The Girl in the Glass Tower (5 page)

‘By all accounts the Parma match is off again.’

Robert Cecil was talking quietly with Grandmother in the gardens of Greenwich Palace. He was a man so neatly put together, nothing out of place, he seemed to have walked directly out of a portrait. I wasn’t supposed to hear; they thought me absorbed in my archery practice. But they were talking about me. My proposed marriage to the Duke of Parma had sunk along with the Spanish Armada four years before, but it had been raised again recently.

‘Does she think no one sees her game?’ said Grandmother bitterly. ‘Now she is too old to be wed herself, she is using the promise of Arbella’s hand as a makeweight in her foreign policy.’

It was true there had been a number of matches proposed for me, none of which, thank goodness, had come to fruition. I still assumed Essex would come for me, though why I believed that or even desired it I have no idea. Perhaps it was because I was sixteen, an age that brought with it such feelings of confusion and contradiction, making me at once abhor the idea of marriage and all that came with it yet harbour a secret desire for a man like Essex whom I had met only once.

Cecil had taken the end of his cape and was rubbing vigorously, fabric to fabric, at a small smear of dirt on his sleeve. I never saw Cecil wear anything but black and he was an odd-looking man, small and tidy though rather crookbacked and birdlike, with thin legs. He unsettled me, despite the fact that, according to Grandmother, he was a powerful friend to my cause. Even
Cecil
had touted himself once as a
potential husband for me. ‘So crooked Cecil sees himself wearing the crown matrimonial, does he?’ Grandmother had said of it, clearly amused by the suggestion, for Cecil may have been the son of England’s foremost statesman and Grandmother’s greatest ally, but he lacked good enough blood for Lady Arbella Stuart.

It was my first visit back to court since the rout of the Spanish fleet. I’d been excited about it, felt I was on the brink of something, had an idea in my head about fulfilling my destiny, but as we were filing in to be presented to the Queen, I’d noticed some of the women firing glances my way and whispering. I thought I heard someone hiss, ‘
Noli me tangere
,’ and was immediately catapulted back to that earlier, humiliating episode. Within hours I was wishing myself back in Derbyshire, where I could easily escape Grandmother’s strict regime with daily rides into the hills. I had developed a bond with Dorcas that was unbreakable. My maid Margaret thought me daft for my love of that horse but Dorcas had become my friend and my confessor, and when I was with her out on the heath, with the wind in my face and the thunder of hooves the only sound, I felt invested with a supernatural power, as if I were a divine, sexless Artemis harnessing the forces of nature. It was a seductive feeling.

I continued listening: ‘You can’t disagree,’ said Grandmother to Cecil. ‘You know what the Queen is like. She’s been manoeuvring pieces on the European chessboard for near on thirty-five years. She knows exactly what she’s doing with all these marriage negotiations.’ From the corner of my eye I saw her flick a hand in my direction.

I took aim. The bowstring was taut beneath my finger and it took all my strength to pull back. I lined my eye down the shaft of the arrow and released. It whistled as it took flight in a high curve and met the outer edge of the target.

‘I’m out of practice,’ I said, turning to Aunt Mary, tugging
at the waist of my dress. ‘This gown is too tight. I cannot move properly.’ I’d had a whole new wardrobe made for court, which necessitated stillness and straightness, for the minute I slumped even slightly, hidden bones would dig at me, despite the spareness of my body, despite the hunger pangs I had learned to love as evidence of my ability to control the secret ministrations of my body. Margaret had begun to grow plump, fleshy mounds overspilling her dress. I saw it as a sign of weakness.

‘I can adjust it for you,’ said Margaret. ‘Loosen your laces a little.’ Her expression was sweet and guileless and I wondered what she must have thought of court and all the hard people there.

‘I’m blaming my dress but I am a bad shot really.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Aunt Mary, looking at me across her own bow with a half-smile. The feather in her hat was broken, its end dangling. I reached forward and plucked it off, handing it to her. With Aunt Mary nothing ever seemed to stay in its right place, always a glove missing, or a fan misplaced, or hair rebelling against its style. ‘There are better things to have a talent for. You may not be a good shot but you can speak Greek fluently.’ She released a snort of laughter. ‘My dear clever niece.’

