by Susan Kay
“Madam, I should be ashamed to stay silent. Have I served a snivelling coward all these years? Must I now stand by and watch you fret yourself into the grave for the sake of a miserable traitor who betrayed you at every turn?”
She hit him for that, a sharp stinging blow across the mouth which had uttered those unforgivable obscenities. Relief flooded through him as he staggered back a step, for he had tied her to this world with chains of rage, roused her sufficiently from that stupor of grief to know he need no longer fear for her life.
But he had gone too far, roused something worse than rage in her; he saw it suddenly in her black eyes, pulsing with indescribable venom, as though all the forces of darkness massed behind them. She held out her hand to him and gave him a smile that was soft with malice. She looked suddenly malevolent—he could find no other word for it.
“That was for him,” she said slowly, “for him and the life you condemned him to all those years ago when you murdered his wife. Yes!—you wondered at the time, didn’t you? You wondered if I had guessed. So now there shall be no more secrets between us, my Spirit, my twin-soul. You alone of all the men in my kingdom shall know the truth about me.”
He did not want to hear this. He tried to move away, but her cold hand fastened on his wrist with murderous strength, like the bite of steel. He tried in vain to shut out her harsh voice rasping in his ears, but it was no use; he heard.
“I lied to you all those years ago, Cecil—did you never know it?—I betrayed your precious trust. He was my lover from the very beginning. We had nothing to fear, you see—I lost the Admiral’s child when I was fourteen and Dr. Bill told me I could expect no more. It was safe to be stallion to a barren mare, quite safe. There is a bed behind you, Cecil, my bed, the bed of state. Look at it. Look at it and see us lying there night after night, his body swelling in mine till I wept with ecstasy. Does Mildred weep when you mount her, my friend—does she? No! You shall not turn away from this. You tell me I am not free to die—so be it! I will play the Virgin Queen for you a little longer. But remember this: I was always his slut and I’m glad of it.” Her smile curled deeper, knifing him like a poisoned dart. “You have served Dudley’s whore for thirty years and you will serve her to the end of your days. For just as you refuse to release me, so shall I refuse to release you. Sick, crippled, deaf, or blind, you will die in my service, with a chain of office round your scrawny neck—I swear it!”
She dropped his hand and stepped back from him, leaving him to stare at his wrist as though her touch had defiled him. Something crumpled in his face as he turned away from her, his life’s achievements like dust in his hand; a broken old man who suddenly felt he would never care for anything in this worthless world again.
The outer doors closed behind him and she was alone once more in the dreadful sunlit silence, staring at the folded note on her dressing-table which bore a single line of her own writing.
“His last letter:”
Part 5
The Effigy
“She was more than a man and sometimes, in truth, less than a woman.”
—Sir Robert Cecil
Chapter 1
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,
As well as I may spend his time in vain;
And graven with diamonds in letters plain
There is written, her fair neck round about,
“Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”
So many, many years ago had the poet, Sir Thomas Wyatt, written of Anne Boleyn, whom he had loved so hopelessly and lost to King Henry. The poet’s son, a bold traitor, had died to put Caesar’s daughter on the throne when Queen Mary reigned. Now all were dead and only Caesar’s last child lived to tell the tale—still lived in spite of the wild rumours which had flown through the palace these last three days; still lived to run in the chase.
The tall young man, lounging in a window-seat, slowly closed his book of verse and glanced obliquely round the crowded Presence Chamber. Courtiers and ladies stood in whispering groups, speculating with idle, vulgar curiosity: what now? More than once he had felt their hot, sidelong glances steal round upon him as he sat, apparently indifferent to their chatter, idly turning the pages of his priceless book, speaking to no one and pretending he could not hear what was being said. The doors of the Privy Chamber remained shut and no one could guess what was taking place in the room beyond it, what the faithful Lord Burghley would find to say to his Queen in the course of today’s business that would persuade her to continue in her public life.
The ladies exchanged nervous glances and wondered how difficult they would find their royal mistress when they were called to dress her. They dreaded the inevitable summons to wait upon her and huddled together uneasily, mingling expressions of pity and fear.
Across the room the young men preened like peacocks, and eyed each other with hostility, angry dogs preparing to fight over a coveted bone. They knew now there was something worth fighting for. The King is dead—long live the King! Who would be the King of the Queen’s heart now that the Great Lord had relinquished that prise for ever? Would it be Hatton, the elegant dancer who kept his homosexuality so decorously and discreetly out of sight? Raleigh, the cultured adventurer, brilliant, dark, and dangerous? Or Essex, the newest star in the firmament of the royal favour, the outspoken, wilful aristocrat who was as yet still a largely unknown quantity? No one knew, but everyone was busy guessing and laying bets on their favourite stallion, since one thing alone was certain now: the Virgin Queen could not exist without a man at her side.
And so the whispering and shifting glances went on, until the door opened at last and everyone turned to look as Lord Burghley hobbled slowly into their midst. His face was grimly shuttered as he passed through their ranks, meeting no one’s eye, speaking not one word, not even to his son, the stunted little clerk, Robert Cecil, who promptly fell into step beside his father and accompanied him out of the room.
