Elizabeth I (19 page)

I barely saw the tilt. I heard Lee's lance break, but then, he would have planned it that way.

The French ambassador ... Who would have thought I would find the mess in France preferable to think about? I turned to him brightly and began to murmur about the distressing turn of events over there, what with the Spanish invasion in northern France. “Philip of Spain—the French king's enemy and mine.” I sighed. “Can the man not leave a single Protestant prince to draw breath in peace?”

“That is why it is urgent that you aid him!” the ambassador said. “You have been delivered from the Spanish menace. Grant, in your mercy, the opportunity for others to be as well.”

“Grant—ah, now, that is the problem.” Robert Cecil leaned forward and joined in, as I had known he would. “ ‘Grant' is another word for ‘loan,' or ‘gift.' Money. War is so
expensive
,” he said petulantly.

“A good investment is never expensive,” said the ambassador. “It often saves expense.”

“I could bankrupt myself saving money,” I retorted.

“Help us!” the ambassador said. “You will never regret it.”

I would regret it before I released the first penny. “We ourselves are not free of the Spanish menace,” I reminded him. “The humiliation of the defeat of the Armada stings Philip, and he is determined to send another and complete the mission. Preparing to defend ourselves is costly. Defense is always more dear than offense, as the enemy gets to choose the point of attack, whereas we must be prepared on all fronts.”

“We need your troops,” he begged. “I look around me here, see all these men thwarted in their military longings, able to do nothing but play in a tiltyard!” He waved toward the latest pair, strutting and preening before mounting their horses. Lord Strange was strange indeed with his forty squires and their azure tilting staves. A pageant car fitted up as a ship and bearing his eagle emblem rumbled behind. The ambassador had a point.

“We shall see,” I said in my most lofty tone, the one that meant “No more now.”

Shortly thereafter, the sad strains of funeral music pervaded the tiltyard, and then a funeral cortege appeared, driven by a gloomy figure of Time, drawn by a pair of coal black horses, black feather plumes waving. Within the funeral car sat a knight dressed in mourning—dark sables and black robes. His head was bent and he affected the pose of a penitent.

The funeral car stopped. The penitent got out and made his way to the gallery, where he stood before us. It was the Earl of Essex, who did not raise his eyes to mine but smote his chest and cried, “Forgive this heavy fault,” and fell on his knees.

I let him kneel there for a long time before ordering him up.

We were still estranged over his hasty and secret marriage. My disappointment in him had been deepened when he refused to apologize or approach me again. And now he chose this showy, public manner of contrition—something that would win him attention and admiration. Always he sought to draw all eyes to himself.

I did not motion him to mount the steps to the gallery and address me. He stood many long moments, expecting that I would do so. I could almost hear the cessation of breathing by all the onlookers. The midafternoon sun caressed his reddish hair, exposed now that he had removed his helmet with its engraved pattern. The rest of the armor imprisoned him, making him stand stiffly.

“You and your opponent may commence the joust,” I said.

His companion, Sir Fulke Greville, now emerged from the funeral car and motioned for their horses to be brought.

They mounted quickly and ran at each other at the barrier as quickly as possible. Greville did not flinch when he was unhorsed and his lance broken. He rolled a little way in the dust, got to his feet, and scrambled away, after bowing in our direction. Essex also beat a retreat.

“That boy is bold beyond words,” said Helena, leaning toward me from her seat. Even after twenty-five years in England, I could hear her Swedish accent. I found it charming. “He needs a spanking.”

“But who will give it to him?” Marjorie said. “His mother? She needs a spanking herself.”

“A punishment. That's what he needs,” insisted Helena.

But I
was
punishing him, keeping him from court. It had just made him more demanding.

“He is a plaything, Your Majesty,” said Robert Cecil, from the other side. “Negligible. This is all he is fit for—dressing up and playing a knight at a staged tournament.”

I was well aware that there was no love lost between the two Roberts, Cecil and Essex. For a time, in their childhoods, they had lived under the same roof, Essex being a ward of Burghley's. But the tall, gangly, aristocratic Essex had had nothing in common with small, scholarly, stooped Cecil. As they grew to manhood, their indifference had turned to rivalry. Essex could not comprehend that the indoor talents of Cecil might be more valuable to me than the outdoor ones he excelled at.

I shrugged and lifted my jeweled fan. The jousts went on, another nine pairs after Essex and Greville, thirteen in all. The sun was setting when the last pair broke their lances, ending the tournament.

Then, suddenly, another elaborate pageant car entered the field, lurching over the paths. A blare of music from players hidden near the barricades enveloped us, and the decorated car rumbled toward us before halting. It was draped in white taffeta, and a sign claimed it was the sacred Temple of the Virgins Vestal. It rested on pillars painted to look like porphyry, with lamps glowing inside. Three girls, in flowing, light gowns, emerged and dedicated themselves to me as Vestals, then sang out, “To you, the chief Vestal Virgin of the West, we dedicate our lives in service.”

Then Sir Henry Lee stepped out of the temple, plucking a poem from one of the pillars. He proceeded to read it, praising me as a mighty empress whose empire now extended to the New World.

“She hath moved one of the very Pillars of Hercules,” cried Lee. “And when she leaves this earth, she will be borne up to heaven to receive a celestial diadem!”

Had I known about this, I would have forbidden it. Instead, I was forced to endure it, knowing that people would assume I had ordered it.

