In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  “You are not fit to be king!” she shouted. With that she turned on her heel and stalked down the gallery and into the Hall.

  The breakfast that morning must needs be a catch-as-catch-can affair; already the serving men were laying food out on the trestle tables. Men were taking their weapons down from the walls, wolfing down where they stood what food they could lay hands on, and filling their saddle bags, slung over their shoulders, against the time when hunger would strike again. It was summer; when these provisions ran out, they would live off the land.

  Mary retrieved her pistols, loaded them, and placed them into the leather holsters at her belt. She strode out of the Hall and towards the stables without another thought for Darnley or a backward glance.

  ###

  Darnley, who had ridden out at last to join the royal forces after being shamed into doing so by his angry father, had been right about one thing; they were chasing the Earl of Moray and his rebel troops hither and yon, up and down the countryside, from east to west and back again. James and his army had been near the very gates of Edinburgh before realizing that their intelligence was faulty; they were outnumbered by more than four to one. The earl, who was nothing if not a realist, prudently turned about and fled without a fight. But Mary was relentless; she knew that her brother was only stalling until help from Elizabeth could arrive. She had no intention of allowing that to happen; she was adamant that the royal army must find them and finish them. As she pursued her brother day after day, a royal messenger on a fast horse rode south to London, in his pouch a scathing letter from Mary to Elizabeth warning the Queen of England not to interfere in Scottish affairs.

  And so it had been for the entire summer. From Ayrshire to Linlithgow, from Glasgow back to Edinburgh, and many points in between, the rebels fled from the royal forces who pursued them. The royal army descended upon town after town, stripping the townsfolk for their provisions.

  During this time Mary and Darnley slept in many a private burgher’s home, inn, or church; when none of these was to be had, they slept in tents under the stars. But the ecstasy she had once known at Darnley’s touch on her skin was gone, evaporated as the evanescent thing it was, as if it had never been. In its place was a feeling beyond disgust; revulsion, loathing were all she was capable of feeling now when they coupled. Which they must; Darnley may have shown himself to be a sot and a coward, a failure as a king and as a husband, but there was still one function that he must perform. And so she tolerated his drunken fumblings as best she could. Once she had the result of this disgusting duty, a child in her womb who would be the next king of Scotland, she vowed silently that he would never touch her again.

  So after nights filled with a growing hatred instead of the wild adoration she had once felt, Mary woke to days of adventure and quest. She wanted nothing better than to catch up with her brother, and crush him utterly; with her pistols in her belt and her stallion between her knees, she pushed on, dragging an unenthusiastic Darnley behind her.

  But it was not to be; in the final extremity, Moray had been faced with either certain defeat or escape into England. Reluctantly, for he knew that it was unlikely that he would be welcome in Elizabeth’s realm, the Earl of Moray and his bedraggled force finally fled across the English border and made for Carlisle. The Queen of England might covertly assist her Scottish neighbors in ensuring the Protestant faith there by helping to forestall a Catholic uprising; but an overt show of support for a man who had risen in arms against his anointed sovereign was an action that the earl felt certain Elizabeth was not prepared to take.

  Although she wished wholeheartedly that she could have engaged her brother in combat, for Mary, Moray’s flight into England was a victory. In the flush of her triumph, Mary cried that she should lead her troops to the very gates of London. The threat to Elizabeth in such a declaration was obvious. But there was a vast difference between chasing her brother’s miserable little force up and down Scotland, and meeting seasoned English soldiers in the field. Mary had proved her courage in the face of the enemy, but she knew little of the issues of warfare, such as the importance of the length of supply lines. She was deterred from her rash desire, and the court withdrew to Stirling.

  It was there to which Elizabeth had, in the early days of Mary’s return to Scotland, sent her cousin a portrait of herself. Mary had forgotten it until her arrival there in the autumn. One evening, a group of courtiers sat, drinking their wine and regarding the portrait of the Queen of England. There was a lively discussion amongst them as to whether or not the portrait was like the original woman; many of Mary’s courtiers had actually seen Elizabeth in person.

