Elizabeth of Bohemia

by David Elias

  ***

  The very next night found me alighting from a carriage that had come to rest before All Hallows Barking, and walking up the steps into the church. I had come upon the pretext of late-evening prayer, though the gown I wore under my cloak testified to a less devout purpose. I made my entrance unannounced, walked alone, unseen and unheeded, between the pews and past the altar, along a series of dimly lit hallways and stairs that led down into the deepest nether regions of the old church, until I arrived at a scarred, blackened wooden door of an ancient Roman vault. Here I took from a cleft in the stone wall a key known only to myself and my mother, proceeded to turn it in the lock, and pushed the heavy door ajar. The door creaked and groaned open wide enough that I might slip through and lock it once again behind me. Torches sparsely placed along the damp and grimy walls of a long, dimly lit passage led me underground and at last into the very heart of the Bloody Tower itself.

  It had been some time since I had accompanied my mother along these hallways, and now I had to admit it was considerably more daunting without her. I found myself wondering for what purpose she had seen fit to bring me along in the first place. What was it she had wanted me to see, to hear? I thought of turning back but carried on for my brother’s sake. He did ever love Sir Raleigh as something akin to a father, which he was certainly old enough to be. I once heard Henry say of his imprisonment, “None but my father would keep such a bird in a cage.”

  From the very first I had never thought of him as old in the way I did my father, but rather as a handsome and dashing figure of some considerable maturity. I had sensed on those earlier visits that there was something going on between my mother and him, something both illicit and exciting, and which roused in me a troubling sense of anticipation. It was true that one of his medicinal confections had once cured my mother of a terrible illness that none of the doctors could vanquish, and that I wanted to procure the same medicine for my brother, but though I hardly dared to admit as much, I wanted more than that from Sir Walter.

  I had made sure to bring sufficient coin that I might bribe the Yeoman Warders who, though mostly a soused and sorry lot, would have to be mollified, as they could hardly be counted upon to act nobly otherwise. It was my hope that I might be allowed not only to see Sir Raleigh but also to look in on my cousin Arabella, though I knew not where in the Tower she was being kept. It was my understanding the location was a strictly kept secret for fear that Lord Seymour, who was still at large, should make an attempt to rescue her. Still, I intended to enquire as to her whereabouts.

  After ascending a flight of steep and narrow stairs I stood before a heavy wooden door where, after some hesitation, I steeled myself to take hold of the enormous iron ring hanging there and knock loudly. The percussion echoed back down the stairwell until it seemed the whole of the Tower must know I was there, alone, with nothing to protect me but my title. Finally a guard appeared at the door and pushed his bearded face up against the small barred window of the dank and blackened door.

  “Who knocks here upon this door at such an inconvenient hour?” He eyed me up and down, still chewing on a beef bone, and wiped at his greasy mouth.

  “As you see,” I replied evenly. I had deliberately timed my arrival to coincide with the ceremony of the keys, the better to have as few Yeomen Warders as possible hanging about.

  “I see naught but a woman cloaked and would know what lies beneath.”

  “To what end?”

  “That such a garment may conceal that which I should have cause to appropriate.”

  “You have nothing to fear.”

  “I would have you remove it nevertheless.”

  “Very well,” I took the cloak from my shoulders and draped it across my arm.

  “Upon my word, save for that gown which naught but those born into royalty may hope to wear, your looks betray you for a saucy wench.”

  “Take care, Warder. It is the Princess Elizabeth, come to see Sir Walter Raleigh.”

  “But this cannot be that scrawny lass we call the King’s daughter.”

  I held out a pouch of coins for him to see. “Here is some enticement that may speed my entry.”

  He put his hand through the bars to grab for it, but I pulled it away.

  “I would have admittance first.”

  “An’ I would ’ave that purse, Your Graciousness.”

  “I can as well offer it up to another Yeoman Warder and not yourself if you will persist in this insolence.”

  “You come alone.” A sneer flashed across the Yeoman’s lips. “Where is your mother?”

  “I have business of my own to see to.”

  “It will cost you extra.”

  “On the contrary, it will be less, as there is but one to admit.”

  “A royal princess travelling alone requires careful handling, Your Eminence.”

  “I would have you open this door.”

  The key turned in the lock and the heavy door creaked on its iron hinges as the guard swung it wide. No sooner had I stepped through then the Warder held out his hand for the pouch, which I placed into it. He weighed it in his palm, fondled it with blackened fingers, all the while looking me up and down.

  “And how be” — he leaned over me, his cheesy breath upon my neck — “if I should require yet some favour more than this?”

  “Then you would be a fool” — I forced myself to speak in a steady voice, breathed evenly — “as your lechery should quickly see you beheaded.”

  “I grant the interval between pleasure and punishment might prove short.” The Warder scratched at his beard. “But oh, what delights might lie ’tween the two.”

