‘Hey, ho. Onwards,’ she said at last. ‘I pierce the mirror and soar up with a great clap of my wings.’
I looked at her, puzzled.
She smiled and shook her head gently. ‘An old dream I once had.’
‘You have my brother’s standard?’ I asked.
‘Of course. Already on board, wrapped up safe in my cabin. I’ll write to tell you when it has been raised on Cape Henry.’
‘I’m losing you too.’
‘Now that you have the Palsgrave, you won’t need me – or all those dogs.’
‘If I have the Palsgrave.’ My head rattled with unspoken words. ‘I’m already teaching the dogs German.’ The moments of our last chance were seeping away. Along with all the truths she had not had time to tell me.
‘What if Frederick won’t stiffen?’ I burst out.
Tallie peered into my eyes. Then she threw back her head and guffawed. She waved a derisive hand. ‘He will, never fear! He’s young! And in good health. And you’re…’
‘… handsome enough,’ I cut in. ‘I know.’
‘Are you in earnest?’
‘What else should I be?’
‘Your grace…’
‘Please don’t laugh at me when we’re about to part!’
‘Your grace… Elizabeth…’ She took both my hands and shook them gently. ‘Surely, you must look into a glass from time to time!’
‘Please…’
‘D’ you not know?’
I turned my face away from her.
‘You are a fool after all!’ she said. With one hand, she hauled the medallion of Diana free from her cloak. ‘Remember this?’
I nodded.
‘Then open your stubborn ears and listen to me! You’re more than “handsome enough". You’re a real beauty – unless you’ve a taste for whey-faced prigs. Look at you! You’re the envy of all your ladies.’ She stepped back and swept her hands through the air from my head to my feet. ‘All golden and ripe and full of life!’
‘Don’t taunt me, Tallie! We don’t have time to quarrel and make up.’
‘I promise you, you won’t need to do a thing on your wedding night! Not one single Southwark trick. Not with that hair, and mouth and those big blue eyes! And those long legs hidden under all your skirts. And neat, round little titties that would earn you a pile of gold sovereigns in Southwark. Just show yourself to your Frederick in your naked beauty. He’ll manage the rest. And that’s the truth!’
With that unexpected farewell gift, she dropped me a curtsy and turned to give her hand to Lynn, who was waiting to help her down the stairs into the boat.
The sailors unshipped their oars. At the skipper’s shout, the oars bit into the waves. The gap between us widened. Slowly, the boat grew smaller. Against the dark water, her skin disappeared, so that I had the curious impression that her clothing moved away by itself and that Tallie herself had not gone at all. I waved.
A pale silk sleeve waved back.
Tallie, Henry. Goodbye to you both. The Americas are so far away. Tallie, you show me how to leap. At least, you are accompanied by a man who loves you. I try not to fear for you in that wild unknown place… trying not to weep … I remind myself of your good sense, your stubbornness and your ferocity veiled by good behaviour. Your music. My unexpected sister. Queen of the Americas.
65
‘Belle.’ I called. She had not run to greet me when I returned from Gravesend to Whitehall after saying farewell to Tallie. ‘Belle!’
I went into my bedchamber. Cherami, Bichette, and Mars, the dog pup from the king’s kennels, all jumped off the bed and ran to paw at my skirts. I gave my maid my travelling cloak.
‘Where’s Belle?’ I stooped down to stroke the other dogs. ‘Do you know where she is?’ Fragile with loss, I needed to hold her and kiss her head.
I looked under the bed, in cupboards, behind wall-hangings. I looked down into the orchard. She was not there, playing with a groom. I searched my apartments, calling her name. My ladies had not seen her that day. Nor had the maids, grooms or footmen.
Belle never strayed alone from my apartments. I could see her lying, flat and empty and dead under a bush, like the paraquetto. I saw her floating, swollen with putrefaction, in the Thames.
‘Find her!’
The urgency in my voice sent my servants running, grooms, secretaries, maids, even my ladies.
