by Susan Kay
She had known, but had thought she could change it. Time had proved her wrong and suddenly she could not contain her rage any longer.
“I’m tired of it, can’t you see that, Robert?” She stood up and drew her wrap around herself. “I’m sick of wearing your ring and your name and living in your house with no more status than a whore. I’m weary of trying to be grateful for the odd night when she spares me your company. Go back and weep on the Queen’s shoulder, which is so much more accommodating than mine. But don’t expect to find me sitting by the fire waiting for you when you return!”
It was soon after that that she took up with Christopher Blount, but then at least the jealous harping ceased and Leicester no longer felt obliged to excuse his feelings for the Queen.
When he showed her the draft copy of his will, she read the first lines and then handed it back to him with studied civility, not even pausing to examine the generous provision he had made for her.
“First of all and above all persons, it is my duty to remember my most dear and gracious princess, whose creature under God I have been and who has been a most bountiful and princely mistress to me…”
“I think that says it all, even for posterity,” Lettice had remarked coldly, and walked out of the room, leaving him with the document in his hand.
But slowly the bitterness had softened into mutual tolerance, until at last they had the empty, civilised relationship which characterised the majority of marriages among nobility. And life was much easier on the increasingly rare occasions when, as now, for form’s sake, they must bear each other company.
They rode down into the valley of the River Thame and there ahead of them lay the great beeches of Ricote. Margery Norris, as plump and pretty as ever, ran down the steps to meet him with her arms outstretched in welcome, then stopped abruptly on seeing Lettice at his side for the first time.
“Lady Leicester—what a delightful surprise,” she said icily, dropping a perfunctory curtsey. Then she turned to take Leicester’s arm and hurry him into the well-remembered house where he had spent so many hours with Elizabeth, leaving Lettice to the attentions of a steward.
“The Queen’s own bedroom,” said Margery gaily, flinging the door open to reveal a large, sunny room overlooking the terrace. “I know she would want you to have it in her absence, Robert—but of course you, my lady, in view of your lord’s ill-health, would doubtless prefer to lodge in another room.”
Leicester caught his wife’s look of murderous rage and suppressed a smile. Dear Margery, still the Queen’s loyal friend! And really he would be quite glad to sleep alone in the Queen’s bed, left in peace to remember the old laughing times within these walls.
At the precise moment when Lettice opened her mouth to voice her indignant protest, he laid his hand on Margery’s arm and said with quiet irony, “That is a very kind thought, madam, and I know my wife will thank you for it.”
“A kind thought indeed,” parrotted Lettice dutifully, unable now to say otherwise. She curtsied to her husband with a quick, contemptuous gesture and turned to follow her hostess out of the room.
And as she walked, she reflected with anger that there were a hundred things she would rather do than trail around the parched countryside at snail’s pace in the company of a sick old man who could no longer excite her passion.
Ricote, August 29
I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to pardon your poor old servant in sending to know how my gracious lady does and what ease of her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this world I pray for, for her to have good health and long life. For my own poor case I continue still your medicine and find it amends much better than any other thing that has been given to me…from your old lodging at Ricote, this Thursday morning, ready to take on my journey. By Your Majesty’s most faithful, obedient servant, R. Leicester
The letter, written in a tremulous scrawl hardly recognisable as Leicester’s bold hand, looked up at Burghley from among a pile of papers on the Queen’s desk. He looked down at it with a curious hangdog expression and wondered why in God’s name he had had to notice it at this precise moment.
The Queen lifted her head, smiling as she pushed a pile of signed documents across the table towards him.
“There—all done at last. You’re a hard taskmaster, William Cecil, to keep me shut up in here on my birthday. May I go out to play now?”
He raised his eyes to hers uncertainly.
“Your Majesty?” he said vaguely.
“I said: Is that all for today?” She studied his gaunt face and added kindly, “What’s the matter, Cecil—is your gout bad again?”
“No,” he muttered, scarcely attending, “thank you, madam—I am much as usual.”
She laughed and flexed her stiff fingers, straightening her rings.
“Indeed you are, with a face as long as a fiddle. For a moment I thought the Armada must be at sea again.”
She got up and went to open the window and the slight breeze from the river disturbed the papers on her desk. Leicester’s note fluttered to the floor and Burghley bent with great difficulty to retrieve it, staring at it dully.
“What a lovely day,” she remarked thoughtfully. “Had Robin been here we would have gone hunting—”
Burghley made no response. She turned in surprise to look at him and suddenly, seeing his face in the harsh sunlight, she knew.
One hand crept slowly to her throat and the other went out to him in a hopeless gesture of supplication.
“No,” she said dully. “Not now—not after—”
She broke off abruptly to draw a shuddering breath and turned her face away from his pitying gaze.
Burghley put the letter carefully on the table and went over to her slowly, taking her trembling hand and pressing it, palm upward, to his dry lips.
“Please believe me when I say this, madam—I am truly sorry.”