  Suddenly Mary put down her wine cup and laughed. “No,” she said. “It is not like her. For I am Queen of England.”

  Greenwich Palace, September 1565

  All it took was the cry of a keening seagull, or perhaps the lonely tolling of a distant ship’s bell; even laughter from another room could set her off, and down would come the tears. For Elizabeth, it had been a miserable summer. It had all started at the wedding of Sir Henry Knollys. There, as her cousin had taken his wedding vows, she had cried the first tears of self-pity that she had ever shed. It was not that she had never wept before; certainly, her childhood, her adolescence and her young womanhood had been steeped in tears. But they had been tears of anger, of humiliation, of shame and mortification, of regret; at times, of fear, and lately of sheer frustration; but never of self-pity.

  But she was getting older now; she had reigned alone for almost seven years, and that, she knew, had taken its toll. But with Kat’s death, something in her had died, too. Kat had been with her always; she could not remember a time when she had not been there. Kat had been governess, waiting woman, friend; she had shared all the vicissitudes of Elizabeth’s dangerous life. She had been at times like the mother Elizabeth had never known, and at others, much like the child that Elizabeth knew she would never have. She simply could not believe that Kat was gone. And yet she knew it to be so; her beloved governess had died in her arms, a contented smile on her face. And now there was no one.

  Elizabeth used her linen square to mop her eyes. More self-pity! Of course there were others. Blanche Parry had been with her longer than Kat had, although she could not remember it; Blanche had rocked her cradle and Kat had not come until she was three. She still had Blanche. But as much as she loved Blanche, and respected her, Blanche could never be, had never been, just plain fun to be with. Kat had been fun, sometimes wickedly so. It was Kat who had abetted her flirtation with Sir Thomas Seymour that had landed them both in the Tower and had nearly cost them both their heads. But life with Kat had never been dull, and Elizabeth had always forgiven her the many faux pas that she had committed. Once again she found herself remembering the past, the tears rolling unheeded down her face.

  She heard a distant tinkle of laughter, but this time it came not from another room, but outside in the garden. Elizabeth wiped her eyes, blew her nose, arose and walked to the window. What she saw there at first froze her blood; but as she watched the scene unfold before her, her blood began to boil.

  It was almost as if she were watching a play, the flowery garden the stage, framed by her window. For there on a stone bench sat her cousin, Lettice Knollys, and at her feet, lounging on the closely-clipped grass, was Robert. They must have been sharing some joke at the moment she became aware of them; it was Lettice’s girl-like titter that she had heard. And now some further jest was being enjoyed; they both laughed again, Robert’s booming bass almost drowning out Lettice’s high-pitched giggle. At the height of the hilarity, Lettice leaned forward and placed her hand atop Robert’s which was resting on his own knee. Robert picked up the white, dainty little hand and kissed it.

  It was a gesture that any woman at court might have made, and the response of a kiss to the back of the hand the expected reaction of any male courtier. The very fact that the two must have known the proximity of the queen’s apartments to their place in the garden should
have proclaimed the innocence of the sight unfolding before her. But in Elizabeth’s heightened emotional state, everything was exaggerated, nothing was quite what it seemed.

  And it was more than that. Lettice was ten years younger than herself, and still had the dew of youth upon her. Looking at her, especially from this little distance, was like looking into a mirror that reflected the past. The girl had been married for four years and had already borne two children; she was at that very moment quite pregnant with her third child. But at the instant in which Elizabeth had viewed the scene in the garden, she had conceived such a passion of jealousy that all other thoughts, even her grief for Kat’s death, were swept aside. Anger smoldered as she watched the pair continue to laugh and talk. Rapidly it grew until it burst like a dying star, the sparks flying everywhere.

  By God, she would show him.

