Elizabeth sat on her domed throne in a beautiful black damask gown cut very low on the withered skin of her breasts, indeed almost to the edge of her rosy nipples, causing a general whisper to surge through the courtiers. Mary heard no laughter, but her heart ached for the once beautiful queen who, despite her great age, needed to show she was still so much a woman. Perhaps that need was all that remained of her youth, now that Essex and his love had proved false.
The queen motioned for the dancing to begin. “We would have our ladies choose a virtue and dance for us,” she said in her carrying voice when the orchestra began a saraband.
Mary curtsied in her turn before the throne and repeated the virtue she represented. “Steadfastness, Majesty, in honor of your motto: ‘Always the Same.’ ”
The queen smiled, pleased.
Lady Fitton curtsied to the queen. “Majesty, will you dance with us?”
“And what virtue do you represent, my lady?”
“Affection,” the lady replied, obviously thinking herself clever.
“Affection? Affection’s false!” The queen’s words, laced with scorn, pulsed through the great hall and were not absorbed by the beautiful Arras tapestries hanging from every wall. Now everyone knew she had not forgiven the Earl of Essex, though it was said he slowly recovered his health.
The queen rose to dance, and Mary could almost see the courtiers at that moment deciding to abandon again any friendship or allegiance with Essex. And to make no further wagers in his favor.
Later, a man of middling years, wearing a short cloak slung in old fashion over his left shoulder, and a doublet that did not completely hide his rounding figure, approached the throne and knelt. He added a small silver chest to the many gifts that were gathered about the queen’s feet, and she smiled her thanks.
“Lord Howard, we welcome you to our court and hope you left your lady in better health.”
“Alas, no, Your Grace. The doctors do not give me much hope.”
“Doctors never give hope, cousin, because there is no immediate fee in it.”
“So true, Majesty, though the grace and beauty of your ladies do give a man still in the prime of life . . . more than hope.”
“Mistress Mary Rogers is such a one, my lord, and tonight she calls herself Steadfast. We can confirm that she has this virtue in abundance, being as dutiful as she is beautiful.”
Mary stepped forward and held her hand out to Lord Howard. Now was no time to refuse.
The dance was a slow pavanne, yet his lordship soon begged to sit down. “I would have you know that I am not weary, but seek to speak to you privately.” He led Mary to a window alcove and she sat on the cushioned seat, looking out on the dance floor and its swirling colors and flashing jewels, until he moved to stand in front of her, deliberately drawing her gaze to himself.
She took him for an avid hunter, which would explain his lined face, hard used by outdoor life. He had been a handsome youth and retained his noble features, though he had grown somber with his years.
“My lord, I am most sorry to hear your lady is not improving in health.” Mary thought those words would tell him how she felt, but they did not. He took them for womanly kindness.
“I thank you, Mistress Rogers. It is only a matter of time now. I have no hope of her recovery.”
Mary took a deep breath and looked down at her hands twisting in her lap, searching her mind for an answer that would not insult the queen’s choice, yet would give him knowledge of her feelings.
Lord Howard bent down, his face closer to hers, and she saw he had hard eyes. He would not give up the queen’s promised portion of the salt tax easily.
“When that unhappy day arrives, mistress, I will come for you, though I would tell you now that your firstborn son will not gain the title. Have no illusions of that, since I have five sons living. I will, of course, make ample provision for ours.”
Mary leapt up, nearly knocking into him. “Lord Howard, I beg you . . . I cannot possibly discuss such matters while your wife yet lives.”
Angry, Lord Howard blocked her way, his face florid. Though he opened his mouth to speak, Mary didn’t hear what he would have said.
She dodged past him, thinking of nothing more than heedless escape from the great hall and from the promise she was being forced to make. She pushed her way among courtiers watching the dancing, receiving no permission to leave, but fled out the open doors into the hall, running pell-mell to her grandfather’s rooms.
John Harington stepped from the shadows and she fell into his icy arms. “At last. I had to come; I could wait no longer. But, sweetest girl, have you seen a ghost?”
“No, John, a husband I cannot bear!” Mary cried, and sobbed against his chest, for a moment not caring who saw and reported her conduct. “How came you here? The queen will be furious.”
Minutes later, as he held her trembling body against his growing warmth, she noticed that John was wearing a cockade in a frosty cap of former fashion.
As Mary’s body folded into his, John shook more with desire than with the freezing cold he’d endured waiting through the day’s hours at the Holbein Gate on King Street. Happily, those at court who did not have the rank to be invited to attend the queen’s masque hid in their apartments, so no person of any consequence saw the queen’s godson cradling one of her ladies in a palace hall. Nor did they see him kiss her hair and cheeks, her eyes and lips in the shadowy corner. Or her hands clutch tight to his fast-defrosting doublet.
At last, he reluctantly let her slide down his body until her toes touched the marble floor, though he bent forward to retain his hungry pressure on her lips.
She broke free and panted for breath against his shoulder. “John, dearest . . . I cannot endure this,” she said, her voice so constricted by a lump of emotion he scarcely recognized the throaty sound as hers.
“By God, you will not marry Howard.”
