Elizabeth: The Golden Age

by Tasha Alexander

  “I mean, alone—with one other.” They were walking toward the ruins, so close together that their hands kept tangling. “I love Windsor. It’s equal turns majestic and practical. Could withstand a siege. There’s no place I feel more secure, more removed from danger.”

  “And does that give you the freedom to be simply a woman?”

  “I don’t know that I could ever be that. Even if, somehow, I could view myself in such a way, it’s unlikely anyone else would be able to do the same. A futile effort.”

  “Would you allow anyone to consider you only a woman?” He searched her eyes. “Have you?”

  She thought of Robert, of course, of the deep love she’d felt for him since her youth, a love still in her heart. They’d shared more than a simple passion, but even so he’d always known she was—before everything—a queen. She looked at Raleigh, at his welcoming eyes, his easy grin. “Could you see me that way?” she asked.

  He hesitated longer than she would have liked. “You are my queen,” he said.

  “But if I weren’t your queen.” It was a mistake, always a mistake, to let someone this close. Her pupils grew small, her eyes hard—she could feel the resemblance to her father jumping out of her face—as she waited for a reply that did not come. “God’s blood! It doesn’t take much thinking about.”

  “Yes, it does. I’m trying to imagine you as not queen. It’s hard.” His voice was so earnest she could be nothing but charmed. She breathed deeply. She’d reacted too soon, been too quick to believe he was nothing more than a calculating courtier.

  Her voice softened. “I’d be like, say, Bess.” Their eyes met; everything blurred.

  “Oh, well, if you were like Bess, I’d—” He stopped, the tension between them heavy.

  She wished she could freeze the moment, never forget the way her heart raced, the way the very core of her trembled in a most delicious way. “You would, would you?”

  “I’d try.” His voice was ragged.

  Now she would tease him. “I might not want you to. But then again... you are perhaps more capable than the average man. You might be...” She let her voice trail. “I’m not sure. What might you be?”

  “Adventurous. Surprising.” He threw her an undeniably wicked grin. “Talented.”

  She laughed, half-nervous, half-titillated, and took his hand, leading him to an ancient stone seat among the ruins. “The only surprise I find is that you’re not yet married.”

  “I’ve been at sea. No marriageable young women to be found at sea.” He leaned back on the hard rock. “I’m free to live and love as I please.”

  “And how do you please?” she asked. “To love, I mean. What sort of woman would win your heart?”

  “Oh, I have all the usual requirements. She must be beautiful and clever. And, if possible, rich.”

  “And docile, and obedient, and have no will of her own?” She gave him a playful slap on the arm as her eyebrows shot up.

  “No. I don’t want a wife like a cushion.”

  “But you wouldn’t like her to order you about.”

  “No, not that either,” he said. “I want a lover who knows me as I am.”

  She considered this. “You want a friend and an equal. You want someone to share your joy when you’re happy. Someone to cry with when you’re sad. Someone to talk to when there’s nothing to say. Someone to find by your side when you wake in the night. Someone who remembers what you once were when you’ve grown old.” She smiled. “You see? I know all about it.” She looked down, then away, drew in a deep breath and paused before releasing it. This was dangerous, this feeling rising in her, and she was not sure if she should let it go further. “There. I’m rested now.”

  She gave him her hand and he lifted her to her feet, but once standing, she did not let go of him, instead rested her other hand on top of his.

  “Warm hand, Water,” she said, hardly daring to look at him.

  “Yours too.” A rough whisper.

  She raised her eyes to his and started to lean toward him, lips upturned, but pulled back. He raised a gentle hand to her cheek but did not touch it. They were silent, floating in a lovely warmth, neither putting expectations on the other. For the moment, this would have to be enough. But hanging in the air was an unspoken promise that someday there might be more.

  “We should go,” she said, taking back her hand and starting for her horse—turning away from him so that he would not guess that her heart was pounding and her soul singing. “I’ll beat you this time.”

