Elizabeth I (20 page)

I glanced up and down the gallery, taking account of all those present. I saw Essex, taller than most, still affecting his forsaken knight persona. A shorter man kept him company, and he sported no costume. He had riveting, dark eyes that I could see even in the dim light.

Seeing me, Essex immediately left his friend and hurried toward me, but I turned away. I had no wish to speak to him at this moment.

To make my point, I motioned Raleigh, whom Essex hated, to my side. He was resplendently dressed, as usual—no one could fill out a brocade doublet like Walter Raleigh—but his smile was forced. It was he who was glum, for all that Essex wore the inky robes.

“Why, what is it, Walter?” I asked. “This is a happy night, but I see sadness in your eyes.”

“As always, Your Majesty can see more than others,” he said. “I thought I had hidden it well.”

“What troubles you?”

“There is someone else who ought to be the one to tell you,” he said. “Governor John White should do so.”

John White! As soon as I heard that name, I knew. “Oh, Walter,” I said. “The colony!”

“Sir John—”

“Is nowhere to be seen this moment. Tell me, quickly. The facts do not change, regardless of who presents them.”

He closed his eyes, steeling himself. “With Your Majesty's gracious permission last spring, we were able to send relief ships to the colony in Virginia. But it has vanished.”

“Vanished?”

“When White arrived, he found the island colony utterly deserted. The palisades and cabins were overgrown with creepers. They found chests broken open, books and maps and pictures all torn and ruined by weather, and Governor White's ceremonial armor eaten through with rust. There was not a sign of any of the hundred colonists, no clue but the word ‘Croatoan' carved on a post at the fort, and ‘Cro' on a tree.”

“Indians? Did the Indians kill them?”

“No one knows. When White left them three years ago, they had promised that if they moved to another site, they would carve the name of that site at Roanoke, and that, if they had been attacked or forced to flee, they would carve a Maltese cross as well.”

“What does ‘Croatoan' mean?”

“It's another island some fifty miles from Roanoke.”

“They must have moved there, then. What happened when White went there?”

“He was unable to land. The ships were driven out to sea, and thence back here. He has only just returned.”

“Do you mean that no one knows whether the colonists survived?”

“I am sorry to say, yes, Ma'am—that is, no one knows.”

“They have been abandoned? White abandoned his own family there, his daughter, his granddaughter?”

“He had no choice. He could not prevail against the elements. Ships are but wood and canvas, playthings of the currents and winds.”

“Oh, God!” I thought of them cast away there, waiting for the ships that never came. Had the Indians helped them, befriended them, or had they massacred them? “I am grieved and shamed that the colony bearing my name of Virginia should have come to this.”

“The New World is a dangerous place,” said Raleigh. “Alluring, compelling, offering glittering prizes and gruesome death. For every reward, there seems to be a punishment. Inca gold in South America, arrows of Virginia savages in North America.”

I felt tears stabbing at my eyes. There was a human face behind each victory and defeat, a personal price to be painfully paid.

All around me the music was tinkling and the dancers twirling. Voices rose above it, joking, laughing, happy in their moment. Outside, I could see the bonfires dying down, some flames still stabbing high into the night, others sunk into glowing mounds. The boats on the river were dwindling.

Raleigh was waiting to be either answered or dismissed. “Yet you are drawn to that New World,” I said. “Had you been at the colony, you would now be lost as well.”

“It is a chance every explorer must take, Ma'am,” he said. “God willing, and with your gracious permission, I will set foot on that continent, sooner rather than later, I pray.”

“Aye, and die for it,” I snapped.

“A death I prefer,” he said, “to withering away by a fireside.” He glanced pointedly at Burghley, now huddled on a stool, his gouty leg thrust out.

I turned away and immediately saw Essex waiting his turn for my attention. As soon as he realized I had noticed him, he started forward, pushing others aside to reach me. In his wake trailed his companion, the man with penetrating dark eyes.

His costume was magnificent, I must give him that. The deep sable velvet of his sleeves, latticed with gold and jeweled ribbons, glistened as if he had just surfaced from a deep pool. I said so.

