Just Flesh and Blood

by Caro, Jane;

  ‘Thank you, my lord …’ And then I paused. I wanted to make a joke to return to our old, easy ways with one another, but I glanced at the stern faces of the great men around me and my courage failed. We passed an awkward few moments with Robin still on his knees. ‘Will you walk with me?’ I spoke abruptly.

  As I rose, so did he, and the men who surrounded us stepped forward as if to follow.

  ‘No, my lords. I would walk alone with Sir Robin. We will remain in sight.’

  I already knew that I must be careful with my reputation. I did not speak, however, until we were out of earshot.

  ‘Surely you have some quip to make? Some tease about the silliness of me being your queen?’

  ‘Oh no, Your Majesty. I only wish to swear to you that I – among all your subjects – am the most loyal. You are the queen of my heart and my soul.’ He put his hand on his heart as he said the words and had such an earnest look upon his face that I could not help but laugh.

  ‘Oh Robin, don’t treat me like a stranger. I am the same girl I was before I wore a crown. It is my estate you must worship, not me. I will need a friend in this great task. I will need an advisor who will speak the truth. I will need a companion who will amuse me and help me leave the affairs of state behind. You know me best – I want you to be that friend. Will you be the same to me as you have ever been?’

  ‘I will be of service in whatever way I can.’

  I could see he was still in awe of my change of station and I sighed. ‘You can be my master of horse. You are a good judge of horseflesh and look well in the saddle. I cannot think of better qualifications for the man who will hunt with me whenever the weather is fine.’

  ‘I have other gifts too, Your Grace. I am a fine swordsman.’

  ‘I have no need of a sparring partner, unless it is in conversation. Set your mind upon that.’

  Throughout my reign he was with me. An irritant sometimes – when the Dutch made him their governor-general; a source of grief at others – when he married Lettice Knollys. He broke my heart when he married a second time, and such a pretty young woman, the daughter of my dearest friend. That made the betrayal doubly hard. He was my greatest solace and my bitterest temptation. I have cried more tears over him than I have over anyone and I cannot now think of a better tribute.

  As we aged, the passions that often disturbed our relationship in our youth passed and we entered calmer waters. I knew that I could rely on him for disinterested advice and that my safety and success were always central to his thoughts. He showed that superbly at Tilbury.

  It was only a few short days after that moment of our greatest triumph that I saw him for the last time. I wish I had known it was to be our last ever meeting, but I had no inkling of it. Perhaps I should have known. He was not well. He had not been well for some time, but I took his strength and his vigour for granted. I took his continuing presence as a given. If only I had known he would be gone so soon there are many things I would have told him, not least that I loved him and that my greatest regret was that I could not marry him. As it is, I remember our final conversation word for word.

  ‘You say we had a great victory, but it was a symbolic one. We did not really get to prove our mettle against the Spaniards.’

  ‘It is the foolishness of youth to wish for the vainglory of war. We are again secure in our kingdom without spilling a drop of blood. Our enemy has been vanquished and humbled. Thanks to the courage and skill of the captains of our fleet and to the glory of God. You are only chagrined because no credit for the victory can go to you.’

  ‘That is unkind and unfair, Your Majesty! You said yourself that you thought it foul scorn for the Spanish to dare to invade your kingdom. I just yearned to rub their noses in it.’

  ‘I am glad you did not. I do not like to think of you in any danger. Your safety matters to me. Speaking of which, your appetite does not seem to have improved.’

  We were dining together, in St James’s Palace rather than a tent, but once again he had hardly touched his meal.

  ‘No, my stomach still troubles me, and I find I have no taste for food.’

  ‘That is not like you. The strength of your appetites has always been one of the qualities I value most about you.’

  Robin gave a great hoot of laughter and I was pleased to see some colour return to his cheeks. ‘Aye, Your Grace, but I am not getting any younger and the appetites of a man my age are mere shadows of their former selves. Indeed, there are some that can barely rise to the occasion at all.’