  It was late in the afternoon, and the setting sun suddenly reached an angle that bathed the garden with golden light. The jewels in Lettice’s headdress and the rings on her fingers glittered, and her deep auburn hair glinted in the sun. That was another thing! Her own complexion may have been saved from the worst of the ravages of the smallpox, but it had left her once-abundant hair thin and dull. Lettice’s hair was thick and luxurious. Envy, which had already begun its corrosive work in her heart, grew like an evil flower in her breast.

  Elizabeth called her women and bade them dress her for the evening. It was time to rejoin the world after her long withdrawal. She called for a lavish feast to be spread, and for the musicians who would play in the gallery for her amusement. Tonight would mark her return to life after her weeks of mourning. It was, above all, a decision that the lively Kat, of all people, would have approved.

  ###

  Elizabeth made her usual entrance into the Great Hall on the arm of her Gentleman Usher, her person and her gown bedecked in jewels, which winked entrancingly in the light of the hundreds of candles with which the enormous room was lit. Behind her trailed her ladies, one of which was the now-hated Lettice. But Elizabeth had held her peace and kept her own counsel; she had not let it be known by word or gesture that she was angry with her cousin or that she had witnessed the distressing scene in the garden.

  As she made her way down the middle of the room to the dais upon which she would sit to take her meal, the men bowed as she passed and the women curtseyed. All as usual. The seat beside her throne-like chair was empty, as it always was; every night at dinner for almost seven years she had gone through the formality of seating herself, and then beckoning with a wave of the hand or a nod of her regal head to Robert, who would then approach the dais, bow, and seat himself by her side.

  But this evening Elizabeth quickly scanned the room. Who was here? Who was as handsome as Robert? A tall task to find someone as handsome as her Robert…but no, she would not succumb to his charm any longer. He had obviously found her cousin more alluring than herself, alluring enough to walk in the garden with her, and to share jests and laughter with her, in place of herself. She would do likewise! The silence grew deeper as everyone waited and wondered. Finally, her roving eye lit upon Thomas Heneage. He was the same age as Robert, actually resembled him slightly, which might explain his appeal, and had a lively wit. He was one of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, and she had often heard him bantering with her ladies. Perfect! The royal nod fell on him, and he did not hesitate, although there was a collective gasp from the rest of the room.

  Robert stood as if frozen in his place, a look of absolute devastation on his face. Why had the queen passed him up? Without a word of explanation? What had he done? With that one gesture she had broken his heart. He simply must know.

  Once her dinner companion had been selected and the shock had abated of the queen having chosen someone to sit by her side for the meal other than the Earl of Leicester, the court began its own settling in for the meal, a noisy process; this was augmented by the music that had begun at the queen’s nod to the gallery above the hall. In the confusion of everyone making themselves comfortable, the serving men began to appear with huge platters of food, and the serving wenches began filling goblets with ale and wine.

  In this commotion and cacophony, Robert strode up to the royal dais and stood before the queen. He said nothing. Elizabeth gazed back at him, her face expressionless. Already she was regretting her rash action; but that only made her all the more haughty. The picture of Robert and Lettice in the garden, now engrained in her consciousness, flashed through her mind, giving her the strength needed to follow through with her resolution to hurt Robert as she had been hurt that afternoon.

  “Well, sir?” she said coldly.

  Years of royal favor had served to make him very audacious; boldly he replied, “Why am I displaced?”

  His very boldness worked against him; Elizabeth felt her ire rise at his lack of reticence when addressing her.

  Elizabeth was silent for a long moment; the court had seen the brewing confrontation and held its collective breath.

  “You are displaced at the queen’s pleasure,” she said, and turned back to a dazzled Thomas Heneage. She laughed; she placed her white, elegant beringed hand atop his.

  “I would know why,” said Robert truculently.

  At this Elizabeth stood up, placed both hands on the table, and leaned over, looking down at Robert, who stared back. Anger was apparent on both their faces.

