Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

Defeated, I stood there in the road and cried and cried, with the tears turning to ice upon my cheeks, and my gown slipping from my shoulders until it was hanging loose and limp about my waist and the slush making a sodden mess of my expensive slippers. I stood and watched until he was completely out of sight. Then Pirto was there, red-faced and panting from running, like a dragon belching frosty clouds of air instead of fire, to decently pull up my gown and drape a fur-lined cloak about my shoulders and gently lead me back inside.

  “He didn’t even kiss me good-bye,” I whispered before I fell weeping into her arms, sobbing as the shattered shards of my heart drove deeper into my breast.

  That was the day I truly lost my husband. Though his body came back to me from time to time, the Robert I loved left me forever that day, he never came back to me, and the tears I shed that day fell on the grave of Hope.

  As the beautiful snow white horse raced Robert’s ebony steed along the road, I noticed that she wore a saddle of silver set with diamonds and edged with ermine. That saddle was empty, but I knew it would not be for long... .

  15

  Elizabeth

  Hatfield House in Hertfordshire

  November 17, 1558

  As I stood beneath the frost-spangled branches of the majestic old oak in the park at Hatfield, my white skirt being tugged by the chill fingers of November, the Earls of Arundel and Throckmorton knelt at my feet and, with hands over their hearts, watched as I solemnly slid the weighty gold and onyx coronation ring onto my finger, as though it were a wedding ring. At that moment, I felt touched by the hand of God. “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!” I declared, my heart filling each word. I felt such a sense of awe and wonderment. I came face to face with Destiny that day and saw it bow to me. All my life I had walked side by side, often even hand-in-hand, with Danger, and yet God, and the wits He gave me, had always stepped between, often at the last instant, to divert the fatal blow and preserve my life. Now I knew why. Before, it had always been a hope and a dream, a feeling rich with conviction, but now it was real! I was England’s Queen!

  I hoped in Heaven my mother, Anne Boleyn, was having the last laugh as she smiled down on me. She had promised my father a prince, a future king for England, and had died because she had failed. And the prince his next wife, Jane Seymour, had given him had also failed. Edward had died a young and pale, watered-down imitation of our father and left little mark on England. And my sister, Mary, when her time came, had turned the people’s love to bitter black ashes when she burned the Protestants she deemed heretics. As I gazed up at the gray sky through the dark lattice of frost-laden branches glittering in the weak November sun, I promised my mother, and my father, that in me they would see a monarch, a sovereign, such as England had never known before. And though some might see my sex as a weakness, a detriment, before I left this world I would prove them all mistaken. My weak and slender woman’s body was the witch’s cauldron in which were combined the bold audacity of Anne Boleyn and the might and majesty of Henry VIII, and that was a magical and potent brew. In me, England would find a pillar of strength, not sugar or salt; I would not buckle in the heat, melt in the rain, or crack in the cold. I would not fail! I had already learned to never show weakness, except when it served me to bait a trap with feminine frailty. And never to show fear, nothing that could be used against me, to make me seem like a sheep onto which any hungry wolf might pounce, to never let my heart control my mind, and that confidence, real or feigned, is vital, the key ingredient, if one would hold and keep the reins of power firmly in hand and call the tunes everyone dances to. In order to be obeyed, one must act as if they expect and will accept nothing less.

  Then Robert, my dashing, black-haired, dark-eyed Gypsy, my best friend from childhood, was there, bowing to me from astride a great black stallion, leading a dazzling white horse, a graceful and elegant beauty, at once strong and delicately formed, fluid and white as milk, already saddled in silver and ermine in readiness for me. He made both horses dip their heads and forelegs and bow to me, and I smiled and laughed and clapped my hands in pure delight. I went to pet the horse, the slush of sodden and brown fallen leaves squelching beneath the thin soles of my white satin slippers. Robin held out his hand to me, and I took it. Then I was in the saddle, and we were riding like the wind across the park. I felt the wind’s icy fingers in my hair and tugging at my billowing white skirts, pulling as though it were trying to restrain me, to slow me down or hold me back, but I laughed defiantly and urged the white beauty beneath me to gallop faster. I was free! Free, fearless, and five-and-twenty, and no one could hold or gainsay me! For the first time I fully understood what the words drunk with power truly meant, and I knew it was up to me to water down the wine and not let it addle my brain and corrupt me. Drunkards always come to a bad end, and I would not be one of them; I could not, now that England was mine. I had a sacred duty, one I had been born to fulfill, and failure was not an option I would ever consider. I had defiantly swept that card from the table, and none would ever dare pick it up and lay it back before me.

