Now she turned to me, propping herself likewise on an elbow. She ran her hand over my face and I saw such kindness and caring in her eyes. “Why then do you stay? This is not your war, sweet boy.”
I thought for a long time before I answered, remembering the siege of Haarlem, the friends I had lost there. Soon after my escape and my coming to Williams army, the Spanish troops had turned mutinous for lack of pay, and in a frenzy the likes of which had never been seen before — even on the Eve of St. Bartholomew — had set a course of pillage, rape and slaughter in Europes most fabulous city, Antwerp. At least the infamous butchery in Paris had been driven by a cause held meaningful by its butchers — purging the city of Protestant heretics. But in Antwerp, what was now called the Spanish Fury had been a most senseless mayhem. No political or religious pretext had been invoked, for the city itself was in the south, and therefore loyal to Philip.
The soldiers had come intent on finding payment — if not from the king’s bankrupt treasury, then from the towns richest merchants. And certainly there was enough wealth for the taking to satisfy every marauder who had come. But something unholy had happened as the intruders passed thro the city gates. Some kind of madness descended upon them, and their intent to simply plunder turned to wanton, mindless destruction. They set fire to magnificent homes whose possessions they might have stolen. They threw priceless tapestries into canals, smashed bottles of costly wine, trampled gem encrusted jewelry underfoot. Houses were ransacked and furniture smashed into useless piles of rubble. But in those three days of rage much, much worse was the cost in human lives.
The tales shocked even the most hardened of veterans. Men hacked into tiny pieces. Women — young girls and grandmothers alike — ravished by gangs of drunken soldiers. Homes broke into, children tortured in front of parents eyes. Twas said the marauders had found in one home a wedding in progress. The groom was stabbed a hundred times, the brides gown and underclothes stripped from her body before she was thrown naked into the street. All the guests were locked in the cellar as the soldiers partook of the wedding feast, and when they were gorged and wild with wine, the familys most precious belongings in hand, the intruders had departed, setting fire to the house and burning to death all those who remained trapped in its cellar. All told, eight thousand citizens — Catholic and Protestant alike — had died in three days time.
For all its horror the Spanish Fury had birthed one shared sentiment in the hearts and minds of all Netherlanders — north or south, previously loyal to Philip or not. They had finally come to see his army in their land as farmers would view a plague of locusts. All seventeen provinces had united, and in the city of Ghent an agreement to expel the Spaniards from their land had been signed. The right to choose ones own religion had been promised, and William of Orange had known some joy that all his countrymen now stood behind him as their leader.
“I myself continue to fight,” I said to Marje finally, almost shyly, “for the last of all the reasons. To be the kind of soldier I have met only in Prince Williams army. The man who is fighting for freedom.”
Marje looked away then, for she could not meet my eyes, so filled were they with the truth and the pain of my words. Twas the reason Roost fought, why all her countrymen fought despite the great and terrible punishment King Philip continued to rain down on them year after bloody year.
The war fought in Holland by the Dutch had made a man of me. No base or mercenary instincts moved these soldiers hearts as they did the English, German or Swiss. Twas a long hard fight on poor ground for fighting. There were skirmishes amidst the bogs, dikes and flood marshes covered in thick grey fog, air so moist our guns refused to fire. We were a poor army and so became, of necessity, an army of ingenuity — mobile, swift of movement and masters of surprise. We found every way to harass our enemy. We struck when they were on the march or fell into disorganization — perhaps whilst they crossed a river. We cut Spanish lines of communication, stole into their camps at night and drove iron spikes into the touch holes of their guns, so the powder could not be ignited. We cut bridges, sowed the roads with sharp thorns, and poisoned enemy wells. To gain advantage our infantry might wade many miles thro water lapping their armpits, knowing full well a high tide could drown us. The city garrisons, now manned by well trained and fervent burgher guards, repulsed even the most vicious of sieges. But only “Mad Margaret,” a cannon eighteen foot long with a bore of thirty three inches, struck real fear into the hearts of the Spanish army.
For myself, I rode with the Dutch cavalry, men of such courage and soldierly grace that I felt I had found another family. Tho she still held back the real aid we needed, my Queen had sent to us a thousand English horses, and from that number I found many fine animals. Several died under me and I mourned their brave and beautiful souls, every one.
