A Court Affair (29 page)

Even with my hands clutched tightly over my ears, pressing with all my might, tossing and turning in my bed, moaning and groaning as though I had the bellyache,
still
that maddening song plagued me, and the memory of how he had once kissed and caressed me; and in my dreams, as he did so, his image blurred and merged with Robert’s until at times the two seemed almost one.

At last I bolted from my bed with an anguished cry and ran to my desk to spend the last dark hours before the dawn perusing the papers Cecil had left for me. If I could not sleep, I would work; England had need of me, more so than my body had of carnal pleasure and the disillusion and disappointment that followed hard on its heels thereafter.

“Never surrender!”
my mother had once whispered adamantly into my ear, with such urgent emphasis that the words had been burned, branded, into my brain forever. My mother had learned there is sometimes a very fine line between winning and losing. And she had learned the great and terrible price all womankind pays for letting a man straddle, master, and break her, and giving him the power of life and death over her. With the lance of flesh between his thighs, an inept midwife, the fever that often burns out a woman’s life following childbirth, a French executioner’s sword, an English headsman’s axe, or the might and rage of his bare hands, surrendering to a man gives him the power to destroy her.

“Never surrender!”
I repeated as I bent over my desk.
“Never surrender!”
I already knew what it was like to dance in the arms of danger and to lie down with it, weak-kneed and burning with the fever of lust between my thighs; Tom Seymour had taught me well, and I had seen in the panoply of those who had come and gone throughout my life—my father and his six wives, my sister and her Spanish bridegroom—the pain, and the price to be paid for letting passion have free rein. And I didn’t want to spend any more of myself.

“Never surrender!”
I whispered again, and I resumed reading reports on the state of my newly inherited kingdom. I knew that, in England, I had found a lover who would never forsake or disappoint me, and our love would never die, wane, or turn bitter, even if the passions of my body must be denied. England was well worth the price; it was mine, and I was going to keep it. I would let no man take it from me; my England would not be forfeited to a husband as my dowry. I looked up and caught my reflection in the darkened window glass. “I am mistress here and will have no master!” I said proudly, and tossed my hair back. Then I banished all distracting thoughts of lust and its consequences from my mind and gave myself fully to my work—to England.

Whitehall Palace, London
December 1558–January 1559

W
e celebrated the Twelve Days of Christmas and the New Year at Whitehall. Robert, zealously diving into his duties as Master of the Horse with a headfirst plunge, never let a day be dull or dreary. From the moment I rose until I laid my head down on the pillow well after midnight, all was fun and splendour. There were lavish banquets, masques and plays, music and dancing, and jousts and tournaments. And gifts—
always
gifts—a plethora of presents from favour-seeking courtiers, fond friends, would-be suitors, and foreign ambassadors playing at matchmaker on behalf of their royal masters.

“They all want me!” I cried, jubilantly spinning around, with the replica of Philip’s rubies about my neck; a fine, well-tamed, hooded falcon from the Duke of Prussia perched upon my leather-gauntleted wrist, flapping its wings, causing the little golden bells on its jesses to jingle, startled by my display of exuberance; a sapphire as big as a carbuncle on my right hand from the elderly but nonetheless ardent Earl of Arundel; an emerald bracelet on the same wrist from the Earl of Shrewsbury, whom I affectionately called Gooseberry for the colour of his eyes and his short, round figure; a most becoming feathered hat sitting at a rakish tilt atop my gold-and-pearl-netted hair from the debonair Sir William Pickering; and a cloak of sumptuous sables draped about my shoulders so long it swept the floor behind me, the last from Prince Eric of Sweden.

Robert caught me in his arms and took the bird from me and called abruptly for its handler to take it to the mews and be gone.

“When you were a little girl of eight,” he began, with a fond, indulgent smile and a twinkle in his dark eyes, “you told me—and quite adamantly too, I remember—that you would
never
marry.”

“And I never will.” I pulled free of him. “I have not forgotten.”

“But you are Queen now,” Robert persisted, “and you must, the succession …”

“Oh, Robert, leave off!” I cried peevishly, slipping my arm through a sable muff with a great starburst of diamonds pinned upon it, another gift from Eric of Sweden. “
Please,
not you too!” I pouted. “Marriage, marriage, marriage—I hear
nothing
but, from Cecil, and the whole of my Council, from my ladies, from the foreign ambassadors, from my people. Everyone wants to know who I will marry and when I will marry. All of you want to see me wedded and bedded with a baby in the cradle and another in my belly on the way, to give England an heir and a spare, and I say to you all—
Never!
I would sooner be a nun than a wife!”

Robert came and slipped his arms around me again, pressing his lips against my neck.

“Do you remember what I said when you, as a determined little girl of eight, told me that you would never marry?” he asked.

“Aye.” I smiled. “You said you would remind me of it when you danced with me on my wedding day.”

All seriousness now, Robert took my hand, still draped with the Swedish prince’s sable muff, the diamonds flashing in the light that poured in through the diamond-paned windows, as he solemnly knelt before me. He gazed up at me for a long moment and then, most earnestly, implored, “Let it be when you dance with me on
our
wedding day that I remind you of your childish words.”

“
Our
wedding day?” I repeated, pulling away from him. “But, My Lord Robert”—I took shelter in formality—“there cannot be such a day for us, as you have a wife already, living happily in the country, or so you tell me.”