Elizabeth pulled her hand away from him and rubbed it fiercely against her gown, for all the world as though he had spat upon it.
“When?” she demanded harshly.
He was hurt by her response and did not pretend otherwise.
“On the 4th of September,” he said, rather shortly. “At Cornbury.”
She looked up and stared at him then. Even the tardiest rider could not have taken three days to cover such a distance. Lettice’s ultimate revenge, as his legal wife, was to see her informed of his death like some distant business acquaintance on the seventh—her fifty-fifth birthday. Burghley saw her flinch and was ashamed of his momentary resentment.
“It was a peaceful end,” he murmured, hoping the fact would afford her some comfort. “He died in his sleep. It is understood that the strain of the journey—”
“It was my command—the journey,” she interrupted softly. “My command.”
All that was left of Burghley’s human sensitivity curled up and cringed as though in pain. Oh God, what a blunder!
“Madam,” he began inadequately, “I had no idea that—”
She cut him short with a curt gesture of her hand and stared out through the window, remembering the hot morning when he had come into her bedroom at Whitehall to take his leave. Dressed for travel, a short cloak swinging from his huge shoulders, a plumed cap in his hand, and the red veins bulging in his temples with the heat.
She had received him alone and he had taken advantage of it, neglecting to bow or kneel or do any of those things which properly appertained to the saluting of majesty. For a moment he looked at her searchingly, turning her face gently to the cruel sunlight which flooded in from the single window overlooking the river. Then he drew a finger over her cheekbone and showed her its poppy-hued tip.
“I thought you and I were finished with deception,” he said reproachfully.
He took off his cloak and told her he would have all the horses in the courtyard returned to their
stables.
“…with your gracious permission, of course,” he added ironically.
“Robin! It’s nothing—”
“Please.” He laid a hand on her arm. “If you knew how many times that wretched phrase of yours has put the fear of God in me you would not say it again. I have bitter experience of the utter unreliability of your judgement where your own health is concerned and I intend to remain at court until I am better satisfied.”
A week ago she might have lost her temper, but now she knew there was nothing he could say or do that would ever anger her again. She sat down at her silver-topped table and told him very calmly, very pleasantly, that he could go to Buxton of his own free will, or under an armed guard—whichever suited his mood best. After that she sat in silence, with her chin in her slender hands, watching him smack his hat angrily against his thigh and listening while he swore.
“You have to go,” she pointed out at length when he paused for breath. “Your wife is expecting you at Wanstead.”
“My wife,” he said grimly, “can ably fill her time with the attentions of Christopher Blount, as she has done these several years past.” He glared down at her. “Do you think she matters now—do you think anyone ever mattered beside you?”
She looked at him standing there, red and fat and winded with exasperation, and thought sadly that she had never loved him better, not even in the days of his glowing, virile youth. The great white feather, which had stood so proudly in the brim of his hat, was now dangling limply, like a broken daisy stalk. He tossed the hat down on the table and she raised her eyebrows slightly at the sight of it.
“I hope you don’t intend to wear that to Buxton,” she said softly.
“Forget Buxton,” he snapped. “I never wanted to go anyway—the season’s almost over. I can live with London’s stench for a few weeks more, then we’ll go to Ricote together—as you promised.”
She removed the broken feather and began to smooth out the crumpled velvet brim.
“You know I can’t get away from London before the autumn. You’ll have to come back for me.” She handed him the hat with a sigh. “I’m afraid that’s the best I can do with it. I’ll buy you a new feather.”
“Your Majesty’s generosity is as usual overwhelming.” He was smiling now, in spite of himself. “I suppose you think to get your own way in the end.”
“I usually get it,” she reminded him wickedly. “In the end.”
“Yes.” He was staring at her as though he was etching every fragile line of her face deep into his memory. “Yes, you usually do, don’t you? And what pray, am I to tell Margery Norris when I see her?”
“Tell her—November.”
“November!”
“At the earliest.”
He bent to kiss first her hand, then her thin cheek.
“You’re a very hard woman,” he remarked without rancour, as he bowed and began to back stiffly to the door with one hand on the hilt of his sword. “A diamond to my paltry grain of sand.”
“Robin!”
The sudden panic in her voice had made him turn sharply in the doorway to look back at her, a black silhouette against the August sunlight.
She smiled uncertainly, made a helpless gesture of confusion.
“Write to me,” she whispered, as though it was not quite what she had meant to say.
“Of course I shall write,” he said. And was gone.
Elizabeth stood very still watching that door shut over and over again in her memory, and at her side, watching her narrowly, Burghley felt cold with apprehension. Her eyes were empty, blank and cold as marble, as though there was no one behind them. If only she would move, speak, cry—do something he could accept as a normal manifestation of grief.
“Madam—” he whispered.
She moved away and began to search blindly among the papers on her desk. He stepped forward, more quickly than he had moved for many years and put Leicester’s note into her frantic hand. Her fingers closed about it with relief and without a word she turned like a sleep walker and went through into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
A moment later, he heard the key turn in the lock. It was a harsh, rasping sound, sudden, unexpected, and strangely final.
