Queen's Pleasure

by Brandy Purdy

  But there were other packages that were not so pleasant. I never knew where or when I would find them—if they would come by messenger, or if I would find them lying at my door or on my windowsill waiting for me. Sometimes I even found them on the bench in the park where I liked to sit, or inside the drawers of my writing desk, or in my sewing basket. They were vile, evil tokens sent by someone who wished the worst on me. There were little dolls made of wax, always with a thorn driven through the breast. The wax had a rough texture that I found was caused by nail clippings being mixed in, and each doll wore a skirt made from bloodstained linen, like that used to staunch a woman’s monthly courses, and there was always a lock of golden hair just like mine glued to their heads. Pirto always tried to persuade me to throw them in the fire, but I was afraid to, nor could I bear to bury them, to put an effigy that was clearly intended to be me into the ground ... it was too much like a grave. Another time a box arrived containing a gruesome wreath woven of prickly black hawthorn sprigs, black silk ribbon, desiccated toads, lizards, and rats with their tails braided together. Sometimes I found tiny wooden coffins with the little wax dolls inside, always with a lock of golden hair and a thorn impaling the left breast, and my name carved crudely upon the lid. And once, most cruelly, for it came masquerading as a beautifully wrapped gift from London, a locket, a rectangle of gold with black enameled accents and a wreath of exquisite enameled flowers, that opened to reveal a smiling, sapphire-eyed, ivory skeleton. Inscribed inside the coffin lid in bold black enameled letters were the words:

  “DEATH IS NEVER FAR AWAY.”

  With a cry of horror, I flung it out the window; I could not bear to have it near me. The attempts to poison me had failed, and now Robert, or one of his lackeys, had resorted to witchcraft, to try to scare me to death with these ghoulish little horrors. And as my fear and desperation mounted, entwining, plaiting together with the pain to keep me from resting easily in my bed, more and more often I fell to my knees and prayed to God to deliver me from my desperation, to deprive these dark, sinister spells being worked against me of their power. “I am already cursed with cancer; please, save me from these witches and devils who work their dark magic against me!” I begged. The phantom gray friar bent his cowled head and seemed to pray along with me, but that only increased my terror.

  One day Tommy Blount came riding up with a saddlebag full of apples and a treasure trove of new tales to tell me.

  Dear Tommy, he always made my heart glad. One night, as we sat late by the fire in the Long Gallery, resting on piles of deep red velvet cushions strewn upon the hearth, roasting apples sprinkled in sugar and cinnamon in the big stone fireplace, with cups of steaming Lambswool warming our hands—he’d gotten the recipe from Pirto and had it brewed special just for me—his eyes told me what his lips were too shy to say.

  But I turned my face away, saddened by the thought of what he would become someday. I couldn’t bear it. For I knew it was inevitable. A day would come when the riotous gingery curls would be cropped and tamed, subdued to lie flat, submissive as a wife, beneath a pearled and feathered velvet cap, and the sudden and sincere smiles would be replaced by false and affected ones, and those gentle, sympathetic eyes, windows a kind and sincere soul looked out of, would harden and see all through the stained glass of self-interest and regard the world as a great chessboard and everyone and everything on it as pawns to be maneuvered, traded, bartered, and sold, and the child’s love of stories would be driven out to make room for facts, figures, politics, and court gossip and intrigue. It might be a slow death, but that sweet sincerity would die, and the charm that remained would be like a shell abandoned on the beach by the ambitious crab it had grown too small and cramped an abode for. I had seen it all happen before, and I didn’t want to see it happen again. I had once loved a kind and eager boy of seventeen and over ten years of marriage watched him grow into a hard and ruthless stranger who would do anything for riches, fame, and glory, to feed the always hungry flames of the ambition that burned within him where his soul had once been. I was glad I would not live long enough to see it happen to Tommy. It was too sad to mourn the death of a soul even as the body still lived.

  Even though I turned away, he reached for me. I know I should not, but I let him kiss me. It had been so long since I had felt the tender touch of a man’s lips and hands and been the one to light the flame of his desire and feel it flare inside me as well as him. With this disease, I didn’t think I could anymore. I thought the desires of the flesh were lost to the land of memory and dreams. I didn’t think my damaged body could still feel, much less ignite, desire anymore, but I was wrong. I was wrong; I knew that as I melted blissfully into the arms of Tommy Blount, savoring and returning his warm, ardent, apple-sweet kisses. I suppose I could blame it on the heat of the fire, the lateness of the hour, the beer in the Lambswool, or wanting to grasp Life with both hands and be pulled up by it even as Death dragged me down, but that would be dishonest. A good excuse doesn’t always make a wrong right. The only intoxication was the heady sensation of being in a man’s arms and feeling like a desirable woman again.

  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back as Tommy’s kisses blazed a hot trail down my throat. But when his hand rose up to cup my breast, my eyes snapped open wide. I came to my senses and remembered who and what I was—Lord Robert’s wife, always faithful, loyal, and loving, even when he was not, and a dying woman likely to have to face God’s judgment very soon.

