Elizabeth lay still, very still, for such a long time that Robert realized to his amazement and chagrin that she had fallen asleep. Very gently, to avoid waking her, for some reason quite counter to his desire, he laid her back on the bed, and lay beside her, cuddling her as before, her cheek against his own. How long he lay like that, he soon forgot, for he fell asleep also, and they lay there on the royal bed, innocent as brother and sister, or nearly so. The apple had long ago rolled away, fallen on the floor, and lay, temptation untasted, upon the Turkey carpet.
In the morning, Kat Ashley, coming on this tableau, was as near to panic as Elizabeth had ever seen her.
‘No, Kat!’ she warned. This was a clear denial. Mrs Ashley was too horrified to take notice.
‘I said no, Madam Ashley!’ This was shriller and nastier, a precursor of slaps.
Kat Ashley swallowed hard and looked at the woken Lord Robert. Thank God his breeches were done up. More of a gipsy than ever, with tousled hair and an odd, mocking, defiant look. One thing was certain, Mrs Ashley would never have said anything but yes! She looked at her mistress the Queen. Even more defiant, pinched and foxy now, caught in a situation she could not explain to her advantage.
‘Ka-at,’ she wheedled, pouring on the sugar, ‘we fell asleep.’
‘So,’ was all Mrs Ashley could manage. ‘I see!’
‘Now I will get up, as I have slept. The others may come in now.’ Majesty took up her mantle as usual. ‘Robin, go away!’
Lord Robin, intolerably unflustered, made a bow and went, as easily as if he had merely had an early audience.
Kat Ashley flopped straight onto her knees, like a pudding out of its basin. ‘For pity’s sake, Your Majesty, supposing it had not been me…’ Who found you on, if not in, a bed with Lord Robert, she meant.
‘Then they wouldn’t have dared make themselves a nuisance to me by behaving as if they’d found immorality!’ When she was in a corner, Elizabeth’s retorts came like slashes of a cat’s paw.
‘What did I find?’ wailed Mrs Ashley, and ducked instinctively from the cat’s paw.
‘Nothing! I would do nothing of the kind. I want to do nothing of the kind!’
‘If you don’t now, you will soon — want. Lord Robert is too handsome for his own good, and yours.’
The answer came pat, a cross between a shriek and a hiss, like claws in silk — ‘Then who shall forbid me?’
But Mrs Ashley did not catch her alone with Lord Robert again. In any case, Mr Cecil was keeping her preoccupied with the war in Scotland. She said he pestered her. Though she disliked war, the Queen was seen to be enjoying herself taking part in parades and reviews. All through February she was to be seen riding in St James’s Park on a dapple-grey Neapolitan charger, out with the marching militia, to the admiration of all beholders. It gave her a chance to show off a good deal of fancy horsemanship, and it also gave her the chance to be in the company of her Master of Horse. Her Robin was always there, to talk and laugh, even if it was under the eyes of several hundred drilling soldiers. The Queen and Lord Robert did everything, and consequently nothing, under the eyes of hundreds. Yet to an experienced eye, and there were plenty, it was plain that Lord Robert’s magic worked more potently week by week, and the Queen ever more likely to submit to his charms. Many thought that she had already submitted and that Robert was as good as King already, and that a weak and feeble woman, once bedded, would be as clay in the hands of her master.
However, Elizabeth was not bedded. Kat Ashley, in spite of that amazing, incriminating scene of New Year’s night, was now sure of this. It both puzzled her and somehow confirmed everything she knew of her mistress. In spite of growing scandalous talk, she had not the heart to spoil Elizabeth’s happiness by crabby carping, and knew better than to do so, for her ears would be boxed at the first sign of criticism. Elizabeth was so magnificently, transparently happy — it transformed her from a striking, good-looking woman into one apparently descended from some other, Arcadian world, a shining being, who walked from day to day upon clouds of gold, to whom the humble ordinary mortals were grateful for a touch of her garment hem as she passed by. It was not just the look of a woman in love, and far from the unmistakable bloom of a woman satisfied in bed. It was the radiant joy of a liberated prisoner, able to use her powers to the full, to enjoy, to entrance the world, to rule a kingdom, feeding upon power and adulation as a starved plant on light and air and water. As a Queen she was in her true element. If Amy Dudley had died that spring, Mrs Ashley thought, then maybe King Robert might soon have shared the throne. But Amy would not die.