“If that is true, my own glorious mistress, it is from a deep pool of melancholy, where I have languished since losing your favor,” he said, dropping to one knee, ostentatiously. “I break to the surface in beholding you.”

“As part of your languishing concerned your lack of finances—for you have importuned me from a distance for months—I marvel that you could scrape together the means to pay for your devices and appearance here at the joust. Get up,” I ordered him.

He rose. “Let me serve you again!” he said. “Send me to France, where I can lead your forces.”

“You have no experience in command, and as yet there are no English forces in France,” I said.

“But there will be,” he said. “There must be! The Spanish menace—their boldness in landing in Brittany must be answered!”

“Why? Because King Henri IV has asked me to? My dear boy, if I had answered the begging call to arms of every king and kinglet and duke who has sought my help, there would not be a farthing left in our treasury by now. As it is, the war in the Netherlands has squeezed me dry. And that is known as a
little
war.”

“As wars go, it is, Ma'am.” The dark-eyed man spoke.

Who was this? Before I could demand an answer, Essex said, “My friend and adviser, Francis Bacon.”

Bacon. Bacon. I peered at him. “Nicholas Bacon's son! My little Lord Keeper, aren't you?” His late father had been Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and I had met his formidably intelligent son as a child.

“Indeed. You remember.” He smiled.

“How could I forget? You made quite an impression on me when we first met, when you were—how old?” I had met him at his father's home—a house so tiny it had no garden. I had teased Nicholas, saying it was too small. Later he had brought Francis out, and when I asked how old he was, he chirped, “I am two years younger than Your Majesty's happy reign.”

“Ten, Ma'am.”

“Essex, leave this matter of France,” I said, turning back to him. “I prefer to let the Continent bleed itself without our help. Now, to return to your finances—not only have you outfitted yourself extravagantly for this occasion, but you managed to repay the outstanding loan I had made you a while back by presenting me with one of your last unmortgaged pieces of property. A fine gesture. Ah, Essex, what am I to do with you? Now you are utterly destitute, having repaid me, and left your other debts to hang.”

“I am at your mercy,” he said.

“And I shall show mercy,” I answered. “The monopoly for the tax on sweet wines, owned by your stepfather Leicester, expired with his death. I grant it to you. That gives you the custom fees for all the imported nectar wines from the Mediterranean—malmseys, muscatels, muscadines, vernages.”

I had toyed with this idea in advance, but my sudden rush in decision took me by surprise. Even as I spoke the words to bestow the gift, I questioned myself. Should he be encouraged in his lack of self-restraint? But he shone so bright.... Should he be allowed to tarnish? God's breath, the luster of the court had dimmed so mightily in the past few years—was he its last glimmer? Should he be polished or covered up?

“Your Majesty!” This time his gasp was not feigned. “I am—I have no words, beyond a deep thanks.”

I saw that even Francis Bacon's sharp little eyes had widened.

I pulled myself back, restrained my generosity. “The grant is for ten years only. It will expire in the year 1600.”

He laughed wildly. “That is a whole age away!”

“It will pass quickly,” I said. “Look to it.”

Before he could gather his wits and begin effusive thanks, I motioned him away. Soon enough he would be pelting me with letters, poems, and gifts. Soon enough he would be strutting the halls of court.

The late hour changed the spirit of the evening. The older courtiers turned pleading eyes to me, as they wished to go to bed but had to be released by my permission. Burghley, Knollys, Admiral Howard, Hunsdon I sent home. Now the younger set could dance more freely on the boards, the musicians play more ribald music. I supposed, in the name of good humor, I myself should retire. Just as I prepared to announce my departure, I saw several of my ladies huddled together, bent over something, their backsides making a rainbow of colors—pale green satin, russet brocade, scarlet velvet. They were giggling, and it made the material of their dresses shimmer.

“What amuses you so?” I peered over their shoulders. “A book? Not the Holy Scriptures, I'll warrant,” I said.