  ‘Come, come, my lord, you have a lusty young wife.’

  ‘Yes, Lettice makes little secret of her boredom.’

  ‘Well, you would marry her.’

  ‘I have never been much good at choosing wives. I am much more skilful at choosing queens – particularly of my heart.’

  ‘It is not your heart we speak of now, but your stomach.’

  ‘Well, you may have been speaking of my stomach—’

  ‘Hush, Robin, it is your health that concerns me. I have no interest in your other parts.’

  ‘Aye, as you have always made very plain.’

  ‘Have you consulted a physician?’

  ‘The doctors tell me I still have a touch of the low fever.’

  ‘I am only just recovered from it myself. It gave me much trouble and you are correct: it made even the daintiest morsels taste like ashes in my mouth.’ I cut another slice of plum cake. ‘But, as you see, the malaise has left me, and food has regained its flavour. You should take the waters, my lord. I have heard great reports of the healing power of the waters at Buxton.’

  And then I saw him turn pale and grasp at his belly as I had seen him do before.

  ‘But you are in pain! Perhaps this is more than the low fever?’

  ‘No, it is wind only. I have always been a martyr to wind.’ And with that he released a great fart. ‘See, Your Grace! I feel much better already!’

  ‘No wonder you have always made such an excellent master of horse. You have so much in common with them.’

  ‘I will always be your master of horse, but what about the post of lieutenant-general of England and Ireland that we discussed?’

  ‘Ah ha! So that is why you are complaining about the lack of a battle at Tilbury! You see the title slipping away from you?’

  And we squabbled affectionately over his love of grand preferments late into the night. I did not see him grasp his belly again, so when I left him I was well contented that his complaints were all minor.

  It was a pleasant evening, like so many others we spent together, but nothing that mattered was said. I did not know, never even imagined, that the malady in his stomach and bowels would prove fatal – and so soon.

  As my old friends aged and – far too often – died, I turned to the new generation. Not from choice but from necessity.

  Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, stepson of Robin Dudley, was tall, athletic and handsome. He was all movement and activity. He could no more sit at a desk and pore over state papers than he could sew a fine seam. He despised Robert Cecil, son of William Cecil, for his physical incapacity. The younger Cecil had been born with a twisted spine and the hunch in his back made him many inches shorter than his athletic peer. Nevertheless, although Essex would never have admitted it, he also envied the hunchback his brilliance. Robert Cecil had no natural charm. Robert Devereux was nothing but charming. I was fond of Devereux. I respected Cecil. The two rivals did share one attribute. They were both consumed with ambition.

  After Robin Dudley died, in my bereavement I turned towards his stepson Essex, the boy he had loved as his own. When Robin was alive, I showed Essex favour for his sake. Once Robin was dead, I continued to do so. After a time, I became fond of the young man in his own right.

  ‘May I tempt you with a sugar-plum, Your Majesty? They are the finest I have ever tasted.’

>   ‘No thank you. I find that I have no appetite for sweet fancies.’

  ‘Shall I play for you? Or read to you? One of Master Shakespeare’s sonnets, perhaps? Or Spenser’s Faerie Queene?’

  ‘No, I have no appetite for fine rhymes either. I am sorry to be such dull company.’

  The faces I see as I revisit the past in my imagination are all young. And, in my memory, so am I. It is delightful to travel back in time, not least because it makes me forget the fire in my throat, the stiffness in my limbs and the choking sensation in my lungs. For whole moments at a time, the years fall away, and I am young again and full of vigour.

  ‘Good shot, Your Majesty!’

  I lowered the bow as the members of my court clapped, their applause elegantly muffled by the leather gauntlets they wore to protect themselves from the icy cold. I squinted at the distant target.

  ‘Not a bullseye, I think.’

  I could see the arrow and it was a little to the left.

  ‘But such a shot and on the ice, Your Grace. It does your skill and concentration much credit.’

