Elizabeth: The Golden Age

by Tasha Alexander

  “Did you really think I didn’t know?” Walsingham looked at the dagger on the floor, then rapped twice on his desk, bringing two of his agents into the room. “Was it for money? At least tell me you got a good price.”

  William shook his head. The inconspicuous-looking men wrenched his arms behind him, moving with a fluidity that told how often they restrained prisoners.

  “What then? What would you murder your own brother for?” No trace of anger mixed with Walsingham’s sadness.

  “Eternal life.”

  “Eternal life,” Walsingham repeated. Pain distorted his features, his eyes closed, mouth twisted, cheeks sunken.

  “The bribe no man can refuse.”

  Whose God would be happy tonight?

  

  From the instant morning had dawned, it had been as if Whitehall had been warmed by a divine smile. Sunshine danced between clouds and bounced off the jewels covering the courtiers’ bright clothing, an ocean of reds, purples, and blues. Supplicants swarmed to line the path from the Presence Chamber to the Chapel Royal, eager as always to catch a glimpse of the queen in the midst of her magnificent procession.

  Babington and Ramsay were immune to the charms of the scene. They didn’t notice any beauty, only the stench of too many bodies too close together in the summer heat.

  Babington’s stomach burned as he watched his new partner and remembered Savage’s fate, but he pushed away the feelings of guilt. He had done what was necessary. Ramsay was more stable than Savage had ever been, more dependable. There was no doubt their mission would succeed. Babington could hear his blood moving through his ears and his heart pounded, but he steadied his nerves and flashed a discreet hand signal to Ramsay, who returned it with the slightest nod. At once, they forced their way swiftly to the front of the crowd, just as Elizabeth disappeared from view into the dark safety of the church.

  “The queen is at her prayers!” a servant in livery announced as the doors began to shut.

  “Now!” Babington cried, and Ramsay hurled himself forward, shouting.

  “God for Mary! England’s true queen!”

  There were more guards than he’d seen before, and they ran to seize Ramsay, opening a momentary space in the crush of confusion, a space through which Babington sprinted, bursting through the closing doors and into the chapel. In the dim light, he saw a line of ladies kneeling, masking the figure in front of the altar.

  He pulled out his pistol. “Elizabeth!”

  She turned around, tall, exuding a composed confidence, rising to confront the assassin’s gun, no sign of fear on her proud face. Babington stared, hypnotized for an instant, then pulled the trigger.

  

  Elizabeth did not move, not even at the sound of the shot, holding herself steady as relief rushed through her when she realized she felt no pain, had not been wounded. She watched her assailant cry out in anguish and crumple to the ground, wounded but not dead. A bullet had flown but not from his gun, and a strong smell of gunpowder filled the chapel.

  Never before had she felt more regal, untouchable, magnificent. Strength filled her veins till they felt as if they would burst. No one else in the chapel had remained standing. First, they’d dropped to the ground, afraid of the gun. Now they stayed down, supplicants abasing themselves before their glorious leader.

  God had protected His queen.

  

  “Stories of your courage have entirely overshadowed all other gossip in court,” Raleigh said. Elizabeth had perfectly maintained her composure after the attack, shown no weakness. She’d insisted on finishing her prayers as if nothing had happened and had processed back to the palace holding her head high. But when she’d disappeared into the safe darkness of her bedchamber, she’d broken down, scared and overwhelmed. Raleigh had come to her even before she’d sent for him.

  “I’m not so brave, Water.”

  “I think you are.”

  “Not anymore,” she said, her voice rough.

  “If you did not give in to private moments of terror after such an occurrence, you would not be human.”

  “Should a queen dare to be human?” she asked. Tears were starting again, and she turned so he would not see them.

  “Not even a queen has a choice in the matter. You are human, Elizabeth.”

  He’d not called her by her name before, and the sound of his voice saying it was like the song of angels. “Thank you for coming to me. Thank you for not making me ask for you.”

