A Court Affair (37 page)

I awoke then, screaming like one in mortal agony, clasping my chest, gasping and crying out to Pirto, who slept nearby on a trundle bed that during the day was tucked beneath mine. I had such a fearsome pain in my chest, like a sword being driven straight through me. There was a burning, aching tightness there, between my breasts, so bad it half made me want to die just to escape it; it was like an ever-tightening knot that needed to be untied in order to ease me.

As she perched on the side of my bed and held me and stroked my hair and back, Pirto said, with an unmistakable sniff of disapproval, that Mrs Hyde’s cook was “over-generous with the contents of her mistress’s spice cabinet” and that it was “no wonder that it had set my heart a-burning”.

I let her hold me, dry my tears, and dose me with a soothing syrup “to cool the burn”, then tuck me back into bed as if I were a little girl again, but I knew it was more than that. Nor was it just my imagination, my worst fears coming to life in the guise of a dream; it was
real,
and I
knew
it. My husband had forsaken me; his sights were firmly fixed on the crown and the woman who wore it, the woman who could make all his dreams come true—Elizabeth.

The Dairy House at Kew, London
April 1559

I
had given Robert a miniature mansion in London called the Dairy House at Kew as a New Year’s gift. The first time he was to take me there was on a glorious April afternoon. He brought me a soft brown bundle tied up with string and bade me don this disguise and come down the private stair and across the garden to the river, where he would have a barge waiting. I did as he asked, and soon I found myself clad in a simple russet cloth gown with a white linen apron and cap such as a milkmaid might wear, while a disapproving Kat frowned behind my reflected image in the looking glass as she grudgingly did up my laces.

“Don’t glower so, Kat!” I said, turning to hug her. “I’ve been so busy with one thing and another, Council meetings, and state papers, shoring up our defences, and being courted by foreign ambassadors for one prince, duke, or another, that I
deserve
a holiday!” I spread my brown skirts wide and spun gaily around her. “A day just to be free, just to be me!”

“With Robert Dudley,” Kat said stiffly, the frown deepening upon rather than departing from her face.

“And what of it?” I shrugged. “He has been a good and loyal friend to me since childhood.”

“He is a married man,” Kat said sternly.

“I know”—I nodded—“and I thank God for it! I do not look to have him as my husband, Kat, and I would not even if he were free. I want a man’s company, Kat, but I don’t want to be a wife and have to surrender all I value into my husband’s hands. Robert can take nothing from me but what I myself choose to give.”

“You always did say you would never marry, ever since you were a little girl,” Kat mused aloud, “but I always thought, I always hoped, you would grow out of it. ’Tis not natural for a woman to be alone, Bess …”

“And I don’t want to be alone, Kat,” I assured her, “and I will not be alone, but I do not want to be a wife either. For me,
that
is unnatural. I value my freedom far too highly to ever give it up; I want to be mistress of my own fate, not surrender it to a lord and master.”

“If you only knew …” Kat grasped my hands tightly and gazed up at me with tears brimming in her old, faded eyes. “And you are
wrong
; there is one thing he
can
take from you without your consent—
your reputation
!
Please,
have a care for your reputation. People are saying—”

“Gossip!”
I said with a disdainful shrug and a sour puckering of my lips. “People
always
must have
something
to talk about, even if they must embroider fancifully upon the bare facts or make it up out of whole cloth.
Please,
Kat, don’t scold me. I have had
so
little joy in my life, and Robert makes me happy. Being with him is such fun …”

“Aye, love, I don’t doubt it.” Kat nodded grimly. “The kind of fun that can get a bastard in your belly or you branded a harlot forever!”

Stung, I gasped and leapt back as if she had just slapped me.

“Oh, sweetheart, I do not mean to hurt you!” Kat came and put her arms around me. “But you are Queen now, not a green girl like you were in the days of the Lord Admiral, and people take note of all you do, and already they have noticed how much you favour Lord Robert above all other men. They are even saying—”

I pulled away from her and ran to the door. “I don’t care what they are saying!” I cried, tossing my head rebelliously. “Don’t tell me any more!” I stamped my foot. “I’m going to have a good time today with Lord Robert, and damn all gossips and scandalmongers—neither they nor anyone else can stop me!”