  It was the winter of 1564 and I was in my prime. Others may have found the intense cold hard to cope with, but I found it invigorating. No doubt the thick Russian sables I wore helped my enjoyment. Even so, my breath was as visible as that of everyone else as we stood on the frozen Thames.

  When the great river had frozen completely over I seized the advantage and ordered that archery butts be dragged out onto the ice. We would have a fine, straight and virtually endless trajectory for our sport – a hard thing to find in my increasingly crowded capital. Then I challenged my courtiers to a tournament. The appointed day had dawned fine if icy but – full of the excitement and vigour of youth – I was not discouraged; nor were the younger members of my court. I caught a glimpse of Cecil dutifully standing on the sidelines, but he did not look well pleased. He was stamping his feet on the ice and blowing on his gauntlets like a walrus. But the young men and women competing lined up across the span of the mighty river, heedless of the temperature as they concentrated on getting as many arrows home as they could.

  I loved the feel of pulling back on the bow. The slight creak of the yew as it bent to my command, the answering twang of the bow-string. I liked the tug on the muscles of my arms as I stretched the string and arrow into place. Then the moment of intense concentration as I narrowed my eyes and focused on the tiny red dot at the centre of the butt many yards away across the ice. At that moment, I could see my breath, hear my heart beat – it was important to keep them both calm and steady. In my experience, a racing heart meant a lousy shot. I inched the arrow back just a little further, then I stood completely still and took a deep breath. As I exhaled I let the arrow fly. Time seemed to slow as I watched its tail-feathers twist and turn through the air. These were the precious seconds that I enjoyed the most, watching the small missile speed towards its destination. The arrow was me at that moment and I was the arrow. And when it went home there came a moment, the exquisite moment, when I held my breath waiting to see if my aim had been true.

  ‘The winner of the Royal Thames Archery Tournament, Your Grace, is Sir Henry Lee, with three bullseyes!’

  My factotum’s clarion call carried across the ice.

  ‘Well done, sir.’

  Sir Henry Lee was my champion and armourer and the strongest and most vigorous man in my court. The result was hardly a surprise and so the muffled applause was a little less than enthusiastic.

  ‘Second place goes to Sir Robin Dudley, with two bullseyes.’

  ‘I’ll beat you yet, Lee! I’ve set up a practice range in Leicester House just for the purpose.’

  ‘And third place, and first among the lady competitors, goes to Your Majesty, with one bullseye.’

  My delight may have been a little disproportionate to my triumph, but it was wonderful to get out from my desk, away from ink and paper and the complications of statecraft and find that I could beat every other woman of my court with the strength of my arm, the power of my concentration and the accuracy of my eye. And even if, as I sometimes suspected, some of my ladies let me win by doing rather less than their best, I had hit the bullseye. There was no disputing an arrow in a target.

  For long moments now, I forget the present and return to the past, leaving my ailing body behind. I have forgotten where I am and the ordeal I am facing. Then a shadow falls across me, bringing me back. My eyes – having, it seems, some life left in them – flicker open to see who it is that comes close. To be brought back to the present is hard. My pain once again imposes itself. As my eyes focus I half expect to see Death’s head peering at me from under his black hood, but I am not so fortunate. No, it is Robert Cecil venturing as close as he dares to see whether I still breathe.

  ‘I am not dead yet, my lord, but do not be impatient. I will not tarry much longer.’

  I hear a mutter sweep through my attendants and sense rather than see Cecil bowing repeatedly as he steps backwards into the shadows. I look at the members of my court gathered around him and what strikes me forcibly is their vivid youth. I blink a little to clear my vision – are these yet more phantoms from the past, or flesh-and-blood creatures of the present? When did my court change from one generation to another? When did I become so much older than everyone around me? It was not always so. When I first came to my throne as a girl of twenty-five, I was one of the youngest at court. Now, at nigh on seventy, I am one of the oldest. What happened to all the years in between? How have I allowed them to slip by me so quickly?

