Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

  I rushed about like a madwoman, pulling the decorations down from the ceiling beams and ripping the blue bunting waves from the walls, sending the trays of candy shells and fish flying; then I ran to the bed and yanked down the beautiful new bed-curtains, ruining them, ripping the fabric and sending pearls scattering everywhere, as I screamed at the blind harpist to “Get out!” before I fell facedown onto the bed, weeping a whole ocean of tears. I didn’t know which was worse—that I had failed again or that others had seen to what desperate lengths I was willing to go to try to win back my husband’s love yet had still failed. It was a great and awful blow to my pride, and I did not know how I could ever go downstairs again and face any of the Verney household, knowing that they had seen—and those who hadn’t seen would soon be told by those who had—how I had got myself all hussied-up with my face painted and had brazenly bared my bosom under a smattering of beads. Soon everyone would know; they would be laughing about it in the alehouse and mayhap even calling me lewd names. In my rage, I had become my own worst enemy; I had let my private shame become a public one. Would I ever be able to look anyone in the eye again? Could I even bear to face myself in the looking glass?

  I sobbed myself to sleep, but even in slumber I found no peace. I was tormented by a dream in which I found myself struggling in a cold blue green lake, weighed down by my mermaid gown and pearl-bedecked hair. I sank down, lower and lower, and as I kicked and fought my way back up, desperate for air, my arms and legs became hopelessly, terrifyingly entangled in the whirls and swirls of my billowing skirts. But somehow I made it to the top, and then ... my fist struck ice! Hard, unbreakable ice! The lake had frozen over! And through the ice—it was like looking through a frosty window—I beheld a number of stern-faced priests circling the lake, solemnly chanting in a commanding tone words in Latin that I could not understand but somehow knew were meant to keep my soul imprisoned, trapped forever, through all eternity, within this lake. Even though I was underwater, I screamed—curious things can happen in a dream—as the folds of my skirt floated up about me, even as I fought to push the wafting, billowing layers back down, as if they meant to stifle me, the pearls and crystals twinkling like tiny bubbles, mocking bits of air I could not breathe. But no matter how hard I hammered my fists on the ice, it would not break, and no matter how loudly I screamed, no one would help me. And I knew that I was trapped—forever!

  I sprang up in bed with a bloodcurdling scream that scared even me and shook the entire house out of their beds and sent them running to my room, certain that I was being murdered. And so—yet again—I had humiliated myself and exposed my shame and my pain to the scrutiny of others.

  In his black velvet dressing gown and slippers, with a candelabrum in hand, his hair, only slightly mussed from sleep, hanging over his forehead like a sleek black raven’s wing, Sir Richard Verney banged my door open without bothering to knock. He came to stand at the foot of my bed, condescendingly appraising me in my rumpled gown, the crystals over my breasts sparkling in the candlelight, and my face a red, bloated, tear-swollen mess covered with streaks and smears of blue, green, pink, gold, and black paint. He stared hard and long at me, with his cold and poisonous little serpent’s eyes, before he turned and ushered his servants, who were crowding my door, peering in curiously with their annoyed and sleep-bleary eyes, back to their beds, telling them that, “Lady Dudley has suffered a bad dream—again,” he added meaningfully, for it was not the first time a nightmare had jolted me awake with a scream that shattered the peace of the night.

  Robert was already gone. He had ridden back to London immediately after he walked out on me. He didn’t even say good-bye. He just rode away, in angry silence, charging down the road, back to the arms of Elizabeth, back to the cool, elegant, confident, and poised Queen, and away from his poor, pathetic, country-girl wife, all got up in beads and paint, pretending to be grand, pretending to be something she was not, trying—and failing miserably—to convince him—and perhaps herself as well—that she was every bit as good as the beauties on parade, dancing in the masques, at court.

  As the harsh light of morning trickled in through the narrow, arched windows of Compton Verney, Pirto silently prepared my bath and unlaced me from my mermaid gown.

  “It will make you feel better, love.” She smiled, nodding toward the tub filled with steaming water, with dried rose petals, lavender, and chamomile bobbing on top.

