His Dark Lady

by Victoria Lamb

  After the play was done, and while the players were still bowing under the court’s applause, the Queen summoned Lucy with a crooked finger.

  ‘Deliver this to Lord Leicester after the court has dispersed,’ Elizabeth whispered behind her fan, leaning over to hand Lucy a folded slip of paper. There was a slight flush on her white-painted cheeks and she seemed excited. ‘Discreetly.’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  The players were still bowing. Lucy met Will’s intent gaze as he straightened, and looked quickly away. She did not want Elizabeth to sense an intrigue where there was none. She had known Will once, and loved him like a little brother. Now that he was grown to a man, there was no longer any room in her heart for him. Not if she wished to continue in the service of the Virgin Queen.

  ‘Enough!’ Elizabeth barked, and the court fell instantly silent, watching her.

  The Queen rose from her throne, gripped Lucy’s shoulder, and began to make her way down from the dais. The court fell to its knees before her in a rustle of silk, heads respectfully bowed. Elizabeth swayed slowly to the door, an odd grimace on her face, her narrow lips drawn back from her teeth, and Lucy knew that her mistress was in pain. Not only her old foe, toothache, but now a terrible ulcer on her leg.

  Her ulcer pained Elizabeth more and more these days, and there seemed little her physicians could do to alleviate her suffering. Still, she liked to try and dance most evenings, gamely attempting the volta and the galliard. Lucy did not enjoy watching. It felt cruel.

  At the door, Elizabeth released Lucy’s shoulder. ‘Lady Helena!’ The red-haired woman hurried forward and took Lucy’s place as the Queen’s support. Elizabeth’s sharp voice echoed along the torchlit corridor towards the stairs to her apartments. ‘What did you think of the play, Lady Helena? Those are the Queen’s Men, I am told. A stout company who seek to carry my fame about the country like a banner. What do you say to that? Shall we kick them down the stairs for their bad playing, Helena, or put them in the stocks? “The Queen’s Fools” is a better name for them. They would make better fools than players. As you saw, even Signor Mendoza’s stomach was turned by their antics. And Spaniards are famed for their strong stomachs the world over, so the dish must have been very much to his disliking.’

  The court began to follow the Queen, filing out of the room as the sound of her laughter floated back towards them. Lucy turned, expecting to have to deal with young Shakespeare again. But the players had vanished, the screen and scenery already being dismantled by sturdy men in rough clothing who whistled as they went about their business.

  The paper was still in her hand. It was as well Shakespeare had gone, she told herself. She had no time to think about men. Nor would she wish to drag Will into danger by encouraging his smiles and meaningful looks.

  Lord Leicester had stayed behind to speak to Lord Burghley. She caught his eye, and soon he left the elder statesman and came over to where she was waiting.

  ‘Mistress Morgan,’ he said, and bowed his head. She saw a flicker of unease in his face and knew he was uncertain of her news. ‘I saw you in conversation with the Queen.’

  ‘She charged me with this for you, my lord,’ Lucy murmured, and passed him the slip of paper.

  The Earl of Leicester unfolded the note, read the Queen’s short message at a glance, then slipped the paper into the leather purse on his belt. He drew a sharp exultant breath, and Lucy could see relief in his face. ‘Tell your mistress, “Yes.”’

  ‘“Yes”, my lord?’

  Leicester nodded, and laid a hand on her shoulder. Lucy could feel him trembling through the thick silk of her sleeve, and looked up at the earl in surprise.

  Then she remembered Elizabeth’s excitement, more like a young girl’s than a middle-aged queen’s. Whatever hurts Leicester had done her in the past, Queen Elizabeth still looked to him for counsel and friendship, and Leicester seemed to feel the same. He had aged rapidly in the last few years, while so frequently exiled from court for his marriage to Lettice Knollys. Indeed, it was difficult to reconcile the grey hair and the lines on his face with the powerful man in his prime that Lucy remembered from her first years at court.

  ‘It’s good news, Lucy,’ Leicester whispered in her ear. ‘She asks me to her chamber tonight. Elizabeth must have forgiven me at last.’

