by Jeane Westin
In another place in the grove a group of men practiced a play. One of the actors, called Bottom, seemed familiar to Mary. When he turned toward the throne, she saw it was John Harington, dressed in rags. She was not surprised that he had a player’s ability, though she was intrigued by yet another talent. Writer, courtier, cavalryman, now an actor. She made up her mind: She would not applaud him.
Bottom was a raucous fellow who wanted to play every part, which Mary thought required little acting skill for the man who wished to bed every woman in the queen’s bedchamber. She tried to pay him little attention, but that was impossible.
Puck trickled the magic potion on Titania’s eyelids, then, ever the trickster, placed a donkey’s head on Bottom, who galloped about, braying loudly. Titania woke and was love-struck at first sight of him. The faerie queen gave chase and Bottom dashed about the stage, trying to hide from her behind trees. Each time he was nearly caught, he somersaulted away.
Mary was surprised that John was so athletic. She had thought he had no great exercise outside his bed.
The courtiers laughed helplessly as John Harington became more and more vigorous and shocking in his broad humor, at last jumping out of his breeches as Titania clung to them.
Mary tried to remain sober-faced, but when John leapt on the faerie queen’s back in his donkey head, she could not help herself: She laughed aloud just as Titania bounded near the dais and John shouted to Elizabeth, “Though an ass, yet I guard this queen’s honor and will not yield to her magic-made lust.”
Elizabeth signed her pleasure at this raucous tribute to her virginity, though Mary wondered if the scene seemed more of John’s making than Master Shakespeare’s. Bottom rode away on Titania’s back, whipping her arse to speed her through the forest. The courtiers roared their approval.
At last Puck lifted the spell, all the lovers were united and the play ended happily and to great applause. John, his breeches restored, approached the throne with the rest of the players and laid the donkey head at Elizabeth’s feet. He bowed to the queen’s ladies, though Mary saw his gaze search for her. It would be unseemly to ignore him. She applauded politely, while promising herself that small congratulation was as much as she would ever give him. She doubted the other ladies of the bedchamber, appearing weak from laughter to attract his attention, had so firm a resolve.
Her Majesty stood and handed Master Shakespeare a bag of coins. “We thank you, sir, and your players all.” She graciously extended her arms to encompass the entire company.
John, kneeling in Bottom’s rags, chest and muscled arms exposed, handed the donkey’s head to Shakespeare, who retreated with his company into the adjoining hall.
Though Essex tried to move in front of John, the queen waved him off. “Boy Jack, we think you are a better Bottom than a writer.”
John stood and bowed, his tone playful. “Godmother, though I am but a poor player, I think me that there is little difference to make an ass upon the stage . . . or an ass upon the page.”
Elizabeth raised her fan to hide a smile that would have encouraged him, though some of her ladies laughed aloud until they realized the queen’s amusement had faded.
Essex was scowling, and he again stepped in front of Harington. “Not one of John’s best epigrams, Majesty. Indeed, he has done no good work of late. Mediocrity should not be encouraged.”
John clenched his hands at his sides, obviously controlling his temper.
Elizabeth snapped her fan shut, displeased. “Do you seek to instruct us in poesy, my lord of Essex? Or are you jealous of another’s talent which you, yourself, in your present humor, seem to lack?”
Why would Her Majesty goad Essex so? To take that overproud lord down? Or to contradict her own amorous feelings for a man thirty-five years her junior? Mary thought either reason would seem enough for a queen who was also a woman fighting her own emotions, and then wondered if her own goading of Sir John was any less a denial.
At that moment, Essex did the unpardonable: He turned his back on the queen and stalked away from the court theater without her leave, unable, it seemed, to take rebuff at the hands of two women in one afternoon.
The queen stood, swaying, holding to her throne. She pointed her fan toward the retreating Essex. “Return, my lord of Essex,” she shouted, stamping her foot. “Beware, sir. The stone often recoils on the head of the thrower.”
Essex did not return, and the queen gripped her ivory fan until it began to bend double, her face thunderous.
No one moved. Mary thought some had ceased to breathe, rather than draw the queen’s attention at this moment.
Elizabeth, at twice her usual fast pace, set off toward her apartment, her fanlike ruff bouncing in rhythm to her stride. Mary and all the other maids scrambled to keep step. The trumpeters, caught unaware, were hasty with their fanfare and missed notes.
As they neared the door to the privy chambers, Elizabeth shouted ahead to the gentleman usher: “By God and by Christ, and by many parts of His glorified body, and by saints, faith, troth and all things—open at once!”
It was a soaring curse, which Mary had never thought to hear even from the queen.
“Call our Lord Keeper Edgerton to us!” The queen stamped into her inner chamber and arrived limping.
“But the queen has hurt herself,” Mary said to Lady Margaret.
Lady Margaret answered behind her hand. “She has a swollen foot, but she dares it to be gout and, by denying, she seeks to cure it.”
Mary had no time to marvel at this information except not to doubt it. If this queen could cure gout with her will, she could deny a childish lord his tantrums with one of her own.
Lord Keeper Edgerton, who had been present at the play, was announced.
Elizabeth whirled on him. “Bring my lord Essex to us at once!”