Slowly, the buzz of speculation started up once more in his wake.
The October light was failing as the red-haired man in the window-seat rose and began to pace up and down in the space which lesser minions automatically made for him. His mind was a fever of anxious anticipation and excitement.
The old man dead! What a chance, what an unparalleled opportunity—but how long did he have to make use of it before the news brought his rival, Raleigh, hurrying back from the West Country, where war action had stationed him, to claim the Queen of Hearts for himself? He loathed Raleigh, the Captain of the Guard, a low upstart who had made himself master of the gallant gesture and presumed to address his arrogant love sonnets to the Queen. A quicksilver mind to match that of his royal mistress, scholar, poet, explorer, a more polished version of Drake—he was a formidable opponent whom even Leicester had feared.
Raleigh! The boy pictured him resentfully in memory, seeing him forever standing, unchallenged, before the Queen’s door, wearing a suit of silver armour; seeing him lean with familiar ease against the Queen’s high-backed chair, flaunting that devilish pipe stuffed with the burning leaves he called tobacco. A pipe was a necessary accoutrement to every aspiring courtier now, but only Raleigh had dared to win a wager against his royal mistress, by solemnly swearing he could tell the weight of his own smoke. A ridiculous, extravagant claim—the whole court had gathered round to see the proud man take a fall. Raleigh had weighed the tobacco leaves, smoked his pipe, and then tapped the ashes into the scales and declared the difference in the two weights to be the weight of the smoke. The Queen had laughed and paid her forfeit with good grace, and those who had never seen her lose a wager in public before were astonished by the man’s wit and daring. Oh yes—Raleigh had been dangerous even while Leicester lived. What power might not be his now that Leicester was gone?
The boy paced faster and more furiously, biting the inside of his lip and clenching his
fist, betraying his tension, as he betrayed all emotion.
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind…
It was just an hour before supper when the imperious jangle of a handbell sent the women in the room fluttering agitatedly into the antechamber. The men started and exchanged significant glances with their cronies, a rustle of taut expectation that made the boy tense with rage.
Who so list to hunt…
Yes—they were all preparing to hunt now; but his would be the first arrow to pierce the heart of that elusive hind.
Like the rest of the hopeful young men, he had lingered in the Presence Chamber, hoping for a public appearance, waiting for the opportunity to stake his claim to her; and, like the rest, he eventually went away weary and disappointed. Days slid into weeks and some abandoned this regular evening vigil for the lighter pursuits of the court; but the Earl of Essex had abandoned nothing. His mental crossbow was always armed and ready, for he knew now that if he dared to shoot at all, this time it must be to kill.
* * *
The painting was finished. They had hung Mary Stuart’s famous rope of black pearls around her neck, fastened the monstrous cartwheel ruff beneath her chin, and drawn back discreetly while she stared at their handiwork.
In the mirror she saw a mask, skilfully executed and harshly coloured; crimson salve for a mouth that was a sad thin line, rose paste on her bloodless cheekbones, belladonna to put shine into her lifeless eyes. A snow Queen, with a splinter of ice lodged in her heart, cold and hard and unsmiling, dressed all in mourning black.
Dead but not buried, she thought suddenly, and snatched the mirror from its stand, handing it to the woman nearest to her.
“Take it away.”
“Your Majesty?” The woman stared, uncertain whether she had misheard the instruction.
“I said, take it away—take every mirror out of my sight. Do it now—throughout the palace!”
She would never look again into a mirror and see her living corpse, standing like a mighty unfallen oak, superficially magnificent still, but hollow and rotten at the core.
For almost a month she had religiously attended to state business, received Burghley and Walsingham, conferred with her secretaries, and signed all the necessary documents. But, in the evenings, she had shied away from her court, knowing what waited for her in the Long Gallery or the Great Hall. Burghley had been cool and distant when he attended her. He had made no comment, merely looked and she knew it was no use; she must begin to hold court again, walk back into that room like a hen into a cockpit, and be fought and quarrelled over by a bunch of greedy, ambitious young men, the next generation of sharp-toothed little rodents, all trying to summon the courage to take the first bite. Once it had been the game she enjoyed best of all; but now Robin was gone and she was alone with the rats.
On the threshold of the Great Hall she paused a second and stared at the vast assembly which waited for her. At her appearance, the gay talk and laughter froze into frightened silence, and her courtiers and ladies, all dressed tactfully in black for the late Earl of Leicester, sank to their knees as she passed by. Their curious eyes followed her down the room and bored into her head. She walked with an effort past the kneeling ranks, without pausing to give a smile or a word to anyone. The Chair of State at the end of the room had become her only goal, a sort of sanctuary; she had no thought beyond reaching it with dignity and decorum. Her appearance tonight was a duty, one of the many tedious rituals which stretched ahead over the barren years in front of her, empty, meaningless, void of all pleasure.
From the corner of her eye she caught a movement, a flash of silver doublet, and suddenly Essex was before her, rising from a sweeping bow, offering her his arm. For a moment he was afraid she was going to snub him and walk on, but his action had confused her single-minded purpose, so that momentarily she halted and stared at him uncertainly.
