by Susan Kay
What price victory?
The sun beat down upon her uncovered head, but it could not drive away the creeping chill around her heart. She found herself suddenly thinking of God. She had gone dutifully through the motions of being a good Protestant for countless years, just as she had once presented the face of a good Catholic to the world. But she had not thought—truly thought—about God for a long time. For the past few years she had been quietly certain that He did not exist. But now, thinking of her faithlessness which He had not yet seen fit to punish, she found a fear which was very close to panic.
She would lay no claim to this victory. She would strike a medal acknowledging God’s hand in this and strike it without begrudging the cost.
And when it was done, perhaps she would be free of this sense of something owing, a nameless payment as yet in shadow, casting a chill breath upon a summer’s day.
She turned the medal over in her mind, feeling its weight, tracing the inscription, for already she knew what it would say.
God blew and they were scattered.
Ah—He was a jealous entity, God, as greedy of His servants’ undivided worship as she was herself. But that ought to satisfy Him.
She lifted her hand to the crowds and acknowledged their adulation without anxiety now. When the swaying litter came to rest at length in the palace courtyard, Essex, as Master of the Horse, came to lift her down from the cushions. It had been a long and gruelling journey and he looked at her with some astonishment.
“Why, madam,” he exclaimed, “you are still smiling.”
She laughed and spread her hands in a reckless gesture of triumph which seemed to embrace him and the whole palace sprawling around her.
“Let me smile,” she said defiantly, looking not at him but at some unfixed point in the sky. “What in the world can spoil my joy?”
A heat haze shimmered over the palace and in the distance there was a faint rumble of thunder.
Essex laid her hand upon his sleeve with a familiar gesture.
“We had best go in, madam. I believe it’s going to rain.”
Chapter 5
Night after night the bonfires flared and the people danced in the streets outside the palace, chanting the Queen’s name like an incantation. The court was in a wildly festive mood, not shared by the Queen and her chief advisers. They were plagued by financial difficulties in the Armada’s wake and had little heart for victory celebrations. The crown had borne the cost virtually alone, and when Elizabeth glanced at the men who shared the burden of government with her, she was alarmed to see the toll the Armada had taken. Burghley, so crippled with gout that he sometimes had to be carried into her presence in a chair; Walsingham gaunt and yellow-faced from the disease which was slowly consuming him; Hatton plagued by a liver complaint; Leicester obese and feverish. All went about their duties looking drawn and haggard, men made old before their time by the unceasing demands of high office.
The Queen, too, was nearly fifty-five, and not immune to the effects of exhaustion, but there was little time to rest. Her days were full, her evening commitments punishing, and she made only one small concession to her weariness. And that was to dine privately with the Earl of Leicester every night following his return from Tilbury, with all her servants dismissed and he alone serving as carver and taster.
One evening towards the end of August, he sat at her table and picked at the Viand Royal in moody silence. Through the glow of the candelabra between them, Elizabeth watched him steadily and thought she knew what had robbed him for once of his famous appetite.
In the warm aftermath of victory she had been filled with a sudden desire to reward those long years of loyal affection, and had had the letters patent drawn up to create him Lord Lieutenant of England. She had been on the point of signing it when Burghley and Hatton, both deeply aggrieved, had begun to harp peevishly on the dangers of raising a mere subject to such unprecedented authority. The post would give him power almost equal with her own, and it would not do, said Burghley sourly—the people would not like it! So—because the habit of considering the people had become second nature to her, she had laid down her pen and promised to give the matter further consideration before making a decision. Bitterly disappointed, Leicester had made little secret of his resentment.
Now she leaned across the table and covered his hand with her own.
“Still sulking, Robin?”
He looked at her with a tired smile and shook his head absently.
“Something amiss with the meat?” she suggested with mounting unease.
“The meat’s fine.”
“Then what’s wrong? Why have you eaten nothing?” She paused uncertainly. “Are you ill?”
He looked away guiltily and fingered the silver salt cellar.
“Robin!”
“It’s nothing,” he said hastily. “Just fatigue and a touch of fever—I didn’t want to worry you.”
“I knew it!” she exclaimed furiously. “I knew it at Tilbury. I shall send you back to Buxton as soon as it can be arranged.”
“I don’t want to leave you, madam.” His voice was oddly intense and mutinous, but she was too preoccupied to notice.
“Stupid man! Of course you must go—I command it!”
“I see.” He began to fold his napkin grimly. “And in my absence I suppose Essex will keep you loving company.”
His tone took her so completely by surprise that she could only stare at him in bewildered silence, too amazed to be angry.
At last she said warily, “What do you mean by that uncalled for remark?”
“I should have thought it was perfectly obvious.” He flung the napkin down and got unsteadily to his feet. “You’re replacing me, madam—do you think I don’t know it?—slowly, with dignity, putting me out to grass and putting that—that arrogant little pipsqueak in my place!”