There was no mistaking the urgency of the command, and the Lord Keeper left at a near run.
It took most of an hour for Edgerton to bring Essex to the queen. During that time, Mary saw Elizabeth throw herself into a frenzy of paperwork, change her gown twice, leave it open to show her breasts, then have it tied and pace the floor, her anger seeming to grow hotter by the minute.
Edgerton returned, Essex following, with three yeoman guards behind him. He could have been a prisoner.
Mary began to edge toward the antechamber with the other ladies.
“Our daughters will remain!” It was a regal command that could not be ignored, though Mary doubted any lady wanted to be witness to what might follow.
Essex did not look at the queen, nor kneel as custom demanded. “You do better to be on your knees to your sovereign, my lord,” Elizabeth said, her words ringing throughout the chamber, probably through half the immense palace.
Mary saw the queen’s body quake and remembered that her anger was such that she often collapsed. Mary, being closest, pushed one foot forward, ready to rush to the queen if she began to swoon.
Essex raised his face, his reddish brown curls tumbled about his face, his stylish doublet half undone. He showed a boyish, pouting defiance, as if a schoolmaster had caught him asleep at his books and meant to rap his knuckles.
The guards forced him to his knees.
The queen walked around him, her hands clasping and unclasping, never still. Essex tried to keep his gaze from following her, but Elizabeth would have his attention, and at last she did completely.
He looked up at her, his eyes glistening with tears.
Elizabeth’s face showed him no pity.
Essex crumpled at her feet. “My queen, I beg forgiveness and—”
“You may not beg for anything, my lord. We have given you honors, estates, the tax on sweet wines, commands at sea against Spain. We forgave you last year when you failed to intercept their treasure fleet off the Azores—”
That was too much for Essex’s pride, and he lurched to his feet without her hand allowing it. “I have explained that Raleigh was much to blame. He is my enemy and lies—”
“Failed, we said, for you spent our money and returned with nothing gained because you sought personal glory and lost much of that.” Elizabeth had spoken with such force that she had to stop to breathe deeply. “We forgave you a hundred times over, and now you show us your back before our court. Here is ours.” The queen turned away from him, motioning to the guards. “My lord of Essex is banished from court to await our further pleasure.”
“Majesty, you cannot—” Essex began.
“Cannot!” Elizabeth roared, whirling about and stepping quickly to him. She slapped his face with her open palm.
He reached for his sword, grasped the hilt, but the guards were upon him. “I would not have suffered such treatment from your father, the king!” he shouted.
Elizabeth drew back, frightened. “This is treason!”
“What!” Essex said, all his limited caution spent. “Cannot princes make mistakes? Cannot subjects be wronged? I cannot accept that.”
“You dare to threaten our life and then question our authority over our subjects!” Elizabeth flared back, shaking with anger. “Be gone and be hanged.”
Restrained by the guards, Essex bowed as best he could, though Elizabeth didn’t see him. She had walked away, her back rigid, her golden crown glowing in the firelight.
Mary felt her own hands shaking at her sides. “Is it always like this?” she whispered to Lady Margaret.
“This is far worse than I’ve ever seen. She could have sent him to the Tower, condemned him . . . and yet may.”
Mary knew she must keep her thoughts to herself, but it was inescapable that Essex seemed to want the queen’s whole attention while she wanted his entire submission, both seeing anything less as utter rejection.
The ladies of the bedchamber were full of gossip and had shared it freely. From all Mary had heard, the queen would flare at Essex. Essex, appearing wounded, would answer in childish haste. Elizabeth would rage and banish him. He would take away his injured feelings, leaving her to spend days and weeks in deep melancholy . . . until one forgave the other and it all began again. Could there possibly be forgiveness this time?
That night Mary was waiting in the antechamber for the queen to command her, though she had called no one to her since Essex was taken away and had sent her supper dishes away untouched.
“Why so pensive, mistress?” Lady Warwick sat down beside her on the chest below her bed at the far corner of the chamber.
“I am sad because Her Majesty is sad.”
“Then you will be sad often. It has been thus between the young earl and the queen for a decade . . . since Robert Dudley died.” The countess lowered her voice to a bare whisper. “Both Elizabeth and Essex lost the only man who could control their black humors.”
“You knew my lord Leicester?”
“Yes, I was a young woman then, but I will never forget that the queen’s Robin desired to serve her for herself. He was as ambitious as Essex, yet she came first in his heart and she knew it.”
Mary smiled. Lady Warwick was a romantic. “I think I understand,” Mary murmured, happy that the countess had trust enough for a rare confidence. “Both Her Majesty and the earl need the complete devotion that only Robert Dudley could give.” Oh, she’d gone much too far. “My pardon, Lady Warwick, it is not for me to say.”
“It is not,” Anne Warwick agreed sternly, and then went on in a softer tone, “But say it you did, and you are right in your conclusion.” The countess placed her hand on Mary’s sleeve. “You might use that clear-seeing for another man, mistress.”
“I must to my duty, my lady, and ensure Her Majesty’s closestool is in readiness for the morrow.” Mary stood and curtsied, knowing that the countess was about to come to John Harington’s aid. She did not want to hear a plea for that rogue.
