by Susan Kay
“But why?” he whispered, not daring even now to hope. “Why have you come to me?”
She bit her lower lip and laid her head against his shoulder.
“Don’t you know?” she said.
For a long time they clung together wordlessly, while Leicester’s dog regarded them curiously, with his big head on one side.
Slowly, silently, Leicester undressed her in the warm firelight, until at last she stood naked, with the velvet gown at her feet. He had seen her in various states of undress, but never entirely naked before and he stared in amazement, for her body was still a girl’s, straight and slender and firm, white as alabaster. Shame touched him then, a poignant moment of regret that he could no longer offer the fine athlete’s physique that had once been his. He had nothing to give her now but experience and skill learned in countless beds.
Oh God, let it be enough…
He carried her to the bed and laid her against the pile of pillows stamped with his crest. She lay very still, watching as he let his robe slip to the Turkey carpet. Her eyes travelled slowly down from his face to widen in an amusement that did not quite conceal her alarm.
“The complete man,” she mocked gently, “is well equipped to meet every demand made upon him.”
He smiled as he lay beside her on the bed, for he was not deceived by her flippancy; he knew she was terrified. Beneath his caressing hand her heart was thumping like a hunted doe’s and with some good reason, he admitted. For he had her now to use her entirely as he wished. There were no guards here—she had stripped herself naked of protection and placed herself at the mercy of his goodwill; and for years he had dreamed of raping her.
Yet suddenly, inexplicably, he no longer wished to do that; the desire to humble and degrade her flawless body might never have existed. He only wished to give and take such pleasure as no man and woman had ever found before in each other’s bodies.
He loved her with knowledge and infinite tenderness, until her eyes were a soft gleam of urgent desire and the slow-built, shuddering fire could be contained no longer. The volcanic eruption of their love flooded them out of the universe, to a place where time and space had no meaning, where the outline of known things was dim and the world dwarfed within the four posters of this sacred bed. There was nothing but their quivering joy, enshrined for ever in the unimaginable significance of her surrender. She was his at last and his only, at the very moment when he had believed her lost to him for good; and he wondered why he had never seen before that the only way to win this woman was to break her pride and her heart.
When it was over, he cradled her in his arms and felt her tears on his cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered. “Next time there will be no pain.”
She laughed shakily against his shoulder.
“Was that pain? God preserve me then from joy!”
“I will show you such joy as you have never dreamed of.”
She turned to him and it was suddenly his turn to laugh. “But not just yet,” he added hastily.
“Why not?” she pouted.
Hugely amused, he kissed her hair.
“You know remarkably little about men, except how to rule them with an iron hand,” he said gently. “The male must rest a little before the next encounter.”
“So,” she sighed, “one is not a flagpole, to be run up and down at a moment’s notice.”
Oh, he could not believe this. She was like a kitten in his arms, soft and playful with all her claws sheathed, the Virgin Queen—a virgin no more. He could not imagine in that moment how he had ever gone in fear of her.
“Will it take long?” she inquired seriously.
“At least five minutes—if you can spare the time.” He pinned her firmly back in his arms. “Lie still,” he commanded. “You and I have many questions to answer first.”
Involuntarily, she shivered and hid her face against his powerful chest, listening to the steady beating of his heart. It had come so much sooner than she had feared, and she was suddenly touched with dread.
“Let’s not ask questions, Robin,” she begged. “Not just now.”
But he did not heed her, did not even notice how thin and anxious her voice had become. He was the master now and she was no longer the Queen, just the woman he had always wanted in his bed. He would never be afraid of her again and he would ask his question, because it had only one answer. He would hear her say it tonight, as he had longed to hear it for over twenty years.
“Why did you come to me?”
“Because I love you.”
She had to say it now—there was no escape from his arms. He pulled her close, and asked her; and for a long moment she was silent.