  As the beaded bodice fell away, I noticed that the dimple on my left breast had changed; it was now pointing out instead of in, like the tip of an accusing finger, as if the dimple had suddenly changed its mind about what it wanted to be and decided to become a nipple instead. It filled me with fear just to look at it. And, though there was no way to escape it—it was a part of my flesh—I turned quickly and stepped into my bath and sank down low into the steaming water, wishing I could scald that worrisome imperfection away.

  Was that my punishment, I have oftentimes since wondered, for baring and flaunting my breasts beneath the dazzle of crystal beads, even though I did it out of love and desperation and intended the sight only for my husband’s eyes? I had failed so many times in so many ways by the time I donned the mermaid gown, perhaps I deserved it.

  I tried to tell myself it was nothing, just some sort of blemish that would get well in its own good time, though I could not resist slathering it with every ointment I could find or think of, hoping to speed it on its way. Every time I looked at it, I hoped to see some change; sometimes I tried to convince myself that I saw some sign of improvement, that it looked a little smaller, but I was only deceiving myself, it was only wishful thinking, and in truth, nothing did any good, and it was not getting even a smidgen smaller.

  Instead, it grew and grew, and the more I tried to ignore it, the larger it got. But I was afraid to acknowledge it, to show or speak of it, and each time I changed my clothes, I shimmied hurriedly into or out of my shift, and when I bathed, I sank down low in the water and tried to hold my arm, even though to press upon it hurt, so it would not show.

  Finally the fear got the better of me, and I broke down. Pirto found me weeping, and I blubbered and blurted out the truth to her.

  With the practiced and capable fingers of one who has spent a lifetime as first a nursemaid and then a lady’s maid, she gently bared my breast and examined it.

  “Oh, pet, an abscess is all that is! Have you been worrying yourself sick over that?” She hugged me close, kissed my cheek, and stroked my hair as I lay my head against her shoulder, still shaking with sobs. “My auntie had one of those, and it hurt like hell for a time, it did—pardon my words—but that’s just what she said, but after it burst and healed, she was just fine and lived to the ripe old age of seventy-nine, she did.”

  “R-Really, Pirto?” I looked up at her.

  “Aye, my love, sure as rain she did! Now”—she stood up briskly—“dry your tears.” With the edge of her apron she began to do just that. “A hot poultice is just what you need—’twill encourage it to burst and take the edge off the pain after it does. I’ll fix you the very one my Auntie Susan used—I’ll go out into the garden and find a stone, and we’ll put it in the fire to heat, then I’ll lift it out with tongs and wrap it up tightly in a cloth, and you’ll lie down with that, and we’ll soon see the end of it.” And she brightly set about doing just what she had said she would.

  For many hours of many an afternoon afterward I followed Pirto’s instructions and lay with that hot stone upon my breast, but though the warmth felt comforting, it failed to have the desired effect Pirto predicted. It never burst. At times I thought the heat was only making it angrier, because it knew I was fighting back, trying to destroy it before it destroyed me. It grew even larger, until it was an angry, livid lump marring the pink roses and cream of my breast and causing a painful tenderness alongside, reaching fingers of pain beneath my left arm. And the day my nipple began to seep a foul perversion of mother’s milk, sometimes tinted pink by my blood, I knew for the first tim
e what real fear was. And I knew in my heart that, no matter what I did, what remedies I tried, I was doomed. This was no abscess; it was cancer, and it would take my life, sever my soul from my body, like a crab’s claw clipping through a frail, fraying tether.