Before she could walk away, she heard Lady Warwick’s further word: “I see that it is not only queens who do not forgive foolish men.”
Her Majesty’s closestool was in good order. Mary spread more fresh marjoram, the queen’s favorite herb, but was not as diligent as she should have been. Her mind filled with what she’d learned . . . and what she hadn’t. Was she truly a country mouse, after all? Lady Warwick probably thought her unable to adjust to the sophistication of the court. Was it then so usual for a woman’s honor to be the subject of a wager in Whitehall? She would not have thought it, though the queen was often bawdy in her own wit. She sat down on a stone bench near the queen’s bath, thankful for the echoing silence of the vast room, and watched the lantern light shimmering on the water.
“Mistress Rogers.”
Mary was alarmed at that voice and stood so quickly, backing away, that only John Harington’s quick grasp of her arm kept her from a fall into the bath . . . a winter bath at that, against every good doctor’s prescription.
“I’ve startled you. My apologies. I thought to find you here. I have heard you are most diligent at a difficult duty.”
She pulled her arm away and began walking toward the door.
“No, wait,” he added. “At least do me the courtesy of listening.”
“Do I owe you a courtesy, sir?”
He shook his head. “You owe me nothing. It is I who owe you, and I am come to make payment.”
“I see,” she said, without seeing anything, without wanting to, clinging to her anger and beginning to wonder at her need to keep it hot. “You have decided honeyed words will gain you what ten gold marks would not.”
“That could be what you see, but your sight would be clouded by your righteous anger . . . the most blinding kind.” He stopped, took a breath, and began again. “I have come to beg your forgiveness”—he put up a hand to stop her objection and knelt—“yes, beg you most humbly, and to tell you this: I have paid the wager in full and admitted before my friends that I am the most utter fool, though some did claim to have prior knowledge.” His mouth twisted at the wry jest.
He raised his face to her, and it was illuminated by a nearby torch. It looked almost angelic and not to be believed by any woman with good sense, the kind of woman she had always thought herself.
Though the light shone upon him most favorably, she had never been ruled by handsome features. “Surely this is a miracle,” she said, immediately disliking the sarcasm she heard. She struggled to guard her tongue. “Why do you think, Sir John, that I would believe you a changed man in so short a time?”
“Because I no longer wear the head of an ass.”
She wanted to smile and realized it wasn’t for the first time. She must have shown some amusement, because he rose and with the sweep of his hand motioned her to sit on the bench. To her amazement, she obediently took the seat.
He sat well away from her and rubbed his ear.
Desperate for another subject, she said, “Nor do you wear your pearl drop earring, the queen’s gift, I believe.”
“I had to pawn it to pay . . . debts.”
“I do advise that this is no good time to tell it, sir. Her Majesty is deep in melancholy.”
John looked into the marble-lined bath dancing with light. “Someday the queen’s patience will break and Essex will not be forgiven. I hope I am not at court when that happens.”
Mary looked hard at him. “I hope I am, Sir John. Her Majesty will need a woman’s understanding.”
He looked at her, his gaze serious with none of the scarce-hidden amusement that she usually saw. “Could you offer Her Grace . . . the knowledge of a woman’s forgiveness?”
She did not answer him because she did not know. Why was it easier to forget that Essex was more to blame than John? Why had he so disappointed her? Was she so vain of her own early misjudgment of John Harington that she would be unforgiving when he offered an apology that seemed sincere? Mary knew she would not admire such pride in another.
He bowed, his hand on his heart. “I have sought you tonight, Mistress Mary, for a double purpose.”
Standing quickly, she readied herself. “I should have known there was no good in you, si
r. My grooms of the closestool are waiting beyond that door.” She was lying, but God would forgive her.
His mouth tightened. “You are quick to think the worst of me, Mary. Am I to have no second chance? Even the thief on the cross was forgiven by our Lord.”
She stared at him, sensing her face flush. By all the saints, he would quote scripture next. “What is this second purpose, sir?” She watched him narrowly, but he did not move toward her.
“I believe I have invented something that will gain for you Her Majesty’s gratitude.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To gain your admiration.”
“And, incidentally, the queen’s,” she added.
“Perhaps, since your regard seems even less attainable.”
“You had it once and threw it away. Why would you ever wish it now?” She held her breath for fear of having gone too far. She had no skill in coquetry. “You but jest with me. Surely no such grand invention exists.” She realized she was being headstrong now just for its own sake.
“I believe it does.”
He was forcing her to ask him. She sighed. “What is this miracle invention?”
He grinned. “A jakes fit for a queen . . . one that flushes away foul odors.”
In a hundred years she would not have thought John Harington would try to impress her with a new jakes. What manner of man would woo a lady’s affection in such a way, but a mad rogue of a man? She could not help herself; she had to laugh. “You are . . . you are mad, sir,” she said, though he looked serious. “Can it be?”
“It can if you trust me,” he said, reaching for her hand. She moved suddenly toward the door and he added, with his usual humor, “Just a little.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I have had good experience and trial of this world . . . I have found treason in trust, seen great benefits little regarded.”