Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

  “The house isn’t finished yet,” Robert said, when we collapsed, laughing and panting, into one of the milk-pail seats. “I don’t want you to see it until everything is perfect, but I have arranged something else, a special treat, for your delight, and mine, for your pleasure is my pleasure.”

  He loudly clapped his hands, and servants in his blue velvet livery with the bear and ragged staff embroidered on their chests and sleeves immediately appeared to erect a small gold-fringed tent of purple silk, and to furnish it with a Turkey carpet that was like a field of colorful flowers, bright, plump cushions the color of the finest jewels for us to lounge upon, and a gilded table with short legs so that we might dine as we sat upon the cushions. And musicians came to stand outside and play for us as, hand-in-hand, dressed as a milkmaid and her swain, we went inside. After us came a tall, dark-skinned man costumed in a feathered cloth-of-gold turban studded with gems, baggy ruby satin breeches, full, flowing robes of yellow silk embroidered with exquisite red poppies, and golden slippers with curled-up toes studded with rubies. With golden bangles clacking on his wrists, he bowed and presented us with a large golden tray covered with exotic foods I could not even name. Robert told me he was a chef from Turkey, who had once served in the Sultan’s kitchen. I would have liked to talk to him, to ask him the names and ingredients of the strange and exotic dishes he laid before us, but Robert swiftly dismissed him. There were rich, savory spiced meats and delicious cheeses, and a confection, like jellied fruit, that tasted and smelt of rosewater, dusted with a generous powdering of white sugar, and a delicious, flaky, golden pastry comprised of numerous delicate, paper-thin layers drenched in sweet, syrupy honey with morsels of dates and nuts baked in between. Robert and I laughed as we knelt on the cushions and fed each other bites of this exotic banquet for two, pausing to lick each other’s fingers or to kiss away a dribble of meat juice or a dab of honey from our mouths and chins.

  After our meal, and after servants had come in to take away the table, Robert clapped his hands, and three beautiful, honey-skinned, almond-eyed women with hair like black silk came in. They were clad in exotic, baggy silk trousers and trailing diaphanous veils and wore gold bangles about their wrists and ankles. Each one carried a luxurious armful of rich fabric.

  Robert stood up and walked to the opposite side of the tent and turned to face me. He motioned for the women to come to him, but even as they surrounded him, their beringed hands sliding sensuously over his body as they divested him of his garments, his eyes never once left mine. Proud as a prince, hands on hips, head held haughty-high, he stood naked before me, showing off his fine, firm horseman’s physique, as two of the women poured a spicy scented oil onto their palms and massaged it into his sun-bronzed skin, while the third set upon his head a magnificent cloth-of-gold, jewel-encrusted, peacock-feathered turban. A smile twitched his lips, half-teasing, as his cock rose beneath their ministrations and pointed straight at me. One of the women began to massage it with the oil, and he reached down, coiled the long, thick, blue black rope of her hair entwined with pearls tightly around his fist, and pulled her up and roughly kissed her mouth. When they were finished and every part of him was oiled and scented, they fastened around his waist a jeweled belt set with large sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and rubies as big as my clenched fist, and brought a magnificent trailing robe of royal purple silk embroidered with peacock feathers trimmed with thick panels of gold brocade encrusted with tiny brilliant jewels and seed pearls, and the third woman knelt and kissed each one of his feet before she slid them into sapphire-studded golden slippers with turned-up toes.

  Then it was my turn. At his direction, they came to me. I was unaccustomed to being attended by such sensual and exotic handmaidens and to having my person handled in such a familiar, intimate fashion. Robert noted my tension and spoke a few words in an unknown tongue to one of the women, and she nodded and produced a tiny golden box, like a miniature treasure chest, and opened it and offered it to me, gesturing that I should take one of the little golden discs that lay inside. She opened her own mouth and pointed to show me that I should place it on my tongue and let it melt there.

  “Like this,” Robert said, taking one of the gilt candy pastilles and demonstrating.

