by Susan Kay
Cecil frowned and tapped his quill on the crowded desk in front of him. There was much to be done and little time left in which to do it. Elizabeth had given him leave to speak his mind freely on all occasions and he hoped she had meant it; for he was about to tell her two things that he knew instinctively she would not like. First that they must make war on Scotland. And second she must stop flirting with a married man in order to attend to the serious business of choosing her husband.
Chapter 6
Everything depends on the husband she chooses…If she decides to marry out of the country, she will at once fix her eyes on Your Majesty.”
Feria could not believe he had ever written those confident words, as he sat now surveying the failure of his diplomatic mission. He had thought her “a young untried lass, sharp, but entirely without prudence,” and she had succeeded in making him and his master look utter fools. There had been a point when he was quite sure of her, so sure that Philip had finally abandoned his tortuous and contradictory instructions and come out in the open with a marriage proposal and the command—extraordinary from Philip!—to “spare no expense in the matter.”
So Feria had spared no expense. Gifts she had had aplenty—boxes of jewels, God only knew what—but in return she raised continual objections to the match. She feared Philip would spend very little time with her, he would come and go even if she were pregnant…Indeed her objections began to sound so remarkably like echoes of Philip’s complacent letters to him, that Feria was quite certain his correspondence was being tapped.
True, he could no longer complain of her neglect. She told him gossip, invited him to plays, and listened to his advice with flattering attention.
“I often wish,” she had told him innocently, “that religion had played a larger part in my upbringing.”
Feria had fallen for the bait and that was the beginning of their happy theological discussions, when he brought her doctrinal books, assuring himself—and his master—of her good intentions to remain true to the Roman faith. And while he was lulled on the soft tide of her charm, she was duly crowned and held her first Parliament…which made her Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
Then suddenly there was no further need for deceit.
She took off the charming smile and told him curtly that she could not possibly marry the King of Spain because she was a heretic.
A heretic! The word was thrown at him like a lighted torch and mentally he stepped back from it, aghast. All those books, all those soul-searching little talks where he had marked her for a true Catholic at heart! How could she use such an inflammatory, undiplomatic expression?
“Madam, I cannot believe you are a heretic.” He spoke soothingly, half suspecting she was feverish. “You know that you would not separate yourself from the true Church for all the thrones in the world.”
“So much the less,” she snapped, “would Philip do it for a woman!”
He found he had begun to sweat copiously. “Men,” he ventured uneasily, “sometimes do for a woman what they would do for nothing else.”
“Oh, men!” she spat, and walked away from him. The rest of the interview was like awakening from a pleasant dream to a nightmare reality. He heard her swear and say she meant to do absolutely as her father had done.
Ashen-faced, he bowed to her and told her she was no longer the Elizabeth he had known. She was not quite quick enough then to conceal her smile of satisfaction and he actually shouted—from the safety of the doorway—that if she continued in this fashion she was a lost woman.
In Spain, Philip was jolted out of his comfortable complacency by the unbelievable news that he had been turned down.
Wait for me, Philip…
And he had waited patiently—for this insult!
He went to his private altar and tried to pray for guidance, but he could not hear God’s voice for his own, screaming silently in his head.
She’ll pay for this. One day I swear she’ll pay…
But not just now. Now he had to save face in the only way open to him, by finding a wife as soon as possible to negate his assumed interest in the Queen of England.
There was only one royal bride instantly available, the little French Princess Elisabeth already betrothed to his son, Carlos. Philip broke the betrothal and married her himself—and saw to it that the Queen of England should be one of the first to hear the news.
“My name is a fortunate one,” said Elizabeth, and pouted so convincingly that Feria was instantly uneasy. Oh Lord, had he been too hasty, misunderstood a passing mood of petulance for declared intent—botched the whole thing after all?
“Madam,” he cried, exasperated beyond endurance, “the fault lies with you—you know how unwilling I have been to accept your refusal.”
“Surely he could have waited three or four months—I might have changed my mind, you know.”
Was she laughing at them—was she? He went away to record his angry opinion for the edification of his master and posterity.
“The country is lost to us now, body and soul, for it has fallen into the hands of the Daughter of the Devil and the greatest scoundrels and heretics in the land.”
But Elizabeth had many other suitors and had already discovered that no other creatures in the world were quite so easy to exploit. She had had more than her money’s worth out of Philip.
Now she was ready to take on the rest.
* * *
Cecil found himself living on a razor-edge of anxiety. They had gambled high with Philip, gambled to the very limit, and that July, when the French King died in a jousting accident and Mary Stuart became Queen of France, it began to look as though they had exhausted their run of luck. With Mary’s uncles now in command of the French government it seemed unlikely that the Scottish rebellion would be allowed to continue unchecked. Once a French army had marched into Scotland to deal with the rebel Protestant lords, it was uncomfortably obvious where it would advance next. Philip was allied in marriage to France and Elizabeth could no longer count on his active support. They were saying in Europe that the reign of the bastard Tudor would be fortunate to reach the end of its first year.