“But—it was you—”
“Oh, yes—it was I who brought Robert to your notice. For pity’s sake don’t remind me of it. Perhaps I thought I could trust you not to go hunting in the nursery—I should have known better! Is he your lover—is he?”
Her eyes on his were aghast, humiliated, hurt, and suddenly full of tears.
“No, he is not my lover,” she said with tremulous dignity.
They were silent, watching each other as though their lives depended on the outcome of this encounter. Then she held out one hand to him; and wordlessly he knelt to kiss the tip of her jewelled slipper.
* * *
Court duties came first; there was no way, at this time, they could be avoided. And so it was very late that night before she dismissed all her attendants and he was able to come to her. In the big state bed they met as equals and knew that it was over at last, the long, bigger struggle for mastery between them. They met with all the passionate tenderness of a life-long love affair, but now the final satisfaction eluded them; and Leicester, whose fault alone it was, wept and said they were accursed.
She drew him down upon her breast and no shadow of her cruel disappointment touched her voice.
“My love,” she whispered, “it doesn’t matter.”
Evidently the wrong thing to say, for he immediately stiffened in her arms and turned away from her on the pillow.
“I am impotent in your bed and you say it doesn’t matter?”
His hair still curled thinly at the nape of his neck and was black here and there in those places where it had not turned white. She put out a hand to touch it gently.
“You’re tired,” she began hesitantly. “And unwell. It was unreasonable of me to expect—”
“A man?”
“You were ten men at Tilbury,” she told him stoutly.
“But not in the Netherlands.” He turned to look at her accusingly. “I failed you there, just as I have failed you now.”
She shook her head sadly.
<
br /> “No failure of yours can ever compare with the way I have failed you all these years. So let there be no more talk of blame. When you come back from Buxton you will be well again and it will be different. We could go to Ricote. Just a few attendants. Margery is so discreet—”
He smiled faintly and she was poignantly reminded of a child comforted in grief by the promise that a favourite toy could be mended. Could you mend manhood like a broken bone? She had no real idea; but she prayed it was true, knowing herself to be responsible for the breakage.
Long after he slept, she lay awake, cherishing his weight against her breast. At dawn she woke him gently and watched him dress in the cold, cruel light, furtive as any young lover creeping away to avoid discovery. The state bed was like an enormous empty cavern when he had gone; she could not imagine how she had slept alone in it for all these years. And when she met him later, in the presence of her ladies, they smiled at each other as though they shared some private joke.
Indian summer had transfigured their old stormy relationship, leaving them in a quietly happy state of perfect companionship which was evident to all. The Great Lord was in his place at Gloriana’s side, and his broad shoulders cast a shadow which was suddenly long enough to envelop his stepson.
Essex felt the chill of total eclipse and found he lacked the maturity to stomach even the most fleeting exclusion from her favour.
He chewed over his resentment as he organised the victory review of the troops in the tiltyard at Whitehall, a task which would have fallen to Leicester, had he not relinquished the post of Master of the Horse. Essex decked two hundred light horsemen in orange velvet and silver and watched them take the honours of the day. As he rode beneath the window where Leicester stood with the Queen, he noted the grim set of his stepfather’s jaw with satisfaction. It amused him today to excite the old man’s jealousy and he left the courtyard in high good humour.
It had been Essex’s day—all the court had said so, and that evening the young man waited eagerly to receive some special token of the Queen’s regard. A slight gesture of her hand would single him out from the gaudy multitude and everyone else, even Leicester and Burghley, would be muted into insignificance. He believed he would never tire of the thrill it gave him to take his place at the side of the goddess, as though by right. He would dance with her and make her laugh and at length she would dismiss the court and they two would retire to her chamber, attended only by her sleepy maids of honour, to play cards until the first birds sang and dawn stole through the tall casement windows. She had not sat with him like that since Leicester returned from Tilbury.
All that evening Essex waited with growing impatience for his summons to the dais, where Leicester stood beside her chair like a sentinel. They danced very little, but they talked endlessly. Christ’s soul, what could they find to talk about who had known each other all these years? At midnight the old Earl leaned forward and tapped the watch which hung on a chain at her waist. The gesture had authority and the Queen looked up and smiled and nodded. She rose and allowed Leicester to hand her down the steps of the dais; and seeing that, Essex began to elbow his way angrily through the crowd towards her.
Leicester saw him first, hastily excused himself and went to intercept the boy’s determined approach. Deference was owed to his mighty patron and Essex had no choice but to bow with superficial reverence and follow his stepfather to a window embrasure.
“My lord?” His tone was hostile, his glance flicking over Leicester’s ruddy face with vague contempt.
“The Queen has just agreed to retire and you will oblige me by detaining her no further tonight.”
Essex stared at him in surprise and resentment.
“Have you advised her to ignore me in this arbitrary fashion?”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Leicester calmly. “I have warned you before against imagining slights where none are intended. Do you imagine the Queen will engage you in conversation every time she holds court?”
