Fool's Paradise

by Tori Phillips

  A sudden anger lit Elizabeth’s eyes. “Why wasn’t I told this before?”

  “Ah, but Walsingham did not have all the pieces yet. Also, the Queen found out about your love for me. You said a good many things in your fevered dreams.”

  “Oh!” Elizabeth buried her head against Tarleton’s worn leather jacket.

  “At first, Her Grace thought to discourage this love of ours, but when she saw that I returned your love, she decided to use us as part of the ploy against La Faye. That was the hardest part for me, chuck,” he whispered into her hair. “To be denied your sweet company. Hanging was easy compared to that. We were kept deliberately apart until All Hallows’ Eve. Once we were together, it was expected that you would jump immediately into my arms.” He shook his head. “It almost didn’t work out that way. I thought my knees would buckle under me when I saw you standing in the firelight. I had to wait until I was sure Sir Robert and the Queen had come through the door behind the arras and could catch us in a so-called shameful embrace. Meanwhile, you were venting your righteous anger at me.”

  Elizabeth wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “So I was a player in this counterfeit?”

  “Aye, my sweet. Walsingham called you the ‘golden pawn.’ I tried to convince him you could act your part, but he is old-fashioned. He didn’t think a woman would have the wit to carry it off, nor the ability to keep a secret.”

  “What?” Elizabeth bristled at the accusation. “Why, he should have seen me in Oxford, or Banbury, or—”

  Tarleton stopped her further protestations with a soft kiss. “Do you want me to go on, sweetling?”

  “With your kiss or your tale?” she murmured coyly.

  “First my story and then much kissing, I vow! Sir Francis is a very thorough man. He had his agent go to Oxford, where he sought out Sir Robert’s lodging. There the agent met a discarded mistress named Nan. They say that hell hath no fury as a woman scorned, especially if she has been cruelly beaten and left to pay the bill. Nan told a pretty story of La Faye’s political activities for some years past, as well as his lust for your fortune since his creditors were hounding him. After Babington and the others were arrested and executed in September, Sir Robert became frantic with fear. He needed protection. As the husband of the Queen’s goddaughter he probably felt he would be safe from implication.”

  “Why wasn’t he arrested before? Why did I have to live through yesterday?” Elizabeth shuddered at the jagged, painful memory of her wedding night.

  “The plot thickens! La Faye proved his desperation when he insisted, before witnesses, upon marrying you, despite the fact you were so obviously ruined by me.” Tarleton paused and gave her a lusty kiss before continuing. “Upon reflection, Sir Francis came to the conclusion that you and I should disappear, permanently, leaving your estates well protected.”

  “Property and heirs—that’s what the Queen told me marriage was all about,” Elizabeth remembered aloud bitterly. “Hang my lands!”

  “I wish we could. Instead, they hanged me!” Tarleton laughed.

  “But why did you have to…?” Elizabeth could not bring herself to say the hateful word.

  “Die? That is one way of permanently disappearing. Also, it would lull La Faye into a false sense of security. The man wanted my blood. And as witness to my downfall, you would have no choice but to go through with the marriage. I confess, I feared for the babe. Is he all right?”

  “Aye, now that his father holds me.” She studied his profile. “But I saw you hang, my love.”

  “Did I?” Tarleton paused, as he kissed her deeply, his tongue stirring her senses. Elizabeth moaned softly under his caress. “Is this a ghost who holds you in his arms?” he murmured, his kisses coursing down her neck. “Is this a ghost who kisses your fair throat? Am I so pale and cold, sweetling?”

  “Nay!” She giggled as she felt his warm breath tickle her skin. “Oh, Dickon! Don’t stop now!”

  “Kissing you?” he asked in all innocence.

  “In telling me how you died!”

  “Oh, that! I was arrested. By midnight, everyone in Greenwich knew of it. By dawn, all of London did. Very early in the morning, I was taken across the river to the Tower, where I spent a pleasant hour or two gaming at dice with the captain of the guards there. By the way, the man is a very poor player, and owes me seven shillings sixpence. Anyway, I slept some, ate a good breakfast, then had a most enlightening conversation with a fellow by the name of Wilt Crossways.”

  “Who is he?”

  “The executioner.”