  He took her hands. “I would like nothing more than to ensure you never need ask for another thing.”

  “Would that it were even possible.”

  He smiled. “You are the queen. You can make anything possible.”

  And just then, she almost believed him.

  Chapter 12

  Mary was pacing impatiently, Geddon trailing behind her, the walls of her room pressing with unbearable force on her soul. She’d memorized every thread of every tapestry on the walls and counted the squares on the gleaming parquet floor, and still the clock’s handmade small progress. It was as if time had stopped passing. She could not focus her thoughts, could not calm her nerves, could not bear to wait another moment.

  Fantasy had grown exhausting. She had envisioned her freedom, pondered being made a queen again, wondered what the English throne would feel like—these thoughts had consumed her for weeks, and she could no longer stand the agony of waiting. She moved her lips, praying silently, hands on her rosary, fingering first the golden crucifix, then the beads, and then—finally—the sound of bells floated in through the window, carrying with it a flood of joy. She heard footsteps and pulled herself up straight, regal, serene. Sir Amyas hurried through the open door toward her.

  “You bring news?” she asked. Her ladies had come to her side, faces shining with hope.

  “The queen has been attacked—”

  Her heart was pounding violently as she opened her eyes wide. She had to look surprised. “Elizabeth? Not my cousin? No!”

  “The assassin seized—”

  It was unbearable. “Yes?”

  “The queen unharmed—”

  “Unharmed?” There was an unmistakable edge in Mary’s voice, anger, disbelief, and at last, genuine surprise.

  “And you, ma’am,” Paulet said with a smile, “are under arrest.”

  “Me? What has any of this to do with me?” she asked, doing her best to lure him with her soft voice and suggestive eyes while fear filled every cell of her body.

  Paulet made a sign and Burton, the brewer, came into the room. Mary gasped when she saw him. Tears stung in her eyes, but she held them back.

  “That’s the trouble with intrigue, isn’t it?” Paulet asked. “With so many secrets, you can never quite tell who’s on whose side, until the game ends.” He pulled from his pocket the hollow bung used to hide her letters in the beer caskets and admired it. “My own invention. Theatrical but effective. My master has every letter you’ve written.”

  “Your master?” Her voice was rapidly losing confidence.

  “Walsingham.”

  Now she let herself weep. “Traitors. I’m surrounded by traitors. Who am I to trust?” Geddon stood below her, wagging his tail earnestly. “Only my little one.” Crying bitterly, she picked him up, held him to her face, and wondered how long she would have to prepare for the end.

  

  Water splashed Walsingham’s shoes as he climbed out of the boat and stepped onto the cool stone of the walk. The yeoman warder admitted him to the Tower without a word, giving him a sharp, respectful nod as he passed through Traitor’s Gate. He crossed Tower Green, untroubled by shadows and stories of ghosts—though as always, he could not help but glance at the spot where Elizabeth’s mother had been executed—a grim reminder of how far even a queen could fall.

  He walked on, then stopped at a half-timbered building between Beauchamp Tower and the Queen’s House to speak wit
h the gentleman gaoler who supervised the prisoners and their guards. They drank dark, bitter beer as they discussed state business, Walsingham in no rush to continue on his way. As the moon rose high in the dark sky, he could delay no longer. He accepted a lamp from the gaoler and descended into the bowels of the Tower.

  All the conspirators, save Mary, were now in the Tower. Mary, they had decided, would be kept separate from the men who had worked on her behalf. Walsingham had succeeded in protecting his queen, but he moved through the dank passage with no joy, instead bowed down by a sense of failure. He held up the lamp to look through cell bars at the prisoner inside.

  “Ready to die, I see, Jesuit,” he said.

  No fear showed on Reston’s face. He was calm, arrogant. “I have done what I was sent to do.”

