“Were my lady’s sons with him?” the ancient nurse asked, sitting by the fire to heat her cold bones.
“No, but the earl spoke to the queen on their behalf.” Mary expected that Sybil would ask what the queen had responded and formed a gentle answer. But the nurse, having reached the great age of near eighty years, had fallen asleep.
Mary’s letter of apology to the queen had been graciously received, and Her Majesty’s mistress of the sweet herbs was ordered to return to court in all haste once her grandfather’s affairs were settled. The answer signed by the queen’s own hand filled her with tremendous joy. She was relieved to learn that she had found the right words, having agonized over every sentence, but finally yielding up formal phrases to a simple country truth:
Majesty, I am heartily sorry for my offense to your Kindness. I live for the hour I again may greet you in Health.
Your loving and grateful,
Mouse
By mid-August at last her chests were packed, and she took carriage for Kelston Manor, a near full day’s journey from central Somerset northwest toward the Mendip Hills. All those long hours she imagined John, not as she’d last seen him more than halfway to death in the Lord Mayor’s upper chamber, but as he had been on her first day at court, when he had maddened and intrigued her by turn, weaving a web of passion about her that she would never throw off.
Though the sun was low, it was yet full summer light when she arrived at John’s manor, half ancient stone, half recent timber, the old moat filled in and planted with a knot garden and fountain. Kelston sat nobly on a hill, where she was greeted by a pack of dogs and John limping toward her down a neat graveled entry path. He was thinner, his hair longer, his face clean shaven but pale from lying abed. He opened her carriage door before the coachman could dismount. She took his hand and stepped down, her body nearly numb from hours of jarring travel over rutted, dusty roads.
“Mary,” he shouted, and tossed his crutch into a hedge. He almost fell into her, wrapping her in his arms, her name a breath against her ear: “Mary, Mary.”
She clung to him, heedless of his sister or the curious onlooking servants, her heart pounding against his, and for long minutes she said nothing. It was enough to touch him, to sense his life restored, a life she had so lately feared was lost to her.
When they parted, she asked, “John, what happened to your leg?”
“Ankle broken when I leapt from Essex’s library window,” he answered, but quickly added, “Mended well.”
“And your wound,” she said, touching his shoulder lightly.
“Practically healed. I have but to regain my strength lost abed these months. My sister is a most diligent nurse.” He bent close and she hoped he would kiss her, but his sister approached and they were introduced, exchanging courtesies.
“Mistress Rogers, do not believe his tales of vitality. The wound suppurated and poisoned his body. His doctors have prescribed gold pills for strength, which he refuses to take. Tell him, mistress, that he will need them to be a Queen’s Champion.” She smiled, and Mary knew Lora did not expect her brother to heed her. John retrieved his crutch and they walked into the manor’s great hall.
“I have longed to meet you,” Lora said, “since John talks of no one but you until I think there must be no other beautiful lady at court.”
“Your brother often exaggerates,” Mary said, failing to hide her delight.
“He has been known to do so.”
Lora smiled, and Mary saw John’s smile in his sister’s. “Madam, I thank you for your welcome. Your brother is most fortunate in his nurse.”
Impatient with talk, John escorted Mary through the hall, servants on both sides bowing and dipping as if she were the returning mistress of the house. She was embarrassed. “You do me too much honor, John.”
“Never too much,” he said. “How long can you remain?”
“A few days at best. The queen has recalled me to court.”
“I will show Mistress Rogers to her bedchamber,” John said, his tone that of master of the manor. Lora excused herself to supervise the supper.
He climbed the stairs, refusing to lean on his crutch or Mary, and opened the door of a large bedchamber, waiting impatiently for servants to deposit her chests. “Send a maid to serve Mistress Rogers . . . in an hour,” he ordered, and they bowed themselves into the gallery.
As the door closed he grasped her to him and kissed her hungrily, his mouth as warm against hers as it ever had been, and as demanding.
Breathing rapidly, she leaned away, her gaze never leaving his. “Your sister is quite wrong, sir. You are obviously once again ready to be a champion.”
“Did I startle you? Forgive me, sweetheart. It’s been so long,” he said, pulling her to him once again. “I think I died and am now just come back to full life.”
He swayed when he released her, and she drew him to a chair. “Sit yourself, John. You are not as strong as you want to believe you are.”
“I am strong enough to show my love,” he said.
“I believe you, sir,” she said with a lighter tone. But her teeth were chattering with unspent passion and she drew a step away from his temptation. “I have news, John.” She retrieved Lady Margaret’s letter from her pocket, worn and creased from many readings, and handed it to him.
He scanned it swiftly, looking up at her before reading it again. “Did the queen change her mind about Lord Howard?” he asked, puzzled. Before Mary could answer he thought again. “Or was all this torment just diplomacy?”
As he bent forward to take her hands in his, Mary answered: “John, dear, I don’t think Her Majesty knows herself. She has always refused to be ruled by her heart, would not listen to talk of love. Why would she change now?”
“Because, sweetheart, it is her last chance to show she can.”