There was, of course, a gathering afterward, to display the shields before they were formally hung in the riverside pavilion alongside the ones from former meets. The price of participation, as it were, was a pasteboard shield from each knight, especially designed for the tilt. There were many variations on the theme of knight: there had been enchanted knights, forlorn knights, forsaken knights, questing knights, and unknown knights. Sometimes they combined as forsaken unknown knights, and so on. There were also wild men, hermits, and the inhabitants of Mount Olympus. A man could be anything he wished for one of the tilts.

T
he jousters kept to their chosen personae in the Long Gallery, where the gathering was held, so the chamber swarmed with Charlemagnes, Robin Hoods, and King Arthurs. I liked moving among them, imagining I had been transported to another time and realm. Outside, clearly visible through the gallery windows, bonfires were blazing in the fields and along the riverbank, fiery necklaces of joy. Only two years ago signal fires across the land had announced the first sighting of the Armada, and now the memory of that victory added to tonight's celebration.

In the hills, at the signal stations, the brush and wood had been replaced, ready to be lit again if—when—the Spanish returned, as they had vowed to do.

But tonight, tonight, inside and out, fires meant only harmless play. Mid-November could be mild—as it had been the actual day I had become Queen—or it could be raw, as it was now. I was glad of the warming fires in the gallery, thankful to be indoors.

The gallery was so long there were two sets of musicians, one to play at each end. At the west end, lutenists and harpists played soft melodies and sang plaintive verses; at the east, sackbut players, drummers, and trumpeters made thumpingly good dance music. A bagpiper was to join them at the end of the evening for a rousing finale.

Unlike the jousters, I had changed my costume. I was now attired formally, as befitted this high national holiday. My ruff was so enormous, so pleated and starched, I could barely move my chin. My gown was stretched so widely across its hoops I was obliged to move sideways between people. I had chosen my tallest and reddest wig, piled high with curls and then made dazzling by jewels scattered throughout the tresses. Upon my bodice hung various emblematic tokens to please certain of my courtiers. I wore the replica of the glove of Cumberland, the eglantine pendant given me by Burghley, the ropes of white pearls bequeathed to me by Leicester, and from my ears hung emeralds from one of Drake's voyages. I was a veritable trophy of commemoratives.

The younger people were dancing at one end of the chamber; others warmed themselves before the arching stone fireplaces. Burghley was gamely standing despite his gout. Such gatherings were a trial to him, but he did not want to give in to his infirmities. He relied on his son Robert to protect him from overzealous jostling or too-long standing. The two of them were huddled together, murmuring, but they broke off as I joined them.

“Another glorious celebration,” said Burghley. “It is especially gratifying to have been present at the true moment.”

“I said when I appointed you secretary of state that I judged you a man who would tell me the truth regardless of my personal wishes,” I remembered. “And you certainly have fulfilled that mission.”

“Not without some conflict, Your Majesty,” he said.

“Truth telling is seldom pleasant, William,” I said. “Only the brave dare to do it. By that rule, you are the bravest man in the realm.”

A swirl of bright dresses passed by, young girls in the excitement of the moment, the eternal moment of youth. The faces change, the ladies pass off the dance floor and onto chairs, to be forever replaced by others. They were quickly surrounded by young men, the sons of courtiers and officials. I did not recognize some of them—I, who prided myself on knowing everyone. Who was that towheaded one? Who, indeed, the short one with the wide grin? Whom did they resemble? Who were their fathers and mothers?

One young woman whom I could name, an Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of a minor courtier, was fending off the attentions of the towheaded boy, but not very strenuously. He looked vaguely familiar but not in an identifiable way. Now she turned her back on him and he grabbed her sleeve, spinning her around to face him again. While I was looking, he put his hand on the back of her head and forced her to kiss him.

“Sir!” I said.

He peeked out from behind Elizabeth's head and his eyes widened as he saw me. Hurriedly he pushed her away and bowed before me.

“Come here!” I ordered him.

“Yes, yes, Your Majesty.” His legs shaking, he came over to me and sank down in obeisance until his forehead was almost touching the floor.

“Get up, you brazen creature,” I said.

He stood erect but did not look me in the eyes.

“What is your name?” I asked. “We do not let anyone tarnish the reputation of a lady at court, no matter what her age. This is not France!”

“Yes, Your Majesty. No, Your Majesty.” He was trembling. “My name is Robert Dudley.”

Robert Dudley! What a cruel coincidence. But no—how could it be? Was he mocking me? “We do not find this pleasing,” I said. “Answer us true.”

“Your Majesty, most sovereign lady, I swear to you, that is my name.”

Was there a resemblance? The blond hair had misled me. The eyes, the carriage—were familiar. “Are you the son of Douglass Sheffield?”

“Yes,” he said.

Leicester's natural son, born of his dalliance with the married Douglass Sheffield! God forgive me, but a jolt of pleasure shot through me. He was Leicester's only living descendant, and this baseborn child would inherit all the Dudley estates when he came of age, while the Leicester title had passed to his brother Ambrose's house, leaving Lettice—nothing.

Suddenly he was pleasing in his forwardness and looks. “I see,” I said. “And where are you now, what do you do?”

He stood a little straighter, and the tremor left his voice. “I am sixteen and I study at Oxford,” he said.

“Very good, very good,” I said. This lad pleased me. Nonetheless, standards must be kept. “You shall return there, and do not come back to court until you have learned better manners.”

For an instant he was his father, the same exasperated expression of disappointment crossing his face. Then he smiled, an ingratiating smile. “In all things I obey you, Your Majesty,” he said.

The girls were glancing over their shoulders to see our exchange; when Robert made his way out of the chamber, they turned their attention to others.