Under the covers, I offered my arm. ‘Oh, yes,’ I murmured.
He swept his nails up my arm, then along the inside of my forearm to the elbow. I shifted position so that he could continue on to my upper arm. In the morning light that seeped between the bed hangings, I saw his beautiful lips curve into a smile.
‘I swear this pleases you more than the other.’ He scratched delicately with his forefinger between my fingers. My forearm again… palm…
‘Perhaps,’ I teased, watching his fingers move on me. ‘Och, Lord! No wonder my dogs love it so!’
‘Roll over.’ He gave me a little push. I turned onto my side with my back to him. He pulled the coverlet close around us to close out the sudden leak of icy air and ran his nails lightly back and forth over my bare shoulders.
I quivered with delight. ‘Again!’ I begged. My skin was the surface of a lake, shivering under a breeze. The sensation spread in tiny rivulets of quicksilver into places I had not known were connected to each other – the muscles under my ears, across the back of my tongue, down my inner arms, into my toes. Time stopped running away with me and shoving me onwards roughly into the next moment. It sat back down on its haunches like a great dog, planting itself exactly where it meant to be.
‘Again,’ I murmured. Every inch of my skin grew urgent, and clamoured, me, too! Me, too! ‘Oh, yes. And a little higher…’ I begged. It was almost too much to bear. I felt him gathering intensity like a river nearing the top of a waterfall.
‘I’ve married a hound,’ he said.
‘Please, don’t stop!’ The sensations were all the more delightful because I could feel his cock pressing against the backs of my thighs, impatient but biding its time.
‘Don’t fear,’ he said.
We heard the latch rattle. The chamber door creaked open, without a warning knock.
‘How are my little turtledoves?’ My father threw the bed hangings open.
Behind him, Anne, in a loose gown and hair awry, held up her hands helplessly. His attending gentlemen had stopped outside the door and pretended to look elsewhere. The dogs scattered off the bed.
We turned and scrambled into a sitting position, clutching the covers up to our chins to hide our nakedness.
‘Well, sir,’ demanded my father. ‘Is it done? Did ye enjoy my daughter?’
We gaped at him.
Anne went out and closed the door behind her.
The king sat heavily on the side of the bed. Frederick pulled back his legs to make room. The king still wore his night gown, with a loose gown over it, and slippers.
‘Are you now my true son-in-law?’
It was the first time, in all his sad history of discomfort in England that I had seen Frederick truly lost for words. His hand reached for mine under the covers. It was as icy as my own.
This was unbearable.
The king leaned closer, speaking slowly and kindly, as if Frederick might otherwise be too simple to understand. ‘Did ye ride her or did ye not?’ He sniffed at the air.
We stared at him, appalled.
He peered closely at us both. ‘Not dumb from disappointment, I hope! Let me see the sheet!’
He yanked the coverlet from our hands. With a yelp, I dived away into the cold sheets on the far side of the bed. Poor Frederick had nowhere to go, and lay exposed to the king’s eyes. He drew up his knees.
My father pushed Frederick’s feet aside and touched the rusty smudge on the linen under-sheet.
‘We could have done with a wee bit more,’ he said. ‘Even your mother produced more blood than that. All that running after your brother like a boy must have shrivelled your maidenhead. But it’s clear enough. The young man performed. Well done, sir.’ He shook Frederick by the hand.
Rage began to rise in me. This is mine! I wanted to scream at him. What I have now is mine! Not yours any longer! I’ve done my part for England.
‘Let’s hope you planted an heir.’ My father pushed down on Frederick’s knee to straighten the leg and dropped his sharp gaze to my poor husband’s cock, now shrivelled with cold. However, my father seemed satisfied.
‘Now, don’t forget that I must agree to the marriage ofthe bairn. It will be a Stuart babe, with a grip on the English throne. No matter what backwater you take my daughter off to, remember that the babe is grandchild to the king of England and Scotland, and stands in this royal line after Baby Charles.’
Frederick’s face had darkened to the colour of old leather. His bare chest rose and fell with quick, shallow breaths. His knuckles showed white as ivory through his skin.