But Holland was no suitable place for cavalry maneuvers and we struggled valiantly for small reward. Once outside of Brill, our infantry locked in bloody battle with an enemy regiment on the dunes, we sallied forth to attack a long line of Spanish cavalry disposed along the coastal road. Hooves flying, pistols blazing we shattered thro their line at two points, throwing them into utter disarray. We drove them off and when their battered remnants fled, we charged across the dunes with high and terrible cries, coming to aid our embattled comrades on foot. That ambush routed the Spanish infantry and cut them off from all retreat.
Victory was ours that day and sweet, tho these moments were few. But we fought on, for our leader Prince William was a faithful beacon to the cause. He believed that God would not forsake us, even if all our Protestant neighbors did, and his words became our anthem — “Tho we be utterly destroyed, it will cost the Spanish half of Spain in money and men before they have made an end to us!”
Marje seemed finally to have calmed. She began dressing, and I watched her as I put on my worn breeches and shirt. I had perhaps grown too fond of this woman who was not mine to love, tho if I were altogether honest I would admit she stirred no longing in my soul. Now it was I who grew pensive, musing upon the illusive dream of romantic love. I had rarely seen it expressed, tho it was reputed that the Queen and the Earl of Leicester shared a great and longstanding passion. Prince William and his wife Charlotte, too, were said to have married for love. Did a woman live, I wondered, who would burn my soul and imagination as fiercely as she did my loins? She must. As I had once looked out over the waves at Milford Haven and seen my future abroad, I now felt sure such a woman must exist.
As Marje and I, arms entwined companionably, tramped back across the dunes to the flickering lights of camp, I threw my head back, gazing at the heavens and knew with a sudden surge of joy that those stars which ruled my fate this night, shined down upon my true love, wherever in the world she lived and breathed. Perhaps, I thought with a smile, she is right now staring up at the same stars dreaming of me.
Twenty-nine
It seemed to King Philip, as he made the day’s fifth solitary journey from chapel to Council Chamber, that he was little more than a mass of aches and pains and creaking joints. He was aging very badly. When he’d been a younger man his black clothing had contrasted handsomely with his fair hair and blue eyes. Now the hair was turning a dull grey, and the skin of his face had a sickly pallor that almost matched it. Because of the stern black he now wore exclusively, he seemed as he moved through the palace courtyard more a dark shadow than a man.
A sudden catch under his right lower rib was the unpleasant signal that another gall bladder attack was imminent. His physicians would no doubt begin pestering him about his diet. “Your piles,” they would exclaim like a bunch of dithering women, “will never improve eating all that meat, Your Majesty!” Damn the doctors, Philip thought with irritation, if I wish to eat meat and meat alone, meat is what I shall have. The King of Spain had partaken of neither bread nor fruit nor vegetable for many years and, he concluded with finality, he had no intention of beginning now. Besides, his gall bladder and his asthma, even the occasional bout
of malaria, were nothing compared to the troubles now doing battle inside his skull.
Philip paused briefly to stare into a cage along the cloister walk which housed some long-limbed monkeys from the New World — his Great Empire, which had expanded to encompass more than fifty million subjects. The strangely human beasts behind the bars were squabbling over some food, poking and grabbing with those spindly arms, baring their teeth, howling and posturing ferociously. Finally the largest of the monkeys wrested the coveted morsel from the others and retreated to a far corner of the cage to consume it greedily. Philip felt uneasiness overtake him and he turned away quickly, telling himself it was the mess and filth of the cage that repulsed him. Perhaps the royal zoo he’d had built for the children had been a bad idea. His fourth wife, Anne of Austria, had persuaded him that the girls and young Prince Philip would enjoy the caged oddities. Now he could see that such animals so close in their midst might cause disease. He must write an order to have them removed.
