by Lucy Weston
When my fangs pierced her throat, she moaned faintly. The fire leapt higher, burning hotter. Tomorrow crept toward us, eclipsing all the yesterdays.
15 January 1559
The world looks no better by morning despite sporting a bright blue sky. I rise, weary and tense, to face my ladies, all of them consumed with excitement for the coming day. As they buzz about, seeing to my toilette, I struggle to convince myself that the events of the previous night were no more than a fever dream.
But I have no fever and, worse, the pattens I wore to venture out to the chapel are still beside my bed, lying where I had kicked them off, mute evidence that what I remember truly did occur. I stare at them as I am laced into my corset and hoop-skirted farthingale. Two of the most trusted men in my service believe that my kingdom is under demonic threat. I myself experienced a strange transformation that I can still barely credit. No amount of hoping on my part changes any of that.
Inevitably, my ladies sense my distraction and, mistaking it for nerves, strive to soothe me, twittering about with urgings of small beer and conversation. With an effort, I mouth pleasantries that I am far from feeling. Kat is not fooled by them; I can tell. She directs all without ever taking her eyes from me. I know that she wants to ask what has happened and am glad that there is no opportunity for her to do so.
Finally the gown of gold and silver tissue that a dozen seamstresses have labored over for weeks is lowered over my head, the crimson velvet cape lined with ermine is placed on my shoulders, and we are away at last. Out on the green, sparkling in morning sun, I pause to receive the cheers of the Tower guard before going out into my city across the Lion Tower drawbridge, where I am greeted by an exuberant crowd, more than a few of whom have waited since before dawn to see me.
Merchants, traders, peddlers, and goodwives line the bankside along with, I am sure, a full measure of the thieves, whores, and actors who make up London’s hidden world. I want to think only of them, my people, but I find myself wondering if Mordred and others of his kind are lurking in the shadows even then, watching and plotting.
To distract myself, I look out over the great river that is the lifeblood of my city. Beneath the clear blue sky, the Thames is thronged with boats of every description that are, in turn, reflected in it. Anything that can float is on the water with every wherryman blessed with a full load, all eager to escort my royal barge upriver to Westminster Abbey. I step on board, taking my seat on a platform raised so that those onshore can easily see me, and give the order to set off.
The bridge looms before us, no less than twenty stone arches framed on both sides with houses and shops that teeter so high as to seem about to topple over. Between them lies the only span across which all carts, wagons, horses, and flocks coming from the south can enter London. Truly, nature and the industry of man have made my tax collectors’ duty as easy as possible.
My good people are hanging from every window to cheer me on. Banners are flying, trumpets blaring; it is a day to gladden every heart. Despite the dark shadow hovering over me, I smile and wave in good cheer. We negotiate the stone piers without incident. At high tide and with a swift current, even the wariest boatman can have his craft smashed asunder in the mill race that forms between the bridge supports. It is a reminder that strikes me as apt for the day.
Picking up speed, we pass crowded close to the long, timbered warehouses that stand cheek by jowl, with the ships’ chandlers, seamen’s inns, and the two-and three-story houses of prosperous merchants. Behind them, narrow streets and lanes are tightly packed with squat, daub-and-wattle houses, some admittedly squalid, set among a sea of church spires. In the distance, I see the great tower of St. Paul’s and the even more splendid spire and cross of St. Mary Overie.
Musicians accompany us, playing sprightly airs, yet not even my favorite music can dispel the ominous pall that clings to me. I have looked forward to this day for so long, often fearing that I would never live to see it, yet now it has taken on a weight and meaning that I cannot still fully grasp.
Through the press of people on the royal barge, I glimpse Robin and beckon him forward. He looks very fine in a doublet of burgundy velvet with a jerkin over it of black silk and cloth of silver. His mustache and beard are finely oiled and combed. His legs, which are uniformly acknowledged to be excellent, are well turned out in black hose. He wears a short cloak, I suspect because he does not wish to conceal those fine legs, and a hat strewn with gold bangles and a jaunty feather, which he sweeps off as he approaches me.