  “On second thought, before they hang you, I shall see your mutton dagger is cut off and burned before your eyes.” My forced viewing of those atrocities visited upon the guilty Mr. Fawkes some years ago now served to conjure up these images for this drunken lout. “After which I shall have you gutted and disembowelled.”

  The Warder’s expression changed and he drew back a little. “Upon reflection, Your Magnificence, this coin may yet suffice to bring about by other means less royal that which I now forsake. This way,” he grumbled, and led me down a hallway bounded on both sides by gloomy stone walls until we reached Sir Raleigh’s quarters, where he shouted through the barred window of the heavy wooden door: “Visitor. Will the prisoner be seen?”

  “Who is it?” I heard a familiar voice say.

  “None but she what was a scrawny freckled princess and is now burgeoned into shapely womanhood.” He leered at me, coughed and spat. “I say this only that you should be better prepared to recognize her as at first I did not.”

  As much as this Yeoman’s stare disgusted me, the prospect of Sir Raleigh’s gaze sent a thrilling hum of expectancy through me. I had seen him look at my mother in a certain way, seen how his mannerism, even a simple gesture, effortlessly undid her composure and caused her to blush uncontrollably. What effect should he bring to bear upon me? I wondered.

  “Make entry.”

  The Yeoman turned the key in the lock and swung the door open to reveal within a chamber of bare walls, but a single shuttered window set into the whitewashed stone at one end of the room, a tiny hearth at the other where a few embers smouldered, and not a single arras hung to keep out the damp. Sir Walter looked up from his writing desk, quill poised above some papers upon which he had no doubt been scribbling furiously. The chair and desk were of dark burled wood elaborately carved, and their baroque appearance seemed misplaced in such an austere setting, but the same could be said for Sir Raleigh himself. He lowered the quill slowly down into the inkwell, rose from his chair, and stepped out from behind the desk. As much as this Warder was the embodiment of filth and dishevelment, Sir Raleigh was a picture of fashion and grooming unmatched even in the highest circles beyond those walls. He was dressed impeccably in a tight-fitting leather jerkin closed at the w
aist and worn over an embroidered doublet that accentuated his narrow waist and broad shoulders. A crisply frilled Tudor ruff encircled his neck while a finely cut pair of trunk hose, quilted and paned, complemented the silken cannions upon his shapely legs and the polished leather pinsons upon his feet.

  “What’s this, then?” He looked at me with such open and piercing attraction that I was speechless. “Can it be?” He stepped toward me. “Do my eyes deceive me?”

  “I had hoped to catch you at your leisure,” I managed, “and not intrude upon your work.”

  “Your Highness.” He bowed and brushed his lips lightly across the back of my outstretched hand. “We are humbled and honoured at your presence here.” He straightened, reached for my cloak, “Here, let me take that,” he said, lifted it from my shoulders and draped it across his arm, then stepped back a little to take in the length of me, starting at my feet and rising slowly until his blue eyes were looking into mine. I tried to act nonchalant, but in truth had gone to some lengths that the manner of my clothing and appearance should accentuate those charms that were new even to me.

  Bad enough I had a brother — the very person I loved more than anyone in the world — who was gravely ill, and that I was about to reconcile myself to an arranged marriage, but to play at seduction with a married man twice my age? To be a wanton creature of flesh chasing what it desired? And yet my young blood could not lie. Such urges and yearnings as might have been conquered by scripture and prayer I had no inclination to stifle. I was enamoured, undaunted by the limits of age or station, certain that it was more than mere infatuation. There was something about the way he carried himself, the timbre of his masculine voice, the trim of his beard and moustache, I could not resist.

  “By Heaven.” Sir Raleigh took up a thread of my hair, which I had deliberately chosen to wear down, that it might fall freely across my shoulders and over the raised lace collar, “this Yeoman may be a drunken and insubordinate fool but he’s right about one thing: you are indeed flowered into beauteous womanhood.”

  “And you,” I replied evenly, “manage yet to maintain the height of fashion even under these trying conditions.”

  Sir Raleigh turned to address the guard. “Yeoman, we would have some privacy. Leave us.”

  “It is not for you to order me about.” The Warder stood defiant, swaying slightly from side to side.

  “I have given him no small recompense,” I informed Sir Raleigh.

  “You are well paid for your services, Yeoman.” Sir Raleigh waved him off with the back of his hand.

  “That’s none of your doing.”

  “Take heed not to overstep your bounds” — Sir Raleigh glared at him — “for I have yet some means to compel your compliance if it should come to that.”

  “And so I’ll take my leave, but it shall not be long until my return. Make it quick.” The Yeoman turned to go.

  “And remember” — Sir Raleigh pointed at the bag in his hand — “some of that’s for the others. We would be assured of their complicity.”

  Sir Raleigh draped the cloak over the back of his chair and strode over to the stone hearth. He picked up two small pieces of wood and knelt down to lay them into the embers. “Come, sit here and warm yourself.” He indicated the chair before the fire. “You must be chilled.”

