Elizabeth I (68 page)

As I expected, Essex did not immediately accept the award with gratitude. He quibbled about the exact wording of the patent. When I met with him in private, he did not bother to flatter or please. Instead, he made his conditions known—the wording in the patent must be such and such and the ceremony conferring it on him held at such and such a place and time. He was not sure about returning to the Privy Council. Unless ... I received his mother at court.

When he made this demand, I just stared at him. His face was in shadow, his arms crossed. I could not read his expression. Was it defiant? Hopeful? Nervous?

“Receive your mother?” I repeated.

“Yes. She longs to be reconciled to you. And I, hating to see the two women I love in opposition, am tortured by this state of affairs.”

“The two women you love ... your mother and your Queen? What of your wife? And I think there are certain ladies at court who believe you love them ... or you have given them reason to believe so.”

“I should have said three women. My wife is also troubled that you are so hardened toward the grandmother of her children. She is your cousin,” he said. Now his voice had turned wheedling. “Your blood relative. As the years go on, they dwindle. Why be estranged from one of the few remaining?”

How dare he talk about my years, and the passing of generations? It was all I could do not to smack him. Instead, I pretended to ponder his words.
Everything for England
, I reminded myself.

“Yes, descended from my aunt,” I said, playing for time while I thought. I would have to do it. But
how
I did it was for me to dictate. “Very well,” I said.

He leaped forward, bent on his knee, grabbed my hand, and started covering it with kisses. “Oh, thank you! When may it be?”

“Sometime after the New Year,” I said. In the deadest time of year, when court was empty.

“But—” he began, then thought better of it. He had wished her to come while the French were here and the court was brilliant with entertainment.
Not in a thousand years,
I thought.

I drew him up. “As to your own return to court ...”

We had him now.

I
've won,” Robert said proudly, his arms crossed and chin thrust forward. “She has capitulated, utterly surrendered.” A document dangled from his hand spelling out the terms of his appointment as Earl Marshal of England. Robert Cecil had notified him that the final patent, on proper parchment, would be ready in a few days.

“In her entire life she has never capitulated or surrendered. Why would she do for you what she did not for Philip of Spain?” I took the paper from his hand and skimmed it. It was suspiciously innocent, naming Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, as Earl Marshal, the highest military commander in the realm. If I did not know the Queen as I did, I would have taken it at face value. But that was never safe with her.

He turned to another letter on the table that had just been delivered. Breaking the seal, he read it quickly. “Yes, my victory is complete! She can deny me nothing.” He handed it to me, glee making his lips open in a wide smile.

I could hardly believe my eyes. She consented to receive me at court. I read further. After the holidays. Pity about that. But that was a small complaint.

“How did you manage that?” I had asked him to try, but it was a forlorn hope.

“Oh, I had only to mention it,” he said breezily.

I doubted that. Something else must have happened. Suddenly the rise of excitement I had felt clouded over.

“Well, I thank you,” I said. “It seems unbelievable. It has been almost twenty years since I have been allowed to come to court.”

“Now that she has caved in, I will return to the Privy Council and to court. I understand that the council has been all at sixes and sevens without me. Now the suspension of business can end. My absence was highly inconvenient to them, so I hear.”

He paced up and down the chamber, like a colt anxious to escape its stall and run. “A duel of wills, and I won,” he said with wonder.

“That may be what she wishes you to think,” I said. Knowing her since childhood, I remembered she had many ways of winning games, including the ploy of losing the first hand.

“It's what the rest of the court will think, as well,” he said.

“She is willing to let people think anything they like if it serves her purpose,” I said.

“Well, the title serves
my
purpose! So much for Francis Bacon's advice about eschewing a military role. I can hardly wait to see his face when I show him this.” He smacked the paper affectionately. “I am the highest soldier in the land!”

I hid my misgivings.
Why, Lettice,
I asked myself,
can you not just receive this with gratitude?

Robert returned to court like a Roman general to a triumph. His parade through the streets to cheering crowds proved that he was still the people's darling, and his absence had merely whetted their appetite for a glimpse of their hero.

I would be a liar if I said, even to myself, that hearing their cries and seeing him ride out, so handsome and fine, did not make my heart swell. When a mother holds her baby for the first time, does she not, in a secret place in herself, envision him a grown man, riding to splendor and acclaim? So few ever grow up to that. But mine had.

