The Girl in the Glass Tower (22 page)

The King was kissing Sir Philip Herbert, there in the watching chamber for all to see. I couldn’t quite tear my eyes away from the tangle of their wet tongues, didn’t know what to think of it. Queen Anna, at my side, seemed to barely notice.

A maid in a diaphanous costume, dressed as a nymph from the masque performed earlier, was spewing in the corner. Her friend, pale and wobbly on her feet, was holding back her cascade of hair; the filmy white layers of her own outfit were stained with red wine, giving the pair of them the appearance of murderer and victim. I wafted the stench of vomit away with my fan and rolled a few needles of rosemary between thumb and finger, bringing them up to my nose. I had heard one of those girls earlier say to the other,
Noli me tangere
, flashing her eyes my way. It seemed I would never shake that off. I glanced at Queen Anna; she showed no sign of flagging.

The marchioness had been right, for I was called to court once the plague had run its course and the King was returned to the capital. It was a bewildering place. Whitehall was a maelstrom of relentless merriment, startlingly opposite to my memories of Elizabeth’s sedate court. I felt quite lost and, paradoxically, I longed for a match to take me away, but the King of Poland’s suit, which had seemed so distasteful a year before, hadn’t been mentioned recently and I had little opportunity to ask the King about my future, for the Queen’s household rarely mixed with the King’s, except on festive occasions.

I sat at the heart of that sordid scramble, desperate for an excuse to leave for the quiet of my chambers and a book.
As the King’s cousin, the first lady of court after the Queen, I had been allotted a suite of rooms. But I was obliged to take my cue from Queen Anna and she was wont to stay until dawn, despite the fact that she was once again pregnant.

My freedom had been short lived and I longed for that brief easy life I’d had at Sheen. I was watched at court, much as I had been at Hardwick. I might have been cleared of any part in Cobham and Ralegh’s plot but I was still considered a risk, though it was never mentioned.

Cecil, seated nearby, watched the King and his pretty favourite too, with sharp rodent eyes, but his expression was a study in neutrality. He plucked invisible motes of dust from his clothes, like a hound casually grooming itself, with one eye on the lookout for rabbits. His unruffled surface seemed to me to mask treacherous depths. He may have taken my part at the trial but I felt sure that had more to do with his enmity for Ralegh than support of me, for if he was truly my ally I and not my cousin would have been on the throne. I hadn’t forgotten his betrayal.

A servant smothered the nymph’s puke with sawdust and brushed it into a bucket as the two drunk girls flopped down on to a cushion in each other’s arms like a pair of exhausted puppies. The musicians had played relentlessly for hours; I wondered how their fingers were not blistered. Their sound was becoming tiresome, to me at least, but apparently not to Queen Anna, who was tapping her feet and clapping along with each new tune.

‘What’s your opinion of …?’ she asked, leaving her words deliberately hanging.

I wasn’t sure whom she meant but, following her line of sight, I realized she was talking of the boy who was still sprawled across her husband. He was smooth and sinuous with undulating golden hair. His outfit was … what was it?
Some kind of exotic thing, draped and swagged, that seemed meant to echo the ancient world but was more likely a reason for him to leave those shapely legs uncovered. A masque, and there were many, seemed to me a barely concealed excuse to go about in public half dressed. ‘I don’t know …’ I was lost for words, watching that embrace.

‘He’s very pretty. I wonder if he’s a poet. He comes from a family of poets. We were at Wilton last year and you couldn’t move for sonneteers.’ She laughed that light little laugh of hers and rubbed her belly with the flat of her hand, as if to remind herself it contained a baby.

The Queen seemed to me like water, always finding the easiest passage through and, when not twinkling or babbling, placid as a pond. I never had the opportunity to witness that legendary obstinacy of hers but I suppose even the most stagnant of pools is occasionally turbulent.

‘Sir Philip’s mother is a fine poet,’ I said.

‘What do you think of women poets? I like them. There is a tenderness to their work.’ She had a propensity to ask a question and then answer it herself, which gave the impression that she spoke for the sake of it rather than anything else. ‘Do you know the work of Aemilia Lanyer? I don’t suppose you do. She is not well known – sometimes comes to court in the Countess of Cumberland’s party.’