With Anne’s help, I searched the orchards. Then we crossed over the King Street Gate to the privy gardens, where we peered under every box and laurel, growing more and more certain that I was looking for lifeless fur.
I turned my head towards a scuffle at one of the garden gates. Two of my grooms were hauling a third youth between them.
‘Your grace!’ one of them shouted urgently.
They dragged their struggling captive towards me. ‘Tell her!’
He swung his head into the face of one of his captors and almost escaped. Then the other groom elbowed him in the gut.
‘Stop this!’
All three suddenly drew to attention. ‘Tell her,’ the first groom prompted again.
‘He stole her,’ said the other.
‘Belle?’ I asked.
‘Yes!’ chorused the two captors.
The captive stared sullenly at the ground, his mouth clamped shut. His right eye had already begun to swell. One of the grooms elbowed him again. ‘Tell her what you told us.’
‘Did you steal my dog?’ I demanded.
‘I had to, your grace. The prince ordered me.’
He wore my younger brother’s livery.
I wrote to Baby Charles asking him to return my dog. He wrote back that he would not. I should have given her to him in the first place, when he had asked.
I wrote to the king. I had a reply from Carr. I had many other dogs, it said. I would not be able to take them all with me when I left England after marriage. The duke needed consolation after the death of his older brother. The king instructed me that, in the spirit of Christian generosity, I could not object, etcetera.
In short, Baby Charles would keep Belle, whether I liked it or not.
I tore the letter across.
My ladies all looked at me.
‘He’s to keep her!’ I tore Carr’s letter again and again. I crushed the pieces and threw them into the fire.
‘Leave me!’ I said. ‘All of you!’
I saw my ladies exchange glances. Belle was merely a dog, their eyes said.
When I was alone, uncontrolled weeping overcame me at last.
66
Frederick returned from Theobald’s before Christmas. ‘I worked to charm him,’ he reported. ‘I am become his “sweetest little German mouse". He swears that he will have no son-in-law but me – but not yet. Not while England still drowns in tears for the Prince of Wales. He says that I must return to Heidelberg and return to press my suit again when the mourning is done. In the summer, perhaps.’
And before then, my father would have changed his mind yet again.
I pressed Frederick’s palms to my cheeks. ‘If he sends you away, I’ll drown myself in the wake of your ship.’
‘No!’ He kissed my hands. ‘No! No! I couldn’t live, then. I would drown myself with you. Our souls would live together as dolphins!’ He kissed my hands again, as if this were already our final farewell.
My father was toying with us. He dangled happiness, meaning to snatch it away. Thames and Rhine would never flow together. I dared not complain. He had made it clear what he would do if I ever dared to defy him again about my marriage.
‘Drag your feet,’ I said. ‘Smile and say that you obey himand prepare to go. Move as slowly as you dare. We must seem to obey while we find some way to keep you here.’
As if he had detected our strategy, my father devised yet another torment. He now kept Frederick in attendance on him almost day and night so that I never saw him.
I believed that Bacon would do as I asked but could not be certain. Even if he obeyed me, I did not
know whether his advice would sway the king. I tried to think what more I could do. I thought I would go mad.
I tried to pass the time by playing my lute, but the sound felt thin and forlorn without Tallie’s lute singing too. My fears sprang up between the notes and fogged the melody. The place in me from which music sprang felt hollow and dry. If I lost Frederick, I would never make music again.
I sat down to meals and rose again. I rode. I tried to play with my dogs but the absence of Belle destroyed my former pleasure. I accepted hands of cards and threw them down on the table again. Night after night, I picked melted wax from the candles and made it into tiny balls. I would arrange these balls in a straight line, then squeeze them together again into larger ones that I threw into the fire, where I watched them melt into the coals.
I drank wine with Lucy and probed her for court gossip. She told me enough to confirm my fears that the king still entertained the envoys of other suitors, whatever he might have told Frederick. The queen still wrote to Savoy. I myself had seen the hopeful arrival of another envoy from Brunswick. And I was inclined to believe the whispers that the king’s waiting gentlemen were more and more often finding excuses to avoid his changeable, irritable presence. I was waiting for the ghostly abbot again, lying in the dark stiff with fear.