Mary breathed in, gathering his hope. “John, you are a romantic.”
He clasped her hands tighter. “You didn’t know?”
A flood of love filled her heart. He had not changed. He’d been badly wounded, they’d spent months apart, and nothing had changed between them.
Three days passed too swiftly. They spent long hours in the knot garden, talking about a future they could only dream of, painting word pictures of their hopes as they wanted them to be. But that was enough when all such dreams had been impossible for so long.
She thought he might come to her one night and waited until she heard the clock strike twelve, but he honored her and himself. Once, unable to sleep, she went to her window and saw him sitting on a garden bench under a bright moon, watching her chamber.
John’s manor was larger than her grandfather’s. Twice they wound their way by cart about his land. She admired his sheep run, his cow herd supping on lush, warm grass, from whose milk John made Harington sharp cheddar cheese. In his barn as maids stirred the vats of milk with large pierced paddles, he boasted, “The best cheddar in Somerset.”
John took her to his cellars where the cheese had aged for twelve months and cut her a piece. Mary agreed it was the best she’d ever eaten, exclaiming happily at every nibble, and thus found herself eating pungent cheddar thrice a day. She loved the way he could not stop himself from pleasing her or herself from pleasing him with every bite. “You are a champion cheese maker, Sir John Harington.”
All too soon, it came time for Mary to leave, as she knew how Elizabeth disliked waiting. “How long?” she said, clinging to him after saying her good-bye to his sister.
“You have added to my strength, sweetheart,” he said at the carriage door. “I will return to court before the rains make the roads impassible. I could not spend another winter from you.”
He kissed her with half his servants looking on. “Godspeed, Mary, Mary.”
She had to gather all her strength to leave him, and all her strength was scarce enough. She looked back from the window, waving until John, his manor and the surrounding hills were lost in early-morning haze.
CHAPTER SIX
TEEN
“Who else but a king could succeed me?”
—Elizabeth Regina
March 1603
Richmond Palace
“Two years. Two years and another come again,” the queen said, deep in melancholy before the great stone fireplace of her bedchamber, her eyes staring, her chin sunk to her chest. A winter cold that had settled there made the words from a sore throat almost unintelligible. Elizabeth had removed the court from Whitehall to Richmond Palace in January, when it was no weather for river travel. But she would have it so, and she did, this lingering, worrisome illness resulting.
Mary did not need to wonder what the queen’s cheerless words meant. Elizabeth marked each anniversary of Essex’s death in deep melancholy. And at other times, coming suddenly upon her, Mary would find the queen rereading the letter he’d written to her from the Tower the night before his execution.
“Why, daughter? Why could he not bend to me?” the queen asked again, as she had so many times before.
And again Mary knew the queen expected no answer, and Mary had none to give her, or none she could give without increasing Her Majesty’s sore heart, which she would never do.
Ambition, blind or otherwise, a thirst for power, a handsome, vain young man’s need to dominate an infatuated older woman . . . these were answers enough, yet there were other reasons that few, especially not the queen, could know or accept—faults of her own.
If Elizabeth had only punished him earlier, but she had too often indulged his childish quarrels and demands, forgiven him too much, thinking him still the spoiled boy Robin had left for her comfort so long ago. She was unaware at what point the boy had crossed the line from being irresponsible to a man become a treacherous danger, determined to rule her.
Could such a hurting truth be borne by a faded, aged beauty without a mirror for truth, when handsome young courtiers continued to write sonnets to her enduring loveliness, to call her Diana, the Fairie Queen and Gloriana? True, these verses had become fewer in late days, as courtiers slipped north to pledge their service to James of Scotland. And the sweet words still spoken caused scarcely disguised amusement from some who overheard them.
But it was too cruel to say these thoughts aloud, even though she and John had talked often of them when they could since his return to court, not as recovered as he should have been, but unable to be separated longer.
As Queen’s Champion, he had spent much of the past year in Ireland with Lord Mountjoy, who now won battles where Essex had failed, chasing the Irish rebels into hiding. Although John proudly did his duty, he railed in their private letters against a courtship conducted by the pen when he had quite another method in mind. He had finally returned to court a fortnight earlier, determined to beg the queen to change her mind.
Elizabeth coughed, a deep, rasping cough that hastened Mary to her. She made a soothing sound and coaxed Elizabeth to take another spoonful of the doctor’s decoction of purslane, white poppies and cinnamon. “Majesty, it is a restorative for coughs.” Mary did not add that it was also prescribed for the pining sickness.
The queen roused herself and looked about as if first waking. “Call my lady Warwick to me.” Her voice was childish, fretful, as Mary heard it often of late.
Mary said softly, “Majesty, the Countess of Warwick is dead.”
“Dead! Anne?” The queen’s chin settled on her chest again. “Yes, these near three years gone . . . dreaming . . . dreaming.”
She had been forgetful before, but such periods had been followed by days of walking and riding, her old high wit filling the presence chamber. Last summer she had gone on her progress to Surrey and north, almost the old Elizabeth. But she had been forgetful like this now for days, and lethargic, calling for the trusted dead, her mind soon wandering from the answer.