  That seemed unlikely. But Lucy managed a smile. ‘I am glad to hear it, my lord.’

  He straightened and his gaze met hers directly, not flinching from the raw truth of his situation. There was pain and hesitancy in Leicester’s face, along with an optimism she recognized, a rekindling of the youthful ambition many considered he had laid aside when he chose to cross the Queen by marrying her rival.

  ‘Lettice must not know,’ he reminded her urgently. ‘If it should come to my wife’s ears that I have visited the Queen in secret …’

  ‘I shall say nothing, my lord,’ she assured him, and allowed him to draw her aside as two noblemen of the court passed them in velvet doublets and lavishly fur-trimmed robes, their curiosity obvious.

  Lucy had come to realize in her time at court what a fragile thing reputation was, and how easily it could be lost – overnight, in some cases. Those who had the Queen’s ear could do anything, it seemed, and escape unscathed. But those who lost her confidence were quickly shunned and cast out beyond the brilliant inner circle that surrounded her. It seemed the earl was willing to sacrifice even his wife’s trust in order to regain power.

  ‘Come to the west door later and I will let you in to her rooms unseen, my lord. There are always guards, but they’ll hold their tongues.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He moved swiftly away before their conversation became too conspicuous.

  Hurrying to relieve herself, she left the room. Rounding a corner in the cloisters, darkened between torch brackets, she stopped. What was this? Signor Mendoza at the end of the corridor in whispered conversation with a cloaked man. Remembering the Spanish ambassador’s rage earlier at the Queen’s snub, she flattened herself into the nearest doorway and waited for him to move on.

  Mendoza was nodding, his head bent. He accepted something from the cloaked man, glanced at it briefly, then hid it away under his own cloak.

  A letter?

  Lucy held her breath as the ambassador’s head swung, questing up and down the poorly lit corridor. He did not appear to have noticed her.

  The two men spoke, their voices so low she could not catch what was being said. Then she heard someone coming the other way, their footsteps loud in the echoing cloisters.

  Mendoza turned without bowing and hurried up the stairs to his right. The cloaked man continued along the cloisters towards her. He passed without comment, perhaps not even seeing her in the alcove. His hood was drawn down, face hidden from view, even his hands gloved as he grasped the edges of his fur-trimmed cloak. She peered at him as he passed, but could not tell who he was.

  Whoever had been coming passed into a chamber further along the corridor. The door clanged shut. She was alone in the flickering torchlight.

  Lucy stared in the direction of the now-vanished cloaked man. There had been something naggingly familiar about his walk, the way he held himself. But with the cloaked man’s head and face hidden, Lucy could not think what had made her suddenly so certain she knew him.

  Nine

  ELIZABETH WAITED AS though for the call of an executioner, back straight, propped up in the cushioned chair by the fireside. She was beginning to regret having decided to see Robert tonight. It was chilly, although the flaming logs kept out the worst of the draughts in this old palace, and she was in pain. To see Robert tonight would only remind him of the difference between her and Lettice. His red-haired wife – waiting at home with their babe – was so much younger than Elizabeth. It was a comparison she could not bear to make herself, and would never have voiced to him or any of her women. Yet how could she avoid it? Lettice was younger and therefore more desirable than she was.

  Elizabeth’s hands curled in
to fists, her nails cutting into her palms. How she longed to flay Lettice’s face with them until she screamed for mercy! But she was a queen and must bear this pain in silence. To act upon her jealousy would be to lower her in the eyes of the people, who remembered only too well the tyrannies of her father.

  What would her father have done? Elizabeth considered the axe lovingly, then shrugged the temptation away. To execute Lettice she would have to execute Robert too, and that she could never do.

  Not her old friend. Not the man she loved.

  She sighed and looked about the high tapestried walls with a creeping sense of horror. She remembered Whitehall from her childhood as a place of lights and music, of astonishing bustle and colour. Now Cardinal Wolsey’s once-grand palace was falling apart, its court apartments degrading as the years rolled by. That was how her body felt, too.