I was about to flounce out the door, when I stopped, seeing the tears trickling down Kat’s face. I turned and came back to her and tried to explain. Kat had always been like a mother to me, and I wanted her to understand. I needed to know that she did not think ill of me.

“His wife doesn’t love him, Kat, and he doesn’t love her; they’re estranged. The marriage has grown cold and bitter; they married young and repented as they grew older and saw how little they had in common. I could tell how much it grieved and saddened Robert when he spoke of it. She doesn’t want to come to court. I intended to invite her, but Robert urged me not to; he said it would frighten and upset her, and she would cry and make herself sick, fearing that her refusal would offend me, and I might punish her for it by forcing her to come anyway. She wants to stay in the country. And you
know
Robert is not the kind of man who could ever be content to play the country squire, spending his days wading through barley crops and flocks of sheep. He was meant for greater and grander things, things that I can give him, as a reward for his loyalty and the pleasure of his company, all of which takes
nothing
away from Amy; rather, it
gives
him the means to indulge her whims, to let her stay content in the country and have her pretty gowns. Truly, Kat, we are not hurting anyone; we are more sinned against by the gossips’ tongues than we are indeed sinners.”

Kat sighed deeply and shook her head and then, with a little halfhearted smile, gave in and gave me a hug. “Off you go, pet,” she sighed. “But
please,
” she implored me, “have a care with that handsome rascal; he sore reminds me of the Lord Admiral. Now, there was a man!” she sighed, her old eyes misty with memory.

“I promise, I will.” I kissed her cheek. “You need have no fear on my account, Kat. I’m not a little girl any more, and Lord Robert is not the first handsome rascal I’ve met,” I added brightly as I shut the door behind me and ran merrily down the stone steps to the barge where Robert was waiting to enfold me in his arms and cover my lips with his.

When the stately little house first came into sight, it glowed like a puddle of fresh-spilt milk struck by the sun. The lawn unfurled before it like an emerald carpet, dotted with white marble statues and cunning seats shaped like milk pails. I laughed and clapped my hands in sheer delight as I sprang from the barge, without waiting for Robert to help me, blessedly unencumbered by my heavy, ornate court finery, feeling free and airy in my plain cloth gown and but a single petticoat, and no stiff, unwieldy farthingale, and without the pinch and bite of stays underneath as a rigorous reminder of decorum. I ran across the lawn with Robert chasing after me, darting behind statues and trees, letting him catch me to steal a swift or sometimes lingering kiss before I laughed and darted away again like a dragonfly.

“The house isn’t finished yet,” Robert said, when we collapsed, laughing and panting, into one of the milk-pail seats. “I don’t want you to see it until everything is perfect, but I have arranged something else, a special treat, for your delight, and mine, for your pleasure is my pleasure.”

He loudly clapped his hands, and servants in his blue velvet livery with the bear and ragged staff embroidered on their chests and sleeves immediately appeared to erect a small gold-fringed tent of purple silk, and to furnish it with a Turkey carpet that was like a field of colourful flowers, bright, plump cushions the colour of the finest jewels for us to lounge upon, and a gilded table with short legs so that we might dine as we sat upon the cushions. And musicians came to stand outside and play for us as, hand-in-hand, dressed as a milkmaid and her swain, we went inside. After us came a tall, dark-skinned man costumed in a feathered cloth-of-gold turban studded with gems, baggy ruby satin breeches, full, flowing robes of yellow silk embroidered with exquisite red poppies, and golden slippers with curled-up toes studded with rubies. With golden bangles clacking on his wrists, he bowed and presented us with a large golden tray covered with exotic foods I could not even name. Robert told me he was a chef from Turkey, who had once served in the Sultan’s kitchen. I would have liked to talk to him, to ask him the names and ingredients of the strange and exotic dishes he laid before us, but Robert swiftly dismissed him. There were rich, savoury spiced meats and delicious cheeses, and a confection, like jellied fruit, that tasted and smelt of rosewater, dusted with a generous powdering of white sugar, and a delicious, flaky, golden pastry comprised of numerous delicate, paper-thin layers drenched in sweet, syrupy honey with morsels of dates and nuts baked in between. Robert and I laughed as we knelt on the cushions and fed each other bites of this exotic banquet for two, pausing to lick each other’s fingers or to kiss away a dribble of meat juice or a dab of honey from our mouths and chins.