Aries gave way to Taurus, and the court moved to Greenwich, to bring in the May. To walk in the orchards of Greenwich in May was to exchange the crude, coloured, sinful world for a land of pristine white, like the corridors of heaven. They walked in a world of white sugar, or was it among piles of suds left from washday, or were they inside a linen basket among the fresh-bleached wash with a blue lid on top? Underfoot, the grass and gravel was carpeted with fallen blossom, swept by the white skirts of a white Queen. Pear and plum, damson and bullace and medlar, all dove’s-wing white, where white doves fluttered up through the branches and down to peck on the ground, as if they lived on sugar.
A defiant riot of pink among the rebellious apples, a cherub’s-cheek pink on cherub’s-wing white. A defiant pink in the Queen’s checks as she laughed with Lord Robert. A sudden rogue wind whipped blinding showers from the trees, like late snow, pattering petals against their faces.
Robert’s face looked down — definitely of the crude, coloured world. He was more like the russet apples in autumn, his lips red as the pippin’s cheek, his clothes flagrant carnation. He loomed over her like a conqueror from another land, like the Moor in the Christmas mask.
Elizabeth screamed. A scream so high and thin as to be almost soundless. Robert broke into a sweat. Thank God it had been soundless — he would be in the Tower in two shakes if it had been noisy. He stared at the rigid, bolting-eyed Queen and thought her in some hysteric fit, and did not know whether to slap her, or shake her, or take her in his arms.
Elizabeth did not see her Robin. She saw officers of the King’s guard. Their hands stretched out to take her to the river, the barge, the Tower. A prisoner again. Adultery. They would cut off her head. It was then that she screamed. In that moment, she was her own mother. The morning after May Day, Anne Boleyn had been arrested here, in these orchards of white sugar at Greenwich.
She fingered her neck. The moment was passing. ‘I thought,’ she whispered, ‘that you were going to take me away.’
‘Take your Majesty where? It is never my part to presume to do anything of the kind.’
‘No, Robin, of course not’ She sounded more sensible this time, conciliatory.
‘Let me take you from this land of snow to the river walk — blow away fancies.’
‘Not towards the river. The park.’ Usually she loved to watch the river traffic.
‘At Your Majesty’s command!’ He bowed absurdly low, sweeping petals with the carnation-coloured feather in his hat.
She laughed again, too, at last. Jolly Robin was so good for her. She forgot to tell him of her fright, because it faded so soon in his company.
Unfortunately, she was the only one who did think Jolly Robin was good for her. Mr Cecil expressed a consensus when he wished Lord Robert into the next world. At the end of May, he had to leave for Scotland. In one way he was glad to go, because the negotiation of peace was an important mission, one he wanted very much to accomplish. Also, his position at home was becoming untenable. And he feared what Lord Robert might get up to in his absence. While the cat’s away, the mice will play, and he had no doubt that the mice would prove very playful indeed. Rumour waxed fat as Taurus galloped by, and the Heavenly Twins enjoyed their frolic.
*
At King Henry VIII’s command, the gardeners at Greenwich had made an arbour of roses. That had been thirty-five years ago. Now they were as tall as a man�
��s head, some stems thick as a man’s arm. The man who came there was so tall that he had to duck to enter in under the branches weighted with their load of bloom. Within, he found the daughter of the woman for whom the arbour had been made.
Elizabeth had festooned herself with roses. They lay around her on the grass, among heaps of dropping petals. She was dressed in all the palest rose colours, maiden’s blush, cream, peach and white; the silk and satin of her skirts spread like a tablecloth at an alfresco feast. She had made a coronet of roses, and the fatly globular, deepest-pink flowers of the Provence rose dropped and nodded about her ears.
Venus’s bower, thought Robert, even to the white doves who cooed at the entrance. He wondered what she wanted, summoning him like this to arbours of roses. In anyone else what was wanted would have been abundantly clear. But the Queen was not anyone else. It was July. Elizabeth still a virgin. Amy still alive. If Elizabeth had been someone else, ah, if… She was the Queen. He was her creature, as she was fond of telling him. Without her, he would cease to exist. If he were not her courtier, her Master of Horse, her dancing partner, her lover in a courtly sense, he would cease to function; he would cease to be Robert Dudley.
