The
POISON BED
Elizabeth Fremantle
For Alice and Raphael
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust,
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.
The Duchess of Malfi, John Webster
Her
She was ready when they came, the three men. They smelt of damp wool and resisted staring but stole furtive glances instead. She walked to the door. Her sister sobbed, folding her into a wet embrace, while the nurse, bawling child in her arms, watched with a blunt glare.
Outside, the wind slapped hard in bitter gusts of mizzle. She felt eyes at the windows on her but refused to adopt a posture of shame. Shame is ravenous. If it is allowed in, it will eat away at you, to the bone.
They followed the route towards the river, over slick cobbles.
‘Must we go by water?’ she asked. But they had orders to obey.
She became aware of a clamour, a frenzy of chanting and bellowing, and once through the gates she saw the crowd: red faces, bared teeth. Were it not for her armed escort she might have been torn limb from limb. The thought tightened her gut like a drawstring and she forced her mind off it for fear of losing her composure. But neither could she think of the river’s beckoning fingers and wondered which was worse: the crowd, a quick, savage battering, or those icy fingers about her throat?
A shadow broke from the throng, snarling. It spat. She lost her footing, skidded down the river steps, but was caught by one of the men and as good as carried the rest of the way down, into the waiting boat.
‘Hope you fall in and drown, bitch,’ someone shouted.
She took her handkerchief from her cuff to wipe away the trail of mucus, discarding it over the side. It floated away, bobbing, like a small white bird. The vessel jolted and her head cracked hard against a wooden strut. The pain was sharp, but she maintained her poise. She would not give her escort the satisfaction of seeing her suffer.
One of them seemed familiar. She racked her brain for his name, thinking it might give her some small advantage if she could use it. Again, the boat rocked, oars slapping, and she was thrown back in time: a vast hand pressing down on her head, the wet shock, the tide of panic and the quiet menace of his voice, You must learn to trust me – to resist weakness. Her breath stuttered, the guard looked over and she coughed, pretending irritation in her throat.
Approaching the bridge, she could feel the force of the rapids sucking them into the shadows. She shut her eyes, holding her breath, until they emerged on the other side where the tower loomed. Her husband was there, somewhere behind those sheer walls. She wondered if he watched her approach and could picture him, like a carved angel, gilded by the low winter sun. But she mustn’t think of him, mustn’t be distracted from what she was about to face.
The boat slid into the tunnel that ran beneath the outer ramparts, where torches reflecting on to the rippled surface made it seem in flames. She half expected to encounter Cerberus when they reached the other side. But they found instead a small man, starched with deference, who took her hand to help her from the barge. She imagined his, beneath its glove, as a pink paw with sharp claws to go with his rodent’s face.
He led the way up a flight of steps. Wind whipped around the walls, tugging at her clothing as she waited for him to unlock a heavy door, which fell open with a shriek. Within, the chamber had small windows on both sides and an unlit hearth from which a foul stench emanated, as if a pigeon had died in the flue. One wall glistened with damp and the chill made her shiver despite her thick cloak.
‘The attorney general will be here shortly,’ he said, without looking at her, and Bacon arrived as if on cue, blowing in through the door, like a demon, on a blast of wind.
‘Why is the fire not lit?’ he said, even before making his greeting. ‘I can’t be expected to carry out my business in this cold ...’ he paused to cast a look her way that pricked the nape of her neck ‘... can I?’
A boy was sent for. He set down his bucket of hot coals on the flagstones with a clang and began laying the hearth while Bacon silently dissected her. His eyes hadn’t an ounce of kindness in them. She had no use for kindness, anyway.
But she was accustomed to men responding to her appearance. In Bacon she couldn’t discern even so much as a dilated pupil, and that disarmed her. Perhaps she was not quite as immune to fear as she liked to believe.
‘I haven’t seen you since you hosted the celebration for my wedding.’ She wanted to remind him who she was.