  My motto is ‘semper eadem’ – ‘always the same’ – and I have lived up to it, particularly when it came to the men and women who made up my court. Once appointed, they would be with me for life. Aye, and there’s the rub: almost none have had a life as long as mine. Where I could, however, I replaced the father with the son, the mother with the daughter.

  Seeing Robert Cecil (albeit through hazy and unfocused eyes) reminds me of his father, William – my old friend and most valued advisor. He has been dead these five years or more and I have missed him every day. His son, through no fault of his own, is a poor substitute. In my experience, children always are.

  Robert is as wily as ever his father was and as conscientious, but he is not wholly my creature. He has his eyes fixed on the future and has been looking towards it for all the years I have known him. I was his father’s future, right enough, but I am not Robert’s.

  William Cecil did not die suddenly as Robin did. He’d been ailing for years and when he became too ill and infirm to carry out his duties, he sent his clever young son Robert to deputise for him. Robin had also increasingly brought his stepson, the young Earl of Essex, into my court. It was no accident that Essex was one of the three noblemen who escorted me through my troops at Tilbury.

  As I had with their fathers, I used the two young men for different purposes. I relied on the younger Cecil to give me advice and to carry out my commands quickly and efficiently. I turned to Robin’s stepson to keep me entertained and amused.

  It was loneliness, I suppose, that made me start inviting Robin’s stepson to dine with me on occasions or join me in a game of cards after supper. At first, I did not seek amusement – I was too deep into grief to want that. What I sought was someone with whom I could talk about the man I had loved and lost, forever this time.

  ‘My stepfather would have kept you amused, I do not doubt. I am sorry I am such a poor substitute.’

  ‘Ah, Robbie, it is not your fault. Your wit and charm are justly renowned.’

  ‘Do let me sing to you, then. A song is one thing my stepfather could not provide. He famously could not carry a tune.’ With that he began to imitate Robin’s hoarse and tuneless attempts at singing and, despite my grief, I could not help but laugh.

  ‘He had so many other talents I suppose it was only fair that God kept one or two from him.’

  ‘Aye,
Your Grace. He could ride like the wind and no one could tell a better or more amusing story.’

  ‘And he was utterly loyal, none more so.’

  ‘He was a very fine father to me, even when his own small son was still alive.’

  ‘That loss was a very hard one. I never saw him struck so low.’

  Robin and Lettice had lost their only son when he was but an infant, less than four years old. It was a devastating blow.

  ‘I did my best to make up for it. And it is my privilege to try to do the same for you.’

  ‘That you did. And Robin was grateful for it – as I am for the comfort you now offer me. He loved you as well as any son of his own body. He never tired of telling me about your latest accomplishment.’

  ‘He taught me everything I know, and I miss him sorely every day.’

  ‘As do I. As do I.’

  Essex pulled a sympathetic face and picked up the lute by his side. He was only a serviceable player, but he had a fine, sweet tenor voice, well suited to the songs fashionable at court. He began to sing one of the melancholy ballads composed by Master John Dowland:

  ‘I saw my lady weep,

  And sorrow proud to be advanced so,

  In those fair eyes where all perfections keep.

  Her face was full of woe,

  But such a woe, believe me, as wins more hearts,

  Than mirth can do with her enticing charms.’

  Essex may not have been brilliant, but he was no fool. His choice of melody was as tactful as it was sympathetic. It suited me well to just sit back and listen. His song soothed me, even as it drew from my body great sighs. It was in hope of more moments like this that I began to spend more and more of my time with Robin’s charismatic stepson.

  Essex saw his chance and gave me as much flattering attention as he could. It was pleasant to be admired by such an attractive young man and he was skilled at offering me the compassion and understanding that his stepfather had provided. He also flattered me as a queen and, when I let him get away with it and as he grew bolder, as a woman. It was a game I knew well and had always enjoyed. Essex made me feel young again, he soothed me, he filled the gap of playmate, confidant and friend, at least to a point. Poor Robert Cecil laboured under the disadvantage that his father was still in the land of the living.