A Court Affair (39 page)

Perhaps I was haughty and wilful and let my pride get the better of me. As the Scriptures say:
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall
. But I wanted to hurt him as much as he had hurt me, and I wanted to hurt
her
too, the Queen who had stolen his love from me. Perhaps there was a goodly amount of spite mixed in, but I was
determined
to keep him, even though I knew in my heart I had already lost him. Even though reason said it was folly to try to keep someone who wanted only to go, stubbornness and pride told me to stand my ground, even though both my head and heart knew that no good could ever come of this festering resentment that now infected Robert’s heart like an oozing, fetid canker—only hatred and misery and a lust for revenge would result. Still, obstinate as a mule, I stood my ground.

And I knew I was being selfish too. If I gave in and granted him the divorce he so ardently desired, I would be making Robert’s dreams come true, but what about my own dreams? They were all gone now, scattered like ashes on the wind. I had lost everything that mattered most to me. Even my home—Syderstone, with all the smiling faces of the common folk and servants, most of whom had known me from a baby and danced at my wedding, and the sheep, apple orchards, and barley fields—
all
of it sold to the highest bidder by Robert. He had promised
so much
and left me with
nothing
! And, without my husband, without my father, without love or the kindness, encouragement, and support of loving family and caring friends, I didn’t know how to put the shattered pieces of my life and heart back together and build a new life or dream new dreams for myself.

“What a spineless little coward you are!” I hissed in utter contempt at myself as I entered my bedchamber and caught a glimpse of my pale, stricken face in the looking glass. I was
so angry,
I wanted to spit in my own face as well as Robert’s.

I felt locked and frozen by fear, as if stricken by a horrible paralysis. I couldn’t move, I could only stand still, stand my ground, and stay Robert’s wife, and with feigned bravado face whatever Fate held in store. I would not give him a divorce—that was a certainty. I would not be like Griselda who obligingly, amicably, and smilingly stripped down to her shift and walked away barefoot to make way for a royal bride just because her husband asked her to.

“I am Amy Robsart!” I said aloud, though I was alone. Startled to hear my own voice calling me by my maiden name, I hastily corrected myself. “I am Amy Dudley,
Lady
Amy Dudley,
not
Patient Griselda!” And, running to my writing desk, I tore the pages I had filled with Griselda’s story from the copybook and ripped them again and again and again, then flung them out the window, the pieces falling like snowflakes onto Robert’s handsome black horse tethered below, waiting for him, and I threw the handsome, costly, leather-bound, gilt-edged volume of
The Canterbury Tales
out after it, listening with great satisfaction to the thud it made as it hit the ground. And then I flung myself, weeping harder than I ever had before, onto my bed.

The pain was so intense as my breasts pressed against the mattress that I gasped and sprang up, cradling my left breast tenderly in my hand. It felt as though a shard from my broken heart had pierced the tender flesh, like a splinter of steel or glass buried so deeply that, though I could not see it, I could most certainly feel it. It was bad enough to make the breath catch in my throat, and—just for a moment—chase all thoughts of Robert from my mind. But it only lasted a moment—one heart-stopping, breath-stealing moment—then the pain of Robert’s cruelty and betrayal came flooding back full force, like a great wave crashing against me, knocking me flat, and I fell to weeping once more, for all that I had loved and lost, and the shattered debris of my life that lay, like a body ruined and ripped asunder by the force of a cannonball, upon the battlefield of Love.

“Over my dead body shall he ever have a divorce from me! I shall die before I agree!”
I screamed at the top of my lungs. And this time I didn’t care who heard me.
Damn and hang them all!
My heart was breaking and driving dagger-sharp splinters into my breast, and I didn’t care what anyone thought of me.