When he arrived at the Council Chamber three members of the foreign policy junta were already waiting. This committee was more casual than his fourteen formal councils, with their endless reams of consultas which Philip annotated in his spindly scrawl before sending them back. These assembled councillors, with bearings and countenances as grave as their king’s, all bowed stiffly as he took his chair behind the table and gave them leave to sit. Each face, observed Philip, looked more grim than the one before. Philip much preferred reading the consultas his committees sent him, and writing his replies to them, to these face-to-face meetings in which he was required to listen and speak and, worse, make hasty decisions. Philip sensed that today’s junta would prove particularly detestable. Well, he had best begin it so it should be finished the more quickly.
“Give me news of the Netherlands,” he commanded, then sighed morosely.
“Your Majesty,” began his most trusted councillor, Ruy Gómez, “the uniting of the seventeen provinces has proven most troublesome. Its treaty, which the people call” — Gómez sneered — “the Pacification of Ghent, aligns even those previously Catholic Estates which had been loyal to you, in a concerted effort to entirely oust the Spanish presence from the Low Countries.”
“What, in your estimation,” asked Philip of Antonio Pérez, “has caused so violent and sudden a reaction?”
“Your Majesty …” Pérez paused, unsure how to phrase his answer. He did not wish to speak to the King as a teacher to a child. “We all agree that the massacre at Antwerp is its primary cause. Catholics and Protestants alike were slaughtered indiscriminately.”
“But did the citizens not understand these were not soldiers under the command of a Spanish general, but mutineers? That there were as many Germans in their ranks as Spaniards?”
Philip’s finance minister Iñigo Ibéñez was similarly tongue-tied as he tried to explain to his king that a person watching his wife torn apart by a mob of Philip’s soldiers might be unable to make such distinctions.
“I have recalled the Duke of Alva from his duties in the Low Countries. Was that not enough to satisfy the Dutch?” The King’s voice was growing shrill. It irritated him to know that Alva’s presence had had the opposite effect on the rebellion than that for which Philip had sent him in the first place. “His successor General Requeséns,” the King went on, “was far more reasonable in his campaign to suppress the revolt, and my half brother Don Juan, God rest his soul, was in his short tenure positively lenient. I allowed him to offer pardon to all those who had taken up arms against me. I promised to cease the war, restore taxing power to the Estates …”
“You refused them pardon of the one thing they wished for above all, Your Majesty. Heresy,” said Cardinal Granvelle.
“And the Prince of Orange, though he continues to refuse the Netherlands crown, has become … you might call him a national hero,” said Ruy Gómez. “As Spaniards celebrate Don Juan for defeating the infidel at Lepanto, the Dutch celebrate William in much the same way. And what he is telling this unified people is that there will be no peace until the Spanish are driven entirely and irrevocably from the Netherlands.”
“Preposterous!” Philip shouted and pounded the council table with the flat of his hand. Instantly he regretted his outburst. He could not afford to show weakness to his underlings. It was unbecoming in so great a king. “What plans has William for the crown if he does not wish it for himself?” asked Philip, attempting to bring a chill back into his voice. “Does he expect to entice the heretic Queen to wear it?”
“It seems more likely the Duke of Alençon will take the bait, Your Majesty,” offered Antonio Pérez.
“Is the little gnome not still courting Elizabeth?” asked the King.
“The two have yet to meet,” answered Pérez, “but the marriage plans are proceeding through proxies. The usual …”
Philip let his mind wander as his councillor related the vaguely irritating information sent back from England by court spies regarding the courtship dance between Elizabeth and the youngest son of de Médicis. The French. So long Spain’s enemy. And yet so beautiful a gift had come from there — his beloved Isabella. At least the House of Valois was no longer sending subsidies to the Netherlands Calvinists. The French internal struggles and the weakmindedness of the royal family had finally given Philip a formidable advantage. But France allied with England — that could indeed pose a problem.
“… bankruptcy.” The word spoken by Iñigo Ibéñez brought Philip instantly out of his reverie. “If we do not quell this rebellion quickly we face yet a second bankruptcy. This year alone your total debts and liabilities stand at seventy-four million ducats, Your Majesty — a sum equal to fourteen times the Crown’s annual revenue.”
Philip felt his head begin to spin. The world’s richest man was hopeless with finances, had never entirely understood the business of loans and interest. All he knew was that his ships were still sailing into his ports from the New World laden with gold. How under heaven could this be happening? But even as the question formed in his head the answer became clear. William of Orange had taken his place beside the whore Elizabeth as Spain’s greatest enemy. And he had to be stopped.