Even without answering directly, there was much she could tell him that would set his heart at rest. She could tell him how she had spent the long, lonely weeks of his banishment, whipping her resentment in the hope that her pain and rage would resolve itself into undying hatred. How every day that passed had been more empty than the last, so that with each hour the enormity of his crime receded before the bitter realisation that there was no happiness without him. She could tell him how she had steeled herself to kill him and found she could not do it—how she had begun to believe and to hope that she would never do it now—for what more could he ever do against her than to turn away?
So many reasons, all of them true and none of them the right one. Something else had brought her submissive to his bed, an unshakeable decision made at the end of those weeks of misery. And this she must tell him now, because she could not hope to keep it from him; it concerned him intimately and he had to know.
But she was afraid to tell him, terrified of spoiling the only moment when their love had met. Given the choice, she would have been entombed in this bed, safe for eternity, crystallised in time within his arms. But time would not stand still for her, no matter how many clocks were stopped. It marched on relentlessly even now, stealing the magic moment away from her, while the unsaid words lay burning on her tongue. She lay stiff on the pillows, staring at the tester of the bed as though it were a sword suspended above her head. In all her life no single sentence had required such courage of her.
He repeated his question with a shade of aggression and she turned on her side to look at him.
“Because I am going to marry Alençon,” she said.
The tiny crystal of their love shattered in a million fragments as he slapped her face.
“You bitch!” he spat. “You damned, unholy bitch! Was execution too good for me?”
She shrank away from him on the pillows, holding her cheek in dazed disbelief; even her darkest fear had not prepared her for the savagery of his reaction.
“Robin,” she sobbed. “Oh, Robin, let me explain—”
“You don’t need to explain—I understand!”
He caught her by the throat and began to shake her like a rag doll, his thumbs pressing on her windpipe in a murderous grip. In that moment, driven by an ecstasy of rage, he would have killed her without another thought, but the violence in his voice disturbed the big dog slumbering peacefully by the fire and the animal leapt up, baying like a hound at the hunt.
That sound, so sudden, so unexpected, so loud, was sufficient to penetrate his dementia, distracting him in the final moment, as a man making love may be distracted by just such an interruption to his concentration. He threw her back on to the pillows and flung himself off the bed, cursing the dog into silence, kicking it brutally in the frenzy of his frustration. The dog yelped in hurt astonishment, slunk back to the hearth, and flopped down with his head on his paws; and Leicester turned to look at Elizabeth, lying still where he had left her, with red marks like burns on the whiteness of her neck. He picked up the pile of clothes and flung them at her.
“Get out of here,” he shouted, his lips curled back like a snarling wolf. “Get out of my bed and my house! Take your damned Fre
nch prince and treat him as you’ve always treated me! He can accommodate your death wish without hanging for it!”
Pulling on his velvet robe, he turned his back on her as he would never dare to do before witnesses and went over to the hearth, draining the cup of wine which he had left there with one gulp. Boy sat up with a quick thump of his tail, cautiously pushing his nose into his master’s hand, and Leicester knelt and gathered the huge animal in his arms, burying his face in the thick bristling fur to shut out the sight of all that hurt him in that room.
For a long time there was silence broken only by a soft rustle of satin and the occasional whimper of the dog. Slowly Leicester lifted his head and looked round. Elizabeth was standing by the side of his bed, pulling at the fastenings of her gown with hopeless ineptitude. She, whose hand shaped the fate of Europe, had no more idea of how to dress herself than a small child, and for some unknown reason that sight cooled the last of his fury against her. For a moment more he savoured her clumsy struggle, then he went over and fastened the gown with his own hands. She did not flinch at his approach, nor at his touch, and when he had finished, he turned her slowly about until she faced him.
“I almost killed you,” he said with a sort of dull wonder. “Don’t you realise that, you stupid woman?”
She smiled faintly and touched one of the bruises on her neck with a gesture that was almost satisfaction.
“I shall have to hide these marks from my women,” she said slowly. “It won’t be easy.”