We heard the rattle of arms and marching feet. Turning, we saw the Queen’s guard tightly surrounding a group of women, making their way towards us through the gardens. Craning my neck, I saw a glimpse of the famous marmalade wig in amongst them. We all fell to our knees. I imagined finicky Robert Cecil distressed about the state of his silk stockings on the damp grass.

The royal party stopped, the guards parted and the Queen emerged. The sun was bright and clean in the wake of a recent shower and it lit her starkly, revealing things that were invisible in the candlelit interiors of the palace: the gaunt
hollowness of her cheeks, the crêped texture of her skin, her jutting breastbone and the lines framing her thin lips, making them seem drawstring-fastened. I knew she was younger than Grandmother by six years; but she seemed older by far and had aged greatly since I was last at court.

It was no wonder people whispered that her end was nearing. It was dangerous talk; even I knew, naive as I was then, that it was treason to discuss the Queen’s demise. I felt the wet soak through my dress to my knees, and kept my gaze firmly on the lavishly embroidered royal skirts.

Grandmother’s eyes bored into me and I could hear her refrain in my mind:
Carry your head high. Eyes down for the Queen until she instructs you otherwise; anyone else, gaze beyond their shoulder. They must recognize they are beneath you from your bearing alone
.

Once instructed to do so, we rose and Grandmother complimented her on the loveliness of the gardens at Greenwich, saying how she would like to emulate them at Hardwick.

‘I hear you are making extensions to your house there,’ the Queen said. ‘Do you never stop building, Bess?’ She laughed and so did Grandmother, making them seem like dear old friends, which I supposed they were, even if they were rarely in each other’s company.

Two of the Queen’s maids were whispering, and one pointed at two men walking towards us from the river.

‘Look,’ said Margaret in my ear. ‘Look who it is.’

It was Uncle Henry, who winked at me, but with him was the Earl of Essex, radiant in sky-blue satin. The sight of him caused a flush to run up my body as if I’d been dipped in a vat of soup. He smiled briefly at me. I turned away, remembering, as if it were only the day before and not four years, the burning trail of his finger on the back of my hand. Despite Aunt Mary’s words I had thought of Essex often, had secretly imagined all sorts of scenarios in which he would arrive and fulfil that promise of marriage. What else
was I to think about, tucked away in Derbyshire? Young girls will have such thoughts with the slightest encouragement, and I was no different, not then; it was an ordinary obsession I suppose.

Margaret stared at him open-mouthed and the two whispering maids giggled.

A page was offering a plate of sweetmeats, exquisite things glistening with sugar. They were stuffed into mouths with delighted ‘mmmms’ and ‘ahhhhs’ and half-mast eyes and everything suspended for a moment of pleasure. I shook my head as the page neared with the platter, a sense of invisible power welling from my resistance. The boy looked at me as if I were a miracle or mad or both and returned to offer more to the whispering women whose mouths were already engorged.

Uncle Henry came to stand beside me, still chewing, smelling of marchpane, reaching a hand out, burrowing it in the back of my ruff, pulling out a silver coin. ‘I’m too old for those games, Uncle Henry.’

‘Never too old for magic.’ He tossed the shilling in the air and caught it, then opened his palm. It was empty; the coin was gone. I had seen him do it a thousand times.

‘How did you do that?’ gasped Margaret.

‘Like I said, magic!’

Margaret’s eyes were bright with wonder. She was the sort to believe in magic.

‘Honestly, Brother,’ said Aunt Mary. ‘Will you never grow up?’

‘Don’t you find her impossibly bossy?’ he whispered loudly to me, winking at his sister. ‘What about Essex? He looks fine, don’t you think?’

I shrugged as if I’d barely given the earl a second look but he
did
look fine. Inside I felt my heart bloat. I suppose I believed myself in love, there, in that moment, fool that I was.

The shilling had reappeared, dancing between Uncle Henry’s fingers, flashing silver. He came in close, talking quietly so as not to be overheard. ‘Essex was in terrible trouble with –’ He nudged his head in the direction of the Queen. ‘Banished for a few months. Got one of the Queen’s maids in the family way. Married the girl; God knows why. Tried to keep it a secret.’

I remember the feeling clearly, just as when I had taken a fall out riding and winded myself. I’d thought myself dead, couldn’t catch a breath. I wanted to shout:
It’s not true, Essex is mine – he’s mine!
That was the moment I grew up.