‘Three years ago,’ he stated, seeming to imply that things had changed since then, and she regretted bringing it up. Her wedding and the circumstances that had brought her to this place were inextricably linked. His expression remained indecipherable.
With a pair of tongs the boy plucked a red-hot coal from his bucket, which caught the kindling instantly, flaring up.
They became aware of heavy footfall mounting the steps and turned simultaneously towards the door. Her breath faltered.
‘This must be the lord chief justice now. He will be joining us.’
Coke lumbered in, wheezing. He smelt strongly of sweat, as if the steps had been a mountain, and ran his gaze slowly over her. She saw the hungry spark in Coke’s eye, lacking in Bacon’s. A young man, ledger tucked beneath his arm, slid quietly in behind him.
She took back control and offered them a seat, as if it was a social visit, noticing that Bacon wiped the bench before he sat, slapping his palms together to remove the dust.
The fire was smoking, stinging her eyes. The servant opened a window to help it draw, and Bacon snapped, ‘What do you think you’re doing, idiot? In this weather.’ The boy flinched as if he feared a beating and she suggested he look in the chimney for blockages. He prodded about with a long broom, and the half-rotted carcass of a bird dropped into the flames. They watched it burn. The smell turned her stomach.
‘So,’ said Bacon, once the boy had gone, clasping his hands together and stretching them out, palms turned forward until his knuckles cracked. ‘I suppose you intend to deny the charges.’
‘No.’ She met his gaze. ‘I’m guilty.’ His posture crumpled almost imperceptibly. It was clear she had surprised him, even disappointed him perhaps. ‘I wanted him dead.’
The clerk held his pen aloft, eyes wide. Bacon sighed. Regret, or something like it, began to wrench at her. But it was too late to turn back.
‘You are aware of the inevitable outcome of such a confession?’
She nodded. ‘I know I must accept the consequences. It is the whole truth.’
‘The whole truth – is that so?’ Bacon’s look penetrated her, as if he could see into her bones. ‘You may be clever,’ he narrowed his eyes slightly, ‘for a woman. But don’t think you can outfox me.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘No?’ He continued to scrutinize her, making her feel like the subject of one of his philosophical enquiries.
They fell quiet, the only sound the scratch of the clerk’s pen and the draught whistling through the ill-fitting windows.
It was Coke who spoke eventually, firing off a volley of questions.
‘Is it not enough that I confess but you must know how?’
He carried on, asking about things and people that seemed to bear no relation to the case, seeking links where they didn’t exist. Bacon seemed irritated by Coke’s line of query, thrumming his fingers on the table.
Eventually he interrupted: ‘And your husband? What was his part?’
‘He had no hand in it.’ The words exploded from her too loud and too fast.
Bacon spat out a caustic laugh but said nothing.
‘He’s innocent.’ She knew she sounded rattled and wondered if repeating her
self made the declaration sound less credible.
And that was it.
They stood, the clerk clapped his ledger shut, and she was left alone, wondering if her husband had also confessed.
Him
I sit alone in the gloom. A shaft of thin light leaks through a single window. The other is covered. I cannot bear the view it offers.
I line up the few relics I have of her, among them a small pearl, a square of unwashed linen and a package of letters tied with a ribbon that once held her undergarments together. I hold it to my nose but her smell is gone, leaving me with the memory of untying it, her clothes falling away to expose the landscape of her flesh. Heat surges through my body. Tears burn the back of my eyes.
I must find a way to make sense of my situation, find believable answers to all the questions I am asked over and over again. But fear coils itself round my throat until I think I will choke. So, I think of her.
The first time I set eyes on her was almost five years ago. She was in Henry Stuart’s apartments at the heart of a cluster of women. One of them – a girl – was holding out her hand, palm upward, and Frances had taken it, was examining it with studied concentration. I thought at first the girl had a splinter but there seemed more to it – all the group gazing at Frances intently, waiting for her to speak. I couldn’t help but eavesdrop.