I had gone so hot that I thought the coverlets would burst into flame. Danger, danger! I warned myself. You’re so close to escape. Don’t undo it now!
But if my father had troubled himself to look at me then, my eyes would have dropped him stone dead.
‘I will send our royal midwife with you,’ he was telling Frederick. ‘And a nurse, to see that the child is properly reared.’
‘I’m sure they have midwives in Heidelberg!’ I croaked.
My father glanced at me and, surviving my eyes, turned back to Frederick. ‘You’ll need assistance in ruling her, Palsgrave. You’re not built with the stature for the task. Don’t fear. You’ll have my support in the matter.’
Frederick darkened another degree.
I drew breath to speak. Frederick put out his hand to stop me. ‘I thank you, your highness… father… for your kind offer, but we have very fine midwives in Heidelberg. But if Elizab…’ His dark eyes turned to me as if to reassure himself that I was still there.
I gasped. Frederick’s eyes were hot and opaque with anger. I had seen him uneasy, confused, aroused and alarmed, but never angry. This new anger felt as fierce as his desire.
But his voice remained steady. ‘If… my wife… wishes a woman she knows, she shall have her. But only then.’
‘Insolent Protestant pup!’ My father stared back into those suddenly dangerous eyes, his jaw moving as if he were chewing on his tongue. He scratched his jaw, chewed twomore times, then guffawed and clapped Frederick on the shoulder. ‘You’ll need every ounce of that spirit if you hope to ride my Bessie to a standstill.’
He raised himself from the side of the bed. ‘Door!’ he shouted.
When my father had gone, Frederick flung himself back against the pillows and stared straight ahead in silence. I lay watching him, uncertain what to do. Our joy lay shattered around us in knife-edged splinters. I did not know how to pick it up again. I tried to think what to say. I imagined words and rejected them. The moment felt too fragile to test in any way.
The silence grew. Only one thought became clear in my mind.
We spoke the same words at the same time. ‘We must leave England as soon as possible!’
We looked at each other and laughed with renewed delight at this proof that our unity had survived. Then, watching each other as we had done across crowded rooms or dining tables, we raised our hands in our game of mirrors. In unison like a pair of wheeling swifts, we clenched our fists and knocked them against our temples in mock rage and despair, not knowing which of us followed and which of us led.
Weak with relief, I smiled back into Frederick’s eyes, which were no longer opaque. Again they liked what they saw. I was also aware of a new feeling.
Though I already thought him perfect in every way, and had never minded that I was leading and protecting him through the complexities of the English court, Frederick had just surprised me. I felt respect.
Then he leaned over and kissed my nipple. ‘Tonight,’ he said. ‘But we must barricade the door.’
76
APRIL, 1613 – MARGATE
We had to wait for favourable winds. Lord Admiral Northampton again insisted that I not be allowed to sail on an ill-fated vessel that never wished to be put to sea. But I had vowed to make my escape on the Prince Royal, even if not to the Americas. My determination was as great as Henry’s had been to get his ship afloat. Charges of corruption in the Navy and delayed launchings
never sank a ship that I knew of.
It was ten years since I left Scotland.
I could not eat for fear that something would still stop us. I had listened in the night for the hoof beats of those skeleton horses. I did not look down into the river as we rowed away from Westminster, imagining that bony hands reached up for me, to twine in my skirts and pull me down to stay with them forever, buried in muddy silt.
The weeks of celebration following our marriage were marred by the financial reckoning. My father had failed to raise enough money from his subjects, as custom allowed, to pay the costs of my marriage. To save money, he dismissed the household he had arranged for my husband so that mostof Frederick’s gentlemen had to leave for Heidelberg at once, without us. Lord Harington found himself out of pocket for the costs of my trousseau. I ran out of the gold rings and other trinkets I was giving as gifts to the followers I would leave behind. I had found one of Carr’s men measuring up my apartments. The Golden Weasel could not wait until I had left England before claiming what had been mine.