And in the back streets of London they had begun to take bets on the outcome…
* * *
The new King of France had claimed the English throne in the name of his wife, and everyone at court was devastated by the news.
“Let him have a care,” snapped Elizabeth savagely, “or I will take a husband to make his head ache!”
An uneasy silence fell over the courtiers assembled round the archery butts, suddenly irritating her beyond bearing. She flung down her bow and walked away from them before the caged fury inside her betrayed her insecurity any further. After a moment’s hesitation, Robin handed his own bow to a page and hurried after her.
“Madam!”
She stopped and swung round upon him angrily.
“Damn you! How dare you run after me like a wretched little dog?”
He could have bowed and backed off as most men would have done faced with that curt reception. Instead he calmly took her arm.
“What good will brooding alone do? Whatever you feel like saying you may say to me and know it will go no further.”
She sighed and a little of the fiercely coiled tension went out of her as she allowed him to fall into step beside her.
“You’re a thick-skinned devil,” she muttered, “I’ll say that for you.”
“Family trait,” he asserted cheerfully.
“Yes—you are your father’s son.”
“And you,” he ventured carefully, “you are to be married?”
“So it would seem.” Her face was suddenly stormy again. “France leaves me precious little choice now.”
“You would let an insult force your hand?”
“This is more than an insult. It’s a direct challenge.�
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“Perhaps.”
“How can you doubt it? That grasping Scottish bitch collects crowns. She can’t have a man in her bed because her husband is an impotent, half-witted Valois—so she’ll have England instead to console her. But I know this—she’ll rue the day she laid her greedy hands on my sceptre—by God she will!”
“She’s very young and ruled by her uncles. She may not be directly responsible—”
He broke off abruptly beneath Elizabeth’s unwavering gaze.
“I was not aware,” she said icily, “that I was in conversation with the French Ambassador.”
Jealousy! There it was again, peeping out beneath her studied indifference, a shadow in her eyes, a tightening of her lips which filled Robin equally with excitement and fear. Sweet as it was, one did not court this woman’s jealousy without risk.
He said hastily, “I’m no friend of Mary Stuart’s.”
“No?”
“No, madam. Indeed I know very little about her save that she must be a fool to think she can play against you to win.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly, as though for once he had paid her a compliment she really valued.
“How formidable you make me sound.”
“You are formidable in this mood. I tell you this much—I wouldn’t care to be your enemy.”
She laid her hand gently on his sleeve and said softly, “I don’t think you will ever be that.”
They were silent for a while, comfortably, harmoniously silent, with their hands intertwined.
“Will there be open hostilities with France?” he asked at length.
She shook her head.
“Not if I can avoid it. Oh, I know Cecil wants war in Scotland—he’ll bleat even louder now.”
“You don’t have to take his advice on all issues. He presumes on his position.”
She frowned. “It is my cousin who presumes.”
“You have too many cousins.”
“I know. And all of them legitimate.”
He squeezed her fingers between his own.
“They say the Queen of Scots has poor health. Perhaps she’ll die.”
“That would solve nothing. Her death is the last thing on this earth I would wish for. I need her alive.”
She saw genuine surprise on his face.
“You need her?”
“She is my shield against Philip. If he would unseat me he must then put her in my place—he cannot deny her right to succeed. Consider the implications of France and Britain united under one ruler and you will see why Philip will never make war on me during her lifetime. I must live with her shadow, I have no choice.” She sighed. “There’s no place for personal hatred in the heart of a prince.”
“Or love?” he demanded suddenly.
She looked away from him uneasily.
“I value your friendship, Robin. I acknowledge you are good for me.”
“I could be better,” he said bluntly, “much better. As good as you would be for me. I love you, Elizabeth, can’t you see that? Is there no place in your heart and your bed for me?”
She twisted her hand away from his grasp.
“Don’t ask me that—I don’t know.”
“Is it because you do not know that you give no answer to your suitors?” he persisted urgently.
“You ask too many questions.”
“And you never give a straight answer.”
She laughed unsteadily and took a step back from him.
“Christ set us all a good example. Never answer your enemies’ questions.”
He stiffened angrily. “I want to be your lover, not your bloody enemy!”
“For me it is the same thing.”
He stared at her in astonishment and she bit her tongue. Too near the truth, that—and he must not know the truth. It could destroy all their precarious happiness.
She said flippantly, “Ask me again when I’m in a better frame of mind,” and turned to look back across the lawns to where the little crowd still hovered around the archery butts, uncertain whether they could consider themselves dismissed or not. “Come—you had better take me back. They are beginning to talk.”
“Talk about what?” he demanded irritably.
