‘They were not!’ he protested. ‘When I am king, I will visit my American subjects and invite you to accompany me. No husband could be cruel, or foolish, enough to forbid his wife to accept an invitation from the king of England, Scotland and the Americas.’
I shrugged. ‘Who knows where I’ll be by then?’
I could scarcely pretend interest in his outrage a few weeks later at the arrival from Florence of the portraits of two Catholic Medici princesses.
How could I ever before have imagined that I felt old?
One morning, a doctor was waiting among my petitioners. Cecil had sent him.
‘I’m quite well!’ I said angrily.
‘Being not entirely well himself, Lord Salisbury is alert for signs of illness in others,’ the man said tactfully. ‘Perhaps you would allow me to reassure him?’
I was so startled by the news that Cecil himself was not well that I allowed the doctor to feel my pulse, examine my eyes and tongue and smell my breath. I had no doubt that the contents of my close stool had already been carried off and scrutinised. He said only that I might want to take more air and not to over-tire myself.
I was already taking that advice. More and more often, I went to sit on the Privy Stairs.
‘You don’t mean to swim like his highness, your brother, then?’ one of the men-at-arms asked me the first few times.
I knew he wanted one of my pert replies to repeat in the guardroom, but I could only shake my head. The jest soon grew stale. The guards grew used to me and continued to talk quietly among themselves while I looked down into the water for an hour at a time and imagined sinking deeper and deeper until no one could ever find me. I wondered if Henry ever imagined the same. If I had ever had any secret strength, my father had now disarmed me with constant confusion and uncertainty.
49
I was taking refuge in my brother’s company at St James’s one rainy afternoon, pretending to leaf through a pile of architect’s drawings on a window seat in the white-plastered small presence chamber, when Bacon arrived. A cool silence greeted him.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Bacon. ‘Your highness.’ He gave his tight-lipped smile that reminded me of a snarl. ‘Nursing sore heads today, are we?’ He bowed. Then bobbed his head again at me. His eyes made an inventory of who was there.
Sir John Harington and one or two others gave him polite smiles. However, Bacon’s quarry was Henry.
‘Your highness,’ said Bacon. ‘I beg leave to presume and speak to you as a true friend.’
Cecil must be very ill indeed, I thought. His cousin is already elbowing into his place.
‘A true friend never needs to beg,’ said Henry. ‘May I hope that you mean to offer me another piece of writing?’
‘Mere spoken words, this time, your grace.’ Bacon jerked his head at the other gentlemen. ‘In private, if it please your highness.’
Henry let Bacon draw him aside, to the side of the gallery where I was standing by a window now watching raindropsrun down the diamond panes to join in little rivers along the lead joints. Henry’s knights withdrew to the far end of the long gallery.
‘I have been hoping to find you alone, your highness,’ said Bacon. ‘But you are always so densely surrounded by your many admirers that I began to despair, wondering how I was to unburden my heart of a matter that concerns me deeply.’ He pressed one hand against his heart as if his concern could scarcely be contained except by force. ‘I pray that you will not think me presumptuous if I say that some of my concern is for your royal self.’
Over Bacon’s shoulder, Henry sent me a quick amused look. I know what you think of the man, said his eyes. But it’s my duty to listen to him. And possibly, to learn. Then he turned onto Bacon the open, attentive and friendly regard that made both men and women love him. Only I knew how hard he worked to achieve that look and how tiring he often found it.
Sir Francis clearly found it encouraging. ‘I have noted, your highness, that you have of late seemed cast down and I am willing to hazard that I…’ He turned his back to me and leaned close to my brother, speaking so low that no one else could hear.
At first, I felt rather than saw the change in Henry.
As Sir Francis murmured into his ear, my brother reddened, then went white, not merely pale, but chalky, paler than the most slighting word from our father had ever bleached him. Even from my distance, I could see a white border form around his mouth like a welt.
I still pretended to watch the rain.