‘Please tell your master that I’m amazed he’s willing to wait until I’ve gone!’ I said. ‘Why does he not wheedle and pout and work on the king to have me thrown out at once?’
On the other hand, Bacon’s masque had ended in disaster. Fireworks failed to ignite. Boats were delayed, performers injured. The king left in impatience before the end, ordering Bacon to try again the next day. Then the king refused to attend. Gleeful rumour said that, beforehand, Bacon had refused all offers to help allay the costs, because he wanted full credit with the king and refused to share the glory. The champion of Reason had been undone by unreasoning chance, with no one else to share the blame.
Without the firm guiding hand of Cecil, the affairs of England still limped and changed direction. Bacon was the most able of the king’s advisers but also widely disliked. Frederick and I wanted only to be gone but had to wait on the festivities and the vacillations of the king,
The royal family had travelled together by barge from Whitehall to Greenwich and from there to Rochester.
I said farewell first to my mother, who was setting out on a progress to Bath.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Here we are. As I said – you, going. To Heidelberg.’
I nodded. I laid my hand over the fragment of granite from the Edinburgh crags, tucked into my pocket under my skirts. This time, I had armoured myself.
She kissed me formally and stepped back at once as if my touch burned. She started to leave, then turned back to meagain. She gave me a sly glance. ‘Sometimes, it is possible to exact a small revenge,’ she said with the air of bestowing a parting gift. ‘His majesty does not yet know it, but I have shot Brutus, his favourite dog.’
She rode away in her carriage in tears.
Then I asked to say farewell to Baby Charles, the next king of England.
He agreed to receive me in his borrowed presence chamber.
I approached and curtsied to the small figure perched in an upholstered arm chair fringed with gold, with two spaniels curled at his feet. ‘Sir, I come to take my leave,’ I said. ‘As soon as the wind permits, we sail for Flushing.’
‘I wish you a safe voyage.’
We stared at each other a moment in silence. I wondered how much we both would have changed when I saw him next.
Suddenly, he leapt to his feet. ‘You’re leaving me, Bessie!’ he cried. He sounded surprised. ‘You can’t go!’ He wept and clung to me. ‘There’s no one left. What will I do now?’
It was on the tip of my tongue to reply, ‘Very much what you have always done – exactly as you like.’ Instead, I kissed his head and said that he must come soon to see me in Heidelberg.
Then, still at Rochester, I said formal farewells to my father.
77
We lingered together for a moment, a little apart from the others, looking down from the stone-paved castle terrace at the ships on the Medway.
‘You’re rid of me at last,’ I said.
‘Nae, Bessie,’ he protested. ‘Your old dad’s heart is breaking.’
I waved away his protest. ‘I must know before I leave you…’ I did not know how to ask. ‘Henry. How much did you hate him?’
His head jerked back as if I had struck him. The diamond in his hat flashed across my eyes. His mouth opened. His tongue heaved behind his teeth like a landed fish. I saw him attempt indignation.
‘We may never see each other again,’ I said. ‘Tell me before I go. I must know.’
Then his eyes brimmed and overflowed. ‘Bessie,’ he whispered. ‘Are you turned so cruel?’
‘I am a little like you,’ I said.
‘I’m cruel?’
‘You know that you are.’
‘I should have died instead.’
‘Answer me.’
He groaned and clutched his jacket as I had seen him do so often before.
‘Stop that at once!’ I said. ‘It doesn’t impress me in the least. An honest answer is the price I ask you to pay for being rid of both of your dangerous cubs.’
To my surprise, he dropped his hands from his doublet. His eyes sharpened and looked directly into mine for the first time since our conversation began. ‘I hear your question, Bessie – the one you don’t quite dare to ask.’
I held his eye, waiting.
‘I never hated Henry,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s what you want to know, is it not?’
I nodded.
‘At times, I wished that you and he could change places. You’d have made a better king.’
‘Never!’ I stared suspiciously, wondering what new game he was playing with me.