  “Why was the gun not loaded?” Walsingham asked, but received no reply. Reston had fallen to his knees and was praying. He stood, watching the priest for a moment longer, then moved the lamp and saw the pale faces of Babington and Ramsay. He studied them but said nothing, steeling himself for what he would find in the next cell. The man inside it lay in chains, huddled on the floor. As the light Walsingham carried illuminated the space, William raised his head.

  Walsingham tasted bile. “What was the Jesuit sent to do?” he asked.

  “To kill the queen. You know it. You know everything,” his brother answered.

  “Not quite everything.”

  “I’ve told you all I know. Go ahead and kill me. Take what’s left of me. I don’t care anymore. All my life you’ve had everything and I’ve had nothing. So finish it. There’s a better world waiting for me. We’ll all be judged in the end, brother. Even you.”

  “You’re no martyr,” Walsingham said, unmoved by this show of pride. “You weren’t even much of a murderer. Go back to France. Never let me hear of you again.” He turned his back to the man on the floor, not wanting him to see the hurt of a betrayal almost too much to bear painted over his face. He went back up the passage, looking no more at the prisoners, not pausing even when Reston called out to him in a soft voice almost like a song:

  “Send me home.”

  

  The Infanta paid scant attention to the booming voices of the men around her as she played in the throne room at the Escorial Palace. She’d slid off her small throne onto the polished marble floor, liking the way her heavy skirts billowed around her when she plopped down, dolls in her hands. She pushed against the richly embroidered fabric, smoothing it against her stiff whalebone farthingale, then lined up her dolls. The tallest of them, the one that looked like the queen of England, was her favorite. They told her the queen was called Elizabeth and that her hair blazed like fire, a red the child thought better suited to a doll than a real woman. Queens should have dark hair, like hers.

  Her father, Philip, was behind her, talking to Don Guerau de Spes, a man the Infanta didn’t much like. His breath was sour and he stood too close when he talked to her. But her father seemed to like him. He squinted his eyes, and his ringed fingers rested still on the arm of his golden throne, all signs that he was listening intently. They were talking about England, something about it being saved. She made her Elizabeth doll walk over to another and knock it to the floor.

  “They have letters in Mary Stuart’s own hand,” Don Guerau was saying. “All England cries out for her death.”

  The girl perked at the sound of the name. Mary. She was a queen, too. Now she not only disliked Don Guerau, she knew he was foolish. A queen could not be killed. She looked toward her father, expecting him to say just that, but he only reached down, stroked her hair, and asked her a simple question:

  “My dearest, how would you like to be Queen of England?”

  Chapter 13

  “Read me another,” Bess said, stretching out on the enormous bed, pulling the sheet up to her chin, burying her head in a stack of downy pillows.

  “You’re insatiable,” Raleigh said.

  “Yes. For your poems.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “That remains to be seen,” she said. “Read!”

  “Passion are liken’d best to floods and streams:

  The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;

  So, when affection yields discourse, it seems

  The bottom is but shallow whence they come.

  They that are rich in words, in words discover

  That they are poor in that which makes a lover.”

  “You, my dear, are rich both in words and those things that make a lover.” She rolled closer to him and put her head on his chest. “Your poem is a lie. Write me a better one.”

  “I will, but not this afternoon, when there are so many better occupations before me.”

  “I must be back at the palace before dark.”

  “We’ve time enough.” He kissed her. “And you wouldn’t dare rush me.”

  

  Elizabeth let the chamber grow dark around her, refused to admit the maid who wanted to light the lamps. Someone had brought a tray of food that sat, untouched, congealing, on a table. Outside in the atrium, courtiers hovered, taking turns listening at the door, hearing only silence. Not even the sound of pacing steps to break the monotony. Bess pushed through them and burst into the room.

  “I told them not to let anyone but you come in,” Elizabeth said, watching as Bess closed the door, sinking her again into darkness. “Sit with me.” The queen was sitting in a tall-backed wainscot chair, elaborately carved from oak, lacking anything that might offer comfort, no pad on its narrow seat. Her father had used it in his youth, and she’d always felt unaccountably sentimental about it. Bess crossed the room slowly as her eyes adjusted to the dim light and sat on the floor at Elizabeth’s feet.