Sir Francis seemed to notice nothing amiss. Even when Henry stepped sideways as if trying to escape, Bacon merely turned with him, still murmuring, his eyebrows raised in expectation of some sign of agreement.
How could the man not see Henry’s clenched fists? Evenfrom my window niche, I saw my brother’s knuckle bones threatening to split the skin. Even from twenty feet away, I could feel the icy chill of his frozen stillness.
Oblivious, Sir Francis made smooth gestures with his well-manicured hands. He waved away an invisible thing, an unworthy thought. On one hand, we reject this, said his gestures. And then, on the other we have this, you and I, oh, how much, much better. He leaned even closer to my brother. And I offer it to you, said his hands.
Henry bowed his head, a gesture which Sir Francis seemed to read as acquiescence.
Sir Francis continued to murmur to my brother, both grovelling and condescending at the same time, as only he could manage. Henry raised his head again and stared fixedly past him, waiting for the man to finish. Sir Francis reached his conclusion. He touched my brother’s arm with an insinuating intimacy and stepped back looking pleased with himself.
Henry’s eyes dropped to his sleeve, where Bacon had touched him. His lips puckered as if he meant to spit out a gobbet of rotten meat. The silence grew. I heard boots shifting on the floor farther along the gallery. Bacon began to look puzzled.
‘How do you dare?’ The words escaped between Henry’s clenched teeth, so quietly that I barely heard them. ‘Men hang for that.’
‘Your highness?’ Bacon leaned closer again, as if he had either not heard or else disbelieved. He shook his head. ‘Not kings.’
Henry stared past him. ‘I forbid you ever to speak to me on this or any other subject. I do not want to see you again at St James’s nor my lodgings here at Whitehall. I don’t yet, alas, have the power to banish you from the court altogether, but I will do it when the power is mine, if you ever again dare show your face to me!’
I had never seen my brother so angry.
‘Your highness, I never meant…!’
‘Leave me!’
‘But wherein did I speak false?’ Bacon still looked startled and a little aggrieved, as if a previously friendly dog had just bitten his hand.
Henry raised his head and gave Bacon a look that stood the hairs up on my neck. Bacon staggered a step back, recovered his balance, bowed, and left.
His footsteps were the only sound in the room. When he passed me, puzzlement and disbelief were already giving way to calculation in his sharp dark eyes.
Henry flung himself to the nearest window and stared out.
‘By Cock, that man leaves a bad taste in the mouth,’ said Sir John.
‘Fine in the box,’ said Henry tightly without taking his eyes from the rain.
Silently, Sir John put his tuppence in the swearing box. We all listened to the tiny dull clink. I decided that he had sworn as a deliberate diversion. ‘A good afternoon for tennis,’ he observed after a moment. ‘Henry?’
My brother waved for them all to go. I decided that I had not been included in his wave.
‘Was he slandering Cecil again?’ I ventured when the others had gone.
‘Leave me alone! Don’t you, of all people, start prying into my private life!’ He turned and left the gallery, headed for his own lodgings.
I watched him go, feeling as if he had slapped me. I was also certain that he was crying. And that I had seen fear in his eyes as well as rage.
50
/>
I had seen Henry angry. I had seen him downcast. I had seen him fretful and half-dead with tedium. But I had never before seen him lose his grip on himself, not even when our father snubbed him in public. My world wobbled. Like the shorn Samson, my ally and protector had lost his strength. Bacon had cast a dark spell on my brother. I didn’t know how it might be lifted, but I knew that I must try. My turn to rescue him. It was an odd thought.
Henry ate supper in his rooms that night. After supper, I went to his bedchamber, where his chamberer told me that the prince had gone to sleep early with a megrim.
I found several of his gentlemen playing cards by the fire in the presence chamber. Lynn told me that the prince had not come to join the after-supper tennis. Filled with fear for him, I gave up for the moment and went back to my own lodgings.
The following day, the rain stopped. In the late morning, crossing the gallery over the Holbein Gate, I spied my brother in the tiltyard, practising on foot with two of his men-at-arms, thrusting at each other with tilting lances across a waist-high barrier. I knew him even at a distance by his fierce strength and the unicorn on his helmet. I ran down into the spectators’ gallery.