A gentleman usher advanced and knelt. “Your Grace, Sir John Harington begs audience.”
“Admit him,” the queen rasped without raising her head.
John swept into the room like a fresh breeze from the queen’s garden, though it was yet frost-covered, as were John’s beard and mustache, flecked with white hairs before his time. His recovery had been long, and his efforts at haste had caused health to return more slowly, leaving both him and Mary with this reminder of how near he had come to death. She trembled with excitement as he approached. It was the same no matter how many times she saw him in a day, each meeting like the first time.
Mary went to him before he could reach the queen, and although it pained her to tell him to wait for what they both had awaited for too long, she did so: “John, dearest, Her Grace is very weak. Do not worry her with our business now.”
He grimaced, and she knew that she asked the impossible.
“Majesty,” he said, kneeling, holding out to her a small blue clay pot with a single full-bloomed, golden Holland tulip. “When the flowers heard you were ill, they came out to cheer you.”
The queen smiled wanly. “You forced this one by helping it to think it full spring.”
“Nay, godmother.” He grinned. “I but encouraged it, told it of your illness, and it came right up and opened to gladden your heart.”
“Boy Jack, when you feel creeping time at the gate, fooleries will please you less.” But she gave him her hand to kiss and, after, rested it lovingly on his cheek for a moment before she let it fall open to her lap.
Mary held her breath, knowing John saw that the queen was dying and he could wait no longer.
“Godmother,” he said softly, “I beg you to grant my dearest wish.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and did not answer.
John looked at Mary and she shook her head in warning, but he did not heed the signal, perhaps could not.
“I love Mary Rogers with all my heart and body and have done since first I saw her. I would make her my honored wife.”
Mary held her breath until she grew dizzy and was forced to take in air.
The queen coughed, her eyes opening. “Jack, love is no basis for marriage. We, who have kingdoms, have not . . .” The words trailed away and her eyes closed.
“Majesty, I beg you.”
Elizabeth spoke, using all her breath. “We have chosen a more suitable prospect in Lord Howard, as is our duty to our daughter. We sent him away until we no longer needed Mistress Mary’s service. No doubt that eager lord is on his way to London on hearing of our illness. If his way is flooded, he will swim to us.” She smiled grimly at her own words. “If God allows me more life, I will need all my loyal northern lords.” She filled her lungs, emptied with so much talk. “Let us hear no more on the matter, sir. We have given our word.” The deliberate smile that had faded returned. “You will live, sir. Love does not kill.” Her eyes opened full at hearing her own words. “Unless it betrays,” she added.
John, his face drained of hope, looked at Mary, who blinked thrice. It was their signal that she would come to him later in his rooms.
It was late afternoon before she could escape her duties, but finally the queen’s physicians coaxed her to take a draft that helped her to rest, though she refused her bed.
Mary was admitted to John’s rooms to find him packing his saddlebags. She had no words of comfort, needing them herself. “John, no. Stop!”
But he didn’t stop, stuffing breeches and a clean shirt into the leather bags. When he spoke, his anger poured out. “I’ve waited these three years. You cannot ask more of me. She cannot ask more of you. You have done your duty. Leave with me now!”
“John, dearest John, all about her, those whom she has raised high are leaving, pleading illness, infirmity or simply gone without excuse,” Mary said, her throat swelling with too many emotions. “They have hurt her deeply. I cannot forsake her now. Do not ask it.”
He was beyond reasoning, his face betraying only anguish. “Howard could be here any day, and she will sign the marriage warrant. She did not allow herself to marry for love of Robert Dudley, and the years have taken away the memory of that pain.”
“I love her as you do and would give up my life for her. But not yours, Mary. Not yours.” John’s intense gaze held hers. “We must leave tonight. Are you with me?”
“John, it is my dearest wish never to be parted from you, but . . .”
“But what?”
“It is not within me to leave her in her last hours. She clings to me . . . needs me more now than ever.”
“She scarce knows who is yet with her. Others will physick her,” he said loudly, frustration and anger boiling to the surface.
“But none left to serve her with love.”
The large empty wine cup she saw by the bed, whose effect she heard in his headlong speech, answered her. “Her long life is ne’er over. Ours could begin,” he said.
“Do not ask me to break my vow.” Mary nearly choked on her next words, but she was reaching for any compromise that would hold him. “Lord Howard cannot live long, and then . . .”
John recoiled. “Do not offer me some far-off prospect. I will wait no longer. Do you think I can bear to stand aside and see you handed to that old man?”
“But, John, yours is an impossible choice for me. Lady Katherine Grey left her. All my life, I knew that I would serve her better.”
“So this is prideful triumph over a dead woman?”
Mary put her hand on the saddlebags stuffed with his belongings. “I no longer know what comes from my own tongue. Or yours,” she whispered, then fell to her knees before him, her head bowed. “Please, John.” It was a prayer.
He grabbed her and pulled her roughly up, crushing her against him, his lips overwhelming her words.
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