“Elizabeth,
my
Bess.” Robert caught my hand again and pressed it to his lips, then held it tightly, determined never to let go of me. “You are Queen now, and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, a title your mighty sire created when, like a man driving his fist through granite, he persevered and changed the world to divorce his wife to wed your mother. Amy is not Catherine of Aragon; she’s a country lass of no consequence, too timid and ignorant to fight or oppose us. All you need do is—”

“No!”
I yanked my hand away. “Do not presume to speak to me of this again, Robert. Put all such thoughts from your mind if you wish to retain my favour, for I assure you, I can take away
all
that I have given you. As I have raised you, so can I lower you—my father once spoke similar words to my mother, when he had tired of her, and his eye had already turned to another—and I speak them to you now. I will not abuse my power thus, to satisfy a carnal lust; even if I desired to marry, I would not do it. Leave me now!” I turned my back on him and strode across the room to stand before the great marble fireplace in stony, stormy silence, tapping my nails against the blue-veined marble mantel.

“If it had not been for such a carnal lust being strong and overpowering enough to change the world,
you
never would have been born!” Robert shouted at me.

I snatched a bronze figure of a phoenix rising from the mantel and flung it at him, but Robert neatly dodged it.

“And if our desire is not strong enough for you to grant me a divorce, to right a wrong I committed in my foolish, lust-mad youth, our son will never be born!” he continued. “And England will be denied a king as great as the late Harry!”

“So be it!”
I said simply, and I slammed through the door of my bedchamber, barking an order at Kat to bar the door and let no one enter.

But I could never stay angry at Robert for long. On Twelfth Night, when I went into my bedchamber to dress for the evening’s entertainments, I found lying upon my bed, its full skirt spread out like a fan, an evergreen velvet gown with its bodice and petticoat latticed in gold embroidery and pearls, and a stiffened collar of beautiful gold lace, like exquisite golden filigree, that stood up to frame my face. There was also a pair of gold-embroidered green velvet slippers twinkling with emeralds, and even green silk ribbon garters to hold my stockings up. There was a net of gold to contain my hair and pins tipped with emeralds and diamonds, an array of emerald rings for my fingers, and a beautiful necklace of deep green stones, the very colour of evergreen boughs.

When I was dressed and about to leave my apartments, Robert appeared on the threshold, kneeling before me, clothed all in evergreen velvet and cloth-of-silver twinkling with the green fire of emeralds and the icy sparkle of diamonds. Suddenly he reached boldly beneath my gown, even as Kat and my other ladies gasped aloud, shocked at Lord Robert’s touching the Queen of England so presumptuously. But Robert was undeterred. Smiling roguishly, the movement of his arms causing my taffeta petticoats to rustle, he untied my left garter and rolled my woollen stocking down, swiftly removing my slipper before he peeled it over my toe. From his doublet he took a handful of black silk, and, with a flourish of his hand, he unfurled it. “Silk!” he announced before he proceeded to slip the stocking over my toe, and slowly, caressingly, roll it up my leg, then tie my garter below my knee. Then he did the same with my right leg, first stripping it of wool, then sheathing it in silk.

“Mmm …” I sighed rapturously, closing my eyes as I luxuriated in the feel of silk—and Robert’s warm hands—on my bare skin. “How
fine
they are, how
exquisite
! Henceforth I shall wear no other stockings but silk!”

“And I shall dedicate myself to keeping Your Majesty well supplied with them. Never shall wool again touch these shapely alabaster limbs!” he vowed. Then, pressing my discarded woollen stockings to his lips and tucking them inside his doublet as “a love token”, he rose and took my arm and led me down to the Great Hall, where he had arranged a
very
special performance for me.

Large, well-stuffed evergreen velvet cushions tasselled in silver and silver brocade ones tasselled in green silk had been strewn about the floor for me and my court to sit upon, and with boughs of evergreen tied with silver ribbons and hung with silver tinsel, and a white velvet carpet sprinkled with diamond dust that flashed in the light of hundreds of tall white wax tapers, Robert had created a winter wonderland for us. And before us had been erected a stage, mounted on wheels so it might later be rolled out to make room for dancing, curtained in green velvet fringed with silver.

Musicians masquerading as holly bushes, their green livery—even their hats, hose, and boots—sewn all over with what appeared to be real holly branches replete with prickly leaves and red berries, came to stand below the stage. After they had bowed to me, grimacing and stifling cries of surprise and pain as the holly thorns pierced them, they began to play a song I knew well, for my own father had written it.

As the music began, Robert bowed over my hand and backed away from me, until he was standing before us all, framed by the musicians and rows of white tapers. Then, his eyes never once leaving my face, he began to sing in a fine tenor voice:

When the song ended, he knelt, swiftly doffing his white-plumed green velvet cap and holding it over his heart as he ardently declared to me, “Eternal and evergreen shall ever be my love for you!”

Then he clapped his hands, and two young pageboys, a pair of angelic children, each with a mop of golden curls, shivering, all but naked in a white loincloth with golden wings tied to his back, came running, one to me, the other to Robert, with a silver tray upon which sat a golden goblet wrought with an ornate and intricate design of hearts and lovers’ knots.

Loud and bold, Robert said, “Let us drink a toast to undying love!” and he raised his cup to me.

I smiled wanly at him over the rim as I took a polite sip of the red wine. I also had heard the story of how my father had sung “The Holly” to my mother, and how she, years later, in disgrace, had sung it back to him, as a reminder he conveniently ignored as he turned his back on her and gave his hand to Jane Seymour.

“There is more, my Queen,
much
more,” Robert said, gesturing to the stage, as he came and lolled on the cushions beside me, taking my hand, kissing it, and playing with my rings, pointedly ignoring the many who frowned and murmured at the lax formality and careless familiarity Lord Robert displayed in the Queen’s company, comporting himself as though he were my equal or even my superior in rank. “He carries himself like a king,” many said of my dear Gypsy. It was one of the reasons I so delighted in his company; he was so natural, so free and easy, and sometimes even made me forget myself.

“Robert”—I turned to regard him fully—“would you love me the same if I were not Queen?”