  As we rode back to the house, the dear, familiar, turreted, redbrick manor where I had spent most of my childhood, I saw the austere, black-clad figure of my good and loyal friend Sir William Cecil waiting for me in the winter-barren knot garden, and I waved to him. Though he had served my brother and sister, Cecil had always discreetly given me his shrewd and sage advice. He had long since proved both his loyalty and his worth, and I meant to honor him now by appointing him my Secretary of State, a position akin to being the monarch’s right hand, the man who knows all and has his finger in every pie.

  Laughing, I reined my horse in, my hair a wild and windblown mess billowing about my shoulders like a spreading flame. I was trying to smooth and tame it when Robert came to lift me down.

  He held me close—some might have even said too close—for a long moment and, blowing my hair back from my ear, grazed it with his lips, making me feel at once hot and cold as he whispered, “I will come to you tonight... .”

  I laughed and nimbly spun away from him, light-headed and lightheartedly dancing away from him in a swirl of wind-tugged white skirts.

  “Yes, Rob, do, and we shall celebrate—the fulfillment of my destiny and your appointment as my Master of the Horse, for I cannot think of anyone I would rather have beside me when I ride out. And I know I could not have a better man overseeing my stables; you understand horses as if you were one yourself. I must have fine horses, Rob, the very best—spirited, prancing beauties and hunters whose energy will not flag before mine does—and I am trusting you to find them for me.”

  And as he fell to his knees, with his hastily doffed velvet cap over his heart, the white plume billowing up to tickle his chin, I laughed, giddy as a moonstruck maid, and ran to meet Cecil.

  He paused on the graveled path and reverently knelt before me.

  “Nay, old friend, do not kneel! Rise, my good Master Secretary!” I cried, reaching out to help him.

  Cecil started in surprise, but I had seen that he struggled with his stiff and painful knees, a sad harbinger of the rheumatism that would in time become the bane of his existence and eventually, as he aged, cripple him. Though only eight years past thirty, Cecil was one of those men who seemed to have been born old: his back was stooped from the many years he had spent hunched over a desk, first as a young scholar laboring at his studies and then in the service of the Tudors; his brow was deeply lined, and there were wrinkles about his eyes; and gray strands already far outnumbered the brown in his still thick hair and beard.

  “Majesty, you do me great honor,” he said.

  “And you do me great service, Cecil, and, I trust, will continue to take such pains for me and England. I have this judgment of you—that you will not be corrupted by any manner of flattery and gifts, that you will be faithful to me and to England, and that you will, without respect to my private inclinations and will, give me whatever counsel you think best, even if it will disp
lease or anger me, and that if you know of anything that should be said to me in secret, that you shall do so without fail. And, henceforth,” I added with a smile to break the solemnity, “I pardon your poor knees from kneeling. Sit or stand as you will; I know you respect and honor me, and my eyes need no demonstration of it.”

  He took my hand and bowed over it. “Always, Majesty, I will serve you faithfully until the day I die.”

  “As I—as we—shall serve England, my friend,” I replied. “Come, walk with me.” I took his arm. “We must discuss the appointments for my Council... .”

  “And this vexing question of religion, Majesty—I fear it is most pressing,” Cecil interjected, as though he had read the words printed on the parchment of my mind.