“We must nullify the Prince of Orange,” announced Philip suddenly. “He must be knocked forcibly from the field of play, do you understand me? Like a piece taken in a brilliant move from a chessboard.” All the old hatred for his father’s favorite came rushing to the fore. William was a scoundrel, a traitor, a heretic. Philip felt his pale face flush red with rage. “I wish him dead!” he hissed.
There was silence amongst the King’s councillors. Then Cardinal Granvelle spoke up in the calmest of voices. “We could name him an outlaw, Your Majesty. Put a price on his head.”
“Yes, an outlaw, a public plague, a murderer of Catholics,” agreed Philip. He was warming to this plan, and the words rolled off his tongue effortlessly. “All my subjects shall be forbidden in every country, territory, and estate I rule to live, speak, or in any way communicate with him. They may not give him food or drink or shelter on pain of death.”
“What shall be the price placed on him, Your Majesty?” asked Antonio Pérez.
“Twenty-five thousand crowns in gold,” replied Philip evenly. Someone gasped. Even the King himself was astonished at the sureness and swiftness of his decision — and the enormous amount of the bounty.
Granvelle had been scribbling on a blank sheet of parchment. “Shall we ‘give leave to any one of our subjects,’” he now read, “‘sufficiently loyal to his King to rid us of this evil man, delivering him to us dead or alive’?”
Ruy Gómez added, “If that subject succeeded, we could ennoble him as well. And if he had committed any crime, he would be pardoned.”
Philip nodded slowly. He was enjoying this fantasy of William’s assassination immensely. “I think that if this loyal subject should die in the act, having succeeded in the Prince’s execution, his family should receive the money and honors in his stead. Do you agree?”
As his councillors enthusiastically nodded their assent, Philip smiled a small but a distinctly pleasant smile.
“Compose the edict in your own words, Cardinal Granvelle, and I will sign it immediately. Thank you, gentlemen. You may all go.”
Their spirits raised considerably, the men bowed and backed out the Council Chamber door.
Philip straightened in his chair. He felt a lightness, almost a buoyancy in his body. Several minutes after his councillors had departed he found that he was still smiling. And the pain under his right lower rib had completely disappeared.
Thirty
The Earl of Leicester stood perfectly erect in the cool morning sunlight staring at his reflection in the tall gilt-framed looking glass. He had always been a vain man, admired by men and women alike for his rugged handsomeness and startlingly masculine vigor. But the image that gazed back at him, he realized, was no longer one to inspire admiration from without, or vainglory within. Now forty-five years old, he had long ago lost the fresh vibrancy of youth. He looked weary, and the eyes wore round them a pained mask of wrinkles. His jowled cheeks above the grey beard glowed with an unhealthy floridity. And with his gout preventing the constant strenuous riding he had known his entire life, Robin Dudley was slowly going to fat.
The rich garments, he thought, turning slightly to one side, the folds and slashes of brocade and satin, the ruffs and ribbons, did hide a multitude of sins. And the calves under the fine silk hose were still firm and well turned. He sighed. This morning as he stood in the peach and silver opulence of Wanstead House, he was dressed for a bridegroom, but the bride waiting below in the chapel was not the one he had dreamed for so long of marrying.
He did love Lettice Knollys. Even after giving birth to three children, Lady Essex was very simply a gorgeous woman, utterly sensual, and she matched him stroke for stroke in rampant, unquenchable ambition and scheming. When they had taken up together he had come nearly undone with wanting her. Had gone to extreme lengths to have her husband, Lord Essex, sent far from England into the wilds of Ireland so they could carry on with their exorbitant passions unhindered. When, providentially, Essex had died of a fever, Leicester had still been so firmly clutched in the arms of desire that he had sloughed off all rumors that had him — for the third time — murderer of an unwanted spouse. He had even offered his previous lover, Douglas Sheffield, a generous settlement. Indignant, she had refused and, finally accepting that Leicester would never be hers, begun entertaining other marriage proposals. It looked as though she would accept one from Sir Edward Stafford, ambassador to France.
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