  Elizabeth shivered as she recalled the muscle-bound man garbed in black who had put the rope around her beloved Tarleton’s neck.

  Tarleton smiled down at her. “In faith, he is a reasonably nice sort—if you don’t have to meet him professionally. Wilt explained to me the types of hanging, the uses of special knots, and a great many other uncomfortable things. The long and the short of it is this—I was to hang, using a slipknot, then go limp immediately, pretending my neck had been broken. Wilt assured me that a man can swing for some time before dying. Not exactly a comforting thought, but I was in his hands, so to speak. Then the captain proceeded to get me mildly drunk on some very vile malmsey wine until it was time for my final performance.”

  Elizabeth gazed up at him, her eyes deep green pools. “Weren’t you afraid that something might go wrong?” She remembered how magnificent he had been, laughing in the face of death.

  Tarleton shook with merriment. “Afraid? My darling Elizabeth, I was terrified! Then I saw you, standing so proudly with your gown covered in love knots, and it gave me heart.”

  “I only wanted to let you know I loved you,” she said softly.

  “Aye, you did! You let all of London know! Though I didn’t expect you to be there, you gave me the extra courage I needed to take that final step. I think Walsingham knew that. I tell you truly, my love, ‘tis a very sobering experience to be hung. Even though I had prepared myself for the moment, when the trapdoor opened underneath me, and I felt myself swinging, I forgot everything in a moment of blind panic. I started fighting for breath. The executioner jiggled the rope to remind me to relax. As soon as I did, they cut me down and threw me into a box. Forsooth, they were not much gentle. I was taken back to the Tower and given another stiff drink. Last night, I rode out of London, arriving here before dawn. I knew you would be coming soon once the final scene was played.”

  Elizabeth stopped his story with another kiss. Pulling back his collar, she stared at his neck. The angry red burn of the rope was plainly evident on his skin. She traced it lightly with her finger, then kissed the hollow of his throat. She felt him tremble at the touch of her lips.

  “If you continue to do that, my sweet lady, I will never finish my story,” he warned her in a husky voice.

  “Nay, please go on. Why did I have to be married to that whoreson?”

  “My Lady Elizabeth! Your language is shocking! What company have you been keeping?” Tarleton mimicked a shrill nag’s voice.

  Elizabeth laughed. It felt so good to laugh again.

  Tarleton resumed his story. “You were legally wedded, and officially bedded to Sir Robert, all duly witnessed. He now had control, ever so briefly, of your properties. Before he had any control over your person, he was to be arrested. Raleigh assured me that he would stop any… activity.”

  “‘Twas a near thing,” Elizabeth said tightly.

  “Sir Robert was charged with several capital crimes. You, as the wife of an attainted traitor, lost all claim to his estates—formerly your estates. You were publicly sent away from court to the priory—disappearing from the prying eyes of the world. La Faye went to the block. And those blasted estates of yours reverted to the crown. Happily ever after.”

  “Happily? How can you say that? What’s to become of us? I now have no family, no home, no reputation—”

  Tarleton kissed her objections into silence. “Everyone got what they wanted. Sir Robert has gone to his just rewardwhate
ver that may be. You have your freedom—forever. And, while the crown holds your estates for your claim in the future, the Queen has some extra revenue for her privy purse. Best of all, I have you. Or do I?” he asked, growing suddenly serious. “Will you be willing to trade your silks and satins for a poor fool who has nothing to give you but his complete love?” There was an irresistible invitation in the smoldering depths of his eyes.

  Elizabeth’s fingers again traced the cruel mark of the hangman’s rope on his neck. How many men could say they would die for love—then actually do it?

  “Of course I will, my dearest, with all my heart,” she answered.

  Exploding out of the chair with a whoop of joy, Tarleton whirled her about the room. “Then let us be off!” he cried.

  “To supper?” she asked hopefully.

  “Damn supper! Mother Catherine has had some poor cleric waiting all this time in that blasted cold chapel for us. There, he will join us in a true marriage, if you can stand being a bride again so soon. Do you think, for a moment, that the good mother abbess would permit you to share the gatehouse with me without the benefit of holy wedlock? After that, I promise, you will get your supper. Please, my dearest love, eat well, for you are now eating for two. Later, you will be soundly and properly bedded by your most loving husband. What do you say to this plot and intrigue, prentice?”