“How can I not? The queen commands. And my grandfather . . . What woman is free to choose?”
“Or what man? How many times did my own father lecture me on the responsibilities that I have, to come to court and marry a title, wealth and property?”
“And why did you not, when you could have many times over . . . and it was what you wanted?” She tried hard not to show how much she yearned to know that answer.
“True,” John said, smiling, “though I think all that long time I was waiting for you.” He released his tight hold so that he could look at her and memorize this passing moment; poignant though it was, it was yet precious because of what was revealed in her face. She loved him and suffered from separation, suffering equal to his own. It was writ plain.
“What you say is that it is impossible for you as well,” she said. “You cannot defy your family and queen, no more than I can deny my oath to serve her as long as she needs me.”
He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh, sweetheart. Least said, soonest mended. We will find a way.”
Mary clutched him hard to her body, her head aching with the mystery of what that way might be.
Sir William opened his door and saw them in the hall. Scowling, he abruptly motioned them inside, and they had no choice but to obey, as several yeoman guards swung around the corner on their rounds.
A fire warmed one side of the small anteroom, throwing flickering light onto the paneled walls and oiled wood floors. A yawning servant poured wine and bowed himself back into a bedchamber, shutting the door soundlessly.
Sir William took Mary’s free hand and led her to a chair. John did not release the hand he held, though he earned another frown from Mary’s grandfather, who then occupied the only other chair.
Mary spoke first. “Grandfather, it is no fault of John’s—”
John could not allow her to speak for him. “Yes, the fault is mine, Sir William. I will not deny that I have done all that is honorable to draw her love to me.”
Sir William sniffed. “Sir John, it is dishonorable on its face to court a lady against the wishes
of her family and her sovereign.”
“Then it is a dishonor I share with countless men and maids through time, sir, as written so well by Master Shakespeare in his Romeo and Juliet.”
Sir William looked even more impatient. “I do not frequent low playhouses filled with masterless men and pick-a-pockets.”
John smiled. “My real hope, sir, is that the amendment I have wrought to my own character will bring both you and Her Majesty to change your minds and grant Mary and me the happiness—”
Impatiently, Mary’s grandfather stood, confronting John. “That is always the futile hope of the young, though when you are older you will know true happiness comes from following right courses as well thought by wiser heads.” He finished his wine in a gulp, though it made his eyes tear. “Do you think I can possibly give you consent when Her Majesty has flattered our family with her generous attention?” He pointed a finger at John. “If you continue this illicit courtship, you, sir, will end in the Tower and take my granddaughter with you. Is that your selfish wish?”
John stood straighter, well over a head taller than Sir William. “No, sir, my one wish is for her happiness . . . and, I won’t deny it, the only hope I have for my own.”
“If you wish her true happiness, leave her to the better future Her Majesty and I have planned for her. For sweet Christ’s sake, sir, she is offered a noble name and rank. Do you offer more?”
“Yes, Sir William.”
“Love again,” he said, almost spitting out the words, his face showing that he had long forgotten a time when he had felt that uniquely breathless urge. “You are no beardless youth, no poet despite your ambitions. You should know much better, or, not knowing, heed the counsel of those who do.”
“Grandfather!” Mary stood, still clinging to John’s hand. “As you love me . . .”
Sir William stepped quickly to the door, wrenched it open and shouted, “Guards!”
John saw that the man was now so angry he could not hear. Bowing to Sir William, John kissed Mary’s hand, taking it to his heart and pressing hard. “We will be together,” he whispered. “I am not without resources.” Then he walked quickly out the door and down the hall, this time without her body clinging to his, though he felt the curves and hollows of her still.
He made his way down the long stone gallery and out to where his hired carriage waited. Though the howling tempest had somewhat abated, he did not hear his name being called behind him, nor see Mary run from the shelter of the huge door and down the steps, her hair loosened from its gold netting, swirling wildly about her face.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A LETTER TO JAMES OF SCOTLAND “Now to confess my kind taking of all your loving offers and vows that naught shall be concealed from me . . . Let others promise, and I will do as much with truth as others with wiles.”
—Elizabeth Regina
February 14, 1600
Whitehall Palace
For weeks the queen had maintained an unnerving silence about Mary’s flight from the great hall and from Lord Howard, so that Mary had some understanding sympathy for Essex, waiting daily for a word of forgiveness, a word that the queen seemed in no hurry to send. Mary thought that waiting for the queen’s wrath to fall was far worse than having that anger fully expressed.
Lady Fitton, now firmly installed as the premier court flirt, could scarcely contain her pleasure at the gossip surrounding Mary’s behavior. Speaking aloud in the presence chamber, that lady remarked in the queen’s hearing: “Today, being St. Valentine’s and the day when birds choose their mates, I ask you: What manner of lady is this Mary Rogers? I for one would fear for my sanity if I refused a great lord, and my family would certainly disown me for a Bedlamite.”
The queen had ignored that silly, gossiping minx. But she also ignored Mary.