Send me the ghost! I thought. Anything but this waiting in ignorance!
In my imagination, I saw Frederick being seized and bundled aboard a ship before he could send me word. Fromseeming possible, it grew to seem likely. When I still heard nothing from Frederick, his secret forced departure swelled into certain fact.
I would dive deep into the dark water, I decided, as soon as his departure was confirmed. At night, when no one could see to fish me out. Gulls, or a curious dog, would find me washed up like seaweed on the estuary mud.
‘I’m weary,’ I announced one evening. ‘You may all go now.’
‘I shall make you a comforting posset,’ said Anne. ‘This is not an easy time.’
I nodded, called Cherami, Bichette and Mars and went into my sleeping chamber. Trey was already curled in his basket by the fire, stinking and wheezing in his sleep. Turning over a book from my table, I heard voices. I almost collided with Anne at the door.
‘He’s here!’
Frederick was warming himself distractedly at the fire. He looked at me with such open longing that I felt faint. ‘His majesty was lost in drink. I escaped,’ he said.
‘Two possets,’ said Anne firmly.
When she had left, I flung myself into his arms. ‘I was afraid you were gone for ever,’ I said.
‘They would have to kill me first.’ He kissed my mouth, my neck. I burrowed into his warmth, all shyness banished by my relief to find him still there. My place in the world was there, pressed against him, with his arms around me. My fingers touched his soft hair, the intricate shells of his ear, the dark down on his upper lip.
When Anne returned with the two warm, foaming mugs, we stepped apart, reluctantly. I held onto his hand, unable to break our contact completely.
Frederick looked down at the gold and enamelled collar, which I now saw hanging across his chest. ‘The king gave this to me this afternoon, after dinner.’
‘It’s the collar and George of the Order of the Garter!’ I exclaimed. ‘My father has made you a Knight of the Garter, one of the highest honours he can give. This must be good news!’
Frederick looked doubtful. He fingered the pendant, a mounted knight spearing the dragon that lay under his horse’s hoofs. ‘I’m not certain. Perhaps because I’m unfamiliar with English customs… You must explain to me, Lizzie.’
With both hands, he lifted off the heavy collar and frowned down at the enamelled garters set with red enamelled roses, all linked by golden tassels. ‘It did not feel like such a great honour to me. His majesty was still in bed, when I arrived.’
‘My father takes pride in behaving badly,’ I assured him and myself. ‘Grown worse since Henry died.’
‘But, undressed? In his night shirt, in the afternoon?’
‘He suffers from gout and often stays close to his bed. Does he not, Anne?’
‘Indeed he does.’
Frederick looked from one of our eager faces to the other, then down at the George again. ‘At first, he stared at me with such a puzzled frown that I was certain he had forgot why he summoned me.’
‘He often pretends that, in order to cause discomfort,’ I said. ‘What did you do then?’
‘Ventured my good wishes for his recovery – to which he did not reply. Then I pretended to play with his dog, to try to make him laugh, as you told me.’
‘But he didn’t send you away again?’
‘On the contrary, he seemed to remember himself all of a sudden and motioned me close to the bed. Then he mumbled a few words in English and dropped this over my head.’
My rising hope sank back down onto its haunches. ‘Did he first dub you a knight?’
Frederick looked stricken. ‘No.’ He frowned at the wall. ‘He did not,’ he said firmly. ‘I have created knights myself. I believe I would have known.’
Chilled by a sudden thought, I leaned close and looked more closely at the George.
Not a taunting counterfeit. Not a wheelwright or barber’s livery badge. Not the arms of an executed enemy. I exhaled in relief.
‘It was Henry’s, the king told me. Then asked me if such a thing was known in Heidelberg.’
