ill for future negotiations. Intrigue, unrest, and foreign interference were the natural corollaries to her arrival in Scotland. Even if she held fire for a year or so to consolidate her influence, she would be a constant menace to Elizabeth’s life. And for the moment their position seemed stalemated.
Elizabeth stared down at her papers, fingering her temple in an unconsciously fretful gesture that alerted him.
“This summer progress into Suffolk,” he began cautiously.
“Yes,” she said lightly. “What of the progress?”
“There’s still time to cancel it, madam.”
She looked up startled.
“Cancel it? On what grounds? There’s no unrest in that county.”
“Madam, you are not fit to undertake such an arduous journey.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed and she pushed her papers to one side angrily. “Have you been talking to my women?” she demanded.
“I was concerned,” he admitted nervously, “and certainly several of your ladies agreed—” He broke off, uncomfortably aware that he was about to be indiscreet.
“Well,” she prompted ominously, “what have my women said? By God, you had better tell me!”
“Forgive me, madam—but they say you are the colour of a corpse and that all your bones may be counted.”
Elizabeth stood up and he instinctively took a step backwards.
“Damn them!” she snapped. “Damn their meddling tongues! Do I employ them to count my bones and put the fear of God into my chief minister?”
He was crimson with a mixture of alarm and pleasure. My chief minister—had he really heard her say it?
She watched him shift his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other and suddenly gave him a devastating smile, which caught him right off balance. He was not in love with her; but he could see, with startling clarity, why so many men were.
“Who was it?” she laughed. “Cobham—Northampton?”
He looked at the floor and she nodded slowly.
“Oh, yes, I might have known. Those two are the greatest panic-mongers in this realm. Extraordinarily fond of seeing death written on someone’s face—usually mine. Wishful thinking, I fear.” She waved her hand as he began to protest. “For God’s sake, Cecil, confine your spying to its proper sphere. Bedchamber gossip could be the end of you.”
“With respect, madam—my anxiety remains.”
“Without foundation, my friend—I shall outlive you all, I swear it.” She sat down again and leaned her chin on her hands as she watched him sigh and look unconvinced. “Listen. If ever I have the slightest intention of departing this world I shall see that you receive a month’s notice in advance. Even allowing for your gout, that should give you plenty of time to flee to safety in Geneva—wouldn’t you agree?”
“Madam!”
She lifted her hand to silence him.
“Sit down. I have something to show you.”
He eased himself into the chair opposite, deeply aggrieved by her assumption that self-interest alone motivated his concern. He had a fierce paternal feeling for her which defied logical analysis. All his life he seemed to have been marking time and waiting for her service. And now little else mattered beyond those hours when he was challenged, stimulated, and alerted in every mental faculty by the most difficult and exacting human being he had ever met.
Mildred was not amused by his obsession. She had once told him tartly that if he could not leave the Queen outside their bedroom door, he had better sleep alone. The incident had jolted him. In all their cosy, domesticated existence it was the only time he ever remembered Mildred raising her voice; and in the interests of marital harmony he no longer discussed his royal mistress with his wife.
The Queen signed a document and pushed it across the table for his attention. As he looked down at it, he blinked in astonishment.
It was the authorisation of Mary Stuart’s safe conduct through English waters.
“That leaves England the moment she sets sail.”
“Too late to be of use to her?” Cecil raised a puzzled eyebrow. “Why sign it at all then?”
“To cover myself. Should she reach Scotland in safety I shall simply tell her Throckmorton misunderstood me—but make no mistake, Cecil. If she slips through our fingers when we have the chance to take her, someone will hang for it.”
Cecil rolled up the document hastily and got to his feet with difficulty.
“I shall see that the fleet patrols the Channel in search of unauthorised vessels, madam.”
“Good.” Elizabeth laid her pen aside. “Give me five minutes alone with her at Hampton Court or Greenwich and the Treaty of Edinburgh will be ratified beyond all question of doubt. By God, she’ll sign it, if I have to guide her hand with my own.”
“And then, madam?”
“And then I have no further quarrel with her. She can count on my friendship, for what it’s worth—God knows she’ll find precious little when she gets to Scotland.”
Cecil frowned. “All this diplomacy hinges upon her capture, madam. But the Channel is vast and the elements are in God’s hands. A storm—a sudden fog—and it will be like searching for a needle in a haystack.”
“Well—you’re on the best of terms with God, aren’t you, my friend? See what you can arrange.”
He found her cynical irreverence disturbing and coughed to cover the break in his composure.