Mary’s comfort lay in John’s letters, loving, exciting and full of his special humor. In the peace of the royal linen closet, she reread or touched them tucked beneath her stomacher. He called himself Lord of the Jakes, and made her laugh with stories of his battles with Windsor Palace grooms who were suspicious and even afraid they would fall into his invention and be swept into the cesspit and thence into the Thames, the largest cesspit of all. Yet each letter was followed by Mary’s own greater turmoil. Could she ever bring herself to betray the queen’s wishes, even for John? Could she? All her young life, she had yearned for this place at court that the queen had given her. Was she so ungrateful? Was she, after all, just like Lady Katherine, and would she pay the same terrible price?
One morning in late February, as she was pressing body linen, lowering the press and turning it as tight as she could, the queen entered the closet. Mary curtsied almost to the floor, pulling her hands inside her full oversleeves to keep them from visibly shaking. In all these months of her service, the queen had never appeared in her own linen room.
“We have heard from Lord Howard,” Her Majesty said in a soft voice.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Did the queen’s composure mean that she was no longer angry?
“He is a most understanding lord, Mouse, and now we do see your behavior for what it was,” Her Majesty said, looking at the neat piles of linen ready to be stored away in their chests. “You serve us well, knowing our need before we do, as if you had been tutored in how to please us.”
Mary kept her head bowed, sending her prayerful thanks to Lady Kate in heaven.
“Indeed, daughter,” the queen said tenderly, “we do never want another lady save you to care for our body linen.”
Daughter? My sweet Jesus! Mary realized that Elizabeth really believed in her own motherhood, and she was deeply touched. This great queen who controlled powerful men, and had defeated every armada sent against her by Spain, must fill her empty womb with pretend daughters.
Mary remained humble, although the queen had paid her a high compliment, while seeming to lose her thoughts between Lord Howard and the linen.
“Oh, yes,” the queen said, as if waking, “Howard thinks you a tender virgin who was distressed by his forward speaking . . . while his wife yet lived. He has the right of this, we think?”
Mary sought an answer that would not be a lie. “Your Grace, I will not deny that I was very troubled by talk of marriage and children with a man whose wife lay so ill.”
Elizabeth held out her beautiful, long-fingered white hand to be kissed, one finger containing her coronation ring, and Mary put her lips to that finger, though the creased skin was cold under her lips. “Majesty, may I fetch gloves for you?”
The queen smiled. “Yes, bring us the red Spanish leather gloves. Not perfumed, mind you. Our morning porridge was disagreeable.”
Mary rushed to the chest that held the queen’s gloves and took them to her. The queen nodded, and Mary backed to the ladies’ bedchamber, where she found Lady Fitton crying, in obvious distress.
“What has happened?” Mary asked, thinking some bad news had arrived, and fearing that it was dire if it had upset this pert maid.
The lady seemed not to be able to control her sobs. “He . . . he . . . won’t . . .” She threw herself on her bed and into a pillow so hard that swan feathers floated up and settled back into her hair.
“Who are you talking of?” Was it Essex? Surely not John. Mary shook the girl. “Who? What man? Name him!”
“The Earl of . . . Pembroke,” Lady Fitton said.
Mary was startled by the name. “The same earl who once married Lady Katherine Grey . . . surely his son.”
“Grandson,” Lady Fitton answered, and again sobbed and swallowed convulsively. “The queen has sent him to prison in the Tower.”
“Why?”
The girl answered in a voice so soft that Mary had to bend to hear. “I am with child. His child!” The last word rose to a tremulous wail.
“Calm yourself. The queen will insist on a marriage. Her Majesty cannot endure public censure of her ladies. It reflects on her. She forced Raleigh to marry Lady Throckmorton and Southampton to marry th
e—”
The distraught girl sobbed convulsively. “He . . . he refused . . . preferring the Tower to meee.” The lady gulped back more tears, her voice fading to a whisper. “He told the queen that I was unfit to be his countess.”
“What!”
Lady Fitton handed Mary a crumpled, tearstained note, signed with the earl’s signet.
For if with one, with thousands you turn whore,
Break ice in one place and it cracks the more.
Mary shuddered for her. The girl had sought a rich husband in the wrong way and had played the flirt, going much too far, it appeared. Yet Mary had heard nothing quite so cruel as this man’s reply, though it was common enough thinking.
“What will you do?”
“What can I do?” Lady Fitton said, raising her blotched and swollen face. “The queen has sent for me. I am afraid—”
“Her Grace is kindness itself today,” Mary said, unable to think of other words to soothe the girl.
Lady Margaret appeared in the door and her voice brought no comfort, nor did the look on her face. “The queen will see you immediately, Lady Fitton. Gain control of your weeping. Her Majesty cannot abide such.”
Mary looked a question at Lady Margaret, who nodded.
Smoothing her gown and removing a swan feather lodged in a ribbon, Mary followed the pair. Lady Margaret gripped Fitton’s arm and pushed her into the queen’s presence.
Her Majesty stood near the large fireplace, her features now as distorted with anger as they had been gently arranged earlier in the linen closet.
Lady Fitton fell to her knees. “Forgive me, Majesty, for I am not at fault. He promised to marry me, or I would never—”
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