Henry’s George. Henry, who might have been poisoned on the king’s orders. A garter but no knighthood. The king had just given Frederick a gift of the most tender sort from a grieving father-in-law to-be, or else a taunting threat.
I had lost Henry, Tallie, Belle. I had lost my mother, if I had ever had her. My younger brother had become a chilly enemy. My father would continue to waver and change his mind. He had ordered my brother to be murdered – or he had not. I would marry Frederick – or I would not. I was to wed a Catholic. I was to wed a Protestant. I was never to marry at all and would wither in the Tower like Arbella when desperation at last drove me to folly. I could bear no more uncertainty.
I handed back the George. ‘Enough,’ I said.
‘What do you mean to do?’ Frederick had already learned to read my face. ‘Bessie, you are frightening me. You know what he threatened, if you defied him.’
‘I mean to be my father’s daughter,’ I said.
67
WHITEHALL, NOVEMBER 1612
Where did I get the stomach? The sheer effrontery? What gave me the courage?
I think it was the memory of courage, now almost forgotten, the memory of saying that I would rather die than submit, then turning my back and walking away.
Once she had been born, that fierce unthinking girl-child had survived secretly, hidden deep inside me, stubbornly, silently triumphant. She pulled a dark cloth over her face. She lay quiet and waited, a moth camouflaged against tree bark, detectable only by the faintest suggestion of an outline. Now, she sat up and revealed her face. She laid her hand over the face of reason. As if giving up were not a choice, she said, ‘Do it.’
68
WHITEHALL, NOVEMBER 1612
My father had dressed in a loose gown but wore his diamond-studded hat when I presented myself at his lodgings the next morning. He was still in his bedchamber, drinking beside the fire with his inflamed unshod foot propped on a stool.
Sir Thomas Lake stood near him, looking wary. Bacon leaned in the window alcove. Apart from Lake and Bacon, only two secretaries and Carr attended the king. The half-dozen grooms and running footmen waiting by the wall had a head-down-I’m-not-here air. The only creatures at ease in the room were the two hounds asleep by the king’s chair.
I noted the absence of other attending gentlemen. The whispers of diplomatic reasons for absence appeared to be accurate.
‘My honoured father…’ I curtsied. ‘I heard that you are troubled with the gout and have brought you a hopeful remedy.’ I offered a tincture of crocus in a g
ilt-edged bottle.
He turned the little bottle in his hand, thoughtfully. ‘So dutiful? So sudden?’
‘I’ll swallow some first, if you like,’ I said.
‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I know that impudence. What d’youwant of me, Bess? It’s not like you to come crawling, all sweet as sugar, like an arse-licking petitioner.’
Sir Thomas Lake cleared his throat. Sir Francis’s moustaches twitched in amusement.
‘May I speak with you alone, sir?’ I said. I watched the challenging swagger of Carr’s back as he left the room with the rest. The door closed.
‘England needs you to make a decision,’ I said.
‘"England needs"?’ The king glanced at me with reddened, heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Or “you need"?’ He was too quick. Unlike Bacon, my father could read the true meaning hiding in the speech of others. ‘Everyone seems to be advising me now on what England needs. Lake advises. Bacon advises. Now even my daughter advises.’
‘Your majesty, England needs me to marry Frederick… the Palsgrave,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Now. The people need to feel solidity in the disorder since Cecil and Henry died. Only you can give them that solidity. They need to know that they are ruled again.’
He sucked on his imaginary sugar lump and studied me with eyes that suddenly reminded me of Sir Francis Bacon. ‘The eyes of a hungry ferret,’ Salisbury had said of his cousin. My father’s eyes were less friendly.
‘I need the advice of a lassie now, do I?’
Driven by desperate will, I ploughed on. ‘Even in their grief, the English people need to feel the possibility of joy as well as sorrow. They need to know that happiness can return. That you will gift them with joy again.’
This, to a man who might have ordered his own son to be murdered. If so, he did it out of fear, I told myself. Out of weakness.
‘The human soul hungers for joy,’ I said.
‘And when did you turn philosopher?’
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