After our meal, and after servants had come in to take away the table, Robert clapped his hands, and three beautiful, honey-skinned, almond-eyed women with hair like black silk came in. They were clad in exotic, baggy silk trousers and trailing diaphanous veils and wore gold bangles about their wrists and ankles. Each one carried a luxurious armful of rich fabric.

Robert stood up and walked to the opposite side of the tent and turned to face me. He motioned for the women to come to him, but even as they surrounded him, their beringed hands sliding sensuously over his body as they divested him of his garments, his eyes never once left mine. Proud as a prince, hands on hips, head held haughty-high, he stood naked before me, showing off his fine, firm horseman’s physique, as two of the women poured a spicy scented oil onto their palms and massaged it into his sun-bronzed skin, while the third set upon his head a magnificent cloth-of-gold, jewel-encrusted, peacock-feathered turban. A smile twitched his lips, half-teasing, as his cock rose beneath their ministrations and pointed straight at me. One of the women began to massage it with the oil, and he reached down, coiled the long, thick, blue black rope of her hair entwined with pearls tightly around his fist, and pulled her up and roughly kissed her mouth. When they were finished and every part of him was oiled and scented, they fastened around his waist a jewelled belt set with large sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and rubies as big as my clenched fist, and brought a magnificent trailing robe of royal purple silk embroidered with peacock feathers trimmed with thick panels of gold brocade encrusted with tiny brilliant jewels and seed pearls, and the third woman knelt and kissed each one of his feet before she slid them into sapphire-studded golden slippers with turned-up toes.

Then it was my turn. At his direction, they came to me. I was unaccustomed to being attended by such sensual and exotic handmaidens and to having my person handled in such a familiar, intimate fashion. Robert noted my tension and spoke a few words in an unknown tongue to one of the women, and she nodded and produced a tiny golden box, like a miniature treasure chest, and opened it and offered it to me, gesturing that I should take one of the little golden discs that lay inside. She opened her own mouth and pointed to show me that I should place it on my tongue and let it melt there.

“Like this,” Robert said, taking one of the gilt candy pastilles and demonstrating.

It melted quickly in the moist heat of my mouth with a sweetness spreading sensuously, like a rich velvet blanket, over my tongue. Beneath the sweetness, there was a slight yet sharp bitterness, but I didn’t mind it, and at Robert’s urging I gladly took another. And then, when their hands again reached for me, stroking my milk-pale skin as they laid it bare, and plucking the pins from my hair, massaging my scalp and combing through the long, rippling cascade they released to unfurl down my back, the jewels on their fingers winking through the red waves, I arched my back and closed my eyes and purred like a cat, and at times I even giggled, giddy with the wanton, brazen novelty and delight of it all.

As they had done with Robert, two of the women began to massage a perfumed oil into my skin, a bold yet at the same time delicate spicy rose scent that also evoked thoughts of cinnamon and honey and the warm sun. A dusky hand caressed my cheek and slipped another golden pastille into my mouth as three sets of hands stroked and caressed every part of me. The fingers of one woman reached out to paint my lips, whilst another rouged my nipples, and the third the tender pink lips of my sex. Then they began to dress me. One of the women knelt at my feet, holding out a pair of loose, sheer white trousers spangled with myriad tiny silver stars. I gasped in surprise when she pulled them up and tied the silver ribbon around my waist, for they were open between the legs. I had never worn such an immodest garment before, but before I could find words to protest, a girdle with long streamers like liquid silver pouring down over me was fastened around my waist. Next I was laced into a bodice of tight white satin thickly encrusted with silver embroidery and diamonds and pearl flowers that lifted my breasts high but also left them bare. Silver slippers with turned-up toes adorned with diamonds and pearls were put upon my bare feet, and large rings blooming with pearl- and jewel-petalled flowers were slipped onto my fingers, and bracelets onto my wrists, and an opulent diamond and pearl necklace fastened about my throat that dripped a bouquet of jewelled blossoms down between my breasts. I slid my bare arms into a full, long, trailing robe of the purest white silk embroidered in silver and gold and jewelled flowers made of rubies, amethysts, and sapphires, with emerald leaves, and a circlet of matching jewelled flowers was set, like a crown, upon my head.