‘I don’t think I do,’ I answered, but the name chimed faintly from the past. ‘
I
have tried my hand at writing verse.’

She looked at me closely. ‘You have the disposition for it. I don’t think I’d have the concentration. We must organize a reading.’

‘Oh no – not yet; nothing is finished … only scribblings.’ I wished I hadn’t mentioned my writing, for it was so private, so intimate – a baring of the soul – and I couldn’t imagine showing it to anyone.

‘The King doesn’t approve. Thinks women shouldn’t bend themselves to intellectual things. What do you think? You like intellectual things. I suppose it depends on one’s education, doesn’t it.’

‘I believe, as Socrates did, that women should be educated in the same manner as men.’ I was thinking, of course, of Starkey. ‘I was raised in an environment that fostered –’

‘They share a love of hunting.’ It took me a moment to understand that she had stopped listening to me and had returned to the subject of the beautiful young man.

‘Do you think that means they share a love of killing?’ I asked her. ‘Or simply the exhilaration of the chase?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She appeared perplexed.

‘Is it cruelty they have in common?’ I had heard my cousin had a cruel streak but had not yet witnessed it – not then – unless you can count the unkindness of that erotic display under the nose of his wife.

She tilted her head to one side and seemed to be pondering deeply. ‘Are you any good at trumps, Arbella? Can someone bring me a pack of cards?’

Reading back, I fear I have given the impression that I held her in disdain for her shallowness, but in fact that was not the case. I grew rather fond of uncomplicated Queen Anna. As she often liked to point out: ‘None of the others is like us. They are not born royal.’ I didn’t like to remind her that our experience could not have been more different: she a king’s daughter raised at the Danish court, married at fifteen to a Scottish monarch then becoming Queen Consort of England too. And I … well, I was little more than an aging spinster, approaching thirty, unused to court, awkward amongst people, whose royal blood had become a drawback. But she was kind, extended the hand of friendship, and in a place where one’s enemies came in all guises she seemed too
transparent for duplicity. ‘Only
we
understand the duty that comes with high birth.’

‘Is duty the price of privilege, do you suppose?’ I asked.

If ever I talked even remotely philosophically she would take on a look of profound puzzlement before changing the subject: ‘Shall we have a round of spillikins?’ ‘Let’s play blind man’s buff.’ ‘What do you think of my new gown?’ It made me mourn Starkey greatly.
What would he have thought of all this
, I wondered. He would have been quietly amused as I recounted the events of each day in Queen Anna’s chambers.

I had Dodderidge and Bridget with me, loyal to the core, but no one could fill the gaping void left by Starkey. During sleepless nights a voice sometimes insinuated itself into my head:
You killed him. There is a price for that
. It frightened me, that voice, for it spoke the truth.

The cards were brought and Queen Anna played with an intense glee, scoring each point with a flash of the eyes. ‘I’d have thought you’d be a more challenging opponent, given you are so clever.’

‘Your skill confounds me, Highness.’ She liked that, responded with a broad smile. I had begun to learn the little quirks of court: flattery and self-deprecation, but it all seemed so silly to me, and however much I played their game I remained something of a misfit, though I was respected in a remote way by most of the Queen’s women, for my status alone, I suspected. I sometimes watched the way they all transported themselves, the easy intimacy of their friendships, the ways in which they would touch each other, a head rested on a shoulder, an arm hooked through an elbow, fingers intertwined. It was anathema to me, who flinched if someone touched my sleeve unexpectedly.

‘The King intends to make you godmother.’ She rubbed her belly once more. I could sense Cecil was keeping one ear on our conversation.

‘Did you hear?’ I turned to him pointedly. ‘I am to stand godmother.’

He muttered a few words about being delighted for me and made an excuse to move away. It was a minute victory.

There was a small mountain of crystallized fruits nearby. Queen Anna helped herself, offering one to me.

‘No, I don’t think I will.’

‘I’ll have two then – eating for two!’ She stuffed a second into her mouth.

I never failed to achieve an inner welling of power in those small acts of self-denial and felt lean and efficient in the face of Queen Anna’s corpulence.