  She mounted first, dug in her heels, urged her steed forward but to no avail. Raleigh came up hard behind her, moving faster and faster, and she adored him as he pulled ahead of her. He was treating her as an equal, not as his queen, not letting her win, challenging her instead. The excitement was intoxicating.

  

  Bess had agreed to join the picnic, though her mood was melancholy at best. For days she’d felt paralyzed every time Walsingham passed her, jumped whenever a message was delivered—fearing it would be from Francis, that he’d want more from her when she’d decided that she would have to deny him. She had to find a better way to manage her emotions.

  She heard hoof beats thudding on the grass and turned to see two horses running at reckless speed. They slowed as they approached the courtiers, who were sitting in the shade of an enormous tree, and as they did, it became immediately obvious the queen was one of the riders. Everyone around Bess leapt to their feet, the gentlemen rushing forward to take Elizabeth’s horse as she slid down from it. Raleigh was with her, but he did not join them, instead hung back from the bright array of chattering gossips vying for the queen’s attention.

  Bess could not help staring at him. His face was flushed with exercise, his hair disheveled, and his eyes a brighter green than the leaves above her. She looked to the queen, whose complexion was glowing in a way Bess had not seen in a long, long while, and she felt a desperate pang of jealousy; though she had no right to it. Raleigh was not hers, would never be. Ladies-in-waiting needed Elizabeth’s permission to be courted, and the queen surely would not let her favorite court anyone but her royal self. Bess would have to content herself with stolen glances and bittersweet wishes; bliss she could find when she slept, and then only if he’d come to her in her dreams.

  

  Calley was standing apart from the group and leaning against a tree. Raleigh grinned as he approached his first mate. “Not amused by the antics of a court picnic?” he asked.

  “I don’t know why I’m here. I’m not a courtier.” He puffed on the pipe he was smoking. “But your friend Bess has been awfully kind to me.”

  “Bess?”

  “Quite taken with you, I’d say.”

  “She’s a beautiful girl,” Raleigh said. “Sweet, too.”

  “That she is.”

  “Pity you’re wasting your time with the queen,” Calley said. “I’m not wasting my time.”

  “You are if you think you’re ever going to get somewhere with her. She’s not going to marry you.”

  “Who said I want to marry her?”

  “Well...” Calley tapped the side of his pipe. “You said you were here to get a warrant. But it doesn’t seem much of an urgent priority anymore. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Nor are the lads—we’re all happy for some time at home.”

  “I’ll get the warrant.”

  “Sure you will. But what is it you really want from her?” Calley asked. “We’re not getting too comfortable, are we, sir?”

  

  Windsor Castle may have been sturdy as a fortress, but its interior was fitted with every luxury. Tapestries woven from silk and gold hung on walls across from paintings, many of them Holbein’s portraits of the royal family. Fine walnut furniture filled the rooms: tables inlaid with mother-of-pearl or topped with red marble, tall, heavy chairs with velvet seats. An enormous tester bed, its posts elaborately carved, its valance embroidered wit
h scenes from classical mythology, stood in the queen’s bedchamber.

  Elizabeth and Raleigh had spent hours on horseback, and the queen had returned to her private quarters nursing aching muscles, demanding a bath. Steam clouded the Venetian mirrors that screened the tub as she submerged herself in the hot water, giving herself up to the ministrations of her ladies as they washed her. For a while, she kept her eyes closed, going over the details of her wondrous afternoon in her mind, recalling all of Raleigh’s expressions, all of his words.

  She considered his earlier accusation—for that’s what it had felt like—that she was not appreciated for herself. Robert, her Eyes, had appreciated her. Of that she was certain. He’d loved her before she was queen. But she could not deny that he’d wanted to be king. Water dripped down her neck, almost tickling, sending goose bumps to cover her chest and arms. She raised her knees, leaned back hard against the tub. If she hadn’t been queen, she would have married him. There was no imagining such a thing, though; the monarchy was too entangled in the depths of her to be ignored or forgotten. The question she’d posed to Raleigh was impossible.

