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Dark Lady

Page 10

by Charlene Ball


  Emilia had ordered a bath to be brought to her chamber, and when Hunsdon came up, she directed him into it. She bathed him herself with scented soap from an apothecary who sold to the palace, working up a lather in his dark, gray-streaked hair, pouring a basin of water over him, and laughing as he squinted against the soap. She dried him with white linen towels that had been laid in rosemary and lavender, toweled his head, then wrapped him in his fur-lined night gown and set a velvet cap on his head to keep off chills.

  This done, she bade Marie to bring a hot posset. When it arrived, Emilia told her to extinguish all the candles but one and leave them. She shook loose her hair, threw off her chemise, and slipped between the sheets.

  “Welcome once more, Master Carey.”

  His lovemaking was eager but not desperate. Though vigorous as ever, he was happy to rest on the pillows after his first desire was slaked, sip the posset, and talk. Emilia lay against his shoulder, wrapped in the great warmth of him.

  “Master Carey,” she asked, “will there be war, do you think?”

  “Aye, m’dear, I believe war will come, whatever others say, and likely on our own soil.”

  Emilia felt cold creeping through her bones and pressed closer to him. “What does Spain want, Master Carey?”

  “The Spaniard’s empire reaches from Africa to the New World. We haven’t exactly let his ships sail safely.” He gave a growling laugh. “Now he wants us to drop our support of the Dutch rebels. That would leave the Protestants, our allies, high and dry. Spain believes English Catholics will rise up and join him—and some will. Remember the Northern Uprising.”

  “It happened the year I was born.”

  “That long ago?” He shook his head. “Many want our Queen dead and the old religion restored. You know the Pope issued a bull saying her own subjects should rise up and kill her. She has been too easy on the Papists. We can trust none of ’em. And the Northern nobility want their power back.” He sipped the posset. “Most of them are Papists, hearing masses in secret. Our Queen is not secure as long as they worm their way in, preaching sedition and popery.” He loosed a discreet burp. “The Duke of Parma is in Flanders with thirty thousand men, many of ’em English Papist traitors. My son-in-law Howard, the Lord Admiral, says Parma’s troops will cross the channel on barges while the Spanish navy guards them.” He drained the posset and set the cup on the bed’s ledge. “D’ye know about the Armada, my dear?”

  “The Spanish navy?”

  “Yes, love, a clutch of galleons and galleases—that is, galleons with oars. Remember how Drake harried them at Cadiz last summer? Well, it’s due to Drake, our piratical vice-admiral”—he chuckled—“that Parma didn’t attack. But he won’t delay forever.”

  “Are the galleons really as large as cities?”

  Hunsdon snorted. “No! They’re just ships. We’ve got better. If Spain had attacked by sea last September, they’d probably have won. But their admiral had the misfortune to die, and the new one knows nothing about the sea. They’ve been sitting for months waiting for His Bureaucratic Majesty, Phillip of Spain, to make a decision while we’ve got our ships outfitted, provisioned, and ready to go.”

  “What will happen, Master Carey?”

  “Ah, sweeting, that’s the question. Either we’ll sink Spain’s fine ships and keep Parma’s forces out, or they’ll come ashore. Then some Spanish heir will sit on England’s throne, and priests and friars with their masses and indulgences will be brought back to freeload off the populace and put us under the thumb of the Pope. And the Inquisition will come here, as in Mary’s time, but worse.”

  Emilia shuddered, thinking of fires, torture, homes destroyed, families uprooted, the Duchess and Master Bertie fleeing.

  “My royal cousin says she can avoid war. She’s got a negotiating team in the Low Countries meeting with Parma now. The last time I spoke with her, she said she will keep negotiations going as long as peace is possible. I don’t know if she’s naive or wiser than any of us.” He snorted. “At least Leicester’s out of Flanders. Sweet Lord Robin made a fine botch of things before he was called home in December. Willoughby’s worth ten of him.” He grunted. “We’ll have to hear that ballad, ‘Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home.’ D’ye know it?”

  “I’ll play it for you tomorrow.”

  Hunsdon stared into the room, fingering the empty cup.

  “What is troubling you, Master Carey?”