He smiled, kissed the hand she had offered from force of habit, and laid it ostentatiously on his sleeve. As he escorted her to the throne on the dais, she was conscious of a rustle of spite and envy among the courtiers behind her; and her heart sank. The first gauntlet of challenge had been flung down; it had begun; and she felt suddenly angry and resentful towards the impertinent young man who had dared to start it.
She withdrew her hand abruptly and sat down in the great chair without thanking him for his strong arm. Her eyes narrowed on the dazzling costume which made him so conspicuous among the dark multitude of her court.
“I had not expected to see you of all people dressed for a revel,” she said coldly. “The bereaved son—”
“Stepson,” he reminded her calmly, “and unlikely, I understand, to remain fatherless for long. Widow’s weeds do not suit my mother.”
“Your mother,” snapped Elizabeth softly, “is an infamous whore!”
For a moment their dark eyes met with hostility, like bared swords about to clash; and then some small vestige of common sense warned him to swallow the hot retort which had leapt to his reckless tongue. Only a madman would choose to quarrel with her at this moment, and he was not mad—not yet.
The Queen turned her head away, raised the company from their knees with a careless flick of her hand, and leaned back in her chair to brood.
So—Lettice would marry Christopher Blount after the shortest decent interval imaginable; but they would live no life of ease on Leicester’s estates while the Queen drew breath.
I will call in every debt that Robin owed me and when that debt is settled, Christopher Blount will find he has married a pauper.
She turned angrily to Lettice’s boy—an arrogant, insolent puppy, the she-wolf’s cub—ready to vent her bitter spleen upon him; and checked, with the cruel words unspoken.
There he stood, smiling at her, cocksure, confident, and red-haired, like a young reincarnation of herself. How easily he might have been taken for her son—her son, by Robin.
Suddenly, inexplicably, her anger was spent and she raised her hand to touch his cheek gently.
In the gallery above the musicians had taken their places and were waiting silently for her signal.
“The dancing begins,” she said quietly. “Go and find yourself a partner.”
His smile deepened; he reached out and captured the hand which had touched his cheek, imprisoning it between his closed palms.
“Madam, I look now upon the only partner I shall ever desire.”
The warmth and strength of his fingers, so poignantly reminiscent of Leicester, suddenly made her want to weep. But she could not break down before this vast assembly; nor could she withdraw her hand again without arousing spiteful comment. Like a cornered cat, she shrank back a little in her chair, watchful, wary, ready to strike—but strangely unwilling to do so for as long as it could be avoided.
Her eyes on his, her lips smiling to deceive the watching court, she said in a chill whisper of command, “Release my hand.”
“I shall never release you, madam,” he returned, equally soft, “not until you have danced with me here before them all—and shown them how it is to be between the two of us from this moment on.”
In all her life no man had ever addressed her with such insolent mastery. It echoed through her mind like the crack of a whip, and in its darkest recess something stirred and slowly raised its head, like a snake rousing lazily from a light slumber. Behind her eyes it quivered with life and longing and its voice was a chill caress in her brain.
“This is he, my precious…I choose him.”
“No,” said Elizabeth, soundlessly, “I cannot do this thing. I will not do it, not even for you. He is innocent.”
“No man is innocent. And he is arrogant…he deserves it.”
“Let him go. He has done no harm.”
“Give him time. Give him the opportunity. And then, when he no longer pleases you…give him to me.”
She opened her e
yes and found Essex was still smiling at her. He did not know his danger. How should he?
“Release my hand,” she repeated, breathless against the sudden urge to scream. “I shall dance with no man again.”
“No other man,” he corrected solemnly. “But you will dance with me, madam, and you will dance tonight. Is that not so?”
“Partner me now, and I promise you will live to regret it.”
“I will take that risk,” he said steadily, “and take it gladly.”
A moment more she fought the quivering temptation. He saw she was about to summon her maids and tightened his grip upon her hand hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t do it, madam—I give you my word I will make a scene. I shall leave this hall now and make it known to everyone in it how cruelly you have wounded my pride. Dance with me once—it is all I ask.”
For now, she thought.
She rose slowly and the skirts of her diamond-studded mourning gown swirled out towards him like a wave of shimmering darkness. Beneath the watching eyes of a jealous court he lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it with masterful, mocking reverence.
She looked full into his face and gave him a smile which made his brain reel with crazy elation.
“On your own head be it,” she said; and her voice was even, steady, but ineffably sad.
He bowed low and led her to the centre of the floor, where every dancer fell back to watch, in silent wonder. Like two performers on a public stage, the Earl of Essex and the Queen wove the intricate steps of the old pavane, while the music played soft and mournful in the gallery.
And so the dice were thrown and the scene was set for the final tragedy.
They danced together and shared a strange smile—the high priestess of a heathen cult and her very willing sacrifice.
* * *
He was her constant companion now. The courtiers who had laid bets on Raleigh’s ultimate ascendancy had long since paid up their debts with a grim frown and gone about their business. Essex found himself chained to her side by a fascination that was almost hypnotic. She had only played with him before Leicester’s death, toying with vague interest, as at some cunning new dish presented to tempt her scanty appetite.