Yesterday’s rain had turned the dust to mud, which clumped onto the fighters’ feet to give them pudding-bowl hoofs like plough horses. Henry thrust at his opponent again and again with the short lance used when they fought without horses, beating at the breast-plate of the half-armour they wore. I listened to the thud and clang and watched my brother beat ferociously at his opponent.
‘A hit!’ he cried. ‘And again!’
The force of his thrust pushed the other man off-balance. As his enemy clattered to the ground, Henry turned and ran at the quintain, set to one side on its pivot, waiting to be used for mounted practice. He struck the dummy figure dead centre with the tip of his lance. Then he backed up and ran at it again. Then again. And again. Even twenty feet away, I could hear his harsh breathing.
‘Henry,’ I called.
He did not hear me. He charged the quintain once again, sucking at the air now like a man with the quinsy.
The man-at-arms climbed to his feet and brushed at the mud on his thighs and buttocks. He and his comrade watched their prince from the far side of the waist-high barrier as he kept running at the dummy. Though lighter than the arms and armour used for the mounted tilt, both the steel halfarmour and lance were heavy, never meant for this repeated attack. Trying to use the unwieldy lance as a sword, Henry was beginning to tire.
He landed a blow off-centre. Ducked to avoid the spinning weight designed to punish any blow that missed the target point. He missed the centre again with his next attack. Then hit it. Then missed yet again and took the blow of the whirling sandbag on the side of his helmet. I felt the thud jolt my bones. Henry crumpled to his knees and stayed there, as if praying.
I started to run down into the yard, but his men vaulted the waist-high barrier and reached him first.
He waved them away, planted the grip of his lance in the mud and climbed it hand over hand until he was on his feet again. After a moment, he lifted his lance as if he meant to run at the quintain again. He took three steps, stopped, seemed to come to himself. He turned to hand his lance to one of the men-at-arms, then held out his arms so that they could undo the screws on his shoulders and unbuckle his breastplate from the back-guard.
He lifted off his helmet. ‘I was careless,’ he said. ‘Deserved that thump. Just as well we weren’t in battle. Which of you will give me a game of tennis?’
He didn’t look at me, but he didn’t tell me not to follow and watch the game, neither. His gentlemen had divined his humour. They let him win all three games of tennis he played but made him work hard enough for his victories to satisfy whatever demon was driving him. At suppertime he vanished.
He did not appear among ladies and gentlemen who gathered after supper in one of the great parlours. Then Tallie learned from one of his chamber grooms that the prince had gone swimming in the Thames.
I went down to the Privy Stairs. Apart from the guards, the water steps were deserted. The wake from passing boats splashed gently against the pilings. There was a three-quarters moon. Out on the dark water, I saw a small rowing boat and the white shirt of the oarsman. Beyond the boat, I saw the indistinct bobbing head of my brother.
The head seemed to vanish. For a terrible moment, I thought he might mean to drown himself and opened my mouth to scream ‘no!'. Then he surfaced from his dive.
I felt suddenly certain that I must not interrupt the thoughts he was chasing through the dark water.
51
HENRY
Swim.
Don’t think about it. Smile. Continue to get through the days with effort and sweat. You are watched. You are the ideal. You are the model, the next king of England. You must be perfect in every way. (… except in being a real man… no one must ever know. How did Bacon guess? What is wrong with me? Am I to turn out like my father, after all? A foolish gull who can be twisted about the slim white fingers of any pretty boy?… Slim white fingers that will touch him… Even the thought is intolerably wicked!)
Bacon lies! None of it is true! Cannot be true! I will not permit it to be true! Duty will carry me. My father, for all his weaknesses, understands that. And God understands. I have been chosen for this uncomfortable part. I accept it. God wills it. England wills it. Therefore, I will it.