‘Enough of that, Brother. Arbella doesn’t need to hear that kind of inappropriate talk.’

If I’d been another kind of girl I might have cried, but I never cried. I picked up my bow and arrow, lifting it, lining it up with my eye, feeling my dress pulled exasperatingly tight across my shoulder.

‘You haven’t got it quite right.’ I did not turn to look at Essex behind me, too close. ‘Here, let me show you.’ He took me by the elbows. All I could think of was that he was married; I wanted to slither away out of his hold but he had me tight, pressing his body against my own, suffocating me with that infernal hyacinth smell. I looked around for Grandmother, waiting for her to tell him I wasn’t to be touched, to insist he release me, but she didn’t appear to have seen. ‘Lift your arm higher. Bend it more. That’s right.’ His face was pressed to mine, cheek-to-cheek, skin-to-skin, as he looked down the length of the arrow. Panic began to fizz up in me. ‘Pull back!’ He held my hand firmly – ‘Keep your aim!’ – pulling with me. ‘Now release.’

As the arrow flew, he let me go and my panic frittered away. It landed with a twang at the very heart of the target. Margaret let out a squeal. Aunt Mary and Uncle Henry had begun to clap. ‘That’s how it’s done.’

I looked round. The Queen had me in her sights, directing a steely frown in my direction. I stepped abruptly away from Essex, half tripping on a tussock of grass, righting myself on Uncle Henry’s arm. He shoved me in the direction of Aunt Mary, as if I were leprous. Grandmother was frowning. I had done something wrong but I didn’t know what. ‘Give it to me,’ the Queen said, reaching out for my bow. I felt all the eyes turn on us. ‘Want to see it done properly?’

She took a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and handed it to one of her pages, who stooped to pick up a pebble from the path, wrapping the square of lace around it. Everybody watched in baffled silence as the lad strode several yards away towards the target. The Queen stepped up to the line, pulled an arrow from the sheath and lifted her arm high. She adjusted her stance minutely, seeming unencumbered by her gown, which was considerably stiffer and more voluminous than my own, her ruff a great, frilled, hampering cartwheel.

The gathered crowd fell silent. ‘Hoy!’ she cried, and the boy down the field tossed the little parcel high into the air. The stone fell but the handkerchief hovered momentarily as the Queen drew and released in a single swift movement. The arrow sang as it flew, capturing transitorily the floating white fabric and moving on through the air to meet the target with a decisive whump. My own arrow was dislodged and fell to the ground, disappearing into the long grass. The page held the handkerchief aloft so we could see the hole pierced through it. A cheer went up.

‘
That
is how it is done!’ She smothered a private smile and gave Essex a long hard look before moving off, the guards encircling her once more, to continue her perambulation.

‘Does she really need such a guard?’ Aunt Mary asked her brother.

‘There have been whispers of another assassination plot.’

‘Goodness, not again.’

‘Catholics.’

Aunt Mary looked away into the distance towards the target. ‘Poor her, it must be hell.’

‘She’s used to it.’

Aunt Mary wore a strange, contorted expression and was twisting her ring round and round her finger as her brother spoke. I wondered if she was thinking of me and whether I would be under such constant threat when I took the throne. It was foremost in
my
mind.

A man in royal livery ran across my line of sight, stopping in front of Cecil, who had joined the royal party. The man was gesticulating wildly and I noticed another consignment of guards, marching, halberds up around the corner of the palace, moving our way. The tray of marchpane fancies was abandoned on the grass, its contents scattered. Something was happening.

The Queen’s armed huddle appeared to tighten and move towards the building, suddenly reinforced by two pairs of men with muskets. The atmosphere sharpened, like the air before a storm. Other men, heavily armed, were heading our way and several mounted guardsmen were cantering along the perimeter wall. Aunt Mary was holding tight to one of my elbows; Grandmother had the other. ‘Stay calm,’ she said several times. The colour had dropped from her face and she didn’t appear at all calm herself.

‘Come with me,’ Essex said, reappearing from nowhere, with a pistol in his hand. ‘Cavendish, are you armed?’ he asked Uncle Henry, who pulled out his own weapon from the folds of his cape. ‘Take the rear.’ The guards were upon us and he began barking orders at them to surround our party.

Margaret was crying and asking repeatedly, ‘What’s happening?’ in a voice shrill with fear.