  “Sweetheart, I hate to wait. I’d rather meet the enemy head-on. We don’t know when they will strike, only that they will.”

  “Where will you be stationed?”

  “I know not. The Queen says she has a new job for me.” He shook his head. “She says if negotiating fails and Parma comes ashore, she will put on armor herself and lead her troops.”

  “She is splendid, is she not?”

  “Aye, but she prevaricates and delays to her great loss.” His forehead furrowed, his bushy eyebrows meeting over his ruddy nose. “I wish she had seen fit to marry to secure the succession. I still pray that God will send her a good husband. She might yet bear a son.” He shook his head. “But she does not like anyone to speak of such. ’Tis treason. I did not say that.” He shot Emilia a sudden, sharp-eyed look.

  “Master Carey, I have heard no words from you past ‘Aye.’” She touched his face. “How glad I am that you’re back.”

  He caught her hand and pressed a whiskered kiss into the palm. “Be glad when it is all over, my Em. Be glad then.”

  Hunsdon left for Court early one morning and returned late. “She’s sending me to Tilbury. Troops have been mustered, but they have few provisions and lack leadership. Leicester’s in charge, but she wants me to see to the details. So I must return home to Hunsdon tonight.” He wrinkled his forehead. “Our visit has been brief. I hope you’re not disappointed?”

  “How long will you be at Tilbury?”

  “Until it’s over.”

  “Master Carey . . .” She hesitated. “How should we prepare for invasion?”

  “Do as you have been doing. You’re a levelheaded girl. Your servants depend on you, so keep calm and cheerful for their sakes. Don’t believe rumors. And tell your family to arm themselves and keep their doors locked. Strangers are always at risk when there’s trouble.” He lowered his voice. “I will leave a firearm and show your man how to use it.”

  She grasped his hand. “Do you think we shall be invaded?”

  “No, my dear. England can outsail, outmaneuver, and outfight any galleon on the sea. We have better ships and finer sailors than Spain. We have the Lord Admiral, Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher. And more than men or ships, Emilia, we have the sea. Its currents and shoals and reefs guard us. The winds and storms, the thunder and lightning, ring us round and protect us.” His face glowed. “England, her lands and shores, her doughty men at arms, her sailors—all are more than a match for any power in the world.”

  He embraced her, and Emilia smiled, closing her eyes, memorizing his scent of musk and sweat, the bristles of his cheeks and neck, the curling gray hairs on his chest that she liked to twine between her fingers.

  The sun flooded the courtyard outside St. Margaret’s. Emilia went there most mornings to pray for Hunsdon’s return and England’s safety. It lay across a small courtyard from the much larger Westminster Abbey, whose golden stone arches festooned with gargoyles loomed against the sky. Emilia’s favorite was a little fellow with a round belly and bat’s wings, his baby lion’s face grinning with malice and high spirits. She imagined holding and petting him, thinking, He would have soft fur but prickly wings and sharp teeth.

  Beside her, Alfi bubbled with news. “There’s a prophecy that the end of the world is near.”

  A citizen and his wife came out of St. Margaret’s, the man muttering, “Why send our soldiers to protect those Low Country ingrates . . . we ought to pack all strangers back where they came from . . . take work from honest Englishmen . . . heathen ways and diseases . . .”

  Emilia asked in a
low voice, “Have you heard much anti-stranger talk lately, Cousin?”

  “We have to fight English prentices sometimes when we cross their turf.” Alfi took her hand to help her across a puddle.

  “Two have come and gone, and naught happened,” Emilia said, going back to their conversation about eclipses. “The sun’s eclipse was in February and the moon’s was in March.”

  “Another eclipse of the moon comes in August, twelve days before”—Alfi lowered his voice—“her birthday. Right at the beginning of her sun sign, Virgo. Isn’t she called ‘Cynthia’ and ‘Diana’ and all those goddess names, and isn’t the moon the virgin huntress? Some say the signs predict her death—”

  “Careful, Cousin,” Emilia murmured.

  Alfi glanced about. “The end of the world, or storms, hurricanes, tidal waves, earthquakes, disasters to kingdoms.”

  “Master Carey says that’s nonsense.”