He shook his head in amazement, recalling numerous occasions when she had turned on him like a vixen for a real or imagined fault, a wrong word, an ill-timed gesture. Even after all these years she could still surprise him, and he wondered if that was not the secret of her power over him, the real reason why in spite of everything he had never tired of her, as he would tire of every other woman in his life.
He put his hands on her shoulders and said with a touch of irony, “Doesn’t that concern you—just a little?”
She touched his pale cheek.
“I’m not going to punish you for it, if that’s what you mean. I think you and I have punished each other quite enough.”
“If you marry Alençon—” he began belligerently.
She put her fingers on his lips to silence him.
“Not to spite you,” she said softly. “To make it safe for us to be lovers at last. I want you to come back to court and support my marriage to the Duke—”
“What?”
“Oh, Robin, don’t you see, there’s no other way. When I bear your son no man shall dare to call him bastard.”
His hands slipped off her shoulders and hung lifelessly at his sides. He had met immorality many times—even indulged in it—but this was his first contact with amorality, and he was too amazed to be shocked.
“You are mad,” he said quietly, “quite mad, if you think I will be party to such an arrangement.”
She sighed wearily. “Is your pride to be greater than mine? If I can live with your wife, surely you can live with my husband. Bend a little, Robin—think of the child.”
“Oh, God, if that’s all!” he burst out suddenly. “How can you delude yourself like this? Christ, you’re forty-five—the chances of your conceiving a first child at your age must be virtually nonexistent.”
Her eyes narrowed into blazing slits of hostility. She could forgive him his marriage, even his physical assault on her, but that blow to her insane vanity was beyond the pale.
She was Queen again now, as taut and dangerous as a baited cat.
“You’ll be sorry for that,” she said, and flinging her cloak around her shoulders she turned to go.
“Why?” He barred her path to the door and caught her arm. “Because I’m the only man in England who dares to cross your will and tell you what you don’t wish to hear?”
“Get out of my way—I was mad to come here! If you don’t want your son to sit on the throne of England that’s your loss, but mine will. I shall marry the Duke of Alençon and fill my womb with or without your aid.”
“Not while I live,” he said furiously. “Not after tonight.”
She laughed in his face.
“You honestly think you can stand against me in this? Do so, if you dare!”
“Oh, I’ll dare.” There was a note of deadly, acid calm in his voice now. “I’ll break your world in two like an apple before I stand by and see you marry another man. Leave me alive now and I’ll split the Council, the court, and the whole country on the issue. By God, I’ll make things so hot you’ll think you already burn in hell!”
“So be it!” She inclined her head curtly and there was silence, as after the formal challenge that precedes a duel.
She walked out of his room as an enemy; and from that moment on they were truly at war.
* * *
“Burghley!”
Halfway across the room, the Lord Treasurer turned back slowly to her desk and looked at her curiously.
“I have something to tell you and you had better sit down, it’s going to come as a shock.”
He sat down and looked at her in sudden alarm.
“Your Majesty?” he prompted cautiously, as she rose and wandered away from him uneasily.
“This French marriage—I intend to make it.”
His mouth fell open, surrounded by a snow-white beard.
“But Your Majesty said—”
“Never mind what I said. I’ve changed my mind,” she retorted sharply. “It’s a woman’s privilege, isn’t it?”
He gave her a quick, suspicious glance, as though wondering whether this was another of her jokes, and read the steely determination in her eyes with a mixture of elation and concern. He got up stiffly and groped for her hand.
“Do you really mean this, madam?”
“Am I in the habit of saying things I don’t mean?” she snapped and then, as suddenly, burst out laughing. “No—don’t answer that. Just bear in mind what I have told you and see the negotiations are conducted accordingly. We can expect opposition in Council from—from a certain quarter. I shall expect you to overrule it and guide the final verdict. Do you understand?”
He nodded grimly. It was not going to be easy.
“I shall do my best, Your Majesty.”
“I don’t want your best, Burghley—I want my own way. And I expect you to see that I get it.”
“Yes, madam,” he muttered.
“That’s all. You may go now,” she said curtly and turned away.