And it filled him with a curious foreboding.
* * *
For three days the Queen’s door remained locked and the room beyond it shrouded in utter silence. The timid tapping of her ladies upon the heavy panels grew progressively into a frantic hammering, but there was no answer, no response—nothing.
Questions pulsed through the palace, gathering bizarre and dreadful answers, until Burghley could bear the suspense no longer. Accompanied by a few members of the Council, he gave the order to have her door broken down; and as the panels splintered he bit his lip and braced himself mentally against what he would find.
He was the first to step into the room and see her sitting at her dressing-table, staring into her mirror. As he limped to her side, she turned her head very slowly and blinked at him, almost without recognition, from glazed eyes. His glance fell to the empty spirits decanter in front of her and he suddenly understood; oddly enough, it was the one thing he had not considered.
His immediate thought was to spare her the indignity of discovery and without turning round he gestured curtly to the councillors who still hovered nervously in the broken doorway, ready to run for their lives if this unpardonable intrusion on her privacy should be greeted with a screaming tantrum. While Burghley’s back shielded her from view they bowed and scuttled out beyond the ante-room, closing the outer doors behind them.
Elizabeth turned the decanter upside down over her goblet and swore softly, finding it empty. She who had always shunned drink like the devil, fearing to cloud her faculties and loosen her tongue, was now as drunk as a lord.
She said vaguely, “I don’t like wine. Tell them to bring me more of this brown stuff—aqua vitae—whatever it’s called.”
Burghley leaned over and took the empty decanter from her hand.
“Madam,” he murmured gently. “Madam, this does no good.”
“You’re wrong, Burghley—why are you always wrong about me when it really matters? It helps to feel nothing, think nothing—be nothing.”
“For a while.” His voice was reproachful. “A very little while. But you must see it’s not the answer.”
“I see nothing,” she murmured, maudlin with spirits. “My eyes are closed for ever and I am blind.”
Leicester! thought Burghley, suddenly savage with frustration. God damn him, God rot him, is he to be a greater threat dead than he ever was alive?
Aloud he said desperately, “Does it count for nothing that your country is safe?”
“Oh yes—the miracle!” She smiled strangely. “But we don’t get miracles for nothing, Burghley, and I have made full payment for mine. One gaudy hour of triumph in straight exchange for a life. The Devil drives a hard bargain.”
He was silent a moment, immeasurably shocked, groping blindly for the right words.
“Madam, it was a cruel loss—none knows better than I, I assure you. But life goes on and is ill-served by such bitterness.”
“I’m not bitter,” she said wearily, “I’m burnt out. I’m no more use to you, Burghley, or to England. I’ve no cards left to play. So release me from our bondage and let me go now—while they still love me.”
While they still love me…
What did she see in her mirror to make her say that at the very peak of her achievement, when she stood with her power at its zenith and the people still chanted her name in the streets? What did she see in those cold crystalline depths to fill her with such utter desolation?
Never in the thirty years of their association had he ever seen her look like that—devoid of all hope, beaten. He looked past her into the mirror, frantically seeking an answer,
and saw the one enemy she would never defeat, the true enemy, the greatest enemy—herself.
She meant to die, he saw that now, not scandalously, or spectacularly, but by her own design all the same, setting her mind to death, as she had once set it long ago, when only fifteen. Yet suicide, how ever quiet and unobtrusive, was still a crime in the eyes of God and all Christian men, a crime he could not permit. There was no one to take her place but her feckless Scottish cousin, James, no child of her body to inherit. It was her duty to live and delay that inheritance for as long as possible; it was his own to make certain that she did.
He knew what to say to her now—knew what to say and how to say it.
Abruptly he reached out and struck the empty goblet off the dressing-table with the flat of his hand.
“How can you sink to this?” he snapped. “How dare you desert your people in their hour of triumph to mope over a dead rat who was never worth a tinker’s curse alive?”
She stared at him and her face wore a stunned, stricken look which hurt him infinitely. But he would not give up now. It was the right note and he struck it again, hard, in a voice which seemed rough with contempt.
“I tell you this, my considered opinion, madam: the late Earl of Leicester was a worthless, grasping knave who used you for his own ends from the day he entered your service.”
She swayed to her feet with an immense effort and steadied herself against the back of her chair.
“Liar!” she breathed. “You white-haired snake, you lying, foul-mouthed clerk! Oh God, he was right about you, but I would never see it. You were behind every cruelty I ever showed him—even the Lord Lieutenancy.” She panted for breath. “Yes—but for you and your mindless carping he would have had that and died believing in my love at last.”
Stung by her insults, Burghley shook his head grimly.
“Why deceive yourself, madam? Whatever you gave him could not alter the fact that he hated you—and given the way you treated him for thirty years what honest man could blame him for that?”
“Be silent!” She thought she had screamed it but heard it only as an anguished whimper. “Be silent, I say.”