“After my services today I should have thought some gesture of acknowledgment, however brief—”
Leicester laid his hand on the boy’s sleeve, suddenly patient, indulgent—fatherly.
“Service to the Queen is in itself its own reward, Robert. Bear in mind that we are all of us here at the Queen’s pleasure, and here to serve.”
“It’s barely midnight,” said Essex sullenly.
“The Queen is not well.” Leicester’s voice was suddenly curt. He had been forced to betray a confidence now and he was annoyed by the necessity to restrain this arrogant pup, snapping at his heels. “It’s time some of you young upstarts remembered that she’s only human.”
“Like you, my lord?” Essex gave him a smile edged with insolence. “I trust you don’t mistake your own mortality for the Queen’s.”
“That’s enough!” snapped Leicester softly. “It is not my intention to bandy words with a dependant. I might remind you that you are here at court through my good offices alone.”
“You needed me at court,” the boy retorted heatedly. “Mother told me you would go under to Raleigh without my aid.”
Leicester smiled suddenly.
“I fear your mother’s opinions on the subject are hardly unbiased. And should you choose to be disobliging now I think you will find I can quite safely dispense with your invaluable services—as indeed can the Queen herself.”
Essex flushed at the threat.
“The Queen will not thank you for parading her human frailties,” he muttered.
“That much I know, none better, but then—she won’t hear of it, will she?”
The boy was defeated, inclined to be peevish and stalk out of the room; Leicester took him gently by the elbow and began to steer him towards the throne.
“Come,” he said pleasantly. “I’m sure Her Majesty will wish to bid you goodnight.”
The Queen was surrounded by a press of people when they reached the foot of the dais, but she turned immediately and smiled as she held out her hand to Essex.
“Robert—your display in the tiltyard thrilled us all, did it not, my lords?”
There was a grudging murmur of assent from the men around her which the young man acknowledged with a haughty inclination of his head. He still held her hand and there was a shade of possessive arrogance about the gesture.
“You must come and talk to me tomorrow.” She stepped back, forcing him to free her fingers, and glanced over her shoulder as she did so. “Kit—I believe I have lost my fan.”
When Hatton returned from the dais with the object in his hand she smiled at him too, Essex noted jealously, as though he had just done her the most noble service. But as she turned away, the smile was extinguished, like the flame of a candle, leaving her lips set in a thin line of weariness.
She seemed unmistakably relieved to lay her hand on Leicester’s velvet sleeve and let him lead her from the Great Hall, past a gauntlet of courtiers and ladies who sank to their knees as she passed by.
Essex watched them go; and went to his own apartment in a chastened, subdued mood which invited no good-humoured chaffing from his friends.
* * *
Leicester left the court at the end of August, pausing briefly at Wanstead to collect his wife with the casual indifference a man shows when picking up a forgotten glove.
Lettice greeted him with a bored smile and a cool kiss and her eyes went past him to her lover, young Blount, standing unobtrusively by her horse. When they set out upon the journey Leicester found he was glad of the jingling harness and the stamping hooves, the constant hum of idle chatter among the kingly retinue which accompanied him. It seemed in part to camouflage the fact that they two alone in all this brave company had precious little left to say to each other.
Once or twice, he glanced sideways in the saddle and saw her riding slowly beside him in the quivering heat, very trim and upright on her grey mar
e. Occasionally a little smile touched her pouting lips, as though at a remembered pleasure for which he had not been responsible. Very handsome still, he had to admit grudgingly—it was small wonder Blount had been attracted to her, though young enough to be her son. The affair no longer outraged him. Over the last year he had been positively relieved that she had found someone to satisfy her considerable sexual appetites; he had long since lost his taste for the violent practices which gave her so much pleasure.
They were little more than strangers now, polite acquaintances who occasionally shared a bedchamber to maintain appearances. The lust which had drawn them together had been unable to sustain them through the loss of their son.
He remembered that loss now, remembered trying to comfort her with meaningless words, how she had lain on their bed stiff and unresponsive, and somehow angry, as though he were to blame for that tragedy. Then, just as he had begun to be sure his presence was doing no good, she put out her hand to touch his sleeve.
“Must you leave me?”
He had bent to brush her forehead with his lips.
“A few minutes only—just long enough to send word to the Queen of—” He hesitated, could not say it—“of what has happened.”
Lettice’s hands clenched on the coverlet.
“The Queen!” she said stonily. “The Queen, the Queen—must she intrude on everything, even our grief? Do you need her permission to stay long enough to see your son buried? I suppose I should be grateful she spared you to come at all!”
“There’s no call for that, Lettice. The Queen has been deeply concerned—”
“She didn’t concern herself with his birth—not so much as a christening present. So why should she care now that he’s dead? Doubtless this will make your life at court considerably easier. One less cause to excite that savage jealousy of hers—isn’t that so?”
He stood back from the bed, looking at her with faint disgust.
“I have no idea,” he began slowly, “what has made you so bitter. You knew when I married you that I had other—commitments.”