We are of an age, Robin and I, and are both survivors of turbulent, dangerous childhoods. He understands me better than any other can. We share a love of drama and poetry, hunting and hawking. He makes me laugh, and he makes me happy. Anyone who thinks ill of that can hie off to Hades.
I smile and hold out my hand to him. He comes through the crowd, tall and limber with the grace of a natural horseman, takes my fingers, and brushes them with his lips. Without releasing me, he steps closer. I feel the warmth of his breath as a caress against my neck as he murmurs, “You look tired. Is something wrong, Your Majesty?”
The wind lifts a curl of his black hair. He is deeply tanned, his skin drinking in the sun even in our northern clime. His brown eyes are, as almost always, irresistible to me. I fancy they are windows into his soul.
“I am … distracted,” I say, careful to keep smiling. Let the avid audience watching our every move believe we are engaged in no more than light repartee.
Joining in my masquerade, Robin laughs as though I have said something witty. Under his breath, he asks, “What has happened?”
“Not here.” My face is growing stiff for grinning. “We will speak later. Find me before the banquet.”
He nods and sweeps a bow. Loudly he says, “As Your Majesty commands.”
I turn away, dismissing him even as I promise myself that I will not have to do so much longer. Once I am anointed queen, I will be bolder in putting forward my friends and chastising my enemies. But for the moment, the habit of discretion still clings to me.
Robin withdraws, leaving me to pretend interest in the passing scene. Farther along the river, the wharves give way to manor houses surrounded by broad lawns and gardens running down to the river. The long roof of Westminster Hall and the adjacent Palace of Whitehall come into view. Finally, I spy the vast transepts and apse of the Abbey, built by blessed Saint Edward the Confessor, where, shortly now, I will be crowned.
The narrow streets from the Whitehall water steps to the Abbey are packed so tightly that I wonder how anyone can breathe, the crowd held in check by yeoman guards holding steel-edged halberds at the ready. No one seems to mind as men, women, and children alike cheer me mightily. I smile and wave, wave and smile, all despite the apprehension that makes me stare uneasily into the crowd, wondering who might be concealed there. As I pause to accept a bouquet of flowers from a little girl who gazes at me with awe, a cloud moves over the sun, casting us all into shadow. I shiver but keep smiling, always smiling. A little farther on, I stop again to listen to a grizzled old man perform a poem recalling his witness of my father’s coronation. The sun has come out again, filling the street with silvered winter light, yet still the shadow clings to me. I thank the old man kindly and move on, passing finally beneath the entrance to the Abbey. There I pause for a moment to catch my breath and further compose myself for the ordeal ahead.
As I step inside the Abbey, lit by a thousand candles and lamps, onto a bright blue carpet that runs the length of the nave, a thousand and more pairs of eyes turn in my direction. Virtually all the peerage has crammed inside for the ancient rite by which a sovereign is consecrated. Every one of them—every duke, earl, baron, knight, and all their ladies, perhaps most particularly the ladies—scrutinize me for any sign of weakness. Were I to show the slightest hint, I have no doubt that a goodly number would turn against me at once with the rest following quickly enough.
But anyone who hopes to see evidence of failing on my part is desti
ned for disappointment. Since tenderest childhood, I have been forced to conceal my emotions even under the most turbulent circumstances. That mask has become second nature to me, though at times it seems more prison than protection.
The high, pure voices of the boys’ choir ring out as the ancient ceremony begins. After the opening prayers, a canopy is raised over and around me to shield me from the eyes of all but the attending prelates. I am anointed with holy oil on my hands, breast, and head. I had wondered if, at that moment, I would truly feel myself transformed. The reality is not disappointing, precisely, but my experience of the night before renders it inconsequential. Seated on my throne, I receive the symbols of my royal estate, including the ring wedding me forever to my people, the only spouse I truly want, although I will never be so impolitic as to say so. No one needs to know that the mere thought of giving any man the power of husband over me fills me with visions of the scaffold.
