Her Last Assassin (23 page)

She watched him in silence, waiting until he was ready. Then she waved the diminutive Robert Cecil towards the door. ‘Very well, my pygmy, you may go.’

He gave her a look which spoke of some barely concealed hostility, and Elizabeth wondered if he disliked her nickname for him. Pygmy. But what was wrong with that? It was all in jest, after all, and she had always given her favourite councillors nicknames. Leicester had been her Gypsy. Walsingham her Ears. And young Cecil was short, he could hardly deny such a thing. So why cavil at having it acknowledged? She was the Queen. Did they not all address her as Majesty?

She looked at Cecil sourly as he bowed. ‘Come back when you have something more to tell me than gossip. And ask my ladies to attend me again.’

‘Your Majesty.’

Still bowing, her new councillor backed out of the Privy Chamber, and suddenly the room was crowded with women, rustling gently about her in their swaying, broad-skirted gowns of black or white silk, their hoods either jewelled or demure according to their station, removing the wine she held out and slowly extinguishing the lights about the chamber. The fire crackled in the hearth and she stared into its glowing heart, thinking of Essex. How different he was from Cecil. He was too young for her, she knew it, and yet …

A log dissolved in the fire with a crash, and she blinked. Time had passed while she had neither moved nor spoken, caught in a kind of dream. Elizabeth looked about herself, recalling the lateness of the hour. The chamber was but dimly lit now most of the candles were put out. The older women stood heavy-lidded and ready for bed themselves, the younger girls giggling when she staggered, missing her footing as she turned away from the heat of the fire. Perhaps they thought her drunk. Or too old to walk unattended.

Foolish children! What did they know of life?

She heard one of the girls whispering, and caught the name ‘Essex’ on the end of a laughing remark.

‘What was that?’ she demanded, suddenly furious. ‘Which of you silly girls is gossiping about his lordship the Earl of Essex?’

No one moved or spoke.

She swore at one of the younger maids, the pink-cheeked and fair-haired Katherine Bridges, and the girl fell silent.

Elizabeth shook her head, trembling with unexpected rage. ‘Mind your manners, girl. Or would you end up in the Tower like Mistress Throckmorton, whom I suppose I must now call Lady Raleigh?’

‘Your Majesty,’ Helena said soothingly, holding out her arm for support, and Elizabeth turned at that familiar voice.

But even as her anger subsided into nagging irritation, she could not slow her mind, nor unthink the thoughts that pursued her into the dark reaches of the night. Had they been gossiping about her? About her and Essex? What did they know?

Nothing, she told herself vehemently. Because there was nothing to know or tell about her and Essex.

‘Silence!’ she exclaimed, sitting up in bed. They were whispering about her again, those wicked girls.

But her bedchamber was empty and in darkness, and only Lady Helena slept on the trestle bed beside her, snoring quietly.

The New Year’s Day revels were finished, the masque at an end, the gold and silver fountains of wine stuttering into silence as the courtiers, still singing and laughing, retreated to their beds. Elizabeth allowed her closest attendants to draw her into the quiet hush of the Royal Bedchamber, too tired to speak. The women closed the door on the world and unpinned her vast ruff and her jewel-studded wig, combing out what little hair she had left beneath. Her sleeves were unlaced, then her heavy foreskirt and gown removed while she stood, her feet and calves aching. For it was nearly midnight and she had been standing – or dancing – most of that long day.

After her nightcap had been set in place, Elizabeth sat wearily on the edge of the bed while her stockings were unrolled and a scented emollient rubbed into her bare feet. She did love to dance. Indeed, she had surpassed herself tonight, leaping in a lively Volta to the applause of the whole court. Later, she had danced at a more stately pace with the charming and erudite Sir Christopher Blount while Lucy Morgan sang a traditional country lament from the gallery. Now, though, the balls of her feet throbbed with pain and she longed to stretch out on the bed, dismissing all her women so she could sleep in glorious solitude.

But first her night-time preparations must be concluded. How wearisome it was to sit through them, she thought, staring at the wall.

Lady Mary Herbert was reading aloud to them from what seemed to be a new manuscript of sonnets. Her soft voice steadied Elizabeth’s nerves as she listened, seeking to unravel the clever conceits and arguments within the verse.