‘Oh, aye,’ said my father. ‘The people would have lost their taste for his Puritan fervour when he began to make them drop coins into all those official fine boxes.’
Of course, he had known about Henry’s boxes. He would have placed spies among Henry’s household. They might even have been Cecil’s spies.
‘You had reason to fear him,’ I said.
‘Very good reason. He would have undone my life work for peace on the continent.’ He shook his head. ‘But I did not want him dead.’ He stared down at the river. Then, hearing my silence, he turned to me again. ‘I’ll wager that you’ve feared me, Bessie, but I doubt that you ever planned to kill me.’
‘Are you certain of that?’
He studied me for a long time. ‘Aye. That I am.’
I let out my breath.
‘I think you understand the pitiful jumble of the human soul,’ he said. ‘You don’t think only in straight lines as your brother did.''Do you swear that you did not order Henry’s death?’
I expected another protest, Instead, my father seemed to dissolve before my eyes. ‘Ah, Bessie…’ His eyes overflowed. ‘Never ordered…’ His nose ran. He wiped it on his sleeve.
‘Ah, Bessie, I fear…’ He stopped again. ‘Who knows what men may do when they imagine they serve their king? I fear… Dear Lord, I fear that I might…’ He could not finish. ‘That someone may have believed…’
‘Whom do you suspect?’
‘… who might have served me too well?’ He looked out at the river. ‘I reject my suspicions. What if I can’t now do without the advice of a man I suspect of serving me too well? Can you tell me that? What is England to do? How do I reward too much service? Who is more dangerous – enemies or friends?’
‘Can’t any of your books tell you?’ I asked.
I’m safe, I thought for the first time since I had arrived at Whitehall. I believe that I am safe.
He waved away my attempted flippancy. ‘Can you prove anything against anyone, Bessie?’
I shook my head.
‘Best to say nothing then.’
78
From Canterbury, I wrote a fulsome letter to my father.
… I shall perhaps never see again the flower of princes, the King of fathers, the best and most amiable father that the sun will ever see…’
He would recognise the irony. It mig
ht even amuse him for a few moments. Then he would wave my letter about, a trophy. My last gift to him.
Let rumour mutter what it likes… His eyes would challenge. Look you! Here’s proof that I never wronged any of my cubs. See here, how she writes, I long to return again and kiss your hands once more. What more do any of y’want?… most amiable… You know she’s a lass who speaks her mind. Who dares to disagree now?
Though I had once feared that he would have me executed, I now believed that he valued me. I couldn’t say ‘loved’ because he himself told me that he could not feel love.
As for Henry, my father would never have thrown away such a precious jewel if he could not have fished it out of the mud afterwards. I was quite certain. I would not riskthe fragile balance that he and I had found by believing anything else.
Five days later, we moved from Canterbury to Margate, to set sail at last. Lord and Lady Harington (still carrying all her certainties) rowed out with us across the choppy water. A fleet of other boats followed us, carrying the rest of my attendants and luggage. Because of the cramped space on board, none of the women wore a farthingale. I would not wear one again until we reached Flushing and rigged ourselves to greet my one-time suitor, Prince Maurits of Nassau.
I won’t miss it, I thought.
I missed Tallie, most likely now arrived. I didn’t know if she loved me, but it was no matter. We were each of us a solid place for the other to place her feet. Even if she sometimes felt as out of reach to me as the sky, I wanted her there in the boat with me, to share this happiness with me. I wanted someone to hear my tumbling words about Frederick, whose shoulder pressed against mine in the brief intimacy of our journey out from shore. I wanted her to make my words real by hearing them. I wanted her to tell me when I was being a fool. I wanted a witness.
Old Nottingham, the ancient Lord Admiral, had received us on board. Frederick and I stood at the railing of the giant ship with the wind whipping at our hair, and looked down at our attendant fleet. There were shouts and whistles and a great deal of purposeful activity. We stayed out of the way. For the moment, a pair of royal highnesses counted for less than stirring the pulse of this great-bellied beast with a golden image of my brother on the bow, mounted on his horse, pointing the way forward with his sword.
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