  When I had seated myself he pulled up a small wooden stool and proceeded to poke up the fire. “I would put on more wood, but the daily ration I am provided with is hardly enough to keep my hands from freezing. So often I am tempted to build a roaring fire, but when it dies I am faced with prospect of a cold and empty hearth.”

  “To long for that which one may not have is cruel punishment indeed.”

  “I confess there have been times when I thought of burning these same papers to bring some much-needed warmth into the room, yet would I gladly endure the cold to have some means of recording my thoughts.”

  “You work upon some grand treatise, no doubt.”

  “I have undertaken to write a history of the world in three parts, the first of which is near completion.”

  “I could hardly imagine taking on such a task.”

  “It requires only sufficient knowledge and the necessary resolve, though I will say the latter is made easier when four walls enclose your entire life from sunrise to sunset, from one day to the next, year upon year. Even then I should make better progress if naught betimes I turned to scripting verse.”

  “And for whom do you write these verses?”

  “For none but their own sake, so I should not go mad.”

  “And they are not written for a secret lover?”

  “You shall have many a verse written for you, I don’t doubt. I might deign to scribble one or two if I were a younger man.”

  “An older man may flavour his rhymes with a more seasoned affection,” I offered.

  Another wave of guilt washed over me. To think I should see fit to stoop so selfishly into indulgent flirtation, play at such intrigues even as my brother Henry suffered in his bedchamber. Shameful! And yet I wished Sir Raleigh would try to kiss me.

  “I am well-seasoned, I grant,” he had moved a little closer now, “and you are so very young.”

  “Not too young to marry, it would seem.”

  “I had heard something of this.” He leaned back and turned to rub his hands together over the fire. “They say a Bohemian prince is come to woo you.”

  “By my father’s arrangement.”

  “And you like him well enough?”

  “What think you on this dress?” I asked.

  “Madam?”

  “I would know if it pleases you.” The tawny orange gown I chose had a closefitting boned bodice cut low and trimmed at the neckline with lace. The sleeves and bodice were embroidered with black velvet brocade and edged with gold trim, the skirt adorned in blackwork and flared out sharply, supported by a boned satin kirtle beneath. Hung about my neck was a string of black pearls set into white ivory.

  “I’m pleased the wearer lends it such a lovely shape.”

  “Do you flatter, Sir?”

  “As I might flatter any garment if it be made to look so well.”

  “I would hear a verse or two of your poetry.” I rose from the chair. “What have you written of late?”

  “Shall I recite off the top of my head?”

  “As you like.”

  “Very well, but I must walk. Let me see . . . ‘Fain would I, but I dare not . . . I dare, and yet I may not.’” He was on his feet now pacing about the room. “‘I may, although I care not . . . for pleasure when I play not.’”

  “That’s more like doggerel,” I said disdainfully.

  “‘You pierce,’” he teased, still reciting, “‘although you strike not.’”

  “I hope for what I have not.”

  “This foreign Prince shall count himself lucky if you consent to marry him.”

  “Yours am I,” I stepped toward him, “though I seem not. Yet bleed I where you see not.”

  We were close now, standing before the flickering fire. “These are visions that would tempt a man.” Sir Raleigh looked into my eyes.

  “But have I tempted you?”

  “I forbear.” He stepped away, strode across the room.

  “Lest the King should hear of it and find his only daughter spoiled for marriage immaculate,” I scorned.

  “That would be such sweet sabotage to play upon your father. But I would know if you think him worthy.”

  “Who, my father?”

  “I mean this Palatine. I have it that upon first meeting you fell to gazing into each other’s eyes, followed thereupon by a kiss as two lovers might exchange.”

  “Much may turn upon a kiss.”

  “He has prospects for a kingship, this Palsgrave, as your mother is wont to call him?”

  “She’s be
en here, then?”

  “I hear things.”

  “I take him for a pawn and myself for another,” I said, and turned the conversation, at last, to the stated reason for my visit. “But I didn’t come here to talk about that. I would see my brother freed of his affliction, and you say you have the means.”

  “I understand your father has engaged a French physician of some repute to take charge of his care.”

  “One whose remedies do more harm than good, I fear.”

  “And also that Alfonso Ferrabosco, of all people, is now appointed Groom-in-Extraordinary to your brother?”

  “You seem to know quite as much as I about all of this.”

  “Would Henry were here for me to greet and give warm handshakes to. Your brother will make an excellent king one day, perhaps sooner than people think. I should take better measures to see to his good fortune and future if I were a free man.”

  “He has assured me more than once that as soon as he is king you shall be exactly that.”

  “When you see him next, tell him the first volume of this book I am completing shall be dedicated to him.”

  “I should be glad to do so, but I cannot. I am not allowed to see him.”

  “But what can be the reason? Say not they fear the plague.”

  “My father has seen to it I shall not be admitted to his bedchamber, and goes to such lengths as to post guards at the door.”