  “They say she’s taller than me,” Elizabeth said. “Her hair is auburn in color. Her eyes are blue. Some say she’s beautiful. I’ve seen her portrait, and she does seem to me to be beautiful. But portraits lie. I’ve never seen her in my life.”

  “Nor have I, Majesty.”

  Elizabeth took Bess’s hand, thinking about all the times Walsingham had come to her with evidence against Mary. He wanted the fallen queen brought to trial after Throckmorton’s scheme unraveled; Elizabeth had refused. The Privy Council had passed, in 1584, a Bond of Association, which Parliament voted into law the following year. Any person with claims to the throne of England who knew about a plot against the queen would lose his—or her—place in the line of succession and be put to death, the former punishment rather underwhelming, given the latter. The law had slightly modified the bond presented by the Privy Council: their version insisted that the claimant should be put to death even if he had no knowledge of plans to overthrow the current monarch. Standing to benefit from such treachery would have been enough to prove guilt. But Mary, now, was implicated much further.

  “They say she plotted to kill you.”

  “Yes, it’s true. I’ve read her letters.”

  “They say she must die.”

  “They say—they say.” Elizabeth rose from her chair, the backs of her legs pushing it against the wall, and stalked toward the window. “She’s a queen, Bess. Or was, for a time. My mother was a queen. For a time. I was not even three years old when—when her life was cut short.” Elizabeth closed her eyes, fighting the beginnings of a headache. Her memories of Anne Boleyn came from other people’s stories; she didn’t even have hazy visions of her own. They told her she’d been a passionate woman, vivacious, with a wit that had captivated the king. And that she’d loved her little daughter with all her soul, visiting the baby at Hatfield House, where Elizabeth had been sent soon after her birth.

  Elizabeth had not inherited her mother’s dark eyes, nearly black, that were said to have mesmerized her father. But Anne had been unfaithful to the king and was found guilty of adultery and treason and executed on Tower Green. She’d asked for a French executioner, whose sharp sword would be more likely to take only
one swift stroke to sever her head, an end far preferable to multiple clumsy blows of a heavy axe.

  There were other rumors, though. Rumors that the charges against Queen Anne were lies. That she’d never betrayed Henry. That her inability to produce a son led to her downfall. That her beautiful daughter, Elizabeth, had not been enough to satisfy the king.

  “Oh, I dread this act. I dread it with all my soul.” Elizabeth had begun to sway. Bess steadied her. “Thank you, Bess. I could not do without your friendship.” The girl blushed and called for a servant to bring lavender tea, but the queen would not drink it, succumbing instead to the painful misery growing in her head.

  

  “Again you come to me,” Elizabeth said, offering Raleigh her hand as he bowed in front of her.

  “I knew you would be troubled. But you cannot doubt that she must be brought to trial,” he said.

  “I don’t fear the trial, only the verdict.”

  “The law must be obeyed.”

  “Queens are not subject to ordinary laws.”

  “Think on it no more,” he said. “There’s nothing more to be done until judgment is passed, and you must find something else to occupy your mind lest you drive yourself mad.”

  “So, amuse me, Water, make yourself endlessly distracting.”

  “Call for your musicians. I want to dance with you.”

  She obeyed him and found herself surprisingly thrilled at this small act of submission. They danced until they were both so tired they could hardly draw breath, until the musicians looked as if they would collapse from exhaustion and the courtiers who watched knew without doubt that the queen had fallen in love.

  Chapter 14

  Fotheringay Castle stood bleak and unwelcoming on the fens some seventy miles from London, an imposing gathering place for the nobles of the realm who’d come to watch the trial of Mary Stuart. Elizabeth had appointed commissioners—thirty-six of them—to hear the case and determine a verdict. They came from the most noble families in her realm, were men she trusted above all others. No one else could be in charge of something so grave.