  25

  Amy Robsart Dudley

  A Visit to London

  The Dairy House at Kew

  and

  Richmond Palace

  September 1559

  While I languished at Compton Verney, suffering this increasingly painful malady of the breast, though none but Pirto yet knew of it, I received letters from my stepsisters scolding me about how I was being remiss in my duties as a wife. I should be at court, they said, smiling and “being a sparkling ornament at my husband’s side.” They wrote me of the handsome little house at Kew that the Queen had given him, a mansion in miniature called the Dairy House, as it had once provided butter, cheese, and cream for the royal household. They said that I should stop my spoiled and willful ways, that I was not a little girl anymore, being indulged and petted by my father. I should be in London living in grand style and presiding over that fine house as Lord Robert’s wife. If I were you, that is certainly what I would be doing! Frances said. I would not let my honored and respectable place as his wife be usurped by another woman, even if that other woman is the Queen of England! Anna added. They said that I was a disgrace to the name of Robsart, letting myself be hidden away in the country as if I were an object of embarrassment and shame like a dribbling idiot, a hunchbacked dwarf, or a madwoman. I simply would not tolerate it! said Anna. Mark my word, seconded Frances, I would make a stand and put my foot down! Clearly they had also heard the rumors from London that were spreading all over the country just like a plague and even being carried abroad by travelers. If you were there and a good wife to him, they implied, this would not be happening. It was all my fault; Anna and Frances had a way of always conveying that without actually saying it. Ever since I married Robert, either talking to them or reading their letters always left me feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and as if I could do nothing right at all. If I chanced to look in a mirror just after, the word FAILURE! would leap out at me, right into my face, like a blow from a fist struck unexpectedly and out of nowhere.

  Only my stepbrother, John Appleyard, thought I was a proper wife, obedient to my husband’s will, never forgetting my place or trying to put my own wants before my husband’s, “a model of subserviency, exactly as a wife should be,” he said of me, but then Robert always gave him money and cast-off finery and introduced him to influential people at court and had even seen to his appointment as High Sheriff of Norfolk. John prided himself on being one of Robert’s followers and would never say anything against or contradict him. It might be crude and vulgar phrasing, but as the plainspoken country folk would say, John acted as if Robert’s shit didn’t stink. And that’s the truth of it. Robert could have flayed my back open with his riding crop and turned me out in my shift and bare feet like Patient Griselda, and John wouldn’t have uttered a word against it, only nodded his head and agreed that it was a just and fitting punishment. Robert knows how to buy loyalty—when charm alone fails, there are always gifts, money, lands, and titles—and Robert could buy John’s soul for a cast-off pink brocade doublet, he’s so eager to ingratiate himself with the right people.

  Like a cat’s claws, the written words of Anna and Frances kept tearing at my mind. And within me the resentment, like the cancer in my breast, kept growing and festering, giving me no rest. Until finally, after too many restless, sleepless nights and befuddled, dark-shadowed-eyed days, I could endure it no longer. I called up all the courage I could muster and ordered Pirto to pack a trunk for me and arrange for a coach. “To London I will go!” I declared. And when she tried to dissuade me, I stamped my foot and shrieked, “Damn the roads, and damn the weather, damn the risks, and damn this cancer—I am going to London to see my husband, and nothing shall stop me!” Though I had my concerns about Richard Verney, I kept them to myself and carefully timed my departure to coincide with a time when I knew he would be absent on some business for my husband, though I never quite understood exactly what it was he did for Robert. I only wished Robert would dismiss him, for that dark, sinister, perpetually black-clad figure had become the lead actor treading the boards of my nightmares. It scared me so to look at his hands, I always tried not to, but my eyes seemed drawn to them. I often dreamed of those hands around my neck. I would see myself lying on the floor, my skirts like a spreading puddle of blood at his feet, and I would jar the whole house awake with my screams.

  One night I even bolted from my bed in terror and ran mindlessly, blindly out into the Long Gallery and crashed right into a suit of armor. I ran right into its open metal arms and slammed full force against its cold, hard, steel chest, and we fell together with a fearsome clang, with me screaming, striking out with my fists in a frenzy to fight off my imagined assailant, my would-be murderer. The servants and Sir Richard Verney found me in a tangle of steel armor, white night shift, and wild golden hair, with my fists, arms, feet, and legs all bloody from the fall and bashing at the armor. I had also split my forehead open, and there was blood dripping into my eyes, and I was sobbing from both the pain and the terror. And, to my great shame, in my terror I had lost control of my bladder, and my bare feet slipped in the yellow puddle I had left on the cold stone floor.

  Without uttering a single word, Sir Richard Verney reached down and jerked me to my feet. My toes caught in the hem of my shift, and it ripped. With a terrified scream, I turned on him, my fear-addled brain taking him for another assailant who had been lurking in the shadows, striking out with flailing fists and kicking feet, but he simply drew back his hand and wordlessly slapped me hard across the face. Then a bucket of cold water struck me hard, thrown by one of the servants, to shock me back to my senses. Then Richard Verney and his servants returned grumbling to their beds, leaving me sobbing and shivering hard, with my teeth chattering, my torn shift plastered to my body, showing every curve most immodestly. Pirto helped me back to my room, washed and dried me, salved and bandaged my wounds, put me into a clean shift, and bundled me back into bed.