Robert returned to the swirl of court festivities for the French embassy, and he came home with tales of the dancing, the banquets, the music. The Queen, it seemed, had gone the distance in entertaining them, sparing nothing. Robert said she had even dusted off her flirtatious behavior for Monsieur de Maisse, wearing her lowest gowns and masses of pearls, fishing for compliments on her looks and wit.

“She even said, once, that she was never a great beauty but was accounted one in her youth,” Robert recounted the morning after a fête. He laughed. “She gave him that sideways glance, leaving the poor man no response but to proclaim that indeed her beauty had been renowned in its day, and was still dazzling.”

“He never should have said ‘in its day,'”I said.

“She didn't care for that,” he admitted. “She also teased him about her age, in one moment saying she stood on the brink of the grave and then, when he expressed concern, chiding him, saying, ‘I don't think I shall die as soon as all that! I am not so old, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur, as you suppose.' It left him quite in a dither.”

“As she intended.”

“She
did
look quite fetching,” he said.

“I wonder how long it took to make her so? Probably hours!”

Behind my laughter was the base of my own experience with that. I could still look the same from a distance, but ... closer took an effort, and some time.

In the days that followed, and through Christmas, I beheld the glitter of the court from a distance, seeing it through Robert's eyes. I had been restricted to that for a long time, but now there was the tantalizing knowledge that soon I would be standing there seeing it for myself. Next to the wonder of miraculously seeing someone who did not live in our age—King Alfred or the Emperor Constantine—this was the greatest restoration I could imagine. I began planning my clothes, and what gift I would present to her. I was almost glad I had so long to think about it. It had to be just right.

Christopher was not particularly excited about it, but he had never had the experience of falling from favor. And these days he seemed more interested in spending his time with his seagoing companions than pining for court. There was also the delicate matter of Southampton and Elizabeth Vernon to worry him. They were going to approach the Queen and ask permission to marry but were waiting for the most opportune moment. Elizabeth was pregnant and they would have to marry, permission or no. Only the Queen's preoccupation with the French embassy had kept her keen eyes from noticing the girl's condition, which would soon be obvious to all. Christopher was jittery for his friend, fearful he might even be sent to the Tower. It all depended on what mood Elizabeth was in. But Southampton had never been a favorite, so he could hardly be accused of “disloyalty”—what she branded any of her male admirers who dared to take up with a woman who was actually available. So probably the worst they would have to endure would be a display of temper and some unpleasant names.

Anthony and Francis Bacon's spy service managed to intercept and copy Monsieur de Maisse's reports to his king. They regaled us with the ambassador's impressions of the Queen.

“ ‘Here she says, “Alas, that you, who have met so many princes, have come all this way to see a foolish old woman,” ' ” read Francis.

“I hope he did not fall into that trap,” said Robert. “The proper answer is to shower her with compliments.”

“Yes, that is what he did. And then he notes, ‘When anyone speaks of her beauty, she says that she was never beautiful, though she had that reputation thirty years ago.' ” He paused. “Now hear his comment to his king: ‘Nevertheless, she speaks of her beauty as often as she can.' ”

I giggled and the men burst into gusts of laughter.

“His honest assessment of her looks: ‘As far as she may she keeps her dignity, but her face is very aged: It is long and thin.' ”

I had not really seen her in so long I was startled to hear her described thus. Twenty years is a long time, but like me, she still looked the same from a distance.

“He goes on about the fact that the English will not agree to a peace with Spain—”

“Of course we won't!” bellowed Robert. “That would be insane.”

Francis sighed as he read more of the copied dispatch. “Even he ends as her admirer. ‘It is not possible to see a woman of so fine and vigorous a disposition both in mind and in body. One can say nothing to her on which she will not make an apt comment. She is a great princess who knows everything.' ”

Gloriana, the Faerie Queen, could still cast her spell, then.

The twelve days of Christmas ended, and a sleet-filled January descended. The distractions of the holidays finished, I could now give myself over to considering what gift I might present to her. The only appropriate thing would be a piece of jewelry. I hated it that Leicester had left her that magnificent six-hundred-pearl necklace, which should have gone to me. She had her portraits painted in it, clearly cherishing it and wearing it as proudly as a bride. So I would never give her pearls. She also had black ones from Mary Queen of Scots. No more pearls for her.

Emeralds? Rubies? Sapphires? She already had so many. Jade? That was more unusual. But I probably could not obtain it in time.

I must give her a jewel no one else ever had. Or ever could. Something to take her breath away, bind her to me. But I could not afford such a gem. Nor, even if I could, would it be unusual enough. Even the deepest red ruby, pulsating like a glob of blood, was seen on too many necklaces and rings at court.