When she had finished, Lady Mary set the thick sheaf of papers aside and fetched her looking glass, so Elizabeth could check her reflection.

‘Who is the poet?’ she asked Mary curiously, taking the glass from her hand.

The young woman coloured delicately. ‘I am, Your Majesty.’

‘Those were
your
verses?’

‘Forgive me if they offended you, Your Majesty.’

‘Not at all, I enjoyed them.’ Elizabeth smiled. ‘As I enjoyed that French tragedy you translated so prettily. Your uncle Sir Philip would have been proud.’ She sighed, remembering Pip’s smile once as he presented her with a roll of his poems, bound with ribbons and flowers. ‘He was a skilled poet, his works will never be forgotten.’

‘Oh, my poetry is nothing to my uncle’s,’ Lady Mary insisted.

Her voice was a little breathless, as if she still held her uncle in awe, though poor Sir Philip Sidney was some six years dead now. Elizabeth looked at her assessingly. Mary curtseyed, perhaps sensing that she had not answered her queen as respectfully as she should, and hurried away to fetch the cleansing cloths.

Elizabeth glanced at herself in the looking glass, then abruptly wished she hadn’t.

She allowed her ladies to smooth a tightening cream over her face and throat, then wipe it gently away with cloths steeped in some astringent solution. Yet although her skin felt softer to the touch afterwards, the glass in her hand told no different a story from before. The fragrance rising from such creams and potions was refreshing though, and masked the less pleasant odours about her.

She despised herself for the vanity which made her disguise her age, distracting from her body’s decay with more and more elaborate gowns and ruffs, more jewels and paint on her face, more pomp to keep the roving eye away. But if she failed in that duty, if she allowed the court to see their queen wrinkled and ageing, she would never keep their love, nor hold their enemies at bay with just the mention of her name.

Yes, patch me up, Elizabeth thought wearily, raising her arms like a child as they slipped the white nightrail over her head and laced the bodice loosely. There would be more feasting tomorrow. More games and revels to be endured. Prepare me for another long day of forgery and dissembling, she thought.

There was a knock at the door to the Royal Bedchamber. All the ladies stopped their work, turning to stare at this breach of etiquette.

Lady Helena was holding out her white ermine-trimmed night robe, a frown in her eyes. ‘The hour is very late, Your Majesty. What should I do?’ Her gentlewoman seemed perplexed, as well she might, for it was now past midnight and few courtiers came to disturb Elizabeth at such an hour now that Leicester and Walsingham were both dead.

Those two men had been the great disturbers of her sleep. Elizabeth had to admit she half missed their visits, a welcome interruption to her relentless insomnia.

‘My night wig,’ she said, and waited impatiently while they set it on her head, placing her lace cap on top. ‘Hurry, hurry. Now see who it is, Helena.’

It was Essex.

The young earl walked straight through her disapproving women – though ‘swaggered’ would be a better term for it, Elizabeth considered, watching him – and bowed before her.

‘Your Majesty,’ Essex addressed her, with no word of apology for this unwarranted intrusion, ‘forgive me for missing the revels tonight. I am newly returned to court from my country estate, and would speak with you on a matter of great urgency.’

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows, looking him up and down. It was hard not to compare his arrogant approach to Robert Cecil’s, who had knelt so awkwardly before her. Essex strode into every room like a young god, as handsome and athletic as Leicester had been in his youth.

‘Indeed?’ she remarked, and stood up from the bed, preferring not to let him see how tired she was.

Perhaps it might be possible to yoke Lord Essex and Robert Cecil together in her service. After all, Leicester and Burghley had worked well enough together, despite their differences. First, though, she would have to tame the unruly Essex, for he was wilder than Leicester at the height of his influence. Nor could she hope to bring him to heel with the same inducements of love and flattery that she had used with his stepfather.

Essex might continue to profess love for her, but she was convinced he felt none. He had sworn he loved her, then suddenly married Frances Walsingham behind her back, almost to spite Elizabeth for her rejection of his suit. Robbie was as selfish and greedy for attention as a child. It would be better if she felt nothing for him.

But oh, her foolish heart …

Elizabeth held out her bare hand, still perfumed from the cream her women had rubbed into her skin.