At long last, the royal crown of England—seven pounds of gold and gems—is placed on my head. I take my sacred oath on a Bible held aloft by William Cecil, whom I have chosen for that honor in recognition of his service to me. The assembled peerage cheers lustily amid the blare of trumpets, then one by one each lord comes to kneel at my feet and pledge himself in God’s name to be my faithful servant. Some of them may even mean it. The hard truth is that I do not doubt most of them would just as readily kneel before anyone else who they believed would preserve their power and privileges.
In the aftermath of the ceremony, a great banquet is laid out in Westminster Hall. A privy chamber has been readied to allow me a brief respite. There Robin finds me. He slides in past Kat’s frown and my ladies, who pretend to be busy chatting among themselves so that we can have a modicum of privacy.
“May I tell you how beautiful you are, Majesty?” he asks as he slips onto a stool beside me and takes my hands. “Your radiance blinds us all. As I watched the crown being put upon your head, I—”
“You cannot be both blind and watching,” I say, cutting him short. Ordinarily I enjoy flattery, but just then I have no patience for it.
With a quick glance to be sure my ladies are out of earshot, I say, “Robin, the most extraordinary thing has happened.”
His brief look of petulance at my tart response vanishes. At once he turns serious. “I knew you were troubled when I saw you on the barge. What is it?”
I am trying to decide how to begin when I remember that Robin is of a family of mingled Norman and Saxon blood significantly older in lineage than my own. It occurs to me suddenly that if Cecil and Dee are right, he might not be entirely ignorant of what they have revealed to me.
“Have you ever heard of a danger to my kingdom from beyond the mortal realm? One so perverse and deadly as to defy belief?”
Even as I speak, I hope that Robin will not only disavow any knowledge but will persuade me that the very idea is absurd. Cecil and Dee are mistaken, my fears are overwrought, and what I think I experienced at my mother’s grave is no more than an illusion born of too little sleep and too much worry.
Instead, Robin sighs deeply. His shoulders sag and suddenly he will not meet my eyes.
Slowly he says, “I told myself that it couldn’t be true—and that even if it is, it is all in the past and would have no effect on you. But now you seem to be saying that—”
Incredulity fills me. He knew and did not tell me? How is that possible?
“You knew? And you said nothing to me?”
“You cannot blame me for this,” he insists swiftly. “I could no more credit what I heard than you seem able to do. And I certainly did not want to give you reason for yet more dread and worry when you already are far too afflicted with both.”
“But even so, if I had been given some warning—”
“Would you have done anything differently? For that matter, what have you done? What has happened?”
Kat turns her head just then and peers in our direction.
I touch Robin’s hand in warning. “Not here. Come to me tonight.”
At once he leans closer and presses my fingers. “Beloved—” he whispers.
“To talk,” I say hastily, though my senses surge and a wave of heat washes through me. Until Robin took me into his arms for the first time, I was half-convinced that I was not as other women, being so distrustful of passion as to deny it any part in my nature. How mistaken I was—but that is a matter for another time.
At length the day I had so joyfully anticipated, only to endure so impatiently, nears its close. As I progress to Whitehall, my favorite of the royal residences, where I will remain for the full ten days of celebration following my crowning, Cecil squeezes his way through the crowd of nobles to my side.
“Majesty,” he says, “if I might have a moment—”
My head feels encircled by a band of iron, this despite that before leaving the Abbey, I replaced the heavy crown of my father with the far daintier diadem of gold studded with sapphires, rubies, and pearls that was made for my mother to wear at her own coronation. Officially, I did so for comfort, but in fact I cannot let the day pass without commemorating my mother. The more astute among my nobles recognize the diadem for what it is, a bold assertion of loyalty to her. Those whose families helped to bring about her ruin are put on notice that her daughter will be far more dangerous prey.
“Tomorrow,” I tell Cecil. “Come in the morning. We will breakfast together and speak privately.”