  She must ask Cecil about renovations to Whitehall. It was absurd to let the place go like this. Though they could hardly spare the money from the royal coffers. If there was a war with Spain …

  The door to her chambers stood open. Lady Helena was in the doorway, staring at her.

  Elizabeth realized that she had fallen asleep. She stirred groggily and wiped her mouth, at once on the defensive. ‘Yes? What is it?’

  ‘You cried out, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Elizabeth straightened in the chair, and signalled her lady-in-waiting to fetch her cup from the table. ‘Yes, give me wine, I need to wet my throat. The fire is smoking badly tonight. Are the other women abed?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Good.’ Elizabeth drank deeply, suddenly filled with a roaring thirst, then handed the cup back to Helena. She smiled. Felt her jaw with her hand, gingerly. ‘My toothache has gone. Quite gone. A miracle. Do you believe in miracles, Helena?’

  ‘I believe the Good Lord provides, Your Majesty.’

  ‘You may be right. I am not so sure. But the pain has gone, nonetheless. See that I am not disturbed again tonight. Whatever you may hear. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I will call for you when I wish to be readied for bed. Now leave me and shut the door behind you.’

  Lady Helena curtsied and backed out of the room, her head bowed. Then she stopped at the door with a startled expression, turning back. ‘Your Majesty …’

  Elizabeth found herself irritable again. ‘What now?’

  Helena moved back against the wall to allow Robert to enter the room. ‘The Earl of Leicester, Your Majesty.’

  He came in bowing, splendid in a silver doublet and black hose, his feathered cap in his hand.

  Elizabeth suppressed a smile. So he had come. A married man with a young son at home, and he had come visiting her after midnight!

  When Lettice heard of this visit – and Elizabeth was convinced the new Countess of Leicester must have her own eyes and ears at court – she would finally understand how poor Amy Robsart had felt. The forgotten wife left at home in the country, never permitted to set foot at court, while Elizabeth enjoyed her husband’s company freely.

  Still, it would not do to indulge him. Whatever he might have been to her in the past, Robert was her servant now and must know his place. Or be taught it.

  ‘You may enter,’ Elizabeth told him unnecessarily, for the saucy man was already on his knee before her, and the door had closed discreetly behind Lady Helena.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ he murmured, kissing her outstretched hand.

  ‘Robert.’

  She waited until Robert was beginning to look uncomfortable, then gestured him to rise. ‘You have news for me? Some business that would not wait?’

  Now that he had her attention, Robert seemed to hesitate, standing before her awkward as a boy in his stiff court finery, a gold-hilted dress sword by his side. These days he looked every inch the statesman, perhaps aware of how his reputation had been tarnished by his ill-advised marriage to Lettice Knollys, her husband, Essex, barely dead a year before he took her for his bride. And with a sword boldly at his belt? Before the Queen, no less. Not so whipped and cowed as some would think, then. Perhaps she would do well to send Robert to Ireland or some other heathenish place, where he would get the chance to serve her as a soldier, not merely a courtier. He would need to remain abroad a year or two, of course. Such a lengthy absence from court would hurt. But it would hurt his wife more.

  ‘Your Majesty, I wish to beg your forgiveness and throw myself on your mercy.’

  Elizabeth felt her hands clench into claws again. She forced herself to relax them. She was his queen. She must not allow him to witness such emotion.

  Let’s hear it, then. Her smile was careful. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘It is the matter of my marriage to the Countess of Essex that brings me here tonight, Your Grace.’

  ‘Ancient history,’ she replied with a shrug, pretending to dismiss the whole affair as a matter of no interest to her.

  ‘Yet it haunts my every step at court. I know you hold it against me still,’ Robert insisted doggedly, and met her gaze at last. ‘Elizabeth …’

  ‘You forget yourself, Lord Leicester!’

  ‘Forgive me.’ Robert dropped to one knee again and bowed his head. ‘Your Majesty.’