  It melted quickly in the moist heat of my mouth with a sweetness spreading sensuously, like a rich velvet blanket, over my tongue. Beneath the sweetness, there was a slight yet sharp bitterness, but I didn’t mind it, and at Robert’s urging I gladly took another. And then, when their hands again reached for me, stroking my milk-pale skin as they laid it bare, and plucking the pins from my hair, massaging my scalp and combing through the long, rippling cascade they released to unfurl down my back, the jewels on their fingers winking through the red waves, I arched my back and closed my eyes and purred like a cat, and at times I even giggled, giddy with the wanton, brazen novelty and delight of it all.

  As they had done with Robert, two of the women began to massage a perfumed oil into my skin, a bold yet at the same time delicate spicy rose scent that also evoked thoughts of cinnamon and honey and the warm sun. A dusky hand caressed my cheek and slipped another golden pastille into my mouth as three sets of hands stroked and caressed every part of me. The fingers of one woman reached out to paint my lips, whilst another rouged my nipples, and the third the tender pink lips of my sex. Then they began to dress me. One of the women knelt at my feet, holding out a pair of loose, sheer white trousers spangled with myriad tiny silver stars. I gasped in surprise when she pulled them up and tied the silver ribbon around my waist, for they were open between the legs. I had never worn such an immodest garment before, but before I could find words to protest, a girdle with long streamers like liquid silver pouring down over me was fastened around my waist. Next I was laced into a bodice of tight white satin thickly encrusted with silver embroidery and diamonds and pearl flowers that lifted my breast high but also left them bare. Silver slippers with turned-up toes adorned with diamonds and pearls were put upon my bare feet, and large rings blooming with pearl- and jewel-petaled flowers were slipped onto my fingers, and bracelets onto my wrists, and an opulent diamond and pearl necklace fastened about my throat that dripped a bouquet of jeweled blossoms down between my breasts. I slid my bare arms into a full, long, trailing robe of the purest white silk embroidered in silver and gold and jeweled flowers made of rubies, amethysts, and sapphires, with emerald leaves, and a circlet of matching jeweled flowers was set, like a crown, upon my head.

  The handmaidens lit incense and then left us. Robert came to me and lowered me onto the cushions, and I lay back, loose and languid in his arms. His dark eyes cast a spell, mesmerizing me, and his tongue flicked out, like a serpent’s, teasing and lapping at my nipples, hard and rouged as red as cherries as I lay weak and docile beneath him.

  “Tell me you love me,” he breathed against my neck, and I did, again and again, clinging to him like a vine as he ground his loins hard against mine to show his ardor, wrapping my arms and legs tightly about him. “I love you, I love you!” I cried, my head whipping wildly against the ruby satin cushion it lay upon as he ripped away the silver tinsel girdle and his fingers plunged into the hot wetness of my sex.

  “Now you are in my power!” he sighed.

  At the triumph in his voice, I stiffened. His words had penetrated the opium fog and broken the spell completely. I thrust him from me and, hugging my robe tightly about me, ran out into the fresh air to escape the opium-scented incense. Dizzy and light-headed, flush-faced and sweating, I fell to my knees and vomited hard beneath a tree, expelling all the rich, decadent foods I had eaten.

  Robert ran out after me and urged me to come back inside.

  “Bess, please!” he groaned. “I cannot live like a monk!”

  I waited until my head had cleared a little, gulping in great mouthfuls of the fresh air, then, bracing myself, I plunged back into the incense-clouded tent and found my clothes, my milkmaid’s disguise, and struggled as best as I could without assistance
back into it. Robert came to me, begging me to sit down, but I pushed past him, back out into the fresh air, and ran for the river where the barge waited.

  Cursing as he endeavored to pull his breeches back on under his ornate robe to cover his nakedness, Robert ran after me. Suddenly he caught hold of me, grabbed my shoulders, and spun me around so I stood facing him. “Marry me,” he said, staring straight into my eyes.