‘Sweet Robin, jolly Robin, hey ho Robin!’ sang Venus in her bower. She had wanted him and here he was. What did she want him for? A husband? Yes — no — yes — n-o I want him, I want him not… What did the last daisy petal tell? There were no daisies on the royal lawns at Greenwich. A lover? Yes, always, for ever and ever. But she did not want to end up keeping a male concubine. The old insult of that title touched her too closely. A King? No, no, no, never, ever, look at the last one. But perhaps England could do better than the last one. Was her sweet Robin the right one? She held a rosebud under his nose.
‘Five brothers take their stand,
Under the same command,
Two darkly bearded frown,
Two without beards are known,
While one sustains with equal pride,
His sad appendage on one side.
Riddle-me-ree!’ Elizabeth was overcome with giggling. ‘What do you know about sad appendages?’
More giggling. ‘The bud has a green wrapping,’ she gasped, ‘five brothers, all arranged and folded the same way, every time. Look at the roses.’
‘Your Eyes are looking. I see you, sweeter than the rose in June.’
‘July —’
‘Yes.’
‘Another week and they will be over.’
Will Amy never die? Unspoken always, as the months passed. Once he had dared, ‘Divorce?’ knowing her answer. ‘Do not talk to me of divorce.’ Her father’s daughter.
‘If this were a play, we would act the villains. A Milanese stiletto — poisoned gloves.’
‘But it is not a play.’
‘No.’
He had never heard her talk like that before. Callousness jeering at itself, which is a sure sign of a guilty conscience. Guilt had come to haunt them, though they would not admit it. They were guilty of nothing other than wishing. It was enough. He was guilty of locking his wife out of his heart and life, watching despair and the crab eat on, unmoved. She wanted what she had been denied so long, and took in both hands what he offered.
‘Mars or Adonis?’ Her cool voice was more enticing than sultry warmth. She took his hands in hers, threaded her fingers in and out of his as if to tie them for ever. There was surprising strength in her long hands, for all they looked delicate as rose point lace. He had seen those hands at work on the bridle reins of too many skittish horses to be deceived.
‘Both!’ he answered, and laughed at vanity outrageous even for him.
‘You have a high estimation of yourself, Robin Dudley!’
‘Of course. Your Majesty endorses it every day!’
You’re clever, Robin. I would not like you so much if you were less clever.’
‘Like?’
‘Love — ah yes. Love.’
He would have given much for Mars’s reward, but did not wish to be caught in the same compromising situation. Greenwich was nowhere a private place.
‘Not here.’ She knew what he was thinking.
‘Some time?’
‘One day.’
‘When we two shall be as one.’
Two pairs of bare legs in a bed. She yanked away from him and the pin holding the nosegay to her shoulder scratched the back of his hand.
‘You are my creature,’ she hissed. ‘I made you. There is only one! I am the Queen!’ Each word louder than the last, ending on a fishwife screech.
Christ! Robert recoiled, sucking the back of his hand. Who was in earshot? His face turned to a sick white under the tan. Her hand was raised to strike; the rings on her fingers winked.
Elizabeth stood quivering, the knowledge of her anger and her power beginning to frighten her. So must her father have turned upon those who presumed. Her father had cut off the heads of two of his wives who had presumed. A wife, if she were a Queen, would be able to send her husband to the block.
In terror at this vision of the abuse of power, Elizabeth flung herself upon Robert, wound her arms around him, held his scratched hand in hers, moaned some inaudible endearment in an expression of total, abandoned misery. Robert was too astonished to respond.
‘No,’ she moaned, ‘I am a wicked woman. I want it. We shall marry.’
Her reversals had the same effect as a mirror flashed in the eyes of a marksman taking aim. Robert gasped, but was left no time to comprehend this amazing concession. She began to prattle on, as if nothing had happened, no rude riddles and giggling, no sudden lion’s roar of emotion — first a savage Henrican tyranny, second a flood of loving. Surely anyone who could be both in one moment must have been flawed in the making. But she was looping the rose garland she had made over his head.