  I gently pulled away from him and got to my feet. He stayed where he was, half lying on the velvet cushions, leaning on his elbow, staring up at me with the sad and bewildered brown eyes of a spaniel who desires only to please but has instead in some way, mysterious and incomprehensible to him, disappointed his mistress.

  I leaned down and gently stroked his face, letting my palm linger on his soft cheek, smooth like a baby’s flesh instead of prickly like a man’s.

  “You’ve a good heart, Tommy,” I said, “and someday you’ll find someone worthy to share it with. But it can’t be me—I’m married, and I’m dying.”

  “But ...” He started to speak, but I silenced him with my fingertip pressed lightly against his lips. And even though it pained me—I had noticed lately the pain descending to encircle me like a corset, an invisible garment woven of pain that could never be unlaced—still I bent and brushed my lips against his brow. Then I rumpled his wild hair and, with a smile, said softly, “Good night, Tommy, and good-bye.” I knew he would be leaving in the morning, and I did not know if I would ever see him again.

  “Tommy.” At the door to my room I impulsively turned back. “Please, if you ever look back and think of me someday, after I’m gone, please, remember me with kindness.”

  “Always,” he promised, “with loving kindness, Amy.”

  His heart was in his voice as well as in his eyes when he said it, and I knew he meant it.

  “Thank you.” I nodded and closed the door behind me, leaning my back against it with my heart pounding like a drum within my breast, and some part of me—my head, my heart, my lust?—wanting to turn around, open that door, and call to Tommy. I wanted to take his hand and lead him to my bed and feel his lips and hands gliding over me and the warmth and weight of his body over mine, flesh to flesh, heart to heart; I wanted to feel like a woman who is loved and desired just one more time before I died.

  But I didn’t do it, though many a time since I’ve wished I had. I didn’t dare; I was a coward. I was too afraid that the desire that leapt and danced like flames in his eyes when he looked at me would turn to disgust when he saw my cancer-ravaged breast, so I let the chance—my last chance—go by. And I was always a good, virtuous wife, even when Robert did not deserve my loyalty and love.

  A few weeks after Tommy had gone, I received an unexpected visitor. Dr. Dee, the Queen’s astrologer and my husband’s former tutor, presented himself at Cumnor and asked to see me. When I heard, I lost my head, I flew into a panic, and, I am ashamed to say, like a little ch
ild, I ran and hid, sitting on the floor, hugging my knees, cowering behind a curtain, wishing myself invisible.

  Though he was esteemed as a brilliant scholar, and people said of him that what he did not know of mathematics, navigation, and the stars was not worth knowing, Dr. Dee blackened his reputation by delving into more eccentric, esoteric subjects that flirted with deviltry. He dabbled in alchemy, trying to find the secret formula for turning base metals into gold, and was said to possess a magic mirror that revealed to him the future, and to be able to read one’s destiny written in the stars above or even in the palm of one’s own hand. And dark rumors of necromancy, magical rituals, dealings with the dead and devils, hung like a black cloak about his shoulders.

  All my fears about Robert came flooding back the day Dr. Dee knocked upon the door.

  I was terrified that my husband had sent him to divine the hour of my death or work some terrible spell against me. Perhaps he was even the one who had sent the little wax dolls and other macabre and ghoulish tokens. I had not taken the hemlock pills, and surely Robert must know it, and Dr. Bayly had written to Robert and refused to administer the potions Robert had sent, so perhaps he had turned to his old tutor for advice and decided to dispense with medicine and deal with the Devil instead.

  Though the Forsters tried to shield me, there were rumors wafting down from London that Robert was sorely afraid that the Queen would get tired of waiting for me to die and set Robert free and would marry one of her many foreign suitors instead. They never ceased to woo her with gifts and pretty speeches, they showered her with jewels, sonnets, and sables, and all her Councilors pressed most urgently, for the good of England and the succession, for her to choose one of them to be her husband. No one—except Robert himself—wanted Robert to be King, and everyone knew that as long as I lived, he hadn’t a chance. Thus rumors abounded that he meant to speed the course of my illness to a faster end with doses of deadly poison disguised as healing drams. My life was nothing to what Robert stood to gain after I was gone. Now I understood all the better why he had pressed me to take the hemlock pills even if they made me feel as if I were lying on the edge of my grave, about to roll in. He wanted me in my grave; he wanted it enough to shove me in himself!

  So when I heard Dr. Dee had come to call, I fled screaming afore him. The breath caught in my throat; I panted and gasped and fell to my knees and crawled behind an arras. I cowered back against the wall even as a hand swept the velvet curtain aside and a kindly-faced man with long white-blond locks and a waist-length beard like gleaming ivory silk smiled down at me.

  “Dear lady, you’ve nothing to fear from me!” he said. “Come.” He reached down his hand to me, upon which was a ring set with a great ruby that glowed as if lit from within by an ember. “Sit and talk with me.”

  His hand drew mine like a magnet—there was something about him that made me want to trust him—but just as our fingers touched, I gasped, uncertain and afraid, and snatched my hand back.