  I turned my face away and felt the day grow suddenly gray. “Please, Robert ...”

  “Every day could be just as wonderful as this!” Robert insisted. “If you would but banish this endless parade of suitors, that pompous lot of strutting cockerels, preening and pining for a crown, and marry me instead, the one man in England who truly loves you, Elizabeth the woman, not Elizabeth the Queen!”

  I sighed and pulled away from him. “You already have a wife, Robert. You are not the Sultan of Turkey, and you cannot take another.. . .”

  “But you—” Robert knelt before me and reached out to put his hands on my shoulders, staring into my eyes with a blazing intensity—“ you have the power to set me free so we can be married!”

  “No!” I said adamantly. “Never!” I pronounced each word clearly and decisively. “I told you before, Robert, I am not my father, and I will not abuse my power and twist the law to suit me. Your Amy shall not go the way of Catherine of Aragon, and I, Anne Boleyn’s daughter, will not step into my mother’s shoes as the center and cause of a divorce scandal. And I have no desire to marry... .”

  “But Amy does not love me, and I don’t love her. I love you!” Robert insisted. “I never stop thinking of you, wanting you. I am mad with love for you!”

  “I am truly sorry, Rob. I remember well your wedding day, and the way her face glowed with love, the way she lit up whenever she looked at you; it saddens me to learn such a love has died and that light has gone out. However,” I continued, in a tone much more brusque and businesslike, as though I were addressing my Council, “as you well know, love is very rarely the foundation of marriage. Many marry and live their whole lives without it, often well and contented with their lot. Life is full of hard bargains, Rob, but, sooner or later, we all must make our peace with it, else it drive us mad with torment, or we sicken and wither away for want of what we can never have; and so must you. Make your peace, Robert; it will go better for all of us if you do.”

  “But if I could persuade her ...” he persisted.

  “Oh, really, Rob!” I sighed in annoyance and threw up my hands. “There are no grounds that I am aware of, and I will not meddle in this! I will not! I am Queen and now must have even greater regard for my reputation, and I will not have it being said that I turned Lady Dudley out like Griselda in her shift so I could take her place! Now, I will hear no more about it! And I’ve warned you before ...” Robert started to speak, but I silenced him with a furious glare. “Not one more word,” I warned, ice and fire in every syllable.

  Crestfallen, Robert nodded and hung his head, and his shoulders slumped forward, as if all the fire had suddenly gone out of him.

  “The sun is setting,” I said. “We’d best be going.”

  Robert nodded and came to take my arm. “But first I want to show you something.”

  He led me out into the gloaming and waved his hand back at the house. Every window I saw was lit by a single candle.

  “Every night I am in residence here,” he announced as he stood before me, holding each of my hands in his, “I make this vow: a candle shall be left burning the whole night through, from dusk till dawn, in every window, in the hope that its light will guide you to my door and into my arms.” Then he gently pulled me to him and kissed me with the utmost tenderness, the gentlest passion I had ever in my life known, that made me also feel aglow, as if lit from within, like the windows of the Dairy House at Kew.

  “I love you,” Robert whispered.

  And I answered, and in that moment I meant it, “I love you too.”

  Then, hand-in-hand, we walked slowly back to the barge, and I returned to my palace, to reality, to doff my milkmaid’s disguise, to plant my feet firmly back on the ground after my afternoon’s flight of fancy, and resume my duties as Queen. But even as the French Ambassador knelt at my feet and recited a poem of love one of Catherine de Medici’s litter of royal princes had written for me, I could think of nothing and no one but Robert. And when I closed my eyes and pretended to swoon beneath the caress of his sonorous syllables, in my mind I was back in Robert’s arms again, and his lips were on mine.