In May I sent for him. Shamelessly employing some wordy chicanery, I wrote that I had to see him most urgently, that I had something to give him, and I hoped with all my heart that he would be pleased. Knowing full well that these words would lead him to believe that I had relented, reconsidered, and decided to grant him the divorce he desired so, and bring him speeding to my side, still I wrote them; in a bold and graceful hand well honed from countless copyings of the tale of Patient Griselda, I used my much-practised penmanship to lure him back to me. I knew he would not dally and make excuses as he normally did if there was reason to believe that there was something to be gained and that he would profit well by his haste; for that he would kiss his royal mistress adieu and make his excuses to
her,
for once, instead of to his wife. He would not want to risk my changing my mind.
Hurry,
Robert,
hurry,
lest I waver in my resolve and my heart gain the upper hand again!
I wrote to better bait the trap, underlining these desperate words twice in bold black ink.

I had been busy in the weeks since I last saw him. I had ordered a new gown from Mr Edney, made to
very
precise instructions when normally I would have left all to him. And I had written to Lavinia Teerlinc and begged the very great favour of having her come to paint my portrait.

After she arrived, I smilingly waved aside her concerns that I had lost flesh—after Robert’s last visit my appetite had also deserted me—and my face appeared thinner, almost gaunt, and my eyes were deep-sunken and dark-shadowed, and the lids swollen and puffy. She asked with great concern if I had been ill, or, with even greater delicacy, if I were perhaps expecting a child, and discreetly suggested it might be best to postpone the portrait until I was feeling and—though she was too kind to say it—looking better. But I insisted that we proceed, and as quickly as possible, lest my courage fail me. I
needed
this portrait for Robert to take away with him, to prove, every time he looked at it, the depth of my love for him, that I could be whatever he wanted me to be, that I was willing to change myself, to become someone else if I must, to make him love me.

When Robert arrived, I did not go down to him. I put a bridle on my emotions, and in strict defiance of my usual exuberant way, I did not race downstairs and throw myself into his arms. Instead, I bade Pirto bring him upstairs to me. There he found me, standing stiffly, with my back held straight and my stays laced so tightly I could scarcely draw breath, trying to look as tall and slender as possible. I held this tense and aching pose as I stood beside my gilt-framed portrait, artfully draped in red velvet and mounted upon an easel. One hand laden with golden rings set with rubies, pearls, and onyx rested lightly upon the cluster of acorns and oak leaves carved atop the frame, while the other lay across my waist, my fingers frozen in the act of playing with the long ropes of creamy pearls hanging about my throat and all the way down to my waist. But the face in the portrait was a stranger to Robert, and the Amy he saw standing before him was an Amy he had never seen before.

Despite the pleas of both Pirto and Lavinia, I had insisted that Pirto apply henna to my hair until it was a bold, bright, flaming red. “Aye, pet,” Pirto glumly said after, “there’s surely not a redder head in England now.”

When it was time for me to prepare for my portrait, I bade her pile it high and pin it tightly, sculpting it into a smooth mound, which she then crowned with a fetching little cap of black velvet spangled with pearls like tiny tears topped by a fluffy froth of palest pink, virgin white, and bright red ostrich plumes held in place by an ornate brooch set with a square of polished onyx, as if the stone itself were a dark canvas in a fancy gold picture frame. It was made to match the gown I had ordered, a gown that had caused Mr Edney to immediately sit down upon receiving my letter and write back,
Dear lady, are you
sure
?
I could picture the quizzical frown furrowing his brow as he wrote. Still, though I hated to disappoint him, I squashed down my qualms and stubbornly wrote back,
Yes, I am sure,
quite
sure,
and asked him to make the gown with all haste, as it was needed most urgently, allaying his concerns by asking him to
think of it as a sort of
costume; I shall only wear it just the once,
and, enclosing sufficient funds for him to afterwards make me another gown, one of his own design—
something pretty,
I requested,
perhaps with butterflies.