  “No!” I sobbed. “Robert and his mistress, the Queen, have sent you! You will look at my hand and see that I will be cast down into darkness or some such thing! You will make them happy and foretell my doom and leave me even more afraid! Have you brought your black mirror? I will not look in it! I won’t, I won’t, and you cannot make me!” I cried, crazed with terror.

  “My dear child,” Dr. Dee said gently, “you are already cast down into darkness—the darkness of fear and despair—and I don’t need to see your palm or gaze into a black mirror to know it. I can see it on your face and hear it in your voice. Fear is your constant companion; it never leaves you, not even when you sleep.”

  He looked like such a kind man, not at all the sort to consort with demons.

  He chuckled softly, and it was as if he had read my mind. “You were expecting horns and a forked tail and cloven hoofs peeping out from beneath my robes, weren’t you? And these robes”—he touched a fold of his gown—“to be all encrusted with moons and stars and other strange symbols instead of this plain scholar’s black. I’m just a man, my dear,” he continued with a most reassuring smile, “a man with a boundless curiosity about everything, and an insatiable appetite for knowledge of all kinds. Just because I delve into strange mysteries does not mean I am in league with the Devil. I promise you I am not, and there shall be no horoscopes cast, no scrying into mirrors, or scrutinizing of palms or tarot cards. I had some business in Oxford and knew you were in residence here and thought I would stop and see you. Robert was one of my favorite pupils, yet I never had the pleasure of meeting his bride. Come now.” He reached for my hand again, and this time I took it and let him raise me and lead me to sit beside him on the window seat overlooking the park.

  “Y-You ... You ...” Fear still caused my tongue to stick. But Dr. Dee just patted the back of my hand and smiled and nodded encouragingly. “I-I am ...” I paused and in frustration pressed my hand to my brow and shut my eyes. I just couldn’t seem to get the words out!

  “You are no fool, my dear.” Dr. Dee very kindly spoke for me when he saw that I could not. “You know what they say in London, and you also know that I, being the Queen’s astrologer and well acquainted with your husband, know it too.”

  I nodded gratefully and felt the knots in my tongue unfurl, allowing me to at last speak freely.

  “I am dying,” I confided. “I have a cancer here.” I lightly touched my breast. “And they are glad of it, for only my life prevents their marrying. But I am not dying fast enough to suit them! Robert plans to poison me. He has tried before... .”

  I told him all about my stay at Compton Verney, the spices Robert sent that only made me sicker, and of the hemlock pills he had given me, prepared by the Queen’s own apothecary, and Dr. Bayly’s refusal to administer these and the other potions Robert sent, trusting him to persuade me to take them. And I also told him of the little wax dolls with the thorn-impaled breasts, bloody skirts, and locks of yellow hair, and other macabre mementos that had been sent, or left for me to find, since I had been at Cumnor.

  “Please.” I gazed at him desperately. “Do not hurt me!”

  “Never!” Dr. Dee promised me, taking my hand in both of his. “Poor lady, I know you no longer trust anyone, and with good reason, but I swear I would never harm a hair on your head. And I will tell you something else as well, and I pray that you will believe me—you’ve nothing at all to fear from the Queen. I know this to be true. But, with regret, I cannot say the same of your husband. You must be strong here”—he tapped his forehead—“and here”—he touched his own heart—“even though you are frightened and ill and your heart is breaking. Many think there is great power in evil curses and magical spells, but that is not really so. The true power is in the belief itself; those who believe themselves the victims of such things suffer as if they were indeed; by believing, they give those who would curse them the power to actually do so. There is great power in fear; you must loosen its hold on you, for your own sake.”

  We sat and talked a little longer—I was so grateful to have someone listen to me who didn’t scoff or belittle and took seriously all I had to say—until the sun began to set, and Dr. Dee had to take his leave.

  I accompanied him downstairs, and at the door I touched his arm and earnestly implored that if he saw Robert that he would not tell him that I had behaved so badly and received him so ungraciously.

  “My dear”—Dr. Dee smiled at me—“you are a beautiful and charming young woman, and you deserve so much better! Rest assured, I shall say nothing at all to Robert; he did not send me, and I am not his servant. I do not answer to him, and he need never know that I have seen you unless you wish to tell him.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Dee,” I said most gratefully. “I ... I am glad you came to see me. You have helped me more than any other physician.”

  He reached out and cupped my cheek in his hand and leaned down to kiss my brow. “Though a cure for your malady is beyond the powers of medicine as we know it, someday, centuries aft
er our bones have turned to dust, there will be survivors.” And from behind my ear, like a magician at a fair, he drew a pretty pink silk ribbon and looped it ’round my neck like half a figure eight with the ends left dangling.

  “No demons, just a little sleight of hand, my dear.” He smiled and bade me farewell.

  I stopped him with a hand on his sleeve. “Dr. Dee,” I asked with a tremor in my voice, “do you know how long I have left? Have you seen my death in your magic mirror?”

  He shook his head and with a sad little smile flitting across his lips softly quoted a bit of scripture to me:

  “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; A time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time of war, and a time of peace.”