I wish I could stop dreaming. I start each day by forgetting my dreams. Too messy, too dangerous. Forest, where I hear howling and strange animal grunts, close behind my heel, too dark to see them, but they’re there. Sniffing after me. If I can run fast enough, I willreach sunlight again – that clearing I see ahead, that open meadow, and leave those trackers snapping their jaws in the shadows.
Dive, down, down, colder and colder. Something brushes my leg. Back up! Back up! Dear God, please, where’s the surface, and light! Moonlight.
Everything around me is too much. Men talk too much, smile too much. They bow too low. They stuff too much food into their mouths, drink too much, talk too loudly. There’s a disgusting amount of food on our table at dinner. I would be happy with bread and a slice of cold meat. A few nuts. A single mug of small beer. There are too many female breasts on display, too many lips parting over white teeth, too much flesh, like the display on a butcher’s stall. Meat for the taking. Being pushed at me, as if I were a Cannibal.
What is wrong with me? I smile knowingly when my men speak of Frances Howard… I can hardly bear to think of her. So far, she has seemed to keep her mouth shut, at least to the court at large. Secretly, I study her uncle and Carr for signs of mockery or derision. But the Howard clan want to put one of their women on the throne again – though I can’t think why, given the fate of the last Howard queen. Until all her last hopes are gone of being my queen, she’ll keep my failure as a man to herself. Given the family reputation, she’d likely manage to get a ‘royal’ babe planted, and dare me to damn myself by accusing her… who of her male acquaintance is ambitious enough, and daring enough to be her impregnating angel? Is that her game with Carr?
Reach, kick. Reach, kick. Feel each forward surge. No time to think… of anything… else… Who is that on the Privy Stairs?
My sister, my female self! She’s there now, on the steps, looking for me. Fearing for me. Yes. I confess to needing that fear. I saw it in her eyes today. I would marry her, if I could… Mustn’t even thinksuch thoughts. But we could rule as brother and sister. I think such things were done in ancient times… must ask my tutor. He will know, and is endlessly patient with me… God knows, he needs to be! Everyone praises my ‘wisdom’ and my ‘pleasant wit'. What lies they tell! But I must let them lie. It’s their part, just as accepting their praise is mine. At least, I am truly courageous. At least, I think I am. I don’t fear war, I almost wish we weren’t at peace. I relish fighting. Never happier than when riding at the tilt, or playing tennis against a challenging opponent. My father is a conciliator, an equivocat
or. ‘The Peacemaker King,’ he calls himself. Promising all comers whatever they want. So why does he wear a padded doublet against a possible knife attack?
Via media? How dare he preach his ‘Middle Way'? My father is the worst of the excess around me here at Whitehall. His tongue is too large, his laugh too loud, his appetites so coarse and open. The bread crumbs and shreds of meat down the front of his coat. The vulgar size of his jewels, and his open delight in their sheer extravagance. He doesn’t care what men think of him. Because he is king. Because, if he lets himself begin to think about what sort of man he is, he will never sleep easy again. This new Bible of his is mere religious posturing. He’ll lose interest soon and be on to something else.
He holds steady to nothing. The curious jackdaw, forever dropping whatever he hold in his beak to flap off after a new fragment of glass glinting in the mud. A new trinket. A new boy.
I neither mind nor don’t mind that he is my enemy. It’s a fact. He may ridicule me before his toadies. But I trust both God and honest men to make a true judgement between us. He’s a fool to fear me, merely because his mother had cause to fear him. As a God-fearing Protestant prince, I am loyal to him as my anointed monarch. I would never wish to unseat him from his throne, even though I’ve heard the whispers and secret wishing. Virtue must wait its appointed time. But I vow that all honest men in England will be grateful when that time comes.
Elizabeth… my Elizabella… she’s left the steps now… lovesme truly and honestly and with all her heart. With the true loyalty of my hound. The only creature who loves me, besides my hound. And I love her in return. I confide in her things I barely know that I’m thinking, she seems so like another self. If she were a boy, we would truly be like the heavenly twins. Like Romulus and Remus, we would found another Rome.
The King's Daughter Page 27