  Elizabeth snapped her fingers at him. “I say, let’s about it, master! We burn candlelight. The chaplain will catch his death of cold, and supper will be ruined if we tarry!” She hugged him fiercely. “Oh, Dickon, I so love you!”

  “And I love you, my sweet Elizabeth—till true death do us part!”

  Epilogue

  At the Earl of Leicester’s Hunting Lodge near Kenilworth September 1587

  Smiling with deep affection, Queen Elizabeth signaled the young couple bowing before her to rise. “Truly, it gladdens our heart to see you both looking so well, my dears. You must find country living agreeable.”

  Even though Tarleton now sported a trim fashionable mustache, his famous imp’s smile was plainly recognizable. “I am the happiest of men, Your Grace, especially now that I am in your bright company again.”

  Tarleton and Elizabeth had not seen the Queen since that last horrible day of October the year before. The young marrieds were very excited when word came to them at their quiet retreat that the Queen was hunting nearby and desired to see them.

  “No complaints? You do not miss your former life?” The Queen arched her eyebrow playfully.

  “Nay, Your Grace, save that my lady wife has pushed me into this fool’s garb of satin and velvet.” Tarleton shrugged his shoulders inside the tight-fitting jacket. “In truth, I feel like a stuffed and gilded peacock, ready to be served up in the great hall. Were it not in your honor, I would have asserted my husbandly prerogative and told her exactly where to put this deuced doublet and hose!” Tarleton’s eyes twinkled merrily as his glance fell upon the golden head of his lady wife.

  “In truth, Your Grace, does not my Dickon cut a handsome figure?” remarked Elizabeth, gazing proudly at her well-dressed husband.

  The Queen nodded with a laugh. “You would put all the young bloods at court to shame, Tarleton!”

  “That is why I am happy to keep him by my side in the country,” Elizabeth hastily added, in case the Queen might decide to have her beloved jester back in his new guise.

  “And you, my dear Elizabeth! You are well?” the Queen asked with motherly concern, though the answer fairly glowed in front of her.

  “Exceedingly so, thanks to Your Grace, and to God.”

  “Oh?” The Queen cocked her head. “In that particular order?”

  Elizabeth blushed as she stole a glance at her grinning husband. “I thank God for answering my prayers to send me a loving husband, but I am deeply grateful to you, Your Grace, for making this happiness possible.”

  “Just so,” remarked the Queen, more than pleased with Elizabeth’s reply. “And the child? Is she well?”

  “Aye, and thriving, Your Grace! We would have brought her along with us to show you, but sweet Robin is much fretful with a new tooth, and when she is displeased you can hear her all the way to Coventry.” Tarleton beamed with pride of his daughter’s vocal accomplishments. “With those lungs she will make a fine singer—as soon as all her teeth come in.”

  “Robin is such a pretty name. ‘Tis one of my favorites,” remarked the Queen, casting an openly fond look at Robert, the Earl of Leicester, her closest friend from childhood. The Queen’s “sweet Robin” bowed at the compliment.

  “Indeed, Your Grace. Robin is also a favorite of mine.” Tarleton bowed to his own Elizabeth who dimpled prettily in return.

  “Fatherhood agrees with you, I see,” the Queen observed. Her brows lifted in surprise to see Tarleton flush a little.

  “Aye, Your Grace. In sooth, my lady wife has told me we shall be adding another to our number next year.” Tarleton sighed dramatically. “At this rate, I shall be woefully outnumbered in short order.”

  The Queen smiled with secret satisfaction. “Then I see I have come in good time.”

  “How so, Your Grace?” Elizabeth prayed the Queen was not going to disrupt her blissful home life.

  “With such a growing family, it is time you move to a larger establishment,” the Queen observed.

  Elizabeth drew in her breath. They had been so happy, living the simple life as a yeoman and his wife on one of Esmond Manor’s remote tenant farms. She feared the Queen would to command them to return to the court. But how could that be? After all, the jester was supposed to be dead and the disgraced Lady Elizabeth locked away in an abbey. “Your Grace?” she asked weakly.

  Tarleton, understanding his wife’s feelings, took her hand in his and squeezed it. To his Queen he said smoothly, “Our lodge is as large as necessary, Your Grace. That way I am able to keep an eye on both my ladies.”

