Death of the Fox: a novel about Ralegh

by George Garrett

  He thinks he will call after her, say something more, give her the letter for the boy. But he watches the back of her hooded head disappear down the stairs.

  Let her go now. Let it be. Bless her, she has suffered enough.

  Close by the fire, Thomas Hariot watches him shut the door. Ralegh stands facing the door, not turning to look at the chamber or at Thomas until the last sound of the coach and horsemen has died out.

  Then turns and limps toward Thomas, his face a mask set into a thin smile.

  Thomas gives him a pipe and holds a hot coal on pincers so he can light it.

  “I believe you could have walked out with the ladies,” Thomas says. “You are lightly guarded.”

  “True,” Ralegh answers. “Lightly guarded and closely watched. Indeed I am being watched this moment all the way from Theobalds or Royston or wherever the King is playing the English Nimrod.”

  “We could walk out together and be safe in France for our next supper.”

  “Perhaps the King would prefer it that way. Or perhaps to have me murdered out there. Who knows? I intend to sleep safely here tonight.”

  “I came tonight,” Hariot says awkwardly, “because I cannot bear to come tomorrow.”

  “Thomas, I prefer your company now. And I share your distaste of crowds. I shall avoid it myself if I possibly can.”

  “I … do not think that will be possible.”

  “There will be no pardon then?”

  “I cannot say. But it would seem not so. It seems you must die.”

  “How will Bess bear this?”

  “She knows it. She will pray for you.”

  “And the boy? How is my son?”

  “I believe he is … much like a man.”

  “Like a man.…”

  Ralegh looks into the coals of the fire, blows a wreath of tobacco smoke.

  “By God, I am much relieved. If the King should change his mind, I think it would vex me. I would not be happy to be beholden to him a second time.”

  “That’s your damned pride speaking.”

  “Forgive me, then, Thomas. Since I have always lived a proud man, it would be an equivocation to die another way.”

  While Ralegh is looking into the fire Thomas tells him, awkwardly, that the arrangements for the worst have been made. And the worst is that Bess will not be given his body for burial. She said so, but knew better. Instead there has been a solicitous compromise, headless trunk and limbs will remain in possession of King and Council, to be disposed of by them. Bess will be given the severed head.…

  “But she will not be here,” Ralegh says. “She promised me that.”

  “No,” Thomas says. “She will not come.”

  Ralegh spits in the fire and looks up into Thomas Hariot’s eyes. The gown, loosened, has slipped away from Ralegh’s shoulders. The reddish-brown tan of his face and neck are deepened by contrast with a thin, milk-colored line, color of his body’s flesh, savagely clean-lined, marking the line of the collar. That sudden whiteness, softness of pale flesh, makes Hariot look down at the toes of his boots and the floor.

  “Don’t be afraid, Thomas,” Ralegh says. “It is not proper.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “It is proper for you to wish me well, but it is unseemly for me to share my fear with you.”

  He raises his eyes to meet Ralegh’s and finds that he has adjusted his gown so that the whiteness of his body is again covered. The eyes are no longer heavy-lidded. Catching candlelight, they seem almost to be smiling, though his lips are tight.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “God’s name, Thomas, I have been with fear like a whore all day long. My bones feel it. They want to jangle like the keys of a virginal. And all of my hairs would like to stand up at once like the bristles of a boar. My blood is quicksilver and my bowels are a pack of beagles. Can’t you tell?”

  “I could not have guessed it.”

  “Good,” he says. “It belongs to me, then. Will you have a last glass of wine?”

  “I am too dry to drink,” Thomas says, knocking out his pipe on the fireplace.

  “I have a few notes and papers for my wife,” Ralegh says, going toward the chest. “I should have remembered these while she was here. I shall be grateful if you will deliver them for me.”

  He has gathered up some sheets of paper, gives them to Hariot, but keeps one bulky manuscript in his hands, not offering this to him too.