  But when the queen replied, her voice was cold. “Do you believe that my favor is so locked up in you, my lord, that I can share it with no one else? Hark thee; if you think to become insolent, you should look to reform yourself, or I shall debase you just as I have raised you up.” She sat down, turned her attention back to Thomas Heneage, and prudently, everyone followed her example. The musicians, who had stopped their playing when the queen rose up from her chair, resumed their measure.

  The older courtiers were shocked; for they recalled almost the very same words being spoken by her father to her mother, when Anne Boleyn had once overstepped the royal bounds. It was a coincidence that made them all shiver.

  There was no choice for Robert but to depart; the dismissal in the queen’s voice was unmistakable, and his behavior had made it impossible for him to take his place on the floor amongst the other courtiers.

  Elizabeth stole a glance at the retreating figure and knew a profound moment of deep regret as she watched him departing. Her heart smote her to the very core of her being, and she longed at that moment to call him back; for Robert had lifted a hand to his eyes. He was weeping.

  Chapter 8

  “Majesty and love do not sit well together, nor remain on one throne.”

  – Ovid, “Metamorphoses”

  Windsor Castle, September 1565

  E lizabeth sat in the empty Presence Chamber at Windsor Castle. She shifted uncomfortably on her throne. She began to fidget. This was ridiculous! She was the queen, a position which many had never expected her to attain. And yet here she was, the Queen of England, and so she would remain until death claimed her. This was her Presence Chamber, her throne.

  Suddenly she jumped up off the throne, descended the dais upon which the throne sat, and stalked angrily back into her Privy Chamber, slamming the door behind her. She sat down in her favorite chair. It had a lower back than some of her chairs. A window was behind it. It was her favorite chair because in the daytime, especially if the sun was shining, as it was on this day, the light from the window shone full on the person to whom she was speaking, leaving her own face hidden in shadow, so that her expression could not be read. This was very important; it was a trick she had learned from her father. One must never by word or action allow anyone, especially an adversary, to know what one was thinking. One must be careful to reveal only that which one wished others to see. The position of the backlit chair was insurance, in case she should, by even the untimely flicker of an eyelash, reveal her thoughts.

  She tapped her fingers nervously on the side table. She jumped up again and strode to the mirror. She had s
pent an extraordinary amount of time on her toilet this morning. The thin layer of white paint on her face had been brushed on to perfection, her lips had been painted on in a deep pomegranate color, and her red hair was subtly augmented by enough extra pieces to make it seem at least as thick and luxurious as it used to be; at least as abundant as Lettice’s!

  At the thought of Lettice, her face flushed red with anger. Another five weeks would see Lettice in childbed, and yet Robert had been openly flirting with her. The insufferable cad! How dare he! The man was a rogue, a scoundrel, a blackguard, and by God, she meant to…

  The sound of a footstep outside the door brought her attention back to the room and the issue at hand. A tentative knock sounded upon the door. Perhaps it was best to be standing, rather than seated; she knew a brief moment of regret for having left the Presence Chamber, where she should have been looking down on him from a height, regal on her throne. It was too late now; this would have to do. She tilted her chin up and pursed her lips.

  “You may enter,” she said coldly.

  The door opened on silent hinges and then there he was. Her Robert. At last! How she had missed him! But it would never do to let him know that.

  Robert walked straight up to her, knelt, and held up his hand in expectation. Hers, with its long, white, elegant fingers, should already have been extended. It was not. Very well, then, he would stay in this position until she relented.

  How she longed to give him her hand to kiss! To feel the always gentle touch of his fingers, to experience the warmth of his breath on her skin when he kissed her hand.

  No! She had not summoned him here to reconcile, but to upbraid him for his behavior, which had been, which still was! …appalling. She walked away as if she had not seen him kneeling and holding out his hand. He did not stir; she looked back. Exasperating creature! He was doing this simply to annoy her. A pastime at which he most certainly excelled!