“I shall certainly do everything in my power, madam. If the Scottish Queen lands in her native land with this issue unresolved I fear Your Majesty’s fair head may not sit in safety for long.”
“Well,” Elizabeth gave him a sly smile, “that ought to cure my headaches permanently.”
“Quite, madam,” he said drily, “yet I and every other loyal Englishman should prefer a less drastic remedy. And to that end—touching this matter of the progress—Your Majesty will consider my advice?”
Her smile was disarmingly reproachful.
“I always consider your advice, William Cecil. You ought to know that by now.”
He went out of the room feeling flattered and topsides with the world.
When the door had closed behind him she added softl
y to herself, “But of course, I don’t always take it.”
* * *
Ipswich, in the height of summer, was surely the last place on earth God made, thought Robin.
He stood at a window, pulling uncomfortably at the high ruff that had a stranglehold about his throat, while below him a vast, swaying crowd chanted the Queen’s name with maudlin affection. The combined stench of so many unwashed bodies drifted up to him and forced him to withdraw, holding a pomander to his nose. Oh, to be at Richmond in the cool breeze which blew in from the river, to be at Hampton in the graceful shade of the herb garden—to be anywhere in the world but on progress with the English court, surely the most exquisite form of torture ever inflicted upon man.
He glanced at the Queen, sitting white-faced and grim at her dressing table, and wondered again why she did not spare herself this annual ordeal of travelling among her people. Personally, he found all close contact with the rabble crowd highly distasteful, and how she could bring herself to mingle so freely with a stinking mob of disease-ridden peasants was beyond his understanding. He was beginning to realise that there was a great deal he did not understand about her…
Almost a year had passed since Amy’s death and he was still unable to make sense of his position with the Queen. She had greeted him with quiet affection on his return to court—he might have been returning from a holiday in the country rather than exile. She now made show of her belief in his innocence in public, but in private she never spoke of it and he did not dare reopen the subject. She had not apologised for her outrageous accusations that day at Windsor, but superficially all was as it had been between them before the tragedy. Only the smug superiority of Cecil reminded him that his ambition was still unfulfilled.
“Whatever reports and opinions say,” Cecil had written confidently to Throckmorton in Paris, “I know surely that Lord Robert himself has more fear than hope…”
Now Robin stood in limbo, frustrated and insecure, weathering Elizabeth’s wildly varying moods. She had more sides to her than a cut diamond and loving her had all the complications of conducting a love affair simultaneously with half a dozen different women. And yet there had been moments of hope. On Midsummer’s Day he had given a water party, a riot of fireworks, music, and pageantry that had cost him a small fortune. Elizabeth sat on cushions beneath the canopy of the royal barge, clutching his arm every time a million coloured sparks exploded over their heads. Her mood was so responsive, so gay and utterly abandoned, that he had turned to Bishop de Quadra and demanded that he marry them on the spot. There had been a crazy moment when she had laid her head on his shoulder and he had honestly thought she was going to go through with it. Silence had fallen all around them and Quadra, looking vastly excited, had begged her, in rapid Spanish, to rid herself of Cecil and his gang of heretics first. “…and then, madam, I shall be glad to do it.”
Everything hung on the cobweb thread of her mood, and her mood was wild. Robin had begun to draw a gold ring off his finger and Quadra was moving forward portentously. Then suddenly she sat up and laughed and said she doubted the Bishop had enough English to perform the service. She slipped away from Robin’s encircling arm and turned the whole thing into a joke.
The incident had only served to increase Robin’s sense of insecurity, his bitter knowledge that sooner or later he was going to lose her, either to a foreign husband, or to another handsome young upstart, with the same ambitions as his own and no legal impediment to stand in his way. He was jealous and mortally afraid of every man who approached her, however briefly.
But he would be making no proposals to her tonight, light-hearted or otherwise; no man in his right senses would risk attracting her moody attention. He was familiar with all the signs that heralded a tantrum and he was not surprised when she suddenly tore off a pair of emerald earrings and threw them back into the velvet-lined jewel box.
“Robin! Those earrings of yours pinch me!”
He hurried across the room to where she sat glowering at her reflection in the mirror.
“I’m sorry to hear that, madam,” he replied cautiously. “I understood them to be a perfect fit.”
“Well, your understanding is at fault, my lord, like your miserably inferior jewellery! What am I going to wear tonight?”
She pushed the box towards him peevishly. “Find me something suitable, I’m tired of looking.”
He examined the contents of the huge box with unease. He had good taste and was not unused to this task, but tonight whatever he selected would be wrong, he knew it. Over Elizabeth’s jewelled hair he met Lettice’s despairing glance and for a moment his eyes rested with interest on her full lips. It was the first time he had ever really noticed what an extremely attractive girl Lettice was.