‘I am greatly honoured to be chosen as godmother.’ It was true, I
was
honoured, but a phrase I’d once heard somewhere popped into my head:
Always the godmother never the mother
, and a wave of longing surprised me.

‘Your position warrants it,’ she said brightly, her mouth still full, but all I could see was her pity for the oldest maid at court. The powerful feeling slid away, leaving me bereft.

My dress was uncomfortable; it was made of itchy material with metallic threads that chafed my skin. At least it covered me, unlike some, which were audaciously transparent, leaving nothing to the imagination. I had begged leave to sit out of the masque, couldn’t bear the idea of all those eyes on me, but had reluctantly agreed to wear a costume. So my hair was garlanded with wilting flowers and my feet were strapped into blistering sandals with thongs twisting up my legs like ivy. I felt ridiculous, like the elderly aunt dressed up for everyone’s amusement.

My scratchy outfit had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth. Queen Anna had sanctioned the pillaging of the old Queen’s wardrobe, something that had caused much excitement when the consignment of garments had been delivered and dumped in a great glittering pile in the middle of the floor.
Most of the women had thrown themselves on it, grabbing, tugging, shaking each other off, squealing, like a pack of hounds at the kill.

Queen Anna watched on, laughing at the spectacle, eventually announcing over the hubbub that
she
would assign the dresses. One was handed to me; it was heavy as a sack of stones and embroidered exquisitely with flowers on a bed of gold cloth. I was obliged to take it to the Queen’s tailor to have it redesigned and looked on in horror as his shears cut through the precious fabric. It was refashioned to show my ankles but I wouldn’t allow him to cut the bodice away at the breast, as most of the other women had. The tailor’s response to that refusal was a pitying look.

He charged twenty pounds for his work that I could ill afford and I had had to borrow Aunt Mary’s jewels to supplement my own, those same jewels that had brought upon Starkey’s demise – to me they seemed cursed but I had no others to wear. They had once seemed so splendid, such treasures to shore me up from uncertainty, but they paled in the light of all the other women’s startling arrays of brilliants, as if they wore all the wealth of their families scattered over their bodies.

The Queen wore her hair high and pinned with a constellation of diamonds that sparkled in the candlelight as she bobbed her head in conversation with Lucy Bedford, whose dress was also encrusted in precious stones. Lady Rich wore twenty thousand pounds’ worth of jewels, or so Jane Drummond had told me. Even with Aunt Mary’s borrowings I couldn’t compete, and I longed to deck myself in Grandmother’s magnificent pearls, but Grandmother and I were no longer even on letter-exchanging terms. I had written several times but received nothing in return.

Being at court was an expensive business; my meagre settlement went no way to achieve the splendour appropriate
to my position, and once my retainers were paid there was little left for lavish couture. The blasted masque dress with its gold thread rubbing me raw would only be worn the once. I lived in a constant state of deficit, calling on favours and the good will of relatives and capitalizing on the hopes of those who thought I might be able to reach the King’s ear on their behalf. The truth was, though the King occasionally granted me an audience, he had no interest in what I had to say and usually packed me off back to the women’s chambers with indecent haste.

‘Are your ears burning?’ said Queen Anna, breaking out of a huddle with Lucy Bedford. ‘I’m sure they are; Lucy and I have been discussing suitable husbands for you.’

‘Oh dear,’ I said. I don’t know why. She meant well and had no idea how inadequate she made me feel. Despite the fact I had begun to regard marriage as my sole means to escape from my penury and set up my own household, if I thought too deeply on it – on the proximity of a stranger, of a strange body, the invasion of pregnancy – I was filled with dread. ‘I don’t think Cecil wants to see me wed.’

‘It’s not up to him, is it?’ I wanted to point out that it probably was up to him, given my marriage was a state matter. ‘And you can’t remain a maid. That would be …’ she paused. ‘Well, it would be unthinkable.’

There was a hiatus in the music and Queen Anna announced finally that she had a mind to retire. The thought of being released from the discomfort of my dress propelled me through the spaces of Whitehall towards my rooms. I encountered Cecil, approaching me in the long gallery, which was unsettling, as I’d felt sure he’d still been in the hall when I’d left. He always gave the sense of being in more than one place at a time.