They tried to close it, but I grabbed it away, laughing as well. I felt giddy from my impulsive gift to Essex. I flipped the pages open and read a few passages. I blushed.

“Such language!” It was entirely ribald—a translation of the Italian epic poem
The Frenzy of Orlando
on the adventures—and misadventures—of the aforenamed hero.

They giggled all the more.

“Where did you get this?” I asked.

Mary Fitton, Frances Vavasour, and Bess Throckmorton simpered and bit their lips. Finally Mary said, “John Harington has been showing it about.”

“My saucy godson,” I said. “So this is how he directs his wit.” I caught sight of him across the room, dancing heatedly with Elizabeth Cavendish. Mistress Cavendish, I noted, seemed not to miss Robert Dudley. I interrupted their frantic dance. John's handsome face lit up with genuine pleasure. “Your Majesty! My good mother!” he cried. His face changed when I waved the book before his eyes.

“John, this heats up the page,” I said. “It is a wonder the book is not smoking. It is no fit reading for my maids of honor.”

“I merely translate, I do not create,” he said.

“Very well then,” I said. “You must, by all means, finish your translation. I see that this is only the twenty-eighth canto, the part concerning the risqué tale of Giacomo. Stay home, away from merriment, until you have translated the
entire
poem, all forty-six cantos. Then you may present it to me.”

“Your Majesty sets me a Herculean task,” he said. “As an Italian scholar yourself, you know that well.”

“As an Italian scholar, I shall be proud that my godson has produced the first complete English translation. After all, it was published in Italy in 1532. That was a long time ago.” The year before I was born—a long time indeed.

“I shall dedicate myself to the task,” he said.

He was always a good sport, my godson. I liked that about him. And he never asked me for preferments, grants, or favors. I liked that even better.

E
ssex had won. Henri IV had won. With great misgivings, I had sent one to help the other. Essex had pleaded on his knees for two hours—two hours!—in my chamber to send him to France. Henri IV had sent envoy after envoy, defensive treaty in hand. The Spanish had invaded northern France on two fronts, seeking to secure it as a Catholic ally by stamping out the heretic king and his Huguenots. From there they could funnel material into the Netherlands to launch a better attack on us. There was even the danger that all of northern Europe would be Spanish. So, for the safety of the realm, I was forced once again to send troops to the Continent. Always a sorry business, and one I did with a heavy heart.

In late July I had inspected Essex's troops, all fitted out in his tawny and white livery. There were some four thousand of them; three thousand more under commander “Black Jack” Norris had already crossed the Channel.

Essex was only twenty-three and had never commanded an expedition. He clutched Sidney's sword as Arthur had Excalibur, but it had no magic to confer valor or strength; it was merely a piece of metal. I was forced to rely on such a green boy as a general. The truth was that England had few seasoned land commanders. Our luck and our victories had come at sea.

He went with a fistful of instructions. He was not to lead any troops into action from his post at Dieppe until the French king had fulfilled his promises spelled out in the alliance treaty. He was, under no circumstances, to confer knighthoods on anyone except for deeds performed with exceptional bravery. I detested the idea of cheapening titles. I never handed them out promiscuously. To be a “Sir” in the court of Queen Elizabeth should
mean
something.

He had sailed off, taking my worries with him, in late July. I left London then to begin my year's Progress. During the troubled times of the 1580s, the Progresses had ceased. I had missed them sorely, as they had always served as a flowery and bucolic counterweight to the enclosed, airless, and intrigue-ridden palaces in the winter.

I knew it was an illusion. I knew that any venture that requires four hundred wagons and twenty-four hundred horses, that might require a subject to enlarge his house to accommodate the royal visitors, that harnesses the imaginations of every person living nearby to provide music, verse, and allegorical costumes, is hardly a lighthearted affair. Work, work is in back of it all. But when all that is done, how convincing the masque that emerges. And I like to think that in return I bestow something intangible on them, something they can keep in their memories. I hope a little of Elizabeth still lingers in each place and with each person I visit on Progress.