‘I see love.’ She spoke softly. I later heard it said that her quiet voice was an affectation, designed to draw people into her thrall. But Frances had no need for such tricks. ‘Yes, it is quite clear in the intersection of these two lines.’
The girl blurted an embarrassed laugh. ‘Is it someone I already know?’ Red blotches appeared from nowhere on her throat.
Frances closed her eyes for several moments, as if waiting for some kind of celestial intervention, before saying firmly, ‘No, he’s a stranger.’ She dropped the hand, moving away towards where the men were gathered around Henry, inspecting a small bronze statue.
The court was filled with striking women, all of them marble goddesses. I barely noticed them – mine was not a world of women. But she was different. There was nothing cold and dead about Frances. No, she was undeniably human, life pulsing beneath her surface. She reminded me, in some curious way, of a beautiful boy. It was the fact she went unpainted. Her skin was fresh and clean, making me think if I dared move close enough that she would smell of laundered linen. But it was also the lithe ranginess of her body, the unusual directness of her gaze. There was no artifice to Frances Howard.
When I say it was the first time I set eyes on her, it is not quite the truth. Seven years before I had seen her wedding procession from a distance. She was flanked by her father and great-uncle, yet despite their combined magnificence they failed to diminish the effect of her. Though she was only fourteen she seemed older, steeped in self-possession. I found myself gaping. I was a nobody then, just the orphaned son of minor Scottish gentry who had been taken in as a page to someone on the fringes of court.
‘They won’t be consummating it yet,’ said an onlooker to his neighbour. I found myself stirred at the thought of that. It shocked me: I had felt such things only for men. ‘He’s to travel Europe and she’ll be sent back to her parents until she’s old enough.’
I was on tiptoe, hoping for another glimpse of her bright brown hair. It fell gleaming almost to the floor – everyone talked of her hair – and that mouth, which seemed, even at rest, to be set in a slight smile that suggested a kept secret.
‘She looks old enough to me.’ The other man snorted, almost salivating. I was caught in a muddle of feelings, and despite my own burning arousal, I found myself incensed by his disrespect. To speak of something so pure and untouchable in such a way seemed sacrilege. I could have punched him, knew I had the strength to knock him cold. Those with no family learn early in life how to look after themselves.
In the intervening years, she’d become a woman. I watched her with Henry, laughing about something, their heads flung back, mouths open, but she stopped suddenly, turning away from him, her gaze locking on me, as if she were a hawk and I a hare. I like to imagine it was the force of my desire that drew her attention. I had never seen such eyes, dark glossy ovals. Just a square of white in each, a reflection of the window behind me, and my own tiny form etched there. She said nothing, just smiled, displaying teeth as neat as a string of pearls.
Only then did I notice Henry was watching me watching her. ‘Come to spy on us, Carr? Or is it Rochester, these days?’ he said, with a scowl. ‘Didn’t my father ennoble you recently?’
A few of his friends stared at me in disapproval, but not her. She smiled my way again and I saw Henry’s hackles rise.
‘I suppose he’s sent you to persuade me to take that Catholic child as a wife. Well, you can tell him my answer is no.’ He was pulling on a pair of articulated gauntlets and didn’t look at me. ‘What would I want with a nine-year-old papist?’
I felt Frances’s eyes still on me. ‘She comes with a substantial –’
‘A substantial dowry,’ Henry interrupted me. A page was holding out several fencing foils for him. He picked one, slicing it through the air. ‘To pay off my father’s substantial debts?’
As I searched for a response that wouldn’t give offence, the foils slipped from the page’s grip, clattering to the floor. The boy blushed and crouched, retrieving them to a hail of sniggering. As he was reaching for the last, a foot kicked it out of his range, causing a renewed eruption of laughter.
‘That’s uncalled for.’ I glared at the perpetrator and stooped to pick up the foil, handing it to the page, patting his shoulder, giving him a few words of encouragement.
Someone said, ‘You tell him, Carr.’ And I sensed I had gained a little ground.