  21

  Amy Robsart Dudley

  William Hyde’s Mansion House in Throcking, Hertfordshire

  April–June 1559

  The next time I saw Robert, he asked me to set him free. Right there in the Hydes’ best parlor where he had taken me to speak privily. He draped a pretty shawl about my shoulders and settled me comfortably upon the window seat, smoothing the full skirts of my yellow silk gown and placing my sewing basket upon my lap and watching me thread my needle with bright green silk and even complimenting me on the scene I was embroidering—a sly tabby cat crouched in a bed of wildflowers watching a red-breasted robin tugging at a worm. Then he went to stand before the fireplace. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, rocking gently on his boot heels, as he calmly asked me for a divorce in the same voice he might have used if he were inquiring if we were having quails for dinner.

  He would be generous, “extravagantly and absurdly generous,” he assured me, as if money really mattered when my heart was breaking and he could see it clearly upon my face, as though I were a porcelain figurine of a woman he had just smashed with a hammer. As he knelt to gather up the contents of my sewing basket, which had fallen from my lap and spilled, scattering all around my feet, I sat there white-faced and wide-mouthed, my eyes staring without seeing straight ahead of me. But Robert went on speaking as if nothing was wrong, as if he were merely giving me directions on the best route to ride from Suffolk to Surrey.

  Since there were no children or lands and estates to muddle matters and tie up the law courts, he continued, and he closed the basket with a pat upon the lid as if it were a good puppy and set it on the window seat beside me, it should be a very simple matter. I had only to agree and sign my name upon a document, and it would be done, our union would be dissolved, and we would both be free to walk away from a mistake we had made in our youth.

  “Oh, Amy!” Robert sighed, still kneeling before me, grasping both my trembling hands in his, rubbing them hard to try to restore the warmth to flesh that had suddenly gone as white and cold as chilled milk. “Do it for England, if not for me! A weak and petty, spiteful, vindictive woman would want to hurt me by refusing, and making no end of scandal and trouble, but I know that you are not like that! You, with your good country common sense, know that England is in a precarious position and will remain so until the Queen marries and gives birth to an heir. But she dare not take a foreign consort after the example her sister set with Spanish Philip. But an Englishman ... that is a very different matter, and would be most heartily approved of by her people, and this Queen listens to and heeds the voice of the people; she believes it is they who put her on the throne and keep her there. And if she will wed an Englishman, then who better than I? I have known her and been her friend almost all her life. We met in the schoolroom when we were eight years old, and I have been her staunch supporter in good times and bad; I even sold my property and lands to put money in her purse. And I am an educated man, and skilled in military tactics, and I know the ways of the court and Council chamber—my father taught me well—and I can parry with words as well as I can with a sword. There’s not a man in England or the whole of Europe who can better or match me! My shoulders can take the weight Elizabeth’s are too frail to bear! And I want to, Amy.” He squeezed my hands so hard, I feared the bones would crack into little pieces that, like my heart, could never be put back together. “I want to! But, first, I need you to set me free!” He sat up higher on his knee
s and kissed and nuzzled my cheek and neck. “Please, my darling, say you will set me free to be the King I was always meant to be! Show the true nobility and saintly grace I know you possess, and step aside. Do it for England, for the good of the nation, and every man, woman, and child will revere and thank you for sacrificing your heart for their sake! And you can still be my mistress, for I am fond of you in my way, and if you do me this very great favor, I shall be fonder of you still. I shall like you all the more for it, and Elizabeth need never know. And if our little interludes together should produce any children, I shall recognize them as my baseborn issue—after I am dead of course—in my will, and leave them a token bequest, though they shall have no claim to the throne of course.”

  I felt as though he had just struck off my arm with a battle-ax, then, out of what he considered the goodness of his heart, offered me a jar of salve and a linen bandage. How could he think that I, like a modern-day Griselda, would smilingly renounce my respectable position as his lawfully wedded wife and become his secret, on-the-sly mistress? How little he must think of me! I had my pride!

  With all the strength I could muster, I pulled my hands free and stood up, marveling that my knees did not buckle and I did not fall as I stepped around him and walked out the door.