  “I’ve no desire to make windows of men’s souls, Cecil, but we must strive for outward conformity. Officially, we are a Protestant nation. All services shall henceforth be read in English, so that all my people may understand them, and, officially”—I emphasized the word—“the Mass and Elevation of the Host must, in due course, be banned, but those who desire it, myself included, shall have candles and adornments, music and vestments to honor God and beautify their worship. Let those who wish it have their Masses and Latin litanies in private, but if they do not outwardly conform and regularly attend Protestant services, they must pay a fine. How my people worship Our Heavenly Father is their own business, as long as they are loyal to me as their earthly sovereign. I shall decree three days of mourning for my sister, and she shall be buried in the full Catholic rite, as I know she would have wished, but let it be given out at once that there is to be no retaliation against or molestation of priests, Catholics, or sacred places to avenge the atrocities of her reign. We go forward, Cecil, not back.”

  “A wise course, Your Majesty,” Cecil nodded, “but I fear that if the Pope excommunicates you, both your person and throne will be in extreme peril from the Catholic sovereigns of France and Spain. England cannot afford a war, the Treasury is empty, our army and navy are threadbare, our fortifications crumbling, and—”

  I held up my hand to silence him. “I am five-and-twenty and fairly comely, am I not, Cecil?”

  “Aye, Majesty, and if you would marry sooner rather than later, not only would you secure the succession—you are, Madame, the last true Tudor—your husband would not only be able to share the cares, labors, and fatigues of ruling but also enrich our coffers and strengthen our defenses.”

  “While it is true that I cannot impregnate myself and thus give England an heir, Cecil, all the rest I can do just as well as any man, mayhap even better. At the moment, I am more concerned with nurturing my kingdom and making it strong than I am with motherhood of the more traditional sort. And I will not make my own shroud by naming as my successor one who already lives and can pose a threat to me. I remember all too well how even as my sister lived, people plotted and conspired to have me, or one of the other claimants, take her throne. Already there are murmurs that my cousins the Scottish Catholic queen, Mary Stuart, or Katherine Grey here in England have a better claim to my throne than I do. But I will not stand by and watch those murmurs grow from a whisper to a scream; if I were to uphold one’s claim over the other’s, there would not even be time for me to finish stitching that shroud before I had to wear it.” Cecil opened his mouth to protest, but I continued as though he hadn’t. “As for the French and the Spanish. . . well, as I was saying, Cecil, I am five-and-twenty and fairly comely, if I do say so myself, and I daresay we shall soon be entertaining suitors from both nations, though I must not forget that my sister lost the affection of her people when she took a foreigner for her husband. And there are things I could tell you about my former brother-in-law that might make you blush, dear Cecil, but I shall spare you, as they are the sort of things that should remain a woman’s secret.”

  “I have heard it said that, despite being married to Your Majesty’s sister, he was quite smitten with you,” Cecil ventured delicately.

  “That’s a discreet way of wording it, Cecil”—I nodded—“and I warrant we shall see the proof of it very soon. And no doubt the French have a duke or two who will soon come a-wooing. As the Austrians say, why make war when you can obtain what you desire by marrying? It’s strictly a matter of economy—it is far cheaper both in cost of money and in lives. Meanwhile, maintain our ambassador in Rome; we must remain on cordial terms with His Holiness for the time being, and”—I heaved a dramatic sigh and pressed a hand to my heart—“grief over my late sister and awe at finding myself so newly risen to such an exalted position has quite overwhelmed me and prevents me from making any drastic alterations to our government for the time being.” Then, quick as a wink, I laughed and flashed Cecil a smile. “Being a woman has its advantages, Cecil, and I intend to make the most of every one of them.”

  Cecil smiled back at me. “Aye, Majesty, I do not doubt it.”

  “Oh, look!” I drew his attention to a tall, dark-haired man elegantly but somberly attired in deep brown velvet with gold-edged ruff and cuffs and a short velvet cloak swinging smartly from his shoulders coming toward us. “Here comes the Spanish Ambassador now! Come, Cecil, we must greet the Comte de Feria. I am sure he brings us good tidings of his master, and, unless I am very much mistaken, that looks like a box for a necklace tucked beneath his arm.”

  “Majesty”—Cecil smiled and shook his head, chuckling in amusement—“you are the only woman I know who can spy a diamond necklace hidden in a box under a man’s cloak across the length of a pleasure garden.”