  Bess was holding her hair out of the water and had begun to stroke it softly. Elizabeth opened her eyes, catching Bess’s in the mirror, and the girl held her hand still, confusion painted on her face.

  “No, don’t stop,” Elizabeth said. “I like it. What do you think, Bess? Have I never known the simple pleasure of being liked for myself?”

  “I wouldn’t know, my lady,” Bess said, resuming her gentle caresses.

  “Is anybody ever liked just for herself? Are you?” she asked, continuing to watch her in the mirror and deciding that Bess, too, was in possession of qualities that would color men’s opinions. “It’s unlikely. Men like you because you’re pretty. And because you have the ear of the queen.”

  “No doubt, my lady.” There was a tone in Bess’s voice that Elizabeth did not like. It was too sharp, too quick, and she felt an unaccountable jealousy, wondering if Bess was in a position to experience something she could not. And as this unpleasant sensation pricked at her, she considered all the times she’d noticed the girl’s affection for Raleigh.

  “Him too,” Elizabeth said. “He likes you because he wants my favor. You do realize that?”

  “Yes, my lady,” Bess said. Her voice wavered, and the rhythm of her hand stroking Elizabeth’s hair grew uneven.

  “And the other thing too, of course,” the queen said. “But all men want that. Male desire confers no distinction.” Bess said nothing, and Elizabeth straightened her legs, plunging her knees back under the water. She had not intended to be so hard on the girl. “I envy you, Bess. You’re free to have what I can’t have. You’re my adventurer. Don’t be afraid. It’s all over so soon.”

  As she spoke the words, she was not sure what she meant. She’d never hand her Water over to Bess, not all the way. But would any harm come from letting them play, so long as she could watch them? It would be nothing more than a harmless flirtation, and it would keep him near. Wanting Raleigh for herself was so full of complications. She adored him, but what could she expect from him when she knew she could only give a parcel of herself to him? She sank lower in the tub until the water reached her chin, and wondered what it would be like to feel his hands on her body. She closed her eyes. Thoughts like this made it far too easy to lose control, but for the moment she would abandon herself to them entirely.

  

  In London, a man bit into a cold meat pie, wished the mutton weren’t so tough, and considered his plans for the evening, giving not the slightest attention to the huddled, half-naked figure trembling uncontrollably on a nearby blood-stained bench. There was no need to take notice of him, let alone guard or manacle him. The man’s body was so broken he could neither protest nor resist nor even think of trying to escape, leaving his torturer to a lunch free from distraction until Francis Walsingham came through the door, nodding sharply at him as he crossed to the prisoner.

  “Still nothing to tell me, Mr. Throckmorton?” Walsingham would never grow accustomed to the smells that greeted him in this room, smells of desperation and fear: excrement mingled with blood and rot. Torture was something necessary, something without which he could not prevail, but accepting this fact was not the same as embracing it.

  Francis Throckmorton struggled to lift his head. “My soul will go free soon.” The room was underground and poorly lit, but the darkness was not thick enough to mask the fresh splashes of sweat and blood scattered over the rack.

  “You enjoyed your time in Little Ease?” Walsingham asked. The infamous cell was tiny—only four square feet— making it impossible for its occupant to either stand or sit. Throckmorton had been left there for days before being shown the rack. “I know about the Enterprise and now I need names. But if you won’t help me, perhaps your father will.” He motioned to the torturer, who disappeared into an adjoining room. “He’s been questioned, as you have. I do have to know, you see.”

  English law did not allow for torture. But what went on in the bowels of the Tower was not strictly illegal. At least not in the end. Torture was conducted by royal agents given royal immunity, and though it was not something often resorted to, its frequency had increased in the face of the divisions between Protestants and Catholics, regardless of which side was in control. Religious fervor had a way of leading men to their most barbaric depths.

  The torturer came back, dragging, with the help of a yeoman warder, the broken but living body of an elderly man, his joints stretched beyond the point of dislocation.