  “Tell her that these are matters of business, simple enough and needing no explanation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you certain you will not have a glass of wine?”

  “My stomach has turned rebel. I could not keep it down.”

  “No matter,” Ralegh says. “I shall drink your health later.”

  One hand light on Hariot’s shoulder, leading, he steers him toward the door.

  “God bless you.”

  “I am most pleased you came, Thomas. God be with you.”

  Nodding, slipping into his cloak, Thomas Hariot hesitates; then: “Do you wish me to take those papers also?”

  Ralegh glances down at the sheaf of papers in his hands, as if he has forgotten holding them.

  “You say Carew is much like a man these days.”

  “I believe it. You would be proud of him.”

  “Give him a father’s love and blessings.”

  “And the papers?”

  “Oh, these are mere stuff to fatten the fire,” he says.

  Thomas Hariot puts on his hat and, after a nod, slips out the door. Descending the stairs, he can hear the old man’s soft voice calling for his servant to prepare the bed.

  All the servants but one have been sent away to sleep below. And that man, curled by the fire, is snoring.

  Weary, needing to sleep at least a little while, Ralegh has his Bible by the bed. There is wine and a cup. And ink, pens, sheets of paper are nearby, ready for any notes he may wish to make. He can think of nothing to write.

  He is reading the Psalms of David.

  His eyes blur and waver on the page. He has need of spectacles to read with and has long read printed words with difficulty. But, except for the King himself and such as are bishops and clerks and scholars, you will seldom find a gentleman of the Court, called, he would profess, to the business of the world in time, who will wear a set of spectacles, even though both words close by and the distant world shall dim out of sight. It is considered a folly and an affectation for men of the world to use these aids. Yet who named it so? The fashion of reading half-blind is surely the child of vanity.

  Reading, restless and uneasy, turning pages at random, from the Psalms of David. Thinking, even as he glances at words he has said and read to himself so often that he need not any longer read more than a few to awaken the memory and echo of the whole, thinking of David. Of whom he wrote much in the History. Thinking of David the man and king, not similitude and prophet and precursor of Christ, though Christ came from the seed of David. David the youngest, least likely to be raised high, yet chosen.

  I found David my servant and with my holy oil I have anointed him.

  David, who first made his name with populace and public—and stirred the anger and malice of old Saul, who had turned from God—when he slew the Philistine champion, Goliath.

  Good luck have thou with thine honor. Ride on, because of the word of truth, of meekness and righteousness. And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.

  Standing between armies in array, he took a sword and cut off the head of the giant and grasping it, twining the curls at the roots in a fist of fingers, held it high for all to see.

  O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before thee. According to the greatness of thy power, preserve thou them that are appointed to die.

  David, coming to power with blood on his hands, and, mighty warrior, never to cleanse them and live in peace. To bring plenty, but not peace, to his kingdom. And to begin to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem. But never, because of b
lood on his hands, to be permitted to touch the least stone of it.

  So he, too, began his manhood with bloody, unclean hands.

  My wounds stink and are corrupt through my foolishness.

  But consider also David the poet, more worthy than the most gifted of the pagans. How those same hands, those fingers which had snatched and snared the thick, sweat-flecked hair of Goliath, did play upon the harp and psaltery, making a joyful or a sorrowful noise, and setting to the music his words, his “dark speech on the harp.”

  Which we do ponder and where to this day do seek solace.

  Made songs of sorrows and rejoicing until at the last, old, vexed, worn by tribulations, weary of himself and his sins, too slack even for love but needing the warmth of a young girl’s body to preserve him from the creeping cold, at last he was silent.

  As for our harps, we hanged them up upon the trees that are therein.

  As his lost son, Absalom, his long hair knotted and snarled in a tree, met a bloody death. And David the king wept. Even as God may have wept for him.

  How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

  Lived and reigned long in triumph and tribulation, risen from youngest son to Shepherd of the Kingdom. As he, once a poor and youngest son, came to be called Shepherd of the Ocean.