  “Not diamonds, Cecil.” I adamantly shook my head. “For me Philip would choose a stone of a much warmer color, rubies, perhaps, to match his hot blood, to remind me of that scorching Spanish sizzle, or emeralds, perhaps, to speak of the constancy of his affections and his jealousy of any other man who might dare compete with him on the tiltyard of love where my hand in marriage is the ultimate prize.”

  After the obligatory greetings had been exchanged, and condolences for Mary and congratulations for myself offered, Ambassador de Feria, still on his knees, begged to present me with a small token of his master’s continued affection, and he opened the box to reveal a long golden necklace set with more than a dozen large rubies sparkling like newly spilt blood.

  “It’s beautiful!” I breathed with due expression of my awe—I am a woman, and we do like our finery after all. “Señor de Feria, please convey my most bountiful thanks to your master, and assure him I like his gift well. Whenever I wear it, I shall think of him, and ... tell him ...” I modestly averted my eyes for a moment before I boldly raised them and continued. “... tell him that Elizabeth well remembers a day she spent in the forest with Philip; he will, I have no doubt, know exactly which day I mean.”

  “With the utmost pleasure shall I convey Your Majesty’s message to His Highness.” De Feria smiled. “And may I be so presumptuously bold as to express—for His Highness, of course, as well as for myself, his most dutiful servant, and your servant, Madame—the hope that you shall spend another equally pleasant day in the woods together very soon?”

  It was all I could do not to laugh out loud, remembering the day Philip had stripped me to my waist and slammed my back against a tree, begging me to marry him even as his wife, my poor, mad, deluded sister, still lived and labored to expel a phantom child from her womb, but I maintained my composure and serenely nodded. “You may; I would be most remiss to discourage you—I mean, of course, him—Philip,” I added, attaching a little sigh to his name and letting my eyes grow soft as though with tender, loving memory. “As a queen, alas, I cannot wear my crown upon my heart, but I know, were I to take Philip as my husband, my heart would not be parched by a loveless, passionless marriage.”

  “Oh, Madame, never fear that!” de Feria exclaimed. “The passion between you and my royal master would scorch and burn the world and leave all whose lives are devoid of love as green as emeralds with envy!”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “Philip did once liken us to A
ntony and Cleopatra—a successful version of the pair, of course, without failure and suicide at the end.”

  “Indeed, Madame.” De Feria nodded assiduously. “You have it within your power to make all your dreams, and my master’s dreams, come true, if you will only say yes and hold out your hand.”

  I smiled and held out my hand for de Feria to kiss, to signal that our interview was over. “Perhaps,” I purred. “Only, at the moment, I am so overcome, so overwhelmed by the rapid and tremendous wave of changes that have swept me up that I cannot let my heart gallop ahead of my mind, even if it would run right into the arms of a certain person,” I added with a meaningful glance down at the ruby necklace.

  As de Feria, smiling broadly, bowed repeatedly before he turned and walked away, I said in an aside to Cecil, “Hope springs eternal, Cecil. It is a most stubbornly determined and resolute swimmer, always bobbing right back up to the surface, even when the sharks snap around it or the current endeavors to pull it down. It very rarely sinks to the bottom like a stone or succumbs to death by drowning, and we must keep it alive in the hearts of my suitors for as long as possible. You were saying something about the Treasury being empty, Cecil?” With a last admiring look at the magnificent ruby necklace I decisively snapped the lid shut and handed the box to Cecil. “This should add a few coins to our coffers. But first, have it replicated with glass stones or whatever serves best; only see that it is done well enough to fool the Spanish Ambassador, as I must wear it from time to time, so that he can report back to Philip that he has seen me wearing it. There will be time enough for real gems later, but now England has greater need of them than I do. And above all, see that it is done discreetly; it would not bode well for us if word were to leak out that Elizabeth of England was wearing glass gems and had pawned the King of Spain’s precious rubies. We cannot expose our weakness and vulnerability, or they will be upon us like wolves on a newborn lamb.”