My adversary was annoyed, his mouth set in a thin snarl – ‘For a man who’s come from nowhere you haven’t done badly, have you?’ – then, under his breath, ‘In the King’s bedchamber, like a woman.’ Southampton had never liked me and the feeling was mutual. He was puffed up and wore the swagger of someone who didn’t realize he’d lost his looks to age. I held my ground, keeping a steady gaze on him, but didn’t react. ‘No answer to that, Carr?’
‘Some things don’t dignify a response.’
He didn’t like that, and wasn’t meant to. ‘Where did you learn about dignity? Not in the gutter you came from.’
I half smiled. ‘One thing I did learn in the gutter is that a prize ram, butchered and cooked, is indistinguishable from ordinary mutton.’ She beamed at me, meeting my eye.
Henry glowered and placed a proprietorial hand on her arm. I recognized jealousy when I saw it. He was four years her junior, still a boy. It seemed an absurd pairing. But the attraction of power should never be underestimated. ‘Ordinary mutton,’ Henry spoke directly to her, ‘can get stuck in your teeth.’
Rage flared beneath my surface. The thought of silencing him flitted through my mind – I imagined my hands about his throat, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh, could hear his choked pleas for mercy.
Henry was addressing me: ‘Pick a rapier, Carr. Let’s see what you’re made of.’ The air was tight, everyone waiting for the clap of thunder after lightning. I hesitated. ‘Winner takes that.’ He pointed towards Frances. I was momentarily appalled and might have reacted had I not then realized he hadn’t meant Frances but the little bronze shepherd beside her.
I nodded my assent. A breastplate was produced and fitted on to me. I chose a foil. They were all blunted, just practice weapons. The only thing that risked damage was someone’s vanity. The doors to the courtyard were opened and out we went, followed by the entire company, waiting to see if Robert Carr would have the gall to out-manoeuvre the heir to the throne.
We danced back and forth, the occasional steel scrape ringing out as our blades touched. Prince Henry was good, elegant and skilled, but I had complete control, though made it look otherwise, sensing the importance of putting on a show. I knew well enough that audacity would win me the cr
owd. I may have lacked his refinement but I was older – twenty-four and in my prime – and I knew I was better, faster, more aggressive. I’d learned to fight rough, with my fists, and I wasn’t going to lose, not in front of her. No matter what trouble it might cause me.
His foil whistled close by my cheek. I ducked.
‘Mind your pretty face, Carr,’ Southampton called scornfully.
Pretending not to hear, I saw my chance. In a moment’s hesitation from Henry I made my lunge, the tip of my weapon landing on the side of his neck, where a great blood vessel runs. Had it been a real fight our shoes would have been drenched red with Stuart blood.
‘You’ve made your point.’ Southampton was tugging at my sword arm and added, under his breath, ‘You’d better watch yourself.’
‘What did you say?’ It was clear he’d have liked to pick a proper fight. Despite his years, he was battle-hardened and I knew he wouldn’t be so easily beaten. ‘Is that a challenge?’ A ripple ran through the company. I shrugged my arm from his grip and looked him full in the eye. ‘Is it?’
I had the King behind me. I had his ear, I had his trust, I had his love, and ill-bred or not, I had a great deal more influence than Southampton. But still he pushed his face up tight to mine, like a rutting stag. I spat out a laugh. ‘I thought you were hopeful of a place on the Privy Council?’
He pulled back, flushed, half turning away, and I couldn’t help whispering, ‘I knew you didn’t have the balls.’
Henry stepped between us, slapping a hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m grateful to you, actually, Carr. I shan’t develop my fencing skills by being allowed to win.’ His generosity of spirit made me forget a moment that we were rivals for the attention of Frances Howard, who was watching us carefully as we walked back inside together. ‘Here,’ he said, taking the bronze shepherd from its plinth and handing it to me.
It was heavier than I’d expected, a dead weight, and it crossed my mind that it would have made an effective weapon, but I returned it to its place. ‘It’s better off here, where it will be appreciated.’
The Poison Bed Page 1