  Lived long and reigned in power and glory.

  Who once had danced in joy before the ark and danced in the streets, died lonely and in silence.

  O remember how short my time is. Wherefore hast Thou made all men for nought?

  Lived to appoint and see anointed King, his bastard son, Solomon. But not to know that Solomon would be the greatest of the kings and the wisest of men, choosing the gift of wisdom above all things.

  Yet as David ended days in sorrow, so did Solomon, wisest, fall to his knees and eat grass like a beast. Denied any vision of the glory of his son, David was also spared knowledge of his fall from glory.

  What man is he that lusteth to live and would fain see good days?

  If King David suffered so and also Solomon, the one as brave as Mars, the other wise and quick of wit as Mercury, neither of them able to imagine that he would be chosen to rise so high or, once in glory to fall into misery, who are we, even the kings, being lesser men of an older, baser time, to hope for more? We can take solace by example, it is true, that we share in their story, one and all. If their glory and honor was greater, so much so was their suffering.

  Yet each man’s suffering is entirely his own.

  For I have eaten ashes as it were bread and mingled my drink with weeping.

  For my life is waxen old with heaviness and my years with mourning.

  But he must not, not now, he thinks, dwell on these things. Even though sorrow might be good medicine for his soul.

  He rises from bed, sips wine, and moves to the window.

  Somewhere in the huge yard, rude timbers, rain-slick, invisible to him, the scaffold waits.

  But will not think on that now.

  There are a few lights. Clouds and rain, again, obscure the stars. Faint reflections off the river from over toward Whitehall and the row of houses.

  No doubt coming and going continues, though diminished, vaguely furtive now, at York House; and will continue until Lord Bacon’s late bedtime. No reason for Bacon to rise early on the morrow.

  Reflection of torchlight from the gate and, closer, from the covered lanterns at the door of the gatehouse. Where two yeomen of the Guard stand watch, their crimson and gold concealed beneath hooded woolen cloaks. Which will keep them warm and dry for a time, perhaps until they are relieved. He hears the mutter of their voices, but not one word.

  He remembers himself young, standing watch on many a wet night.

  And so he wakes the servant and orders that they shall have some slices of the joint of veal and a bowl of warm ale, spiced with mace and ginger. It is likely they will have been forgotten here, at least until relieved.

  After a time he hears the sound of a pebble light on the window pane. Squinting, he looks down to see a shape, young face white under the hood, standing in a pool of light cast by the lantern. The soldier raises the bowl in salute and thanks. Ralegh tips him the slightest nod. Watches as he raises the bowl and drinks deep, wipes his lips with his cloak, then steps out of sight.

  Ralegh looks up at shape of Old Palace and its chambers. Only a few lights burning there. Some guttering lanterns outside.

  The bed invites him. He yawns, moves toward it. But still it will be most difficult to go to sleep. Taking up a pen he writes down a poem in the flyleaf of his Bible, most of it by memory. For all but the last two lines a couplet newly added on, are lines of a staff from a poem written years before. Lines which have been playing along the edges of his mind all day. Now he knows why.

  All those years the poem was unfinished. It has lacked a proper ending.

  Even such is time which takes in trust

  Our youth, our joys, our all we have

  And pays us but with age and dust;

  Who in the dark and silent grave

  When we have wandered all our ways

  Shuts up the story of our days.

  But from this earth, this grave, this dust,

  My God shall raise me up I trust.

  One couplet, then, of faith and hope, to comment upon six old lines.

  For he must sleep or not sleep soon. And if he sleeps, he must wake to live again, to die or not to die. He toys with the notion of snuffing out the candle by his bed. Takes up the silver snuffer in his hands and feels the light, cool, slick smooth weight of it. Eyes the flame—one small burning tongue of flame in the dark. Considers the fat, squat, melting candle, consuming itself. Even as time and the elements consume the fat and fire of a man’s life. Even as a man, like Samoyed or Indian cannibal, will consume himself. Until he is nothing.…

  Considers for a moment lowering the hood or cowl of the snuffer over the flame. There will be sudden black after the bright meeting of silver and flame, and a faint dry odor of smoke, the scent brief and dwindling away. He will not see it, but can imagine the raw wick, poor and naked without its crown of flame, and the thin ghostly gray of the smoke vanishing like a tired sigh.