  “I’m going mad!” I sobbed as I lay there with Pirto clucking over me, trying to calm and quiet me. “It’s this place, I tell you—it’s driving me mad! It will be the death of me, I tell you—I know it will! It will steal my sanity, and then it will take my life! But by then it will be too late! No one will believe! They will think, poor, deluded woman, she did this to herself! Please, God, help me, deliver me from my desperation! Don’t let them do this to me! Please, don’t let them!”

  To save my sanity, I felt I had no choice but to brave London and risk Robert’s anger, to see him again and plead my case, face-to-face, as I had lost the chance to do when I made a fool of myself in my mermaid gown. My wiles had failed to win back his love and reawaken his desire, and he had left before I could broach the subject of a different, more pleasant abode. So now I must venture out, wearing no disguise, and just be plain, ordinary, everyday me and hope my words, fears, and feelings would be enough to sway him. I must convince him that Compton Verney would be the death of me. Perhaps, when he saw how pale and haggard I was, and the dark shadows shrouding my eyes, he would realize that it was not my imagination after all. Have mercy upon me, Robert! was my silent prayer, repeated over and over again, like a rosary, as the wheels of the coach turned, bearing me ever closer to London.

  Suddenly the wheels ground to a halt, and Pirto and I were flung violently forward. As I struggled to right myself, a face appeared at the window, and I screamed. It was a death’s-head, a bone-white skull, crowned by a jaunty, red-feathered hat, staring in at me. A powerful, red-gloved hand shot out and wrenched open the door and dragged me out, struggling and screaming, pleading for my life, and near fainting with pain when his arm squeezed my afflicted breast. When Pirto tried to help me, the opposite door flew open, and other hands reached out to restrain her. “You shut
yer ’ole, or else I’ll shut it fer you!” a voice growled, and Pirto’s protests immediately subsided into meek little whimpers like a frightened kitten’s.

  My skull-faced assailant hurled me to the ground, so hard, the breath was knocked out of me, and I could only lie there stunned, gasping for air, my eyes wide with terror, as his dagger ripped my bodice open, cut through my stays and shift, and laid bare my breasts with the point just a hairsbreadth away from cutting my skin. Shame flooded me then, piercing through the terror, as his eyes fell upon the stained white linen bandage that covered my left breast. Sometimes the stinking, blood-tinged discharge seeped through to stain it. I hated the sight and smell of it, and it shamed me to the core to have anyone else see. I had always prided myself on being so clean, and now this stink that no perfume could ever entirely mask hung always about me, leaking from my once beautiful pink and white breast that had now become an ugly, distorted, sore, red, and mottled grotesquerie. Tears filled my eyes, and I turned my face away.

  But my attacker showed me no mercy, straddling me, pinning me down between his strong thighs. He tore off the bandage, and I cowered beneath him in shame, turning my face away, squeezing my eyes shut tightly and tucking my chin into my shoulder. Even if he meant to rape or murder me, I did not want to see the disgust on his face and in his eyes.

  “Mon Dieu!” he gasped, and there was something in his voice that made me tentatively turn my head and slowly open my eyes and look at him.

  The death’s-head mask, that ghoulish, grinning skull, was now hanging about his neck, and I saw beneath the wide red hat brim that my attacker was a very handsome, dark-haired man with sun-bronzed skin and a dashing moustache that curled up at the ends. To my astonishment, his dark eyes were full of tears, and as I watched, they began trickling down his cheeks. By his voice, I guessed he was French, for he gathered me up in his arms, tenderly cradling me against his chest, and kept mumbling something that sounded like “my pauvre petite,” as he rocked me and stroked my hair and pressed kiss after kiss onto my brow. I also thought I heard the name Marguerite murmured in a tear-choked whisper. Then, just as suddenly, he stopped, and in a voice that demanded instant obedience, addressed his men, ordering them to stand down and cease their assault on us, return anything they had taken, and mount their horses and wait for him.