The gown I demanded was made of velvet dyed the brightest, boldest red imaginable, a fierce, angry shade that those who decided such things had dubbed “Migraine” after the fearsome headaches that assailed the Queen and the red rage any who accosted her whilst in the throes of one was likely to encounter. Wearing it made me feel awash in red, as if I were bathing in blood. The redness was relieved only by a smattering of gold embroidery like curling, swirling vines meandering aimlessly down over the gown, and the gold and onyx clasps that adorned the shoulders, sleeves, and waist. It was worn over a stiff farthingale, like a small cartwheel about my hips, that caused my skirts to bell out and billow and sway with every step and had the flattering effect of making my tightly laced waist seem even smaller. And about my throat, cradling my head, was a wide white ruff, the widest I had ever worn, trimmed with the most beautiful point lace, just like snowflakes cut in half and stitched along the edges. I
hated
the ruff and the way it made my head feel as if it were separated from my body and my chin itch, and several times I was sorely tempted to reach up and rip it from my neck, but I forced myself to let it be—if Elizabeth could bear it, so could I!—and the weight of the ropes of pearls, as big as beans, Pirto hung about my throat, and the large pair, like milky teardrops, pulling cruelly at my ears, making them ache, burn, and swell. Once, while I was posing for Lavinia, the stinging grew so bad, I reached up to feel, and my fingers came away stained with blood.

To mimic the marble white pallor of our gracious Queen, I had Lavinia apply a white paste of white lead, asses’ milk, alum, borax, and powdered eggshells and alabaster to my face and hands, finished off with a glaze of egg whites. Even though I whimpered and complained that it burned, I would not let her stop and wash my face clean. And, to disguise the puffiness of my eyelids, she artfully added just a touch of paint there, then went on to rouge my gaunt cheeks, restoring them to their former round rosiness. And, at my insistence, she plucked my brows and blackened them until they arched like dark rainbows over my eyes and, as a final touch, rouged my lips until they were as red as my gown.

Before she moved to stand behind her canvas, I caught her arm and pleaded, “Please be kind; I am doing this for love.”

“My dear friend,” Lavinia sighed, “did it never occur to you that he is not worth it?”

“Many times, Lavinia, many times,” I admitted, but still I took a deep breath and assumed my pose. Now that I had come this far, I must see it through to the end, whether it be as bitter as vinegar, sugar sweet, or a rage as red as my dyed hair and gown. “Use your magic, my friend, and help me become the queen of his heart again. Elizabeth has all of England to love her. Let me at least have Robert; he is my husband, and I have greater need of him, and love him more, than she does.”

When the portrait was nearly finished, I sent for him, confident as a queen that he would come. And thus he found me, standing straight and proud, as near an approximation of the woman I now detested as it was possible for me to make myself. But Robert saw only a mocking parody.

“Elizabeth demands to be worshipped as a goddess; I just want to be loved,” I said, breaking the silence.

It was like touching a flame to a keg of gunpowder. Robert lunged for me, knocking the portrait from its easel with a great bang, slipping as his boots tangled in the velvet that had draped it. He caught hold of my wrist with his left hand as his right dealt two hard, stinging slaps, one to each side of my face, with such force that my ears began to ring, and for a few moments I was deaf to anything else, and blood began to trickle from my nostrils.

“Do you mean to mock me?” he roared, grasping my shoulders and shaking me so hard, the hat was dislodged from my head and fell back, hanging by its pins and pulling painfully at my hair.

“No!” I cried, my voice quavering as he shook me. “I meant only to please you and flatter the Queen by making myself over in her image!
Like
her but
not
her!
Me
you
can
have!” I sobbed and threw my arms around his neck. “I’m
yours,
Robert,
all yours,
and I always have been, from the moment I saw you! And I want you to love me again the way you used to! I want us to be the way we were—before Elizabeth!”

Robert thrust me from him, and I stumbled and crashed against the table, sending the wine and cakes flying and the golden platter, flagon, and goblets clattering to the floor.

I saw hatred in his eyes as he stared down at me. And I drew up my knees and inched back, huddling and cowering against the wall, fearing that he might kick me.

“There
never
was a time before Elizabeth!” he thundered down at me, his eyes and voice blazing hot enough to burn me. “I have known her better than anyone since we were eight years old, and I’ve been in love with her ever since! I love
her
! Do you hear me? I love
her
! I always have, and I always will! I love
her
—
not
you
!”

He yanked me to my feet, then he was dragging me out, down the Long Gallery, and down the stairs, not caring that my feet could not keep up, that I slipped and stumbled and lost my red velvet slippers made specially with cork platform soles to make me appear taller, and caught my toes in my skirts and tore them, as my little hat, still hanging painfully by its pins, flopped against my back.