  An unexpected show of deference. Humility, even. Mollified by this, Elizabeth settled back in her chair and tried to regain some composure. So her one-time favourite had not come here tonight in a spirit of sulky defiance. She listened to the spitting crackle of logs in the fireplace, and heard the guards being changed in the antechamber. For a few moments there was the scrape of feet on the stairs, followed by a rumble of male voices through the wall. What was that smell? Logs smouldering or horse dung on his boots? Even now, elevated to an earl, he still smelt of the stable.

  ‘Tell me how Mendoza does,’ she ordered him. ‘And stand up. You look ridiculous down there.’

  Stiffly, Robert straightened. There was humiliation in his face. Good, let him learn his lesson well. She signalled him to draw up a stool, watching as he lowered himself to it, for all the world like a small boy.

  ‘Sit yourself down and speak to me of this damn Spanish ambassador. We will talk of your affairs later. For now, the only matter that properly concerns me and England is Spain. That, and the miracle of my toothache vanishing.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ he murmured. A sudden twinkle in his eye. ‘Except that you will not need me to hold your hand against the pain.’

  A tacit reminder of how close they had been in the past. Perhaps not as humbled as she’d thought. Or the saucy knave considered himself a forgiven man, and was heading straight back to where they had left off.

  ‘Spain?’

  Robert smiled at the tart reply. He spoke of the investigation against the ambassador while she watched him, noting the shadows like bruises under his eyes, a new tension about his mouth. So fatherhood had not served him as well as he had supposed. Perhaps his wife was neither obedient nor malleable, and for ever irked his heart out, demanding to be back at court. Such were the rumours she had heard. But to hear his dissatisfaction with Lettice from Robert’s own lips, that would be gratifying indeed. Not that she was likely to wring any such confession from him. But it was a happy thought to entertain.

  He stirred from his stool, rising to stoke the fire. I did not tell you to stand, she thought irritably, staring at the back of his grey head, but said nothing.

  ‘We cannot arrest him, of course. Not the Spanish ambassador.’

  ‘But we can humiliate him. Mendoza will be expelled from court and escorted to Dover by a troop of soldiers. He and his men will be put on a boat for Spain. His disgrace will be assured on his return there.’

  ‘There will be a war with Spain. King Philip only waits for such an excuse. You understand, Your Majesty?’

  ‘I am not a fool.’

  Robert smiled, coming back to his stool. He settled there drily, glancing up at her as if to say, ‘Yes, I am your dog.’ She knew such humility would n
ot last. But it was a start.

  ‘Indeed you are not, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I have wanted to avoid war, yes. Struggled and fought for years to avoid it,’ Elizabeth admitted. ‘But conflict with Spain is unavoidable. I see that now. I am reconciled to it. What bothers me is that our shores are not yet proof against invasion.’

  He nodded sombrely. ‘It is a problem.’

  Elizabeth played with her ruby ring. She frowned, watching the dark-red gemstone flash in the firelight. ‘They tell me Spain has many great warships, and to spare. We have our own fleet, yes, but what if they should fail? England must be able to defend herself against the invading Spanish. There must be some way for those along the coast to give the alarm if even one enemy ship should be sighted. And if they land before the army can reach them, what then? Every town and village between London and the south coast must be defended by stout burghers ready to die for England. Aye, and their sons too.’ She looked at him. ‘Though how such a thing can ever be achieved, given the weakly state of our coffers, the Lord only knows.’

  ‘Do you wish me to put these issues before the Council, Your Majesty?’

  ‘Not yet,’ she decided. ‘Let us dispose of Mendoza first. Philip will bluster, no doubt, and we can deal with that. Then it will come to war.’ She hesitated, glancing at him. ‘Perhaps I should not leave the city this summer?’

  ‘And risk the plague?’ He shook his head urgently. ‘Let me counsel you against such a dangerous course. England needs her queen safe and well. There are other matters first, before Spain, that need our attention. The Catholic cause grows stronger every month. Priests trained to avoid our searches are coming over in droves from France and the Low Countries. This threat is not an idle one. Each priest that enters England will convert others to their cause, sow the seeds of rebellion among the Catholics already here, and drag us closer to an open and bloody war against our own people.’