Glancing into the mirror he saw the Queen watching him with hostility, and hastily selected a neutral pair of pearls.
Elizabeth struck them out of his hand.
“Fool! If I wear those I shall have to change the gown again.” She glanced around her, as though seeking something else on which to vent her irritation. “Lettice, are all those windows open? It’s like an oven in here.”
“There was one I couldn’t unfasten, madam, the latch was too stiff.” Lettice lowered her eyes demurely. “Perhaps Lord Robert could loosen it if I show him?”
Elizabeth glanced at her sharply, then sat down again with an indifferent shrug.
“Very well. See what you can do with the thing.”
Robin and Lettice retired together to a window at the end of the room and exchanged a smile behind the Queen’s back. Lettice extended the tip of her tongue in a rude and risky gesture and Robin laid a warning hand on her wrist. Their glance met again and held, but the rest of the women in the room were too hot and too intent on their mistress’s dark mood to take any notice.
The court was on progress through the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Robin, as Master of Horse, was responsible for all the transport arrangements. As much as any other courtier he disliked the wretched inconveniences of these annual excursions. It was essential for the sovereign to see and be seen by as much of the population as possible and Elizabeth had begun to travel more adventurously than any of her predecessors had done. Her vast entourage moved around the countryside all through the long summer months, staying in large country houses and crowded little towns, equal prey to bad roads, foul weather, and the risk of plague or smallpox. Nothing deterred Elizabeth from this arduous practice and no one who played host to her was ever quite the same again after the devastating experience. The court, and the rabble which followed in its wake, descended like a swarm of locusts, a horde of quarrelling courtiers all intent on getting a decent bed for the night. The cost to the noblemen who entertained her was virtually ruinous, but none of them could resist the honour or the need to outdo one another with entertainment on a lavish scale. The Queen, delighting in any opportunity to ease the burden on her inadequate purse, traded heavily on their vanity, oblivious to the trail of chaos left in her wake, and the common people loved her for it. In public she was unfailingly gracious, informal and witty, accessible to the lowest of her subjects, captivating whole towns with a simple, charming gesture, and stopping to speak to any child who offered her a ragged bunch of flowers. But as the summer temperatures soared, and the list of engagements became steadily more impossible, those who waited on her in private found her almost impossible to please.
Primitive sanitary arrangements were not calculated to improve her temper either. She was fastidious over matters of hygiene and an iron travelling bath bumped along beside the state bed wherever she went. Robin lived in constant terror of losing it between one destination and the next and his minions mounted a virtual armed guard over it. At Windsor Castle she had had two stone rooms set aside for bathing with the ceilings tiled with mirrors, and everyone in close attendance on her was obliged to adopt her habits or suffer the consequences. Only Robin had dare
d to tease her privately, insisting that a whole new generation of fleas had found itself obliged to take swimming lessons.
She kept her court clean and surprisingly sweet, but on progress she was entirely at the mercy of provincial manners and a general belief that there was no harm in a stink. Certainly they flushed the streets clean of refuse and removed the dunghills for her coming—but nobody could fumigate the masses. She would never permit the people to be held back as they pressed around her, and this year she was suffering more than usual from the heat and the stench and the unceasing round of ceremony. The knowledge that Cecil had been right had put her in such a dark mood tonight that Robin was vividly reminded of a keg of gunpowder waiting for a stray spark. The tension in the room filled with nervous women was mounting; it was the kind of atmosphere in which anyone who made a wrong move might find themselves with the leisure to regret it in the Tower.
Directly behind the Queen’s jewelled back, Lady Katherine Grey was unpacking a vial of French perfume, moving mechanically like a creature in a trance. For several months she had been tense and preoccupied, seldom talking to the girls who crowded around the Queen. The peevish complaints about her lack of status, voiced freely to anyone who would listen in the early days of Elizabeth’s reign, had trailed to a halt of late and she was no longer to be seen making friendly overtures to the Spanish Ambassador. In fact she was seldom to be seen anywhere outside her hours of compulsory attendance on her cousin, and the air of timid silence, so alien to her earlier aggression, had begun to arouse Elizabeth’s interest.
She watched the girl now in the mirror, studying the slightly ponderous step which had first alerted her. When Katherine swayed a little and put out an unthinking hand to steady herself against the Queen’s chair, Elizabeth turned to place her own fingers over her cousin’s.
“You look pale, Katherine. Are you not well?”
Beneath her own, she felt Katherine’s fingers tense on the back of the chair.