  The Queen smiled with even more satisfaction. How she loved surprises! Aloud, she remarked. “I have recently been informed of the death of the Earl of Fawkland.”

  Tarleton’s lips tightened as he heard his father’s name. He nodded curtly. “Aye, so I have been told.”

  “He has left no heir,” the Queen continued pleasantly.

  “Not for lack of trying, Your Grace,” Tarleton muttered.

  “It would be a shame to let such a pretty place as Breden Hall fall into rack and ruin all for the want of a strong hand and a wise head.”

  “And for a titled lord, Your Grace,” Tarleton reminded her. He tried to keep the bitter taste out of his mouth.

  “Ah! Thou hast hit the nut and core of it! Kneel, my fool!” The Queen, still smiling broadly, took the sword which her host, the old Earl of Leicester, proffered to her.

  Elizabeth’s eyes shone when she realized what was about to happen. As for Tarleton, he looked as if he had been poleaxed as he obediently dropped to one knee on the bare wood floor of the hunting lodge.

  “Richard Tarleton, for your many years of loyal service to the crown, for the gratitude your Queen bears you, and for the love, loyalty and protection you have given our most beloved goddaughter, I hereby knight thee.” She tapped the blade on one of Tarleton’s padded shoulders, then the other. “Arise, Sir Richard, Earl of Fawkland. Arise, and serve your Queen!”

  Elizabeth clapped her hands with joy, then looked with surprise at her husband, who still knelt. His face had turned a bright red.

  “La, Your Grace! I do believe you have made my good lord blush—a most rare sight.” She giggled.

  Tarleton shook his head. “Not so, Your Grace, but I beg one further boon of you.” His puckish expression played across his countenance. “Since you are wielding that sword with so skilled a hand, could you please cut off this deuced ruff from my neck? I find ‘tis choking me worse than a hangman’s noose—and I do speak from experience.”

  Laughing, Elizabeth of England granted her newest knight’s request. “Now, my Lord of Fawkland, here is your fi
rst command from your sovereign. I spy a new countess in our midst. Greet her with a kiss.”

  Grinning,

  Tarleton executed a sweeping formal bow. “I am, as ever, your humble servant, Your Grace.” Then turning to Elizabeth, he bowed again with mock solemnity. “Countess of Fawkland, will you do me the honor?’

  Her heart singing with joy, Elizabeth stepped into his arms. “I have never kissed an earl before,” she said demurely, though her green eyes sparkled with mischief.

  “Then, prentice, let me show you how ‘tis done,” murmured the new Earl of Fawkland, as his mouth closed over hers.

  Author Note

  Fool’s Paradise portrays several historical events and figures; Elizabeth I, the Babington Plot, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Walsingham, Lady Mary Sidney, Dr. John Dee, the Earl of Leicester, and a most uncommon commonerRichard Tarleton, the Queen’s favorite fool.

  Tarleton was as famous for his wit in his day as Robin Williams and Bill Cosby are in ours. Pubs were named for him, and he is reputed to have written several plays, now lost, as well as a number of jestbooks. He was the leading actor of The Queen’s Men, a theatrical company founded under royal patronage in 1583. His physical description is none too romantic: curly haired, squint-eyed and flat nosed-the latter being the result of an injury sustained when Tarleton quelled a maddened bear at the bear-baiting pits in London. Tarleton, son of a pig farmer, was born in or near Condover, Shropshire, though the year of his birth is not known. As a teenager, he was discovered “feeding his Father’s swine… when a servant of Robert Earl of Leicester passed by. He was so highly pleased by Tarleton’s happy unhappy answers, that he brought him to court where he became the most famous jester to Queen Elizabeth.” Tarleton was the master of extemporaneous ballads and improvisations, and he is credited with popularizing the jig. Above all, Tarleton is remembered as the creator of the comic rustic yokel, a character who appears in many of Shakespeare’s comedies. He was also the fight choreographer for The Queen’s Men. Tarleton eventually fell out of favor with the Queen when his jokes about Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Leicester overstepped the bounds. He is said to have died on September 3,1588 in Shoreditch near his beloved Theatre and Curtain Playhouses where he had once trod a merry measure upon the stage.