‘I was born to be queen,’ she flashed at him.
‘No-one denies it,’ he said. ‘Least of all me. Because I was born to be your lover and your husband and your king.’
She hesitated. ‘Robert, even if we declare our betrothal you would not take the title of king.’
‘Even if?’
She flushed. ‘I mean: when.’
‘When we declare our betrothal I shall be your husband and King of England,’ he said simply. ‘What else would you call me?’
Elizabeth was stunned into silence, but at once she tried to manage him. ‘Now, Robert,’ she said mildly. ‘You’ll hardly want to be king. Philip of Spain was only ever known as king-consort. Not king.’
‘Philip of Spain had other titles,’ he said. ‘He was emperor in his lands. It didn’t matter to him what he was in England, he was hardly ever here. Would you have me seated at a lower place, and eating off silver when you eat off gold, as Philip did with Mary? Would you want to so humble me before others? Every day of my life?’
‘No,’ she said hastily. ‘Never.’
‘D’you think me not worthy of the crown? Good enough for your bed but not good enough for the throne?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, of course not, Robert, my love, don’t twist and turn my words. You know I love you, you know I love no-one but you, and I need you.’
‘Then we have to complete what we have started,’ he said. ‘Grant me a divorce from Amy, and publish our betrothal. Then I can be your partner and helpmeet in everything. And I will be called king.’
She was about to object but he drew her towards him again and started to kiss her neck. Helplessly, Elizabeth melted into his embrace. ‘Robert …’
‘My love,’ he said. ‘You taste so good that I could eat you.’
‘Robert,’ she sighed. ‘My love, my only love.’
Gently he scooped her up into his arms and took her to the bed. She lay on her back as he slipped off his gown and came naked towards her. She smiled, waiting for him to put on the sheath that he always used in their lovemaking. When he did not have the ribboned skin in his hand, nor reach to the table by the bed, she was surprised.
‘Robert? Have you not a guardian?’
His smile was very dark and seductive. He crawled up the bed towards her, pressing his naked body against every inch of her, overwhelming her with the faint musky smell of him, the warmth of his skin, the soft, prickly mat of hair at his chest, and the rising column of his flesh.
‘We have no need of it,’ he said. ‘The sooner we make a son for England’s cradle the better.’
‘No!’ she said, shocked, and started to pull away. ‘Not until we are known to be married.’
‘Yes,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Feel it, Elizabeth, you have never felt it properly. You have never felt it like my wife has felt it. Amy loves me naked and you don’t even know what it is like. You’ve never had half of the pleasure I have given her.’
She gave a little moan of jealousy and at once reached down, took hold of him, and guided him into her wetness. As their bodies came together and she felt his naked flesh with her own, her eyes fluttered shut with pleasure. Robert Dudley smiled.
In the morning the queen declared that she was ill and could see no-one. When Cecil came to her door she sent out word that she could see him very briefly, and only if it was a matter of urgency.
‘I am afraid so,’ he said solemnly, gesturing at the document in his hand. The sentries stood to one side and let him into her bedchamber.
‘I told them I needed you to sign for the return of French prisoners,’ Cecil said, coming in and bowing. ‘Your note said to come at once with an excuse to see you.’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Because of Sir Robert?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ he said baldly.
‘I know it.’
Something in the flatness of her voice alerted him. ‘What has he done?’
‘He has made … a demand of me.’
Cecil waited.
Elizabeth glanced at the faithful Mrs Ashley. ‘Kat, go and stand outside the door and see that there is no-one listening.’
The woman left the room.
‘What demand?’
‘One I cannot meet.’
He waited.
‘He wants us to declare our betrothal, for me to grant him and that woman a divorce, and for him to be called king.’
‘King?’
Her head bowed down, she nodded, not meeting his eyes.
‘King-consort was good enough for the Emperor of Spain.’
‘I know. I said. But it is what he wants.’
‘You have to refuse.’
‘Spirit, I cannot refuse him. I cannot let him think me false to him. I have no words of refusal for him.’
‘Elizabeth, this madness will cost you the throne of England, and all the danger and all the waiting, and the peace of Edinburgh, will be for nothing. They will push you from the throne and put in your cousin as queen. Or worse. I cannot save you from this, you are finished if you put him on the throne.’
‘Have you thought of nothing?’ she demanded. ‘You always know what to do. Spirit, you must help me. I have to break with him and before God, I cannot.’
Cecil looked at her suspiciously. ‘Is that all? That he wants a divorce and to be called king-consort? He has not hurt you, or threatened you? You remember that would be treason, even if done in love? Even if done by a betrothed lover?’
Elizabeth shook her head. ‘No, he is always …’ She broke off, thinking what intense pleasure he gave her. ‘He is always … But what if I have a child?’
His look of horror was as dark as her own. ‘Are you with child?’
She shook her head. ‘No. Well, I don’t know …’
‘I assumed that he took care …’
‘Until last night.’
‘You should have refused.’