‘Sweet Robin, let me be your handmaiden.’ No one could be more winning if she set out to be. As she looped the garland down onto his shoulders, one of the thorns pricked his neck. A bead of blood seeped out. She put her lips on his skin and took the blood on her tongue. It tasted rusty, as blood does. Where Adonis’s blood fell, poppy anemones sprang. She buried her nose in his neck, as she had the roses. She liked the smell of his skin.
Robert thought he might have her then, in her pliancy of contrition, offering to sweeten her bitter words. Venus had two faces, of sacred and profane love. His mind ran now upon the profane, but all love of a Queen was of necessity sacred. Would the goddess of love grant him her two selves?
The answer to that, was, as always, not quite.
*
‘The court,’ said William Cecil grimly, ‘on my return from Scotland, is as I left it. High time I left it also. It’s a bad sailor who doesn’t make for port when he sees a storm brewing. And storm there will be, Bishop — soon. Lady Dudley will die, by fair means or foul. Then the storm will break. The Queen will be determined to have Lord Robert, the country that it will not. Queen and country at loggerheads is a recipe for disaster. Civil war, no less. I dread it. I will not stay to see it. England’s ruin.’ The Queen’s principal Secretary sat like an old man in his chair, elbows on knees, head in hands.
King Philip of Spain’s ambassador in England looked aghast. So bad! — he had not quite realized. Dudley for King! Civil war! Mr Cecil resigning — a troublesome man to Spain, but the only one able to keep order in England. King Philip would be horrified at the prospect.
Mr Cecil looked at the Spaniard’s face, at the import of what he had said sinking in, at the growing alarm. His own face was a study in pessimism. Inwardly, however, he was satisfied to see the seeds of alarm he had sown germinate so quickly.
‘The first to go would be me,’ he said, ‘which is a good reason for my disembarking from the ship of state now. Dudley is working to oust me. The Queen has been seduced from any friendship she had for me. A man at court without friends is like a workman without tools.’
‘The Lord Dudley is the devil’s influence! How long is it since the Queen attende
d Council meetings regularly?’
‘Too long. He makes her want to shut herself a way, as if she were in the harem of a Barbary pirate.’ The Spaniard would appreciate that.
‘Do you think, Cecil…?’
‘My dear Bishop, whatever I think about the state of my Queen’s chastity, I keep to myself. No doubt I shall have leisure for thinking soon enough.’
The Secretary paused, squaring up to disaster. ‘For the second time in my life,’ he said, ‘I see before me a stretch in the Tower. They will not let me go unpunished.’ He spoke as if quoting his own obituary. ‘But I must risk that. It is better than continuing in my present distasteful situation.’
Bishop De Quadra’s dark Spanish eyes swelled like raisins in a stew. ‘The Tower!’ he breathed. He had been in England long enough to know the nature of that place.
Cecil knew that the two persons he intended to know of his words would be informed at once. The Queen would find out from the ambassador of Spain that she was due to lose her chief minister, lose the support of Spain, risk civil war, and so risk losing her kingdom. If this did not bring her to her senses, nothing would. King Philip would be alarmed, would bring all pressure he could to bear on his sister of England when she needed him so against France. Any influence Dudley thought he had with Philip would evaporate.
Cecil sighed. While knowing he had fired all his guns to good effect, it did little to dispel his pessimism. He had gone to Scotland unwell, and come back worse, both in regard to his own health and the kingdom’s. But he would not let go of his political life without a fight.
The Queen learned of his imminent resignation at the end of the first week of September. De Quadra did his work well. It was the most disturbing piece of bad news that the Queen had heard for a long time. To avoid any immediate action upon it, she went out for a long day’s hunting in the forest at Windsor.
Elizabeth had been out hunting from dawn to dusk for a fortnight, her Master of Horse always with her. Lord Robert had found it hard going to keep up with her. Virgo had come round again and wore a very different garment to the golden indolence of the year before. Diana of the groves of yew had taken to riding as if she were indeed a goddess of the chase and not mortal, possessing a charmed life. It half roused Robert to a pitch of unbearable excitement, half terrified him lest she break her neck. She had decided her own horses lacked the speed and staying power of some Robert had bred himself
None But Elizabeth Page 18