Essex came forward, kneeling to kiss it as she had known he would. He wore an immaculate ruff and a white silk jacket with a gold chain cast carelessly over his neck. Every inch an earl.

‘Rise,’ she told him graciously, and saw his dark eyes glance up at her frowningly, as though she had tricked him into showing deference. ‘Now tell me, what is this urgent matter?’

No, she was no longer the red-haired siren she had been in her youth. Though to hear the poets’ lavish descriptions of her charms, she thought drily, one would be forgiven for thinking she was still seventeen. But she had her feminine wiles, and the power to make men fear her. Essex would require a little of both if he was to serve her as Leicester had.

He glanced at her ladies-in-waiting.

She dismissed them reluctantly. ‘Return in half an hour,’ she told them, ‘when I will retire for the night.’

It was not unusual for her to receive councillors privately, but Essex was not yet a member of the Privy Council and the hour was very late for her to be receiving him alone in her bedchamber. Surely, though, she had reached an age where she could be above suspicion of unchaste behaviour?

Even as she thought that, Elizabeth knew it was not true. In recent years she had encouraged the younger courtiers to see her as an ageless queen, almost a faery queen, as the fanciful poet Spenser had described her. She could not now complain if she was held to account as though still young and open to scandal.

‘Your Majesty?’ Essex began, glancing at her for permission to pour himself some wine.

She nodded, and he poured two goblets of red wine, handing one to her with a careless gesture that reminded her so sharply of Leicester that her breath caught in her throat.

If only she could forget the past!

‘I was concerned to hear that you had allowed Raleigh to return home to Devon after his disgrace,’ he commented, sipping his wine. ‘A man like that should remain in the Tower where he belongs. Seducing one of the innocent young maids under his care, and here at court!’

Her mouth twisted. ‘Bess Throckmorton was not innocent, as her story of love and debauchery made clear. She only saved herself from complete disgrace by marrying Raleigh before their child could be born illegitimately. Not that I approve of such secret marriages, as you know to your cost,’ she said sharply, ‘but at least the wanton has not given birth to a child out of wedlock.’

‘Lady Raleigh remains in the Tower still, I believe,’ he murmured, not looking at her.

‘Your point?’

‘I know you dislike her particular sin, but she has been punished enough for it now, surely? I have no love for her husband, and would gladly have seen the man rot in the Tower’s filthy confines until the end of his days, for all his service to your throne. But Bess is a sweet lady and has always been a friend to me.’

Essex raised his dark gaze to hers, and Elizabeth had the unsettling impression that her favourite was threatening her.

‘The Tower in winter is no place for a woman. I would not wish to see Lady Raleigh succumb to illness, Your Majesty, or fall into despair at her continuing imprisonment.’

Elizabeth did not know how to respond. It would be the work of a moment to order the woman’s release from the Tower. Yet she did not think she ought to bow to his will so easily. It would only encourage Essex to consider her weak and malleable.

Her calm surprised her. Why could she not be angry with Essex, as she would have been with any other man who spoke to her this way?

She waited a moment, staring down into her wine, then asked, ‘Is this all you came to say?’

He hesitated. ‘I have been over those documents of Walsingham’s that I have been able to decipher, and spoken to some of his men. All are agreed that Walsingham believed your person to be in danger from someone close at court. As yet we have no name, nor any clue as to the traitor’s identity, except that he is a secret Catholic. Which any fool could have surmised from the evidence.’

‘So you are no further along the road than Walsingham was when he died? But with two years passed, you surely cannot believe the traitor still holds to his course?’

‘It is not uncommon, I have been informed, for such agents to lie in concealment for years, never revealing themselves but waiting for a letter or agreed sign from their masters.’ He paused significantly. ‘A sign to proceed with their grisly task of assassination.’

‘God’s blood!’ She drank deeply, almost draining the cup, then regretted it, the strong wine leaving her light-headed. ‘How are we to discover him?’

‘It has taken me much investigation, but a few months ago I finally managed to track down the man who first discovered this plot. He was one of Walsingham’s most trusted agents, with great knowledge of these foreign spies and their loathsome work throughout Europe. Now that he is found, I have installed the man here in the palace, posing as a member of your own household, and instructed him to discover the identity of the secret traitor at the heart of your court. He reports directly to me, though none but you and I will know of his true identity.’