‘I cannot!’ she suddenly shouted. ‘Do you not hear me, Cecil, though I tell you over and over again? I cannot refuse him. I cannot help but love him. I cannot say no to him. You have to find a way for me to marry him, or you have to find a way for me to escape his demands, because I cannot say no to him. You have to protect me from my desire for him, from his demands, it is your duty. I cannot protect myself. You have to save me from him.’
‘Banish him!’
‘No. You have to save me from him without him ever knowing that I have said one word against him.’
Cecil was silent for a long moment, then he remembered that they had only a short time together: the queen and her own Secretary of State were forced to meet in secret, in snatched moments, because of her folly. ‘There is a way,’ he said slowly. ‘But it is a very dark path.’
‘Would it teach him his place?’ she demanded. ‘That his place is not mine?’
‘It would put him in fear of his life and humble him to dust.’
Elizabeth flared up at that. ‘He never fears,’ she blazed. ‘And his spirit did not break even when his whole family was brought low.’
‘I am sure he is indefatigable,’ Cecil said acidly. ‘But this would shake him so low that he would give up all thought of the throne.’
‘And he would never know that I had ordered it,’ she whispered.
‘No.’
She paused. ‘And it would not fail.’
‘I don’t think so.’ He hesitated. ‘It requires the death of an innocent person.’
‘Just one?’
He nodded. ‘Just one.’
‘No-one that I love?’
‘No.’
She did not pause for a moment. ‘Do it then.’
Cecil allowed himself a smile. So often when he thought Elizabeth the weakest of women he saw that she was the most powerful of queens.
‘I will need a token of his,’ he said. ‘Do you have anything with his seal?’
Almost she said ‘no’. He saw the thought of the lie go through her mind.
‘You do?’
Slowly, from the neck of her gown she drew out a gold chain bearing Dudley’s signet ring that he had given her when they had plighted their troth. ‘His own ring,’ she whispered. ‘He put it on my finger when we were betrothed.’
Cecil hesitated. ‘Will you give it to me for his undoing? His token of love to you? His own signet ring?’
‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘Since it is him, or me.’ Slowly, she unclipped the chain and held it up so that the ring fell down into her palm. She kissed it, as if it were a sacred relic, and then reluctantly handed it to him.
‘I must have it back,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘And he must never see it in your hands,’ she said. ‘He would know at once that it had come from me.’
Cecil nodded again.
‘When will you do it?’ she asked.
‘At once,’ he replied.
‘Not on my birthday,’ she specified like a child. ‘Let me be happy with him on my birthday. He has planned a lovely day for me, don’t spoil it.’
‘The day after then,’ Cecil said.
‘Sunday?’
He nodded. ‘But you must not risk conceiving a child.’
‘I will make an excuse.’
‘I will need you to play a part,’ Cecil warned her.
‘He knows me too well, he sees through me in a moment.’
‘Not play a part to him. You will have to make some remarks to others. You have to set a hare running. I will tell you what to say.’
She wrung her hands. ‘It will not hurt him?’
‘He has to learn,’ Cecil said. ‘You want this done?’
‘It must be done.’
— Would to God I could just have him murdered and be done with it — Cecil thought as he bowed and left the room. Kat Ashley was waiting outside the queen’s chamber as Cecil came out and they exchanged one brief, appalled glance at the mess in which this new queen was entrapped in only the second year of her reign.
— But though not dead I shall bring him down so low that he knows he can never be king — Cecil thought. — Another Dudley generation and another disgrace. Will they ever learn? — He stalked along the gallery past the queen’s forebears, her handsome father, the gaunt portrait of her grandfather. — A woman cannot rule — Cecil thought, looking at the kings. — A woman, even a very clever woman like this one, has no temperament for rule. She seeks a master and God help us, she chose a Dudley. Well, once he is cut down like a weed and the path is clear she can seek a proper master for England. —
The page, reporting that the doctor would not attend Lady Dudley, was summoned before Mrs Forster.
‘Did you tell him she was ill? Did you say Lady Dudley needed his help?’
The lad, wide-eyed with anxiety, nodded his head. ‘He knew,’ he said. ‘It was because she is who she is that he wouldn’t come.’
Mrs Forster shook her head and went to find Mrs Oddingsell.
‘Our own physician will not attend her, for fear of being unable to cure her,’ she said, putting the best appearance on the matter as she could.
Mrs Oddingsell paused at this fresh bad news. ‘Did he know who his patient would be?’
‘Yes.’
‘He refused to come in order to avoid her?’
Mrs Forster hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘So now she has nowhere to go, and no physician will heal her?’ she demanded incredulously. ‘What is she to do? What am I to do with her?’
‘She will have to come to terms with her husband,’ Mrs Forster said. ‘She should never have quarrelled with him. He is too great a man to offend.’
‘Mrs Forster, you know as well as I, she has no quarrel with him but his adultery and his desire for a divorce. How is a good wife to meet such a request?’
‘When the man is Robert Dudley, his wife had better agree,’ Mrs Forster said bluntly. ‘For look at the strait she finds herself in now.’
Amy, a little better after a rest of two days, walked down the narrow circular stair from her room to the buttery below, and then through the great hall into the courtyard, her hat swinging in her hand. She walked across the cobbled courtyard, putting her hat on her head and tying the ribbons under her chin. Although it was September the sun was still very hot. Amy went through the great archway and turned left to walk on the thickly planted terrace before the house. The monks had walked here in their times of quiet prayer and reading, and she could still trace the paving stones of their circular walk in the rough-cut grass.