He deserves that for all his good counsel, but he is displeased all the same.
“There are urgent matters touching on the events of last night—,” he begins.
“No one knows that better than I, but we will accomplish nothing while I am so weary.”
When Cecil tries to press me, I gesture to my ladies, who swiftly surround me, cutting him off. Within that feminine cocoon, I go directly to my apartment, through the privy gallery, clogged by courtiers who wait in hopes that I will give them audience; past my library, wherein my beloved books await such leisure hours as I am able to wrest from duty’s demands; past my dining and dressing rooms; through the withdrawing room, which I share with my ladies; until at last, I come to my bedchamber.
A royal residence has stood beside the Thames since the time of Edward, the saintly king who built Westminster Abbey. But my father put his stamp on the palace that is now my own. Given his taste for intrigue, it should come as no surprise that the royal apartment is well equipped with discreet passages allowing for hidden comings and goings. One such passage grants the most private access to my chamber.
Knowing that Robin will soon come and eager to speak with him, I allow my ladies to strip me of my regalia, peeling away the layers until I am left in nothing at all. With my feet blessedly bare, I wiggle my toes and feel the blood return to them. When the last pin is removed from my hair and my fiery tresses fall free, I groan with pleasure. Kat laughs and rubs my scalp as one of my ladies holds my bed gown near the fire to warm it before dropping it over my head. Wrapped in a robe, I sit with my feet propped up on a stool and sip a posset. Too soon I am fighting to keep my eyes open.
“To bed, Majesty?” Kat asks. She looks as exhausted as the rest of my ladies after the eventful day. Taking pity on them, I wave a hand.
“Off with you all. I’ll sit awhile, then retire.”
They protest that they will keep me company until I am ready to sleep, but go all the same with only a little more urging. When they are gone, I sigh in relief. Having set aside the posset, I rise to open the leaded window a crack, just enough to admit a reviving draft of cold air. I am staring out over the river, silvered by moonlight, when a faint prickling lifts the hairs on the back of my neck.
I watched the coronation from a perch in the deep shadows beneath the rafters of Westminster Abbey, my unfettered presence there further proof, if yet more was needed, that no god favors mortals over us, for surely any such deity would bar us from his holy places.
Elizabeth looked lovely, for all that she was obv
iously under considerable strain. She could hardly be blamed for that, given the gauntlet of scrutiny she had to walk to reach her throne. The Spanish and Portuguese were at that time rumored to have discovered in the darkest reaches of the equatorial regions cannibals who, I am certain, would not have fallen on her more ravenously than would her own nobles had they been given the slightest encouragement to do so. At least her mother, walking to the scaffold, knew she was about to die. Elizabeth could only wonder when and how the sword would fall on her.
The ceremony was interminable, saved only by the excellence of the music. The banquet afterward was the usual excess of overly rich meats, florid sauces, and a waste of good wine squandered on poor palates. The insufferable Dudley was there, of course. I marveled that she could not see him for what he was. He pretended to love her while seeking nothing other than the restoration of his traitorous family, whereas I … I confess, I was developing a tendresse for Elizabeth. The thought of her touch and scent … the smooth skin of her supple neck … and most particularly of her taste quite overwhelmed me at times. Call me foolish, but I have always believed in love.
The ever-intrusive Cecil sidled up to her as the banquet was ending. I was glad to see that she sent him on his way with short shrift. I had considered removing her Spirit but had left him alive, judging that he could be useful to me in years to come.
At length and at last, she withdrew. I watched her maids strip her of her raiment, garment by garment until at last her pale skin was revealed in all its glory. Her legs were long and tapered, the thighs sleek with muscle. The soft nest of fire between them drew my gaze. I imagined touching her, feeling her respond, feeding from her. Passion warred with amusement as I watched her wiggle her toes in the thick carpet. Still, I was not fooled. Her eyes were shadowed with fatigue. She was living on her nerves. When her ladies had gone, she opened the window and looked out toward the river. Her expression was pensive and, I thought, filled with yearning.