  “No!” the son cried as his father looked up, eyes blank with suffering. “Enough! You want a name, I’ll give you a name.”

  “Well?” Walsingham stepped close. Throckmorton choked, a mixture of blood and saliva catching in his throat, but managed to give Elizabeth’s spymaster the information he claimed to want to know. Walsingham showed no reaction, but shock registered on the torturer’s face, an expression that was both noted and remembered.

  

  Across London, papers buried the tall walnut desk behind which an impatient queen, dressed in an imposing gown of regal purple, sat in her Privy Chamber. Elizabeth sighed, lifted her eyes to the ceiling, and occasionally rubbed either her temples or the inlaid wood surface, but she would attend fully to each document Sir Christopher Hatton put before her, regardless of how much she longed to be done with her work. And she did long to be done. Water, her dear Water, was waiting for her and it was taking an unacceptable amount of energy to keep thoughts of him from consuming her mind.

  “Yes, yes.” Again a sigh as she read the paper. “The money must be found.” The moment she signed it, Hatton replaced it with another.

  “From Mary Stuart, Majesty. She asks to meet you.”

  “Again?” She read the letter, thinking aloud as she skimmed through it. “They say every man who meets her falls in love with her. What can be the secret of her charm, Lids?”

  “A lack of all other useful occupation?” Hatton suggested, bringing a smile to his queen’s face.

  “So uselessness is attractive?”

  “Not to me. You well know that I prefer a lady with the most serious vocation.” They smiled at each other and she was glad for the memory of the time in which he had courted her. More glad, though, for the friendship that had developed afterward. They remained close, and Hatton had never married. Elizabeth took it as a token of his dedication and it never went unappreciated.

  She handed the letter back to him. “Refused.” He started to put something else in its place, but Elizabeth laid down her pen and held up a hand. “Enough.”

  Full of the excited anticipation that comes with new love, she had to force herself to walk slowly, to maintain her dignity. It wasn’t easy; she didn’t want to delay seeing Raleigh any longer than necessary. When she crossed through the Privy Chamber and entered her atrium, she slowed, catching her breath and moving once more with regal dignity. By
the time the library door was opened for her, she was a deliberate picture of all things serene.

  “Mr. Raleigh. I’ve kept you waiting,” she said, the flush on her cheeks at odds with the rest of her calm appearance.

  “I’ve no other business at present but to wait on you.”

  “I have other business. But I have been waiting too. You make things difficult.”

  He stepped close to her and spoke quietly, his tone intimate. “You found my verse.”

  “I did. Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. Did you see my reply?” she asked. “Of course. If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all. Quite suggestive.” He smiled, and she relished the admiration she saw in his eyes.

  “You were quite right about the diamonds. Dreadfully slow.”

  “You were warned,” he said.

  “So I was.”

  “Majesty.” Walsingham interrupted them with a low bow.

  “Yes?” The queen turned to him, lips curled, irritated.

  “The traitor has talked, Majesty. The traitor Throckmorton.”

  “Forgive me, Water,” Elizabeth said, her eyes on Raleigh. “As you see, my time is not my own.”

  “I am most sorry,” he said.

  She went directly to Walsingham, and though she could barely hear the words he murmured to her, anger filled her face. “We cannot—” she began and he interrupted at once. “I know.”

  “Majesty?” Raleigh asked. “I must go,” she said. She started out of the room with Walsingham, then stopped and darted back to Raleigh. She picked up his hand. “Forgive me. Will you wait for me to return?”

  “There’s nothing I would deny you,” he said.

  

  At the Tower, the torturer was off duty, standing in the open doorway to empty his full bladder. He heard footsteps as he unlaced his britches but wasn’t in a position to turn and see who was coming. “Harry?” he asked, assuming it was his friend. “You’ll never guess what I heard—”

  He hardly felt the knife at his throat. One quick, hard slash and he slumped, still standing, against the wall. Walsingham’s agent waited a moment, wanting to be certain he was dead. Blood trickled down, mingling with urine on the flagstones.