* * *
Alençon arrived at Greenwich shortly after dawn on an August morning which promised to be sultry. He was bundled unceremoniously into Simier’s bed, still wearing doublet and hose, where he promptly fell asleep after his trying journey. Simier settled in the early morning light to scribble a note to the Queen, telling her how narrowly he had restrained the Duke from bursting into her bedchamber.
“…with great difficulty I got him to bed at last—” Simier eyed the sleeping lad with an ironical eye—“and I would to God you were with him there as he could then with greater ease convey his thoughts to you.”
Elizabeth received the note with unsmiling silence. She was in deadly earnest now and weary of exchanging indelicate innuendoes with Simier—when this business was concluded it would give her great pleasure to send the French ape packing.
It took the Ladies of the Bedchamber two hours to array their mistress for the first meeting and they were in a fine twitter of nerves as they fastened the long rope of pearls around the white neck, placed a small cartwheel ruff beneath the pointed chin, dressed her hair high and decked it with shimmering diamonds. They watched her stealthily for some sign of emotion, but she was calm and perfectly composed, her mood unfathomable.
When Alençon was led before her at length, her eyes smiled and coolly appraised him at the same time; she looked h
im up and down with the same calculating glance she might have given to a stud horse. She had expected nothing; she was not disappointed; he would serve her purpose. And at least he was not ugly and hunchbacked, as his enemies said. Plain and a little short in the leg, but the brown eyes were intelligent and sophisticated and they rested on her with a flattering look of relief.
Alençon could hardly believe his good luck. He had come with an air of martyrdom, prepared to marry a vain, middle-aged spinster for the sake of a crown, in much the same sort of mood as Philip of Spain had prepared to sacrifice himself in Mary Tudor’s bed. He was pleasantly surprised by the woman who met his eyes. She was astonishingly well preserved for her age, tall and elegant with an indefinable air of majesty. So Simier had not been lulling him with the description he had sent home in despatches. He edged closer, his critical glance sweeping over her. The hair was a wig, but wigs were fashionable and worn by much younger women than the Queen. There was a network of fine lines around her striking eyes and a slight furrow on the high forehead, the result of years of terrible decisions and constant anxiety, but she was still a handsome woman by any count, and he was immediately conscious of her magnetism. He stayed for twelve days, playing the attentive suitor, and at the end of those twelve days he was a lost man, raving to Simier of his good fortune.
“No delays, Jean. Whatever her terms—agree to them.”
Simier inclined his head dubiously.
“As you wish, my lord.”
“Forty-five,” murmured Alençon, shaking his head in slow disbelief. “What’s her secret, Jean—does she drink the blood of new-born babies? They say that works, you know—never fancied it myself, mind.”
Simier turned away abruptly.
“She devours men, my lord—and devours them whole.”
“Then I shall be gladly consumed. Get me back as soon as this damned country will allow, Jean—and when I’m gone, don’t let her forget me.”
All the Duke’s close attendants were aware of the change in their master. Alençon the rake, the cynic, the irrepressible little egotist, was behaving like a schoolboy in love for the first time. He wept when he took his leave of Elizabeth and a shower of passionate letters swamped her in his wake, enough, remarked the French Ambassador, Mauvissière, to set fire to water. A superb diamond betrothal ring glittered on her finger and Elizabeth quietly congratulated herself on uniting pure political gain with personal ends in a masterly fashion. She had ignored her physical needs for more than twenty years, allowing the interests of the state to supersede them, while she squeezed every last ounce of benefit from the marriage game. She had surmounted the huge emotional obstacle in her path at last and she felt entitled to a taste of happiness. Now and then in the quietness of her room she had an odd, uneasy memory of an empty cradle rocking forlornly in the corner of an empty nursery, but she pushed it aside and refused to dwell on it. It was absurd to even think of comparing herself with her sister Mary. There would be a child and she would survive its birth, as she had survived everything else—threat of execution, smallpox, even poison. Did she not possess the luck of the Devil?