  The snuffer, shiny as the edge of an ax (see how the shadow against the wall is shaped like the shadow of a headsman’s ax), will fall and take away the flaming head and leave the used clownish pallid trunk of a spent candle, the raw wick stained.…

  Lord, my imagination will not keep still!

  The snuffer trembles in his hand. It is his hand that trembles. By God and God’s wounds, none of that now! If a shadow and a candle can make his fingers tremble for fear, then how shall he ever master his body?

  To master fear he must make courage stand a muster. Call up courage to lead and scout for him, to cover the body of fear like the Forlorn Hope.

  A young soldier of horse at the wars in France. And remembers riding down a twisty narrow path, turning to follow through gold and shade of some trees, a branch flicking the corner of one eye and bringing tears there, the horse stumbling, struggling, as they picked a way among the trees up a hill and the hill going steeper until, as he thought he would have to dismount and lead the nag behind him, they came out of the trees onto a high sloping pasture in sunlight. Below the ribbon strips of farms and a cluster of stone farmhouses.

  A distant shout instantly echoed by a cry from one of their own horsemen. Then a sudden glitter of hard reflected light. In middle distance, packed into squares, flags flying, moving with pikes high, like a slow porcupine, the enemy infantry.

  More shouts. Below and closer, much closr, horsemen are coming. Horses and riders appearing from concealment of the farmhouses and buildings. Coming into sight in a lean line like a snake in tall grass, moving at a trot. More shouting (and now he could hear steady drums of the shuffling infantry) and the file became a rank facing them. And the rank running toward them and shouting like hunters. Crying in animal voices like a pack of wild dogs.

&
nbsp; And he sat frozen on his saddle, limbs of lead, ice in blood, tongue a brass farthing, and sweat in drops like pearls rolling down cheeks and slick on his palms.

  His head heavy as a stone and the light horseman’s helmet heavier even than that. Unable to keep it up. Lowers it down to the mane of the horse (like kissing father with his beard) and his fists tightening, gripping reins, pulling tight.

  Knowing that in a moment, no matter what he will, his hands will command themselves, pull back sharp, twist. And, giving spur, he will turn and run away. Plunge blind into the trees in a lunge downhill and away.

  And just then there was the old soldier who commanded the Forlorn Hope for that day. With one hand, gentle and firm, lifting his head up and twisting his face up to look into eyes above a grizzled beard. Speaking softly. Not in anger. Not like schoolmaster or drillmaster. But, his tight dry lips barely moving in the nest of the beard.

  “Hold up your head, lad, and sit in your saddle. Hold up your head, sit tall and proud, and look at them. They are brave men and they deserve that much.”

  He, young Walter, his chin in the grip of the old soldier’s hand, true tears in his eyes now, trying to nod his head. And shouts coming louder and nearer. The drums coming on steady, beating more slow than his heart.

  “And hear this, lad. Now or in a hundred years you shall have but one chance to die. Don’t waste your one chance to die like a man.”

  Nodding again. Free of the grip. Head free and light.

  “Take up your pistol. Be ready to fire when I command and then wheel and ride like the wind.”

  He groped for his pistol, the horse shifty and unsteady beneath him, but horse and body obeying him. And tightening his knees, gripping the reins firm with a still sweaty palm. Thinking only of the firing and wheeling and riding, and not of himself or his fear.…

  Well then, back in the bed, candle snuffer in hand, eyeing a dying candle. It does not please him to snuff out the candle with a sigh. Nor to sleep all night long with lights—like the King of England.