  Alfi shook his head, kicked a loose cobblestone, and sent it skipping. Suddenly he jerked his head to one side. “Look, Em!” he whispered. “It’s Lord Willoughby.”

  A tall gentleman with a soldierly bearing strode ahead of them. His ginger hair rose in sparse wisps around his hat. He wore a plain, dark cloak and worn leather boots. As he strode along, his cloak swept back, revealing a sword in a battered scabbard that had clearly seen use.

  “I haven’t seen him here before.”

  “Why don’t you go and speak to him?”

  Emilia looked after the tall nobleman. “He would not wish to speak with me.”

  “Lord Willoughby’s in the Queen’s bad graces. He’s offended someone,” Alfi rolled his eyes, “and that someone, though married, is quite close to her Majesty.”

  “What someone?”

  “Someone a bit lesser,” Alfi said with a smirk, “who may have been lord to the highest lady, though that is scurvy talk and I don’t credit it.”

  “Oh, you mean Lord Leicester.”

  “Right. He was just relieved of his command in the Low Countries and replaced by Lord Willoughby.”

  “So what did Lord Willoughby say?”

  “Some lady was trying to draw Willoughby into conversation. He’s married, but that doesn’t stop them. ‘Oh, Lord Willoughby, I’m surprised you don’t come to Court more often.’ Lord Willoughby replied as cool as you please, ‘I am no courtier to swing a lady by her hips as some do, that have wives they should be embracing rather than a lady they can never have.’”

  “Huh.” Emilia felt a stone in her middle. Lord Willoughby would never speak to her now.

  “And Leicester heard it and told the Queen, and now she ignores Willoughby though she gave him a hero’s welcome. Willoughby ignores the lot of them.”

  Just then, a small, elegant two-horse carriage came rattling along and stopped, the smart-liveried coachman clicking to the matched bays. A post boy, running alongside, ran to open the door. A lady stepped out. She had a straight back; a small face with high cheekbones and firm, pointed chin; and gingery hair curling from under her elegant feathered hat.

  “It’s Lady Suzan!” Emilia whispered. “She’s home again!” She wanted to rush forward, but she held back and pressed close to Alfi. They both watched as the lady waved to the tall gentleman. An expression of pleasure came over his face, and he called, “Sister, well met!”

  The lady rushed up to him, and they clasped hands and looked into each other’s faces, joy and merriment in their eyes. Then they embraced, pulled apart, and began talking.

  Lady Suzan had changed only a little in the five years since Emilia had seen her. Master Peregrine, now Lord Willoughby, smiled at her and laughed at her words. His face resembled hers, though it was longer and more spare. As he replaced his hat, Emilia saw that his hair was receding from his forehead. She felt a heavy lump of loss as she watched the brother and sister, lordly, handsome, laughing, a small world unto themselves as they stood in the churchyard under the scudding white and gray clouds of a blue April sky. She felt anew the loss of Lady Suzan, of Court, of all she had known there. She had no position and only Hunsdon for protection. She could be cast down and lose everything with a wink or a word. And these two members of the nobility who stood before her, encircled in their own world, would not even notice.

  “Alfi, let’s go,” she murmured, pulling him by the sleeve.

  Back at home, Emilia paced the parlor, clasping and unclasping her hands. If Master Carey doesn’t return, what will I do? Turn out the tenant in the Bishopsgate house and move in? What about Jenny and the others? Send them to Lucretia? Could I live on the rents? I’m still paying off my father’s debts. She pressed her lips together. Worry when the time comes, she told herself.

  The great cathedral of St. Paul’s with its looming wooden tower cast a gothic shadow over the shops and stalls beneath. Bells had just finished ringing all over London, from Paul’s to St. Martin’s in the west to St. Mary Overy in the south to St. James Clerkenwell in the north. Birds swirled and settled after being flung high into the sky by the clamor, and gulls wheeled among the rooftops. Soldiers swung by, swords clanking.

  Emilia browsed the bookstalls in the cathedral’s shadow, pausing to finger a broadside or brush her fingers over a calfskin binding. She looked at the title pages of new books tacked along the frames of the stalls. She had just started to examine the offerings at Vautrollier’s when someone sprang up like a jack-in-the-box from behind the table.