“They say you come too often to my rooms—and I to yours.”
“Oh, for God’s sake—you never come alone!”
She shrugged and began to retrace her steps across the lawn, with the train of her russet shooting costume trailing over the parched grass.
“The Council doesn’t like your familiarity with me.”
“You mean Cecil doesn’t like it.”
She was silent and Robin knew his guess had been correct.
“I can’t begin to understand why you put your trust in that man. He’s a treacherous, self-seeking bastard.”
“I hear much the same song of you from him—admittedly in a lower key,” Elizabeth gave him a quick sidelong glance. “Why do you dislike him so much?”
“He betrayed my father. If it hadn’t been for him—”
“If it hadn’t been for him,” Elizabeth cut in sharply, “I would be dead now at your father’s hands.”
Robin shook his head.
“Your life was never in any danger—only Mary’s. Father swore you would not be harmed.”
She looked at him incredulously.
“And you believed him?”
“He gave me his word. And no matter what he may have done as a public man, once Father gave his word to any of us—”
Elizabeth’s glance was suddenly curiously full of pity.
“Your father gave his word before God to your mother. He also gave her thirteen children.” Her voice was quiet and controlled. “Shortly before Edward died he offered to divorce her and marry me. I refused. If I had not done so I would now be your step-mother and what you ask of me would be near incest.”
He was silent, utterly stunned, demoralised by this final disillusionment with a dead man. He could not question the truth of her assertion. Even Elizabeth would not lie on such a matter.
“Robin,” she said gently, “I would not have told you that for all the world—but when you speak so lightly of treachery in a loyal man—”
“I understand,” he muttered stiffly. “It ill becomes me. And I see now that you were right. Once Father had you in his hand your life would not have been worth a farthing piece. So when Cecil castigates me for a traitor’s son you naturally listen to him. Under the circumstances you would be a fool to do otherwise.”
“I don’t always listen to Cecil’s tales,” she remarked lightly, “or to his advice.”
He turned to her eagerly, grasping her hand so hard that she winced.
“Is he out of favour?”
She smiled evasively. “Let’s just say that some of his pearls of wisdom have fallen on deaf ears lately. Now forget him and fetch my bow. I still intend to win this match against you.”
He smiled suddenly.
“And I still intend to beat you hollow—madam.”
She laid her fingers lightly on his arm.
“That’s why I love to shoot against you. You’re the only man in this court who would dare.”
* * *
“Here is a great resort of wooers and controversy among lovers,” Cecil wrote irritably in October. “Would to God the Queen had one and the rest were honourably satisfied.”
Certainly he had some cause for complaint. The court was a veritable bear garden of foreign envoys and lesser suitors, all clamouring for attention and all quite shamelessly encouraged by the most sought after young lady in Europe. She discouraged no one. They sent expensive gifts and while they were all planning to marry her, they were far too busy to consider any less friendly line of action. Let them all come, bearing jewels, furs and tapestries—she was quite happy to
play them off, one against the other.
She was quite blatantly enjoying the farce, but Cecil was not amused.
“It can’t go on much longer, madam—it really can’t. You must—” He quailed as she looked up pointedly from her papers. “It is—essential—that you marry soon.”
Elizabeth rose from her chair and arched her back like a lazy cat; he had never noticed before how decidedly feline all her movements were.
“Who can I marry?” she inquired with studied innocence. “The people will resent a foreigner, the nobility will resent an Englishman—you must admit that doesn’t leave a lot of choice.”
“Surely the Earl of Arran, as a Scot, would offend no one.”
“Except me!”
“Madam!” He flung out his hand hopelessly towards her. Of late all his gestures had become a little more exaggerated when he spoke to the Queen. “I thought you liked him!”
“I liked him so well I hope never to see him again,” she said drily.
“But, madam, you said—”
“I said nothing of any consequence.”
“Yet Arran was convinced of your intentions.”
“My dear Cecil, they are all convinced of my intentions. I spend a great deal of time and effort to that very purpose. When I marry—if I marry—I trust it will be a man with more to sustain his role than six stiff inches of manhood. A mind for one thing wouldn’t come amiss. Arran was more than half out of his—surely you noticed.”
Cecil coughed to cover his discomfort.
“A few unfortunate mannerisms, madam, nothing to cause real concern.”
“I fear they would concern me greatly,” she said coolly, “in the bedchamber.”
He looked at the floor and she eyed him with amusement.
“Arran is overbred and unstable—like half the crowned heads in Europe. I will go virgin to my grave sooner than raise a brood of vacant lunatics to menace England after my death.”
“They’re not all madmen,” he began uneasily.
“No? You’d call the King of Sweden sane? Perhaps you should read some of his love letters. And the Spanish heir tortures live rabbits in his private apartments—roasts them alive on a spit so that he can hear them scream.”