She thought that they must have struggled with greater difficulties than hers, that they must have wrestled with their souls and not worried about mere mortal things like whether a husband would ever come home again, and how to survive if he did not. — But they were very holy men — she said to herself. — And learned. And I am neither holy nor learned, and in fact I think I am a very foolish sinner. For God must have forgotten me as much as Robert has done if they could both leave me here alone, and in such despair. —
She gave a little gulp of a sob and then rubbed the tears from her cheek with her gloved hand. — No point in crying — she whispered miserably to herself.
She took the steps down from the terrace to walk through the orchard towards the garden wall, the gate, and the church beyond.
The gate was stuck when she pulled at it, and then a man stepped forward from the other side of the wall, and pushed it free for her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, startled.
‘Lady Amy Dudley?’ he asked.
‘Yes?’
‘I have a message for you from your husband.’
She gave a little gasp and her cheeks suddenly blushed red. ‘Is he here?’
‘No. A letter for you.’
He handed it over and waited while she examined the seal. Then she did an odd thing. ‘Have you a knife?’
‘What for, my lady?’
‘To lift off the seal. I don’t break them.’
He took a little dagger, sharp as a razor, from its sheath in his boot. ‘Take care.’
She inserted the blade between the dried shiny wax and the thick paper and lifted the seal from the fold. She tucked it into the pocket of her gown, returned the knife to him, and then unfolded the letter.
He saw that her hands were shaking as she held the letter to read it, and that she read very slowly, her lips spelling out the words. She looked at him. ‘Are you in his confidence?’
‘I am his servant and his liegeman.’
Amy held out the letter to him. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I don’t read very well. Does that say that he is coming to see me tomorrow at midday, and that he wants to see me alone in the house? That I must clear the house of everyone and wait for him alone?’
Awkwardly, he took the letter and read it quickly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At midday tomorrow, and it says to dismiss your servants for the day and sit alone in your chamber.’
‘Do I know you?’ she said suddenly. ‘Are you new in his service?’
‘I am his confidential servant,’ he said. ‘I had business in Oxford and so he asked me to take this letter. He said there would be no need of any reply.’
‘Did he send me a token?’ she asked. ‘Since I don’t know you?’
The man gave her a thin smile. ‘I am Johann Worth, your ladyship. And he gave me this for you.’ He reached into his pocket and gave her the ring, the Dudley signet ring with the ragged staff and the bear.
Solemnly she took it from him and at once slipped it on her fourth finger, snugly it fitted above her wedding ring, and she smiled as she put her fingertip on the engraving of the Dudley crest.
‘Of course I shall do exactly as he asks,’ she said.
The Spanish ambassador, de Quadra, staying at Windsor for the weekend of Elizabeth’s birthday, found himself opposite Cecil to watch an archery tournament on the upper green before the palace gardens on Friday evening. He noticed at once that the Lord Secretary was looking as grave as he had done since
his return from Scotland, and was wearing his customary black unrelieved by any slashing, colour or jewellery, as if it were an ordinary day and not the eve of the queen’s birthday.
Carefully he worked his way round so that he was near the Lord Secretary as the party dispersed.
‘And so all is prepared for the queen’s birthday tomorrow,’ the Spanish ambassador observed. ‘Sir Robert swears he will give her a merry day.’
‘Merry for her, but little joy in it for me,’ Cecil said incautiously, his tongue loosened by wine.
‘Oh?’
‘I tell you, I cannot tolerate much more of it,’ Cecil continued in a tone of muted anger. ‘Everything I try to do, everything I say has to be confirmed by that cub.’
‘Sir Robert Dudley?’
‘I’ve had enough of it,’ Cecil said. ‘I left her service once before, when she would not take my advice over Scotland, and I can do it again. I have a beautiful house and a fine young family, and I never have time to see them, and the thanks I get for my service is shameful.’
‘You are not serious,’ the Spaniard said. ‘You would not really leave?’
‘It is a wise sailor who makes for port when a storm is coming,’ Cecil said. ‘And the day that Dudley steps up to the throne is the day that I step out into my garden at Burghley House and never see London again. Unless he arrests me the moment I resign, and throws me into the Tower.’
The ambassador recoiled from Cecil’s anger. ‘Sir William! I have never seen you so distressed!’
‘I have never felt such distress!’ Cecil said bluntly. ‘I tell you, she will be ruined by him and the country with her.’
‘She could never marry him?’ de Quadra asked, scandalised.
‘She thinks of nothing else and I cannot make her see reason. I tell you, she has surrendered all affairs to him and she means to marry him.’
‘But what of his wife? What of Lady Dudley?’
‘I don’t think she will live very long if she stands in Dudley’s way, do you?’ Cecil asked bitterly. ‘He is not a man to stop at much with a throne in his sights. He is his father’s son, after all.’
‘This is most shocking!’ the ambassador exclaimed, his voice hushed to a whisper.
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