  “What cheer, Mistress Bassano!”

  “Master Shakespeare!” Her heart beat faster. “Wherever have you been?”

  His hazel-green eyes smiled, and the sun glinted in his reddish hair. “Here, there, I do wander everywhere from Court to Greenwich to Bankside to Paul’s, from playhouse to great house and back to the bookseller’s shop.”

  “Did you play at Court for Christmas?”

  “On Twelfth Night. Nothing much happening with the playhouses now. Thank goodness my friend Field lets me work in the bookstall.”

  “Have you visited your family?”

  “I spent Christmas in Stratford.”

  When he said no more, she asked, “How are they?”

  He smiled. “Susanna is growing like a weed and reading well. I asked her to read her hornbook to me, and she scoffed, ‘Hornbooks are for babies.’ But she let me tell her a story, and the twins crowded around. I set Hamnet on one knee and Jude on the other with Su beside me on the bench, and I told them about Robin Goodfellow stealing a rare flower that makes people fall in love.”

  “How does he do that?”

  “He squeezes the juice from the flower over the eyes of sleepers. When they wake, they fall in love with the first thing they lay eyes on.”

  “That would explain some odd matches.”

  “Ha! It would indeed.”

  They laughed. A silence fell.

  He said, more softly, “Su asked me, ‘Dad, when are you coming home for good?’—to which I said, ‘When are you coming to London to see me?’ Hamnet piped up, ‘We’ll come, Jude and me,’ and Susannah said, ‘We’ll act in your plays, and sing and dance, and they’ll throw money, and we’ll be rich and buy a fine house, and you’ll come home and never go away again.’ Then the twins galloped around me, stamping and singing, and Susanna clapped her hands, and their mother yelled, ‘Stop that noise!’”

  He looked away. The silence felt awkward.

  “Shall we be invaded, do you think?” Emilia asked.

  He shook his head. “Nay, they’ll cut some deal with Spain. Sell out the Low Countries. Money is what it’s about. We’ll stop pirating if they stop rattling on about holy wars and heresy.”

  “Lord Hunsdon says that English Catholics may rise up.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If English Catholics know what’s good for them, they’ll drown their prayer books and rosaries and images in their moats as deep as ever plummet sounds, or else squirrel ’em away in their attics and forget ’em. That sort of thing gets you nothing but a perch atop London Bridge with a fine view over
the south bank as far as your eyes can see—’til the crows pluck ’em out.” He seemed suddenly angry and turned back to the books, shifting them about, so Emilia bid him farewell.

  As she left, she looked back and saw him still moving books about and dusting them. Over his head, gulls, crows, and swallows wheeled around the bookstalls, the courtyard, and the tall wooden steeple of St. Paul’s.

  “Alfonso, you are not going to fight.”

  He glared defiantly. “Younger fellows are joining up.”

  “That matters not. You are not going.” His mother’s voice rang with finality.

  Emilia wound a length of silk thread around her hand, trying to embroider a pillowcase.

  “Has Lord Hunsdon gone?” Lucretia asked her.

  “Yes, he left for Tilbury yesterday.”

  “We have heard of nothing but war for weeks.”

  “I see soldiers everywhere,” Emilia said. “If a pot clatters to the floor, Jenny is sure it’s Spaniards breaking in.”

  Lucretia put her sewing into her basket and handed it to a servant. “You will stay for supper, Cousin?”

  Emilia heard the sound of footfalls, a door closing, and men’s voices. Into the parlor came Nick Lanyer and two of his sons, with three apprentices trailing behind. The maidservant brought in the candle, and Lucretia placed it in the customary pitcher. Nick went to the window and drew the curtains. Lucretia lit a taper from the fire and held it to the candle. The lit candle glowed from the pitcher, casting shadows all about. Lucretia murmured words under her breath. After a moment, everyone in the room relaxed, and Lucretia called for servants to set up the table for supper.

  As Emilia left that evening, she stood inside the courtyard gate with Alfi waiting for Marco to bring the carriage.

  “Em, don’t tell Mama,” Alfi murmured, “but I’m going to Tilbury to join Essex’s army.”

  Emilia placed her hand on his arm. “Of course I won’t. But, Alfi, must you?”

 

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